#Alan is such a constant presence in my head

[smilingformoney]

so jealous of people whose favourite actor is still alive

[muiitoloko]

Had an idea for a Alan Rickman story, with a female character. A bit of a smutty idea. Him and a younger actress are preparing to film a very intimate scene with the help of an intimacy coordinator, but the coordinator is making things more difficult then they need to be. So after the day is wrapped, they both go back to the hotel and decide to practice the scene there together. Only it becomes more real then they planned.

if the idea is crap, feel free to scrap it.😀

Title: Rehearsal

Summary: Things take a different turn during rehearsal for her scene with Alan.

Pairing: Alan Rickman × Actress! Reader

Warnings: Smut

Author's Notes: Hey there! Thanks for sharing your idea! I actually think it's pretty intriguing! 😄 There's definitely some spicy potential there, especially with the added drama of the intimacy coordinator. I'm totally up for writing about it! Just a heads up though, in this fanfic, Alan will obviously be single—gotta keep it true to the storyline! 😅 Let's dive into this steamy adventure! 🌟

Also read on Ao3

As you stood on set, rehearsing yet another intimate scene with Alan Rickman, the weight of nervousness settled heavily on your shoulders. Despite being a sought-after young actress in Hollywood, the prospect of filming such scenes still made your heart race with apprehension.

Alan's presence only added to your anxiety, his baritone voice sending shivers down your spine as he delivered his lines with effortless charm. His hooked nose and piercing gaze seemed to see right through you, adding to the intensity of the moment.

But it wasn't Alan that was causing you the most stress today. No, it was the intimacy coordinator, whose constant meddling was making a challenging situation even more difficult than it needed to be. Their insistence on perfection, their nitpicking over every little detail, was starting to wear on your nerves, and you could see the frustration mirrored in Alan's eyes as well.

"Cut! That's not quite right, let's try it again from the top," the intimacy coordinator called out, their voice tinged with dissatisfaction.

You exchanged a weary glance with Alan, both of you silently acknowledging the absurdity of the situation. It was just a scene, after all, nothing more than a performance meant to entertain audiences. But the intimacy coordinator seemed determined to turn it into something far more complicated than it needed to be.

As you prepared to run through the scene once again, you couldn't help but feel a twinge of irritation at the intimacy coordinator's overbearing presence. Surely, there had to be a better way to approach these intimate scenes without subjecting you and Alan to such unnecessary stress and scrutiny.

But as you locked eyes with Alan, a silent understanding passed between you. No matter what challenges you faced, you were in this together, united in your determination to deliver a compelling performance despite the obstacles in your path.

With a shared nod of determination, you straightened up and turned away from Alan, returning to your mark to continue the rehearsal from the beginning. As you slipped into the role of Emily, your heart raced with anticipation, the script unfolding in your mind as you prepared to embody the character's emotions and desires.

As the intimacy coordinator gave the cue to continue the rehearsal, Alan pulled you close, his presence commanding and magnetic as he stepped into the role of Thomas. His baritone voice washed over you like a velvet caress, sending a shiver of excitement down your spine as he delivered his lines with effortless intensity.

"Emily," Alan's voice rumbled, his breath hot against your neck as he spoke his lines. "I can't deny what I feel for you any longer. I know it's wrong, but I can't help but want you, crave you, with every fiber of my being."

Your pulse quickened at Alan's words, your character's internal struggle mirroring your own as you tried to resist the overwhelming temptation he presented. "Thomas, please," you protested weakly, your voice trembling with desire. "You're my boyfriend's father. We can't do this."

But Alan's character, consumed by his own desires, refused to be swayed by your protests. With a hungry growl, he pulled you into his arms, his lips trailing kisses along your neck as he whispered words of passion and longing.

"I don't care about any of that," Alan's character declared, his voice thick with desire. "All I want is you, Emily. I want to feel you beneath me, surrendering to the pleasure only I can give you. Come to me, my darling, and let me show you the ecstasy that awaits us."

As Alan's lips found yours in a fierce kiss, you melted into him just as the script dictated. His touch ignited a fire within you, sending waves of pleasure coursing through your body as you surrendered to the intensity of the moment as he pulls you into bed with him.

But before you could lose yourself completely in the passion of the scene, the intimacy coordinator interrupted once again, their voice cutting through the air with frustrating precision.

"Cut! That's not quite right," they declared, their tone laced with disappointment. "We need more passion, more intensity. I'm just not feeling it."

Alan broke away from the kiss with a frustrated groan, rolling away from you with a scowl marring his handsome features. "Bloody hell," he muttered under his breath, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

You sighed irritably, sitting on the edge of the bed as you exchanged a weary glance with Alan. This wasn't the first time the intimacy coordinator had interrupted the scene, and you were beginning to wonder if they would ever be satisfied.

Alan got up from the bed, his irritation evident in the set of his shoulders as he made his way over to the intimacy coordinator. "What's the problem now?" he demanded, his voice tinged with annoyance.

The intimacy coordinator sighed, running a hand through their hair in frustration. "It's just not working, Alan," they explained, their tone apologetic. "There's a lack of passion, a lack of chemistry between you and [Your Name]. We need to capture that raw intensity, that burning desire that drives your characters together."

Alan's expression darkened at the criticism, but he remained composed as he listened to the coordinator's feedback. After a moment of silence, he nodded in resignation. "Fine," he conceded, his voice tight with frustration. "We'll try it again tomorrow."

With that, the intimacy coordinator dismissed you both for the rest of the day, warning you that you would need to return to the set early tomorrow morning for one last rehearsal before recording the scene.

Alan sighed irritably as the coordinator walked away, his frustration evident in every line of his body. But as he turned to leave, you called out to him, hesitating for a moment before speaking.

"Alan, wait," you said, your voice hesitant. "What if we... rehearsed the scene again, but this time at the hotel? Maybe if we had some privacy, we could really get into the characters and find that chemistry the coordinator is looking for."

Alan looked at you, his expression softening at your suggestion. He considered it for a moment before nodding in agreement. "That might not be a bad idea," he admitted, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "We could use the extra practice before tomorrow."

You smiled in relief, grateful for Alan's willingness to go the extra mile to ensure the scene was a success. "Great," you said, your voice brightening with enthusiasm. "My hotel room is just down the hall. We can rehearse there if you don't mind."

Alan chuckled softly, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. "I don't mind at all," he replied, his tone warm with affection. "Lead the way, [Your Name]. Let's make sure we nail this scene tomorrow."

As the taxi wound its way through the bustling streets of Rome, you couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of the city. The ancient architecture, the winding cobblestone streets, the vibrant colors of the bustling markets – it was a feast for the senses, and you found yourself itching to explore every corner of it.

Beside you, Alan sat in quiet contemplation, his gaze fixed on the passing scenery outside the window. His baritone voice broke the silence as he spoke, his British accent lending a cultured elegance to his words.

"Quite a stunning city, isn't it?" he remarked, his tone thoughtful. "There's a certain timeless quality to Rome that I find quite captivating. It's as if every corner holds a piece of history, just waiting to be discovered."

You nodded in agreement, a smile tugging at the corners of your lips. "Absolutely," you replied, your voice filled with enthusiasm. "I can't wait to take a stroll through the streets and soak in the atmosphere. There's so much to see and experience here."

As the conversation turned to your characters and the upcoming scene, you found yourself drawn into a lively discussion with Alan, his insights and observations adding depth to your understanding of the roles you were portraying. His passion for the craft of acting was evident in every word he spoke, and you couldn't help but feel inspired by his dedication to his craft.

Before you knew it, the taxi had arrived at the hotel, and Alan made a point of paying the driver before you could even reach for your wallet. You thanked him with a grateful smile, feeling a warm glow of appreciation for his thoughtful gesture.

As you made your way up to your floor, Alan paused outside his room, turning to face you with a sheepish smile. "I'll just leave a few things in my room before heading to yours," he explained, his tone casual. "I'll meet you there in a few minutes, alright?"

You nodded in understanding, feeling a flutter of anticipation in your chest at the thought of being alone with Alan in the privacy of your hotel room. "Sounds good," you replied, your voice tinged with excitement. "I'll see you in a bit."

With that, you watched as Alan disappeared into his room, his figure disappearing behind the closed door. Taking a deep breath to steady your nerves, you made your way to the end of the hallway, your heart racing with anticipation for what was to come.

Once inside your hotel room, you took a moment to gather your thoughts, the excitement of the day still coursing through your veins. You couldn't believe you were about to rehearse an intimate scene with Alan Rickman of all people, and in the privacy of your own hotel room, no less.

As you paced nervously around the room, your mind raced with a million different thoughts and emotions. What if you messed up the scene? What if you couldn't find the chemistry the intimacy coordinator was looking for? What if Alan thought you were a terrible actress?

But as you took a deep breath and reminded yourself to stay calm, you pushed aside your doubts and fears, focusing instead on the task at hand. You were a professional actress, after all, and you had worked hard to earn your place in the industry. You wouldn't let a little nervousness stand in the way of giving your best performance.

Just then, there was a soft knock on the door, and your heart leaped into your throat as you realized that Alan had arrived. With trembling hands, you made your way to the door, your pulse racing with anticipation as you prepared to face him.

As you opened the door, your breath caught in your throat at the sight of Alan standing before you, his expression warm and welcoming. "Hello, [Your Name]," he greeted you, his voice soft with affection. "May I come in?"

You nodded eagerly, stepping aside to let him enter the room. "Of course," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper as you ushered him inside.

As Alan stepped into the room, you couldn't help but notice the way his eyes swept over your surroundings, taking in every detail with a keen eye for observation. His hooked nose twitched in amusement as he spotted the plush armchair by the window, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips.

"What a lovely room you have," he remarked, his tone genuine. "It's so cozy and inviting. And that view of the city is simply breathtaking."

You blushed at the compliment, feeling a surge of pride at the thought of sharing your temporary home with someone as distinguished as Alan Rickman. "Thank you," you replied, your voice tinged with gratitude. "I'm glad you like it."

As you settled into the room, the two of you fell into an easy conversation, discussing your characters and the upcoming scene with a shared sense of excitement and anticipation. Alan's insights and observations were invaluable, and you found yourself hanging on his every word as he shared his thoughts on the characters' motivations and desires.

As you and Alan delved deeper into the characters' motivations and desires, you found yourselves growing more and more immersed in the world of Emily and Thomas. Alan's insights into Thomas's complex psyche were invaluable, and you couldn't help but admire his dedication to bringing the character to life.

But as the conversation turned to the intimate scene you were about to rehearse, a nervous flutter took root in the pit of your stomach. Despite your best efforts to remain composed, the prospect of acting out such a personal and vulnerable moment with Alan was enough to make your heart race with apprehension.

With a shared glance of determination, you and Alan finally decided to dive into the rehearsal, determined to give it your all. But as you began to act out the scene, a wave of awkwardness washed over you, the absence of the cameras, intimacy coordinator, and other people from the set leaving you feeling exposed and vulnerable.

Without the safety net of the set and its crew, the scene took on a whole new level of intimacy, almost as if it were real. As Alan leaned in to deliver Thomas's lines with his signature baritone voice, you couldn't help but feel a pang of desire stir deep within you, a feeling you quickly brushed aside in favor of focusing on the scene.

But as Alan continued to seduce you with his words and gestures, you found yourself getting lost in the intensity of the moment, your resistance crumbling under the weight of his passion.

"I don't care about any of that," Alan's voice rumbled, his tone thick with desire as he pulled you closer to him, "All I want is you, Emily. I want to feel you beneath me, surrendering to the pleasure only I can give you. Come to me, my darling, and let me show you the ecstasy that awaits us."

Your heart pounded in your chest as you melted against him, your fingers tangling in his shirt as you eagerly pulled him closer. With a gasp of desire, you surrendered to the overwhelming passion that burned between you, your body aflame with longing for him.

Alan's touch ignited a fire within you, his hands tracing every curve and contour of your body with a skill that left you trembling with desire. As he guided you to the bed, his lips never leaving yours, you couldn't help but lose yourself in the heat of the moment, the lines between reality and fiction blurring into nothingness.

As you opened the buttons on Alan's shirt, your fingers trembling with anticipation, you felt a surge of excitement coursing through your veins. The script called for this moment, but the intensity of the scene, combined with the raw chemistry between you and Alan, left you feeling dizzy with desire.

Alan's lips trailed hot kisses along your neck, his breath sending shivers down your spine as he whispered words of passion and longing. But as you felt the warmth of his skin under your touch, you couldn't resist the temptation to deviate from the script, to indulge in the raw desire burning between you.

With a boldness you didn't know you possessed, you allowed your hands to roam freely over Alan's chest, tracing the contours of his muscles with a hunger that bordered on obsession. His skin was warm and smooth beneath your fingertips, a stark contrast to the cool air of the room, and you found yourself lost in the sensation of him beneath your touch.

But as Alan stood up to look at you, his eyes dark with desire, you felt a blush creeping up your cheeks at the realization of what you had done. Pushing his hands away, you stammered out an apology, your voice trembling with embarrassment as you tried to regain your composure.

"I-I'm sorry, Alan," you murmured, your gaze falling to the floor in shame. "I don't know what came over me. I got carried away, and I didn't mean to go off script like that."

Alan's expression softened as he reached out to gently lift your chin, his eyes searching yours with a tenderness that took your breath away. "It's alright, love," he reassured you, his voice a soothing balm to your frazzled nerves. "I must admit, I quite enjoyed your improvisation. You're a natural, [Your Name]."

The warmth of his praise washed over you like a wave, easing the tension in your shoulders as you met his gaze with a hesitant smile. "Th-thank you, Alan," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. "I just... I got caught up in the moment, I suppose."

Alan chuckled softly, the sound like music to your ears as he pulled you into his arms, his embrace warm and comforting. "We all get carried away sometimes, my dear," he murmured, his lips brushing against your ear in a tantalizing caress. "But I must say, I quite enjoyed where your improvisation took us."

As Alan's lips brushed against your ear, sending a shiver down your spine, you caught your breath at the sudden rush of desire that surged through you. His warm breath tickled your skin, igniting a fire within you that threatened to consume you entirely. With a soft gasp, you instinctively leaned into his touch, craving more of the intoxicating sensation he elicited with just a simple caress.

"Alan," you murmured his name, the sound barely audible over the pounding of your heart. But before you could say anything more, Alan seemed to snap back to reality, cursing softly under his breath as he pulled away from you, his expression a mixture of frustration and apology.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, his voice rough with emotion as he ran a hand through his hair, his eyes clouded with self-reproach. "I didn't mean to... I shouldn't have..."

You watched him with a mixture of sympathy and concern, reaching out to gently touch his arm in a gesture of comfort. "It's okay, Alan," you reassured him, your voice soft and understanding. "We were both caught up in the moment. You were just improvising, like I did earlier."

Alan looked at you, his eyes searching yours for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Yes, you're right," he conceded, his voice tinged with uncertainty. "I was improvising. I suppose I just got carried away."

You offered him a reassuring smile, hoping to ease the tension that hung heavy in the air between you. "We can start again if you want," you suggested, your voice gentle and encouraging. "Take a moment to collect yourself, and we can go through the scene again."

Alan nodded, taking a deep breath to steady himself before meeting your gaze with a determined look. "Yes, let's do that," he agreed, his voice firm with resolve. "I won't let my... momentary lapse affect our performance. We're professionals, after all."

With that, the two of you launched back into the scene, picking up where you left off with renewed focus and determination. As Thomas continued to seduce Emily, his words laced with desire and longing, you found yourself drawn into the intensity of the moment, your resistance crumbling under the weight of his passion.

But this time, when Thomas leaned in to kiss Emily, the kiss was different. It was long, intense, filled with a raw desire that threatened to consume them both. As Alan pulled you closer, his lips claiming yours with a fierce urgency, you couldn't help but lose yourself in the heat of the moment, the lines between fiction and reality blurring into nothingness.

Your hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer as you deepened the kiss, your bodies pressed together in a desperate embrace. With each passing moment, the intensity of the scene grew, fueled by the undeniable chemistry that burned between you.

But as the kiss finally broke, leaving you both breathless and wanting more, you reminded yourself that it was just improvisation, just a means to make the scene as real as possible for filming. And yet, deep down, you couldn't deny the thrill that coursed through you at the thought of what had just transpired between you and Alan.

As you caught your breath, you exchanged a knowing glance with Alan, a silent acknowledgment passing between you. In that moment, you both understood that what had just happened was more than just acting – it was a connection, a spark of passion that transcended the boundaries of the scene.

As Alan took a deep breath, his gaze searching yours with a mix of uncertainty and desire, you felt a surge of anticipation coursing through your veins. The air crackled with tension between you.

But before you could utter a word, Alan's voice cut through the silence, his tone hesitant yet determined. "Do you... want me to leave?" he asked, his baritone voice sending shivers down your spine as he awaited your answer.

You met his gaze with a steady look, your heart racing with a mixture of nerves and longing. "No," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. "I don't want you to leave, Alan. I want... this. I want you."

The admission hung between you like a weight, the air thick with anticipation as you waited for Alan's response. For a moment, he seemed to hesitate, his expression clouded with uncertainty as he processed your words.

But then, with a sudden surge of determination, Alan stepped closer to you, his gaze locking onto yours with unwavering intensity. "Shit," he breathed, his voice thick with desire. "You want this... you want me?"

You nodded, your heart pounding in your chest as you met his gaze with unbridled longing. "Yes," you confessed, your voice barely a whisper. "I want this, Al. I want you."

Alan's eyes darkened with desire as he reached out to cup your face in his hands, his touch sending electric currents racing through your veins. "God, [Your Name]," he murmured, his voice husky with need. "I want you too. More than you can possibly imagine."

With that, Alan wasted no time in closing the distance between you, his lips crashing against yours in a fierce, passionate kiss. It was like a dam had burst, releasing the pent-up desire that had been simmering between you since the moment you met.

His hands roamed over your body with a hunger that left you breathless, his touch igniting a fire within you that threatened to consume you entirely. With each caress, each kiss, the intensity of your desire grew, until you were both lost in a whirlwind of passion and ecstasy.

As Alan pressed you against the wall, his body flush against yours, you felt a surge of heat pooling between your legs, aching to be touched, to be claimed by him completely. His hands trailed down your body, leaving a trail of fire in their wake as he explored every inch of you with a reverence that took your breath away.

"I've wanted this for so long," Alan confessed, his voice rough with emotion as he peppered kisses along your neck, his breath hot against your skin. "To feel you beneath me, to taste every inch of you, to lose myself in the depths of your desire."

You whimpered in response, your nails digging into his back as you pulled him closer, craving more of the intoxicating sensation he elicited with just a simple touch. "Yes, Al," you gasped, your voice thick with desire. "I want you. I need you. Please, don't stop."

With a growl of desire, Alan lifted you into his arms, carrying you towards the bed with a fierce determination that left you weak with longing. As he laid you down on the soft mattress, he trailed kisses along your collarbone, his hands deftly removing your clothes with a hunger that left you trembling with anticipation.

And as you stood naked in front of him, Alan stopped to admire you, his gaze intense and focused as if you were a masterpiece hanging in a gallery. Your cheeks flushed with embarrassment under his scrutiny, feeling like you were under a microscope, laid bare for his inspection.

You couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement mixed with nervousness, knowing that this was the moment you had been waiting for, the culmination of the tension that had been building between you since the rehearsal began. And yet, as Alan's eyes roamed over your body, taking in every curve and contour with a hunger that left you breathless, you couldn't help but feel a twinge of self-consciousness.

After all, this was Alan Rickman, the legendary British actor whose performances you had admired for years. To have him look at you with such intensity, as if you were the only thing that mattered in the world, was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

But as Alan questioned once again if you wanted him to leave, giving you one last chance to send him away, you found yourself shaking your head in denial, your voice barely above a whisper as you pleaded with him to stay.

"No, Alan," you murmured, your voice trembling with desire. "I don't want you to leave. I want you... I need you."

Alan's lips curled into a wicked grin at your words, a glint of mischief dancing in his eyes as he leaned in closer, his larger, thicker body swallowing yours in a sea of desire. With a low chuckle, he trailed kisses down your collarbone, his lips teasingly close to the swell of your breasts, but never quite touching.

"You're sure about that, love?" he asked, his voice husky with desire. "This is your last chance to change your mind. Once we start, there's no going back."

But you shook your head adamantly, the need for him burning hot and fierce in your veins. "I'm sure, Alan," you insisted, your voice thick with desire. "I want you. I need you. Please, don't make me wait any longer."

With a satisfied smile playing on his lips, Alan finally took one of your breasts in his mouth, his tongue swirling around the sensitive peak as he suckled on it with a hunger that left you gasping for air. But he didn't stop there. Oh no, Alan's exploration of your body was just beginning.

As his lips worked their magic on your breast, his fingers trailed down your trembling form, leaving a trail of fire in their wake as they traced the contours of your body with a feather-light touch. With a wicked grin, he teased your inner thighs, his touch tantalizingly close to your throbbing center but never quite reaching it.

You moaned his name, dragging out the syllables in a desperate plea for more, but Alan, ever the tease, denied you, reminding you in his husky baritone voice that you were still in character, that this was just a rehearsal. "Patience, my dear Emily," he murmured against your skin, his breath hot against your ear. "We mustn't break character, after all."

You whimpered in frustration, your nails digging into his back as you arched into his touch, craving more of the exquisite pleasure he was capable of giving you. But Alan only chuckled in amusement, his fingers continuing their wicked dance along your trembling form as he prepared you for what was to come.

"You're so eager, my sweet Emily," he teased, his voice thick with desire. "But remember, we must maintain the illusion, mustn't we? I am Thomas, not Alan. And you, my dear, are my forbidden desire, the object of my relentless passion."

With a low growl of frustration, you nodded in understanding, your body thrumming with anticipation as you surrendered to the intensity of the moment. "Yes, Thomas," you gasped, your voice thick with desire. "Forgive me, I got carried away. But please, I need you. I need to feel you inside me, filling me up with your desire."

Alan's lips curled into a wicked grin at your words, his eyes dark with desire as he finally relented, his fingers slipping between your slick folds with a hunger that left you trembling with need. With a soft gasp, you arched into his touch, craving more of the exquisite pleasure he was capable of giving you.

But Alan only chuckled in amusement, his eyes twinkling with mischief as he teased you with a slow, torturous pace that left you begging for more. "So eager, my dear," he murmured, his voice thick with desire. "But patience is a virtue, is it not? We have all the time in the world to explore each other's desires."

You whimpered in frustration, your hips bucking against his hand as you sought more of the intoxicating pleasure he was capable of giving you. But Alan only chuckled in amusement, his fingers continuing their wicked dance along your trembling form as he teased you with the promise of ecstasy just out of reach.

With a low growl of frustration, you pleaded with him, your voice thick with desire. "Please, Thomas," you gasped, your body thrumming with need. "I can't take it anymore. I need you. I need you to fill me up, to make me yours completely."

Alan's eyes darkened with desire at your words, his resolve finally crumbling as he gave in to the overwhelming passion that burned between you. With a fierce growl, he shed his remaining clothes, his thick cock springing free from its confines as he positioned himself between your trembling thighs.

With a wicked grin, he teased your entrance with the tip of his cock, his eyes locked with yours in a silent exchange of longing and desire. And then, with a low groan of pleasure, he surged forward, burying himself deep inside you with a single, powerful thrust.

You cried out in ecstasy as he filled you completely, his cock stretching you to the limit as he claimed you as his own. With each powerful thrust, he drove deeper into you, his pace relentless and unyielding as he rode you towards the edge of oblivion.

"Fuck, [Your Name]," he groaned, his voice thick with desire. "You feel so damn good, baby. I swear, I could spend eternity buried deep inside you and never want for anything else."

You moaned in response, your nails digging into his back as you clung to him desperately, craving more of the intense pleasure he was giving you. With each powerful thrust, he drove you closer to the edge, the pleasure building to a crescendo that threatened to consume you both.

As you watched Alan lost in pleasure, you couldn't help but marvel at how utterly beautiful he looked in that moment. His eyes closed in ecstasy, his lips parted in a chorus of moans that sent shivers down your spine. God, his baritone voice, usually so controlled and precise, was now a symphony of pleasure, filling the room with a melody that echoed in your ears.

You couldn't resist the overwhelming desire that consumed you as you watched him, your own need for pleasure driving you to touch yourself in a desperate attempt to find release. With one hand teasing your breasts, rolling your hardened nipples between your fingers, and the other slipping between your slick folds, you sought to heighten the pleasure coursing through your body.

Alan's eyes fluttered open to catch you in the act, his gaze darkening with desire as he watched you pleasure yourself while he moved inside you. "Fuck, [Your Name]," he groaned, his voice thick with lust. "You're so fucking hot, playing with yourself like that while I'm buried deep inside you."

His words sent a jolt of excitement coursing through you, only intensifying the pleasure building within you. With a wicked grin, you met his gaze head-on, relishing in the power you held over him in that moment.

"You like watching me, Alan?" you teased, your voice dripping with seduction. "Does it turn you on, knowing that you're the one driving me wild with desire? Knowing that I can't get enough of you, even when you're buried deep inside me?"

Alan's breath hitched at your words, his hips stuttering momentarily in their rhythm as he struggled to maintain control. "Fuck, yes," he gasped, his voice thick with desire. "You're so fucking sexy, [Your Name]. I could watch you touch yourself all day, baby."

With renewed determination, you continued to pleasure yourself, your fingers working tirelessly to chase the elusive release that hovered just out of reach. Every stroke, every caress brought you closer to the edge, the pleasure building to a fever pitch that threatened to consume you entirely.

But just as you felt yourself on the brink of ecstasy, Alan's voice cut through the haze of pleasure, his tone rough with desperation. "Stop," he commanded, his voice thick with need. "I can't... I can't hold back much longer if you keep doing that."

You paused momentarily, torn between the desire to obey his command and the overwhelming need for release that pulsed through your veins. But as you looked into Alan's eyes, dark with desire and pleading with need, you knew that you had to do as he asked.

With a reluctant sigh, you removed your hand from your throbbing center, a whimper of frustration escaping your lips as you denied yourself the pleasure you so desperately craved. But as you watched Alan, his expression contorted in ecstasy, you knew that it was worth it, knowing that you were the one driving him to the brink of climax.

But as Alan's fingers replaced yours, you gasped in surprise at the sudden change, a moan escaping your lips as his thick digits began to work their magic on your sensitive clit. His touch was rough yet gentle, sending jolts of pleasure coursing through your body as he continued to move inside you with a relentless pace.

You clung to him desperately, your nails digging into his back as you rode the waves of pleasure crashing over you. With each stroke of his fingers, you felt yourself edging closer and closer to the precipice, the intensity of the sensation threatening to overwhelm your senses entirely.

But just as you felt yourself teetering on the brink of ecstasy, Alan's voice cut through the haze of pleasure, his tone commanding yet desperate. "Cum for me, [Your Name]," he ordered, his voice thick with need. "I want to feel you cum all over my dick, baby. I want to feel you tremble beneath me as you surrender to the pleasure only I can give you."

His words sent a surge of excitement coursing through you, your body responding eagerly to his command as you clung to him, desperate for release. With a primal growl of desire, you let yourself go, surrendering to the overwhelming pleasure that consumed you entirely.

As you came undone in his arms, waves of ecstasy washing over you in a tidal wave of pleasure, you cried out his name, your voice a symphony of pleasure that echoed through the room. Alan's fingers continued their relentless assault on your clit, driving you higher and higher towards the edge until you were teetering on the brink of oblivion.

And then, with one final thrust of his hips, Alan pushed you over the edge, sending you spiraling into the abyss of ecstasy. Your body convulsed with pleasure as you came apart in his arms, every nerve ending ablaze with the intensity of the sensation coursing through you.

"Fuck, yes," Alan groaned, his voice thick with desire as he felt you tremble beneath him. "That's it, baby. Cum for me. Give me everything you've got."

As you rode out the waves of pleasure crashing over you, Alan continued to move inside you with a relentless pace, his own release looming ever closer on the horizon. But just as he felt himself on the brink of climax, he knew that he couldn't hold back any longer.

With a desperate groan of pleasure, Alan pulled out of you, his thick cock glistening with your combined juices as he stroked himself with a feverish urgency.

And as you watched Alan, mesmerized by the sight before you, you couldn't help but feel a surge of desire coursing through your veins. Here was Alan Rickman, the legendary actor and object of your fantasies, pleasuring himself with an urgency that left you breathless. It was like something out of a dream, and yet, here you were, living it.

With each stroke of his hand, Alan's expression twisted in pleasure, his baritone voice filling the room with a chorus of moans that sent shivers down your spine. His hooked nose twitched in arousal, a bead of sweat forming on his brow as he neared the precipice of ecstasy.

And then, with a primal growl of pleasure, Alan finally succumbed to the overwhelming sensation coursing through him, his release painting the sheets in a sticky mess as he groaned in satisfaction. A few errant spurts landed on your thighs, leaving a trail of warmth in their wake as Alan collapsed next to you, his chest heaving with exertion.

You couldn't help but laugh at the sight, the absurdity of the situation hitting you like a ton of bricks. Here you were, lying naked in bed with Alan Rickman, after an impromptu rehearsal that had taken a decidedly unexpected turn. It was like something out of a cheesy romance novel, and yet, it was undeniably real.

"Well, that was certainly... unexpected," Alan remarked, his voice thick with amusement as he wiped a stray bead of sweat from his brow. "I must say, [Your Name], you certainly know how to keep things interesting."

You chuckled in response, feeling a surge of warmth spreading through your chest at his words. "I aim to please, Al," you replied, your voice laced with mischief. "But I must say, you're not too bad yourself. Who knew you had such hidden talents?"

Alan laughed, the sound rich and melodious as it filled the room. "Oh, I have many talents, my dear," he teased, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "But I must say, this is certainly a first for me. Rehearsing an intimate scene with a beautiful actress in a hotel room? It's like something out of a bad porno."

You couldn't help but laugh at the comparison, the absurdity of the situation not lost on you. "Well, we did get a few scenes wrong," you joked back, your voice thick with amusement. "I suppose we'll just have to rehearse them again. Maybe next time we'll get it right."

Alan chuckled in agreement, his laughter mingling with yours in a harmonious symphony of sound. "Yes, perhaps we should," he agreed, his voice warm with affection. "But for now, I think we deserve a little break. What do you say we order some room service and relax for a bit?"

You nodded eagerly, feeling a surge of contentment washing over you at the thought of spending more time with Alan. "That sounds perfect," you replied, your voice tinged with excitement. "I could use a little downtime after all that... rehearsal."

With a shared smile, the two of you settled back against the pillows, basking in the afterglow of your passionate encounter. As you drifted off to sleep in each other's arms, you couldn't help but feel a sense of peace settle over you, knowing that whatever the future held, you would always have this moment, this connection with Alan Rickman.

[sunnyupsidedown]

Tender

Word Count: 1873 [AO3]

Rating: Explicit

Summary: It was so different from their usual encounters. There was no opening remark to set the scene. No falling into a role to be a slightly different version of themselves.

A/N: Wrote this months ago and originally wasn't happy with it BUT I wrote something (in a different fandom) that I'm even less happy with so this doesn't feel so bad anymore lol. Time to release it to the wild. Written because I craved something tender between Jack & Alan.

It was always eerie to be in his house when no one else was around. It wasn’t exactly silent with the creaking of the wood and the thin walls letting every noise imaginable filter in from the street, but without the constant chatter of children, the sounds of cooking in the kitchen, and the general hum of life, it might as well have been a graveyard.

The weeks he sent his family to the seaside while he stayed back to work was only worth it because it gave his family a time to forget the situation they were struggling through. Emily and Tom still brought up stories of chasing gulls and collecting shells and every repetition brought a smile to Alan’s face.

This time his family was packed up and sent to Cheetham Hall. He would be joining them in a few days time after he took care of an important deadline. Alan didn’t know if it was better or worse that he wouldn’t be there to see his family meet Lady Cheetham.

In the meantime, Alan would stay with Jack once Alan picked up the list of items his family forgot to pack but remembered as they were about the hop on the train. With the items quickly located and stored in a bag by the front door, Alan and Jack stood in Alan’s attic bedroom with Jack leaning on the wall by the door and Alan digging though his desk to find his newest draft. It wasn’t quite evening yet with the sun’s golden rays illuminating the dust motes floating in the air.

“We could stay here for the night,” Jack broke the silence.

“No.” Alan’s reply was instant as he continued to page through some of the papers in a side drawer. Alan felt the heat of Jack’s body as he crowded up behind him.

“You’ve slept at my place, let me sleep here,” Jack tried again.

“Well you’re fucking rich. Still no.” Alan sniped back.

“It would be quite a novel experience.” Jack snaked an arm around Alan’s waist and bent to tuck his chin on his shoulder.

“Oh fuck right off!”

“When will it ever be just the two of us here again?” Jack continued unphased.

Alan turned in the embrace and took in Jack. The juxtaposition between Jack and the hovel of his room raged a war in his mind. Jack stood tall and at ease with entire worlds in his ice blue eyes. They suddenly flicked to the side and a smile quirked his lips.

“Oh, what’s this?” Jack asked, sliding a hand from Alan’s waist to an item in his desk drawer.

Alan could feel his face heat with the sight of Jack’s handkerchief between them, but the truth came out of his mouth when he opened it just to see what Jack would do. “Writing inspiration. What else could it be?”

He wasn’t disappointed when one of Jack’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes darken deeply. Jack stepped closer with a question in the way his eyes dropped to his mouth and it was like their lips were magnets. Jack true north and to Alan’s south. Alan shifted up on his toes, tilted his head, and wrapped a hand around the back of Jack’s neck, helpless to the pull.

A hand slipped around his thighs and then he was sitting on his desk. The strain in his neck relieved and the angle changed to something deeper, dirtier.

Alan was at a precipice. If this went on any longer, if he did not stop what was happening, his only haven would no longer be his alone. It would forever hold the memory of this moment with Jack. Jack was a large man with even a larger presence. Alan thought back to the first time Jack was in this room and the uncertainty of the future. If Jack didn’t survive… If Alan didn’t survive... If Jack grew tired of him after the danger was gone and tossed him aside like an old newspaper, then he would be left with no space untainted by the memory of Jack. No refuge. Jack blurred the boundaries of easy fantasy and cruel reality.

But now, months later, Jack was here with him in the room again. Alan slept over at Jack’s at least twice a week but saw him almost everyday: for lunch, for dinner, for tea, for a walk, at the Blyth’s while Spinet was rebuilding. Bella won’t stop smirking during family meals when he can’t seem to keep Jack off his tongue. There was a certain room at the Hawthorn residence that Alan refused to call his. He doesn’t even sleep there but it holds a few suits that have been forced onto him and a desk with a few favored notebooks and pens.

His attic room was no different with traces of Jack creeping in with the handkerchief, a borrowed pen, a smooth rock from Cheetham Hall.

Jack pulled back but stayed close with his forehead leaning on his. “Have I ever told you…” The rumble of his voice, thick with desire, sent a shiver down Alan’s spine. “...that I didn’t have a favorite color until I saw how light reflects from your eyes?”

And suddenly the decision was made. He was falling from the cliff, hurling himself from the edge to reach the man in front of him.

Alan brought their lips together again briefly before pushing Jack back. Alan’s chest heaved. “I want to feel your skin pressed against mine.”

Getting undressed was easier for Alan. His ensemble had less layers, less fiddly pieces. He finished and watched a shirtless Jack start on his pants. Even naked, he could see the wealth in Jack from the full flesh on his body and the shine of his hair. But with the backdrop of the tiny attic room and without the outside wrappings of a lord, it was easier to see Jack as the sum of his actions. Almost like they were equals in society.

Jack stepped out of his drawers and Alan was there, running his hands through the soft hair on Jack’s chest, absorbing the heat of his body. Alan pushed Jack two steps back to the edge of the bed. Jack got the hint and sat with Alan falling into his lap with a kiss.

Alan’s hands roamed the broad expanse of Jack’s back, lightly running his nails up and down. His fingers slowly made their way up into Jack’s hair and pulled. He could feel Jack’s prick jump against his own and a moan escaped him. Alan kissed down Jack’s throat and bit on the soft spot at the base of his neck. The desire to consume everything that was Jack Alston overwhelming.

Jack suddenly lifted and laid Alan down on the bed. A quick rummage in his still open desk drawer had Jack tossing a jar of lotion on the bed and then his mouth was on Alan’s body consuming him in return with a whispered, “You’re going to drive me mad.”

Jack started at his lips, then the soft skin under his chin, his neck, his collarbones, each nip at his nipples pulled a gasp from his throat. Jack kissed the spot under his last ribs almost ticklish with its lightness before he’s between his legs biting the sensitive skin of his inner thighs.

“Don’t choke this time,” Alan managed to get out and he’s rewarded with a pinch to his thigh that makes the molten core of his being burn hotter.

Jack wasn’t necessarily good, not that Alan had much hands-on experience in either direction, but the fact that it was John Frederick Charles Alston groaning around his prick in his mouth made up for all of it.

Alan’s entire body trembled when a slick hand slid between his cheeks. Jack sucked hard and pushed a finger in and Alan couldn’t stop the near shout from leaving his body. Jack continued to gently open him up. So, so gentle it was almost too much. Alan had to pull Jack up into a kiss.

It was so different from their usual encounters. There was no opening remark to set the scene. No falling into a role to be a slightly different version of themselves. Right now, kissing in Alan’s small attic room striped bare, they were Alanzo and Jack. No lords, no journalists, just two men.

It was terrifying.

It was exhilarating.

Jack lined up and pushed into Alan with a grunt in one smooth stroke. They stayed there breathing, staring straight at each other. Jack had his arms bracketed around the sides of Alan’s head, his hair mused from Alan’s fingers. A red blush bloomed on his cheeks, down his neck, on his chest. His eyes soft and open with a tenderness that made Alan want to weep. And maybe he did because Jack ran the pads of his thumbs under his eyes and dropped a soft kiss to his forehead, to his nose, to his lips and lingered.

Alan hooked an ankle around Jack’s back to let him know he’s ready and Jack moved like there was all the time in the world. Each stroke a slow eternity driving Alan closer and closer to insanity. Jack shifted and the angle changed and the pace was suddenly unbearable.

Alan used his legs again to nudge and Jack moved up and around to hold Alan in his lap again, giving him all control. With Jack’s hands on his hips to steady him, Alan moved faster, though not by much, like anything faster would break the moment building between them.

A hand found its way to him and softly stroked in time with their movement. Jack sighed his name into his mouth and Alan was unmade with Jack releasing in him a few moments later.

Alan came to with his arms hooked around Jack’s shoulders and breathing into the hollow of his neck. They shifted again together. Careful so Jack didn’t slip out because Jack knew that Alan liked the feeling. Alan moved to kiss Jack deeply in return because that was what Jack liked. It was startling to realize the language they have created together. A type of cradlespeak built from their time together. A mingling of them so that a light pull of his hair has Alan leaning in closer and a nip at his lips has Jack running his hands in slow circles on Alan’s back.

They stayed curled into each other until the late afternoon sun faded into the oranges of evening. Jack breathed softly in sleep, a hand resting on Alan’s chest. He would wake him soon because there was still no way he would let Jack sleep overnight in his cramped bed. He himself didn’t want to sleep in his cramped bed with Jack taking up most of it.

Now in the haze of evening, Alan couldn’t remember why Jack’s mere presence in his haven was such an ordeal. It was always going to be a losing battle. He was already ruined the moment he laid eyes on him on that boat. The gravitational pull between them was too strong. Too heady. And he was in so deep that no matter what, he would be obliterated.

[cherriizumi]

Little something I wanted to get off my brain and onto the canvas. Might do more with it later if I have the motivation.

-------------------------------

I shouldn't, but I open the messages from you and read them over and over again until I can swear I hear your voice in them. The ghost of you walks the halls of this old house and plays back memories of jokes so bad that we couldn't help but laugh about. Your smile behind glass in picture frames is an ever constant reminder that I will only ever see you in glimpses of the past.

Glimpses like these old messages that I have memorized over these past months. All you had wanted to do was to spend time with me. Time that I thought I had plenty of with you. Each message that I left on read stings my chest. All my good memories with you are tainted with regrets now because I was too focused on me to see the hand you were trying to reach out to me with.

The messages begin to blur as my vision gets interrupted and my eyes start to sting; fresh hot tears rolling down my cheeks again. Frustrated, I wipe my eyes but they don't stop. I try to look at the ceiling, the shadows on the wall, the faint outlines of half packed boxes in the corner.. anything really to get my mind on something else. If my dehydrated ass kept crying like this my eyes would be swollen shut tomorrow..

-knock knock-

The silence of the room is broken when a gentle voice follows soon after the abrupt tap on a surface nearby. "Doe Eyes?" My heart grew cold for a moment at the shock of hearing someone at my window... on the 2nd floor.. at dark thirty at night. There was only one person who would call me by that nickname however, and that only made the situation a little better. "A-Alan?" The lump in my throat that grew while I was sobbing made it difficult to get even one word out. I swallowed, trying to push it down for my next word.

The window slid open with remarkable ease, which made me a bit envious if I was being honest. There had to be something said about this mountain man's strength..damn thing always gave me trouble when I tried to open it. But my attention was soon grabbed as I noticed he hadn't broken eye contact with me since announcing his presence. With the way open he hadn't even fully entered the room before he asked, "What's wrong? Why are you crying so hard?" He seemed to study my face, tilting his head as he asked another question. "Did someone upset you?" Huh.. maybe it was my imagination but did his voice get lower when he asked that?

Once he was safely inside the threshold of my room, he closed the window to keep the chill outside. With his back turned I couldn't help but notice the gentle outline the street lamp gave him, the soft glow of his silhouette against the night sky. There was something about him that made him a little mystical sometimes. Whenever I needed someone, or was feeling utterly alone, there he'd be. Ready to swoop in and make it all better... seeing him face me again, my heart ached for a different reason.

I held out a hand that he wasted no time in collecting. Getting close to sit besides me on the bed, Alan clasps my hand with such sweet tenderness and brings it to his lips before holding it to his chest. I feel one of his hands on the side of my face while his thumb wipes some remaining tears away. Almost on instinct, my face leans into his touch, his skin is cold from the night air and feels so good against the heat trapped in my cheeks.

I don’t remember much else from that night. All I know is that I fell asleep in Alan's arms after we talked about silly, unimportant things. He didn't press me about confessing the real reason I was upset, but I told him that when I was ready we could talk about it. And.. I knew he would be willing to listen to me. He always was. I still have so many regrets, but listening to my new flames heartbeat lull me to sleep definitely wasn't one of them...

[tsarisfanfiction]

Trope #36: Amnesia, Prompt #633: "Please, stop saying my name like that." for TAG

Forget Me Not

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Angst/Family Characters: Scott, Virgil, John

Ah, good old amnesia time!  And you know what, apparently my muse has decided it wants to beat up someone who isn’t Scott, entirely without prompting!  Although that might have something to do with the angst of a little brother not knowing who he is...  So there’s that.

Another old prompt I’m finally getting around to, so let’s see if I can even find the original post, oops...

Writing Game: Tropes

Scott had thought he’d known despair.  He’d felt its frigid bite the day the snow roared down, had it steal all the breath from his lungs the day the Zero-X exploded, heard its white noise when the call had come about a hydrofoil.  He’d lost - or almost lost - so much, and seen the way it infected other families every time a rescue didn’t have a hundred percent success rate.  He’d been sure, so sure, he’d known what it could do.

The vice around his heart, frigid and thieving and loud, was all of those together and more.  Too many things, too much to take in, too much to react to, and he was gasping for breath he didn’t have, drowning on dry land.

“Virgil,” he gasped out, his brother’s name something wet and rasping all at once.  Brown eyes regarded him, warm and concerned and a little upset.  More than a little upset; he was hiding it but not well enough.  Not from Scott.

“Please,” his little brother said, and his voice tightened the vice until Scott thought his heart would stop.  “Stop saying my name like that.”

It was only force of will that kept Scott standing, kept him in the same room, because every fibre of his being was screaming for him to get out of there.  Before it killed him, so he could find a way to fix it, before he broke in front of the brothers he had to be strong for.

Even the one that didn’t remember him.

Especially the one that didn’t remember him.

Amnesia.  A head injury at just the right - wrong - spot, and now Virgil couldn’t remember them.  Couldn’t remember him.  His brown eyes were warm and concerned but also empty of that one spark that made Virgil Virgil.

They didn’t know if it was permanent.

Grandma had scans running, Brains was delving into research, but the simple fact of the matter was that it was entirely down to Virgil.  Either he’d remember, or he wouldn’t, and there was nothing Scott could do to make it happen.

They’d done everything they could; they’d surrounded him with familiarity, family in and out with Scott the constant because he couldn’t - couldn’t - leave even though every moment that passed with no recognition destroyed him just a little more inside.  A trip to the hangars, Thunderbird Two in all her beautiful green glory.  It hadn’t helped.

Now all they could do was wait.  Wait and hope and pray that Virgil’s brain would recover the memories in time.

Scott had never been good at waiting.  Waiting for the news that Mom hadn’t made it, waiting for the body they never found, waiting for Gordon to regain consciousness.  His job was to protect his family, to help them when things got tough.  To do things.  Fix things, because he was the big brother and all his little brothers needed him to be able to make the world right again - or at least to keep it turning.

Now he had a little brother who didn’t remember that.  A little brother who looked at him without a single spark of recognition but was still so painfully Virgil that he could tell everyone was upset and wanted to help them.

There were three other little brothers still looking to him, three different colours of eyes watching him with thinly veiled hope and belief that somehow, somehow, he could fix this.  Big brother could make it right again.  After all, there’d always been something between them, hadn’t there?  That mutual understanding that went beyond comprehension but was always, always there.

Scott could feel the gaping hole where it should be.  Where it was gone, and that alone had him crippled, because he’d had Virgil since he was four, almost as long as he could remember.  They’d always said nothing could tear them apart.  Even in his blackest days, days he’d done his damnest to block from his memories, it had been there.  But this?  One simple knock to the wrong part of a head, and it was gone.

“You don’t have to stay with me,” Virgil said, dragging him out of his mind and back into the room where his brother was watching him with those concerned yet sparkless eyes.

“Yes, I do,” he corrected.  His voice almost managed to stay steady.

“No,” Virgil said.  “You need to leave.”  The voice was all Virgil, but the words...  Virgil had never, ever, tried to send him away.  Not like that.

“Virgil-”

“You think watching you fall apart is helping me?” his brother demanded, shocking him into silence.  “I can barely remember my own name, you hovering isn’t going to change anything.  You’re just hurting yourself more.”

“No-”

“Get out.  Go do whatever you do to relax, and don’t come back until you don’t look like you’re about to shatter.”

Scott’s eye stung.  Virgil’s voice was making noises but they were nothing he would say.  His brother knew he could never relax when one of his brothers was in trouble, knew that he had to be there.  Knew that sending him away would always be infinitely more painful than sitting vigil by a bed.

But he didn’t know, because he didn’t remember.  Didn’t know he was tearing Scott’s heart out of his chest, one strip at a time.  Thought, in Virgil’s kind way, that it would help him.

Scott couldn’t correct him, though.  Because him staying was hurting Virgil, doing the absolute opposite of what he was supposed to be doing, where big brother was supposed to help, was supposed to make everything better.  Scott’s job was to fix things but now he was just breaking them more.

It was the worried brown eyes that did it.  Filled with pain and frustration but also worry and concern for him.  Scott’s other eye stung, at the same time something salty dripped into the corner of his mouth.

“I-”

“Go.”

Brown eyes were unwavering, and Scott swallowed with an unbearably tight throat.  One last moment of hesitation, one last silent plea for Virgil to change his mind, to let him stay, but he didn’t.

Scott barely made it out of the room before he broke, his knees crashing to the floor as the door shut behind him and his lungs shuddering and heaving as every breath that escaped was accompanied by a wrenching sob.

Virgil.  Scott had never felt so helpless, so useless, in his life.  Not only could he not fix it, but he couldn’t even reassure his brother like he normally would.  No, he’d just made things worse, his presence an additional stress on the brother who was going through hell.  So much so that Virgil - Virgil - had sent him away.

He didn’t know how his heart still had the space to beat, how it could keep going under the crushing pressure surrounding it.  His lungs were barely functioning, air replaced by salty sobs and hiccups.  Open eyes couldn’t see anything, his sight blurred beyond all comprehension.  Extremities were numb, muscles were locked rigid, and there was nothing he could do.

“Scott!”  Hands grasped at him, pawing and tugging in a futile attempt to get him to move.

“Scott?”  Quiet, worried.  Part of Scott stirred at it, recognising a little brother in distress, but it couldn’t break through the rest of him.

“Alan, go sit with Virgil.  You too, Gordon.”  A third voice joined in, the third and final little brother there to witness Scott’s greatest failure.

“But, Scott-”

“I’ve got him.”  Strong arms wrapped around him.  “You two check on Virgil.”

Hands fell away.

“Come on, Scotty.”  It was John talking, voice quiet and calm and everything Scott couldn’t be.  “Let’s get you off the floor.”

Scott’s limbs still weren’t responding, but John was stronger than he had any right to be with all the time he spent in space.  His younger brother dragged him upright, or at least to his feet, and then down the hallway.  Scott had minimal awareness of where they were going, barely able to put one foot in front of the other until there was something soft and he was sinking down onto it - into it.

John didn’t speak, but the arms didn’t leave him, holding him together so he didn’t have to.  It was wrong, another failure - he couldn’t fix Virgil, and now he couldn’t even reassure his other brothers either - but John was unrelenting and so were the tears.

“I-” he choked out, not sure what he was trying to say, but needing to say something.  “He- Virg-”  Another wave of sobs caught him, and John pulled him closer.

“Virgil’s strong,” John said, quietly but without a hint of doubt.  “Whatever happens, he’ll overcome it.”  Slender fingers coaxed through his hair, somehow more grounding than the arms around him.  “We’ll overcome it, Scott.  All of us, together.”

He shuddered involuntarily.  Together, John said, but Virgil didn’t even want him in the same room.  Found that he was hurting rather than helping.

“I couldn’t- couldn’t help,” he hiccupped, a painful admittance that burned his throat.  “He said-”

“You can’t help anyone when you’re a wreck yourself.”  John’s voice stayed level and calm.  “You know this, Scott.  Take a break.  Get some rest.  You don’t have to do this all alone.  He’s our brother, too.”

“But-”

“Rest, Scott.”  John didn’t raise his voice, but the command was clear nonetheless.  “You’re no good to Virgil like this.”

The words cut, but they didn’t burn like the words he’d been telling himself did.  John had always had a gift with words; coming from him, they were marginally easier to swallow.

“Go to him,” he begged.

“Alan and Gordon are with him,” John reminded him.  “He’s not alone.”

Scott knew that, but his heart still seized at the terror that somehow it wouldn’t be enough.  “Please.”

John’s fingers stilled in his hair.  “Okay,” he agreed.  The hands slipped away from him and Scott found himself toppling sideways onto the same soft that he was sat on.  A bed.

It shifted as weight lifted, and Scott blinked enough moisture away to see the vibrant ginger hair of his brother.

“John,” he rasped.  His brother paused.  “I’m sorry.”  Sorry for failing.  Sorry for being blind.  Sorry for being so useless.  “Thank you.”

“You’re not alone,” the Voice That Answers said.  “Either of you.”

John left, and Scott was left staring at the wall - pale silver, not his own - as his heart tried to wriggle free of the clamp around it.  John was right; John was always right.  They weren’t alone.  They would get through, one way or another.

The despair ebbed, just a fraction.

Just enough for him to breathe again.

[stygianflood]

4-7 in each category please!

Hi anon, I hope you're well 💕 I had so much fun answering these.

Ship Questions

Pre-relationship

4. Who felt romantic feelings first?

Ethan. He tells himself he's taking her to Miami because she's his only friend and confidant (which is true). But by this time, Ethan has this constant need to be around Aparna, to ask after her day, update her about Naveen and hope she'd ask after him too.

5. Did either of them try to resist their feelings?

Ethan- All through Book 1 after Miami and until he gives in and kisses her in Book 2.

Aparna- All through the beginning of Book 2, and a while after the senator's incident. (My hc differs from canon at this point)

6. If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?

Might have a ficlet on this soon ❤️

7. What would their lives be like if they had never met?

I'm taking this to mean 'if MC never read Ethan's book'. Aparna would have a PhD in Microbiology. Her ex, Amit who I've spoken of in 'Other Echoes' would still be there in her life in some capacity, but I don't see them married.

Ethan would still terrorise interns and be cynical about life in general. His career would be the same. He wouldn't fall in love. He would still date, but not settle. Naveen and Alan would be his only family. He wouldn't give Louise a second chance. (God, that man should be worshipping her)

General

4. Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

Aparna had one serious relationship and some casual dating before Ethan. But what she feels for Ethan is life altering and definitely a first for her. It hasn't been a picnic for her. But she knows she wouldn't be happy with anyone else once she's known what it is to love Ethan Ramsey.

Ethan had his share of flings at college and one on and off brief relationship as an attending. Aparna is the first and the last woman he loves. He's never been more baffled by anything or anyone. And he knows his life wouldn't be the same without her as long as Aparna Mukherjee walked the earth.

5. What’s their height difference? Age difference?

Aparna is 5'4", Ethan I suppose 6'4". Ethan is 10 years older than her.

6. What’s their relationship with each other’s families?

Alan dotes on Aparna. Louise with limited presence in their lives, respects Ethan's choice and even warms up to Aparna once she learns of her role in making Ethan forgive her.

Aparna's mother and siblings adore Ethan. Her father is the tough nut, but they bond over Aparna's lacklustre attitude to her investments. Eventually he is their biggest supporter when her extended family biennially reminds her that she's 30+ and unmarried.

7. Who takes the lead in social situations?

Aparna. Whether it's a besotted intern or a good-natured old attending, people just adore her.

Love

4. How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

It could be Aparna lying with her head on his lap watching a series he knows nothing about as he works on his paper, a hand in her hair. Or Aparna hugging him from behind, massaging his shoulders as he flops down on the couch after a particularly long day. They cuddle a lot.

They don't engage in much PDA except for some hand holding, or Ethan's hand on her shoulder or hers around his waist, as they walk down to the hospital from Derry's. Or a quick kiss after a break at Derry's.

5. Who initiates kisses?

Until he breaks up with her at the beginning of her second year, it used to be Aparna. After Ethan gives in at the softball game, it's mostly him. Eventually it's both of them.

6. Who’s the big and the little spoon?

Ethan is the big spoon. But it takes some time to settle into the habit, because my girl is a violent sleeper to begin with 🤷🏻‍♀️

7. What are their favorite things to do together?

They love cooking in silence.

Workouts. She's hated cardio all her life. Ethan introduces her to strength training.

Opera is high on the list.

They travel a lot. Ethan makes a mental note to make it happen when she almost dies and regrets that she has not travelled enough.

Domestic Life

4. Do they have any pets?

Of course. Aparna and Jenner dote on each other, so much so that Ethan often calls him a traitor. And on his 50th birthday, Aparna brings home a labrador pup. Before Ethan can think of a favourite physician, Aparna names him Padfoot and he won't respond to Ethan's Osler or Fleming.

5. Who’s the stricter parent?

Separate HC coming up soon ❤️

6. Who worries the most?

Aparna's near death experience changes something in Ethan. So it's definitely him.

As for their day to day life, they really don't, as long as they have each other. It's not the perfect household. But it's a happy one.

7. Who kills the bugs in the house?

Both of them, unless it's in a weird place that Aparna cannot reach.

[dustedmagazine]

Ian Mathers’ 2020: We’re stuck inside our own machines

I’ve had a song I loved in high school and haven’t thought much about since stuck in my head. The song “Apparitions” by the Matthew Good Band is a fine example of the alt rock of the late 90s; if you grew up then but somewhere down in the states (or elsewhere) instead of my southern Ontario you may well have your regional equivalents, and like this one they may not resonate terribly strongly outside of their time and place. It popped back into my head after a long time recently and of course 2020 has changed it a little. A song that as a teen I felt keenly as about loneliness (albeit also about how technology can feed into that) of course now plays on my nerves as another small piece of art about the way that most of us (those scared and/or responsible anyway) have only that relatively narrow, technologically mediated connection to the people we love. All of us, artists and listeners alike, are trying to fit our feelings and art and selves down these little connections, with some success.

On a personal level, 2020 wound up being stressful in ways we couldn’t have predicted even after the pandemic hit. In circumstances that could have seen governments on this continent support those unable to work (and those who shouldn’t have to), support those workers who are truly essential, support workers and renters and even landlords and small businesses, instead we got a near-total abeyance of those governments using the resources we provide them with to save any of us. On a personal level my wife and I were lucky enough to be able to work from home (not that it didn’t come with its own forms of stress, and now that I’m off until January I have several work/stress-related illnesses to recover from) but still saw friends and loved ones lose good, used-to-be-sustainable livings overnight, saw family businesses succumb to a near-total absence of effective government support after months of trying to keep above water, etc.

It is probably no surprise that this is not a situation conducive to listening to music, let alone writing about it; I have deliberately and happily kept busy on behind the scenes stuff at Dusted that I could still manage but looking, at the end of the year, at the amount I managed to actually create is demoralizing if not at all shocking. I’m not sure I think next year will be ‘better’ in many important ways, although at our job there is a growing feeling among coworkers that next year has to have some work/life balance because 2020 was, maybe more than anything else, unsustainable.

That’s not to say I didn’t spend a lot of time and emotion on music this year, and if nothing else constant sleep deprivation, stress, and panic meant I was probably open to being deeply moved by all sorts of art even more than normally (it’s gotten to the point where I can’t even read a sad or moving twitter thread out loud to my wife without getting teary, which is kind of… nice?). Funnily enough the band that did the most to keep me sane didn’t really put out anything in 2020. Personal favorite, Low, instead started, in early April, getting on Instagram with something they called on whim “It’s Friday I’m in Low.” With one brief break they have now done by my count at least 35 shows (catalogued here, by the way), every Friday at about 4 my time.

Admittedly it’s easier for Low to pull this off than some bands, since the 2/3 of the trio that sing are a married couple (they’ve had a couple of socially-distanced backyard shows with bassist Steve Garrington, but he’s mostly been isolating elsewhere). These shows have seen the band’s Alan Sparhawk take a mid-set break to do follow-up phone interviews with the acts featured in the COVID-curtailed touring bands series Vansplainingthat they started on YouTube, or just to give a tour round their vegetable garden and talk tips. It’s seen Alan and Mimi Parker draw on their impressive, 25+ year body of work (averaging 4-5 songs a set, I don’t think they’ve repeated themselves yet) and talk a bit between songs about pandemics, politics, song choices, and whether Alan should grab his bike helmet this time.

They’re not the only musicians out there speaking love and sanity (and playing music) into the strange digital interzone filled with hate and disinformation where we’ve all been forced to gather while locked down, but they were and the most consistent and steady signal being emitted each week. No matter how tired I was from work or what new symptoms I’d developed or what horrific thing I read into the news, even if I had to take an emergency nap while it was actually airing, every Friday the show was there. Once things do return to something more like normal, it’s one of the few things I’ll unambiguously miss about this weird-ass year.

So if that makes an argument for Low as my band of the year (admittedly again… it’s not like Double Negative has aged poorly, either), that does a disservice to those 2020 records I did connect with; even if there are still literally dozens I have to go through, many of which I expect to love, my top picks this year (if as unrankable by me as always) hit me as hard as any top pick in recent years did. So here I present a quick and informal top 5, which the rest of my top 20 following in alphabetical order. Here’s hoping for more time and space in 2021 for music, and even more than that, for more support for those who need it from those who could have been providing it all this time. (The Matthew Good Band, incidentally, always did best with their ballads. “Strange Days” is another I’ve had in my head these days; the image of moving “backwards, into a wall of fire” has stuck with me since the 90s and it’s never felt more grimly appropriate.)

Greet Death — New Hell

New Hell by Greet Death

This one is, in some sense, cheating; it came out November 2019. But that just means it’s the latest winner of my personal Torres Prize for Ian Being Late to the Party (so named because becoming slightly obsessed with Torres’ Sprinter just after I sent in my 2015 list was the first time I noticed that one of my favorite records of each year tends to get picked up by me just after I call it quits on the year, no matter how long I try to wait). This very doom and gloom slowcore/metal/(whatever, just know it’s heavy) trio at first felt very much like my beloved Cloakroom (whose Time Well has also won a Torres Prize) but sure enough nuances revealed themselves. Back in February it felt almost a little too negative, but then the rest of 2020 happened. And the extended burns of “You’re Gonna Hate What You’ve Done” and the title track remain searing.

Holy Fuck — Deleter

Probably the record I’ve been trying to write about the longest in 2020, and the one I’m most disappointed in myself that I just couldn’t get the requisite paragraphs together. It’s a wonderful effort from the consistently great Toronto resolutely human-created (and —mediated) dance music quartet, one that both feels like a summation of everything they do well, and with the addition of some outside voices (including strong turns from the singers of both Hot Chip and Liars) a step forward at the same time.

Spanish Love Songs — Brave Faces Everyone

Brave Faces Everyone by Spanish Love Songs

As the year got worse, this roar of defiance only got more crucial for me to hear every so often; I was a big enough fan of it, even after writing it up for Dusted, that when they solicited fan footage for a subsequent music video you may just be able to get a glimpse of me in it. (I’m the one in a “No Tories” t-shirt.) My punk rock-loving twin brother was the one who introduced me to Spanish Love Songs and we were supposed to spend an evening in June screaming along to them live in a packed, sweaty room. I need that in my life again.

Julianna Barwick — Healing Is a Miracle

Healing Is A Miracle by Julianna Barwick

It’s a sign of what 2020 has been like here that even just this album title leaves bruises, and while I privately worried Barwick would have a hard time following up 2016’s sublime Will (probably my favorite record that year), it seems that continuing to take whatever downtime she needs to keep focusing and refining her particular muse has once again yielded amazing results. Anyone who thinks they know what a Barwick track sounds like should really check out, say, “Flowers”, but much of this record absolutely sounds like Barwick, just even better than before. She also boasted my wife and I's favorite streaming concert of 2020, an absolutely gorgeous rendition of this album with Mary Lattimore showing up.

Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher

Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers

I joked on Twitter recently that I have far too nice a dad (and far too good a relationship with him) to be as obsessed as I am with Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto”, but here we are. Like most of her generation, Bridgers’ social media presence ranges from shit-posting to inscrutable, but even though things are often just as hard to figure out in her beautiful songs (as they often are in life), there’s an emotional clarity to them that can just grab you deep down. Couple that with seriously impressive songcraft and the progress from her already astounding debut Stranger in the Alps and more than anyone else in 2020 I’m excited to see just where the hell Phoebe Bridgers is going to go, because it feels like she’s talented and hardworking enough to go just about anywhere and drag a lot of our hearts with her.

Other Favorites

Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis — Invisible Cities II

Anastasia Minster — Father

Deftones — Ohms

Hum — Inlet

Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song

Mesarthim — The Degenerate Era

Perfume Genius — Set My Heart On Fire Immediately

Protomartyr — Ultimate Success Today

Rachel Kiel — Dream Logic

The Ridiculous Trio — The Ridiculous Trio Plays the Stooges

Sam Amidon — Sam Amidon

Shabason, Krgovich & Harris — Philadelphia

Stars Like Fleas — DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO

Well Yells — We Mirror the Dead

Yves Tumour — Heaven to a Tortured Mind

Five Reissues/Compilations/etc.

Aix Em Klemm — Aix Em Klemm

Bardo Pond — Adrop/Circuit VIII

Charles Curtis — Performances & Recordings 1998-2018

Coil — Musick to Play in the Dark

Hot Chip — LateNightTales

Ian Mathers

[achubbydumpling]

Weeping Willows

Rating: Mature Words: 1761 Relationship: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Additional Tags: Angst, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Alan Deaton Being an Asshole

(I wanted to write smut. It wasn't even about these two. Why the hell is this what I end up with at the end of the night?? Also this does NOT contain chubby kink.)

Stiles’ teeth clashed together when Derek’s body hit the floor. Once the dust had settled, so did a deafening silence. Stiles ran to the ground floor. He couldn’t see Ennis anywhere and the sounds of fighting did not resume upstairs.

Derek lay motionless. Stiles held his breath and walked towards the unmoving body. His eyes were closed. Only when he got within arm’s reach could he finally see Derek’s chest moving ever so slightly. He rushed forward, took a deep breath in, and started checking Derek for injuries.

Read on AO3

“Derek? Hey, man, are you ok? Come on, big guy, the fall wasn’t that bad now, was it?”, Stiles rucked up Derek’s shirt and discovered that a piece of rusty rebar had pierced though Derek’s chest, right beneath the ribs on his left side.

“Ok, I know you’re not supposed to remove the thing doing the stabbing until the paramedics arrive, but since I don’t think you’d go to the hospital anyways, this has to come out. Before you heal over it”, Stiles wiped away the grime on his face, “or something else disgusting.” Stiles finally looked up at Derek’s face. His teeth were clenched, but he nodded.

“Here goes nothing”, he whispered. He barely managed to move Derek’s upper body an inch before his grip slipped and Derek slammed back down onto the concrete.

“Shit. Sorry. How are we gonna get this out?” Stiles leaned closer to the wound and carefully pushed down on the edges.

“Damn, looks like it’s already healing.” Stiles looked back up at Derek’s face. His teeth were still clenched, but then he slowly breathed out and tried to relax.

“Call Deaton.”

“Yeah. Right. Sorry, normally you don’t get him involved like ever.” Stiles pulled his phone from his pocket and nearly dropped it when Derek tried to push himself up from the rebar. Derek fell back down before he could clear the spike. He couldn’t hold back the scream of pain, arching his head into the floor and trying to breathe through it.

“I can’t get up. I can’t let it heal. Deaton’s the only choice.” Stiles swallowed and looked to the upper levels to see if any of the pack were still there.

“Everyone alright?” Derek asked and glanced in the same direction as Stiles.

“They must be going after the alpha pack.” Derek tried to get up again after hearing that, but it was no use. Stiles moved closer to him and put his hand on Derek’s shoulder. Trying to keep him from moving.

“You’re only making it worse. Look it’s bleeding again.” Sure enough, thick dark blood stained Derek’s shirt.

“I’m keeping it from healing, or you’ll have to cut that thing out of me. Would you prefer that?” Stiles shook his head and swallowed again.

“No, ‘course not. I’ll ask Deaton about it, ok? He’ll know what to do, yeah?”

“Yeah, sure.” Derek wheezed a laugh before groaning in pain again. Stiles started pacing when the phone rang for an uncomfortably long time, but eventually Deaton did pick up.

“Stiles, my young protégé.” Stiles bit at his cuticles and shook his head in irritation.

“Listen, I don’t need your mysterious wizard shit right now. I need a veterinarian.” Deaton chuckled at that and took his time to answer.

“Alright,” he drawled. “Where is your alpha stuck right now?”

“The abandoned mall outside town. Ground floor.”

“Ok, I’ll be there. Try to keep him awake, the blood loss might make him a bit drowsy around the three-liter mark.” Stiles glanced down at Derek. His blood had already started pooling on the left side.

“I don’t think he’d be drowsy by then. I think he’d be dead.”

“Oh, don’t worry so much. I’ve had wolves survive worse. I’ll just swing by the clinic to get some supplies. I’ll need maybe an hour.”

Stiles stopped dead in his tracks.

“An hour? I know you’re all high and mighty about your balance-shit or something, but there has to be something like the Hippocratic oath for vets as well. He’ll be dead in an hour. Hear me? You’ll have his blood on your hands if you don’t move your ass.” Deaton chuckled. Again.

“Right, right. Quite feisty today. I’ll make it quick then.”

“Yes, you better—”, but Deaton had already hung up. Stiles gripped his phone tightly and sucked in a breath.

“Don’t let him get to you. He’s just been alive for too long to appreciate mortality.” Stiles kneeled beside Derek and tried to smile, but it made his muscles ache.

“Yeah, right. He’s just a holier-than-thou asshole.” Derek laughed quietly. A cough ripped through him, and he pressed his hands against his side.

“Ok, no more moving around. Deaton said you might get ‘drowsy’ after losing three liters. So, we’re not doing that, ok?” Derek lifted his right hand and gave a thumbs up before relaxing and closing his eyes.

His name is the last thing Derek hears before giving into the darkness of unconsciousness.

+++

Stiles fell back onto the bed. The old coils protested the sudden impact. Derek was still taking his shoes off, but Stiles didn’t call him out on it. They both needed a bit of time to come back to reality.

Apparently, a longer time for Derek because he quietly started laughing. He was staring at Stiles’ nose where a piece of toilet paper was stuffed haphazardly to stop the bleeding. Stiles started laughing at Derek’s ridiculous timing.

“You’re a crazy fucking son of a bitch.” Derek said. It looked like he was rubbing some dirt from the corner of his eye. “Don’t you ever do something that stupid again. You hear me?”

“Loud and clear, captain.” Derek’s expression hardened at Stiles jokey answer.

“Don’t.” He whispered and finally lay down next to Stiles.

“I won’t”, Stiles reassured him, “but I’m alive. So, don’t worry.”

“You’re alive. Still alive.” Derek muttered while brushing back the long strands of hair that were matted to Stiles’ forehead. For a moment the world seemed to stand still. It let Derek take in how lucky they had been tonight. No major wounds, no casualties. Just Stiles and him against the world. And wasn’t that a comforting thought.

This time Derek didn’t look away, not for a second while Stiles was studying his expression. A familiar sense of calm settled over him and slowed his heartbeat. An easy smile settled on his lips, and he was just about to flop down next to Stiles to get a few hours of sleep when Stiles leaned forward on his elbows to get closer to Derek’s face.

“I really want to kiss you right now.”

For a second Derek didn’t move at all. Then he breathed out heavily and started laughing again.

“Yes. God, yes.” He gripped Stiles’ head in his right hand and cupped his face, but before he could actually kiss him, he was once again overwhelmed by the ridiculousness of the toilet paper stuffed up Stiles’ nose. A fondness settled in his bones that left him more tired and satisfied than he had ever been before.

“You’re alive. You’re here. You bested the monster of the week.” Derek stroked his thumb down Stiles’ cheek. A yawn overtook Derek’s smile and Stiles said with a fond smile.

“We did. We really did. How about we get some sleep first?” Derek nodded and yawned again.

“There is no one that I’d rather sleep next to.” And Stiles could work with that. More than just work with it.

+++

Derek didn’t look up from his book when Stiles jumped up from the floor.

“Dance with me.”

“I don’t dance.” Was all Derek said.

“I know.” was all that Stiles answered when he took his phone out and opened Spotify.

“How about ‘Come on Eileen’?” Stiles looked at Derek, but before he could say anything he interrupted himself: “No. I know.” Seconds later an all too familiar melody played from the phone’s tinny speakers.

“The quality’s really shit, but I don’t have my speaker and it’s not that important that I—"

Derek hummed in agreement but didn’t look up from his book. An uneasy silence filled the room before Stiles finally broke it.

“Dance with me.”

Derek finally looked up and furrowed his brows.

“I don’t dance.”

“I know.” Stiles nodded his head and smiled wide. He took Derek’s hand, their fingers intertwined without them thinking about it and pulled the book from Derek’s other hand.

When he was pulled up by Stiles, he never stopped looking into his eyes.

“I don’t dance.”

Stiles just smiled and put his arms around Derek’s neck, he leaned in close and gave a quick peck on Derek’s lips. However, when he tried to move away Derek pulled him back into their embrace and kept Stiles about an inch from his face, they didn’t speak. The only sound coming from the small phone speakers.

The intro of the song was just coming to an end and the singer finally croaked out his first words when Derek kissed Stiles again and again and another time. As the chorus started Stiles began gently swaying from side to side while Derek stood still, almost lifeless apart from the storm in his eyes.

He hugged Stiles closer and pressed his face into Stiles’ shoulder, who just laughed quietly and whispered: “Are you doing the weird scent-thing again?” Derek huffed out a breath of air but didn’t answer. “It’s ok, I won’t tell anybody the sourwolf has got a soft side.” Ever so slightly Derek started swaying as well and pulled Stiles even closer.

“This is goodbye, isn’t it?” Stiles nodded into his shoulder

“I’ll see you again.” Derek insisted.

He propped his chin up on Stiles’ head. Stiles knew this tactic.

“It’s a small world.” Derek’s left hand move up to Stiles’ neck and pressed his face into Derek’s shoulder. Stiles sighed and closed his eyes.

“Don’t. Just listen.”

And Derek listened.

They both stayed quiet, just gently swaying like willows in the wind, they were so much like trees. Their roots had grown, not deep nor thick, but it hurt when they were ripped from their earth.

The Nemeton was a constant presence surrounding Stiles by now and Derek could hear its low hum in Stiles’ core. The emissary of this land had been sent on a mission by the Nemeton. An honor.

Derek was quiet for a long time and listened to that dreadful hum. If he could just speak with the tree, but his mom wasn’t here to negotiate with it. And now Stiles was gone too.

[sage-nebula]

i know you don't ship it but do you think mairin could have a crush on alain? it seemed that way to me she did when i watched the xy anime

Yeah, I think reading Manon as having a precocious crush on Alan is a valid read given certain behaviors of hers in canon, from how she stalks him to how she clings to his arm in the group photo in the end, to how she latches onto his arm to pull him into dancing with her at that showcase celebration. I don’t think her “you’re exactly my type!” line in TSME 1 was meant in a romantic way, and it’s notable that she did not blush at all when she told Lysandre that she wasn’t Alan’s girlfriend in TSME 2, since PokéAni usually has characters who do have crushes blush when they make denials (e.g. Misty when Daisy told her to “pick a cuter kid” in “The Waterflowers of Ceruelan City” and both Ash and Misty when Team Rocket joked about them ditching Brock to elope in “A Scare in the Air”). But even so, I think that if someone wanted to say that Manon had a precocious crush on Alan, they could still make their case, particularly with all of the literal clinging she does at the end of the series.

But with all that said, Manon having a precocious crush isn’t an issue. Lots of kids get precocious crushes on people older than them; it’s a part of growing up for people who aren’t on the aro/ace spectrum. Heck, in the OS Misty got a crush on Danny in the Orange Islands, and he was a whole ass adult. It happens. What would be an issue is if Alan returned feelings for Manon, because he’s absolutely too old for her. Thankfully, there is absolutely nothing in canon to suggest Alan’s feelings for Manon are anything but platonic, so his character remains untarnished and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. (And yes, I do mean it when I say there’s nothing in canon to suggest that Alan is a creep who cares for Manon in anything but a platonic way. Manon is one of Alan’s precious people, yes, but she’s grouped in with Professor Sycamore, who is Alan’s father-figure. Sliding Manon in there with them to make a little family unit makes Manon like a little sister to Alan, something that’s strengthened even more in that very dancing scene by having Bonnie tugging on Sycamore to get him to dance with her. Alan’s precious people are his family; there’s nothing romantic about it and it was pretty smart on the writers’ part to make sure that Sycamore’s importance was there from the get-go, so that no creepiness could be attributed to Alan’s feelings.)

So yes, Manon might have a precocious crush, but Alan definitely doesn’t return it, and couldn’t without being a disgusting creep. He’s flat out too old for her. While he’s not an adult, as a 15 year old he’s no longer in Manon’s age demographic (especially since Manon is written as even younger than the 10 she’s supposed to be, but that’s a different discussion). At their current ages, she would be in elementary school while he’d be a couple years shy of graduating high school. She’d be in junior high when he’d be in college. He could finish a master’s degree before she even graduates high school. They’re at different stages in their lives and while it’s understandable that Manon could have a precocious crush on a cool older boy who looks out for and protects her, it would be creepy, weird, and gross if said older boy looked at a vulnerable little girl and had a crush right back. Again, thankfully that isn’t the case here.

And while you might argue, “Well, eventually they’ll be adults!” that argument doesn’t work here because they remain in each other’s lives. Even if the series had ended differently and Alan had stayed home to rest and recover a while before heading out again while Manon resumed her journey by herself, I think most would agree with me that they’d still talk on the phone regularly, she’d come back by the lab to visit, they might take a trip somewhere together a couple months down the road, et cetera. And because they’d remain in each other’s lives, not only would Alan absolutely have an influence in how Manon grows (not to the point where it’d be considered raising her, of course, but she clearly looks up to him a great deal and takes his words to heart), but he’s also never going to be able to stop seeing her as a kid. You never notice just how much someone grows when you see them all the time; it’s like the years aren’t really passing at all. What would seem like a drastic change to someone who doesn’t see that person all the time won’t even register in your brain. And what this means is that the fundamental foundation of their relationship isn’t going to change, especially since that foundation was formed during such formative years (and during such a formative time) in their lives. Even when they’re both adults and Manon is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, to Alan, she’ll still be his kid sister. Sure, consciously he’ll know she’s an adult, but that won’t change how he feels. It’s like how loving parents view their kids as their babies still even after said kids are well into adulthood. It’s how I know that my nephew has graduated high school, but he’s still a baby to me. It’s just how the human brain works.

So while a time skip romance could work for say, Dawn and Cilan, since they only met each other once and for a very brief period and then (as far as we know) never spoke again after that, it can’t work for Alan and Manon, because Alan and Manon remain as constant presences in each other’s lives. If they parted ways at the end of XY&Z and then never exchanged a single word for the next 20 years after that, then while I still personally wouldn’t like it, at least it wouldn’t be creepy anymore. But since we can all agree that is very much not the case, a romance between them absolutely would be creepy and would make Alan look very, very bad. Again, though, we can thank all our lucky stars that isn’t the case and that Alan’s feelings for Manon were shown to be platonic through and through. (Also, no, I don’t ship Dawn and Cilan, they were just the first 10 & 15 match I thought of wherein they met very briefly then never again afterward. Clemont and Cilan could also be used as an example, or Sophocles and Brock, etc.)

As a final note, if Manon did have a precocious crush on Alan and it came out in some way (either through her directly confessing, or maybe she tries to claim Alan as her boyfriend to someone and he overhears, etc), then while Alan is a very direct and honest person, I do think that he would let her down gently, and that it would actually be similar to how Wendy let Dipper down in Gravity Falls. Even the age difference is similar there, with the exception that while Wendy is the same age as Alan (15), Dipper is actually a little older than Manon (12). But I imagine the conversation would be very similar. He’s too old for her, but she still means a lot to him and always will, and he might even throw in how he views her as his family and how much that means to him since family was all he ever wanted as a kid. And while Manon might still be sad for a little while at first, I think seeing how much she sincerely means to Alan would help ease that, and eventually she’d grow up, move past her crush, and they’d be the dynamic siblings they were always meant to be.

And as a bonus: while Alan wouldn’t be one to give shovel talks because he doesn’t like to interfere in other people’s personal lives, he also doesn’t have to open his mouth to be intimidating and neither does Lizardon. I don’t think Manon would have to worry about any potential future partners hurting her. I’m pretty sure they would be way too scared to once they learned who her big brother was, even if he didn’t say anything to them at all. 

[atomicpugs]

The Gift

happy birthday to one smug boi~

and endless thanks to @pdrrook​ for this amazing game! ✧ﾟ*ヽ(◕ヮ◕ヽ)

(ao3) 

⬫

Not even a tier-five gift of allure can relieve you of the torment of retail.

Despite completing your runs for the week, you’ve been inordinately busy at the perfumery. A big holiday approaches, bringing with it an irregular influx of customers. The day had flown right past you, and you feel exhausted after being on your feet all day, greeting and serving one customer right after the next.

With a tired nod, you bid Dia goodbye as she locks up the shop. She’s quiet, but returns your goodbye with a quick nod of her own before stomping away towards her car. Clearly, she’s just as tired as you are and equally ready to go home.

Unfortunately for you, you’re not heading home just yet.

As you approach Alan’s bar, you could already feel the thumping music under your feet. You stop before the doors to rub your jaw, sore from giving your best customer service smile nonstop the entire day, and you take a deep breath.

The city air is stale but it’s daisy fresh compared to the bar, and your olfactory nerves are burning and dull from sampling perfume all day. With a slight grimace, you open the doors and feel the music immediately flood your senses. You’re not at all a fan of the placement of the speakers right by the door. Alan said it was good for drawing people into the bar. You always thought it was a stupid idea.

Your eardrums are throbbing, but it’s not the worst of it. The bar is completely packed tonight with patrons. Like the music, they’re too loud and too boisterous for you right now. From the state of the sticky floor, the bar appears to have been busy for a while. You feel submerged in the smells of alcohol and sweat and other things you’d rather not think about.

A voice sounds in your mind, as warm and inviting as the day’s first cup of coffee. “Ah, cara, I’m in the back.”

You’re holding your breath as you squeeze yourself between half-drunk dancing patrons, making your way to the back of the bar. Your oldest friend－Reed, as he calls himself now－is seated at a high top, thankfully the farthest away from the blasted speakers. Normally his natural charisma attracts attention, but tonight, he sits alone. You envy his ability to maintain a dignified space from the crowd.

“Evening, carina,” Reed calls out, espresso in hand. An odd choice for a bar, but it doesn’t surprise you one bit. You simply nod in return.

His brow lifts as he takes stock of your appearance. “You look beat.”

“Uh huh,” you reply bluntly, eager to get to business.

Earlier that day, Reed had dropped by the shop, but you were so busy, you barely gave him a second glance. So he scribbled a cryptic note for you: Meet me at Alan’s after work. He wouldn’t make such an effort if it wasn’t important.

You don’t take a seat, choosing instead to stand close to Reed as casually as you can to hear him over the booming music.

“So?” You ready yourself for anything.

For his part, however, Reed is calm, relaxed even, as he finishes his espresso. He dabs his lips with a napkin. It’s either very, very good news… or possibly the worst.

Reed’s eyes center on you, their previous warmth draining away as quickly as he drained his espresso.

You feel your heart drop. This is bad.

“Fuck, what happened?” Your heart beats almost as fast as the music banging in your ears. His brows furrow as a distinct look of disappointment shadows over his features. Oddly, though, his scent remains unchanged. The dissonance confuses you.

His eyes burn into you, and he finally answers.

“You completely forgot my birthday yesterday.”

Oh. Oh no.

Your heart sinks further. This is really bad.

Shit. How the hell did you forget? You've never forgotten his birthday. Never. After all these years, you’d learned that Reed took these things seriously, so you always made an effort to celebrate it with him.

The knots in your stomach tighten. Time to grovel.

“Reed, I－”

Then it hits you.

“Wait…” you whisper.

You’re incredulous.

“I did not forget your birthday!” you exclaim. “Your birthday is months from now!”

In an instant, Reed’s bitter frown suddenly melts into a pout. A fucking pout.

“I wasn’t talking about my real birthday.” He’s whining.

No way.

Is he really referring to the completely, absolutely fake birthdate on his phony papers? Is he really that petty enough to be upset at you for missing it?

Of course he is. This is Reed.

The realization hits you like a bulldozer, and Reed has the nerve to knowingly grin at you. You’re pissed, but a tiny involuntary ripple of guilt runs through your brow and instantly he looks more smug, victorious even. The shithead.

You snarl. “You’re a fucking brat.”

“And you owe me a gift,” he declares and slowly eyes you up and down. “Seeing as you’re empty-handed.”

Reed pouts but a quiver of a grin remains.

“Okay, alright already!” You throw your hands up, nearly knocking over someone’s beer nearby, but you couldn’t care less. You want this over and done with so you can finally go home. If you hadn’t been friends for so long, you would’ve been out the door by now.

In the most caustic singsong voice you can muster, you ask, “Reed, what would you like for your birthday?”

Your irritation clearly fuels him. Reed smirks widely, tapping his chin and making an exaggerated show of deep thought.

“Hm...”

The constant thumping in your ears halts as the music changes. This new song is a much, much slower tempo, it’s melody practically delicate in comparison to the previous one.

Nonchalantly, Reed leaps from his barstool. “I love this song.”

You don’t recognize it, but the change is a welcome respite for your ears. Suddenly, Reed grabs your hand and leads you to the center of the bar where the other patrons are coupling up to dance.

In a swift and graceful movement, Reed whips you around and pulls you close. You let out a haggard breath as if you were holding it this whole time. With him so close, the scent of the bar promptly dissipates, leaving only Reed. His sweet, smoky scent fills your senses. It is so familiar to you now that your body immediately relaxes in the comfort of it. The fight in you fades. The warmth of him is welcome amidst the chaos of the bar.

His hand grips yours tightly, but you feel his other hand graze your waist in surprisingly careful manner. Absentmindedly, you rest your forehead on Reed’s shoulder. For just a moment, he stiffens, then immediately relaxes and leads you in a slow dance. You let out a long, drawn-out breath into his jacket.

Reed switches the conversation to your mind. “Long day today?”

With a sigh, you nod wordlessly. As you inhale, you immediately detect something astringent coloring Reed’s scent. Bitterness and worry echo in the aftertaste.

“Look, I’m sorry for scaring you,” he says, sincerely.

“Sure you are, asshole.” You can’t help but bite back still. To this, Reed chuckles so deeply, you can feel it vibrating through you.

“I am,” he whispers, despite speaking telepathically. His tone turns serious. “You know, you’re working too hard.”

You’re unsure how to respond. “I guess.”

“You are working too hard.”

Reed’s words haunt you. Without thinking, you lean harder into this shoulder, and he instinctively holds you closer. No one knows better than him what little choice you have in the matter.

“You don’t need to worry about me so much,” you say, with some finality to your words.

You feel his grip on your waist tighten just a bit, his thumb tracing you slowly.

His voice echoes heavily in your mind. “I will always worry about you.”

When the two of you are speaking like this, it’s easy to drown out the sounds of the bar. For a spell, you’re both silent, swaying to the music and basking in the comfort of each other’s presence.

You feel safe, almost perfectly at ease. A foreign feeling, these days.

Reed breaks the silence, his chin brushing against your hair. “You know, I still remember the first gift you ever gave me.”

“I bet,” you attempt to snark, but your voice is timid. Reed remembers it more clearly than you do. A small smile curves on your lips as the memory of it gradually comes back to you.

Strangely, Reed releases you, and though your heart should know better, it instantly sinks, craving his embrace. The feeling stuns you. You look up, and Reed is gazing at you with a curiously unfamiliar expression. It’s intense, his amber eyes are burning into you. The two of you are still, almost frozen.

Reed wants to say something. Something important, you know that for sure. It’s his hesitation that alarms you. His full lips part, and he takes a deep breath.

But the song comes to an end. Heavy beats of the next track immediately invade your senses.

You almost dread letting him go. But when you look down, you find that Reed is still holding your hand, though limply this time.

“So for my gift,” Reed’s voice calls out in your mind, full of mischief. His signature smirk returns, quickly replacing whatever was there before.

“Gift?”

“Technically,” he shrugs, his smirk widening. “I never answered your question.”

“Wait, what?” you gawk.

“You owe me a birthday gift. The dance was a nice bonus though.”

Reed laughs. It’s exuberant but rings hollow.

“Are you fu－”

He pulls on your hand, leading you towards the exit. “But first, dinner. Dancing with someone so pretty really works up the appetite.”

“Oh, for the love of…” you mutter, unable to roll your eyes any harder.

“I’m thinking that one place by the square!” he giggles.

“I can’t afford that place, Reed!” you haggle as he continues to lead you towards the exit. The music gets louder as you get closer to the speakers. Earlier you struggled to navigate through the crowd, but Reed cuts through it effortlessly.

His laugh cuts through the crowd just as easily. “It’s on me, of course! Can’t discuss the important matter of my birthday gift on an empty stomach.”

Of all the things, Reed is an excellent negotiator. He knows you well enough to see that you’re starving before you’re even aware of it. You’re wracking your brain on what you could possibly give the guy. The infamous Reed, with his bank account much deeper than yours, typically wants for nothing.

“Reed!” you try to shout over the music, out loud this time. “What else could you possibly want?”

Without looking back, Reed pushes the doors open, and you feel the cold air pour in from outside. He squeezes your hand, and you hear him mutter something out loud instead of in your mind.

But your hearing is overwhelmed by those damn speakers.

⬫

[gumnut-logic]

Suits

I woke up with this scene in my head this morning and this fic is the result. It appears to be little more than a mood piece and it rambles, not really going anywhere, but it is an answer to Scott’s FabFiveFeb challenge with the prompt “What do you mean?”

As with most of my fics at the moment - SPOILERS FOR 3.25 & 3.26.

Thank you to @scribbles97​ for the cheering on and the readthrough. And apologies to @onereyofstarlight​ I kinda built on your turf :D Hope I got all my references right :D

Don’t expect too much and I hope you enjoy it.

-o-o-o-

Scott straightened his tie. The soft blue silk had a calm sheen to it. Virgil, ever the colour coordinator, had given it to him last birthday and basically demanded he wear it with this suit.

Who was Scott to disagree with a practising artist? A tie was a tie, but he had to admit the blue did something to highlight his eyes. He understood that much.

Shoulders straight, he found himself brushing non-existent lint off his lapels.

Pulling his hand away, he had to admit he was nervous and the soft grey fabric was little more than a shield between him and the world.

He was standing in his room in their house in Parnell, Auckland. Through the window of his bedroom the volcanic island of Rangitoto sat in a still and grey early morning sea.

A cruise ship was entering Waitemata Harbour, the floating hotel, a slow-moving behemoth.

It echoed how he felt stuck here.

But he was a Tracy and there were necessary things that had to be done. He turned toward the door and grabbed his wallet and keys. He had left Commander Tracy in the hands of Virgil for a couple of days. His younger brother’s thoughts on that were, as always, dutiful but reluctant. One of these days Virgil would realise just how good a commander he actually was and stop fretting every time Scott left the Island for a few days.

Gordon’s eyes had sparkled.

Scott snorted to himself. The aquanaut was as much Virgil’s second as Virgil was Scott’s. Gordon would have his brother’s back.

Even while hoisting Virgil’s underwear up the flagpole.

The smile that crept onto his face at the thought of his brothers did a lot to straighten out his thoughts.

Today was necessary, but there was always tomorrow to look forward to.

He sighed and strode into the corridor and down the stairs. “Dad, you ready?”

He found his father in the living room. The man’s back was ramrod straight, his dark grey suit sharp and professional.

The pink tie was an…interesting accent.

Grey eyes caught his staring at the silk wrapped around his collar. “Alan gave it to me.”

Scott frowned and took a step closer. “Are those…flamingos?”

“Yes, they were your mother’s favourite.” The tie was a solid candy pink, but embossed in stitches in the material were small flamingos. Elegant rather than gaudy.

His dad was still tense as bowstring, which was understandable considering what they were doing today. “You look great, Dad.”

The shift in his father’s stance was subtle, but the release of tension was enough. “Thank you.” His eyes appraised Scott. “You’ve made a good choice yourself.”

Scott shrugged. “Virgil knows how to bully.”

His dad snorted. “You, too, huh?”

“Yeah.” It was said with fondness. But onto business. “Ready?”

“Lead the way.”

The car was out the front waiting as the two men strode out the front door, Scott grabbing his briefcase as they left.

It was a short drive into the CBD and one of the reasons why they had purchased the house in Parnell many years ago. Some would say it was indulgent. Scott considered it necessary for appearances.

After all, if he was going to make the board travel all the way out here, he had to have the presence to make it happen.

A couple of years after his father’s disappearance Scott had moved Tracy Industries HQ to Auckland. His reasoning was clear. Aotearoa was International Rescue’s closest neighbour. The economic landscape worked to their business advantage and IR had an arrangement with the government that allowed fast deployment of the Thunderbirds if necessary.

And it was a simple power move. Making the rest of the world come to them spoke of confidence and strength.

His father had stared at him when he told him of the financial situation Tracy Industries was currently in. Those grey eyes had widened.

“We’re worth how much?”

Scott shifted where he stood. “It was a family effort, Dad.”

And it truly had been. While Scott acted as President, John had flexed his genius and played the stockmarket in his spare time. Both Brains and Virgil patented some core new technologies, Gordon expanded their ecological interests and Alan, still in high school, had helped to launch their high-tech simulator experiences.

Scott didn’t mention the merchandise. He avoided the merchandise.

But it all came together and where Tracy Industries was worth billions when his father disappeared, after an initial stumble and drop, it had recovered once the world realised that Scott Tracy was no pushover and was now greater than it had ever been. More diverse, more powerful, just more.

Scott had sat his father down and gone through the portfolio.

“We’re in aquaculture?”

“Gordon’s coup. He funded a small time ecologically safe project enough to get it off the ground. Now we are the major supplier of several marine crops for both food and medicinal purposes.”

His Dad frowned.

“It’s strength in diversity, Dad. The sum of all supports the all.”

Those eyes pinned him. “I taught you that line.”

Scott’s lips curled. “I know.”

And now the day had come where the current President had to re-introduce the former President to the board.

The buildings slipped by as the car darted through the city. The day was grey without being cold, but it was far from the tropics he was used to. People walked the streets, traffic lights passed them by. An ambulance tore through going in the opposite direction and Scott found himself stretching to peer out the back window to see where it was going, automatically running locations through his head, his hand halfway to his lapel to call Thunderbird Five before he stopped himself.

But nothing was said in the back of the car. His father was quiet and gazed out the opposite window. Scott knew this must be hard for him, but it had to be done.

“Are you sure, Dad?” They had discussed it late one evening out on the balcony.

“I’m sure, son. It is time.”

“You don’t have to do it now, you can wait longer if you need it.”

“Do you have reservations?” His voice was quiet.

“No! I’m just worried you’re hurrying it, that’s all.”

Still quiet. “No.” His father looked out towards the horizon. “It’s time.”

But still as the car pulled up in front of the tower of glass that served as their headquarters, Scott had to admit to himself, he had his reservations.

His father had had so many challenges to face on his return. His health was the worst. The long-term damage from years in space was unavoidable. The lack of a healthy diet was almost as bad. There were months of painful rehabilitation with sorely needed respite on Five. John had been his father’s constant companion. Gordon had stepped in as his coach.

The day Scott found Gordon in tears in his bedroom would always be engraved in his memory. His little brother had just simply overflowed. The skin and bone of their father, his pain, the scars, it had all managed to chip away even Gordon’s strength. Scott ended up holding the man as he cried on his shoulder.

Scott’s eyes were far from dry.

Virgil found them there sometime later and from that point on things had changed.

International Rescue took second place for a while after that.

They still went out, but sometimes they just had to defer. Dad needed them.

Of course, their father knew nothing of the sort. The brothers fed him the information they needed to. Scott didn’t keep him in the dark, but he didn’t need to know what he didn’t need to know. The brothers had been managing IR for a long time. They did what they had to do.

Scott kept Tracy Industries and IR moving, John stayed with their father while Eos acted in his place, Virgil, Gordon and Alan divided their time between Dad and International Rescue.

Grandma moved to Auckland to look after her son.

It was a challenging year.

But Dad was back on Earth and despite the pain, they still rejoiced.

The driver opened his door and Scott was forced by propriety to climb out of the car.

His father followed.

Scott watched him look up and up.

And up.

The building was truly an architectural triumph. The tallest structure in Auckland, it was an elegant sculpture spun from ribbons of glass and greenery. It said success and it shouted it to all who saw it. Iconic and a tourist attraction it was known the world over as Tracy Tower.

“Spared no expense.”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Impressive.”

“That’s the idea.” But eyes were staring in their direction. His father’s presence today had been kept quiet, but with the media in everyone’s back pocket, it wouldn’t take long for the world to realise that Jeff Tracy was making his inaugural visit to Tracy Tower. “C’mon, Dad. They’ll be waiting for us.”

“For you.”

“Yeah, well, the moment they see you, I’ll just be part of the furniture.” He shot a small smile at his father.

The smile was reflected in those grey eyes. “Then lead on.”

The doors opened for them and they strode through into the grand foyer. Scott surreptitiously watched his father as he encountered the sheer opulence of the massive entrance. When Scott had first seen the plans for the building, his eyes had nearly fallen out of his head. It was over-the-top and just screamed ‘rich and we want to show it’ that he had stormed into the architects and given them a piece of his mind.

Fortunately, Virgil and Gordon had been with him at the time and reined him in because the lead architect had looked at him calmly before pulling up a hologram of the plans and going through each key point Scott had neglected to read.

The three rescues the day and night before might have had something to do with it.

The building was an ecological masterpiece. All the art served a purpose. It had no carbon footprint. Under the glass were solar cells that generated enough electricity to power the building itself, plus half the CBD beside it. Woven into the structure were gardens that served as havens for the workers in the building and for the wildlife around it. Aotearoa was the land of birds and the Tower supported as many as was practical.

Gordon had literally been bouncing at the time.

But the foyer was what Virgil had fallen in love with. At its centre stood a holographic sculpture generating image and music from the movement around it. Where people bustled past, the artwork collected the movement and interpreted it as light and sound.

A play of colours and piano notes danced around the room. Strategically placed glass reflected and bounced it further.

“Virgil?”

Scott snorted. “You could say that. Once he saw the designs, I couldn’t keep him away from them. They are considerably different from what was originally conceived.” He shrugged. “I like to think he improved it.” He couldn’t help but smile at the memory of his usually calm brother gesticulating enthusiastically while outlining concepts and possibilities.

Scott waved at the sculpture and, even a dozen or so metres away, it waved back and sung a soft chime.

“You boys have definitely made your mark.”

A slight frown and he turned to his father. “We only built on your work, Dad. None of this was possible without you.”

His father straightened. “It is quite an achievement.”

A shrug. “It’s useful. It does what it needs to do.” He turned to reception and showed his ID. The young man smiled and ducked his head slightly. “Welcome, Mr Tracy.” Scott grinned at the security officer.

His father held out his ID, newly minted and shiny.

Scott hid a smile as the young security guard’s eyes nearly fell out of his head. “Mister Tracy?!” There weren’t enough capital letters in the English language to appropriately punctuate those two words.

“Yes, son, that’s my name. And yours is?”

“Uh, Cameron, sir.”

“Nice to meet you, Cameron. Have you worked here long?

“Uh, just over eighteen months, sir.”

“Are you enjoying the work?”

“Yes, sir. Scott, er, Mr Tracy has been very kind.”

Scott couldn’t help but grin. “Yeah, well, you’ve done an excellent job, Cameron.”

“Thank you, sir. The board are waiting in the Observatory.”

“FAB.”

Cameron’s grin was worth the small breach in protocol.

His father raised an eyebrow at Scott as they walked towards the elevator. “There’s a story there, isn’t there?”

“Yep. Had to pull Cameron out of Shackleton Nuclear Facility.”

His father stopped him in his tracks. “You went in there? That place is quarantined.”

Scott shrugged. “We do what we have to do. Cameron survived because of us. It is a success story, Dad.”

Those eyes held his a moment longer. “I’d be interested in seeing the reports.”

“They are available whenever you want to see them, Dad. I’ve told you that.” In fact, it had worried Scott that his father hadn’t jumped into the mission reports almost immediately. It as if he was reluctant to look into what he had missed.

It was understandable, but it was a concern nonetheless.

The elevator arrived as they approached and another security guard waved them in.

It didn’t take very long to get to the top of the building and the doors opened into the light an airy space that was the Observatory.

This was Virgil’s ode to John.

The engineer and artist had seen the plans for the rooftop space and immediately made suggestions. Scott wasn’t sure if you could stargaze in the middle of the city, but Virgil and the architects certainly did their best to make it appear as if you could.

The massive function area consisted of a glass enclosure that was the apex or the building. At night, lights shone on the glass in perfect constellations for the southern hemisphere. Even Scott was impressed.

During the day, the glass mosaicked shadows on the floor tiles that created those same constellations in lines.

Virgil hadn’t been the designer, but he had poked the team until they came up with this. To be honest, it was Scott’s favourite place for a board meeting.

It kept him close to the sky.

Gardens wove around the centre of the structure and when the meetings broke, there was plenty of fresh air and greenery to breathe in.

Today it was as grey as the ocean in the distance. Rangitoto Island defied the grey with its green volcanic cone.

The cruise ship had made dock.

Scott straightened his shoulders and stepped out of the elevator.

Immediately, every eye in the room turned and targeted him.

A moment later, every single eye slipped off him and landed on his father as he stepped out behind him.

“Mister Tracy!”

The name fell from the lips of Janine, Scott’s secretary who was there ready to take minutes.

“Well, are you just going to stand there or come in and take a seat?”

Scott couldn’t help but smile. “Captain Taylor.” A nod of greeting. “How was your trip from Mars?”

“Oh, Albert was excellent as always.”

Scott snorted as behind the astronaut, Alan, dressed neatly in a suit, rolled his eyes in exasperation.

Virgil, dressed in a grey almost as dark as his hair, emerged from the crowd, his eyes bright. “Hey, Dad, Scott.” He held out his hand to his father. “Welcome to Tracy Industries, Mister Tracy.” And yes, there was an amused smirk on his brother’s face.

Their Dad took Virgil’s hand, puzzlement on his face. “Virgil, what are you doing here? I thought you had command?”

The engineer tilted his head a little. “Well, sir, this is a full board meeting. Two is not far away, we can move fast enough. I can guarantee it.” There it was, the leader that was his younger brother even if the man didn’t see it himself.

“But at the moment, all of us are required to be here.” A flash of red hair and John stepped up from behind them. His suit a deep blue grey paired with his signature turquoise tie.

“What do you mean?”

Gordon appeared beside John, his smart pinstripe suit looking almost alien on the aquanaut…until you looked closer and realised there were purple octopuses on his tie and he was wearing sandals.

Scott rolled his eyes. He gave up. Gordon was never going to conform. It made him want to throttle him for it and yet love him even more.

“Jeff, dear.” A slim hand slipped around Gordon’s arm and Lady Penelope, all blonde and pink perfection, smiled up at his father. “You have to realise that your sons are all on the Tracy Industries board. Along with myself and Captain Taylor, of course.

His father spun to stare at Scott.

He just shrugged. “It’s a family business, Dad.”

Alan stepped forward. “Aunt Val sends her apologies. She is caught up in the States.”

His Dad was still staring at him. “But what about all those board member portfolios you shared with me?”

Scott tilted his head just a little. “They are board members, Dad. But so are we. We don’t have the luxury of be available for all meetings, but we do what we can. The quorum manage and keep us apprised.”

Lips thinned. “So why didn’t you tell me?”

Scott let out a breath. “Dad, if you knew we were all on the board, would it have affected your decision?”

Those eyes held his, but Scott could see the concern behind the grey. He knew this had been a very hard decision for his father and had wanted to support him in any way possible. It had been John who suggested they keep the family out of the equation, to hopefully put less stress on their father.

Mister Tracy frowned. “I guess we will never know.”

Scott didn’t smile, but he let a little hope flare at that statement. “Shall we call the meeting to order?”

A single nod from his father. Scott waved his brothers to their seats at the broad conference table to one side of the room. The non-family members of the board only had eyes for the elder Tracy.

Virgil slipped in next to Scott. Whispered. “FAB?” How’s Dad?

Equally quiet. “FAB.” Okay, but the same. They had both been worried that this was too soon, but Their father was as stubborn as the rest of them and wanted to do it now.

Virgil sat to his right as he always did, John to his left. Gordon slid over one with Alan and their father sat next to Virgil.

Scott didn’t sit down, but stood standing at the head of the table, a good twenty people staring at him…when they weren’t darting glances at his father.

A bird landed on the glass far above, its feet clattering against the surface.

“Thank you all for your attendance today for this special meeting of the Tracy Industries International Board.” He drew in a breath. “As the first item of business, I would like to announce my resignation as President.”

Several members gasped out loud. Janine let out a high-pitched squeak. A ‘no’ was whispered from the back of the room. Scott held up a hand and a respectful silence fell. “I don’t do this lightly and it is not for personal reasons, but for the betterment of Tracy Industries.” He straightened his shoulders. “I move to nominate my father, Jeff Tracy, to return to his rightful position as President of this company. Do I have a second?”

Six hands shot into the air.

The rest of the room sat in stunned silence.

“It will be noted that the motion was passed and that the board will vote, pending any additional nominations as per the constitution.”

The silence was profound.

The bird on the roof chattered to itself.

Scott caught his father’s eye and smiled.

-o-o-o-

FIN.

[littleoldrachel]

i am burned out (i smell of smoke)

okay, look. I wasn’t gonna post this until it was FINISHED because i am trying to learn to actually finish my wips. but. the world is sorta falling apart and i hope that maybe i can help even one person feel temporarily less anxious about it all. 

i wrote this for @gumnut-logic‘s birthday and am now over a month late, so! good! (so sorry nutty, you’re so incredible at blessing us with your words, i just wanted to do something nice for you since you’re so so good to us)

my love for virgil tracy + my silent lurking in this fandom have brought this about. i never thought i’d be writing thunderbirds fanfiction and yet. here we are (my father would be so disappointed in me).

this is my first time writing these characters, as will become painfully clear. pls be nice to me, i am fragile lol. i am horribly aware that my virg is probably too ‘floppy’ as per your post, nutty, so sorry in advance! this is me whumping your boy emotionally and mentally, but i’m gonna fix him, i swear! there are five parts (i have written the first three). 

virgil is always written as being very good at taking care of his mental health, and it occurred to me that some of the best people at this have had to learn to be that way, and so I guess this is an exploration of that? anyway, have some virgil aggressively loving his family. 

brains isn’t in this and kayo isn’t much either sorryyy. oh my GOd shut up, here you go:

i am burned out (i smell of smoke) [on ao3]

summary: in which virgil falls apart, learns how to put himself back together, and realises he doesn't have to do it alone.

word count: 2.8k ish (part 1/5)

warnings: mental health issues

timeline: i suppose this is set in early TAG verse?  jeff is missing and nobody is Coping Well.

happy belated birthday, nutty!! <3

i.

He isn’t quite sure where it began. Somewhere between three back-to-back rescues, pulling a child’s body from thick, black mud, and failing to reach the scientist before smoke ravaged her lungs, a weight settles in his chest that none of his usual coping mechanisms can shift. 

To say it’s been a hard week would be an understatement, but then again, they’ve had hard weeks before. Any time a rescue mission turns into a recovery mission, they all feel it - how can they not? - but this time, this time is different. 

Perhaps it was seeing the kid’s mother break down completely at the sight of such a small corpse. Perhaps it was the abuse hurled at him and his brothers by the scientist’s girlfriend for failing to rescue her soulmate in time. Perhaps it was sheer exhaustion and pain, perhaps it was feeling ribs break under the force of his CPR efforts, perhaps it was knowing that in spite of it all, it wasn’t enough. 

It’s like he can’t quite draw a full breath. Like his throat has half-closed and tears are creeping at the back of his eyes, but neither is willing to break the damn. It’s the heaviest kind of emptiness he’s ever known. 

And so Virgil forces it away - or if not away, then at least to one side - whilst he takes care of brothers who need to talk about the horrors they have just witnessed and the fresh guilt they now bear. He’ll take care of himself later (probably) and then he’ll finally be able to shift that god-awful weight on his lungs. It’s fine. 

*

Alan is easy enough to handle; Virgil’s pedestal will never be as high as Scott’s or John’s but he’s still Alan’s big brother, and Alan feeds on reassurance and praise. Virgil knows that both Scott and John will be in later to check on their youngest too, but for now, Alan needs him. 

“You did well today, kiddo,” Virgil says, leaning against the doorframe to Alan’s suite. His littlest brother is lying flat on his back staring up at the ceiling. 

Alan blinks slowly, twists to meet his eyes. Overly-bright cornflower blues meet steady browns and Virgil catches the tremble of Alan’s lower lip with an aching heart. 

“You did, Allie.” Virgil strides across the room and has Alan scooped into a hug within seconds. “All those people are gonna wake up tomorrow because of you.”

“It doesn’t feel like enough, Virg,” whispers Alan. “So many people didn’t make it.” 

“I know.”

(The weight on his chest and struggle to breathe will never let him forget it). 

Alan sighs, rests his head on his brother’s broad chest. “I just - I keep remembering her face. When she realised I couldn’t save her. I close my eyes and she’s just - there.” He closes his eyes and digs the heels of his palms into them.

He’s so young. It’s not the first time that Virgil has had doubts about forcing this responsibility on a teenager, but it is the first time Alan’s watched someone die in his arms and none of Virgil’s carefully crafted words will change that. Especially not now, whilst the pain is raw and jagged and demanding to be felt - no, Virgil and his brothers will be helping him to untangle this over the next few weeks.

“Wanna play something?” he asks instead. 

The response is less enthusiastic than usual, but soon Alan has a fragile smile on his lips as he thrashes Virgil’s Princess Peach with Waluigi (and so what if Virgil deliberately chooses the tracks he knows he’s shit at just to make Alan chuckle when he falls off Rainbow Road again?). 

*

His water-loving brother won’t be so easy (though of course, there’s nothing easy about watching someone so young trying to carry the weight of the world). Still, Gordon is at least predictable in his frustrated misery and rolls his eyes as he sees Virgil coming towards the pool with a towel in hand. 

“I’m not in the mood, Virg,” he calls, before hurling himself underwater and sinking to the bottom of the pool. 

It’s Virgil’s turn to roll his eyes, but he kicks off his shoes, sits on the poolside and dangles bare feet into the water, waiting. When Gordon finally emerges from the water, annoyance flickers across his face at the sight of his waiting brother, and he turns, kicking away from Virgil with a powerful breaststroke. 

Virgil waits until Gordon’s swum four lengths before speaking. “How are you doing?”

Gordon’s perfect rhythm barely falters as he grabs his brother’s leg and yanks, pulling Virgil into the pool and immediately swimming away. Virgil shakes the water from his hair, internally cursing his stubborn-ass younger brother and treads water until Gordon reaches his end of the pool again. 

“How many lengths is that?”

Gordon ignores him, switching fluidly into butterfly stroke and splashing away from him once more. 

Virgil can’t help but sigh; his limbs are aching and his chest is heavy and he wants nothing more than to curl up in bed. But his younger brother is hurting - emotionally, sure, judging by the way he’s slicing through the water like it’s done him wrong, but physically too if the minute winces are anything to go by. (And Virgil can’t stand it). 

The next time Gordon comes by, Virgil is ready. He seizes his brother around the middle, and bodily drags him to the edge of the pool. He doesn’t often use his size and strength against his brothers, but this time calls for it. Once out of the water, the fight goes out of Gordon, and he staggers, murmuring “ow, ow, ow, ow.”

“Come here, you idiot.” Virgil pulls Gordon into a shady spot by the loungers, and begins helping Gordon stretch out overworked muscles. Gordon hisses as Virgil presses down on his calf muscle. “Sorry, Gordo.”

“S’okay.” Gordon glares up at the sky. “Just stupid cramp.”

Rolling his eyes, Virgil shakes his head. “Yeah, that or the fact you’re reliving your Olympic training after having been up for forty-eight hours straight.”

“You know if you keep doing that, your face will get stuck.”

Virgil pulls a hideous face, then grins in response to Gordon’s laugh. It feels good to smile, it shifts the weight on his lungs the tiniest bit. 

“Flip over and I’ll do your back.”

“Virgil Tracy, you’re a goddamn saint,” Gordon declares, obediently flopping onto his stomach. 

There’s a pause whilst Virgil runs expert hands over the rock-like knots in Gordon’s back and Gordon melts into the mattress. When Virgil next speaks, his voice is gentle even as his hands dig in: “You know that punishing yourself isn’t going to bring them back.”

Gordon tenses then sighs. “Damnit, Virg. Can’t a guy get a massage without psychoanalysis?”

But his voice is a great deal lighter than it would have been even half an hour before.

*

His wrists are aching by the time he drags himself out to the cliff edge where Kayo likes to perch. 

His brothers have different uses for this particular stretch of rock: Scott likes to end his morning runs here by stretching in the breeze off the waters. For John, it’s a spectacular place to stargaze, not least because it’s so very quiet and dark up here. Gordon can often be found diving off these rocks, cheered on by Alan, much to the constant stress of their oldest brother, who attributes more than seventy percent of his grey hairs to this cause. 

For Kayo, it’s a watchpost. Her stormy eyes skim the horizon for non-existent threats, calculating, calm, controlled. And after a bad rescue (or three), she sits and waits for hours at a time, gazing into choppy waves and brilliant sunsets with the loneliest eyes Virgil has ever seen. He’s supposed to sit with Kayo in silence until she tells him what she needs from him, be it a hug, his presence, or just distance. 

This time, she makes it clear the moment he pads towards her, fading into the rocks like she was never even there. Distance, then.

*

John is possibly the hardest to handle of all his siblings, purely because he’s the hardest to get a hold of. John knows Virgil’s antics only too well, knows that a meaningful conversation about how he feels is coming, and has therefore made himself scarce. 

 Virgil sighs as John misses (read: rejects) his third call in a row. Two can play at that game, Jonny.

Instead, he dials straight through to EOS. 

She answers him immediately, as usual. “Virgil. I have been anticipating your call.”

“You have?”

“You have all had unsuccessful missions. You always call after missions with a body count.”

Virgil swallows, fresh guilt rising in his throat, and forces it back down. 

“Please can you put me through to John, EOS?”

“Of course, Virgil.”

Silence for a second, and then John’s hologram appears. His red-headed brother is studiously avoiding eye contact, hands darting over controls in an anxious pattern.

“This isn’t a good time, Virgil, I’m busy rerouting some calls to local emergency services, and-”

“John.”

“-and there’s a call from Tehran that really needs me, so if that’s all-”

“John.”

Silence. 

“How long since you last ate?” 

John’s eyes meet Virgil’s and he looks away at once. “Uh… this morning?”

“Negative,” EOS chimes in, “last intake was twenty-six hours ago.”

John’s jaw clenches. “Thanks, EOS.”

“John, you need to eat.”

“Smother Brother.”

“I’m serious.”

EOS pipes up again, “John also needs to rest. He has been operating for twice the recommended period of time.” 

John glowers, but says nothing.

“Don’t make me set Scott on you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Virgil raises his eyebrows and John sighs loudly in frustration. “I will. I will. I just - thinking about food makes me feel nauseous. Like…” He swallows, looks away. “Like I’m eating mud.”

The sharp hurt in Virgil’s heart twinges violently and he wishes more than anything he could wrap John up in a bearhug and stop the world from hurting him. “What if I’m here whilst you try?” he asks softly.

Another sigh. “Fine. But only if you eat something too,” John says. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that your stomach was growling even louder than Two’s engines on the way home.”

“Smother Brother,” Virgil’s voice is hopelessly fond, even as he goes to make a sandwich that he can’t face eating (which for him, is a bad sign - he who has forced down Grandma’s inedible chilli through sheer willpower and love). The bread is hard and tasteless, the filling bitter. He chokes down a half slice, focusing instead on the fact that his younger brother is carefully chewing at his toasted bagel, eyelids heavy. Eventually, John’s shoulders slump, and his head lolls back into slumber.

His work here is done. 

Well, almost -

“Hey, EOS?”

“Yes, Virgil?” 

“Can you put that playlist I made him on a loop?”

“Of course, Virgil. Venus Bringer of Peace is now playing.”

There. 

*

His oldest brother is hurting. Virgil doesn’t need ESPN or whatever freaky connection Gordon and Alan accuse them of having to know that. 

There was a death toll, and therefore Scott will be hurting. Every life lost becomes a personal fault for the man, and nothing Virgil says or does will change that. They have this argument every two or three weeks, increasingly frequently as the months since their father’s disappearance have ticked into years. And he’s so very tired of rehashing the same words over again and again, he’s so tired of being utterly powerless against his brother’s borderline suicidal recklessness, he’s so tired of his uselessness in convincing Scott to stop treating his life like some replaceable trinket.

(So very, very tired).

And yet, Virgil stands in the doorway to his father’s office, bracing himself for yet another battle with his older brother.

Because taking care of the idealistic, brash, self-flagellating workaholic is what he does best - especially when said idealistic, brash, self-flagellating workaholic least wants it.

Scott is hunched over the desk, poring over debriefs with an almost-empty glass of something amber in his left hand. Virgil makes a mental note to re-encrypt the code to the drinks cabinet - Scott had cracked it far too quickly last time, but he doesn’t stand a chance against John…

“Hey, Scott,” he finally enters the room, but his brother doesn’t even spare him a glance. Virgil takes the seat opposite him - the one he used to sit in as his father waxed lyrical about his dream of an elite rescue organisation (it hurts) - and waits. 

After five or so minutes, Scott looks up blearily, blinking in surprise. “Virg? What are you - when did you-”

“It’s gone midnight, Scott. We agreed you wouldn’t do this anymore.”

A muscle in Scott’s jaw twitches. He’s wound tight from alcohol and stress, and it hurts Virgil to see it.  “I have to get this done.”

“Not at one am, you don’t.”

“Don’t start, Virg, you know debriefs are essential - you know I have to - to -”

“To what?” 

“What?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you have to get done? What’s so important that it can’t wait till you’ve at least slept?”

Scott breaks - quicker than usual (thank you, whiskey) which is a relief, because Virgil’s energy is down to its last droplets; hell, it’ll be a miracle if he even makes it to his room after this. 

“To figure out where we fucked up! To explain to the fire services that we did fuck-all for their rescue efforts! To figure out why I wasn’t fast enough to get to those children! I have to - to know,” he flings himself to his feet and begins pacing. “Fifty-four people died today, that’s fifty-four lives we should have saved, and I have to know why we failed so it never happens again.” He slams both hands down on the table, scattering papers to the floor. His eyes are wild and slightly bloodshot, and Virgil’s heart aches for the pain in those cerulean blues. 

The fight leaves Virgil’s spirit, because for once, he’s having a hard time reconciling his own failings with the number of bodies he’s pulled from mud and rock today. Usually, he is the first to reassure his brothers that they did all they could. But on a day like today, with the weight of whatever-it-is on his chest, it’s just not good enough. 

But that doesn’t mean he’s going to leave Scott alone in his pain. 

“What can I do?” Virgil asks quietly, and Scott stares at him. 

A pause. “Just - just be here,” Scott allows at last, sinking back into his chair. 

“Always,” Virgil says, and he means it, even through the fog of this exhausted, low, heavy feeling. 

“You okay?” Scott says, looking him over with a frown, and Virgil curses internally, because of course, Scott notices what none of his other siblings have. 

“As much as any of us are right now,” Virgil answers, as honestly as he can. Scott clearly doesn’t quite believe him, because he keeps shooting Virgil surreptitious glances laden with concern, but he lets it go. Perhaps he too lacks the energy to fight him on this. 

(It’s not enough and Virgil knows it. It’s not enough to stop his brother from working himself into an early grave and it’s not enough to blame poor construction work for the collapse of a tower block when he should have been able to save them).

(He’s not enough). 

*

He’s exhausted. He had thought he was shattered before, but now - 

The heaviness in his chest is a gaping wide hole, and the edges are raw and ragged from trying to hold himself together. His throat closes and clogs, but the tears won’t come, even as misery wells inside of him.

He looks blankly at the piano he sometimes uses to pull himself back from edges like these - edges that plunge down, down, down into an abyss he daren’t explore. Only the tug in his chest isn’t there. The canvas on his easel remains blank, his paintbrush untouched. Hell, even the idea of a nice, hot shower has him cringing at the effort and self-care involved.

What the hell’s the matter with him? 

He can’t quite explain it, and for one usually so attuned to others’ emotions, this awful lowness is startling. Because it’s more than lowness, and it’s more than heaviness - it’s more like a complete absence of feeling, an emptiness that he doesn’t know how to name. 

Perhaps, it will shift in the morning. Perhaps, this is the consequence of pushing yourself to over-exhaustion and beyond, and then expelling what little energy remains to support your loved ones. Sleep will help, Virgil tells himself. Rest makes everything better, you will be better in the morning.

[starman-john-tracy]

Radiation Poisoning | Chapter Seven

by @starman-john-tracy and @asteria-star

In which John Tracy gets exposed to uranium and nearly dies, The Hood is evil, and Star generally freaks out a lot.  

Chapters: [One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Eight]

Star’s not entirely sure how she makes it through her shower without passing out entirely, but the black dots in the edges of her vision are doing their very best to swallow her whole. There are clothes of hers on Tracy island, but Star emerges with her limp hair in a wet plait down her back, in one of John’s sweatshirts and a pair of sweatpants that just about fit around the waist, but have to be rolled up half a dozen times to free her feet.

Honestly, Star almost throws up within her first step into the medical room. But Virgil’s hulking figure is beside her, and he looks like he’s feeling much the same way. Star’s not sure what he has or hasn’t told his other brothers to get them to leave her alone, but she’s not yet seen hide nor hair of any of them... until now, that is.

Because Scott Tracy is sitting backwards on a chair at his brother’s bedside. His legs either side of the backrest and his arms folded heavily over it. His mouth is pressed into a tight white line and, as he drags his eyes up to them from where they were fixed on John’s still shape, he looks less than pleased to see the pair of them. Maybe it’s just the tension. Maybe it's something more. Virgil, as if sensing Star might bolt, takes her wrist and guides her into the room, clearly hoping that she’ll be too preoccupied with John to worry overly about his oldest sibling’s presence.

“My shift.” Virgil shoos the older man from the chair, “Do us all a favour and go get a shower Scooter.” Evidently this is part of their taking turns. Scott shakes his head low and weary, but he makes his way toward the door with little other protest.

“Thanks Virg, see you in twenty, yeah?”

“Sure thing.” Virgil guides her into Scott’s vacated chair by John’s hospital bed, safe to be so close now that she’s been scrubbed raw of outside germs, watching him sleep. Sleep… isn’t the right word. He’s not peaceful enough, minute tremors and twitching muscles plaguing his form, as if his subconscious wants to writhe in discomfort. His arms are more black and blue than pale, his heart monitor is beeping an uneven tempo, the oxygen mask looks sore against his irritated skin.

“You alright?” Virgil checks, from where he’s leaned on the back of the chair behind her. He doesn’t think he’s alright, after all. A warm chin comes to rest on the top of her head. He sighs heavily, watching the silent shape of his brother just breathe. John looks thin and fragile under the white sheet, with the oppressive quantity of bleeping machinery clustered around him and all the tubes and wires and the bulky shape of the oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, dwarf the lithe young man almost entirely. Virgil’s just glad he didn’t have to intubate him. His arm raises, almost brushing against Star’s cheek, as he pinches the bridge of his nose hard, trying to stave off the edges of a tension headache.

“Geez…”

After several moments of restless watching, Star shifting anxiously in her seat, she tilts her head towards Virgil, like she wants to look at him but can’t drag her eyes up to his face. “You’re going to want to ask the GDF to send someone up there to pick up the uranium,” she murmurs sullenly, “John was concerned about the leaking canisters in the vault, and then there’s a second lot in an officers lounge. I think I hid them well enough.”

“I’ll get Scott on it.” Virgil sets himself a reminder on his fancy, high-tech wristwatch, ready to prompt him when his elder brother returns from his shower. “Do you think The Hood is likely to come back for them?”

It’s at that moment that John makes a low sound in the back of his throat. Star’s hand twitches towards him, reaching for the bony wrist that’s the closest limb to her, wanting to do anything to make home feel better, even if it’s just a comforting hand, but she freezes.

“I’m not… am I going to hurt him?” She asks Virgil softly, blinking back those stupid tears she hasn’t been able to keep under wraps all day. “Can I even be in here? It’s not going to make him sick?”

“You’re alright.” Virgil pats her shoulder reassuringly, then moves away to go fiddle with some settings on a screen, topping up his brother’s painkillers, “You’re freshly showered and there’s little chance of you transmitting any germs to him, even with his wrecked immune system, but I’m glad you’re being careful. Alan wanted to jump right on him soon as we let him back in.” He laughs, but the warm sound trails back off into silence again shortly after.

Quiet, Virgil watches the fresh 20ccs of tramadol run down the new line he’d replaced the cannula at his wrist with, mixing with the supplementary immunotherapy drugs and blood regulators that are already feeding into his brother’s veins. The replacement peripherally inserted central catheter, or PICC, is a thinly-tubed line that runs from the entrance point at the crook of the John’s elbow, and finishes snugly near the heart muscle, designed to deliver the medications much more quickly and effectively. Virgil hopes that John won’t be able to feel the microscopic, wire-stiffened tube threaded through the peripheral veins in his right arm when he wakes.

John’s nose wrinkles in his sleep, eyebrows crinkling like something is disturbing him.

“Does it hurt?” Virgil whispers, more to himself than his unconscious brother, “Shhh Johnno, the meds will kick in soon.” He smooths a big, warm hand across his siblings shoulder. “We’re gonna take good care of you, ok?” 

Star almost tips herself out of the chair leaning forwards, gripping Johns free-er arm at the elbow, so their forearms are lying flush on the bed. She lets her fingers trail along the soft, bruised skin there, and instinctively forces a watery smile to her face that he’s never going to see.

“Hey Johnny,” she murmurs, tracing the delicate patterns over and over again. “You’re safe now. Got to Thunderbird Five, just like you said to. And you’ve got your brothers. Nobody’s going to hurt you here.”

She still can’t quite bring herself to say the words you’re okay, but she keeps talking, just in case he can hear her. She just keeps telling him about this and that and everything in between in a low, wavering tone that seems to almost just fall out of her. It’s not until the drugs must kick in that she stops, keeping a hold of his arm. It’s like drowning, watching John’s lax face through a haze of angry gravity.

“You know what, Virgil?” Star tells him, not moving an inch from her position up against the bed. “I really fucking hate space.”

There’s a soft, suspiciously wet sounding laugh from Virgil over her shoulder. 

“Don’t let him hear you say that.” He says, scrubbing a hand hard over his eyes, “He’d be so upset.” 

Star snorts. “Oh, he knows, don’t you worry. I tell him every time something goes wrong. Like one time, we ran out of coffee? I almost staged a mutiny.”

Virgil laughs again, louder this time: more genuine and less startled.

The pained scrunch of John’s brows has yet to smooth out, Virgil’s top up dose or otherwise. There’s a slight curling of his fingers, the muscle of his forearm under Star’s palm bunching noticeably as he does. The burned red of his face has bleached to an unhealthy grey save for the two spots of feverish crimson high on his cheeks.

“John?” Virgil’s noticed the pick-up in his brother’s heart rate, the boost of O2 to his brain on the monitors. “Hey buddy, you waking up there?”

Even with the fogginess of a head that feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool, a haze of drug-induced numbness, John knows without opening his eyes that he’s in the medical room down on Tracy Island. There's just something that just makes the space instantly recognizable, whether you’re actually in control of your full cognitive capacity or not. It could be the weight of gravity, or the sharp, clean smell of antiseptic, or the constant bleep of monitors, but it’s altogether too familiar to be anywhere else. 

There’s a headache pounding his eyes and John notes that, despite the fact he’s only just woken up, he’s incredibly exhausted. He figures it must have been the pain that woke him: his chest sears on every exhale, a tight, awful stabbing sensation burning in his midriff. There’s a sharp, localised piercing feeling in his wrist, and a headache behind his eyes, and he feels so sick, curling and hot in his stomach. 

Blue-green eyes chance a peek and John registers, squinting against the bright white lights above his head, the presence of an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, cool air replacing each hot, rough breath he struggles to take.

“V’rgl?”

Star goes very, very still, hardly even daring to breathe. She leaves her arm where it is, pressed against John’s but stops the absent tracing, as if afraid he’ll notice she’s there. Her wide eyes track Virgil’s as he rushes over to check John over. She’s waiting for the dark haired Tracy to call false alarm, tell her she’s imagining things, but he never does. 

John doesn’t look particularly happy about it, but his eyes are definitely open, and Star is willing to take that. Her heart jolts in her chest each time his fingers curl by her elbow, blue eyes squinting around the room. John tries to fidget uncomfortably, an impossible feat, and Star stumbles uncoordinatedly upright, nearly landing on her ass, to place gentle hands on each side of his hips to keep him from moving, mirroring Virgil’s hand on his shoulder. Eventually, his eyes come to land on her.

Star startles like a deer in headlights. “Hey.”

“Star.” He breathes her name out like it tastes of pure, heady relief. “I…” Golden ginger lashes flutter, his eyes roaming the room again and lingering the sight of Virgil scrubbing at his eyes with the hand not holding down his shoulder. “Wh…?” His voice is thick and hazy with sleep, and he’s genuinely surprised by what a struggle it is to keep his eyes open. His focus narrows to the dark braid over Star’s shoulder and the feeling of small hands pressing down on his hips. He shifts a little, testing the reason for the holding him in place, and he’s rewarded by a hot, fiery sensation across his stomach and through his insides for it. He breathes out hard through his nose, O2 mask fogging. “Ow…” He manages weakly. “What…?”

“Stop moving,” Star admonishes lightly, taking her hands away now that he’s got the idea himself. “You’re fine where you are, okay? Just relax.”

She slouches back in her chair like a marionette who’s strings have been cut. She didn’t realise just how much she’d been expecting him to never wake up again until he said her name.

Someone’s taken the time to clean him up, wiping fever sweat from his skin and combing out his hair so that it feels soft against the pillow, curling, still just that little bit longer than he likes to keep it, around his ears. His lungs ache on every breath. Asphyxiation. His brain fills out from him, though he’s not sure where he got that idea from. I couldn’t breathe. He feels almost cold, the heat of the fever tricking his body into shivering, and stiff fingers bunch in the sheet over him, unconsciously trying to warm them. Star leans back forward when she sees the trembling fingers, taking his hands in her own to rub some warmth into them. It's a placebo and she knows it, his skin almost physically burns to the touch. 

“Hi John.” Virgil sounds tired right through, his eyes liquid with apology. “So, uh, I’ve got good news and bad news.” The wince at the cliché phrase must show on the spaceman’s face, “Ack, sorry.” He sits heavily on the edge of his brother’s bed, settling beside Star, “You’re probably confused. How much do you remember of what happened?”

John goes to shake his head, only to pale like he regrets the motion, the world spinning round him like he’s sat on the outside of the gravity ring. He squeezes his eyes shut once more with a groan.

“Still nauseous?” Virgil guesses, wisely, “I’ll up your antiemetics. I… Do you know where you are?” 

“Med room,” John croaks, his voice raspy with exhaustion and the damage to his lungs. “Tracy Island. Th’ gravity gives it away. Crn’t tell you the date though.” He looks to Star at his side, eyes scanning her skin and the very familiar sweater she’s wearing, as if checking her for injuries. “Y-you ok?” 

Star closes her eyes, very slowly, swallowing thickly. It takes her a moment before she opens them again, and when she does it’s on the promise of I’m fine. 

“I’m fine, John,” she gives his hands a little squeeze, “nothing happened to me. I’m completely and utterly, perfectly fine.” 

She gives him a little smirk when he does a disbelieving double take. “And it’s Thursday, just in case you were wondering.” Everything about her softens. “You’ve been asleep for a little while.” 

“What day was it when I went to sleep?” He sounds concerned. “If it's Thursday now?"

“Good lord,” Star smirks, “I’m going to buy you a calendar for Christmas.” John snorts at that, the rough laugh pleasant. 

“When’s Christm…?” He goes to say more, amused, but Virgil rests a distracting palm against his forehead, gauging his temperature.

“What’s the last thing you’ve got memories of?” Virgil doesn’t seem bothered that he’s interrupting, his voice soft, still trying to gauge John’s cognitive function. 

“I…” There’s a flicker of fear in John’s eyes, as he struggles to put the blurred, patchy fragments he’s got of his memory over the last twelve hours or so back into some kind of order. It’s like trying to make a jigsaw without all the pieces. “We were responding to a situation, a parallel station in orbit. Star and me.” He pauses to take a breath. “There was… uranium on board.” His mouth shuts in a tight, white line, as if it’s dawning on him exactly why he might be lying in a hospital bed. “Things are patchy but there was a man… The Hood.” The name sounds like it causes him pain, “He took my helmet. Star got it back and… we were heading for Five…? After that I’ve got nothing.” Virgil can’t help but be relieved about that. “How’d we… get home?” He brings a hand to where his stomach is a throbbing, tender ball of ow. “What hit me?”

Star smiles slowly, sadly, aware Virgil can’t fill the gaps John wants covering, but not entirely willing to do it herself.

“I used the grapples to get back to Thunderbird Five, good job you made me take extra, then called Thunderbird Three for a lift. Figured since it was up to me, we could do without the damned space elevator.” She tries to smile like Virgil had done, or like John does on a call mid-rescue, with scared civilians on the line and nothing but him to steer them away from pure panic. It doesn’t quite have the same effect. Star considers herself a lot of things, but a Thunderbird isn’t one of them. That, and the heavy insistent tug of full gravity and near death experience at the hands of her nemesis space, have left her reeling and shaky and not entirely sure she’s all there.

“Nothing wrong with m’space elevator.” John complains lightly, trying to stifle a yawn, “Everything Brains builds is way over-engineered anyway.” His fingers squeeze hers, as if even doped up to the eyeballs he can tell something is wrong with her.

“Nothing hit you, John,” she lets go of a hand, making another move to cup his face only to fall short. She rests the hand against his shoulder instead, thumb against his collarbone. “The Hood was stealing uranium. He cornered you in the vault, and he did take your helmet off, so you had a couple of minutes out of atmosphere, but we got it back for you. Unfortunately… you were in there with some broken canisters, so you’ve had some…” Star’s brain doesn’t seem to want to supply the words, as if not saying them will steal the truth of it from right out from under their noses, “exposure to radiation. Virgil’s much better at explaining all the medical mumbo jumbo, so I’ll leave that to him, yeah?”

John is looking at her a little shell shocked, and she grimaces.

“How you doing there, sweetheart?” She gets a small groan in response.

“Feels like someone landed the Space Elevator on me.” He jokes, evidently trying to make light of the ominous you’ve got radiation poisoning that’s hanging over his head. “Glad t’hear that’s not what happened. Damage report Virg?” He sounds eerily calm in the face of it, but the heartbeat racing on the monitors spells out a different story. “What was the bad news?”

Virgil looks hesitant, and kind of miserable to follow up on his earlier offer. It’s hard to know where to begin. There are a lot of potential side effects of radiation poisoning: tumours, loss of kidney function, pancreatitis, permanent immune diseases, diabetes, and those aside John’s going to be in it for the long haul with the more immediate effects.

“When Scott and Alan got there,” Virgil begins to explain, “you were presenting with nausea, a high fever, erythema, purpura, dizziness and disorientation, cognitive impairment and haemorrhaging from your damaged blood vessels. All symptoms of accurate radiation syndrome.” He takes a breath. “We had to perform a Laparotomy to correct the internal bleeding, so, uh, you’re going to be pretty sore around the waist for a while.”

“A what?” John blinks sluggishly, trying to work out just what that means. The headache really isn’t helping his cognitive processing. He can feel the pull of the line of neat stitches across his abdomen as he shifts. It feels like there’s something heavy resting on his chest. His fingers tighten around Star’s again, just a little. She can feel the fine tremble that’s started in the digits.

Star catches his heart racing away in the monitors, feels the tremble in his hands, and hooks her free arm around his chest, as though she would give him a hug if she weren’t so scared of breaking him.

“We sealed your leaky blood vessels.” Virgil confirms, worried about how much of this John is actually taking in, “Surgery went well, and we’re hoping you’ll be free of any secondary infections. Tests indicate that there’s been a severe decrease in your number of blood cells though, as is common with radiation exposure, including leukocytes.” The notices the lack of recognition in John’s eyes. “Uh, they’re the white blood cells, they’re the body’s primary defence against infection, so we’ve got to be really careful to keep you from getting any germs or small cuts for a while.” Virgil looks kind of sheepish about it, like he knows it’s going to be a rough road for a little while. “Your lack of red blood cells is gonna make you anaemic and your lack of platelets could make even a little bleed severe.” He cards a shaky hand backwards through his dark hair, glad he’s telling John these things to forewarn him, but feeling horrible that he has to. “We’ve got you on a PICC line to boost your cell count and correct the dehydration, iron levels and electrolyte imbalance. Brains is in his lab working on what the ideal balance of meds is gonna be.”

“That… sounds good?” Anything Brains is working on always comes round for the best sooner or later. John’s aware he’s never seen the man with a medical qualification though. He’s got a strong suspicion he’s soon going to become a human guinea pig. 

“It’s gonna be a pretty slow recovery I’m afraid. You’re going to be tired a lot more than normal and you’re on a course of immunotherapy and blood clotting medications. We’re expecting you to be nauseous a lot and have very little appetite, but you’re gonna have to suck it up a bit and eat what you can or else there’s gonna be a whole lot more IV fluids in your future, and really, we’ve got you on enough already.”

“If things don’t improve on IV alone, we might need to find a suitable match for an allogeneic stem-cell transplant, and possibly,” He hesitates, “a marrow transplant, from a donor, depending on the overall state of your red and white blood cell counts." Virgil pauses to let that sink in. “I’m going to test the boys and Grandma to see if any of us are a match, but I want to place you on the list at the Royal Melbourne in order to have the greatest chance of getting you a donor, should the need arise."

“And the good news?” John chuckles weakly, struggling to absorb all that.

“You’re alive.” Virgil offers him, fairly miserably. “And we’re gonna do our best to keep you that way, alright? I hadn’t finished the bad though,” He winces, apologetic, “I’m gonna have to take a sample of bone marrow, so we can check if the radiation has reached it. Scans have been inconclusive and you… well, you might need a transplant. Sorry John.”

“Does the sample have to be taken today? Like, now?” Star asks Virgil over her shoulder. Star can see John struggling, his brain going a mile a minute and still not entirely believing all the ways Virgil had just listed that could kill him. His brow is still pinched with pain, and he’s frowning slightly at his brother, lost in whatever the hell had stuck out of all that.

“Ideally.” At least Virgil has the grace to sound sorry about it. “The sooner we have the sample of your stem cells the sooner we can analyse it for abnormalities and, if needed, start our search for a match. And, honestly John, it’s probably gonna be better to get it over with. You can go back to sleep after, ok?” If he can.

“Is it gonna hurt?” John asks, his voice smaller than either of them have ever heard it. Virgil doesn’t offer him an answer.

“Hey,” she leans on the bed with her elbows, drawing one of his hands up in both of hers, pressing her mouth along the back of his knuckles. “Look at me.”

She waits patiently as he does, holding the captured hand up against her cheek. Hazy eyes do finally meet hers, she nods slowly, as if to say it’s alright without having to voice the traitorous lie. Speaking of traitorous, her eyes are getting hot and wet again, and she fights the tears back.

“Don’t think too hard about it, it’s not all important right this second. Just tell me what you need right now.”

“I… I don’t know.” John’s mouth shapes the admission, but his voice doesn’t sound at all like his. It’s smaller than Star has ever heard it. He sounds so overwhelmed, maybe even scared. “Sorry,” He mumbles, “I… I’m so tired and it’s a lot and…” He turns his head into his pillow, pressing his cheek down hard and hiding his face from them. The motion reveals a pockmarked trail of red purpura marks all up the side of his throat. They watch him take a long, ragged breath, then another. It’s a second or two before he pulls himself together.

“Don’t apologise,” Star murmurs into his hand, letting him have his minute to hide in the pillow. “You’re doing great.”

“Right.” John swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing, “Let’s get this over with then shall we?” He looks up at them with liquid eyes and Virgil nods, the motion tight and controlled.

“Think we can get you onto your side?” It’s not really a question, but the illusion of choice seems to maintain some of John’s dignity in the situation. Too weak to help himself roll over, John, blearily, feels Virgil manipulating one of his arms to tuck it up by his cheek, and moving the other one straight out to the side, toward Star.

“It’s ok to cry Star.” He tells her softly, finding a weak smile for her beneath the oxygen mask even as Virgil folds back the covers and bends one of his knees for him and rolls him onto his side. The other leg gets bent to match, leaving him curled on his side with his knees tucked up to his chest. “It’s been a hard day, right?” A monitor bobs red somewhere above him, a drop in respiration. Virgil makes a displeased sound through his teeth.

“Yeah, I know,” she knows exactly what he’s talking about, there’s no way to even pretend not to, but she’s not about to give in that easily. No amount of showering and electrolyte complexes could scrub away the residue of having completely and utterly lost it, but John doesn’t need that right now. Star captures the hand that comes looking for her, bracing the other on his thigh to keep him from rolling over, or flinching away from Virgil. “No ones going to be upset or you do. It’s been a rough one.”

“Keep him talking to you.” He requests of her, trying to keep his brother’s anxiety down. “It’s alright John.” Virgil’s rolling up the thin blue cotton of his brother’s t-shirt, exposing the big adhesive pad stuck to his middle, hiding his perfect stitches. The medic rubs a quick hand soothingly over his brothers bare, red-pocked waist. “Hang tight, I’m just getting set up.” There are twin snaps as he pulls on IR blue latex gloves. John has to admit to himself, vaguely, that he’s very lucky his brother is brilliant.

It’s also lucky that John is turned away from him, being placed on his side having left him facing Star, and that doesn’t see the massive size of the weird, capped needle that Virgil’s setting up.

In a moment of stupidity, Star's eyes track Virgil’s movement and come to land on the needle. She hopes they don’t widen too obviously and snaps her gaze away, hunkering down close to John. Her heart is racing pounding painfully in her chest because that is going to hurt, and it’s going to hurt John.

“Ah,” she fumbles on a topic of conversation, everything seeming woefully insignificant for this. In the end, she plucks the first thing that comes to her mind that doesn’t start with an apology or include radiation poisoning. “So I have some complaints about the spacesuit, because that has got to be at least the third time I’ve had to wear it and ended up running around in my underwear when I’ve taken it off.”

She knows she’s not supposed to even be wearing her giant shirts when she’s got it on, she’s been told about the electrodes needing to sit flush against her skin more than once, but that isn’t the point. “We need to get some underclothes for them. Like the black in Star Trek. Imagine how slick we’d look? Speaking of, I’m renaming Thunderbird Five the Enterprise. I’ll change the label for your birthday.”

John snorted at her again, a touch of amusement joining the strain on his face.

“I thought I was getting a calendar?” There’s a weak smile, though it flickers as he feels Virgil’s cool hand land on his hip.

“No, no, calendar is for Christmas. I’m spray painting your Thunderbird for your birthday.” 

John looks like he might laugh again, or make a mock-offended complaint, only Virgil gets started.

"Okay, John…” He carefully cleans a small area of his brother’s lower back with a cold, sterile wipe, then rubs in a topical anaesthesia, his gloved fingers massaging the muscle of John’s back, trying to get him to lose the tension. “This is it… just relax as much as you can for me. You might feel a bit of pressure… A slight burn…"

Everything about him stiffens, grunting in pain, and Star just gives him something to hold onto, and holds onto him. Despite it, John can’t seem to help the whimper that escapes him at the feeling of the oversized syringe as it slides home. Punching through skin and muscle to pierce the back of his pelvis beneath, sliding unsettlingly easily into hard bone. A hot, bright flash of nausea almost makes his legs spasm, the need to curl further into his stomach strong, but Virgil’s got a steady hand, the one not holding the needle, on his brother’s hip and it luckily keeps him still while the thick needle sucks out his marrow. Being held still doesn’t mean he’s not very nearly sick then and there though, because it’s a close thing. John’s face screws up, his breathing short and sharp. He’s embarrassed to realise he’s shaking.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” She murmurs somewhat desperately, clinging on. “You’re doing great, baby. It won’t be long, we’ve got you, Virgil’s almost done.”

John’s teeth clench, and he screws his eyes even tighter shut at the sensation of the needle now retracing its route as Virgil carefully removes it. His muscles tense automatically, making Virgil’s job harder and leaving the spaceman gasping in sharp, clinical air like his abused lungs can’t quite cope with the shock. His stomach muscles are quivering.

"All done, John." Virgil’s gentle voice. “You did great.” A sticky pad gets pressed firmly into place, Virgil’s hand remaining there to apply pressure, while the other leaves his hip to hide away the needle device and it’s precious, extracted cargo - sealing it in a small, labelled bag to be sent to Brains lab for testing.

"Geez Virgil." John just about manages, breathlessly. "That hurt …"

"Sorry.” Virgil sounds just as deeply sincere for his tenth apology as he had for his first, “Just sit tight and rest, John, and then after about fifteen minutes, we can pop you on your back and you can sleep some more." Blue gloves are peeled away and discarded, the man doing so clearly more than slightly distraught. Trying to calm himself, Virgil settles on the side of the bed at his brother’s back, pulling down John’s rucked up T-shirt and tucking the covers up around his waist.

John hasn’t stopped trembling yet. The monitors are squealing his body’s displeasure, even if John can’t bring himself to vocalise it further. Star’s still there, in his space, smiling softly whenever his dazed eyes swing past her. Her own hands are sweating, throat tight against the tears that are threatening. She can feel the hysteria buzzing beneath her clammy skin, but she’s going to keep a lid on it in front of John if it’s the last thing she does. And Virgil… She's worried about Virgil too. The lot of them don’t need her mess as well.

“Close your eyes.” Virgil advises, “For a start.” He smooths his fingers through the curling strands of his brother’s hair, trying to be calming and fiercely hating, right now, with all his heart that his brother is going through this. The world can be just so damn unfair sometimes. Downright cruel. John doesn’t deserve any of this at all. Not for the first time today, Virgil kind of wants to break down in tears but John, sleepy, soft, in-pain John, still needs him. Scott isn’t due to be back for his shift for another five minutes and even then Virgil’s not actually sure he can leave him.

John does do as he’s asked though (a model patient compared to the fuss the rest of the Tracy brothers like to put up) and closes his eyes, hoping to doze until Virgil says it's time to move. There’s a hot, low throb going on in his lower back, spreading as an awful ache right through his back muscles. Hell if he’s not glad for the drugs Virgil’s pumped him full of. If he didn't have those right now, he’s pretty sure he'd be howling in agony… Rest sounds really, really good.

[this-shit-bnanas]

Coffee Spoons: Chapter 5

a party,,,

On AO3. On FFn.

First ; Previous ; Next

"And what do you do?" asked Takahashi Fumihiro, CEO of Issho ni Kursuri; the number one competitor of Vasta Pharmacueticals in Japan.

"Mainly basketball," Michiru replied. "It's not a professional league or anything, but it's pretty competitive and we're good."

Alan smiled pleasantly as Michiru continued to explain her team's position in the intermural division. Fumihiro, absolutely baffled, listened and nodded along. It was probably a nice change of pace from the constant peacocking, demure bragging, and veiled threats this little party was brimming with.

Fumihiro's wife, Laurence, tilted her head. She had clearly picked out the English word in the babble of Japanese. "I played football in college," she said in a heavy French accent. And in English.

Alan watched the panic flash across Michiru's face. Her eyes widened, and he watched her mouth pull down into a little dazed grimace. He quickly translated for her, adding that Laurence was from France.

Michiru perked up at this. "She's from France? Is she from Paris? Has she seen the Eiffel Tower?"

Fumihiro translated this time, remembering that his wife was not actually fluent in Japanese and was likely bored out of her mind at a party filled with Japanese men.

France. Alan could feel his smile grow tight. There was a place Alan wished hadn't come up tonight.

Michiru, fed up with Fumihiro's translation, pulled out her phone and began typing. Laurence looked it over, took the phone, and typed something back. They passed the phone back and forth between them, and Laurence even laughed, while Michiru drilled away at the keyboard.

Fumihiro watched this, bemused, before returning his attention to Alan. "I've heard your company is looking into synthetic blood. Awfully flooded market, wouldn't you say?"

"And here I thought our scientists signed confidentially agreements," Alan said, voice light and jovial. They were not actually looking into it that thoroughly, but junior scientists jump at the chance to prove their worth, and who was Alan to dissuade them? "And how about you?"

"Good." Fumihiro's tone was final, like a load of bricks crashing to the floor. "We have a new joint contract from an American company. We're moving into clinical trials within the next six months. A diabetes treatment."

Alan could have punched him right in the teeth. "Sounds like an exciting venture!" Alan said. "Figures the Americans spearheaded this. Hopefully your company can develop some patentable products in the future, so the profits are all yours."

"You as well," Fumihiro ground back.

Alan took Michiru gently by the elbow and moved her away from Laurence. They waved goodbye.

"She was really nice," Michiru said.

"What did you two talk about?" Alan asked, handing her a glass of champagne.

"Just sort of normal stuff. I asked about what she did, and France, and she asked if I had ever been to Tokyo." She took a sip, looking around at the art.

Alan walked next to her, one hand behind his back, the other holding another glass of champagne. "Have you?"

Michiru's looked a long time at a dark red line stretching across the white plain of a canvas. "No." There was something in her voice, like she was trying to be breezy, like he had hurt her feelings. "Are all these paintings for sale?"

"If I want them to be." She looked at him, something like a smile on her face. Alan was encouraged by the expression. "Pick one out. I'll wrap it up and send it to you." He wasn't sure if he was joking or serious. It depended on her.

She clapped her hands together and moved deeper into the gallery. "Well, let's see what we have then."

Alan glanced at his watch while she dithered over a splattered sunset. He had maybe fifteen minutes to indulge in this before he would have to head back into the fray. Might as well make the most of it. "I've never been a big fan of cities, myself." Testing the wasters out, seeing what that Tokyo reaction had been all about.

"Really?" Michiru looked at him, eyes round. "I've always loved cities. They're so big and full of life. Hard to be lonely when there's so many people around."

When had you been lonely, Michiru? "But you didn't grow up in Yokohama, though, did you?"

She snorted, cocking her head at another painting. "No. I grew up in the opposite of Yokohama." She wasn't really looking at the painting anymore. Murky brown eyes, wading through the past. He should be a poet. She looked like broken lines and paragraphs. "You wouldn't have heard of it."

Alan turned this over. A small-town girl—that explained the wonder, the exuberance. And, perhaps, the earnestness. You didn't have an art gallery in your town, did you, not within miles. "But you made it here."

Michiru looked at him and smiled. "Nazuna and I."

They came upon a sculpture. It was huge, stretching towards the ceiling in impossible arches and spindles. Michiru walked between the legs, head craned back. She seemed—what, fragile? Maybe soft, next to the hard stone.

"I'm sorry," Alan said. "I missed that."

Michiru repeated: "Where did you grow up?"

Alan considered lying. But. But. He didn't know enough about her. He couldn't think of something that she would buy, something sincere enough. Well, and maybe he was tired, too. "Bit of everywhere. My parents were divorced—my father thrice, actually. I never saw much of my mother. My father traveled for work; I was sent to boarding schools. My mother sent Christmas cards." His words came out more bitter than he had intended. He shrugged. "A fine childhood."

Michiru leaned against one of the supporting beams of the sculpture (which numerous signs warned against). "What were they like?"

"Who?"

Michiru's mouth quirked into a smile. "Your parents."

"Oh." Alan didn't have an answer for that. "Good. They were good parents."

The words came easy, but something must have been off, because Michiru clearly didn't believe him. She pressed her lips together, eyes flicking up and down. It wasn't very often Alan was caught out in a lie. "My parents were divorced, too." She said this in a hushed voice.

Alan was suddenly, vividly aware of Michiru's presence. Her hair, dried strange after the rain, the flush in her cheeks, her eyes, watching him, dark in the shadows of the obelisk. She seemed so solid, feet planted on the ground, gravity pulling them both downwards. Her parents had been divorced in a small-town Alan didn't even know existed.

"Well," he heard himself say from far away, "generally divorce creates a happier household."

This seemed like a wrong thing to say, but Michiru nodded, serious. And Michiru, the emboldened, the enthusiastic, the sanguine, said: "Sometimes those things are better—well, it's better to use your head, you know?"

Oh, Michiru. "You know," he said, giving her his champagne glass in exchange for her empty one, "you're quite mysterious."

[halorocks1214]

the law of polarity

AO3 Link

Word Count: 11367

Summary:  The Law of Polarity states that everything is on a continuum and has an opposite. We can suppress and transform undesirable thoughts by concentrating on the opposite pole. It is the law of mental vibrations

Previous Parts (in order):  Alan | John | Virgil | Scott | You are here! | Gordon

that word count its just,,, growing BIGGER every day! i honestly don't understand my mind. 25 fucking pages. its boggling, i need better restraint my god. also: kayo you cryptic thing why are you so hard to write for helLO?? me writing kayo: guess ill die. *coughs* regardless, the next installment is here! i hope you still enjoy it. like the other ones, I'm mostly satisfied with it outside of a few spots so YEET 

“Kayo! Come on out!”

“Seriously, sweetheart, this isn’t funny!”

The 12-year-old promptly did the opposite by squirming further into her treehouse. It’s not that Jeff Tracy was a bad babysitter, or God forbid her dad was a bad dad, they were stellar. They just had to understand that there were times when a kid wanted to be left alone and that was to be respected. She shoved herself further into her corner and brought her arms around her knees.

… Okay, she was avoiding them, but she had a good reason.

Whatever this dumb thing about ‘sending her away’ was pointless and trite. She was simply going to lay low, wait for the dumb-dumbs to cool off and then they’ll realize they were being dumb-dumbs and drop this whole dumb-dumb idea!

She didn’t like what she was hearing in the first place anyway.

“Watch out for her uncle, my brother.”

“Ah, opposed to your uncle that is also your mother?”

“Jeff.”

The serious tone made both Kayo and Jeff flinch. Then, Kyrano put his foot down even more, “You know the one. You were friends, right? Hell, he’s the technical reason we met, you know what I’m talking about. Promise me to watch out for him.”

Kayo looked up at Jeff’s face from her hiding spot in the doorway to see his breathing get slightly more labored, but the way he spoke could only be described as confident, “Okay. I promise. Just like I promised to keep her safe, got it?”

Kyrano relaxed at that, though, his breathing was worse than what Jeff’s was. The man gulped and nodded his head, “Good. Now then, let’s go find her. We should explain this properly to her. She’ll understand.”

If she waited to hear her dad’s last sentence she might have laughed. As soon as the agreement was in place, she quietly zoomed away to her comfort spot to wait for the storm to pass. Too bad that storm had a homing beacon because right as she unfolded herself a little bit (she was getting uncomfy), Jeff Tracy climbed up to the window and went, “AHA! Gotcha!”

Before Jeff could explain, she was zipping down the slide and across the yard. In her panic, she broke one of her major rules when running away from something: never look behind you in any shape or form. Not only could you be focusing on something else like trying to get to your destination quicker if you kept your face forward, but you also can’t avoid anything that gets in your way if you’re not watching out for it.

Such was her father’s arms, which grabbed her around the waist and held on tight, “Oh thank God.”

Okay, she was expecting anger or at least minor scolding. She was not expecting her dad to practically cry in relief, nor for him to drop to his knees and hold onto her tightly. It froze everything about her: her mind, her body, yeah, everything. The only thing she could do in response was to awkwardly hug him back as Jeff slowly walked towards them, “See? I told you that you were panicking for no reason. Now, would you like me to stay here for this or?...”

Kyrano, who took a moment to register those words, eventually shook his head side to side while it still rested on Kayo’s shoulder, “N-No, Jeff, if it’s okay, I just need a moment with her so I can properly explain my actions. If you want, you can start packing some of her stuff to take home with you.”

The babysitter immediately backed off, hands up in a semi-surrender position, “Of course, do you know what I can get started on by myself?”

Kyrano softly took her hands into his, examining them by running his thumbs over her knuckles, thinking about what to say, “Basic toiletries, basic over-the-counter medications, some of her favorite snacks, you remember her favorite snacks, right?

The grass crinkled as Jeff walked away, his voice getting quieter and quieter due to distance, “You bet I do.”

Suddenly, she was alone with her father, who placed her hands against his chest. His breaths were shaky as he tried to find metaphorical solid ground, “Listen… I know things are changing fast and abruptly, and I’m sorry I can’t explain much of what’s happening, but you have to trust me, okay? You’re just changing houses, nothing more, nothing less. I’ll still be around often, and we’re still going to be father and daughter, you’re just going to be under the protection of Uncle Jeff, got it?”

Kayo was very quickly aware of a burning idea that hurt to think about, “Wait, are you in danger? If you’re in danger I don’t want to leave you! I can help you, Father!”

Kyrano was quick to cool the fury in her heart by placing his forehead against hers in their familiar form of comfort, “I know you can, but it’s not me that’s in danger, okay?”

And with that confession, her mouth snapped shut. She was always quick on figuring things out, and if her father wasn’t the one in danger, then that meant...

Kyrano couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped his mouth. His daughter, despite the cold-hearted exterior she tried displaying, could be quite adorable when secretly prompted, “I know. It’s scary, it sucks, and I wanna keep you here just as much as you want to be, but this is for the best. Don’t worry about me, worry about yourself just for a little bit, hmm?”

Kayo swallowed whatever nasty emotion tried worming its way out of her throat as she also kept the few, tiny tears at bay in her eyes, preventing them from rolling down her face, “Okay, Dad, I trust you.”

Kyrano visibly relaxed at how quickly she agreed, “Thank you. Alright,” Kyrano boosted himself up from his knee, “Let’s go help Uncle Jeff pack.”

He held out his hand to her, which she took with a definite level of uncertainty.

After an hour, Kayo was packed and ready to become a resident in the Tracy household. Her dad gave her plenty more kisses goodbye on the level that she became secretly glad she was leaving. Dads and their overbearing need to smother will be the death of her.

As Kayo and Jeff drove to their destination, it was silent. Jeff drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, trying to find something to say, while Kayo simply brought her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on top of them. Just because she knew how necessary this was didn’t mean she had to like it.

Finally, Jeff figured out his words, “You did hear him mention that he’ll visit you every week, right? You two are still going to be thick as thieves until your last dying breaths. You just won’t be in each other’s presence as much.”

Kayo didn’t hear him at first, and when her mind picked up that someone was trying to talk to her, she popped her head up like a surprised chipmunk, “Huh? Oh, yeah, he told me that.” And with it, her head fell back to her knees, and Jeff was lost once more.

That is until he was reminded of his kids. A sly grin formed on his face. His confidence was always boosted whenever his children were involved, “You know, I don’t know if I’ve even mentioned this, but I do have some of my own children at home.”

This time it took a lot less waiting for Kayo to pop her head up, “Really?”

Jeff nodded, relieved he found common ground between the two of them, “Yep. Five boys to call my own.”

Kayo leaned back into the backrest and hung her legs over the edge. Now she was sitting in the car seat as one would normally, “Whoah.”

Jeff chuckled. Kyrano wasn’t kidding about her being surprisingly adorably, “Just you wait, you’ll get along with them like peas in a pod.”

She absolutely did not get along with them like peas in a pod.

The first night was okay, fine. The older ones were nice as older siblings were when there was only one parent in the house, and the younger ones at least had enough manners to be considered quaint. But then the first night became the same as the next night. Then the next. The constant noises didn’t completely stop even after being there for a few days, signifying that this was normal in the family. The first time her father came over on the weekend she was begging to go home.

Kyrano felt sympathetic. He understood that Jeff’s boys could be a rowdy group, and that was from the stories the father told himself, but the threat was still looming, and all he could do was give empty words, “I really am sorry little bug, but my hands are tied. If you want, I could talk to Jeff for you? He is their father, he could set some temporary rules in place.”

Kayo sagged at his words, knowing he was right, but then sat up straight, “No, it’s okay. I can handle them. When they mess up they’ll learn the hard way why not to.”

Kyrano chuckled and took her into his arms, “Knowing you, those words aren’t just words. Don’t worry, just 28 more days, then the GDF will give me an update and you’ll be home safe and sound.”

Kayo counted them down one by one, tallies scratched into the wooden frame of the bed they gave her.

The 26th day was the day her uncle took Jeff’s life.

And everything was thrown off-kilter.

He came to pick her up on the 30th day, and she could tell things were different. He was jumpier, more careful about what they did. He never failed at his fatherly duties, but it was obvious he couldn’t be the same. She probably never was either. They had less fun, more prep work, he was constantly looking over his shoulder and she found herself doing the same with no protest. Her uncle, her family, destroyed everything she once knew in a way that would probably never be fully recovered. This point was even more blatant with the next big shocker of her life.

On the 67th day, her father went into retirement.

That was a sign the world was ending. Her father quit his job, the one that threatened to kill him more times than she understood at her age yet he stuck with it anyway because he loved it that much, he quit.

On the 1278th day, after years of trying his best, after multiple dropping offs of his daughter to Tracy Island (she probably spent half that time in the Tracy household, much to his chagrin) as he tried finding some kind of peace of mind, he succumbed to his demons. He gave her some lessons in self-defense over that time, but then he heard of another attack that was most likely caused by his brother and he just couldn’t. The thin wire snapped, and Kyrano didn’t trust his daughter to be safe with him anymore. He couldn’t protect his best friend from his brother, how the hell could he protect anybody else, how could he protect his child? Self-defense was useless against someone like his-- that man.

Kayo, who was just trying her best to still wrap her head around everything that had happened, over how one could potentially stop being related to someone, didn’t even try any kind of fighting back as her father took her right over to Tracy Island. He looked Grandma dead in the eyes with a face Kayo would never forget and said, “Jeff said he would always be willing to ‘pick up my slack’ so… please, keep her safe. Do what I can’t do.”

Being the mother she was, Grandma sadly grinned, “Of course, Kyrano, of course.”

That’s not to say he went off the radar or he never came to see her, he just wasn’t her main caretaker anymore. She was officially a permanent fixture in the Tracy family now, and she didn’t even have the headspace to worry about that. Hell, she was still recovering from her father’s retirement announcement.

This was the first time she learned what it was like to be truly and utterly hopeless.

It didn’t help that the rest of the Tracys were completely different as well.

She saw snippets over the years when her father went out on his meditation sessions, but now that she was going to be here forever, now that she couldn’t hide away like an anxious guest at a hotel, she was fully able to take in just how broken the Tracys were.

Like she was.

Scott and John were gone often, to the point where she only saw one of them at a time, almost never together. Virgil didn’t seemingly change much outside of certain hobbies and ways he handled things, though, she probably should have picked up on the fact that changing your personality was a big sign of trauma and untapped issues. Grandma Tracy was doing her best to accommodate her living situation into theirs, and Kayo will always be grateful for the elderly lady’s (mostly) stable state of mind throughout everything.

Then there was Gordon and Alan, who started leaving her alone.

They still did their pranks and jokes and couldn’t stop themselves if there was something ‘cool’ they wanted everyone to see, but they were more reserved, more quiet. Out of all the things she wished to stop happening, Gordon and Alan annoying her were on the top of the list, but when they did, it felt… weird. Awful.

The silence she craved since the first night her father sent her here was given to her on a silver platter yet she hated it and she didn’t even know why.

Nothing was making sense anymore.

And it continued to be senseless for the next few years to come.

The only thing she could latch onto to keep some kind of gravity to her life was the sentence her father told Jeff the day she came to the island. Watch out for her uncle. He was the reason everything was as messed up as it was, and the only people that rivaled her hatred for him was the Tracys themselves. As pessimistic as the thought was, at least she found something in common with them, and it made it easier for her to hide her true heritage in the end too.

The Tracy family was family oriented. She didn’t think she would have been welcome if they found out about certain relations of hers, not after what that relation took away from them.

(Well, if there was at least one thing she would happily admit to being wrong about in the future, she was glad it was that.)

Regardless, the years went on, and she became a proactive member of the family. Trying to compensate for the whole ‘secretly-related-to-evil’ thing and all that jazz. It was the least she could do for them since they were housing her. Learning more complicated self-defense, keeping watch over the island, helping Grandma with chores and other jobs around the house, and… hell, she found herself keeping an eye out for Alan more often than not. She wasn’t sure what it was, the older ones rubbing off on her, maybe Alan himself wormed his way into her heart, who knew?

As for the night everything started picking back up, it was… interesting.

She was minding her own business when she received a call from Scott, who she was very much aware should be packing for his trip to the mainland for next week with his Grandma. Those two had a conversation about plans for the future, and from bits and pieces Kayo picked up, Scott was on his way to becoming the newest CEO on the block, which she thought was an excellent position. Certainly made more sense than the Air Force in her eyes.

She picked up the call with a hint of playfulness, but right before she could point out that he should be picking out the right color shirt to match his eyes, she felt metaphorical cold water sploosh over her back as his panicked babbling slowly made sense to her ears.

“Alan’s gone!”

Around this time as well, Scott was in the house 24/7, and she knew the general details of why. Yeah, they gave her the vague story of things. She may have only been 16, but she wasn’t stupid. Her father was a military man, Jeff was a military man as well for Christ’s sake, she knew things where it counted. Alan never tried to figure out why, though, since he was just happy he could see Scott more often. Scott was happy too, everyone was, but the eldest was reserved. Careful with his interactions. As if whatever he touched shattered in his mere presence.

13-year-old Alan? Never really picked up on that until too late.

She got snippets from Scott over the call: he was in some kind of sour mood and did the logical thing and waited it out in his locked room (it really wasn’t that logical, but all the other options were worse so he took what he got). At some point, Alan had shown up outside his door (Scott found one of the kid’s toy cars right outside his door, as well as dirt tracks only Alan could leave) and tried to get the brunette’s attention. Except Scott was pretty out of it, trying not to snap any pens in half or God forbid punch a hole in the wall, so he never heard any of Alan’s attempts to get him to come out.

Oh yeah, Scott also knew it was Alan because he noticed a small sticky note on his door with the word ‘Sorry’ chicken-scratched onto it.

Alan took the silent treatment as his fault (hopefully not deserved, Scott was already feeling shit-tastic) and scampered off somewhere. Scott was going to find his younger brother and make things right and explain his actions, but then seconds turned to minutes, and minutes turned into half-an-hour. Wherever Alan went to was a place Scott didn’t know existed apparently, and that just about made everything worse.

After nearly an hour of searching, he caved in and called for the only other help he had at the moment.

Which was her.

John was in space, and Grandma was out picking up Virgil and Gordon from their weekend off. Gordon got special tickets to something because of his gold-medal status, and Virgil was the obvious extra-ticket pick. On their way home, John would be picked up by the three of them as well. It was going to be one of the few fleeting moments they all were in the house at the same time.

Unless she and Scott got off their asses, that plan would be thoroughly jossed.

Taking a deep breath, she finally got a word in between all of his panicking, “Scott! Alright, I’m on the South-West side, so I’ll start looking here, okay? You keep searching the part you’re in and I’ll update you once I get somewhere else or if I find him.”

Labored breathing filled her ear before a rather large gulp cut it off, “Okay, sounds good.”

The call was cut and they haven’t been in contact since.

She wasn’t sure what part of the island she was on when she found him. Not usually her typical shtick, to panic without thinking, even if that panic was small, but regardless, she stepped onto a rocky part of the beach and looked around. She almost missed the mop of blonde hair sitting against the tallest one, absentmindedly staring off at the calm waves hitting the rocks further into the bay.

Making light steps, she eventually was able to sit down next to him a few inches away and watched the kid intently. She was quite familiar with the feeling of a thousand words wanting to spill out of your mouth at the same time, and she could clearly see it on Alan’s face, so she did the proper thing and waited for Alan to start.

When he did, she was caught off guard.

“I’m sorry.”

Wait, what? “What?”

Alan shrugged like it was obvious, “I don’t know. A lot of things. I wanna help out so much but whenever I do it seems like I just make it worse so that just leaves me to wonder what I need to change or if that would even matter in the long run… I just…”

As the blonde curled in on himself, still mumbling half-baked excuses (as if the kid thought he needed an excuse to feel shitty), a million thoughts hit Kayo at the same time, frying the gears in her brain with how they added up. Alan’s little display of low self-confidence reminded her of something she didn’t like to think about a lot.

She was… horrifyingly reminded of herself.

With it, she was already connecting dots between the two of them from the past few years of living together. Things like their tantrums (holy cow was she a stubborn child to her father sometimes), their eagerness to prove themselves for things that didn’t really need to be proven, their unhealthy need to lean towards silence when something is troubling them, now their seemingly poor viewpoints of themselves…

All she wanted to do was help Scott out, and so far all she was getting for it was a sudden identity crisis.

The gut reaction Kayo had was to deny it. How could she possibly have anything in common with Alan? Alan had a lot in common with Gordon, and she was the exact opposite of the second youngest. She was reminded of those transitive laws John was telling Alan about one day when it was the ginger’s turn to help with homework. A equaled B while B equaled C always meant A equaled C as well. A and B as Alan and Gordon respectively made sense, but if she was C? No sense at all, completely phony, not possible in the slightest. There were exceptions to every rule after all.

Besides, Alan had an ego to rival Gordon’s too, he never worried about things like ‘am I truly in the way or not?’. He was the youngest, the youngest never was in the eyes of good older siblings-- and the Tracys were good, good in ways she herself would probably never reach. She might have been an only child growing up but she read enough about proper family dynamics to know that.

But as the grief-stricken 13-year-old started to understand things not even some adults twice his age never fully learned right in front of her, she had to admit that the laws of physics were not to be trifled with. John was probably having a conniption over the mere thought of it. Knowing him, he felt a sudden chill for no reason because of her denial. He was weird like that. It also made her start to think about her relationship with Gordon. Maybe she held herself to too high of standards… or maybe even him.

Right, right, she should worry about the blonde in front of her. Didn’t Gordon have issues about his thoughts jumping around all willy nilly? That’s what she can at least start with when she gets there, but she should probably get there first, “Alan, look at me.”

The kid just shrunk further into himself.

This was troublesome, “Alan. Look up.”

She watched him blatantly shake his head no.

Okay, now it was exasperating. Not for the reasons she typically felt, though, it was annoying because a 13-year-old should not be shrugging off help like he was, that was the beginning of a bad habit, “Alright, Alan Tracy, you leave me no choice.”

Those words were just ominous enough for Alan to jump his head up from his knees in shock. Before he could blink the tears out of his eyes, Kayo was up in his personal space with her eyes wide due to a look of… hesitation?

Out of all the places she could have stopped, why did it have to be two inches away from his face? She wasn’t even sure why she was doing this. Sure, it calmed her down when her father did it, but her father was much more graceful about it, much more parental. If she wasn’t careful she might just give the child in front of her a headbutt right on the soft part of his face more than anything else.

Regardless, she was here, and she was on a roll with not making sense tonight. Besides, didn’t she just go over all the things they had in common? Surely this will work… hopefully. Potentially. At least a 60% chance. With a deep breath, she closed the distance and lightly placed her forehead on his. It might have been cliche, but when she saw how much he relaxed, she couldn’t help that feeling from washing over her too.

Alan, meanwhile, was strangely okay with this. It was new and weird, but it also felt… safe? Like Virgil’s hugs or Scott’s jackets, there was an air of warmth to this that Alan liked so he let it be to do whatever it was doing well. The knots in his chest were loosening up.

After awkwardly staring into Alan’s blue eyes for longer than she should, she finally figured out how to word all the emotions swirling around in her brain. It was short, it probably was only a short term fix, but at the time it worked like a charm, “I may not know a lot about things yet, but I do know that whatever you’re thinking will happen most certainly won’t. Scott isn’t angry or thought you were in the way. Honestly, he might be worried you’re not in the way enough. Trust me, Scott will just be happy to see you safe.”

Alan won’t be able to tell you what convinced him that night. Maybe her sincerity, maybe her touch, maybe he was just tired and the idea of seeing Scott again was enough to wake him up, but whatever it was, when Kayo stood up, he did too and walked right back home.

They made it back to the house right as the sun was coming up. Subconsciously gently taking his hand, Kayo made sure Alan trailed behind her a little bit. She never really figured out why, it’s not like there was anything to protect him from that night, but she still felt the need to do that. Eventually, they sauntered their way towards the kitchen, where she heard Scott rambling about his current grievances.

She froze momentarily at another voice replying to Scott’s panic.

“Scott, take it easy, it’s not like a 13-year-old could get that far anywhere on the island--”

“He shouldn’t be able to get anywhere on the island in the first place, John, that’s the point! God, why was I so fucking stupid in letting that happen? Here I thought the breathing exercises were working! Jesus--”

“Alright, first of all, if you don’t slow down I’m going to force you to do more of them, you’re practically turning purple, and second of all, this is fixable. It is, but it won’t be if you keep running around like a chicken with its head cut off. If it makes you feel better, we can call Virgil, Gordon, and Grandma back from their ‘big secret thing’ they scampered off to right as they got me home if you want. Kayo is also capable at what she does, you fricking called her yourself. Would you like to go for another round around the island?”

There were Scott and John. In the same room. At the same time. Kayo rubbed her eyes in an attempt to see if what was in front of her were just spots in her vision. Blinking away the tears that formed because of the action, she learned they weren’t. Huh, lots of things were new and different tonight.

Weird.

Scott shook his head, “No, from what you described, Gordon was excited, as well as Virgil and Grandma. This isn’t an emergency. Not yet. Let’s call Kayo. If she hasn’t found anything, we can go one more time.”

That was her cue to step in, “You know, I always wondered why Virgil said he couldn’t exactly describe what you two were like when you’re in ‘panic mode’, and I think I now see why. It’s pure chaos. Here, you worried lunatics.”

The oldest brothers jumped at the voice, and with the fury of a thousand suns, they looked over to her waist to see the ball of freckles they desperately wanted to see. Scott stood up and John turned his body to be faced to Alan, both of them taut. They took one step forward, and Alan flinched behind Kayo’s leg, which made them both falter and stop on the spot.

Slightly rolling her eyes, she kneeled down to Alan and placed her forehead against the kid’s as she did those minutes ago, “Alan, what did we talk about?”

Both Scott and John blinked at the way Alan seamlessly calmed down with the interaction. Holding their breaths, Alan took a deep one of his own and turned to look at them with newfound determination. Within the blink of an eye, Scott had a limpet attached to his legs and waist, holding him in place. It was very difficult getting down to the floor to hug him back without falling flat on his ass. Alan was holding his center of balance in one tiny spot, but if Scott has learned anything, it was how to work around four unruly younger brothers.

John, at some point, came to stand next to Kayo as they watched the scene before them. After a few seconds, Alan leaned out and sniffed, “I’m sorry, Scooter, for scaring you. I know I’m not supposed to run off without telling anyone where I went, no matter why I’m running off. I promise to not do it again.”

Scott let out a few wet chuckles and ruffled the kid’s hair, not worried about that anymore in the slightest, “Well, I’m glad you know to apologize for that, but I think I need to apologize for some things as well. I’m sorry I ignored you, okay? I didn’t mean to, and I promise to properly explain what happened in the morning when we’re not so tired.”

Kayo saw John grimace out of the corner of her eye. She never exactly figured out what in Scott’s statement he did so over.

Alan seemed to take it for the most part. Most part, being the key term there, “But I understand! Or at least some of it… Adults have adult things they need to do, which I shouldn’t have tried interrupting. Which is also why Grandma is taking you away to do that training of yours. You’re going to get another adult job like the one you had before, and you’re going to be gone because of that too, and that’s okay! I--”

Scott shushed him with a finger over his lip, “There are a few things wrong with that statement of yours, little bro. And thank you for pointing out my last job, there were a few things I did wrong with that too. I went weeks without calling any of you when I very easily could have, and with a job like that, I probably scared you all half to death. Trust me, Sprout, tonight was a good kick in the pants. Alright, I’ll at least explain this now: I’m going to handle my new job a little differently. Every day I’m off the island, I’ll be sure to send some kind of message, hopefully, a call, but a text at the least. Scout’s Honor.”

Scott did the familiar hand movement, signifying that the Scout’s Honor was in place and was not to be broken at any point. She never figured out how Scott did it. Knew what to say even if the comforting words seemed like they had nothing to do with the current topic at hand. After all, despite jumping from ‘not running off like that’ to ‘Scott’s new job’, she watched as Alan fully relaxed and leaned back into his big brother’s arms while said big brother melted all around him like a pile of protective goo. The scene was peaceful, and Kayo could feel herself tearing--

“GUYS! OH MY GOD GUESS WHAT?! I--”

And there it went.

Like a bomb, Gordon was suddenly in the area screaming about something. Right as his foot slapped the tile of the kitchen, he froze and read the room around him while breathing heavily. Looking down at a kneeling Scott hugging Alan, Gordon sobered up, “Oh. Hey Allie, didn’t you say you wanted to watch Jurrasic World at some point?”

As obtuse as Gordon could be, he was always the best at brightening up the situation.

About a fourth of the way through the movie, Gordon, Scott, and Alan were all clonked out in some weird pretzel on the couch. Virgil and Grandma were in the kitchen quietly thinking of what to get ready for Gordon (getting accepted into WASP while being a gold-medal athlete at the same time was no easy feat), so that left John and her to do everything but watch the movie.

Kayo barely registered John’s awkward coughing as an attempt to catch her attention. When he saw that it finally worked, he seemed to get embarrassed about what he was going to say, “So… that thing you did with Alan.”

Kayo blinked in confusion.

John quickly explained, “That forehead press? He was really comforted by that. I was just thinking… could you show us how it’s done? At least Scott and I, but if you could show Virgil and Gordon too that would be nice. I think Alan’s starting to form mine and Scott’s bad habit of panic attacks, so to have that gesture in our back pocket would help.”

Kayo thought about John’s words for a moment before shrugging, “Yeah, sure. My father taught yours how to do it so I don’t see why I can’t do something similar.”

The silence suddenly wanted to choke her. Suddenly looking over at John, she saw the ginger with wide eyes, “... Our dad? Why?”

Oh shit. Jeff was a sensitive subject in the house, and she tried her best to tiptoe around it until now. Especially when it wasn’t her father that was dead. Eh, she’ll hate pulling a tab from Gordon’s page in the future, but, “He wanted something special for Lucy since he wasn’t exactly the most graceful swan on the planet. My father did it with a lot of his friends he considered close, as well as my mother, so Jeff asked him the meaning behind it and viola. Your father was a slightly more refined person.”

Watching John blink a few times made her think she fucked up even more, but then he literally chuckled as he absentmindedly looked back towards the movie, “Yeah, ain’t that an understatement.”

She relaxed and copied his actions, the feeling of confidence washing over her like a warm blanket as her eyes graced the TV. She may not have fully been a Tracy, but she had to begrudgingly admit that she was too much like them for her own good. Jeff’s ‘peas in a pod’ statement was really coming back to bite her in the ass.

Gordon loudly snored from Scott’s lap, making both Kayo and John jump.

… Yeah, too much for her own good.

---

Fuse told her to run ahead and that was all she needed to start booking it down the compound towards Gordon and Virgil.

The map their uncle gave them was helpful, but it just emphasized how deep in shit they all were. Also, she had to admit she felt slightly bad. Once John convinced her that Fuse was really there to help and after she listened to their plan, maybe she should have fought it more as Scott and Gordon did. She was just so relieved to finally have something to go off of after nearly a month. When five boys left to get Jeff and only four came back…

Watch out for her uncle.

Fuse wasn’t expecting it either, so at least it wasn’t a planned trap. But still, it’s her job to prevent this shit. Not let the Tracys walk right into it.

Shaking her head, she refocused on getting to the two brothers currently closest to her position. She was part of IR, she was still good at rescuing too. It was just a small pinch in the back of her head. The only thing she wanted to do in life at the least was protect the Tracy family from anything else her uncle threw at them.

Heh, the irony.

Right before she rounded the corner, she heard something akin to ungodly screeching.

“You should have stayed dead!”

“We-hell, if there’s anything I’m known for, it’s being disappointing!” Cheeky laughter came next.

Well, that second voice was Gordon. But the first one was female, and that threw Kayo a little off. The voice was still familiar, but she was pretty sure Penelope was off getting the GDF to their location, and Grandma was back home making sure Jeff didn’t shoot out of his chair to come help them. Plus, ‘you should have stayed dead’ was something those two ladies would never say, let alone to a family member, so why did that voice sound familiar?

She took one step around the corner and--

“Havoc.”

The growl was out of her mouth before she could help it. Talk about a sight for sore eyes.

She stopped running and took in the view. Gordon was breathing heavily and grinning in that way that said he was terrified out of his mind. Behind him on the ground was Virgil holding his head. His breathing was labored too, albeit not as bad as Gordon. Considering the blunt object Havoc was holding, Kayo quickly figured out why Virgil got Alan to run.

The air must have been stuffy because as Kayo focused on her labored breathing, she watched the hacker also continue to breathe heavily, her eyes wide with craze. Kayo stomped her boot down promptly in between the boys and the nuisance in the room, “Gordon, get your brother out of here.”

Gordon blinked in confusion but then was on Virgil in a way that reminded the middle Tracy of Scott. Virgil, for once, was hoping Gordon would listen to his innate response to not follow orders. The musician’s hope was promptly squashed as he yelped when Gordon picked him up and supported him as they walked out of the room, “Hey! Gordon--”

Gordon was surprised at how easily he shrugged off Virgil’s protest. That’s probably why he listened to Kayo’s order to get him out so easily, “Yeah, yeah, save whatever you’re gonna say for the potential concussion, bro.”

Kayo could only listen as the two sauntered away, as Havoc tried leaping after them again, intent on finishing what she started. Kayo stopped the woman in her tracks with a kick, and now all of the anger was directed at Kayo herself. Good. She had some choice words for The Chaos Crew member in front of her, “You’ve made an awful amount of mistakes recently.”

The lady growled and lunged, which Kayo easily avoided. The hacker landed on her knees and looked up, “We’re they mistakes, or happy accidents?”

Kayo scowled even more, “I think you know what they were, and you liked it that way.”

Havoc shrugged, her grin becoming even wider, “Yeah, you’re right, they were wonderful accidents.”

Havoc was back on her feet and now it was Kayo’s turn to lunge. Kayo didn’t need to win, just waste enough time for everyone else to finish their parts of the plan, though, she would be lying if she said she didn’t feel satisfaction at going toe-to-toe with this lady.

She was pretty sure John was out of his mind like the rest of his family thought, but the more she saw Fuse in action, the more she understood the astronaut’s point of view. Fuse was smart when he wanted to be, if a bit oblivious, and there was no complaining about him giving them information about Alan’s whereabouts.

Plus… she was begrudgingly starting to see the appeal of Fuse himself. Of what he had been through. She was an older sister to a singular younger sibling too, maybe not the best one, but from what she was seeing, Havoc didn’t exactly rank up high on the list either.

As she continued to brawl with the lady-in-purple, she probably should have cooled her anger a little bit. The more she thought about Alan or Havoc and Fuse or her uncle or, hell, even the way Gordon and Virgil made their way to safety just a few minutes prior, the more she was reminded of how wrong this had all been, about how much more diffifcult life was made by idiots like Havoc and The Hood. How tired she was from all of it, which was another reason she should have taken a breather.

Long story short: it was making her more aggressive, less thoughtful of her next actions. She eventually started swinging without purpose, which Havoc was hoping to happen. She used an opening those actions created and knocked the female member of IR to the floor.

Suddenly, Kayo was pinned and the metal pipe was raised, and right as she closed her eyes and prepared to take the hit, a quiet voice spoke from a few feet away, preventing the hit from happening altogether.

“Sis?”

Both women froze, and both turned their heads ever so slowly at the new voice. Despite his size, Fuse was standing off in the shadows and looked incredibly small. Like she had almost been burned, Havoc jumped off Kayo and was standing up, eyes pleading for something Kayo wasn’t sure the hacker exactly wanted, “What? No, you got away! You ran! You’re not supposed to be here, it’s not--”

Kayo, who couldn’t find the energy to stand, watched with growing understanding. Watched Havoc’s wide eyes in contemplation, the woman’s panic slowly making sense. It was hard to imagine, but it couldn’t be anything else. Havoc was, in fact, scared for Fuse. He probably already pissed off The Hood, and Havoc was left to barely cool the flames lest she wanted a dead brother. Maybe that’s why she didn’t follow Fuse. She wanted to stay behind to make sure Fuse’s small chance of surviving was as big as it could be.

Huh, it was weird to think about The Chaos Crew in any other form outside of their established ‘chaotic’ selves, but maybe sibling dynamics were so powerful it was just a universal thing.

Maybe Kayo misjudged her actions like she did Fuse’s. Maybe Havoc wasn’t too bad of a sister.

Meanwhile, Fuse took her panic as anger. Betrayal. He left her behind, so of course, she deserved to be angry. He abandoned her after all, for a family they’ve been deadset on destroying for the past however long. But that was the other thing, wasn’t it? This family who he had hurt so many times before still showed him a level of decency he wasn’t aware was possible. A level of decency when siblings are allowed to be siblings and nothing else.

That’s what they thought they would get when they were persuaded by The Hood with his smarmy exterior, but now that he’s been helping out the Tracys, he realized The Hood was the exact opposite.

Despite his misunderstanding, what he said was exactly what his sister needed to hear.

With wide eyes, he looked directly at his only other family, “Camilla…” Havoc jumped, Fuse continued without hesitation, “We can be free, you know. The Mechanic got away. He’s safe on Tracy Island. I talked to him. He’s happy, we can be too, and it’s all thanks to them.” He gestured toward Kayo off to the side.

Meanwhile, the IR lady in question did what she did best: sat in silence and watched as Havoc slowly understood the situation, “... Really?”

Fuse started smiling, smiling, and Kayo had to blink before he spoke once more, “Yeah, we need to do some things and spend some time to make up for everything that we did, but it will be away from him, you know? It’s possible. I’ve seen it, experienced it, you can too. I promise.”

Havoc lost all of her edge at those words. Her insane exterior melted away into a woman who was finally realizing she didn’t have to fight anymore, that she was no longer backed into a corner, “Wow…”

Younger siblings. No matter the family, they always manage to leave their older siblings speechless.

Rolling her eyes and standing up, Kayo wiped off her pants and walked over to the entirety of The Chaos Crew. There was another younger sibling that needed to be found, “Alright, now that we got this out of the way, let’s make that pathway for the GDF. Fuse, you know what to do.”

Once Fuse registered Kayo’s words, the grin that overtook his face was no longer relaxed but giddy instead, “Come’ on, sis, you’ve said you wanted to learn how to do more of my stuff right?”

For some reason, Havoc’s grin was too, “Hell yes.”

As Kayo helped The Chaos Crew set up charges like John said to do, she also remembered another thing the ginger told her while they were preparing the last few things they needed to prepare before they went out on their big mission. He is the reason we’re probably getting Alan back. As an older sibling, it’s the least I could do for him. Little siblings, ours or not, always made us Tracys act rather irrationally.

Later, when Kayo saw Alan and Scott limp out of the hole The Chaos Crew made with and even worse looking Hood, she was also reminded of the fact of life that said John was always right.

Little siblings really do bring out the worst and best of you.

---

It only took a few nights before the obvious happened.

For once in her life, Kayo was asleep in her bed when unholy screaming filled the hallways of Tracy Island. It was autopilot with the way she threw her bedsheets off and was standing up, but she only realized what was truly happening when she reached her doorway. Alan. Instead of running and preparing to fight whatever was causing the distress, she was simply running to get to the location as fast as she could.

Now, everyone knew she was one of the fastest people on the island, it was her job, but even she had to admit that, no matter how much she loved these boys and vice versa, they would be better at the whole ‘need to comfort’ thing. At least in the form of hugs and kisses and shhshing nightmares away. She subconsciously knew to keep her strides slow and steady so her search-and-destroy mode wasn’t the first thing to be at Alan’s place of rest. Just like she wanted, when she reached the youngest’s room, John and Gordon were patiently waiting right outside while Virgil stood vigilant by Jeff to make sure the father didn’t collapse right then and there. That meant Scott was inside.

She was breathing heavily when she walked the last few feet to the family, “Any updates?”

Uncharacteristically so, John rubbed his hands over his face in defeat while Gordon was the one to explain what they knew, “No, not yet. Scooter’s in there trying to calm the flames.”

Speaking of which, there was a rather large thunk from inside the room. As the family jumped in shock, Alan’s door suddenly swung open, and as quick as it did that, it shut once more with a rather frantic Scott on the side with the rest of the family leaning against it. His hands were flat and shaking against the door, and his breathing verged on the territory of hyperventilation.

Kayo simply stared. Everything was being thrown off its axis tonight.

Again.

Gordon, who could be as tactful as his father (which was not at all), didn’t understand why Scott ran out of the room. Nobody did, but he was the only one who seemed to be willing to ask questions, “Scott, what the hell?! What’s wrong?!”

The brother in question closed his eyes, his fists clenching slowly against the closed door. He shakily exhaled as he opened his eyes to look his family in their faces, “L-Listen, I couldn’t stay in there, I j-just…”

Virgil, who was being reasonable and logical, simply stated other options like any other person would in a situation such as this one, “Scott, it’s okay if this sets off some bad memories. We might not have the magic touch you do, but we all have our own ways of calming him down. Maybe I can--”

Too bad all of his words hit Scott like a ton of bricks for each syllable, for each suggestion, “No! That’s not it, the rest of you will give him the same reaction, trust me,” his words left no room for argument, and suddenly, every throat in the hallway got dry.

Gordon needed to shut up, “What?! That doesn’t make any sense! If there’s anything that can help him right now it would be us!”

Scott’s shaking stopped. Now he was getting annoyed, but only because he didn’t want to drop the literal bomb on his family about why going to see Alan was going to make it worse, “Gordon, just believe me sincerely for once in your life”

John was trying to play the mediator like he always did, “Guys! Give Scott a second to explain, holy--”

Seriously, Gordon, knock it off, “Yeah, Scott, I wanna know why you think leaving our baby brother to his demons is such a good idea!”

Jeff, who Kayo suddenly remembered was there, finally gave his two cents, “Please stop yelling, we already had one family member scream tonight, let’s not make that number bigger.”

The idea of hitting Gordon over the head with a chair was very thrilling all of a sudden, “I won’t if Scott pulls his head out of his ass!”

Virgil had his hands up in a surrender position, “Jesus, I’m sorry I said anything.”

Really, just a good whack would do Gordon some good, “No, you were absolutely right in suggesting it, so now why--”

The voices were becoming like nails on a chalkboard even to Kayo, so God knew what torture they were for Scott. She watched Scott intently, waiting and hoping that when the straw on the camel’s back broke the explosion wouldn’t be too hard to clean up.

When it happened, she was so caught off guard by what Scott eventually blurted out that she could no longer even begin to think about metaphorical mops or hazmat suits.

“Goddammit, you want an explanation?! It was because he was scared!”

The rest of the brothers jumped at the confession. While their eyes were still wide, Scott let out a breathy curse and explained further, “He was scared of me. The more I was in there, the worse he got, okay? I’m sorry, but after everything that happened, I think he’s just going to react similarly to you guys because...” Another curse. Scott closed his eyes and moved his head so his face faced the floor.

The rest of the family immediately became downtrodden. Dammit dammit dammit. This was to be expected, but it didn’t fucking hurt any less. They were all generally aware of what The Hood put Alan through, so they had been way more reserved with their comforts than they would have been at any other time, but the fact that this was going so far as to completely prevent that same comfort after an awful night terror...

Gordon, who was too much like Alan when it came to handling shock, metaphorically grasped at the air, “But we can’t just leave him to suffer. He just woke up the ocean border of every country around us with how loud his screams were! We can’t-- he--”

Kayo, who was not a sentimental person at heart, found herself gently speaking for once in her life, “Do you… Do you think he used me?”

The brothers blinked, telling Kayo: Huh, we’re not sure.

Taking a deep breath, Kayo started towards the door, Scott reluctantly moved out of the way, and right as her hand graced the edge to open it, “Wait, Jeff, what about you? You are his father after all.”

The oldest four sons suddenly looked at him with faces that said she has a point. It would only be fair for him to have a shot as well. But before any of the sons could help Kayo’s argument, “Well, I was wondering that too, but then you suggested yourself first before anything else and I realized you, Miss Tanusha, had grown a soft spot. I don’t want to get in the way of that now do I?”

Blushing at all of their grins (the assholes, why did she like this family again), she abruptly looked back at the door, took a deep breath and descended into hell. A few of her spirits were lifted as she listened to Gordon apologize to Scott as she shut the door. She couldn’t stop the grin that fell over her face at Scott’s reassurance even if she wanted to either. We’re too much alike when we want to be, buddy, I get it.

With the door fully shut behind her, she lost her grin, exhaled that deep breath she took, looked up to fully take in the room and wasn’t sure what broke inside her first at the sight.

Curled on the floor on the other side of the bed to the doorway was a bundle of trembling sheets. From the way there were none left on the bed, Kayo quickly assumed what that large thunk was from earlier. She hoped the rest of the brothers paid attention to Scott right now. He was probably in shambles after what he must felt like he caused.

Her shoulders deflated as she carefully trotted over closer. Making sure there was at least half-a-foot between them, she kneeled in front of the pile of sheets and thought about what to say first. It took her a minute, but once she saw those trembles die down ever so slightly, “Alan, do you need me to get you anything?”

A flinch from the pile, but she held steady. After what felt like a million years, she watched as a familiar mop of blonde poked its head out from the sheets. Along with it, blue eyes and freckles for days came back to the land of the living. Was her sigh of relief obvious? She hoped it wasn’t.

Watching Alan melt into the dresser behind him with his sheets still wrapped about his shoulders, Kayo took the opportunity to sit criss-cross-apple-sauce in front of him and continue to wait silently. Suddenly, Alan closed his eyes but also started... grinning? Huh. Blinking once, she watched as Alan’s hands came out from under the bedspread and started moving, Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?

Her father already had her learning sign language because of her deaf maternal godmother, so when the boys asked her if she knew any she was one step ahead.

She too couldn’t stop the grin that fell over her face. Even after screaming his lungs out, Alan was still Alan, “I suppose I could say the same for you, you know. I was worried I would have to get a shovel to dig you out of that pile for a minute.”

Alan opened his eyes to look directly at her green ones and relaxed even more. As he sat up straighter, the sheets on his shoulders fell off just a little bit, almost symbolically representing the way a butterfly comes out of one’s cocoon, Yeah, that would’ve sucked. So, where’d you chase your creepy uncle off to? He never had the balls to be you, probably worried he didn’t have the finesse to play a woman, so--

Kayo flinched momentarily at the question in the first part of his statement. It was very small and brief, but it was certainly enough for Alan to get the picture.

Alan’s eyes widened in panic, and Kayo could clearly see what kind of thoughts were violently swimming around in his head. Oh God, that’s right, I’ve been saved, which meant that wasn’t The Hood, that was-- sugar honey iced tea, what the heck did I do?!

Kayo would be lying if she said she didn’t start panicking at the sight of Alan’s panic. Way to go. You’re doing the exact opposite of what you came in here for, idiot. The only thing that kept her grounded was the fact that Alan was on the verge of passing out, making her brain function due to the need to prioritize. Your self-deprecation was below the need to make sure Alan stayed calm, for all that it stung.

For once in her life she found herself taking a shot in the dark by placing her hand gently on his shoulder, ignoring the minor flinch he made at the contact, “Alan, it’s going to be alright, they understand that y--”

Suddenly, Alan jumped away from her contact and slightly thumped his head against the dresser behind him once more, making Kayo wince. During that whole process, Alan was shaking his head in denial and pulling the sheets tighter around him once more. Like a baby swaddling itself in its blanket. Again, Alan wasn’t signing anything, but Kayo could read his emotions loud and clear. That’s still not okay! I’m not scared of him, I’m not, yet I still flinched and jumped away from him like he was the one that continuously hurt me for the past month. They’ve been working their butts off to save me, and they did, they’ve given up so much for me and I can’t thank them without flinching or crying like a child.

As she was reading his eyes for the last sentence, he just had to go and sign it himself, Why did The Hood have to ruin me? Wasn’t I already bad enough?

John occasionally mentioned how Alan felt out of place in the rest of his family, and Gordon, Scott, and even Virgil, who was the most asinine about following protocol to a T, always cautioned her about being a little loose with the way Alan acted sometimes, but to see it so blatantly tonight tore her chest every which-a-way. It was a thing she was aware of, she had seen snippets throughout the years (their beach conversation being the worst, or, used to be now), but she selfishly hoped she never would see it when it was this bad...

Well, she had to admit that she’s never been the most tactful person. Gordon, eat your heart out.

Getting up on her knees, she shoved herself into Alan’s personal bubble, firmly placed her hands on his shoulders and made him look her directly in the eyes, “Alan Tracy, you have a grave misunderstanding of the current situation.”

The boy’s eyes widened, and before he could do anything else, Kayo continued, wondering where in the world her words were coming from, “All of you boys have been damaged in ways that won’t be overcome with a song and a dance. Your family is going to feel like shit, you are going to feel like shit, there will be emotional and animalistic reactions none of you can help after such events, even I’m guilty of them, but that’s… okay.”

Alan slowly blinked at her hesitation, suddenly aware of certain weaknesses he wasn’t sure Kayo had. She inhaled through her nose and her serious demeanor was back, “You all have insecurities that I can’t address, mainly because I’m bad at doing that for my issues as well,” Alan snorted, “But that’s okay. What The Hood didn’t wasn’t good, and you’re going to feel his wrath years after the fact, hell, there’s a chance you’ll never truly get over his words,” believe her, “But we also have ways to, not ignore it per se, but make it easier to have such hurtful lies ring around our brains. Your answer, and maybe mine as well, is the incredibly stupid, incredibly stubborn, and incredibly headstrong family waiting outside that doorway to make sure you’re okay.”

Remembering exactly how she taught these boys so long ago, Kayo gently but surely placed her forehead against his, “You boys have ridiculous amounts of love to last for days, and if I didn’t love you all as much as you love each other, I would hit every single one of you every time you lost sight of it. Believe me, Alan, that’s a lot of bruises.”

Leaning back like a gust of wind, she waited and watched as the flabbergasted look on Alan’s face slowly morphed into contemplation. After holding her breath for longer than necessary, she exhaled as she watched Alan’s hands form the words she wanted to hear, Could you… get Scott for me? I wanna say some things to him. Tonight.

With a cheeky smile, she boosted herself up on her knee and started walking out of the room, “Sure thing, Alan.”

She was pretty sure he watched her leave until she got out into the hallway and shut the door. Once she was there, she was met with five pairs of beady eyes, probably expecting something worse than what she had. With a sigh, she looked at Scott, “He wants to see you again.”

Scott jumped while the rest of the men relaxed in some way shape or form. When their motions were done, Scott’s shoulders sagged too. As Kayo moved out of the way to trade places with Scott he like did for her earlier, she quickly laid her hand upon his shoulder to catch his attention for one last word, “If the first thing that comes from his hands is “I’m sorry”, please do me the utmost favor and smack him for me.”

Blinking, Scott registered her words with a smile, “Don’t worry, it’ll be for all of us.”

With a nod, Scott was inside the room once, and the rest of the family finally and fully relaxed. Now then, her hands were on her hips, “Alright, unless you boys want to sleep out in the hallway, it’s off to bed with you all.”

The rest of the brothers (and Jeff, who was supposed to be in his 50s for Christ’s sake) widened their eyes and opened their mouths like fishes in the process of objecting. Clearly, they were willing to spend the night out in the hallway, though, she should have expected that of them. With an aggressive sigh, she stopped them in their tracks, “Unless you want Alan to feel any more guilt over things he shouldn’t feel guilty about, you should avoid the cricks in your necks while you can.”

Watching them wince, she figured she won.

After a few minutes along with some last goodnights, the boys were off to their rooms in the hope that they would find even just a little more sleep after tonight. All except for two, Virgil and Jeff, which Kayo watched as the former struggled to support the latter, exhausted with previous events. Suddenly, another seemingly out-of-character idea hit Kayo, and once again, she didn’t mind following it.

While she may not have had as much muscle mass as him, Virgil did comment once that she was just as strong as he was, “Virgil, go to bed. I can get your father to his.”

Virgil blinked, and before he could utter a word out, Jeff spoke for him, “Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. You need sleep, Jack, don’t try and fool these old eyes.”

With a playful roll of his eyes, Virgil played ‘pass the dad’ with Kayo. As soon as his father was off of his shoulder, he threw his hands up in the air. He was down the hall and facing the other direction when they heard him shout, “For the last time, I was not a beanstalk, I was reasonably skinny! Reasonably!”

Kayo and Jeff were left to chuckle as they slowly made their way to the father’s room. About halfway there, Jeff glanced over to Kayo with what was supposed to be a simple question, “So, how’s Kyrano?”

Kayo thought she would flinch at the mention of her father, but instead, she simply tilted her head and blinked as she considered the question, “He’s relatively okay. His retirement has been treating him well, at least.”

She noticed his grimace the word ‘retirement’ but stayed quiet as he began to talk, “Ah, I guess he would’ve taken my absence pretty hard. His favorite part was working with me, or more specifically, trying to one-up me. I couldn’t even get him to go home when he was running a fever, you know.”

Kayo rolled her eyes, very much aware of her father’s friendly rivalry with Jeff and how far he took it, “Well, I think he’ll have to surrender this time. Coming back from the dead would be considered too crazy. Even for him.”

Jeff chuckled, knowing she was right, “Finally pulled one over on him. Who would’a thought the day would come.”

Kayo, right before they delved into silence once more, stated something with no room for argument, “I should take you to see him. He would appreciate the surprise.”

Jeff sought no reason to argue in the first place, “I think I would appreciate that as well.”

It was a quiet trip back to his room from then on. He left the door slightly ajar, so it was easy for her to kick it open gently. As she brought him over to his bed, she gandered around the room to look at the new objects strewn about. No longer a bedroom from a magazine advertisement, it was finally more personalized. Different types of shoes were strewn about the ground, including a pair of ugly slippers, the color of the area no longer a dull grey-green but more of a deep maroon, and the small work desk in the corner had a few pictures laid atop it as well.

Most of which were his family and kids. Kayo would later deny blushing at the one of her and Gordon sparring.

She knew Mrs. Tracy took pictures that day, and she must have given Jeff that one when the father asked for some from the eight years of his disappearance

So caught up in the moment, she didn’t think as she gently set Jeff down on top of his covers, cleared her throat, and walked out of the room without a word. That was before his voice rang out in the room, stopping her in her tracks.

“Hey, Kayo?”

She stopped right in his doorway, throat tight with emotion as she looked back at him, “Yes, Jeff?”

His vision flickered around the room in uncertainty. “Thank you,” he finally said, voice husky with something Kayo wasn’t willing to describe, “For keeping them safe.”

Kayo, still looking over her shoulder, formed one of the tiniest grins imaginable, “Of course, someone had to make sure their dumbasses didn’t do anything drastic. Your mother and Lady Penelope could only do so much. Goodnight, Jeff.”

As Jeff laid back down, his shoulders sagged, “Goodnight, Kayo.”

With that, the bedroom door became shut, yet the future became wide open with millions of possibilities.

For once, Kayo looked forward to that uncertainty.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Phobos

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

John looks at his brothers, and worries.

John worries. It's not an unusual trait amongst the Tracys – Scott smothers, Virgil frets and even Gordon's façade can't entirely hide the panic that bubbles up from time to time, to say nothing of their long-enduring grandmother. Alan has yet to fully pick up the mantle, but he's still young and a little too naïve – intellectually aware that things don't always work themselves out but still wholeheartedly believes his brothers can fix everything anyway.

It's not unusual, but John is aware his worries are not the same as his brothers'. Closer to Grandma's, perhaps, although he's never approached the matter with her to confirm. See, while Alan might naively believe that his older brothers – Scott especially, but the rest of them on pedestals not much lower – can fix everything, his other brothers believe that Dad can fix everything.

John understands that. John wants to believe that, too, but being the ears of International Rescue has left him entirely disillusioned, a lack of fairy tale endings brutally hammered into him by the lives lost, the lives he'd never told his brothers about because the chance of saving them had been a total flat zero, even when taking into account their persistence that the impossible was just another challenge to surmount. Even if he'd never listened to dying words, kept children and adults company as the reaper came to collect, he'd know that Dad's return wouldn't fix things.

That's the thing with living in orbit – specifically in Thunderbird Five – isolated physically but more connected to his brothers than even they realise. They can't hide anything from him. The Thunderbirds, Tracy Island – all of it is linked back to him, not a single blindspot in either location, if he deigns to look. And look he does, now. There was a time when he didn't, always announcing his presence with a hologram when he checked in on his family, but that time is long, long gone.

He keeps constant tabs on his brothers now, a self-appointed task made far easier to maintain by the acquisition of EOS. The AI doesn't understand, really, but she respects his need to always know what his brothers are doing. How they're doing. They don't know that he does. He'd receive a tongue lashing about invasion from each of them if they found out, presented differently but identically affronted at the core. He watches them stay strong in front of each other and break down in the sanctuary of their own rooms, when they think they're alone.

This is why he worries. Of course, he worries about the other stuff, too. The missions gone wrong, the search for Dad, how much longer Grandma has until she can't keep up – most people her age would have stopped years ago. Scott's worries. But most of all, he worries about what will happen if – when, because 'impossible' has long since ceased to truly mean that for them – Dad comes home.

Virgil and Gordon believe he'll fix it all. That he'll take back control of what he needs to and Scott no longer needs to worry himself into an early grave because the worst of the responsibility will be off his shoulders again. It's Virgil who worries most obviously about Scott – approaching him with all the subtlety of a raging bull about it whilst still keeping a soft edge of tact in a unique mix that only the middle Tracy brother has ever mastered – but John knows better, knows that more often than not there are two pairs of warm brown eyes watching the fading shell that still tries to hold everything together with concern. Gordon does his part by taking responsibility for entertaining Alan, keeping the Terrible Two going despite them both being far too old for that, now. They still hold Dad up on that incredible pedestal – Jeff Tracy, the Hero. The Unshakeable Dad.

Scott… John doesn't think Scott has even thought about what will happen after they get Dad back. Scott is a here and now person, sets a goal and charges towards it, woe betide anything that tries to stand in his way – John has never seen anything succeed in that endeavour, although he knows Grandma and Virgil have forced brief pauses on occasion. Right now, Scott's goal is rescue Dad.

This is what worries John the most. Scott carries the weight of the world and then some on his shoulders, refusing to share the burden and brushing their attempts away with the practice of an older brother slash pseudo father. His hair is turning grey at an accelerating rate, which he either pretends not to acknowledge or is too blinkered to notice in the first place. When they found that footage from the Zero-X's capsule, the weight on Scott's shoulders had only got heavier.

This, his brothers have seen – even Alan. It's hard not to when Scott's on a hair-trigger, complaining about PR stunts arranged by Lady Penelope in a way he would never have done before, because it's wasting time. Because he's wasting time, even though Brains didn't stop working on the T-Drive at all and there's really nothing for Scott to do until the Zero-X is ready to fly.

What John fears they don't see, is what will happen when Dad comes home and the weight is lifted all at once. What will happen to Scott when Dad's back in the driving seat, Commander of International Rescue and CEO of Tracy Industries? When the head of the family is no longer Scott, but Dad (Grandma will always be the shadow matriarch, but here it's the visible head that matters)?

John is acutely aware that underneath the layers upon layers of responsibility heaped on his shoulders, Scott is a lost child. He was only a teenager when they lost Mom, Dad still a famous astronaut spending more time on Mars and the Moon than planet Earth, and Scott had to jump from child to adult. Grandma helped, of course she did, but Scott has always been someone to throw himself headlong into challenges. His first big challenge: raising four younger brothers, ranging from the ages of two to twelve.

John is self-aware enough to know that he is not okay, either. He was on the cusp of being able to largely look after himself, more caregiver than receiver, and did what he could to help out. But Scott, in his infinite teenage hypocrisy, refused to let him give too much. John still had his teenage years, an awkward transition from child to adult that more or less took place at the pace society dictated it should. Physically, Scott had gone through that, too, but he'd never had the chance to learn who he was through stupid mistakes. Aged fourteen, his life had gone an abrupt switch from boy to adult, and if you know what to look for, it's obvious.

Beneath the façade of Commander, Head of Family, CEO, there is that rebellious spirit. It's the same thing that makes Colonel Casey and the GDF despair, because Scott rigidly follows "my way or the high way" and refuses to compromise, just like a headstrong young teen. There's the recklessness, risk-taking better suited to an immature Alan (who is grilled worse than Grandma's chicken whenever he tries to emulate it) than a fully grown man reaching the end of his twenties.

And there's the way that Scott throws himself into work. He's a workaholic, ironically most comfortable when he's stressing himself into more grey hairs, because if he's not working, or training, or corralling younger brothers, he doesn't know what to do with himself. Who is Scott Tracy, once you strip away the responsibility he's laden upon himself?

John suspects they'll find out once Dad is home and everything leaves him all at once as he slips into the same trap Virgil and Gordon have caught themselves in – the Dad will make everything okay trap. He fears they'll be left with the lost child. He's terrified that it might be something worse.

From the way he sees Grandma looking at Scott, when she knows the eldest brother isn't looking, he doesn't think he's the only one.

(He never lets himself consider a scenario in which their Dad is not okay – because Jeff Tracy is only human, too – and instead of relieving the burden on Scott it just adds another layer. What that would do to Scott – and the rest of them, John himself very much included.)