Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.
Whumptober Day 17 "Please Don't Move!" and "Hemorrhage"
Like every other family in the world, the Tracys had House Rules. Some were fairly standard sibling fare, such as being every man – or woman – for themselves when it came to edible food in the vicinity, and some were rather more unique.
There weren't many families that could say they had a private series of hangars in the bedrock beneath their villa, and even less that could say one of their number yoyoed up and down into space on a regular schedule.
John made up an entire sub-section of the house rulebook by himself – a rulebook that had, at one point, been jokingly typed up by Gordon and declared that strict attention must be paid around the second eldest Tracy brother at all times. The rulebook included mention of the fact that John must not be permitted near anything fragile until he'd been on terra firma for at least forty consecutive days, and made special note of where the plastic crockery was stored as a pointed reminder.
Not all of the rules were included as familial in-jokes, however. Some rules, typed out in danger-red font, with bolded typeface and exaggerated size, were serious and not to be broken on literal pain of death – or at least potential dismemberment, hospitalisation, and life-threatening circumstances.
One such rule was the following:
John must never be permitted to board loading platforms without being harnessed up.
Scott remembered the events that had resulted in that rule being added very clearly. He also had the scar, a faint white line running along the left of his abdomen, unnervingly closely to several vital organs.
The story started off innocently enough. Maintenance day, with all hands on deck to make sure the 'birds and the rest of IR's equipment were fully on top of their game. Thunderbird Five was excluded – her own maintenance schedule was regular because she could still operate while Brains and John poked around at her once a month.
Virgil and Gordon were tackling their Thunderbirds as one entity, beginning with both of them nit-picking at Thunderbird Two with plans to move onto Thunderbird Four once the green giant was done.
Alan had the assistance of Brains, MAX and Kayo with Thunderbird Three, and Scott's promise that once he was done with Thunderbird One he'd cross the hangar to join them.
Scott, meanwhile, was working solo on his 'bird. It made sense – barring Thunderbird Four, who came part and parcel with Thunderbird Two when it came to maintenance day, she was the smallest Thunderbird in the fleet – and Scott couldn't say he minded working alone. Across the hangar, he could hear the calling to each other emitting from the team working on Thunderbird Three, providing a backdrop of sound that filled the silence comfortably.
Tucked away in the secondary hangar, Virgil and Gordon were out of earshot, although only a comm call away if Scott needed them for any reason.
It was only routine maintenance. Scott wasn't anticipating anything major enough to need a second pair of hands to crop up; her readouts had all been fine on the last rescue with nothing flagging up as a significant point of concern prior to the thorough checks.
Still, when his quiet solitude was disturbed by his remaining brother, he couldn't say he was upset.
"Need a hand?" John called up to where he was standing on the loading platform, at eye level with one of her VTOL and giving it a thorough inspection to ensure the casing was still intact.
Still in his uniform and freshly down from orbit, John had retrieved a toolbox and was clutching it to his chest as he looked up at him, one ginger eyebrow raised in mimicry of his questioning words and turquoise eyes scrutinising Scott in that way he often had. Scott had learnt to ignore it.
"Alan or Virgil probably need the help more," Scott returned, stepping back from the VTOL engine for the moment and leaning over the edge of the platform to meet his brother's eye.
"They already have help," John retorted. "You're the only one daft enough to try and solo your maintenance."
Daft was not the word Scott would have used, but aside from that incorrect terminology, John wasn't really wrong.
"I've got it all under control," he shrugged, "but I won't say no to the company."
John rolled his eyes and hefted the toolbox higher in his arms as it began to slip down. "I'm here to work," he told him firmly, and Scott chuckled.
"I know you are." As though John would be down for any other reason when the rest of them were in the thick of maintenance. "Alright, come on up." He tapped at the control for the platform and instructed it to lower to the hangar floor. "Want me to take that?"
John didn't seem to be having an easy time of hauling the toolbox around, but a flash of dangerous turquoise eyes told him in no uncertain terms to back off.
Scott raised his hands pacifyingly as his brother stepped carefully onto the platform, deliberately raising his feet high enough that they wouldn't catch on the lip as he did so, before placing the toolbox down on the platform.
"Where have you got up to?" John asked, although he was already pulling up the log on his wrist comm to check Scott's progress records for himself.
"Rear engines all good," Scott reported, "checking over the VTOL now." He jabbed at the controls again, telling the platform to start raising again.
"There's a small issue with the air intake," his brother hummed, bringing up the detailed diagnostic results that Scott hadn't got around to yet, preferring to check everything by eye before resorting to technology. "We'll need a-rgh!"
"John!"
His immediate brother's ability to trip over air was legendary. Whether it was an innate clumsiness or simply an adjustment from space life to life on terra firma, Scott didn't know, but he did know that John could be known to trip over his own feet with no provocation.
Misjudging the distance between his feet and the toolbox he'd just set down was classically John, and Scott had an instant of cursing himself for forgetting that before he was lunging for his brother.
The loading platform didn't have much by way of barriers around the edges. What little could be found were no higher than ankle height on either Scott or John – absolutely useless for catching them if they were to, say, trip over a toolbox and head-over-heels their way past the barriers.
His hand caught the back of John's collar and he hauled backwards sharply, all but throwing his brother back onto the safety of the platform. John let out an oof that sounded very winded, if not injured, but Scott had other, bigger, things to worry about.
Namely that his own momentum had kept throwing him forwards even after he'd caught and thrown John back, and the Tracy now tumbling head-over-heels past the low safety barrier was him.
"Scott!" John's cry followed him down to the hangar floor as the platform continued on its steady trundle upwards. Scott had a moment to think how glad he was that the platform had only risen to level with the top of Thunderbird One's blue engine housing before he'd tumbled off, before his body met the hangar floor in a sharp staccato of pain and his vision whited out.
When it returned, he assumed less than a minute had passed. Flat on his back, arms out splayed and legs twisted beneath him at an uncomfortable angle, some blinking cleared his vision enough to make out the descending platform, running down the cahelium side of his beautiful girl.
John was crouched down, looking rather like he was on all fours, and resting his chin on the low barriers rather reminiscently of a dog. His face was pale and turquoise eyes were wide in a way Scott hadn't seen for many years. They made him look like a scared teenager.
Scott didn't like it.
There was something digging into his back, and it felt like he'd landed in a spill of lukewarm coffee someone hadn't cleaned up yet. Probably dropped by Brains, and MAX would be on his way with a whistle and a cloth to mop it up.
His first attempt to move failed before it even began, but he was able to determine that the liquid had seeped through his shirt and was now plastering it to his back. Gross – and more stains for the maintenance shirt he had on.
His second attempt was halted by a panicked shout from John, who was scrabbling his way to his feet as the platform reached half a metre from the hangar floor and clearly considering jumping over the low barrier instead of waiting for it to stop. "Don't move!"
Scott heeded it for approximately two seconds before the liquid got uncomfortably sticky and the urge to get out of the puddle surpassed his brother's instructions.
He'd barely raised his head off of the floor when John was next to him, face chalk white and eyes wide. "Don't move," he repeated, still-gloved hands curling gently over his shoulders and holding him in place. "Please, don't move."
Scott blinked at him. "Can I at least get out of the coffee spill?" he asked, surprised to find his voice a little thready and strained.
"Coffee spill?" John looked confused. "Scott-"
"Can't you see it?" he demanded. "It's right under me… here." He tried to move his hand but John caught it the instant it twitched.
"Don't move," he repeated firmly, although his skin was paling even further. "Scott, you mustn't move."
"The coffee…" Scott complained, but John shook his head sharply. One gloved hand slid off of his shoulder to land on the ground next to his side for a brief moment.
"It's not coffee, Scott," his brother told him quietly, voice trembling. He lifted his palm back up, presenting it to him for his inspection, and Scott's heart sank abruptly.
The glove was stained red.
"I'm sorry," John was saying, "I'm sorry, Scott. I'm so sorry. This was my fault."
One of Scott's hands was flopped by his brother's knee and he tried to get it to move, tried to give John a grounding touch and get him out of his spiral of nonsense. It might as well have been cemented to the floor from how difficult it was to shift.
John's apologetic mantra continued uninterrupted. Turquoise eyes shone too-bright with moisture that threatened to spill over, his face had reached levels of pale Scott had never seen on a living person before, and his breathing was hitching, sometimes even mid-word.
He'd seen enough people going into shock to recognise what he was seeing.
"John," he cut in. "John, it's okay. It's not your fault."
The first tears trickled down his brother's cheek. "But- I- Scott- You-"
"John, breathe." He tried to shift slightly, but his brother's hands shot out to stop him.
"Scott-"
"Breathe." He attempted to take an exaggerated breath of his own, but pain lanced through his body at the same time and interrupted it. "You need to call the others." John wasn't fit to do so much as a simple triage, and as much as Scott loathed to admit it, the longer he lay there, the more he realised he wasn't actually capable of moving.
Even another attempt to lift his head felt like he was a mouse trying to lift a mountain. Any success he might have managed was overridden by his mind fuzzing out like a television losing signal, and he dimly realised that John's bloody glove was from his blood.
He was bleeding.
John was still reciting mindless apologies, seemingly oblivious to anything else going on around him. Scott had never seen him react like that before and it twisted something inside him unpleasantly.
He couldn't hear if Thunderbird Three's maintenance team were still working. Thunderbirds Two and Four were out of sight so Virgil and Gordon would be none the wiser unless they were contacted.
"John," he tried again, but his brother seemed to have locked himself away entirely in his own head, listing forwards slightly as he recited the apologies, getting faster and more frantic with every word. "Johnny."
Even the hated nickname didn't get a response.
Then again, Scott's own world was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges even when he wasn't trying to move his head. John's face lost its defined shape and morphed into some abstract sort of art, and his voice gained competition in the form of a low, thudding noise that rattled around in his head.
Oh yeah. Blood loss.
That wasn't great.
"John," he tried one more time, desperate to break through the shell his immediate brother had trapped himself in but knowing immediately that the attempt had failed.
Ginger and white blurred into each other, with a silver-grey backdrop swirling in as well. Attempts to clear his vision by blinking failed, especially when he forgot for several moments that blinking required his eyes opening again.
When he did open them again, everything was blurred much more than before and he couldn't hear John over the thudding in his head, either.
Couldn't hear much of anything, really.
Something grabbed his hand. Pressure on his shoulder. Incessant tapping on his face.
The sluggish recesses of his mind recognised it as safety, and without any permission from what little was left of his consciousness, decided that it was an appropriate time to shut down entirely.
The thrumming in his ears was the last thing he heard.
Lots of options for this one; I went with the slightly angstier one because why not? As with several whumptobers, there may be more to this later, prompt-depending.
Thanks for reading!
Tsari