A series of drabbles from a challenge in Jan 2021
-o-o-o-
"You're never this quiet, what's wrong?"
Gordon looked up as his second eldest brother strode around the railing of the boat and parked himself on the seat cushion next to him.
Virgil was frowning, worry in his expression.
"What? A guy can't spend a little time with himself?"
His brother leant back just a little. "Sure, he can. But just the same, can't a guy check up on his little brother and make sure he is okay?"
Gordon groaned and rubbed his face with his hand. "I'm fine. It's just… It's not every day we help deliver a baby whale."
-o-o-o-
"We're not 'fine'!"
"Virgil, John is going to be okay. You saw him yourself." Scott placed his hands on his overwrought shoulders and found them rock-hard with tension.
Brown eyes glared up at him. "No. It should never have happened. You made a rash decision and you endangered John." His hands were shaken off and Virgil turned away.
Scott straightened. "I did what Dad would have done."
Spinning on one foot, his brother was suddenly in his face, a finger shaking at him. "This isn't about Dad! This is about you! It was your decision, Scott, and it was wrong!"
-o-o-o-
His boots were wet.
Virgil spun, the roar of his 'bird's engines vibrating through his helmet. "Thunderbird Four, respond!"
Comms were silent in such contrast to the air around him. Standing on broken ship, ocean rolling him as he kept his balance, Thunderbird Two hovering low in the sky, his wrist control lit up in the evening twilight…
"Thunderbird Five, do you have him?"
"Trying." His space brother's voice was tight with worry, tension vibrating down from orbit.
His aquanaut brother had disappeared beneath the waves in his yellow 'bird not fifteen minutes ago.
Now he was gone.
Just gone.
-o-o-o-
"What's this?" Scott pointed at a symbol on the flickering diagram.
The mine supervisor froze for just a split second. "Nothing really. No need to worry."
Scott frowned. "Sir, I have an operative drilling a hole directly through there to save your employees' lives. What is it?"
The man shifted where he stood and Scott's hackles climbed into orbit. He slapped his comms. "Thunderbird Two, halt progress."
A blink. "Scott?" Virgil's voice was tinny and wracked with static, the sound of the Mole in the background barely there. "Rep-t."
"Stop the mole!"
"W-"
The ground rumbled and shook.
"Virgil?!"
-o-o-o-
The soft sound of breath.
Waffle-woven cotton under his fingertips.
Pale skin pulsing to a heartbeat.
For the fifth time in the last half an hour, Scott reached out and brushed hair from a pale forehead. He knew it was an excuse. The strawberry blond strands weren't moving of their own volition.
He just wanted to touch.
To reassure.
Himself.
He wrapped fingers around a limp hand and simply held on.
Voice whisper thin, little more than the soft hiss of air passing his brother's lips.
"Gordy, please."
He drew the words back in a trembling gasp.
"Please wake up."
-o-o-o-
He found him out beside the pool, flaked out on one of the loungers, snoring softly. His crutches lay discarded on the concrete and the leg not wrapped in specialised cast had fallen off the cushioning at an awkward angle beside them.
Virgil crouched down beside his father and picked up the mostly empty tumbler. The bare remains of its contents flickered amber gold in the evening sun.
A moment of thought and he hid it from view.
He cleared his throat. "Dad?" Virgil reached out and gently shook a shoulder. "Dad, you need to wake up."
"Scott's coming home."
-o-o-o-
He woke to soft words. A dark head of hair bowed down and held by a pair of large, worn hands. His brother's deep baritone barely a whisper as he spoke words of prayer.
"Virgil?"
The brown eyes that shot up were red-ringed and bruised. "You're awake."
"Yeah." The pain on his brother's face was raw and it hurt. "I'm sorry."
Virgil flinched. "Not your fault." A tear ran down his cheek.
"Virg-"
His hand shot out and caught his arm above the bandages holding it together. "We'll be fine. You just focus on getting better."
"But it's never going to be the same." It was his turn to feel moisture on his cheeks.
Virgil closed his eyes as another tear escaped. Voice hoarse. "You will get better."
"But not enough."
"You'll always be enough, Scott."
"Always."
But the tears in his brother's eyes showed exactly what they had lost.
-o-o-o-
This drabble is a missing scene from my fic 'Flannel'
"They've been gone quite a while."
Scott said it under his breath as he peered out the cabin window. The day was still clear, but he was uneasy.
And despite trying to keep it to himself, his little brothers were picking it up.
John kept looking up from his book, Gordon was fussing, and, as if prompted, his baby brother woke and started crying.
Scott hurried over, lifted Alan from his cot, and, holding him close, muttered reassurance.
But his eyes did not leave the window and the mountains beyond where his mother and brother had disappeared some time ago.
-o-o-o-