#tiny tracys by the sea

[tinytracys]

SAND

Thundertober 2024 Day 19

An idyllic afternoon by the seaside. The family are playing nicely together… honest…

Brains and Alan are discussing the creation of advanced domestic chores robots and resolutely ignoring the kerfuffle occurring around them.

Virgil was… unprepared for the intensity of Kayo’s self-defence training session.

Scott had been enjoying the view and was unaware he and Gordon were taking part at all…

Much like a son of Neptune, Squid Boy has superhuman strength when so close to his element. Scott resolves to drop him out of a plane very soon.

Meanwhile John has finally found somebody he can have a sensible conversation with…

@thunder-tober

[gumnut-logic]

John Tracy hated taking public transport.

He hated the cramped seats, the invasion of his personal space, the fact the bus stopped every few minutes to pick up more passengers and the noise.

It was stressful, annoying and far too full of people.

But the astrolabs were too far from the dorm to hike it or bike it, so bus it was.

He mapped out the most direct route, left early to avoid the crowds and handled it the best he could. Earphones helped and he never travelled without his tablet and a network connection.

He made do.

He made do for over a year. Every morning and every night.

The work was fascinating and he thoroughly enjoyed it. He considered getting a car, but it wasn’t practical and parking was non-existent, so he stuck with the bus.

Despite the fact he hated it.

Every trip he buried himself in his own world whether it be his work, research, a good book or even a movie. He shut the world out and more importantly anyone who sat next to him.

Sometimes this was not possible.

Because sometimes they spoke to him.

John had been brought up polite. His grandmother would have slapped his wrist if she found out he was ignoring people. So, he always replied. Often concisely, but always watching his manners.

That often opened the floodgates. Because if there was anything common between big cities it was the people who were lost in them, desperately alone in a sea of faces.

John liked being alone to a certain extent, but he was blessed with a close and large family.

Some people had no one.

So, ever so reluctantly, he found himself answering their call for help.

The first was Mrs Bucklin. She was a tiny woman, well dressed, but slightly scented with mothballs as if her clothes hadn’t been out of the closet in a long time.

She sat right beside him and immediately enquired as to what he was doing.

At the time he was coding a new game and her sharp voice startled him enough for his fingers to slip and enter a chain of commands he had not intended. He would have sworn if he was alone, but the program righted itself and the new commands, instead of corrupting and crashing the function, actually appeared to improve it. He frowned and hastily input some bridging structures so the code wouldn’t fragment, idly wondering if the error would improve the game, ruin it, have him need to rewrite the whole section or be the spark that would initiate sentience.

Great, his tablet would rise up and eat him while he was distracted by a random bus passenger.

She did apologise and he did reassure her that it was all okay in the hope she would let him be.

She didn’t.

He learnt she had three cats, a niece in another country (he didn’t gather which because the woman’s pronunciation defied translation), that she had lost her son in the Global Conflict, she liked his hair (that was a first) and that he looked like an intelligent young man.

He acknowledged her quietly and politely as he eyed his code and the results of an initial compile test. How did it do that?

Her cats were named Scottie, Gordy and Allie.

He did blink at that, but didn’t comment.

Eventually, she said goodbye and got off the bus at her stop.

He would have forgotten about her, except she sat next to him the next day and the day after that.

Apparently, this was her route to work, and he was such a polite young man.

Three weeks later she admitted he made her feel safe just by being there. She had been mugged three times in her life and public transport was as much a bane for her as it was for him.

He actively kept an eye out for her after that.

Gus was a different matter.

Gus didn’t have a home and he often rode the bus just for the air conditioning and comfort.

He sat on the other side of the walkway to John. He didn’t say much and would likely have never said anything if it hadn’t been for the gang of boys who decided to throw verbal potshots at him one day.

John had had an all-nighter with exams coming up, so he was cranky. His latest project had stalled – the same game he had been tackling when Mrs Bucklin had startled him. The core of the program had become a little unpredictable and he couldn’t work out why.

So, when a group of teenagers crawled to the back of the bus and started needling a fellow passenger, it was not only a situation where the innocent man appeared to need a bit of a rescue, but it also pissed John off.

There were four of them. Teenagers flocked in groups apparently. He’d never been one for that formation himself, but he knew of them, had encountered them and Virgil had kicked a few of their asses for him.

John was in college now.

He could kick his own fair share of ass quite happily.

“Leave the man alone, or I will call the police.” He raised his voice, but not his head, transmitting all the body language of how beneath his notice they were and how he might respond if they didn’t comply.

“Mind your own business, kook!”

There was always a brave one amongst the group, usually the ringleader, the head dickhead.

At least they were only teenagers.

This time he did look up and put all that communication theory into the coldest stare possible. “Excuse me?”

All four of them froze. Hell, they couldn’t be older than fifteen, somewhere between Gordy and Alan. If either of his brothers acted like this, there were three older brothers who would quite firmly re-educate them on proper conduct.

Not that he thought either of his younger brothers would do such a thing.

In any case, all four of them stared at him wide-eyed. The eldest swore and climbed out of his seat just as the bus pulled up at the next stop. He snarled at John as he stalked past, spitting profanities. His cohorts followed and they climbed off the bus.

It was lovely and quiet after that and John went back to tackling his misbehaving program.

“Thank you, sir.”

John blinked up at the unkempt man who had been the centre of the teenagers’ torment.

A small smile. “You’re welcome.”

Was this variable being changed by the program itself? How the hell could it do that?

He didn’t fail to notice after that incident that Gus, as he introduced himself the next time they met, always sat near John on his rides, morning or evening.

John met other people. Mrs Magarey and her three young children always needed a hand with her pram. John sometimes took advantage of this and stuck the pram in the footwell of the seat next to him so no-one could sit there.

That made Mrs Bucklin sit behind him and whisper her stories in his ear.

He wasn’t sure if he was comfortable with that either.

Two other students from his faculty took the same bus as well. Ridley was in the year behind him and always had a friend on the phone. She chattered a lot and he learnt to tune her out.

Well, until the day he boarded the bus and found her crying into her tablet.

She had lost her entire thesis in a computer crash. He was polite. He enquired and she answered, staring up at him as if she had never seen him before. Which was entirely possible. John didn’t like to draw attention to himself.

He accompanied her off the bus that day and delved into her damaged computer. He dug up her thesis and she gushed all over him, even crying into his sweater.

He hugged her awkwardly and wished her all the best.

After that, she always said hello and had a smile for him.

John smiled back, but his program was still not behaving. It acted as if it had a mind of its own and it was very distracting.

Mrs Bucklin said it sounded like cat number two, Gordy. Never behaving, but always loveable.

John stared at her when she said that, and wondered if she knew more than she was letting on.

The day Virgil landed in the seat beside him on the way to the labs startled him enough to drop his tablet.

“Hey, Johnny.”

He fumbled between the seats for the device. “Don’t call me Johnny.”

“Sorry.” But he could tell Virgil was anything but.

His fingers touched the cool metal of his tablet and he scrabbled for it. “What are you doing here?”

“Can’t a brother drop in on his brother to see how he is doing?”

John eyed him. If it was Scott sitting next to him or Gordon, he might have been suspicious of any double meaning his brother might be communicating. But this was Virgil and although the engineer had a sense of humour that could cut when necessary, this wasn’t his style.

“I guess he can. But why the bus?”

Virgil shrugged. “Didn’t catch you early enough. Barely caught the bus behind you. I thought your classes didn’t start until later.”

“They don’t.”

“Then why are you up so early?”

It was John’s turn to shrug. “Just avoiding the crowds, I guess.”

Virgil eyed him with a slightly worried frown.

“And who is this lovely young man who has taken my seat?”

Oh god.

Virgil stared up at Mrs Bucklin as she bustled in to sit behind them.

An internal sigh. “Mrs Bucklin, this is my brother Virgil.”

“Your brother?” She eyed Virgil as if inspecting him for sale. “Doesn’t look like you at all. Where’s the red hair?”

Virgil arched a dark eyebrow.

“Nevertheless, Mrs Bucklin, Virgil is my older brother.”

“Then how come we haven’t met before? You’ve been travelling this route for a year now and we haven’t seen hide or hair of him.” She continued to glare at Virgil as if he was a threat.

Virgil was shifting in his seat, his expression decidedly wary.

“Virgil has been assisting my father on a project. He’s an engineer. I’m unsure what he is doing here right now.”

“Hmph, well, in my opinion, he should have been here earlier.” She addressed Virgil directly. “Did you know your sweet little brother has been a bastion of this bus route, defending and assisting all?”

What?

John’s head shot up. “Mrs Bucklin-“

“Don’t you go all humble pie on me, young man. I saw what you did to those teenagers and how you help young Mollie every week. That girl is going to work herself into an early grave. And poor Gus, you’ve given him a new reason to try. Did you know he has enrolled himself in a course? Got himself a grant from the government and everything. Got help from that employment assistance group. Not to mention that doe-eyed young student who stares at you with love hearts floating about her head. I don’t know what you did for her, but I have no doubt she would do anything for you if you asked.” She turned back to Virgil, accusation in her eyes. “Why haven’t you been looking after your brother?”

Virgil’s wide eyes darted between John and the older woman.

John had no idea what to say.

“Well?” Mrs Bucklin’s glare was determined.

“Ah-“

“Is this man harassing you?”

John looked up to see Gus looming over Virgil.

You know, the Virgil who lifted weights that weighed more than his brothers on a daily basis.

John frowned. Gus had a new coat on and was looking much healthier than the last time he paid attention. “No, Gus. This is my older brother Virgil.”

And Virgil was subjected to another staring glare. “Doesn’t look like your brother.”

What?!

“I can assure you that he is indeed my caring older brother and he is not neglecting me in any way.”

Gus grunted, still glaring at Virgil. He nodded in John’s direction. “Make sure he eats more. He’s too skinny.”

That started Mrs Bucklin off again. “My goodness, yes. John you do not eat enough. Have you tried any of those recipes I recommended?”

Gus was still eyeing Virgil.

Virgil appeared to be regretting several recent life choices.

“I’m fine, Mrs Bucklin.” He raised his hands. “And both of you, Virgil is not responsible for my wellbeing.”

His tablet beeped. A glance and he found a text message from Ridley. You okay over there?

He looked up and found her at the other end of the bus staring back at him worriedly.

A sigh.

A flick of his fingers. I’m fine.

He turned back to Virgil who was literally cornered, only for his tablet to chime again.

You free tonight?

Oh, for the love of-

“Guys, Virgil is my big brother. He looks after me. He cares. I’m fine. He’s here for a visit. I don’t know why yet. Stop glaring at him.”

Gus grunted again and wandered off to his seat. He didn’t stop eyeing John’s brother for a second.

Mrs Bucklin let off a slightly miffed sound before leaning back in her seat. “He better. Or I have a mind to bring Scottie with me next time. Or maybe Gordy. To teach him a lesson.”

What the hell?

“No need, Mrs Bucklin. I assure you.”

Virgil was staring at John as if he wasn’t sure what planet he was on.

John sighed.

Yeah, he hated public transport.

It was stressful, annoying and far too full of people.

His tablet pinged again. This time it was the program he was working on. It was claiming it was dawn despite the fact the sun had risen an hour ago. He let out an exasperated hiss.

Virgil was still staring at him.

Damn public transport.

-o-o-o-

[forest-falcon]

Not written anything in ages. Just scribbled this down while making dinner. Gonna continue to scribble this evening and hope for the best!

Scott whump plus tinies being tinies.

💙🧡💚💛❤️

The Butterfly Effect

Chptr 1

It was nothing.

Scott's head throbbed in retaliation at the thought, and the pilot suddenly regretted the English breakfast he'd savoured just a few short hours ago.

Tentative fingers explored the swelling at the back of his head. 

He inhaled a hiss as the injury bit back, and the eldest Tracy found himself nose-breathing to abate his rising nausea.

Ok, so it was something...but it had to be nothing.

Nothing until he was home, dry and safe - then he could rest...sleep it off - ice it, if needs be. 

Nope.

Scott lost the bile battle and found himself filling a in-flight bag he usually reserved for passengers.

Goddamn it.

He closed his eyes, tilting his head back, willing the universe to equip him with a functional brain - one that could last out the two-hour flight back to Tracy Island. He just needed to plot a course, then One could bring him home.

Then, and only then, could it be something. 

One hovered patiently, her hum soothing and familiar in the absence of family.

"Thunderbird One?"

Fuck. He had to get going now before younger brothers grounded his clumsy ass. Scott summoned his best game face and ignored the sensation that his hair was gelled wrong.

"John? To what do I owe the pleasure?"

He'd confess his stupidity once home. Suffer the wrath of the Virgil-brows, and worse - Grandma, if he could just skip out on a hospital stay. 

"Thunderbird One, you've not moved from your current location for some time. Is everything okay?"

"Sorry John, just had some stuff on my mind. Will fill you in later. I'm setting off now."

Scott allowed his fingers to dance over the controls, trusting muscle-memory over conscious thought. Thinking seemed to be a prelude to filling further bags - a desire he had no wish to to kindle.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yes. FAB. M'good." 

One's boosters fired and Scott swiped the hologram of his brother away.

Thunderbird One began her journey back across the South Pacific Ocean.

* * *

Scott's line went quiet.

"M'good."

John chewed on a pen-cap as he turned the phrase over in his head. 

"Is everything okay, John?"

EOS hovered just at the edge of his peripheral vision.

"I think so."

"Penny for your thoughts."

John chuckled. Pennies hadn't been used for decades.

"Did Scott seem... different at all to you?"

"Not noticeably."

"Can I have a reading on Scott's vitals please? I'm sure everything's fine..."

"Blood pressure is slightly low, and heart rate raised, but all within normal parameters given recent exertion on mission."

"Good."

 "My records show that Scott has been working longer hours than usual. He perhaps sounded a little tired, especially given his choice of words."

"I thought so too. I'll get Virgil to check in on him when he's home. If something's bothering Scott, I'm sure Virg can work his magic with a tête-à-tête."

"Failing that, a stay on Thunderbird Five should help to take the weight off, once I've removed the artificial gravity."

John threw his pencap at the AI.

"Thunderbird Four?"

"Present and correct!"

Gordon's voice sounded like a double espresso in comparison to Scott's. 

"Mission status, if you please."

"All crew have been safely extracted."

"And the vessel?"

"Four's never better."

John rolled his eyes and looked to EOS for strength.

"The ship, Gordon."

"You're gonna have to be a little more specific than that, Thunderbird Five. The sea is full of ships," Alan's voice chirped in.

John glared at the comms line. He could hear their smug, stupid smiles. He was being set up. May as well get it over with.

"What is the status of Shippy. Shippy. Bang. Bang."

"Ooooh, that ship. I mean, she's not really a ship, more of an S.S.O, strictly speaking," Gordon sniggered. 

S.S.O, was nearly as bad as Brain's R.A.D, in John's book. Gordon had coined the phrase Ship Shaped Object, to define any ocean vessel not fit for purpose.

"Yeah she's toast. S.S.O Rust-Bucket's embarking on her final voyage to the ocean floor." Alan supplied.

Our amateur angler friends are back on dry land, so we'll be heading back. Clean up will have to wait until the storm has passed."

"FAB."

[astranite]

Bringing in the Waves

Gordon Tracy, the ocean and being disabled. Gordon-centric but John is important here too and to each other. There are starfish. This has Gordon's hydrofoil accident, John's space issues and a bit of them being excited about science together. I'm drawing a fair lot on my own experiences with being disabled and that to me Gordon and John are too matters so very much.

~~~

The ocean could swallow you whole, Gordon knew this, it was his whole life’s work to know the ocean. But it could also cradle you and it would try.

The ocean was his biggest love, ever since he could remember, bubbling up to fill his entire being, shore to shore. Or second biggest: he had his family and then he had the ocean. His brothers were right there in the water with him from the start.

Before he’d ever seen it, the ocean was a part of his life, ebbing and flowing as he grew, in the illustrated stills from picture books, in animated stories people told of beach holidays, in the echo of waves in the local swimming pool or an overfilled bathtub or splashing out of the kitchen sink when he was supposed to be helping with the washing up.

The sound of the waves seeped into his dreams from before he was old enough to remember. Mum had played waves as white noise for him ever since he was a baby, it had been the only way to get him to settle then he was out like a light. He had a memory, fuzzy as if seen from underwater from how long ago it was, of climbing and tumbling from his cot, drawn to find out where the waves were. When he knocked Mum’s old phone with its cracked screen off the shelf left in his room, a tiny picture had lit up the screen with blue waves slooshing in time with the sound. Gordon had been in love. 

He didn’t actually know whether it had happened or if it was something his brain had put together from stories his brothers told about wrangling him as a troublesome toddler and the rarer ones about Mum knitted together into one by the ocean.

Even now, he didn’t sleep well if he couldn’t hear the sea. Luckily their island was surrounded by it, with nowhere on land, not even the highest of volcanic peaks where you couldn’t hear it. The hangars deep below the earth didn’t count, no matter that the ground insulated them from everything up to the rocket engines shaking the place from within. Surrounded by towering rocky walls, it was impossible to forget that this place came from the ocean and would once day return to it. 

Gordon’s bedroom window was perpetually cracked open to let in the breeze and the smell of the salty air, to hear the sound of his home outside. 

It had been John who had brought the waves to him in the early days in hospital. The ocean had nearly swallowed him, broken body and soul, but it had cradled him instead. Gordon to this day didn’t understand why. He’d floated on his back, as he’d first been taught when it became clear he couldn’t help but seek out the sea, conserving his energy and letting the ocean hold him long enough to be dragged from the water when the rescuers came. He’d died a bit after that, technically, as soon as they brought him onto dry land. Not that he actually remembered much of that either but he’d heard the story told over and over again because he had to know, to understand , somehow.

Sometimes he wondered how much he had bled into the ocean over his lifetime. Of the total, in litres inextricable from cubic kilometres, what tiny fraction of the whole was Gordon ? Sea water was salty, so was blood. Tears too should count.

Gordon had kept his tablet lying next to his head on the bleached white sheets, volume turned up to maximum to drown out the rest of the hospital screaming at him. John had remembered, even from as far away as space, that he needed the ocean to sleep. Gordon had later put together it was from as far away as NASA mission no amount of pleading could cut short even though this was his little brother that John had found his way to be with Gordon. John, calm, sensible, rational John had been ready to throw away everything to be there for him and the only reason he hadn’t was that it hadn’t been his choice. 

Of all his brothers, John was the most similar to the ocean. You couldn’t always see the currents from the surface but you could read the patterns in the water if you learnt how, if you observed: the centre of a rip—gently rippling, wave-less and perfect azure in the sunlight—was mistaken as harmless by too many, yet the water flowed deeper and strong, inevitably out to sea. 

Space and the ocean were reflections of each other if you thought about it, environments wondrous and inhospitable at the same time, and ever so necessary for life here on Earth. They’d tear you apart if you didn’t respect them. If you did, there was so much joy in loving them.

As a child, even knowing the facts from nature documentaries played on loop, Gordon had never imagined something so endless could exist. In the pictures, he’d never quite believed it didn’t all stop at the horizon line. He and John both chased their own infinities. 

Gordon let himself drift, staring upwards at the gaping, blue sky. Sea birds whirled ever so high above him and the sun was the only star they could see in the daylight because its brightness outshone all the others.

So often with the nature of what he did, he was alone out here. Though not really when it came down to it. Even when he couldn’t see them, the fathoms below him were full of an endless cycling of lives, great and tiny and every blip in between, from great blue whales to the minuscule plankton they ate. He was a part of the ocean too, his body and breath affecting the world as much as other creatures. More than them, he was aware of his place, of how he was so very human and would be even if he wasn’t in charge of the massive machinery that was the bones of International Rescue. 

No matter how well designed their ‘birds were, he was ever so aware of their potential to destroy life if they were careless. A knock to a coral reef or a scorching landing amidst prairie grasses could wreck that ecosystem. They saved human lives, that was their priority and it always would be but the need to balance out and reduce damage to the environment wherever they could was always on Gordon’s mind.

He guarded the whole world, Earth and beyond it, as best as he could. He taught others so they could lend their hands to help with this mission that wove between every other. He was only one person and drifting in the sea, rocked by waves, never made him so aware of his place in the world.

It was so big . Every time someone tried to tally up an idea of infinity, they always compared it to counting the grains of sand on a beach but to Gordon it was more like the drops of sea water that formed the ocean. Individually they were so unspeakably numerous yet together they formed a cohesive whole. One or many? singularity or a phenomenon? Gordon loved the contradictions, he was contrary like that.

He guarded their island, their home with an equal ferocity, though perhaps with more because it was so clearly theirs and so extra vulnerable to be affected by their actions. A single invasive species could ravage their ecosystem. Gordon had seen it happen before and helped with the recovery efforts, so he did his upmost to prevent the first hand devastation happening here. They all did. The protocols about cleaning down their Thunderbirds, especially of mud and plant matter, of showering straight away in the locker rooms attached to the hanger and ditching their uniforms to be cleaned and disinfected right down to their boots every single time were there for a reason. Their world was precious and hardy but also unspeakably fragile.

Water lapped at Gordon’s body, cradling him. It was easier to float here than in the pool. Whether the salt of the ocean’s embrace had been the deciding factor for why he was here now, he would never know. There were plenty of other times he was pretty sure the ocean had tried to kill him: a powerful storm burning at the back of his throat, the crushing pressure a human body was never meant to withstand, in simply clinging to him below the surface when he was running out of air. He respected the ocean, that was key if you wanted survive anything to do with it, but loving something didn’t change its nature. He wouldn’t want it to. He was here, scars, olympic medal, IR aquanaut and all because of it.

Gordon shook his head, splashing water around him in flying droplets. He wiped it out of his eyes with a hand from where it pooled on his face and stuck to his eyelashes. Enough thinking, enough retreating into his head. He had the whole day ahead of him.

He squinted upwards, blinking away the salty ocean in the bright sunlight. It seared the backs of his eyes. He was here and alive and that’s what mattered.

Folding in on himself and exhaling bubbles through his nose, Gordon sunk beneath the surface into the cooler, bluer, rippling world he loved. A duck and a tumble had him swimming on his front, arms stretched out in front of him, the familiar twinge of his back echoed in every movement.

Never again would he get to wake up and go about his day without hurting, without having to think about it all. He constantly made the calculations of what he could handle, how he moved, whether he’d slept enough, when his damn meds needed to be refilled at the pharmacy. He didn’t get a break from it or the luxury of ignoring that stuff with consequences he could live with. It’d hurt too much. That other people lived from a pain free baseline didn’t quite seem real anymore.

Except the world still turned. When he swum, none of it drifted away but sometimes it muted for a while. Even if it didn’t, he was still here. The world was beautiful and with water gentle against his skin as he slipped through it the same as the silvery fish he chased in the dappled light, it was easier to see it. 

Joy and pain weren’t irrevocably incompatible, he’d learnt over the years. On his hardest days, the small things he loved would be there when he couldn’t make it to the biggest. They’d be there when he was stranded in his bed in a spikey ball of pain, aching so deep that no matter what he did nothing would make it stop, so far from the sea. He could hear the waves through his open window though. 

Gordon kicked to propel himself down to the seabed to run a hand through the fine, gritty sand. One of his hips was acting up and swimming felt good, those sensations intertwined in the experience of being vividly part of the currents around him. Of being so vividly alive . That didn’t stop either, no matter what he did.

And his brothers, his family, they loved him and they stayed. 

Virgil helped him manage the endless medical bullshit that came with keeping his smashed up body running, not smoothly exactly but bumping along the road as best he could. The specialists appointments, the perpetual physio exercises and the post-mission injuries would be so much harder to handle without Virgil’s steady presence by his side. Gordon was still shit-scared of hospitals, yay medical PTSD, so super fun times, but not being alone made a difference. 

Virgil was one of the few people in the world who could get Gordon to smile when he was wearing a hospital gown, and one of the fewer he’d willingly let see when he couldn’t.

Alan brought his video game controllers and consoles to set stuff up so they could play together, lying down on Gordon’s bed, often enough to become their after mission routine. It was a distraction from the pain and it meant he got to be a big brother too when he couldn’t do much else. Alan had grown up a lot over the last few years. By the way he showed up when Gordon needed him most, Gordon knew Alan got what it meant. 

Those were the times they’d talk about the tough stuff that as the youngest they both found it hard to take to a big brother and not feel like a little kid again. Gordon was the best at getting Alan to admit to physical injuries too when they were at the ‘feels weird’ stage instead of the ‘needs months of rehab’ one. They were also the times they wouldn't talk about the tough stuff because Gordon was so fucking sick of thinking about his fucking back. Then they fooled about in game, messing around and laughing together easier than breathing was for Gordon.

With Scott, he’d let Gordon scream and swear and grip his hand far too tightly when the pain got too much. He’d wipe the tears and snot off his face afterwards without needing to say a word. 

In the early mornings when it was only them awake on the island, it was both their own time and their time together. Scott got how missing his morning swim threw his whole day out of whack and Gordon got why Scott was so frenetic about his runs. 

Gordon’s back was the most cramped up after it got stiff from not moving in his sleep, or from moving and fucking it up that way, before he got to stretch it out in the pool. Sometimes the short distance out from their rooms had him whimpering in pain and from the sensation of his bones clicking and grinding out of place how they very much shouldn’t be. Scott would be there whether he needed a hug and a supportive arm around him until he got into the water or to be left to it with somebody in reach to pull him out if needed, as Scott did his warm up stretches on the pool deck. That mean Gordon also got to see Scott did ‘em because Gordon had got on his case with Virge after injuries from not doing so.

His relationship with John had grown over the years, the more they worked together trusting each other’s judgement and the more Gordon got his footing on the level of his bigger brothers. As John’s space issues got steadily worse with the hours he racked up in orbit, the occasions John was down on Earth and they were both knocked out from a bad day at the same time became more often. They’d hang out lying on one another’s beds or the couches if they made it that far and the guilt over leaving IR so understaffed existed side by side with how good it felt not to be alone. 

When Gordon read up on the latest oceanic and biodiversity surveys for his environmental research, trying it concentrate in spite of the pain, it was a comfort to have John writing about his stars with him, even if it was because John was too dizzy to sit up for long, much less go out on a mission.

John had come to him, over Scott, over Virgil, when he didn’t know how to cope with being sick so much and not being able to do things like the others or like he had before. Gordon had held his brother in his aching arms when John dissolved into tears. John had never let him see him cry like that before. Gordon didn’t have any magical fixes to make everything better when John asked how in the universe he did it, and by it meant lived , but he had a few more years of learning to work with his body instead of against it under his belt. He’d been where John was too.

Some days meant trying to do everything knowing you’d pay for it later. Others meant resting up before it got to that point because that was a far better way to go on. After a while you figured out a balance, though Gordon was still working it out with each new curveball his body threw at him. That was just how it went. He’d be there to help John as he figured it out for himself too.

Gordon surfaced into glorious, sparkling sunshine as he ran out of air, breathing deeply. 

On the shit days where they were still up and at it going out on rescues but everything was so much harder when you had to work through feeling like utter crap too and it felt like they were dragging themselves against the current, they had each other’s backs too. Sometimes that meant soft reassurances over comms that were comforting because the person on the other side got it , and other times it meant a joint bitching session, gallows humour and the freedom to swear as much as they wanted, regulations be damned, when it was just them.

Lying side by side on worse days, they’d listen out for the engines of each Thunderbird taking off and coming back home. On Gordon’s bed, they’d be surrounded by sea creature soft toys and posters of the ocean and on John’s they would look up and see constellations of glow in the dark stars. Sometimes they gave each other space when they needed not to touch when everything was too much but existed in nearby orbit, and sometimes they curled up together and cuddled even though they both ached. 

Gordon dove underwater again.

He and John shared pain and worry over the their brothers, but they took care of each other. The wait alone would be excruciating: that they were together was what mattered in those moments. They did their best to find joy too, even when they had to rest.

The sun was rising higher in the sky as it pierced through the ocean above and splashed gold over the sea floor. He’d have to go in soon but he had a few minutes more he could hold onto in the world.

There were starfish on the reef. The Earth was filled with so many horrible things that could happen—freak accidents, loss, and the aftermath of what people did to each other— but there were also starfish on the reef. They existed too and they proved continuing on was worth it. Moments like these were what Gordon lived for.

He should call up John. He’d want to share in this. The Star and the Fish, that was them too.

The reef had been broken down and built up from the rubble, through Gordon’s efforts to restore the biodiversity that had been swept away by pollution and warming ocean temperatures and plain old human carelessness. Since they’d first come to the island, John’s satellite imagery had tracked the years of slowly healing and work put in as he and Gordon pored over the surveys.

Now Gordon rode the waves back in to shore, body surfing them as he moved in a rippling butterfly kick propelled within the water. He loved piloting Four, he loved to sail and surf, but secretly it was his favourite when it was only him and the waves. He revelled in them, in the wake of all the things he could never do again. He had this joy so he seized it, hanging onto the opportunity whenever he got to.

The last one took him right in, carrying him close enough his stomach brushed the sand. He clambered up to stand in the shallows, stumbling over his own feet as his back disagreed with him when he twisted wrong. He cussed and cursed himself for being careless then tried to be kind. He was trying his best and so was his body. It was an accident, he would be okay.

Gathering his towel from further up on the dry sand, he rubbed it through his wet hair, causing it to stand on end before he jammed his hat on. Then he started on the walk back along the beach home. He tipped his head back to take in the bright blue sky, laughter welling up with the sheer, giddy delight being by the sea brought him even as he pressed a hand against his hip as it refused to stay in place, grinding, clicking and locking up with each step he took. 

He limped along. Right now the gentle movement was the best thing for him so he could warm up his body and stretch it out before he was running around on rescues.

Gordon watched the waves rolling in from the ocean, walking on the more even wet sand to make it easier on himself. With John on his mind, he tapped his wrist comm to connect a call with Thunderbird Five far above him.

A tiny blue-tinted hologram appeared, washed out pale in the sun until the brightness automatically adjusted. Now Gordon could see the orange. He could see John.

“International resc—”

“Heya bro!” Gordon gave him a little wave with his other hand.

John grinned as soon he saw it was Gordon calling him, mimicking the wave as he dropped the mask of Thunderbird Five until all that was left was John. His eyes crinkled at the corners in a genuine smile. The dark circles remained smudged purple on blue beneath them.

Gordon grinned back. “How’s shit?”

Sometimes a ‘how are you’ didn’t cut it when people constantly expected you to be okay fine good great in answer because that’s all they wanted to hear. Or to ‘get better soon’ like this wasn’t something you’d lived with for years. You learnt pretty quickly who would rather hear when things were terrible because they cared and wanted to be there for you, and you would rather you just lied.

“Shit’s y’know fantastic .” John’s signature sarcasm dripped from his voice. “Got a splitting headache I can’t shake and I still have to deal with Fischler-esque fucking idiots and their fuckups.

“Damn, I feel that.” Gordon did, he really did. John’s sheer patience astounded him but even he needed to vent. He probably needed the space to more so actually, with handling the calls he did.

John sighed, dragging a gloved hand across his face. “Unfortunately my circus, unfortunately my monkeys when lives are at risk. 

“That should be our new motto for International Rescue. Let’s tell Scott next debrief and put it on all our merch,” Gordon said.

John snorted. “How do you think that’d go down with Commander Tracy?” He looked far too amused at the prospect.

“What if we put it on a coffee mug big enough to drown in?” 

John gave a signature Scooter facepalm. “Don’t make him worse. Scratch that, don’t make me worse either, I’m tempted by it and he gets on my nerves about my caffeine intake enough.”

They were both kidding. Mostly. They’d bring it to Scott though anyway, when big brother most needed the laugh.

“So how’s the surf?” John said casually, no matter that Gordon hadn’t actually told him where he’d been nor were the comms transmitting anything other than his disem-backgrounded image. 

Not that the beach was an unusual place to find him in the mornings. But still, John had figured him out.

“Water was beautiful as always, though particularly with the sun today. Surf was pretty gentle but that’s kinda what I needed. How’d you know though?” Gordon asked curiously.

“Despite the whole swimmers and towel get up, it was the waves.” John relaxed as he went through his observations, floating freely within Five. “They sound closer when you’re walking along the beach right next to them versus when you’re up at the pool.”

For a moment after that, they both listened to the waves together, near and far.

“I think I should come down to Earth after today,” John said quietly. “I’m not feeling so good and I want to see you guys.”

“I’ll be right there when you get here,” Gordon replied, just as quiet. Admitting stuff like this was hard for John and making a big deal over it wouldn’t help. Gordon really wanted to hug his big brother though. He would.

“How’s shit for you though, Gords?” John asked, the focus of those sea green eyes made bluer by holographic distance switching back to him.

“I’m sore but I suppose okay enough?” Gordon paused to consider. “The whole back, hips, legs, everything that’s connected to each other shebang isn't really doing it for me today.” The emotion bled into his voice. “It really fucking isn’t. Swimming helped with me feeling like me but the rest is complaining.”

John took it and quietly nodded. John got him.

“Buuuut I saw some starfish on the reef!” Gordon swung back to grinning as he reached out to grab onto that joy and keep on clinging to it in spite of his whole life.

John lit up, hands flickering as he caught Gordon’s excitement and swam with it. “Cool! Which species were they? What did they look like? Was it on the part we surveyed together last month?”

John just got him.

Gordon loved some rapid fire questions about his area of expertise in the family.

“To answer the last one first, yes!” He raised his hand to his watch for a high five.

John hadn’t stopped grinning either and he held out his tiny holographic hand to high five Gordon. 

Starfish were John’s favourite creatures, with the star thing he had going you’d totally never guess why, but he loved them all the same. Gordon was glad to share this. He always was.

So Gordon, with his ocean sounding in a perpetual background to his life, limped along the beach and rambled on about starfish to his brother who loved him for exactly who he had become.

[evidenceof]

RPF Services Edition Fic Rec:  amazing real adventure stories, vol. 46 by @sea-changed (foxlives on AO3)

Peace, justice, freedom, and other lies your country taught you.

Fandom: Band of Brothers Character: Joe Liebgott

Read this incredible character study of Lieb waaay back in June, haven't stopped thinking about and revisiting it since. War is hell and time is cyclical. Joe is right in the middle of it all, refusing to take off his dog tags. So painfully grounded in historical context, you will look at it through the eyes of this Joe Liebgott. The scratched up latrine walls that read the same way as Guarnere's, "that prick's a son of Abraham." Critiques the camaraderie/brothers-in-arms/as-long-as-we-have-each-other narrative by putting focus right back into the war and who suffers for it. Winters is not the golden boy. Instead we have Joe, a scab constantly picked and never quite healing. The writing is incredible, but godd GOD the context. Everything is destabilized and Joe Liebgott can't seem to resurface. I love this fic so much.

“You will always be at the camp. You will always be on the plane. You will always be in the foxhole. Time, which before the war had always run straight, has come off its tracks. Nothing stays where it's supposed to. The war is then; the war is now; the war is forever."

Art featured is a mock up I based off of Armed Services Editions. I used elements from the original book cover for Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the mini book cover detail a tiny illustration of Liebgott in my attempt at Dick Tracy style).

[nevermindirah]

I'm a lucky duck who lives in one of the markets getting the limited release of Dandelion! Per Nat's request here are my thoughts to tide you over until it's more widely accessible.

As I said in my immediate reaction post, KiKi Layne was built for the big screen. This movie is full of gorgeous closeups of her. And medium-sized shots, and distance shots, and ok maybe it's just me, but bless this movie for making her a singer-songwriter-guitarist, because this means there are so many lingering closeups of her hands, and oh mY GOD NOT TO BE A LESBIAN (gender-neutral) BUT >:)))))))))

I could look at KiKi Layne all day, and now I could also listen to her sing all day. Her voice is beautiful and so expressive. She said in press leading up to it that she was nervous to share her singing voice and maybe that had something to do with just how expressive she is as a singer. Maybe sharing that is more intimate for her than the on-screen nudity this movie also has, and which is also compelling as hell.

This pro review notes that KiKi contributed to the music writing, which is so cool! It also acknowledges that much of the dialogue isn't quite right, often a little too like an essay or a headline to be organic for these characters, while getting at how forgivable that is in a movie whose soul is in the music and the visuals and the chemistry.

Somewhat miraculously for a movie with a white writer-director whose skill isn't primarily in dialogue, about a Black lead in a mostly-white place, it's conscious about race without being didactic. Dandelion is wary of going to white redneck territory for a music competition, and there's a sequence where microaggressions turn into shitty petty crime, but she's also not the only Black person in the sea of likely [redacted] voters. The movie does get a touch didactic about the struggles of women in creative industries, so maybe it wasn't a product of careful effort so much as Nicole Reigel's limited perspective, but the result works. Antiblackness isn't The Conflict of The Movie, simply a shitty part of the background radiation of Dandelion's life.

The music is so damn good. Soundtrack album here! Though the album tragically leaves off two of the movie's best songs: the stunning final number where Tracy Chapman vibes meet Prince, and a cover of 90s white boy song Hey Jealousy that starts off as mere pleasant background track introducing us to KiKi's voice and turns into a sleeper thematic tornado. Once you've seen the movie go look at Hey Jealousy's lyrics and backstory so you can join me in screaming about it and these characters.

Dandelion is a little movie, marvelously so. It's about just a few people in a short time in their lives. I hadn't thought about it like this until now but there are several thematic as hell shots of one or two characters shown tiny and off to the side amid sweeping rocky nature. The artsy shots of flowers superimposed on emotive faces aren't my taste but the overwhelming scale of the landscapes really spoke to me and now I'm realizing this is why.

There's a thing about some side characters wanting to be the biggest band in the world that's kind of an example of the clunky dialogue and kinda perfect for how wonderfully small this movie is. It doesn't matter where Dandelion's career goes after this. These scant few weeks of her life make for such a rich story on their own. This moment in time matters, even if these events don't turn out to have any more effect on the characters' futures than they do on the timeless mountains and prairies of South Dakota.

Fandom people are probably more likely to connect with this movie than the average non-musician viewer because of something that baffled me about a review I wildly disagreed with. Apparently some people can watch this and not understand how fast two people can develop deep intimacy and attachment despite barely knowing each other, just because they make art together. I don't understand how that reviewer didn't understand. You make art with someone and you're in each other's souls. It's intoxicating to collaborate with someone who gets what you're trying to say with your art and helps you make something that best captures the ineffable but crystal clear thing you're trying to say.

Not so intoxicating that you can no longer make rational decisions — but, well, in a way maybe it's the more rational decision to keep chasing the high of drift compatible creation, even when the person you've found to be your musical brain twin is maybe a not great choice in other ways.

Purely for Book of Nile reasons this movie is a damn gift. Tons of shots would be so easy to swap out one scruffy white boy's face for another. (Though Thomas Doherty is the same height as KiKi, which I personally enjoy, it's fun to have variety.) So much of the lyrics are extreme bait for gifsets and fic titles. (Tiny for the movie but very big for the BoNers spoiler: SHE LITERALLY CALLS HIM OLD MAN.) The first two thirds of the movie I kept thinking how perfect this plot would be as a BoN musicians AU — until a twist where I was both so pissed on Dandelion's behalf and internally screaming BOOKER WOULD NEVER.

As I was watching the final scenes I kept waiting for a thing to happen that didn't happen, a certain way of resolving the romance. The ending we do get left me yearning a little. But starting a few hours after leaving the theater the yearning subsided and now a week later my satisfaction with the ending has fermented into a yearning only to listen to that last song on loop forever. (WHY is it not on the soundtrack. I mean, TRACY CHAPMAN MEETS PRINCE.)

One more thing before I go. Dandelion is another thrilling expansion of the repertoire of KiKi's characters in terms of vibes and aesthetics. She looks so different than Nile in a theoretical mirror image outfit of practical boots and jeans and an oversized borrowed button-down thrown over a tee. None of KiKi's other characters, not even gentle Tish, would look so at home in delicate florals, doubly so when they're paired so effortlessly with a comfy denim jacket. And KiKi's physicality here is unique to this person: Dandelion, Theresa, a guitarist. Wholly unlike Margaret the dancer or Nile the warrior. Maybe someday Nile will grow locs like Dandelion's though.

In conclusion: watch Dandelion! I'm as glad I saw this in theaters as I was glad I watched Don't Worry Darling at 1.5x in a small corner of my laptop and only slowed it down for Kiki's scenes. The limited release is real limited, alas, but if you have access to a biggish tv to stream it on I'd strongly recommend making that effort. Both for the landscapes and those gorgeous closeups of Kiki's face.

[tagsecretsanta]

From @janetm74

From @janetm74 to @thedryswan

Scott Tracy/Jane Carter and Virgil Tracy/Zoey Kwark

Prompt chosen: Disastrous Double Date

Note: There is no canon name for Professor Kwark so I have chosen to use the name that is most often used fanon, thanks to The Dry Swan - Zoey

~

Getting time off as the Commander of iR and the CEO of TI was difficult at the best of times. Getting time off with his brother, Virgil, as the second most used operative on rescues, was even more difficult.

Throw in two girlfriends, one of which was a pilot and the other the owner of her own successful aeronautics company, who also had very busy and demanding schedules, and getting such time off together was almost impossible.

Thank goodness John was such a great multitasker. Somehow he had managed to not only arrange for Scott and Virgil to have time off but to ensure it coincided with Jane and Zoey too.

John had gone one step further. He’d arranged a double date for them. There had been much good-natured ribbing over this, but it was water off a duck’s back. And when the two brothers saw where John had booked they soon were thanking John and cuffing their younger brothers for the ribbing.

Borgo Santandrea was stunning, both in location and in looks. The hotel was built into a cliff face, a beautiful white building atop supports dug directly out of the cliff and surrounded by scrubland and trees with the cliff continuing to tower over it while also having a private beach and a direct path down into the crystal blue waters.

John had booked them a suite for the night, with some spa treatments if they wanted to partake of them and dinner in the Marinella Restaurant, on the balcony with views over the Tyrrhenian Sea and the gulf of Salerno.

It also helped that this was one area that International Rescue had not attended for any rescues, despite it being near quite an active earthquake zone and near several inactive volcanos and one semi-active one.

They flew out in Tracy One, timing their arrival to coincide with breakfast, which started with them mixing with the chefs while they cooked whatever the guests desired. There were crepes, French toast, pastries, omelettes, charcuterie and cheeses as well as salads, oils and tiny piles of salts.

They chose a wide selection of miniature pastries and the local Roman Breakfast Cakes, and took them to the beach bar along with small cups of cappuccino. The sweet cakes were delicious.

Afterwards they strolled along the white sands and kicked up the surf for quite a while before returning to the hotel for spa treatments and rest. While Jane and Zoey relaxed with full-body massages Scott and Virgil propped at the bar, helping themselves to the complimentary Biscotteria with freshly made lemonade that used the locally grown Amalfi lemons.

It didn’t take Virgil long to migrate to the piano and soon Scott was drifting to the soft sounds of gentle jazz. Jane slipping into the seat beside him barely woke him, but he pulled her close and buried his face in her hair. It smelt so good. Zoey sat on the other side of Scott, and a waiter brought over more lemonade and a selection from the Biscotteria.

The afternoon passed so pleasantly that none of them wanted to move upstairs and get ready for dinner, but eventually the four made their way up to the suite John had booked for them.

The suite was luxurious even by their standards, with its own private garden and infinity pool with views over the sea, and Scott made a mental note to recommend this place to Gordon. He was sure Penny would love it here too.

Scott and Virgil’s suits were Liverano & Liverano, an Italian bespoke tailor that had been going for 500 years. Their suits were designed with them in mind, Scott’s being the darkest blue fabric and Virgil’s a green a few shades lighter than Scott’s. While Virgil favoured the traditional white shirt and a matching bow tie and waistcoat, Scott had decided to eschew tradition for a pale blue silk polo neck.

They elicited gasps of admiration from Jane and Zoey. Those gasps were reciprocated when Scott and Virgil saw the outfits that the girls were wearing.

Jane had dressed in blue to complement Scott. She wore an ankle-length pale blue georgette dress with a slight cowl neckline, fitted throughout and with a side slit that reached almost to the top of her thigh. It was sleeveless and whispered slightly as she moved, and the skirt swished over a pair of dangerously high gold strappy sandals. A fine gold lace shawl covered her bare arms.

Zoey had gone with a yukata. The traditional dress was a dark green close to Virgil’s suit, with the typical white and pale green hydrangea and minute sprays of pale pink cherry blossoms. The outfit was completed with a sash of the palest green and wooden sandals. Her short, bobbed hair was held back with a green band to match the base layer.

It was one of the few times Scott and Virgil didn’t mind wearing suits. They held out their elbows and their girlfriends took the proffered support and they made their way downstairs to the restaurant.

They were shown to their balcony seats. The sun was low on the horizon, painting the sky with hues of gold and pinks, reflecting off their drinks. The food was superb. There was some light music playing.

Scott leaned over and kissed Jane soundly. So soundly it felt like the Earth moved. And then he snorted. What a cheesy thing to think. He turned to say that to Jane when the Earth moved again.

Literally.

‘Scott! Virgil!’

‘John?’

‘We’re picking up tremors in your area. Are you guys alright?’

‘We’re…’

But Scott couldn’t finish what he was saying as this time the Earth moved so violently that people were screaming and he was scrabbling to stay on his feet. Scott took one look at Virgil and they hurried both girls and the other diners into the hotel for safety.

And then, with a roar of noise so loud they couldn’t hear John screaming from their watches, the cliff behind the hotel came rushing down on them.

John kept trying Scott and Virgil while sounding the emergency alarm. Gordon and Alan raced into the lounge closely followed by Kayo and Penny, who was visiting while iR were two operatives down.

‘John? What it is?’

‘It’s Scott and Virgil. There’s been an earthquake and a landslide over the hotel and I can’t raise them!’

They didn’t waste any time getting into Two and flying out. As they flew Gordon asked John if there was any news, but there wasn’t, there hadn’t been any contact.

From base to Italy was around 11,600 miles. Even at Two’s top airspeed it would still take them an hour and half to get there. It was the longest journey of their lives. Gordon was hard put not to push Two harder. Virgil might have been able to coax more out of his ‘bird, but Gordon didn’t have the confidence to do so and guarantee Two would stay safe.

They were twenty minutes out when they finally got some good news.

Getting people off the balcony didn’t prove to be too difficult once the floor buckled, and everyone rushed into the main restaurant. As people milled around Scott realised that the majority didn’t have a clue and he knew there was very little time. So, supported by Virgil, he climbed onto a table and bellowed.

‘STOP!’

Miraculously everyone stopped and looked at him.

‘Under the tables, NOW! You – get your staff out of the kitchen, it’s going to be too dangerous in there.’

Scott had one of those voices that people just listened to, and everyone hurried to do as they had been told. It wasn’t a moment too soon as seconds later the hotel was hit by rocks, and the four of them, hugging around the base of a large round table, watched as boulders of all sizes decimated the balcony they had been on less than a minute earlier.

It wasn’t long before the rocks and the earth quaking tore the place apart, and pretty soon the restaurant was buried.

Virgil wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious but he was the first to wake up. He could barely move, but at least there was an air bubble that they could breathe in, even if there was lots of dust in the air.

He blinked dust out of his eyes while he took stock. The large tabletop had saved their lives, there was no doubt about that, the lump he could feel on the back of his head was testimony to that.

Zoey groaned in his arms and he looked her over as best as he could in the limited space. There was a small trickle of blood down the side of her head but that was all he could see. Beside her was Jane, still unconscious and with her head on Zoey’s shoulder.

Of Scott there was no sign. Virgil attempted to twist so he could find his brother, but they were packed in tight, with rubble all around them. Of course, Scott would have been on the outside, making sure everyone was safe. Virgil took a closer look at Jane and could see Scott’s hand on her shoulder.

Virgil set to wriggling his arm free in the hope that he could still contact John. It took some time, but eventually he pulled it out with a minimum of skin loss. His shirt and suit were ruined anyway but his watch was theoretically earthquake proof. But there was nothing. He gave it a shake and suddenly there was a grainy picture of John.

Even though John’s holo wasn’t as clear as usual Virgil could see the relief on his brother’s face. As he smiled Zoey decided to wake up, blinking in confusion before laying her head back on Virgil’s shoulder.

‘Virgil! Are you all ok?’

‘Stuck but I’m ok. Zoey’s just waking up, Jane’s still out of it. I don’t know about Scott, I can only see his hand on Jane’s shoulder. I can’t move enough to check further than that.’

‘The guys are on their way, Virgil. They’ll be there in around 20 minutes. Sit tight.’

‘FAB, John.’

Virgil chuckled quietly at John’s parting words. That was a Gordon-worthy pun if ever he’d heard one.

‘Hey, Virgil?’

‘Zoey! How are you feeling?’

‘Like I just got trampled all over.’

‘You took a knock to the head, hun. Probably got a bit of concussion.’

‘Oh. Well, that explains a lot. Jane? Scott?’

‘Jane’s leaning on your other shoulder. I’m not sure about Scott.’

‘Rescue on its way?’

‘Yeah. The boys will be here soon.’

‘Oh good. Coz this date started so well but now it’s a disaster.’

‘Literally!’

They both laughed, grimacing when the dust caught their throats and they ended up coughing. The movements jostled Jane awake, much to their relief.

‘Can you girls stay awake?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘I – I think so. Virgil? Where’s Scott?’

‘I haven’t been able to rouse him. Jane, his hand is still on your shoulder. Can you feel him around you?’

Jane felt for the hand and slid her fingers up to the wrist. She sighed when she found a pulse before moving her hand to be holding Scott’s loosely. She gave his fingers a light squeeze but got no response.

‘I got a pulse but no reaction. He’s still out of it.’

‘That’s great. Keep squeezing his hand periodically. Judging from the amount of debris around us that whole cliff must have collapsed on top of the hotel. John?’

‘I’m here, Virgil.’

‘We’re pretty packed in here. I’m gonna see if there’s anyone else conscious and if we can start clearing a way out. Let us know if there are any more aftershocks.’

‘FAB, Virgil. Be careful and please keep the comm open.’

‘Of course.’

John relayed the news that he’d been in contact with Virgil and immediately everyone relaxed a fraction. Only a fraction though. Earthquakes were the worst of the disasters International Rescue attended. None of them liked earthquakes due to the unpredictable nature, but up until now they had never had any of their own caught in one.

By the time Two arrived there was no sign there had ever been a hotel in the cliff face. All there was was a wide path of rubble stretching down into the sea. The previously 300-foot-tall cliff was around half that, with a gap where the hotel was that was almost as wide.

The earthquake had its epicentre at nearby Tovere. Reports had placed it at a 5.7 on the Richter scale, almost double the strength that the area’s previous earthquakes had been, but with the centre in the sparsely populated area above the Amalfi coast the hotel had taken the brunt of the land movement.

Nearby Naples had also felt the quake, but the damage there was far less, and local services along with the local branches of the GDF declaring that they could deal with that damage and those areas around Tovere so International Rescue was free to concentrate on the hotel and the surrounding areas along the coast.

Alan gasped at the devastation, but Gordon was made of sterner stuff and kept his thoughts to himself. He felt Penny’s hand tighten on his shoulder and he smiled grimly at her.

‘John? We’re here. Directions? Is there anywhere safe to land Two?’

‘I have a landing site in mind a little further down the coast at Conca dei Marini. You should land on route SS163. It’s not ideal but there’s little around that is big enough that hasn’t been damaged by the quake.’

‘It’s great, John. Wouldn’t want Virgil to have cause to complain about me scratching his ‘bird.’

‘Alan, Penny, I suggest you take the mole pods. I know that there are usually only two chassis in Module 2 but Brains has packed a spare one for this mission so Kayo you can take the dozer and Gordon, someone needs to stay with Two and keep the infirmary ready.’

‘FAB, John. Alan, Penny, you want to go get your pods configured while I land.’

‘FAB, Gordon.’

As soon as Gordon had landed John showed a map of the surrounding coastline. Borgo Santandrea wasn’t the only place hit by the landslide although it was by far the worst. They were thankful that there was only a couple of places around the hotel that had buildings, the majority of the area was trees all the way down to the coast.

There were a couple of beach coves to the left of the hotel that had buildings, but the landslide seemed to have missed them. But there was the beach club house directly below the hotel and a large restaurant to the right of the hotel.

‘John? Any life signs in the club house and restaurant on the beach below the hotel?’

‘The beach house was closed; I’m reading no life signs there. The restaurant had not long opened but they had only a few customers and it appears they managed to make it to safety as there is radio chatter from the local ambulance saying they have picked them up.’

‘That’s great, John! So we can concentrate on the hotel?’

‘Yeah. Hotel registration and restaurant lists state there were 45 people in the building plus about 80 staff.’

‘Do – do the life signs agree with that number?’

‘Negative. EOS is currently reading 96 life signs, mostly registering around where the restaurant was.’

‘Well, that sucks but at least we have a point to start. Tell Virgil we’re on our way.’

‘FAB, Gordon. I have the local ambulance service on their way They’re sending three ambulances. Good luck.’

Meanwhile, Virgil was making inroads into moving the debris around them. He’d shouted for anyone else awake and received some groans in reply. He’d needed to twist awkwardly but the debris was thankfully not very compacted and with a little effort Virgil managed to get some space to move. It wasn’t easy, and judging from the grunts and swearing from other parts of the restaurant other people were also trying to dig themselves free.

As soon as there was space for Virgil to back out enough Zoey followed suit, and between them they shifted dirt and rocks so that they could get to Scott. As Virgil had feared Scott had placed himself on the outside of their group and a larger boulder had landed on Scott’s upper back and head, pushing him off of Virgil and Zoey. The angle of his shoulder and other arm told Virgil that at least that shoulder had been dislocated. But his pulse was strong, and they dug out an area that would be big enough to lay Scott down carefully.

By the time they had achieved that Jane had become more conscious, and she sat beside her boyfriend while Virgil and Zoey began to make their way to the next nearest table. They had barely reached it when the welcome sounds of a mole pod began to be heard.

Alan took the most direct route down to the restaurant while Penny and Kayo made sure that there were no life signs higher up. By the time Alan had cleared through enough to exit the mole Virgil had reached the other table and Penny and Kayo were just breaking through.

The first thing that Alan did was to give Virgil a quick hug before his older brother directed him to look after Scott while the rest of them set to rescuing everyone else.

Before attempting to move him Alan ran the Medscanner over Scott. As expected there were several yellow alerts for severe bruising and cuts and red alerts for concussion and a skull fracture as well as a fractured shoulder and two breaks in that arm. But his back and neck were in the clear and Alan sighed in relief. He and Jane carefully rolled him onto a hover stretcher and, using the hole the mole had made, the pair took Scott to the surface.

Jane took over Scott’s stretcher, giving the ambulance that had arrived a rundown of his injuries, and they were both whisked away despite Jane’s protests. But then the paramedic wiped blood from her face and Jane realised that she was also hurt.

‘Gordon, Scott and Jane are on their way to the hospital. Virgil’s sending the injured out and they’ll need Two’s infirmary. The three buses are not going to be enough, almost everyone is injured in some way.’

‘FAB, John. I’m ready.’

‘Penny’s heading back to you to help. She’ll bring Zoey with her.’

‘Is Zoey hurt?’

‘Yeah, slight concussion but she’ll be okay.’

‘FAB, John.’

Then began a steady stream of rescuees. It took Gordon, Penny and Zoey to keep up with treating everyone. No one was surprised to see Virgil as the last person in. By that time Virgil stumbled into Two there was standing room only, so Gordon ushered his brother into the cockpit. It took a firm hand to push him into the co-pilot seat but Virgil understood he was in no fit state to fly.

Gordon saw to his head wound while Kayo flew them to the nearby hospital De Luca and Rossano as it was the closest unaffected one. They were inundated with patients and those with lesser injuries were transferred further up the coast to San Leonardo in Naples.

Deciding that keeping Scott, Jane, Zoey and Virgil together would be the best bet, the three lesser injured had already been treated and they were moved into one small Visitor’s Room and they began the wait for news of Scott and how the rescue was going.

John kept one eye on the rescue as the elevator dropped him close to the hospital. They’d worked through the night and in the early dawn light the rescue was wrapping up. Gordon would drop home and pick up Grandma. The GDF and local services were also finishing up the surrounding towns.

Joining Virgil, Zoey and Jane, John kept himself busy with making sure everyone injured was being treated, setting up a fund that made sure of that. He only stopped doing that when the rest of their family joined them.

There were careful hugs all round and they had only just begun to settle down into the chairs when the door opened again and a doctor appeared. Those able to immediately jumped up, and Grandma took the lead.

‘Good morning. I’m Doctor Marino and I’ve been treating Scott.’

‘Good morning, Dr. I’m Dr Tracy, Scott’s Grandmother. How is he?’

‘Well, he has a linear skull fracture, a broken shoulder blade and his humerus is broken in two places – a simple proximal fracture and shaft fracture around the middle part of the bone. None of his injuries require surgery, but we kept him under close observation for a couple of hours just to make sure there was no build-up of intracranial pressure or any blood clots forming. He’s being wheeled into a room and we will continue to monitor both these potential issues for another six hours.’

The doctor beamed as everyone sighed in relief before continuing.

‘The skull fracture will not need further treatment. Scott’s arm has been put into a light-weight plaster cast and tightly strapped to facilitate healing of both arm and shoulder, but with no further complications he’ll be free to go home once the monitoring is done.’

‘Prognosis?’

‘Six to eight weeks for the fractures to heal as is common. Only once they are healed will we know what kind of physio he’ll need.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’

Sally shook hands with the doctor and a few minutes after they had left a nurse came to show them all to Scott’s room. The man himself was asleep, but despite how quiet everyone was trying to be he woke up, groggy and confused. Wisely they all retreated, leaving Virgil, Zoey and Jane to explain what had happened.

Once Scott understood he was going to be out of action for a minimum of six weeks Scott groaned loudly and began to try to get out of bed, but Jane’s hand on his good shoulder stopped him quicker than words could.

‘Love, this double date may have disastrous, but you’re good, I’m good. Virgil and Zoey are good. And we are all injured and not going anywhere. Maybe, once you’re given the all-clear to fly, we can go home and crash and have a normal double date with a takeaway and crappy movies and rest.’

Scott looked at his lover and his family and sat back in the bed.

‘Takeaway and crappy movie double date? I’m up for that. Virgil? Zoey? You up for that too?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Sounds good.’

Scott kissed Jane’s hand, his eyes twinkling.

‘Only if we can have a Top Gun marathon.’

[idontknowreallywhy]

Estera - Ch 9 - Coffee

(Previous… Prologue - Stars are Only Visible in Darkness, Estera - 1 - Colour, 2 - Dinosaur, 3 - Shoes, 4 - Thunderbird, 5 - Lesson, 6 - Safe, 7 - Gull, 8 - Deliver)

(Recrudescence by @sofasurf)

This ended up being the longest chapter yet… but they had a lot of ground to cover. Also, I hope you will forgive the cheesy aroma of self-indulgence at the end but once the idea came I couldn’t quite let it go. And what’s the point of writing a story if you can’t do all of the ridiculous things you want to, right?

A Conversation…

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

“Hello, Scott.”

“Hey, you came!”

She did a tiny jazz hands then folded herself into the seat opposite, unravelling an incredibly long blue scarf from around her neck and face.

“Well at least you dressed right for the weather. I’ll admit I was a little surprised by how cold it is… isn’t it meant to be Spring?”

“Ah, welcome to Sidmouth. The sea breeze adds a certain something.”

“It’s a beautiful spot.”

“Yes, I love it here.”

Scott caught the eye of the waiter. “What can I get you?”

“Triple shot cappuccino please.”

He ordered two.

“I wasn’t expecting you until after the school day? Well, if you came at all, I mean… uh, you didn’t have to of course.” His mouth went dry.

“Of course I came.” She wound the scarf slowly around her hand as she continued

“I was actually supposed to have the day off today but was hoping being at school would be a distraction from it all. It wasn’t really working. I was actually about to leave when you, err, were there, so…” she reached the end of the scarf, placed it on the table in a neat rectangle and rested her hands on top.

“Thank you for your letter, it was… sweet of you.”

“I really am so sorry about the way I…”

She held up a hand. “Don’t, you’ve already apologised beautifully and it’s perfectly understandable. If anything needs forgiving then consider it forgiven.”

The waiter bustled over with the coffees. She fell on hers with surprising enthusiasm. Scott twirled the teaspoon in his fingers, trying to recall the various conversation starters he’d rehearsed to himself over the last 24 hours but they’d all evaporated the moment she’d sat down and any minute the silence was going to get awkward.

She put her mug down and tilted her head to one side, as if sizing him up.

“Zacząć od nowa?” She put a hand to her her mouth and shook her head. “Sorry, it’s been a long day… I mean, what if we started over?”

She held out a hand and Scott lifted his to meet it but hesitated, overwhelmed by a strange sense that his hand might go straight through hers and prove this was all in his head.

“Hello, my name’s Estera Hermaszewska. I’m a primary teacher here in the UK but I grew up in… what used to be Poland. I enjoy martial arts and running, I play the cello rather badly. Oh, and my favourite food is chocolate cake.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Your turn.”

He took her hand and shook it tentatively.

“Scott Carpenter Tracy. First responder and pilot. Ugh, and I guess the business stuff takes up a lot of my time so there’s that. I’m from” he paused “well, Kansas originally. We had a ranch there. I like to run too. Oh, and apple pie.”

She smiled “that’s a good choice.”

Ok. Ok. He’d established she was really alive, she was living and she had a life. Now to find out how it was possible.

“How did you come to be here? In the UK?”

She sighed, the memory obviously a heavy one.

“Well, there was this war on where I lived. I don’t know if you heard about it but it was fairly inconvenient…” her mouth twisted into a wry grin and as she caught his eye he found himself smirking along too. With a jolt he realised the dark humour reminded him of his old air force buddies.

“And you didn’t fancy sticking around?” he asked lightly.

She looked down at her hands and ran her thumb along the edge of the scarf.

“On the day we… met… I realised I had to disappear so they didn’t target my parents too. I knew people were being smuggled out on small aircraft and luckily that night there was a plane leaving from the playing fields just behind our house.”

Scott went light headed as he realised he knew exactly the one she meant. The same one he’d intended to hijack to secure his own freedom.

“They just let you on board?”

She laughed bitterly and blinked rapidly.

“Uh, no. We had to be hidden. There were some wooden crates. I think they were supposed to look like coffins so nobody would check inside. It was…” she trailed off and he suddenly recalled her comment in the cave.

“Hence the claustrophobia?”

Her hands tightened around the scarf and she blushed a little.

“Hence the claustrophobia. I, err, don’t fly well either. At all, actually. Which is fine, I’ve never needed to since.”

“And your parents?”

He immediately wished he could claw the words back into his mouth. The flicker of agony on her features was brief but unmistakeable.

“The soldiers didn’t make the connection, they stayed safe. But…” she swallowed and clenched her jaw and when she continued there was a quiet fury in her words “just before everything ended they both got sick. One of the things the militia did when they arrived was blockade the supply of medical aid. Nobody got the vaccine boosters they should have had and…” she closed her eyes “the malaria was bad that year.”

As he watched her tangle her fingers through the scarf again, Scott felt almost overwhelmed by nausea. He swore to himself she could never know he had survived the monster that had taken her parents from her.

She hurried on “What about you though? I saw the guy with the knife… he looked… I thought he was going to… I thought he had. I was sure of it.”

She didn’t know?

“It was you. You saved me! Whatever you threw… he left me to the other two and chased you instead?”

“He chased me?” She turned her head and stared out to sea. Maybe he was telling her too much, he shouldn’t have said that, she didn’t need to know. Except now she did. He mentally kicked himself. She seemed to come to a decision to file the implications away for later and met his eye again.

“But you didn’t escape?”

Somehow he held her gaze and answered reasonably calmly.

“No. No, I didn’t escape.”

“I’m so sorry, Scott. We heard stories about the camps and… I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t great.”

She looked at him incredulously and he took a breath, feeling he owed it to her to be honest.

“It’s difficult to find words to describe how horrific it was. I’m not completely sure how long it was between my arrival and it being liberated but they told me at least a couple of months. I… I came out sick and pretty broken but…” here he added his own mini jazz hands and a tiny forced smile “I survived.”

She nodded. “And look at everything you’ve achieved since!”

He shrugged that off. He didn’t deserve compliments right now. Something still wasn’t sitting right, still didn’t make sense in all of this. It didn’t fit the facts he knew.

“Estera, I’m sorry to ask this and please don’t answer if you don’t want to. But I have to ask it anyway. After… we met… did they uh, was there…”

He gripped the edge of the table and looked down, trying to steady his breathing. She reached a hand across and leaned into his line of sight, looking up at him calmly.

“It’s ok. You can ask it.”

“Did they… hurt… you?” The words burned his throat on the way out.

“After I left you? No, I never saw them again. I used my keycard to take the side gate from the alley into the school grounds to pick up my handbag… It was a crazy detour in retrospect but I panicked that if they found it they could use my ID to trace my family. Then I left via the back door and thankfully there was no sign of anybody.”

“They… were lying.”

Scott pressed his shaking palms into his eye sockets and shuddered.

They’d taunted him with unbearable detail of the humiliation and violence she’d been subjected to, all because of his intervention. But for him, they’d have had some fun then let her go… but he’d made the boss angry. He’d made it worse for her. If he hadn’t tried to play the hero she’d probably have survived.

It was a lie.

She had! They hadn’t done any of it.

All this time…

He laughed, bitterly. Then tried to explain himself.

“I’m sorry, they uh… told me… you… they… uh sorry.” He leaned back and looked at the sky, blinking to clear his vision, before taking a deep breath and blowing it out vigorously. He got control of himself and looked back at her. She was waiting. Looking sympathetic but not… not shocked or scared of what he might say.

“They told me I made it worse. That you were… punished for what I did and…” his voice caught “that you didn’t survive.”

“You didn’t. And I’m still here.”

“You are.”

“And so are you.”

“Seems that way.” he whispered.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Unprompted, the waiter materialised with fresh drinks and they both took the opportunity to pause and warm their cold fingers on the cups almost too hot to hold. She watched the steam, trying to collect her thoughts.

This conversation was never going to have been anything but difficult. But, it could have been worse. She hadn’t told him everything - he didn’t need to know everything - but what she had said… he’d seemed to understand? She’d not had that experience since the funding for the monthly therapy and support group for refugees was discontinued a year after the war ended. Since then, she’d been on her own. It didn’t seem fair to bring such things up with new friends. The fewer people who had to think about it the better. She raised the cup to her lips and blew away the steam.

Her hand trembled slightly and she slopped half the coffee over the table. Scott immediately contained it with napkins but there weren’t enough and she rooted in her coat pocket for the emergency packet of tissues she carried and produced them in a rush. Something else came out attached to the packet and fell to the table with a slight rattle.

Oh no. Oh no no no nooo.

He reached out and delicately picked it up between a thumb and forefinger.

“So… I can’t help but notice you have a tiny model of my leg in your pocket. Should I be concerned?”

Her face was burning.

“You… you know I work with kids, right? It’s um, not mine. I’m not a crazy stalker person or anything.” She glanced up and was relieved to see he was laughing. “In fact before today I didn’t know there were action figures, it’s usually the trading cards I have to confiscate. That’s quite some PR machine you’ve got there.”

Now it was his turn to look awkward.

“Ah, well… there were so many poor quality ones being sold and they were frankly an environmental disaster and the manufacturing conditions were awful and so TI made some official ones. Proper working conditions, closed loop. All the proceeds to charity so… uh, yeah. It still feels cringey but I think was the right thing to do.” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck vigorously as if trying to warm it up. “The ones of me always lose legs. There have been an embarrassing number of design meetings on the point.”

She nearly choked on her coffee.

“I'm sorry but it's just so surreal that you not only have a toy figure made of you but you actually go to meetings where you discuss your leg strength!”

“My actual leg strength is just fine. I’ve barely ever lost one.”

“That’s good to know” she deadpanned and took a sip of coffee before smirking again

“So… do you have to model for these?”

“Thankfully, no… they do refresh them occasionally and we have to approve any new designs. I have an overarching veto since a novelty collection of them nearly got released for Valentines a few years back… Gordon was the creative menace behind it and cancelling the production run cost him a significant chunk of his trust fund. Although he would tell you it was worth it for the prototypes he got to keep.” He smirked, apparently remembering “Virgil’s was quite amusing in fairness…”

She quirked an eyebrow by way of encouragement to elaborate.

“1960’s artists overalls and palate, jaunty beret, red rose between his teeth. The overalls had an outrageously big floppy bow.”

She thought back to the serious but handsome young man who had gently explained everything to the parents at the rescue site and smiled

“I bet that would have been popular”.

“Probably. Gordon’s was meant to portray the aftermath of his Olympic Butterfly gold, but the proportions were way off and I can promise you nobody needs an action figure of him in Speedo’s.”

She could feel her eyes widen “Oh, well, yikes.”

Her attention was caught by a loud snarling as a dog belonging to one of the other customers faced off with that of a passer-by. She tried to ignore it.

“Dare I ask what was wrong with yours?”

A clatter of crockery and scrape of chairs on concrete as the angry dog slipped its leash and bounded after the other, barking aggressively. The owner gave chase, shouting apologies.

She rolled her eyes and looked back at Scott about to make some comment about puppy training classes but he wasn’t there.

He was sat in the same place but his eyes, wide but with deep lines of tension at the edges, looked straight through her, flitting from side to side as he tracked something she couldn’t see. His jaw moved in a way that suggested he was grinding his teeth and his hand resting on the table had formed a white knuckled ball. He was barely breathing.

She knew this.

Her heart ached for him that he knew it too.

Ever so gently she placed her own hand next to his and very slightly stroked the back of his wrist with the tip of a finger. Sometimes a subtle touch could be grounding, as long as it didn’t shock him.

She carried on talking softly, hoping the sound would help him find his way back but quickly began to run out of nonsense. Clutching at straws, she began to recite the poem she had read to the children during quiet time last Thursday.

“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;”

After a few moments his jaw relaxed slightly and his lips moved soundlessly. Encouraged, she ploughed on

“Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air…”

She paused, racking her brain for the next line. In the faintest whisper he finished it:

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

The gulls called to each other over the water, his eyes suddenly locked on to hers and he gasped.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Chapter 10…

[directedbynoraephron]

books i read in 2024:

lady chatterley’s lover by dh lawrence

either/or by elif batuman

the color purple by alice walker

i know why the caged bird sings by maya angelou

idlewild by james frankie thomas

night sky with exit wounds by ocean vuong

five tuesdays in winter by lily king

death valley by melissa broder

mutual aid: building solidarity during this crisis (and the next) by dean spade

bride by ali hazelwood

the very secret society of irregular witches by sangu mandanna

gilead by marilynne robinson

operating instructions: a journal of my son's first year by anne lamott

how far the light reaches: a life in ten sea creatures by sabrina imbler

eileen by ottessa moshfegh

how to keep house while drowning: a gentle approach to cleaning and organizing by kc davis

there there by tommy orange

tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow by gabrielle zevin

another brooklyn by jacqueline woodson

big swiss by jen beagin

housekeeping by marilynne robinson

the guest by emma cline

the answers by catherine lacey

educated by tara westover

how to talk so kids will listen & listen so kids will talk by adele faber and elaine mazlish

call me a cab by donald e westlake

the nix by nathan hill

the essential gwendolyn brooks, edited by elizabeth alexander

song of solomon by toni morrison

the emperor of all maladies: a biography of cancer by siddhartha mukherjee

we the animals by justin torres

funny story by emily henry

the dutch house by ann patchett

the remains of the day by kazuo ishiguro

a great and terrible beauty by libba bray

the love affairs of nathaniel p by adelle waldman

assembly by natasha brown

beautyland by marie-helene bertino

the cost of living by deborah levy

a god in ruins by kate atkinson

doppelganger: a trip into the mirror world by naomi klein

if beale street could talk by james baldwin

mountains beyond mountains: the quest of dr paul farmer, a man who would cure the world by tracy kidder

the wide wide sea: imperial ambition, first contact, and the fateful final journey of captain james cook by hampton sides

wicked intentions by elizabeth hoyt

all the pretty horses by cormac mccarthy

small things like these by claire keegan

all fours by miranda july

nickel and dimed: on (not) getting by in america by barbara ehrenreich

the friend by sigrid nunez

veronica by mary gaitskill

a thousand mornings by mary oliver

the looming tower: al-qaeda and the road to 9/11 by lawrence wright

you should be so lucky by cat sebastian

the art of catching feelings by alicia thompson

tiny beautiful things: advice on love and life from dear sugar by cheryl strayed

love and other words by christina lauren

long island compromise by taffy brodesser-akner

the immortal life of henrietta lacks by rebecca skloot

giovanni’s room by james baldwin

the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson

perfume and pain by anna dorn

evicted: poverty and profit in the american city by matthew desmond

stay true by hua hsu

the pairing by casey mcquiston

fix her up by tessa bailey

66 total books broken down into: 35 literary fiction, 9 informative non-fiction/history, 9 romance, 6 memoir, 3 poetry, 3 self-help/advice, and 1 YA

[libraryleopard]

November reads

Swimming Through Mountains by Calla James

Body Grammar by Jules Ohman

And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott

The Night Eaters vol. 1: She Eats the Night by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Bad Girls by Camila Sosa Villada

Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers by Jake Skeets

House of Slaughter vol. 1: The Butcher’s Mark by James Tynion IV et al 

House of Slaughter vol. 2: Scarlet by James Tynion et al

Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater*

They Hate Each Other by Amanda Woody

The Sea Knows My Name by Laura Brooke Robson

The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha

Lucha of the Night Forest by Tehlor Kay Mejia

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

The Zones of Paradise by Lynn Powell

My Flawless Life by Yvonne Woon

The Twenty-Ninth Year by Hala Alyan

Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly

The Tiny Journalist by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Spirit Glass by Roshani Chokshi

Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas

Above Ground by Clint Smith

Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds

Prophet by Sin Blaché and Helen MacDonald

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappé

As If a Song Could Save You by Betsy Sholl

Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America by Julia Lee

Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner

You Can Be the Last Leaf by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat

The Call-Out by Cat Fitzpatrick

The Art of Scandal by Regina Black

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Currently reading

Blood to Poison by Mary Watson

The Mossheart's Promise by Rebecca Mix

Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis

The Body's Question by Tracy K. Smith

Rosewater by Liv Little

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan

How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Skill, and Practice edited by Jericho Brown

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

[playlistjunkie]

Most Popular Songs On Spotify Dinner Party Playlists

1. Dreams - Fleetwood Mac

2. Into The Mystic - Van Morrison

3. Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae

4. At Last - Etta James

5. You Are the Best Thing - Ray LaMontagne

6. (Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding

7. Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison

8. Moondance - Van Morrison

9. Fast Car - Tracy Chapman

10. Lovely Day - Bill Withers

11. Rocket Man - Elton John

12. I Say a Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin

13. Tiny Dancer - Elton John

14. Crazy Love - Van Morrison

15. Sunrise - Norah Jones

16. Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers

17. Landslide - Fleetwood Mac

18. Watermelon Sugar - Harry Styles

19. Africa - Toto

20. Coming Home - Leon Bridges

21. As It Was - Harry Styles

22. Gypsy - Fleetwood Mac

23. A Sunday Kind of Love - Etta James

24. Don't Know Why - Norah Jones

25. Beyond the Sea - Bobby Darin

[jacks-tracks]

30 kilo striped marlin

My 6 am taxi was a no show, but got a flag stop up at the highway down to Playa principal to catch the boat. Just light at 6:30, stiff Easterly breeze, warm and pleasant. The very nice panga is driven by Leo and he brings a deckhand to do the work. With Brian from Pender harbour, Andre from Montreal and of course my buddy Tortuga(aka jimmy) we zoomed out 10 miles to fish. Choppy but only a small groundswell and full sun by 7 am. Nothing usually happens right away and indeed we waited an hour for the first fish. Jimmy hooked a nice sailfish(10 kilos,6 meters long) and handed off to Andre when winded. The sailfish jump a lot so it,s exciting to see. Boating the fish is done by the crew who put on gloves, grasp the fish beak alongside , let them thrash a bit ,then hoist the whole fish inboard and let it expire on the side deck.

Taking turns we had time for bag lunches(brian drank beer instead) and banter. Makes fishing more fun, and I got caught up on Jimmys adventures over the winter. Sold all his boats! After 27 years staying at the YuriMar hotel he and Tracy will upgrade into a Calle Morro palace for January. The Yuri Mar(dump right by the 4 lane highway) has started bringing in bus loads of Mexicans with screaming kids thrashing in the tiny pool till all hours.

Fishing here is very different from home. The panga runs 6 rods on outriggers, and the baited hootchies a re splashing on the surface just 60 feet behind the boat which is zooming along at 5knots(6mph). The skipper looks for current lines where bait gather, or trash floating which gives cover for the bait fish and a feeding zone for the predators. Fish hit hard, hooking themselves and running off a lot of line.This gives the crew time to pull in the other lines and the guest a chance to jump into the fighting chair. The big Penn deep sea reels are loaded with lots of high test line and everything was top shape.

My turn to fish, and a striped Marlin(there are 6 kinds) ripped off 110 meters fast. Plunked into the chair, grabbed the stiff rod and held on! Oddly enough another marlin started jumping 100 feet away from the boat while mine went west. I,ve reeled in a lot of fish but this was one of the hardest, giving no ground just pulling strong. Salmon come up after a while, and Halibut go down but rise easily once their heads are turned upwards. Not Marlin. No jumping just a powerful pulling resistance. It took me 20 minutes of supreme effort, giving it my all to gain line enough to boat the fish and even then he ran from the boat at the last minute. I seriously contemplated handing off the rod to a younger guy, but pride kept me at it. Once the skipper grasped the beak he let the fish thrash against the hull to tire it ,then in one smooth lift hauled it inboard. I was beat and happy. 30 kilos, 7 feet long , a powerhouse of pure muscle. My muscles were done and my left arm which held the weight still feels weak a day later. Back muscles, butt bones, neck stiff, and generally aching all over! Fishing is fun! That,s the biggest fish I,ve ever caught.

We caught another small sailfish, and released it,then after a few good bait stripping hits we trolled towards town. Jimmy was hoping for Dorado, best eating, but the long liners have got them, and Russian trawlers and factory ships have stripped the coast of tuna. All illegal, zero enforcement. Saw federal truck with a bumper sticker : report illegal fishing 1 800...) Ha! They probably transport he catch for the pirates. We were back at the beach by 11:30 from a 6 :30 start, which was enough pitching and rolling exercise for a day.

So... Everybody got to play a fish, we all had a good time, and the price was right given Jimmys bargaining skills. 1000 pesos each plus tip and fish cleaning, my cost was $100 canadian. Probably cheaper to buy it, but the experience is well worth the cost, and it,s fresh. After sharing out the meat I took home 15 pounds, 10 of Marlin ,5 of sailfish. The fish cleaning lady, (there a re several) with shady cleaning table right at the boat landing tried to charge us 300 pesos per fish, but our captain dealt her down to 150. Very expert, fast and no waste, with roll bags provided. By the time the skin, guts and fins, head and tail are chopped off the yield is perhaps 50% flesh. They'll cut the meat down to paper thin filets , the local choice, but we wanted chunks. With a fish as big as me and just as thick, there,s some chunks. My freezer filled with portions ,using every bag i had,, and I gave fish away to the neighbours,(it,s good luck and good neighbourly policy). The meat is red, firm and not fishy, more like meat. I prefer to poach fish as that drives off the fat and leaves a tasty slab. Put fish in pot , cover with cold water, lid on and full flame till it boils. Done! I ate my fill, and the stray cat ate scraps till she fell over, still meowling . I,ve enough fish for a month when I'll look up Jimmy and go again. No guarantee of catching, but jimmy is lucky and we,ve done well in the past.

[gumnut-logic]

Please sort these into ascending order: The amount of kittens that Virgil has rescued from trees. The amount of phone numbers Scott's gotten. The amount of sealife that Gordon has freed from nets. The number of stars that Alan has wished upon. The number of trolls who really, really regret any interaction they've ever had with JT5. 😘😘😘

The Interview

It has taken me some time to finish this one, and it refused to behave. Apologies for the delay.

Many thanks to @onereyofstarlight and @gaviiadastra for read throughs and putting up with my crazy.

Also, thank you @flyboytracy for asking in the first place. you continue to inspire me :D

Some of you may have read the first couple hundred words already, as I posted the first tiny bit as a Thunderfam SOS earlier in the year, but there is now a good 2800+ words along side the beginning.

I hope you enjoy it. ::hugs you all::

-o-o-o-

“So, Virgil, all reports have you as the kindest and I quote ‘squishiest’ rescue operative in International Rescue. Your followers would like to know…” Kat peered down at her tablet. “How many kittens have you rescued from trees?”

The big man just stared at her. She had to admit, it wasn’t an every day question, but that was Tumblr for you.

“Umm…”

Alan snickered.

Scott frowned.

Gordon had a grin on his face fit to outshine the sun.

John rolled his eyes. “58.”

“Hey!” Virgil glared at his brother.

“Someone has to keep count.”

“Well, you’re wrong.”

The astronaut straightened in his seat, obviously affronted. “What?”

“It’s 86.”

“What?!”

“Not every one was on the clock, John. What was I supposed to do, leave them meowing?”

Scott facepalmed.

“Eos, you were told to monitor.” John frowned at his suddenly glowing watch.

A female voice snarked through the timepiece. “I have my reasons.”

“Reasons?”

“Virgil does do our supply runs, you know.”

John’s jaw dropped and Kat was hard up trying to keep a straight face.

Gordon wasn’t helping with all the giggling either.

“Virgil, I thought we had that under control.” Scott’s voice was ever so tolerant.

“I do! That is over ten years. That is only eight point six cats per year.”

Gordon snorted. “How do you save point six of a cat, Virg? Wouldn’t call that a successful rescue, bro.”

“On average. And besides, sometimes it was the same cat.”

All four of his brothers were staring at him.

Virgil squirmed where he sat. “Mr Fluffy got stuck several times.”

“Mr Fluffy!”

“I repeat, what was I supposed to do? He’s Parker’s cat.”

Scott facepalmed again as Gordon cracked up laughing enough to almost fall off his chair. John appeared to be arguing with his watch, and Alan was tennis-spectating between each of his bothers apparently not really sure how to react at all.

Kat couldn’t help but smile.

This was an interview of a lifetime and would make her career, but she had to admit it went beyond all that. The five brothers were being alarmingly candid and she was concerned that the interview wouldn’t make it past IR security.

Kayo had seemed nice enough on the ranch, but here in the studio…the woman’s eyes tracked everything. She had a team in the building, who knew where, and as a group they were nothing short of terrifying.

A little bit overkill, Kat thought.

It wasn’t like they could be overheard.

The Tracys had decided to attend the studio, but under the rigorous eye of their security…which had scoured the place clean. Only Kat, her tablet, and two holorecorders were allowed in the soundproof room. And all recording would be reviewed by that same security.

If Kat was attempting to gut the Tracys like she had originally threatened to, this might have been a problem, but as hinted on the ranch, they were not who she had thought they were, and their answers only drew her closer to the idea that perhaps the world didn’t really deserve this amazing family.

“Okay, Fish, you think I’m hilarious. How many times have we had to stop on the way home to save some sea life? Not that I begrudge you, life is life, but….hey, what is the difference between fish and cats?”

Wow, Virgil knew how to frown when riled up.

Gordon grinned, unrepentant. “Probably the tree part.”

Virgil folded his arms and totally grumped.

“Gordon?” Scott’s voice had an edge to it Kat had heard in the field.

Uh-oh.

“Yes, Scott?” Gordon appeared oblivious, but John had looked up from his watch and was frowning as much as Virgil.

“How much sea life are we talking about?”

Gordon blinked and maybe picked up on the eyebrows aimed at him. “Umm…”

Scott straightened in his seat. “Thunderbird Five, report.”

John rolled his eyes again. “We’ve spoken about this.”

“Are we including Tracy Island wildlife in this equation?” The pert young female voice spoke from John’s watch again. Really, it appeared to be a Rolex, as expected for a billionaire, but it was obviously something else.

“I want everything, Thunderbird Five.”

“Six thousand, four hundred and twenty-three, with a margin of error equal to several schools of tuna and one mola-mola.”

“Hey, I saved that mola-mola.”

“The mola-mola didn’t think so. It bit you.”

“Mola molas don’t bite.” But Gordon had his arms folded, much like Virgil now.

“I beg to differ. That was three stitches.” Virgil’s frown almost split his face in half.

“You’ve been injured?!” Scott was at full glare.

“I was doing my job!”

“Your job is to save lives, Gordon. We don’t have the resources to-”

Gordon waved an arm and nearly hit Virgil in the head. “A life is a life, Scott!”

“We can’t save everyone!”

Gordon shot to his feet. “But we can try. You’ve said it yourself many times.”

“Gordon-“ Scott rose to his feet.

Which prompted Virgil to stand up, one hand going to Gordon’s chest, the other to his advancing big brother. “C’mon, guys.”

Scott’s eyes darted to Kat and she stared wide-eyed up at him.

Gordon continued to glare as Virgil hustled him back to his seat.

“We will discuss this later.” Scott was pointing a very pointed finger at his aquanaut brother.

“Sit down, Scott.” Virgil turned his eyebrows on his eldest brother and the man backed off. He obeyed, but was still glaring, this time at Virgil.

Kat had no doubt that there would be an extended discussion on this subject in their future.

She also made a note to check on the mola mola issue. Could be something of value in that angle. Perhaps a one-on-one interview with Gordon and saving sea life.

The men settled down under the glare of Virgil in the middle. At this point, Kat was grateful she had set the chairs up the way she did. Scott was on her left, followed by John – who was glaring and mumbling at his watch again – Virgil, Gordon and Alan.

Alan appeared to be stuck on the outside of this little circus.

Maybe she could fix that.

“So, Alan, your fans are a rather active bunch.”

The young man startled, his eyes widening like he was stuck in a spotlight. “I have fans?” It came out an octave higher than she expected.

She smiled. “You most certainly do. A very active and solid group actually. We have a number of questions from them.”

“Oh, um, fire away.” His smile was brave at least.

Kat was ever so aware of the eyes of his four eldest brothers now currently targeting her.

She got the message. Be kind to the kid.

Or else.

“Okay. You are known as the astro brother.” She could have said ‘astro boy’ but her survival instincts nipped it in the bud. “Several people would like to know which star is your favourite?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Mom’s star.”

The room froze.

Not that anything actually changed. No one moved or said anything. But...

Something walked across Kat’s skin, raising her hackles.

She knew the Tracy’s had lost their mother early on. It didn’t take much to confirm that, it was public knowledge. Alan had been one at the time. He couldn’t possibly remember her.

“Which star is your mother’s star?”

It was John who answered. “Vega.”

Alan blinked in his direction and frowned. “I can talk about Mom’s Star, can’t I?”

There was silence for a moment.

“Yes, you can.” It was Scott and his voice was emotionless.

Scott had been sixteen. He most definitely remembered his mother.

“John used to take me up onto the roof of the farmhouse and we would stare at the stars for hours. Did you know that Vega has five confirmed planets?” And Alan started talking astronomy – the star’s distance from Earth, its gravity, spin, the whole bit. Alan obviously knew his stars well.

But Kat was stuck on those five planets and she couldn’t help but glance at the other four brothers, all of whom would have been affected by the loss of their mother.

They all had their professional faces on and she knew she had lost the relaxed atmosphere. She needed to get back to a lighter topic or risk losing this interview completely.

She glanced at her tablet and scrolled through the many questions awaiting an answer.

She grabbed one. “Do you ever wish on any stars?”

Alan blinked at her. “Uh…” But then he frowned, turning to Virgil. “Hey, how can 86 cats be over ten years, Eos has only been with us for three!”

Virgil’s eyes widened. “Uh…”

“Yeah, I see what’s happening here. And you!” He pointed at Gordon. “That means…”

Gordon glared at his little brother. “That means I’m doing my job.”

There was an uneasy silence after that. Scott had his eyes on her. Blue lasering her every movement.

Kat swallowed. She was a professional. She had handled presidents and prime ministers…

Electric blue reminded her of exactly who she was talking to now.

She looked away and down at her notes. “Okay, onto another topic.” She forced a smile. “Many of these questions relate to your love lives.”

All the brothers sat us straighter, shuffling in their seats.

Scott’s gaze redirected like the high beam it was, directly onto each individual brother.

She straightened her shoulders. “You’re listed as the five most eligible bachelors on the planet. Any lucky prospective partners?”

The silence was a gaping hole in the room.

“Scotty’s had a few.” Of course, it was Gordon.

Every brother glared at him.

He held up his hands in an attempt at total innocence. “Hey, I’ve been there! Virg, too!” He elbowed the heavy lifter in the ribs. “You said he asked that pilot lady out while hanging off a cliff.”

Virgil was frowning again.

Gordon rolled his eyes. “Johnny! You have to have numbers on that. How many phone numbers does he have in his little black book?”

“Gordon!” Scott, Virgil and John were almost symphonic.

That quirky female voice piped up again from John’s watch. “53.”

“Eos! Stand down.” The Commander’s voice struck out.

There was a high pitched ‘hmph’ from John’s watch and light from the device died.

Kat was hard pushed to ignore the flush on Scott’s face. Was that a touch of embarrassment?

But it was Virgil who spoke. “Ms Kavanaugh, certain sacrifices are made to do what we do. I would appreciate some understanding.” He elbowed Gordon in the ribs, obviously in revenge and a touch harder than friendly. “My brother knows this.”

Maybe there was a reason why this family hadn’t done a proper interview together before. Alan was staring at his brothers again, this time with something akin to fear on his face.

It was Gordon’s turn to frown and fold his arms across his chest.

Virgil glared at him. “Not funny, fish.”

“Just trying to help.”

Kat began to wonder if there was any footage that could be saved from this interview. At this rate she had nothing other than rescuing cats from trees.

“So why do you do it?” The question tumbled from her mouth without thought, not without a little exasperation.

All five brothers sat up straighter.

Scott. “Because when you-“

John. “-call for help-”

Virgil. “-you deserve to know-”

Gordon. “-somebody is out there-“

Alan. “-listening.”

They spoke together, over each other, but all with the same words. The passion in the room was a living thing and Kat could feel the purpose.

“This obviously means a great deal to all of you.”

A single nod from the Commander. The soft smiling big brother she had witnessed earlier was gone and what replaced him was ever so formidable.

The brothers may play around, but underneath it all were five men determined in their mission. Five of the richest men on the planet willing to devote that wealth, and their lives, to helping others.

Those blue eyes glistened.

Kat found her heart beating ever so fast.

Someone cleared their throat.

She blinked and found it was Virgil. He had the smallest of smirks on his face and his eyes were dancing in the lighting. “Do you have any further questions?”

And she found herself blushing. “Uh, yes.” She fiddled with her tablet as she gathered her thoughts.

“John, there are a number of questions for you regarding the capabilities of Thunderbird Five, ranging from ‘seeing me waving at you from my backyard’, all the way up to playing the stock market and accusations of espionage.” She drew in a breath. “Do you have any comments?”

John was the quiet and serious one. Red hair and the most gorgeous green-blue eyes she had ever see on a man. Actually, come to think of it, all the Tracy men had fantastic eyes.

The Commander’s blue were still trained on her.

She kept her attention on John.

He was a bit of a mystery as the least seen in the media. He was the Voice Who Answers, the Eye in the Sky. She wondered how much he actually saw and heard.

The man was unruffled under her full attention. “I see and hear what I need to.”

She blinked. That was very precise wording.

“Do you miss being at the centre of the action?”

“What do you mean?”

“You live on Thunderbird Five, don’t you?”

“Yes. Some of the time.”

“You often have to watch your brothers step into dangerous situations. Do you ever want to join them?”

“I do join them when necessary, Ms Kavanaugh. I am as much a first responder as any of my brothers.”

Kat held up a hand. “I know that, John. Your speciality is space. But you often have to watch from afar. How do you cope with that?”

Alan bounced up in his seat, almost jumping to his feet. “John is with us all the time. Without him, there would be no rescues.”

“But he is stuck up on Thunderbird Five-“

Scott cut her off. “John is our communications expert. He works just as hard as any of us, sometimes harder. It is not an easy job.” His eyes flicked to his younger brother. “But John is the master of it.”

“But don’t you feel helpless being so far away, only able to watch?”

Alan snorted. “John does so much more than watch.”

She targeted the youngest. “Like what?”

“He helps all the time, he-“

“Alan.” It was a single word from the Commander that had her missing that big brother persona all the more.

“But he does!”

“Alan.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll shut up.” And boy, the youngest could throw a pout better than any of the brothers so far today.

She ignored it and focussed on John. “Your thoughts?”

“Ms Kavanaugh, I do what I need to do.”

“And what do you need to do?”

“What is necessary.”

“To save lives?”

The was the briefest of hesitations. Another journalist may never have noticed.

But she did.

His answer was simple. “Yes.”

“I have a Tumblr user who claims you reprogrammed his tablet from space and now it will only play nursery rhymes.”

Those green-blue eyes darted to his right. “Perhaps you should ask him why I did it.”

“Aw, c’mon, John, it’s been six years!” Gordon’s voice was a whine. “You mess up every new tablet I buy. I said I’m sorry.”

Virgil frowned at Gordon. Virgil apparently frowned a lot. “What are you doing on Tumblr?”

Gordon switched from John to Virgil. “Well, derr, it’s the only decent blogging platform left.”

Kat scribbled a note that @gordonthesquid was actually Gordon Tracy. Thinking about it, it was pretty obvious.

She turned back to John. “How many times have you done that?”

“As many times as it takes to stop Gordon from messing with my possessions.”

“Six years, bro!”

“You’re a slow learner.”

“Ass.” The aquanaut crossed his legs and arms and turned his back on John.

Between the two of them, Virgil sighed.

Kat made a mental note never to piss off John Tracy.

Those blue eyes still hadn’t left her.

Note to self: never piss off any Tracy.

Perhaps it was fate that broke both her legs and prevented her from screening her attack on the Tracys.

She had the strongest feeling that she would never have seen him coming and no-one would have found the bodies much less counted them.

John emanated quiet confidence…and power…as he held her gaze.

Perhaps she had better wrap up the interview.

“I have many other questions to ask, but I know it has been a long day for all of you, so one last question.” She drew in a breath. “Is it worth it?”

“Yes.”

“God, yeah.”

“Of course.”

“Always.”

Scott was watching each of his brothers as they spoke, but stared at them a moment longer before answering himself…ever so quietly.

“I hope so.”

-o-o-o-

[sailing-on-a-puddle]

Yay! I miss the tiny tracys! I think Gordon is planning how quickly he can get in the sea 😁

Is so dark and drizzly this morning 😩

The Tracys are remembering sunnier times!

[astranite]

Cotton Candy Bubblegum Icecream Means Sticking Around No Matter What.

A fic for @squiddokiddo of Gordon and their oc Sea-Squirt Tracy with some fluffy hurt/mostly comfort between siblings, for a hope this cheers you up even a little as you’re hurt too and this is the closest I can get to giving you a proper (very gentle) squid hug.

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57426040

Squirt drawn by Squiddo here!!!

.💛💛💛

“Hey Squirt, how are you doing bud?

Gordon sat down on the side of their bed, transferring several plushies to his lap so he didn’t squish them.

The kid frowned, hugging the fin of their giant ikea shark closer. That had been a fun trip for them both when they got it together.

“Sore.”

“Ouch, yeah no wonder. ” Gordon scootched a bit closer. “I getcha, back and neck injures aren’t fun at all.” He had plenty of experience in that department.

“It really sucks, Gords.”

“I know and it does, a lot. You did really well on the misson though, I’m proud of you. For all of it but also for taking care of yourself too when you were hurt so Virge and I could look after you.”

Squirt reached out the hand that wasn’t holding onto the shark to hold onto Gordon’s hand.

“Thanks.”

They paused for a moment then cracked a small smile from beneath the pain. Gordon knew that smile well. “I totally did it for the stickers though. I got two, a manta ray and a blob fish.”

Gordon grinned along with them, leaning into the joke, the laughter, the tiny bits of joy that could be grasped in a rough spot. “Aww those are cool creatures. Virgil only gave me one last time!”

“That was because it was a literal paper cut. From y’know, wrapping paper. I liked the gift though. ”

A couple of sea creature erasers wrapped up in shiny yellow paper that Virgil would recycle into an art project was a something just because to cheer Squirt up a bit when they were having a rough week. The tiny paper cut part was regrettably true. Only regrettable that he should’ve known he could find another sea flap flap sticker, it had just been hiding. It would’ve still would up stuck to Squirt somehow.

“I was most grievously injured, young Thunderfledgling.” Gordon pointed out the largest of his hydrofoil scars on his forearm, a long line of pinkish-white sliding up its length.

Squirt snorted with laughter then winced.

Gordon squeezed their hand. “You ‘kay?”

“Yeah. Ouch. Everything really hurts.”

“Alright. You just say if need me and Virge to check you over again if its not getting better and we can work out whether we need to go to the hospital.”

Squirt made a face.

“Yep, I mean my reaction exactly. They’re shit places to be but important.” Gordon ruffled Squirt’s hair, ever so gently and brushing the ginger curls so those deep brown eyes could definitely see him and know he meant it. “I’m here for you though and I’m going to stick by you whatever happens. You’re my little sibling.”

Gordon let it sink in for a moment.

They didn’t need to say anything as Squirt slowly shuffled to lean into Gordon’s side, more difficult with their injuries.

Gordon put his arm around them to give them a hug, extra careful because he cares about Squirt ever so much but sure and steady so they know he’s got them.

“You wanna watch something together or anything?” He offered.

“That’d be nice.”

“There’s icecream in the freezer I can get you too if you want it.”

“What flavour?”

“How does celery sound?”

Squirt raised a scathing ginger eyebrow. Okay they nearly squinted the other eye closed at the same time but they did it! Wow though they were spending way too much time beating John at chess for them to have picked that mannerism up so vividly.

“I’m kidding! I got you bubble gum and cotton candy last time I was doing groceries and I know for a fact where Alan hid the popping candy and where John and Scott decided to put the sauces cause they are way too tall for the rest of us.”

That got another little smile from Squirt as they pulled up the tv menu from the holoprojector in their room.

Even though they were hurting, Gordon loved to get to spend some time with his littlest sib and would take care of them no matter whether that was resting up here or trips to the hospital, laughing with them or comforting them when everything go too much, all the while doing his best to be a safe harbour they could return to in the storms.

[gordonthegreatesttracy]

@janetm74 @drileyf @5hadow-alpha @misssquidtracy @rachfielden-xo @nourelle-tracy we are going to the cinema!