Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.
Sicktember Prompt 11: Bed Rest, with Virgil and Scott (requested by gumnut)
Scott's bedroom was the best bedroom in the villa.
Between his four brothers, that was an indisputable fact. It wasn't for the view – that honour went, perhaps unsurprisingly, to Dad's room with its pride of place positioning on the top floor, and even on the brothers' floor, Virgil was quite content that his view from the middle room was the least obstructed by the rest of the house and therefore the best. It wasn't for location, either – being the last one before the stairs down to the living areas meant that the footfall outside the door was most frequent. Nor was it for layout and décor – all five boys' rooms were identical in layout, if alternatively mirrored, and Scott's blue with accents of silver colour scheme might be his favourite, but they all liked their own room colours the best.
No, it was the best because it was Scott's room. The room of the big brother, always open to them no matter the hour. The room of comfort and safety and nightmare-banishing.
All of this, of course, meant nothing to Scott, for whom it was simply his bedroom, and so finding their biggest brother in his room was a rare occurrence. Some nights he didn't even leave the den, falling asleep on the desk or maybe succeeding in stumbling as far as a couch. On the nights he did spend in his own room, he was always up and out at the crack of dawn, leaving his room to be abandoned until whenever he found himself back in his bed again.
For Virgil, who was never up that early if left to his own devices, it meant that he barely ever saw Scott in his room. He certainly never saw him in his bed – midnight visits when the nightmares started notwithstanding – of his own free will.
The door was ajar, pulled to but not on the latch. Tray in hand, Virgil gently shouldered it open and edged inside. His boots had been discarded some time ago, leaving him in just his socks as he padded near-silently across the carpeted floor. Ordinarily, that wouldn't have mattered, but today it did.
Today it was gone midday and Scott was still asleep in bed.
Not through his own choice, of course. Scott was a man of action who couldn't stay still longer than five minutes most of the time and struggled with the concept of staying in bed any longer than a minute after returning to wakefulness.
That was a battle they would have to face when he did wake, because the only place Scott had any right being for at least another week or so was his bed, complete with a thin but weighty blue comforter and a matching blue pillow or two. He wasn't injured, but he had been waylaid by a combination of not enough sleep and a case of glandular fever he'd presumably encountered on a rescue – although Gordon claimed he had other suspicions about how Scott had caught it (he was being ignored). The virus had wasted no time in getting its teeth into Scott when it was time for the symptoms to strike, and after terrifying them all by fainting in the den he'd been confined to his bedroom.
Virgil's first instinct had been fear, and a desperation to get Scott safely to the infirmary. Scott had regained consciousness about halfway there and bitterly protested being carried. Not that he'd been able to do anything when his vision was swimming and all the strength had been sapped from his limbs; Virgil hadn't stopped until they'd arrived and deposited his big brother gently on a bed.
Gordon and Alan had been deployed to sit on him while Virgil stepped back to obtain the nearest scanner.
If he'd had his way, he'd have kept Scott in the infirmary safe and sound until he was fully recovered, but he'd been out-voted.
Scott's vote, of course, didn't count, but even Grandma had suggested he spend the bedrest in his own bed instead, pointing out that it got better light and that Scott didn't need any of the medical equipment. Just some good old fashioned sleep, water, food when he had the energy to eat it, and low-grade painkillers.
At the time, Virgil hadn't agreed, but Gordon and John had both sided with Grandma with Alan hesitantly following the majority, and so Scott had been relocated to his bedroom.
In hindsight it had been the right decision. It hadn't stopped the escape attempts on the rare occasions when Scott had felt he had enough strength to get out of bed – he hadn't and was well-acquainted with the carpet at this point – but there was something reassuring for all of them about Scott being in his room.
Noon sunlight peeked through the cracks in the drawn curtains, casting streaks of light across the lump in the bed, although not on the face and therefore not disturbing his still-asleep brother. Once Scott woke, Virgil would pull the curtains back and let the room flood with light, but until then he was content to navigate his way through the tidy room in the dull half-light, replacing the half-drunk water from yesterday with a fresh cup. Toast – not charred to a crisp but rather lightly golden – was placed alongside it in case Scott could eat.
Only after he'd finished depositing the necessities in reach of the bed did he let his attention turn to the sleeping figure of his eldest brother. Catching Scott asleep was rare – he was one of those people who seemed to stir at the faintest of disturbances, so under normal circumstances Virgil would've been subjected to his brother's intense blue gaze the moment the door had edged open. Succeeding in creeping all the way to his bedside without him stirring was highly unusual.
He deployed the medical scanner again without thinking, letting the pale yellow light wash over Scott. It didn't disturb him; Scott's face remained lax in sleep, eyes lightly closed and chest rising and falling deeply enough that the comforter moved visibly. Brown hair that hadn't seen hair gel in the past several days fell across the pillow in messy waves – Virgil could already hear the bedhead teasing that would arise from the two youngest when Scott was finally fit to leave his bed again.
That wasn't going to be for a while. Glandular fever hit hard and took its sweet time to clear up. The scan results showed that Scott's temperature was simmering in low-grade fever territory, and his glands were swollen enough that his throat would be incredibly sore when he woke. Nothing out of the ordinary since he'd fallen ill, although it certainly left Scott grumpy when he was awake.
Sleep was the best medicine in this case, so Virgil didn't bother disturbing him. At some point his throat would do that anyway; the more sleep Scott could get before that happened, the better. The room was too dark to draw or read, and John had set up a Scott Monitor to alert them whenever there was movement on the bed, so with one last look at the still-sleeping big brother, Virgil turned around and padded back out of the room on socked feet again.
He'd be back the instant the Monitor told him Scott was awake, but until then he'd leave him to sleep in peace.
Only one day to go, now! There's a prompt in my inbox I've got eyed up as a nice final one, so thank you to everyone who sent in prompts this month - I honestly didn't expect to get enough to cover the whole event! For those of you who either requested a repeat or one of the five prompts I don't have time for this month, I've added those to my general 'prompts to poke at when I'm bored' perusal list, so while they won't officially be sicktember fics, I'll likely get them written at some point!
Thanks for reading!
Tsari