Disclaimer: The Thunderbirds do not belong to me. They are the intellectual and actual property of Gerry Anderson and his affiliates. Any original characters are a product of my imagination.
AN: Sleep deprivation, a late night screening of Titanic with friends and a laptop stuck on a repetitive loop of The Fast Food Song produced this.
Never done something like this before, so any feedback, good or constructive (well, concrit's good, right?) would be welcome.
Oh, and this is a stand-alone story, with no relation to anything else I've written. Maybe it needs a tissue warning. Maybe.
Last Requests
The last requests can be the hardest ones to honour
The Aftermath
Boots left at the entrance to my hanger.
Sodden socked footsteps leading from the lounge to my suite.
Shiver slightly, but not from the iciness of the water I was in not more than an hour ago.
Only to recover bodies.
Well, only one body in particular.
Draw the blanket, also saturated with water, tighter to my body. My selfishly, alive and kicking body.
"Son."
Deep gravelly voice addressing me. Tall figure casting an imposing shadow on the path to my room. The venerated head of International Rescue talking to me. No one else, but me. I can hear the empathy in his voice, but I don't want to hear it.
"Debrief in twenty minutes. Take a warm shower and get into some dry clothes."
I raise one shoulder indifferently. What difference could a debrief make? How can analysing what the hell went wrong make for improvements in the way we, as International Rescue, functioned? Nothing is the same anymore. Not after the last rescue. Not with one brother upset that his toy submarine's been mangled beyond belief and the other brother lying still, too still, on the spinal board, white sheet over his head…
No!
If I don't think about it, it can't be true.
Even though it is.
If I can convince myself that this is a dream, or rather, a nightmare, then it can't be real.
Except that it is. I can delude myself all I want, but reality has a way of just biting me on the butt, hard, to get me to face facts.
Head lowered, letting damp hair plaster itself to my eyes. Jaw jutting out with attitude, spite and self-disgust evident in my tone. "What. Ever."
I push my way past him, feel the wave of uncontrolled emotion well up as I think of my brother, the fallen hero.
I disregard the order to shower and instead, head over to his room instead. Even though it's futile, I knock on the door, wait outside to gain entrance. It's stupid; he'll never tell me that it's okay to enter again. I enter, feel like I'm trespassing and observe. There's nothing else to do.
Without his presence, the room is larger, and emptier than I've ever seen it. Without him sprawled out on his bed, or slouching on his sofa or even casually leaning against the wall, the suite seems incomplete.
Everything's just as he left it; books ordered alphabetically and then with the Dewey decimal system on his shelves. A touch OCD for my liking, but to each their own. Pot plant wilting next to the balcony doors because he had forgotten to water it. The cheesecake calendar one of us brothers had bought him as a joke – the one Dad wanted to dispose of – hangs proudly on his wall, defiantly displaying the month of September, even though it's four days from the beginning of November. The mountain of paperwork on his desk that would never be completed by him. So many ideas and plans that wouldn't come to fruition. Something catches my eye. I turn to his nightstand, where a white envelope with my name has been propped up against an inverted tumbler. Curious, I open it, collapse down onto his bed and begin to read.
It isn't long before the tears fall, before my vision becomes obscured, before I scrunch up his letter in my hands as I scream silently in pain. My heart slams against my ribcage, threatening to break free and spare me from the gaping wound that's formed, but it doesn't.
I struggle with it, but I eventually get to his last request.
His, seemingly impossible, last request of me.
It shreds my insides, rips through every organ, muscle and cell I possess. How could I possibly honour his last wish after the most recent rescue?
How can I possibly continue to be a member of International Rescue when it was International Rescue that cost my brother his life?