Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds

IRRelief fic, using darkestwolfx's prompt "Any characters – "I'm still way too sober for this." and scribbles97's prompt "Alan and Scott and anything"

"I am way too sober for this."

It was said quietly, an under-the-breath gripe that shouldn't have even been audible a pace away, but Scott had always bent the laws of the universe just a little whenever his brothers were concerned. His precious, baby, underage brother complaining about being sober would have reached his ears even if he'd been far further away than he was – two metres and supposedly engrossed in a conversation with one of Tracy Industry's smaller financial backers.

He excused himself as quickly as was polite, crossed the distance to where Alan was standing by himself at the edge of the function, and swiped the drink out of his hands.

"Scott!" the teenager protested. He was ignored as Scott took a sip, considering the taste carefully for several moments before conceding that it really was just red grape juice of the non-fermented variety and returning it to him. Alan all but snatched it back, glowering. "What was that for?"

"Making sure you weren't drinking wine," Scott retorted, keeping a careful eye on the rest of the function and knowing he'd be lucky to get a minute to talk to his brother before some other wealthy person he needed to keep sweet came looking for a word or several. He'd brought Alan along in the hopes of getting at least some peace from them. So far, it hadn't worked at all, leaving him torn between his duties to their father's company, and entertaining his brother.

It seemed he hadn't been doing a very good job of that.

"I'm underage, Scott," Alan pointed out, as though he honestly thought his eldest brother come legal guardian really needed reminding of that one. "No-one here will serve me any of the stuff." Scott raised an eyebrow at him.

"You've spent enough time with Parker," he pointed out. Neither of them needed him to voice the rest of that sentence – you know how to swipe things. An unintended side effect of Lady Penelope's butler being occasionally requested to keep an eye on young Tracy boys (and Kayo) was that all of them were adept pick pockets and lock picks. Useful, occasionally. Another cause of concern for Scott the rest of the time (had been for their father, too, probably).

"Why the sudden accusation?" Alan demanded, and Scott raised the other eyebrow.

"'I am way too sober for this'," he parroted, and had the brief satisfaction of his youngest brother's face flushing for a moment.

"I wasn't that loud, was I?" Alan mumbled, draining the rest of his grape juice. "It didn't mean anything, you know," he continued, before Scott could remind him that being the eldest brother of five gave him a few abilities a youngest brother wouldn't ever need – not that the reverse wasn't also true, of course. "I know better."

"Then why did you say it?" he wanted to know, catching a glimpse of another investor heading his way and realising his brief respite was rapidly coming to an end.

"Figure of speech," Alan shrugged. "You say it."

That… was probably true, Scott realised with a sinking feeling. He should probably watch his mouth around his youngest brother a little more carefully. Lord Something-or-other was getting too close now, a polite clearing of his throat indicating that he'd like Mr Tracy's attention, please, and Scott rolled his eyes at Alan, who broke into a grin.

"You know who's way too sober for this?" he asked under his breath, even as he reluctantly started to turn away from the safe(ish) conversation with his brother and into the shark-infested waters of the rest of the function. "Me." He took a sip from his own drink – a palatable enough wine, even if he'd rather a strong whiskey right then – and finished turning his back on his brother as Alan let out a muffled giggle.

"Well that means I'll have to stay sober, doesn't it?" the astronaut muttered, just loudly enough to be audible to Scott even as he started the horrible yet necessary task of appeasing the investor who'd demanded his attention. "After all, one of us has to pilot home."

Lord Something-or-other seemed delighted to have got a smile out of Mr Tracy.

Not quite true to the prompt in that I missed a word out, but it needed to be done in order for this to work, so I hope you don't mind too much!

IRRelief is an amazing idea and bless Gumnut for coming up with it! For those that don't know, it's a collection of prompts anyone can add to and use on tumblr, with a focus on fluff, to give us something to do while we're stuck indoors. Full details are on tumblr under the tags #irrelief and #irrelief2020

Thanks for reading!
Tsari