For tsari and Sicktember prompt 21: Unlikely Caregiver with the Hood and Jeff
'You're an idiot.'
The words were softly spoken without the usual spite dripping off them, and yet they still made Jeff grimace.
'I'm not the only one. What were you thinking?'
The Hood had the good grace to look away.
Truth was, he had been so involved in the plan that he hadn't stopped to think – for once – about all the variables.
Like what would it be like to be trapped with your mortal enemy with no possibility of outside help in a disease-infested swamp?
He really needed to have a talk with himself.
Jeff watched as the man who had once been his best friend before turning on him and his family and trying to kill them all sank down to his knees. The trembling that he had seen earlier was back in force, and he didn't think the man would make it back to the benches they had pushed together.
Four days they had been trapped in this humid hellhole. The water was not really fit for consumption, but they had to drink something, and the mozzies were having a feast. Why oh why the Hood wanted to be here in this hidden lab Jeff didn't know, and now both men were too ill to find out.
At least, the Hood was too ill. He'd been feverish last night, and Jeff had used some of the water to cool him down, preserving the last two water bottles they had for emergency.
When the man had woke up just a few minutes earlier, he had batted Jeff's hands away and insisted that he could manage, trying to move as far away from Jeff as possible. Now the idiot was sitting on the floor by the sealed-shut door, staring at him like he had two heads.
'I suppose your boys are on their way to save you,' he all but sneered, and Jeff could have taken offence at that, but it had been a reoccurring theme during the Hood's delirium. Besides, the boys didn't even know he was missing.
Jeff was supposed to be on holiday. He'd fallen foul of a message designed to draw him out and he had fell for it, hook line and sinker, without telling anyone where he was going. Determined to stop the Hood once and for all, to protect his boys, Jeff had deliberately not told them where he was going.
This place obviously was clandestine – why else did they have a pneumatic door that could only be opened from the other side – and was abandoned, hence the dirty water supply and the prevalence of mosquitoes inside a lab that bizarrely had such security.
He stood up and walked over to the Hood, who just glared at him, and reached down to help the man up. It took a couple of tries to snag the man's arm as he kept jerking away, but eventually Jeff was able to haul him to his feet and back over to the benches.
The Hood wasn't the only one with a fever, though, and Jeff was dreading if he began to hallucinate too…
Jeff wasn't aware when he did begin. At first the Hood stayed away, now sober himself he didn't want to get anywhere near Jeff. But the man was tossing and turning on the benches they had pushed together to use as beds, and as he saw Jeff start to fall off he couldn't stop himself darting forward and preventing that from happening.
The man was burning up. He kept calling for Lucy, and didn't that just twist the knife in, but for some reason he found himself using the same rag to cool the man down. It may have been the use of his first name while Jeff was talking, but he dismissed that thought – he was not so sentimental.
After what felt like a lifetime Jeff's fever broke, and the two sat, one on the left and one on the right.
And waited.
Scott was worried. Their Dad had gone on holiday with strict instructions to rest and enjoy himself. 'No funny business, Dad, we mean it,' Gordon had said. But something wasn't quite right. He could feel it in his gut. His Scooter sense was blaring.
'John?'
'Yes, Scott?'
'Have you heard from Dad?'
John raised an eyebrow. Scott shrugged. John didn't need to ask anymore; he knew his brother well enough. He called their Dad. No answer. John frowned, concentrating on the screens in front of him and the data flowing at his fingertips.
Scott waited patiently, knowing that there was no rushing the genius when he was at work. Eventually John sat back and blew out a noisy breath. And Scott waited.
'You're not going to believe this, Scott, but Dad's signal is not coming from Florida!' Scott screwed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. Why was he not surprised? Because it was too good to be true.
'Where is he, John?'
'He appears to be in the Amazon basin, in some abandoned lab.'
Scott was already on his way to his chute when John's voice added something that made him speed up.
'EOS has scanned the building, Scott. Dad's not alone.'
'Get Virgil in the air, John. Thunderbirds are go.'
The jungle was dense, and it took a while to actually see the building where his Dad and whoever was with him. EOS had been able to tell them that his signal had been there for five days.
Five days, trapped with someone. It didn't make sense.
Scott left One hovering and flew down to investigate. And it soon became clear that they had been trapped by a pneumatic door. He felt around for a release mechanism, but there didn't appear to be one.
'John, there is a sealed door that I can't see a way to open. Any ideas?' John appeared before him, hologram tapping away at the air. It didn't take him long, and he pointed out a panel beside the door that he hadn't noticed.
Popping the hatch revealed a lever which Scott grasped, about to turn it when John stopped him. 'Turn a quarter to the left and then half to the right. That should do it, Scott.' He nodded, hearing the welcome rumble of Two's engines.
Left then right. And click. The hiss of the air. The door swung open and Scott entered.
There were two figures sitting on opposite sides of the room. Both looked rough as hell, and Scott didn't hesitate to ignore the figure he recognised on the left for the one on the right.
'Dad!'
'Scott?'
The Hood slipped away while the two men embraced, melting into the shadows as the rest of earth-bound International Rescue stormed in.
'This doesn't change anything, Jeff,' he whispered under his breath.