From @idontknowreallywhy
From @idontknowreallywhy to @tracybirds
Prompts were:
1. Garden + Space
2. Sneaking an early Christmas present
3. "When are you coming home?"
I think I got them all!
It’s nearly Christmas and John really needs a break. Just some soft brotherly fluff with a tired spaceman, a big bro who misses him and some horticultural headcanons.
*****
“John, Tracy Island has your supplies package ready to collect. Shall I send down the elevator?”
“Please, EOS.”
John closed down the programme that was tracking the dissipation of another cat 4 hurricane over the Bay of Mexico, pushed himself away from the console and allowed himself to drift a moment.
It had been A Day. Two of them, actually.
Maybe more like a month of them.
John had been replacing proper sleep with 11.8 minute power naps, 90 second cold showers and pathological tea consumption. And a good dose of sheer Tracy stubbornness.
He found himself longing for a blanket and a decent novel on the couch. Maybe one he’d already read. With, perhaps, a sibling or two… sat nearby. Not piled on top of him - that was very much Scott’s preference, not his - but close enough he could sense their physical proximity. Where he could feel the vibrations through the floor as they thundered past, could detect their unique signature scents amongst the nasal cacophony of Christmas baking warring with the aroma of sun warmed vegetation borne through the panoramic doors on a bottom note of salty sea breeze. Real air. The kind he always denied he missed because the atmosphere here was perfect, minutely adjustable to his preferences.
Yes. While after a short while all the Activity would become overwhelming, in comparison to the sameness up here it would be a welcome change. The white noise of some kind of familial… shenanigans as Lady Penelope would say, would be soothingly ignorable and there would be nothing he actually had to do.
Or think about.
Or monitor.
Or plan for.
Or…
John started a little and jerked his eyelids open blinking rapidly.
Not yet.
If the GDF kept their word… this Christmas might be the one time he actually managed it. Dad was home, and Aunt Casey had insisted that the same protocol that had covered their “Family Reunion” trip into the Oort Cloud could be extended for the Tracys to have a proper Christmas for once.
John had his reservations about the likelihood of that. And in any event that was a week away yet. While as ever he had organised gifts in September, and the same ‘surprise’ deliveries they had every year were lined up and paid for thanks to EOS spotting the similarity and doing her unique version of copy paste, John wasn’t really finding himself able to be excited by any of it.
The hurricane season seemed to be extending further into December every year. There’d been seven separate avalanches in the north, almost daily bush fires in the south, a mudslide, a mine collapse, one of the Martian shuttles had lost an argument with an unplotted asteroid and the team at the new Alfie II lunar base was constantly on the line with requests for advice.
And that was quite enough to keep them all busy yet the more imbecilic end of humanity had to make it worse. The billionaire boys club who tried to break the record for the fastest pole to pole to pole orbit, run out of fuel and crashed into an old military satellite no government admitted responsibility for and thus had given the gift of headaches for days afterwards as first John, then Scott had to attend interminable meetings to extricate IR from the political quagmire that followed.
On top of that Fischler’s latest attempt to harness the power of said hurricanes to “End the global energy crisis in a week!” was predictably as disastrously dangerous as it was ambitious.
And then his old college nemesis, now flouncing around Oxford in a gown that didn’t suit him, had incorrectly cited JG Tracy’s research in a frankly horribly written paper and he was inundated with questions from highly respected academics seeking his comment.
John had exhausted the tea stash which should have lasted him until at least February.
And after the 48 hours he’d just had - John could really contemplate murder for a cup of tea.
As if on cue, the familiar clicking and hissing of the elevator connecting with the airlock preceded EOS’s announcement of the arrival of his SUPPLY PACKAGE.
The extra level of smug in her tone would have been a warning to a less exhausted man. As would the odd emphasis she placed on the last two words.
As it was John had no attention to spare for anything other than identifying and unpacking whichever box contained the teabags as a matter of urgency.
Which was a shame, because it meant that as he activated the airlock door he was entirely unprepared for the overwhelming experience of foliage to the face.
*****
Scott toyed with the buckle of the safety harness across his chest as the elevator hissed and clicked upwards. Brains’ genius machinery adjusting to compensate for g force and air pressure changes as they rose through the atmosphere. There was no reason for him to be nervous - they’d all made the trip plenty of times - and yet… His other arm squeezed a little more firmly around the base of the special delivery that hadn’t quite fitted in any of the usual cargo units.
Perhaps the problem was he wasn’t entirely sure what his reception would be.
Virgil and Brains had been double checking John’s request list as One had arrived back in the hangar and Scott joined them and peered at the list as MAX zoomed away to locate some missed item. The first entry surprised him:
“Didn’t we already refill the tea last time?”
“Yep, fourteen days ago but he wants more.”
“He’s got through three months of tea in a fortnight?!”
“Maybe… he’s just stocking up for the new year?” came the optimistic response.
“Virgil, it’s on the list three times.”
Brain’s head joined the circle over the tablet. “Hmm. N-now you mention it… it is a little s-strange for John to have made that k-k-kind of an error.”
Virgil looked at the elevator with a frown and checked his watch. Scott laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I’ll go. I’m way over my hours anyway so I can’t answer a call even if I wanted to. Find me one of your legion of mediscanners and I’ll find a peace offering to distract him with… has MAX baked any… wait…” inspiration hit Scott as his eyes fell on the baubles hanging from a storage shelf. “Virgil, Brains, how about we give John that present a little early? You know the one. It’ll be ok if I hold on to it tight, right?”
“I d-don’t see why not? It was always intended to t-travel back with J-John eventually.”
“Virgil, d’you mind? Is from you too and…”
His brother shrugged
“No, it’s a good idea and might get you in the door… just send it back down for me if he’s ill ok? Likelihood of getting him to come back a week early given…” Virgil gestured vaguely to indicate the world at large. “But if you can at least persuade him to sleep…”
“FAB. I have an idea.”
As he entered the thermosphere Scott began to have doubts in his plan. What worked for his overwhelmed and overtired toddler brother might not have quite the same effect on his under-slept and over-caffeinated adult one. It could just end in an argument. There was a non-zero probability he’d get punched in the face. Nevertheless in the absence of another brainwave Scott would just approach it the traditional Tracy way - use what you’ve got and then wing it.
*****
“HAPPY CHRISTMAS LI’L BRO I BROUGHT YOU A TREE!!”
EOS had failed to inform him of any unexpected baggage in the cargo area at all, let alone half a forest and a deranged brother.
“Scott! What the hell?!”
John knew he sounded more annoyed than he really was. Perhaps he’d reached his exasperation limit. Perhaps the genuine excitement in his big brother’s voice softened his the tension in his chest just a little… either way he couldn’t bring himself to maintain the scowl for long and settled for resignation.
The trademark shiny eyes and dimples gleamed out at him from behind a 4ft shrub… or possibly a small tree. A very familiar tree, but for the scale…
“It’s a pōhutukawa.” He couldn’t help a soft smile as he reached out to touch a tiny scarlet bud.
“Yeah! Well, a dwarf one. It won’t get a huge deal bigger now but should flower properly again in a couple months. Brains and Virgil and I… we’ve been working on ‘em in his lab a good while and Brains reckons she’ll do just fine in your li’l space greenhouse.”
“It’s not a greenhouse, it’s a unique, highly specialised range of horticultural habitats, the product of years of painstaking experimentation.“
“Is it made of glass, Johnny?”
“Borosilicate, to be precise. But that’s not the point. And don’t call me Johnny.”
“Well Brains is confident Kylie should do well in the same ‘horticultural habitat’ OOPS…” Scott’s commitment to air quotes meant he nearly dropped the tree and John reached out to grab it and settle the pot safely on the floor of the gravity ring. The Earth passing by underneath it accentuated the absurdity of the situation and John wrestled to keep a straight face.
“Kylie?”
“She needed a name. You can change it if you like I don’t think she’d mind. Anyway she should thrive in the same ‘horticultural habitat’ as the other Kermadec plants you have. It’s from home, see? Mutant offspring of that pair in Grandmas’s garden.”
They hadn’t bought it? Then…
“Geez, Scott how long did this…”
“Oh about three years give or take... It’s a Christmas Tree, Johnny! Because it’s Christmas! You know in Aotearoa they call it…”
“The New Zealand Christmas Tree.”
Scott seemed at great pains to ensure John got the joke.
“And it’s Christmas so…”
“It’s a beautiful specimen, Scott. I love it, I do but why have you… I’m coming home for Christmas.”
“Pfft not soon enough, you need a tree here. Look see we even made some decorations for ya…” his brother snatched up another box
A string of lights emerged, tiny Thunderbird models, a small version of the ornate star that always graced the tree at home, smaller stars made of clear resin with one of his family’s faces grinning from within each… including… John’s breath caught… including Mom’s.
“Virgil made most of these. He dodged the jingly stuff as that’d probably drive you mad. Brains wouldn’t let me add tinsel but I did sneak a li’l up” Scott dumped the box into John’s arms and half unzipped his flight suit to reveal a golden string of the glittery stuff tucked inside.
“I know I know… it’s not very modern. Or spacey. But Mom loved it and this is from her original stash so…”
“I know, Scott. It’s ok. All Christmas trees have to have tinsel. Tracy law.”
He deposited the box next to the pot, accepted the slightly sweaty tinsel and draped it loosely around the top of the tree. His nose wrinkled ever so slightly - Scott had been wearing that uniform a while. As if he’d read his mind Scott cleared his throat and zipped it back up again.
“You only just got back from Nepal?”
“You look tired John. Even for you.”
Both spoke at once. But Scott was louder and his expression demanded an answer.
“Eh I’m alright.”
“When are you coming home?”
“I’ll be there by Christmas.”
“Penny’s coming for dinner on 22nd.”
“Well I guess I’ll be there by the 22nd then.”
“Right. Alright then.”
Scott looked around whilst fiddling with something in a pocket of his baldric, seemingly slightly at a loss as to say next. John knew Scott was always guilty for feeling so out of place up here, for feeling like an intruder in his brother’s second home. In the environment that seemed so natural to he and Alan. To their Dad. John had run out of new ways to tell him it was okay.
“Scott.”
“I know, I know I’d better let you get on…”
“Scott.”
His brother finally met his eye and John saw the hurriedly concealed melancholy there. He beckoned him closer and opened his arms, bracing himself for the collision as Mr-Go-Fast-Or-Go-Home launched himself into one of the rare hugs John knew Scott craved far more of than John could satisfy.
And yet John’s eyes watered at the uncharacteristic gentleness with which his brother embraced him. As if Scott knew exactly how fragile, how close to snapping he was.
“I miss you too, Scott.”
“Y’do?”
“I do.”
“But y’talk to us every day.”
Somehow having his own words parroted back to him felt surreal.
“Not quite the same is it?”
“Mmph.” Scott huffed “No. I don’t think so.”
The need to rest just for a tiny little bit was gnawing at the back of John’s eyeballs but he couldn’t bring himself to send his brother away yet. Anyway, something was bothering Scott and he had clearly come all the way here for a reason… maybe he needed to talk about something. John could play host just for a little while until he found out what it was.
“You could stick around for a bit? Help me get… Kylie was it… settled in? And then we could play a little zero G handball or I could show you the experiments I’ve got going on. Or we can just grab some tea and… oh” John lifted the lid of one of the other boxes to peer inside “oh and some of these chocolates and watch the world go by?”
“Sounds perfect, John. Lead the way.”
*****
The couches in the gravity ring were surprisingly comfortable and the two brothers ate chocolate, sipped tea from their spill proof mugs and chatted about this and that. They’d found Kylie a space in the not-a-greenhouse, added the decorations. A clearly exhausted John had finally dissolved into giggles as Scott had “lifted him up” to place the star at the top of the barely waist height tree. Just like Mom used to.
They talked of her a little, John pointed out the star system she’d focussed the latter part of her research on. Big brother listened and pretended he couldn’t have identified it blindfold. Scott encouraged his brother to unload about the Cambridge moron, contributed a number of suggestions for appropriate insults (rat-faced weasel having been deemed far too flattering) and ludicrous plots for vengeance.
It did not escape the elder that John appeared to be tailing off mid-explanation of some point and had twice had to pretend not to notice John letting go of the mug only to be surprised it didn’t float. How much time was he spending out of the ring these days? Seemed like more than he should and his lack of surprise didn’t diminish the big brotherly concern.
Not long after Scott had fetched and applied the weighted blanket he’d smuggled into the elevator with the excuse that “Space is cold Johnny you know the cold makes me cranky” and his brother had rolled his eyes and offered an uncharacteristically weak riposte regarding the atmospheric controls, Scott smiled as a weight settled against his shoulder. He reached over and plucked the leaking mug of lukewarm tea from John’s limp hand and placed it in the cupholder.
“EOS?” He whispered. “Lights low and all calls redirected please.”
It took only the slightest movement to shift John’s head onto his lap and then to tuck the blanket around him. His brother shifted a little, muttering an incoherent objection.
“Ssssh. Is all good bro. I’ve got you safe.”
Inspired by a distant memory, Scott placed a finger ever so lightly against John’s forehead and slowly stroked down the length of his nose before lifting his hand and repeating the movement. The remaining tension in John’s frame dissolved.
“Sweet dreams little spaceman. I’ve got you safe. Fly high and bring your momma back some stardust.”
*****
