A/N: Grossness warning- I got inspired by Gordon's line of 'smells like hard work'.

Also Scott is a pest when he puts his mind to it.

Misery, meet Company

"I think I must've drunk like, my entire body weight in water." Alan groaned as he sank down and sat on one of the loading rails for the Pods, looking at the pile of empty water and electrolyte drink bottles stacked for recycling in the back of the module.

"Good, have some more." Virgil tossed one of the remaining full ones over and turned his attention to the eldest. "Scott, stick your tongue out."

Scott rolled his eyes at his brother's bossy medic routine but did so and got a bottle shoved at him too. "I've just had one!" He protested.

"Pale tongue, you're still dehydrated, have another." Virgil growled at him, not in a mood for anything with a sniff of Stubborn Oldest Brother Convinced He's Invulnerable.

"Only if you do." Scott rebutted, fishing out one of the last bottles and putting it into Virgil's hands before claiming a spot on the deck to sit down and rest his aching feet.

"Fine." Virgil also sat and cracked open the bottle, sipping it slowly.

Gordon, still dripping wet from the decontamination station that the local fire service had set up not too far away, trudged into the module, hit the button to close the door, took off his helmet and looked hopefully at the drinks locker. "Any more of those?" He asked, finding a spot to sit on the deck between Scott and Virgil.

"Last one." Scott reached over and lobbed the bottle to him.

"Thanks." Gordon pressed the chilled bottle to his sweaty face for a minute, then opened it and took a sip. "Oh that's better. Very much better." He groaned, savouring the cool drink.

A landslide in the height of summer in Borneo had required an all hands on deck response in the blistering, steaming jungle heat as they cleared tree trunks and other debris that threatened the main hydroelectric dam for the area. Casualties had been light, it was a sparsely populated region, but the low river levels exposed large tracts of thick, stinking, black mud and dying vegetation on the river banks that got everywhere, clung to everything, threatened to pull them and their vehicles down and made everything exponentially more difficult.

The mud, plus the heat, plus the exertion had combined to mean they'd all been working with their suits partially opened for evaporation and ventilation's sake, except for Virgil who'd needed to be fully suited to use the Jaws of Life safely. By mid morning Scott had been trading baldrics with Virgil so he could take the load of the exo-suit and give Virgil a chance to cool down. All the Tracys had had personal experience with heat exhaustion and none of them cared to repeat it.

As the sun hung low in the sky and painted the clouds with crimson, Scott finally was able to declare the mission was complete and they'd stumbled back to Thunderbird Two, trailing clumps and clots of mud and rotting vegetation behind them.

Virgil didn't often lay down the law in his Thunderbird, but today it had been laid and he hadn't wanted a trace of that mud in his 'Bird. They'd had to decontaminate the Pods before they could be parked back in the module, and they'd all had to go through a decontamination shower too. Once they'd had a chance to recover, he'd ordered that their uniforms would have to go into a hazmat container in the module, then they'd need to shower on board and put on a fresh uniform before he'd even think of letting them into the cockpit.

"Thunderbird Five to Thunderbird One, what's your status?" John's hologram popped up from Scott's communicator.

"Mission complete, currently recovering, that mud was horrible." Scott told him, trying to not show his current envy of John's climate controlled and mud-free space station and John's own clean and comfortable state. Life wasn't fair sometimes.

"Sorry I missed it." John's smirk showed exactly how well Scott had succeeded in hiding his state of feeling.

"As soon as you get down, me and Al are gonna throw you into the biggest mud puddle we can find so you don't miss out." Virgil called across, to Alan's delighted cackle of 'Ooh yes!'

"Uh huh. Good luck with that." John deadpanned, then turned his attention back to Scott. "Kayo should be there shortly, I asked her to swing by with a crate of drinks and some snacks for you."

"You're a lifesaver John." Scott was honestly grateful for the forethought. "We just finished the last of the drinks on Two."

"I think my socks can stand up on their own." Gordon, for whatever reason, decided to announce his theory to the room at large as he contemplated his feet.

"Ugh." John pulled a face and signed off before Gordon could test his hypothesis. Scott didn't blame him in the slightest.

"Your socks?" Alan barked an exhausted kind of laugh that bordered on hysterical. "I think my suit can stand up on its own." He got up and started carefully easing himself out of his uniform. "Ha! See?" He announced, standing in his dark undersuit and holding out his rather stiffened uniform. While it wasn't quite standing on its own, it was holding Alan's shape pretty well. "Whew, this thing's ripe!" The youngest declared, turning away from it.

"Oh yeah?" Gordon wriggled out of his dry suit, then toed off his socks. While his suit wasn't as stiff as Alan's due to the recent wash off, his socks did indeed hold their shape once he'd gotten his feet out of them. "Toldja!" He crowed and threw one at Alan.

Alan gagged and scrambled away like it was radioactive. "Ew! Gordon! That smells like something crawled in and died a month ago!"

"You're both disgusting." Virgil wrinkled his nose as he peeled himself out of his uniform and dumped it on the deck. It made a splat as it landed.

As he stepped out of his own uniform Scott couldn't help but notice that it was decidedly damp, heavy and far stiffer than usual. His undersuit, which like the others he left on for now, wasn't much better. As he dropped his uniform into the hazmat container, he vaguely realised he should probably rein in the younger two before the post-mission craziness could get any worse. John had dubbed it "IR's version of the 2 am zoomies"- a result of physical and mental exhaustion combined with adrenaline that reared its head every now and again.

But right now he just couldn't scrape together the brain cells nor the inclination to make it happen. In fact, he was rather tempted to just give into it for once.

"Eugh!"

The noise of disgust came from Kayo, who had just entered the module from the internal door, a cooler bag slung over her back, and had made the fatal mistake of taking off her helmet. She physically flinched back from the four Tracys, one hand clamped over her nose. "Oh that's bad!"

"Hey!" Gordon objected with mock offence. "It's the smell of hard work and manliness! Pungent musky male manliness!"

"Pungent is certainly accurate." Kayo retorted as she opened the bag and started handing out the icy cold sports drinks and containers of cut fruit, stretching out to pass them at a safe distance. "You're lucky I love you all so much, I should have just airdropped these and stayed safe in Thunderbird S."

But Scott had a glint in his eye as he eyed their sister who had escaped the mud by virtue of being on the other side of the world at the time. It was a look that his siblings recognised as the one that meant trouble- John might be out of reach right now and safely snarking from orbit, but Kayo wasn't. "What, no hug for your favourite brother?" He asked with a grin as she came to him with a drink in hand, spreading his arms wide in invitation.

Seeing what was coming, Gordon slipped behind Kayo and blocked the door with a broad grin.

"Oh no, no you don't Scott." Kayo warned as she backed away, only to see her exit barred by a grinning Gordon and the other two brothers watching the show with eager anticipation. "Scott Tracy don't you dare!" She ordered, her tone promising a slow and lingering demise.

But Scott was undeterred as he pounced.

Misery loves company, after all.

The horrified squawk as he enfolded her in a loving, sweaty hug was worth it.