Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.

Sicktember Prompt 28: Missing Out, with Alan (requested by ak47stylegirl)

Life wasn't fair. Weeks, Alan had been preparing. Training every waking moment, taking breaks for nothing but the barest of necessities (and big brothers insisting). It was going to be huge. It was going to be epic. It was going to be absolutely amazing.

And then the rescue went wrong.

Sure, Alan knew there was always a risk of that. Rescues liked to throw curveballs at all of them; Virgil had been nursing bruises from a building collapse for the past week and there were some mottled patches of colour on Scott's arm if he rolled his sleeve up too far, too. Even Alan didn't escape the perils on occasion, although with four overprotective big brothers his injury rate was comparably low.

Comparably low didn't mean never, and the world clearly hated Alan because now he had double vision, a not-so-healthy level of nausea, and a pounding headache. Concussions sucked.

The absolute worst thing, though, was the timing. It was the annual Cavern Quest: Gladiator! event, only the biggest gaming event in the world, and the winner got some serious cred. Sponsors, too, although Alan had the best sponsors already – his family. He wanted to win, though. Go fast, be first, just as he did all the time with International Rescue.

It was today.

Last year, Alan had come third. Podium finish, but not first, and he'd worked so hard to level up his character, get the best equipment and spells together. This year, this year, he was going to win.

Except he wasn't, because he couldn't even see straight, let alone move around without throwing up. Concussions meant no gaming, and Alan couldn't help but be frustrated.

The icing on the cake was that his brothers didn't understand. Oh sure, they sympathised – they weren't heartless, they knew how much he'd been looking forwards to it, to winning this year – but with empty platitudes of you'll blow them away next year, and even going so far as to hug him as though that'd help, it was clear they didn't quite get it.

They saw a devastated baby brother, but not the way his ratings were going to plummet from his no-show and how many fans would be disappointed when he wasn't there.

Sorry, I got knocked out by a rock so I can't complete. It was totally lame, and Alan's hard-won reputation was going to turn into laughing stock.

EOS had offered to play for him, the AI trying as hard as his brothers to be reassuring but also not getting it.

Gaming was Alan's thing. Sure, John could whip up some game code in his sleep, and Scott had an old console hidden away in storage that was probably so ancient it was obsolete by now, but it was the one thing he had that none of his big brothers had done first. Don't get him wrong – he liked following in their footsteps, but some individuality was nice.

If he let EOS take over and blow the opposition out of the water – and she would, he had no doubts about that – then it wasn't just his thing any more. It wouldn't be his win.

When push came to shove, Alan would rather not participate at all than have someone else do it in his name.

Not that that made him feel any better about the whole thing.

Next year, he told himself a little grumpily. Next year he'd compete again, and win.

Even though the same thing might happen again next year. And the year after. And the year after that. International Rescue was unpredictable, and injuries could happen at any time. At least he was home, and not stuck in a hospital somewhere. The infirmary, yes, away from bright, moving lights and noise and anything else that would just make his headache and nausea even worse, like Cavern Quest: Gladiator!,but it was still home with his family in the immediate vicinity, safe if not quite sound after another rescue where no lives were lost.

And really, that was the important thing.

No matter how much he loved Cavern Quest, it wasn't even a choice between that or International Rescue. The bare necessity breaks in his training had been rescues; it hadn't even crossed his mind to not go on a rescue so close to the event, and it wouldn't in the future, either.

It sucked, concussions supremely sucked, and Alan was definitely incredibly upset about it, but at the end of the day, IR – saving people – trumped anything else, and the duplicate proud, if rather worried, grins of his brothers told him that they approved of his priorities.

Even if they weren't as subtle as they thought they were about arranging a family gaming night once he could use a console again.

It took me a while to decide what, exactly, Alan was going to be missing out on. Nothing seemed to quite fit, and even as I started writing it I wasn't entirely set on what it was, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out in the end. More injured than sick, but ah well.

I'm dabbling in Sicktember over on tumblr! 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 the sicktember tumblr blog!

Thanks for reading!
Tsari