#EOS’s continuing adventures in the art of Humour

[idontknowreallywhy]

Estera - Ch 16 - Distraction

Developments develop. John lives to regret his eldest brother befriending his AI daughter. But can bagels ever be bad?

TW for sickness. This remains the only part of this entire story that could be viewed as a self-insert as I drafted it in my head when I too was curled up on the bathroom floor… Estera is much braver than I was though.

Apologies if these are coming somewhat thick and fast… figured I’d get as much as I can posted while the muse cooperates and before something shiny breaks the current hyper-fixation I have on this story 😏

(Previous… Prologue - Stars are Only Visible in Darkness, Estera - 1 - Colour, 2 - Dinosaur, 3 - Shoes, 4 - Thunderbird, 5 - Lesson, 6 - Safe, 7 - Gull, 8 - Deliver, 9 - Coffee, 10 - Flight, 11 - Run, 12 - Fall, 13 - Trying, 14 - Hide, 15 - Wait)

(Sofasurf’s Recrudescence which is the foundation for all of this)

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Slumped in the corner of the bathroom, cold sweat prickling from every pore she pressed her face against the coolness of the tiles and willed away the nausea.

She did NOT. Have. Time. For. This.

It was obviously an occupational hazard of spending every working day with small children, but she often seemed to dodge the viruses that took down her colleagues and had always been secretly pleased by the fact she was able to invincibly swoop in and cover for them when required. Pride before a fall.

It was particularly embarrassing as she’d been back at work a mere 3 days after so much time off. Just tomorrow and Friday left before the holidays… she COULDN’T call in sick it was just too ridiculous. Somehow she had to power through.

This particular bug seemed determined not to be ignored, however. Another wave of sickness hit and left her curled in a tight ball, sobbing into her best quality bath towel.

Too much self pity, Estera, need to think of something else…

Her feverish mind supplied only Baby Shark on loop.

Which didn’t really help.

Groaning in frustration she reached for her mobile phone, maybe she could find distraction of some kind online. Not that anyone she knew was likely to be awake at this time.

Oh, there was just one, according to the little green dot next to the word Blue.

As always her brain warred with itself - the anticipation of the warm, safe feeling their silly little exchanges always brought versus the sharp bite of guilt that demanded to know why she had any kind of right to his time or attention after what she had done. After the pain she’d caused him.

The nausea rolled by again, threatening to drag her into despair. She gritted her teeth. Desperate times… maybe he wouldn’t mind sharing another daft joke or something…

Hi, you’re up late?

Hey there 😀 no it’s mid-afternoon here ☀️

Oh! Sorry, I actually have no idea where you live and shouldn’t have assumed.

Not a problem, we tend to keep it quiet for security so I wouldn’t have mentioned where we are.

You ARE up late though? Everything alright?

Well she should have seen that coming. Fever made her honest. Or at least had eliminated her ability to formulate a plausible lie.

“Just a bit of a sickness bug, caught it from the kids.”

Ugh, that’s the worst. You want company? I can be there in half an hour?

She blinked. He was joking, surely?

Ha, err no I’m good thanks. That’s pretty fast though!

Told you One was the best Thunderbird 😉

She laughed out loud at the reference to the passionate debate in the cave. Which triggered another bout of unpleasantness. She lay on the floor for a while waiting for her head to stop pounding.

A soft ping made her open her eyes again.

You ok?

Sorry, yes. Just… well, you know.

Don’t apologise. Just wish I could help.

I could do with some distraction.

Want to hear about how our pool got filled with jello?

You have a pool? 😲

And yes please

WELL

It started (as it often does) with Gordon (2nd youngest) winding up Alan (youngest)

I never figured out precisely what it was about but that rarely matters…

She focussed on allowing herself to relax and to be carried away by the tale. He was an engaging story teller although she was sure much of it must be exaggerated - surely no real people would take a prank war to such extremes.

He asked about Italy so she found herself telling him about her family, her nieces’ exploits and how she’d got herself completely lost on the day trip to Venice.

She even admitted the trip took place when it did because she had been signed off work - fever really did make her too honest.

She didn’t say why. He didn’t ask. But the ball of tension that had resided in her throat for weeks eased, just a little.

She talked about Bez. He told her about his family, their different skills and interests and how proud of them all he was. He shared more dad jokes. She informed him they were terrible.

An hour or so later, having been chivvied to finally send the email to the school office, she crawled back into bed and a thankfully dreamless sleep took her.

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She woke with a start to the sound of the doorbell and Bez skittering about excitedly in the hallway. 10am - was it someone from school checking she was really ill? Staggering on jelly legs to the door she cautiously cracked it open.

“Delivery for Miss Herz… Herma…zew…” the courier frowned and held out a large brown paper bag.

“That would be me. Err thanks.”

Leaning heavily on the closed door she gently pushed Bez’s enthusiastic head out of the bag. In fairness to him it was emitting quite a pleasant aroma. Which turned out to be chicken soup and plain toasted bagels from a deli in town. she recognised the name of the place but it was far too fancy for her to have ever darkened the door. A bottle of isotonic drink and a range of herbal teabags were also included along with a printed note reading only “Get well soon, S x”

Well that was… unexpected. And kind.

Bez was beginning to lose his mind so she poured half the soup into his bowl and curled up on the sofa. She nibbled at a piece of fancy bagel… it really was excellent and probably wasted on her somewhat battered palate. She picked up her phone to send a thank you message, trying to calculate what the time difference must be when suddenly she froze and the bagel fell from her hand to immediately be wolfed down by her delighted dog.

How had he known her address?

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“John?”

“Yes EOS?”

“What kind of bagel flies?”

John ducked, concerned that the AI might be regressing back to old tricks. His immediate vicinity remained airborne-bread-product free, however.

“I’m sorry?”

“A plain bagel.”

“What?”

“It is a pun. I have deliberately exploited the fact that there are two meanings of the word plane for comedic effect. It is funny.”

Silence reigned.

“John?”

He lifted his head from his hands and sighed. “Yes EOS?”

“Why aren’t you laughing?”

“I was distracted by plotting my eldest brother’s demise.”

“He mentioned that you might initially react with threats of violence to his person and advised that persistence is generally the key to good comedy. What do ghosts put on their bagels?”

John flinched unwillingly and tried to cover it by playing along.

“I don’t know EOS, what do ghosts put on their bagels?”

“Scream cheese. This one is another play on words because although it isn’t precisely the same phoneme the sound is very similar.”

“I get it EOS.”

“You still aren’t laughing, John. Should I continue with the persistence strategy? Or perhaps I should carry out further research?”

“The latter I think.”

There was a pause.

“John, whilst we are discussing bagels, I believe you would enjoy a trip to the South West of England.”

John looked up from the weather front he was monitoring and frowned as he tried to predict the punchline to this one.

“Why is that EOS?”

“This deli claims to produce the most delicious bagels in Europe.”

“Good to know. What brought that to your attention?”

“Scott asked me to research the best place to order from in that locality.”

John noted the dropping of the surname from her habitual reference to his family members. Thus far, only he had been on first name only terms with his AI. It seemed his big brother had been upgraded too.

“He did, did he?” John paused, wondering whether further enquiry was overstepping a boundary. Maybe it was a little, but Scott had been acting weirdly and as a caring brother John should keep an eye on him.

“Did he say why?”

“We sent a ‘care package’ to a friend.” EOS enunciated the new phrase carefully.

John’s eyebrows defied his attempt to maintain a poker face. Turning away from EOS’s camera track he opened a private line to Virgil.

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Hey how are you doing? Hope you managed to get some sleep?

She typed and deleted three variants of a reply, then buried the phone under a cushion and curled up on the couch with her head on Bez’s flank. The dog huffed in his sleep.

She had eaten the rest of the food. She wasn’t insane - it was delicious and probably eye-wateringly expensive - and she didn’t have the energy to prepare herself anything else. It really was a thoughtful gesture and she had to say thank you. Should have done already.

But the initial glow of warmth at the thought she had a friend out there somewhere who cared had been swamped by the creepy feeling. She wasn’t listed in the directory. Never had been. There had never seemed any point as who would look her up and it would only result in sales calls or junk mail. And advertising her surname might invite the attention of the unpleasant minority with a particular political statement to make.

The “It’s over now, why are you still here?” type of statement. Best avoided.

So how had he got it?

She thought again of his immediate offer of company, which had seemed sweet if rather silly at the time.

What if there was an ulterior motive?

She shivered and had to focus to push back certain memories that still lurked too close to the edge of her consciousness.

Don’t be ridiculous. The man had the entire world at his feet. And she was literally being sick at the time. Hardly attractive to someone thinking in that way. She thought back to the time they had had coffee… no… he didn’t seem like that kind of a person. He’d seemed… surprisingly genuine. The occasional text exchanges they’d had since then had backed up that initial impression. And last night in all that time messaging her, keeping her company, there were no red flags at all, she’d even felt maybe he was someone she could trust… could actually talk to.

Aaaaaah which meant he was just being nice and she hadn’t responded! Being wary, even cynical was one thing, but she couldn’t bear to be rude. She grabbed the phone but found herself hesitating again. Maybe she could just ask about the address and if he was weird about it let him down gently and delete his number and hide. Yes, hide from the guy who could buy her entire town if the fancy took him. Right. That would definitely work.

"Damnit Scott Tracy, you’d better not be a weirdo stalker."

Bez looked up sleepily.

“Sorry, Bez, didn’t mean to say that out loud.

Right. Ok. Thank you message.

She added a smiley face to make it seem less flat and reread it again.

And then again. It would have to do.

She pressed send.

Hi, I seem to be ok now just really drained. Thank you for the soup, it was just what I needed. 🙂

Glad to hear it. Make sure you keep hydrated and get plenty of rest

I get the impression you say that kind of thing a lot?

Ha. Yeah I’ve 4 little brothers. We’ve seen our fair share of stomach flu.

Seriously though, the hydration thing…

She eyed her empty glass. He had a point actually.

I am literally getting up to refill my drink now

Good 🥃

That was the wrong emoji, I do not recommend whisky at this time!

Estera leant heavily on the side of the sink, sipping water and trying to calculate whether she could take more tablets for the throbbing headache yet. No, not quite. She eyed the phone on the table. Ah, it was no good, she had to ask or she’d be driven to madness by overthinking.

Can I ask you something?

Of course!

Fire away

How do you know my address?

The little ticks turned green and she waited for the completely normal and un-terrifying response that was obviously coming.

Except it didn’t. After ten minutes, she stopped watching the unchanging screen and hid the phone in a drawer. Being unable to see it didn’t help in the slightest. Checking it again showed no change. She slammed the drawer closed.

She crawled into the shower and sat motionless under the flow of water, trying to work out how on earth she could afford to quit her job, move home and change her name.

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#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Estera #tb estera #scott tracy #john tracy #EOS (thunderbirds) #The Commander & The Murderbot #EOS’s continuing adventures in the art of Humour #tw vomit