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Scott crouched down, wiggling his fingers and making clicky noises towards the ball of fluff and whiskers he could see peering at him from beneath the bench, heedless of the other people surrounding him on the sidewalk. If the kitty could just come a little closer, he could snap a picture on his phone before reluctantly making the return journey to back the the office.
He placed his freshly fetched keep cup full of coffee down on the bench, stretching out a hand and reminding himself to wait patiently for the cat to come to him. That was something that had taken him a while to learn until John clued him in. Cats were like John, really, or John was pretty much a human shaped ginger cat: both preferred to be given time to chose to make the approach themselves rather than suddenly having their space invaded, no matter how well meaningly.
Taking the moment was rewarded when the cat curiously peeked out and wandered towards him, tail held up with the tip curled over. It was covered in a delightful mess of ginger, black and white, like a little brother had splodged paint all over it. Scott smothered a laugh. There had been that one time with Virgil and their childhood cat…
Moving slowly, he pulled his phone out of his suit pants pocket and took a photo, flicking it off to John with a smile.
John kicked off the wall of Thunderbird Five’s hub, rippling the holograms beneath his feet. He turned another backwards flip, with a dual purpose of revelling in the sensation of the movement and keeping himself occupied in the lulls between calls.
A new message pinged and he immediately twisted around then dispersed his momentum by delicately colliding with a different wall to read it.
-Scott Tracy: Kitty cat for you Jay!!!!!
The attached image of a calico cat had John grinning.
Before he had a chance to reply, another message came through of a close of of the cat’s whiskered face with Scott’s hand in the frame rubbing around its ears. John could practically hear the contented purring.
-John Tracy: Awwwwww a sweetheart!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, that was exactly the number of exclamation marks he needed to express his joy and make sure Scott knew it.
Overtime, sending pictures of cats back and forth to each other had become one of their things and it delighted them both. It meant they got to share so many moments with each other, even far apart, and it was often the beginning of more conversations, even if they had to happen in five minute bursts between busy moments. It was a way of showing they remembered and cared for and were thinking of the other. A love language all of its own. Plus, cats!
Scott saw more live cats up close because he was planetside on IR rescues and for TI, but when John was down he made up for it with tours of the world’s universities he got to lecture at by their cat populations he befriended.
His brother could be rather cat-like too, more of a large, lithe cheetah built for speed. Or a house moggy with a propensity for climbing the walls and always finding the highest place possible to perch, no matter how impossible it seemed to get to. John shared in that too, they were both often found on the rooftops, stargazing or sunning themselves, with a large hat and extraordinary amounts of sunscreen especially in John’s case, but he wasn’t going to let Scott get cooked either.
On occasion, Scott did also get the mad, dash around the house, hyperactive zoomies of a cat, where he couldn’t possibly sit still. It was always delightful when Scott let himself mess around and lean into it.
One of John’s favourite memories as a kid was of him and Scott curled up together, practically on top of each other in a nest of blankets with books of all sorts and many toy planes within reach. Mum had come in and snapped a photo of them, laughing fondly, “Like cats in a basket!”
He probably had the photo around here somewhere, he’d downloaded a lot of their childhood photos to Five’s memory banks as well as the data storage on the island. He hadn’t seen it in years. With Eos’ help, he found it in a few minutes. He did have to explain to her why he was blinking away tears as they welled up in his eyes as he’d forgotten how he and Scott had been wearing matching blue pyjamas covered in stars because they’d both been going through a phase of wanting to have the exact same things as the other so as to not be left out.
He sent it off to Scott.
-John Tracy: Cat basket :)
Bubbles signifying typing disappeared and reappeared as Scott on the other side of the world figured out what to say. John gave Scott the same patience he gave to him when John was gathering his words for the exact ones he wanted to say.
-Scott Tracy: Next time we are both home? If you want.
-John Tracy: Of course. When you get back, I’ll take the elevator down for the weekend.
He could cuddle up with Scott and take a moment to just be together. It was well past time they did, it always got to this point which they really needed do something about.
Suddenly the only place John wanted to be was curled into Scott’s side, with a good book and maybe some hot chocolate for them both too, surrounded by as many blankets as they could find.
Scott sent through another burst of photos of the cat from before, including a few selfies of it sitting in his lap, snuggled up to him. He was grinning happily and that was worth the world, no matter the cat hair on navy blue suiting nor the coffee that was doubtless half cold and nearly forgotten.
John loved his brother so much. He kicked off another celebratory flip, joy sparking brightly as a glowing star in the centre of his chest.