Gumnut asked - From the whump prompts :D sick with Virgil and another bro looking after him. Bonus words to include: pizza paint under fingernails :D All optional except Virgil cos it's me.
Wee!Tracys. And also, since this is for Nutty – I threw in some pretty recognizable references in there for fun. It's pretty saturated with 'em, so eh... try to catch them all I suppose? (I got approval for this game, don't worry. I checked - *carefully avoids stepping on anyone's toes*) Enjoy!
A December in Kansas
The Tracy schedule was easier to manage when Scott was home. Ever since last fall, when Scott went off to college, Virgil had been strapped with the honorable title of acting eldest. The role came with a dash of discipline and a whole lot of wrangling. Their father was often traveling as part of his job and so managing the schedules of three younger brothers, plus his own, fell on the shoulders of sixteen-year-old Virgil and their Grandma, who still worked part time at the hospital in between bingo nights.
She didn't play – she volunteered to support the fire station and had done so since the boys' Grandfather had passed away a few years ago. Okay, so maybe she played a little. In honor of her husband.
Monday was a hospital day; it was also Gordon's swim practice and Alan's rescue scouts meeting. Virgil's school was the first to let out at 2:30. The middle school would let out at 3:00, and Virgil had 20 minutes to drop Gordon off at the sports center and get back to the elementary school for Alan's retrieval, only to drop him off at the church for the rescue scouts meeting at 3:45. Back to the pool to pick up Gordon at 4:15, and then back to the church for Alan retrieval redux at 4:30.
Then home, figure out dinner, start homework, get the kids to bed, finish homework.
John would be home; he was always home taking his schooling remotely since he was a fourteen-year-old kid taking college level classes, but often his online courses kept him busy into the evenings and it was first semester finals next week. Grandma would swing by in the mornings and spend some time with John before she went to the hospital, but John could be relatively unsupervised most of the time. Virgil had the hard job, which was that John would need to be coerced from his room for dinner. Virgil was not above forceful dragging to make sure his brother remembered to eat.
Their life was so much a juggle that Virgil doesn't even remember the last time he spent time with Grandma outside of kid exchange.
And it was a shit Monday. Today Virgil's music teacher had brought him and the theater director into a conference room to tell him that they would be using Theresa Wantz for the Spring musical instead. Theresa. Of all people. She'd be fine, but she treated the keyboard like she was angry at it. Good luck with that volume control, he wanted to say. But Virgil was not one to be facetious.
The worst part was that they admitted they had wanted Virgil. It wasn't his talent that was lacking, just his reliability.
He couldn't blame them, really, but that didn't stop the heaviness in step.
"So then we had to choose what our animal totem would be," Gordon rambled, describing one of his class reading exercises. "If you could turn into any animal in the world, V, what would you turn into?"
That was easy. A bear because they get to sleep a lot and disappear for the winter.
His answer to Gordon left out that last bit. "Though be thoughtful, Gordon. An animal totem is symbolic. Change the question to what animal you would be if you were an animal, not what you want to be."
"I'd be a whale!"
As one privy to his brother's hyperactivity in motion, Virgil thought a sea lion would be more appropriate. Through the rearview mirror, he smiled lightly at him, the blond's hair still slightly damp and sticking up, while they waited outside the parking lot of the church for Alan's troop to finish up.
Bless his heart, Gordon just couldn't handle silence. Virgil's heartbeat throbbed in his head as Gordon's ramble diverted into the whale teeth structure and how the tusk on narwhals was only primarily found on males, and they were named narwhals because they resembled the color of sailor's corpses, and –
"Mind giving the chatter a rest for a bit? I've got a headache."
"What?" Instantly, Gordon was alert, leaning forward in the back seat to try to reach Virgil's forehead, but the larger boy waved him off.
"Stop." Virgil sighed. "It's just been a bad day."
"Why?"
"I got booted from the Spring musical," he admitted. He knew he needed to rip off the band-aid; they'd all find out eventually. Might as well give the news to Gordon whom he could rely on to tell everyone else.
"What?! Why?"
"They needed someone with stronger dynamics control for this one, squidling." It wasn't technically untrue, if control translated to statically playing fortissimo.
"That's stupid." Gordon frowned.
Virgil shrugged, but was saved from having to discuss it any further by the mass exit of eight-year-olds leaving the church building. Alan's blond head bobbed as he bounced towards the family's electric Ford mustang that Virgil inherited (officially) on his birthday in August.
At the same time Alan slid into the vehicle, their grandmother called, the car's Bluetooth picking up the shrill ringing. Virgil winced, but accepted the call.
"Hey, Gran." Visual would only show if the car was in park, so he waited for the boys to settle in the back.
"Hello honey."
"Hi, Grandma!"
Grandma waved at the boys and explained she didn't have a lot of time, but that she'd left a casserole in the refrigerator for dinner and that John had skipped lunch, so she told Virgil not to let him skip out again. "He needs food for that brain."
"Got it, Grandma," he said as they hung up. "And thank you."
He blinked. She tried, and god, he loved her for it, but there was no way in hell they were eating her casserole tonight. His brother's faces were equally green when he turned around in his seat.
"Don't worry, kids. We'll get pizza."
-o-o-o-o-o-
Virgil hoisted his backpack on his shoulders, then retrieved the pizzas from Gordon in the back, re-balancing the boxes in his arms so the cheese wouldn't slide around any further.
"Get the door, please, Alan," Virgil grunted, arms full.
He sent Gordon and Alan off to kindly slide Grandma's casserole into the compost pile away from the house, knowing they'd start eating before he could drag John away if he left them unattended. As expected, John was knee deep in course work, juggling not just one, but two, tablets at his desk in his room when Virgil entered.
The pizza tasted like cardboard as he ate, not really satisfying his taste buds the way he thought it would, but it wasn't until they'd all started their respective homework assignments that the nausea hit and his vision blurred. His calculus notes projected from his tablet crackled in his eyes with an electric blue that warped around his tunnel vision. The screen wasn't doing him any favors, and he leaned back to close his eyes.
"Virgil? You ok?" Gordon whispered, though it sounded like a shout in Virgil's ears. Without answering, he pushed his chair back from the table, intending to search for ibuprofen and grab a glass of water.
If only his feet had caught up with his intent.
Virgil stood, but then promptly stumbled, landing on all fours on the kitchen linoleum. From his perspective, it was sudden that John arrived, though Alan must've run off to pry him out of his room because he could see Gordon's bouncing nervously on his toes.
"Easy does it, Virgil. Let's get you to the couch."
"M'fine," Virgil responded, as John tucked his brother's arm over his shoulder to help him lift up from the ground and trudge to the couch.
Two pills were pressed into his palm, followed by a half-filled glass of water, which was smart because his hands were shaking as he swallowed them down.
"Now what?"
"Turn off the lights and let him rest. No music – it'll be too loud."
Wait, was that Scott? Virgil turned towards the voice, shrinking back as the light from the videophone pierced his corneas.
"Yep, it's me, Virgil. Our brothers forgot you get migraines. Been a while though, hasn't it?" It had, but he knew nodding would set off all the alarms in his head. Better to – not. He leaned back into the pillows of the couch, despite those also feeling like bricks against the back of his head.
Scott's voice faded as John carried the phone away. The lights dimmed, and then he slept.
-o-o-o-o-o-
He awoke not much later, an hour or two at the most, and the pain from the migraine was slightly quieted for the moment as the pills took effect, but it was not gone. Virgil's migraines could set him back days at a time. Day two would always be the worst.
He needed to get the kids ready for bed.
He followed the sounds of laughter into John's room where the three boys were all already in their pjs. John was back at his desk, but the two youngest were on the floor, heads bent over an encyclopedia of Birds of the Kermadec Islands while Alan finger painted the water around a hastily drawn child's interpretation of a petrel.
"Virgil!" Alan shouted, then grimaced sheepishly a second later as he remembered the reason they'd been corralled into John's room in the first place.
"That better not be my phthalo blue in your fingernails, Alan Tracy," Virgil warned.
"I'll replace it," John promised, handing over what he now recognized as his own tablet. "Here."
"What's this?"
"Your homework."
"John!"
"Give me a break, Virgil." John glared at him. "You can do calculus in your sleep. This is just busy work you don't need." John set a hand on Virgil's back, and fire shot up Virgil's neck letting him know that the migraine had decidedly not gone away. It must've shown on his face because John pulled back quickly and lowered his hand to his side.
"Scott and I discussed some changes in protocol," John continued, urging his brother to lie down on his bed where galaxy bedsheets covered his mattress. Virgil felt the mattress dip as John sat down beside him.
"Scott told me your migraines are stress related, and I am not okay with you trying to work yourself to death like our eldest brother. So, here's the deal. First, I am dropping my coursework down to 9 credits next semester and I am dropping German," John shared, raising a finger. "It's an elective at this point, I have other ways to learn languages, and it'll allow me to take care of dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Second," he held up another finger, "I've talked to Gran about cutting back some more hours at the hospital. No, don't argue with me, Virgil. It's already done."
Virgil snapped his mouth shut. He had, in fact, been about to protest.
"Finally, Scott has given the school a call to give them an earful about the play, so they will be holding auditions and giving it to the right person as they should've done in the first place. And also you are going to be out tomorrow and Wednesday and the neighbors are taking the kids to school in the morning. Dad is coming home this weekend."
"And then Scotty will be home in a week and a half for winter break," Gordon added. "A whole month for you to take it easy."
"Then Christmas!" Alan exclaimed, shimmying up to Virgil's side, but being careful not to jostle him.
"Then Christmas," John confirmed, nodding. "Virg, please just talk to us next time."
"Okay," he exhaled.
"Okay," John said. "You should stay here and rest. I got this."
Alan's weight promptly lightened as the youngest released Virgil from his hug, and John too got up from the bed. Virgil closed his eyes, resting gratefully as he listened to John shuffle the kids out of the room.
The light turned off, and Virgil slept.
END
