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idontknowreallywhy · 2 years ago

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This one accosted me while I was trying to write something else (which appears to be A Pattern for me and writing… well… anything actually). It is very much inspired by many enjoyable conversations / informal therapy sessions with @astranite who shares my “what’s really going on with Scott” headcanon, and at the same time helped me figure out what might be going on with me too. Thank you for everything and for helping me nudge this into something shareable.

It’s also inspired by @sofasurf’s amazing set of fics about Scott’s struggles in the early days post Jeff disappearing. It’s absolutely right that after an initial crisis his brothers and grandma would have put in measures to stop him needing to work so hard and bear it all alone and I love how she tells that story.

And yet… we have Scott who 6 years later is still up late sat at that thrice-darned desk.. brothers aside, he’s CEO of a company that would employ a lot of competent people to sort out all the nitty gritty paperwork. So why is he still frequently found asleep there 6 years on?

This is my attempt to figure out some of the Reason… and not in any way a side quest distracting me from my own Big Document nemesis. Nope.

It is, however, 99% projection for which I hope you’ll forgive me. Hopefully it’s not too out of character.

Sort of an emotional hurt-comfort thing. The ending is very silly because that is apparently how I roll.

Trochilidae

Scott shook his head irritably as his eyelids drooped and flung out his hand to grab his mug… which promptly took a nose dive off the desk.

Allowing himself to face plant the polished wood for a moment he acknowledged he was, at least, lucky it was empty. Something he really should have remembered as that would have been the 5th time he had raised it to his lips only to be disappointed at the lack of caffeinated wake up juice within.

Not that it was doing any good. He scowled. It never did. The miraculous transformation from ‘Sleep of the Dead’ to ‘Alert and Ready’ that the brown stuff could bring about in Virgil and Brains remained a mystery to him. Drinking it kind of kept him grounded though, maybe that was just habit by now. Nevertheless… he shoved his chair back and stood up, glaring at the chunks of ceramic on the floor: a job for future Scott. He went to get a new mug.

Re-entering the living room, he surveyed the scene. All was quiet. Deep breath… stretch out shoulders… he tilted his head from side to side to shift the tension in his neck with a satisfying series of cracks.

1am. No problem.

He was nearly done and then he could get to bed and get a solid 4 hours oblivion before his morning run.

Back at his desk, he took a fortifying gulp of focus juice, put on his determined face, picked up his tablet and swiped up to open the annual report again. He blitzed through another three paragraphs, noted down 4 questions for the board, one for the accountant and one further point to follow up with Jack, the Tracy family lawyer, before his eye was drawn to the broken mug scattered across the floor.

Probably shouldn’t leave that.

Gordon might wander by in those flimsy deck shoes and mortally wound himself.

He laid the tablet back down, pointed at it and muttered” don’t go anywhere” to the document that had been tormenting him. Blinking rapidly as he realised quite how little sense THAT had made, he crouched down to nudge the scattered fragments into a pile he could scoop up into the waste basket.

From this angle he realised there was a lot more than just decimated mug and coffee splatters down here… there were crumbs galore, odd, sticky patches and… yes he was pretty sure that the mysterious patch of shadow tucked away under the back corner of the desk was the better part of a club sandwich. He shuffled over, crablike, and reached underneath to retrieve it, sniffed it cautiously and was just concluding it was unlikely to be worth the subsequent food poisoning when John’s hologram popped up in front of him. He didn’t even glance up to see the inevitable raised eyebrow.

“Don’t even say it, John.”

Obediently his space-brother remained silent.

“I’m nearly done. I’m just signing off the annual report for the board meeting tomorrow.”

“From… under the desk?”

Blue eyes were cast upwards as Scott strode over to the kitchen to dispose of the rancid but weirdly tempting sandwich. There was no liner in the food waste caddy. He tutted and placed the plate on the counter top to deal with in a minute.

“Obviously not, I just spotted that Gordon had left something gross lying around and we don’t want a repeat of the taco incident.”

“Okay, and what are you doing now?”

Scott looked down at the cleaning bot in his hands.

“I… well it’s clearly not been working, the place is a health hazard so I was just going to see if I could…”

This time he did raise his eyes to meet the eyebrow of judgment.

Holding up the bot for John to examine, he grinned at his little brother and shook it gently.

“Look it has googly eyes! I bet that was Gordon.”

“Unlikely to be causing the malfunction. Get Brains to take a look at it tomorrow. Or Alan, he needs the practice.”

“True. Oh, did you see the note his teacher sent through?” Scott returned the bot to its housing and jogged over to his desk to pull up the email in question. He sat down and started to type a reply.

“Scott.”

“Mmhmm?”

“I saw it. It’s non-urgent.”

“Yes but while I think of it I might as well…”

“It’s 1:27am. Why don’t you just sign off the report and get some rest. It’ll keep.”

A melodramatic huff and the offending document was returned to the screen.

“You’ve been reading this for the last four days, Scott. What’s the issue? Can I help?”

“There are just so many points I need to follow up before I can put my name to it.” Scott highlighted a particular paragraph. “What if the data this is based on is inaccurate? I haven’t seen it!” He stabbed at another “These assertions here… is it ok to say that? I need to check the industry standards for…” he gestured vehemently “six or seven of these baseline metrics. The grammar in the narrative paragraphs feels clumsy. And I haven’t even started proof-reading it for typos yet!”

Scott took a deep shuddering breath and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, weaving his fingers into his hair and gripping slightly harder than was comfortable as if that would ease the headache he knew was starting.

“The accountants have checked it, the divisional heads have checked it, Jack has been all over it at least twice. Virgil and the engineering team went through it with a fine tooth comb last week, they’ll know the baselines. I’ve checked it myself. Even EOS had a look.”

The response was barely audible.

“But what if… it’s not good enough? If someone missed something and… I didn’t spot it…”

“You don’t have to spot everything Scott. We pay smart people very generously to spot things. As CEO you are allowed to rely on them.”

Silence.

“Please… can you trust us?”

Holding his breath to fight a wave of nausea, Scott flipped to the final page of the document and added his digital signature.

With ninja-like speed John had saved the file and forwarded it to the board.

“It’s done, big brother. Go and sleep in your actual bed for a change.”

A swift shake of the head and muttered curse as big brother realised he’d gnawed through his bottom lip again.

“Can’t.” He stood up and paced the room.

“You know, maybe you shouldn’t have caffeine so late. Even Virgil…”

Scott’s snapped explanation that it made no difference whatsoever and that John KNEW that was forestalled by a series of beeps followed by a low hum as the cleaning bot started trawling across the floor.

“EOS?”

“Yeah, I asked her to see whether a firmware update would sort it.”

“Right.”

The brothers watched in silence as the little machine zigzagged around the room, bumping from one obstacle to another in an apparently haphazard fashion.

“It doesn’t seem very efficient does it?”

Scott sank suddenly to the floor in an effort to hide the fact his legs had turned to jelly.

“No, but it’ll get there in the end and everything will be done and it will all be ok.”

He snorted at his brother’s lack of subtlety and rested his forehead on his knees, concentrating on breathing evenly. He was fine. It was all fine. Again.

A few minutes passed before he noticed a faint high pitched giggle and his moment of peace was interrupted by the cleaning bot repeatedly bumping into his hip. He lifted his head to glare at it only for his eyes to make contact with the outsized googly ones jiggling wildly with each collision. His shoulders shook and he pressed his lips together to try to contain the rush of emotion rising up in his chest.

“EOS!”

As John turned to lecture the AI about when it was and wasn’t appropriate to annoy older brothers, the bot froze, all unblinking innocence gazing up at him. Scott let slip the smallest chortle then, after a beat, exploded, throwing back his head with howls of laughter, tears running down his face

It took him a while to compose himself enough to notice he was now lying on his back on the living room floor, John smiling down at him like some benevolent heavenly messenger. Smugness permeated through EOS’s voice as she enquired whether the Commander was much better now. He hiccuped. Then nodded. As he peeled himself off the floor and patted the cleaning bot absently, Scott found himself seized by An Idea.

And so it was that as Gordon awoke with his dawn alarm to find a 6-day old sandwich with giant eyes watching him from his bedside table.

The screech of a horrified squid echoed through the villa and was swiftly followed by the slamming of doors and the thundering of feet as most of its occupants tore to the rescue of a brother in distress.

The eldest brother remained precisely where he was, warm and comfortable, listening to the chaos and bemused voices. He smiled to himself and drifted back off to sleep.

[AO3]

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #scott tracy #idontknowreallywhy fanfic #scott tracy needs sleep #Thunderfluff #mostly fluff #Ok Scott’s a bit stressed #But the ending sorts him right out #EOS is a menace #And a genius

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