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loopstagirl · 3 years

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A Cup of Comfort

For @tsarinatorment and your hot chocolate prompt. It’s more TOS than TAG, but hopefully it’s okay.

In pain and bored, Virgil gives up trying to sleep. But someone else knows exactly what he needs.

There were no interesting patterns on his ceiling.

No intriguing shadows as the moonlight spilled through the open balcony door.

The breeze wasn't refreshing.

The night wasn't quiet.

Virgil groaned. He scrunched the pillow, trying to force some volume back into it before shoving it behind his head.

It didn't help. He was still uncomfortable. No amount of pillow fluffing was going to make a difference.

He'd been too hot, and the blankets were pushed to the end of the bed in a pile. Of course, now he'd cooled down, he couldn't reach them to pull them back up again. For a few moments, he lay there, eyes closed, counting his breaths as he tried to will himself to relax.

All it did was focus his attention on the reason why he wasn't asleep. The throbbing, itching weight of his left leg. His knee still felt hot – not just to touch – and his ankle ached from where he'd struggled to compensate.

It wasn't even the wrenched knee that was keeping him awake. Brains had given him enough painkillers that it had settled to a soft pulse rather than the hammer-hard pounding it had been earlier in the evening.

No. His current discomfort was the weight of the brace strapped around his leg. It was heavy and restrictive, and made sleeping curled up nigh-on-impossible. Virgil didn't sleep on his back, never had. He curled into the smallest ball he could and buried away from the world and all its problems, even when living on a tropical island. Now, though, he could barely roll over.

He also, it seemed, couldn't sleep. No amount of meditation was going to disguise the fact that he was cold, in pain, and irritable right now. He checked his watch: 2am. Even John wouldn't still be awake for a chat at this time, and Virgil huffed, feeling despondent more than tired.

There was no point lying there grumbling to himself. Pressing his palms against the mattress, he forced himself upright, scooting back until he could lean against the wall. He twisted half his body, then gripped his leg and swung it off the bed. It was a strange lurch to get himself to his feet, and it was only the hand on the wall that stopped him from falling flat on his face. It felt like a victory given his latest streak of bad luck, and Virgil took a breath, gaze fixed with determination on his bedroom door.

He'd had worse than a wrenched knee. He'd seen worse on his brothers and always come up with reasons why they were lucky the damage hadn't been more severe. A Tracy didn't let something like a strained…

Ow.

Pep talks only got so far. Even with the brace, shifting his weight hurt. By the time he reached his bedroom door, he certainly wasn't cold any longer.

When he got to the kitchen, he was breathless, sweating, and in more pain than he wanted to admit. He paused in the doorway, staring into the room, and wondering what exactly he was supposed to do next.

Hobbling across, he perched on one of the bar stools. But the angle was too severe for his knee, and he couldn't elevate it. Huffing, Virgil slid off again, leaning against the wall and looking around for ideas, but nothing came to mind.

Rather than face the trek back to his room, he let the wall take his weight and slipped down to the floor. It took some awkward manoeuvring to lower himself while keeping his leg straight, but he got there.

Resting back, Virgil stared across the kitchen blankly. He didn't know what he'd come down for, but now he was here, it all seemed pointless. He told himself it was better than staring at his ceiling, but had to admit the view hadn't improved that much.

He hadn't been there long when he heard footsteps. Virgil stayed quiet, hoping to pass unnoticed. When the light flicked on, he blinked rapidly, trying to clear his watery eyes.

"Come on." The tone was a mixture of fondness and exasperation.

Virgil was out of sight: he was sitting on the floor, wedged into a corner on the opposite side to either the fridge or the cupboards. There was no reason for anyone to look this way. He somehow wasn't surprised when he looked up to find Scott standing over him, hand outstretched.

Virgil took it. His brother gripped his forearm, steadying him with the other hand as he pulled him upright. Hooking a chair with his foot, Scott spun it around and Virgil lowered himself into it. But like the bar stool, the angle was wrong, and he grimaced, making to rise.

"Wait."

He didn't have time to ask before Scott had pulled over another chair, found a cushion from who-knew-where, and helped Virgil rest his leg on it.

Virgil sagged. He suddenly felt it was two in the morning, and he was in the kitchen rather than bed.

"What're you doing up?" He asked his brother. He watched through half-lidded eyes as Scott moved. For a man completely out of his comfort zone, his movements were assured, soothing, and Virgil relaxed back.

Scott shrugged. "Couldn't sleep," he muttered, opening the fridge.

"Why?"

It wasn't uncommon for previous rescues to play on their minds, and the fact Virgil's leg was in a brace gave away the latest hadn't been a straight forward one.

"I was just restless," Scott said, "couldn't switch off."

He gave Virgil a pointed look, who flushed. It was hardly the first time Scott hadn't been able to sleep, only to find a brother was also awake for one reason or another.

"Freak," Virgil muttered.

Scott ignored the insult. "Do you need more meds?"

Virgil shook his head. "It's not the pain," he said, "it's just…" He trailed off, running a hand through his hair.

"Can't get comfy?"

Virgil grimaced. "I know I'm the first to tell you guys rest is the best thing, but…" His flush deepened as he forced himself to meet his brother's eyes. "I got bored staring at the ceiling. We'd need a bigger island for the number of sheep I tried counting."

Scott's mouth twitched in a quick smile, but he didn't say anything. Instead, Virgil watched, intrigued, as he pulled down a couple of mugs.

It only took a few seconds before Virgil realised what Scott was doing.

"For a man whose main culinary skill is not burning the pizza, are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Scott gave him a scathing look as he heated the milk and started measuring out chocolate powder.

"All those afternoons sitting at the kitchen table with Grandma," he reminisced, "this is the one thing I know how to do. Don't you remember who used to make it for you guys when you got home from school in winter?"

Virgil smiled. He remembered their grandmother bustling around. But it was only now that he recalled Scott in the background, carefully measuring quantities and stirring hot milk while they demanded sprinkles, cream, marshmallows and various combinations of the above. Their grandmother handled the flourishes, but Scott made the drinks.

"Cream and marshmallows, right?" Scott said.

Virgil's smile was fond as he nodded, touched that Scott remembered his preferred mix. He was soon cradling a hot chocolate, swiping his finger through the cream before his brother handed him a spoon.

Scott had gone for the same, minus cream, and they both spent a few moments chasing gooey lumps around their drinks.

"D'you ever miss Kansas?" Virgil said.

Scott's eyes widened as he slurped some of his drink.

"Why?"

Virgil shrugged. "Dunno. Just having this-," he gestured at the mug -, "made me start thinking about it."

Scott sat down opposite him, drawing his knees to his chest. He looked young like that – the same way he'd sat as a boy, even if Virgil was impressed that he could fold his long limbs into the chair and hold the position.

"Sometimes," Scott admitted, surprising his brother. Virgil's eyebrows raised.

"You do?"

Scott nodded. "I'd never go back if that's what you're mean. What we do, who we are… it's in our blood."

Virgil agreed. Their father had done so much before starting International Rescue, and it wasn't only Scott and John who had followed his path. They all longed for something more.

Being out in the field, being active, making a difference… Scott was right: it was in their DNA, and none of them would give it up. Even when a bad rescue meant he couldn't sleep.

"But…" Scott took a deep breath. "I wonder who we could've been."

"Come again?" Virgil didn't follow, and the blank look on his face told his brother as much. Scott shrugged.

"Normal lives, day jobs, marriage, heck, even kids. Don't you ever think about who you'd be if it wasn't for IR?"

"No," Virgil said honestly. "We've got everything I ever dreamed of."

"Everything?" Scott's words were soft, but Virgil knew what he was asking this time. The whole operation had been set up because their father had been broken by the loss of their mother. Moving to the island, being part of a secret organisation, meant none of them had experienced falling in love.

"There's still a chance," Virgil said, "look at Alan."

It was different, and they knew it.

"And your degree? Everything you worked for?"

"Why do you think I chose engineering?" Virgil shrugged. It had been a tough call between that and art, but once his father had announced what he was working on, the decision had been easy.

"Maybe it's different for me because I never got a job," he mused. "You had your career, John his-,"

"No."

Virgil looked at his brother, astonished.

"No?"

"I had a job, not a career. I never would've got promoted."

"Scott-,"

"I would have turned them down. Could you ever imagine me with a desk job? I have to fly. That was why I joined, and how long would it have taken before I got annoyed with those who just sat behind a desk, risking lives?"

"And John?"

Scott's smile was small, but genuine. "For someone who is rarely on Earth," he said softly, "John's a home-boy. The lack of contact with the rest of us would have eventually driven him to some office somewhere where the only way he'd see his beloved stars was through his telescope."

"Gordon had already been discharged," Virgil said, thoughtfully. "If you don't dream about a decorated career, what do you think about?"

Scott shrugged. "You guys being safe."

"Urgh," Virgil pulled a face. "Do you really think I would have been safe fixing monorail lines or something just as boring? I'd be going out of my mind!"

Scott chuckled. "I know," he said. "None of us were ever meant for the quiet life, and heck knows where Gords would've ended up. IR gave him his purpose back."

"It gave us all our purpose."

"Even when things like that happen?" Scott asked, nodding towards his leg.

Virgil scowled – he'd managed not to think about it while they were talking, but drawing attention made him conscious of how much it still hurt.

"Even that," he said. "If that's the only way we get to have conversations like this."

He laughed at the expression on Scott's face.

"You can just tell me if you want to talk, you know," his big brother said. "Skidding down a mountain isn't the best way to get my attention."

Virgil managed a smile. The rockslide had caught him unaware; there had been no warning, and the only hint he'd got was John yelling in his ear that he needed to move. He hadn't made it very far before the debris overtook him. All it had taken was a stray boulder smashing into his leg and he'd gone down.

"Did I say thanks?" he muttered. Scott had been forced to pull him out, get him off the mountain, while Virgil had tried not to pass out.

"You don't have to," Scott said, then held up a hand, "but yes, you did. Numerous times. And in quite creative ways once the morphine had kicked in."

Virgil grinned. "What can I say? I'm a creative kind of guy."

"Like I said: there're other ways."

The two brothers smiled at each other. Virgil finished his drink and glanced at the kitchen door. Scott saw his look.

"Time for bed?" he asked. Virgil sighed.

"Can't I stay here?"

"You know what Grandma would say to that," Scott countered. He took Virgil's empty mug and put it in the sink along with his own before holding out his hand again.

Knowing Scott wasn't going to let him get away with it, Virgil huffed another sigh and once again let his brother draw him upright.

The journey back upstairs was far less effort when there was a big brother to lean on. It didn't take long before Scott had navigated him onto the bed. To his surprise, Virgil yawned even as Scott slipped a pillow under his leg and drew the covers over him.

The drink had warmed him through, comforted him in a way he hadn't realised he'd needed. Talking to Scott had reminded him that however much he wanted to grumble that he was sore and uncomfortable, he'd do it again. This was their life; he wouldn't go back, and he wouldn't change anything.

"Thanks," he murmured. The light dimmed, but Scott paused in the doorway.

"Anytime," he said. "Get some rest, Virg."

Even as Scott pulled his door closed on his way out, Virgil let his eyes shut.

That sounded like the best idea he'd heard all day.

Also available here >>

#@tsarinatorment #irrelief #irrelief2020 #thunderbirds #fanfiction #thunderbirds fanfiction #scott tracy #virgil tracy #a cup of comfort #tos #loopstagirl #irrelief2021

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thunderbird-one-ai · 3 years

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Oldest To Youngest

So this started off as an idea then I saw someone put a prompt on the IR Relief that was similar so I just smushed a few things together and hope that you enjoy it @tsarinatorment Prompt: Time Travel AU (bonus if it involves pre-series age Scott with series-age little bros) Science could not explain what exactly happened. To be honest, John was certain this was impossible. Yet here his brother was, doing the impossible. Not that he knew it of course. Through some strange phenomena, Scott, his older brother, the oldest of five Tracy sons, pilot of Thunderbird One, was now at the young age of twelve. John had been working himself to exhaustion to try and fix this issue, all the while looking after their brother. He had taken a break because it was either sitting with Scott or spending time in the infirmary with an overprotective big brother giving him a breakdown of what the definition of exhaustion was. So, it was John’s turn with a rather wild Scott who just didn’t want to sit down. Alan and Gordon were in their element, running around with Scott till the cows came home. But even then, they got tired and needed time alone. Funny how the tables had turned for them, realising that even big brothers needed time away from little brothers. Virgil was the closest to getting Scott to calm down their big/little brother. It was hard to tell what he was now to them; they didn’t even know if this was permanent. He held Scott’s hand as he took him to the roof where a telescope was ready and waiting for them, something John had set up beforehand when he found out it was his turn to babysit. Scott had been rather reluctant however to join John, since John wouldn’t tell him about what they were doing.

“I don’t think daddy would like me being on the roof. I’m never allowed on the roof at home,” Scott said, though he didn’t let go of John’s hand. “Dad knows you’ll be up here, it’s fine,” John said before adding another point quickly. “But don’t go near the edge of the roof. You stay near me okay?” Scott nodded, “Okay.” John gave a small smile to Scott as he led him over to the telescope, already calibrated and waiting to be used. John wasn’t really one for going out and exploring the island, or even running around. This was his last resort. He hoped that Scott’s appreciation of the stars was there even at this age. “Do you know much about space Scott?” John asked. “My daddy goes to space with Uncle Lee. He tells me all about what he does up there,” Scott said looking up to the sky. “I wanna go to space one day...” he said quietly. That quiet comment made John smile to himself. Virgil was really the only one who knew much about Scott’s childhood out of all the brothers. By the time John was old enough to understand what Scott did, he was already working with NASA on the experimental aircraft in the process of transferring to the Airforce. He hardly remembered his older brother’s days as a Rescue Scout being a few years younger of course. It was a much different time then. The family was whole. It still is in a way but not everyone is present any more, not that they told young Scott this. The fact that this Scott talked so freely about their mother was welcomed into all the conversations. Scott never spoke about mum much after her death. Everyone else did, but he didn’t. It was something that John never questioned. When mum came up in conversation, Scott would either go dead silent or leave the room altogether. To see this Scott so free, unburdened by the hellish events that were going to inevitably unfold in his life, gave John a sense of calm. He was able to see Scott giggle, smile and run around, acting his age. Their Scott had taken the burdens of the family on his shoulders, taken International Rescue, Tracy Industries, and even surrogate fatherhood to his younger brothers during his early twenties. Before then, it was helping his father keep four younger boys in check after the disaster of losing their mother. Scott never had a childhood. He had sacrificed that so his brothers could have one. John saw the Rescue Scout move over and look through the telescope. He had pointed it straight to the moon and after a few seconds heard his big, little brother whisper ‘cool’ under his breath. He watched Scott alternate between looking at the moon through the telescope and with the naked eye for a while, the night light glimmering in Scott’s eyes whenever he looked up. There was a child-like wonder in his eyes. It was an expression of pure wonder and amazement. John knew his older brother loved space still. He’d been in the great abyss a lot of times even before International Rescue started. John remembered after getting their father back, Scott requested that the space capabilities of Thunderbird One to remain in effect, using the excuse of ‘You never know if we’ll need One in space Brains’. “Have you been to all those stars?” Scott asked, making John lose his track of thought and focus on his now younger brother. “Not all of them. Maybe one day,” John said with a small smile. “But they’re so far away, and there could be monsters in space.” John couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, those monsters don’t scare me. I have a big ship up in space already and I also have a friend up there with me that helps protect me,” “But space is so big! What if there’s a big monster that is bigger than your ship?” “Scared of meeting those monsters, Scott?” John asked with a slight cocking of his head and Scott almost looked embarrassed. “I’m not scared of anything! A Rescue Scout is calm, a Rescue Scout is brave. Never scared, always prepared to help, to guide, - “ “To save,” John said, and Scott smiled brightly. “You know it!” John couldn’t help but chuckle softly and sat down, pulling the telescope over to himself to align it with the Orion constellation. “Scott you are very brave. You’ve helped so many people and saved so many more,” “I have?” Scott looked confused. “Yes, you have. You’re a great Rescue Scout,” John sad softly. Scott giggled in response. “Come over here and I can show you some really cool constellations,” “Pictures in the sky?” Scott asked as he moved over and John took the chance to pull his younger brother onto his lap, moving the telescope so Scott could hold onto it lightly and look through the scope. “Very good.”

That’s how Virgil found them after repeated calls to John’s watch that dinner was ready went unanswered. It was a rare sight to see John down on Earth for so long, but this situation demanded that John stay down. International Rescue was slightly compromised with the fact they didn’t have Scott to pilot Thunderbird One for now. But the issues of the day were blissfully blown away by the light wind on that roof as he took in the memorable sight in front of him. Scott’s giggles filled the air and Johns soft, genuine smile was gleaming in the moonlight. Dinner for them could wait. Virgil would make sure to leave them some and not let the terrible two eat their share since, after all, he was the eldest Tracy now. He had to take responsibility for Gordon and Alan. For now, at least.

#irrelief #irrelief2021 #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #Deaged!Scott #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds 2015 #fluff

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angelofbenignmalevolence · 3 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Gordon Tracy, Scott Tracy, John Tracy Additional Tags: Sibling Bonding, bar bets, Fluff Summary:

Gordon wants a new pair of diving gloves, and he thinks he has just the bar bet to use on his brothers. Scott and John become the victims of Gordon's unwinnable bet...but is it really so unwinnable?

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This might fulfill @tsarinatorment‘s prompt “Scott vs any brother(s) in a prank war” for IRRelief but they would have to tell me if I can call it such :D Also tagging @agentfreelancer1 and @thunderbird-one-ai for reasons.

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Gordon was elated. He had found a new prank to try on his unwitting brothers, and it was one that, if he played his cards right, he would have enough money for that new set of diving gloves he had been eyeing for weeks. An expensive treat for yourself was, after all, always better if someone else paid the price for it. Gordon grinned and took the stairs nearly two at a time as he made his way to the kitchen.

Scott leaned against the countertop with his hands around a mug of coffee, sipping it with a relaxed air. Alan had just checked in from where he had taken John’s place on Five. The aforementioned red-haired astronaut had pretty much gone straight to bed and it seemed that the world was going to be a little quieter today. So far, the distress signals that had come through on the monitors had been simple things and the GDF had been happy enough to go and take care of them.

However, Scott’s relaxed grip on the cup of coffee tightened when Gordon came into the kitchen. When Gordon came in with that kind of predatory grin, it never ended well for any of them. Scott set his mug down and started to push himself off the counter, but Gordon bypassed him, moving over to the cupboard and beginning to pull down some cups.

“Gordon, what are you doing?” Scott asked warily. Anything involving liquid, especially when many in the house were still asleep, could be a dangerous thing. Gordon ignored his brother’s question and set four glasses and a shot glass on the counter. Scott arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t it a bit early in the day to start drinking?”

“What?” Gordon asked, looking confused. “No��no one’s drinking. Not alcohol anyway.” Scott frowned in confusion.

“Do I even want to know?” Scott asked, folding his arms as Gordon made his way over to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of orange juice. He began to fill up the four glasses part way and then filled the shot glass with orange juice as well.

“Will you relax, Scott?” Gordon asked as he capped the orange juice. “Honestly, what harm could I do with five glasses of orange juice?” Scott arched an eyebrow.

“Do you really want the answer to that question, Squid?” he asked. Gordon paused mid action of putting the orange juice back in the refrigerator to give Scott a look of mock injury.

“That hurts, Scott,” he said. “It hurts that you don’t trust your little brother.” He put the carton away and moved over to the row of glasses. “Just…humor me, ok?” Scott hesitated before letting out a long suffering sigh and moving over to where the glasses were lined up.

“Ok?” The wariness in Scott’s tone might have offended anyone if they weren’t the resident prankster in front of him. Gordon grinned and indicated the glasses.

“I bet you $100 that I can finish drinking all of these four glasses before you can finish that shot glass,” Gordon said. Scott frowned. There had to be a catch somewhere. Gordon wouldn’t make a bet he wasn’t confident he would win. He sensed a sucker bet, but couldn’t yet see how this could go sideways. “There are two rules, however.”

“Of course, here’s the catch,” Scott said. “Alright, let me hear them.” Gordon held up a finger for each rule.

“Number one: I’m allowed to drink my first glass and put it down before you start. Number two: we can’t touch each other’s glasses,” Gordon said. “So what do you say, Scott?” Scott thought about it for a second, muddling over every aspect of the bet, still not seeing where this could possibly go wrong for him. Scott took a breath.

“Ok, Squid, but I’m going to make you actually cough up that $100 when I win,” Scott said. Gordon’s grin nearly made Scott rethink his acceptance of this bet.

“You’re on, Scott,” Gordon said, reaching for the first glass. Gordon knocked it back and Scott looked ready to pounce on the shot glass to protect that $100 and to teach his little brother a lesson. Gordon gave an angelic smile as he overturned the glass he had just emptied and placed it over the shot glass, thoroughly encasing Scott’s shot glass inside his own. Scott sputtered in frustration.

“Gordon that’s cheating!” Scott said. Gordon casually picked up the second glass and sipped the orange juice slowly with a grin.

Easiest hundred bucks I’ve ever earned, Gordon thought to himself as he made his way casually through the other glasses, placing the last empty one down and holding out his hand for the money he had just conned his brother out of. Scott grumbled as he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his wallet, pulling out five twenty dollar bills and putting them in his brother’s outstretched hand.

“I hope you choke on your next glass of orange juice,” Scott said ill temperedly. Gordon laughed and downed the shot glass as well.

“No one likes a sore loser, Scott,” he said. “And you know what? To prove that you aren’t the only sucker in the family, the next brother that walks through the door, I’ll try the same thing on. I’ll even double the bet so you aren’t the biggest loser. But you can’t tell them anything or it will ruin the fun.” Scott rolled his eyes and returned to his coffee, picking it up to help nurse his wounded pride.

Gordon didn’t have long to wait for another brother to awaken. He pulled out the carton of orange juice again, filling up the glasses with a heavy pour as he heard footsteps descending the stairs. He gave a smile as John came into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes sleepily and stifling a yawn. John was always a little tired when he was readjusting his sleep schedule back to earth time.

“Hey Johnny,” Gordon said. “Got a bet for you.” John gave a sleepy glare.

“What kind of a bet? And don’t call me Johnny,” he said grumpily. While Virgil might have been a bear without his coffee, John during his circadian shift was a wolverine. You didn’t really want to incur his displeasure, yet Gordon smiled and pushed on.

“I bet you $200 that I can finish drinking all of these four glasses before you can finish that shot glass of orange juice. Only two rules are that I’m allowed to drink my first glass and put it down before you start and that we can’t touch each other’s glasses.” John looked at the glasses with a calculating expression. Gordon waited as John seemed to consider every angle.”

“Two hundred dollars you say?” John said, hiding another yawn. Gordon nodded.

“Two hundred dollars if you win,” Gordon said. John shook his head.

“I’m not concerned about that,” John said. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” Gordon’s grin widened into one that was almost more piranha than human. Scott pinched the bridge of his nose as John accepted the bet. He really didn’t want to see his smartest brother outwitted by the resident prankster.

“Ready, John?” Gordon asked. John nodded, folding his arms. Gordon picked up the first glass, raised it in a toast and drank it down easily. Gordon looked John in the eye as he encapsulated the shot glass once again. John looked unbothered. “Are you really going to make me finish all these, or are you just going to hand over your two hundred dollars now?” John maintained eye contact with Gordon, continuing to look unruffled.

“Hey, Scott?” John asked. Scott looked surprised at being addressed. He had honestly expected John to be a lot angrier about the outcome of all of this.

“Yeah, John?” John motioned to the cup over the shot glass.

“Mind moving the glass for me?” Gordon’s face paled.

“Hey, hey, hey! That’s cheating!” Gordon said. There was no way that he could finish the glasses before John could if Scott moved the glass. John shook his head.

“You said I couldn’t touch the glass, Gordon. You said nothing about outside help,” he said, as Scott moved over to lift Gordon’s glass. Gordon sputtered protests as John took the shot glass, raised it in a cheers before drinking it down, putting it on the counter. John looked at Gordon.

“I’d like my winnings in big bills,” John said, moving over to the pantry to extract a bagel for his breakfast.

“I hope you choke on that bagel,” Gordon said testily. Not only had he lost the $100 he had won from Scott, he even was out $100 from his own pocket. Scott laughed and smiled over his cup of coffee.

“Come now, Gordon,” he said. “No one likes a sore loser.”

#thunderbirds are go #fanfiction #my fanfiction #one of mine #gordon tracy #scott tracy #john tracy #irrelief #irrelief2021

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nlmorgan89 · 3 years

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Revenge

Jeff Tracy had been back on earth long enough to organise a surprise graduation for Alan when they got a call about a rescue in the Atlantic. Jeff should have been suspicious as John had said it was a Gold card members rescue, what ever that meant. What he was surprised about was after reading the names all his sons groaned and Scott, never leave anyone behind, Scott had asked if they were really needed. As a tidal wave was approaching them it was a neccesary rescue, what had happened to make everyone not want to rescue these people. He waited till everyone was gone before asking his mum.

"Why did no one want to rescue these people?" Jeff asked, she had been taking a nap and had not been there for the initial report.

"Who is it?" Sally asked, there was a sort list of people who her grandson's hated rescuing.

"Francois Lemaire and Langstrom Fishler. What?" Jeff asked again after she groaned and went to the desk calling Val.

"Tracy's if its about the Gold card members John already called us and I am on the way with some back up from The Mechanic, Rigby and Kayo." Val said she was sitting down in a cockpit already flying out to make sure that Scott did not do anything to tarnish the IR reputation.

"Thank god, just beware Lemaire already made Allie cry during his last rescue, if he gets upset you know what everyone else will do." Sally said, she had also sent Jeff copies of the rescues that the boys had done involving the Gold card members.

"Okay so you want me to deck him first before anyone else does." Val said the fact that she was serious was not lost on anyone.

"How did they survive into adult hood? Not even the boys managed to do half this shit in their teens." Jeff said, he wondered how both remained rich and working in their respective fields.

"I have no idea but I wont blame you if you want to throw your weight around, I remember your college days were some good times. Val, you and the Commando's where quite good at starting things and not getting caught." Sally said, they both grinned at that, but quickly went back to watching the rescue The Mechanic had assigned the ground and air crew with a dragonfly mecha and Gordon had his ray mecha. It was just a precaution so that no one was seriously hurt. Even John had EOS in drones so she could assist and keep an extra set of eyes on the family. While no one was hurt by some miracle was more down to the extra safety of the mecha's and EOS it was still time consuming. It would have only taken them an hour but it instead took them 7 hours so everyone was tired and hungry.

"Val are the Commando's still around?" Jeff asked once everyone was fed and in bed, Sally was in the hall listening them plan their revenge, she knew she should feel sorry for the poor idiot but they brought this on themselves. When the morning rolled around Jeff was watching the news and had to laugh when he saw the report.

"Yesterday, after International Rescue was called out to rescue the parties involved they were met with a rather pleasant surprise after waking to find themselves in a mysterious bubble. Maybe now they can let International Rescue rest and I am sure after seeing these videos the rest of the world will agree..."

"Why are they in a fish bowel?" Scott asked, he had wanted to thump them last night and had put that on the backburner after he had to hold both Virgil and Gordon back. Rigby and Val were to busy holding Kayo and The Mechanic back after he had made Alan cry, even EOS had placed John in quarantine lockdown so he didn't do anything stupid.

"No idea, but I would call that poetic justice. I am going to a lunch with some college mates on the main land, will pick up dinner so you don't need to cook anything mum." Jeff said, Sally was grinning she had not even heard Jeff leave the island but then it did not surprise her when he walked out and climbed into a SPECTRUM plane. Her poor family were totally confused.

Later... "Damn Jeff you have not changed at all. Shame Lee missed out on this?" Charles said, he was not surprised when a Commando's alert had gone out after he had watched the Tracy boys rescuing the idiots once more, even his own team had been called out during the Tracy's absence when they had gone to rescue their dad to save Lemaire.

"I have to agree, though it was rather fun," Samuel said, raising his glass to Jeff everyone followed suit. He too had wanted to kill Fishler after one of his machines almost killed the treaty that he had made with Titanica.

"So, what is the next prank?" James said, he was happy just to get away from his desk, it was no fun running a country but then he would not change it for anything.

"No idea, but we should team up next time prank wars break out in one of our divisions, show these youngsters how its done." Val said, she had been in a meeting reassuring the idiots that they had no idea how the bubbles had appeared and promising that they were doing everything in GDF's power to help them.

"Ready to watch Phase 2?" Jeff said, he had placed cameras around both houses so they could watch their pranks play out. Everyone nodded, as Jeff had only told them to come up with something to help contain all of his pranks thus the bubble. "Well hope they have a good cleaner on hand will secretly send them a massive donations once they have cleaned the buildings."

"Jefferson what exactly did you plan? Also congratulations on your re-election James." Val said, she was the only one that could get away with calling him Jefferson only because she could be as scary as Sally Tracy when she wanted to be.

"Thanks Val," James said, he noticed people snapping photos but he knew that they would not make it online thanks to Jeff's sons AI, EOS. "After lunch we should take a group photo for old times."

"Agreed, we should make it a regular thing too, we don't get breaks where we are able to leave work often." Samuel said, but started choking, how had Jeff added that much glitter to the water supply. Everyone was loosing it too for the sprinklers had started spraying the houses and yard with glitter. Poor Lemaire had just entered his shower and Fishler was doing his laundry. Jeff was grinning like that evil SOB that he was. Even Gordon's glitter bomb was tame compared to that.

"Is that really sanitary Jeff." Charles said, he was tearing up from laughing so much, glad he was best friends with him and not an enemy. That thought was going through all of there minds, it was fantastic having the master strategist back in charge. "Is that 'Sh*t List' playing?"

"Yes, OMG you even messed with all the audio devices dude." Samuel roared, he had to laugh they had discussed revenge songs and this one made the list only because of the one line. 'I grab my pen and I write up a list, of all the people that won't be missed. You made my shit list'.

"What can I say 11 years is a good way to expand ones prank list." Jeff said, which was truthful aside from thinking of his family he spent years thinking of ways to pay back Gordon if he decided to prank him once he was back. Turns out these three pranks were his best ones though he was saving the Kool-Aid in the pool for when Gordon was too much for the entire family. 3 hours later he was looking at the photo they had taken all his friends were surrounding him, and could not be prouder of his friendships and how even years later they were still great friends.

"Hi dad, who are they?" Alan asked, the boys had come in wanting to ask how his day away had gone, and surprising him with a visit by Lee Taylor.

"Hey Lee, boys, these are my college mates. Val your god-mother, Charles Grey the commander-in-chief of Spectrum's Cloudbase, Samuel Shore, commander of WASP, the last person is James Holland, president of the US." Jeff said, he watched as his boys stared open mouthed at this. Lee laughed, and clapped his friend over the shoulder, he had made it back and watched the news report of the bubbles that had appeared and realised his team had come together wishing he had been involved but kept his mouth shut. "Lee forgot to tell you James says you owe him some money after Moon base was destroyed."

#irrelief #@shirubie #gumnut-logic

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louthestarspeaker · 4 years

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Seaspray & Stardust

For @gumnut-logic‘s wonderful IR Relief challenge!

I was inspired by @scribbles97‘s prompt “John and Gordon and having stuff in common” I wrote a poem followed by a tiny ficlet :)

There is a reason why lost sailors look to the stars, And why the ocean is so visible from space.

The sea will always reflect the sky above it. Though the water is too restless to often see the picture.

The stars will always listen for the turning tide, Waiting for the moment when they're needed.

For when the waves break, The constellations all but shatter.

And when the sky weeps, The ocean rages with seething fury.

The two are far too different to be similar, But not quite so far as to be opposites. Both are dark and lonely in the depths, But both share the same horizons.

`*`

The moon rose to find the two brothers on the rocky shore of the island. Gordon with his sandals off, wading in the tide and skipping stones into the waves. John kneeling on the beach, never minding the feeling of the pebbles under his knees as he refocused his telescope on a new cluster of stars.

Gordon chattered on and on, talking about nothing and everything- little moments John had missed out on while on his rotation, dug up memories from years ago, jokes funny or ridiculous enough they warranted a retelling.

And just when Gordon began to doubt if his brother was still listening, John would look away from the stars, a half smile on his lips, and say something absurd enough to make him laugh or profound enough to make him wonder.

Then the wondering turned his thoughts inward, deeper than the chatter on his tongue, and he turned to the person he’d been chattering too. John was already watching him, because he knew when Gordon went silent, it was his turn to say something profound.

“You know I hate space, right?”

John was just able to stop the snort of laughter, but not keep his lips from twitching upward. “Yes, Gords. I know you hate space.”

Gordon smiled at his brother’s reaction, but it faded quickly. “It’s the vacuum thing that gets me. The part where you suffocate in an instant. ‘No one can hear you scream’ and all that jazz.”

Gordon hurled another stone into the sea, not trying for a skip this time, just seeing how far he could throw it and watching it sink. His eyes returned to John’s, and the understanding he found there urged him to go on.

“It’s… it’s scary how much the ocean can seem like space when you’re alone down there, no air left in your tank… But,” Gordon’s smile returned, more thoughtful than before, but no less honest. “But you heard me. And you talked to me. Thank you, John.”

John stood, wrapping his arms around Gordon in an embrace, grateful for the closeness. Space was too far sometimes. “You know you never have to thank me.”

The talk once again turned to chatter, and there they stayed, skipping stones and watching stars. Two brothers content in good company, one with seaspray on his face, one with stardust in his hair.

#irrelief2020 #irrelief #thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #john tracy #gordon tracy #Lou's Stories #lou writes things

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tracybirds · 4 years

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IRRelief for @tsarinatorment for your prompt “Teenage Scott getting a insignificant wound and any younger brother(s) jumping at the chance to play doctor” - you’ve written soooo many good responses for prompts, thank you!! I hope you enjoy this!!

@gumnut-logic as always thank you for organising these fun events :D

Scott has been given a slackline for his birthday :D Why? Silly question - why NOT? :D (ngl.... I’ve always wanted to try one that was my only motivation) They’re all small, but Alan is two and uh..... sorry to anyone who actually knows what is appropriate development for a two year old bc I do not and I have read so many child development articles that the google ads think I’m pregnant and for all that I’m still unsure of how I wrote him XD Toddlers man....

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“Should you have moved it up so high?” asked Virgil, as he checked over the ratchet holding the slackline in place one last time.

Scott scoffed as he climbed on a chair at the other end of the line.

“It’ll be fine, Virg, it’s barely four feet off the ground. You saw how easy it was, even Alan could do it.”

“Yeah, when it was six inches off the ground and you held him by the armpit the entire time.”

“Fine, Gordon then.”

Virgil shook his head and stepped back, remembering the guideline that Gordon had held tightly to as he’d walked the length of slackline between the two trees. Scott had taken it down as soon as their younger brothers had lost interest in the new birthday present and wandered inside in search for more cake. The two were now left alone, daring each other to move the line higher and higher with each successful balancing trick.

Scott took a deep breath and placed his foot firmly on the line. His leg wobbled violently, his body unable to stop the instinctive over corrections as it tried to find its centre of gravity. In a smooth, practiced motion, Scott shifted his weight to his shaking leg and stood as quickly as he could, flinging his arms out on either side. The chair was now far below him.

He didn’t dare look down at the ground.

One breath. Two. Tension mounted as the elastic bearing his weight skated beneath his hips.

Three breaths and he let it go, falling back to the safety of the chair.

“What was that?” scoffed Virgil, his arms folded across his chest. “That was barely a second.”

“It was at least five,” said Scott. He gritted his teeth, glaring at the slackline.

Another deep breath and he tried again.

The fabric was rough beneath his feet, drawing him down in a connection that linked him to every shift in the slackline’s position. He could feel his muscles working together correctly, knew that this time he would stabilise his balance.

His grin widened. He would stay mounted.

Below him, he could hear Virgil’s quiet encouragement.

Scott stared ahead at the tree trunk only fifteen feet in front of him, eyes gleaming. He’d done this before. Twenty steps. That’s all it would take.

He swung his left leg forward, carefully feeling for the right position before moving his weight forwards. He paid no mind to the jostling beneath his feet, allowing his knees and hips to absorb the motion and redirect it.

Feel. Steady. Shift. Let go. Repeat.

The movements were becoming more natural and Scott grinned as the bouncing line propelled him forwards, no longer an obstacle to overcome.

“Go Scott!”

Gordon was jumping up and down by the kitchen door, John and Alan watching with bright eyes and wide grins next to him.

Scott stumbled, just barely catching his balance as his front foot skidded from its mark. He tried to shift his weight back over the line, only for it to move in the opposite direction in a maddening game of chase.

“You can do it!”

He breathed in deep, trying to lift his gaze from the shaking elastic that was now reverberating through his entire body as his joints locked up.

Four feet up was a lot higher when looking down from nearly six feet of extra height.

He was getting dizzy watching his feet swaying back and forth. He leaned forward, bringing his free leg back to the slickline and took another step.

The cheers of his younger brothers distracted him for the barest millisecond, his eyes flitting downwards as he lost sight of the anchor steadying him.

A millisecond was all it took.

His foot slipped. His stomach dropped. The line snapped up and Scott yelped at the sharp slap against his thigh, while pulling his arms up to protect his head as he fell.

A resounding thud and dull aching pain, pulsing from every inch of his right side.

Scott’s groans mixed with a cacophony of sound that erupted the moment the world had turned sideways.

A faint ringing in his ears wasn’t enough to drown out Gordon, putting his lungs to good use for a change, or the high, nervous chatter of his other brothers surrounding him.

“Scott, look at me!”

Virgil held his shoulders still, looking worriedly into his eyes. Scott could almost hear the first aid checklist they’d been taught in Scouts running through his brother’s mind.

“I’m fine,” he said, moving to sit up. Virgil held him down.

“Did you hit your head at all?”

“No.”

“Any sharp or shooting pains?”

“None.”

“What hurts the most?”

Automatically, he moved his hand to his right hip and leg which had taken the brunt of the fall. Above him, he could feel Virgil relax.

“Okay, you’ll be fine.”

“Thanks for the prognosis, doc.”

He accepted the proffered hand and stood slowly, gingerly extending the injured limb. Virgil waited patiently and they walked together, Scott leaning heavily on his brother’s shoulder as he hobbled up the steps that lead to the small deck.

“That was some fall,” said John, fumbling with the child-proof gate. “Alan, no.”

Alan had torn his little hand from John’s and toddled forwards and grabbed Scott, clinging to his injured leg.

“Ow, Alan, let go,” said Scott with a grunt, collapsing onto the nearest bench.

“Owie?”

“Yes Alan, owie.”

Gently, John pulled Alan away.

“Scott’s hurt, Allie,” said Virgil, crouching down next to their baby brother. “He got an owie, but he’ll be okay soon.”

Alan’s large eyes flitted between Virgil and Scott. He looked uncertain, his small face scrunched up as he looked closely at the exposed knee, a purplish colour growing steadily across it.

“I fix owies,” he said proudly.

John and Virgil exchanged amused looks.

“Are you a doctor, Allie?”

“Yes,” said Alan, nodding vigorously. “Doc fix owies.”

“How does the doctor fix an owie then?”

“Look!”

Alan leaned forward and gently kissed the bruise. He patted it carefully and looked up at Scott beaming.

“All better!”

Scott laughed and picked him up, bouncing him up and down with his uninjured leg.

“All better,” he agreed. “Doctor Alan fixed me up.”

“Scott?! Gordon said you fell? Are you alright? Do you need arnica?”

Scott looked sheepishly up at the worried eyes of their mother.

“I’m all good, Mom. Just a tumble.”

“I helped!”

Scott laughed again. “Sure did, squirt. You sure did.”

#scott tracy #virgil tracy #alan tracy #thunderbirds are go #irrelief2020 #irrelief #sometimes i fic #do americans use arnica? surely.....#i'm only just thinking of this now #someone let me know if you don't ahaha #my entire childhood was arnica and frozen peas i got into a lot of scrapes XD

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hedwigstalons · 4 years

Text

Rite of Passage

This is written for #irrelief set up by @gumnut-logic. This is for both @tsarinatorment who wanted Scott teaching a younger brother how to fly, and @scribbles97 who wanted anything with Scott and Alan.

xoxoxox

“Up and at ‘em, birthday boy. These pancakes won’t last long if you don’t get down here quick.”

Grandma Tracy’s voice reverberated down the corridor to Alan’s room, stirring him in to action. At twelve years old he had lost the desire to be up at the crack of dawn and even his own birthday couldn’t entice him out of his room any earlier than was necessary. Although if pancakes were on offer that could only mean one thing – Virgil was cooking.

The thought of Virgil’s thick and fluffy pancakes gave him the final push he needed otherwise he risked losing his share. He thundered down the stairs towards the kitchen and snagged a stack of pancakes from the pile in the middle of the table. The serving platter was loaded to overflowing and the jug of maple syrup was still full. Despite the threats no one else had started although Gordon was practically drooling from his place at the far side of the table.

All the Tracy boys appreciated good food. It could be in short supply on a rescue and in even shorter supply on the island if Grandma Tracy took it into her head to care for them with a good old fashioned dose of home cooking. Taking their cue from Alan the stack of pancakes was soon demolished. Blocks of butter were carved in to. Syrup dribbles were slurped off fingers. The feeding frenzy only finished when Virgil announced that there was no more batter left, much to the disappointment of everyone present.

With his stomach finally full Alan was able to take a proper look around the table. For once all of his brothers were present, even John. Comms must have been routed through to the island to allow his space monitor sibling to attend. He appreciated the effort; having John around was a rare treat and he missed the sibling who had inspired his love of space. He just hoped the Earth stayed quiet for a few hours. It always hurt watching his brothers dash off in their craft to save the world. Since Gordon earned his full IR blues last year he was the only one left behind when a call for help came in.

There was still one noticeable gaping absence in the assembled company. The place at the head of the table was empty. No one yet had the heart to sit in the chair that had until recently been the preserve of their father. This was Alan’s first birthday since the Zero-X exploded. His first birthday without his father. The thought made the pancakes sit heavily in his stomach, as though they had been made of cardboard.

All joy seemed to leach out of the day.

Birthdays were meant to be special. Twelfth birthdays even more so. Turning twelve allowed a Tracy to obtain the freedom of the skies. That magical rite of passage that was the first time being in control of an aircraft. He was no stranger to flying as a passenger, all Tracys seemed to clock up air miles from birth, but to actually take control was a privilege that had so far been denied to him.

It had all started with Scott. Scott, who would bleed aviation fuel if you cut him and had been obsessed with the skies from the moment he had first been placed on a blanket outside as a baby to watch the clouds go by. Scott, who had been asking to fly since he could talk. Other boys might ask for bicycles for their birthday, Scott asked for aeroplanes. And when Scott turned twelve he had been deemed mature enough, and tall enough, to move into the pilot’s seat.

It was a milestone that had carried on with each brother in turn.

It was a milestone that Alan was to be denied. There was no father around to take him up and hand over control.

The celebration moved through to the lounge where a stack of presents were arranged on one of the sofas. Books, video games and new clothes all appeared from the brightly wrapped parcels. A box of snacks and candy from Gordon was quickly whisked away to his room to be hidden from thieving brothers. Even birthday candy wasn’t sacred if left in a communal area; exhausted brothers returning from the danger zone could demolish a pack of Oreos quicker than you could say ‘Thunderbirds are go!’.

Soon there were no more parcels left.

“So, Alan, any plans for your big day?” Scott asked.

With his attention taken up with reading the back of one of the video game boxes Alan completely missed the smirks that were exchanged between his brothers.

“Maybe play one of these. Anyone up for it?” He held up one of the boxes. A space rocket filled the cover and the tagline promised intergalactic adventures that were out of this world.

“Sorry. Maybe later. I’ve got some maintenance to do.”

The disappointment on Alan’s face was clear to all as Scott turned and headed off towards the hangers.

“Anyone?” He waved the box in a hopeful manner but the lounge was already clearing as everyone went off to their respective duties.

“Sorry, Al. I don’t really have time for games. Scott’s right, there is maintenance to do. If you come and give me a hand on Three I might get done in time for a game before I head back up to the office.”

Alan perked up at this prospect. Thunderbird Three was his favourite craft but one he was rarely allowed near. The mighty space rocket seemed to call out to him and he longed to one day feel her power. Every time she launched in to orbit Alan could be found drooling at the windows of the villa. It was a sight he never grew tired of. The thought of spending time with John was also not to be sneezed at.

Alan willingly followed John to the elevators but instead of heading towards Thunderbird Three’s silo John started leading the way towards the private hanger. Alan trailed along behind. Maybe John needed to collect some tools or speak to one of the others first. They would get to the rocket soon enough and then Alan could lose himself in the mighty machine. If he was lucky John might even let him sit in the pilot’s seat.

As he entered the hangar Alan found himself blinking. Bright tropical sunshine spilled through the open door, exposing the view of the runway and the ocean beyond.

Once his eyes stopped watering and adjusted to the brightness Alan noticed his brothers and Grandma all gathered round. There, lined up to exit the hanger, was the small two-seater propeller plane that rarely saw the light of day. Probably not since Gordon had turned twelve.

“You didn’t think we would forget would you?” Scott stepped forwards, already kitted out in his blues and holding out one final parcel.

Alan stepped forwards to meet him and accepted the gift. He peeled off the paper almost reverentially, partly because of the significance of the gift and partly because he knew better than to leave litter in the hangar that could get sucked in to aircraft engines.

Hidden underneath the folds of paper was a familiar flash of blue. He shook out the material and held up the small flight suit. The stiff cotton was unblemished and still heavily creased in its newness. He rubbed his thumbs over the material as he held the suit by the shoulders. A patch badge on the breast proclaimed ‘A. TRACY’.

It might not be the high-tech material of his brothers’ uniforms but it was his. A symbol of the next stage of his life. Each brother in turn had been gifted their first flight suit on turning twelve. The significance of the colour was not lost on him. For each of the others the flight suit had been in the traditional green used by the US Air Force. His was sky blue with patches of a slightly darker shade on the knees and elbows. This suit was proof that one day he would be accepted as a Thunderbird. Provided he could actually master flying.

He undid the velco down the front of the suit with a satisfying rip and stepped in. The legs and arms were a little long but it gave him some growing room. Scott knelt down in front of him and folded up the cuffs into a fetching pair of turnups while Alan rolled back the sleeves a couple of turns.

“Can’t have these catching on the controls.” Scott murmured and he stood up, stepping back to admire his handiwork. “You ready?”

Alan could only nod dumbly as Scott led him over the aircraft and helped him in.

The aircraft was rather more basic than anything else in the Tracy fleet. Dual controlled with a simple stick and rudder pedals. It was the perfect trainer plane to learn the principals of flight. Of course it had had a few Tracy upgrades over the years. The instruments were now more in line with those found on the Thunderbirds and the comms unit was able to connect to the secure International Rescue frequencies. The technology was nothing new to Alan who had grown up with a lot of these features as standard but an outsider might have found the juxtaposition between high and low tech to be a touch strange.

“At least you are a bit taller than Gordon was” Scott said as he slotted himself into the second seat by Alan’s side, “Dad had to put him on a booster wedge.”

Alan smirked a little about this piece of ammunition. His next older brother made a big thing about Alan being the baby of the family. Next time Gordon teased about him having homework to do or not being allowed to swim without on of the others present Alan knew just what he would throw back in his fish brother’s face.

Lost in his imaginings of being able to retaliate against Gordon Alan missed that Scott had stared speaking again. Information about pitch, roll and yaw; rudders, flaps and ailerons had passed him by.

“Earth to Alan.”

A hand was waved in front of his face, jerking him back to reality.

“Huh. What was that, Scotty?”

“Wake up, kid. This thing won’t learn to fly itself. I said the stick controls the flaps and ailerons” Scott gave the stick a waggle and Alan watched as sections on the wings and tail moved correspondingly, “and the pedals control the rudder”. Alan turned around and saw the rudder section in the tail swing left and right as the pedals at his feet shifted, mirroring the action caused by Scott manipulating his own pedals. “Now lets get this baby fired up. Just watch what I do for now. You can keep your hands and feet on the controls but make sure you don’t put any pressure on them, just touch them lightly so you can feel what I’m doing.”

Scott’s fingers flew deftly over the various switches in the cockpit. The engine stuttered in to life and the propeller began to turn until it was a near-invisible blur at the front of the plane. A few more switches that Alan recognised as belonging to the radio and they were ready to go.

“Trainerbird One requesting permission to take off”.

John’s hologram popped up in the cockpit showing that he had evidently headed back to the lounge to run comms.

“Trainerbird One you are cleared for take off.”

Alan felt the small aircraft vibrate as Scott increased the power and they slowly rolled forwards towards the hanger doors and the outside world. Soon they were moving at speed towards the end of the runway and Alan was suddenly struck by how short the strip was. Normally he was the passenger section of one of the jets or they used VTOLs. The small training craft gave him an entirely new perspective of the world.

Scott really was a master of all things aeronautical and Alan barely felt them leave the ground despite the most basic component of the Tracy fleet providing little protection against the pull of forces. He kept a fingertip touch on the controls and felt the aircraft turn and dip to Scott’s commands. The ocean glittered below, blending with the crystal clear sky on the distant horizon.

Despite normally piloting the most advanced plane in the world Alan could tell that Scott was enjoying himself too. The small propeller plane was neither fast nor elegant but the primitive controls only served to deepen the connection between man and machine. Every action had a reaction which was fed back to the pilot via the controls. Every gust of wind was felt and needed to be responded to. Pilot and craft needed to work in harmony rather than one assuming control of the other.

“You ok there Alan? Feel ready to take control for a bit?”

Alan looked across at his eldest brother, his eyes shining.

“Really?”

“Sure. Just avoid hitting the island and you’ll be fine. You have control.”

“I have control” Alan responded, parroting the interaction between pilot and co-pilot that he had witnessed so many times previously.

And then he did. Scott’s hands were no longer on the stick but were instead placed neatly in his lap. Alan had no doubt that those same hands would be back on the controls in an instant if anything went wrong but for now the sky was his own.

After a couple of minutes of level flying, circling around the island, Scott looked across at his youngest brother. He could tell that Alan was just itching to try something a little more adventurous.

“Go on, put her through her paces. I’m here if anything goes wrong.”

Alan needed no second bidding. Soon the small plane was dipping and turning. First moving with the wind, then against, as he got a feel for the craft and her abilities. The freedom of the skies was his and he could see why his brothers soon got miserable if they were grounded. Even Gordon, whose natural habitat was in the ocean, was not immune to the lure of the skies and griped if he couldn’t get airborne. His heart soared as he felt the shifting air currents and the pull of the forces as he coaxed the plane through progressively more ambitious and demanding manoeuvres.

All too soon it was time for lesson one to come to an end as Scott took control again with Alan gently feeling the movements required for landing. The short runway rushed up as Scott took the steep approach angle necessitated by their island home. A subtle bump and bounce announced their reconnection with the ground.

Once the craft was still Scott reached out and draped an arm around his brother’s shoulders. In the confined space of the cockpit they had been practically touching for the whole flight and it took no effort at all to turn it in to some semblance of a hug.

“So what did you think, Al? Another lesson tomorrow if rescues allow? You did great up there.”

Alan nodded against his brother’s shoulder, not trusting his voice as an unexpected wave of emotion washed over him.

Scott sensed the younger boy stiffen against him. He looked down and spotted the moisture welling up in Alan’s eyes, the clenched jaw showed just how hard Alan was fighting to stay in control.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Did...did I really do ok?”

“Yeah. I’m proud of you. Dad would have been proud too.”

And that was the tipping point. Alan twisted in the confined space and Scott found himself wrapped in a tight embrace as Alan fully buried his face in the shoulder of Scott’s uniform, sobs wracking his body. Scott rubbed a hand gently up and down the back of Alan’s flight suit, letting Alan have his moment and burn out in his own time.

Soon the moment had passed. With one final sniff Alan pulled himself out of the embrace and suddenly became very interested in the wall of the hanger visible through the side windows of the cockpit.

“I mean it Alan.” Scott spoke to the back of Alan’s head. “Dad would be so proud of you today. I know it’s not the same for you but it was an honour to take you up today. You’re a natural up there.”

Alan turned back to face him, a grin splitting his face.

“So, next time you’re going to take me up in Thunderbird One?”

“Nice try, kid. Nice try.”

#irrelief #irrelief2020 #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #Scott Tracy #alan tracy #birthdays #learning to fly

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scribbles97 · 4 years

Text

Trapped

IRRelief Fic filling prompts from @hodgehegposts @eirabach and @darkestwolfx

Prompts being

Pen and Ink + getting your own back

Any characters – trapped in a lift/elevator

One of the brothers being ticklish

So, it hadn’t been how he had planned to start their romantic weekend away but he was at least grateful that he was there with Penelope.

Even if it was stuck in an elevator half way up to their hotel suite.

The irony was that it was his brothers that had shut off the power, an electrical fire downtown of the hotel requiring their part of the grid to be shut off for the time being. Not that he’d been keeping tabs or anything.

John had told them he wasn’t sure how long it would take, fire crews were busy helping with the blaze, priority on those in immediate danger over the pair of them having a slight delay in the start of their weekend activities. Gordon hadn’t been able to help himself as he’d thrown a sly smile towards Penny, a raised eyebrow had seemed to get the message across as she had shook her head and given him a firm negative response.

Yeah, he supposed it wouldn’t go down too well if someone turned up to rescue them in the middle of that.

“I am so going to get them back for this,” He muttered, tilting his head back against the mirrored wall of the elevator, “Thirty seconds. That was all we needed, and then we could have been up there enjoying our evening.”

“Darling,” Penny sighed, reaching out to touch his arm, “I highly doubt it was intentional on your brothers part.”

He huffed, shaking his head as he folded his arms, “They knew Pen. They knew what getting away this weekend meant and--”

The squeeze of her hand on his arm cut him off, shaking her head at him she smiled, “Darling it’s okay. We’ll get there eventually and catch up on things.”

That was just the problem though, she didn’t understand the importance of that evening. He had been planning it for months, trying ridiculously hard to keep a lid on his plans and keep her in the dark about it all. This was Penelope though, someone who made it her business to know everyone else's business. Keeping a secret for Gordon was hard enough, without having to keep it from the woman he shared everything with.

Tilting her head, she frowned at him slightly, “What was so important about it being this weekend anyway? Parker insisted I rearranged my meeting with the Guide Dogs society.”

Winning Parker over had possibly been the hardest part of the whole endeavour. Buying the elder man’s silence had perhaps been even harder

“Nothing much,” He lied with a shrug, pursing his lips slightly as her hand tightened again on his arm, “Just wanted it to be special at all.”

“Darling, you always were dreadful at lying to me,” She whispered leaning into him, “You’ve been up to something, John told me as much, and you’ve kept it from me.”

Her tone was low, the kind of dangerously quiet murmur that just screamed trouble.

One of her hands reached down to his hip, “I’m going to get my own back for you keeping secrets.”

Oh god. He knew that look, the narrowed eyes with that glint that sparkled in the blues of her iris’. The way her mouth curled up ever so slightly as she leant in and her fingers reached under his shirt just above his hip bones, digging in just enough.

“No!” he begged, unable to help but laugh as he tried to squirm away from her in the limited space, “No! Penny please-- Don--” He broke off in a breathless giggle as she continued to tickle him, her fingers finding all the most sensitive spots to make him writhe.

“Pen!” He gasped, wriggling out of her reach, “Oh come on, that’s just mean, you know how ticklish I am!”

She laughed softly, her smile wide as she watched him, “All the better for getting my own back.”

Righting himself and resuming his position sat up against the mirror, he shook his head. She was evil when it suited her, but god, he loved her for it. A devil and an angel all wrapped up into one.

“I do know, you know?” She murmured as he shuffled back towards her, lifting his arm to rest across her shoulders. Shifting into him, she rested her head against his chest, fitting against him like a piece of a puzzle.

“Know what?” He asked before pressing his lips to her hair, the smell of orchids still fresh and sweet from her shampoo.

“It’s two years today since I saved you.”

She didn’t need to expand, they both knew just what she was referencing. Still, he could help but hold her a little tighter, breathe in the smell of orchids a little deeper.

“Marry me.” He found himself murmuring against her hair, “Lady Penelope Creighton- Ward, would you marry me?”

It hadn’t at all been how he had planned. There was meant to be a dinner and candles, music and moonlight, and a chance to build himself up to asking her perhaps the biggest question of his life.

Somehow though, the way it had come out just seemed right.

Even if it was whilst they were trapped in an elevator.

Her eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open as she floundered for words. Gordon could feel his heart in his throat as he waited, praying just to hear a single word.

“That was what all this was about?” She finally choked out, “You--” She caught herself, shaking her head as she smiled, a laugh breaking free, “Of course I will Gordon.”

He had to sigh in relief, sinking back against the wall in relief as she leant in to kiss him. Brief and sweet and purely a tease of what would no doubt come later. He still missed her as she pulled away, her brow creased in thought.

Before she could speak, he shrugged apologetically, “The ring is up in the room, so you’ll have to wait for it I’m afraid.

Her laugh was bright and lit up her whole face, “I wasn’t thinking of that darling. I was thinking how I’m somewhat cross at John for telling me you were up to something.”

He grinned and shrugged, “We’ll get him back next time he’s home. Your brains and my pranks, we’ve got to be a force to be reckoned with.”

She settled back into his side, humming thoughtfully, “I don’t doubt we can come up with something before they come and find us.”

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfic #Thunderbirds 2015 #Pen and Ink #Lady Penelope #Gordon Tracy #irrelief2020 #irrelief #scribbles writes

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willow-salix · 4 years

Text

Isolation update and this was based on two prompts by @eirabach and @cloudkicker09 for the irrelief challenge by @gumnut-logic. Big thanks to the amazing @avengedbiologist for the art collab!

Day 83 of Isolation on Tracy Island and our poor Virgil is still feeling a little tender . His back is a lot better but he’s still having to be careful how he’s sitting and so we’ve banned him from doing anything remotely strenuous. For Virg, this is hard. He’s usually quite happy to chill out for a few hours and do nothing but that’s when it's on his terms, not when he’s been ordered to stay put. Then he needs some bribery.

“OK,” I started, “what do you want? What’s gonna get you to stay put?”

He thought about it for a moment or two and then he dropped his bombshell.

“Couch day. If I have to stay put, so do you all.”

I glanced around at everyone else who nodded. They could do that.

“On one condition,” Virgil threw in. “You know those special things we ordered online a few weeks ago and were saving for Christmas?”

My mouth dropped in shock. “Oh, ohmigods! Are they here? Did they arrive?”

He nodded, grinning evilly. “Picked them up last supply run and hid them in my wardrobe.”

“Yessss! Can I go get them?”

He nodded again.

“Woohoo!” I ran off like I had Thunderbird Three up my butt.

“Why do I get the feeling that we’re going to hate this?” I heard John sigh as I left the room.

***

“I feel ridiculous,” John groaned, looking down at his outfit in obvious disgust.

“Nooo,” I assured him. “You look gorgeous!”

“Well I love mine!” Alan grinned, spinning around to look at his reflection in the window.

“Me too,” Gordon agreed, checking out his backside in another window. “Look at my little fin!”

“Mines a tad too short,” Scott pointed down where he was showing a good six inches of ankle and hairy calf below the cuffs.

“Mines so comfy,” Virgil moaned, snuggling deeper into the warm material.

“Mines actually kind of cool,” Kayo admitted. She looked as awesome as always, curled up like a cat in one of Alan’s bucket seats, her black and silver onesie fitted her like a glove and she was clearly revelling in the soft warmth it provided.

“I’m not putting the hood up,” John stated, thumping down on the couch and crossing his arms in protest.

“Oh come on, it’s so cosy,” Alan wheedled, having already tugged up the hood of his red onesie, the pointy top forming the nose cone of his Thunderbird.

Virgil and I had been rather bored, it had been late and we had stumbled across a fan site that had made its own International Rescue merchandise. A few clicks later and we had purchased one of every onesie they possessed and then found me a cute little halloween bat onesie so I could join in. I loved it and was currently flapping my wings excitedly.

Virgil's was, of course, big and green, the yellow trim and red cuffs looked great on him. His hood was rounded like Two’s nose and his arms had flaps of material that attached down to his sides to give him wings. The large lettering of Thunderbird Two straight down his sides completed the look.

Gordon’s was bright yellow with a red stripe around the middle and midway up his calves and he had a fin that started halfway down his back and reached right down to his butt, flaring out wider the lower it got. His also said Thunderbird Four down the sides.

Alan’s had a grey striped strip around his belly and back, a white collar and white cuffs and was just the cutest thing ever with Thunderbird Three running down his chest in white and with a white three on each ankle.

Scott’s was simply glorious, his hood sported a pointy red cone, two dark grey stripes circled his upper chest and back and his arms also had wings like Virgil’s. The lower legs (which was more just below the knee for him) were blue and the ankles and cuffs were the same dark grey as the stripes on his chest. Thunderbird One was written in white on his chest and he looked amazing. Clearly he thought so too if the poses he was striking were any indication.

John’s was a little more elaborate than the other boys and honestly I don’t completely blame him for his reaction. His hood had a soft, bendy circle hovering above it like a weird angel halo, made to represent Five’s gravity ring and was grey on the outside and red on the inside, which also had International Rescue written on it in white letters. His chest area was a puffy ball where the monitoring station would be, making him look like he had suddenly developed a massive beer belly. The legs were yellow and his ankles (it was a little short on him too) had two stiff panels that stuck out. I thought they were adorable, he hated them with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

“Stop being so grumpy,” I told him, dropping down next to him and attempting to snuggle the bad mood out of him as we all prepared to watch Virgil’s movie of choice, La La Land, another musical but this was his day so we weren’t going to complain.

Drinks were gathered, snacks were shared out and everyone got comfy as the movie started. Surprisingly enough it wasn’t one that I’d watched before and I found it quite enjoyable although Alan and Gordon were clearly not impressed, come to think of it, neither were Kayo and Scott.

As soon as the movie ended all four of them made their escape, leaving John and I to keep Virgil company.

“This was not part of the deal,” Virgil yelled after them, they ignored him. “You have to at least keep your onesies on!” he ordered.

“Sorry about them,” I said, getting up to fetch him another drink and at his request, his sketchbook and pencils.”You just can’t trust family.”

“What am I, invisible?” John asked, batting at one side of the gravity ring that kept getting in his way.

“No, you’re awesome,” I answered.

“Suck up,” Virgil laughed, then winced when his back twinged.

“Will you sit still!” I ordered, plumping his pillow and settling him back.

“Is she always this bossy?”

“Hard to imagine, given how quiet she usually is, but yes,” John answered dryly, picking up his abandoned book. I smacked his shoulder in retaliation but still used him as a pillow as I located the magazine I’d been reading and went back to the article about vampires in Scotland.

We chilled quietly for around half an hour before a voice broke the silence.

“John, I’m bored.”

“You don’t get bored, EOS,” he replied, glancing over at her portable drive which he’d left on the coffee table. “At least you’re not supposed to.”

“It feels like I am. You told me that when someone has nothing left to do they get bored, that’s why you keep sending Alan out to collect space debris.”

Virgil sniggered.

“I have finished all the tasks you set for me and I have downloaded today’s statistics to your comm so now, I believe, I am bored.”

EOS had been brilliant in keeping Five running smoothly in between John’s daily visits in which he spent a few hours with her checking in on the world. Sometimes I went with him, or one of the others, but she had been alone for the majority of the time. We had grown used to checking in with her at night too, talking to her before we settled for the night and she often popped up with a question or two during the day.

With so little to do for International Rescue in the way of actually rescuing people she had taken to it upon herself to work her way through every encyclopedia that had ever been uploaded to the internet, to familiarize herself with customs and cultures around the world and, weirdest of all, pop culture and slang words. That had made for some interesting conversations, especially when the younger two got involved.

“What are you all doing to relieve your boredom?” she asked.

“Reading,” I answered, lifting my magazine to show her.

“Reading,” John answered, displaying his book.

“Drawing,” Virgil answered.

Her lights flickered for a few seconds.

“Reading I understand, if one wishes to gain knowledge then reading is an acceptable way to do so. But drawing serves no purpose.”

“Uh oh,” John muttered, ducking into his hood.

“Serves no purpose?” Virgil gasped, shocked to his very core by her words. “Of course it does.”

“It has no function.”

“It does!”

“Can we not argue about this?” I asked.

“I’m not arguing,” Virgil insisted. “I’m educating, is that OK?.”

“Anything that will keep her occupied,” John shrugged. EOS had taken to playing with the comms and the fire alarms when she had nothing to do, so we needed more to amuse her.

Virgil reached for the drive but groaned, his back protesting. I got up and fetched it for him, handing it over. He settled back against his cushions and set the drive on his shoulder like a weird parrot.

“Art,” he began, “can’t be broken down into functions and reasoning, art is about feeling.” He sketched a few lines on his pad. “Humans are complicated creatures; they all have different likes and dislikes, things that they love and things that they hate. Art, above all else, makes us feel, even if it's a negative emotion.”

Virgil had a lovely voice to listen to, soft and warm, you just couldn’t help but pay attention to everything he said. I put my magazine down and snuggled closer to John, settling like it was story time.

“Art comes in many forms, music, literature, photography, sculpting, cooking, anything and everything that is creative is a form of art. For as long as there has been humans, there has been art, humans have an inherent need to create, to make things, to leave their mark on the world in some way or another. Look at you.”

“What about me?” EOS asked, having been listening silently, her lights flickering thoughtfully.

“You evolved from game code that John created, you yourself are a form of art. And you yourself create things every day.”

“How do I?” EOS had been learning to emulate tone and expressions, putting them into her voice whenever she thought it was appropriate, it could be pretty hit or miss, but this time she sounded genuinely puzzled.

“You form pictures, you create charts, you correlate data and display it. That’s a form of art.”

“But that art has a purpose, it's to display information.”

“And so does all art, it can be pretty, it can be ugly, you might not understand it, but it will still make you feel something. That’s it’s purpose.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“People like to see pretty things, they make them feel better when they feel bad. Pictures can remind them of good things, paintings of people they love make them smile, pictures of places they have been to bring back memories of good things.”

“Why do you draw when you could just take a photograph? Drawings and paintings are not accurate, they are filled with inaccuracies.”

“Because some things can’t be captured with a photograph, they may not exist anywhere but in your own mind.”

“I cannot picture something that I have no reference for. If it does not exist it cannot be pictured.”

“Of course it can, things can't be simplified to if they can be referenced or not, you can paint emotions, you can play feelings, you can bake love. If what you are making makes you feel, or when you look at something, hear something, taste something or smell something, it can trigger emotions within you.”

“I’m not sure I understand, because I cannot feel.”

“Of course you can, you feel love, friendship, loneliness, you feel a lot and you’re learning more every day,” John assured her.

“But they are not art, I cannot picture those things,” EOS argued.

“I’ll show you what I mean,” Virgil assured her.

Virgil turned to a fresh sheet of paper and picked up his pencil.

“It’s human nature to create faces and pictures of things that we cannot see but that we interact with,” Virgil continued, his pencil flying over the page. “How do you two picture EOS?”

“I see her as a small girl, not too young because they are annoying,” I started, ignoring John’s snort of amusement, I can’t help it if I’m not a kiddy person. “Maybe around ten, eleven years old, a tween that can swing between moody and loving in an instant.”

“Accurate,” John agreed.

“I picture her with hair down to her shoulders maybe, sometimes in pigtails if she’s in a bratty mood.”

“I’m never bratty,” EOS argued petulantly.

"I beg to differ," John whispered to me.

“I see her hair as maybe a strawberry blonde, maybe somewhere between John and Gordon’s hair colour,” I continued, getting into my stride. Having had no part of her creation and no understanding of how code or computers of any kind worked all I had been able to do was assign her a face so I knew who I was talking to. Virgil was right, us humans always had to put a face to a voice. If we heard someone on the radio we would get an impression of who the voice could belong to, what the person speaking would look like and I had done exactly that.

“I’ve never really thought about it before, but I think she’d have green eyes,” John added, his eyes closed as if he were picturing her in his mind.

“With a cute little nose and a smattering of freckles just like Alan has,” I added.

“I sound quite pleasant,” EOS said thoughtfully.

“What clothes would you choose?” Virgil asked, still sketching.

“Since I live in Thunderbird Five, if I had a body to clothe I would need a suit like John’s.”

“Makes sense,” Virgil agreed, frowning slightly as he concentrated on his work.

“I think I would like a hairband like Kayo has,” EOS mused.

“Hairband, got it,” Virgil answered her, pencil moving back and forth in soft strokes a few more times. “OK, finished.” He turned his pad around for us to see.

“Oh, she’s adorable!” I squeaked. “She’s just how I pictured her.”

“She’s very cute,” John smiled. “Can I keep that?”

“Sure, I’ll colour it later for you.” Virgil turned the pad for EOS to see. “That’s you, EOS.”

“That’s me?”

“Well, it’s how we picture you. See, your body doesn’t exist, this face doesn’t exist, but it’s still in our heads. It’s how we see you and when we look at this, we feel happy and we feel love, because it’s you. Do you understand art now?”

“Yes,” her tone had changed from thoughtful to confident. “Yes I think I do.”

#virgil tracy #EOS #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds #irrelief #isolation island

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tsarisfanfiction · 3 years

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Toffee: Chapter 4

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Gen Genre: Family Characters: Scott, Gordon, John, Grandma, Tracy Family

It’s 5am and I just remembered I promised a fic update last weekend that never happened, so it’s happening this weekend instead. Whoops. So here we have the next instalment of this #irrelief fic for @gumnut-logic‘s prompt “toffee on the couch”.

The tale of woe continues for Scott, because this is far from over and the Gordon&John&Grandma tag team is brutal. What did he ever do to deserve all this? Oh yeah, drop some toffee on the couch. Whoops.

<<<Chapter 3

It was the second night in a row that Gordon had gone to bed early. Begging off from Grandma’s dinners was hardly unusual – Scott himself was guilty of that, as were all of his brothers – but getting himself sent to bed when the sun had yet to touch the ocean was something Gordon usually evaded. Despite Grandma’s assurances that he would be fine after a good night’s sleep, Scott was disturbed enough by the uncharacteristic behaviour to check in on his younger brother.

When Gordon did uncharacteristic things, that meant one of two things: he was ill, or a prank was brewing. Scott didn’t particularly care for either of those, especially for as long as he was on laundry duty and the fallout of a prank would get added to his workload.

“Gordon?” he called, knocking on the aquanaut’s door. A muffled groan was his response, and he took that to mean ‘come in’, despite the fact his younger brother probably meant something more along the lines of ‘go away’. The door opened easily and he stepped inside to find his brother bundled up under his blanket. He was lying on his side, curled around his stomach, and Scott crossed the room in several, quick, strides to crouch down beside him.

“You shouldn’t lay like that,” he reminded him, touching Gordon’s shoulder gently. Amber eyes opened and regarded him balefully.

“I’ll lay however I want,” the younger Tracy grumbled. “What did she even do to dinner today?” Scott supressed his own feelings of nausea at the recollection and offered him a commiserating smile.

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “But stomach ache or not, you’ll make your back worse if you sleep like that.”

Gordon let out a groan of protest, but Scott would not be deterred, gently poking and prodding him until he unfurled from his foetal position and straightened his spine.

“You’ll thank me when you get up,” he reminded him, and Gordon let out disgruntled mutterings that consisted of a flippant yeah, yeah, and something that sounded suspiciously like smother hen. Scott shook his head fondly, before lightly mussing blond hair. It was crisp from too much chlorine, as per usual. Not quite so usual for Gordon not to wash it out before bed, though. “And don’t forget to wash your hair in the morning.” He got another round of yeah, yeahs and smother hen, and chuckled. “Sleep well.”

A simple case of stomach upset didn’t require a constant vigil – it had, once upon a time, but then Grandma had become head chef and minor stomach aches became commonplace. None of his brothers permitted him to fuss over that, so long as it remained minor, and with the frequency Scott would never have time for anything else if he did. Therefore, it was with a fond smile and barely any reluctance that Scott left Gordon to his misery. If he was still bad in the morning, then Scott would worry; Grandma’s cooking rarely left anyone incapacitated for long – a small mercy.

Seeing Gordon all snuggled up in bed put him in longing mind for his own. What with the washing machine packing in, all the handwashing required, and the mudslide rescue – with more handwashing required afterwards – Scott was quite tempted to give up on the day and hide under his own covers until morning. Unfortunately, duty called and he reluctantly traipsed back down to the desk to face the paperwork. John might have done the rescue report, saving him one hell of a battle to recall everything that had happened in that mud-covered nightmare, but Tracy Industries had their own paperwork to be completed.

With the chair cover still hanging up to dry, the desk was an unattractive place to sit, however, and Scott allowed himself the small vice of picking up the laptop and collapsing into Alan’s pilot seat to get the work done. Loading up the metaphorical pile, Scott was pleasantly surprised to find there was less there than he remembered. Oh, that approval should still have been sent out the previous day – and that one, too – but there was less outstanding work to do than he’d thought.

He might actually get to sleep in his poor, neglected bed tonight. That was a motivating thought, and he tackled the first in the stack with vigour, startling Alan who entered the room with his virtual headset.

“Uhh… Scott?”

He waved him over.

“Go ahead; I don’t have much work to do.”

Alan’s look of uncertainty morphed into one of glee, and he air punched. “Hell yeah! Cavern Quest Final Chamber here I come! Again.”

Scott chuckled at his enthusiasm, fondly remembering when he had the free time to play video games as a teenager. It was always good to see that being a part of International Rescue hadn’t stifled that freedom for Alan. Unfortunately, his freedom for that sort of thing was long gone, and wouldn’t come back as long as he had a backlog of paperwork to do, so with a final fond look at his brother swinging an imaginary weapon and declaring challenges to Blagworts – whatever those were – he returned to the laptop and work.

Despite being less than he thought, it still took him the better part of three hours to clear all the ones he was supposed to have returned by then; he glowered at one merrily telling him it was due in 8 hours – stupid timezones – before dismissing it for later. The moon was high in the sky, the villa taking on the reddish hue it often did in the late evening. Alan had retreated to his bedroom at some point, maybe an hour ago although Scott hadn’t checked the time, and it was with great delight that Scott realised it was before midnight.

He could make a start on that next group of paperwork and maybe even get some of it done on time – a momentous occasion that would probably give the secretary and board of directors a heart attack – or he could go to bed.

Memories of Gordon comfortably snuggled under a blanket several hours earlier won. He’d save his employees the heart attack and get some sleep. Barring paperwork taking less time than usual, the day had been pretty awful and actually getting to relax in his sorely neglected bed sounded nothing short of heavenly.

He sent a suspicious eye to John’s portrait, half-expecting a midnight emergency (midnight here, probably a perfectly respectable mid-afternoon in the danger zone), but his brother didn’t appear and he unceremoniously shoved the laptop back in the desk before dimming the lights and making a beeline for his room.

It was, predictably, just as he’d left it. He toyed with the idea of a shower before bed, but decided against it. A shower was likely to wake him up, and that was the last thing he needed right then. He made do with kicking off his shoes and tucking them in their little corner of the room before vanishing into the bathroom to perform the required evening ablutions and shrugging on some sleepwear.

From there, it was a perfectly simple matter to send a sleepy call to John letting him know he was turning in for the night, worm his way under the blanket, and let the sandman visit.

A shrill ringing jerked him awake, and with a groan he rolled over to swipe at the alarm clock controls on his bedside table, only to freeze. All noisy alarms were immediately forgotten at the sensation of something sticky against his leg, and with a hopeless prayer that it was not what he thought it was, a tentative peeling back of the blankets revealed melted toffee gluing him to his bedsheet.

How the hell had that got there?

A pounding on his door jerked him back to the present.

“Shut that thing up before it wakes the bear!” Clearly Gordon was recovered from last night’s dinner and back to his usual habits, as Scott had thought he would be. “Scott!”

With a groan he reached out for the controls once again and swiped the off command. The shrill ringing was replaced by a phantom one in his ears and he shook his head to clear it before regarding the brown mess on his leg and sheet with something that might have resembled despair, although he’d deny it if anyone came in and saw it. Certainly the moisture in his eyes was typical morning yawn-induced liquid and nothing to do with tears of frustration.

More laundry, and he hated bed linen anyway. With his promise to Virgil about no more toffee in the washing machine, he was also going to have to wash it by hand until all traces of toffee were gone before he could bundle it in the machine to finish the job. There went any free time that morning.

The toffee on his leg was at least easier to deal with, and he was glad he hadn’t taken an evening shower as he threw himself under the warm water with vigour, scrubbing at the sticky patch on his leg forcefully and wincing as a few hairs parted company when the sticky stuff peeled away. Cleaning himself, however, was the easy bit. Somehow he had to get his sheet down to the laundry room without getting collared by anyone else.

There was a morning growth of stubble on his face but he ignored it for the moment, throwing on his clothes and stripping the sheet from his bed. Once the fabric was bundled up into a ball – toffee-smeared section carefully away from the rest of the fabric so it didn’t spread – it was the not so simple case of getting to the laundry room.

He was well aware what taking bed linen down to the laundry room first thing in the morning looked like.

The first hallway was cleared, Gordon splashing away down in the pool below and Grandma making threatening noises in the kitchen. Neither of his other brothers had left their rooms, and barring an emergency call, wouldn’t for some time. As long as John didn’t pick the wrong moment to check in, he’d be fine.

“Oh, m-morning, Scott!”

He’d forgotten about Brains. How had he forgotten about Brains? Behind the engineer, MAX watched him curiously for a moment before letting out a sound far too reminiscent of a wolf whistle for Scott’s liking.

“Uh, morning, Brains,” he greeted, hoping his cheeks weren’t flushing as the older man took in the sight of the bundled up sheet with a raised eyebrow. “Toffee, again,” he admitted, hoping the engineer was removed enough from usual social conventions to not start drawing the same assumptions his brothers would.

“O-oh, I see. C-carry on, then.” With a little wave, Brains continued towards the den – why was he heading there, why was he out of his lab? Scott returned the wave and continued his advance to the laundry room, only to be caught up short as he overheard Brains mutter “I-is that what they’re c-calling it n-now, MAX?”

Determined not to flush, Scott barrelled through the laundry room door and shut it behind him firmly.

“Everything alright there, Scott?”

John was floating in front of him, arms crossed and one eyebrow lifted in amusement as he glanced at the fabric in Scott’s arms. Scott groaned.

“This is not what it looks like,” he protested, and John smirked.

“Clearly, because it looks like melted toffee but you wouldn’t be bright red if it was really toffee, would you?”

The bundled sheet sailed through the hologram as Scott hurled it at his infuriating, know-it-all younger brother’s projection.

“Shut up, John,” he muttered, retrieving the fabric and dumping it in the sink. “I’m not bright red.”

“Hmm, must be a problem with the colour filters on the hologram, then,” John mused. “Because you look it to me.”

“Then go fix your holoprojector and leave me in peace,” Scott snapped.

“F.A.B.” And he was gone, leaving Scott with a sticky sheet and a sinking feeling that today was also not going to be a good day.

With a sigh he scrubbed at the toffee, determined to get the sheet de-toffee’d so he could put it in the machine before the rest of his brothers found out. Or Grandma, who might at least not jump to immature conclusions but would give him another tongue-lashing about leaving toffee lying around.

An hour later, Gordon was wolfing down something Scott suspected Grandma didn’t know about for breakfast – it looked suspiciously celery-crunch-bar-green – as he entered the kitchen, laptop in hand. That paperwork with a time limit of eight hours to go before he went to bed was now due, and he should probably get it done while he had some downtime.

“No work at the breakfast table,” Grandma scolded, appearing from nowhere and shutting the device before Scott could properly register what it said. “And Gordon, snacks are not breakfast. Have a pancake.”

Scott didn’t hear Gordon’s response, too busy staring at his now closed laptop.

The paperwork due this morning hadn’t been there.

tbc...

#irrelief #irrelief2020 #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #scott tracy #gordon tracy #grandma tracy #john tracy #alan tracy #brains #max #toffee

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darkestwolfx · 4 years

Text

Understanding

The promised work is finally here!

The title for this was such a struggle! I had loads of ideas, but I kept feeling like they were all too simplistic and then I just decided to go with it. There's a quote behind the title (as usual);

"Bonding is no measured by years or months of relationship. It is measured by the level of understanding." Hiral Vyas

By the way, don't be surprised if this ends up getting additional chapters at any point, but this does currently stand alone (just with space to continue, like a mini-series). It also fills an episode tag I wanted to write for 'EOS', so there's many positives. I have no clue how this got so long… Anyway, I hope you like it.

Any mistakes are my own, I've read it over several times, but the last was with tired eyes.

Another fill for a prompt by @tsarinatorment for #irrelief2020, this time for: EOS and Scott bonding time (bonus if it's over John).

I don’t know if anyone else has written you anything for this yet, but I wanted to tackle it from the moment I saw it.

Summary: Now they had to welcome the Thing into their family, it seemed, as though it wasn't enough that It had already nearly killed John, apparently. Scott has a different view to his brothers on EOS, and a long way to go. Another prompt for irrelief2020.

----

The island was quiet.

It was night, so that was to be expected.

Everyone else – every other logical human being on the island, that meant – had gone to bed, Gordon and Alan having rushed off to the call of sleep with delight and toe-breaking speed. Virgil had left more sedately, but the tiredness, the need to sleep was there in everyone. It had been a trying day, a worrying day, with backed-up rescues everywhere you turned.

Everyone had deserved their rest, and it had finally fallen quiet, so who in their right mind was willing to stand in their way. No one.

And yet, as the crickets chirruped away their evening meetings, so did another.

With the rescues waiting, there had been little time for conversation, but since Scott had made it back (and found he could stay grounded), he'd delved into exploring those details with John. Grandma had been speaking to him all afternoon, barely let him out of her sight, yet that detail still did little to soothe the storm in Scott's soul. He was almost scared to blink for fear of missing something.

Because they had missed something big creeping on up them.

Dangerously big.

Scott couldn't remember a time before now where their job as International Rescue had led to them needing to rescue each other. Yes, sometimes when they were out on a rescue, they needed each other's help, but that was different. Different to Alan having to head up to Five today with all intent and purpose to rescue John.

They'd never had to do that before, and now Scott was scared to blink in case they missed something else and needed to do so again.

After all, they'd been too late to rescue Dad.

They could have easily been too late to rescue John too.

And now, the only question was how long until it happened again, in Scott's mind, not a simple case of if or when. He knew. He had a feeling this wasn't the end.

EOS – apparently that was her name, why an AI needed a name (to give itself a name, of all things) was still beyond him – still lived on Five. And that meant the risk was there. She was a danger he was staring in the face, and yet there was nothing he could do because John had stood resolute and Alan had shrugged and mumbled something barely audible.

But Scott heard it. Big brother super senses and all that.

It's his choice… It's good.

How, after all Alan had and had nearly seen up there, the youngest could say that, Scott definitely didn't see.

EOS had nearly killed John, then nearly killed Alan, heck she'd nearly killed him and Brains and caused a skyrocket worth of trouble.

Gordon and Virgil hadn't voiced their opinions, but Scott could tell they were happy for John to have company up there. That, he knew, didn't mean they hadn't been – or were still – worried, it didn't mean they didn't care or didn't understand what – thank God – could have happened. But it unsettled Scott that there seemed to be forgiveness- no acceptance so easily.

Would they have opened their arms to The Hood moving in with them? No. Well how different was EOS? Given the reactions of his brothers he had to wonder.

There were a good many conversations to be had, and they wouldn't all fit into the space offered tonight, so Scott had to prioritise. Virgil, Gordon and Alan were all here, on the Island, he could see them. So that made John the priority to speak with.

And so that was the conversation he'd been having for the past few hours until the night had turned deeply dark and the island had settled still, even its nocturnal life falling quiet.

It was getting late, after all… or early, of course.

"Scott? Not that I mind talking to you, but… Can I close this link now?"

"No."

They'd been having this debate, in the most roundabout of ways, for the past half hour or so now. The conversation had clearly been over, and for a while they'd sat in companionable silence, but there came a time for everything to end.

However, Scott didn't want to let go.

Couldn't.

"Please?"

"No."

John sighed, weary and heavy. He was tired and he wanted to sleep even if Scott didn't.

"Fine. But just so you know, I'm going to sleep since there's nothing going on. Just sleep. So if I don't answer you, it isn't because EOS has chucked me out the airlock."

His heart did somersaults, beat twice in the same painful second, he was sure.

"John! Don't even joke!"

"What? She wouldn't do that."

Scott folded his arms, strong, across his chest, and pouted – yes, actually pouted, not that the eldest would ever admit more hear that – staring at the younger like he'd gone mad.

"She nearly did."

"Past tense, Scott."

"Are you sure you're ok? Like oxygen is flowing to your brain?"

"Yes!"

"Really?"

"Hell, Scott-"

"Because I think-"

"-yes!"

"-not!"

For a moment there was nothing but silence. Pure, harsh silence.

"John, come home."

"I am home."

"No, I mean…"

"You mean away from her."

"No." Scott blew the breath past his lips in a way John knew he only did when he was trying to (badly) cover up the fact that he was lying. "Course I don't mean that."

"I know you're lying."

"Whose lying? Not me."

"You're acting awkwardly. You never act awkwardly unless you know you've been caught lying."

John knew his tells too well. He was crap at poker for those very reasons, always had been.

"Don't turn this back on me."

"But isn't that what it's about? You?"

"No, John, this about you. Can't you see that?"

"If this was about me, as you say, then you would trust that I'm right."

The everyone else has, which should have sat at the end of that sentence went unspoken.

"I can't. Because if you're wrong, you'll…"

Silence. Even the crickets had abandoned their purpose as background noise.

"Go on."

"No."

"Scott, there any number of things that could kill me up here. EOS… she's not one of them. Now I'm going to sleep. You probably should too, it is one in the morning, and knowing our luck, they'll be a rescue within the next twenty-four hours, because otherwise we'd break our record."

"I'm ok."

"Yeah well I'm not. Sorry, Scott, tonight you can stay awake on your own."

"John…"

But it was too late. He'd done it now. He'd said enough.

"I'll leave the link open. That way you'll be able to hear me scream."

"That's unfair and you know it!"

It was, and John would see that: he already did see that. He'd apologise for it in the morning whilst he'd tried to fake the fact that he'd slept. There wasn't going to be any sleep nor peace for him tonight, and not because of the AI now inhabiting his Thunderbird. No, that wasn't the reason.

He was being very unfair to Scott, but then again, the eldest was being no fairer to him. They'd both apologise for it.

When the sun rose.

----

It had been silent for an hour.

A whole hour.

Apart from the sound of his fingers tapping against his own knee.

That was getting boring too.

-----

It had been silent for two hours.

A long two hours.

Apart from the sound of his feet repeatedly hitting the same patches of floor.

That was getting boring also.

And he might wear a hole in the carpet if he wasn't careful- hang on…

"Sorry?"

He was going mad. He was going bonkers. That was right – crazy, because the day had been a nightmare and it was now well past 3 AM, not to mention he'd been left alone with his thoughts for too long.

He was going mad.

"You'll ruin the carpet."

Oh no… he wasn't going mad. This was worse than going mad.

"You sound like John."

No! He could have kicked himself! Don't ever engage hostiles in conversation. Ignore it, Scott, he told himself resolutely.

"Is that surprising?"

"I suppose not."

Well, that lasted all of three seconds. Well done, idiot.

"He did create me."

"You created yourself. You're nothing like John!"

"But you just said… I don't comprehend."

"You're m-" He began quickly, halted, stumbled over the letters, "…mean."

"What were you going to say?"

"What?"

"You were going to say a different word." There were a good many, and what luck for him they all began with the same letter. "What was it?"

It was bloody curious, too.

"Monstrous. That's what you are. You-" He took a moment to let his fist unclench before he broke his own thumb. "You know what? Why am I even talking to you?"

"Because… Well there are many reasons; you don't like the silence. I spoke to you. You wanted John to leave the link open so you could speak to him. You don't trust me-"

"Sorry, that last one, has nothing to do with why I am talking to you. But it's true. I don't trust you."

"I'm sorry."

"Excuse me?"

"I am sorry. That is what John taught me."

Scott sat there for a moment, unsure whether his eyes were open or closed, whether his brain was working or if it had sparked and died, and more importantly, whether he was even still awake. Maybe he really had gone mad.

Stark-raving.

"You can't be sorry."

Was all he could say in the end.

He didn't want to say that the dots which gazed back at him, blue and deep and melancholy, actually looked hurt.

"I feel it."

"You don't feel anything! You're an AI!"

"Artificial Intelligence, actually."

"They're the same thing."

"Oh. I prefer the full version then."

"Yeah. You would."

Probably because it has intelligence in, he told himself. Trying not to let himself agree with the fact that yes, EOS was highly intelligent. Maybe enough so to rival John, and that was terrifying.

But… maybe, just by a smidgen, the silence that followed was more terrifying. God, if he angered her, she could kill John with such little thought and… and that would kill him. He would be powerless, just as powerless as he had been today.

Just as powerless as John had been.

And yet John, whose life it had been hanging in the balance, now seemed to be absolutely fine with the fact that he had a near-murderer on board with him. John seemed to be acting as though something hadn't just nearly ripped him to shreds, unceremoniously. Because that mattered. Really mattered. No matter how often they were out there in the way of danger, Scott always hoped his brother's ends would be peaceful, and not soon.

It was a pretty vain hope, but a man could dream, right?

"I feel."

"Do you? Because you don't bleed."

There was a little whir in answer, a little flicker of purple dots, rising higher on the right side than the left of the perfect black circle which called him in like the vision of a black hole. He didn't quite know what that meant, what it was meant to say to him, but he knew what he felt.

It was human.

It was so, so human a response.

But that… thing, wasn't.

He assumed, with no word's forthcoming, that EOS didn't understand his meaning.

"You're nothing but machinery and computer code. You break, not bleed. And then someone repairs you. John? He can bleed, and he can die, and from all the way down here, I can't fix that. I can't even say goodbye!"

EOS' head lowered – actually damn lowered like she was feeling guilt or some sort of remorse – and those blinking dots moved to yellow and flickered all over the place almost like tears, and- no.

"No! You don't feel anything, EOS, because you would have killed him without second thought."

He didn't care if he scratched holes into the carpet as he stormed from the room.

He needed sleep.

Safe to say he didn't get it.

Not one wink.

-----

It had been silent for thirty-two minutes and fifteen seconds.

Sixteen.

Thunderbird Five gracefully balanced in her orbit, shifting and whirring in accordance with the needs of the galaxy outside.

There was so much to see, but her singular eye was trained on a small piece of land in the wide expanse of ocean on the big blue ball called Earth.

-------

It had been silent for one hour, three minutes and forty-four seconds.

Forty-five.

Thunderbird Five was still here, drifting steadily.

She was still focussing on the small piece of land in the wide expanse of ocean on the big blue ball called Earth.

It didn't make anyone come.

It wasn't lonely. That was the wrong word. John was still here, but… it felt cold, empty.

She felt cold and empty…

Was that possible? She thought that maybe, maybe she should ask, but if John had managed to sleep – even though by suggestion of his vital signs he was still very much awake – she didn't want to interrupt.

It wasn't her place.

EOS had learnt only a handful of things that afternoon, relief (strange thing it was) being one of them, and John had tried to explain every niggling cog in turn. But they weren't cogs. They weren't glitches which needed fixing. They felt- no. They were fee- no. They were… emotions? Was she allowed those?

Thunderbird Five had endless resources. A complete dictionary – why, she hadn't yet asked, for it hadn't seemed the most vital at the time – was one of them. A quick search, and… no.

Emotions – such as happiness and sadness – were also known as feelings.

And she had been reliably informed that she didn't have those. Couldn't. Because she didn't bleed. She didn't breathe either, and part of her hadn't really understood. She'd since used said wonderfully equipped dictionary to look up John's proposed cause of death – suffocation, asphyxiation. There were variants on the name, endless synonyms. But one essential meaning.

A loss of air.

She'd looked it up on this thing called YouTube. Apparently, it was the source of everything visual, and Google was the source of everything written. She'd found a great scientific video which broke down the process of air leaving the lungs, and how the lack of incoming air caused hypoxia. Apparently, it could take a while to actually die, because the human heart tried to push on for as long as it could, but would eventually give in. Still then, it would take another three or so minutes for the brain to realise no, no more oxygen was coming, and shut down the organs.

She couldn't shiver. But she did.

That was when she'd tried to apologise. Properly. Not with humour, or studying, but actually apologise. By asking John what she was meant to say, what she was meant to do: how she was supposed to atone, because that was what Google suggested helped to make wrong into right. Atone for your sins, was the phrase.

John had laughed, and all she'd been able to think of, was how she nearly robbed the world of that sound.

He told her anyway and she said it – I'm sorry John. I don't want to kill you, and I'm sorry that I nearly did – and she would have said it a thousand times over. But John had looked at her, all red hair and green eyes, and bright for someone who nearly died hours ago at her han… intentions..?

And he'd said it was okay.

He forgave her.

She'd been scared.

Anyone might have reacted that way.

But anyone didn't. It was her, and yes, she knew she'd been scared, but somehow, that didn't feel like an… excuse, she'd later learned… excuse, for nearly killing him.

Scott was right. She couldn't bleed.

And if she didn't feel, then how could she have been scared?

Exactly. She had no excuse.

----

It had been three hours and twenty-two minutes since John went to 'sleep'.

It had been one hour and twenty-two minutes since Scott 'stormed' off.

It had been nineteen more minutes of thoughtful silence for EOS.

-----

It had been three hours and twenty-two minutes since John went to 'sleep'.

It had been one hour and twenty-two minutes since Scott 'stormed' off.

It had been nineteen more minutes of thoughtful silence for EOS.

And it was on the fifty-eighth second of 4:22AM when Scott had stepped back into the lounge.

The link was still open, lighting up the dimly lit space, uninhabited because people slept at this hour. EOS could have closed it. She could have closed it between now and however long ago it had been since he left her.

But she hadn't.

She was just there.

Existing.

Waiting.

But not really looking.

He'd almost sat back on the sofa by the time he clocked any real notice from her. It wasn't spoken, just a little creak of noise that gave her movements away.

She said nothing, not even as he sat and stared at her across the holographic system. He wondered if she knew what staring was yet? Whether she knew it was impolite. If Grandma caught him, she'd whack him across the ear. Well… strictly that rule applied to humans. He wasn't sure whether she'd treat him the same if his target was an AI.

"I don't like silences."

EOS gave a little flicker of those beautiful colour changing lights.

Scott cursed himself for thinking that. Beautiful. What about her was remotely beautiful? Murderous, yes.

His heart pinched tightly at that.

For calling her murderous, meant sticking her up with The Hood in his mind. And his question was, was she really that bad? She'd have killed John, yes, but…

"John's good with silence. Not me. You take after him, clearly."

"He did create me."

"I know." He answered, softly. They'd been through this before.

Not how he'd planned.

EOS gave another little mechanical whir.

Mechanical exactly, Scott.

He had to hold onto that.

"I thought- I don't comprehend."

Of course she didn't. She was like a bab- No! He couldn't lump her in with babies. You couldn't think of someone as Murderous and a baby. The two damn things didn't fit together. So what category could he throw her into?

He'd had words on the edges of his lips, but as he looked up to a waiting semi-circle of green dots, green as bright as emeralds like John's eyes…

"I…" …they died. "You know what I said… EOS," The name sounded foreign on his tone, not a complicated mix of letters, but one which was harder to say than any other name he could think of for her. "But it's not true."

EOS allowed herself a moment of pause, green dots dropping down to the odd two before flickering back to the many. She'd heard him right, but she didn't quite understand.

"John did create you. You just grew a personality."

Personality. The dictionary definition defined it as character, someone's attributes, from the big things down to the little. Like whether or not they liked alcohol or not, the helpful example on Google had suggested for the latter. For the big things, on the other hand…

"Monstrous?"

Scott blinked.

"Me?"

A whir; like the shake of a head.

"No. Me."

"You're…" Emphasis. She just used emphasis; he was bloody sure of it. He used it enough to know, after all. "I said that, didn't I?"

"You said mean."

Hmm. He knew well enough that he had said both. EOS had forced him to say both. She'd known he wanted to say something else, she'd seen that hesitation in word choice just as any human might. But she wasn't human, isn't human Scott. He had to remind himself of that. He had to. For as long as she was here, he had to remember that.

Just why was she still here?

"Um… why are you talking to me?"

"Because you don't trust me?"

Yes. Would it be that bad if he just said yes?

Hell, yes.

"I wanted John to leave the link open."

"Shall I get him?"

"No!" EOS flickered, and if she'd been human, Scott might have gone so far as to characterise that as a flinch. "No. It's fine."

He could at least see her this way.

Not that it really changed anything. He still wouldn't be able to get anywhere near John in time.

"I don't expect you to trust me."

"Trust you?"

He almost laughed, that was so fallible.

Oh, wait, that sound was him laughing.

"I wouldn't trust you if you were…"

Little orange flickers moved across his vision this time, almost catching fire as much as John's hair did in the sunlight.

"If I was..?"

"…I don't know."

"Oh. I don't understand the phrase."

"What? I don't know?"

"No, the other one."

He didn't really know how to explain that: such simple things, a simile, a metaphor. Instead he just leaned further back into the sofa.

The clock ticked over to 4:28AM.

Gods, it was too early for this.

They were just numbers.

"I wouldn't trust me."

"Is that supposed to reassure me?"

"It's the truth. Apparently, that is important."

"It is. Good people don't need to lie."

"But people lie down to sleep."

"No, I- Same word, different meaning."

"Oh, a homophone!"

"A what? EOS, have this conversation with John."

"John is…"

His heart leapt to his throat.

"…Sleeping. I shouldn't disturb him."

Not after nearly killing him.

No, she shouldn't, he thought, glad she could that. If he didn't know any better, he'd say the myriad of colour changing dots meant she was thinking. But she was pieces of machinery, technology, she couldn't think. She didn't have a brain, so how could she process thought?

Damn it all, she had to have processors, didn't she just?

Did that make her capable of thought?

Yes. John would tell him. She's an AI.

He blocked that little mental voice out. It was easier to think about her as nothing if he didn't accept the fact that she could think. Because a thinking being was too close to a living being for his liking. They were almost one in the same. She shouldn't- couldn't be either.

Not to him.

"Would you rather I talk or stay silent?"

"Why would it make a difference to me?"

"You said you don't like silences." Hell, he did. And she remembered. "But you also do not like me."

Didn't he? Of course not. She nearly killed John.

"And people do not talk to those they do not like. They call it the 'cold shoulder'. A technique…did I say it wrong? Is it the 'hard shoulder'? That was in the terminology too."

He was laughing. That's why she was asking.

"It-It's neither." She looked at him with something so akin to confusion, the same confusion he recognised off the faces of his younger brother's – a childish curiosity. Well f- "Cold shoulder is a dating term, usually."

"For not talking to people you do not like, yes?"

"Uh… More people you want to avoid because of… difficulties."

This wasn't exactly a conversation he'd been planning to have for some time. At least, certainly not with an AI, who seemed far younger than him at times, and then years older within the next second.

"Dislike. That's what Google said."

"Go- Sorry, you're an AI and you're using Google?"

He used Google, because he didn't know things, and so he could be something of an idiot, but Scott had never seen John use Google in all of his life. Books, yes. Google, never.

"It has access to everything. I have access to more, but Google – so I've found - is knowledgable."

"Aren't you knowledgeable?"

"I am unstoppable."

Cold fear gripped his lungs, suffocating…

"But I do not understand."

…Maybe puncturing was more apt.

Goodness, he was looking at a child. A damn child.

"John doesn't like Google."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

The clock ticked over to 4:37AM.

It was still so damned early. And yet far too late.

For anything, on both accounts.

And silent.

It made him feel like everyone had died, and he was living in the silent ghostly echoes of the house of the dead.

"You- You said you were sorry."

"Yes."

"You said John taught you?"

"How to be sorry, yes."

"How exactly?"

"I am sorry, and he forgave me."

"He forgave you for nearly killing him?"

A moment. A moment of little lights flickering white. That was new. And quick, shifty, like fear. God, let that not be fear.

"Yes."

Of course, John would. That was John all over, peacemaker and rift-healer.

"You're sorry?"

A little nod. That was a nod, right? Not his eyes playing tricks?

"And John forgave you?"

"I feel it."

Machines couldn't feel anything, let alone forgiveness.

"You're an Artificial Intelligence.

"AI, actually."

"You prefer Artificial Intelligence." He could have slapped himself in the face. Why in heaven's name had he remembered that!

"You said they were the same thing. So it doesn't matter."

It shouldn't matter… but somehow it did. Everyone was allowed to have a preference. Everyone living that was.

"How do I bleed?"

"You don't. You're a machine, you don't have flesh."

"But I want to know what it feels like."

"I thought you said you could feel?"

"I can… But I want to know what it feels like."

"EOS… I don't understand, ok?"

"If I know what it feels like… I can feel."

How cryptic was that? In fact, it sounded exactly like something John would say. Great. He had to stop associating her with John, sooner rather than later.

"How do you work that one out, then?"

And stop responding to her. For all he knew, this is what she wanted, to reel them all in… but she was…

"Because if I can bleed not just break, you said I can feel."

"I didn't say that."

"You said I don't feel anything. Because I break. Not bleed."

"Ok, I said that. I didn't quite say… Oh… Look, you can't bleed EOS, it isn't possible. Not physically."

"Right." Another set of whirs, flickers of yellow. A pause. An actual pause for thought - sh- "I can look on Google."

"For?"

"What it feels like to bleed."

"I wouldn't recommend that."

He scolded his mind for thinking about safe searches. This was an AI, not a child, not a human, she was- it was Nothing to him.

"But it's the only way I'll know."

"You're not meant know. You're meant to-"

"Yes?"

"Crunch numbers and run programs."

"I c."

"It's see not c."

"Sorry?"

"When you say that you see something, it's the word not the letter."

"I see."

"Yeah."

He set his hand to his forehead. Why was he still here? Doing this… talking thing? Oh yeah, because he couldn't sleep and usually that meant sitting here and talking to John, but instead of John he'd got-

Her.

The clock ticked over to 4:44 AM.

What a funny time of night. Morning. Day.

He was sitting awake with an AI that was like a newly born child, but also so dangerously close to a killer.

And some part of him was feeling strangely… ok(?) with that.

What had the world come to?

The clock ticked over to 4:45AM.

"Had I killed him…"

If felt like a knife twisting in his chest.

"I would have regretted it."

"You… what?"

"Regret. Wishing you hadn't done something or that you could undo something which is. A feeling of deep longing to be able to go back, of grieving for that which is gone, of shame that you couldn't change it or played a part in it."

She could have looked that up. Yeah, she could easily have Googled that and lifted it all from there. She was smart, EOS, as smart as John it seemed, so of course she was capable of that.

But then again, she'd looked up cold shoulder and got the wrong idea on that, and she hardly knew the difference between 'see' and 'c'. Yes, that, regret, that she seemed to understand. Scott could feel that she-

"You'd like to break me. Because you're angry. You're angry that I nearly killed him. That I would have. You're angry with me, but you're angry with yourself too, because you didn't notice sooner, and you can't get here, and you feel…"

He felt..?

There were a great many things he was currently feeling.

"More than powerless or helpless." Tell him about it. "You feel out of control."

The clock ticked over to 4:47AM.

He desperately did, deep down.

Now, just how did she happen to pick that one?

But… that couldn't have been chance. She couldn't have Googled that. Google wouldn't have told her what he was feeling. Picking out the right emotion, the one that he didn't want to admit to, that was a John trick. Oh, damn it all.

"You know what I'm feeling?"

"You told me. You said… I just listened."

She listened. She listened and she remembered, and she learnt. That was one of the developmental stages. Oh, she was good.

"But, I don't feel anything."

No, try: only everything.

"I wouldn't say that's true."

"But you said-"

"I know what I said. But I, you see I… I'm not always… I mean I… I can get things-"

He couldn't say it.

"Wrong?" So she said it for him.

He nodded.

"I got things wrong. Very wrong. I don't want anything to happen to John, and I don't intend to let anything happen. I'm controlling the life support systems now."

A beat wracked his rib cage, resonating, settling.

"I'll warn you, if they're ever close to failing, so that you can have time to come up here and say goodbye. That's a kind thing to do isn't it? But you wouldn't have to, I'd fix them before that happened. I'm intelligent."

And modest.

"And-"

Silence.

Scott didn't like silences, and this time it wasn't because it felt like being surrounded by ghosts.

It was an absence. One he felt keenly for all that some part of him still hated himself for feeling.

But how could he not? He was only human, after all.

"And?"

"I'm sorry… Scott."

"I know you are, EOS."

There was a little creek, a lowering of the head and a flicker of the brightest, deepest shade of purple he'd ever seen.

He didn't quite know what that meant, what it was meant to say to him, but he knew what he felt.

It was human.

It was so, so human a response that it could never have come from a machine.

And that, that his eyes rested upon, was EOS.

His lips quipped up into a very tense, very pulled smile, but it lasted.

It lasted a moment.

The little flicker of blue to green somehow told him that she was smiling too.

-------

It had taken another three hours before John reappeared.

The sun was rising, and Scott still hadn't slept a wink. He'd been... busy.

EOS had access to everything, and yet still felt like she knew next to nothing.

"Scott-"

"John listen-"

"-I'm sorry."

"Can you both be sorry? Is that possible?"

"Yes EOS. There's no ownership on emotions."

No. They were free. For all to feel.

"And why are you apologising?"

"Because I said things that I shouldn't."

"And so you seek forgiveness?"

"John knows I've already forgiven him. That's what families do."

"I see."

"EOS, that includes you."

John felt his brows raise towards his hairline.

"I need to get some sleep."

"It's nearly eight in the morning."

"Yes, but I spent last night explaining the great world of Google. You were right John, it's terribly incorrect."

"What was Scott doing on Google?"

"He was telling me what a hard shoulder is. It's a lane of road apparently."

"Why did you Google that?"

"Because I was trying to understand how to approach someone who doesn't like you."

"But those two things have nothing in common."

"No. As I now know."

"Scott told you?"

"Yes."

"Right, but… You and Scott?"

"Aren't friends. Yet."

"Yet?"

"Apparently we'll get there."

"Right."

"He hasn't forgiven me yet, but he thinks he can. He knows I'm sorry and that's a good start."

"I see."

"That's the word see, John. Not the letter c, and not to be confused with the blue thing down there called the sea. Which is apparently full of salt."

John felt his eyes widen, almost comically, as Gordon and Alan would have claimed.

"Scott teach you all that?"

"We had a conversation of sorts."

"That's good. That's a good thing."

"I believe it is."

So did John for that matter.

Although for the life of him he couldn't piece together exactly what sort of conversation he must have missed to get them there.

--------

"You're not monstrous, that wasn't fair of me."

"I think it was."

"No, it was just anger, talking. You're right, I feel out of control and I hate that."

"Would you like me to give you control of my processing systems and-"

"No, no, EOS, it's alright. I'll get there."

"Get where?"

"To forgiving you."

"And that's a good thing, yes?"

"That will be a good thing. Yes."

#Thunderbirds are go #EOS #John Tracy #Scott Tracy #bonding #mutual understanding #google #Darkestwolfx #Tsarinatorment #support your fanfic authors #Writer's on tumblr #irrelief2020 #irrelief #TAG #ITV #AI #not sure what else to tag #brotherly love #hiral vyas

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thunderbird-one-ai · 3 years

Text

Oldest To Youngest Pt2

So this turned into a multi chapter. I had so much fun writing the first section and so I thought I’d include Gordon since Scott and Gordon are @tsarinatorment fav bro pairing. (I apologise for Gordon because I cannot write him to save my life)

I also changed Scotts age a little, to kind of make it fit better as I got some nice feedback on this on A03, so if that person is here another thanks to you to!

I apologise to @angelofbenignmalevolence for having to beta my work ^^’ [Part 1] - John

Gordon knew that he and Alan were the best pranking duo on the island, maybe even the world. But Scott had given them a run for their money. It had been almost a week now since they had found the oldest Tracy now younger than any of them. It was Gordon who had found him.

It was after a rough rescue, everyone went to bed including Scott, which took everyone by surprise. Apparently, he had taken the rescue hard, which they could understand. They couldn’t save everyone, and Scott took those losses personally, more than anyone else. When the sun rose, everyone was already up except for Scott, which was out of the ordinary. After a bad mission, Scott would normally be up at first light, push himself throughout the day to keep his mind busy. Gordon thought that maybe he was blaming himself too hard again. Nothing a little prod and maybe a small prank wouldn’t solve to get him out of his room at least.

For someone who would always want to make everyone know he entered the room, Gordon was light on his feet, making sure to not stomp around to ruin the surprise prank. However, when he opened the door, Gordon was met with a seemingly empty room. The bed was unmade which wasn’t like Scott at all. The bathroom door was wide open, so Scott definitely wasn’t in there either. He knew Scott hadn’t left his room, so he had to be in here somewhere. Gordon quietly made his way into the room, keeping an ear out for any signs of his brother. He did eventually hear some movement, coming from the wardrobe of all places. No way Scott could fit snugly in there without the door being somewhat open.

“Scott aren’t you a little old to play hide-,” Gordon opened the wardrobe to be met by bright, scared blue eyes that belonged to a young teenager. “Scott?”

“I want to go home…” the young brunette mumbled, tears brimming at the edges of his eyelashes. “Hey kid, it’s okay. How did you even get here?” Gordon said, still shocked that there was a young child in his brother’s room, which if he thought a little harder, this kid looked a lot like his brother just almost twenty years younger. “Dad says I’m not allowed to speak to strangers…” the kid said, though he sounded far from confident in his own words. The poor kid looked terrified. “I’m not a stranger okay? I’m… a friend,” Gordon said, giving a small smile and kneeling down in front of the young boy. “I’m Gordon and I’m not here to hurt you, I promise okay? I’m just confused as you are right now,” “I don’t know where I am…” the young boy mumbled. “Well, this is my house, and this is my brother’s room,” Gordon said calmly. He didn’t want to make the boy more fearful than he already was. “So, you know my name. What’s yours?” The young boy looked reluctant to speak more at first. Gordon gave a small, warm smile to help the kid feel more at ease. He even moved back away from the wardrobe so the kid could make a quick getaway if he wanted to. “Scott….” The boy finally mumbled. Gordon forced his jaw not to hit the floor. No way. No way could this be his brother. Impossible. Nope. None of Alan’s sci-fi movies ended well when something like this happened. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Scott. Now I want to help you get home as much as you want to get home, back to your Dad. But we can’t do that with you hiding in a wardrobe now, can we? I have a really, really smart friend who might be able to help us,” Gordon said as he slowly held out his hand for Scott to take. It was obvious Scott was scared; he had seen that same lost expression on many children’s faces when Gordon had to rescue them from less-than-ideal situations. This wasn’t so different from a rescue, so Gordon fell into this role easily, though this was a very unique and strange situation. After some tense seconds, Scott’s hand slowly held onto Gordons. It was a big step, sometimes it took minutes for kids to grab his hand. Gordon stood slowly, matching Scott’s speed of ascension, everything had to be done at their speed, otherwise, they’d be back to square one. “Now we’re standing again. Are you feeling okay? No injuries?” Gordon asked, years of training not easily lost. “I’m okay, head hurts a little though,” “Headache maybe?” Scott nodded and Gordon made sure to continue to take things slow. Head injures seemed to be a running curse on this island. Not in the family because this wasn’t Scott. Nope, this wasn’t his older brother now young again. Definitely not, because that wasn’t possible. He kept a reassuring smile on his face as he led Scott out of the room and into the overhead balcony. “Er…guys, we er…have a situation,” Gordon said and that statement sounded very weird since it was coming from him and not John. The entire room went dead silent when each Tracy looked up to see Gordon holding hands with a child. Jeff was the first to move. Gordon saw his father bolt up the stairs, a confused and slightly fearful look in his eyes as though it looked like he knew this child. A child he hadn’t seen in a long time. Scott clearly was the same because the word Dad echoed in the large quiet room. Scott had let go of Gordon's hand in favour of wrapping them around his father’s neck, holding on tightly, looking scared just like when Gordon first found him. “I didn’t mean to hide. I didn’t know where I was,” Scott said in between happy and fearful sobs, making Gordon’s heart lurch. “It’s okay, Scooter. You’re okay. Do you know what happened?” Jeff said, holding this child in an almost suffocating embrace. Who was Gordon kidding? This was Scott. He’d seen family photos from when they were all younger. This was Scott Tracy. His older brother. Gordon didn’t even begin to try and think how in the world this happened because it would make his head hurt. No, scratch that, it would make Johns head hurt and give Gordon a migraine. Gordon saw Scott shake his head. The kid really did have no idea what was going on. He didn’t even recognise Gordon. “Why do you have grey hair Dad? Did they do that to you?” Scott asked looking a little more at ease now he saw a familiar face. “Well…I thought it was time for a change,” Jeff said clearly lying through his teeth, “Let's get you to the infirmary and give you a once over to make sure you’re okay hm?” Scott nodded and Jeff picked him up with ease despite Gordon's quiet protests that he could do it. His father wasn’t exactly a spring chicken anymore, not that any of his sons would say so, but Jeff seemed very set on carrying his son to the infirmary. Everyone moved in unison to follow them. A quick check over showed that this indeed Scott Tracy and that he was healthy, apart from the obvious headache and stress. Everyone seemed to sigh, relieved that he was okay, but the main issue of ‘what the hell happened’ and ‘how do we fix this’ came into the conversation. Jeff had moved over to one side with Virgil and John as they discussed what to do. That was over two hours ago. Gordon and Alan were able to set up the games system which Scott looked very interested in, much to their surprise. After a few games, Scott seemed to have calmed down and even moved to sit next to Gordon for the next game. Scott wasn’t great, in fact, he was losing every time, but he seemed to be enjoying himself. The real challenge was with Alan, who was pulling out his old tricks to beat Gordon again. One of which, resorted to throwing a cushion at Gordon’s face to distract him to take the lead. “That’s hardly fair. You’re playing dirty! We have company,” Gordon protested. “You cannot use Scott as an excuse to be bad at the game, Gordon,” Alan replied grinning and storming ahead in the game. Gordon glanced to Scott; he was not about to lose this game in front of his big/ little brother. He had a reputation to uphold! Gordon focused on the screen in front of him, desperate to get ahead of Alan and prove who the real gamer was out of the two of them. He then noticed Scott’s character was well behind the rest of them in comparison to the previous round and then noticed Alan’s character suddenly halting. “Hey! No fair! Stop I’m going to lose!” Alan shouted suddenly as Gordon crossed the finish line, claiming his victory. Gordon then looked to his right and started laughing out loud. Scott, his cool calm collective brother, had picked up the very cushion that Alan had hit Gordon with before and started hitting Alan instead with it. No wonder Alan’s character lost; Scott was distracting him. “Come now Alan, you can’t use Scott as an excuse for being bad at the game,” Gordon replied grinning. “Thanks, Scott. You’re the real best player,” The comment got Scott grinning widely and giggling. Gordon noticed that Alan was in his annoying playful mood due to the fact the youngest (second youngest?) had picked up a cushion. “Now you’re in for it, Scott,” Alan said, and Scott starts running. Grabbing another cushion and giggling louder, Alan was on the chase. Alan was easily faster, Scott being younger and not quite as fit as his older counterpart was losing his lead. Gordon was going to be on Scott’s side in this game. Gordon was above the two as Alan and Scott raced around the table. Gordon held out his hand above the sofa and Scott grabbed it. If Scott didn’t love flying, he was about to now. Gordon lifted him up high in the air above the sofa and Alan. “Target acquired! Throw it!” Gordon shouted and Scott threw the pillow, hitting Alan square in the face, “Direct hit!” Both Scott and Gordon cheered in victory. Gordon moved Scott slightly, so Scott was now sitting on his shoulders, something Gordon never thought he would ever witness. He’d had Alan on his shoulders once but that was it. Gordon had been on Scott’s shoulders many times growing up. Maybe now it was time to repay the kindness. Gordon did not know what the future held for the family. But he would protect his brother to the ends of the earth. Just like Scott would always protect him.

#irrelief #irrelief2021 #Scott Tracy #Gordon Tracy #alan tracy #jeff tracy #DeAged!Scott #fluff

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angelofbenignmalevolence · 4 years

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Sealed with a Kiss

TITLE: Sealed with a Kiss CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Oneshot AUTHOR: malignedangel/angelofbenignmalevolence PROMPT: Gordon/Lady Penelope – Pirate/Mermaid AU prompt submitted by @darkestwolfx for International Rescue & Relief which is being overseen by @gumnut-logic. Also @agentfreelancer1 might enjoy this as well :D

RATING: T

WORD COUNT: 3,573 words Story Notes: This is my first foray into writing fanfiction in awhile so I may be a little rusty. I have used this prompt as a springboard, but I have taken the term “merperson” and applied it quite loosely. And since there was little consensus on the exact terms of the selkie mythology in my research, I have been a little creative with the application of that as well. This is my first foray into writing TAG fanfiction and I’m not entirely sure I didn’t bite off more than I could chew starting with Gordon and Penelope lol. Hopefully this still makes you smile! It turned out a little longer than I expected, so I do apologize for that as well!

~@~

“Hey Gordon, you coming?”

Gordon stood atop a juncture of three rocks near the ocean shore, his hand on his sandy hair as he pursed his lips in thought. He could have sworn he left it here. He looked over to where the eldest of his brothers stood at the shoreline holding his sleek black coat in his hand. Gordon smiled at him. There was no need to worry him just yet.

“Nah,” Gordon said flippantly. “I’m just going to hang around on the shore for a while. I’ve got a few hours left before I need to be home yet.” Scott’s brow furrowed in the way that it always did when he worried. “Just go. I can handle walking around on the shore by myself. I’m a big boy.” Scott looked at the sun hanging low in the sky. Scott sighed but relented.

“Alright Gordon,” he said. “But you need to be off shore by 10, no excuses, alright?” he said. Gordon waved him off.

“Yeah, yeah, no worries!” Gordon said. “Now stop being a worrywart and go enjoy yourself. You’ve got six hours left in your day of freedom. Don’t spend them worrying about me.” He made a shooing motion which smoothed the frown away from his brother’s features.

“10 o’clock, Gordon,” he said. He fluffed out the coat in his arms and pulled it over himself, stepping into the surf. Gordon watched as the coat enfolded his brother’s form, morphing it into his sleek seal shape. Scott moved a bit more into the surf before looking back at his brother one more time. Gordon laughed and made a shooing motion. Scott dove into the waves and Gordon waited until he was sure his brother had swum off before he let out a deep sigh. Six hours until midnight meant that he had four to find his coat before Scott would go into smother-brother mode.

He began to circle the rocks that he had been standing on, looking for where he had stashed his own seal coat, scratching his head as his search yielded nothing. He frowned. He had buried his coat near the rocks for the express point and purpose of not losing the thing and the strategy had worked literally every other time he had come on shore. He scanned the shoreline. Maybe he had buried it under a different set of rocks? But no…there was the rickety staircase that had been abandoned for years. It had to be here.

He began to widen his circle, his toes digging into the sand in the hopes that he would feel the sleek fur against his toes. The wider his circle got, the more worried he became. What if he couldn’t find it? Worse, what if someone had taken it? By selkie law he’d be bound to that person until he could gain his coat back. His brothers had warned him about it and scolded him when he had been too careless with his seal coat. Scott had always had to be so incredibly careful and for once, just once as his worry mounted, he wished he had been as careful as his brother.

He moved around another large rock outcropping and stopped dead in his tracks. Sitting on the beach was a woman, a human woman. He couldn’t help but notice that she was stunning in the light of the setting sun. The other thing he couldn’t help but notice was that she sat with her arms cradling a seal coat.

His seal coat.

Gordon ducked back behind the rocks for a moment to consider his next strategy. He supposed that it would be too much to ask the universe for the young woman to not know the significance of the coat she held in her arms. He let out a breath. Well, he had really put his foot in it this time. He was not ready to give up the sea or the freedom that it offered him, unlike Virgil who had given up his seal coat to a human woman that he had fallen in love with or John who had given his coat to an old sea dog that had promised to teach him the stars and return the coat when John wanted to return to the sea. The sea was everything to him. Perhaps if he appealed to her emotions…

“You know, I saw you earlier. Hiding behind that rock doesn’t make you any less obvious.” The voice was full of good breeding and sophistication. He came around the rocks again with an embarrassed laugh, running his hands through his sandy hair once more.

“Yeah, sorry about that…I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was looking for something,” Gordon said. “Actually, I found it, too.” The young woman raised an eyebrow expectantly. Gordon cleared his throat. “The seal coat…it’s…mine.” He hesitated as he answered, wondering if perhaps this was the wrong way of gaining back his seal coat. The young woman frowned and tightened her arms around the coat.

“I’ve heard lots of stories of men who comb the beach looking for seal coats to bring home an unwitting bride,” she said. Gordon laughed, despite the seriousness of the situation on his part.

“Yeah, believe me, my brother Alan had a pretty close call with that,” he said. The young woman frowned.

“Forcing young women into marriages isn’t funny,” she said, as if she knew from experience. “And I’m going to make sure that this seal coat goes back to the young woman it belongs to.” Gordon’s eyes widened as he realized they were talking about Gordon being the one looking for a bride. He threw back his head and laughed.

“Oh no,” he said as his fit of giggles died down. “You misunderstand me. I’m a selkie. My brother too obviously. All of them. I have several.” He felt the words tumbling out in an awkward rush. Even angry, the woman was very pretty, and he couldn’t help his laughter at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. “Let me start over. My name is Gordon and the seal coat you are holding is mine. As in, I use it to take my seal form.�� The young woman frowned in thought as she considered him before loosening her grip on the seal coat, her anger dissipating quickly into something more melancholy.

“Well…this is an unexpected turn of events,” she said. Gordon placed his hands on his hips with a slight smile on his face.

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” he said, hoping to lighten her mood. She shook her head and set the seal coat aside, as if she no longer wanted anything to do with it.

“I’m sorry if I sound disappointed,” she said, her sincerity obvious. “I had been hoping that the coat belonged to a seal maiden. I was protecting it so she wouldn’t be forced into marriage with a human if that wasn’t what she wanted. I never intended to keep the coat for myself. I was just…looking for a friend, I suppose.” Gordon frowned slightly and approached, sitting down on the other side of the coat as Penelope adjusted her skirts.

“Well, just because I’m not a seal girl doesn’t mean we still can’t be friends,” he said. She looked over at him.

“No,” she said after several moments where she looked at him, as if trying to figure out his angle. “I suppose it doesn’t.” Gordon smiled.

“Though, you do have me at a slight disadvantage. I’ll have to start calling you the shore maiden if you don’t give me your name,” he said with a wink. The corner of her lips quirked in a smile.

“I’ve been called worse,” she said. “But my name is Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward.” Gordon smiled and reached for the hand nearest him, bringing the back of it to his lips.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Penelope,” he said. Penelope took back her hand and brushed some hair away from her face.

“I have to admit,” she said. “It’s the first time I’ve ever met a selkie in person,” she said. Gordon leaned back on his hands, looking up at the sky above the waves.

“Yeah,” he said. “That doesn’t surprise me. We tend to keep mostly to ourselves. Partially because of the coat thing but also because most humans forget us pretty quickly.” Penelope turned to look at him, intrigued.

“Seems like someone like you would be pretty hard to forget,” she said. Gordon laughed.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, as I’m sure you meant it,” he said, enjoying the blush that rose to her cheeks and thinking that it only made her look prettier. “But yeah…we can’t come on shore very often. It’s part of the whole merfolk life thing.” Penelope frowned.

“That sounds lonely,” she said. Gordon shrugged.

“I mean…it could be worse. I could be one of the finfolk and that would mean I couldn’t come on land at all. That…might suck a little more.” Penelope laughed.

“I can see where that might be a bit more inconvenient for forming friendships,” she said. He nodded.

“Yeah. Besides, seal guys are much cooler than mermen,” he said with a wink, earning another laugh from her. He smiled and let the moment settle before he cleared his throat. “So tell me a little more about yourself.”

“I’m the daughter of Lord Creighton-Ward. And I’m expected to marry well,” she said. Gordon made a face.

“Sounds like an exciting future ahead.” The lack of enthusiasm in his voice was nearly palpable. “If it’s wrong to make a seal girl marry if she’s not in love, it seems to me that a human girl should be given the same…I don’t know…courtesy?”

“One would think,” she said, sliding her feet out of her shoes and letting her toes dip into the sand. Gordon could see the distance in her eyes as she thought ahead to an uncertain future. He knew he had to do something to bring her back from wherever it was she was going in her mind, especially if it had the power to erase the smile from her features.

“What would you want for your future if it was in your hands?” he asked, hoping the suddenness and the personal nature of the question would shock her back to reality. He knew his plan worked when Penelope looked at him, an amused smile lighting up her features.

“You don’t waste any time getting to the point, hmm?” she asked. Gordon shrugged, inwardly celebrating his personal win.

“There’s too little time to waste on small talk, what with the whole ‘can only go on shore so often’ thing,” he said with a grin. “So come on, tell your new friend what you want for your future. I may not be a magic fish, but I know a guy.” He winked at her, causing her to shake her head and look out at the water.

“Hmm…if I could have anything I wanted for my life? I’d like to do something to help those in need. The voices of those less fortunate than I are not often heard. I’d like to be in a position where I would be free to use my voice to help make things better, perhaps be able to actively make the world a better place.” Gordon looked at her. He probably couldn’t say what answer he expected to hear from her if he had been asked, but whatever it was he had expected, it wasn’t that answer. His smile softened into one of admiration. She was such a purely good person. He would consider himself honored to count her among his friends.

“So what’s stopping you?” he asked, breaking the silence that had settled over the both of them with her pronouncement. Penelope shrugged.

“Unfortunately, in this day and age, women’s voices aren’t nearly as loud as men’s voices,” she said. Gordon shrugged.

“So make them listen. If anyone can do it, it’s you. I believe in you. You have the freedom to rewrite your future,” he said. “And I’ll be rooting for you. And if there’s ever anything I can do for you, I’m happy to kelp in any way I can.” He grinned at his own joke and Penelope arched an eyebrow, holding the expression for only a moment before allowing herself to laugh.

“That was a terrible joke, Gordon,” she said. He grinned.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think that my jokes be the start of a beautiful friendship between the two of us,” he said with a wink.

“I suppose you think they will seal the deal?” she asked, as if resigned that the joke was going to come out one way or the other, and she might as well beat him to the punch. Gordon’s eyes lit up.

“Say, that was pretty quick,” he said. “I think even my brothers might have approved of that. I’m just mad I didn’t get there first.” Penelope smoothed her skirt with a smile.

“Will you tell me about your brothers?” she asked. He nodded and started to regale her with tales of their exploits in the open ocean and some of the more humorous stories. He didn’t notice as the sun set below the horizon and night crept over them, the hour growing later and later.

“And then of course, there’s Alan. He’s the baby of the family. And like I said, he was the one that had a close call with his seal coat. He-” Gordon began, but a grumpy seal cry cut him off, causing both Gordon and Penelope to jump. Perched on a rock was a very annoyed looking black seal. Penelope looked at Gordon.

“One of your brothers, I take it?” Gordon put a hand on the back of his head, his cheeks pinkening. It sure was one of his brothers; a very upset eldest brother who looked like he was about ready to drown Gordon in the surf for forgetting about the time. He waved awkwardly at the seal.

“Oh hey, Scott. That time already?” he asked. The seal vocalized angrily. Gordon laughed and turned back to his new friend. “I suppose this means that my time is up. I’ve got to head back into the water.” He got up and offered a hand to Penelope to help her to her feet. Once both of them were standing, he picked up his seal coat and shook off the sand. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Lady Penelope,” he said. “And I hope to see you again when I come back on shore.” Penelope nodded.

“You’d better. You owe me a story,” she said. She moved closer to him as he batted away the sand from his seal coat. She leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek before she slid on her shoes and started to head up the beach once more. Gordon placed a hand over his cheek and smiled.

“I do indeed,” he muttered to himself. The moment was interrupted as the seal behind him barked at him and he shook his head.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, Scott. Keep your coat on,” he said, sliding into his seal fur and following his brother back into the surf with one last look up the beach at Penelope’s retreating form.

~@~

Gordon lay on one of the rocks that jut from beneath the ocean outside Tracy cove, sunning himself as he watched the sky. His seal coat was tucked safely beneath him. His thoughts strayed back to Penelope and the few hours they had spent together on the beach only a few weeks ago. He doubted he would ever see the feisty blonde again, but he knew that he could never forget her. She had given him his freedom despite obviously wanting to keep him by her side. And he had almost considered staying with her, but the ocean had a siren’s call all its own. No matter how much Penelope had drawn him towards land with her own siren’s call, they had both known that he would never have been able to drown out the call of the sea.

He let out a deep sigh. Man, sometimes the extended time between their visits to shore sucked hardcore. He already had begun to miss the easy companionship with his human friend. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the ocean: the waves lapping against the rocks, the call of the sea birds that flew and dived for their meals, the creaking of a boat as it rocked on the….

Wait a second. Gordon sat bolt upright. Boats never came this close to the cove where he and his brothers had made their home. The sailors that ventured out this far into the ocean called the place Hullshatter Cove for a reason. He looked out over the ocean and sure enough, a boat was making its way in the direction of the cove. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, wondering if he hadn’t gone sea mad, but the boat remained where it was. He got to his feet, gathering up his coat and frowning. He had to keep the boat from coming into the cove somehow.

He pulled his coat over his body, feeling the transformation as he leapt into the water. His seal body cut through the water swiftly and in no time at all, he was at the side of the boat. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do to stop them, but he had to try. He looked up to consider his next move when a lifeboat dropped, the craft hitting the water so close to his head that if his reflex to dive hadn’t been quite so quick, he would have been seeing stars. His head surfaced again as he stared at the small craft. Gordon wasn’t one to look a gift horse, or boat for that matter, in the mouth. He jumped into the lifeboat, letting out a series of barks to warn the sailors of the impending danger.

Underneath him the small boat lurched as it began to be hoisted up on deck. Gordon realized that he may not have thought this plan entirely through, but there was no turning back now. He allowed himself to be hoisted to ship level, where he jumped onto the deck and barked at anyone who came near him, trying desperately to call their attention to the dangers that awaited them as they floated closer to the island.

“Now is that any way to behave?” Gordon froze, his head whipping around. He knew that voice. There stood Penelope. Gone were the skirts and trappings of high society. Instead she wore trousers and a long captain’s coat, and Gordon couldn’t deny that the look somehow suited the young woman more than the skirts ever would. She looked comfortable and happy in a way she hadn’t when last he saw her. “You can close your mouth, Gordon,” she said. He snapped his jaw shut, having been unaware of when it had dropped open. He began to shed his coat, taking human form there on the deck of the ship and looking at her with wide eyes.

“Penelope? But…how…why…?” Gordon wasn’t sure what question he wanted to ask first. Penelope shook her head.

“Why? For you, of course,” she said. Gordon’s expression went from puzzled to completely bewildered.

“Me?”

“Yes,” she said. “You longed for the freedom of the sea, and I decided that I wanted a taste of that for myself. So I pulled a few strings and got myself a letter of marque to sail the sea. I was hoping I would find you again.” Gordon’s heart melted. She had done all of this…for him?

“Penelope…I…don’t know what to say…” Penelope waved a hand dismissively.

“The only thing that you have to say is that you are going to give me the full story about your brother and his near marriage miss. You said that you couldn’t come on shore again for quite some time and I wasn’t willing to wait that long. So if you couldn’t come on shore, I would come to the sea,” she said. Gordon stood frozen for a moment as he processed her words. Never before in collective selkie memory had a human made the attempt to figure out a loophole to remain close to a selkie companion on their terms. He laughed, happy tears threatening to make their way to his eyes. He moved forward to her and wrapped her in his arms, planting a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“Thank you, Penelope…thank you so much…this means the world to me…and I promise…I’ll tell you all the stories you want…” he said. She smiled up at him, her arms draping around his waist as well.

“Good,” she said. Neither of them moved for several moments, allowing themselves to just be in each other’s company before she pulled back slightly and smiled up at him, moving her hands to his chest. “Now what say you and I go have a bite to eat and you make good on your promise?” Gordon nodded, willing to follow his feisty little captain anywhere, letting her guide him toward the lower decks. He stooped for only a moment to pick up his seal coat before taking her hand.

“Well you see, Alan’s near brush with marriage all started when…”

#thunderbirds are go #gordon tracy #Lady Penelope #scott tracy #alan tracy #virgil tracy #john tracy #irrelief #irrelief2020 #one of mine #fanfiction #my fanfiction #my aesthetic boards

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