Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.

Prompt from gumnut: "Bandaging the other's hand and not quite letting go" with Scott and Gordon

Gordon heard the clatter in the kitchen and immediately something prickled down his spine. He'd only just got in the pool, Scott's return from a rescue forcing him to wait until Thunderbird One was safely ensconced down below again, and didn't want to leave it again quite so immediately, but that clatter had sounded nasty.

Virgil still wasn't back, Scott apparently not hanging around and keeping pace with the slower Thunderbird as he sometimes liked to do, which meant that with one last longing look at the water, Gordon pulled himself back out to see what was going on.

Scott was growling something inaudible as he approached, sat on the floor and surrounded by kitchen-related debris. At a glance, he looked like he'd been carrying a tray of snacks - probably headed for the desk to keep him company while he tackled the post-rescue report - but something had happened and he'd fallen over.

If that was all, Gordon would have just grumped at being dragged out of the pool for no good reason and slunk away again to leave big brother to clean up the mess, but there were splatters of red amongst the ceramic sherds. If he'd had any doubts about the source, the fact that Scott was holding his left hand to his chest banished them.

"What have you done to yourself?" Gordon asked, cautiously tiptoeing around the mess to reach his brother's side.

"I'm fine," Scott said immediately, as though Gordon couldn't see red seeping through his fingers. "If you want to make yourself useful, why don't you grab the dustpan? And put something on your feet!"

True, bare feet and broken crockery weren't a particularly good match, but Gordon was more concerned with the white-knuckled grip Scott had on what was presumably a bleeding hand.

"Let me see," he insisted, cursing that Virgil wasn't back yet to force Scott into obeying.

"It's fine," Scott repeated. "Leave it."

Gordon did not leave it, nudging a particularly jagged piece of ceramic out of the way before kneeling down next to him and reaching out to take hold of Scott's wrist.

"C'mon," he coaxed, tugging lightly.

"Gordon."

"I will put something on my feet and help clear this up after I've seen your hand," Gordon retorted firmly. "C'mon, Scott, or I'll call Grandma."

From the look that crossed his face, Scott did not want him to call Grandma. The woman might be visiting friends - Alan dragged along for the ride - but she could and would berate him just fine via holocall.

"It's fine," he repeated again, but his grip slackened and Gordon's next gentle tug had his hand being revealed.

It was not fine. There was a gash running across the meat of his thumb and cutting into his palm, and entirely too much blood for Gordon to classify it as anything other than deep.

"We need to standardise definitions if you call this fine," he quipped. "Because to me this says 'hi, I'm deep and will need stitches!'" Scott's eyeroll was a comforting sense of normality.

They kept a first aid kit in the kitchen, but it was only an every day household one. Still, Gordon pulled Scott to his feet and guided him over to the table with instructions to sit before he pulled it out and wadded some gauze.

"You know the drill, Scotty. Put pressure on that while I get this cleaned up, then it's down to the infirmary for stitches."

Scott let out a sigh but did as he was told. Gordon dug out discarded flip flops before returning to the danger zone with a dustpan and brush. It didn't take long to clear up, although he mourned the loss of what had looked like the last of the cake Scott had obtained from Sydney the previous day and scowled at having to mop up entirely too much coffee before he returned to his brother's side.

Blood loss didn't seem to be an issue, although Gordon suspected exhaustion from the rescue was as Scott hadn't made a break for it to treat it by himself. What had they been doing again? It hadn't been anything anticipated to be tough, otherwise he'd have gone with them, but Scott definitely looked tired. Running himself ragged around the danger zone again, no doubt.

"C'mon," he said, checking the gauze and seeing that it was more red than white. "Infirmary time."

Scott's sigh said exactly what he thought of that, but he obeyed readily enough. If Gordon hovered at his elbow just in case he stumbled, well, that was just common sense. He hadn't seen any reason for Scott's original fall, so it was probably incoordination brought on by tiredness. Still, they made it with no further problems, and Gordon soon found himself manhandling his brother into sitting on a bed.

"Don't pass out on me," he warned, locating antiseptic, as well everything he'd need for stitches and a nice roll of bandage to finish everything off. He was rewarded with another eyeroll.

"It's just a cut, Gordon."

"That it is," he agreed sunnily, dragging a chair over and plonking himself down in it. "One that needs stitches. Hand."

Stitches weren't normally Gordon's job, but their main medics were off the island and no matter what he might try to pretend, Scott couldn't sew himself up one-handed, especially when it was his dominant hand in need of said stitches. Still, Gordon knew his way around the procedure and soon had the area cleaned and prepped.

Something he also knew was that Scott, for all his Big Brother Bravado, hated needles. The local anaesthetic was met with a grimace, and Gordon didn't need to look to know that blue eyes were averted from the curved needle and his bleeding hand. He could handle it just fine when it was someone else, but when it was him in need…

"So, what movie do you wanna watch?"

"Huh?"

"When I'm done patching you up," Gordon clarified, prodding at Scott's hand and determining from the lack of reaction that the anaesthetic had set in. "I'm declaring this afternoon movie time."

The sigh he got was tired but resigned. "I have work to do, Gordon."

"I'm thinking we need to rewatch one of those early millennium classics," he continued, checking the thread for kinks before making the first stitch. Scott didn't seem to notice. "How about Finding Nemo? We can marathon into Finding Dory."

"Haven't you got those memorised by now?" Scott demanded, but Gordon could hear the reluctant fondness in his brother's tone anyway.

"And that means I can't ever watch them again?" he asked. "Scotty."

Scott didn't retract the statement so he sighed. "Fine, no Finding Nemo today. How about A Shark's Tale?"

"Really?" Well, that disbelieving tone was a no.

"The Little Mermaid?"

"So you can sing along to all the songs and get Virgil throwing cushions at you again?"

Gordon scoffed. "He's just jealous he can't sing like me."

"Uh huh." So Scott was feeling like a critic today, was he?

"Okay, if you don't want the classics that rules out Moana and Atlantis," Gordon huffed. "Come on, Scott, give me something to go on here."

"We are not watching a movie," his brother said, as though he honestly thought that was true. Yes, the pool was calling Gordon, but if he left his big brother unsupervised at this point, he'd probably go and do something stupid like overuse his hand. Movie afternoon it was going to be.

"C'mon, Scott," he wheedled, finishing another stitch. One more to go. "I'll make the popcorn."

The lack of an instant reply told him Scott was caving.

"I know, how about Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea?" he offered. "The original one, not the '56 remake." That had been terrible. He'd been so hyped to see it when it had come out, but… eesh. Some classics were best left as classics.

"Top Gun."

Bingo. "The original?" As though Scott would watch anything else. Big brother always preferred pre-millennium.

The what do you think noise he got confirmed it, and Gordon hummed.

"I think I can put up with that," he shrugged, finishing the final stitch and reaching for the roll of bandages. It was another old family favourite - one that mixed planes and boats well enough to keep at least most of them entertained.

Bandaging was a familiar process, layers of linen wrapping over Scott's palm again and again until the row of stitches were entirely hidden. It didn't take long; Gordon was far too practised at the procedure by now.

"All done," he announced, looking up at Scott in time to see his brother's head turn to face him again. Blue eyes regarded the bandaging with visible resignation.

"Thanks." He tried to withdraw his hand from Gordon's grip, but a sudden reluctance to let go washed over him and he tightened his grip a little. "Uh, Gordon?"

"What happened?" Now his brother wasn't bleeding all over the place, Gordon could start to think properly about what had ended up with his brother on the kitchen floor.

Scott's free, uninjured, hand ran through brown hair, dislodging a few strands from the rigid gelling he subjected them to. "It's nothing, Gordon. I just tripped."

Over what lurked on the tip of his tongue, but Gordon didn't let it slip out. He didn't need to. Scott wasn't John; most of the time he was perfectly co-ordinated and just about the last of them to ever trip over his own feet. It was as close to an admittance of exhaustion as he'd get from him.

"If you say so," he said instead, reluctantly letting Scott reclaim his hand but holding out his own to help him to his feet. The fact that Scott accepted the help just cemented Gordon's determination that his brother was going to spend the rest of the day relaxing, no work allowed. "C'mon, let's get that movie on before Virgil gets back and insists on something sappy."

It got a laugh out of Scott, so he counted that as a win.

"You promised popcorn," his brother said, and Gordon shrugged as he made short work of tidying up the infirmary - no need to get the bear any more up in arms than he already would be when he spotted Scott's bandaged hand.

"I did, didn't I?" He put the last of the equipment away and slung an arm over Scott's shoulders, nudging him up towards the den. "You set the movie up while I get it?"

"Sounds like a plan."

It was twenty minutes into the movie when Virgil walked in, immediately catching sight of Gordon with an arm around a half-asleep Scott and a bowl of popcorn wedged between them. Pre-empting the obvious question betrayed by the furrowing brow, Gordon gave his brother a sunny grin that promised answers to the white-wrapped hand later. To his credit, Virgil's only response was to swipe some of the popcorn before wedging himself on the end of the sofa, sandwiching Scott between them and gently pulling the injured hand into his lap to survey the wrapping silently.

Scott huffed but didn't fight it, seemingly far enough into the land of nod to put up with Virgil's investigations without any sort of protest. Instead, his head dropped further onto Gordon's shoulder, as though the only thing that had been keeping him awake was the wait for his brother's return. With all brothers currently supposed to be on the island now present, Gordon suspected he had no other reasons to fight the exhaustion.

He shared a fond glance with Virgil over their brother's head as Scott's breathing evened out and big brother finally fell asleep. It didn't escape his notice that Virgil didn't let go of the injured hand until the end of the movie.

If this feels familiar, it's probably because this used to be in my collection fic Behind The Scenes. I recently reorganised that collection and came to the decision to post anything 1000+ words independently, so some chapters have been removed from that and will be going up as individual works over the coming weeks.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari