Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.
Angstember Prompt 4: Don't Let Go, with Scott and John (requested by thunderbird-one-ai)
John was trapped, wreckage collapsed all around him. By itself, that wasn't necessarily a problem, just an inconvenience, but there was another factor involved. A factor that changed everything.
He wasn't alone.
John was used to solo missions, dipping in and out of Thunderbird Five to local ships and stations in distress with his exosuit. It was unusual to have company – usually Alan – and even rarer that his company was his big brother.
Scott had been up on Thunderbird Five when the call had come in, an unusual circumstance in and of itself, and if he was honest John had been enjoying the rare company of just his big brother. Of course, said big brother refused to sit back and do space monitor duty while a little brother darted out solo, so they'd gone together.
There was no way there were any survivors now. The freighter had, somehow, imploded, John had been in the worst spot possible by sheer misfortune, and Scott was no luckier.
Except Scott wasn't stuck. Scott had the opposite problem, with a mangled jetpack that had taken the brunt of the damage for him, but not enough to prevent a smashed arm and a vacuum determined to fling him out into the far reaches of the void. From what John could tell, his brother's suit had held, but there was a hairline crack across his oxygen supply. His own HUD was warning of damage, too. As it stood, neither of them had enough air left to wait for Thunderbird Three to launch and find them, even if they assumed EOS had alerted Alan the moment of the implosion.
The only free limb John had was fully extended, hand clutched like a vice around his brother's and keeping him from being sucked away.
The problem was that they each only had one good arm. Scott's broken arm was out of reach, too injured even for Scott to fight against the vacuum dragging it away. John only needed one arm to dig himself out and patch up wherever the breach in his suit was.
Except that one arm was the only thing tethering Scott in place. In order to free himself, to save himself, he'd have to let go.
The realisation occurred to them at the same time. John saw it in the widening of his big brother's eyes, large and blue and a little afraid, for all that Scott would never admit it. A beat and sky blue hardened to sapphire in a way that was painfully familiar. Scott, big brother, Commander, had made a decision.
John's anguished heart cried out.
"No!" he exploded, desperation lacing through the single syllable. "Don't let go. Don't you dare let go, Scott." They'd find a way out of this. Together. They had to.
The fingers entwined with his slackened. Tracy Stubbornness ran through them all, but like so many things, Scott had inherited the lion's share. Still, hard sapphire melted into something softer. No regret, because of course Scott didn't have any room for that when there was a brother's life on the line, but the same love that coursed through every action he made.
The love that would lead him to sacrifice himself, if it meant he could save a brother.
Scott's lips moved, but there was blood rushing through John's ears, drowning out everything else. Whatever Scott had to say was lost to the void of space, but he was smiling, the stupid, stupid idiot.
John tightened his grip on his brother's fingers, white-knuckled below the neoprene gloves of his suit, but Gordon had learnt his slippery nature from somewhere. Strong fingers, safe fingers, seemed to vanish, ghosting out of his hold no matter how hard he tried to stop them, and then he was alone.
"Scott!" The scream that tore itself from his throat was raw, flooded with emotion – grief, fear, fury.
He couldn't see his brother anywhere, the tall, strong figure that was always there gone in the blink of an eye, stolen by a venting ship and the unforgiving vacuum of space.
But John was a Tracy, through and through, and he had that same old Tracy Stubbornness. Self-sacrifice might have been the answer, but it was still the wrong answer, and John refused to let things end that way.
Refused to let Scott go the same way as Dad, lost forever without even a body to bury.
First, he needed to get himself out of the wreckage. With one hand stuck and the other gripping onto his brother's hand, it had been impossible. Now, he had a hand free, and while the knowledge of why his hand was free made the nausea swell, John had always clung to logic.
Logic dictated that he use his free hand to dig the rest of him out.
The red lights blared across the HUD, reminding him that his suit was torn and would vent faster the moment there was no more pressure keeping it pinned. Patching that would take valuable time, time that was fleeing like sand from a broken hourglass. Could John risk it, explode on his way on empty lungs and not breathing until he'd caught up with Scott?
His gut said he had to.
Logic told him no.
His brain told him the longer he thought about it, the more time he wasted.
John's family relied on their gut. Seat of the pants decisions was a requirement for International Rescue, when a split second made the difference between life and death. John himself could make logic-based decisions in a snap second, but a snap second still wasn't a split second, and he didn't have time.
He exhaled. Tensed.
Heaved.
The vacuum claimed him the moment he was free, hurtling him through the void of space faster than he could calculate. Far faster than he could control.
Immediately he could feel his oxygen depleting, suit venting atmosphere rapidly enough to kill him in seconds.
Time was not on John's side.
Physics was.
The suction had hurtled Scott away. The same suction had control of John. A little extra momentum, a kick in the right direction…
His exosuit was battered and damaged, but just like John, it wasn't dead yet. One final spurt, a splutter of a thrust, and the uncontrollable rocket that was John Tracy sped up.
Vision blurred, darkened, and that could be the lack of air or just space at high velocity. He didn't have the mental processing available to decipher which it was. He had nothing, except Scott, somewhere in hopefully this direction. Had to be in this direction, because there were no second chances.
Was barely a first chance.
He didn't see what he slammed into, but it was something and running on nothing but autopilot he clung on. His lungs were burning, he needed to breathe, needed to cut the exosuit's acceleration, needed to patch the breached neoprene.
Needed to cling on tightly to the object in his arms, and pray that it was Scott.
This is actually my second attempt at writing this one, because the first one was more whump/h/c than angst. Might still finish off and post the first attempt at some point because I like the premise, but for now we're staying on the angst train (with a side dish of whump, admittedly), so you guys get this.
I've also discovered the existence of Angstember over on tumblr so I'm dabbling in that, too! Only doing prompts that I get a character request for, so feel free to drop by with a request. You can find the list on my tumblr blog!
Thanks for reading!
Tsari