One of Virgil's skills is catching his brothers when they try to hide injuries or illnesses. This is the second in a collection of short stories featuring our favorite medic and his reluctant patients.
Note to Fishton: I wrote this before I got your request for Gordon's story to include his back acting up…maybe I'll do a bonus story later!
I don't own the Thunderbirds, and I am making no profit from this story.
2. Superglue Doesn't Fix Everything
I walk through the hangar, weary after a long day doing maintenance on Two. It's almost dinner time; I have just enough time to make it upstairs and take a hot shower.
I'm walking past the open door to Pod Four when I hear something that makes me freeze in my tracks.
"Ouch!"
Not too alarming in itself, except when it's followed by…
"Ouchouchouchouch! Stupid! Oh, man, Virgil's gonna kill me! Unless I can patch it up really quick…hmm, where'd I put that superglue?"
Okay, time to step in. It's no fun picking superglue from a wound that ought to have been stitched – believe me, I know.
"Gordon? You ready to head up for dinner?"
He spins around to face me, his left hand going behind his back as he does so. His face is guilty, but with all of his pranking experience, he's quicker to mask it than some of his brothers. "Oh, hey, Virg – you startled me. Um, I'll be another couple minutes."
"Oh, okay." I start to turn away, then glance back and point to several dark red spatters on the floor behind him. "Hey, did you know you're bleeding?"
He blinks innocently. "Bleeding? Oh, no, that's just red paint. I was painting – uh – um, a tool handle!"
His expression is triumphant, but then his face falls as I look around exaggeratedly for any evidence to corroborate his story.
"Huh. Painting a tool handle. All right…so where's the tool? And the can of paint? And the paint brush?" I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him. Scott's got the best glare, but mine's not a bad second, if I do say so myself.
He sets his jaw stubbornly, apparently planning to stick to his illogical story, and I know it's time to cut to the chase – the blood is dripping at a rate that indicates a serious need for attention.
"Gords, I know you hurt yourself. Let me see." I step forward and reach for his arm.
Reluctantly, he brings his arm back around to the front of his body, and I gape at the sight – he has a six-inch-long cut running along his forearm and down the back of his hand, definitely deep enough to require stitches. Blood has run down all over his hand and is dripping off the ends of his fingers.
"Gordon, what in the world?" I demand, looking around for a clean cloth to apply pressure with. There's a First Aid kit on the wall; I find supplies in there and quickly begin to work.
He shrugs, looking embarrassed. "There's a raw metal edge under this work table that I keep meaning to put tape over. A tool rolled under there, and I forgot about the sharp edge when I was pulling it back out."
I shake my head in disbelief. "Well, c'mon – we'd better get up to the infirmary. The blood is already soaking through the dressings, and you don't have any more in your dinky little First Aid kit."
I add "Put Better First Aid Kits in Pods" to my mental to-do list as I march Gordon up to the infirmary.
As I get my tools ready, I call Dad on the wrist-comm. to let him know Gordon and I will be late for dinner.
"Why is that, Virgil?" Dad asks.
I can hear Scott and Alan talking in the background.
"He heard that I needed to practice my stitching skills, so he kindly volunteered to be my test subject," I tell him. I cast a sidelong glance at Gordon, enjoying his expression as he realizes that if Scott is anywhere in the vicinity of the wrist-comm. call, he will probably show up in the infirmary in approximately 3.2 seconds, in full Smother-Hen mode.
Sure enough, I'm just injecting the local anesthetic when Scott skids into the room.
His jaw drops as he sees the wound. "Gordon, what in the world?"
Gordon rolls his eyes. "Yeah, that's what Virg said, too. It's just a scratch, Scotty. A few stitches and I'll be fine." He shoots me a dirty look. "I still think the superglue would have worked."
"Without even cleaning the wound first? You'd totally be setting yourself up for infection," I tell him calmly. Suiting my actions to my words, I begin to clean the cut.
Gordon mutters darkly under his breath – something about brothers who don't let the anesthetic kick in before starting to work.
The site is numb by the time I start stitching, though, and he watches with a bored expression as the wound is pulled shut by the threads. He's probably the most blasé about things like this, probably due to his lengthy stay in the hospital after his hydrofoil accident. Alan always turns a little green when I stitch him up, while Scott gets all stoic and pretends it doesn't bother him, although I've noticed that he doesn't look until I'm done. John, hmm, I'm not sure I've actually ever had to give John stitches. Between his fairly cautious nature and the amount of time he spends up on Five, he's perhaps a little less injury-prone than the rest of us, although he certainly does have his moments.
Before I'm done, Scott heads back upstairs, having apparently decided that the injury is not severe enough to keep him from his dinner.
When I finish, I apply a bandage to protect the stitches. "No swimming for a few days," I tell him.
His face falls. "Even if I cover it?"
I shake my head. "The way the stitches run across the back of your wrist, I think they'd tend to pull."
He, of course, immediately experiments to see how far he can bend his wrist. I stop him before he can pull out any of my neat stitches.
Seeing how crestfallen he looks, I modify my initial order. "Okay, if it's covered, you can be in the pool. No laps, though – just floating."
He looks slightly happier. "Well, okay. Thanks, I guess," he says grudgingly.
"You're welcome, I guess," I reply. "C'mon, let's go before the others eat all the food!"
We head upstairs and join the family.
Halfway through the meal, I hear Gordon speaking softly with Alan.
"It's so weird," Gordon says. "It's like he's a mind reader or something – I didn't even know he was anywhere nearby, but then I cut myself, and kaboom! There he is."
I take a sip of water to hide my smirk. This isn't the first time my brothers have indicated that they think that I have some sort of creepy intuition about when they're injured. I would never admit to them that sometimes, it's simply a matter of good timing on my part. Besides, I don't mind being seen as slightly mysterious. You've got to have some fun in this job!
