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In most households, family dinners were a recipe for pure disaster and while his family was no different, right now it was breakfast which was the scene of chaos. Specifically, chaos caused by Alan. Usually, it would be Gordon fuelling the fire, but he was running on three hours of sleep - having been rudely awaken by his own body clock and that one parrot which had taken to calling to the sunrise as if it were a rooster – and so had spent much of breakfast trying not to fall off his chair, leaving Alan to wreak havoc in his place.
Surprisingly, there was not usually this much chaos at breakfast. Mostly because Virgil and Alan would sleep in until noon if there was nothing to drag them out of bed and so would skip the meal completely and Kayo seemed to change up her sleep schedule every other week and therefore could be considered an outlier to generalities. This left only Scott and Gordon, which could go one of two ways – Scott ignored him and made a beeline for the desk or One’s hangar and wouldn’t be seen for the next five hours, or Scott took the bait and Gordon would end up fleeing for his life. Either way Gordon got to annoy him, which was great fun.
But there was never this much chaos.
Seriously, why was there flour on the floor? No one had been baking. Had they? Gordon considered lifting his head from his folded arms but decided that was too much effort. He couldn’t smell any pancakes, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been some other culinary delight on the menu. Possibly pain-au-chocolat because John was down from Five which meant a) skill in the kitchen and b) sugar because John had a sweet tooth to rival a wasp despite denying otherwise.
Actually, maybe John was the reason for the chaos. He wasn’t usually here, but now he was and the kitchen looked as if it had been ransacked. Clearly John had led Alan astray. Or, well, given the kid sugar, which was basically the same thing.
Goddamn, Gordon needed more coffee. Like, urgently. But that involved moving. Ugh. Sacrifices had to made sometimes. He slid off his chair and nearly faceplanted.
“I’m just saying,” Alan announced from his perch on one of the countertops, gesturing so wildly that he accidentally smacked a hand against a cupboard. “Just because you’ve never seen something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“Say what now?” Gordon batted Alan’s hand away to reach the coffee machine. “Yo, Johnny, what haven’t you experienced and now don’t believe in?”
“Happiness,” John deadpanned.
Alan choked on his mouthful of too-hot pain-au-chocolat. “Dude.”
“That’s valid,” Gordon considered and offered John a high-five. “Up top, man.”
John ignored him, pretending to study one of the projected recipes in an attempt to hide his smile.
Alan knocked his head against the cupboard with a dramatic sigh. “You both need therapy.”
“I need coffee,” Gordon corrected. “Now move your scrawny ass so I can actually get some without burning you. Jeez, sit on a chair like a normal person.”
“I’m not normal.”
“Sit on the floor then, I don’t care, just get away from my coffee.”
Alan scowled at him but shuffled along the counter to give him room to access the life blood. Aka caffeine. Aka his saviour.
He sniffed his mug suspiciously. “Am I an addict?”
“Probably,” Alan agreed. “Anyway, as I was saying… Just because John hasn’t seen an alien doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Look how massive the universe is! Isn’t it, like, super-duper arrogant of humanity to assume we’re the only sentient life ever?”
“There’s a strong possibility that dolphins are sentient,” Gordon began.
John interrupted before he could really start ranting, because his speeches on how frickin’ cool dolphins were and their possible sentience were legendary and had once gotten him a standing ovation at an ocean conservation conference two years ago, but right now it was too early for marine biology.
“I didn’t say aliens don’t exist, I said the chances of them existing within our solar system is highly unlikely. Not impossible, but very, very unlikely.”
“But not impossible,” Alan snatched up the words as if they were a promise. “So they could be watching us.”
John’s sigh was lost in the rush of hot air as he opened the oven door.
“I think if they were, I would have seen one by now.” He retrieved the latest batch of pain-au-chocolat and smacked Gordon’s wrist as he went to steal one. “Wait for them to cool down, dumbass.”
Gordon glared at him. “Hang on.” He took a long slurp of coffee, eyeing John dubiously. “What makes you think you’re the only person who could have seen an alien?”
John gave him the look, which loosely translated as you are an actual idiot, and I am constantly questioning how we are related. “I’ve spent the most time in space.”
“I’m an aquanaut and you don’t think I’ve had chance to see an alien?”
There was a pause. Alan glanced between the two of them with a gleeful expression.
“Think back over that sentence and consider which word would make it more logical,” John said in a long-suffering tone of voice. He took a bite of a pain-au-chocolat, uncaring about the heat, and looked to be considering why he had ever left Five as boiling chocolate dripped over his hand. “I’ll give you a hint – exchange aquanaut with astronaut.”
Gordon flung up his hands indignantly. “Actually, John, alien encounters are not reserved exclusively for astronauts. God, you’re so problematic sometimes.”
Alan openly sniggered.
“Gordon,” John informed him slowly so that there was no risk of him missing the words, “You are an idiot.”
“Thank you.”
“Not a compliment.”
“I’m taking it as one anyway.”
“You really shouldn’t.”
“Fight me.”
“It’s too early to fight you.”
“We could schedule it for this afternoon?”
John took another bite of pain-au-chocolat. “I am living in Hell,” he observed, wincing as he scorched his thumb on too-hot pastry. “You are the bane of my existence.”
“I’m a delight and you love me.”
“You’re a menace.”
“But you do love me.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Liar.”
“Shut up, Gordon.”
“Guys,” Alan burst out, knocking his heels against the lower cupboards to draw their attention back to the very-important-matter at hand. “The point is that aliens totally exist.”
“Yeah,” Gordon exclaimed, slamming his mug down. “That’s my entire argument! There’s been so many reports of unidentified crafts at sea. Some have even appeared on radar in deep-sea trenches! If aliens are watching the planet, they’d be less likely to be discovered if they built a base in remote parts of the ocean rather than in space which is under constant surveillance by creeps like you Johnny.”
John considered the chocolate smeared over his hand, then proceeded to mess up Gordon’s hair with an evil laugh. Gordon ducked out of range with an outraged squawk, but the damage had already been done.
“Seriously? I’m gonna have to shower now.”
John gave a nonchalant shrug. “You shouldn’t have called me a creep. I monitor for rescue alerts. It’s not creepy if it’s my job.”
“You monitor all radio frequencies,” Gordon pointed out, running a hand through his hair and grimacing at the stickiness. “It’s still creepy even if it’s for a good cause.”
Alan had been peeling little strips of pastry off a pain-au-chocolat, rolling them into tiny pieces and tossing them into his mouth in an attempt at trick-shots. He paused, frowning as he considered something. “Hey Gords, does that mean you’ve seen some weird ship you couldn’t identify?”
“No,” Gordon admitted and flung up a hand to prevent John from a sarcastic comment. “But, I have seen some creepy ass deep-sea creatures. Have you ever seen a giant squid in real life? Take a look at some of the things down there and try telling me they don’t look as if they’re from another world. I mean, they’re freaking awesome, but they’re also so weird.”
Alan nodded solemnly. “Angler fish look as if they belong in space. They’ve even got their own lil light for travelling between galaxies.” He went wide-eyed. “Holy shit, that would make such a great comic. EOS, make a note of it and remind me to draw it when I next get bored on rescue.”
“Bored on rescue,” John repeated slowly.
“Uh, yeah. I spend more of my time travelling to places than I do actually saving people. It gets boring. A space-faring angler fish comic would be a great way to occupy myself other than playing noughts-and-crosses against EOS.”
“Hey,” Gordon realised aloud, “You know how Virgil’s a total arachnophobe? Do you think he’d freak out if I showed him a Japanese spider crab?”
“Try it and find out,” Alan suggested.
Gordon looked to John. “Shouldn’t you be talking me out of this?”
John shrugged. “If you’re torturing Virg, that means you’re not torturing me. Virgil’s sanity is a worthy sacrifice.” He lifted a pain-au-chocolat in a toast. “Let the chaos commence!”