Give the boys a week off for an Aerospace conference in the states. Flordia, Cape Canaveral. Scott's got old Air Force buddies to meet up with, John's giving a handful of lectures at the Kennedy Space Center. Alan and Gordon will take any excuse to goof off, to loaf around town like idle tourists. Skateboards have been procured. Knees and elbows are scraped to shreds. The two youngest are all sunburn and extra freckles, tanlines and sunkissed blond hair. And Virgil's just filling in, the way he always does. Being that extra pair of hands, the middle child, the odd one out.

Not that he minds. It suits him. Virgil doesn't mind rounding out a quartet of Scott's buddies for a game of golf, or going surfing with Gordon when John steals Alan away for a seminar on rocketry. He doesn't mind babysitting, reining in the Terrible Twosome, when Alan and Gordon are tripping over each other trying to get onto the boardwalk rollercoaster, both full of cotton candy and popcorn and corndogs, and whatever other deepfried horribleness they've gotten their hands on. A vacation's a vacation.

He and John have it in common that they both like their solitude, though they like it in different ways. John likes to be alone in the way that lets him tolerate months on end without another human being for miles. Virgil likes to be alone in the way a painter on the sidewalk is alone, with the world moving around him, surrounded by life and yet ensconced in solitude. He's brought pastels, a small watercolour kit, and if there's no one who needs him, Virgil likes to park himself outside their beachfront hotel and watch the world going by. When a particularly bright or beautiful part of the world catches his eye, he snags pieces of it in impressionistic smudges of colour, quick little bits of art. When they're dry, he hands them out to anyone who stops and takes an interest.

It's late afternoon of the second to last day of the trip, when he catches John watching him, a few paces back with his hands in his pockets, still in rolled up oxford shirt sleeves and khakis, peering over his younger brother's shoulder with polite interest.

"Looks nice," John comments, when Virgil finally notices him, pushing a pair of wire-framed glasses up his nose with a fingertip. "I've never understood how you do that."

"Well, you wasted your childhood on telescopes and circuit boards, I wasted mine on crayons and fingerpaint."

"Are the green bits supposed to be palm trees?"

"...aaaaaand, that's why I'm glad you stuck to circuit boards."

Virgil and John can sometimes go as long as a week without saying a word to one another outside of work. It's not enmity. It's not even on purpose. And it's not that they aren't close. It's just a mutual understanding that neither of them are particularly good at small talk.

Alan and Gordon both tend to call John up just to chat and will babble about whatever comes to mind, and John rarely has to do more than just nod along. Scott and Grandma tend to call John to check up on him, pester him about food and sleep and general health and welfare. But even when John's back home with both feet on the ground, he and Virgil rarely exchange more than a nod or a wave from across the room, both going about their respective business. Oddly, they've got too much in common to really have much to say to each other.

Still, sometimes one or the other of the will go out of his way to make the connection, and apparently it's John's turn. "Did you want to grab dinner? You know how we never hang out. You and me. Scott's in a meeting with some GDF officer, and last I saw, Alan and Gordon had about ten pounds worth of quarters between them and headed for that twenty-four hour arcade they found."

"What, you didn't get an invite?"

John cracks a ghost of a grin, and shrugs, "They brought me along already. I emptied their claw machine that first day and got banned. I think Al and Gordon are out for revenge."

Virgil chuckles, "What, by dumping a couple hundred dollars worth of quarters into the place?"

"All right, so they've got kind of a misplaced sense of justice. But they mean well. At least it'll keep them out of trouble. Come on, there's a seafood place I've been told about around the corner from where they are, we can pick them up when we get done."

Virgil wipes a smudge of paint off his thumb on knee of his jeans and squints at the painting. Near enough to done, anyway. He starts to pack up. "Drinks after?"

This gets a wary arch of a ginger eyebrow, and with good reason, after The Jello-Shot Incident of 2057. Gordon's twenty-first birthday had been a hell of a night, still lauded in song and story around Christmastime, when Grandma makes liquor soaked bonbons and John goes about three shades paler at the mere mention of the word "rum". It was a miracle none of them had gone blind. "One or two, I'm supposed to tell about two hundred NASA engineers about TB5's orbital propulsion systems tomorrow morning, and I'd really rather not be hungover."

Grinning, Virgil folds up his travel easel and hefts it over his shoulder. "Johnny, telling two hundred NASA engineers about your orbital propulsion systems sounds like the living equivalent of a hangover. Did Scott take the car?"

"Think so. Keys'll be in your room if he didn't, anyway, but I don't think it's too far to walk. I'll let Alan and Gordon know where we'll be."

Virgil nods, and is privately glad for John and the way he's the only one who might be even more responsible than he is himself. It's a nice change of pace. "Roger, John. I'm gonna get changed, I'll meet you at the car."

Scott has, in fact, left the keys. This is mostly because Virgil hid them in his sock drawer and forced the eldest to get a cab or risk being late. Virgil occasionally misses the mainland, misses driving. He and Alan have that in common, and it's always seemed the very paramount of unfairness that as soon as the youngest had gotten his license, he'd been picked up and moved to an island in the middle of the South Pacific. Virgil makes the mental note to take Alan driving up the coast tomorrow, and to ditch Gordon at John's engineering lecture. He borrows one of Gordon's more tasteful shirts, stretches the seams a little across his broad shoulders, and after he meets John at the rental car behind the hotell, they take the scenic route along the waterfront.

It's a classy little bistro, almost right on the water at the end of the boardwalk, and not too busy. They get seated quickly, in a quiet corner, and once the ice breaks, Virgil and John have the sort of conversation they almost never have. Companionable, friendly, a good long talk over a leisurely dinner. Virgil cracks his way through an entire pound of crab legs, jalapeno poppers, a baked potato and a beer, and John refrains from comment over a caesar salad with shrimp and a glass of wine.

It's really a shame they don't talk more often. Dinner gives way to drinks-John with their father's handed-down preference for Glenlivet Scotch and Virgil with a vodka cranberry in deference to their mother. Pleasant chatter gives way to the deeper things, the talk about their absent father, and about how Scott's holding up in his stead. About how Gordon's still a little wild and defiiant, about how Alan still seems a little lost, sometimes, underneath the bravado. About work, but in the abstract. How it's hard, but worth it. How they're both happy with what they do.

The bill gets paid, and the arcade where Alan and Gordon are is a few blocks down. They'll collect the younger two and walk back to the car. Probably they'll want to get ice cream or something, probably both John and Virgil could be talked into it. Maybe they'll go and pick up Scott. It's a nice night, late summer, cooled by the wind off the ocean. Everything's good, they're both happy, mildly, pleasantly buzzed, and resolving to try and have at least one more actual conversation before Christmastime rolls around-and then there's a sharp, terrified scream from an alleyway, about ten yards ahead.

And for all that they have in common, this is where John and Virgil are different. A scream is Virgil's call to snap into action, to pound the pavement and close the distance between him and whoever needs his help. It's John's cue to stop, to hold everything and figure out a course of action. To take up his chosen position, high above the situation, and figure out how best he can help whoever needs him before he makes any move at all.

But they're on the ground, and it's Virgil's territory, and he snags his older brother by the arm, with a hissed, "Come on!" Like it's sturdy, scrappy Gordon he's got for backup, and not willowy, cautious John.

Still, it's hardwired into all of them to help people in trouble. Even if their initial impulses are different, John's right on Virgil's heels as his younger brother rounds the corner into an alley, where a large, imposing figure is struggling with someone who's crying and frightened, pinned up against a dumpster and trying to break free. Virgil's like a bull penned up before a rodeo, and he seems to loom at the end of the alley as he roars, "Hey!"

Then he charges. He practically scrapes the ground with the toe of his boot, and goes bulling his way into the fray. John hangs back, because 230 pounds of righteously angry Virgil is more than enough to handle a fight, and this really isn't John's area. He's waiting for his chance to dart in and get a hold of the victim, to tell her to get someplace safe, call the police.

Virgil has the mugger by the back of the collar, and flings him effortlessly away from the woman, scrabbling on the ground trying to gather up her purse. It's funny, people's priorities. John's always been a little bit thrown off by the things people think are important in crises. He ducks into the alley after Virgil, gets to the woman's side, hovering and protective. Virgil's in full combat mode, he's pounced on the halfway downed assailant, and plants a firm kick to the man's stomach before he can regain his feet.

"You're okay, ma'am," he assures the lady, getting a hold of her elbows and helping her to her feet. Because she seems to think it's important, he snatches up her purse, presses it into her hands. "Get out of here, run, find somewhere safe. Call the police."

She takes off. Then there's a terrifying squeal of pain and John's gaze jerks up towards his brother, who's taken things a step further, grinding the heel of his boot into the back of the would-be thief's knee. And abruptly this is John's job. Knowing when to call it off, and he snaps into command. "Virgil, stop!"

Virgil does, immediately stumbling backward, yanked away from that raw, berserker edge by the steel in John's tone, another thing passed down from their father. Scott has it too. As far as John's concerned, their job is done, time to disengage.

The mugger scrambles away from Virgil, struggles to his feet, cursing and spitting. His gaze darts wildly around the alley, and he bolts straight for John, unwittingly blocking the only way out. He shoves the redhead out of his way and sends him sprawling with a pained, startled shout, headlong into a collection of trash cans.

That's cued Virgil back into action. He scrambles for his brother, hauls him to his feet and then gives his elbow another tug before dashing off, shouting over his shoulder, "C'mon, we can get him!"

They're not cops. But Virgil's got that strict sense of justice, and that's what he got from their father. John's head is buzzing with fifteen year old Scotch and adrenaline, and well-no one else is going to go after the guy. Ignoring the sharp, bruising pain of the place where the mugger shoved him, John breaks out of the alley, right on Virgil's heels again.

After only a few moments, still stumbling, sprinting after Virgil, he's leaving a trail of smudged red footprints on the sidewalk behind him.