Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.
Whumptober Day 20 "Trapped Under Water"
Gordon hated it when Scott had to do an underwater rescue. The problem wasn't that Scott wasn't trained in them – he was the most trained of all Gordon's brothers due to the single fact that he was Thunderbird Four's backup operator, and Gordon certainly didn't give him any slack at all during training.
The problem was Scott's instincts.
At the end of the day, Scott was not an aquanaut. He was a pilot, through and through, and Gordon had heard Virgil mutter something about sky for blood more than once when their biggest brother was out of earshot. Scott was born to fly, not swim, much in the same way that Gordon was born to swim, not fly.
They had both crossed territories, learning everything they needed to know about their opposing environments from each other. Gordon had many memories of hours spent in the cockpit of their little training jet as Scott patiently talked him through everything over and over and over again until it clicked, and just as many memories in various pools, tanks and even oceans introducing his biggest brother to his world.
Gordon had his pilots' license. Scott had his aquanauts'.
Gordon was eagerly awaiting the day that Alan passed the last of his aquanautical exams and could replace Scott as backup aquanaut.
After all, space was Alan's first love, and Gordon's begrudgingly achieved space rating had him well aware that space and the ocean were as alike as they were different. In particular, there was the threat of death lurking the moment they left the safety of their respective craft, which was something Scott lacked respect for.
There were many stupid stunts and quirks that vied for the honour of one day being the end of Scott Tracy, so Gordon couldn't explicitly say that this would be the death of him, but it was definitely one of the contenders jostling for pole position right then.
Going EVA in the depths of the oceans was daft at the best of times; their suits were constructed to withstand the pressure for a little while, but mother nature would always win out in the end, so unless it was strictly unavoidable – like, for example, your submarine being annihilated, and no Gordon wasn't still bitter about that one – it wasn't worth the risk.
Scott was a born risk-taker. That fact surprised no-one that had been in the same room as him for a minute. It was also the reason Gordon had found hair dye in Virgil's bathroom, heard John extol the delight of being ginger, and was half-expecting to find grey hairs in his own sooner rather than later.
Right then, it was the reason Gordon was dragging his battered body, complete with broken leg and sturdy, reliable crutches, down to Thunderbird Two's empty hangar. The green giant herself was off elsewhere with Alan and Virgil on board, both brothers frantic but too far away to do anything. Kayo and Shadow were in London with Lady P, and last Gordon heard, John was trying to get hold of external help.
It was an exercise in futility; Thunderbird Four had deployed not far from Tracy Island, and there was nothing close enough to reach her in time – or Scott.
Nothing except International Rescue, and Thunderbird Two might be out, and Thunderbird Four might be the one in trouble, but Brains was a genius and there were always backups.
The submarine pods didn't hold a candle to Thunderbird Four in speed, agility, capacity, or anything else, but if Gordon made some adjustments to their make up, then…
It was probably a good thing John was too distracted to see what he was up to, because he'd almost certainly stop him, no matter that it was their best shot at saving Scott. It was probably another good thing that Brains was in the other hangar and therefore couldn't see the state Gordon was making of Thunderbird Two's hangar in order to get both a dragonfly and submarine pod constructed, before using the former to relocate the latter on the runway.
His leg had been highly unimpressed when he'd stuffed it into his uniform, refusing to go into the water without full gear, otherwise he would just end up in need of rescue himself. It was even less impressed at the scramble into the dragonfly pod to operate it, and made its protestations known loudly as Gordon hauled himself out of that one and into the submarine pod.
All he could really say was thank goodness it was near the end of the healing process, because there was no way he'd have been able to do all of that on a fresh break. As it was, he was probably messing it up rather more, but it was his leg or his brother, and no matter how much of an annoying big brother Scott could be, there was nothing that would ever have him choosing himself first.
Remote controlling the dragonfly pod to lift him and the submarine pod away from the runway and down to just above the water was fiddly, but Gordon had had the best teacher when it came to aircraft. As soon as he was dropped, he sent it careening back to the runway before forgetting its existence and focusing on his own domain.
"What are you doing?"
John materialised in front of him, looking somewhere between horrified and furious. Gordon didn't have time to debate with him if he was doing the right thing. Scott didn't have time.
"Give me the exact location," he said sharply, glowering past his brother into the depths as he pushed the pod as fast as it could go. Compared with Thunderbird Four it was pitiful, but it was all he had.
"Gordon-"
"How much oxygen does Scott have left?"
"Five minutes," John admitted. "But-"
"I'm about eight minutes out," Gordon estimated. "Tell me, John, is there anyone who can get there faster than me?"
John's rigid poker face was all the answer he needed.
"Give me the location, John," he insisted. "I'll get him."
"You can't swim with that leg," his brother argued. "What are you going to do once you reach him?"
Gordon shrugged. "Improvise. I'm open to suggestions."
John closed his eyes for a moment. It was a quirk of his when he was desperately trying to find another option but couldn't find one, and Gordon waited somewhat impatiently for the surrender.
It came in the form of a familiar blue icon stuck on a holographic map.
"Be careful," his brother insisted. "And I'm not explaining your departure to Grandma."
Gordon let that threat wash over him to worry about later. Five minutes until he reached Scott. Three minutes of air left in his brother's tank.
It was going to be tight.
"Does Scott know I'm coming?" he checked a minute later as he picked up a faster current.
"Are you crazy?" John raised an eyebrow. "He'd work himself up and deplete the tank faster if he knew you were on the way."
Okay, that was a valid point.
"Does he know someone's coming?" he revised.
"I've told him help is on the way," John confirmed. "It hasn't stopped him trying to get out."
"It's Scott. When does he give up on anything?" Gordon pointed out.
"Good point."
Three minutes. One minute of air.
"How's freeing Thunderbird Four coming along?" Everything would have been so much easier if his poor Thunderbird hadn't got caught up in an underwater rockfall. The Ring of Fire was mean and thoroughly inconvenient when it wanted to be.
"EOS is still working on it."
So not free yet. That wasn't helpful; while the submarine pod was the better option for retrieving Scott, if only because of its smaller size, it didn't have the equipment or space for any serious first aid. Gordon would need his Thunderbird for that.
Reports indicated that Scott wasn't injured, just trapped. He'd gone EVA to try and locate the underwater cavers in difficulty after Thunderbird Four had got stuck – despite Gordon and John both telling him not to – only for another tremor to collapse in enough of the system that he couldn't get back again.
Gordon hadn't heard any reports on the cavers in a while and was choosing to compartmentalise what that meant.
In the light of the submarine pod's beam, something loomed out of the darkness. He didn't need the flash of yellow on his dashboard or between the rocks to identify it.
"I've reached Thunderbird Four," he reported.
"Copy that," John acknowledged. "How does she look?"
"Buried," Gordon said dryly. "Scott doesn't have time for me to do a full recon, but I'm just going to pass by her stern to see if her airlock is accessible."
"F.A.B.," John replied. "Keep me updated."
Gordon grunted. "How's Scott?"
"Out of air and panicking," John told him. "Not that he'll admit to the latter."
Gordon could well believe that.
"Looks like the airlock's clear," he said as he passed it. There were some boulders that could cause some issues with access, but he was confident that he could get them in.
Now to get Scott.
The blue icon wasn't much further in, but the blockage needed shifting before he could get to it.
"John, see if you can get Scott to move away from the collapse," he said. "I'm going to have to get a little rough."
Thunderbird Four was the one with the missiles, but the submarine pods were still primarily constructed from the same base as any other pod, which meant they could be customised. The loading claw Gordon had attached to the bow hadn't really helped with the aquadynamics but it was worth it for the ability to near-blindly yank at the boulders Thunderbird Five highlighted for him.
He didn't know if it was John or EOS who had calculated that, but he didn't particularly care, either. Scott had been out of air for two minutes, and that was about his big brother's limit.
There was no airlock attached to a submarine pod. There was, however, a smart little system that allowed them to filter water out, just like an airlock, so after making sure his own helmet and rebreather was firmly fitted, Gordon lifted his harness and let the roof of the pod open up.
Swimming normally was out. While the water cradled his leg gently, there was no way it could stand up to moving. One of Gordon's modifications to the submarine pod had been swapping out the gear it carried; the pods all carried a Jaws of Life for Virgil to don whenever he needed to, a must for anything that came with Thunderbird Two. After some fiddling with the assembly commands, this one instead carried a jet propeller.
No moving his leg required.
It pulled him through the water, and then through the gap he'd made in the blockade, at a rate of knots, spurred on by the fact that Scott hadn't emerged the moment a route was clear.
The slack figure in blue hanging limply in the water just past the rocks didn't move as he approached, unresponsive even as he released the propeller with one hand to pull his brother close.
Blue eyes were still open, but they were hazed over and drifting towards shut. The biggest red flag was that Scott didn't even react to the fact that his rescuer was Gordon, who should have been sitting on a sofa in the den with his broken leg up.
Clearly, he was in no state to hold on by himself, so Gordon pulled him as close as he could with one arm before engaging the jets on his propeller again and hauling Scott out of there.
There were no signs of any of the cavers. Gordon tried to forget about them.
Depositing Scott in the passenger seat and stowing the propeller took longer than he'd wanted, but a broken leg did slow things up. Gordon didn't even wait for the cockpit to start draining the water before turning it around and pointing it straight for Thunderbird Four.
Scott was limp behind him and every second counted.
He almost collided with the Thunderbird as her stern airlock opened. The submarine pod wasn't so much smaller that it could fit inside, so Gordon ditched it, hauling Scott out and swimming with one leg until he could grab hold of his Thunderbird and yank them inside.
"That pod's all yours, Thunderbird Five," he gasped out as the outer door closed and the water drained from the compartment.
"F.A.B.," John replied. "How's Scott?"
"Out of air and unresponsive." Gordon glared at the water level, willing his girl to drain faster.
He didn't even bother leaving the airlock the moment the water cleared; instead, his first action was to yank Scott's helmet off of his brother's head and tap his cheek.
"C'mon, Scotty," he urged. "You have air again."
Leaning over, he detached the yellow rebreather from his helmet and jammed it into Scott's mouth.
"Air, Scotty. Come on, breathe it in."
Scott's eyes were more closed than open, and Gordon found himself holding his own breath as he waited desperately for a response.
The breath that rattled through the rebreather had him sagging in relief. A second. A third.
Eyelashes fluttered and Gordon plastered a grin on his face.
"Let's get you inside properly," he said, picking up one of Scott's hands and coaxing it to hold the rebreather in place so that he could wrap a tight arm around his brother and claw his way through the internal door with the other hand, pushed along by his working leg. The broken one trailed along behind him uselessly.
The breathing strengthened, and by the time they'd cleared the airlock door to slump on the floor of the rear bay, Scott sounded almost normal again. Blue eyes flickered open, once, twice, and on the third time widened as they focused on Gordon.
The suspicion that this time Scott could see him was confirmed when his idiot of a brother tore the rebreather out of his mouth to gasp his name incredulously.
"Hey, bro," Gordon grinned in response.
"Your leg-"
"Your life," Gordon rebuked. "Now do me a favour and grab yourself a fresh rebreather and sit your ass down, or I'll have to make you."
"Not with that leg, you won't," Scott snapped. "John-"
"No-one else was going to reach you in time," their eavesdropping, space-dwelling brother stated. "Now, the faster you do as you're told, the faster you can get him home again."
Blue eyes shot daggers at the bobbing hologram, and then at Gordon himself.
"You need a seat," Scott proclaimed. Gordon shrugged.
"Once you've got some more oxygen in you, you are welcome to help me onto one," he told him, well aware that he wasn't going to be the one piloting them back.
Scott eyed him judgementally and hauled himself to his feet. Gordon was certain that his plan was to forgo the rebreather and skip straight to assisting his little brother, but then he staggered and swayed alarmingly, barely catching himself on one of the jump seats.
There was no way Scott could move him without risking more damage, and from the darkening of blue eyes, his big brother was reluctantly aware of that. Gordon watched from his recline on the floor as Scott clawed his way along the wall until he reached the correct locker and helped himself to a rebreather.
"Any advancement on freeing Four?" he asked John as Scott took a deep breath.
"We have a plan," the ginger said. "But it needs both of you strapped in first."
"We'll work on that one," Gordon said. Movement caught his eye and he snapped his focus from John to glare at Scott. "We have time, Scott, sit back down. Thunderbird Four isn't breached so she can sit here for a few weeks and keep us perfectly alive and well."
Well, he didn't think she had the food for that stocked right then, but it was also going to be hours, at most, rather than days or weeks before Scott was steady enough to move him.
"If you fall over, we have a problem because I can't lift you right now," he added pointedly. "I know it's a foreign concept, but take your time."
Scott sat back down heavily and Gordon counted that as a win.
Ignoring his eldest brother, he returned his attention to the second in line. "The others know he's safe?"
The look John sent him was a clear what do you think look. "You know how I said I'm not defending your stunt from Grandma?" he said. Gordon winced. "Well, you can include Virgil on that list, too."
"Does saving his sorry butt count for nothing?" he pouted, shoving a thumb in Scott's direction.
"I wouldn't like to say," John shrugged before vanishing.
Gordon huffed. "You'd think they'd give me some slack," he muttered.
"You shouldn't have come." Scott's muffled voice floated over to him and he rolled his eyes slowly until they were glaring at the idiot. "Your leg-"
"You were out of air," he snapped. "I was the fastest option. Any other option and best case you'd have some broken ribs from the CPR, worst case you'd be shark feed. Like hell was I sitting back when those were my options."
The rebreather rattled as Scott exhaled a long sigh. "I know," his brother admitted. "I know, Gords. But if you've messed up your leg…"
"I've had my entire back rebuilt," Gordon pointed out. "If it comes to it, I could definitely handle rebuilding my leg." He'd hate it, but it would be worth it.
The quiet keening sound was definitely not supposed to have escaped Scott's throat, but it did, and told Gordon exactly how much his brother hadn't wanted to hear that.
"But my leg is fine," he promised. "I didn't use it to swim, and I used the crutches the whole time I was setting up. At worst I might have set it back a week or so."
Scott sighed again.
"I still disagree," he said, because he just had to get the last word. Gordon didn't feel like giving it to him.
"You know what I'm not hearing?" he asked airily. "I'm not hearing thank you, Gordon, for saving my butt after I ignored your expert advice and got myself stuck like an idiot."
"Gordon…"
"But that's okay," he continued. "It's not like we do this saving people thing for gratitude, but some acknowledgement of which one of us is the idiot would be nice."
His brother shuffled where he sat, too full of energy to sit still even when he was breathing in clean air after suffocating. "You're right, Gordon," he admitted, and Gordon eyed him curiously. "I should have listened; I'm sorry. And thank you."
"Anytime," he replied. "Preferably never, but anytime."
Scott chuckled. "I can agree with preferably never."
It was another half an hour or so of glorious sibling interaction, from banter to more serious topics like how to evade Grandma's latest batch of kitchen disasters, before Scott set the rebreather aside and stood up.
In Gordon's professional opinion, it was still too soon, but considering it was Scott, the fact that he'd even wrangled that long was an impressive, unlikely-to-be-repeated feat. He was steadier on his feet, though, and strong arms had no problems helping Gordon up and guiding his hobble across to the jump seats.
Neither of them sat down particularly gracefully, but they were down and, after a moment, strapped in firmly.
"We're all set for freedom, Johnny," Gordon chirped, grinning at the turquoise promise of a death that would never actually be served. "Get us out of here."
"F.A.B.," their brother agreed as Scott rested his head back against the headrest. "Hold on."
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then Four lurched. Something that sounded suspiciously like new scratches in her paintwork reverberated, and Gordon shot a mock-glare at Scott. "I'm not taking the blame for those."
His brother chuckled thinly. "I can live with that."
She shuddered again, her propellers churning as Thunderbird Five pushed them into action. For a moment, nothing else seemed to happen, and then she was moving. Even without being in the piloting seat, Gordon could feel the hum of the craft as she took to the currents once again, freed from the boulders at last.
"Thanks, John," Scott's smile was small but genuine.
"I'll pilot you two home," their space-residing brother told them. "It won't take long."
Well, it wasn't like Gordon was up for getting to the cockpit, and he didn't want Scott out of his sight, either. From the glance Scott gave him, the latter point was mutual.
"F.A.B.," Scott acknowledged.
"Oh, and one more thing," John added, in a tone that instantly put Gordon on guard. "Just so you know – Thunderbird Two just got back. Virgil will meet you two at the tank."
With that bombshell, he vanished, leaving Gordon to look across at Scott with a lump of dread settling in his chest. Big brother didn't look much better.
Virgil was going to be terrified-furious with both of them.
They were doomed.
Back with Military Bros because where else was I supposed to go with an underwater prompt?
Thanks for reading!
Tsari