#spacebros

For not much reason at all he felt the sudden urge to call Virgil. Stupid - Virgil was at home on the other side of the world, probably elbow-deep in something oily and cahelium-based - but he somehow had an instinct that his artist-come-engineer brother would understand this feeling in a way that the others probably wouldn’t.

The beauty in the science.

He sighed. He should probably go downstairs and have something to eat, and perhaps a nap before the meteor shower started in earnest. (Another thing his physicist brain took issue with; the shower was already in progress - had been for several days - it’s just that the Earth hadn’t spun around quite enough for him to see it yet.)

Napping now would be the most sensible thing to do, but he already knew that he wouldn’t. Deep inside him, his ten-year-old self was hopping up and down like a cricket in a jar: It was Perseids Night; who could sleep?!

A blond head poked out from the upstairs window.

“Hey Johnny, are you still up there, or did you fall off already?”

A quiet chuckle. Right on cue, Allie.

If anybody could sleep through the Perseids, Alan Tracy could. Hell, a chunk of meteorite could literally fall through the house and onto his pillow and he would probably be none the wiser. In fact Alan had already conked out once today, on the sofa right after lunch, although John was generous enough to blame the change in timezones for that one.

His baby brother was just lucky it was only the two of them at the farm for the shower, or else he might have woken up to find Gordon had dyed his hair blue …again.

“I’m still here Allie," John replied, "no safety net required. And don’t call me Johnny,” he added, although he knew it was pointless. Alan and Gordon loved to tease him with that name, and truth be told he didn’t even really mind it any more, it had been so long; the whole thing was more ritual now than anything.

“So are you actually planning on coming up to watch, or did you travel a whole hemisphere just to stay down there all night?”

Alan rolled his eyes. "I'll be there in a minute,” he said. “D'you want me to bring anything up with me? Are you cold? I could bring blankets?”

“That depends. Are you asking for me, or so you can make a nest and fall asleep up here too?”

A baby-faced pout. "Ha ha, hilarious(!) Y'know, one day I’m gonna…" But whatever the rest of that sentence was was rendered unintelligible by an absolutely massive yawn.

John’s lips twitched. “...An excellent point(!)”

Alan looked so much like Scott when he scowled.

John’s face split into a grin. “Come on, Rip Van Winkle, get up here before you miss the show.” Then as an afterthought, “Bring some snacks too.”

There were some scuffling noises (and perhaps the odd word that Grandma wouldn’t approve of) and then his little brother was beside him, holding two large sheet pans.

“I’ll do you one better; I made pizza!” He deflated slightly. “I mean, it’s only frozen, but I figured-”

John smiled warmly. “It’s perfect, Allie.”

The next few minutes were a flurry of slice-grabbing, butt-shuffling and general getting comfortable. By the time they both finally lay back side by side, eyes raised once again to the skies, the sun had ducked down below the treeline, and all the hot colours from before had mellowed into a more delicate, pastel rainbow of purple and rose pink.

“Wow. Pretty," breathed Alan.

John smiled. “Yeah," he said, "Earth’s still pretty amazing sometimes, despite the gravity.”

“Oh yeah? So we haven’t quite lost you to Five yet then?”

John raised an eyebrow and Alan flailed.

“I mean, not ‘lost you’ lost you, but what I mean is-”

“I know what you meant, Allie.” John put a reassuring hand on his brother’s shoulder. “And you don’t have to worry. I love being on Five, wouldn’t change it for the world, but down here with you guys will always be home to me.”

In the dimming light, Alan’s eyes glistened.

John cleared his throat.

“And anyway, there’s things I can see here that I can’t see anywhere else. Like tonight for example. Dirtside is the best seat in the house for a meteor shower. And then there’s this.” He motioned towards the glowing pastel sky.

It really was beautiful.

"Actually,” he added slowly, “this is one of my favourite times to be on Earth, when the sky’s like this."

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. The colours are…” He struggled for the right word.

“Right. 'Cos lavender’s your favourite, right?”

John frowned.

“What makes you say that?”

He’d always told people it was gold.

“Your favourite bedspread,” shrugged Alan. “And the mug you like your tea in when you're sick. You always choose lavender when you want to be cosy."

Oh.

Oh.

Damn, the kid was observant.

Silence blossomed as a wash of thoughts and feelings flooded John’s brain, threatening to overwhelm him. Nostalgia, happiness, comfort, sorrow… Ever the scientist, he took his time to analyse each one, turning them over and over in his mind, distilling them down into one word:

Mom.

He breathed.

“You alright?” asked Alan quietly, worried.

“Just…thinking.”

He could feel his brother watching him. “About...?”

John ran his hand through his hair, finding words. “Not thinking, really. Remembering. Before you were born; back when it was just Scott, Virgil and me. Dad was away a lot of the time. Space, Mars… y’know?”

Alan nodded.

“Mom did her best, but I was so little, I didn’t understand where Dad had gone. Scott says I wouldn’t sleep back then, that I used to cry a lot, but I don’t really remember any of that. I just remember things feeling…wrong,” he finished lamely.

“Then one evening, a lot like this one, Mom took me outside to look at the sky. She said that Dad was up there, playing with the stars, and that if we looked really carefully, we might see him waving.”

He chuckled softly.

“It was a silly thing, but I believed it. So we went outside in the yard to wait for the stars to come out.”

He sighed.

“It wasn’t cold, but Mom brought a blanket anyway to wrap me up close to her. I remember her warmth, and the smell coming from Mom’s roses by the porch - she loved roses, pink ones especially - and the rustling from the fields, and the colour of that sky. I remember looking up at it and thinking that, just maybe, if Dad really was there amongst the stars, then perhaps he had painted those colours just for us; pink for Mom, and purple for me.

“We probably weren’t actually out there all that long, but it felt like we waited forever to see that first star. But eventually there it was, twinkling away at us. In hindsight it probably wasn’t a star at all - it was probably Venus - but we waved at it anyway, and sent our love to Dad by it.”

He looked over at Alan, who was watching him intently, taking in every word.

“That was the first time I ever went stargazing. After that, Mom and I would often go outside before bedtime so I could say goodnight to Dad. Once in a while I even caught her out there by herself, talking to him, telling him about her day.”

For a moment he couldn’t speak, lost in the image. It felt private to think about, like he was… intruding somehow. He rubbed his eyes, clearing the image, returning to the present. A breath.

“And then Dad came home and things went back to normal. He stayed down here and started Tracy Industries, and I didn’t have to wave to him anymore. But I kept looking up; looking for stars. I never stopped.”

John smiled at his baby brother.

“And then of course you came along, and I had someone else to look at them with.”

Alan returned the smile with a grin of his own, bright in the semi-darkness.

“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said, his voice just a little bit raw.

Seconds passed. The wheat fields breathed in the breeze.

“But then,” said Alan, a small frown developing on his brow, “why do you tell everyone that your favourite colour is gold? Where did that come from?”

John laughed. That bit was easy.

“When I first moved up to Five, I wanted to keep something that would remind me of home. Something to keep me grounded, here, on Earth. So I chose gold.”

Alan’s head tilted, quizzical; puppy-like.

“Gold is warm,” explained John. “It’s wheat fields and tropical sands. It’s summer sunshine.”

He smiled gently.

“It’s you guys.”

There was a beat, and then all the air suddenly left John’s lungs as a not-so-tiny brother launched himself into his chest.

“Woah! Allie…” he wheezed as Alan threatened to squeeze the life out of him.

Alan just held on tight.

John smiled.

“...I love you too.”