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loveaurapearl · 5 years ago

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Steven’s Breakdown Analysis

First and foremost, I got to say that I love the ending of Steven Universe Future. It felt so right and so perfect. Yes, it is annoying that we still don’t know anything about the chest. Yes, it does stink a little that we don’t have a resolution on what’s going on with Bluebird Azurite, Mean Lapis, where Cactus Steven, watermelon Stevens and now the Steven Shrubs are, and yes, it is a little silly that Steven doesn’t have any marks after becoming a monster, but honestly, I’m still fine with the finale. It was great, it was moving, we know Steven has a therapist now, and it was just sweet. Sure, I had a few grips on Homeworld Bound, but that was the only episode that I had this feeling, all the other episodes were great. However, as I rewatched the finale, something caught my eye.

Before Steven corrupted into Wormy boi/Godzilla, (I have no idea what were are going to call him other than corrupted Steven.) I was thinking about what Steven said in his breakdown. Here’s the part of his breakdown that I need you guys to know. “I can fix anything. I can just keep messing up and fixing things forever and you’ll never know or think about it.” Steven said. Garnet calls out Steven’s name.

“*Deep Sigh* How messed up is that…? That I’ve gotten away with this for so long…? You have NO idea how bad I am. Y-You think that I’m sooo great and I’m so mature and I always know what to do… but that’s not true! I haven’t learned a thing from my problems. They’ve all just made me worse! You think of me as some Angel, but I’m not that kid anymore! I’m a fraud… *quietly sobs*… I’m a fraud... I’M… I’M A MONSTER!”

This hit hard and was very emotional... but a weird thought kept going through my head. The way he was talking, about being an angel and being put up on a pedestal. About how he keeps messing up and fixing things. It didn’t sound like Steven the character despite him using his voice... Yes, this does sound weird. Let me explain. While Steven always thought he had been the better person and to not hurt people, this still didn’t sound right for Steven to say. I mean, you could still see this as Steven talking about himself, but I still don’t get that feeling. Yeah, Steven has gone through a lot of ‘imposter syndrome’ throughout his life, but even then, I still felt like this speech wasn’t exactly Steven. Steven was never put up on a pedestal by the crystal gems. He didn’t feel like people were calling him an angel. That he was so mature and always knew what to do. Hell, Pool Hoping was about Garnet not expecting Steven to become so mature and wise, so this notion was never something that Steven had felt all his life. So, it was weird hearing him say all of this. Sure, Steven has put himself on a pedestal, especially after helping the universe, but this speech doesn’t feel like it was Steven doing this to himself. Then I thought back to Steven’s life and more specifically Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond’s life.

Pink Diamond was raised to be something great. To be better, to know better. She was a Diamond after all, and Diamonds were supposed to be perfect. However, Pink was very flawed. She had a temper, she was childish, she left Spinel behind to try and be more ‘mature’, and she hurt Volleyball in a fit of rage because she was denied a colony from White. Pink wasn’t exactly Diamond material. We still don’t know why Pink came out this way, so we can only speculate that now. When Pink became Rose Quartz, she thought she was free. She thought she could escape and find herself. Then she realized that what her family was doing was wrong and tried her best to stop it. She started a war to end it, but Even after becoming Rose Quartz, Pink still had to be the mature one, the healer, the perfect image of herself. This was made because she created the war and tried to convince people to help save the earth and stop the Diamond Authority. However, this doesn’t excuse the fact that, during the war, Pink/Rose couldn’t be confident in themselves except for Pearl. And even then, Pink didn’t want Pearl to know about her violent temper and her immaturity, so she tried her best to great and powerful. She hid secrets because she didn’t want to admit the ugly side of herself. She hid away Bismuth because she was afraid of her and her ideology. She hid Lion away from Pearl and never told anyone about him. She hid away the fact that she was a diamond because she hated being one. So, her hating herself isn’t that loose of an idea.

Now, Rose was happier as Rose Quartz than when she was Pink Diamond, but even then, Rose still wasn’t happy inside. She could never tell the other crystal gems about her identity, she couldn’t trust people because of her upbringing, and she couldn’t heal the people she hurt. She still didn’t like herself, but due to her work and the fact that she had humans to distract her, this self-hatred came in shorter bursts. That is until Greg pointed out how she didn’t respect him, it made her realize that she was still Pink Diamond inside. Rose began to engulf herself in the human ways to try and better herself. To be the perfect being her followers saw her as. But it was never enough, and so, after some time, she made Steven. Steven was raised to be as good as Rose Quartz during his life. He always felt like he had to be as good and pure as her. He believed that he could never measure up to her. But then everyone realized that real her wasn’t like that, the real she was just like Steven, a scared, confused little girl who didn’t know what to do and hanged onto other people.

“I can just keep messing up and fixing things forever and you’ll never know or think about it.” This was the exact quote that made me think something was off. Steven has never made a ‘mistake’ that he had to fix. Sure, he messed with the Sea Spire, but he couldn’t fix that. And other than that, Steven hasn’t done anything bad. The only one is Jasper, and that was recent. Plus, it doesn’t explain why Steven said he could mess up and nobody will know. When has Steven ever make a mistake and ‘get away with it’ other than with shattering Jasper? Never is what I’m saying. He has hidden his feelings, but that’s not making a mistake and hiding it from everyone. However, these things do make sense if you see this speech as Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz saying these things about herself, it makes a lot of sense. Rose was depicted as a saint, an angel, and a healer in the original series. She had to be the ‘bigger gem’ and to help people out. She also made a lot of mistakes. She hurt Volleyball, she hurt Spinel by leaving her behind, she hurt everyone by causing the gem war and faking her shattering. However, even after her faked shattering, she couldn’t escape the person she was. But then Steven was born and fixed everything. He ‘fixed’ spinel, he fixed the earth, he fixed the diamonds and changed homeworld, and his relationships with the Crystal gems, especially Bismuth. Pink/Rose hid many secrets and made many mistakes. Only ‘recently’ (in gem time) did most of her secrets and mistakes come out. Steven was there to fix all of Pink’s mistakes. However, he couldn’t fix himself or his mother whom he saw as a fraud. “I’m not a real person,” Rose said this to Greg.

“But, but Pink’s gone, right? Pink Steven even yelled to White Diamond that she was gone. There’s no way Pink is still alive. So… so what’s going on?” You may ask. I thought so too... but then, why did Steven say those things? Why is there a video showing that Pink isn’t gone? (Link by the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaLRGg6UJQw ) Why do we still have no idea on the chest? How come Steven is the only gem to not have corruption scars? Like not even one. I think the crewiverse is still hiding something about Pink Diamond and Steven’s identity with her.

After all, we don’t know why the trailer called Steven pink? We don’t know why it mentioned Steven remembering the Strawberry battlefield when that had nothing to do with the ending. We don’t have a complete resolution on Steven and his feelings about his mother. We haven’t seen Steven fully healed. We know he’s healing now but we still don’t have all the pieces. We know that has a therapist and has moved on. But not all our questions were answered.

So… here’s a theory, what if… Steven, complete Steven, is Pink Diamond? Like, the flawed version of herself that she didn’t like. The real her. The version of her that wasn’t build-up by the diamonds or the crystal gems. Let’s start with how Everything’s Fine started. After Steven talks to Connie, he sees himself in the tv reflection and begins denying the horrible thoughts and actions he did. He denies he’s a Diamond like he did in Homeworld Bound. He keeps proclaiming that he’s Steven Universe and that he doesn’t hurt people. He doesn’t want to be a Diamond. After all, they’re the bad guys. Steven isn’t a bad guy. He isn’t Pink or Rose, so he shouldn’t be acting this way. The part that interested me was the fact that he kept saying he’s Steven Universe. At first, you think it’s just denial that he hurt people and had thoughts about hurting people, but then the break down happens and this made me rethink Steven’s claims. I think Steven or in this case, Pink Diamond is denying that she is still Pink Diamond inside. She can’t be back, Pink and Rose were bad people. Steven is a good person. He doesn’t hurt people like how she used to do. He’s the one who makes everything better. However, once the intervention happened, Pink/Steven realized that they haven’t changed and gotten worse.

When Steven talks about how ‘great’ he was, it looks at Pearl. But Pearl never thought about Steven like this. She did, however, thought Rose was great and powerful. Pearl loved Rose for being sweet and caring. She loved the version of Rose that was a healer and didn’t do anything wrong. But that was only one side of Pink. Volleyball was the one who knew the other side of her. The side of Pink that Pink didn’t like anymore. When he was talking about maturity, it shot to Amethyst, not only as a show that Steven is jealous of Amethyst’s maturity, but also, back when Rose was around, Amethyst saw Rose as the most mature gem, with Garnet second in command. Rose was a mother symbol to Amethyst, so she had to build up the image that she was always mature. Then it cuts to Connie when Steven talks about how he always knows what to do. This was the most interesting. Connie was the one who got Steven to think that he had a magical destiny. She was the one who thought Rose was this magical, all-knowing creature who had planned a destiny for Steven. I mean, with Lion and the armory, it’s not that hard for her to jump to the conclusion and she was just a young kid who read a lot of stories about destinies so seeing these signs, it’s no wonder she thought Steven had a destiny. However, Rose never wanted Steven to have a destiny. She just wanted Steven to be Steven. She wanted a normal human life like Greg, and she wanted to be apart of the human world. Then when Steven said he only has gotten worse; it cuts to Greg. Greg was the one who made Rose realize in We Need to Talk, that Rose hadn’t changed. That she didn’t respect humans, and that he was the reason Rose began to want to have Steven so she could change. Then it cuts to Garnet when Steven talks about how he’s an angel. This represents back during the war that Garnet saw Rose as an angel. A pure being who told Garnet to be herself and don’t question anything. Garnet saw Rose as the perfect leader. However, that’s not true at all. In “We’re only falling apart”, we learned that Rose depended on the other Crystal Gems to help lead the rebellion because she didn’t how to exactly lead on her own.

Then, there’s the final line. “I haven’t learned a thing from MY problems.” Which doesn’t make sense if Steven was truly himself and not Rose/Pink? If he wasn’t her, then why did he say that? What problems didn’t he learn from? The only way this line makes sense is the fact that Pink felt she never changed from being a diamond. That she thought she had changed and become a better person when really, she hadn’t changed at all. Steven says, “they’ve just made me worse.” This is the fact that Steven shattered Jasper and thought about shattering White Diamond horrified him. He had done something, not even his mother did… (Maybe, we don’t know exactly how Pink Pearl was hurt. Some people have said that Pink Pearl was shattered, but we don’t know.) Pink/Rose was against Shattering, no matter what. It’s the reason she bubbled Bismuth away. So, knowing she betrayed her word to everyone, especially herself, would horrify her. She was now like the other diamonds, but now they’ve healed. They recovered, but Pink hadn’t.

Also, let’s look at Homeworld Bound, mostly the scene of Steven running away from the Diamonds and losing one of his slippers. Besides allowing the Diamonds a chance to follow Steven back to Beach City, the slipper is a reference to Cinderella. When Cinderella lost her slipper, she was reverting into her true self. I think the same thing happened to Steven, or should I say, Pink Diamond. Of course, no magic turned Pink into Steven and there wasn’t a magic fairy godmother who gave Rose her wish. But Pink did become Steven Universe, she embraced this new identity, forgetting about her life as both Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond. She was given a whole new world, a new relationship with Greg and the crystal gems. She was given a new lease on life and learned to better herself as Steven. But she couldn’t escape herself. White was right about her, about Pink’s flaws and how Pink’s light was in Steven. However, White was wrong about him. White thought Steven’s human body wasn’t Pink. After all, Pink’s not human, she’s a gem. However, the human side of Steven is Pink as well. The human side was Pink’s memories, her personality, her ‘humanity’. Pink Steven was her powers, her anger, her code. But removing the gem wouldn’t bring Pink back, because Pink was already there as Steven. The group just never realized this. Not even Steven.

That is until Steven loses his slipper in Homeworld Bound. There, the magic of just being Steven was gone. Steven/Pink was slowly realizing the truth, but because they’re desperate and hate being Pink Diamond, they deny to their heart content that they were JUST Steven Universe. They do all the things old Steven used to do. They went to Little Homeworld to try and pick up the broken pieces, to try and keep the effects of the ‘spell’ up. To try and make nobody realize that Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz was back. And it did work since all the characters except for Pink/Steven never realize that Pink was back, and they assumed that Steven was just having a meltdown. However, just because the characters don’t realize Pink is back doesn’t mean they don’t realize that something is wrong with Steven, so they have the intervention. They try and get the truth out of Steven, and this is where Steven spills the beans about Shattering Jasper and thinking about shattering White Diamond. Once that pin was dropped, the magic was gone. Pink/Rose/Steven had fully returned, and the mask was off. They finally vent about being put up on a pedestal. They vent about having to be perfect and how they made mistakes. They’re scared, angry, and full of doubt and despair. They realize that they were back to Pink Diamond, but even worse since they shattered Jasper. Then, they corrupt. They lose control of themselves and turn into Godzilla Steven/Pink Diamond. They become a monster. Thankfully, Steven recovers and turns back to normal. He begins to learn to love himself and moved out of Beach City. Steven… Pink Diamond is going to find themselves.

Okay, so if this theory is true, then why did Pink Steven said that Pink Diamond was gone in Change Your Mind? Well, it’s because they weren’t wrong. The old version of Pink Diamond was gone as far as Steven was a concern. Pink Steven/Pink Diamond hated being Pink Diamond, of being Rose Quartz. They were never as happy as those identities. They wanted nothing to do with their past identities. They were tired of everyone wanting the old versions of Pink Diamond to come back, so Pink yelled that she was gone. She assumed that since she was now Steven, she wasn’t Pink Diamond anymore. She thought she was free. But by the time of Steven’s Breakdown, she realized that she wasn’t free from herself and that she was still Pink Diamond inside. She’s just been denying it because she didn’t WANT to be Pink Diamond. That’s why Pink Steven yelled, “SHE’S GONE!!!!”.

So, then what Steven is? Steven is Pink Diamond, but in the form, she always wanted to be. During the Diamond Days arch, it was at first depicted as an allegory of someone who had become trans and was dealing with a toxic family that didn’t accept that the person was trans. But we decided that it was more than that since we thought Steven wasn’t Pink Diamond. However, with this info, I think we’re thinking of black and white. Pink Diamond never went away. She changed her form into something she liked, and his name is Steven Universe. Pink Diamond is trans and she transitioned into the male identity of Steven Universe. Pink Diamond as Steven found himself. She was never comfortable being a diamond, and even when she became Rose Quartz, she was never herself because of the war and the fact that she technically stole the identity of the other Rose Quartzes. But Steven. Steven can be himself. There aren’t any Stevens that Pink is stealing the identity of. They realize that they can learn to love and be loved. They learned how to make real connections with people and how to help people with their problems. But now, they’ve grown. They realized that they aren’t perfect, that they don’t have to be perfect, and everyone will love them even if they aren’t perfect. They realized that it’s okay that to be ugly, that it’s okay to feel awful sometimes, and that this ugly side of themselves will always exist. They began to learn to accept the fact that they are still a Diamond despite the gender-flipped. They’re beginning to learn to accept that the Diamonds have changed, and the world is changing around them. Steven accepted that he’s Steven and Pink Diamond and that he’s allowed to love himself. Steven will learn to love like the People around himself and learn how to be human.

Anyway, maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong. But these have been my thoughts about Steven’s Breakdown. Maybe we’ll never know the answers to the questions I asked. Maybe Steven isn’t Pink Diamond and I’m just blowing smoke into a room. Maybe fanfic could answer them? I don’t know. But hope you like my little post.

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tiny-smallest · 5 years ago

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warm summer nights

Rating: G Characters: Greg, Steven, Danny Fenton Warnings: none Description: Greg Universe is a lot of things- former semi-famous rockstar, musician, adviser, small business owner, best friend- but he is first and foremost a father.

But there were other things that made up his identity, things that hurt to remember and were usually easy to forget- until the day an incident on the beach and the appearance of a strange child in town sent both his fatherly senses and some old instincts screaming alarms in his head.

Also on AO3!

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I thought this would be appropriate to post on the day that happens to be both one week after we said goodbye to Steven and the Dannyapocalypse. Like c’mon how perfect is that.

I started this in February back when I assumed we weren’t getting the end of Future until probably summertime. Parts have been rewritten or tweaked to accommodate the ending. Therefore there are SPOILERS in here for the latter half of Steven Universe Future (it is set between I Am My Monster and The Future) so do be aware of that. And also just be aware in general cause I’m sick of looking at this and details are blurring so if a detail or two seems off it’s because I didn’t catch it skljdfn

Enjoy!

—

Beautiful, blue, bejeweled.

This was one of the best things about living in Beach City. In this little town that was probably more of a village and definitely not a city, when the night was clear, as long as you weren’t standing smack in the middle of town where the lights would be brightest, Greg could see more stars than humanity could probably ever hope to visit. The fact that Beach City was very much a rural town helped immensely, too. No Empire City to smog up the skies from nearby.

Just the ocean waves and the twinkling expanse above, and his son’s house off to the side, the statue overhead serene and silent. You could write a song to a scene like this. Greg was trying, plucking idly at guitar strings, counting syllables in his head, matching words and chords. It wasn’t a serious project. More like a doodle of a song. Simple, short, maybe a little messy. Perfection wasn’t a requirement; just a bonus if it happened to happen.

He couldn’t say for sure whether or not Steven was in bed. Sure, he hadn’t heard anything, and Steven was sleeping much better these days, but Steven was also a teenager. Even at the best of times their inner clocks could be wonky. He sure remembered that. And it was a beautiful night; warm and breezy, calm and quiet.

So when he spotted a humanoid shape in the sky that lacked wings, he didn’t think much on it at first. Steven was seventeen, he reminded the nervous fatherly instincts pricking up. And Steven was seventeen and capable. If the boy wanted to go for a walk or hang in the sky for awhile, that was his business, and if it was because Steven was troubled, then Steven knew to also make it Greg’s business, if he wanted to.

Still, maybe he would pop by tomorrow morning with breakfast sandwiches. Just in case. Just to see him first thing in the morning.

Easy, Universe. Breathe. The air went in his lungs. The air flowed out.

He picked at the guitar again, but his eyes always somehow strayed back to the figure in the sky.

The first time Greg realized something might be off came when he realized the shape silhouetted against the stars was all wrong to be Steven. The body was too skinny- scrawny, even, and there was no sign of descent at all. Steven couldn’t hold his position. He could only slow his descent. Steven should have landed on the beach by now, if it was really him.

Unease bubbled in the pit of his stomach. He squinted, but whatever was out there was too far away for features to be discernible. Greg didn’t have binoculars.

Maybe he should go use that telescope…?

But it was probably just a gem, right? Right?

What was he supposed to do? Shout at them? They’d probably hear him from this far away…

Five dark bruises, long since faded, and the memory of what the house’s deck looked like from upside down, twenty feet in the air was what made him unsure if he liked that fact. It was definitely too tall to be Bluebird, though, and there were no wings present, so there was at least that comfort.

Not that there was much comfort at all. Who said Bluebird might not have friends? Sure, she was an obnoxious little goblin, but Greg knew there were other gems who hated his son and, apparently, that was a hell of a unifier in the gem world. I have no more hair to cut to get away if this is someone else who wants to try using me against Steven.

They hadn’t heard his quiet guitar playing, at least, and if they’d taken notice of the van on the beach, there was no movement to do anything about it.

Still.

He moved to strum the guitar, but his trembling fingers thought the better of it last second without any real thought and caressed the side of the fingerboard. Maybe he should call Pearl? He should probably call Pearl.

As he reached for his phone, a breeze blowing through the van made him shudder. Jeez, when did it get so cold? Why was it so cold! It was May!

Something made a noise outside. He froze.

The world went still. Greg’s heart hammered in his chest, pounded in his head. He could feel it beating in his ears.

A loud, wet thunk hit the window, slid down it. Greg raised his head just slightly and felt his heart somersault in his chest as the discolored, waterlogged hand slid down the window with a slow, wet squeak.

What. The fuck.

Greg was not a man who cursed liberally, years of raising a child to thank for that, but if there had been any air left in his lungs he would have said the fuck word like it was his day job at the sight of the other hand that slapped itself against the window. Fingers curled in like claws against the glass and there was a wet gurgle.

A face pressed into the pane. Skin blue, mottled with green and what looked like rotting bits, eyes nearly white, long, tangled, hair of indiscernible color, matted with sand and seaweed.

Their eyes met.

Before Greg could utter a sound she let out a guttural noise and banged on the window. It took a moment for Greg to realize that the strangled yelp was coming from him as he scrambled to close the back doors, slamming them shut with an echoing bang.

She clawed at the door underneath the window she was still smashed up against, something close to a growl pouring from her mouth. In the next moment the pouring was literally, water flowing like some kind of demented faucet from her throat. Greg watched from inside the van, feeling the world all but fall away as the girl began to turn inside out, discolored flesh exposing dully pulsating organs, meat rearranging itself into a ghasty, kraken thing with a pulsating eye sitting right where he was pretty sure squids did not have eyes.

It shrieked, slamming an arm the sand by the van, missing the front by an inch. Greg shouted in pain and scrambled to right himself, trying to get the doors he’d just closed back open.

“Hey!”

He stopped fumbling with the doors for a moment, then redoubled his efforts even though he felt the beast move a little bit away from where it had him pinned down.

The doors blew open with a bang and he half fell out, gaping from the sand at the sight of the back of a boy, floating in the air, fists raising for a fight. The kraken looked down at him, roared, and tried to slam its arm into him, next.

But as it came down, the child was gone.

He zipped around–around, the boy was flying–and kicked the thing right upside the head, sending it sprawling a few feet, before throwing what looked like glowing green fire at it from both hands. It swerved to the side, barely avoiding the beam of green fire, and looked back as if to assess where its prey had gone.

The boy shot like a reverse shooting star into the air and took another dive, feet held out to slam into the thing, but it halted his descent with a tentacle and threw him back, charging forward to meet him.

And it went right through him.

As it turned around again, the boy held up another hand of green fire and made a motion Greg realized somewhere in his frozen mind was very familiar. Like throwing a frisbee, the child flung a disk of green flaming something at the creature and hit it right in the eye in the middle of its head.

It exploded.

In a gush of green goo, it exploded, the slime expelled upwards in a really gross fountain. The boy landed in the sand beside the creature as the rest of the body began to melt away, blinking in what could only be surprise as the goo seeped into the ground. He tilted his head, bent over slightly, one hand resting on his knee as he fought to catch his breath, and opened his mouth.

Then he started, blinked, and turned the rest of his head to more clearly see what he must have been seeing from the corner of his eye–Greg himself–letting go of gravity as he did.

The boy floated there, breathing heavily, eyes locked on Greg, hair moving slightly like it was underwater, eyes glowing faintly. The world held still.

“Sorry about that,” he said softly, and as suddenly as he’d dove to Greg’s rescue, he was gone, the prints from his boots in the sand the only sign he’d ever existed at all.

A breeze blew across the beach. Greg wheezed out a gasp as his body remembered it needed to breathe.

He looked to the house. Undisturbed. Steven must be out after all.

He laid down in the back of the van. If he was more in his own head he might have immediately gotten up to go wait in the house.

But the world was tilting and his head full of cotton, so he didn’t do that.

But he did know one thing.

He was not sleeping until he knew his son was back safely in that house.

Hours. Minutes. Everything felt so quiet and so loud. He should call Steven. He should make sure he was safe.

But did any of that really just happen? Was this a nightmare? Was he just losing his mind? I started losing my hair early; maybe I’d start going senile early, too, floated lazily up in the swamp water that was his brain currently, and despite the concern he probably should have been feeling at that thought (when had he last gone to the doctor for literally anything?) he felt nothing.

Finally, in the predawn light painting the world gray and blue, Greg saw him. Steven approached from the left side of the van a little off in the distance and walked out of view. He thought he heard the screen door.

Steven was home. Steven was safe. Whatever happened, whatever dark thing had reached from beyond the void to touch this beach, it hadn’t touched Steven.

Steven was safe. Steven was safe. Steve was… safe… Steven… safe…

dear theodosia what to say to you

Sound. Light. That’s Steven.

Also, reality. Reality and pain. Headache.

He blinked and squinted, morning sun clear and warm, the world scattered, fuzzed at the edges, just clear enough to be entirely unwelcome in how real it was. Ugh. Why did his head hurt so much? Felt like he’d run a marathon-

Wait.

Wait wait what what-? Hold up. Put freakout on hold. Steven. He grabbed for his phone, fumbling it in sweaty fingers. 10:07. No wonder everything hurt. He’d slept maybe five hours, if that.

His eyes flicked from his phone to the sand as he thumbed over the screen to receive the call.

The van was parked far enough from the beginning of the beach for footprints to not leave indiscernible holes in the sand, but they weren’t close enough to the surf for the tide to wash everything away. But it had been windy.

There were marks, but had they come from feet? He couldn’t tell. He honestly couldn’t tell. God.

“Dad?”

“Hi, Stchu-ball,” he said aloud with a numb mouth and a number mind. Right. Think. Wake up, brain. Focus. He wanted to get breakfast for him.

“Hi Dad! Just got up; I was wondering if you wanted to join us for breakfast? Or, well, me; the others have to run to go do Little Homeschool stuff.”

“Yeah, sure buddy,” he managed. “My treat?”

“You sure? I can cook-”

Something firm and determined pushed him forward. “No, that’s fine. I’ve been meaning to try some of those breakfast sandwiches from Arianna’s, anyway.”

“Well… okay, if you’re sure.” The smile in his voice was warm. He wished he could return it.

“Yeah, I’m sure. See you in a few?”

“See you in a few.”

They hung up. He swallowed and climbed into the front seat to start the van, ignoring the good morning text from Pearl with only a slight pang of guilt. Might as well get breakfast and practice smiling. He was going to need it.

——-

The second Steven saw him, Greg knew the smile he’d pasted on before the door opened was too plastic.

The bright, sunny grin on Steven’s face drooped, eyes quickly flicking up and down his father’s form. Damn it. He hadn’t changed his clothes from yesterday, that’s right. There was nothing he could probably do about the dark circles he bet he had under his eyes but he should have changed his clothes at least.

Please don’t comment on it. Just let it go by.

“Your sandwiches, Mr. Universe,” Greg said, some distant part of him relieved that the silly, over-the-top voice came out and came out right. He gave his son a little bow as he presented the bag.

A giggle. “Please,” Steven replied in an equally silly voice. “Call me Steven. Mr. Universe is my father’s name.” The weight of the bag disappeared from Greg’s hand and he righted himself, wincing just slightly as one knee complained. The bag rustled, Steven stepping back inside the house. “My highly esteemed, very talented, charming father and oh my god is that an omelette? Is that an egg and mushroom breakfast sandwich? I’m throwing ‘amazing’ on that list I think.”

He snorted as he followed Steven inside. “You flatterer you.”

“Flattery has nothing to do with food that smells amazing. That you brought me,” Steven said as he set the bag on the counter and withdrew the plastic containers. Something inside Greg’s chest loosened at the absolutely ridiculous goofy face his son was making. They’d better dig in before the boy started drooling.

“All right, all right. I’ll take some of those compliments,” he laughed as he held his hands up in defeat, approaching the table. “Even though all I did was place an order.”

“For the right things,” Steven chirped as he reached into the cabinet to pull out plates. “Very much the right things. Stars that smells good.”

“Well, what can I say? We Universes have very… refined pallets.” Greg took the containers over to the table, Steven following with the plates.

Now it was Steven’s turn to snort. “Yeah, okay, sure.”

“Hey, remember that night in Empire City? I am a man of taste.”

“The classiest,” Steven agreed, a touch of warmth to the banter. Greg chuckled and ruffled his hair.

The boy moved to take a seat before pausing, looking to his father. “Hey, what are we doing? It’s a nice day! Let’s eat outside?”

Inwardly he quailed a little. He’d really rather not look at the beach today, if he were being honest.

But that earnest expression? How could he ever say no to it? Especially when it was asking something totally reasonable of him. “Sure, kiddo.”

He picked up the containers and Steven carried the plates, the door opening with the usual light creak of hinges moving. Steven sat on the steps with a sigh, stretching his legs and then scooting over to make room for his father. Greg sat beside him.

“So um… I was wondering…”

Greg turned his head. “Mm?”

Steven’s eyes were lowered, foot tapping against the step below. “… Are you feeling okay?”

Ah geez. “What do you mean, Schtu-ball?”

“Uh, well, you look kinda- really tired today, and I dunno-” He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was just wondering, like, did you sleep okay? Do you- maybe need to talk about something or…? Because I know, I know you’ll say it’s not my job, but you’re my dad, and well, I just- I love you a whole lot and even if you don’t wanna talk about it I’d just- just like to make sure you’re all right.”

Oh, Steven.

He stared at his son, this sweet, brave, beautiful boy that he could barely believe came from his own dna, and leaned down to press a kiss into his hair.

“Dad?” He leaned back to find confused eyes that were rapidly becoming worried. Small wonder. Greg gave his son kisses all the time growing up, but they’d tapered off the past couple years out of respect for Steven’s slowly emerging adulthood and the determination that his son would never, ever feel patronized by him.

He only gave in a few times, and considering the ones he could remember were Steven being abducted to space, the second time his son was abducted to space, and Steven returning from saving them all from certain, eventual destruction at the hand of space dictators?

Yeah, he could see why he’d be concerned.

“It’s nothing,” he promised, smoothing back Steven’s hair a little. “Just… Had weird dreams last night. I’m very glad you’re here.”

“… You- could talk about them? If you wanted to,” Steven ventured. The powerful affection swelled even more and he gave him another kiss, on his forehead.

“Nah, they weren’t that bad. Nothing your old man can’t handle. Besides, you don’t need to fight them for me.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I don’t mean to brag-” the worried knot in his forehead hadn’t quite left despite the grin he flashed at Greg- “but I’m quite the dream warrior. Just ask Kiki!”

“Kiki?” Oh, right, the pizza nightmare nonsense. “You sure are, but you don’t have to be responsible for everyone’s sleep, kiddo. Just yours.” He ruffled his hair. “But hey- if there was something we could learn from this, I’d tell you. But there isn’t really. It was just weird and uncomfortable. Not even really a nightmare.”

“Oh.” He made a face. “Those suck.”

“They do,” Greg agreed, reaching for a sandwich.

Maybe it had been a dream, somehow.

——-

It was a few days later that the next oddity happened.

Just enough time for Greg to maybe consider that what happened on the beach was some weird sort of hallucination- or maybe something less severe than what that implied, maybe just a scary dream. A really, messed up, unsettling dream. He wasn’t sure if he ate anything before falling asleep (he was pretty sure he didn’t) but mark that down as something to never do again before bed, just in case.

He just really wish he didn’t remember that kid’s face as well as he did, or that… thing.

But it was fine! Greg was fine. It was probably just a nightmare, and nothing happened. Nobody got eaten the next day when they went in the water. No reports of missing persons. It was fine. He played guitar, hung out at his car wash, washed a couple cars, spent time playing music with Steven and Pearl, pacified Peridot’s twenty questions when she and Lapis dropped by town to visit, introduced Garnet to a new band, cooked a dinner with Steven, and even took a long walk down the beach with Pearl, chatting about anything and everything.

As always, the talk eventually turned to the townies, and what they were up to.

“It’s so odd,” Pearl mused. “I didn’t know we could even get raccoons around here.”

“Yep. They don’t usually come into town, but there’s plenty of them in the forest. Them and their weird tiny people hands.”

Pearl made a face. “Oh- that doesn’t sound- very nice.”

Greg chuckled. “They’re mostly harmless. It’s just really startling to be sleeping and suddenly feel tiny hands just like yours touching you.”

“Oh no, they haven’t done that to you!?” She looked so scandalized Greg almost laughed.

“Oh yes they have! But not in town. Happened a few years back when I took Steven camping in the woods.”

“Well that’s awful rude of them,” she huffed.

“Nah, cut them a break. We were intruders on their home, after all. They were just curious. Also they don’t understand decorum like we do.”

“Fair,” she sighed. “Still, they must be capable of some form of human-like reasoning.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” Pearl was an incredibly sharp person, but 5000 some years of refusing to properly interact with humans left her woefully unaware of a lot of things about the planet she lived on. Sometimes hearing her reasoning was downright hilarious. She certainly was a creative one.

“Well,” she started with all the innocence and assuredness of a small child about to explain a logic only they could understand, “The Frys and the Pizzas are the only ones it seems to bother.”

He blinked. “Huh?”

“If it’s really here for food, why does it only get into their garbage? Why not other people’s? Food is food and organics need to consume it, so logically shouldn’t it just go anywhere?” A pause. “Why, if it’s coming from the woods, it’s going out of its way to get to their trash, even! Fish Stew Pizza and Beach Citywalk Fries are all the way down the block from the forest.”

Huh. She had a point. “Who knows? Animals are weird. There’s a reason we still study them, after all.”

She clucked her tongue. “I suppose we’ll never truly know until we catch them in the act.”

They only get into the Frys’ and the Pizzas’ garbage.

He wish he’d paid more attention to that little tidbit than he did.

——-

Three days after that conversation, four after that nighttime beach dream, standing in Fish Stew Pizza at the counter, waiting for Kiki to finish his order, he saw him.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted movement from out the open window and, as humans were wont to do when something moved in their peripherals, he turned his head, not expecting to find much. This was one of the more popular spots of Beach City. People weren’t super uncommon, especially with the gems hanging around the city now.

What was uncommon, what was odd, was the sight of a new face, hanging around by the garbage– a teenager, with messy black hair and a t-shirt and jeans. Greg blinked in surprise, but any curiosity he might have felt evaporated as he watched the hunched up teenager glance, and not very inconspicuously, left, then right-

And then grabbed the little paper container containing a half-eaten thing of fries right from where it was perched on top of the rest of the trash, sliding over with guilty, shameful stumbling to the bench beside the garbage can. He shoved his hand into the bag and dug out a fistful of fries.

Greg froze. For a moment, all he could see was white hair, glowing in the moonlight, floating slightly in the air, topping a face that was a bit too thin. Something familiar-

Not the only thing familiar. At the same time he remembered walking by that same can, hunched over with shame and hunger, chewing the inside of his cheek, worries swirling, Rose oblivious thank god-

Sitting on the boardwalk with a hungrily suckling baby kicking the bottle, staring at the food places he couldn’t afford to order from because that crib had cost way more than he’d anticipated, stomach complaining with a hollow, gnawing pain-

Trying to ignore the burning in his cheeks as he counted up nickels and dimes for Kofi, grateful for his patience but feeling anxiety draw its claws along the inside of his head, wondering how long that patience would last when there was a line behind him-

“Mr. Universe?”

“U-um-” Trying to stuff his brain back into his head, he turned to look back to Kiki, whose face was lined with concern. Right. Pizza. “Oh, uh, thanks Kiki. This’ll- uh, make great leftovers."

"Well… I always thought cold pizza was yucky but hey, it’s your food, not mine.” She returned his weak smile and ducked back into the kitchen. He picked up the box, gears whirring as he stepped outside and approached the bench.

As his shadow fell over the teenager, the boy glanced up from where he was trying to peer into the clearly-empty box, eyes that looked too big for his head watching him warily. They were a startling shade of baby blue and it almost wrecked Greg’s concentration. Almost.

“Hey there!” he smiled at the boy. “Today’s your lucky day! I’ve started doing a 'one nice thing a day’ resolution– you know, spread some goodwill and all throughout the whole year, not just at the holidays– and you’re today’s winner! Have a pizza.”

He held the box out to him. One eyebrow quirked up, but the slightly shaking hands did accept the box.

“… And you didn’t put anything weird in it.” It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t quite a statement either, brushing instead somewhere lightly against an accusation, especially with the pointing finger at the box now sitting on his lap.

“On my honor as a musician,” he promised, raising one hand, putting on his best overdramatic voice. There was a brief spark of amusement in the boy’s eyes. Greg took the minute of lowered guard to give him a quick scan.

Messy black hair he’d seen from the shop, but closer now, he could tell there was a very slight greasy quality to it, exacerbated by the lack of brushing. His frame and his face were a bit too thin, elbows poking out a bit more noticeably than they should have been, cheekbones a touch too sharp. There was a hole in one of the knees of his jeans, and given the dirt smeared on the pants, it didn’t look like fashion.

“Yeah, well… thanks, I guess.” He was still suspicious. Understandable. Greg knew what it looked like, a grown man approaching a lone boy he had no relation to with free food. He didn’t begrudge the kid the wary gaze still honed in on him with laser focus. “I’m staying right here.”

“Never said you had to go anywhere,” Greg said, backing away this time with both hands raised. “Enjoy your lunch, kiddo.”

He turned and went right back into the pizza shop, hailing Kiki down again.

“Yeah, Mr. U?”

“You see that kid outside?” he asked softly. Her head turned with his in time to watch the boy tear the pizza box open, rip out a slice, and begin to hork it down. She nodded, her face a wince of sympathy.

“Yeah.”

“Tell him he can get a free pizza a day, okay? I’ll pay for it, but don’t credit me. Let him think whatever, just as long as he knows he can get something to eat here.”

“Awfully sweet of you,” she said with a little smile. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Should we get ahold of his parents or…?”

Something twisted uncomfortably in his gut. “No. He might recoil if we’re too obvious about helping. If his family needs food, he’ll take the pizza home.”

“Well, looks like they must be having dinner tonight. Sure hope he doesn’t eat that whole thing by himself right now, though.” They resisted the urge to check. “I’ll keep an eye on him, Mr. Universe. Can’t leave the shop, but as long as he’s hanging around outside, I don’t mind watching him.”

“Maybe try to keep your dad or Mayor Nanefua from hovering too close?” He forced an awkward chuckle. “I remember what it’s like, being that age. He’ll just get embarrassed and shut down. Free pizza won’t do him much good if he won’t come to claim it.”

“Don’t worry Mr. U; I got this.” She winked at him. He tried to let it comfort him, and smiled back.

The boy was still tearing apart the pizza when he stepped outside. Resisting the urge to check on him again, he walked away.

He went to find Steven, lunch forgotten, and made sure to give his son a great big hug.

“Dad?”

“Nothing. Just wanted to give you a hug.”

If he had his way, it would have been for the rest of forever.

——-

He’d almost convinced himself by the time a week had passed that the white-haired floating kid from the beach was a bad dream, or maybe even some kind of… weird, residual Future Sight rubbing off on him.

Could that even happen? Greg was sure around magic stuff often enough for something weird to pop up, right? He was tempted to as Garnet about it, but the urge to keep quiet about this wouldn’t go away. Especially since he wasn’t sure that he could trust Garnet to keep this between them- not when she shared almost everything with the other gems now, not when they were finally feeling something like a family unit after all the years they wasted being distant and combative with one another. Garnet was nothing if not protective, and he knew the implication he’d started seeing things might concern her into consulting the others. Maybe even consulting other humans, given that he was pretty sure she knew little about human biology and how brains and bodies connected.

Or she could take it to be a literal, physical threat and sound the alarm. That felt likely, too. Extremely likely. He thought of the way she very carefully shadowed Steven in the months following his meltdown, and winced. Yeah. That would be a bad idea.

Especially if this was all just absolutely nothing. God, the last thing he’d want to do is alarm Steven for absolutely nothing.

He locked up the car wash at around dusk, checking his phone as he walked his way down the street towards the beach. Steven would probably be starting to cut the vegetables, and if he hurried, he’d get there before he was ready to toss the salad and reheat the sauce from three days ago. He might even be in time to help Steven dice, actually.

As he reached the street that became the giant back area of The Big Donut, he heard it.

The sound of metal rattling.

Greg froze, looking up from his phone, staring down the block. Boardwalk Street saw the back of several stores and featured two small parking lots, indents in the street that hid the actual backs of the stores from sight- not helped by how far back Shirts 4 You extended.

A memory floated. Raccoons.

Well huh. He should. Probably look.

He stood there another minute before there was another rattle of metal and sighed, pressing his thumb into the power button of his phone to make it sleep and following the sound.

Is that… is that glowing?

He turned the corner of Shirts 4 You, staring across the little parking lot at the backs of the junky souvenir shop (the name of which he’d never bothered learning in the thirty some years he’d lived here), Fish Stew Pizza, and Beach Citywalk Fries.

And floating above the dumpster of the pizza place was-

The phone dropped to the concrete with a clatter and the white haired boy looked up from where he was reaching into the trash, green eyes locking with his.

For a second the world was still.

Then Greg blinked, and there was nothing there. How long he stood there he didn’t know, the buzzing of his phone the only thing to make it past the pounding in his ears.

Numbly, he bent and picked up the phone.

Hey dad, where are you? You okay?

With trembling fingers he tapped out a message.

Fine, sorry kiddo. Customer took too long. Just got him to leave. Be right there.

He looked up. The dumpster lid was now back in place. The sound he made was barely human.

Greg shoved his phone in his pocket, turned, and left.

——-

“You’re really not slick, dude.”

Greg startled, nearly dropping the bag. He fumbled it embarrassingly, only just managing to catch it by one of the loops in the plastic. A deep sigh came from above him, and he lifted his burning face to look into the eyes of the unimpressed teenager sitting in the tree.

How did he even climb that high? It wasn’t a very sturdy tree. Just the tallest one in the park. The thought made his gut knot. Please get down from there.

“Why are you following me?” His thin shoulders hunched, face tight, fists clenching.

Well this was sure going the exact opposite way he wanted it to.

“I- uh… wanted to give you this,” he admitted in defeat, setting the plastic bag down at the base of the tree. “Thought you could use it.”

“I’m not getting down.” Greg heard the real meaning crystal clear. I’m not getting within grabbing distance. “Throw it up to me if you want me to see it that bad.”

Well, it wasn’t exactly heavy, but… “You… sure it won’t unbalance you?”

“Try me.” The barest hint of smugness amidst the defensive suspicion.

Huh. Welp. “Okay, sure.” If he fell, Greg knew a guy who could repair anything. Even if he had to cushion the kid’s fall with his own body there’d be no lasting harm with Steven around, not really, and insisting the kid come down was not worth risking the boy running off. He threw the bag up.

The teenager caught it in one hand with an ease that surprised him. Shifting slightly, likely to ensure his butt was securely on the branch, he dared to let go of the tree with his other hand to open the bag, a few brightly-colored plastic bottles and a loofa staring up at him. “… This is-”

“There’s a public shower over by the beach. The beach open to the public, I mean. It’s a much better place to clean up than the ocean and it really will help you feel loads better.” He pointed at the direction of the beach, resisting the urge to shield his eyes from the setting sun. “We really get barely any tourists compared to Ocean Town, but we get just enough that nobody will think twice about you using the facilities. It’s May, after all. This is when tourist season starts.”

The boy lowered the bag a little, eyebrows shooting to the sky. It made his eyes look even bigger and his confusion even more child-like. “… Why?”

“Uh- why do we have a tourist scene? Beats me. Beach City’s a nice place, but it’s tiny and has less stuff than-”

“No I mean- why?” He gestured to the plastic bag in his lap.

“Oh, that.” He shrugged, doing his best to seem nonchalant. “You look like you could use a little help.”

“And you just… decided to help.” His voice was flat with disbelief.

Greg blinked. For a second he could’ve sworn his eyes were green.

Green. Green like-

Focus, Universe!

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t want anything.”

“Nope.”

“… I’m not sure if I believe that.”

Shit, he’d probably turned down the pizza offer too, then.

“Listen I know it sounds… weird. And I didn’t want to butt in, so I won’t ask. But I can help without having to know every detail, so… well, why not?”

The kid tilted his head to the side, chewing on his lip a little.

“If you ever wanna talk, you can find me at the car wash.” He pointed. “Can’t miss it. Out of the park down this way to Boardwalk Street, take a left to Thayer Street, walk up the block. It’s at the base of the giant hill, only thing on that side of the street, right next to the ocean.”

“… Mmhm.” He wasn’t looking at him. Okay, fair.

“See you around?” He gave the teenager a wave.

As he turned to leave, he heard a soft “See you around.”

——-

“Um- is this seat taken?”

Greg glanced up in surprise from his lawnchair at the voice. That surprise quickly turned into relief at the shock of messy hair, even if the teenager looked like he was trying to curl into himself while still standing. “Nope. Go ahead.”

He sat down on the other lawnchair, tucking his knees against his chest and glancing skywards.

For a few minutes all was quiet.

“… It’s a nice night.”

“Sure is,” Greg returned easily. “We get a lot of those around here, especially in summer.” The kid looked so sad and he ached to do something about it, but pouncing was ill-advised right now.

A star shot across the sky. Suddenly that pain became a look of sheer joy, the boy gasping in delight. Greg smiled. “Pretty, huh? Meteorites are aweso-”

“Meteors.”

“Mm?”

“Oh- uh-” The boy flushed. “They’re only meteorites if they don’t disintegrate before they hit the ground. Otherwise they’re meteors.”

“No kidding. What about comets, then?”

“Oh, those are like-” He held up his hands a width apart. “They’re small solar system bodies made out of ice, and when they get close to the sun, the sun warms them up, and that makes them start releasing gasses- it’s called outgassing? And that’s what makes them look like they do- although they don’t always get a tail.”

“The only comet I’ve ever heard about is Haley’s Comet,” Greg mused.

“Oh, we won’t see that again until 2061,” he chattered. “That comet only comes around every seventy-five years, give or take a year.”

“Well look at you, little astronomer!” Aw hell, that face was cute. It looked just like Steven’s when Steven was going off about music. “Okay, what do you know about other solar- bodies?” That was the term he’d used right? “In our solar system.”

“You- really wanna know?”

“Yeah!” For all his son was a space prince he knew dip about the solar system. “Lay it on me.”

“Oh- geez- where to start-! Okay, did you know a day on Venus is longer than an earth year? Uhhh- the footprints on the moon?” He pointed up, like Greg might’ve forgotten where the moon was. “Those’ll be there for a hundred million years- oh here’s a really cool one; if two pieces of the same kind of metal touch while in space, they permanently bond because the atoms straight up have no way of knowing that they’re separate! It doesn’t happen on earth because there’s air and water between the pieces.” He stretched out one foot, eyes locked on the starscape above, face practically glowing, hands moving as he spoke, as if trying to pluck the wonders he spoke of from the sky to show him. “The highest peak on any planet in our solar system is Olympus Mons, which is a giant volcano on Mars that’s like, three times as big as Everest! Neutron stars–those are the densest and littlest stars we know of so far–their radius is around six miles long but their mass might be several times greater than our own sun, and they might spin six hundred times a second because of their weird physics-”

Greg didn’t realize how hard he was smiling until Danny stopped, cheeks turning bright red.

“U-um- sorry, didn’t mean to just go off like that-”

Greg waved a hand. “It’s fine. I asked, right? Besides, that was all pretty cool.” He wondered how much Steven knew.

Quiet again.

“It really is a nice night,” the boy murmured.

“If you stick around, you’ll get used to them.”

The teenager’s back went rigid. “Uh-”

“Look,” Greg said with a slow sigh. He set aside his guitar. “… I don’t pretend to know exactly what your situation is. And I’m not demanding to know, either. I have some guesses-”

The blood drained from the boy’s face.

“-But! Well… I’d be a hypocrite if I turned you over to the police. I get it, I really do. But I’m a father, kiddo. I just… want you to be safe. Wherever that is, however that has to happen. Even if the law wouldn’t exactly be smiling at me for how that comes around.”

“… So you’re saying… you’re… not? Gonna call the police?”

“No. And frankly we’ve got enough weirdness going on here that I don’t think a lot of people will be too upset at something new if you just started hanging around. That’s what my son’s friend started doing, for days, and nobody questioned her. They all just assumed she’d just moved to Ocean Town nearby and, well, she had.”

“Son?” Now that his fear was easing, he was processing that. “You’ve got a son?”

“Yup.” He didn’t bother trying to hide the pride in his voice. “About your age, too. If you do start hanging around here, you can expect to run into him. He’s very much a people person. Spends a lot of time wandering town and usually ends up here at some point or another.”

“Huh.” There was something else in his face now, a look Greg recognized very much indeed. It took everything in him to not physically react to the yearning in his eyes. “… If he’s anything like you that… doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Steven is a million times my better, trust me,” he chuckled. “I know I’m his dad and it’s kind of my job to say that, but really, he is.”

“Heh…” the boy stretched his legs.

Silence.

“You got a place to sleep?”

The big, baby blues were defensive again. “Yeah.”

“Sleeping bag?”

“Mmhm.”

“… And you’re not lying?” he coaxed gently.

“No.” Though still lined with borderline aggressive caution, Greg could read his face well enough. He wasn’t lying.

“Okay. But if the weather ever gets really bad, come find me. We’ll figure something out- and it won’t be with me,” he added hastily as the boy quirked an eyebrow, drawing his legs in again. “You can crash with my son, maybe, or I’ll find somewhere else you’d feel safe in, but I wouldn’t try to make you stay in a space with me alone. I get it. Stranger danger.”

That got a head tilt. “He doesn’t live with you?”

“Ah- no.” That old pang, especially given recent events. “He lives with his mom’s relatives. It’s a sort of… joint custody thing, but we’re on good terms. He comes down and sees me all the time, and I go over there all the time. We cook together. Hang out. He’s fifteen minutes away by walking from here. I basically just don’t actually sleep there, really, unless he wants me to.”

And lately he’d wanted him to quite frequently. Especially after the other night. It had taken a minute of comfortable silence while eating for Greg to realize that if he’d only slept five hours, so had Steven, since Steven had gotten back from his walk not minutes before Greg finally passed out. Steven squirmed under his gentle questioning but caved quickly enough, admitting he’d had a nightmare and wanted to go clear his head. Even better, he didn’t resist Greg’s offer to stay over for the rest of the week.

That therapy sure was helping. Little steps. It hadn’t stopped the nightmares, and the boy still went pink occasionally, but Steven was opening up, accepting help. Greg was proud of him.

Now hopefully this kid would accept some manner of help, too.

… He probably should explain the magical aliens, huh. Then again, if the boy was hanging around Beach City so much…

Well it wasn’t like all the gems had humanoid anatomy to their forms. Hell, Bixbite had a claw! And the kid hung around Fish Stew Pizza often enough to have probably seen her.

“So have you seen the- uh-” He gestured out over the city. The boy blinked in confusion before understanding dawned on his face.

“Oh, you mean the literal aliens walking around.” He snorted at Greg’s face. “Well they’re not exactly subtle.”

“Uh- no, you’re right, they’re not,” he laughed weakly. “It’s a good thing the ones that look less human have the sense to avoid Beach City during the day during tourist season but there are slips now and again.”

“I’d say it’s kind of amazing the news hasn’t spread but like- aliens. Who’s gonna believe that.”

“Exactly. You have no idea how long that’s kept us safe.”

Something passed across his face, something grim and hard and understanding and wow it made a rock lodge in his gut. The look was gone in seconds, but some of that steel remained. The nod the boy gave was way too mature for a kid his age. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d imagine it’d be bad if it got out beyond Beach City. I won’t say anything.”

“We all appreciate that,” Greg said softly, still stunned. “Uh- thanks, kiddo.”

“Mmhm.” He stretched out again.

A breeze blew through, ruffled their hair.

“Danny.”

Greg’s head turned from the starscape above them. “'Scuse me?”

“Danny. My name’s Danny.”

“Nice to meet you, Danny. I’m Greg. Greg Universe.” He held out his hand across the divide of the lawn chairs. Danny studied it for a moment before taking it.

“It’s… been nice to meet you too.” A hint of a grin. “Universe? Really?”

He flushed. “Ah, well- bit of a story, tha-”

“How’d you manage to land the coolest last name in the world? You and your kid get 'Universe’ and I get something dorky as hell? That’s not fair.”

Greg stared at him for a moment before laughing.

He liked this kid already.

#danny phantom #phicc #steven universe #greg universe #danny fenton #steven quartz universe #su greg #su steven #steven universe future spoilers #suf spoilers #my writing

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eirabach · 5 years ago

Text

Dangerous Games [2/2]

Oh my God, finally.

This fic really really wanted to be 200k of pining and zero plot. I managed to cut it down to just under 30k. You’re... welcome? I guess? I don’t really know if anyone will read it, but if you’re brave enough to do so I wish you godspeed. See you on the flip side! I really really hope the read more works.

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go

Rating: M

Wordcount: This part, 15k give or take 80.

AO3: Here

Summary:

In which Penelope plots, and lives to regret it. Possibly.

But then again, possibly not.

[or, Pen and Ink versus TOS episode The Cham-Cham. Except with hardly anything in common with The Cham-Cham. I don’t make the rules. They do.]

He sleeps, which surprises him. So does she, and that surprises him even more.

He wakes up to find that she’s tucked herself against him in the night, her hand pillowed under his shoulder, her cheek pressed into his chest, and every muscle is screaming at him to move, move goddamnit, but there’s a pretty solid chance he’ll never move again.

Penelope shifts in her sleep, her brow furrowing, her other hand coming up to twist in the cotton of his t shirt, and honestly if he died right now he’d be a pretty happy guy. Maybe a touch too happy. He tries to shift his hips away without waking her, but she just tightens her grip, her leg curling around his, her nails sharp where they scratch against bare flesh.

Aw, shit .

He squeezes his eyes tight shut and mentally recites Four’s start up sequence until he starts to lose all feeling in his arm. And, luckily, elsewhere.

“Pen?”

Nothing.

“Penny? Lady P?”

He opens one eye and squints down at her. Her face is soft in sleep, her lips gently parted, and he feels real bad but his fingers are starting to turn blue.

“Penelope, we have a situation.”

“Wh - Gordon?”

“The very same.” She blinks up at him for a moment, then sits bolt upright, her elbow making solid contact with his stomach as she does so. “Ouch! Damn, Penny!”

“Oh! Oh, I am sorry.” She looks around, hair sticking to her cheek. “What’s the situation?”

“It’s morning?” He nods toward the windows where dawn’s red light is filtering through the voiles. “I uh - thought you might want to know.”

“Well thank you for the alarm, I think.” She moves to get out of bed, then stops and turns back to him. “I’ll be out with Vishkin most of today. He wants to go skiing.”

Gordon balks at this for at least half a dozen reasons, foremost amongst them being that he has no particular wish to have Penelope out of his sight when Vishkin is around. Of course if he dares to tell her that he’ll be subject to another possibly well-deserved tirade, so he decides to go for wounded pride instead.

“Oh come on , you know I’m a better skier than you!”

“ Alan is a better skier than me. You cheat.”

“I don’t!”

“Gordon, snowball fights?”

“Strategy, Pen.”

“Well.” She huffs, and climbs out of bed. “Once was enough. And anyway, look at you. I can’t let you out on the slopes.”

Gordon follows her eyeline to the exposed skin of his stomach. The bruises are yellow and green now, fading away at his hip, but they’re still enough to have Penny folding her arms over her chest, her eyes fire.

“I’m -”

“Don’t. Even. Try.” She reaches for Pauline’s wig and heads for the bathroom. “Besides, I have another use for you.”

---

A Saturday morning spent propping up a free bar in a beautiful location. It would have been perfect, pretty much, if it weren’t for the company.

Parker grouses at him from the end of the bar, a constant litany of displeased muttering, and the other staff aren’t exactly up for a chat. He tries to watch the holovision, but the news is barely worth the name and every panel show is a repeat.

He gives up, wanders into the kitchens around lunchtime and makes a couple of sandwiches. They’re tasteless and sit heavy in his belly. He hadn’t expected this to be so boring .

He had expected Penny to check in.

“You look cheerful.”

He almost drops the renements of his sandwich as he hops to his feet, brushing crumbs off his sweater vest before he holds out a hand to Margot Mearns.

“Ms Mearns! I - is everything okay? Can I - do you want a sandwich?”

“Tempting,” she drawls, looking down at the renements of his, “But I’m fine.”

She’s nothing like the nervous, quiet creature who’d arrived on Vishkin’s arm. She drapes herself over the bar and clicks her fingers in the direction of Parker who drops his glass cloth with the altricity of a man used to following demands.

“Gin and tonic,” she tells him, then, with a sideways look at Gordon and a little smirk. “Make that two.”

“Oh I really - “ But Parker’s already sliding two glasses along the bar and glaring balefully at Gordon over that stupid moustache. Ingratiate yourself, Penny had said. He may need the lubrication. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” She takes one of the glasses and knocks the drink back in a single gulp. Even Parker’s eyes widen. “I’m not paying for it.”

She signals for another, then eyes Gordon’s drink, the bubbles having barely settled. “You going to drink that?”

“Uh,” Gordon nods quickly and takes a sip. Parker hasn’t been stingy with his measures and he’s not used to much more than the odd light beer, so it’s not really surprising that he struggles to hold back a cough. “Uh - wow.”

Margot looks down at him along the length of her precision perfect nose. “Your wife says you’ve hurt yourself.”

“Yeah - yeah, a bit. I need to stay off the slopes, take it easy, y’know?”

“Colin will be delighted .” She takes a solid gulp of her second drink. “She’s very pretty.”

“Pardon?”

“Your wife, Paula?”

“P - Pauline.”

“Very pretty. Colin will be pleased to have her to himself for a bit.”

“I uh -”

She pats his hand and knocks back the rest of the gin.

“Oh don’t panic, he never keeps them.”

“Sounds like a real swell guy.”

“Where are you from, Kansas? Yeah he’s a swell guy alright.” She takes a compact from her purse then pulls a little wrap of white powder from her bra and empties its contents on to the mirror. “Want some?”

Gordon’s pretty sure that if his dad has a grave he’s spinning in it.

“Uh -”

She shrugs, and moves to cut a line. “Your loss.”

Yeah, in more ways than one.

“I was a big fan, by the way. When I was a kid.”

She looks at him then, suddenly shrewd. “You still look like a kid to me. Tell me, Gerald -”

“Greg.”

“Gerald. Tell me. What do you think my manager and your wife are up to right at this moment?”

International espionage , or at least he very much hopes so.

Stick to the script, Gordon. He shrugs, tries to keep his expression neutral. He’s not too sure how Penelope wants him to play this game, but he’s going to have to pick up strategy as he goes along.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure, skiing?”

Margot’s smile grows wider, something cat-like in the narrowing of her eyes.

“Uh huh, come here. Let me tell you a secret.” She grabs a fist full of his sweater and pulls him to her. Her breath is hot against his ear and he struggles not to recoil. “Colin has never skied in his life .” She sits back, satisfied, and cuts another line. “Why on earth would he start now.”

“She’s not that sort of girl.”

“Do you know how many times I’ve heard that? How many times I’ve said it? Lemme tell you, if Colin wants you to be something, you become it. And sharp, too.”

“Not Pauline.” He shakes his head. “She’s one of a kind.”

Margot’s smile is full of pity, and topped with a tiny smear of white powder.

“He used to say that about me, you know. Funny thing is, when you say it, I almost believe it.”

“Hey, I’m an honest guy.”

She grimaces, bitterness suffusing her every word. “No such thing.”

“Hey.” He rests his hand lightly on her wrist before she can return to the dregs on her mirror for a third time. “If you want to talk…”

She laughs, and for the first time it actually sounds like genuine amusement.

"You're cute, Gavin. I can see why she likes you."

---

Penelope has never been jealous in her life. She’s never had any need for it having never coveted anything that she couldn’t have in a heartbeat, but there’s an unwelcome seething in her stomach at the way Gordon’s hand rests on Margot Mearns’ wrist. It’s uncouth. Unbecoming. Unacceptable.

“Parker? Be a dear and escort Ms Mearns to her room will you? She looks a little overtired, and we have so very many things to arrange. Mr Vishkin is waiting."

Gordon’s leaning forward, speaking lowly enough that Penelope can’t make out the words, and Mearns laughs, high and clear. Parker raises an eyebrow.

“She looks right enough to me, milady.”

“As requested, please Parker. And tell Greg that I require his assistance post haste.”

Parer looks down his nose at her, and she stiffens her spine in the face of his obvious disapproval.

“At once, mi- Mrs Jones.”

He slopes off to do the deed, but not before Mearns leans toward Gordon and drops a kiss to his cheek. Gordon looks gobsmacked. Penelope feels her stomach turn to stone.

Some of the tension slips from her shoulders as Mearns follows him from the room but it only fades completely when Gordon approaches, waggling his eyebrows, his eyes sparkling for her. Mine , her heart snaps. Mine.

“‘Sup? I hear I’m wanted.”

She doesn’t bother replying to the innuendo, only nods after Parker’s retreating back.

“You seemed to be getting along swimmingly.”

Gordon grins. “It is my strong suit.”

“Undoubtedly. Did you discover anything about our erstwhile guests?”

"Plenty of trouble in paradise by the sounds of it. How were the slopes?"

"Powdery. Trouble you say?"

"Seems old Vishkin isn't treating his lady as well as he ought to be."

Penelope suppresses a shudder at the memory of Vishkin's hand against her lower back. "Well that is a surprise."

"I know right? Who'd have thought. But Pen, do you think we could use that?"

Before she'd decided to bring Gordon, using Vishkin's sexual inconstancy against him had absolutely been in the plan, but that doesn't make her any less shocked to have Gordon be the one to suggest it, especially after his reaction the previous night. It stings a part of her she rarely bothers to notice.

"Gordon you don't like him touching my shoulder, I can hardly expect you to keep up the cover if -"

" Whoa whoa Whoa, wait, what ? I absolutely did not mean, Jesus Pen. What do you take me for?"

And of course the thought wouldn't have occured to him. That's why she - that's why she cares so deeply for all the Tracy boys. Those ridiculously big hearts and fantastical belief in the goodness of others. She's never been entirely sure she quite fits in.

"I'm teasing, darling," she says, bright smile to hide the shadow of the lie. "Now how about I fill you in on our guest's current business plans. Would you believe he's practically bankrupt?"

---

Gordon doesn't have much to do with Tracy Industries finances. As long as there's enough money in the pot to fixup his sub every time some crazy guy smashes it to smithereens he's more than happy to leave that to Scott. Or John. Or Grandma. Anyone else.

Ten minutes in Penelope's company and he knows the ins and outs of every disastrous business deal and musical flop that Vishkin has faced in the last six years.

It's a lot. Penelope's a lot. Her face is flushed and her smile is wide and there's a horrible little slug of jealousy crawling up behind his breastbone and into his throat.

"You got all that from skiing with him?"

She beams up at him, eyes shining. He feels a bit sick. "I'm terribly good at my job, darling."

"I knew that."

"Did you indeed." She seems to find it funny. He wonders if it is. "We have fifteen guests flying in for tomorrow night. They're private charters so I need to ensure their pilots have all the correct paperwork."

"You mean make sure they're on your payroll."

She pats his cheek fondly. "You're catching on!"

"So what's the plan?"

Penelope furrows her brow, attention on something over his shoulder. There's noise in the distance - raised voices followed by the splintering of glass. When she speaks again her voice is hushed and urgent.

"What do you think about poor Ms. Mearns? Do you think she's the type to open her heart to our dear Greg?"

Gordon grimaces slightly. The whole thing is starting to leave an unpleasant taste in his mouth. "I can give it a try. I'm probably not going to - well - y'know."

Penelope wrinkles her nose in distaste. "I should hope not. Verne!" Verne, a tall dark haired guy who's been casually painting the same six square feet of walk for the past hour and a half, trots over to Penny with the sort of alcracity that only ex members of the military possess. "Verne will you be a dear and keep an eye on Greg's virtue? We are very recently married, you know. It would be a shame to spoil it."

He stares at her. Verne doesn’t seem perturbed in the least. Gordon isn’t entirely sure Verne would know how to look perturbed if his life depended on it. It’s weird. This whole thing is super weird. "Are you asking him to spy on me?"

"Gordon, darling," she says with the sort of pained patience he usually associated with Virgil after six hours out. "That is literally his job."

"It is, sir," says Verne, staring at a point three inches above Gordon's head. "If it helps sir, I think she likes you."

Gordon scoffs. "Everybody likes me."

"I don't like you," mutters Parker as he passes by, dirty glasses in hand. "I think you're a bleedin' liability."

Penny scowls. "Nonsense. Parker do keep your nose out . Gordon is doing exactly as I'd hoped."

"You hoped I'd get wasted with pop stars?"

The room seems to be spinning. Parker mixes one hell of a drink.

"If she trusts you, she's our in. You only need to encourage her."

Parker snorts. Verne's lip ticks upwards at the corner. And Gordon knows better, he does, but there’s a part of him - deep and dark and buried - that just can’t help himself. It’s the part of him that pranks Scott, that dives, that holds his breath that little bit longer, that just wants to try it and see .

"Is that what you've been doing, getting Vishkin to trust you?"

Penny goes to answer - something glib, he expects, a casual brush off - then stops. Scowls.

"I've been doing my job." She lifts her thumb and rubs at the mark Margot's left on his face. Frosted pink stains the pad of it and she looks down at it in distaste. "Parker? A word."

She stamps back outside, Parker morosely following, and Gordon is left standing in the great hall with Verne, silent protector of his virtue.

He wonders if Verne will be any better at it than Virgil ever was.

He hopes so.

---

It doesn’t take a genius to see the difference in Margot Mearns whenever Vishkin is around. They return to the bar together, Vishkin’s ruddy cheeks and booming laugh in stark contrast to the silent, wraithlike Mearns, and it’s enough to give Gordon whiplash. Where she’d been snide and bitter and a little bit scary she’s cowed and quiet and he hadn’t really liked her before, but now he really doesn’t like Vishkin one bit.

Whatever kind of person Margot really is, it’s not the person she is on Vishkin’s arm.

Verne has stopped his painting and moved to hanging great curtains of fairy lights around the bar itself - a ruse, Gordon suspects, to keep an eye on Gordon himself as he shuffles behind it and puts on what he hopes is his most ingratiating grin.

“Can’t get the staff these days I tell ya! What’ll it be, folks?”

"A hit, if you don't mind!" Vishkin laughs, his belly shaking, and Gordon notes the way Margot cringes away from the movement.

"Gin," she breathes. Vishkin deflates. Gordon does as he's told.

"Margot, sweetheart," he soothes, his big hand covering hers before she can reach for the drink. "Just try won't you? For me? I do so much for you."

Margot grabs her drink with her other hand and throws it back.

"Fine," she half whispers in a tone that suggests anything but, "you need to leave."

"Margot -"

"Now!" It's a shout do incongruous that both Vishkin and Gordon start in shock. Vishkin recovers quickly enough to eye Gordon suspiciously.

"I guess I'll go see if I can find my lovely ski instructor. Don't drink too much. You know how you get."

Margot says nothing, but mulishly finishes her drink. Gordon busies himself making another and Vishkin leaves only to be replaced almost at once by the big bald guy who appears as if from nowhere, brandishing a piano stool. Gordon wonders vaguely where they're hiding - how many of them are listening in to his every word. Still, bald guy sets the stool down and scuttles back off to god knows where, and Gordon is left to play gentleman.

"Take a seat. You wanna - you wanna talk about it?"

Margot drops heavily down on the stool and glares at the piano as though it’s mortally offended her, a single crease between her eyebrows. “I’m trying to write. I can never write when I try.”

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Why?”

“Why?” She laughs bitterly. “Because Colin is determined to have another album out of me. That’s the whole point of this little trip. Spoil me, show me off. Remind his friends that I exist. Like anyone in the music business cares about a woman over forty. Like I can even remember how to play . God, it’s been years. Years.”

Her anger and her breath all seem to escape at once and Margot rests her fingers on the keys ever so lightly, as if to touch them would break whatever spell she’s fallen under. It’s an opportunity, he thinks, though he isn’t quite sure for what. Only that Margot Mearns looks in serious need of rescue, and well, that’s kind of his job.

“You know my brother plays the piano. He’s pretty good.”

And just like that, he breaks it for her.

“That’s cute,” she says but clearly doesn’t mean, and reaches for her drink. A discordant noise echoes through the hall. “Does he want a job?”

“Nah - I mean. He’s got one of those. Like, really got one. I guess he plays to relax. He always says you can’t force music. It’s a feeling, y’know?”

Margot snorts. “Quite the philosopher. I bet he’d be crazy annoying on tour anyway.”

“You think he’s right though? Maybe you just aren’t feeling it.”

“Do you know how I do feel? Too damn sober, that’s what.” She throws back the drink and Gordon winces.

“No offence, Ms Mearns, but I kinda don’t think that’s likely.”

She doesn’t really answer him, only clicks her fingers and points at the piano lid. Big bald guy obligingly sweeps her empty glass away and leaves a margarita in its place.

“I mean - when Vi- when Victor is feeling kinda shitty he hammers out all these old tunes my mom used to play us. Like all this folk revival stuff from when she was a kid? Maybe - I don’t know, is there something you could play to maybe… loosen those emotions up a bit?”

“I don’t know if you’re trying to help or if you’re always this annoying.”

“Pretty much both.”

“I bet you do yoga.”

“I’m very flexible.”

She sighs, and shuffles over on the piano stool. “Sit.”

“Um -”

“ Sit .” Gordon does so, and Margot hovers her hands over the keys. “If you’re going to be obnoxiously positive you can sit here and play muse to me for a bit. Your wife won’t mind. Colin’s keeping her busy.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

She turns her head, her eyes narrowed. “You know, you really don’t act like a host. I could buy this place. I could buy you .”

Gordon knows for an absolute fact that that isn’t the case, but he attempts to look chastised anyway.

“Sorry? This isn’t really my strong point. Pauline’s the expert, I’m just here for the ride.” And that, that’s not even a lie.

“No.” Margot lifts one hand and idly tugs at a lock of hair behind his ear. Gordon’s heart rate ticks up, just briefly, and he wonders if Penny’s spies will report this back too. “No, it’s okay. I like it.”

“Maybe that’s where you should start,” he hazards. “With what you like.”

“And what will that achieve?” she half snorts.

Gordon risks a smile. “How will you know unless you try?”

“Try being happy and you will be?” She laughs. “Spoken like a true innocent.”

“Yeah, “ he says as she turns back to the keys. “Yeah. Maybe.”

---

Penelope cooks like she was taught by a cordon bleu chef, because she was.

Supper consists of a tiny tartlet drizzled in something unctuous, sides of gently grilled vegetables neatly stacked like cordwood on the fine bone china plates, and an atmosphere you could cut with a knife.

Mearns picks at her food, turning it around and around on her plate. Her eyes are bloodshot, her fingers shake, and there's a dusting of white powder in the ends of Gordon's hair. He's trying to keep up a conversation, bless him, but Mearns has nothing to say with Vishkin in the room, and Penelope is keeping Vishkin busy.

His tablet flashes constantly on the table in front of him, messages gently curated and occasionally created to ensure he's never allowed to forget even for a moment his precarious financial position. He's sweating, his food forgotten, and he speaks only to snap at Mearns as she requests another, expensive, drink.

Vishkin is getting desperate, and desperate men get sloppy.

“Colin, please -”

He stands, shoving his food away, his tablet crashing to the floor followed by half a bottle of good wine that splatters over his too shiny shoes and up the legs of his too cheap trousers. “Please? Please? Haven’t I - Don’t I do enough ?!”

“Hey!” Gordon’s on his feet now, and Vishkin’s got six inches on him but righteous anger makes him the bigger person in the room by far. “Don’t speak to her like that!”

“Who the hell do you think you are!”

“Mr Vishkin! I’m so sorry -” Her turn, her role to lay a restraining hand on Gordon’s thigh and turn a beseeching expression on the other man. She beckons to Parker, who hovers, like all good staff, just at the edge of the drama. “Let my man clean that up for you.”

“Forget it,” he spits, turning on his heel. “For get it! Margot, come.”

He leaves, all bile and dripping wine stains, and Mearns stays. Her eyes are wide and adoring as she looks up at Gordon, and Penelope buries the sickness it brings beneath the thrill of success.

“Margot?” She lowers her voice. Confidential. A confidante. Gordon turns to her, but Mearns doesn’t. Mearns has eyes only for Gordon. Penelope can see the cracks spreading across her surface.

“Do you - did you mean what you said earlier?”

“About what?”

“Being happy.”

Penelope knows this - she’d been listening, down in the little boat shed by the lake, listening through the old-fashioned radio hidden in the old boat as the man she - as Gordon told Mearns stories about his mother that she’s never heard, as he laughed along to songs she doesn’t remember. So she knows, what he said about being happy. About how you have to just try , no matter what the odds. She knows. She doesn’t know if it’s worked on Mearns the way it has worked on her. She can feel Gordon watching her but she keeps her own eyes fixed on Mearns, waiting for the opportunity to turn those cracks into a fissure.

“Does he make you happy?”

“What do you think?” It’s scoffed out, a half sob, and if Penelope could allow herself to feel anything right now it might be pity. “I can’t get away from him, Greg. I can’t.”

“Maybe,” Gordon’s voice is cautious, so she allows herself a tiny nod. Go ahead. Ask. “Maybe, we can help you?”

“You? How ?”

“Tell us, Margot. Tell us about the people. Let us help them. Let us help you .”

And Margot looks up at Thunderbird Four, her big eyes wet with tears, and Penelope -

Penelope smiles.

---

That night in the half breath before sleeping she tells him, "You know I think she's half in love with you."

"Who isn't?" he says, cocksure. Then, "She's not the one for me, Pen."

"No. No I should hope not."

It feels a bit like she might be trying, then.

---

The guests arrive in a series of private cars all with serious faced drivers who nod at Penny as they pass. The guests themselves pay them no mind, instead falling over themselves to greet Vishkin who holds court in the chalet's hall like a king.

Knowing what he does about the state of Vishkin's kingdom it reminds Gordon of the mass frenzy of little creatures that descend on the sinking corpse of a once great whale.

Penny watches too, her eyes narrow. Her hands folded neatly in front of her black satin dress, her posture perfect.

Knowing her as he dies, Gordon can sense the nerves coming from her in waves. Margot had told them between sobs of a shipment due to be dropped off tonight in the midst of the Indian Ocean, and from there to be ferried to those prepared to pay for an ounce or more of human flesh. He’d been disgusted, Penelope had been calm, Margot had asked for nothing but their secrecy - a promise he still doesn’t know if Penelope intends to keep.

"Remember. Secure the shipment, keep Vishkin distracted, notify Headquarters. Understood?"

That's all this is, now. An exercise in time wasting until the shipment is safely in GDF hands and GCHQ give permission to swoop in on Vishkin and put him away for good.

"Oh, totally. Got it. You look beautiful by the way."

She pats at the skirt of her dress, her nose wrinkling. "I'll do."

She sweeps away, the perfect hostess, and Parker appears at his elbow, a silver platter on his arm.

"Canapé, Mr Greg?"

Penelope approaches Vishkin, her arms outstretched, and Gordon's stomach sinks like lead. Distraction.

"Suit yourself," mutters Parker before stuffing one in his own mouth and disappearing into the glittering crowd. He’s caught by Margot, resplendent in sequins, and Gordon watches as she pulls him down to whisper urgently into his ear. Music strikes up from the speakers, staff whip guests coats away and return with trays of drinks, and it begins.

---

It's strange, the way there are two parties going on in one room and with Gordon both at the center and absent from both of them. It reminds him uncomfortably of the weeks of missed calls, of mission briefs given over and around him, and it makes his heart ache for island air and the roar of engines.

Penny dances at the edge of his eyeline, delivering drinks and instructions and all with a glint in her eye that smacks of a purpose Gordon misses with half his soul. The other half is lost to him, hanging in the spaces between her laughter and caught in the touch of her hand.

They've succeeded, Margot's evidence and the shipment they're to intercept enough to get Vishkin tucked away for many years, but there's still a sense of something lingering. Unfinished business.

Squid sense on high alert and a room full of liars to test it on, Gordon makes the executive decision to go get a drink. He's probably going to need it.

Luckily it's the big bald guy who makes it since his heads too much of a mess for any of Parker's overdone cocktails, and luckier still he knocks it back just as the music pauses, Penny moving toward him as Vishkin hands Margot the mic to polite applause.

She smiles like a shark, all teeth and no eyes, and he wonders if anyone else in the room even notices or if they're all too busy hiding their own secrets behind makeup and glitter and the greater good. She's good, hell give her that. She holds the room in the palm of her hand and it's hard to believe she's been dragged into this against her will.

Margot beams that liar's smile around the room and sweeps her skirts aside to sit at the piano.

"If you'll forgive me the indulgence," she says, "this is an oldie, but - ah." She laughs her tinkling laugh. A showgirls laugh, blisters and pain hidden behind the sparkle. "Someone told me it was a goodie. What would I know."

The staccato hits, and Gordon feels his heart lurch uncomfortably.

Heaven help a fool who falls in love, indeed.

Penny's half a step behind him, champagne flute in hand, and he barely even registers he's taking it from her before it's gone and her lips are pursed as though she's trying not to smile.

"Do you mind? I rather think I earned that."

He isn't denying it, but this feels like a moment and he's not letting this one pass him by.

"Dance with me?"

She's looking at him like this is definitely a moment. His heart skips once, twice…

And then his hand is in hers.

---

It would be a lie to say she thought he'd never ask; patience isn't one of her virtues.

She takes him by the hand and leads him, not to the centre of the dance floor where the guests mingle and sway, but to a shadowy corner hidden from Parker's prying eyes by the mass of the crowd. In her heels it's barely a stretch to rest her forearms on his shoulders and press her chest against his.

His eyes flicker downward at the motion and she treasures the little thrill that runs through her. Jeff Tracy raised his boys to be gentlemen, not monks .

"My team are tracking the package as we speak," she half whispers, "as soon as we have a location we'll have Vishkin."

"And Margot?" Gordon's hands hover either side of her hips, and really must a girl do everything herself? She lets her arms slip from his shoulders and run down his biceps. A gentle squeeze and a shift of her weight as the tempo changes and she rather loses her train of thought.

"Hmm?"

“Is she gonna be okay?”

Okay is a loaded term. Privately, Penelope thinks not. Margot Mearns has spent most of her life around Colin Vishkin or men very like him. Powerful men who made her powerful in turn. Covered her in diamonds and compliments and cold, hard cash. Penelope has seen enough in her own life to know that Margot’s propensity for little wraps of white powder may be the easier addiction to break.

“We will look after her,” she says instead, loathe to bring the mood down any more than she needs to. “Will that do?”

“I guess.” A beat, and his hand is firm against her lower back, drawing her closer as she allows herself to melt into him. “She tried to do the right thing in the end. That ought to count for something.”

Penelope sighs, and lets her eyes drift shut as they sway. “You do insist on thinking the best of everyone, don’t you.”

A smothered snort of laughter is followed by the gentlest of pressures on the crown of her head. “That’s me, the eternal optimist.”

“And do you find that your faith pays off?”

“I dunno.” He releases her, spins her around and pulls her back in to face him. “You tell me.”

The final notes of the song die away and leave in their wake a silence that seems to shudder within her, the ringing in her ears louder than any music. Champagne bubbles linger, tart on her tongue, and Gordon’s hand is warm and solid in hers.

From across the room, Parker gives her a nod.

Finished.

It’s finished.

And then Gordon’s squeezing her hand and Vishkin is cheering drunkenly and she thinks, no. No, it’s not.

It is, however, highly unprofessional the way she throws herself into Gordon, crushes her lips against his and swallows the shocked little sound he makes as she knocks all the air from his lungs. There’s bound to be a lot of paperwork. She does hope Parker’s taking notes.

Someone's hollering, wolf whistles echoing around the room, and if the way she pulls his tie loose serves to encourage them all the better, because he's kissing her back as though his life depends on it and she needs to get out of here.

Secure the shipment.

Create a distraction.

Call headquarters.

Two out of three is a solid start.

Gordon groans against her mouth and moves to cradle the back of her head in his hand.

He's going to pull her wig off.

She needs him to make that noise again.

"Get a room!" someone bellows, and there's a mumble of scattered laughter as she finally pulls away.

She's breathing heavily, but Gordon looks like he might faint. Oh well. In for a penny.

The music starts up again - recorded, now, Margot seems to have disappeared - and the guests turn away to look after their own interests again.

"Come with me?"

"Anywhere."

She beams. "The bedroom will do."

She half expects him to whoop, but instead there's just some little half sigh half whimper that makes her dash for the door just a little quicker.

Not quite quickly enough, unfortunately.

Parker clears his throat from the shadows, and Penelope tightens her grip.

"Pardon the intrusion," he says in a tone that suggests no such thing, "but the shipment?"

"Call it in," she says, "I'll -"

"I'll deal with it," Parker says, his expression one of abject misery. "You have… other doings, I h'xpect "

She releases Gordon just long enough to sweep Parker into a hug he has no time to return.

"Thank you, you darling man."

"Hmmph," he mumbles, expression unchanged. "Shall I tell them you were urgently called away?"

"Oh yes!" She calls over her shoulder, pulling Gordon behind her into the night as Parker disappears back into the party. "Very urgently indeed!"

---

It's bitterly cold outside, she's sure,but she doesn't feel it. The two of them stumble the hundred yards or so to their chalet in a tangle of limbs, practically falling through the door and slamming into the dresser with enough force to take Penelope's breath away - if she had any to spare.

She's torn his tie lose, shoving the jacket from his shoulders as his fingers fumble with the tiny buttons on the back of her dress.

"S'ok?" he manages as the first one comes loose and his jacket hits the floor. "Wanna stop?"

She doesn’t want to stop. Doesn’t have any intention of doing so - not now. Not when it’s taken so very terribly long to start. Not with his mouth at her throat and her hands in his hair and God but hasn’t she wondered what his laugh would feel like, puffed out in unbelieving breaths against the line of her collarbone? Hasn’t she dreamt of curling her fingers in sunbleached waves and daring him lower?

But the hair between her fingers is all wrong and it makes her hot blood freeze instantly. There's something she's forgotten, something terribly important, and she doesn’t want to stop, but she has to. She has to. Damn it all though, she just wants to try .

“Gordon -”

The worst part is how she doesn’t even have to say it.

The tiniest shift in her body, the merest trace of distress in her voice and he’s away from her in moments - half a room away and flushed the colour of Thunderbird Three. He rubs at his hair, that stupid hair, and stares, determined, at a point somewhere in the vicinity of Penelope’s left foot.

In that moment, she’s reasonably sure she feels her heart crack.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Pen - Lady Penelope - I really -”

“Don’t apologise.”

“But - I - “

“I believe I grabbed you . It ought to be me apologising.”

“Don’t.” He shifts his weight from foot to foot and scrubs at his eyes with a shaky hand. The half laugh he lets out makes her want to cry. “Jesus. Don’t apologise.”

Well now, of course, she must. And in doing so she must admit the truth of all of this - to him, even if not to herself.

Girlish nonsense, her Grandmother would have called it.

Would that it felt like it. Nonsense, she can laugh off. She cannot laugh off the look in his eyes, nor the pang in her chest.

“We mustn’t -”

“Yeah,” he holds his hands up. Surrender. She hates it. “Yeah no I super got that part, it’s fine, it’s - I mean -” he laughs again, and she hates that even more. “God I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not.”

“I really, actually think I am. It’s pathological, apparently. Ask John.”

“I could,” she says. Whispers, actually. “That's the problem you see. I could.”

---

Gordon’s spent the majority of his adult life submerged in icy water, but it’s never hit him as hard as this.

“What?”

Penny wrings her hands together, hair falling in her face, sweater askew, and he’d be amazed at seeing her so discombobulated - at having done that - if only he had the faintest clue what was going on.

“John’s watching,” she says again, and she won’t meet his eyes and she won’t make any sense because John isn’t watching. In fact Gordon can categorically state for an actual fact that John would rather blind himself with a rusty spoon than watch any of the events likely to unravel following a kiss like that. They’d hear his shrieks through the vaccuum .

Gordon knows this.

And Penny promised.

"It was the only way, you see."

" What was the only way?"

She reaches past him to the bedside table and tips up the communicator. A small green light flashes up at him.

"The disruptor?"

Penelope bites her lip. "Isn't. Not entirely."

Gordon's brain stops. Reverses. Replays the night of their arrival.

"You lied about it?"

"I didn't think it would matter. It was Scott's preference." She just out her chin, and the action sets the confusion and stymied desire bubbling in his belly until the coalesce into something like anger.

Of course it's Scott. Listening in. Probably Virgil, too. Definitely Alan.

God, they'll have been taking bets.

“So, what? What are you telling me? That we’ve been on an open comm link to the island all this time?” Gordon looks around wildly. “Are they watching now? Am I starring in one of Grandma’s Space Operas? Hey, Grandma!” He cups his hands around his mouth and calls up to the ceiling. “Hope you didn’t burn the popcorn!”

“Gordon, please - “

“Gordon please what?” his voice is cold, colder than he meant it to be, but he takes a certain grim satisfaction in the way she winces as it hits her.

“It wasn’t intentional.”

“Penelope, you astound me on a minute by minute basis, but even I can’t believe you’d accidentally keep a secure communication line running when you’ve blocked every other transmission in or out of this place.”

“No - No that was - the lie wasn’t intentional. I didn’t set out to deceive you. I was going to tell you but you seemed so happy - it's not the island. It's only John.” Penelope wrings her hands together, her eyes darting between him and the holocomm as though undecided which offers the greater threat, and Gordon’s anger deflates into something close to defeat.

Only John, she says. Like the guy running the most effective communication monitoring device in the galaxy isn't an absolute gossip hound. As though he will ever, ever let Gordon live this down.

As though there was going to be anything to live down.

“Of course I was happy. I was here with you .” He shakes his head. “Shit, Penny. It isn’t rocket science. You don’t need Brains to figure this one out.”

“You said - about John -”

“Yeah, well.” Gordon drops into the wicker chair by the window. “Yeah, it was nice to think we’d actually get to spend some time alone. You know how I feel about you. If you didn’t - if you don’t - all you had to do was say so. You don’t need John to chaperone .” He laughs bitterly. “You’ve got Parker for that.”

“He shouldn’t have come. I don't need a chaperone. I don't want one."

Gordon rubs his hand across his eyes. He’s suddenly exhausted, tired beyond measure of all of this, but mainly just tired of pretending. Scott was right. Again. He isn’t cut out for this.

“I can’t even figure out what that’s meant to mean, Pen. Not everything has to be all intrigue and secrets. Some things are just better if you just let them be .”

“I don’t know if I know how to do that.”

There’s something in her voice, something beyond guilt or unhappiness or denial or any of the dozen other things he might have expected to hear. It’s honesty, real and seering and shocking.

“Sure you do,” he says without thinking, then, as he watches her, “don’t you?”

“That’s the thing about you, Gordon,” she says, stepping up to the chair and reaching for his hand. “You’re - everything is so horribly straightforward with you. You know who you are. You know how to - you’re just so much better at this than I am, darling.” She sniffs, and he realises with dawning horror that she’s barely restraining tears. "So much better.”

"I really feel like that's not true."

Penny smiles weakly and he can't help but smile back.

"No?"

"Nah I mean - for a start if I was any good at this we really wouldn’t need this much of an excuse."

Penny looks up at him through her lashes.

“Is that what this is? I thought we were bringing down an international smuggling ring.”

He stands up, moving close enough to tangle the fingers of his left hand through the ends of her hair. He taps the side of his nose with his other hand.

“What a cover, eh?”

Penny sways into him, his wedding ring catching in the carefully constructed curls.

“A double bluff, then?”

“Something like that.” He thumbs gently at her chin. There’s a smear of lipstick at the corner of her mouth. He wonders if he has it’s twin. “Gotta play both sides to guarantee a win.”

“Spoken like a true middle child.”

“Yeah, well, in my family the middle child is John .”

“I wouldn’t do this with John.”

Penny drops the communicator to the ground and he hears the crunch of electronics underfoot, but he hasn’t the time to worry about that - not when her arms are round his neck, her mouth hot against his own.

She pushes him back towards the edge of the bed, only pulling away as his thighs hit the mattress. Pauline’s wig is discarded in a heap at her feet, followed immediately by the little black dress.

Oh.

Oh shit .

She doesn't want a chaperone.

“Well uh - no I mean - you’re not really his - “ Penny slides one pale knee onto the bed, and pushes him back with two fingers. He’s still mostly dressed in Greg’s penguin suit, the tie loose around his neck. She’s still moving, coming to hover above him to rest a single finger against his lips and Jesus Christ is he still talking? He isn’t sure how he’s still breathing.

“Darling, I ask only one favour from you tonight.”

“Anything.” Anything, God, anything.

“Be quiet.”

He mimes zipping his mouth shut, and throws away the key.

---

Gordon isn't sure when, exactly, he'd fallen asleep. He remembers pulling the sheets up over their heads to form a soft, white cocoon, and the way Penny had pressed her laughter against him as he'd sworn never to leave, ever. He remembers that her hair had tickled his nose and his side had protested, but that it had been worth it - more than worth it. He remembers thinking that he'd happily never sleep again if it meant missing a single moment of her skin against his.

Guess his body has been betraying him a lot recently.

Still, he's awake now, wrapped in a curtain of white cotton and blonde hair and wondering, just a little, if this is what heaven would have looked like. Penny's hand twitches on his belly, her head pillowed on his shoulder and he figures yeah, yeah,it probably is.

There's a full moon tonight, pouring through the open curtains and bleaching everything a stark, otherworldly silver. Penny is bathed in it, beautiful and glorious, and he's absolutely fucked. Literally, figuratively and decisively. Forever.

Still, he really ought to at least close the curtains and retrieve Pauline's wig from its Ignoble resting place on the floor. If anyone were to approach the chalet -one of the staff, Margot, Parker - they'd get an eyeful of a while bunch of things Penny would probably rather they didn't.

Penny sighs and shifts against him just enough for his ribs to protest and yeah, he should probably get up.

Just the mental image of Parker's doleful face at the window is enough to get him moving. He extradites himself from her grasp as gently as he possibly can making certain to replace his shoulder with a pillow and patting her hand gently as he lays it on the mattress. She mumbles sleepily as he drops a reassuring kiss to get forehead.

"Nothing to worry about," he whispers against the crease between her brows. "Be right back."

He pads over to the window and is reaching for the curtains when a movement catches his eye.

"Shit!" He makes a frantic grab for the curtain to cover his dignity and peers out into the night. The moon casts the valley in sparkling white and blackest shadows, and the darkest if them all is the single figure at the edge of the frozen lake. Gordon squints against the windowpane.

"Margot?"

The uneasy feeling he'd managed to quash beneath the thrill of Penelope's affections returns tenfold, hurrying his efforts to pull on a pair of pyjama pants and grab the closest coat. It's pink and smells faintly of apricots. It absolutely does not fit and he doesn't really have time to care. Instead he stuffs his feet into unlaced boots and lurches out into the cold.

It’s really goddamn cold.

He's not quiet as he stomps down to the edge of the lake,but the figure out on the ice pays him no mind, their back to him even when he calls out.

"You okay out there?"

She doesn't turn to face him, but it's definitely her. She's still dressed for the party, her beaded dress trailing from her thick jacket.

"Margot? Margot come off the ice."

At first he thinks she hasn't heard him, but then she looks over her shoulder and smiles. It's a black slash in the moonlight. Her teeth gleam.

"No, I don't think I will."

"Oh for -" Gordon toes at the edge. It's solid, but probably only a couple of inches deep and best and he has no idea whereabouts the spring that feeds it might be. "It isn't safe."

"Then go back." Harsher, "I didn't ask to be followed."

"I -"

"Oh don't bother." She laughs and the mountains seem to laugh with her. The ice creaks. "Thought you'd take a nighttime stroll in your pyjamas and a woman's coat did you? Men always take me for an idiot."

"I really don't." He hesitates, then takes one step onto the ice. Another. Another. She watches his approach with that slash of a smile. "I know this must be difficult for you."

The ice shudders, the vibration reverberating up his spine.

“You don’t have to do this.” He holds out his hand, dares to let his body weight shift ever so slightly toward her. “I can help, just -”

The answering laugh ricochets around the valley and hits him full force in the solar plexus.

“You?” She sneers, dawn breaking behind her and setting the valley aflame. “Gordon Tracy, what possible use could I have for you ?”

Oh.

Oh, now that is a turn up for the books. Swallowing hard, he wills his heart rate to kick it down a notch, concentrates on keeping his voice steady. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? Because you can blame your father for it, you know. So many photographs .” She bares her teeth like a shark coming in for a kill.. “Enough to drive a girl mad . A pathetic little dye job might work on an idiot like Vishkin, but it was never going to work on me. I’d have thought your little spy friends would have known that. Tell me,” she folds her hands together as if in supplication or prayer. “Oh do tell me that you love her again, it was utterly adorable. She's got you wrapped right around her little finger hasn't she? Just like another li ttle lapdog.”

There’s a lot to unpack, there. Like a whole lot. But the ice is snapping in the space between them and it won’t matter who Margot Mearns thinks he is when they’re both drowning in the depths.

“Margot, I swear, if you want to talk we can talk but we need to get off this ice -”

“And there’s that, of course. Dear, heroic Tracy boy. Trying so hard to fix me. Tell me, International Rescue , what’s it like to keep trying to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved?”

“Why wouldn’t you want to be saved?”

“Well, sweetheart, because I intend to save myself.” She opens her folded hands to reveal a little silver box. It’s pink in the dawn light. Innocent. He’d thought Margot was innocent, too. “It’s a shame. It worked so well for years. No-one looks at a woman next to a powerful man, and Vishkin was a sap and an idiot. He's outlived his usefulness. It’s no loss." She sighs as she runs a finger lightly over the detonators surface. “But you, you were cute.”

He has time for one deep breath before the mountainside explodes.

---

Penelope bolts upright, her heart thundering, the remnants of her dream skittering away from her before she can even begin to get it under control.

She isn't usually one for nightmares.

She blinks sleep from her eyes and casts her bleary gaze around the room. It's darker than it was, the curtains drawn, and although the sheets beside her are rumpled they're empty and cold. She swings her legs out of bed and eyes the discarded clothes and shattered comm innards with a professional's seasoned eye. She didn't dream him, then. Not this time.

She's a little unsteady on her feet as she picks her way through the aftermath of her decision, muscles protesting slightly after months of under use. She peeks between the curtains to see a still,perfect night, bright moonlight diffused by the frost patterns on the glass. Almost dawn, then, and Gordon can't have gone far. She swallows the rising feeling that he shouldn't have gone at all and dresses swiftly and warmly. Someone, she certainly hopes Gordon, has lain Pauline's wig on the dresser but instead she reaches for one of his hats, pulling it low over her ears. In fact when she looks around she realises almost all of his ski wear is still in the chalet. Wherever he's gone he's likely wildly under dressed. Not that she minds that, of course, but she can hardly have him getting frostbite.

It’s that blue hour before the sun rises fully, and the valley feels like holding its breath, still, watchful. There are boot prints hidden beneath the frost, and a hushed, urgent whisper that carries across the lake. She can’t make out words, only the crisp, harsh tone of breath gritted out from too-cold lungs, and she finds herself wishing she’d had the forethought to bring Gordon’s ski wear with her. A prickle down her spine, a creak slam of a door, and she wishes she’d had the forethought to bring her gun.

Fifty yards from the edge of the lake, she comes across the source of the sound. The little boat hut door is hanging slightly from its hinges, swaying to and fro beneath its own weight. She’s about to walk by - she will send the carpenters round when this is all nicely concluded - when she spots the slick stain on the ice.

Blood.

She approaches as quietly as she can, back to the wall of the little hut, her ear pressed against it for any sound of movement. She hears nothing, but still she only peeps around the corner, fists ready, and into hell.

There’s a pool of gore glistening black in the moonlight between the old boat and the doorway, and at its centre - at its centre lies realization.

Penelope steps forward until the pool, dark and sticky, laps at the toes of her boots. Colin Vishkin smiles up at her through bloodstained teeth, his unseeing eyes turned toward the faint glow of Thunderbird Five, and for the first time in her life Penelope Creighton-Ward is faced with the terrible truth.

She’s got the whole thing wrong.

She’s failed.

It hits her at the same moment the world goes dark.

---

It's been a long day. Most of John's are. He doesn't really have the time for this.

“Say that again, Parker?”

“‘Er Ladyship ‘as been unexpectedly distracted.” Parker is hissing, his face far too close to his watch, and his one huge eye seems to float, Sauron-like, above Thunderbird 5’s central conn. “Most unfortunate it is, at that. Hi'm reportin' on 'er behalf such as she wishes but if you ask me she'd be better not -”

“Yes, I got that part.” John’s eyes flit over the other readings. Nothing unusual. No sign of any of IR’s personnel alarms being triggered. “Does she need help?”

“Not ‘arf,” sniffs Parker. “Brought the wrong bleedin’ brother if you ask me.”

“Are you - are you calling me because you want me to…” John fumbles for the words then settles on, “extract Gordon?”

Parker blinks. Considers.

“Leave ‘im. Damage was done there years back. Send Mr Virgil out to recover this cargo is what ‘er ladyship said.”

“Lady P wants Virgil to fish some cargo out of the Indian Ocean. Got it. Any particular reason, or?”

“And ‘ere’s me thinking you were the smart one.” The giant eye rolls, and John barely resists the urge to cut the feed. “‘Taint just any cargo this. Ms Margot Mearns 'erself asked me to call you not the GDF. ‘Er Ladyship doesn’t muck about with small time smugglers.”

“Just employs them,” mutters John, reaching for the link that’s been kept open to Penny and Gordon. He’s not bothered to test it since their arrival - hasn’t really had the stomach for it to be quite honest - so it isn’t a complete surprise when it doesn’t immediately spring to life at his touch.

“EOS? Patch me in to Gordon. Signal disruption must be messing with the link.”

A pause, then, “I can’t do that John. The link is disabled.”

John frowns. Turns back to Parker. Somewhere beyond his great disembodied face he hears a sickeningly familiar crack and then -

Shit.

Scott’s going to lose his mind .

----

That first time, Sally heard it on the radio.

It wasn’t a radio, she knows that. Even back then there were a hundred newer, stronger, better technologies than she recalls from her twentieth century childhood. Her boy invented half of them, or paid the man that did.

Still, in her memory, she heard it on the radio.

In the chalet the little ones were tucked up, snoring, and Grant had left the supper to simmer while he headed out to the slopes to call the others home.

Supper burned, and she was on the wrong side of the mountain.

This time, she hears it from John. This time she’s on the other side of the world, tropical sun at her back, but in her heart, oh in her heart she hears it on the radio .

(And the avalanche swallows her whole.)

“Grandma? Grandma are you getting all this?”

"Loud and clear. Scott's on route."

"Scott's here ." Her eldest grandson barrels into the room, hair standing on end, shoulders stiffer than her hip. "Status, Five."

"Unknown. Communications are blocked. I've been unable to raise Parker."

"Anyone on the ground?"

"GDF won't get involved without consulting GCHQ."

" And? "

"GCHQ won't compromise the mission."

Scott presses his knuckles into the desk. Sally can feel the way his body trembles through the wood.

"Compromise the mission, " he scoffs. "Like Penelope's a soldier. "

Sally tried to keep her voice soft, her own fears tamped back in the face of Scott's furious terror.

"In their eyes, she is."

Virgil appears in the doorway,and Sally shakes her head briefly. Extra voices aren't likely to help when Scott's in this state of mind. His head dips and when he lifts it all that anger is directed at John.

"Why weren't you watching . Damn it, John! If you're not watching what's the point ."

John's expression darkens, his fury, so rare but so brutal, radiating from words muttered from behind clenched teeth.

" I'm not a spy, Scott."

"None of us are goddamn - " he runs a hand through his hair and pulls. "I shouldn't have let him go."

"You couldn't have -"

"Stopped him? I could have had him grounded on medical grounds - I could have locked him in his room - I could have- "

"No. No you couldn't." Virgil speaks slowly, tilting his head in an attempt to make eye contact with Scott as he paces. "He's an adult, Scott."

"As his commanding officer I -"

"Enough!" Sally slams her palms down onto the desk and waits for silence to follow the reverberation. "Enough."

"Grandma -"

"Grandma, nothing. We have a situation. Pull it together. John, play the call and raise Alan. We haven't got time for all this posturing."

“I’ll suit up,” says Virgil, already heading for his station, but John stops him with a single shake of his head.

“No can do, Virgil. Two is needed to pull some cargo shipment out of the Indian Ocean.”

“Excuse me, what?” Scott pauses with his shoulders already halfway into their supports. “A cargo collection?”

“It was what Parker was calling about,” says John. “This cargo, whatever it is. It’s what Lady Penelope was after.”

Scott blinks. “Will it be any use to her if she’s dead ?”

“I don’t know , Scott,” John grumbles. “All I know is -”

“If it matters enough for Parker to call it in, then it matters enough for us to do as he asks.” Her three eldest grandsons turn as one to face her. She hears Alan stumbling his way through the kitchen. “Have a little faith, boys. Virgil?”

“On it.”

He disappears. Alan blinks owlishly at her from the other side of the room.

“We go, Grandma? Scott?”

“You’re go,” she tells them, and lets their take off hide her fear.

---

"Scott, stop panicking."

Scott Tracy is the Field Commander of International Rescue, and the Field Commander of International Rescue does not panic.

"Scott?"

John, who clearly doesn't know what he's talking about, floats above One's console with his arms folded like a pissy school teacher.

"I don't panic," Scott grumbles,pushing One just that bit harder. "I'm just busy."

"Busy panicking."

"Busy looking for our brother , or have you forgotten he's already injured and now he's lost somewhere near avalanche central? Cause I'm not panicking, but you could do with looking a tad more concerned."

John's lips narrow until he's wearing what Gordon calls his 'detention face'. "We don't even know that Gordon's involved in this. All we know is that Parker was in the vicinity when -"

"Spare me the hope speech Johnny, please." Scott leans forward into the throttle and One roars in reply. "You and I both know that when Gordon's in the vicinity disaster is pretty much guaranteed."

"Where's Alan?"

"Securing the spare exosuit, why?"

"Because I don't want him listening in while I call you a prick."

Scott scowls. "Glad you're concerned about one of your baby brothers."

"Annnd there we have it." When he's feeling smug John taps his fingers again his upper arm just like dad did - does. Scott hates it. "Gordon isn't a kid, Scott."

The snow-capped peaks of the Alps appear in One's view screen, tinged pink with the dawn light, and Scott knows Gordon isn't a kid - not on paper and certainly not in Four - but in Scott's secret heart Gordon will forever be fourteen, waving his brother off to boot camp while wearing braces and sporting a recently broken nose.

Scott's last act before leaving Kansas had been to ensure the boy who broke it never, ever forgot Gordon Tracy's biggest brother.

He wishes taking vengeance on the world was that easy.

"He nearly died , John."

"But he didn't."

" John ."

" Scott ." John sighs, and Scott finally sees a little of his own fear in the way John scrubs at his tired eyes. "We get into situations like this all the time. We haven't died yet. He won't."

"No," Scott agrees, "he won't." And powers into the dawn.

----

When Gordon was five years old he’d started lifesaving classes down at the Y, and he’d decided very early on that pyjamas were a terrible piece of equipment when a life was at stake. It hadn't helped that mom had sent him with John's and they'd dragged three feet behind him as he'd tried to twist them into floats. He'd ended up tying himself into knots.

They’re not a fat lot of use now, either.

He strikes for the surface by instinct, fighting against the drag of his pants and the searing cold. His shoulder seizes from the exertion and he breaks the ice with a cry he sincerely hopes Mearns doesn't hear. Stupid body. Stupid cold. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He gasps, and chokes. The air isn't cold, it's thick and acrid and sending red embers fizzling through the ice around him. Somewhere he’s sure he hears rotor blades, but that could just be his heart trying to batter its way from his chest. He scrambles from the water, and, still on his knees, twists to scan the spot where he'd last seen Mearns.

She's gone, and in her wake the world is on fire.

The chalets have gone. Only shards of wood like dead trees and sheets of battered roofing remain, flames licking at the sky between the rivers of snow and ice that pour, even as he stares, down the mountainside to swallow them whole.

Fire. The mountain is on fire. The mountain is falling, and Gordon is running, pyjamas freezing against his skin, to try and hold it back.

He’s gotta hold it back. He’s gotta. He’s gotta -

The burning remnants of his chalet - their chalet - disappear beneath the snow with a terrible, hideous crack .

Penny.

Oh fuck, Penny.

The world burns, and Gordon Tracy burns with it.

---

Penelope has always been a great proponent of taking stock of one's surroundings. A strong believer that one should always endeavour to be thorough no matter how perturbing the circumstances might be. Her current circumstances are certainly that. The place she finds herself is dark and cramped. Further observation shows that there appears to be the majority of a wall supported millimetres from her aching head, and, perhaps most distressingly, she appears to be nose to nose with a corpse.

It is fair to say that given the choice this is not her preferred manner of spending any morning, least of all this one.

Cautiously she takes note of her limbs - attached and without any obvious sign of injury - and then of her faculties. Penelope Creighton-Ward. Lady. Twenty six years old and apparently trapped in a boatshed cum mausoleum by forces unknown.

The facts don't necessarily make her feel any better but they're always nice to have.

Vishkin’s glazed eyes peer unseeingly and unsettlingly into her own as she struggles to free herself, what little light there is casting eerie shadows over his livered skin. He’s been dead for hours, his belly swelling, the skin taut and cold as she finally manages to shuffle into a half crouch.

He’d bled to death in this boat house while, yards away, she and Gordon had seen fit to celebrate their victory .

There’s no justice in death. It gives Penelope no pleasure to look down on those black-red teeth as she struggles to steady herself against the sticky ground. And she knows, as surely as she knows her own name, that if Vishkin was already laying dead in this shed, that whatever has trapped her here with him was meant to kill them all. Parker, her team, herself.

Gordon.

Gordon, who had left their bed, under dressed and utterly unprepared for whatever Machiavellian forces awaited him. Gordon, who has no way of reaching his brothers. Gordon, who would be safe at home were it not for her own selfish wants .

It won’t do. None of it.

The air in the tiny crawlspace is thick and growing thicker, and when she dares to rest her cheek against her temporary ceiling she feels the chill of ice right down to her very bones. The only light source seems to come from a cracked wooden panel that hangs over Vishkin’s right shoulder. The air, such as it is, seems to be coming from that direction too.

“I am so very sorry,” she tells the dead man, shuffling on her knees as best she can. “Truly, I am.”

Then, niceties disposed of, she plants her elbows in his distended belly and gets to work.

---

The alpine range covers a huge geographical area, so even the limited information that John does have - they flew into Geneva and now somehow all hell has broken loose - is being rendered utterly useful by sheer scale, both of the mountains and the red tape.

"No luck, Eos?

"I have received no response to your transmission, John. Would you like me to send it again?"

He sighs, watching the little blue blip that represents Thunderbird One flicker in and out of whatever disruptor field is scrambling their communications. On the rare occasions he dies manage to reach One Scott's testy and getting worse. It's been almost an hour since Parker's call had been interrupted by the cracking of the mountainside,and neither John not Scott need a reminder of exactly how long a human being can survive being buried under a glaciers worth of ice.

It's not long enough.

He needs another plan.

"John?"

"Yeah, no. No, they're not interested."

Eos flashes. "We could increase their interest,"

They could. They absolutely could. They could have GCHQ on their knees in ten minutes flat. Four, if Eos helps him compile the code. But.

"I suppose that would be unethical?"

"You suppose correctly, plus we don't want to rescue Lady Penelope only to have to tell her we've lost her her job."

That's when it comes to him. A flash of inspiration that has his fingers skittering over the controls with a speed that makes any human companions gape, wide eyed. Eos doesn't gape. Eos understands.

"I will attempt to open the line to Scott. Co-ordinates are -"

"Close as they're gonna be," he mutters, Five's processors battering their way through the disruptors code. "Ready?"

"Scott? Thunderbird Five to Thunderbird One, Scott, come in."

Static crackles through the unit, and Scott, when he answers sounds as though he's at the bottom of a trench on a planet half a galaxy away.

"-me -n. Five. Ov- go?"

"Scott, I'm sending you my best guess coordinates. I've triangulated from Parker's call and known geographical features of the area, but it's a big area. You'll need to send the drones. Do you copy?"

More static, then "-AB"

One's symbol flickers again, and doesn't return.

John turns his attention to Virgil's progress over the Indian ocean, and watches over the only brother he has left.

---

Armageddon, or something like it.

And Gordon’s dealt with end-of-the-world before plenty of times. It’s his job. It’s his life . But this -

He has no idea what to do.

Thing is, fourth of five. You kinda forget how to be alone.

Because the other thing is, he pretty much never is, not even in the depths of the ocean. It makes no sense that he would be alone here, on semi solid ground.

No Four, no Brains, no John or Eos in his ear. No reassurance from Grandma or nagging from Scott. No Virgil hovering overhead, no jokes from Alan to lighten the mood. Nothing but him, the sagging, burning, frozen chalets, and the absolute certainty that if he doesn’t do something there's a good chance he'll never not feel alone again.

It makes no sense that he's drowning on dry land.

His hair is frozen. There’s bile at the back of his throat. There’s -

There’s a man. A man clambering between shattered, blackened walls. A man with a truly awful moustache.

“Parker?”

The man coughs bitterly and scowls the scowl of the recently and extremely put-out. “The very bleedin’ same.”

And he’ll never admit it, not to anyone , but Gordon suddenly feels hope spark somewhere in his frozen, aching chest.

He runs a rescuer's critical eye over Parker. There's ice in his moustache and his colour is high, but otherwise he seems unharmed.

"What happened?"

"'arf the bleedin' mountain 'appened!" Parker shrugs balefully further into his coat. "Ran for me bleeding life."

“How the hell did you outrun an avalanche?”

Parker narrows his eyes, his gaze fixed on one particular spot just above Gordon’s collarbone that Penny had also been oddly - if pleasantly - drawn to.

“Seems it’s been a night of unlikely successes Mr Gordon, sir.”

“Is that what you call this? Cause I think we have very different definitions.”

Parker glares at him for a moment longer, then peers over his shoulder.

“Where’s her ladyship?”

And every word Gordon’s ever known sticks in his throat. His expression must say them for him.

“Holy Christ,” spits Parker. “Fucking buggering hell. What ‘appened?”

“Bomb,” he manages, because that’s all he can imagine it could have been. “Set off an avalanche. Mearns… probably wasn’t actually the good guy.”

“You don’t fuckin’ say.” Parker grits out. “Blown up and bleedin’ buried an’ all. You go south, I’ll go north. There were ten left on site with you an’ me.”

Gordon wouldn’t know, of course. Gordon wasn’t paying attention. Gordon is a goddamn hopeless idiot.

“Communications?”

Parker just glares.

“Right.” He turns to the spot where he’d last seen Penny. It’s a smouldering, wet smear on the landscape. His feet are too cold, they won’t move. None of him moves, only his heart, every beat echoing in his ears and his throat and the tips of his burning fingers.

Penny. Penny. Penny.

“Gordon! Gordon over here!”

At the edge of where the main chalet had stood Parker is frantically pulling at pieces of plasterboard, scrabbling around until he reveals a faintly familiar bald head.

The guy. The guy with the piano stool. He can’t remember his name. He can’t remember -

“Now hold on Mr Lester, International Rescue is on the way!”

It doesn’t matter what he can remember. International Rescue. That’s him. He’s it.

Gordon skids across the snow to land on his sodden knees. “Lester! Hey, hi, can you hear me?”

Lester blinks up at him. His face is free, one hand pillowed against his cheek, but the rest of him is buried beneath a mixture of snow and ash. He’s as grey as his surroundings, his lips stained scarlet. “Lady - Lady -”

Gordon swallows, afraid to risk a glance at Parker.

“It’s me, it’s Gordon. Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

“Every - fire.”

Lester’s eyes are unfocused, his pupils dilated. Blood runs from his nose and the corner of his mouth. Gordon slips his cold fingers between the other man’s cheek and palm and feels the way bone grinds against bone.

“Yeah we sure had some of that, and some of the other too. Can you squeeze my hand?”

He knows he won’t. This isn’t his first rodeo. He smiles encouragingly anyway.

It feels like even more of a lie than usual.

“Verne?”

“Gonna get him right out too, don’t you worry. Everything’s gonna be okay, just hang tight.”

Over the creaking and crackling of the suffocating building comes a new noise. A faint, distant thrum that gets gradually louder until -

"Looks like company." Parker sniffs, looking up. "Knowing our luck it's the bleedin' Hood."

"Hey!" Gordon jumps up, pointing to the sky, the shittiness of the whole situation momentarily forgotten as the drone buzzes it's way overhead. "I know that drone! Hey! Hey !"

The drone stops and hovers overhead long enough for both men to get a good look at the bright IR emblazoned on her side. Gordon almost collapses with relief.

"Son of a bitch, they found us."

A signal relay drops from her belly and Scott’s voice echoes around the valley.

“Gordon Tracy! What in God’s name have you been doing?”

Parker mutters under his breath, but Gordon’s too busy trying to keep his knees from buckling.

“Scotty, I swear, I’ve never been so happy to be yelled at in all my life.”

"I'm not yelling!"

"Totally yelling, but that's okay. Got at least eight trapped here and this fire and ice thing is no fun for any of them, you on it?"

"On it," then a pause. "You okay, Thunderbird Four?"

The use of his call sign makes his shoulders feel a little higher, makes the churning in his belly easier to ignore.

"FAB, One. Now get down here and help ."

“Gordon?”

Parker’s voice is quiet, small.

Lester is quieter still.

“Oh god damn .”

He drops straight back to his knees, takes Lester’s face between his hands and hovers his cheek over his slack mouth.

The only breath he feels is his own, sour and sick and far too quick. Far too quick.

Thunderbird One was too damn slow.

---

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when Scott Tracy enters a room people take notice. When he arrives at a disaster zone, Thunderbird One descending from the heavens like some super shiny Messiah, Gordon is always vaguely shocked if people don't start cheering.

Truth is, it's hard to cheer anything with a dead man's head in your hands.

"I've got this, Mr Gordon," says Parker, gently replacing Gordon's hands with his own. "You go on lad."

Gordon watches the ice crystallise on Lester's parted lips for a moment longer, and then he's running. Running like his life depends on it which, honestly, it probably does.

"Scott! Scott over here!"

Scott, to his credit, does actually engage his jetpack rather than just leaping from the cockpit but it does look to be a close run thing.

"Status?" It's snapped out, Field Commander to Operative, but his hands are already patting Gordon's shoulders, frantic blue eyes scanning him for any more injuries than he'd left with.

"Absolutely fucked," is his first answer, then, as Alan makes a more traditional departure from One's belly, "explosive brought an avalanche down on the top here. We've got at least seven missing." He looks back at Parker. "One deceased."

"Whoa," Alan is lugging the spare exosuit behind him. It's almost twice his size. "An explosion ? How did - and what are you wearing ?"

Gordon grimaces. "You know how they say never meet your heroes? Well really, really don't. "

"All right," says Scott, and whatever worries he must have had about Gordon's own safety must have been assuaged because he's finally stopped pawing at him, "Thunderbird One to Thunderbird Five. Come in John. John?"

"No signal," Gordon says, "like seriously none. Parker managed to call GCHQ but -"

"He didn't call GCHQ," Scott interrupts. "Or they didn't tell us if he did. He called us."

"Oh. Well. Lucky then, I guess "

Scott rolls his eyes. "I guess . Come on, we need lifesign readings stat. Where's Lady Penelope? I assume she set this communication blocker up so she ought to be able to turn it off."

Summoned, Parker rises to join them.

"No 'ope of getting a signal out of here at the minute. Had to climb halfway up a bleedin' mountain to call Mr John, and that was on a temporary line. When we find milady…"

"Whoa, hold up." Scott turns to Gordon with wide eyes. " Penelope's missing?"

It's not a phrase Gordon particularly wants to dwell on, the dam he's thrown up between IR calmness and hysteria creaks unpleasantly under Scott's pitying gaze.

"Yeah, I mean if… if you mean I don't know where she is then yes. Yes, she's missing."

“What are we waiting for!” Alan clamps his feet into the exosuit and stretches for the arms. “We gotta find her, right Scott?”

---

“Right,” says Scott, because that’s Scott’s job. Keep Alan on task. Co-ordinate. Encourage. Stop staring at Gordon, because Gordon is staring into the abyss. Say something. Do something. He has no John, no Virgil. No Dad. Only a brother who’s never failed a rescue, and one who he cannot possibly fail. “And the others, too. Gordon?”

Gordon, and the abyss, stare back. Alan casts a nervous glance in Scott’s direction.

“Gordon? You okay? Thunderbird Four, do you copy?”

“Christ, okay, yeah. I’m on it. Come on Al,” he moves toward the splintered remains of what was obviously once a chalet. There’s blood on the snow where Parker had been kneeling and a scarf carefully laid over a still, wet lump. Scott doesn’t want Alan anywhere near it, but the youngest trots after his elder brother and god, ain��t that always the way.

He wonders how much Gordon remembers of the night their mother died. He wonders if he knows how much of their father Scott sees in him now.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Peachy,” it’s a snarl said with a smile, the sort of smile that precedes hysterics. “We’ve no way of searching for life signs and no way of reaching them if we did. That exosuit is useless without Virgil - we could crush survivors without even knowing they’re there.”

“I’m not gonna crush anyone!” Alan protests, “Come on, we gotta try!”

Scott remembers. He remembers his father’s hands, shiny red and black at the tips. He knows what trying looks like, how futile it can be.

Gordon knows too.

Alan will learn.

God he doesn’t want Alan to learn that today.

Scott looks up to the sky, wishing desperately that he could somehow will Thunderbird Two into existence, then pulls on his gloves, and tries.

---

Thunderbird Two isn’t as quick as One, not as streamlined. She’s built for strength, not speed. Virgil chases Scott’s trails regardless, until they disappear over the horizon and he’s left scouring the ocean below.

Pick up a package. This had better be a hell of a delivery.

John’s floating above the dash, his hands busy with things Virgil can’t see. He assumes John means to be there, he doesn’t know. He’s not said a word since Two was left lumbering over the ocean in Scott’s wake.

“See anything, Five?” he asks, just in case John’s forgotten the connection. “It’s a big ocean if I’m doing this by sight.”

“Working on it,” John says tersely, and Virgil knows that’s probably not true because if John was working on it he’d have solved it by now.

“Not sure what I’m looking for.” Virgil pretends to talk to himself. Lets John off the hook. Whatever hook he’s on. “Did Parker -”

“Fifteen miles to your two o’ clock. There’s something in the water. No engine.”

“Right.” Virgil sets the controls, spares John another glance from the corner of his eye. He’s testy. Stressed. “Scott?”

“Out of range,” comes the semi-spat reply and yeah, that’ll do it.

“Hell of a disruption Lady Penelope’s set up out there.”

“Tell me about it,” John grumbles. “Kayo is going to have a field day with this one.”

Half a mile below, Twos radar picks up something small and metallic. “John?”

“Could be, hang on Two.” In moments the HUD shows the bobbing motion of a shipping container as it floats benignly between two large inflatables. It looks pretty battered. Rusty. Nothing like something Lady Penelope might need. Nothing like something worth dying for.

“You sure, Five? It looks…” like a goddamn waste of time . “Old.”

“It’s the only thing out here without a call sign or an engine.” John looks distinctly unimpressed too. “I can’t imagine what else it could be.”

“I’ll take a look.” Virgil’s already firing the magnetic grappler, already lowering the pod to reel it in. “Like tin can fishing, right?”

“Right,” says John, but his eyes are far away. “Virgil, whatever it is… what’s your eta to Geneva?”

“Forty minutes.” He rises from the pilot’s seat and heads down to the pod, waiting only to hear the metallic clang as the door shuts. John makes an unhappy sort of noise, but Virgil doesn’t hang about to listen. He’s got to check he’s picked up the right package. Could be rusty old car parts. Could be fifty thousand rubber ducks. Could be...

He opens the container with the handheld laser, and keeps it in front of him as he peers inside.

Nothing. Why would Penelope send him after nothing?

Why would she waste their time? Why, when he should be out there at Scott's back and -

Oh.

Oh, crap.

He slaps his baldric, doesn’t even wait for John’s response before he’s saying;

“I’ll be there in thirty.”

---

Her fingers are raw, stinging and bleeding with every splinter she manages to tear away. Sweat drips into her eyes and her lungs ache, but it's okay. It's okay. Gordon's here.

He's a flash of blue and yellow in the corner of her eye, his voice a whisper that scrapes along her breastbone and settles heavy on her heart.

Did you find me Pen? I think I'm lost.

"Not a chance," she spits through the smoke, "not now. I won't allow it. I won't ."

Penny? Penny?

A shove, a tumble, and she leaves him behind in the dark.

---

Nothing Alan says makes any sense.

Gordon hears him okay, he’s using that Super Chipper Here To Save You voice that he always uses when he’s scared on a rescue. Gordon knows that voice. Gordon taught him it.

Gordon doesn’t know when Alan started using it to speak in tongues. It’s irritating.

“You’re being irritating,” he tells Alan. Alan stares at him. Says something in Dutch. “Fuck off.”

Alan doesn’t take the hint. In fact, he’s worse, tugging on Gordon’s jacket, yelling something in Swahili to Dad. Jokes on Alan, Dad can’t speak Japanese.

Hallucinations. There’s something important about hallucinations. Something he ought to know, and really, really he’s going to punch Alan if he doesn’t stop yelling and this coat is too tight and what the hell is hypothermia anywa-

Ah.

“I’m okay. Alan, Alan I’m fine.”

“You’re really not,” says Alan, and it might be in Klingon but that’s okay cause Gordon can speak Klingon. “We need to get you into One and warmed up.”

“We need to get Penny.”

“I’ll get Penelope, Gordon, I promise.”

“I dun- I don’t think you will.” A smile. People like smiles. Smiles get you your own way. “See, she likes me .”

“Gordon -”

“Gordon!”

And then, there she is. The prettiest hallucination of all.

She’s crawling out of a hole in the ground, wet and filthy, and he’s probably going insane but she’s looking at him like he’s the whole world and he’d rather have that than any grasp of his faculties. She scrambles to her feet and Alan stops grumbling in German and bolts toward her.

“Don’t.” She holds up a bleeding hand. “Alan, dear. There’s no-one to save in there. Get…” She stops. Stares. “Oh, my poor team.”

There’s a tragedy here, even his poor addled brain knows that, and Gordon’s told a lot of people about tragedy. He doesn’t want to tell Penny.

“I’ll go help Scott,” Alan says, taking jerking steps backwards in his borrowed suit. “It’ll be okay, Lady Penelope. We got this.”

Alan has not had to tell a lot of people about tragedy. He won’t be the one to tell her, either. Even though Penelope speaks perfect French.

“Vishkin’s dead,” she tells Gordon. “Murdered, I believe.”

Gordon tries to hold the words in his mind, rearranges them until they make sense. His tongue is too big for his mouth, but he tries to reply anyway. It feels important. Like Penny needs him.

“Yeah that’s - that’s pretty much the theme of the day. Was he -”

“Under there? Yes, I’m afraid so.” And she shudders, just a tiny little thing, but he can’t help himself any longer. He pulls her in as tight as he dares, and buries his frozen face in her damp neck.

---

Whatever has changed between his brother and Lady Penelope, Scott’s glad it’s Parker and not him who has to interrupt their reunion to retrieve her Ladyship’s compact and send the codes for the disruptor to EOS.

What GCHQ will make of one of their own sending their data to a sentient AI with a known habit of holding a grudge, Scott doesn’t especially care. Not when his baldric lights up like a Christmas tree as every comm line seems to burst into life at once. And over them all, clear and unfathomably welcome;

"Thunderbird Five to alpine site, communications have been restored. Do you read me? Repeat, do you read me?"

Scott slaps his communicator before John even manages to draw breath

"Thunderbird One requesting immediate assistance. We still have five missing, John, scan for life signs."

"FAB," John says, all business, then, "your flock accounted for?"

Scott risks a glance over to One where Gordon, encased in half a dozen aluminium blankets, is wrapping a similarly attired Penelope's hands in gauze. She looks down at him with an expression of such fondness that Scott can't help but feel a little bit creepy.

"Yeah, the black sheep's here all right, he's currently - well. I'll tell you later."

"I strongly suspect I don't want to know. Got them! All five, but Scott some are very weak."

"Patch them through. I don't know what we're going to be able to do with the equipment we've got but -'

"Hold that thought."

"Virgil!"

Scott doesn't quite run for Thunderbird Two with outstretched arms as she lowers herself to the ground a safe distance from the danger zone,but it's a very close run thing.

"The very same. Send me those details, John. Scott, tell Alan to get out of my suit and grab a pod. We've got some digging to do."

---

Trying is one thing when you’re sharing a bed. It’s quite another when you’re barely sharing a planet. Penelope sits in her parlour, her compact set next to the cooling tea on the occasional table, her still sore hands resting in her lap.

Mearns is gone. No sign of her on the GDFs patrols. No word through MI6’s impressive grapevine. It feels more personal, somehow, to be the collateral in someone else’s game plan. So Mearns is out there somewhere and Lester and Vishkin are dead, and Penelope has nothing to show for it but a palm full of scars and the way Gordon looks at her, small and transparent, from the edge of her teacup.

The worst thing is how she can’t quite bear to think it wasn’t worth it.

He moves as though attempting to peer around her. “Parker’s not there is he?”

“Not in the immediate vicinity, no.”

Gordon lets out a relieved huff and settles back against the headboard. “Good.”

“You can’t possibly be frightened of Parker.”

“Plenty of people have very good reasons to be frightened of Parker. He sent me down the sewer, remember?”

Penelope dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “That was before. ”

“Yeah, exactly. I bet it’d be a whole bunch worse now. Now he’ll put me down there in pieces. Really tiny pieces, Pen. Like those damn canapes he’s so fond of.”

She grins. “Calamari?”

“You can go off people you know.”

Penelope hums, tilting her head to one side. “I’ll take your word for that. Your hair’s back to normal.”

“Yeah.” He ruffles a hand through sleep-flattened curls and Penelope’s fingers twitch reflexively in her lap. “John said he found it ‘deeply troubling.’”

She laughs, quiet and low.

“Poor John.”

“Yeah.” And now Gordon’s not quite looking at her. “I think I’ve stressed him out a lot recently.”

“It isn’t your fault, you know,” Penelope tells him. “None of what happened is your fault.”

“I let her blow up the building, Pen. Vishkin’s dead. You could have died.”

“But I didn’t.”

Gordon huffs. “Does that work on you when I say it?”

“Not at all, no.”

They stare at each other, half a planet apart, and Penelope is horrified to find tears pricking at the backs of her eyes.

“I’m so sorry I lied to you.”

“What, about the communications? That saved us, Pen. If John hadn't failed to get through -”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

Tiny blue Gordon balks, fizzling briefly out of existence against the edge of her teapot.

“Oh. Okay. Uh - what do you mean, then?”

“That I lied about why I wanted you to come.”

“You mean you didn’t need my impressive spycraft skills?” He presses a hand against his chest. “You wound me.”

“No I -” she shakes her head. “I was a coward. A terrible coward. I should have just told you from the start.”

He drops his hand then. Tilts his head to one side, voice soft.

“Told me what?”

“A hundred things.” She takes a deep breath. Lets the not-quite-right words fall from her on the exhale. “I miss you.”

His image crumples then reforms closer and when he smiles, oh when he smiles it’s like they’re back in their chalet, cocooned in the white sheets with nothing between them but lives built on secrets and lies so much less frightening than the truth.

“Yeah,” he says, always so very much braver than her. “Yeah, Pen. I love you, too.”

#thunderbirds are go #penelope creighton-ward #gordon tracy #pen and ink #thunderbirds are go fic #im telling you i do not make the rules around here #clare vs writers block #new fandom same bullshit

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daggerzine · 5 years ago

Text

Ray Farrell on music and his time at SST, Blast First, Geffen and many more.

Ray Farrell has had a lifetime surrounded by music. First as a fan as a young kid and then eventually working for a series of record labels. He’s obviously a fan first and foremost as you can tell by reading below. It also seemed like he was there at the beginning of some major music scenes happening.

I had met Ray very briefly at one of the A.C. Elks hardcore shows that Ralph Jones put on in Atlantic City in the Summer of 1985 though Ray doesn’t remember it (honestly, a bunch of us were standing in a circle and chatting so I’m not even sure if any proper introductions were done).

Anyway, knowing some of the record labels that Ray had worked for I wanted to hear the whole story. I contacted him and shot him some questions and he was more than happy to elaborate and let us know where he’s been and where he’s going. Take it away, Ray!

Where did you grow up?

RF-Jersey City and Parsippany, New Jersey in the 60/70’s. I have two younger brothers.

What did you listen to first…classic rock or stuff earlier than that?

RF-Rock wasn’t classic yet. My earliest memories of music are my parents’ modest collection of 45’s and grandparents’ 78’s. My mom had a handful of singles on Chess and Satellite (pre-Stax) that she said fell off a truck. We rented our house from a family connected to the mob. The records probably came from them. My mom and her sisters often sang Tin Pan Alley era songs at family gatherings. Harmony was encouraged!

Some records I heard as a toddler stayed with me forever. Lonnie Donegan’s “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor?” is a skiffle classic. Chuck Berry’s “Guitar Boogie” and “Last Night” by the Mar- Keys are still favorites. I remember being spooked by the overblown production of the “Johnny Cash Sings Hank Williams” e.p. on Sun Records. In the mid 60’s, my mom had top 40 radio on in the house unless my dad was home. When I was in kindergarten, a high school neighbor in our building babysat me for a couple hours after school a few days a week. Her girlfriends came over regularly. They listened to a lot of doo-wop, which I still love today. The babysitter and her friends taught me how to slow dance, even though I wasn’t nearly a full grown boy. J

My best friend in 7th grade was a Beatles fanatic and we immersed ourselves in decoding clues to the “Paul McCartney Is Dead” gimmick. That was a brilliant scam and a fun short term hobby. It was a deep dive into The Beatles music as a junior music detective. By the time I started buying records, The Beatles were on their way out.

I happily lived for many months on only three albums-

CCR’s “Bayou Country”, Iron Butterfly’s “In A Gadda Da Vida” and the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper.” I joined the Columbia Record Club. I got the first twelve albums for one buck. That was a popular scam. Those first twelve records shaped my taste because they were the only records I had. I didn’t know what to order but I chose very well in retrospect. After that, I bought a lot of records. I didn’t smoke, but many of my friends did. A carton of cigs cost the same as an lp- 5 bucks.

I learned in 7th grade that if I knew the songs that girls liked, we would have something to talk about. Girls loved Tommy James and The Shondells and The Rascals. I still do! I had a wider range in music taste than most of my high school friends. Everyone in my extended circle loved the Stones, Neil Young and the Allman Brothers. In a tighter circle we were into David Bowie, Lou Reed, Sparks, Todd Rundgren etc. I loved Mountain, Led Zep, Hendrix, Budgie, The Kinks, Alice Cooper, Sabbath. At first, The Stooges seemed too deep and serious for me. A little scary because I thought if teenagers felt like this all over the world, I’m doomed. I bought the album with “Loose” and played that song for weeks before listening to the rest of it. The girl next door had Iggy’ s “Raw Power” album the week it was released. When glam rock was happening in England, there was a weekly NYC radio show that played the Melody Maker Top 30 singles. I was fascinated by T.Rex, Slade, Hawkwind. I don’t recall if prog rock was a tag yet, I knew that I didn’t like songs that rambled on for more than 7 minutes. There were exceptions of course- some King Crimson, Yes, Mahavishnu. I was impressionable. Radio station WBAI hosted “Free Music Store” concerts with local acts. One show was a keyboard group called Mother Mallard that had banks of synthesizers on stage. They were similar to the music of Phillip Glass and Steve Reich, who you would only hear on that same radio station. I talked myself into buying their records, but it took years to comprehend them. I was too young to be listening to such serious stuff. I played soccer and ran track for a couple years. During meets at other schools, I made friends. At parties I heard Issac Hayes, Bohannon and James Brown records. Brown was all over top 40 radio. Rhythm guitar was my jam! Soul and funk records were best for that. I spent many nights listening to AM radio. The signal travels farther at night, so I’d listen to stations far away. It didn’t matter what kind of music it was. Some of my relatives had short wave radios. I was more interested in radio production than short wave content. The production quality has not changed much since then. It often sounds like broadcasts trapped in the ether for the last 30 years.

While I was in high school, it was common for local colleges to host rock and jazz concerts for low prices, sometimes free. The schools had to spend the money sitting in the student union coffers. There was a live music club in my town called Joint In The Woods. The venue began as a banquet hall that doubled as a meeting hall for Boy Scout Jamborees and the like. When it became the Joint, it was a disco. The first night of live music was a show with Iggy & The Stooges. The regular disco patrons were pissed! The guys were mostly goombah’s in Quiana print shirts and bell bottoms. Three or four guys smacked Iggy around after his set. Sure enough, he played Max’s Kansas City the next night as if nothing happened. Because of this club, touring bands were suddenly playing in my town. Badfinger, Roy Wood’s Wizzard, Muddy Waters. The NY Dolls were scheduled but didn’t show up. Springsteen was often an opening act. The N.J. legal drinking age had just lowered to 18. It was a great time. I was still in school, so I wasn’t staying out on weeknights.

I was determined to learn NYC music history by hitting all the Greenwich Village clubs and talking to the owners and bartenders. It didn’t matter what kind of music they specialized in- I was into the vibe. There were occasional scary nights parking near CB’s or jazz spots in that neighborhood. Folk music was on FM radio at the time. A high school friend booked a local coffee house called Tea & Cheese. Mostly locals and ambitious tri-state artists. Martin Mull, Aztec Two Step, Garland Jeffries. Some of Lou Reed’s touring band, The Tots, played there. I went to all kinds of record stores, mainly those that sold rock imports and cutouts. I was fascinated by the street level buzz of a record. In ’74, I heard dub reggae for the first time. The only stores to get that music were in Queens because there was a strong West Indian community there. It may have been the “Harder They Come” soundtrack that got me started. There was a “pay to play” radio station in Newark - WHBI. DJ’s had to buy their airtime. Arnold “Trinidad” Henry had a weekly show playing new calypso and reggae. He was more into calypso than reggae. A lot of calypso was political and comical. Arnold was fascinating! There was often a personal crisis he’d talk about on the air. My favorite incident was when he said that his life had been threatened during the program, so he locked himself in the studio.. Someone called the cops. They convinced him to unlock the door. He just wanted more airtime. Arnold played the first reggae dub track I’d heard- full dub albums were a new concept at the time. Most dub was found on the flipsides of reggae 45’s. One of the shows sponsors was Chin Randy’s Records in Queens. I trekked out there by train to buy my first dub records. That was a trip! Randy Chin’s family went on to start VP Records.

What was the first alternative/independent music you got into? How did it happen (friends? older siblings?)

RF-The term “punk” as a music style hadn’t been coined yet. I vaguely recall equating “punk” with the great “Nuggets” compilation or something Greg Shaw might have writ in Bomp Magzine. I didn’t identify labels as independent. I knew that if the label design was simple and the address was listed, it was probably a small company. There were plenty of record stores carrying obscure stuff. I bought import records from a few NYC stores. I took the bus in until I was old enough to drive. One store Pantasia, was up in The Bronx. I went there one Christmas eve day to get the import of the second Sadistic Mika Band album. The clerk talked me into buying the harder to find first album as well. He said it sounded like Shel Talmy produced it. I knew who that was and it was a revelation to talk to somebody in a record store at that level. That is what a record store should be! I read Phonograph Record magazine, Bomp and Trouser Press regularly. Patti Smith and Television self released their debut singles- those are the first “indie” records I bought, followed by the first two Pere Ubu singles. I remember hearing the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner” from the Bezerkley Chartbusters comp on WFMU and thinking that there must be more music like that. It was refreshing.

Seeing Patti Smith and Television perform at CBGB’s changed my life. I connected the dots. I had BÖC albums on which Patti had co-writes. She had a poem insert in Todd Rundgren’s “A Wizard, A True Star” album. She read a Morrison poem on a Ray Manzarek lp. She wrote for rock music mags with distinctive style. I read a brief story about her in the Voice and went to see her do her annual Rock N’ Rimbaud show. Shortly after that she and Television played CBGB’s for six weekends in early ’75. Both bands were really great. Patti didn’t have a drummer yet. Richard Hell was a big inspiration to me. He looked cool. He played bass like he just picked it up the month before. That was a new concept. Television changed bass players in the middle of the residency. Television was the first band I saw with short hair and they dressed like teenage delinquents circa 1962. The CBGB’s jukebox had a good number of 60’s garage records. In my head I conceived Television to be inspired by that music. Made sense to me- Lenny Kaye, who assembled the “Nuggets” comp, is in the PSG. When I went back to see Television headline, The Ramones opened. Seeing The Ramones again, Talking Heads opened. It seemed like the streak of seeing great new bands would not end. They were distinctly NYC sounds. They could not have merged anywhere else. I remember avoiding the band Suicide because I didn’t think the music could be good J. Bands like Tuff Darts, Mumps and The Marbles opened shows but I wasn’t thrilled by them. A CBGB’s band that doesn’t get mentioned much is Mink DeVille. They wore matching outfits like they were playing a low budget Miami dive in 1962J. The club still had the small corner stage. The p.a. was ok and the bands had small amps. The music wasn’t loud in a “rock” way. You could sit at a table right in front of the band. Although we consider the club a birthplace of punk, the club showcased local bands that had been around for a while. I think the club upgraded the p.a. once before building the big stage. I realized at that point that when a band was great or at least interesting live, the records were basic documents of the band’s sound.

What was your first job in the music scene/industry?

RF- Before realizing I wanted to be in the business, I hounded import mail order guys on the phone about non-lp b-sides and albums that weren’t released stateside. I was fascinated by the process. Why were some records not in stores even though they had local airplay? My dad did not listen to much music, but he had an army buddy that made a living in Al Hirt’s band. He came to our house once. He gave my dad a copy of John Fahey’s “After The Ball” album, which he played on. I liked his stories about the session man side of the business. Fahey treated him well. I was generally shy, but when it came to music I would approach anyone I thought I could learn from. I heard horror stories about the music biz in NYC but learned later that those were a mob related labels. At the time, I thought the entire NYC music biz might be that way. I planned to move to California anyway. In high school, I go-fer’d at local Jersey radio stations and talked my way into meeting a few top FM radio dj’s. I thought I wanted to be a professional dj, but my dad wisely talked me out of that. The itinerant radio jock life would not be for me. It was a racket.

In ’76, I took a long low budget cross country trip with my high school sweetheart. Along the way, I stayed in Memphis for three weeks with a cousin who was stationed at the Millington naval base. Got a job at a hip movie theatre that served liquor. I found Alex Chilton in the phone book and spent an afternoon talking with him. I wasn’t yet legal drinking age in Tennessee. It amused him that a fan showed up in his town who was not old enough to drink. En route to Cali, Tulsa, OK was on my route to find Shelter Records and studio , but it shut down and the label moved to L.A. At the time, Dwight Twilley’s “I’m On Fire” was a radio hit. I didn’t think there were still bands like that. Twilley was from Tulsa, but had moved to L.A. by that time.

When I arrived in L.A. I visited small label record company offices. A few offered me jobs or references. I spent two weeks crashing at the Malibu house of a distant family friend. I didn’t want to live in L.A. but I was encouraged by the opportunities. I got a job at the famous record store- Rather Ripped in Berkeley, CA.

Patti Smith told me about Rather Ripped before I left Jersey. In ’75, she and her band went to California for shows in L.A. and Berkeley. The northern Cali shows were set up by the store. She did a poetry reading there. This is well before “Horses” was released. I bought a couple records from the store’s Dedicated Fool mail order service. They had a monthly catalog on newsprint. Thousands of records in tiny font. Every record was described with a few words. This is 1976 and punk rock was just getting started. I worked as a prep cook in a charcuterie associated with Alice Waters’ famous restaurant Chez Panisse. The proprietor knew the record store owners. I wasn’t actively looking to work there, but I talked about music all day every day. They fast tracked me for an interview. Because of a scheduling mistake, Tom Petty interviewed me for the job. His first album just came out and “American Girl” was close to being a hit single. The band came to the store before a local show. Tom overheard the owner apologizing for not being able to do the interview, so he offered to conduct it. It was great. I knew all about his label, Shelter Records. I deliberately avoided talking about The Ramones and Patti Smith because punk was new and against the grain. At the end of the interview Tom told the owners that if he lived in Berkeley, he’d buy all his records from me. The store owner still had to interview me formally the next day, but I knew that I nailed it.

It was owned by two dynamic gents that were connected to Berkeley society and Bay Area journalists. They weren’t typical record store guys. They celebrated the 70’s in the moment. They held court with well known music scribes, musicians, dj’s. They were good friends of The Residents. Perhaps my strangest story is meeting The Residents with the Rather Ripped owners at a S.F. Irish bar that specialized in Irish Coffee’s. I had only recently heard of the group, so I was not cognizant of their marketing myth. At the bar, we were with our girlfriends and wives. One of the Residents tried to convince me and my gf to go back their place for a hot tub session. I laughed out loud and said “geez, what a bunch of hippies”! We didn’t go. In retrospect, I should have gone on the condition that they wore eyeball heads in the tub. At that time, The Residents rarely performed live, but they did in 1975 for the store’s birthday party. The early Bezerkley Records (Jonathan Richman, Greg Kihn) was distributed to stores through Rather Ripped. Their office was a few blocks away. At the store, each employee had unique music taste and expertise. Pop music was changing rapidly with a new energy. Some of us were tapped into it. We all had to know the key new releases in every genre because we were tastemakers. Major labels would beg us to do window displays for new releases. But if they could not find a store employee that liked that artist, it was no go. So, no Pablo Cruise window display. We weren’t against major labels, but we put a lot of energy into selling the ton of music that we loved. Our focus was on imports, indies, promos and cut outs where we could get a good price mark up. We had a rare record search service with customers all over the world. We’d find rare records through trade-ins and by combing record stores all over the state.

There were a few import distributors, but they weren’t hip to many small run U.S. independent releases. That was understandable because bands didn’t often press enough records for a distributor to get excited about. In other words, why spend half your day hunting down records that were only pressed in small quantities. Just as they start selling, you’re out of stock. There gonna sell a hell of a lot more Scorpions’ picture discs! As always, some distributors financed exclusive re-pressings of records that had momentum. The only way to get records like Roky Erikson’s “Two Headed Dog” single or The Flamin’ Groovies’ “You Tore Me Down” 45 was directly through mail order. I wrote to label addresses listed in Trouser Press and fanzines to buy direct in order to sell them in the store with no competition. Major label sales reps didn’t prioritize us because we didn’t shift bulk units of the hits. However, we were so plugged in to the lesser known artists that we were a good place for record companies to try and start a buzz. We could swell 50-100 of a record that all the other stores sold a handful of. Bands showed up at the store while touring. Springsteen bought Dylan bootlegs from us by mail order. Patti Smith’s manager Jane Friedman used the store as a home base when Patti and John Cale came through the area.

Berkeley is in the East Bay of the S.F. bay area. A few months after starting at Rather Ripped, I realized that the city had a rich music scene well before punk /new wave started. There was Fantasy Records, a well known jazz r&b label but best known for CCR; Arhoolie, Solid Smoke, Metalanguage; the contemp classical labels- Lovely Music and 1750 Arch; folk and blues labels like Takoma and Olivia. Of course, bands like Chrome and others started labels to release their own music. Ralph Records was started by The Residents, and they began signing bands. Rather Ripped was also a center for improv, electronic and meditation records.

In ’77 or ’78 I joined the nascent Maximum Rock N Roll radio team. This was well before the magazine. In the early days there were weeks when we didn’t have enough new punk records to fill the two hour weekly show. Tim Yohannon was all about energetic, real rock n roll, so he filled in the program with records by Gene Vincent, The Sonics etc. BTW, Tim applied green masking tape to the three closed sides of every record he had. He gave me a Mekons double single he decided he didn’t like. It was in a gatefold sleeve that he sealed shut with his green tape! Sometimes he re-designed the cover art…never for the better. He made his own pic sleeves for 45’s that didn’t have them. Bands would stare at their own records in bewilderment. Tim was archiving the records of the entire punk and hardcore movement worldwide.

Eventually, Tim brought in Ruth Schwartz, and Jeff Bale as co-hosts- both great people. Jello Biafra was a frequent guest. Tim assembled the “Not So Quiet On The Western Front” lp and later organized syndication for the radio show. I remember hearing the first Disorder ep and thinking -this is the future! J It was exciting. But soon, most hardcore records sounded alike to me. It was like- “Do you want more fries with your fries?” I went to plenty of live shows without knowing a lot about the bands playing them. I was happy when the fashion trended away from jackboots to sneakers…getting a boot kick to the head in a stage dive could be brutal. I didn’t see a lot of skinhead violence at shows, but I know it was changing the scene.

San Francisco and Berkeley were important music centers, activist meccas as well as creative artistic and intellectual hubs. Yohannon had history as an activist. He identified with public protests for causes & social issues. For many teenagers, punk rock was a rite of passage. I think it changed a lot of kids’ lives for the better. The overriding message was to be civically aware of what is going on around you and what affects your life.

Tell me about your time at Arhoolie Records. Where was it located?

Rather Ripped’s owners had a falling out and the remaining owner just wanted to sell records and antiques with his wife. He moved it to a nearby city. Just before the store closed, he told me of an open position at Back Room Distribution, a division of Arhoolie. It was in El Cerrito, a small town north of Berkeley. Chris Strachwitz, the owner of Arhoolie is a legendary record man. He recorded many of his early blues albums with a tape recorder in his car. He owned the legendary Down Home Music store in the same building. Separated by partition behind the store was Back Room. It was an indie label distributor for blues, folk roots music. Rounder Records was still a new label at the time. I gotta admit, when Rounder issued The Shaggs “Philosophy Of The World’ I was in seventh heaven. I worked primarily for the distributor, grooming to be a sales rep but I spent a lot of time in the store. At first, I didn’t yet relate to blues and country music. But there were a lot of touring artists in those styles making a living. It was a strong network of clubs, fans, radio shows and press that fueled it. The store had an incredible selection of obscure 50’s/60’s rockabilly and garage band comps. The Cramps were my favorite band at the time. The rockabilly comps mostly on a the Dutch White Label, were treasure troves of insane songs. My heart was in new music- whatever you wanna call it, punk, new wave, art music. That’s the business I wanted to be in. I used my time to learn more about distribution operations. The people that worked at Arhoolie and in its community were fun music heads. There were a lot of good musicians among them. It was a great time to live in Berkeley.

What was next, Rough Trade and CD Presents? Was that in San Francisco? I went to that Rough Trade store a few times and it was an amazing store.

I knew folks from Rough Trade UK because I bought imports from them to sell @ Rather Ripped. When they wanted to open in the U.S. they contacted me, but at the time the wage was low and there wasn’t enough space to work. I was interested in working in the distribution division, not the store. They speiled something about it being a socialist business. I stayed at Arhoolie for a little while longer. In the meantime, I was offered my own weekly late night radio show on Pacifica’s KPFA in Berkeley- same station as Maximum Rock N’Roll. I took over a show called “Night Sky”, an ambient music program. My interim program title was “No More Mr. Night Sky” until I settled on “Assassinatin’ Rhythm”. The station’s music director was a contemporary classical composer closely associated with avant -garde and 20th century music. A major segment of my show was for industrial, post-punk and undefinable music. I hosted a few live on- air performances with Z’ev, Slovenly and Angst among others. Negativland’s “Over The Edge” program started on KPFA around this time. KPFA was 100,000 watts of power with affiliate stations covering the Central Valley down to Fresno and Bakersfield.

When the time was right, I moved to Rough Trade’s U.S. distribution company in Berkeley. The record store was in San Francisco. We distributed a lot of British records sent by Rough Trade UK, often in small quantities. Rough Trade US was set up to press and distribute select RT and Factory records by Joy Division, ACR, The Fall, Stiff Little Fingers, Crass. It was cheaper and more effective to press in the U.S and Canada. I also distributed some U.S. labels but there was one Brit on the staff that hated most American music. On top of that, it could be a dangerous place to work. One of the staff was importing reggae records and weed from Jamaica to our warehouse. The local connection was shot on his porch shortly after he picked up a shipment! I was lucky to spend a few days travelling with Mark E.Smith of The Fall. He loved obscure rockabilly and garage band records. I was able to return to Memphis for a while to prep the first Panther Burns album for release. Tony Wilson of Factory put up most of the money to keep RTUS going. He was a brilliant character, but I learned from talking with him how not to conduct business. I often got sample records from bands that wanted distribution. Pell Mell’s “Rhyming Guitars” e.p. was the start of my long association with the band. I enjoyed selling records to stores all over the country. I learned about local scenes, records, fanzines, clubs and college radio stations everywhere. Making these sources connect for touring bands and record sales was exciting. Because Rough Trade is British, we had the benefit of connections with club dj’s. We pressed and promoted New Order’s “Blue Monday” single on a shoestring budget. For a long time, it was the best kept secret from the mainstream. I left Rough Trade for Subterranean Records ( Flipper etc) for a spell while working in a record store. The guy that put up the money for the record store ran guns to Cuba through Mexico. Thankfully, not through the actual store. I booked Cali shows for Panther Burns, The Wipers, Sonic Youth, Whitehouse.

Who owned the CD Presents label? I remember that Avengers compilation.

It was owned by a lawyer, David Ferguson. He had a recording studio as well. I didn’t understand why he wanted to run a label. He did not have an ear for music. But we did release a Tales Of Terror lp! He almost released a DOA album that I thought the band would kill him over. Many years later I got into a fist fight with one of David’s employees in a limo ride shared with Ferguson and Lydia Lunch. We fought through the window separating the driver from the passengers. I would love to recreate that for a film. Good times!

My main role there was to set up the first Billy Bragg record in the U.S. Billy’s manager was the legendary Peter Jenner and both were great to work with. They were using CD Presents as a stepping stone to a major label. In the meantime, I knew a few people at SST. Joe Carducci is an old friend. He was pitching me to move to L.A. and work there, but I resisted for a while. I had just met the woman that I knew would be the love of my life. I didn’t want to move to SoCal. Joe gave me an ultimatum. He sent three advance cassettes that convinced me to go- Meat Puppets’ “Up On The Sun”, Minutemen’s “Double Nickels” and Huskers’ “New Day Rising” That’s an excellent recruiting strategy. I later married the love of my life.

On the side I booked shows for bands I loved. Gerard Cosloy asked me to book Sonic Youth first northern Cali shows. I also booked shows for The Wipers and noise band Whitehouse

Was SST Records next? How long did you last there and what was that like?

I was there for three years. “How long did you last there?” sounds like I was biding my time :) I’m often asked about my time with SST.

Carducci hired me to do PR. That meant publicity, college radio, regional press. Video was a valuable promo tool. MTV’s “120 Minutes” program was a great way to promote our records.

In 1987 we put out more records than Warner Brothers. By that time, I hired people to help.

I’ve done a number of interviews about SST. If you have specific questions, shoot. I recall that my social life was almost entirely with my co-workers and bands on the label. I was nearly oblivious to music from other labels. I was a big fan of Dischord and Homestead. Metallica, COC, Voivod and the Birthday Party/Nick Cave were my non-SST staples.

I think around this time I had met you briefly in NJ at one of the Elks Lodge shows that my old friend Ralph Jones put on. Were you living in NJ at that point or just visiting?

You’ve mentioned that before and I don’t recall the specific show. I moved out of NJ permanently in ’76. I came back for annual summer visits to NYC, north Jersey and Philly. Some high school friends went to Upsala College, then the home of WFMU. On my first visit back in ’76 I met Irwin Chusid and R. Stevie Moore. Some high school friends were connected to Feelies before they took that name.

Was Blast First! next? I met Pat Naylor once and hung out with her at a show and she was really sweet.

Yeah around the time I left SST, the folks in Sonic Youth called saying that they had left as well. They wanted me to be involved with Blast First! in the U.S. I knew Paul Smith because he released their albums in the UK. Blast First UK released a number of Touch N Go and SST records. The label was a division of Mute which had a U.S. deal with Enigma. My job was almost entirely “Daydream Nation” promotion. It was so much fun to be able to go deep with one album. We issued Ciccone Youth shortly afterward, which augmented the overall Sonic Youth story. The only other active touring band was Band Of Susans and on a limited level, Lunachicks and Big Stick. It was only one year of work before Enigma cut Mute/Blast First loose. I went on Sonic Youth’s Soviet Union tour and I had a few memorable meetings with Sun Ra. David Bowie called a few times asking about recording studios that Dino Jr and Sonic Youth used. Bowie had a brilliant idea to record Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” with Glenn Branca’s large guitar group. We tried following up on it but Bowie was immersed in Tin Machine and other projects.

Was it on to Geffen then?

Yes, Sonic Youth had good meetings with the label. I had recently met Mark Kates who was championing the signing. He suggested that I come in to meet the entire company. He brought my name up with David who said, “we need someone like that here”.

I had fleeting thoughts that working for a major was “selling out”...punching corporate clock. I wanted to apply what I knew on a larger scale.

What was that like, working for a proper major label? Was David Geffen still involved?

On my second day there, David called me into his office. He is down to earth, street smart. Like many of the best in the biz, he didn’t have an attitude. He had met with the Meat Puppets. He sensed that Dinosaur Jr. was important. I reminded him that I was not hired for a&r.

He said- “I don’t assign job titles. If you find something else you’d like to do here, you can pursue it ‘after 5pm’ ”. I found reissue projects like the Pere Ubu box and Raincoats catalog. I recorded a new Raincoats album. I signed Southern Culture On The Skids, Garrison Starr, Skiploader. I assembled and recorded Rob Zombie’s Halloween Hootenanny comp. With Sonic Youth, I pondered making records with John Fahey and Townes Van Zandt. After ten years, it was time to move on.

Tell us what you do now, didn’t you get involved with digital music at some point?

Geffen Records was folded into Interscope in 1999 and I was bored with the limitations of the business as it was. Digital music was gaining ground solely through illegal file trading on Napster. I knew there would be a major shift in the business moving to digital. I worked for the download site. eMusic.com, signing distribution agreements with labels. This was years before iTunes and YouTube. Major labels would not work with us because mp3 files are open source files that could be traded freely without control. They saw eMusic as a facilitator of illegal file trading. Like marijuana use leading to hard drugs! In the big picture, I knew that digital downloads weren’t “sexy”. But at some point, digital music would develop into something easier to track and use. We skipped the major labels. The bigger independent labels understood that digital music would be the future. It was a great place to be. I knew a lot of music, but I had no idea there were so many labels in every country. One label owner told me that I had the best job in the world. I knew that to explain this new unproven music format it could be an uphill climb. So I took the time to research label websites for song samples. That way I could find common ground with label owners. There’s surf music in Brazil? There’s a young female cellist duo in Prague that make energetic music? There’s archaic royalty rules connected to opera arrangements? Bring it on! It certainly changed how I listen to music.

It was a time when business rules and legal rights had to change in order to deal with digital income disbursement. For example, digital downloads could be sold by the song while royalty payments were based on album sales. eMusic was at the forefront of those changes. When iTunes launched, digital music was “legitimized”. Borne out of eMusic was RoyaltyShare which provides a royalty accounting platform for labels. It is now a division of The Orchard and I divide my time between The Orchard and RoyaltyShare.

Who are some current bands you are into?

A loaded question! I listen to a lot of new music. I spend a lot of time listening to records and cd’s in my collection. Of current artists, I really like Steve Gunn’s music. I listen to the projects involving members of Sonic Youth. Bill Nace, Kim’s partner in Body/Head is a guitar genius. Body/Head’s music is a cathartic experience for me. London is lucky to have Thurston Moore living and working there. I think the music they make separately is far more exciting that what Sonic Youth would’ve made if still together.

Lately I’m digging Melenas from Spain, Hayvenlar Alemi from Turkey. Quin Kirchner is a Chicago based drummer that put out a great jazz record in 2018 called “The Other Side Of Time”. I think he plays on Ryley Walker ‘s records.

Because I’ve spent so much time with the music of Sonic Youth, Branca and Rhys Chatham, I crave the occasional dive into instrumental symphonic guitar army and tonal stuff. Current favorites in that vein are Bosse De Nage, Pelican, Sunn O)))

Given the chance I’ll see any performance by Mary Halvorson, Ches Smith, Marc Ribot or Mary Lattimore.

It took me years to get it, but I’m now a big fan of Keiji Haino’ music. Dean McPhee is a British guitarist I really like. I just bought a couple of Willie Lane lp’s on Feeding Tube.

I research music history and the development of the industry. There are historical and social components of every type of music by culture, country, time period. I love stories about riots at premieres of new avant garde works. I read a book about famous classical composers in the 18th Century playing home concerts (salons) where people are talking the entire time…but they are paid handsomely for the performance. Streaming music sites and YouTube are vast repositories of music and cultural documentation.

Do you still make it out to many shows?

I go to two/three shows a month when I’m home and more when traveling especially NY/London. I start work early in the morning so I’m not out late often. I understand why people see less live music as they get older. I’m done with music festivals. The Big Ears Festival is the only Stateside event that might inspire me to stand for eight hours.

I always hear music by new artists that I really like. I don’t always go to see the live show. Sometimes I hear a new band that sounds like a band I liked 20 years ago. I wouldn’t deliberately see a band that uses another band’s sound as a template.

What are your top 10 desert island discs?

I cannot do 10. It’s 20 or nothing. If you say sorry Ray, it will be nothing. FineJ If I’m on an island, I’ll listen to the ocean waves and sounds of nature. If I’m relegated to a desert, I’ll listen to the blood coarsing through my veins.

Miles Davis- Kind Of Blue

Television- Marquee Moon

Peter Brotzmann- Machine Gun

Sex Pistols -Never Mind The Bollocks

Rolling Stones- Let It Bleed

Soundtrack – The Harder They Come

Billy Harper – Black Saint

Kleenex/Liliput- First Songs

Patti Smith Group -Easter

Hound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers- Houserockin’

Led Zeppelin- Houses Of The Holy

Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation

Elvis Presley- Sun Sessions

The Cramps- Songs The Lord Taught Us

Pell Mell -Flow

Procol Harum- A Salty Dog

Sibelius- Complete Symphonies

Lou Reed -Coney Island Baby

Meat Puppets- Up On The Sun

The Kinks- Kinks Kronikles

“Hmm....Flow or Star City?”

Any final words? Closing comments? Anything you wanted to mention that I didn’t ask.

I’ve been involved off and on with the artist Raymond Pettibon for a music project called Supersession. He has made records under this moniker before. This project began in 1990 and stalled for many years. We revived it a couple years ago. I play bass. Raymond wrote many pages of words and lyrics that he passed to the band, encouraging us to write music behind them. It’s different from Raymond’s other records because it is not improvised. Rick Sepulveda, our guitarist is a great songwriter and he wrote music for Raymond’s words. Rick sings a bunch of the songs because Raymond loves his voice. We did a NYC performance in November that was really fun. So now of course, I’m thinking we should play monthly in L.A. We are nearly finished with the album that we recorded at Casa Hanzo, the San Pedro studio Mike Watt owns with Pete Mazich. Raymond is a brilliant man; fun and inspiring to work with. When I practice with Rick, he’ll often break into a cover song deep in the recess of memory. Like John Cale’s “Hanky Panky Nohow” ,Kevin Ayers’ “Oh Wot A Dream” or the Doors “Wishful Sinful”. We may cover a Harry Toledo song. It’s a blast. I hope to have the album finished in July.

Tav, Bobby, Pell Mell and Ray

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greasers-against-onision · 6 years ago

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I forgot Onision existed before Tumblr recommended your blog. And I was happier not remembering. Why are you wasting time and energy running a blog dedicated to someone you hate when you could be doing something you love instead?

(Hey guys! Sorry if this is long—you know me; Blabbermouth Snake. )

First, to my anon:

Granted, you might just be a fan, I just wanted to use this image lmaoo. Also granted, you have Greg’s typing style, so you might just be him.

Firstly, let’s cover all of our bases, Anon. I don’t know if you know this, but tumblr recommends blogs based on who/what you follow and what you press like on. This means that in order to have had my blog recommended to you, you’d have to follow someone who is anti-o/has anti-o tendencies, or you follow anti-o content. Or maybe you’ve even liked a few. Who knows! You can see this in tumblr’s own words—this screenshot is straight off their help center.

This means it is highly unlikely you “forgot Onision existed” and that tumblr randomly popped my blog in your recommendations. The algorithm doesn’t lie.

But I understand how you felt if you did, and you’re not lying. I was happier not remembering either. That greasy onion man. Eugh.

———————————

But onto your question. “Why are you wasting time and energy running a blog dedicated to someone you hate when you could be doing something you love instead?”

I understand where you are coming from. It’s a valid inquiry, I’ll give you that. But telling me that running it is a “[waste of] time and energy” is really, first and foremost, just an opinion. I don’t see it as a waste of time and energy. It’s not fact. It may be for you, but not to me, or the hundreds if not thousands of other anti-Os out there. The youtubers like Kalvin Garrah, Blaire White, KrimsonRogue, Jacklyn Glenn, StrangeÆons, Repzion—as problematic as you may see some of them—all do/have done this in the past. And it’s paid off for them. People know that Onision isn’t really a good person, and doesn’t deserve their support—hell, with that Anna girl, you could go as far as to say he doesn’t deserve some of his fans.

I do something similar, albeit on a smaller scale. I call out Greg for what I think he deserves to be called out on. Explicit pedophilia in a novel, done wrong; transphobia; narcissism; hypocrisy; predatory behavior on minors; and most importantly, not being able to take criticism and grow from it. And I know he reads our stuff—he has a lot of sock accounts for the purpose of defending himself and reconning us.

Hey, sorry for making this a rant. I’m just a big ol’ motormouth with a lot to say. Make fun of it if you’d like, but hey, it’s just what I do. I’m a greaser, baby! I like to go through things with a fine tooth comb. And that includes my stylin’ hair.

TL;DR: I run this blog because people deserve to know about what Onision is doing wrong, and why it may not be in their best interest to support him. Also, I think you’re lying, anon. Peace.

—Snake

#i worked too hard on this lmao #had to go off #anti o community #against onision #anti o #anti onion boy #anti onion man #anti onision #ask

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hiraeth-doux · 6 years ago

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Untouchable (8/8)

Welp, this is it! This story is officially done. Thanks everyone who’s been following it, I hope you enjoyed it :)

AO3 | FF.net

“Tell me,” she demanded, leaning against the desk in front of him.

He did.

Being their only daughter, Jenny had been the sun and the moon and everything in-between for Sylvia and Greg Campbell. Their golden girl, their whole world. Growing up, she had everything a girl could have – ballet classes, a French tutor, horseback riding lessons, you name it.

Her relationship with Owen had come as a surprise to them. They didn’t mind him, per se, but they also never bothered to hide the fact that they had expected her to do better than him, obviously not thinking they would last, although neither had said a word when Owen and Jenny had announced their engagement. And then he had left for the NAVY, and then Harper had come along, and ultimately, it was Jenny’s parents who had made dealing with a small child while her husband was somewhere across the world possible.

The day Jenny had been diagnosed with cancer, their entire universe fell to pieces.

“I don’t think they ever forgave me for moving her and Harper back here,” Owen breathed out, rubbing his face with his hands. “But my mother is a certified nurse, Claire.” He looked up at her. “What was I supposed to do? Let a realtor and an accountant take charge instead?”

Claire didn’t respond. Obviously, it was something he had asked himself before, the decision not an easy one for either party. She doubted there was a right solution that would have satisfied everyone. There seldom ever was.

“So, what do they want now?” she prompted him.

Owen dropped her gaze, his jaw squared in helpless defeat. “They’re not bad people and they’re not doing this out of spite,” he said in a whoosh of breath. “They adore Harper. But to them, she’s first and foremost Jenny’s child and only then mine, and they believe that they can give her a better home than a single father who is chronically late for everything and who can’t remember the name of his kid’s favourite film.”

Claire’s hands clasped the edge of the desk on either side of her thighs, her heart splintering at the sound of raw panic in his voice, and even more so – at the sight of acceptance of whatever was going to come next on his face. He was so used to dodging blows from life that they no longer came as a surprise, and you could only fight for so long before it got pointless.

“You know it’s not true, Owen.”

“Yeah, well….” He squeezed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just… I’ve already lost my wife. And then I lost you.” His voice dropped, getting hollower with every syllable. “My daughter is all I have left, and now they want to take her away. I can’t lose her, too, but I don’t know what to do, Claire. I don’t know…”

She pushed away from the desk and sank down next to him. “We’re going to figure it out,” she told him, knowing that she probably didn’t sound as convincing as she wanted to. “You remember Karen, right?”

Owen turned to her, the faintest ghost of a smile flickering for a split second across his face. “Even if I didn’t want to.”

Claire’s own lips curved slightly in response. “She’s a lawyer. We’ll talk to her, see if there’s something--” She cut off, the promises she didn’t know she could keep tasting foul on her tongue. “It’s going to be okay.” Reluctantly, he nodded – more in acknowledgement of her words than in agreement with them, perhaps. Yet, it still made something unravel inside her. And it was only then that it occurred to her to ask, “Where’s Harper now?”

He grimaced a little. “With them. They’re visiting for the weekend.”

Claire’s eyes narrowed. “With them? But don’t you think…”

“That they will simply take off with her?” Owen finished. “No, I don’t think so. I’m her sole legal guardian now, and family or not, if they did that, it’d qualify as kidnapping. A major strike against them if we go to court.”

“Okay, so…” She rubbed her forehead. It was late now, and the long day combined with everything he’d just dumped on her left her mind oddly empty. “We’ll talk to my sister tomorrow,” Claire repeated, then reached over to card her fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead, not missing the way Owen went completely still under her touch. “How about you stay with me tonight?” she whispered. He nodded slowly. “You’re not alone in this, and you haven’t lost me.”

---

When his in-laws showed up on his doorstep without so much a phone call earlier this afternoon, Owen didn’t think much of it. He’d been married to their daughter for close to a decade, and whatever grudges they might have had about his not being the ‘right match’ for Jenny in the beginning were long forgotten, or so he wanted to believe, rarely ever contemplating this anymore.

He had figured they wanted to visit Jenny’s grave after missing the anniversary because Greg’s elderly mother had a hip replacement surgery scheduled for the same week, and maybe to catch a movie or two with Harper.

After they had broken the news to Owen, the rest of his day had passed in a blur, feeling smudged like a half-erased pencil drawing. As ridiculous as it sounded, he kept wanting to pinch himself in hopes of waking up from what beginning to feel like the worst nightmare he could ever imagine.

With his brain so wired it felt like his skull might explode any moment, he didn’t think he’d be able to fall asleep. But when Claire slipped under the covers next to him and he curled around her, breathing in her sweet, familiar scent, his mind went black the moment his head hit the pillow, a tiny bit more in peace than it was in nearly two months since their separation. There was nothing sexual about this, she merely gave him the only sort of comfort she could offer, but even that felt like so much more than Owen could ask for. And so he allowed himself to hold on the only anchor that kept him from being pulled into the open endless sea.

The next morning, he woke up first, barely breathing as he watched her sleep, her hair fanned out over the pillow and her hand tucked under her head. In the early pale light, he traced the line of her nose, counting the freckles on each of her cheeks, his heart aching from missing her, ready to burst from the mixture of affection and jittery nervousness coursing through his veins and pooling in every nook and canny inside him.

You haven’t lost me .

God, this couldn’t be real, could it?

At last, she stirred and blinked her eyes open, smiling when she saw his face next to hers. “Hi,” she murmured.

“Hi,” he breathed out when her hand curled around his lying on the pillow between them and her lips brushed to his fingers.

“I missed you,” Claire whispered.

And at that, he burst out laughing, a heartfelt sound rumbling from deep in his chest, as his arms pulled her toward him.

Not alone.

---

The moment Owen’s in-laws had dropped Harper off at his place, promising him to stay in touch about ‘ that thing’, he scooped her up and drove to Karen’s. Claire was already there, playing catch with Gray in the backyard.

“Honey, why don’t you show Harper your books?” she asked the boy when Owen appeared on the back porch with his daughter in tow.

Gray nodded and squatted down before Harper, motioning for her to hop on, and the girl scrambled eagerly on his back, clutching his shoulders. There was a major worship complex going on her side, and Owen shook his head, amused, as he and Claire watched them disappear in the house.

“So, from what I got from Claire,” Karen started when the three of them got comfortable in the living room, “the case is flimsy at best.” She turned to Owen and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “The good news is, you have a steady income, a house, and a good reputation in the community. Your daughter goes to school and is doing well there. There’s no way it can be qualified as negligence.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “And what’s the bad news?”

Karen sighed. “Your father and mother-in-law also have a house and a steady income, plus she just retired, meaning that she can provide child care without the involvement of a third party and they’re relatively young too – both under sixty.” She paused. “I hoped we could play the age card, but they can live for 20-30 more years…” she trailed off.

Owen scrubbed a hand down his face. “What are my chances?”

“They won’t get the full custody, no way,” Karen said firmly.

“But?” Claire peered at her sister.

“There’s a chance the judge might go for a shared one,” Karen admitted. “Fifty-fifty, that kind of thing.”

Owen swore quietly under his breath. “But they live in another state!”

“Hey, I’m on your side here,” she shrugged. “But you’ve asked.”

“Sorry,” he rubbed his eyes and exhaled sharply. “It’s just… God, of all the things that could’ve gone wrong, this was the one I didn’t expect to.”

“Look, I’m not saying it’s how it’ll end,” Karen pointed out, her eyes moving between him and her sister. “This is the kind of case that will depend on the judge, and the time of the day, and maybe a phase of the moon. You’re not breaking any rules, Owen, but your wife was their only daughter, and it’s great that you have two jobs and can bring home the bacon, but it also takes away your parenting time. These are the things that, strictly speaking, don’t matter in the face of the law, but your in-laws can just as easily play the sympathy card. God knows, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

He snapped his head up. “What about Harper? Will her opinion matter?”

Karen leaned back in her chair, forehead creased. “Yes and no. She will most likely be asked who she wants to live with. But she’s six. You’d be surprised how many children choose every day to stay in abusive and unhealthy households – and I know it’s not how it is with you guys, don’t look at me like this! – just because it’s their parents we’re talking about here.”

“Which means?”

“Which means that the judge will take her statement with a grain of salt, just to be safe.”

Owen dropped his head onto the knot of his hands, the line of his shoulders so still Claire thought that he’d snap in half if she touched him.

“So, what can I do?” he asked after a couple of minutes during which no one uttered a single word.

“Nothing,” Karen shook her head. “There’s no case until they file the motion, just the talk.”

“But if they do, it’ll be too late,” Claire muttered with a wince, and Karen nodded.

“All I can suggest now is to try and negotiate with them. Offer better visitation options, more frequent contact, I don’t know. Whatever will pacify them.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I did. I offered them the holidays, all of them.”

“Well then…” Karen drummed her fingers on the armrest of her chair. “Don’t do anything stupid until all of this is resolved. Don’t give them anything that they could use against you.”

“Yeah…” Owen breathed out, disappointed beyond measure with the outcome of this conversation. Whatever hopes he had harboured when Claire suggested talking to her sister were effectively washed down the drain. “Thank you,” he said, offering Karen a weak smile. It wasn’t her fault that this situation was so shitty.

“Anytime,” she returned, her gaze darting between him and her sister when Claire reached for his hand and laced their fingers together. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“Thanks, Karen,” Claire echoed.

Karen cleared her throat. “Well, now that we’ve done with the bad part, would you guys like to go to the movies with us?”

He exchanged a quick look with Claire who shrugged in the You-decide way, and then said, “Why not?”

“I’ll go get the kids,” Claire offered, rising to her feet.

“Karen?” Owen turned to her when Claire disappeared up the stairs. His gaze darted toward the hallway, and he dropped his voice to make sure no one could overhear him. “I didn’t mention this to Claire, but when we first started seeing each other, Harper didn’t take it well and I think she might have mentioned it to Sylvia.” He paused. “Maybe I’m wrong, but the reason behind all of this can be that they think I’m moving on from their daughter and it makes them feel… I don’t know, betrayed? Threatened?” He huffed. “So, I guess, what I want to know – if I’m right and if we make it to court, would something like this be considered as a substantial problem?”

Karen considered him for a long moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “No, I don’t think so,” she replied at last. “Your daughter adores Claire, and the feeling is quite obviously mutual. If anything, you’re kind of proving that you can provide her with a steady family environment.”

“Thanks,” he repeated.

“Owen,” she called after him when he got up as well and uncurled from her armchair. “I’m not saying that you’re correct, but it’s my baby sister we’re talking about here, so humour me, would you?”

“Sure.”

“Say, your in-laws offer you a deal – no custody battles and no lawsuits if you stop seeing Claire. Your daughter for your girlfriend. Who would you choose?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Both.”

---

Owen was still mulling over everything Karen had said when they pulled up to Claire’s house several hours later, Harper asleep in her seat in the back. In the early dusk, the colours looked faded somehow, washed out, her quiet street completely deserted.

“Will you stay?” Claire asked softly when he turned off the engine.

Owen glanced quickly over his shoulder at his sleeping daughter, then turned to Claire.

“She’ll be fine in the guest bedroom,” Claire added as if reading his thoughts.

One of his eyebrows cocked curiously. “We didn’t bring any spare clothes.”

“I’ll find something for Harper to sleep in. And you’re not going to need any.” A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, intensifying the one that blossomed on Owen’s face.

“So, are we okay then?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “But I want us to be.”

Harper found the idea of staying over at Claire’s delightful, especially when she woke up and found out that the bed in the guest bedroom had springs. After her bath and putting on one of Claire’s shirts that hung down to her knees, she spent a solid 40 minutes jumping on it like a trampoline until Owen poked his head into the door and promised to tuck her in so tight, she wouldn’t be able to move if she didn’t cut this out and go to sleep right this very second .

“Why haven’t we done this sooner?” he asked Claire after the girl had fallen asleep and the two of them had found themselves in the bathtub, Claire’s back resting against his chest and his arms wrapped around her. Mellow and relaxed in the hot water, with the weight of her body pressed deliciously to him, Owen almost managed to convince himself that the past 36 hours didn’t happen. He traced his hand along her arm and pressed a kiss to her shoulder, holding on to every precious moment they got to spend like this. Like the rest of the world didn’t exist.

“Maybe we needed a special occasion?” Claire offered with a soft smile, tilting her head back to plant a kiss on his stubbled cheek. “I’m sorry it didn’t go the way you planned, with Karen.”

He pressed his lips to the top of her head, just above the knot she had twisted her hair into to avoid getting it wet. “I didn’t expect her to magically fix everything.”

“But you hoped she would.”

“Maybe a little,” he admitted.

“Does Harper know? About what’s going on?”

“No,” he shook his head, his mood changing almost palpably by the second. “I asked Jenny’s parents not to say anything to her until we figure it out between ourselves. No need to drag her into this mess before it’s absolutely necessary.”

Claire sank into him, her forehead resting on the side of Owen’s jaw, her fingers running absently up and down his wrists. “I’m so sorry you have to deal with this at all.”

“You know, when Harper was little and only started to talk and couldn’t pronounce her name properly yet, she’d say it as ‘Happy’.” He chuckled at the memory, his arms flexing around Claire as if in need to reassure himself that she was still there. “She’s run around the house, bumping into everything, and point at herself and say ‘I Happy!’” A shaky sigh bubbled up in his chest. “It’s all I ever wanted for her, Claire. To be happy.”

“I know.” Claire squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could go and fix it for him, make sure she’d never have to hear this panicked edge in his voice again. “And she is. She really, really is.”

“Thank you,” he murmured against her temple. “For this. For everything. For coming back to us. I don’t know what I’d do if--”

Her hand slipped around her neck, fingers gripping the hair on the back of his neck, and she captured his lips with his – a reassurance, an invitation - until the urgency in him shifted from worry to need, melting into something larger than life.

She turned around to stretch over him, her arms snaking around his neck while Owen’s hands slid slowly along her thighs and up her sides, savouring the feeling of her body against his. Claire’s breath was hot on his skin, turning his blood into lava in his veins. Languid in his arms, she pressed a kiss to his jaw, trailing her lips along his cheek to the corner of his mouth until he turned his head, kissing her properly. He pulled her closer to his chest, his fingers skimming along her back as his teeth nipped on her bottom lip.

Owen’s knees hit the edged of the bathtub when she shifted in his arms, and low laughter rumbled in his chest as he traced slow, deliberate kisses along her neck.

“We’re gonna need more space.”

A towel wrapped around his hips, Owen pulled the door open slowly, and then took Claire’s hand, leading her toward the bedroom, pausing every few seconds to press his finger to his lips to shush her, fearful of Harper waking up if they didn’t keep quiet. He pulled her into her room, his hand cupping her face immediately, lips finding hers, swallowing her giggle.

---

The world still hazy and unfocused around him, Owen rolled onto his side. Another moment, and he was pulling Claire to him, his fingers brushing her bangs from her forehead, their lips meeting in slow tender kisses, both of them still breathless and riding off the endorphin high, basking in the warm afterglow, their bodies tingling with low hum running like electric current under their skin.

A few minutes later, he was chuckling softly against her mouth, and Claire pulled back, a hand on his chest, to ask what he was laughing at.

He scrunched his face and shook his head. “I’m not… it’s not that.”

“What?”

It was incredible, really, how everything his grieving and guilty mind kept rejecting, his pain too strong for so long he almost forgot how to feel anything else, was right there, at his fingertips, barely at arm’s reach away.

Owen traced the lines of her face, trailing his fingers along her forehead and down her upturned nose and over her jaw toward her chin, reading her with his hands like a blind man in search of something outside of his realm.

This was what he wanted, every day, for as long as he lived. Her. Not even the physical intimacy, even though it never felt enough, her lean, cool fingers pulling the shattered pieces of him back into place, smoothing the jagged edges that threatened to tear him apart, sealing the seams with her lips. No, it was about coming back to Claire, her smile, the sound of her laughter, the captivating green of her eyes, her breathing in the night. Seeing her play with Harper, seeing his daughter happy again – all this was right in front of him.

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so alive, so eager to live and see what the next day could bring, his heart beating in earnest, elated and soaring above everything he’d been through. How long did he know but didn’t really know ?

“You,” he whispered, running his knuckles over Claire’s cheek, and the words he couldn’t keep biting back any longer tumbled out of his mouth. “I love you.”

---

“Claire?” A loud whisper pulled her out of her deep, dreamless slumber.

She blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, half-certain for a moment or two that she had made it up until her gaze focused on Harper standing by the bed.

The clock on the nightstand read 3.46 AM, and Claire stifled a yawn, fighting off the fog in her head. She pushed up, propping herself on her elbow and thanking heavens that she and Owen were dressed – a precaution taken before she had unlocked the door when they were about to turn in for the night, worried that the girl might get scared if she woke up alone in an unfamiliar place.

“What is it, baby?” Claire whispered.

Behind her, Owen didn’t even stir, his soft snores filling the room.

Harper rubbed her eyes sleepily, her nose scrunched. “I had a bad dream. Can I stay with you and daddy here? Just this one time.”

“Of course.” Claire slid back and closer the furnace of a man who could seemingly sleep through a nuclear war to make more room for the girl, and Harper climbed next to her, curling in on herself after Claire tucked the blanket carefully around her.

She was already asleep by the time Claire’s head touched the pillow again.

---

Claire had picked up sketching after the accident.

When the days she needed to stay in bed, barely able to do anything without help had turned first into weeks and then into months, it had become clear to her very quickly that there were only so many things a person could do before going crazy from boredom. The TV had lost its appeal almost instantly – for one thing, most of the daytime programs were dumb as hell, and since her life got fucked up stark in the middle of the ice-skating competition season, the channels had been full of live feeds from events all over the country as well as reruns that she had no desire to even be aware of, let alone watch.

The first time Claire saw someone else, a girl in a blue dress, perform her short program routine, she wanted to throw a remote at her parents’ TV set. She had settled on crying for the next three days instead.

After that, the TV had been deemed a backup alternative to everything else. Something that Claire rarely turned to.

She would read instead, but it had also become too much after a few weeks when she grew restless and impatient and in a desperate need of something more creative than that. It was when Karen had caught her doodling in the margins of a book that she had brought Claire a sketchpad and a box of charcoal pencils. It had hardly changed Claire’s life, but it sure made killing those endless hours of nothingness easier.

By the time she had been capable of walking around without assistance, Claire had a few dozens of sketch pads filled with everything from doodles of flowers to attempted copies of famous drawings and paintings she’d done with the help of online How To tutorials. She was no genius, but she had a good eye and enough time to master something that required patience and scrupulous work. And at some point, she had figured out that not only did she have plenty of both, but that she also rather liked it.

Up until a certain point in her life, Claire had associated the idea of a college with a sports scholarship of some sort, and when that had fallen through, she had stopped considering the possibility of getting a degree altogether. However, when Karen had suggested she submitted some of her works to the Art School of the University of Wisconsin, it didn’t sound as insane as Claire had first thought it might.

Although, frankly, if she had known back then that it would ultimately lead to spending her nights bend over her desk because the client needed a draft of something or other submitted on short notice, she’d probably think twice about her career choices.

Sometime around nine, she straightened her back and rolled her stiff shoulders, wincing at the sound of cracks and pops in her neck. Owen had texted her a while ago asking if she’d like to come over and offering to bring her pizza if the answer was no, but she had to turn down both options. Mr. Masrani expected her to send in her side of the project within the next couple of hours, and just thinking about Owen was distracting enough. Having him and Harper around would be a disaster.

She pulled off her glasses and rubbed her tired eyes, contemplating another cup of coffee. It might keep her up all night, which was a downside, of course, but with its help, there was a chance she wouldn’t fall asleep mid-stroke.

Instead, she decided that it was time to have a short break and get some dinner. The thought of that pizza that Owen had mentioned earlier made her stomach grown, reminding her that she hadn’t had anything to eat since late morning, making her go through her options on her mind.

She could have ordered something, Claire mused absently, but after being cooped inside for most of her day, she decided that getting out of the house was her number one priority. If she didn’t, she feared that her head would fall off her rigid neck.

Still rubbing the sand out of her eyes, Claire slid off her tall chair and headed for the door, grabbing the car keys from the bowl in the hallways as she passed it.

She was driving back home down the quiet, dark street, her Chinese takeaway sitting on the passenger seat next to her when her eyes snatched a familiar figure hunched under a streetlamp, small shoulders shaking ever so slightly.

“Harper?” Claire muttered, straining her eyes, almost certain that the girl was nothing but a figment of her imagination so wild the idea of Owen’s daughter being outside alone in the dark was. So shocking.

Claire hit the brakes, her car coming to an abrupt halt with a screech of tires. She was climbing out before it even fully stopped, fumbling with the door for a moment too long.

“Harper!”

The girl snapped her head up at the sound of her name, and before Claire knew it, a small body barreled into her in the middle of an empty street, thin arms wrapping around her thighs.

“Oh god,” she murmured, her own arms coming to rest around the girl. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s alright.” Claire’s eyes darted up and down the street. It took her a moment to realize that they were only a few of blocks away from Owen’s place. Which still didn’t explain anything, and the fear stirred inside of. “What happened?”

She tugged at Harper’s arms to break free from her hold and crouching down in front of the girl whose face was streaked with tears. She was breathing through convulsive sobs, her small shoulders shaking and her lips trembling.

Claire’s stomach clenched. “What is it?” she asked almost numbly, her imagination offering her a full range of the worst-case scenarios, vivid and bright and surprisingly detailed. A fire. A car crash. A robbery. Something bad that happened to Harper—

After this one, her mind went blank.

“I don’t want to go live with Grandma Sylvia and Grandpa Greg,” Harper muttered between sniffles, and then her small face started to crumple again, and Claire drew her close again, stroking the girl’s hair, weak in the knees with relief that it wasn’t anything deadly and irreparable. “They said that every child needs a mommy and a daddy, and now that my mommy is dead, daddy is not enough and they will be my new mom and dad.”

She was clutching Claire so tight that Claire could feel the frantic beating of her small heart, her frightened tears soaking Claire’s shirt.

“Shh,” Claire kissed the side of Harper’s head.

“But… I have daddy … and you,” she mumbled. “You can be my mommy. Why do I have to go?”

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” Claire picked her up, and the girl wrapped her arms around her neck and her legs around Claire’s waist as if determined not to ever let go. “First, we need to call your dad, okay? He’s probably lost his mind--”

As if on cue, her phone let out a series of persistent shrills, Owen’s caller ID blinking on the screen. Somehow, Claire managed to slide the answer button without dropping the girl, her hands shaking.

“Owen?... Yes, I know. I’ve got her.” A pause. “I don’t know… Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

By the time Owen showed up at Claire’s house not ten minutes later, Harper was asleep in the guest room, too emotionally exhausted to stay awake.

“Where is she--” he began, stepping through the door, but Claire pressed a finger to his lips, telling him to stay quiet and then pointed upward to the second floor.

He pushed past her and climbed the stairs two at a time, needing to see for himself that his daughter was safe. The girl was curled under the comforter, her breathing deep and even and her face still slightly blotchy from crying. Slowly, he walked over to the bed and pulled the comforter further up her body, careful not to wake her up.

Afterwards, he found Claire in the kitchen, fumbling with the kettle.

She turned around at the sound of his footsteps, struck by how worn her looked, the lines around his eyes deeper than she remembered.

“What happened?” she asked, watching him attempt to smile at her. It came out as a grimace instead.

“I asked Greg and Sylvia to come over, to try and reason with them again.” His eyes when they met Claire’s were wild, her expression so pained she could feel it in her bones. She stepped toward him and wrapped her hands around his waist, listening to his ragged breathing. “Harper was supposed to be in her room getting ready for bed. When my father-in-law started to yell at me about the whole moving Jenny here thing, she heard him and came downstairs, and then Sylvia outright told her they were taking her away from me.”

He cut off as if it physically hurt him to talk about this.

“Oh, Owen…”

“She started to cry. I told her to go to her room, where she was supposed to stay.” His hands bunched fistfuls of Claire’s shirt in helpless fear. “She must have snuck out. God, I didn’t even check up on her until they had left.”

Claire ran her hand up and down his back. “She’s okay, everyone is okay,” she murmured, the words not as important as the soothing sound of her voice.

“She didn’t go that far, but sometimes, it’s all it takes. Do you have any idea--” He swallowed, unable to finish his thought. Claire did. Six-year-olds in the dark didn’t really scream ‘good-idea’, all things considered. She did, after all, jump to the exact same conclusion not thirty minutes ago. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe I am an unfit father.”

“You know it’s not true,” she whispered. “She must’ve thought they were going to take her away tonight and got scared.”

His short laugh was humourless and sharp to her ears. “Well, welcome to the club.” He rested his cheek on top of her head. “Shit, so much for not bothering you tonight.”

She chuckled into his chest. “I should’ve known.”

Owen sighed and pulled away from her. “We should get out of your hair.”

“Don’t be absurd.” She squeezed his hand, a nervous chuckle bubbling up in her chest. “I was basically promoted to the role of ‘mommy’ tonight. You can’t just leave when I’m freaking out about it.”

A small half-smile flashed across his face, gone before Claire could register it. He ran his thumb over her cheekbone. “You don’t look like you’re freaking out.”

“Oh, but I am,” she assured him, “and I might need some help dealing with it.”

Owen wrapped his arm around her shoulders and dropped a kiss into her hair. “It’s like I said – welcome to the club.”

---

6 months later

It was Harper who gave Claire the idea, and in retrospect, it was practical more than anything else.

The girl needed a mother and a father, and that was something that Claire could fix.

After laying her plan out to Owen, she asked Karen to prepare the paperwork, stating explicitly that his rights must remain intact no matter what. If anything, it was meant to be just a safety net in case something happened to Owen, but on the day Claire Dearing officially became a legal guardian to Harper Elizabeth Grady, Sylvia and Greg Campbell withdrew their custody claim.

“You know what that means, right?” Owen asked Claire when they walked out of Karen’s office, each holding a copy of guardianship papers.

“That I must brace myself for a soon-to-be-teenager?” she inquired, slipping her hand into his, and then shuddered dramatically, “God, please tell me I don’t have to learn how to cook .”

“No, you weirdo.” He dipped his head to press his mouth to Claire’s for a quick kiss. “You might have to move in with us.”

Her lips stretched into a grin. “Well, technically speaking--”

“Technically speaking, we really want you to,” he said, his voice dropping, and Claire’s heart made a flip in her chest, plunging down all the way from thirty thousand feet in the sky without a parachute. “Don’t make me sic Harper on you,” he added quickly when she opened her mouth, probably thinking that Claire was going to argue. “I know you can’t say no to her.”

“Well, there must be something about your family as a whole, then…” She rolled her eyes. “And I was just going to say that I might not have enough boxes so we’ll have to pick up some more this weekend. If you were indeed serious about the whole moving in thing.” Eyebrows arched, Owen squeezed her fingers, beaming for all he was worth. “Also, dibs on that blue cup that I like.”

His jaw dropped comically. “But it’s my favourite!”

“Take it or leave it, Grady,” Claire snorted, biting back her smile.

Owen threw his arm around her neck and kissed her on the hair, the two of them blocking the pathway on a busy afternoon, and not caring one bit about it.

“You can have it so long as I got dibs on you.”

#jurassic world #claire dearing #owen grady #clawen #claire x owen #my fic #untouchable

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