Written for the TAG Secret Santa 2018
Prompt Choice: Decking the Thunderbirds with festive cheer - pranks by our favourite prankster Gordon ... with everyone else's reaction
"He's going to do it again this year. You know it."
"Yup."
"You gunna do anything about it?"
"Nope."
"Why not? It would drive me batty."
"That's one reason," Virgil replied enigmatically as he fastened an item to the ceiling of Thunderbird 2. "Pass me the hammer."
Scott looked frustrated as he pushed off the bulkhead and passed a hammer to his younger brother. "Virg… for the last three years, Gordon has run amok with practical jokes at Christmas. We've all been caught, but you seem to go our of your way to trigger them. I'm worried he'll go too far."
"He won't," Virgil said seriously. "You know what Gordon's like on the job. He would never do anything to jeopardise a mission. And that includes any jokes that could hurt us. They can be messy, and inconvenient, but never harmful. And I don't mind triggering them. It makes everybody laugh. Including me." He moved to a box and took out a coil of tinsel. 'Now help me fasten this around the windscreen. This is the last of the decorations for the Birds, and if we finish it now, I can get a batch of cookies done before Kayo gets back from the mainland with Grandma."
"You don't have to ask me twice!" Scott was enthusiastic – any cooking that Grandma didn't have a hand in was fine by him! But he didn't want to let Virgil keep being the butt of all of Gordon't practical jokes.
"Virgil – let me say something to Gordon. Tell him to back off."
"Scotty – let it go! I really don't mind. I trigger those things on purpose because I want to see them go off – I can see Gordon waiting for them to happen, and so I do. Like I said – it doesn't hurt me, and, well, I love seeing his and Allie's faces when it happens."
He started to pack away the decorations and tools and looked around the cockpit of Thunderbird 2 with a satisfied look at the decorations.
"I thought he was getting more mature when he and Penny made things official. But the last three years at Christmas, he's been reverting to worse than ever." Scott was grumbling as they exited, but he looked around the hangar at the Thunderbirds housed there and smiled.
The signs of festivity on them were subtle, but they were there when you looked. It was the Christmas the year their father disappeared – a way of trying to cheer his younger brothers up. It had become a tradition.
As they climbed up to the viewing gantry, both young men smiled at the figure standing there. Virgil paused on one of the landings and turned to Scott. "Scotty – I know why Gordon started the pranks. Think – three years ago – what happened."
Scott smiled and looked at the person above them. "Yeah, yeah. The best Christmas ever."
"Yup. And remember how those pranks of Gordon's made him smile again. Sick as he was, they were something that helped make him stronger. And when he smiled and laughed, Gordon and Allie did as well. And if I can contribute to that, then I don't care how many practical jokes hit me. Because, I tell ya Scott – I don't ever want to have another Christmas like we had before… well, when Dad was missing."
At that, Virgil turned and bounded up the remaining flight of stairs, and put his arm around his father's shoulders. After a startled look, Scott followed him.
"Great job, boys," Jeff Tracy said. "I know that the others will think so too – especially on Three."
"We always try to do better every year," Scott said proudly.
"Like Gordon with his practical jokes," their father said grinning. "I can't say how proud I am of you boys. You've all grown into fine men."
As his father and brother turned to leave the hangar, Scott paused. He looked, unseeing, over the Hangar. Virgil was right. He didn't ever want to go back to those Christmases during those years his father was missing.
He went back into the house, and started to laugh as he saw his father covered in confetti. It would be a good Christmas.