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tsarisfanfiction · 3 years

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Long Way From Home: Chapter 12

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Friendship Characters: Scott, Tracy Family

Watch me forget to update again last week, whoops. This is also the final chapter of this ‘arc’, so we’ll be taking another break for a while because uni means I don’t have time to keep writing at the moment (and a certain character is being awkward in the next chapter). Still, I hope you’ve enjoyed this pile of Scott&Other-Gordon, and I’ll get back to work on this when I’ve got the time.

For now, enjoy!

<<<Chapter 11

The subject wasn’t broached until they were back in the car, Scott feeling comfortably full as the food settled in his stomach.

“I guess there’s nothing I can say to persuade you to finish the trip now?” Other-Gordon sighed.

“I’m not quitting,” Scott said firmly. “It’s just some sneakers. I’ll try them on, find the ones that fit best, and we’ll be done.”

He half expected Other-Gordon to contradict him and tell him something was different about buying shoes in this universe, but he didn’t.

“That’s the spirit,” he said instead. “I’ll keep them talking, like the last shop.”

“Thanks.” Scott appreciated the thought; if they were distracted with Other-Gordon, then they’d be focusing less on him.

He was looking forwards to being able to wear comfortable shoes. Other-Scott’s fit well enough, but after several hours in them he was starting to feel the rub of an unfamiliar style.

“Mr Tracy!” he was greeted as they stepped through the door upon arrival. “Is there a problem with your last purchases?”

“Oh no, not at all,” Other-Gordon cut in, inserting himself slightly ahead of Scott and into the flustered-looking man’s line of sight. “You’ll have to forgive Scott, he’s gone and lost his voice, but he really liked them, so we’re here to get a couple more pairs,” he assured them.

The fluster turned to relief and then delight as the man no doubt realised he was going to be making another expensive sale to round off his day.

“Of course!” he beamed. “If you’d like to follow me.” They were chivvied along to a section of the shop lined with various designs of sneakers all along the wall, which Scott immediately started to eye up. The designs were varied, and none of them looked exactly like he was used to, but he could definitely see a few that looked hopeful.

Ignoring both Other-Gordon and the salesman, he walked over to the wall to get a closer look. You’re Scott Tracy. He just had to take the initiative instead of hovering awkwardly and waiting for a cue, and then it would be fine.

No-one would suspect he was the wrong Scott Tracy.

Behind him, Other-Gordon was talking a mile a minute, playing the distraction he’d promised, and after the day they’d had it was almost effortless to trust him. The other man had proven time and time again that despite the bizarre nature of the situation, he cared and wanted Scott to be as comfortable as possible.

It wasn’t even a case of just trying to preserve his brother’s reputation. Just as he was Scott Tracy, Other-Gordon was Gordon Tracy. They might not be each other’s brother, but they didn’t need to be related to care. The man that had guided him out of two panic attacks and subtly grounded him at the first sign of other ones had done it because he cared about him.

Scott was used to being the rescuer. He was used to being the one picking up strangers, helping them find their feet and offering whatever aid was needed until they were safe. He’d never been so thoroughly on the other side before. It was terrifying, he realised as he picked up a hopeful looking sneaker for a closer inspection. Putting all your trust in someone you knew of but didn’t know was much, much harder than he’d ever realised.

What Other-Gordon was doing for him wasn’t quite the same – his life wasn’t in danger; he didn’t need snatching from the jaws of death – but the parallels were there. Scott was lost, and there was no denying that he was scared of what had happened, why it happened, what it would be doing to his brothers right then, and Other-Gordon was offering a life line. Something he could cling to while he found his feet, and caught him when he stumbled.

“Scott?” the man in question asked, appearing beside him. “How are you doing?”

Scott looked at him, the heart-achingly familiarity of his face even though it wasn’t the same, and the searching amber eyes that were exactly the same, right down to the concern shining through, and nodded. He’d only known him for a few hours, but Scott trusted him, and that was enough to keep what-ifs and concerns about recognition at bay.

He could do this.

The sneaker in his hand looked like a good start, so he held it up, drawing attention to the selection.

“Would you like to try that pair on, sir?” the salesman asked. Scott nodded confidently, and handed it over so he could bustle over to the store room to retrieve its partner.

Other-Gordon didn’t say anything, even after they were left alone, so Scott continued looking around, searching for another design that looked hopeful. He could feel the other man’s eyes watching him, but he wasn’t asking if he was doing okay, or attempting to provide other reassurances, and Scott wondered if he could tell that he was, as much as he could be, relaxed.

He probably could.

By the time the salesman returned – this one called John, it transpired, but with black hair and brown eyes it was just another man with a common name, and not a painful reminder of his younger brother – he’d found another three to try on.

Four times pacing and then jogging around the room, jumping up and down and feeling a rush from being active, even if it was just rather aggressively putting through sneakers through their paces, and he ended up walking out the shop with all of them. It was easier than picking two when they all felt right.

There was also the nagging feeling that Other-Scott didn’t test shoes quite the same way he did, judging by the look on salesman-John’s face, and the panic had started to bubble up when he abruptly remembered that Other-Scott had only been there recently. Grabbing all four pairs and nudging Other-Gordon into paying for them so that they could leave – a nudge that, yes, might have comprised of four smaller ones that instantly sharpened amber eyes – had been the easiest way to avoid questions and quell the panic.

Other-Gordon didn’t outwardly hurry them out of the shop, but Scott felt the underlying determination as he quipped about getting late and the flight home as an excuse for their departure. The amount of money the quartet of sneakers cost definitely went a long way towards distracting the salesman from anything else.

“Are you okay?” the ginger asked once they were settled back in the car. He didn’t mention that Scott had been fine for most of the time, but the unspoken observation hung between them.

Scott took a deep breath and pressed his head back against the headrest, feeling the hat digging in. He was looking forwards to taking it off. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m okay.”

“Too much cooped up energy?” Other-Gordon asked, clearly determining that he wasn’t about to panic and turning the engine on. “You were mighty energetic in there.”

“They’re nice sneakers,” Scott defended, not responding to the secondary observation.

“So it seemed,” Other-Gordon shrugged. “Well, unless there’s anything else you need, I’d say it’s time to head back to the airport.”

Scott glanced at the backseat of the car, where a small pile of bags nestled.

“That should be enough,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose I can persuade you to let me pilot back?”

Other-Gordon did a double-take.

“What happened to ‘different technology’?” he asked. “You’ve not understood anything here. I saw you looking at the car earlier.”

Scott shrugged. “Apparently the only thing that is the same are plane controls,” he admitted.

Other-Gordon groaned. “You mean you actually were judging my piloting?” he whined.

“I didn’t say anything about your piloting,” Scott defended. Other-Gordon huffed.

“You didn’t need to, but I figured you were just comparing it to what you were used to,” he said. “It didn’t occur to me that you knew exactly what I should have been doing when.”

“So you’ll let me pilot back?” Scott tried hopefully.

“Sorry, fella.” He couldn’t stop his shoulders slumping in disappointment at Other-Gordon’s firm answer. “Look, I would rather you piloted, because I’m not daft enough to think you’re not better at it than me, but you don’t have a pilot’s license here, and it’s not my call whether you sneak by on Scott’s.”

The argument made a frustrating amount of sense, and Scott sighed. “Can’t we ask him?”

“He’ll say no,” Other-Gordon said confidently. “Unless you’re telling me you’d let someone pilot on your license with only his word he’s as good as he says.”

The ginger, annoyingly, wasn’t wrong. Scott wouldn’t.

“We can add it to the things to talk to him about when we get back,” Other-Gordon pointed out. “Still, if planes aren’t so different, maybe that’ll make the training easier.”

He had a point. Scott hadn’t considered that the Thunderbirds might have the same controls, when the jargon seemed so different. “I saw a few external differences,” he said. “Didn’t get a good look at the cockpit, and her engine makes a different sound.”

“Why aren’t I surprised you took all that in?” the ginger asked rhetorically. “Then again, I suppose in a way she’s ‘yours’,” he mused. “Good luck fighting Scott for her.”

Scott groaned, well aware that no matter how good a pilot he proved to be, he was never going to wrangle primary pilot of this universe’s Thunderbird One.

“I don’t think I’ll bother,” he muttered. “He won’t give her over unless he has no other choice.”

“Voice of experience?” Other-Gordon asked, amused. Scott raised an eyebrow at him.

“The last time I let Gordon near her he tried to turn her into a submarine. Virgil hates piloting her, Kayo is banned from going near the pilot seat, John prefers being a passenger in Two if he’s down from orbit and Alan’s too inexperienced,” he listed. “No-one pilots my girl except me. No exceptions.”

Other-Gordon laughed. “That doesn’t surprise me; Scott’s the same,” he confirmed. “But who’s Kayo?”

Scott had forgotten he hadn’t mentioned Kayo to anyone except Tin-Tin yet.

“My Tin-Tin,” he said. “She’s a hell of a pilot, but her ‘bird gets damaged even more than Three. Too many stunts.”

“Hold up.” Other-Gordon even raised a hand to emphasise his words. “Her ‘bird? Do you have six or- but Three? No, you said more than Three. Who pilots Three?”

That was entirely too many questions, and Scott dodged most of them.

“Tin-Tin doesn’t have her own?” he asked in return. “I know she’s an engineer, but so’s Virgil.”

“Tin-Tin co-pilots Three sometimes, but otherwise she stays on the island,” Other-Gordon told him. “Your- Kayo goes out?”

They think we’re delicate flowers, Tin-Tin had more-or-less said. Scott hadn’t made the connection with participating on rescues.

“I get the feeling Kayo would give you all a heart attack if you ever met her,” he said. “There’s no stopping that girl when she gets an idea in her head.”

He should know. He’d tried. It normally ended in shouting matches and her doing whatever she wanted anyway. Sometimes he wondered if building Thunderbird Shadow for her had been a mistake, but then he remembered how miserable she’d been without her own reliable transport.

Other-Gordon eyed him. “There’re more differences than technology and fashion, aren’t there?”

“Yeah,” Scott confirmed. “I haven’t decided if more is the same or different yet. Most of it seems to be small things. Just enough to be off from what I’m used to.”

“Like us,” Other-Gordon sighed. “Sounds like we were too hasty with this trip,” he added. “Even if you needed new underpants.”

Scott shrugged. “We were never going to know all the differences.” He wouldn’t have thought to ask about the minor details, and none of them had even considered that the family business – the actual one – would have a different name.

“I guess that’s true,” Other-Gordon conceded. “But we should still have given you a little longer than a few hours before taking you off the island. Sorry about that.”

He wasn’t wrong, but, “what’s done is done,” he said. “I survived.”

“Get yourself straight in the Ladybird when we get to the hangar,” Other-Gordon said. “If anyone tries to get in your way, ignore them. I’ll get Scott to soothe any ruffled feathers later.”

“I can handle it,” Scott protested. “Jones, right?”

“You don’t have to handle it,” Other-Gordon told him firmly. “It’s been mighty awful day for you, and the last thing you need is Scott’s airfield buddies bothering you. Those fellas know Scott better than anyone else we’ve seen today.”

Scott had almost forgotten that. Other-Gordon was right; returning to the Ladybird was when someone was most likely to notice something wasn’t right. The sandwiches from earlier felt uncomfortably weighty in his stomach all of a sudden.

He couldn’t afford a panic attack in the hangar; Other-Gordon wouldn’t be able to take off, so they wouldn’t be able to get away from Other-Scott’s so-called ‘airfield buddies’.

It would be an absolute disaster.

“Okay,” he agreed. “But I’m not leaving you to load her alone.”

Other-Gordon rolled his eyes. “Maybe it’s different where you’re from, but here we have valets for that sort of thing. Appearances and all that – although Dad’s got them trained to be extra vigilant if it’s me. They won’t let me pick up a single bag, just you watch.”

Other-Gordon’s back hadn’t even occurred to him, but if even his family were treating him like glass, Scott supposed it was no surprise there was hired help to stop him straining himself.

“I don’t know how you stand it,” he admitted.

“Aw, it’s not always so bad,” Other-Gordon admitted. “Helps with the cover. No-one would expect poor, crippled former Olympian me of still being an active aquanaut, let alone be capable of pulling the stunts those fine young men in International Rescue manage.”

That was true, Scott supposed.

“Look,” the ginger said. “If it makes you feel better, you can run through her pre-flights while I’m dealing with the chaps on the ground.”

Scott startled. “You trust me to do that without supervision?”

“I know you were watching me when we left the island,” Other-Gordon shrugged. “I figure if you do come across something unfamiliar, you’re not daft enough to let me take off without getting it double-checked it first.”

Scott could accept that.

“Besides, no-one’ll find that strange around here. It’ll look more strange if Scott Tracy isn’t doing all the checks himself.”

“You could have just said that in the first place,” Scott pointed out. Other-Gordon scoffed, but said nothing.

Jones wasn’t amongst the men that seemed to be waiting for them when Other-Gordon rolled the car up behind the hangar. Scott supposed his shift was over for the day, and in a way that made it easier to reluctantly leave the car and head straight for the hangar. The T.A. was a beacon, and once the door opened, the red of the Ladybird stood out amongst the many planes housed inside.

“Hey, Scott!” an unfamiliar voice called. He ignored them, remembering what Other-Gordon had said about them all knowing Other-Scott and knowing he couldn’t handle trying to interact with any of them without the ginger to act as a buffer without making them suspicious.

Pre-flight checks. Those, he could do.

He slipped into the cockpit, taking the pilot’s seat for the moment although Other-Gordon was doubtless going to shove him over when he arrived, and immersed himself in the blessed familiarity of flicking switches and running all the checks that had long since become second nature to him. While the Ladybird was a far cry from Thunderbird One, she wasn’t so far from more conventional aircraft that he couldn’t work her out.

Engrossed in the task, he barely noticed the ground crew flitting around as their shopping was loaded into the cargo hold under Other-Gordon’s supervision, or the questions about him being fired the ginger’s way, only to be expertly deflected.

He did notice the jab in his shoulder when Other-Gordon clambered up to join him.

“Finished?” the ginger asked. Scott ran his hands over the controls one last time, before reluctantly pronouncing himself satisfied.

“She’s good to fly,” he said.

“Then budge over,” Other-Gordon retorted. Scott reluctantly shimmied over into the passenger seat. “Everything’s fine?”

“Just like our training jet at home,” Scott promised. “I taught Alan to fly with controls like this.” He glanced over at the ginger settling himself into the pilot’s seat. “Gordon, too.”

“You’re calling the Ladybird a training jet?” Other-Gordon asked. “I’d like to see you tell Tin-Tin that.”

Scott chuckled. “Anything’s a training jet compared to my usual ride,” he pointed out.

Other-Gordon rolled his eyes. “I’d like to see you tell Virgil that.”

“His girl’s not a jet,” Scott retorted. “Not unless that’s got a very different definition here.”

“I suppose you have a point,” Other-Gordon conceded, before reaching for the radio. “Tango Alpha Ladybird to Auckland Air Traffic Control. We’re ready for take-off, over.”

Static crackled for a moment.

“Auckland Air Traffic Control to Tango Alpha Ladybird,” the radio responded. “Clear to proceed to runway three-bravo, over.”

“Tango Alpha Ladybird to Auckland Air Traffic Control. Understood. Proceeding now, over.” The hangar door opened and Other-Gordon taxied them out onto the tarmac. Scott occupied himself with looking out at the other planes as they travelled past. Some designs were instantly familiar, while others looked very different to anything he’d seen in his own universe.

Other-Gordon made a few more calls over the radio as they finished taxiing into position, and Scott settled back in the seat comfortably as they waited for permission to take off.

He had to admit he didn’t miss all the bureaucracy with Thunderbird One, and John acting as his ATC wherever he was in the world. VTOL launches helped.

After another half a minute or so, the all-clear was given, and the Ladybird rumbled to life, surging forwards and up under Other-Gordon’s hands.

“Auckland Air Traffic Control to Tango Alpha Ladybird, your route is clear,” the radio crackled again. “Have a safe flight. Over.”

“Tango Alpha Ladybird to Auckland Air Traffic Control,” Other-Gordon replied. “Thank you. Over and out.” He fiddled with the radio for a moment. “Ladybird to Tracy Island, come in.”

“Tracy Island receiving you, Ladybird,” Not-Dad’s voice filtered through. “How’s it going, Gordon?”

“We’ve just left Auckland, Father,” the ginger said. “Estimated ETA in two hours.”

“I’ll let your grandmother know,” Not-Dad replied. “You boys didn’t have any problems?”

“No, sir,” Other-Gordon said, to Scott’s relief. “No problems.”

“Well, I expect to hear about your trip when you get back,” the man told them. “I’ll see you then. Tracy Island out.”

“Thanks,” Scott said after the connection ended.

“I’m still telling Scott,” Other-Gordon reminded him. “But you can thank me by not judging my piloting the whole way back. Stare at the clouds or something.”

Scott chuckled. “I’ll do my best,” he said. Other-Gordon just groaned.

“I am never piloting you anywhere ever again,” he swore. “Cloud watch. Don’t you dare look at what I’m doing.”

Scott rolled his eyes but obliged.

Like the outward journey, their return one passed in mostly silence, Other-Gordon focusing on piloting and Scott doing his best not to make idle comments whenever he didn’t react to changes in the air currents the same way he would.

He liked to think he was successful at it. The aquanaut would no doubt disagree.

“I can still feel you judging me,” Other-Gordon grumbled eventually. Scott wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it seemed like they should be nearly there.

Up ahead was a small, rocky island. It looked utterly unfamiliar, but Other-Gordon was straight on course for it.

“Home sweet home,” the aquanaut commented when he caught him looking at it. “The same?”

“The only similarity is that it’s volcanic,” Scott answered. “Ours has twin peaks, to start with.” This Tracy Island seemed to have some sort of plateau mountain, rather than the jagged peaks he was used to. It also seemed less like it was making up part of the lip of a caldera.

“That’s interesting,” Other-Gordon hummed. “Your house is nothing like ours either, is it?”

Considering he’d needed a map to find Other-Scott’s room earlier, Scott thought that was rather obvious.

“Not at all,” he said. “Even the pool’s a different shape. Ours is a regular Olympic-size pool.”

“Really?” Other-Gordon asked. “I suppose that makes it easier to retract, though. Easier to pilot through, too?”

“If I ever get the chance to compare, I’ll let you know,” Scott replied. Other-Gordon laughed.

“I should let them know we’re on approach,” he said, reaching for the radio again. “Ladybird to Tracy Island.”

“Tracy Island receiving you, Ladybird.” It was Other-Scott on the line this time. “You’re clear to land.”

“F.A.B., Scott,” Other-Gordon acknowledged.

“How much damage control have you left me with?” Other-Scott continued. “Dad says you said there were no issues?”

“I’ll give you the run-down once we’re down,” the aquanaut told him. “There was paparazzi.”

“If I don’t like what they publish, you’d better watch your back, Gordon,” Other-Scott warned. “I’ll meet you two in the hangar. Tracy Island out.”

“Well, no sense in putting it off,” Other-Gordon commented as the line went dead. “You want to hang around for the debrief?”

Scott shook his head, having no wish to stand around and listen to an account of what he’d already lived through. “Just him,” he reminded. “I’ll get changed while you do.”

“You finally get to change underwear,” the ginger commented, and Scott rolled his eyes. “Coming up on the landing now.”

Sure enough, there was the runway, protruding out onto a pier and lined with palm trees. Definitely Thunderbird Two’s runway, and now that they were approaching it, Scott could see the cragged rockface that no doubt moved somehow to reveal the giant cargo plane. A little way up was a white building, built into the cliff.

He filed that away to ask about later, not wanting to interrupt the aquanaut as he brought them down onto the tarmac with a slight bump, decelerating until they were taxiing towards an open hangar door. It wasn’t quite central to the runway, further cementing Scott’s conclusion that Thunderbird Two was just behind the cliff face.

To his relief, Other-Scott seemed to be alone, standing next to the blue beauty he’d spotted earlier, as Other-Gordon brought the Ladybird to a stop and started the post-flight checks. Wherever the rest of the family were, it didn’t seem like they’d planned a welcoming committee, at least.

“So?” the older man asked once they left the cockpit, already at the cargo hold and looking at the bags. “Dad seems convinced everything went fine, but you didn’t tell him about the paparazzi, did you?” He was clearly talking to Other-Gordon, but his eyes flicked to Scott.

Scott shrugged and reached past him for the bags. “Gordon’ll give you the run-down,” he said. “I’m getting changed.”

“Don’t forget the underpants!” Other-Gordon chirped at him. He rolled his eyes and walked away, but not fast enough to avoid overhearing the start of the conversation. “I’m sworn to silence to everyone except you, and you’re only the exception because he’s your clone, so don’t even think about telling anyone,” the ginger said, quietly but not so quietly Scott couldn’t hear while he waited for the elevator to swallow him up. “Which definitely includes Dad, by the way, but-”

The elevator doors clanged shut, cutting off the conversation. Scott jabbed the button labelled second, which was also the highest option, so he assumed that was the bedroom level.

It was, and to Scott’s private delight there was no-one in the landing, so he managed to slip past the door to the lounge – out of which piano music seemed to be coming – and into the guest room designated as his without being intercepted.

Once there, he upended the bags over the bed, letting the neatly-wrapped parcels of clothes fall out haphazardly, before picking up clothes to get changed into.

It was a relief to finally get out of the waistcoat, shirt and slacks belonging to his counterpart, and even more of a relief to find himself wearing something that much more closely resembled his idea of casual.

Setting the discarded clothes to one side, he rummaged through the rest of the new clothes and set about hanging them up in the closet. His uniform was where he’d left it, he was pleased to see. No doubt Other-Brains would request it at some point, but Scott intended on supervising his investigations. It was good that it hadn’t just been taken while he was out.

A knock on the door startled him just as he was hanging the last pair of jeans.

Who would that be? It could have been anyone on the island – although he suspected Other-Alan might be less inclined to seek him out, and Other-Gordon would probably announce himself, if he didn’t walk straight in.

It was honestly weird having anyone knock rather than just walk in. His brothers had long since stopped waiting to be invited in, although Virgil and John did at least announce themselves with a knock most of the time.

“It’s me. Can I come in?”

Other-Scott.

Scott supposed he should have expected that one. Did he want to talk to his doppelgänger? Most of the island’s residents he could probably predict how the conversation was going to go, but ironically, Other-Scott seemed to be the hardest to read.

He guessed it was because he had no idea how he’d react if things were the other way around, and Other-Scott had ended up in his universe.

His gut told him he probably wouldn’t give up trying to have a conversation if he was going out of his way to initiate it.

“Yeah,” he called back, closing the closet door. The door opened and Other-Scott walked in, closing it behind him.

“Is that what you wear at home?” he asked, blue eyes scanning the clothes Scott had changed into.

“As close as I could get,” Scott shrugged, sitting on the bed next to Other-Scott’s discarded clothes and folding them up, mostly for something to do with his hands.

“Dad’s not going to approve,” Other-Scott warned him. “But if it makes you more comfortable, I don’t see the problem.” He picked up the hat and discarded sunglasses. “You’ll have to stay out of sight whenever we have visitors anyway, so no-one’s going to see you.”

There was an awkwardness about the other man that Scott thought was uncharacteristic of himself, until he realised it was the same awkwardness he was feeling, because there were no guidelines in any training he’d undergone about how to interact with an alternate universe version of yourself.

“Are you checking up on me?” he asked abruptly. It made sense if he was, after getting Other-Gordon’s account of the day, and Scott thought they’d do a lot better if they stopped trying to test the waters.

From the quirk of Other-Scott’s lips, it was a shared opinion.

“I heard what happened,” he confirmed. “Gordon was adamant you don’t want anyone else to know, and I can understand that.” He sighed. “This is weird,” he said, and Scott gave a wry smile in agreement. “And maybe, considering you’re literally another me, I’m not the best person to talk to, but. I’m here. If you have questions, or want sane conversation.”

“After a day with Gordon, sane conversation is sorely lacking,” Scott quipped, and Other-Scott laughed.

“I owe him a billiards match or ten now,” he said. “Remind him he can’t actually beat me.”

“Little brothers,” Scott shrugged. “Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.”

“Some things don’t change wherever you are,” Other-Scott agreed. “Gordon said you recognised the Ladybird’s controls?”

“Yeah,” Scott confirmed. “We’ve got a plane like that at home.”

“I’ll talk with Dad about taking you for a flight,” Other-Scott said. “Once we’ve established how much is familiar, we can figure out anything else.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Scott agreed. Other-Scott grinned.

“I wonder which one of us is the better pilot,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing you fly.”

That thought hadn’t occurred to Scott. “Best pilot gets primary dibs for Thunderbird One?” he dared.

Other-Scott laughed. “If it’s my ‘bird on the line, I’m not going to go easy on you,” he warned.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Scott replied, and they both laughed.

“Well, I’m going to go teach Gordon a lesson or ten now,” Other-Scott said. “You’re welcome to join us if you’re not sick of his company by now.”

Scott chuckled. “I’d like to see that,” he said. “He might be better at chess, but if he’s anything like mine, billiards is not so much his territory.” He stood up, gathering the dirty clothes. “Where’s the laundry room? Might as well drop these off.”

“I’ll show you,” Other-Scott said, opening the door again and stepping into the hallway. “It’s next to the games room.” Scott followed him, letting the door close behind him.

Chapter 13>>>

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #scott tracy #long way from home #gordon tracy #jeff tracy

17 notes · View notes

enviedear · 4 years

Text

that damn american ᶠᶦᵛᵉ

don’t exploit our friendship

DESCRIPTION ⌙ in which y/n and draco go on a ‘date’, meet harry potter, and come to conclusions in the owlery.

PAIRING ⌙ draco x fem!reader

WORD COUNT ⌙ 3k

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four | chapter five

gonna rec golden hour - kacey musgraves , teenage fantasy - jorja smith and playing games - summer walker for this chapter ;)

“i’m not taking her to madame puddifoot’s.” blaise sighs, exasperated.

“why? i’m sure april would love that tacky shop.” draco snickers, earning a jab from you.

april, who’s far ahead of you all, is making her way for the joke shop. she said something about how she and blaise are going to be pranking quinn. you suppose it’s only fair for what he did to her in fourth year.

the air is cooler now, and the four of you are all clad in warmer garments. the boys sporting slytherin quidditch sweaters and draco wearing a black turtleneck underneath. while april looks straight out of a damn brandy melville ad with her thunderbird sweatshirt tucked into her tennis skirt.

you on the other hand decided it best to wear a simple green tank with a loose cropped cardigan with mom jeans.

you’re now regretting the decision as your upper body is becoming unbearably chilly.

“blaise, look! i got some hiccoughing candy. i think we could give him one after breakfast tomorrow.” april laughs.

draco groans from the bench the two of you are sat on, playing with the silver rings on his fingers.

“this is bloody demeaning.” the boy complains.

“you know, you could be third wheeling. at least i’m here, and i could always leave you here. alone.” you huff.

draco narrows his eyes at you, “if you dare try, i’ll make sure you never get back to america. i refuse to be alone with these two lovesick idiots.”

“jesus someone is in a mood.” you snort, ruffling his perfectly done hair.

“shut it l/n.”

blaise and april walk into tomes and scrolls, leaving you and draco outside.

“screw this, come on, let’s go to gladrags. i want a jacket.” you say, hopping off the bench.

draco gets up, “damn americans and never dressing for the weather.”

“i think that’s more of a me thing.” you retort, heading into the shop.

as you take a look around you find a small section full of coats, sweaters, jackets, and sweatshirts.

“you know these are ridiculously overpriced, right?” draco scoffs.

“well i’m cold draco. and like my mother always says, ‘a fashionable witch always dresses in which she is comfortable’.” you say, reciting a line from one of your mother’s books.

she’s a popular fashion designer, and never let you or quinn forget it.

“excuse me, is your mother, the eliza l/n?” draco gasps.

you nod, a little confused as to how the boy knows her.

“hold on. you’re the daughter of one of american’s best designers and you never thought to tell me? what’s next? is your father the bloody president.”

you laugh, “no, but he is a retired quadpot player for the new york nogtails. you seriously didn’t know? my parents are the wizarding equivalent to victoria and david beckham.”

draco looks bewildered, “this whole time you’ve had prestige, and i didn’t even know? oh, just wait until i owl mother and tell her i’m friends with her favorite designers daughter.”

“don’t exploit our friendship, you fucker.” you say, slapping his shoulder.

he rubs his side and glares at you, “you were the one that begged me to be your friend. at least let me reap the benefits.”

“i’m starting to regret my decision, you’re a shit friend.” you tease.

draco lets out an exaggerated sigh, “fine, i was going to give you my sweater so you wouldn’t have to buy one, but since i’m such a shit friend.. nevermind.”

“i was kidding bitch. hand over the sweater!” you order.

he rolls his grey eyes and slips the garment off, exposing his tight fitted black turtleneck. it’s a sight to behold, honestly. it makes your mind slip into visions of the two of you actually together and on a date.

“well take it, and come on. i want a butterbeer.” he says, snapping you out of your daydream.

you put the sweater on and trail behind your friend. when the two of you enter the three broomsticks, draco immediately scowls.

“what’s the matter?” you ask.

“stupid potter. he’s sitting in my spot.” draco huffs.

“just sit somewhere else, you big baby.”

draco looks annoyed but complies, sitting beside you at a nearby booth.

you want to question why he’s not sitting on the opposite side, but ignore it. you like being this close to him.

“why do you hate harry?” you ask instead.

“he’s a brat. he thinks he so special because he killed a dark wizard when he was a baby. and his stupid parents are always at family events because of my bloody cousin, sirius. they’re the strangest people.” he tells.

“ah, how annoying. the boy saved the world in infancy.” you deadpan.

draco waves you off, “okay, i get it. but he is annoying.”

you laugh as a waitress comes over to take your order.

“two butterbeers.” draco tells her, handing her money.

as she walks away you give him a look, “i could have paid.”

“the guy always pays for the first date, y/n.” draco rolls his eyes, before adding, “not that this is a date. i wouldn’t take you to the three broomsticks.”

you smile, a little shy, “i wouldn’t mind sharing a first date here.”

“then potter is your soulmate. he takes ginny here every date they go on. honestly i don’t know how does he has a girlfriend and i don’t. the irony” he pouts.

you glower at him.

the waitress comes back with your drinks, and draco watches you expectantly. you roll your eyes and take a sip.

“oh shit this is good.” you gasp.

“told you.” he says, smug.

the two of you continue talking and drinking your butterbeers for a few more minutes before april and blaise make their way into the shop.

“look at this pretty necklace blaise got me! oh, and i got momma to mail me my old phone for him to use. he’s with the times now!” april beams, rushing into the booth.

blaise trails behind her, looking very confused by the cellphone in his hands.

“well hello you two. i’m glad you’re enjoying your date.” you smile.

blaise looks up at you, “seems like you’re enjoying yours as well.”

“draco and i are not on a date.” you say, glancing at the boy beside you.

“well we just thought you were since you’re wearing his sweater and sitting in the same bench. couple behavior if you ask me.” april shrugs.

“why do you people think i would take someone on a first date here. i’m far too good for that.” draco sighs.

april laughs and gives blaise a knowing look.

you don’t like that. it makes you narrow your eyes at the two of them, but they continue giggling.

“draco! i’m glad i caught you,” a voice calls.

you look up to see harry potter, followed by a redhead.

“are you coming over to sirius’ for christmas?” harry asks, resting against the booth.

“of course potter. he’s my family.” draco grunts.

“i was just making sure,” harry retorts. he looks at you, “are you bringing your girlfriend? sirius asked.”

draco coughs, “excuse me?”

harry smiles, “y/n, your girlfriend. snape owled my mum about it and dad told sirius. don’t worry, he’s letting you surprise your parents. he just wanted to know if she’d be with us this year.”

draco is fuming as he stares at harry. it’s quite enjoyable.

you grin, “actually, i’m going to be with my parents this christmas. but i don’t see why i couldn’t portkey here. i’d love to tag along.”

draco glares at you, “we are not-”

“great! i’ll owl sirius. come on ginny.” the brown haired boy gleams, walking away.

draco’s still glaring, “you’re dead. i’m going to hex you until you can’t remember your name.”

“oh come on. it was a joke. plus it’d be fun to have christmas with me. can’t you imagine it?” you say, nudging his arm.

“but explaining to my mum that we’re not dating is going to be a hassle. and you’re going to have to meet my crazy aunt bella.” draco groans, rubbing his eyes.

“to be fair, his aunt is mad. but think about it draco, what’s the worst that can happen? y/n would be a great addition to your family, even if it is just as a friend.” blaise says.

“just as a friend my ass.” april whispers.

draco rolls his eyes but gives you all a smile, “i hate everything about this.”

blaise narrows his eyes before smirking, “sure mate.”

once it was time to go back to the castle you told everyone you needed to head to the owlery first to pick up a package your parents had sent you. draco offered to come along and you let him, obviously.

you liked being alone with him.

by the time you get to the tower, it’s deserted, save for you and draco.

“you’re such a menace.” draco speaks, breaking your focus from your letters.

“big word for such a baby of a man.” you tease.

“shut up. i’m being serious. i know the minute i tell everyone you’re not my girlfriend, potter and his friends are going to have a field day.” draco says.

“harry doesn’t seem so mean. i follow him on instagram. he’s always so nice online.” you retort.

“you’ll see. he’s going to be a prat come christmas.” draco sighs, leaning against the wall.

you huff, “stop being so dramatic. if you want i can always just say i’m your girlfriend.”

draco gets off the wall and comes over to you, “you’re serious?”

you laugh, “yeah, i mean, everyone’s right. be basically act like a couple already. we’re really close for friends.”

“i guess..” he trails off, looking away from you.

you bite your lip and examine him. his pretty blond hair, pink lips, flushed face, and perfect posture. of course you wouldn’t mind pretending to be his girlfriend. you love him.

everything about him. you love the way his face contorts into a scowl after any inconvenience. you love how he looks at you when he sees someone doing something stupid. you love how he always has something for the two of you to do. and you love how he shows you the real him.

“but maybe it could be like a trial run.” he mutters, finally looking at you.

“what?” you breathe, voice catching in your throat.

“i mean, it would be stupid to not try. you’re my best friend y/n. i think we could, uh, work together.”

“are you saying you have a crush on me?”

“merlin. this is not as easy as i thought it was. of course i fancy you l/n. why else would i act like an utter buffoon?” he sighs.

you snort, “you act like buffoon even without me present, dickwad.”

“i’m trying to have a romantic conversation.”

“right, sorry,” you grin. “i would love to try to be your girlfriend.”

draco nods, “good. i mean, thank you?”

“come on, you can’t freeze up now. i definitely didn’t sign up for a shy boyfriend.”

he quirks up his eyebrow, “that you didn’t.”

the words and his gaze make your knees weak. and in an instant, draco’s lips are on yours. the wind outside is loud, but as you kiss him, you can’t hear a thing. your sense of smell is attacked with his cinnamon vanilla cologne. the boy is like one of the high end stores your mom shops at in the winter.

and his lips, his pretty full lips. the way they move with yours reminds you of something you’ve always needed but never knew. his hands take hold of your face and he brings the kiss deeper. the two of you oblivious to the world around you.

when you finally pull away, a smirk takes over his face.

“you have no idea how long i’ve wanted to do that.” he says, satisfied.

“come on, we’ve got to get back to the common room. we have classes in the morning.” you grin, grabbing your letters.

“please, the minute i get to the common room i’m kicking everyone out of my dorm and sneaking you in.” he states.

you look at him, shocked. silently thinking.

“stop staring at me like that. you can speak.”

glaring you say, “we’re going to have to tell everyone.”

draco groans, “maybe we should just wait until tomorrow.”

you nod, “tomorrow.”

#—myfics !#draco lucius malfoy #Draco Malfoy #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco malfoy one shot #draco fanfiction #draco x y/n #draco x reader #draco x you #draco x female reader #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy x slytherin #draco malfoy x american! reader #draco x ilvernmorny! reader #draco malfoy x y/n #draco malfoy x you #Harry Potter #harry potter fanfiction #hogwarts

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darkestwolfx · 4 years

Text

City Under the Sea - Re-Review #30

Some holiday this is! Here is a happy little family, doing your standard underwater holiday in a rented sub, fighting over ipads and whatnot, and not really knowing what they’re doing because they’re tourists! That’s a bit of an assumption on tourists - sorry, many tourists are quite wise - and not my everyday thought on tourists... this family however, definitely fit that mold.

Can I just ask though, 1. does anyone else find the logo on the rental sub hilarious? And 2. does anyone else get reminded of that fish from ‘Shark Tale’ (2005) that looked a little bit like that I think? Anyone, or is that just me?

Oh look, a big red exclamation mark! Now, I’m not an expert, but when that symbol appears on my car dashboard, the manual says to stop driving immediately. And look, it’s even got a little amber circle! Should so stop driving... piloting... whatever method driving a sub is actually called. I can’t think whist I’m trying to watch comic Gordon moments.

But yeah... point being, they drive on for a while first... foolish. Just saying.

Have they not taught this girl that pointing is rude? Eye spy is such a traditional stuck on the motorway care game as well. Playing it in the Amazon when you are not from there - just to say - definitely leaves an unfair advantage. I think that is the only time I have ever lost so bad at eye spy (and I mean, really, how do you even really lose eye spy?).

Don’t worry! International Rescue are on the way! Because, you have made it onto Thunderbirds are go, so there can’t be fear of you dying. That doesn’t happen here, folks. This is an escape from the real world (much needed right now as I’m sure we all know... which reminds me, I need to finish writing some irrelief2020 prompts... sorry, off track). Let’s move on to talk about Gordon.

You know, I really don’t know what Lady P sees in him... he’s such a... slob? I mean, maybe that is why he and Parker don’t get along so well.

“Aren’t you going to pick this up?”

“Of course I was! You don’t think a responsible member of International Rescue would leave trash lying around do you? Who do you think I am?”

“A slob comes to mind.”

Yeah, thanks for agreeing with me, Kayo. That makes me feel better about (not) insulting Gordon myself.

“Wow.”

“Go ahead. Just say it.”

“Gordon Tracy, you are a secret slob.”

“Oh, the wrappers? What can I say? Scott’s always at me about my room. This is my own personal domain.”

It’s also a rescue sub... but hey, who looks at whether there’s rubbish on the floor of the International Rescue sub when they’re being rescued? Really, what does it matter in the long run when he’s going to save their lives?

This city looks so so freaky. Whenever they were driving through it I was just like... shivers. Bay City must have been a greeeaaat place to live. I bet Lady Penelope has great memories of the Creighton-Ward building.

“Just follow my lead, Parker. I spent many a summer playing hide and seek in these walls.”

“Bit different with ha giant crab ship nipping hat your ‘eels.”

“Don’t worry, Parker. I always won.”

Oh...kay. She actually does!

“But the monster!”

“That’s not a monster. It’s the mechanic.”

You know, I think they’re two very similar things at the moment. Considering at this point we knew very, very little about The Mechanic, i think it was perfectly reasonable to think such. After all, he doesn’t really speak, and he attacks people and he has a bit of a temper, and he’s quite obviously... well, the bad guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-TbQnONe_w

You know, that’s just in case anyone wants to start a post on character theme songs within the 21st century, specifically 2020 - you know, I think that would actually be a great way to take our minds off of everything... please someone do that for me!

This guy really does have some serious tech, and the worst part is probably that he knows so well how to use it. He uses it like an extension to his own body (principles of martial arts here, guys, a skill worth having let me tell you) and acts like he’s completely in sync with it. Really it’s like he lives and breathes with those meccas. And that ship looks unsettlingly like a crab... don’t blame me if I make sure to look at them twice in the future You know. Just to be sure.

“But you don’t even know how to operate Thunderbird Four... Don’t scratch it! And be careful! Ah, Brains is gonna’ kill me. Woah! I didn’t even know it could do that!”

Um... you were saying, Gordon?

And, actually, I think it will be Scott who kills you before Brains when he sees the state of Thunderbird Four’s interior. After all, if he’s that fussy over Gordon’s room, he’s going to be a tyrant over anything IR related.

“Don’t worry, Brains can get mad at you for something else.”

I can imagine there’s quite a list.

“Unbelievable.”

Thunderbird Four is not Thunderbird Shadow... Please remember that for Gordon’s sake, Kayo. Although, maybe in her hands it is a little more like Shadow. Definitely appeared so.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“FAB. I’ll come up with some other way.”

You can bet she will.

Anyhow, back to the subject, I think Gordon does enough damage to Thunderbird Four without needing anyone to help him, so lets just discount this whole sea chase of Kayo’s.

But let’s so so not because it was awesome! I mean, as much as Gordon would love to claim that no one else can pilot Four, I don’t think Kayo (or Scott for that matter) do a bad job at all. I mean, she managed to give the Mechanic a run for his money and he’s a nasty character, so I think that really does mean something.

“You three get to the crash site.”

“Wait, you three? Underwater rescue is my thing.”

“But sneaking up on bad guys is her thing.”

“You have a point there.”

And that’s Virgil’s point proven I think.

Sherbet looking at the fish! I mean, I suppose that’s to be expected as it’s not natural for a dog to be quite that far underwater.

Hell, Parker really does have good driving skills. If I could drive half as well as he can through an old abandoned building which if half-decaying and underwater then I would be incredibly impressed. My best skill level is being able to park perfectly in one go like once a week every week most. You know what, I think I might just employ Parker for myself. Anyone have his contact number?

That past of Parker’s really does make a difference! The Mechanic’s face was such a sight to see. He got away - of course he did, he’s obviously the new series main villain and connected to some big plot twist with The Hood, so we couldn’t kill him off yet, that would just be a really bad use of an interesting (though slightly chill-provoking) character. Besides, I think he’s pretty hard to kill, but Parker gave it a pretty good go, so he’ll have to have a medal for trying and count that as good enough. Honestly, The Mechanic seems indestructible, much like another family we know... Yeah, that combination is going to go down swimmingly when they meet. It will be like two rhinos butting heads. Although we do have to wait a while for that, so let’s get back on subject.

“This won’t be the last time The Mechanic tries to get The Hood out of prison. The GDF needs to be on their guard.”

“Where The Mechanic and The Hood are concerned, everyone should be on their guard.”

Well said Lady P.

“Have time to make that Dad a hero?”

Oh yeah, and back on the subject, the final note is: what a great holiday that was. Real holiday of a lifetime.... Hooray for the happy family who got to see Thunderbird Four in action to rescue them from the very, very, terrible bad guy. Who are shaken up, but will probably be okay and oh there we go! Magically okay because they get to ride in Thunderbird Two, all the way to Antartica to see the Penguins!

So, I’m not sure it really works like that - ‘curing’ PTSD and shock I mean... but I do agree that Penguins can make everything feel better. They hug, brilliant creatures that they are.

Anyone want to know a fact? I’m sharing it with you because it’s my work-based knowledge - when penguins huddle together, they keep moving (waddling) whilst they huddle so that eventually the penguins on the outside of the group end up on the inside and so on. They’re so smart that they can realise the penguins on the outside of the huddle will get cold unless they rotate and they’re smart enough to realise that if they keep rotating, the penguins from the inside who then go on the outside, will be warm enough by that point (from being on the inside) that they won’t get cold because of how quickly they can keep waddling around each other. It’s absolutely brilliant. If you get the chance, definitely meet penguins.

P.S. You can thank me later for the penguins

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gumnut-logic · 5 years

Text

V. T. Green (Part Eight - The End)

Title: V. T. Green

Author: Gumnut

20 - 25 Oct 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: “Did you discover this, Brains?” He frowned. There was something familiar about this. Maybe they had discussed it recently.

“Oh, no, this is V. T. Green. The man is brilliant.”

Word count: 3555

Spoilers & warnings: None.

Timeline: Standalone

Author’s note: Here we are, the final chapter. I’ve been staring at this for far too long, so who knows what’s in here. Thank you for all your wonderful support on this fic. I hope it lived up to expectations and I hope you enjoy this last bit.

Many thanks to @scribbles97 , @vegetacide and @thunderstorm-bay for all their wonderful help with this.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

Virgil slammed the door to his rooms behind him. Okay, so he was being petty, but they should have known. Why didn’t they know?

Whatever.

Now he was here, he had no idea what to do with himself. A glance around the room and he realised this was not where he wanted to be.

His ‘bird.

He would go and work on his ‘bird.

With one hand.

He stared down at the sling restricting the movement of his arm. A moment of thought, and he was sliding the offending piece of material off his arm.

Scott had force fed him his medication so there was only twinging. He tentatively stretched his arm out.

Ow.

Okay, respect needed.

At least he could shower and change his clothes.

His train of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Virgil?”

Gordon.

A sigh. “Leave me alone.”

“Not this time, bro.” The sounds of fumbling and a second later Gordon waltzed through the door.

“What the hell did you do to that lock?”

Gordon held up the unit in one hand. “This one?” Wires hung loose from the half disassembled electronic device. Virgil stared at it.

“What? You didn’t know I could do that? Hmm, you’ve underestimated me, bro. I should get angry and storm out.”

Virgil’s shoulders dropped and he sent his brother a flat-eyed glare. “Fine. Do that. At least I’ll be left alone.”

The lock landed on a side table and Gordon shut the door quietly behind him.

Virgil ignored him and began pulling off his shirt, prepping for his shower. His arm and shoulder protested loudly.

“Hey.” Gentle hands pulled the sleeve of his flannel shirt off his arm. “You shouldn’t have that sling off yet.”

“Yeah, well, I stink and I want to shower.”

His brother’s hands didn’t stop helping him. The flannel shirt landed on the couch, followed slowly by his grey undershirt.

“You’re not pulling my pants off.”

“Why not?” Gordon looked up at him, no trace of humour in his expression. “You’ve helped me with everything.” That gaze intensified.

Virgil sighed. It felt wrong to have his little brother helping him like this. “That was different.”

“Why? Because you’re the older brother? I’m sorry, Virg, I can’t change our birth order, but I’m still going to help you.”

“Gordon...”

His brother darted in and undid his button and, before he knew it, he was standing there in his briefs.

No smart ass comment passed his brother’s lips despite the green coffee cups on his underwear. The two men stood staring at each other for a moment.

Virgil’s lips curled up slightly in a smile. “It must be killing you to hold it all in.”

Gordon bit his lip, but his eyes sparkled. “Not saying a thing.”

The smile became a grin and Gordon’s expression became pinched with strain. Before he knew it, Virgil was laughing his ass off. He ended up holding his arm close and sitting down on the couch in order to not injure himself with his own humour.

His little’s brother’s face broke out in a grin and he sat down beside him. “That is so much better, Virg.”

The laughter petered out into a fond smile and Virgil reached out to put an arm around Gordon’s shoulders.

The aquanaut backed off immediately. “Hey, you’re almost naked! A little too much skin, bro.”

Virgil grinned and mussed his hair instead.

“Oh, man. Gettorf!” Gordon flailed at his fingers.

He let his brother off the hook and sank into the couch cushions. “Thanks, Gordon.”

A brown gaze so similar to the one he so often saw in the mirror. “Virgil, do you think I’m smart?”

He froze, the question such an echo of what he had asked Scott the day before, his heart lurched.

“Sure, Gordon.”

The gaze didn’t blink. “No, you don’t, Virgil.”

“Gordon! Your achievements-“

But Gordon was shaking his head. “You don’t, Virgil.” He held up a hand. “I’m not angry, not hurt, don’t worry, I’m happy with what I am.”

“No! Gordon, you are smart.”

“Not the same smart as you. Or John.”

“Maybe not, but smart comes in many different forms.”

His brother shrugged. “How did I get into this room, Virg?”

“You broke the lock.” Another job to add to his list.

“I disassembled the locking mechanism.” A pause. “Did you know I could do that?”

“Uh-“

“You didn’t, did you?”

Virgil looked down at his hands. “No, I didn’t.”

“Virg, I have a whole array of skills I don’t use day to day. Some of them I hope I never have to use again, ever.”

A darted stare at his brother. “WASP.”

“Yep.” A quirk of a smile. “I doubt my brothers are aware of half of the things I’m capable of.” The smile became grim. “And I’d like to keep it that way.” A shrug. “Okay, maybe Scott knows more than most, but...” He turned to face Virgil. “I don’t want you to see how smart I am.” He straightened and the smile came back. “I like being the goofball brother.”

Virgil’s smile was soft. “You’ll always be the goofball brother. No contest.”

“And you will always be the grumpy bear before his morning coffee no matter how many smarts you declare.”

The smile became fond. “How did you know, when no one else did?”

Gordon shook his head. “Sorry, bro, I didn’t. You told me with your reaction.”

“At least you considered the possibility.”

“Didn’t I say that the first rule of International Rescue is if Virgil says it is, it is? That didn’t come from me, you know. John passed that on in a lecture after I screwed up, and he heard it from Scott when he screwed up before me. Scott heard it from Dad. It is a rule that has been learnt the hard way by all of us. Except you. Because you are damn good at what you do, Virg. You may not realise it, but trust me, your brothers do.”

Gordon drew a breath. “We didn’t realise that you were V.T. Green because we have gotten so used to your expertise in action, we forgot the theory behind it all. We know you’re smart and we rely on it every day. I’ve seen your head buried in so many engineering journals over the years, I should have realised it sooner, but don’t you dare think that because we didn’t connect the dots between you and a website, that we don’t know our brother has whatever it takes.” A small smile. “Because you always do. That brain of yours has saved our butts so many times, Virg.”

“But, Brains-“

“What is this? A competition?” Gordon frowned at him. “Brains is smart, too. So are John, Alan, Scott, Tin, Grandma and even me. There is no shortage of genius on this island. It just comes in different forms, just like you said. It has to. Otherwise this crazy rescue organisation wouldn’t work.”

The room fell silent. Goosebumps rose on Virgil’s arms, the air still a little cool at this time of the morning. Another reason to sleep in. Give the island some time to warm up.

“I’m sorry, Gordon. I shouldn’t have exploded like that.”

“What? Of course, you should have. It doesn’t hurt to surprise everyone now and again. Keeps them on their toes. Well, all except for Tin.”

Virgil snorted. “Nothing gets past her.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she bugged your underwear.”

He stared at his brother. “What?”

Gordon just grinned at him.

“You are the goofball, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“And you wouldn’t have me any other way.”

He reached out to tousle Gordon’s hair again and the man ducked off the couch.

A fond grin. “No, I wouldn’t.”

-o-o-o-

Virgil managed his shower and Gordon left him to it. It gave him time to think. Time to look at it all from a different perspective. Kayo had dobbed him in for a reason. His sister never did anything without a reason and honestly, now the cat was out of the bag, it lifted the worry from his shoulders. Perhaps he should thank her. Maybe grab some of her favourite chocolate from that little shop in southern Australia.

But he still had to face Brains and for the first time in his life, he was hesitating in approaching his fellow engineer.

There had never been anything but a strong and honest friendship between himself and Hiram Hackenbacker. His friend was just that little bit older than him, just that little more experienced...

And so much smarter.

He had been inspirational when Virgil was younger. His studies had been both guided and assisted by the brilliant young engineer discovered by his father. Brains had been there at the start of his career and he had been a constant companion in his engineering endeavours ever since. He owed him so much.

He sighed.

It would be up to Virgil to approach Brains. The man’s social skills were almost inversely proportional to his genius.

He should have spoken to him earlier.

Brothers were one thing, they would forgive him eventually. They were his brothers.

But friends...mentors...

He didn’t want to lose Brains’ trust.

He managed to get some pants on without too much trouble. He gave up on the undershirt and slipped the sling on over his bare chest before draping his flannel shirt over his injured shoulder and slipping his good arm through the sleeve. It wasn’t the greatest solution and Grandma would likely frown at him, but he didn’t care.

What he did care about was hunting down Brains and apologising.

He made it through the house without encountering anyone, oddly enough, and caught the elevator down to the labs.

Virgil had his workshop. Brains had his labs. Perhaps that illustrated the subtle differences to their individual approaches to engineering. Traditionally, Brains tackled the theories and experiments. Virgil’s domain was more maintenance. His ‘experiments’ little more than finding solutions to mechanical problems encountered in the field or during repairs.

Brains designed and built Thunderbirds.

Virgil kept them in the sky, under the water and in space.

And it was there in the corridor between Labs One and Two that he realised exactly what his problem was.

He was in Brains’ shadow and he hadn’t even realised it.

The thought stopped him in his tracks.

He was familiar with the shadow cast by his high achieving eldest brother. Scott Tracy had always been a hard act to follow. But Virgil’s focus was so different to Scott’s he felt he had carved out his own niche and, to be honest, he was quite comfortable beside Scott. He fit well as his second and a small niggling voice at the back of his mind sometimes warned him that he was relying far too much on his brother for skills he had no wish to develop himself.

But Brains...Brains shared his interests, worked in the same field, was so much smarter...

Had he slipped into being Brains’ second as well?

The thought felt wrong. Virgil wasn’t competitive. He was happy where he was...wasn’t he?

He still had those thousands of notifications in his inbox.

Shit.

“Virgil?”

He jumped. He had been completely lost in thought standing in the middle of the corridor. Brains was staring at him.

Virgil straightened. “Uh, hey, Brains.”

“H-how are you feeling?”

A blink. “Um, okay.” He was such an on-the-ball conversationalist this morning.

“I was h-hoping that while you are off r-rescues we could...” But Brains’ voice petered off and a frown crumpled his brow. “I am s-sorry, V-Virgil, that I did not r-recognise you as V-V. T. G-Green.”

Virgil shifted where he stood. “I didn’t know you read my blog. Well, until the other day.”

“Oh, your blog is amazing. That polymer is brilliant. I also enjoyed your discussion with O’Malley regarding tensile steel versus polysteel in bridge construction. Where did you get that idea for interweaving the two materials?”

“From that bridge in Mexico last year. The one that buckled due to uneven weight distribution on the secondary pylon grouping.”

The engineer was running calculations, Virgil could tell. “Yes, I can see that now. Do you think that would have m-managed the harmonic wind factor as well?”

“Oh, definitely.” And that led into a discussion of harmonic pressure and the properties of the new combination of materials. They slipped easily into engineering jargon and they ended up in one of Brains’ labs deep in the most fascinating and satisfying discussion Virgil had ever had with his friend.

It was Scott standing in the doorway several hours later that finally snapped them out of the land of scientific imagination. By that time, the self-healing polymer was modelled and ready for initial experimental trials.

“Am I going to have to share him with you now, Brains?” Scott was smiling, obviously amused. Virgil wondered how long his brother had been standing there.

But Brains grew flustered. “Th-that’s entirely u-up to V-Virgil.”

Virgil held up a hand. “Hey, nothing’s changed. I’m still the same wrench monkey I was yesterday.”

Brown eyes caught his. “N-no, Virgil, you are so much more. I-I’m j-just s-sorry I didn’t see it b-before.” His friend’s shoulders dropped.

“Hey.” He walked over to the engineer and placed his good hand on Brains’ shoulder. “I should have told you. Though, I honestly didn’t realise...a lot of things.” He squeezed gently. “But now we know and we can move forward.” It was quite exciting really. Brains had experience Virgil could learn from and Brains saw possibilities in several of Virgil’s theories.

“Wh-why did you shut d-down your website?” It came out in a rush, the worry on Brains’ face obvious.

Virgil was very aware of his silent brother still standing just inside the door. And, no, he hadn’t missed the bottle of pills in Scott’s hand.

Voice quiet. “Abby Applegate. You made me realise the potential I was making public. I pulled it to give myself time to work out what I want to do with my theories.”

“You want to keep them under the blanket of International Rescue?” It was Scott’s commander voice asking the question and it had Virgil automatically straightening his posture in response.

He turned to his brother. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“But isn’t this technology that the Hood could...”

Virgil held up a hand. “This technology could save thousands of lives and, yes, if it got into the wrong hands it could make our jobs harder, but...” And as he was saying it, the idea clarified in his mind. “It could save so many more lives than we ever could, if we release the technology so manufacturers can build it into their products to prevent us from needing to be called in, in the first place.”

“Virgil-“

“No, Scott. I have to think on this further, but this polymer, at least, will be released in some form. Maybe we can release it through Tracy Industries, maybe some other way, But I don’t want to deny the possibilities it could mean for sheer safety in areas like marine habitation or airships, for example.”

His brother’s glance immediately flicked to the other engineer in the room. “Brains?”

Virgil couldn’t believe it. The rational part of his mind knew it was only reflex on Scott’s part, but... “No! This isn’t Brains’ decision, it’s mine!”

He saw the moment of realisation as to what he had done flicker across Scott’s eyes. His mouth opened but Brains interrupted. “Th-this is V-Virgil’s decision.”

Virgil straightened his spine.

Scott echoed his stance, but his voice was soft. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

“I need to remember that.”

-o-o-o-

When Scott finally dragged him out of Brains’ lab, Virgil discovered it was later than he expected. He and Brains had well and truly gotten lost in their discussion. It was lunch time, but a very late one. His eldest brother continued the dragging all the way to the kitchen. There was pill taking demanded, followed by a glare directed seat at the table.

Food appeared in front of him.

Brothers wandered into the room and found their own lunches. Soon there were conversations bouncing around.

Gordon clapped him around his good shoulder as he entered. “So, when is Four getting this groovy polymer upgrade?”

“It doesn’t even exist yet. We’re still a way off a workable application.”

“Hey, just getting in first dibs. I read your blog entry on that you know. It was amazing.”

Virgil stared at him. “You read my blog entry?”

“Sure. Brains was over the moon about it and I wanted to know more. Plus, it was great sport to see you put that colon-custard guy where he belonged.” Gordon grinned.

Okay, that was an image. He held back a shudder. “Coloncous.”

“Whatever. You scored big.” His fish brother swiped a piece of carrot off Virgil’s plate. “Let me know next time you want to take down another hot air balloon, I’d like to watch.” He grinned and headed off into kitchen, likely to pilfer from other plates before finally throwing his own lunch together.

A glass of juice appeared at his elbow, Scott arching an eyebrow to match Virgil’s query, the message obvious. Look after yourself.

Brains wandered in, distracted as usual. This time it was John who stopped him from colliding with the furniture and directed him to a chair before he collided with anything else.

Kayo slunk into a seat beside Virgil on his good side, nudging him with her elbow. “Forgive me?”

“For what?”

“Telling.”

A one shoulder shrug. “I guess.”

“They had to know.”

“I guess.”

She stared at him a moment, her expression assessing him. “Letting an opponent underestimate you makes good tactical sense. Just don’t underestimate yourself.”

“I...” But the words escaped him as her green gaze pierced him, pushing her point home.

Her hand rested on his shoulder and she leant in and whispered in his ear. “Though I must say it was great sport to see you get one over all of them.” She smiled. “Never underestimate a Tracy.”

And with those words she was gone from his side and delving into the refrigerator as if there was no physical space between him and the appliance.

A blink. Kayo was a law unto herself. He shook his head and couldn’t help but smile.

A sudden exchange of words at the kitchen counter ended in an outraged squawk. “Gordon!”

Alan had raw egg in his hair and dripping into his eyebrows and onto his cheeks.

A second later, Gordon had flour in his hair.

As Virgil leapt out of his chair and Scott dove across the room, another egg sailed through the air and the butter dish made airborne. It got loud and there was yelling.

“What the hell are you two doing?!” Scott was answered by a cloud of flour.

“Hey, guys, cut it out!” Virgil reached into the fracas with his good arm and yanked, landing himself a furious Alan screaming profanities at Gordon and coated in what equated to omelette.

His eldest brother grabbed a glaring Gordon and restrained him. There was moment of stunned silence before an angry Scott broke it. “What the hell are you two doing?”

“Teaching the squirt a lesson.”

“Screw you, Gordon!”

“What? Did you underestimate your dumb brother, genius boy?”

“I never said you were dumb!”

“You don’t think I’ve got the brains to keep up with you.”

Virgil had to pull Alan back again, his balance off due to one arm in a sling. His littlest brother was furious. “I never said that either!”

“But you thought it!”

“HEY!” It was Virgil’s voice, not Scott’s that brought the argument to a dead stop. “Gordon, what the hell?”

The aquanaut lost the glare and let his shoulders drop, shifting to a nonchalant stance as if he wasn’t coated head to toe in flour and egg. He ignored Virgil and addressed his little brother. “Point made?”

Alan shook off Virgil’s grip and straightened up, his shoulders squared. “Point made.”

“We good?”

A stare at his next eldest brother before Alan once again shifted his stance, relaxing even further. “We’re good.” And to Virgil’s astonishment, Alan’s face split into a grin. “That was a smart move with that first egg. Did not see it coming.”

“You shouldn’t expect anything less, little bro.”

“I know, I know, point made. You’re smart, I’m smart. Now show me how you flipped your wrist like that.”

Virgil stared as the two youngest brothers huddled together discussing how to slingshot an egg with a single wrist twist. Across the room, Scott appeared equally mystified as to what had actually happened.

Eventually the engineer just rolled his eyes and wandered over to the sink to wash the flour off his hand. Scott ended up beside him, the smother hen helping him clean his one hand.

Virgil rolled his eyes.

“We good?” Scott’s voice was quiet almost tentative.

A frown. “Of course. Yes, we’re good.”

He was surprised at the smile that spread over Scott’s face. A wet hand squeezed his shoulder and handed him a towel.

And dried his one hand.

Oh, for the love of...

Scott was grinning at him.

“God, you’re an ass.”

“Yeah, a smart one.”

Virgil cuffed him up the back of his head.

-o-o-o-

FIN.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Virgil Tracy #Scott Tracy #Gordon Tracy #alan tracy #John Tracy #kayo kyrano

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lolainblue · 6 years

Text

Thunderbirds -- Chapter 41

Jared's POV:

Without a word Roger pulled me into his bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind us and turning the lock. Like the rest of the apartment it was decorated in tones of charcoal and slate with wood accents, understated and urban, and although it didn't seem much like Jane, it did seem to suit Roger quite well. “I like your place,” I told him. “Did you guys hire a decorator or did you do it yourself?”

“I mostly did it myself,” Roger confirmed. “In bits and pieces over time but I'm pretty happy with where I've gotten it right now. I've always had an eye, it just took a while before I had the money to do things the way I wanted to.”

“I guess that's not an issue now,” I pointed out. “You've really done well for yourself. Your career, I mean. I'm kind of surprised you and Jane still live together, actually. I know it's none of my business but by my estimation, either one of you could easily afford your own place, even in Manhattan”

A lot had changed since the first time I met Roger and Jane, not just their financial circumstances. I had been a little taken with him right from the start, he was witty and fun, bright and sharp, and if I hadn't already been knee deep in the first Jane mess then things might have gone a little differently. We were very different people now than when we had started but I had enjoyed reconnecting with him. When he called to check up on Jane after the whole Angus gossip debacle, we found ourselves talking again and things just clicked. We had a lot of similarities, Roger and I, and we got each other in a way that I don't think a lot of other people did. When he told me about his breakup with Daphne and I invited him to come hang out for a while and get his mind off things, I swear I didn't have any ulterior motives. Things just happened. But watching Roger jump the rails like a speeding commuter train reminded me how fast my train was going too, and how quickly it could all fall apart.

Roger considered my statement then shrugged. “I don't think we ever really even considered being apart. We've been together so long. We don't get to see each other much when we're working though – I travel a lot and when she's promoting her work she does too.” He gave me a wry smile, that sharpness of his seemingly directed inwards today. “A therapist would probably tell you we're co-dependent. Plus I'm pretty sure I'm depressed and I have abandonment and daddy issues. But hey, who's keeping track?”

He sat down on the bed and I joined him, thinking about the assortment of “daddy issues” I had collected myself over time. “I have the “out the door before I was even born” variety,” I confessed. “What kind do you have?”

“The “beat the insolent, blasphemous queer out of him with a two-inch barber strop” kind,” Roger said matter-of-factly before breaking into a dangerous grin. “Didn't work.”

“Fuck, I'm sorry.” I wondered if I should tell him about my experiences with my stepfather, but there was something in his demeanor today that told me he probably didn't want to commiserate. It had only been two weeks since I had seen him last, but he looked thinner and paler and tired, and I was reminded of Jane's misgivings moments before. I wanted to ask if he was okay, but it was a stupid question. He obviously wasn't okay, I just didn't know what to say. Everything felt awkward, like visiting the bedside of a friend who had just been diagnosed with cancer. You wanted to help, you wanted to reassure them, but you didn't quite know how, and in the back of your mind you're just busy being grateful it's not you. I decided to just keep feeling my way forward. “That must have been a hell of a way to grow up.”

“Wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the lot of them weren't completely brainwashed by that so-called church of theirs. I'm the youngest you know, I have four brothers and three sisters. None of them speak to me.”

This was more about Roger and his life than he had shared in all of the time we had spent together. I hadn't known he had any siblings at all, let alone seven of them. It hurt to know that it took him coming apart to trust me with something so mundane. It hurt even more to know that it would take something similar for me to be this honest. At least I could sit here and listen. He seemed to need that right now. “Again man, I'm sorry. That's pretty fucked up...”

“It isn't even because of that church though. Not really,” he continued, picking at the bedspread underneath him while he avoided my eyes. “I mean they're pretty full of poisonous ideas about a lot of bullshit, don't get me wrong. But see, my unforgivable sin was rocking the boat. I didn't do enough to cover for my father when people questioned what was happening. Not that I actually told on him, or that he got into any trouble over it. The congregation is good at circling their wagons if nothing else. But he was inconvenienced, and you know, we can't inconvenience John Harrington.” He gave a small laugh. “Or maybe it is their church after all. Honor thy father and mother. No matter what they do or if they deserve it.”

“Fuck your old man,” I told him. “Pretty sure you're better off.”

“Yeah, so am I. But I'm not going to pretend like it doesn't hurt to lose the rest of them too. You know my mother died, a few weeks ago. My sister Marsha called to tell me about it the night before the funeral, just to make sure I knew I shouldn't come home. I'm not welcome.” Whatever little bit of stoicism he had been trying to hold on to melted away and his voice started to break. “She was my mother. I thought that meant something. I didn't even know she was sick. I didn't get to say goodbye. I didn't even...”

“What would you have said to her?” I asked him. I couldn't wrap my head around where he was right now. If I had been raised by those people, if I had been treated like that, I don't think I would have given a shit if any of them died. Obviously, though, he still carried a lot of hurt from it all. I thought maybe saying out loud what he would have said to her might help. I hated to see him floundering like this.

Roger swallowed deeply and gave his head a little shake. “I don't know. Part of me wants her to hug me and tell me she still loved me, in spite of everything. Part of me wants to scream at her and ask her why she never stood up for me. Either way...” He swallowed again, and quickly wiped his cheek. “It doesn't matter. She never took me back, she threw me away and I'm never going to get that answer now.”

I probably shouldn't have done it, Roger had made it very clear he was through with me when we parted in Wisconsin, but I leaned over and slipped my arms around him, pulling him up against me. “You are not some thing to just be discarded, Rog. You are amazing. I am so sorry they don't see that but that's on them not you.” He was shaking and I think fighting back tears, and I gave him a little kiss on the side of his face, right by his ear. I meant it to be reassuring. He didn't take it that way.

Roger pulled away from me and sat up with a defeated sigh. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” His face had gone slack and his glassy eyes avoided my gaze. “Like it even fucking matters anymore. I guess we're just back to finding something to fill the ache.” He pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it across the room. “Do or don't, it's not like it changes anything, so what the hell. I mean you did come all this way.”

“What? No, that's not what I fucking meant. That's not even why I'm here.” I was horrified by the casual, detached way he seemed to be offering his body up to me. I got up and picked up his shirt, and as I handed it back to him I noticed how marked up his chest and back were. I don't think I was the only one he had made this offer to recently. “What's happening to you, Roger?” I didn't know what to say, I knew I was drawing a lot of conclusions but I had seen a few people hit rock bottom before and if Roger wasn't there already he was dangerously close. I reached forward before I realized what I was doing, my fingers tracing over a bite mark on his shoulder. He immediately jerked back away from me.

“Fuck you, what did Jane fucking say to you?” Roger snapped, his mood swinging around in an instant. He hastily pulled his shirt back on. “It's not like she thinks. She's such a fucking idealist. She doesn't get what it's like for the rest of us...”

“Okay stop. Please. Jane didn't say anything to me. I honestly just came down here to apologize to you. I was an asshole when you left that morning and I'm really sorry about it. I just wanted to make sure we're good.”

“Yeah sure, we're fine,” Roger mumbled. “Sorry to interrupt your plans. Feel better about yourself yet?”

I wanted to snap. He was being impossible, opening up and shutting down again so fast I couldn't hope to keep up. I fought back the urge to storm out. “Not really. But that's not why I'm here. I mean it, Roger. I'm sorry for the way I acted when you left. I like you a lot. I'd like it if we were friends. I can find a piece of ass anywhere. Friends are a little harder.”

“A spectacular piece of ass,” Roger protested with just a hint of a smile.

I laughed. “Yeah, okay, a spectacular piece of ass. But I think maybe a good friend. I could really use one of those right now. It looks like maybe you could too.”

“Maybe.”

“I'm trying to be less of a self-involved prick. Granted, it's not going very well...” I confessed with a shrug. “I am who I am. But I'm trying.”

“You're not that self-involved,” he conceded. “As a matter of fact, you've mostly been really kind when I've been around. You're just focused and I think you forget other people more than you mean to. It's still kind of shitty but it's fixable and you're a good person underneath it all.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Sure. Don't mention it.” He sighed and leaned back on the bed. “Are you sure she didn't say anything to you? Jane, I mean.”

I shook my head. “She said it wasn't a good time when I told her I wanted to talk to you. That's all. I know this is a stupid question, but I don't know how else to ask. Are you okay? I mean, is there anything you want to talk about? Can I help somehow?”

“I don't know. I'm trying to sort it all out. Jane's all wrapped up in Shannon and I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing but she's not listening to me so there's nothing I can do there.”

I tried to keep my face neutral. Roger didn't know the half of it. Shannon was my brother and knew I had to have his back but I was certain Jane would not have been cool with the way he had behaving on tour without her if she knew. I had considered spilling the beans when I had spoken to her on the phone. I had thought about maybe just leaving hints. I was thinking about it now, but it wasn't my secret to tell. I had warned Shannon, however, that if he fucked this up Jane was, in my opinion, fair game. I had only ever agreed to back off from her in the beginning. Recent misjudgments aside, Jane had only improved with age in my opinion. I didn't hold out a lot of hope, once she had finally seen Shannon it seemed that she only ever had eyes for him. But I could see the way things were going, with or without my interference. Time would tell how it all played out.

“She has made the plans and I have followed for most of our lives,” Roger went on. “Which is fine but, again, she's all wrapped up in Shannon and I don't think she knows where she's going anymore.”

“So make your own plans,” I suggested. “There must be something you want to do.”

Roger smiled. “Co-dependent, remember? But I have been branching out.”

He just continued to sit there with that wry smile on his face. “Are you going to tell me into what or do I have to guess the password or something?”

“I'm kind of embarrassed, actually. Especially since it's you. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor. I was in a few school plays but I was really awful at it. I mean really, truly awful,” he confessed. “But Daphne was hounding me about branching out. She really was just fame chasing and thought I could be her ticket, she thought I could get into acting, and as far as she was concerned that was better than just being a model. I tried to tell her how bad at it I was but she just kept hounding me, so eventually I agreed to take lessons. I'm finding out I actually like it, and I'm not as awful as I thought, I was just clueless. I've really been putting a lot of work into but I think it's paying off.”

“You know, that's always been my plan. I just throw myself really hard at things. If you like it and you're willing to work for it I absolutely think you can do it.”

Roger laughed. “Okay, let's not pretend like you aren't gifted as hell. I believe you work for it but we are not exactly starting from the same place.”

“You have no idea where I started from,” I told him. It didn't feel like the right time now but I promised myself soon I would sit down with him and tell him about my early days in L.A. “But you're right, it wasn't the same place. You have a lot more resources now than I had then. It's going to play out differently than it did for me. Is the class going well?”

Roger blushed. It seemed strange on him. “Well, I was in this play this spring. The play was terrible but I got some good mentions in reviews. But...” He took a deep breath. “Turns out I had a flair for something I would never have suspected. I'm going to be doing Shakespeare. It's a fall festival and then some traveling. The director I'm working with is grooming me to come back and do Shakespeare in the park for the season next summer...”

“Seriously? That's amazing! That's a huge deal!” I was really impressed. For someone with Roger's experience level to be getting this kind of an opportunity, he had to be good. “Don't even try to tell me you aren't talented. This wouldn't be happening if you weren't.”

Roger shrugged but I could the smile on his face. This meant a lot to him, and he was proud of it. Probably more so since it was a childhood dream he never thought he was going to be able to chase. “Why hasn't Jane mentioned it?” I asked suspiciously.

“She doesn't know yet. It's going to be a lot of work and travel and I probably won't see her much this year. With everything she's been through, I feel like I'm abandoning her. I'm thinking of turning them down.”

“Don't you fucking dare. She would not want that."

“She'd give me her oxygen tank if she was drowning. Doesn't mean I should take it.”

“Look, I know it's not any of my business, but we're having this discussion so you're getting my opinion anyway. You need to do this. You two need to cut the cord a little bit. You're both a lot stronger than you think you are but you're never going to know it if you don't try to stand up on your own. This is your dream. Chase it. I bet you'll be amazing.” Roger shrugged. “What play? What part?” I asked.

“Of all the parts in all the plays, which one would you cast me in?”

I thought about it for a minute. I wasn't a huge Shakespeare fan, but as my mind wandered back to high school English classes one part did indeed stand out. “Puck.” I ventured.

Roger laughed and smiled. “Give the man a prize. Midsummer Nights Dream it is.”

I laughed back, enjoying seeing him smile. “You are going to be perfect. Send me dates and locations and I'll try to make a show.”

“I will.” He nodded but then the smile started to fade and his face started to darken again. “I'm afraid though. Things have gone really well for me so far. Better than they should have. It feels a little cliché, the model/actor thing, and it feels a little greedy to chase something else. Like I'm just tempting fate.”

This was one area I was very familiar with. “Look. Not everyone fits in one box. You can't let your expectations be shaped by what everyone else thinks you should be doing. You especially can't let fear of failure stop you from chasing something you want. Besides, failure is a great teacher. You learn as much from failing as you do from succeeding. Probably more." He looked so uncertain, and I knew that confidence that he normally seemed to be brimming with was in short supply. Now was the time he was going to need it. I wanted to hug him again but I didn't want him to get the wrong idea. “I think this is exactly what you need right now. A sense of direction and purpose, and one that wasn't assigned to you by Jane.”

“I don't want her to think I'm abandoning her.”

“She won't. She's going to be proud of you and excited for you. You'll see.”

He let out a breath he had been holding. “Thanks. For listening to all this. For being a friend.” Roger leaned forward and hugged me this time, and I pulled him in as tightly as I could. I felt better about things than when I had walked in there but I wasn't put off by the slight uptick in his mood. I was still very worried.

When he let me go I tried to measure where we were at. I knew Shannon would be ready to hit the road soon, but I wasn't ready to leave Roger just yet. I forged ahead one more time. “Can I ask you some things?” I ventured.

Roger sighed in obvious anticipation of where this was going. “Go ahead,” he replied.

“Are you okay? I mean I know you're going through some things right now, but are you safe? Can you be left alone? Are you going to do anything stupid?”

“I'm not going to off myself if that's what you're asking," he replied gruffly.

“No, that's not what I asked. There are a lot of dumbass, self-destructive, bad decisions you can make short of that. You're hurt and you're angry and you're turning it in on yourself and I'm really fucking worried.”

“She did say something.”

“No, Roger, Jane did not tell me shit. Why? What is there to tell? What did you do?”

Roger closed his eyes and exhaled shakily. “Something I won't do again. I promise.”

“Until the next time temptation comes along?” Roger didn't reply. He obviously wasn't going to tell me what happened. From the way he had reacted, I figured it had to do with those marks on his skin. “Okay, make a deal with me. Promise me that you will stay safe, that you won't do anything stupid, and that if you think you're going to you will call me. Day or night, it doesn't matter. I want you to call me. And I want you to promise to see someone.”

Roger huffed and shook his head. “Like a therapist?”

“Yes, like a therapist. Jesus, you said it yourself, you're probably depressed, you're in a bad place. You need to talk to someone. A professional. Promise me.”

He was quiet, and I watched him turning everything over in his head. “Fine,” he finally conceded. “I'll call around on Monday.”

“Thank you.” I gave him another hug, now that he had given me one and I knew it would be okay.

“You're a good friend you know.”

“And a spectacular lay,” I added with a laugh as I tilted my head and bit my bottom lip. Roger broke into laughter again.

“Spectacular asshole is more like it,” he said as he gave me a gentle shove.

@msroxyblog @nikkitasevoli@maliciousalishious@meghan12151977@mustlove6277 @fyeahproudglambert@little-poptart @lady-grinning-soul-k @snewsome756

#jared leto fanfiction #jared leto fic #shannon leto fanfiction #shannon leto fic #30 seconds to mars fanfiction #30stm #thunderbirds

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webgeekist · 7 years

Text

Holiday Karma Pie

I paid for someone’s groceries today.

I didn’t do it for the karma. I didn’t even do it for the charity. I did it because the lady in front of me was having technical issues, and the less-than-$30 bill was worth sparing my sanity and getting out of that line. I played it off as a Christmas thing, asked the lady to pay it forward, and assured her that, yes, I was serious when I said it was no big deal. It wasn’t. I was happy to pay to get out of there.

I have a habit of picking the worst grocery lines. I thought, for a while, it was just this new place I’m in, but then I went home for Thanksgiving and went through 20 minutes of hell waiting for the family in front of me to finish arguing with the cashier about the $20 in savings they weren’t getting because their coupons weren’t scanning, or whatever other nonsense was preventing them from scanning an entire conveyor belt full of items, $200 and two carts into the bill. We moved to another line, finally, when one seemed available nearby. When we left with our own hefty bill in the cart, they were still there, slowly scanning the rest of their items.

I am also the person who will pick up the one item out of 100 without a bar code, and take three of them to the checkout lane.

It’s funny, this idea that you can buy karma with good deeds, as if your motivations don’t count. I’ve seen The Good Place. I know better than that. My motivation today was entirely self-serving, as is most charity in this country. We overwhelmingly donate our time or our money because it makes us feel better about ourselves, not because we genuinely care about giving. We’re scared into doing the “right thing” by a book that has been mistranslated and misinterpreted for centuries, and somehow have this warped idea that doing the right thing will buy us grace. Good Karma. A spot in heaven. Optimal reincarnation. At the end, there’s always something in it for us.

I’m no better than others in that regard. I do good deeds infrequently, and when I do, it’s almost always born of convenience. “Would you like to pay an extra 63 cents to round up your bill and donate to the Children’s hospital?” Sure. “Would you like to donate a dollar to aid in wildfire relief for Sonoma County?” Whatever. “Give a dollar to homeless pets?” Okay. “Save free information!” Click.

The result is positive for the recipient. That doesn’t make the motive for donation genuine.

And it doesn’t make the universe less likely to balance out your good luck with misfortune.

I think about that a lot. I’m always grateful for the positive experiences in my life, but I’m hyper aware of the fact that they often come at a premium. There’s a trade owed the universe, and you will pay it in painful ways. Maybe it’s a hard lesson you need to learn after you land your dream job. Maybe it’s illness, recovery, and loss after you find a few years of companionship. Maybe it’s your family turning their back on you a month before your wedding to the love of your life. And oh, by the way, she’s a girl and you are, too.

I’ve enjoyed two years with my fiancée. I marry her in 23 days. How many of my family will actually show up? At this point, I’m not sure.

I took a job in the Bay Area in July. It wasn’t so sudden that my fiancée didn’t have input. She absolutely did, and though we didn’t expect to be able to afford Northern California, we’re happy we could make this work. Or, at least, that we will make this work after June, which is when her teacher’s contract runs out in Texas. I’ve raked up so many frequent flyer miles, going back and forth every spare moment, and in the airspace between SFO and DAL, I’ve uncovered an anxiety I never expected to have: a fear of flying.

I have flown a Cessna. I have logged hours in a genuine full-scale 737-700 simulator. My dad was a professional pilot at one point in his life, my uncle still is, and all his kids can fly. My grandfather flew for the Thunderbirds. My brother is on his way to being a commercial pilot. I am not afraid of planes.

I started crying and choking before walking through security. I panicked when I booked tickets. If not for some of them being booked immediately after I got the job, I would not have gotten on a plane after September, but I’ve been on five trips since, fifteen total, and for most of them the what-ifs and potential loss has consumed me to the point of paralysis. Every bump and adjustment on takeoff freaks me the fuck out. The changing sounds of the engines at different altitudes and powers freaks me the fuck out. It’s taken every moment of every one of those harrowing trips to learn how to manage the anxiety, to rationalize the noises I hear from the engines, to normalize the dips and turns out of each Bay Area airport, but come Thanksgiving, when I climbed on a plane for the first long break I’d gotten at the new company, when I was so over the project I was working on that I was relieved to be standing at another fucking gate and boarding another fucking plane, all the stress management techniques I’d gathered in my anxiety did nothing to stop me from experiencing sheer terror flying out of SJC, meeting some bumpy air, banking to head south down the coast to catch a connecting flight out of LAX and bouncing around in the turn. I landed at SAT five hours later, cried in relief when the plane touched down (I always do, and I thank the plane for getting me there. That plane’s name was Tank. I gave it that name.), and stumbled into the terminal as fast as my eighth row seat would allow.

And then, I went to my family’s Thanksgiving.

I should precede this with the statement that the nine days my fiancée and I spent at my mom’s house started fairly early on with some culture shock. My fiancée is in grad school, and one of her class assignments was a “cultural plunge.” That’s a hilarious concept, because her entire life is a cultural plunge. She was born in Houston, but raised completely in India, went to college in Singapore, and came back to the states after. Living here has been one awkward learning experience after another, and with her brown skin, it’s also often been an experience of racism, of profiling, of assumptions made by ignorant people. She can’t go through an airport without getting her bag inspected and a pat-down (that happened once with my mother, and after we told her that no, my brown fiancée really does get profiled, and my mom damn near got herself arrested chewing the TSA agents out because how dare you treat her daughter like that. Yes, my mom is privileged. But, go Mom). Her background in science has often made living in Texas not unlike living on an alien world where logic and reason are outlawed. And oh, she’s a lesbian too. Discrimination trifecta.

Anyway, she submitted the idea of going to a Catholic Church on Sunday and staying for a mass as a cultural plunge, because unlike her white middle-class native Texan classmates, this was something she’d never done before.

I mean, what are the odds that they’d pick a gospel that would somehow relate to one of the many hot-button issues that any church in a red state could pick? The Pope is fairly liberal for a Catholic, and neither my mother nor I really remembered the sermons being terribly political.

Clearly, it’s been a while since we attended church.

My mother was horrified. Here was an opportunity for her to show her daughter-in-law a bit of her culture, and her upbringing, and therefore a bit of where my own morals and morality comes from. Here’s a chance for her to prove to me that the church of her childhood might have had these tenants but the sermons didn’t get into specifics, and people mostly just tried to Love Thy Neighbor.

I was pissed. I glared hard at the deacon as he climbed off the dais and walked back to his seat, and I’m certain he saw me. I’m certain he paused for a half-step because he saw my face, which I’ve been told can be really menacing when I’m angry. I don’t keep my emotions to myself very often. I don’t have a poker face like my fiancée.

She couldn’t muster that face. She was openly crying and trying not to show it. This church – this remarkably diverse church where she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, which had epistles in three languages, which was holding a bake sale as we walked in had on its staff a white conservative deacon who took an unrelated Gospel and warped it into a hateful political rant that didn’t hit one button. Oh no. That sermon was an IED array and it hit every single freaking target on the list.

We left during the Eucharist, and we didn’t buy a pie on the way out.

Five days after this experience that left us all in a drinking mood, and which after several bottles of wine was still a little painful, we went to the Thanksgiving party with my dad’s side of the family.

A lot of my aunts, uncles, and cousins seemed genuinely excited about the wedding. There was a bit of a shadow over one of my aunts because her father is really, really ill. Dad and my stepmother told a story about my grandmother, the escape artist, who is probably a lot more together than they think but who was put in an old folk’s home for people with memory problems about two months ago. I dread going to see her because the last time I saw her in a rehab facility, after she knocked her head and suffered the brain trauma that probably drove a lot of the symptoms she still has, it was a little difficult. It’s not going to be easy to see her in a home that isn’t actually her house. She apparently agrees, because she treats visitors to a tour of the place and asks a lot of pointed questions, like how many nurses are at the front station and whether or not you think someone can get to the parking lot from any given set of doors. She’s an inmate in a place she doesn’t feel comfortable staying, and she’s already made it to her car with an overnight bag once. But they have the keys locked up. I think she’s trying to figure out where they are.

She recognizes me. Remembers my name. Knows the wedding is soon. Asks about California. Hugs my future wife. And maybe goes through a few names before she gets some of my cousins’ and uncles’ names right, but she’s been doing that since I was four. We’re a big family. She always gets it right in under six tries.

My aunt looks hesitant to talk about her father, but she does. Both of us listen as she expresses her fears about being away, even for a day or two, because the doctors haven’t been very precise in telling the family to “spend time with him while you can.” It could be days, or maybe months, but probably not through winter because winter seems to be when so many people go, like the warmth-starved land sucks them dry. Which is weird, because we’re all from South Texas, and winter there is like 80 degrees.

We sympathize, and a pang of something I have only been able to define recently shoots through me. It feels like mortality, and reminds me of my fear of flying. It reminds me that I have this thing, this person, this state of being that I found and eventually will lose, that the loss won’t come when I’m ready for it (because that is never. I will never be ready for it). My heart hurts for her and my cousins, because the man is in his 80s like my two surviving grandparents, and that is a long and accomplished life, but it is still too soon for all of them. We have fought for my grandmother often enough and recent enough that I understand that position, too.

Hours later, before the annual turkey bowl, that aunt and my uncle, plus their oldest son come find my fiancée and I in the upstairs game room where most of the cousins retreat after lunch and before football. They ask us both to come out onto the balcony with them for a few minutes. Their younger son, recently married, follows shortly after with his new bride.

And my cousin starts….with a prayer.

“Heavenly Father, please guide our conversation today in your wisdom and light.”

I have my fiancée’s hand in my own. I hold it tighter. I know where this is about to go.

My cousin is a stalwart, honest guy. He’s the eldest son of two people who have always given where they could. They drop what they’re doing to help people, simply because they need help. They give within their means, which are better means than most. Their big and open hearts were passed to two of their three sons, both of whom were standing on that balcony with them. But they are sinners, my cousin says, all of them. And he is no better than anyone. He cannot cast judgment upon sinners as one of them, as someone who has been addicted to pornography, and has crossed lines with women. He loves us both, they all do, but surely we’ve read what the Bible says and it’s wrong, wrong, wrong.

My uncle says to us, we love you. We will not change how we treat you…but we’ve prayed about this for a while, and we can’t go to the wedding.

“We can’t celebrate the sin,” my cousin says.

And I know they love us, the best way they know how. I told them that I understood their perspective, though I disagreed, and respected their decision. We hugged, my aunt called me big-hearted, someone mentioned chocolate (it might have been me), and they started filing off the balcony.

I stayed behind and broke down in my fiancee’s arms.

See, my family had been outwardly accepting until that moment, when something finally broke enough for the first people to say something about it. And my fiancée – my tall, brown, “foreign” fiancée who has tried so hard to get my family to like her – felt instantly like all that effort had been for absolutely nothing. And I? I felt guilty for putting her in that position, for forcing us into a position where my family may never truly be okay with any of this, where a lifetime of loving and supporting each other so demonstratively may yet be lost on so many people I love, because somehow our relationship all boils down to sex to some people. Theirs is about love, but ours is about sex, and lust, and sin, and how the context of the Bible may be all about polyamorous lustful activities but a committed, loving, monogamous relationship between two women is just the same as sexually abusing guests and having orgies in front of idols and a really vague Greek word which in context probably means “men who sleep with boy prostitutes” but magically includes all people who engage in the act of sodomy and well never mind that you’re not actually doing that you’re just the same as the literal “man bed” who will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Maybe karma can keep that paradise, because I don’t want to spend eternity in a place where loving companionship is the same as assault. I get enough of that in the news.

It took me a while to come out of the bathroom I found to hide in, because there was no amount of water that could bring the redness down, and eventually my fiancée brought my closest cousin to find me. She saw us walk out, she counted the time, and she knew something had gone wrong. We told her what had happened.

This is the brewing rift. There are some people in our family who sit in Catholic services every Sunday and are not only going to the wedding but are genuinely excited for it. And there are some who might yet show up, but will be at the bar a lot.

Those excited for it will probably not enjoy learning why so many of us are absent. What happens then is probably not high drama, but probably won’t be business as usual either. Said my closest cousin, “I don’t know what to do with them now. You have a bigger heart than me for walking out of that situation without coming downstairs and telling everyone about it immediately.”

Twice in one day, in different contexts, two people I care about made reference to my perfectly normal sized, potentially smaller than average heart. Karma revealed the consequences of my good fortune that night, and they continue to unfold by the minute. For the first time in my life, I may miss Christmas with that side of the family this year. I suspect it won’t be the last thing we miss.

I climbed on the plane to come back to California two days later, and cried over the root of the problem with all these flights: the separation has been torture, and after the emotional week we had, it was going to be hard for us to heal apart. I put on my noice-canceling earphones and turned on Radiolab just before takeoff. It was a podcast about a girl without an identity, whose family kept her sheltered and off the grid, who didn’t have any kind of paper trail because her parents didn’t believe in social security numbers, and so never let her have one. I flew over Kerrville, where she had lived most of her life, while listening to the story. Takeoff was smooth. So was most of the trip back to SJC. And except for a really rough patch of air over New Mexico on the way to Dallas on Friday, my flights this weekend were just as painless.

I landed at SFO on Sunday and thanked the plane, as usual.

My eyes were dry.

#look it's been a while and this is really personal but there you have it #lgbtq+#marriage #personal essay

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arielandthesea · 7 years

Text

Ariel & The Sea

October 15th, 2008

Whenever I think of her, I picture her with someone else.

She is a closed chapter that unfortunately has a minimal, yet open window of playing a role in my life again in two months - December. I think part of the reason why I always picture her with someone else is because I know she always needs someone to be there with her and since we both moved away and I am not with her now, I picture her with someone else.

That necessity she has to be with someone all the time is normal, I used to feel it too but eventually, I got over it, I grew out of it. Frankly, I doubt she’ll never grow out of it.

I met Ariel in junior high, it was the first day of school and I remember seeing her chat comfortably to all the kids around her. This was something impressive to me since I would’ve been nervous, stressed out and probably keeping my head down but not her, she was comfortable talking to everyone as if they’d known each other since elementary school. I wasn’t a new student, it was my second year at catholic school but it felt like I was new since I was invisible, but not to her. I remember we made eye contact and she smiled at me, I immediately looked away at the window, the garden, the trees. The nervous feeling was overwhelming but curiosity won and one day before the lunch break, I saw her walking down the hall, she’d gone to the principal’s office to pick up a small plastic bag her parents brought her. I pretended I wasn’t shy and fooled myself to ignore my insecurities and I approached her, and we had a very successful small talk.

The topics covered in that conversation included which school she was from, how she felt about this school, who her friends were from the other school and what she liked to do after school. We must’ve walked across the soccer and softball field twice to cover all those subjects and everything she said seemed so positive and jolly that I constantly dodged out every question she asked me. Ariel came from a prestigious school outside the city, she had a cute ex-boyfriend who she was still friends with, popular friends and all the other elements of a positive, happy youth. I was not ready to tell her I didn’t really have any friends other than my guitar teacher Rony - a sixteen-year-old metalhead who was currently trying to teach me the solo of a Sum 41 song. I wasn’t ready to tell her I wanted to learn how to skateboard because Avril Lavigne was my human idol and I say human because the cyber idol was Lara Croft. I had all her PC video games and I played them all the time after school but sometimes I would instead play Tony Hawk or the Sims. I certainly was not ready to tell her one of the happiest days of my life was the day when I found the unlimited money code also known as rosebud;!;!;!;!;!… Nope.

I suppressed myself for a while, just enough for me to find out if I could trust her enough to share my eccentric self with her, eventually, I did and we blended. By blended I mean I made her geeky and she made me girly. It all happened in less than a month. There was going to be this party that I had to dress up too but didn’t know how so she somewhat advised me and introduced me to her friends from her other schools. A couple small gatherings after that made me realize I’d developed a few but some interpersonal skills and therefore became more relaxed. On my end, I introduced her to Supaplex. Supaplex was a video game I wasted a couple years on, it was similar to Pacman since your avatar would be a ball collecting DNA-type icons in different maze-looking worlds where you had to watch out for the gravity-affected balls that’d come down and make you explode, or the scissors that in most advanced levels would work the same way as Pacman’s ghosts did and kill you. But enough about video games. We also played John Milton hypnotize-yourself CD’s on my stereo and tried to hypnotize Julia; a third of the four girls in our clique, and my best friend.

Due to the fact that the day we tried to hypnotize ourselves we skipped last period and came to my house and two hours later the principal called me, demanding to come back with the girls while I was still trying to chew the just-delivered pizza in my mouth, I was seen as the leader. The queen bee of the rotten apples from catholic school. Ariel was more of a mastermind but she was cute, came from a good family and had to carry around an insulin kit with needles she’d use before every meal. I was just another rebellious daughter of a single mother soon to be expelled and due to the chronic suspensions, calls from the principal and forecasted expulsion, my mother decided to enroll me in another school away from my friends, away from Ariel. Only she didn’t know at this point, we had crossed the line of an innocent friendship.

You see, at that time Ariel and I were best friends, we were always together. We actually didn’t talk that much, we just sort of existed together and while existing we did things that don’t just exist, they are provoked. Most of the time we’d be touching each other, maybe playfully at first but eventually we’d touch each other in a more intimate way until one of us stopped the other - mainly me. One particular time I was laying in bed watching the shadow of the ceiling fan break while Ariel who laid on the floor grabbed my hand, she pulled it closer to her mouth and sucked my finger gently. It was the first time I was sexually aroused.

Because of my mother’s wishes of wanting what’s ‘best for me’, she commanded I’d never see Ariel again… so we started hanging out in secret. My last period ended about an hour before hers so I would walk to her and meet on the football field to chat until her mom picked her up. We would just talk about how she was feeling, what school was like for me now and other similar, easy topics. We were close but only met with time limits, that made it hard to be light and consistent. Then, time faded into the nothing and I didn’t see her again for a while.

During our sophomore year in high school, there were rumors - I heard rumors about her getting kicked out of school. Rumors of her going to rehab in another state. Crazy things that didn’t suit her at all but unfortunately they were all true. It wasn’t until six months later when I finally heard from her on instant chat that I was able to get the story straight. Just seeing her status as available online took a huge weight off my shoulders, I was totally hooked and had no idea.

Ariel drove to my house one day when my mom was out of town and in a very casual way, she told me all about the raves she went to, the drugs she used and other events that doubled the rumor-based trouble I knew she was in. We only spoke for a couple minutes, then I just watched her smoke her spliff thinking of how much I missed her. She got a little nervous and joked her way to and into the car. I complimented how clean the ol’ white thunderbird looked, then she drove away smiling.

We always separated and reunited at odd times, gaps that lasted years or months depending on what had happened or how far our cities were from each other. This time, October of last year, we met up again. A little older, a little wiser. This, whatever it was that we built up for years, anxiously needed a label. Ariel made the first move, labeling herself as bisexual as we drove in my car to this part to get hot dogs. Changing the subject never worked with someone as ballsy as her and I told her I was gay. She told me she knew that I was, I told her I knew that she was and suddenly we started dating.

One night at a coffee shop, she said she wanted something serious and real. Confused I asked for time to think, given the fact that I knew she liked sleeping around. Offended Ariel stormed out, leaving me with a small, yet-embarrassing bill to pay. I needed time to think, I needed time to find out what I wanted and how I felt but before the week was over I found out she was hooking up with a DJ. I stopped talking to her.

It wasn’t long before I heard from her again, apologizing, saying that she missed me, admitting she did wrong. This loser here called her and forgave her while she swallowed the proven co-dependent genes between words. This loser here saw her again. This loser here was six feet under. Blinded by pink sunglasses. Pretending to be strong while falling apart inside knowing this invisible chain was hard to break.

And we went out and it was awful. I took Ariel to my friends’ house and got really wasted with her - she was also high on something. Later on that night she drank a tequila bottle in shots and started yelling at me until I cried, she cried, we were both a sorry drunken mess so I decided to drive her home. On our way there she asked me to take her to her friend’s house - a junkie. I said no and she almost jumped out of the car, so I gave her options. Him or me; coke or this co-dependent loser of a quasi-girlfriend she had available 24/7. The quasi-girlfriend she kicked around that waited like a puppy for her to come back. I asked her me or some coke. She chose the coke.

A couple days later her parents sent her to rehab and I know she works at Six Flags because… I spoke to her. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, it’s such a mess, it feels like fiction. Maybe I never loved her. Maybe I don’t love her. ——————————————————————————————-

January 5th, 2009

On Saturday most of my plans got cancelled in the morning, mainly little things, hanging out with old friends and all that but lunch with Stella didn’t. Plans with Stella never got canceled. It’s funny to think how she became good friends with Ariel the year when I moved away. It’s a double edge sword since now everything seems to have a domino effect. Ariel texted me twice, random short half sentences that really meant she wanted to talk to me. After waiting it out with Stella, she dropped the bomb and told me she wasn’t doing well. She told me her parents found her on the street, high and dirty, she had escaped rehab. They took her to the hospital and the doctors said that if this drug problem persisted if she continued consuming as much as she did, mixed with her diabetes, she would only get a few more years of life.

I called her, I called her every day and she never picked up. I felt anxious about the fact that I didn’t know if she was well or if what Stella told me was completely true. I also felt stressed and frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t do anything and mad about the fact that I cared. So I went to a gay bar and made out with a girl, a part of me desperately wanted to feel something for someone else, anyone. It didn’t help.

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February 17th, 2009

Ariel called this morning making fun of me. She said she left her phone at home while she was at the hospital and her sister told her it was blowing up with my calls. She asked how I knew her number and I told her Stella gave it to me. She told me her old one was stolen, I told her I knew because a drunken stranger picked up crackin’ jokes about cops, saying I was a cop then him. She thought this was funny although I wondered what kind of places she was hanging out in for a person in this state to be cracking these types of jokes.

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May 23rd, 2009

I’ve been skyping with Ariel almost daily and when we can’t, we speak on the phone.

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June 7th, 2009

Ariel bought a ticket to come see me. I told her I’m moving to New York soon for college and she wants us to spend time together before I move. I can’t wait to see her, the last rehab seemed to work, she’s clean and stable. I can’t wait to see her.

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July 17th, 2009

Ariel flew in last night. I went to her house to meet her. I was so excited and nervous to see her that I didn’t even kiss her. All I could do was stare at her. I must’ve stared too long to make her break that with a joke but I was just hypnotized by her eyes, her kind, warm eyes. The eyes I hadn’t seen in awhile. Drug-free eyes. And that’s what made it all worth it, waiting for her to be okay to allow herself to get to know me, there were so many things I wanted to share with her. Things I’d never share with anyone. I can’t wait to see her again tomorrow.

I love her.

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July 18th, 2009

Today it was fun, although I think I drank too much. I went out with Ariel and friends. We went to my pool, I took her aside and kissed her like I’ve never kissed anyone before. I looked into her eyes for a while after that, enjoying the comfort of sharing myself with her, finally, after so long.

We went back to my friends house and got shitfaced. Then I drove her home.

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July 20th, 2009

Ariel started getting high again. Things haven’t gone as smoothly as I thought. She also drinks too much. She thinks I can’t fool around with her unless I have a drink. She’s right, I’m scared shitless. A friend also told me she was hitting on her. It didn’t surprise me since Ariel’s a flirt. I also didn’t believe my friend so much since she’s not that great looking but maybe Ariel is trying to make me feel jealous.

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August 2, 2009

Ariel hooked up with a guy and I almost cried. She kept asking ‘well what are we?’ pissed off, giving options of ‘friends? Girlfriends?’ She’s asking that because she kept pressuring me into having sex but I need to build trust again since she’s been using needles and I know she doesn’t believe in getting tested.

I dropped her off at her house.

I need time to think.

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August 7th, 2009

Ariel called me at home saying she didn’t wanna call my phone because she thought I wouldn’t answer. She said I abandoned her in a cute voice, joking around.

It melted my heart.

This attachment, this goddamn attachment is consuming my life. The stress of knowing she’s on the edge makes me hyper vigilant. The responsibility of her well-being falls on my shoulders and no matter how hard I try, I can’t let go. I forgave her one more time.

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August 18th, 2009

We went to the beach, I took my camera with me this time. During sunset we were kissing, having fun and I took off her top, I was in another world. Then a woman approached us and asked us to stop it, ‘there are kids present’ but they couldn’t see us I think she was just homophobic. We drove home afterward and went to my pool. We were hanging out with my friend and her girlfriend.

After a while, Ariel got naked and told me to turn off the camera. She asked me to get in and went underwater to take off my underwear aggressively. I asked her to stop I wasn’t comfortable and she seemed mad. Frustrated she told me I am not a lesbian. My friends got uncomfortable and excused themselves. I took Ariel home.

When we got to her house she got out of the car and slammed the door. I felt anger boiling inside of me. I can’t explain. Humiliation, anger, frustration. Driving away full speed kind of helped but I can’t do this anymore.

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August 19th, 2009

I broke up with Ariel.

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October 7th, 2009

I dreamt about a pretty blonde girl in the balcony in the balcony of an old Mexican hotel who looked at me from a distance. She turned around twice, closer to where I was standing. Then I saw her floating in a falling position. Eyes closed, hair undulating, lit, glowing in the middle of a black space with infinite darkness. After my mind inspected every element playing in front of me, I realized she was falling in slow motion. She hit the floor with some speed as if she fell underwater. When she hit the floor she broke her neck - I heard the cracking sound. Then I saw myself in a sea of people who went to see her. She was dead and covered in blood.

I woke up thinking I was in my bed back home, a bed doubles the size of this one. I woke up thinking Ariel was in trouble, as always but fighting myself to check.

I think of her, I think of her a lot.

I think of what she told me this last time and what I told her to push away forever.

She started using heroin. I couldn’t take it.

I hurt her to make her hate me.

I made her hate me to let me go and take responsibility for her own life.

I’ll check up on her in December.

I wish I didn’t feel like I should.

I wish I could stick to my word.

I wish she was clean.

I wish to fall in love with someone else.

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November 19th, 2009

Ariel killed herself two days ago, they found her yesterday, I found out yesterday. I was on a break, I had a lot of missed calls from my friend but it was someone else who told me, another friend. She told me this and I couldn’t believe it. I was crossing the street…

It’s raining a lot and I can’t write.

I have class now so I’ll write some other time.

Ariel, I loved you so much.

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November 20th, 2009

I still don’t know what to think, I still don’t know what to say or write.

It hurts me to think it happened this way, that she was alone, that she injected adrenalin into her heart. I couldn’t sleep last night. I stayed up all night crying, thinking.

Ariel,

I hope wherever you are, you’re fine.

I want you to know that I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anyone else in my life.

That I always tried to save you from all the bad things that happened in your world and that is what I did for years until I realized last summer that it wasn’t my job to save you. I realized that by trying to help you I was hurting myself and frankly, you wanted to be at that place.

You were self-destructive.

I never fully understood what caused you so much sadness, I just hope you found comfort in me at least for a while. Yesterday I cried a lot for you, I wrote a screenplay about your story, our story. I am deeply sorry I couldn’t afford to go to your funeral but I believe that by not being physically there has left me with your memory alive. I guess this was the way it was meant to be so I’ll never forget. I hope that wherever you are, you’re fine but, since you’re gone I must confess this letter is for me.

I hope I see you again, at the place where they put your ashes. It’s just a shame we will reunite like this and I guess all I can say is that at least I’m glad you finally found peace.

You will live with me forever, as a beautiful memory.

I loved you, so much.

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December 2nd, 2009

Lately, when I think of Ariel I play Pink Floyd’s Let There Be More Light.

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December 10th, 2009

I’ve been dreaming of Ariel. I dream that she speaks to me and I listen. I think only until now I am starting to realize how much this is affecting me.

I told a close friend about how she ended her life shooting adrenaline to her heart, she said ‘of course, that’s where all the emotions meet.’

Somehow now, whenever I think of her I go back to that day when she came into the house to get a glass of water and we both heard my mom calling my name. We freaked out. I was so scared of my mother finding out about us that we always met in secret. It was like living in our own bubble and now that she’s gone, I don’t know what to do with myself…

In the first dream, I was near a shore with turquoise water, surrounded by buildings during sunset. Soon after, the water froze including rocks and waves. Everything had a cutting sound of ice breaking. I took out my camera and started taking photos. Then I moved to another spot, in front of the frozen water then ten feet tall pieces of ice rose from sea level. They slowly formed into buildings. There were three and after shaping up, the top cracked and aimed towards me. I saw myself in my dream, I saw the way I was looking at them in fear yet determined to put up a fight by holding onto my camera and photographing the scenery behind a rock. Then, these pieces of ice started flying towards me. The larger pieces didn’t hit me but the thin did, they’d cut me and it hurt but not so much. Soon after this dream ended and another one began.

In this second dream, I was outside a coffee shop with a spinning class next to it where old classmates from catholic school were working out. The look of disgust on my face expressed how well I liked them. Then I turned around and saw Ariel, I told her ‘people will think I’m crazy to be talking to you’ I knew she wasn’t alive in my dream and yet I was happy and she was too.

At some point she sat on top of me and hugged me, then she said ‘I used to do the same thing with Abel’, a friend of hers who overdosed. Paralleling her words, the third dream began.

A homeless man rode a wooden truck down the street, the car was decorated with paper mache simulating a dragon. He was going really fast. There was an audience, a group of meth addicts with skin peeling off. He kept yelling something, a group of words that didn’t make sense and everyone followed him to the curve where the car flipped over and he fell, his head dragged on the concrete until his face detached from his skull, leaving it as a mask. He stood up almost immediately and ran away in living flesh.

A woman in the audience approached the face he left behind and held it the only way a fan would; close to her heart with eyes wide shut.

Did I become that fan?

——————————————————————————————-

December 11th, 2009

I dreamt of her again last night, a forensic team was looking for fingerprints and once again I was the only one who could see her. This time, Ariel had long hair and her eyes weren’t empty anymore. However, I knew what had happened, I knew she was gone but I didn’t say anything I just held her close to me. She was very upset.

I woke up freezing, my heat didn’t work. I told my mother about my dream and my theory that maybe something else happened, that maybe she was murdered. She told me I was just paranoid.

——————————————————————————————-

December 30th, 2009

Now I dreamt Ariel was trapped like a princess in a castle but instead of a castle, it was a retail store and the only way I could save her was by passing a written test. There was someone else there trying to do the same thing. However, Ariel approached me and whispered that she wanted me to pass it.

I took the written test chewing bubble gum listening to Linking Park.

——————————————————————————————-

January 2nd, 2010

Death is unavoidable. We are all born, grow up then die. Reproduction is a personal affair. However this three-stage cycle can be very abstract since we’re all born but some don’t grow up and those of us who do, don’t know until when and we all die but somehow stay immortal in other people’s memories.

In my case, I will never forget Ariel but at the same time, I don’t wanna carry her with me. I want to travel light.

I feel out of the picture and I am going against everything I once believed in. I don’t know why I am but I know I have time to find out, I’m not in a rush since after all, I am only eighteen years old.

——————————————————————————————-

January 17th, 2010

I am holding my heart in my fist.

I disconnect it from my mind and put it away but Ariel’s death can’t be unnoticed and the science of my dreams will help me figure out a way to expose it.

Last night her face was behind a hexagon-shaped screen fading into static.

——————————————————————————————-

January 28th, 2010

I started relating to all the common deaths. The loss of a parent, the loss of a friend, a lover or relative. Even the loss of a victim who you don’t know but feel bad about how they were killed and why. You also have massacred, natural disasters, 9/11, New Orleans, Haiti, guerillas, everything. All those losses and life keeps going.

The violence of it all is affecting my subconscious since now I dreamed of two mannequins where heads turned 360 degrees while blood gushed out of their eyes and mouths and nipples. Behind them, a window featured a view of the city at night but the reflection showed a mad Ariel chained to a chair screaming in mad frustration.

——————————————————————————————-

March 23rd, 2010

8:14 p.m. Dishes, dirty dishes. Blues, I love the blues. Stones, stoned Rolling Stones, Rolling Stoned. There is no point in writing, words are words.

Words put together to make sense, sometimes.

Sometimes they don’t until later on,

Sometimes not at all. Writing is like singing or playing guitar. The more you get used to it the better it is to write… write awayyyy!

Bullshit, not bullshit. Fiction, reality.

Squeezing reality like a fucking orange, because that’s what we are, oranges.

Squeeze the fuck outta me and you’ll get juice, juicy juice. C’mon, do it!

You won’t be disappointed.

If you want dirt here’s a hole you can dig in.

Juice, dirt, guitars. Juice, dirt, guitars.

Fun, fun, fun, never-ending fun.

And this is all just me. Writing, talking, thinking.

I wanna do something natural, a visual granola yogurt. Horses alone without fashion models. Colors, cows, farms, ugly flowers, clouds, water, natural-natural-natural.

Everyone I know has emotional issues.

——————————————————————————————-

March 24th, 2010

When life gives you lemons, you eat them with tequila.

The pages in my journal went from pink to black or gray. Pretty pages in pink, naive, a glimpse of who I was. Now dark lost and confused, how I handled Ariel’s death now gone.

She’s gone and I’m here.

——————————————————————————————-

April 3rd, 2010

I died. I’m living twice,

There is a double life.

There is a second life out there,

I wanna do this now,

I don’t wanna waste a summer.

I want to be with you,

I don’t wanna waste more time.

(He takes his wig off, he’s a man dressed as a woman.)

Inside a theater that seems to be my school’s theater I see, friends sitting apart from each other. I’m in the middle then walk to sit down and sit in front of the screen.

We’re all watching a movie I can’t see.

Then I’m in the student lounge on a couch with my computer. I stood up to grab a book from the shelves in front of me and I see Ariel who tells me she’s late, ‘for what?’ but she leaves before I can even look at her eyes. Then I’m at the theater again watching this movie I can’t see and I feel so alone.

Now I am the homeless man and a police officer speaks to me as he takes his wig off.

He takes his wig off.

——————————————————————————————-

April 10th, 2010

Sexy red lights set the mood of the room of noise, noise, noise. Cars traveling.

High speed. Motion.

Neon palette of colors,

Sunglasses at night and the feeling that you’re alone when you’re surrounded by people…

The only moment when you become no one.

Animosity.

We disappear with the smoke, vanish.

Electronic music faded out by bittersweet rock,

Beetlebum.

And we see a very pretty girl dancing, boneless,

Lost in time.

Shooting.

She’s gone.

——————————————————————————————-

April 18th, 2010

Ariel told me she wanted to take her life.

She told me she didn’t care about anything and that it was her choice. I guess the fact that she was diabetic didn’t help, taking all those meds and all.

I guess knowing she’d died young didn’t help either and that was probably why she created that fantasy of challenging time.

I guess a part of us always has that thought in the back of our minds.

——————————————————————————————-

May 4th, 2010

Ariel, I want to see you, and it is dumb to talk like this but I can’t help it. I can’t assimilate it. Everything seems absurd. Everything seems to be a never-ending nightmare about the death of someone like you that isn’t really you but someone else.

I dream about you still. Last night, again, I could see you. I was the only one who could see you. And I kissed you like I never did before like I always should have but didn’t due to my fear of giving myself to you completely but I should’ve, that’s all you wanted but I blocked it because it would’ve meant a lot more to me than to you. You were my first and only love and now I see photos and play videos of you and I feel you’re alive. Sometimes at night laying in bed I feel you next to me, making fun of my obsession with your death, making existentialist comments that sum it up, making me laugh.

Now, more than ever I feel you’re here but I know you’re not and I feel alone. In a way, I feel you were mine and I was yours. There was no one else. I know you all and you knew me too. My life gravitated around you but now that you’re gone, nothing makes sense. What can I say and to whom? I miss you. I feel empty. I spoke to your parents, I saw your name in the newspaper, I went to the church where they placed your ashes and I still can’t believe it. I feel regret of the last hurtful words we exchanged and foolish for now telling you how I really felt.

I feel remorse for bailing on you when you needed me the most but I selfishly wanted to leave you in order to grow apart and yet I am here with your ghost.

Is it normal to speak to you like this even though you aren’t here? You were eighteen, I’m still eighteen. I had you in my life for five years and why? It is the most pointless question but why did you die? I want you here. I want to lay next to you in bed and play with your hair. I want you to give me the moon again. I want you to make fun of the corny stuff I used to tell you. I want those moments back and new ones. I want to wake up a year ago and redo our summer. I want to tell you how I feel. I want to know more, do more.

Do you remember that time we talked about what we would do when I moved to New York? When you told me you would cook and clean while I worked to bring the steak back for dinner?

Yesterday, the day before, last week and last year I saw you but knowing I will never see you again provokes a nameless feeling in me… Frustration, I feel frustrated and I wanna scream, run, shoot a bullet into the nothing than drive 140 miles per hour I feel enormous impotence because everything reminds me of you; the sun, my bed, your house, this city. I don’t know how I’m gonna let you go, I don’t know. And I can’t write anymore because you don’t exist, we’re only me, this notebook and this pen.

——————————————————————————————-

May 6th, 2010

Sometimes I go on facebook and read our messages.

Then I wonder how you became a name on a stone,

a headline, an obituary, another statistic.

I feel so guilty. I was so cold.

——————————————————————————————-

May 7th, 2010

Look at me fall in the pile of leaves of the forest I am lost inside of myself. I’m heartbroken but writing a statement about it isn’t gonna change it, it’s just a momentum for review tomorrow, the next day or the next. The faded sun won’t burn my skin in the Altar desert. Back in town, empty parks, and lonely streets remind me of has-beens.

I am disposable.

——————————————————————————————-

May 23rd, 2010

I feel trapped in the symmetry of my own life and my addiction to document it.

——————————————————————————————-

May 24th, 2010

I dreamed of you last night. I was in bed, I was in this bed and you were at the door.

I said ‘come here!’ you did. You hopped on my bed smiling and stared into my eyes.

I closed your eyes slowly with my fingertips, you were so calm.

Then you went outside and a stranger called you.

You told him you were fine but he controlled you.

In the end, you left with him and I woke up alone.

——————————————————————————————-

May 25th, 2010

I can’t see the white moon because white is translucent therefore I see nothing and not seeing the icon of the night makes me think the night is non-existent and every day connects into one, therefore, there are no dates.

——————————————————————————————-

May 29th, 2010

I can be physical with a stranger because I have a black hole in my soul.

I’d rather be a mystery than something special.

Love is devastating. Whenever I have sex, I am not there and I have no peace of mind.

——————————————————————————————-

July 3rd, 2010

Who will I be today?

I guess I’ll just be myself.

——————————————————————————————-

July 17th, 2010

I dreamed you came out of the water naked, covered in seaweed, pale and your left breast was missing. I was worried until you explained it was because of all the months you’ve been dead. You asked me to come with you to this place where they reconstructed dead people. I saw the process. They made you look alive. Then they gave you a piece of paper with the date and time the effect would expire but you didn’t let me look. Finally, a stylist was doing your hair and you looked at me through the mirror, tired. Then I woke up.

——————————————————————————————-

September 9th, 2010

I saw Ariel today on my way to the bank on Second avenue. I was walking down the street, turned to the left and she was the store’s cashier. I kept going and saw her walking in front of me wearing a hat.

I don’t know why this is happening. I’m aware of the fact that she will stay in my memory for a while but the frustration of this situation feels like a disease. Everyone keeps telling me my eyes seem empty but no one will understand to feel the need of that time machine. Or what it is like to portray her in strangers every now and then and finally, what is it like to fantasize about her being here, standing in front of me, waking me up from a long nightmare and me walking up to her, seeing her the way I used to, like I never have looked at anyone else and holding her hand and, great… I’m crying. She would laugh at me right now if she was alive. Then we would drive without a purpose or destination. I will never let her go. She will stay in the back of my mind as a powerful reminder of life.

——————————————————————————————-

September 11th, 2010

Cigarettes are a sweet death.

I like watching the smoke come out of me slowly,

It reflects how I feel like inside,

Vanishing.

Sleeping pills,

Fears…

The only person I’m afraid of is myself,

My brain…

It hurts.

My heart,

It aches.

——————————————————————————————-

September 17th, 2010

I dreamed of her last night. We were back home and I saw her hanging out with friends. I ran up to her excited to see her but when I finally got close enough she made fun of me and said ‘snap out of it dude!’

Then I went back to my car and she left with a friend.

——————————————————————————————-

September 21th, 2010

You will stay young and I will be old, forever.

——————————————————————————————-

October 11th, 2010

Sometimes I picture her here, wherever I am,

Sitting next to me making funny remarks of how I often glamorize the relationship we had.

I should move on with my life.

——————————————————————————————-

October 17th, 2010

I feel I am no longer myself, or a complete version of myself. I think I pretended to be someone for so long that I finally became that and I don’t know what it is.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m a good person,

Am I cruel?

——————————————————————————————-

October 26th, 2010

What am I doing wrong?

——————————————————————————————-

November 13th, 2010

I hooked up with this Russian yoga instructor and due to a number of text messages received, I think we’re dating. I’m on the 2 train on my way to see her but I don’t know if this is such a good idea because I didn’t feel anything the other night.

Will I ever feel something again?

——————————————————————————————-

November 19th, 2010

What am I doing? I’m so confused.

This girl is nice and pretty but she has really bad manners and she’s ugly when she smiles.

I don’t like her smile, and she loves mine apparently.

Am I a bitch?

——————————————————————————————-

February 2nd, 2011

And you are the one and only,

Only now is were.

What are dreams and nightmares?

What are all the other than simple lights on the road?

Leaves on trees falling in the Autumn.

Stepped on.

——————————————————————————————-

February 8th, 2011

Today I dreamed of you again, only this time,

You were alive.

It felt like breathing underwater.

I don’t wanna be a martyr but I don’t know what else to do or who to talk to,

I’m so alone,

So cold,

So isolated.

And the glass didn’t fall from the table,

My phone didn’t vibrate,

The wind didn’t mess up my hair,

Everything stayed the same,

But me.

Many nights I wonder what went through her mind, what made her end it all.

It’s so abstract.

Based on the pieces of information I know now and then,

I never thought she’d do it.

Who am I?

I am nothing else than an editor.

I go back and look at re-runs of our lives.

I miss you so much. Why did you leave me?

You knew you were the only one I could be myself with.

You’re so selfish.

Life and everything I knew about it changed when all of the sudden; parties, fun and friends became all different. I didn’t go out at all and when I did I would blackout drunk to make myself giggle again. What used to be fun wasn’t anymore. Conversations changed. All of the sudden I wasn’t interested in talking about shit about my lit teacher. He could go fuck himself.

‘Go fuck yourself Mark!’ He didn’t respond and I walked out the classroom,

Out of the floor,

Into the elevator

And back out again.

Only to find rain and fog.

I couldn’t remember who my friends were and I stopped talking to those I never liked.

I am fading out.

I realized the real complexity of things come in the most simple forms.

This inner fox is killing me,

The violent knowledge,

Of everything we were,

Projected in re-runs,

Of everything we once believed in.

And the clouds,

Suddenly vanished.

And the trees, destroyed by the wind,

Yelled in sorrow,

Knowing there is no tomorrow.

Which is nothing else than hope,

Wishful thinking of what could’ve been perfect,

Today.

There’s no such thing as perfection,

Nor there is for sublimity.

And you,

Apple of my eye,

Delight me.

In these now gray grounds.

Behind the smoking cloud, hard leather for vandalism, the embryo remains intact.

When did we become bullets?

Though we all establish fences,

Some stronger, more threatening than others,

We all invite trespassers.

We all receive them with joy,

Arms outstretched,

Cookies and a frou-frou drink.

Once our guests have settled down,

Unzipped and stretched,

We become predators,

Beasts.

And the most selfish act is performed by,

Both of us.

And everything we exchanged

Rests in memories,

Because oh we all do remember,

But the reminder might sound highlighted,

Meaningful.

Shamed to be vulnerable,

Libertinage takes over.

One bakes more cookies,

Hoping trespasser number two will join and heal,

One’s hidden wounds.

How far did we go? Where should we stop?

Let’s not.

Why did you stop?

——————————————————————————————-

February 10th, 2011

I feel so lonely on this rootless tree.

The ground is far down,

Let’s just down once more.

Why did I call you? Why did you pick up?

Why did you come over? What’s this all about?

I don’t know you,

I was drunk.

We will never be the characters in that movie scene,

I refuse.

——————————————————————————————-

February 15th, 2011

I don’t wanna write about you anymore but I can’t help it. On average I think of you twenty times per day. This amount increases if I’ve had an alcoholic beverage. On average I dream about you once a week. On average I see you once a month unless I blink and realize this person is not you. I never blink, though, I look away and smile.

——————————————————————————————-

February 16th, 2011

Now that you’re gone, you’re turning me into this ultra-sensitive human being - I feel it all.

I only wish I would’ve had some of this structure before so I could’ve shared it with you,

Like you always wanted me to,

Like you always needed me to.

——————————————————————————————-

February 17th, 2011

Once again I fell into the abyss of suicidal thoughts.

I am scared of myself.

I am scared of my confidence to complete tasks most kids can’t.

It is my virtue,

And my curse.

The characteristics of a polyhedron,

Bending, folding, unfolding.

And it’s never what it seems.

——————————————————————————————-

February 18th, 2011

Your voice dancing around me,

Triggered sexual desire.

Your eyes as they hunt for mine,

Fill my morbid self.

Your lips,

Waiting in line,

Desiring to lock with mine were the reminder that once again,

You were looking at human flesh.

Too bad I lost my skin where I lost my heart.

If you could only see beyond that.

——————————————————————————————-

February 20th, 2011

Sensibility levels raised as pages fill in,

Observant eyes become aware.

Lips went numb,

Skin went dry,

And all of the sudden,

I cared.

Sometimes the I guess and the I think and the ‘um’ pauses are needed for me to talk to you because I intimidate you and I don’t know why.

——————————————————————————————-

February 21st, 2011

Where would you be? Now, so cold, so alone.

The gloomy settings, the empty spaces.

Memories of who you were keep fading with all these new feelings of confusing and pure anger.

Now I want you to be alive because one day, everything vanished.

Instrumental music played while I stood in front of everything you left behind.

I’m turning into my own worst enemy.

——————————————————————————————-

February 22nd, 2011

Mentally sick creatures,

Losing lizard skin,

In line for rebirth as those they admire.

Poisoned rats craving status, power.

Hoping to fit in where they were once banned from.

Losing all integrity to be someone else, someone better.

Personality surgery down to the bones.

——————————————————————————————-

March 29th, 2011

Drawing nine lines to create a tridimensional box which never reveals as an optical illusion of a cube, always cubes in every page. Uneven and deformed, determined to evolve, multiplying independently, filling a page of squares and diagonals craving perfection yet never achieving it, lacking tools needed for structure…

——————————————————————————————-

April 3rd, 2011

Freckled wide-eyed, blushed cheeks.

Skin, hair, perfect teeth.

A heart, so young…

And then who would’ve known how she felt if she never expressed it.

There was no explanation.

It was as if she lived in fairyland and she was the queen and everyone just couldn’t wait to figure her out and please her and love her.

I’ve gone over last summer a hundred billion times and after god knows how many pages and cigarettes I’ve spent wondering what she was thinking of whenever she glared at me I end with the same conclusion; she wanted something I couldn’t give her and we both knew it. She was in search of a fantasy love you cannot find on this earth, so she left it.

——————————————————————————————-

May 20th, 2011

It’s so quiet but in a way, it never is because the Chinese neighbors argue in high-k daily.

My super’s everyday conversations plagiarize monologs from gangster films and my pipes seem to be alive. My jeans feel tighter, I’ve gained weight.

Today after my interview I decided to walk down 58th street and saw a bunch of sad people. I’m used to seeing well-dressed beings with frowned faces but today they all just looked gloomy. Concerned. Sad. Maybe it’s just the gray skies, secondhand smoke or the artist that just died.

I don’t feel nineteen today.

——————————————————————————————-

May 23rd, 2011

At the edge of an island,

At the top of a tree,

In a dark alley.

Turning my head 360 degrees,

Ending up looking down.

Overtipping those with money I don’t have.

The solution for happiness equation must belong to the dirtiest, oldest hermit who moved away in a life voyage. In the deep forest. Lost at sea.

——————————————————————————————-

August 12th, 2011

‘You’re nineteen, everyone’s beautiful’

Was last night’s punchline.

I portrayed Ariel as a worn out beauty as if her memory became a character in my subconscious guiding me through dreams and life, a muse.

The beauty concept in my dream represents the nostalgia of yesterday’s expired day.

Similar to hunting a wolf in a snowstorm. A foreign land.

——————————————————————————————-

August 30th, 2011

I still don’t know how I feel about anything.

As days pass me by, my perception changes so drastically that I end up clueless in a world filled with people on auto-pilot quotes and sentences.

All actions have pre-designed reactions. Everything I interact with someone I bring up a likable matching personality, my brain is filled with protocols -

——————————————————————————————-

December 21st, 2011

Last night I dreamed of a flower that doesn’t exist.

It was placed in the middle of a crater.

The image,

Stuck in the corner of my eye,

Would hid whenever I turned.

I woke up in a suspended state,

Thinking I missed out on what could’ve been

The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Am I beautiful?

Is beauty based on tone? Symmetry?

Oval-shaped faces with high cheekbones are considered to be beautiful,

But they only remind me of cupcakes.

Jolly, sweet, fluffy creatures,

Afraid of the raw and sheltered,

Numb to the abstract and the complex.

Sometimes I envy their lack of awareness,

As I can feel, everything.

But perhaps I am just a martyr.

When does beauty become erotic? Why does it?

I wash up every day,

Finding imperfections, every day.

Nothing I possess comes close to what I saw last night in that flower,

In my dream.

Eventually, my eyes desaturated everything,

As if I didn’t deserve to enjoy pulchritude.

What would happen if I disappeared too?

Cutting out people tearing in black.

Who would give you voice?

What would happen to my expensive lingerie?

People don’t pass on dead people’s underwear.

What would define me?

What would describe me in the first sentence?

I wouldn’t like them to say I was beautiful.

I would like them to say I kept my thoughts to myself,

Often falling in the void of everything I couldn’t explain.

Never A or B but everything in between.

All these thoughts I would like to keep adventurous,

Pass the shadows once they fade in jet-black.

——————————————————————————————-

January 1st, 2012

Like sand clocks,

We drop in the sequel of time, light and unaware.

Dead time,

Uncontrollably splitting continuance,

Brings the illusion of meaning for past time.

The mystery of time relativity works our way, somehow.

The wisdom it brings is irreversible.

We were built to linger

‘Cause nostalgia is a self-destructive state of mind.

We were not built to swim across dead time,

The deep ends are unbearable,

And will remain unknown, forever.

——————————————————————————————-

0 notes

clxboyoung-blog · 7 years

Text

Bio

♡ basics ━

BIRTH NAME ; park boyoung NICKNAMES ; meongmeongi (puppy) ALIAS ; n/a

DATE OF BIRTH ; february 12, 1993 PLACE OF BIRTH ; seoul, south korea AGE ; 24 international, 25 korean

GROUP ; coeus chronicle OCCUPATION ; lawyer

LANGUAGES ; korean, english, mandarin

♡ appearance ━

HEIGHT ; 157 cm // 5′2″ WEIGHT ; 41 kg // 90 lbs BUILD ; ectomorph

HAIR ; dark brown, long, wispy bangs EYE COLOR ; chocolate brown

DEFINING FEATURES ; puppy like features, especially her eyes; stretchy, chubby cheeks; warm body temperature; small burn scar on her hip

♡ personality ━

TRAITS ;

✔ puppylike ✔ loyal ✔ compassionate ✔ earnest ✔ friendly ✔ open ✔ reliable ✔ hardworking ✔ precise ✔ intelligent ✔ incorruptible ✔ forgiving ✔ generious ✔ innocent

~ soft spoken

✘ spacey at times ✘ naive ✘ childish ✘ clumsy ✘ excitable ✘ frivolous ✘ paranoid ✘ resentful

WESTERN ZODIAC ; aries CHINESE ZODIAC ; rooster

HOGWARTS HOUSE ; gryffindor ILVERMORNY HOUSE ; thunderbird PATRONUS ; ocicat WAND ; silver lime wood with a unicorn hair core, 10" and slightly yielding flexibility

MBTI ; ENFJ, “the protagonist”

PHOBIA(S) ; fire pokers, fire, scarrification, paranoid Two Moons is going to try to kill her off this year DRINKING / SMOKING / DRUGS ; yES (but most people don’t expect it) / no / no

IN DEPTH PERSONALITY ;

Puppylike: that’s what her brother said, and everyone else as well.

It isn’t just her looks. It’s also her sweetness. Her loyalty. Her compassion, her earnestness, her friendliness, openness, reliability, and, yes, her tendency to (at least seem to) space out at times.

Let’s take an example: say you were new. Shy, fidgety, but looking around like you wanted to join in the conversation. Her smile would falter a bit seeing you looks so lost and lonely, but would immediately pick up again as she did a weird mixture of bouncing and floating over to you. She’d take your arm, offer you one of her favorite cookies, and try to guide you to the group. She’d wait for an opening, or if she couldn’t find one within a few minutes, she’d interrupt, saying softly, “this is - wait what’s your name? I forgot to ask.” Cue small endearing giggle. “Whoops. I’m Boyoung. And you’re…” She’d make this small motion to prompt you to say your own name.

If you seemed particularly dejected, she might bypass any introduction and just hug you.

As such, she’s babied by practically everyone she comes across, even if she’s older. Affectionately pat her head or pull her cheeks; she doesn’t mind. And, if you let her, she’ll do the same.

She’s precise. Hardworking. Intelligent.

Once she gets to work, she works. If she sees a number or statistic that seems off, she’ll redo the calculations herself, even if it’s the kind of math it takes a star math major an hour to do. It’ll take her 45 minutes, max, anyways, so there’s no point in running it by the department in charge. It’s not uncommon for her to pull multiple all-nighters to finish her work and help those who ask. It’s also not uncommon for her to finish her work by noon. (She gets a lot of bonuses as a result.)

She’s naive, childish, clumsy, excitable, frivolous, and yet, she’s generous.

It’s no secret that she likes to shop. She can spend hours and hours at the mall or even one boutique, and emerge, look at the receipt, and say, “oops. I just blew 200,000 won.” Don’t take it as greediness: she has no qualms parting with her money or possessions. She regularly donates to the orphanage she grew up in. She just has a lot of money. She wants to enjoy her life as it comes - her brother would tell her the same, after all. But clothes are some of many things that make her squeal. She loves fashion, and she also loves to dress up. Equipped with nearly all of the Disney princesses’ costumes and a plethora of formal, semiformal, and otherwise formal or informal clothes, accessories, makeup, and beauty tools, she loves to be taken to another world. Even if she trips over the too-long skirt sometimes.

But she’s paranoid and resentful.

Her brother died when he was her age. She’s working for the same company he worked at. She can’t help but wonder if those who killed him will make her their target too.

Honestly, they’re one of the few things that can make her blood boil. She hates them. She loathes them. If it weren’t for them, her brother would most likely still be alive. Maybe married. With kids.

God, because of them, she has been wracked completely through with grief. Because of them, she has been out drinking enough to progress from a complete lightweight to an utter heavyweight. And she’s ninety pounds. It is not normal for someone of her stature to be able to drink that much.

But she can. And she does.

♡ facts ━

➝ placed higher in the bar than her boss ➝ can type nearly as fast as the world record holder ➝ never taken an IQ test ➝ learned to read at three ➝ can drink enough to kill an elephant tbh ➝ will sometimes spike her sikhye ➝ favourite colour is lilac ➝ loves to shop ➝ gets bonuses frequently ➝ hates two moons ; it’s one of the few things that can get her riled up

♡ background ━

She’s just a baby. She’s swaddled in blankets and a jacket, and Kiyoung somehow managed to get the baby backpack thing on himself in the chaos around him, and her safely in it. He doesn’t take much else. There isn’t time take much else, and he’s eight. He’s too small to take much else. The house is burning all around him, his parents nowhere to be seen. There’s an acrid smell, but he tries not to think about that. Instead, he pushes through the smoke, coughing and spluttering, and holding his hand and a cloth over his sister’s mouth and nose so she doesn’t breath it in. Then he runs. He runs and runs and runs and runs with only a faint idea of where he’s going. He’s been there just twice before, both traveling in the safety of a bus. And yet he manages. He doesn’t know why he ran into there, instead of to a police department. Maybe it’s the hazy knowledge that at the overly brightly lit police station, he’ll be questioned, Boyoung will probably be taken from him, and they’ll be separated. Instead, he arrives at the orphanage with bloody feet and burning lungs. He raps desperately at the knocker, lurching inside when the door opens, and hacking out, “my sister,” before falling onto his stomach, twisting at the last moment as not to fall onto her. For her, the only thing she knows of that time is the burn scar on her hip and the orange-red licks of flame behind her eyelids.

♡

Her childhood is filled with smiles, laughter, and joy. The orphanage treats her well, or at least Kiyoung does. He teaches her how to read and write when she’s three, so she can read that “pretty light purple book about the puppies!” and she goes around talking to the other kids in the orphanage and at school, helping them when it’s their turn to learn. He watches with a soft, amused countenance as her bubbliness induces shrieks of excitement, or when she quietly and leaning on her friends. She’s ten when he goes off to university, but he stays in Seoul, taking up a liberal arts degree at Yonsei University, nearby enough to her that they see each other at least every weekend. She wants to see him more, but she’s still under the orphanage’s legal care. Kiyoung doesn’t have enough time to take care of her by himself, or enough money to yet, but he’s working on it. He’s working on it.

♡

When he graduates, he moves to Pyeonghwa to work as a journalist in its Coeus Chronicle. Boyoung chews her lip anxiously when he does, because she has heard whispers of the gang activity there. But he reassures her that he’ll be fine. That he’ll be able to make enough money to bring her with him soon. And then tells her that he wants to investigate there, because there might be something about their parents there - their mother’s work had something to do with Pyeonghwa. Kiyoung doesn’t remember what, exactly, but then again he was eight when they died. So she puts on her brightest grin, eyes curving like upside-down Nike logos, and tells him to hurry up and bring her over. The orphanage allows her to stay with him during her school breaks. Pyeonghwa isn’t too far away - two hours, maybe, by bus - and Kiyoung pays for her fares. He’s doing well for himself, and when she’s sixteen, he files a case to take legal custody of her.

♡

That same year, however, is the one he stumbles home after midnight, blind and bloody. She assumed he was working, and he was. But he was caught. He found out a bit too much about a certain Two Moons’s politicians, and was caught.

They abacinated him. They went for his eyes with red hot pokers and branded and blinded him.

Somehow, he got away. Like when she was a baby, he manages to get to his destination with nothing but a hazy mental picture to guide him. As he dies in her arms, because “I wanted to be able to hug you one last time,” he tells her over her sobbing “Boyoung-ah. Take care of yourself, okay? For me. I’ll always be watching over you. Keep being your bright, happy self, because you bring so much joy to everyone you come in contact with. Okay? Can you do that for me?” But he doesn’t wait for her answer. He gives her a small smile before the light goes out in his eyes.

♡

She is resolute. She sets in her path to becoming a lawyer through her school’s mentor/mentee program, and with Lawyer Park’s help, she acquires the basis for her understanding of law and how to garner her evidence for cases. She wants to be able to help journalists like her brother tackle legal issues - if he’d gone to a lawyer, or had a good one if he did, there’s a high chance he would still be alive. And she just. It would help preserve his memory. Journalists risk their lives for their articles, and she wants to help them be a bit safer. Especially in Pyeonghwa.

It is also thanks to the program that she is admitted to Pyeonghwa National University on a full scholarship. She’s eighteen now, nearly a legal adult, and she finds she has too much free time on her hands. With boredom creeps the aches of loss, and she enrolls in extra classes during the year and in the summer semesters. In her second year, she also begins working at a restaurant. It’s small, and she and her same-aged boss are the only workers there, but business picks up along soon enough.

PNU tells her that she has enough credits to graduate two years early, and Boyoung, surprised, seizes the chance. When she became an adult, her brother’s money and possessions were given to her, as per his will, and she uses it to pay for law school. There’s still some leftover because, remember, he was saving money for the suit and to show that he could support them, and because his work payed for his funeral. She donates nearly all of the rest of the money to the orphanage, only keeping enough to last her about three months of sparing use if she’s really in need. She has her money from working as well, so her living expenses are covered.

She places in the top 1% in the bar, and, because of it and the summers she spent interning at the Chronicle, she secures a high paying position almost immediately. Her salary is about that of her boss’s, really, even though she’s only twenty-three. No one really questions it, though, because she has shown her dedication before, and scored way higher in the bar. She’s twenty-four now, the same age her brother was when he died. A part of her worries that Two Moons is going to go after her, but there’s no way that they know her connection to her brother. Hopefully. For now, she continues to work and enjoy life, because she knows that’s what Kiyoung would want her to do.

1 note · View note

gumnut-logic · 5 years

Text

V. T. Green

Title: V. T. Green

Part One

Author: Gumnut

24 - 25 Aug 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: “Did you discover this, Brains?” He frowned. There was something familiar about this. Maybe they had discussed it recently.

“Oh, no, this is V. T. Green. The man is brilliant.”

Word count: 1946

Spoilers & warnings: None.

Timeline: Standalone

Author’s note: This is one that I have been meaning to write for some time. I hope you enjoy it :D

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

The world was blurry as he let his head slide on one hand and stared out through the kitchen window. Gordon was in the pool, swimming his morning laps. The sun had yet to rise and Virgil had broken several laws of physics rising himself. This time of day should not exist. But then it didn’t, because it wasn’t day yet because there was no sun!

But no, supersonic big brother wanted to do some special training today. Training that for some reason had been scheduled at sunrise.

It was possibly important, likely scheduled just to get his ass out of bed at this godawful hour. Occasionally there were some issues with having your brother in command. Brotherly love only went so far, brotherly snark had more mileage, and Scott did have that twist of his lips when he announced the schedule.

Four pairs of eyes had immediately turned to him and his return glare had been insufficient to deflect the amusement that followed.

But it was okay. It was fine. He had his own skill drills up his sleeve. Two am would be convenient for him next time, definitely. After all, they all had to keep their skill sets up, didn’t they?

In the meantime, it was black coffee and repeated attempts to focus on Mateo. Mateo was distinctly blurry, and dark and,,,,

“Hey, Virg!” Alan whacked him on the back.

His face nearly ended up in his coffee. “Alan? What the hell?”

“And good morning to you, too, big bro. Ready for this morning’s run?”

He stared at his bright and peppy, yes, peppy, youngest brother. Augh. “Go away.”

“Aww, did the big bear have to get out of bed a little early?”

“Alan...”

“C’mon, Virg, it’s gonna be fun. A race around the island, wind in your hair, blood pumping...it’s gonna be awesome.”

Virgil stared at him, his brain slowly picking up that something wasn’t quite right. “Alan, why aren’t you comatose?”

“What do you mean, big bro?”

A slow blink. “You hate mornings almost as much as I do. Who are you and what have you done with my little brother?” His eyelids drooped all of their own volition.

“It’s called prepared, bro. I’m in it to win it.”

Virgil’s eyes narrowed. “Are you on something? Because if you are, Scott’s going to kill you, and once I’m awake, I’ll resuscitate you so I can kill you again.”

“That’s violence, bro. It’s cool, I promise.”

An arched eyebrow that almost hurt. “What did you do, Alan?”

“Nothing. Well, nothing you aren’t already doing.”

“You drank coffee.”

“Noooooooo.”

“What did you do?”

“A little caffeine is all.”

The arched eyebrow flipped into a frown. “How much?”

“Enough.”

Virgil’s back straightened. “Alan.”

“I’m fine, bro, I promise. I know what I’m doing. I’m not stupid.” A blond frown. “Besides, it’s not like you don’t do the same with your coffee after coffee after coffee technique.”

Virgil’s lips thinned, but to be honest, the kid was right, he didn’t have a leg to stand on. But... “You’re not yet an adult, Alan.”

“Yet, I take the responsibilities of an adult, Virgil.”

“Your body isn’t fully mature!”

“Well, thanks for that, Doctor Virgil!”

“You have to look after yourself!”

“Hard to do anything else when I have four brothers mother-henning me all the time!”

“We worry about you!”

“Well, don’t! I can look after myself.”

“Alan!”

“Virgil!”

“Hey! What the hell is going on here?!”

Virgil found himself looming over his little brother, one brain cell after another slowly catching up with what the hell was going on. Bright blue eyes were staring up at him defiantly, his little brother’s shoulders tight and fists clenched at his sides.

Virgil forced his own fists to uncurl. There was a reason why he preferred not to see this time of day. Disturbed sleep disturbed his calm, his control, and things like this happened.

Scott loomed over the both of them and Virgil took a step back, slumping back onto his seat and hulking over his coffee almost in a pout. “Better ask Alan, he’s the one being stupid.”

“Speak for yourself, Virgil.”

“Both of you, shut it.” Scott could glare with the best of them, but Virgil had exhausted what little energy he had and ignored him. “Alan, dosed himself with caffeine.”

“Virgil!”

He could feel the laserbeams shooting out of Scott’s eyes switching targets and landing on Alan. There was no satisfaction, just blergh. Here we go.

And sure enough, Scott started in on his little brother. There was, of course, shouting. Virgil idly wondered how come Scott got to yell and he didn’t. But then Virgil didn’t really like yelling anyway.

Coffee. Its warmth drifted down his throat and spread into his bones. Oh god, he needed it. Maybe a second one after this? But then the word ‘caffeine’ came up amongst the explosions beside him and he reconsidered. No need to become a target himself.

He let his foggy mind drift a little. It was all his fault really. He could have gone to bed early, but he had made the mistake of getting into a discussion online with an engineering idiot. The topic had become heated, chemical formulas launched like bombs and laced with reactive equations enough to take out half the engineering community. In the end, he’d thrown a hissy fit and sat up to three am writing up his argument. He’d chucked it onto his blog with a great deal of satisfaction and was looking forward to rubbing it in the man’s face.

Just as soon as he could boot his brain.

Coffee, give me strength.

Gordon wandered in at some point, a damp towel around his neck. Being Gordon, he prodded the conflagration in progress and got burnt. The argument became three sided.

Virgil considered snoozing on the counter.

Then he hit on the idea that he could possibly sneak back to bed. He stood up slowly.

Brains bounded into the room, tablet in hand. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Brilliant, so b-brilliant!”

The argument came to a sudden halt, four pairs of eyes turning towards the engineer.

The engineer didn’t notice, eyes glued to his tablet. Max bounded in behind him, whirring excitedly. It was the robot who prevented the distracted Brains from walking into the kitchen counter.

“Oh, thank you, M-Max.” His eyes didn’t leave the tablet. “Did you see the p-polymer ratio? Amazing! Such elegance. You know, I am quite d-disap-pointed that I didn’t think of this myself. The applications are going to b-be in-numerable.”

The distraction was enough to break the fuel lines of the argument and Scott settled for a final threat, Alan a final glare and Gordon, a snort of derision. The moment to escape was lost and Virgil slumped where he sat.

Damn.

“Virgil, you going to eat before we run?”

Alan was right, Scott mother-henned.

“Maybe.” Ugh, c’mon coffee kick in. He needed operational braincells.

Scott was peering closely at him. “Earth to Virgil.”

“Shut up, Scott. You got me up at the ass end of the day, I’m here. Don’t expect much more.”

His brother grinned, and Virgil had the odd urge to thump him. Just because this was his element, didn’t mean he had to be a smart ass about it. “Your next physical is going to be hell.”

The grin faltered. Aah, that’s better. Hmm, perhaps his brain was slowly booting. Go, coffee.

“Virgil! You h-have to see these equations. They are brilliant!”

What? Brains’ tablet shifted the remains of his coffee to one side and Virgil found himself staring at a series of numbers that made little sense at this time of the morning. “Brains, looks great. Can I review them later? I’m not all here yet.”

The engineer didn’t appear to hear him. “Look at the polymer decay to reaction ratio! This is a self-healing polymer!”

Huh? He frowned and forced himself to focus. The appropriate neurons clicked into place in his brain and suddenly what he was seeing made sense.

Shit.

He grabbed the tablet, eyeing the equations and spinning calculations in his head. Brains was right. This was perfect. The polymer would be able to self-heal with the application of a mild electrical current. Give it a pattern to follow and it would populate and keep it populated, even after disturbance.

“Did you discover this, Brains?” He frowned. There was something familiar about this. Maybe they had discussed it recently.

“Oh, no, this is V. T. Green. The man is brilliant.” There was that word again. Brilliant.

But it still took a second for it all to click into place.

V. T. Green was his blog. V. T. Green was his pseudonym online, used for obvious reasons to keep his identity hidden. The blog had been for amusement originally. A place to stash his favourite music and art, but at some point, he had found himself venturing into engineering circles and getting into discussion with the online community. It made for interesting discourse and he was able to keep up to date with some of the latest innovations. Not that he could share his own much and IR was well ahead of the majority of the world thanks to one Hiram Hackenbacker, but on occasion he would fiddle with ideas and make suggestions. It was also a great place to postulate out-there concepts.

The equations on Brains’ tablet were Virgil’s.

“Where did you get these?”

Brains was full of far too much energy for this time of the morning. “Green p-posted them during the night and they have h-hit the world by s-storm.”

“What?”

Brains frowned at him. “Haven’t you heard of V. T. Green, Virgil? He is o-one of the leading engineers on this p-planet. I have been f-following his b-blog for over a year n-now. You r-really m-must check it out.”

“Um, must have missed that one.”

“H-how could you m-miss such an important s-site? I know you k-keep up to date. The man is at the centre of a massive discussion about polymer cohesion and decay. Last night, Coloncous in Spain had the nerve to challenge him in the most ridiculous manner. I was so close to cutting him off myself, he was embarrassing us all, but Green replied with this. As expected, it is a brilliant explanation and Coloncous had no choice but to concede and crawl back into the hole he should never have come out of in the first place. He was a fool to think he could go up against Green. But this solution has so many possibilities. Do you realise this could be integrated into Two’s cahelium hull and she would be able to heal damage midflight? Four would be able seal herself in an underwater emergency. So brilliant.”

Virgil stared at the engineer. He didn’t think he had ever heard Brains say so many words in a row. And his stutter had disappeared two sentences in.

“What did you say about sealing Four, Brains?” Gordon’s ears had obviously pricked up at the mention of his ‘bird.

Brains’ attention was immediately drawn to the aquanaut, his verbal diarrhoea spilling all over Gordon and freeing Virgil.

Taking the opportunity, he pulled out his phone and brought up the website.

Shit!

He had notifications enough to clog his inbox. Due to the early hour, his phone was still on silent and he hadn’t heard any of them. A quick glance identified several prominent names and universities.

Shit. His eyes widened.

He glanced up at his family who were now eagerly discussing safety seals for Thunderbird Four. Even Scott’s eyes were wide and enthusiastic.

Shit.

Um.

Yeah.

He needed more coffee.

-o-o-o-

End Part One

Part Two

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Virgil Tracy #Hiram Hackenbacker #brains

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gumnut-logic · 5 years

Text

The Bellini Incident (Part Seven)

Title: The Bellini Incident

Author: Gumnut

28 Apr 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: Kayo was going to kill him.

Word count: 3657

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Virgil!whump with a side order of Scott!whump.

Timeline: Standalone, not Rain Series.

Author’s note: For @soniabigcheese who threw the prompt at me, and @i-am-chidorixblossom who suggested some Virgil whump. Scott got a bit whumped, too, I’m branching out as a writer, blame @scribbles97.(And thanks to her for the read throughs :D )

The prompt: The character who doesn’t realize they’ve been hurt trying to see if everyone else is okay only to slowly realize that everyone is looking at them with mounting horror. Then they touch their side to find it’s wet and oh no…

I have been dropping hints about one of the characters in this story for the last couple of chapters. For those of you who have read Gentle Rain you might have recognised her. For those of you who haven’t I hope I’m sketching her character out well. If not, Gentle Rain might be worth the read as in this chapter she comes to the fore. It should also be noted that while I’m using the character from Gentle Rain, she is an alternate timeline version as this is not a Gentle or Warm Rain fic. So, things are very different, though I hope the core of her character is the same. This is me actioning an idea proposed by @lightning1999 and I hope she enjoys it along with everyone else.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

John stared at his tablet. His heart was breaking ribs. “Kayo?” His voice was little more than a whisper, but regardless, he knew he wasn’t going to get an answer.

Her tracker was moving out into the alley. “Eos, get down there. Don’t let her out of your sight.” It was supposed to be simple. Just a contact. Just a hint of connection to the Network. How had they known?

John had holed up in the room next door to Virgil and Scott’s. Besides him it was empty.

So empty.

His breathing matched his heart rate.

“Gordon.”

His younger brother was next door keeping an eye on both the eldest and the youngest. Alan had taken yesterday’s events very hard and fallen asleep in the chair beside Virgil, his hand still holding onto his sleeping older brother as if he was scared the man would disappear on him.

Kayo’s tracker was moving across the map. Eos was following.

“Gordon.”

The door opened and John jumped, but it was only the aquanaut. “What’s up, bro? Scott and Virg are still asleep. Alan’s snoring.” A grin. “I have video.”

“Gordon. They’ve got Kayo.”

His brother immediately sobered. “What? Who?” He hurried over to peer at the map.

“Unknown.”

“What do you mean ‘unknown’? What happened?”

“She went to meet with one of her contacts. They didn’t show, but someone else did. Aiden, Jo and Chu are not answering. Kayo...they took her. Eos is on it.”

“Took her?” It was as if his brother couldn’t compute the concept. “How the hell?”

John swallowed. “Apparently they knew she was coming.” The security breach leading to that issue gaped open in his mind.

“We need to get her back. I’ll wake Scott.”

John grabbed his arm and pinned those brown eyes with his own. “Don’t wake Virgil.”

Gordon’s eyes widened just slightly as the effect of Kayo’s capture on his second oldest brother sunk in. “He’s going to want to know where she is.”

“He can’t know. Not yet.”

Thinned lips. “I’ll grab Scott.”

John let him go and he ran from the room.

His eyes returned to the blip on the map that was his little sister.

Shit.

-o-o-o-

Doctor Em Harris was tired.

It had been a long day, the third in a row, and this was the first that she had seen of her apartment in over sixty-five hours. Her aching feet dragged her through the door.

The cause of this extended work period was the Tracy brothers. International Rescue, myth on a stick. It was pure chance she had been on ER duty when Thunderbird Two landed on the hospital’s front lawn, and the events that followed swept her up in their momentum. A directive from the hospital director, the GDF, and the leader of International Rescue...and her two sole medical cases were now Scott and Virgil Tracy.

Men and myths blurred.

Apparently, myths bled as red as men. She sighed. The brothers were close knit, that much she could tell. She hardly knew them, but part of her warmed to their banter. Obviously, they all cared deeply for each other. The youngest, Alan, reminded her of her little brother, Jeth. Both a sweet and heart-breaking thought. Before his paralysis, before the tsunami that had taken so much.

The sister had gone absolutely ballistic after the assassination attempt. Em had found her pacing the corridor outside Virgil’s room, fury in her step. A moment of hesitation, a bitten lip and Em had interrupted that pace. “Ms Kyrano, Virgil will heal. There is no permanent damage.”

Green eyes had snapped to her, mistrust at the fore. This was a woman who had been hurt in the past. Em could understand that, but underneath it all was guilt.

Guilt could be a killer.

She said nothing.

Em drew in a breath. “If there is anything I can do for you, just ask. Even if it is just an ear for listening. It can help.”

Those eyes simply stared her down. Still she said nothing and Em had the distinct feeling she was under an x-ray machine, her innards being examined for threat.

“Okay?”

Smooth voice. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

But Ms Kyrano had disappeared shortly after and she hadn’t seen her since.

Now Em was home to grab some fresh clothing and was due back at the hospital in fifteen minutes.

She closed the front door behind her, dropped her keys on the table in the hallway and strode through to her bedroom.

There was a man sitting on her bed.

She froze for just a moment, enough to see him smile in the dim light, before spinning and making a dash for the front door.

She almost made it.

An arm wrapped around her waist, lifting her from her feet.

She screamed and kicked.

“Woo hoo, you are a feisty-“

Her elbow hit facial bone. A strangled gurgle cut off the man’s snark and his hold loosened. Slamming a heel into his shin, she shoved her other elbow into his gut. A gasp and she was free and moving.

“You bitch!”

The door handle was in her hand when cold metal rammed into her neck.

She froze, a whimper on her breath.

“You’ll pay for that. Trust me, you will. Maybe not now, but definitely later.” He grabbed her hair and dragged her back from the door. “Now, Emaline, we need to have a little chat about Virgil Tracy and your little brother. One needs to die, which would you prefer?”

-o-o-o-

Scott Tracy had the ability to go from deep sleep to fully awake in a split second. It was a skill that was both useful and annoying.

This time it was useful.

Gordon’s touch had him peering up at worried red-brown eyes, his strawberry-blond brother gesturing silently, a finger on his lips. A glance around the room explained why. Alan was curled up asleep in the chair beside Virgil’s bed, his older brother’s fingers still in his hand. Virgil was on his side facing both of them, a frown furrowing his brow despite his quiet breathing.

The room was dim and quiet.

Gordon’s gestures were urgent.

Sitting up gingerly, Scott tested his equilibrium, hoping the vertigo that had plagued him since the incident was waning. A flicker of lights at the edge of his vision, but other than that he seemed fairly stable. The headache, he could ignore.

Gordon grabbed his arm as his feet softly touched the floor, shoved his dressing gown into his arms and urged him from the room.

The IR security officers outside the door raked him with their eyes. Scott tried to smile a little, but Gordon dragged him to the next room along.

“What the hell, Gordon?”

“We have a situation.”

Scott’s spine automatically straightened at John’s voice, illness forgotten. “Report.”

John was short, sharp and to the point.

Scott did not react, but that was only due to experience. “Do you have her status?”

“She’s alive. Eos has been able to hack one of the phones in the vehicle and turn on the camera.” A video of their sister limp on a backseat, from an awkward angle, but clear enough to see her breathing. It shook with the movement of the car, obviously being held offhandedly by someone sharing the seat with her. “Other than that, I’ve got her subcutaneous tracker and her collar comms.”

“Can you turn them on from here? Receive only?”

John muttered something. A moment later and the sounds of soft breathing and a vehicle in motion.

“Where is Thunderbird Shadow?”

“Airport. She was undercover, but wanted to have her ‘bird available if she needed it.”

“I need it.”

John turned to stare at him. “What?”

“I’m going to go and get her. Any idea where they are headed?”

“Out of the city, apparently, they’re on the freeway heading towards Tokyo.” He stared up at his brother. “Scott, you’ve got a severe concussion. You shouldn’t be flying.”

“That’s why Gordon is coming with me.” Blue eyes darted towards the aquanaut.

Something flickered in Gordon’s eyes and a grim smile curved his lips. “Hell, yeah.”

John stared up at them. “What about Colonel Casey?”

Scott’s lips thinned. “What about her? We’re wasting time. Call TBS and land her on the roof. I need my uniform.”

“What if they’re armed?! Scott-“

“Get the information. I will do what is necessary.”

“Scott-“

“Do you want to be the one to tell Virgil his ‘Kay’ has been captured?”

John opened his mouth, but shut it again. “You could be injured or killed!”

“Sounds like the average rescue to me.”

“The average rescue isn’t armed and criminal. Call in the GDF.”

“I don’t trust the GDF. Certainly not with a Tracy.” Scott straightened. “Keep it from Virgil as long as you can.”

John’s glare could have stripped paint. “What do I tell him?”

“Think of something, just keep him in that bed.”

“What, like I should be doing for you?”

Scott returned the glare. “Get me the information I need.” He turned away from his middle brother, sorry to be so harsh, but needing to move.

His head reminded him that it wasn’t happy about anything.

Two minutes later, Commander Scott Tracy left the room wearing a three-day old dirty uniform ignoring the dried flakes of his brother’s blood that he had been unable to brush off.

This had gone far enough.

-o-o-o-

Her fingers shook as she shut her locker, the bruise on the back of her hand where the bastard had wrenched her arm behind her back was turning black. She flexed her fingers desperate to dull the ache but only made it worse.

She was asked to kill Virgil Tracy or they would kill her little brother. The whole concept just broke everything dear to her.

Jeth, paralysed from the waist down and brain injured in the tsunami that killed her parents, was currently in medical care across the other side of the city. He was the entire reason she was in Japan at all. Nagoya held the most eminent specialist in the field of neuroscience. There was hope her brother could recover some of his faculties with continued treatment. It cost, but she didn’t care. She would do anything to see him better. To see him smile.

Anything.

She leant her forehead against the cold metal of the locker and tried not to cry.

Virgil Tracy did nothing but try to save people. Sure, International Rescue had been involved in the tsunami, but it hadn’t been their fault.

Not their fault.

Any more than this was.

A tear tracked down her cheek.

She had the ability to kill. She had spent her life fighting death, it wouldn’t be hard to let it win.

Another tear fell to the floor.

What was she going to do?

An image of the brothers bantering waltzed through her head. How could she possibly be considering this? How could she?

The last few years had been hard. She had lost her parents and her brother had needed so much care. So much.

She had been burning the candle at both ends for so long, she had forgotten what having a life was like. The last three days had been strenuous, but the ability to focus on just two patients and give them all the care they needed had been a pleasant contrast to the usual chaos of patient after patient that general ER and surgery tended to be.

Three days and she was caring for the Tracy brothers more than she should be.

And Alan was so much like Jeth.

Mr Scott Tracy. Eyes the colour of the ocean she so loved and hadn’t seen for so long. He seemed kindly. He was the leader. What if she told him? Could he help? Or would it doom her brother to death?

She wanted to scream.

Straightening, she squared her shoulders. She had twenty-four hours. A monitored twenty-four hours. He said they were watching.

Watching.

With a gun pointed at her brother’s head.

She would kill herself if it would solve anything.

It wouldn’t.

She wished it would.

With her heart in shreds she stepped into the elevator that would take her to the ward protecting her patients.

She didn’t expect one of them to be waiting for the lift when it arrived.

For a moment she was floored. Scott Tracy in uniform was a sight to behold. The determination on his face was a physical thing strong enough to plough through anything in his way. But more than a glance and she could see how pale he was, how stiff he was holding himself, the dirt on the uniform.

And she realised he was wearing the same clothes he had arrived in. Her memory of him clinging to Virgil in the ship’s medical bay, drenched in blood, was one etched into her brain and destined to join her for life.

“Where are you going?”

He blinked as if he hadn’t expected the question. “I’m needed.”

“You have a concussion. You need to be in bed.”

“Life isn’t perfect.”

God, that was the truth. “You can’t leave.”

Those eyes pinned her where she stood. “I do what I have to do.” His brow furrowed. “Are you okay?”

And she realised that her face probably wasn’t at its best. “I’m fine.” She forced her lips into a firm line desperate to hide her tremble.

His frown deepened. “Have you been crying?”

He was observant.

“I received some bad news.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He shifted his helmet from one hand to the other. “Look after yourself.”

An attempted small smile. “I will.” She reached out and placed her hand on his arm. “You should, too.”

Scott bit his lip and looked down before catching her gaze again. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

Her mouth tightened, knowing she had no hope of stopping him. “Then come back safe.”

“I’m planning on it.” A breath. “Please excuse me.” He stepped around her and into the lift. A small smile as he turned back to look at her as the doors closed.

And he was gone.

-o-o-o-

Virgil woke groggy and hot.

Hot was not a good thing. That was the first fact to register. The second was a parched throat.

He had obviously been lying in the same position for some time as everything was aching and stiff. Of course, his left side was a mass of nasty nerve signals he really didn’t want to acknowledge, but even his right arm creaked as he tried to move to motivate his circulation.

He didn’t expect the hand that was entangled with his.

“Alan?”

His brother shifted, startled out of sleep. “Wha-? Oh god.” Just watching him, Virgil could feel his bones creaking. He knew from experience just how painful sleeping in a hospital chair could be. Alan folded himself, his elbows landing on his knees, his head in his hands. “Somebody put me out of my misery.”

“Ask Gordon, I’m sure he will oblige.”

“What the hell is wrong with your voice?”

“Water, Alan?”

“Oh.”

His little brother staggered to his feet, grabbed the jug and cup from the bed table, poured the liquid and handed it to Virgil.

Cool, clear and wonderful. In hospital, it was definitely the little things. Breathed out. “Thank you.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Hot.”

Alan reached out and touched his forehead. “Shit, Virg, you’ve got a fever. I’ll go grab the doc.”

“Ala-“ But he was already gone.

Virgil sighed back into the bed.

One positive was the fog from the medication seemed to have cleared somewhat. Pain? Some, but manageable for the moment.

Alan returned with the doctor from yesterday. Virgil frowned. She was still all dark hair and pale skin, but she was flushed and she looked worried.

“Alan says you are burning up.” She pulled out a thermometer and poked him in the ear before he could answer. “Thirty-eight point five. I would definitely call that a fever, Mr Tracy. Let me see your wounds.”

What followed was gentle, but necessarily painful. The strongest suspect for infection was the scalpel wound in his side. It was no real surprise considering the stress he had put it through. The doctor finished off with some general obs and settled him back against the pillows.

“An extra course of antibiotics should nip that in the bud. Give me a minute and I’ll go grab some supplies.” She turned and left.

Alan looked lost.

“Go and get yourself something to eat, Alan.”

“It’s the middle of the night!”

“If you’ve been sitting there since I was last awake, you missed at least one meal. Go eat.”

“You sure? I don’t want to leave you alone.”

Virgil sighed. “I’m fine. There are two guards outside. The doctor will be here in a moment. If you are concerned, go find Scott and tell him to get his ass back to bed. Where the hell is he anyway? In fact, your mission is to go and find the escapee and escort him back here. Grab some food while you’re at it.”

“Yes, sir!” The mock salute was just that touch ridiculous and his brother smiled. “Won’t be long.”

“Don’t hurry, I’ll be fine.”

Alan held up two hands in defence. “Okay, okay, I’m going.” He waltzed pass the doctor as she walked back in, hands full of an IV bag and intravenous needles.

Great.

She was efficient and professional and within a matter of minutes, there were some cold yet hot fluids dripping into his blood stream. He took another sip of his water and lay back, doing his best to try and relax.

He was quite surprised when the doctor didn’t leave immediately.

She packed up her supplies neatly and placed them on Scott’s bed table. Turning she straightened and her pale eyes caught his. Her face was flushed again and her expression twisted him inside. There was pain there, and regret.

“Doctor?”

“You’re a good man, aren’t you?”

He blinked. Huh? “As good as any? I’m far from perfect, but I do try to do the right thing?” A slight frown. “Why?”

“I...” She bit her lip and, to his consternation, tears appeared in her eyes. “I just...need you to be worth it.”

“Worth what?”

Her face crumpled and she turned away, her face in her hands. Muffled. “I’m sorry.”

“Doctor Harris, what is wrong?” He pushed the button to raise the back of the bed as far up as it would go and with a gasp and a grimace, pushed his legs around and off the edge of the bed.

He was so damned hot.

“What are you doing? Get back into bed!”

He glared up at her. “Not until you tell me what is wrong.”

She took a step back. “I...”

“Emaline, is it?”

Her voice was small. “Just Em.”

“Just Em. Something has upset you. Is there anything I can do?”

“Oh god, why?” And she was crying, her whole body shaking.

He couldn’t reach her without standing up and to be honest, he didn’t feel that was advisable in his condition unless he wanted to get intimate with the floor. His side was yelling at him enough already. “Em.”

She looked up, her face swollen, her eyes desperate. A moment and she was in front of him, tears ignored, doctor to the fore. “Mr Tracy, lie back down.” Her hand touched his right shoulder urging him to comply.

“Not until you tell me why you are upset. Apparently, it involves me somehow. What is wrong?”

Expressions of worry, fear, guilt and sadness flickered across her face before it settled into one of resignation. She looked down at her hands and he reached out, clasping her arm gently.

“A problem shared is a problem halved.”

A pain-filled laugh sputtered forth and the tears welled again. “Mr Tracy, you have no idea.”

“It’s Virgil. And if you tell me, then I will.”

She stared at him. “You are worth it, aren’t you.” Another tear trickled down her cheek and she swallowed. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

“Em?”

She straightened just slightly, looking past him as if to gain strength from the air around her. “Do you remember the tsunamis in Indonesia nearly four years ago?”

Remember? How could he forget? The Hood had set off a series of artificial seaquakes all along the Pacific Rim causing several tsunamis that had taken thousands of lives.

All in the hope of gaining access to the Thunderbirds.

“I can see in your expression that you do, and I know why. The Hood wanted your equipment, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Virgil’s voice was little more than a rasp.

“And you couldn’t give it to him, could you.”

He breathed it out. “No.”

“My parents died in the southern tsunami, they were in a hotel lobby, ground floor. The building collapsed on them. My brother was higher up. Somehow, he managed to survive, but he was severely injured. It is likely he will never walk again.” A drawn in breath that strangled to a sob. “But he also sustained a brain injury. I’m...We’re in Nagoya for treatment. There is hope...” And she was crying again.

“I’m sorry, Em, for your loss.” It hurt. It always would. The mantra of ‘you can’t save them all’ marched around his head. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Oh god!” She turned away. “Why the hell? How can they possibly want you dead?”

He froze, his heart missing a beat. “Em?”

“They want me to kill you, Virgil.”

“What?!” He shuffled just a little bit further back on the bed. The corner of his eye caught the door, his hand reached for his comms.

The IV pulled at his skin.

She spun around. “They are going to kill my brother. If I don’t kill you, my little Jeth is going to die.”

-o-o-o-

End Part Seven.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #virgil tracy #scott tracy #john tracy #alan tracy #em harris #virgil/kayo #kayo kyrano #gordon tracy #the bellini incident

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gumnut-logic · 5 years

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Gentle Rain (Part 8)

Title: Gentle Rain

Warm Rain Series

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Author: Gumnut

27 - 28 Jan 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: Sometimes it is so gentle, you don’t realise it is happening.

Word count: 3298

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Scott/OC, spoilers for Warm Rain up to this point in the timeline.

Timeline: Six months after ‘The Proposal’, almost a sequel.

Author’s note: For @scribbles97 Many thanks to both @scribbles97 and @the-lady-razorsharp for their assistance on this chapter. This fic is different to anything I have ever written and it is teaching me much. Thank you for sharing this journey with me and for all your wonderful support.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

He didn’t let go.

He kept her hand warm in his through the entire tour of the huge villa the Tracy family lived in. She didn’t comment, simply enjoying his touch. She listened as he explained how the Island had become their home, how his father had a vision and the money and passion to see it all to reality.

He smiled at her, made her laugh and was genuinely charming.

And he still kept her hand.

She met Sally Tracy, the island’s matriarch. The woman took one look at their clasped hands before wishing her the best and excusing herself on the flimsiest reason Em had ever heard.

Em also didn’t miss the look the older woman sent her eldest grandson. Whatever she was trying to get across hit home because Em had the pleasure of watching Scott flush scarlet.

Apparently, there were things of which only grandmothers were capable.

He didn’t comment, though, and shortly after they were in yet another elevator.

There was a silence and she looked at him sideways. His expression was thoughtful, staring at the wall, but so obviously not seeing it.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

He blinked and that smile came back. “I was just thinking about you.”

“Oh? Were they good thoughts?”

His lips quirked. “Most definitely.” One of his fingers rubbed across the back of hers.

She arched an eyebrow, but before she could comment, the elevator doors opened and with a whir of hover jets, he led her out into a massive gallery.

One wall was entirely glass, at least two stories tall, and on both sides it curved around behind them.

The view drew her forward. They were at one of the highest points on the island. The villa lay sprawled below them, the caldera lagoon sparkling in the late afternoon light.

“God, it’s beautiful.”

“That it is.”

She looked over at him. His eyes reflected the shine of the windows and just a little pride.

“You’ve accomplished so much.”

His smile slipped crooked. “We do what we can.”

“And you do it well.”

He looked up at her at that, his eyes thoughtful, but he didn’t say anything before returning his gaze to the view. “I owe you a thankyou.”

She blinked. “You do?”

He looked at her again. “For our conversations in the hospital. They made my stay not only tolerable, but enjoyable.” Again with the soft smile.

She grinned. “So, you planning on converting to Trekdom?”

A soft laugh. “Maybe. Though I will need a little more convincing.”

“Oh?”

He let her hand go and reached up to touch her cheek. “I have wanted to touch you for days now.” A finger moved to her temple and traced a line down her cheek bone across to the corner of her mouth. Her eyes closed as that finger brushed her bottom lip.

Warm breath and the finger was replaced by his lips, ever so gentle, asking, needing. She parted her own and let him in.

Oh.

His hand was on the back of her neck, tangled in her hair. Her hands found his shoulders, smooth muscle moving beneath her fingertips through the thin material of his shirt. His tongue...

And then he was gone.

She blinked, the air suddenly cold on her sensitive lips. What?

He was leaning forward, groaning.

Shit.

“Scott?”

“Ow, damnit.”

He had been stretching his left side. Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, you silly bugger.” Reaching over she helped him straighten up.

He sat back and panted through it. “Well, it’s not easy being romantic with a hole in my gut.”

She rolled her eyes and moved herself closer, brazen despite everything. Those gorgeous blue eyes were staring up at her. She would call them puppy-like except it would have to be a puppy with one hell of an attitude. A smile crept onto her lips. “Then perhaps you should call for help.”

An arched eyebrow. “Help?”

She smiled, leant down and took his lips with hers. His response was immediate. His arm wrapped around her, drawing her close. His right hand, caught in its cast, hovered at her waist. His tongue brushed hers.

He tasted warm, an energy burning beneath a calm surface.

She gasped in air when they finally broke apart, her heart thudding in her ears.

His arm stayed around her waist, holding her to him and she bit her lip, reflecting the smile that spread across his face. He looked as if he was about to say something, but was interrupted by a distant roar.

Instinctively they both looked up just in time to see Thunderbird Two fire her VTOL, coming into land on the other side of the island. Immediately, she felt him tense, the Commander slipping into place.

His smile was considerably weaker when his eyes returned to hers. “Duty calls.”

She felt daring, but she couldn’t resist touching his face, echoing the line he had traced across hers, her finger brushing his lips.

A brush of her mouth against his and she pulled away.

He let her go, but caught her hand once more.

Nothing was said in the elevator, and she expressed no surprise that it deposited them directly into the lounge. They whirred as a pair into the room. John still sat at the desk, murmuring softly to someone over his comm, Kayo to one side of him, obviously on edge. Alan sat sprawled across one of the sunken lounges. He looked up as they entered and shot to his feet. “Doctor Harris!” His eyes landed on the hoverscoot and she saw the calculations wash through his mind. His brow crumpled and his shoulders slumped. “Oh, I am so sorry. I hadn’t heard.”

The hand in hers tightened.

-o-o-o-

Kayo leant against the edge of Jeff Tracy’s desk, her hands gripping the Art Deco curves of wood involuntarily. It had been coincidental that she had been in the room the moment John had let out a rush of expletives in three different languages. She expected he hadn’t realised she was there, far more used to monitor duty with only Eos for company.

But she was there, so she was standing at his shoulder when TB2’s external cam’s threw a wall of holographic seawater at them. She had stopped breathing as the camera had disappeared under that same water for a matter of solid seconds. Her eyes had tracked the readouts from Two’s systems. She had seen how close it had been.

And the vitals signal from Virgil’s uniform.

She only wanted him back in her arms, to check him over for herself.

Scott and Em entered the room hand in hand and were greeted by Alan, but she only paid them minimal attention as Virgil and Gordon, still in their uniforms, strode in from the elevator behind them.

She met him halfway and he smiled at her with tired eyes. Slipping an arm around his waist, she nudged him towards the lounge and took a seat beside him. He let the couch take his weight and lay his head back with a sigh.

In contrast, Gordon bounced down the steps to take his seat next to Alan, clapping his younger brother upside the head when he neglected to greet him, still frowning up at Em and Scott as the latter two made their way into the circle.

Brains entered from the direction of the kitchen, followed by Grandma, just as John stepped into the lounge from the desk.

Virgil’s hand suddenly found hers and held it tight. She flicked a glance in his direction. Her fiancé was pale in the afternoon light, a concerned frown on his face as he watched John flick through the record of the mission and summarise it for discussion.

Two and Four’s sensors recorded Gordon’s rescue, his being dumped into the swirling ocean by one of the stupid fishermen and the resultant scuffle as he dragged the terrified man back to Four. Alan made a point of high-fiving Gordon with a yell of ‘score!’ Scott glared at the both of them enough to shut them up.

The sensor network recorded Four’s safe transit far under the waves.

And they relayed what followed.

“Holy shit!” Gordon stared at the massive wave that almost engulfed Thunderbird Two and ate the module. They watched her VTOL flicker as she struggled to keep herself airborne. The module swung free from the water like a pendulum in the wind, staggering Two sideways. The Thunderbird’s status flickered beneath the hologram, Virgil’s desperate actions blatantly obvious.

Her hand tightened in his. His eyes were closed, head still draped over the back of the lounge.

As TB2 climbed out of the cyclone, John froze the recording. The silence in the room was ominous.

A soft baritone broke it. “Brains, we need to work out a better way to do that.” Virgil didn’t even bother to open his eyes. “Oh, and Two will need a thorough maintenance check. Those stresses were way over her tolerances.”

Across the other side of the lounge, Scott had paled. Gordon’s eyes looked as if they were about to fall out of their sockets. “Bro, that was close.” His voice was a notch higher than usual.

“Yes, it was.” And he straightened up, finally opening his eyes to look at his brothers. A snort. “Can I have tomorrow off?”

Tomorrow was Christmas Day, but no one answered him.

“Brains, we definitely need a much safer method to deploy and retrieve Thunderbird Four in storm conditions.” Scott had recovered his composure, but his eyes hadn’t left Virgil.

“I will get on to it immediately.” She could see the cogs spinning in the engineer’s mind already. No doubt she would find both him and Virgil buried in design work over the coming days.

This could never happen again.

John ran through the mission one more time, highlighting decisions that were made well, or could have had alternatives. Ultimately, the mission was marked a success, but with reservations for equipment improvements.

Gordon added his own note to the mission report at the end. “Virg’s flying kicks ass.”

Virgil snorted, but Kayo knew her younger brother was clearly unnerved at exactly how close it had been otherwise the compliment would never have been admitted.

The debrief was declared to be at an end and everyone began to disperse. John made his way back to his father’s desk, and Gordon stood, claiming a hot shower was in his future. Walking past Virgil, he squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “Thanks, Bro.”

“Anytime.” Virgil had let his head drop back against the couch again, his eyes closed once more.

Grandma nipped in and kissed him on the cheek and he smiled, her hand squeezing that same shoulder.

His eyes stayed closed.

Alan, to her surprise, stood and approached Em, the two of them talking quietly, as Scott whirred his way over to Virgil.

His voice was quiet. “Are you okay?”

Eyes still closed. “I’m fine, Scott. Just need a shower and a good night’s sleep.”

Predictably her older brother’s lips thinned. “You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit. But as I said, a shower and a good night’s sleep will fix that.”

“How’s your injury?”

“In need of a shower and a good night’s sleep.”

Scott’s glare was useless against someone who wasn’t even looking at him. “If so, then why are you still sitting here.”

“Just taking a moment, Scott. Give me a break.”

The worry on Scott’s face was obvious. “I can ask Em-“

Virgil straightened immediately, his eyes fixing on his brother. “I’m fine, Scott. I’m tired. Just leave it. Please.”

When Scott didn’t answer, Virgil threw himself to his feet and stalked out of the lounge. “I’m grabbing that shower.”

Kayo stood to follow, but Scott grabbed her hand. “Keep an eye on him.”

Exasperation. “As if I’d do anything else.” For goodness sake, they were as bad as each other when injured. “I’ll take care of it.”

With that she stepped away and followed Virgil from the room.

-o-o-o-

Scott stared after his brother, worry coursing through his veins. Virgil looked awful. He hadn’t seen his brother today until now. He had attended a landslide in China with Alan in the early hours of the morning, before returning only long enough to pick up Tracy Two to collect Kayo and Em from Perth, the former having stayed overnight to assist the latter with preparations.

And then this shitfest had happened.

Scott hated being off the roster and having to watch his brothers wear themselves thin. Hell, he knew Virgil had hated the same deal for the weeks on end after his accident six months ago.

He sighed. He had to trust Kayo on this. He had to believe that she could hold him back and stop him from doing anything stupid.

“Scott?” Em approached him, her expression concerned. Alan had obviously left. “Are you okay?”

He turned to her, his lips thinning. “What exactly were your injuries in Perth?”

She froze. “What? Why?”

“What exactly are you attempting to hide from me?” Perhaps his voice was sharper than he had intended, but he had things on his mind.

“I’m not hiding anything from you. What you see is what you get.”

“Then what were your injuries? Why haven’t you told me.”

“Perhaps because they are none of your business.”

He bit back his response, the emotion clogging his arteries. He needed to move, to get out of this chair. He needed to run or punch something. He needed-

“Scott?” Her voice was gentle. “Take a deep breath before you explode.”

He blinked, those ice blue eyes were staring at him in concern. He let a breath go and his whole body sagged. “I hate this.”

She lowered herself to his eye level, reaching out a hand to cup his jaw. “It will pass.”

A huff of frustration. “I know that. But in the meantime, Virgil is working himself into the ground.”

“Did you want me to have a look at him?”

“Stubborn bastard stormed off when I suggested it.”

“Leave it to me. I’ll speak to Kayo in the morning.” To his surprise, she leant in and kissed his forehead. “Now my current concern is you. You’ve been in that chair all day, haven’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

He looked at her and again those pale eyes caught him in their mystique. There was something about this woman. She gave no ground and kicked his ass on a regular basis, yet he found himself anticipating her company, relishing the challenge. She had been a splash of colour in the grey of injury and illness. For the first time he had found his hospital stay tolerable simply because she was on the other end of the line.

A sigh. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to go to bed and rest for at least an hour. Then perhaps we can have dinner? Together?”

He smiled at that, reaching out to wrap his arm around her waist and bring her closer. “Will you come visit me?”

She snorted. “Only after an hour, and only if you behave, flyboy.” And to his astonishment, she tweaked the tip of his nose.

“Oh, well, when you put it that way...” He grinned.

“Go, Scott, go rest.” And she raised herself back to standing height and conveniently out of his reach.

He sent a mock glare that morphed into more of a pout, but she had crossed her arms across her chest. “Go.”

“What about you?”

“I’m sure John can keep me company, or point me in the direction of someone who can.”

Scott blinked. He had forgotten his brother was in the same room. He glanced over at the desk and sure enough, there sat the space monitor, apparently busy, but he had no doubts that his brother had ‘monitored’ their conversation.

His eyes returned to the woman who was so occupying his attention of late. Those use blue eyes and raven dark hair, curls falling to her shoulders. She smiled at him. “If you don’t go now, I’ll ask John to called that handsome nurse of yours...Andre? And get him to drag you off by your toes.”

Scott frowned. “Handsome?”

“Move, you silly bugger.”

He opened his mouth, but she glared at him.

Perhaps doing as she suggested wasn’t a bad idea at all.

-o-o-o-

In the end, Em marched him to the elevator, pushed him in, and thumped the button for the residential areas, before stepping out and waving him goodbye.

His frown was hilarious.

Once he was gone, the lounge settled into a quiet, disturbed only by the sea breeze, birds, the distant waves, and the soft beeps and John’s voice as he spoke quietly into his collar.

Occasionally, a woman’s voice would answer.

Em wandered out onto the balcony, still enamoured of the view. She had always loved the sea. Living in Perth had given her ample access to the Indian Ocean and a holiday’s drive to the Southern Ocean. Here she stood staring at the Pacific and it was just as beautiful under a tropical sun as a temperate one.

“Dr Harris?” His voice was quiet, polite,...and she had heard it before.

She didn’t turn. “You’re The Voice Who Answers, aren’t you?”

“Some people call me that, yes.”

“You’re the one who chooses who to save.”

“Sometimes.”

Now she turned to find him just inside the great glass doors. “How?”

His face was honest, but kind. “Triage. Level of crisis, our capability to help, how many are in danger.”

“So it is all numbers?”

“No.” He looked down a moment. “It is never just numbers.” He looked back up at her. “I am so very sorry for your loss.”

She shrugged, forcing nonchalance, not surprised that he knew. “Couldn’t be helped. I was one among many.” She tilted her head. “There are only six of you. How can you possibly save us all?” The pain was there, but then it always would be. Blaming this man for a choice he had to make wasn’t going to solve anything. The madman was as dead as her family. There was no-one left to hate.

“We can only try.”

“And kill yourselves in the process? Look at you now. Scott nearly died. Kayo was bloody lucky. And you nearly lost Virgil and Gordon today. Is this your regular modus operandi? Should I expect Alan or you to be on the line tomorrow?”

“Possibly.” He straightened. “Doctor, we took on the mission long ago. We are aware of the risks and we have accepted them.”

“I’m sorry, John, but Scott was not accepting the risk Virgil was exposed to today. Even though I’ve only known him a matter of weeks, I can see that much.”

She barely heard his sigh. “Doctor, I don’t have the answers. I wish I did. We do our best and that is all that can be asked of us.”

He was right. She knew he was. But having met Virgil, having laughed with Kayo, to watch that wave nearly swipe him from the sky...the myths and legends of International Rescue both came true and dissolved into fear at the same time. This was a hard life. There were no fairytales or myths or happy endings. This was cold, hard reality that could end so badly.

And now she was investing in it. Scott was grounded for weeks, but what happened after that? He would be out there facing the same dangers as his brothers.

Could she handle that?

She had lost so much already. Why should she set herself up to lose more?

She wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know, John. I think the world asks you for too bloody much already.”

-o-o-o-

End Part Eight

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #virgil tracy #scott tracy #kayo kyrano #virgil/kayo #scott/em #scott/oc #warm rain #gentle rain

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lolainblue · 7 years

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Thunderbirds Chapter 25

T/w Just ridiculous heaping helpings of angst. Adult language. I said drugs once.

As we made our way down the hall to Jared's room, Jane tangled her fingers into mine, gripping my hand tightly. She had barely said a word since her confessional earlier and I was getting a little worried about where her head was at. Halfway down the hallway, she stopped.

“What if he doesn't understand, Shannon?" she asked. "What if he believes them and not me?”

I stopped and looked back at Jane. All the confidence she had displayed the day before had gone right out of her. She looked tired again, and the little crease at the top of her nose that only made an appearance when she was upset was back. I knew that the things the people on that site had said had gotten in her head. I had to pull her back out of it before she got lost there.

“He'll believe you. He'll understand.” I tried to reassure her. “And if he doesn't, well he's got another movie coming up so we can ignore him all we want until he does come to his senses. We just have to get through this tour.” Jane sighed and nodded, pushed her shoulders back and started back down the hallway.

"Another movie, huh?" she said.

I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that's why he's grown his hair out."

"Boy, he sure keeps busy. Isn't that going to make it hard for the band?"

"We've got another album planned, we're going to work around his shooting schedule. It'll be fine." I reassured her.

I had Jane stand to the side when I knocked on Jared's door, just in case he was going to go all psycho and not open up with her there. However, he was on the phone when he opened it and he just left it ajar as he walked back into the room, never stopping his conversation. I put my arm around Jane's waist and guided her inside.

Jared finished his call and tossed the phone onto the bed before turning to face us. With a shake of his head, he looked first to me and then to Jane. “Aw Jesus, what fresh hell is this?”

“You need to listen to us Jared,” I told him, trying to sound firm but reasonable. “You think you know what's going on but you're wrong.”

Jared scoffed. “Oh what, because she says so?”

Jane seemed to find her nerve again. “Because it's the truth," she said indignantly. "Let me guess, you found a website with a bunch of alleged information about me? Obnoxious pink and purple thing, supposed to be a fan site for Lacey Addams but spends a suspicious amount of effort talking about me?” Jared kept his level gaze on her, unanswering. “Well news flash, that's Angus's psycho ex-girlfriend and her little lemmings.”

“I bet she calls you psycho too,” Jared retorted, folding his arms over his chest.

“Yeah, probably,” Jane conceded, “but only one of us has been arrested and hauled into court over it. Only one of us has a restraining order against her. Hint: it ain't me. And you can look all of that up and verify it I'm sure, it was quite the stink at the time.”

“So you're going to tell me that's all lies? That she made all of that up?” Jared asked with an air of disbelief.

“I wish I could." Jane sighed and her tone changed, some of the self-righteousness and certainty falling away. "There's some truth in there, carefully woven in to give the whole thing an air of credibility. But I'm not that person Jared. And I swear to you I would never do anything to hurt Shannon.”

Jared's head practically swiveled around full tilt. “Well, that's a lie right there. Do you have any idea how bad you hurt him when you hauled ass out of L.A.? Because I do. I was there to pick up those pieces.”

This was not going the direction I needed it to. “That's not fair Jared,” I chimed in. “She didn't really have an option to stay. And I knew she was leaving when I got involved with her. I've told you all this, about a dozen times now. Up until she showed up again, I thought we were all good.”

“Well, you thought wrong. I figured she was gone and I let it go." He was speaking to me but his eyes stayed trained on Jane. I guess I shouldn't have.”

“I can't believe you're just going to take a bunch of garbage you read on the internet at face value, and I don't know what to do to convince you, Jared. I'm not even sure what you think the story is so its kind of hard to dispute things.” Jane met his unblinking gaze but I could see she was trying to dial the confrontation down. “Just please stop making assumptions and ask me some questions. Or make a specific accusation. Something. Please give me something to work with here.”

Jared sneered at her. “Okay, first things first. That fellowship....”

“Did not fucking happen like that,” Jane interjected. It was like she hadn't said a thing though. Jared continued on.

“Did you precious Aussie beefcake know you were using him to make your boyfriend feel threatened like that so he'd give you the fellowship to keep you around? Or was he as clueless a bystander as the rest of us? Hell, maybe he was in on the whole thing, guys a piece of work all his own.”

“What?" I questioned. "Is that what that site said?” Christ, no wonder Jane hadn't wanted me looking at it.

Jared looked triumphant. “Oh oh oh, hasn't he read the site? Or did you just convince him to take your word for everything? Again.”

“James was never really my boyfriend," was Jane's tight reply. "And he didn't give me the fellowship to get me back because he didn't have any desire to have me around at all at that point. He had zero motive. I earned that thing.”

Jared snorted derisively. “Yeah, I bet you did.”

“Watch it, Jay.” I wanted to let the two of them have it out and clear the air but I wasn't just going to let him ride roughshod over Jane. He just rolled his eyes at me and immediately turned his attentions back to Jane.

“You're a user, Jane. You used that guy to get your fellowship, you use Roger to get you past the velvet ropes that shaking your ass won't move on its own, you used all those rich guys you used to fuck in exchange for jewelry and fancy dinners, you used Beefcake for expensive vacations and his family connections, you used that poor dead guy for his money. You used Shannon to get to me and when that fell apart you were gone because he didn't have anything left you could use. And now that he's making something of himself, look who's sniffing around again.”

Jane had gone pale again and she was biting her lip in a desperate attempt to regain composure. I couldn't have her falling apart again. “It's not like that Jared,” I said defensively. “You've got it all wrong.” He ignored me.

“Of course Aussie is just using you too so I guess maybe Karma really does work.”

Jane took a shaky breath and I wasn't sure if the next thing was going to be tears or fury. It turned out to be fury and she practically spat out her retort. “Roger is my best friend. Of course I'm going to go places with him. That doesn't mean I'm using him. And I never slept with any of those guys.”

“Yeah right.”

“No, I didn't," she enunciated. I could see Jane struggling with her emotions. I could only imagine the mix of anger and helplessness she was feeling right now. Getting called to the carpet for all your life choices was a shitty feeling. Especially when most of the accusations were lies and she had no way to prove the truth. She didn't have to do this, didn't have to stand here and defend herself while Jared hurled abuse at her. She could have just said fuck it and let Jared stew in his own juices until he left for his film shoot. He wasn't the one she was trying to have a relationship with. But she desperately wanted to put things right, and a big part of the reason why was so Jared and I could repair our relationship. That alone spoke volumes about her character. I wish Jared could see it.

“There are always rich old men sniffing around the models,” she continued, “and when I started dressing up more they started noticing me too. I made sure they understood it was never going to be a sexual thing. But they like to have a pretty girl on their arm, something to show off. Some of them were pretty good company but I was really just expensive jewelry. So many of the girls did it, I didn't see the harm. I didn't think it was that awful at the time but if I had to do it again I'd chose differently.”

Jared shook his head. “Even if I take your word for that, which, by the way, I have no reason to do, what about the rest of it?”

“Look, we can circle back around to Angus when we're done with this if you want but I think you've got the wrong idea there too. As for Jefferson...” I reached over and grabbed Jane's hand, hoping the contact would reassure her enough not to break down in front of Jared. I didn't think her tears would help this situation. “Everything that site says about him and me couldn't be more wrong. It is a complete fabrication. I'd tell you to ask Roger, but we all know he would bald faced lie to the Angel Gabriel himself to protect me so he's not exactly a reliable witness. Just dig a little deeper on him. I know there are things about him on the internet. They are the truth.”

Jane pulled her hand out of mine and gazed at it for a minute, and I saw her reach to fidget with something on her ring finger that wasn't there. I wondered if that ring from Angus was the first one she had gotten. With a sick feeling, I realized Jared was at least partially right, I still had no idea what was going on here. I hadn't read the site, and I had just taken Jane at her word for all of this. There's no way she could have told me everything in those few minutes. Still, I trusted her.

“Jane, it's not the individual circumstances. It's your character. Again, right from the start..”

Jane threw her head back and rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, you are still not over it! How are you not fucking over it by now? You said 'first things first” and you started in on that fucking scholarship but that wasn't the first thing, was it? The first thing started with a game of Never Have I Ever. In your head, that's where it all went to hell.”

“You used Shannon...” Jared shouted over her. Jane just shouted back louder.

“... to try to make you jealous. I know. I was there. But it wasn't nearly that straightforward and it was a terrible mistake and I learned my lesson. And I apologized. And he forgave me. And it should be water under the bridge by now.”

Jared's tone completely changed. No longer shouting, he sounded like a petulant child. “You never apologized to me. Not really.”

“What?” Jane asked in confusion. “Yes, I did. That night you came to see me at the diner, I said I was sorry. It was actually the very first thing I said.”

“What you apologized for," Jared said pointedly, "was hurting Shannon. You never apologized for breaking my heart.”

I was afraid if either one them rolled their eyes any harder we were going to need an ophthalmologist. God there had been a lot of eye rolling in the last five minutes. Jane did it again. “You didn't even like me that much. Don't be such a drama queen. I did not break your heart.”

“How do you know how I felt? Did you ever even ask?” Jared did that weird sliding thing with his jaw that he does when he is trying to keep control, and I realized Jane had hit the nail spot on. He was, in no way, "over it'. “You sat there and you told me how sorry you were for how much you had hurt Shannon. How wrong you were for thinking you wanted me in the first place. How you'd pick him, how he was the one for you, how wonderful he was. Not one word for me. It was like I didn't even exist for you anymore. Like I had no feelings at all, like none of that didn't hurt me." He looked around the room for a minute before continuing, quietly; "Maybe you didn't exactly break my heart. But I wanted to let you try.”

The silence that settled on the room at that point was so thick I could almost see it. I had never thought Jared had any real feelings for Jane, I always thought she was just another pretty girl in a crowd of many to him. He never once said otherwise. He always played so damn close to the vest with his real emotions, sometimes even I got them wrong. I wish now I had been there that night that they met at the diner. Maybe if I had seen how he reacted to all to her confessions I would have known. I didn't know what to say now. Thankfully Jane broke the silence.

“I'm sorry Jared. You're right," she said, her voice full of self-reproach. "All I was thinking about at that point was Shannon. If I had been a true friend to you I would have cared more about how you felt being caught up in the middle of all that. I treated you very badly too. Please accept my apology," she finished with so much sincerity I thought there was no way Jared could just brush it off. When Jane was wrong Jane owned it. But it was seven years after the fact and there was a lot of water under the bridge. I didn't know if it was going to be enough. I studied Jared carefully for his reaction. He sat down on the edge of the bed and folded his arms over his chest.

“You were supposed to argue,” he pouted. “I was just getting another good head of steam worked up.'

Jane laughed and sat down on the floor in front of him.. I felt the first tendrils of relief creeping in. I had thought from the beginning if I could just get them to talk we could get through this mess. It looked like it was working. “Will it make you feel better if you yell at me some more?” she asked.

“Did you dump that guy yet or are you just stringing my brother along again?” Jared was losing momentum but he still wasn't done.

“No. I didn't think it was fair to break it off with him over the phone. I'll do it when I see him again after my tour wraps up.”

Jared laughed, but it wasn't the amused sound that Jane had just made a few minutes earlier. This laugh was dripping with sarcasm and bitterness. “Yeah, I'm sure he'll never suspect anything is up. String it out for a good month or two. That'll be so much nicer.”

“It will be fine.," Jane protested. "We don't get to talk much anyway. I'd rather do it in person.”

Jared did the jaw thing again. I braced myself for the shouting to start again. “Fuck, are you all so fucking afraid of confrontation you'll waste months of someone else's life with a lie?”

Jane crinkled her brow at Jared for a moment and then her expression softened and fell. “Oh, Jared. I'm so sorry.”

Once again I was missing something. “What? What's going on?”

Jane looked at me. “He got dumped, Shan.”

Jared was staring at his feet, his eyes swimming. Fuck. I wondered how long he had known it was coming. That certainly would explain the increasingly bad mood he had been in. It almost explained the way he seemed almost happy with my misery. It was a little over the top but I guess if I was jilted and miserable too he wouldn't be so alone. “Bro, why the hell did you say anything.?”

“I don't want to talk it about it,” he said sternly. He gave me a pleading look. “I'm not ready to talk about it right now.”

“We don't have to talk about,” I told him. “But I wish you'd let me know it happened.”

“If you think this makes me feel sorry for Angus you're wrong," he said, quickly shifting the focus of the conversation. "Because fuck him. He deserves whatever he gets.”

Jane and I looked at each other in confusion. “What do you have against Angus?” I asked.

“First of all, I should ask why you don't have anything against him, after everything he's done to Jane.”

“All of what?” Jane said but Jared continued his conversation with me.

“You remember Carissa right?” Carissa was a girl Jared had dated right as we were getting the band together. I remembered she dumped Jared without warning, and then the realization hit me like a brick. She had dumped him for some Australian Playboy. Fucking Angus. Had to be.

“Oh shit," I said. "I forgot about that. That was him?” Jared nodded. “Jesus Christ, talk about a small fucking world.”

“Hey!” Jane interjected. “All of who did what to whom here? Someone fill me in right damn now!”

Jared turned to Jane. “You had to have been running around with him then. Angus. A redhead named Carissa. Ring any bells?”

Jane got a very strange look on her face. “How do you know about Carissa?” Jared didn't respond, just waited for her to get there on her own. “Oh fuck, that was you?”

Now I realized I was missing something. Jared was probably the only one that had the whole picture. I spilled what I knew. “Carissa was Jared's girlfriend back when the band was starting out. She was cheating on him though, ended up running off to spend the ski season with some rich dude at a resort his family owned.”

Jane sighed. “Angus was the rich dude. His family didn't own that place though, they just had some investment share in it. Anyway, Carissa kept popping up everywhere we went for like months and giggling about how her boyfriend didn't suspect anything. She was a real bitch. Angus invited her to stay with him at that Italian ski resort, he's always hanging out there in season, he loves that place. I guess he got tired of her though, and the weekend I went up there he apparently had had enough of her shit, but couldn't convince her to leave. So he invited a few girls up to his suite. Four of them. Had quite the little party and made damn sure Carissa walked in on it. She packed up and left that night.”

“And came crying back to me,” Jared concluded. “Of course I told her to keep on driving.”

“So I would think you would applaud the guy,” Jane said. “She got what was coming to her.”

“At the time I did. But then I found out he was who you were marrying and I started asking around. This part I didn't get off a website Jane. I don't know why you think this guy has any feelings worth sparing but trust me, the first thing you need to do when you leave this room is call him and tell him it's over.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Angus has been a good friend, he has always been there for me.”

“Oh come on Jane, how stupid can you be?” Jared shook his head. “I'm sorry. But really, let me ask you, what does Roger think about your engagement? He always seemed to be smart about people.”

Jane made a funny face. I had gotten the impression that she, Roger and Angus were all best of buddies, out to take on the world. The look on her face immediately dispelled that notion. “Jane?” I asked. “Doesn't Roger like Angus?”

“He liked him just fine when we were all partying. Not so much since we've been dating,” she confessed. “He's just jealous, he thinks Angus is taking me away from him.”

“That doesn't sound like Roger,” I observed. “He was happy for you to be with me, it doesn't sound like he stood in the way with you and Jefferson either did he?”

“No, but I wasn't engaged to either of you.”

“You didn't say he stopped liking Angus when you got engaged." I wondered sometimes if Jane actually thought her verbal diversions worked, or if her head really worked like this. "When did it start Jane? What does he say?”

Jane got up from her seat on the floor and started walking out. “I don't want to do this.” I reached out and grabbed her hand and she stopped but didn't turn back around.

“Fine, don't tell me anything,” Jared said, “but let me say this. I got my information from Noemi Alberti. She's known all three of you for years. I guess I should have asked her about something besides Angus. And I will. I'll get the real picture and as long as it's what you say it is I'll apologize. But until then, ask yourself when exactly it is that Angus started showing any interest in you beyond a fuck buddy? And where did all those drugs come from? And where is he right now? And what exactly does he get out of marrying you? Because it's not nothing.”

“I said I'm breaking up with him, okay?" Jane said quietly. The defeat in her voice told me that she knew something was wrong too. This wasn't new information. What the hell was going on with her? Why had she painted the picture she did? "Isn't that enough?”

Jared wasn't done. “No. Don't be stupid Jane. This morning I wouldn't have cared but I'm willing to admit I might have been wrong.” Jane started moving towards the door again. “One more question.” She sighed and turned around to face him.

“You're not saying anything Roger already hasn't Jared. Just let it go...”

“I don't think Roger has pointed this out because none of you were even aware of it before now. But Jane,” Jared said pointedly, getting up from the bed, “if that site was really put up by Lacey Addams and her people, where would she have gotten all that information?”

@msroxyblog @nikkitasevoli @maliciousalishious @meghan12151977 @snewsome756

#jared leto fanfiction #jared leto fic #shannon leto fanfiction #shannon leto fic #Thunderbirds #30 seconds to mars fanfiction

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lolainblue · 7 years

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Thunderbirds -- Ch. 1

Setting for the original chapter is mid-90′s L.A.

TW: Language, alcohol.

I re-seated my headphones before turning the volume up to its maximum level. Ideally, I would be working in silence, I wasn't the type that usually kept a playlist going while I was writing, but Roger and his bimbo du jour were making too much racket for me to even hear myself think, let alone write. I had given up and gone to bed initially, but the plot swirling in my head would not let me sleep and I had soon found myself back at my desk, pen in hand, desperately trying to get my thoughts down before they were gone altogether. I tried to ignore the groaning and shouting that still bled through the blasting sounds of Brian Molko's trademark nasal vocals, but when something or someone bashed into the shared wall so forcefully that the cup full of pens on my desk turned over and sent its contents spilling I threw the headphones off in frustration. I knew from volumes of experience that asking Roger to tone it down was a waste of breath so I changed out of my pajamas, threw my notebooks and supplies into a backpack and headed out to find somewhere quieter to work. Like a construction site or busy train station. On the way out the door I saw my favorite hat, a brightly colored Laplander with a ridge of yarn approximating a Mohawk down the center, and even though it wasn't really cold in enough in L.A. this time of year for that, I hadn't fixed my hair after getting back up so I pulled it on before heading out of the apartment door.

I really didn't know where I was going. It was 1 a.m., and though L.A. is full of late night spots I really didn't know many of them. All of my time was spent working two jobs to try to keep a roof over my head and save up enough money to finish school and writing. I was always writing. Even while I walked and plotted my revenge on Roger, in the back of my mind characters were interacting, I was changing out words and sentences, questioning motivations and debating plot structure. I was so lost in the zone I was actually sort of surprised when I stumbled on the nearly deserted diner. I figured it would be the perfect place to continue working though.

I found the quietest booth I could, as far away from the potentially noisy counter as possible and spread my writing implements out. The place was empty save for a few older men at the counter and a couple of teenagers in a corner booth who were feeding each other french fries and necking. The waitress was with me quickly, a middle aged woman that looked so much the part of late night diner waitress that I wondered if she had been hired or cast. Either one was possible I suppose, this was L.A. after all. I looked at her name tag. Maxine. Of course it was. I ordered some fries and a Coke, pulled my hat down as far as I could and tucked back into my work.

I don't remember Maxine coming back with my food. By the time I noticed they were there, the fries were cold and my drink was warm. As I added ketchup to my plate I realized the diner was filling back up, presumably with the after-bar crowd. I started on my fries and wondered if Roger and his date had finished their Olympic class shenanigans or if I should hang here a little while longer. I looked at my watch. 2:44 am. They were probably starting with round two (or three? I had to give the guy his props, he did have some stamina) by now. Best to just stay.

The door jingled open again and this time two young men came through. The shorter of the two stumbled drunkenly to the booth next to me, followed by his friend, who seemed to more or less sober but somewhat irritated. Just as he was about to sit down, the drunk one noticed me and flashed a wide grin. Instead of sliding into a seat in the adjoining booth he sidled in across from me.

“Hey! Great hat!” he said, leaning across the table so he was inches from my face. “Jay! Look at her hat!”

“Jesus Shannon, leave the girl alone,” the taller of the pair said. “Come sit over here and behave yourself.” He turned back towards the counter where Maxine was currently serving up plates of burgers. “Can we got a couple coffees please?”

Shannon made no effort to move, however. “Oh coffee, yes let's get coffee!” He turned to me and gave a lopsided blink that I think was supposed to be a wink. “I like coffee.” He looked down at my plate. “French Fries! Jay, get some french fries too!”

I looked up at his companion who gave the sigh of the long put-upon friend that I knew all too well from years of dealing with Roger. He mouthed a “Sorry” at me. I shrugged. I figured I was done writing for the night anyways and I had some time to kill before the apartment would be quiet again. Besides, the guys were extremely cute and it was a public, well-lit space and about as safe as anywhere. I pushed my fries over to Shannon who immediately started eating them. With a laugh, I gestured to the bench next to him. “I think he's here to stay. You might as well join us. Jay is it?”

He looked around for a second and then slid into the booth, scooting his french fry scarfing companion to the side as he did so. “It's Jared actually. This is Shannon.”

“Hi, Jared. I'm Jane.” He was even better looking close up, soft brown hair, bright blue eyes, and the cutest little upturned nose. “I have a Shannon too. His name is Roger. He always gets into trouble when we go out.”

“Hey!” Shannon waved a french fry in my general direction. “I'll have you know I'm quite the gentleman!” Jared looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.

“Really?” I said.

“No.” Shannon roared with laughter, the joke far funnier to him than us. “But I'm cute so I get away with a lot.” He batted his eyes at me, long lashes framing warm hazel eyes, that wicked grin never leaving his face. He probably got away with murder, that one.

“So Jane,” Jared tried to deflect the conversation, “What are you doing by yourself in a diner at almost three in the morning?”

“Avoiding my roommate.” I told him. “Or more to the point, avoiding my roommate and his very loud... date.”

“Would that be the Roger you mentioned?”

“Yeah. I was trying to get some writing done. It was a lot quieter here when I came in.”

Maxine appeared beside us then with their two cups of coffee, setting them down on the table before handing menus to the guys. “Can I get you two anything besides the coffee tonight?”

Jared moved a cup over in front of Shannon. “Can I get a couple orders of fries?”

“And eggs!” Shannon added, blowing on his coffee. “I want eggs! With runny yolks.”

Jared grimaced. “A couple of eggs too I guess.” He looked at me. “You want anything else? My treat, since you're being such a good sport.”

“Maybe just a fresh order of fries?”

Jared gave the waitress a smile. “You heard the pretty lady, Maxine. Fries all around.” He looked over at Shannon who was spinning the salt shaker around the table, sending grains scattering across the surface. He snatched the dispenser away from him. “And keep the coffee coming too please.”

“I'll bring you a fresh Coke too, hon.” She said as she gathered the menus back up and was gone. I started putting my notebooks and pens away, afraid Shannon was going to spill something on them any minute. He apparently was one of those happy but incorrigible drunks; it was a bit like having a toddler a the table. He noticed what I was doing and started to help.

“So, Jane,” he said, drawing out my name and emphasizing it as he batted his eyelashes at me again, “Got a boyfriend?”

“Oh my god,” I laughed.

Jared cringed. “I'm sorry. My brother thinks he has game when he's drunk.” He looked Shannon, shaking his head. “He doesn't.”

“Brothers huh?”

Shannon threw his arms around Jared and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “Yup, this is my baby brother, Jared.” Jared smiled sheepishly.

“So what's in the notebooks?” Jared asked as I stowed the last one in my backpack.

I thought about lying and saying it was school work. I was very self-conscious about my writing. “Oh, just some writing I was doing,” I ended up replying as nonchalantly as possible.

“Like for a class or something?”

“No. It's a story I've been working on.” I concentrated on bunching up my straw wrapper which still lay on the table, trying not to look at those blazing blue eyes of his. What was with these brothers and their completely different but completely mesmerizing eyes?

“Oh, writing as in you're a writer!” Jared said brightly. I looked up, expecting a condescending expression on his face, but there was no trace of it there. “That's really cool. Have you published anything yet? Have you been at it for long?”

His enthusiasm threw me for a second. “Uh, well, I had a couple short stories published in a periodical back home. I mean I didn't get paid or anything but I got some nice reviews. I haven't actually sold anything yet but I'm still trying to finish college so we'll see.”

Jared nodded. “Well, you just have to keep working at it. That's the best way to improve your art, always. Lots of repetition.”

“Oh, I agree,” I said. “I write any time I get a spare minute. I've wanted to be a writer since I was ten years old.”

“What kind of things do you write?”

I shrugged. “Different things. Mostly just short stories, just sort of general fiction things. I've dabbled in writing horror, I really like horror but I'm not as good at writing it.”

“Well, you have to keep at that too, if that's what you want to do.” He flashed me another smile, probably meant to dazzle me in the same way Shannon's had been. It wasn't exactly not working. “Maybe you'll let me read something some time?”

I cringed internally. Why did everyone want to read something the minute you told them you write? He was probably just saying it to be polite or charming but it made me squirm uncomfortably. I decided to change the subject. “How about you? What do you do? Are you chasing something too or did you already find it?”

“Ha!” Shannon burst out, giving his brother a playful shove to the shoulder. “She doesn't recognize you.”

“Shut up Shannon,” Jared said quickly.

Shit. I hoped this wasn't about to turn into a “Don't you know who I am?” thing. The brothers had seemed so nice and down to earth. If I was uncomfortable a minute ago I was downright mortified now.

“I'm sorry. Should I know you?”

“It's okay. I'm an actor but I haven't really done that much.” I could swear at this point Jared kicked Shannon under the table. “I don't know if I'm going to keep up with it though. I got a call back for this movie which is kind of a big break but ….” he trailed off, starting to look as uncomfortable as I felt. “Actually Shannon and I are working on a band”

“Oh, you guys are musicians?” Jared nodded and gave me a soft smile. He seemed more comfortable talking about that than about the acting so I went with it. “That's great. You should do what makes you happy if you can.”

Shannon gave the table a few rhythmic smacks. “I play drums,” he said with the simple enthusiasm of a six-year-old. I couldn't help but laugh.

“Well, the next time you guys play you'll have to let me know so I can come,” I said, sincerely hoping I'd get to see these two around again. I was already taking a liking to them.

“I'd like that,” Jared said. “We'll have to meet up.” He smiled warmly and I felt my cheeks flush. The longer he sat there across from me, the more I began to think he was possibly the best looking guy I had seen up close. This was saying something as my best friend and roommate Roger was a model, who was constantly dragging other models home with him. I was used to gorgeous. It paraded through my home on a regular basis. This guy was more than that.

Shannon chose that moment to snatch the hat off my head and put it on his own, revealing my riotous blonde curls. I tried to smooth them out but gave up when neither guy seemed to take any notice of my bed head. Instead, Shannon was playing with the hat and making goofy faces while Jared tried to get the hat away from him. By the time my hat was returned to me we were all breathless with laughter.

Maxine reappeared then with plates of fries and Shannon's eggs. The confiscated salt shaker was reproduced, ketchup was passed around and we sat there talking about music and dreams while Shannon dipped fries into his runny egg yolks and Jared and I wrinkled our noses at him. I liked them both, they were bright and funny and even though I sensed they were absolute terrors when they got going they were really very sweet through the whole meal. As Shannon sobered up he got quieter and quieter, letting Jared and me carry most of the conversation. We were discussing a trip I had taken to Brazil the summer after I graduated high school when I realized it had gotten light outside.

“Oh my god, what time is it?” I checked my watch and saw it was nearing 6 am. I had been at the diner for four hours now, two and a half of them talking with Jared and Shannon. “Shit. I have to book guys, I have to be at work in a couple hours.” As I grabbed my backpack, Shannon shoved a napkin at me.

“Hey, at least give me your number so I can invite you to come hear us play. You offered after all,” he reminded me.

I smiled and scrawled the digits on the flimsy diner napkin. “I don't really get out much, but that would be great. I would totally be there.”

He gave me that lopsided blink/wink again and, just for a second, I felt that pleasant, familiar tingle in my stomach. Both of these brothers were definitely having an effect on me. I decided to high-tail it out of there as quickly as possible before I got myself into real trouble. Jared stood up as I did and waited until I had my backpack in place then gave me a big hug.

'It was nice to meet you, Jane. I hope we see you again soon.”

And just like that, I was heading out the door and the chance encounter was over. If Roger hadn't been having ridiculously loud and acrobatic sex, if I hadn't grabbed that hat on my way out, if I hadn't ended up at that diner, if I had been in a bad mood and shooed away the drunk instead of sharing my fries with him.... thirty seconds total maybe of left turn/right turn, 'a’ or ‘b’ type decisions had led me there. Thirty seconds.

I had not yet begun to appreciate the irony of that.

#jared leto fanfiction #shannon leto fanfiction #bandom rpf #thunderbirds

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