Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.
The lights were off in his brother's room, but that meant nothing. Scott had been sent to bed by the combined parental force of Grandma and Dad, and Gordon knew for a fact that John had been recruited to freeze all his electronics to make sure he didn't sit up doing something all night instead of sleeping. So, if Gordon didn't miss his guess, Scott was going to be staying up all night doing nothing, just staring blankly at the ceiling, the wall, the view out the window, and working himself up about tomorrow.
There had been straws pulled between them to decide behind Dad's back who went in and knocked some sense into him. Gordon won. Gordon may have rigged the whole thing, but Virgil's suspicious brown eyes could prove nothing. This was something he needed to do.
Sure enough, as he slunk into the room, door shutting silently behind him (he'd had years of practice on that one), the body on the bed first rolled over, then sat up as Scott identified him in the dark (Scott had had years of practice at that).
"Gordon? Is something wrong?"
And still he worried before being suspicious. Any of his other brothers would be looking for the prank right about now, but Scott's default would always be concern for him before concern to himself. Gordon rolled his eyes and padded silently over to the bed, poking Scott until he moved over. He did, arm shooting out to wrap around his shoulders the way he always did when Gordon had a nightmare.
Gordon was man enough to admit that the last time wasn't as long ago as maybe people thought, but that wasn't the reason tonight and he dodged the arm, catching it and using the opportunity of catching Scott off guard to roll his brother over onto his side.
"Gordon?"
Before he could roll back, Gordon dove onto the bed, wedging himself behind him and wrapping his arms around his biggest brother tightly, burying his face in the back of Scott's neck and feeling his brother tense up.
"Gordon, what's wrong?"
"Hey, Scott," he started, voice still low so no Dad or Grandma caught him – there may have been some implications that all of them were to leave Scott alone tonight – even though John was supposedly running interference to make sure they didn't. "When did you last celebrate your own achievements?"
The concerned set of his brother's shoulders gave way to a confused one instead. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't remember so much as a graduation party when you finished college," Gordon pointed out. He didn't mention the medals, locked away in storage where Scott refused to look at them. Those didn't count.
Scott didn't answer, and Gordon decided against voicing the observation that Scott hadn't celebrated any of his own achievements since the Zero-X. This would be the first one, and he was all too aware that the only reason Scott wasn't ducking out of it was because Dad wouldn't let him.
"John had one," he said instead. "You didn't let him escape it."
"John graduated early with the highest grades in the university's history," Scott pointed out, and Gordon huffed.
"And you were top of your class." He'd checked the records before coming in. "How did you even talk Grandma out of it?"
"What are you trying to say, Gordon?" That was a non-answer if ever he heard one. Gordon squinted at the back of his brother's neck but let it slide. For now.
"John's graduations," he started. "John's books. Virgil's graduation. Virgil's art shows and piano recitals. My acceptance into WASP. My medals. Alan's everything." There had been a lot of parties for the youngest – getting his pilot's license, youngest astronaut in history, anything Scott could remotely justify. "You haven't let any of us miss a single achievement. But yours…" he trailed off meaningfully, but Scott was still tense in his hold and didn't say a word.
Gordon sighed.
"Your achievements matter too, bro," he said. "Stop skulking in the shadows and directing the limelight onto us all the time."
Scott made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a scoff. It sounded sad and a little pathetic.
"You guys do so much," he said. "I'm proud of you. All four of you."
Aha.
"And we're proud of you," Gordon retorted. "That's why you're not getting out of tomorrow."
"I didn't even do anything," Scott protested. "I-" Gordon cut him off with a scoff.
"You piloted that jet. You broke the airspeed record. Professor Kwark is getting her dues for designing it – you know you're not taking anything away from her achievements so stop pretending you think you are – but you piloted it."
"Because she asked me to," Scott pointed out, and Gordon rolled his eyes. "She could have chosen anyone."
"And she chose the best damn pilot in the world like a sensible woman, and don't even try and tell me anyone else would have even been a consideration." Gordon jabbed him in the chest with a finger. "Her own attempt last year ended in disaster, so she picked the most experienced high-speed pilot in the world for the next one. Sounds like a smart decision to me." Scott was gearing up for another counter-argument; he could feel it in the way his chest tensed. "They didn't have to pick me for the Olympics," he continued, switching to the reason he had absolutely rigged the straws to be the one in the room.
When it came to wrangling Scott, Virgil was definitely the most experienced, with John hot on his heels. But Virgil and John weren't world record holders. Gordon was.
"You were the best in the team," Scott immediately shot back. "They'd have been daft not to pick you."
Exactly, but Gordon didn't say that, just waited for Scott to realise he'd cornered himself. It didn't take long, shoulders slumping with a fondly exasperated sigh.
"That's different," Scott tried to argue. "You still had to beat the other seven swimmers."
"And you still had to beat the record." Gordon shot that argument back down.
"The jet-"
"Would not have beat the record if I was piloting it. Hell, if Virgil was piloting it. Even Alan's not that good, Scott." He squeezed his ridiculously stubborn brother tighter, a grin slipping onto his face as Scott let out a quiet oof. "That was all you, Scott, and I know you know it, despite what you're trying to tell me."
Scott didn't say anything for several moments, and Gordon didn't break the silence even if he pressed closer to his brother's back. He knew what it was like, those few hours – days, weeks, even – after breaking a world record. The state of disbelief that he'd actually done it. Scott had stepped out of what they had nicknamed Icarus II (not actually called that, after the original Icarus had proven too close to its namesake, but Gordon didn't really care for the jet's actual name) less than twenty-four hours earlier, breathing hard from the adrenaline and excitement of Mach 23.8 to congratulations and jubilation from Professor Kwark's team and his family. What he'd actually managed hadn't properly sunk in yet, but the official celebrations were tomorrow, complete with paparazzi from all over the world, and Scott was doing his best to escape it.
"…Why are you here, Gordon?"
Gordon was there to tell his brother he was being an idiot, and hammer it home that they were all ridiculously proud of their big brother for doing the thing they'd always known he would one day, and convince him it was okay to be proud of himself. He didn't say that.
Each of his brothers always required a slightly different touch, and Scott needed to be caught off-guard. The head-on approach never worked; he just headbutted it back with twice the force because he was stubborn like that. Unless you were Virgil but Virgil could just keep throwing it back again with interest until he wore him down.
So instead, Gordon plucked at a different string – one of those little things Scott thought they didn't know about but really didn't hide that well once you knew how to look for it. They all knew.
"You know how many people I've heard complain about some 'shadow' their older siblings cast?" he asked, rhetorically. Scott froze so suddenly he could have sworn the temperature dropped a few degrees. "Whining on and on about how no matter what they do, their sibling's always there, always the one everyone sees?"
Scott seemed to be holding his breath; even pressed up against him with his arms wrapped around his chest, Gordon couldn't feel any rise and fall.
"Well, I don't agree with that," he said firmly.
"What?" He felt Scott startle, clearly not meaning to say anything but caught off-guard.
"I don't agree," he repeated. "You've never overshadowed us. Any of us. John's got the books to prove it, Virgil's got the paintings and recitals, I've got a gold freaking medal. Even Alan's making his own name for himself in the gaming community and he's a home-schooled kid most of the world has never seen out of uniform."
"I-"
"How long have you been worrying about that?" Gordon asked, overriding whatever feeble attempt at disagreement Scott was about to make. "At least since the Zero-X. I know that for certain, but I bet it's been longer."
Scott didn't answer, but he didn't expect him to. Scott was annoying like that – he'd say everything you didn't want him to, and nothing that you did. The answer was probably the first time he'd ever heard anyone mention something about an older sibling's so-called 'shadow', anyway, knowing Scott.
"You know," he said, fully aware that Scott didn't know, because he was an idiot of a big brother who cared too much about them and not enough about himself, "sometimes I like sitting in your shadow." Or John's, or Virgil's, but this conversation wasn't about them.
Scott's second startle was a full-body thing, a twitch topped off with a jerk of the head, but he still didn't say anything.
"I doubt you get it, because you don't have a big brother, but sometimes it's nice lurking there," he continued. "Here." He pressed up against Scott's back again, making sure Scott couldn't possibly miss that he was plastered against him. "Maybe it's because I know you'll never try and keep me here and I can go wander into the spotlight whenever I like," he admitted, "but I like it. The others do, too." John and Virgil never left Scott's so-called 'shadow' unless they had to, both content to do their own thing and let Scott handle the world while they handled Scott, and Gordon knew all four of them still found safety in their biggest brother even if they never said it in so many words.
"Gordon, what are you trying to say?" Scott asked. He sounded genuinely confused, and Gordon swallowed another sigh, because trust Scott to be a brilliant leader and fantastic big brother but not understand just how much they appreciated him.
"I'm saying that tomorrow, they're not gonna look at me and say 'that's Gordon Tracy, the Olympic Champion!'" he said bluntly. "Tomorrow, they're gonna look at me and say 'that's Scott Tracy's little brother!', and I'm gonna say 'damn straight I am.'" He grabbed a handful of Scott's pyjamas and made a fist, right over his brother's chest. "Because tomorrow is your day and I – we – are damn proud of you, Scott. So don't you dare run away from this and try and put us in the limelight instead. Not this time." Not any time it was Scott's achievement, but Gordon was well aware that was too much of a push right now.
He'd just bring out the pep talks again, and again, and again, until Scott got the message.
Scott was silent, but his breathing was steady, Gordon's fistful of fabric rising and falling with his chest, so he waited while his brother thought it through, looking for loopholes and – hopefully – finding none. Gordon didn't think he'd left anything, but Scott could be slippery when he wanted to.
It was several minutes before he got a reaction, Scott making a decision like the commander he was. An arm moved, brushing against Gordon's as it did, before a hand wrapped around his fist. The touch was firm and warm, but not restraining or trying to pry him off. Instead, it just stayed there, squeezing lightly before falling still.
"Thanks, Gordon."
Victory.
"Any time, bro," he grinned, wriggling around to get comfortable and throwing a leg over Scott's, just because he could. "Now get some sleep. Big day tomorrow."
"Voice of experience?"
"Yup." He popped the 'p' just because he could, and because it always made Scott roll his eyes. "You'll need all the sleep you can get." He kicked the covers until he could reach them with the hand not grasping his brother's top and pulled them up.
"Aren't you going to go back to your room?" Scott sounded amused, with some put-on disgruntlement that Gordon ignored.
"Nah," he dismissed, settling back down and wrapping his arm back around his brother again. "I'm comfy now."
Scott laughed a little. They both knew Grandma and Dad had placed a 'do not disturb' order on Scott and that he was at least somewhat avoiding being caught sneaking back out. There wouldn't be time to tell him off in the morning while they were rushing around ready for the party.
"Night, Gordon."
"Night, big bro." He burrowed down against his big brother's back and closed his eyes, content that he'd got at least somewhere in pounding some truths into Scott's stubborn head and genuinely comfortable where he was.
Sometimes, his big brother's shadow was his favourite place to be.
Thanks for reading!
Tsari