Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.
It was the second night in a row that Gordon had gone to bed early. Begging off from Grandma's dinners was hardly unusual – Scott himself was guilty of that, as were all of his brothers – but getting himself sent to bed when the sun had yet to touch the ocean was something Gordon usually evaded. Despite Grandma's assurances that he would be fine after a good night's sleep, Scott was disturbed enough by the uncharacteristic behaviour to check in on his younger brother.
When Gordon did uncharacteristic things, that meant one of two things: he was ill, or a prank was brewing. Scott didn't particularly care for either of those, especially for as long as he was on laundry duty and the fallout of a prank would get added to his workload.
"Gordon?" he called, knocking on the aquanaut's door. A muffled groan was his response, and he took that to mean 'come in', despite the fact his younger brother probably meant something more along the lines of 'go away'. The door opened easily and he stepped inside to find his brother bundled up under his blanket. He was lying on his side, curled around his stomach, and Scott crossed the room in several, quick, strides to crouch down beside him.
"You shouldn't lay like that," he reminded him, touching Gordon's shoulder gently. Amber eyes opened and regarded him balefully.
"I'll lay however I want," the younger Tracy grumbled. "What did she even do to dinner today?" Scott supressed his own feelings of nausea at the recollection and offered him a commiserating smile.
"I have no idea," he admitted. "But stomach ache or not, you'll make your back worse if you sleep like that."
Gordon let out a groan of protest, but Scott would not be deterred, gently poking and prodding him until he unfurled from his foetal position and straightened his spine.
"You'll thank me when you get up," he reminded him, and Gordon let out disgruntled mutterings that consisted of a flippant yeah, yeah, and something that sounded suspiciously like smother hen. Scott shook his head fondly, before lightly mussing blond hair. It was crisp from too much chlorine, as per usual. Not quite so usual for Gordon not to wash it out before bed, though. "And don't forget to wash your hair in the morning." He got another round of yeah, yeahs and smother hen, and chuckled. "Sleep well."
A simple case of stomach upset didn't require a constant vigil – it had, once upon a time, but then Grandma had become head chef and minor stomach aches became commonplace. None of his brothers permitted him to fuss over that, so long as it remained minor, and with the frequency Scott would never have time for anything else if he did. Therefore, it was with a fond smile and barely any reluctance that Scott left Gordon to his misery. If he was still bad in the morning, then Scott would worry; Grandma's cooking rarely left anyone incapacitated for long – a small mercy.
Seeing Gordon all snuggled up in bed put him in longing mind for his own. What with the washing machine packing in, all the handwashing required, and the mudslide rescue – with more handwashing required afterwards – Scott was quite tempted to give up on the day and hide under his own covers until morning. Unfortunately, duty called and he reluctantly traipsed back down to the desk to face the paperwork. John might have done the rescue report, saving him one hell of a battle to recall everything that had happened in that mud-covered nightmare, but Tracy Industries had their own paperwork to be completed.
With the chair cover still hanging up to dry, the desk was an unattractive place to sit, however, and Scott allowed himself the small vice of picking up the laptop and collapsing into Alan's pilot seat to get the work done. Loading up the metaphorical pile, Scott was pleasantly surprised to find there was less there than he remembered. Oh, that approval should still have been sent out the previous day – and that one, too – but there was less outstanding work to do than he'd thought.
He might actually get to sleep in his poor, neglected bed tonight. That was a motivating thought, and he tackled the first in the stack with vigour, startling Alan who entered the room with his virtual headset.
"Uhh… Scott?"
He waved him over.
"Go ahead; I don't have much work to do."
Alan's look of uncertainty morphed into one of glee, and he air punched. "Hell yeah! Cavern Quest Final Chamber here I come! Again."
Scott chuckled at his enthusiasm, fondly remembering when he had the free time to play video games as a teenager. It was always good to see that being a part of International Rescue hadn't stifled that freedom for Alan. Unfortunately, his freedom for that sort of thing was long gone, and wouldn't come back as long as he had a backlog of paperwork to do, so with a final fond look at his brother swinging an imaginary weapon and declaring challenges to Blagworts – whatever those were – he returned to the laptop and work.
Despite being less than he thought, it still took him the better part of three hours to clear all the ones he was supposed to have returned by then; he glowered at one merrily telling him it was due in 8 hours – stupid timezones – before dismissing it for later. The moon was high in the sky, the villa taking on the reddish hue it often did in the late evening. Alan had retreated to his bedroom at some point, maybe an hour ago although Scott hadn't checked the time, and it was with great delight that Scott realised it was before midnight.
He could make a start on that next group of paperwork and maybe even get some of it done on time – a momentous occasion that would probably give the secretary and board of directors a heart attack – or he could go to bed.
Memories of Gordon comfortably snuggled under a blanket several hours earlier won. He'd save his employees the heart attack and get some sleep. Barring paperwork taking less time than usual, the day had been pretty awful and actually getting to relax in his sorely neglected bed sounded nothing short of heavenly.
He sent a suspicious eye to John's portrait, half-expecting a midnight emergency (midnight here, probably a perfectly respectable mid-afternoon in the danger zone), but his brother didn't appear and he unceremoniously shoved the laptop back in the desk before dimming the lights and making a beeline for his room.
It was, predictably, just as he'd left it. He toyed with the idea of a shower before bed, but decided against it. A shower was likely to wake him up, and that was the last thing he needed right then. He made do with kicking off his shoes and tucking them in their little corner of the room before vanishing into the bathroom to perform the required evening ablutions and shrugging on some sleepwear.
From there, it was a perfectly simple matter to send a sleepy call to John letting him know he was turning in for the night, worm his way under the blanket, and let the sandman visit.
A shrill ringing jerked him awake, and with a groan he rolled over to swipe at the alarm clock controls on his bedside table, only to freeze. All noisy alarms were immediately forgotten at the sensation of something sticky against his leg, and with a hopeless prayer that it was not what he thought it was, a tentative peeling back of the blankets revealed melted toffee gluing him to his bedsheet.
How the hell had that got there?
A pounding on his door jerked him back to the present.
"Shut that thing up before it wakes the bear!" Clearly Gordon was recovered from last night's dinner and back to his usual habits, as Scott had thought he would be. "Scott!"
With a groan he reached out for the controls once again and swiped the off command. The shrill ringing was replaced by a phantom one in his ears and he shook his head to clear it before regarding the brown mess on his leg and sheet with something that might have resembled despair, although he'd deny it if anyone came in and saw it. Certainly the moisture in his eyes was typical morning yawn-induced liquid and nothing to do with tears of frustration.
More laundry, and he hated bed linen anyway. With his promise to Virgil about no more toffee in the washing machine, he was also going to have to wash it by hand until all traces of toffee were gone before he could bundle it in the machine to finish the job. There went any free time that morning.
The toffee on his leg was at least easier to deal with, and he was glad he hadn't taken an evening shower as he threw himself under the warm water with vigour, scrubbing at the sticky patch on his leg forcefully and wincing as a few hairs parted company when the sticky stuff peeled away. Cleaning himself, however, was the easy bit. Somehow he had to get his sheet down to the laundry room without getting collared by anyone else.
There was a morning growth of stubble on his face but he ignored it for the moment, throwing on his clothes and stripping the sheet from his bed. Once the fabric was bundled up into a ball – toffee-smeared section carefully away from the rest of the fabric so it didn't spread – it was the not so simple case of getting to the laundry room.
He was well aware what taking bed linen down to the laundry room first thing in the morning looked like.
The first hallway was cleared, Gordon splashing away down in the pool below and Grandma making threatening noises in the kitchen. Neither of his other brothers had left their rooms, and barring an emergency call, wouldn't for some time. As long as John didn't pick the wrong moment to check in, he'd be fine.
"Oh, m-morning, Scott!"
He'd forgotten about Brains. How had he forgotten about Brains? Behind the engineer, MAX watched him curiously for a moment before letting out a sound far too reminiscent of a wolf whistle for Scott's liking.
"Uh, morning, Brains," he greeted, hoping his cheeks weren't flushing as the older man took in the sight of the bundled up sheet with a raised eyebrow. "Toffee, again," he admitted, hoping the engineer was removed enough from usual social conventions to not start drawing the same assumptions his brothers would.
"O-oh, I see. C-carry on, then." With a little wave, Brains continued towards the den – why was he heading there, why was he out of his lab? Scott returned the wave and continued his advance to the laundry room, only to be caught up short as he overheard Brains mutter "I-is that what they're c-calling it n-now, MAX?"
Determined not to flush, Scott barrelled through the laundry room door and shut it behind him firmly.
"Everything alright there, Scott?"
John was floating in front of him, arms crossed and one eyebrow lifted in amusement as he glanced at the fabric in Scott's arms. Scott groaned.
"This is not what it looks like," he protested, and John smirked.
"Clearly, because it looks like melted toffee but you wouldn't be bright red if it was really toffee, would you?"
The bundled sheet sailed through the hologram as Scott hurled it at his infuriating, know-it-all younger brother's projection.
"Shut up, John," he muttered, retrieving the fabric and dumping it in the sink. "I'm not bright red."
"Hmm, must be a problem with the colour filters on the hologram, then," John mused. "Because you look it to me."
"Then go fix your holoprojector and leave me in peace," Scott snapped.
"F.A.B." And he was gone, leaving Scott with a sticky sheet and a sinking feeling that today was also not going to be a good day.
With a sigh he scrubbed at the toffee, determined to get the sheet de-toffee'd so he could put it in the machine before the rest of his brothers found out. Or Grandma, who might at least not jump to immature conclusions but would give him another tongue-lashing about leaving toffee lying around.
An hour later, Gordon was wolfing down something Scott suspected Grandma didn't know about for breakfast – it looked suspiciously celery-crunch-bar-green – as he entered the kitchen, laptop in hand. That paperwork with a time limit of eight hours to go before he went to bed was now due, and he should probably get it done while he had some downtime.
"No work at the breakfast table," Grandma scolded, appearing from nowhere and shutting the device before Scott could properly register what it said. "And Gordon, snacks are not breakfast. Have a pancake."
Scott didn't hear Gordon's response, too busy staring at his now closed laptop.
The paperwork due this morning hadn't been there.
Thanks for reading!
Tsari