@themrstracy:
It had always been harder to sleep when the bed was half empty, but when the boys had arrived it had gotten even harder. Every noise, every little shift of light, or flutter of a breeze, all seemed like something she needed to hear, something that could have been mistaken for one of her boys needing her.
Usually she had Jeff to persuade her that all was well and that she should sleep. Usually she had the security of knowing he was there and would undoubtedly know what to do in an emergency. Usually Jeff was somewhere much closer to Earth than Mars.
So when John comes padding into their room, she’s still wide awake, mind reeling with the possibilities of all the things that might go wrong before dawn. His nightmare strikes her chest with cold, sharp fear, the whole thing just another reminder of what could happen out there so many millions of miles away.
She has to keep a brave face though, plastering on a reassuring smile she reaches out and draws him up into her lap. Her thumbs wipe at his cheeks as she begins to hum softly, waiting for him to settle in her arms.
Because the problem is, for a boy so young, John is so ridiculously smart. Where simple reassurance would have worked in a moment to calm any of his brothers, her little redhead would simply refute the comments with the logic he knew to be true.
It was the same logic she knew she would have to use to reassure him.
Running her fingers through his hair, she tilted her head as she watches him, “So, let’s think of all the reasons that’s not gonna happen, huh?”
There’s a series of miserable little snuffly noises as she scoops him onto her lap, cuddling him close. There’s a soft, rocking, lulling motion to her arms that feels warm and safe and the sweet little tune has his lashes fluttering, clearly very sleepy but still far too agitated to drop off. He feels skinny and a little shivery against her, with his cotton pyjamas and bare feet. He tucks his toes into the crook of his Mother’s knee, drawing his own knees up to his chest in a little ball, preserving warmth. It sure is a weird way for a kid to sit, especially compared to his sprawling, messy brothers, but John never worries about what’s normal.
“R-Reasons?” If he looks at Jeff like he put the stars in the sky, then he looks up at Lucille in that moment like she made them for him. His nose wrinkles, freckle-spotted and considering and the tears start to dry up as he’s distracted from them by thinking.
“I... He’s got Uncle Lee.” John points out, tentative, uncertain about that perk. Most of what he knows about Uncle Lee is that he’s quite forgetful, always leaving something at their house, and that he gives really hard hair ruffles. He called him Jim once. John’s not sure about that. “Dad...” There’s a little gulp of breath, tremulous in his chest, still thickly edged with anxiety. “He’s got lots of gear. For s-setting up the station. Th-that’ll keep him safe, right? There’s r-regulations.”
[Nightmares of Mars RP]
@starman-john-tracy
“Oh! Can we!” John’s grin is like sunshine breaking through a thick bank of clouds; warm and sweet and ever so endearing. He’s already got the web page minimized and the mouse hovering over the program that NASA installed for them to be able to message her husband, eagerly awaiting her nod.
The camera loads as he jabs a finger down on the icon, their faces blooming in replica, mirrored, on the screen in front of them. John, suddenly self conscious, wriggles a little more on her lap, flatting down the wild curl of his forelock with baby fingers and trying to sit up straighter in the hopes that their Dad’ll call him such a big boy.
“Hi Dad.” He grins, all gap-teeth and freckles, as he hits record. “Hows Mars?!? I still can’t believe you’re actually up there! It’s so coooool! The guy’s at school don’t even believe me,” His little nose wrinkles, slightly put-out, “but Scott says that’s jus’ cause they’re dumb.” That hint at John’s relationship with his peers is… mildly concerning, but John launches into his own little tirade about atmospheric pressure and oxygen tanks and looking out for Uncle Lee, and the comment is lost in the flood. He bounces on her knee, vibrant with the joy of talking to his Father, little hands more animate when he’s chattering one-sided to a computer screen about space than they ever are when chatting with his brothers.
John moves on from space and babbles away about school and how great science class is and how he can totally do all the equations better than anyone in his class and that there was this one boy who he helped in math even though he’d stolen his lunchbox.
It might be worth making a note to follow that up later. Still, it won’t be long until she stops hearing about the bullies from anyone but Scott or, when she has to pick up her boy with a split lip and a black eye, the principal. John’s often too quiet for his own good.
She’s taken off guard as a chubby hand slips into hers, giving her fingers a warm squeeze.
“Mom?” A cold nose is pressed against her arm and he looks up at her from under his lashes. Those eyes are the same blue-green shade her own Mother’s had been, full of curiosity. “Is there anything you wanna say to Dad?”
He’ll wiggle away from his brother’s, needing personal space that he doesn’t know how to vocalize yet, but with his Mom he’s almost the textbook definition of clingy; hot and small and smushed up against her with no room for the definition of proximity.
Maybe, he’ll realize years later, that’s a part of why he becomes so distant after she’s gone.
She smiles and squeezes him tight at the offer, all other thoughts pushed momentarily to one side. None of it was anything she could fix immediately anyway.
There was plenty she wanted to tell her husband, so far away and missing so much. Not much of it was meant for little ears though, not at that early hour of the day when other little boys might too over hear.
“Miss you Honey,” She smiled to the recording, “Stay safe out there.”
Maybe she could have said something more. Out of her boys, John was the least likely to repeat something he had overheard to listening ears. She knew that for a fact, remembering how he had come crying to her late one night having overheard that the landing might have been called off because of a dust storm. He could have gone to Scott, but instead he had gone to her.
It was John’s recording though, his chance to speak to his father about space in the same way Scott talked to him about planes. She wasn’t going to take it over from him.
