Title: A Little Chaos
Part 4
Author: Gumnut
May 2019
Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS
Rating: Teen
Summary: A little conversation in less than optimal conditions.
Word count: 2595
Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Scott/Em.
Timeline: Sometime after 'Gentle Rain'
Author's note: Yeah, I should be writing 'The Bellini Incident', but this was supposed to be a quick fic, but then so was Bellini. This one will not be anywhere near as long and I will be back to Bellini asap.
The prompt: From a series of OC prompts. Kylorr asked for 5. Have they ever cheated on anyone before? And 7. How many partners have they had? I don't know if I'm going to answer either of them, but this is the fic that happened. I hope you enjoy it :D
Disclaimer: Mine? You've got to be kidding. Money? Don't have any, don't bother.
-o-o-o-
Virgil Tracy could be considered a calm man and it was how he appeared to the world. Calm had its advantages. It kept his mind clear. It enabled him to plan, to save, to break up the arguments between his brothers, to keep in control.
But the truth was far from appearances. Virgil Tracy kept himself calm on purpose, because he couldn't afford to be anything else. Emotion was a powerful thing. He could channel it into his music, into his art, but out of control it was dangerous.
And so was he.
Virgil Tracy felt with an intensity of the sun. When he loved, he loved with everything he had. When he angered, landslides had less momentum. So calm was safety. Calm was control.
Until that control cracked.
From the moment Kay had reported in, he had been on the edge. Nothing drove him harder than Kay in danger, and having to listen to how much she loved him and then hear her hurt and be unable to do ANYTHING eroded his control to almost nothing. Only Scott held him back. Scott had that power and his brother knew it. It gave him the chance to straighten himself out, to think, to plan the path to saving the woman he loved.
After that, hell would have less fury.
So it was with struggling self control Virgil shot his grappling gun up the side of the building, calculating angles, stress points, and weakness in the structure. Beside him, Scott did the same, their grapples thunking together into the brickwork.
John had Thunderbird Two and had her roaring around the other side of the building as a distraction. Virgil could hear his 'bird's VTOL thrum from here. Vona had a squad on the roof and, synchronised, they were all going in.
Finally Virgil could do something.
Fastening the grapple line to his exo-suit harness, he triggered the retrieval and with a yank, the line drew him up to the third floor, directly outside the room holding Em.
Scott was cold steel. The man handled himself differently than Virgil. Hardwired for command, he kept his emotions in a box sealed away. He had been known to rave on the surface, but it was shallow an echo of what he truly felt. Scott couldn't afford to allow emotion to interfere with decisions. Virgil had tried this method, even spoken to his brother about it, but it didn't work for him anymore than running around the island to release that tension. Scott was different. Virgil was different. They managed themselves differently.
Didn't mean either cared any less.
And some bastard had his fingers on Em.
The fear crawling over the comline was enough to ignite Virgil. God forbid anyone get in Scott's way.
When the signal was given and the yelling started on the other side of the building, Virgil fired up his laser and, with his feet, took out a chunk of wall.
The sight of the bastard with his hand up Em's dress, tipped the scales and Virgil saw red.
He had the miscreant in his claw as soon as his feet hit floor. The man yelped as Virgil flung him away from his friend and slammed him into a wall. For once, he felt zero empathy for his fellow man…no, screw it, he had no relationship to this piece of dirt. He had to hold himself back from kicking him while he was down.
Em was clinging to Scott.
Now Virgil needed to get to Kay.
His heads-up display gave him the weaknesses in the wall between the two rooms. His laser took advantage of them all.
His boot took the wall down.
Two hostiles were in the room. A gun pointed in his direction and, targeting instinctively with his display, he sliced it in half with a precise beam of red. The man screamed. Another gun fired, but the bullet ricocheted off his exo-suit.
His laser took care of that firearm as well.
Kay lay crumpled on the far side of the room.
She was bleeding.
One of the men rushed at him and without thought, Virgil slammed him into a wall with his claw. He folded, out cold. The other man, not inclined to learn from his friend's example, grabbed onto that claw.
Virgil flung him over his shoulder. The man landed with a crash and lay still.
Kay.
He hurried across the room and shed the claws from his arms. Kay lay as if she had been discarded there. Her short dress, crumpled and stained with blood, had ridden up and her legs were bare. One sandal was missing. She was bleeding from both her left arm and shoulder.
"Kay? Love?"
She didn't stir. Scott appeared beside him. "Virgil?"
Check her pulse, breathing, bleeding, he had to stop the bleeding. He fumbled with his baldric, pulling out one of the mini med-kits he kept stashed there. Pressure bandage, gauze, alcohol, wound dressing. His hands shook with pent up everything, but he ignored them.
"Virgil?"
The door to the room flew open and a woman entered. A gun was pointed at them. He didn't have time to deploy the laser, instead, he threw himself across Kay, protecting her with himself.
Behind him there was a crash. The woman snarled and suddenly Scott was gone from his side. A quick glance found the woman on the floor, her arm at a weird angle, out cold.
Em was in Scott's arms.
Kay.
He had to stop the bleeding.
He knew it was one of her favourite dresses. She had so few and he loved her in every one of them. He pulled the sodden material away from her shoulder and quickly cleaned the wound before applying a dressing.
There was no exit wound.
Damn.
His fingers fumbled with the bandage.
A small delicate hand touched his. He looked up into a pair of the palest blue eyes. "Virgil, let me."
He blinked. Em was held upright by Scott, but already she was methodically attending to his fiancee. The bandage was taken from his hand.
"Virgil, she will be okay."
Virgil let his brother's words wash over him. Absently, he straightened Kay's skirt over her thighs.
His hands were still shaking.
"John, situation report." Scott's firm voice was an anchor point in a storm as it always was. He clung to it
Kay's hair had come loose from its ponytail. He brushed a stray off her face.
Her eyes opened.
"Kay!"
-o-o-o-
She hadn't really ever wanted to go shopping. Kayo was quite happy ordering online for the essentials, she had never been one to make a day of hunting for clothes, no matter how Grandma had tried over the years. She understood that for many it was a social occasion, but she had little interest in both the act of shopping and the need for frippery.
But now she had a female friend and she felt she needed to make an effort. Em put up with Kayo's oddities, it couldn't hurt for Kayo to try new things. Grandma had been highly amused when she heard about the pending trip.
As the day grew nearer, Kayo had surprised herself by finding that she was actually looking forward to it. Em was intelligent company and they had the Tracy brothers in common. Hell, at the rate things were currently going with Em and Scott, Kayo wouldn't be surprised to one day have Em as a sister.
The thought was attractive.
And, if she was honest, it had been very nice to have another female around her own age on the island. There were things only another woman would understand, particularly the need to verbally let off steam without having a solution to her problems listed off in quintuplet.
There was a reason she tended to be close lipped about her concerns. There were things that men just didn't understand. Even Virgil.
Em had filled a need she hadn't known she'd had.
Consequently, the terrorist interruption to their day out had royally pissed her off, and she had no compunction about letting that steam off all over the bastards. Em had to be protected.
To wake up sprawled on the floor with a worried pair of brown eyes staring down at her just increased that fury.
"Kay!"
Her head ached. She must have hit it. Her left arm was complaining in duplicate. She found Em and Scott on her other side, cobalt and pale blue equally worried for her.
Damn it.
She made to get up.
"No, Kay, lie still, you've been shot." Virgil stated the obvious.
"Let me up, Virgil." Her tone must have reflected her anger as he shifted backwards a little.
"Kay, please."
She ignored him.
Em held tight to her arm as she pushed herself into a sitting position. The doctor frowned at her, but didn't say anything, just finished off bandaging her wound.
Kayo eyed the room. "Situation?"
Scott answered. "John reports that the hostages on the other side of the building have been freed and the perpetrators are in custody. The police are heading in our direction." A breath. "Kayo-"
She shoved herself to her feet and ignored the world as it spun for a moment. The wheeze of hydraulics and a gloved hand landed on her arm, steadying her.
She stepped out of reach.
Two men and a woman lay on the floor unconscious. One had burns on his hands. Firearms lay in pieces. The wall was partly melted, a massive hole the obvious entry point. Beyond it lay another unconscious man. There were scorch marks everywhere.
Virgil.
She swallowed.
He approached her again, but they were interrupted by several police officers entering the room. More guns were waved about. Virgil stepped around and in front of her, claws once again engaged.
"Hold!"
A female officer stalked in. They eyed each other before the other woman turned to her eldest brother. Scott was holding Em in his arms.
"The building is secure. Commander Tracy. I expect a full report." She glared at the unconscious bodies on the floor, but said nothing other than to wave a couple of officers over to attend to them. "Thank you for your assistance."
"Thank you for yours." Scott voice was cool and polite. Kayo wondered what had happened here. Off in the distance she could hear Thunderbird Two's VTOL.
"Kay, you need a hospital." His quiet baritone was worried.
She didn't answer him. She knew she should, but she was so angry, so furious. Her head hurt, her arm and shoulder hurt. So angry.
This was supposed to be her day out.
"I want to buy a dress."
"What?!"
"I came here to shop. I want to buy a dress."
"You have a bullet in your shoulder. You are bleeding."
"I don't care. I want to buy a dress."
So, that was how Kayo found herself perusing summer dresses while wrapped in bandages, with a bullet in her shoulder, trailing her worried fiancé kitted out in his dust covered exo-suit and uniform.
Scott protested, but there was a short, sharp discussion between the brothers, plus words from Em. The eldest glared and recovered Em's hoverscoot. Unfortunately, her palm sensors were not to be found and that left her immobile. Em swore a blue streak over that, but Scott volunteered to carry her anywhere she would like to go. The two of them appeared to be clinging to each other in any case. Virgil grabbed the 'scoot and hooked it to his 'suit.
Kay wouldn't let Virgil near her.
Not until she had herself under control. Not until...she bit her lip.
"Kay?"
His voice was so soft, so worried.
His suit wheezed as he followed her among the displays of clothes. He barely fit between the racks.
She ignored him.
Dress after dress passed before her eyes. None of them were quite what she wanted. Part of her mind spouted off comments she might have shared with Em under different circumstances. Part of her didn't want to think at all.
The rest of her hurt.
Finally, she came to a stop in front of a lovely green dress. It was the exact shade she knew Virgil would love to see her in. She knew it was his favourite colour and she had been adding a lot of it to her wardrobe of late. It made her feel as if she was wearing something of him. They spent a lot of time apart due to International Rescue, and she had taken to adding this exact colour to her clothing, her surroundings, a touch of the man she loved wherever she was. He didn't know it, but there were a pair of Thunderbird Two fuzzy dice stashed in Thunderbird Shadow's cockpit. She loved the colour because it was part of him.
And the dress was perfect. The right size, the right neckline...it would leave her collarbones bare and he wouldn't be able to resist them. It hugged at the waistline and flared into a short skirt that would leave a dash of thigh bare, perfect for his admiration.
She stared at it.
And stared at it.
"Kay?"
He was so hesitant.
She reached out to touch the fabric. It was soft and had a wonderful drape.
It slid through her fingers.
And the green material turned brown.
She let it go abruptly and the dress returned to hanging straight on the rack. But now it had brown smudges where she had picked it up. As if it was stained by her, ruined by her touch.
Looking down at her fingers, she realised they were smeared with blood. Oh god.
No.
No!
She swiped at her fingers with her other hand, desperate to get the red off her skin. "No!" Her shoulder flared in agony and she gasped.
"Kay!"
No, this wasn't fair. She had only wanted a simple thing. A normal thing. A thing that was every day to the everyday person.
A hand touched her arm and she struck out, spinning automatically into defence. Her fist hit solid muscle and her ears received a satisfying oomph of expelled air.
But the world spun and her shoulder screamed at her, followed by her arm. She cried out, grabbing at the clothing rack in an attempt to stabilise herself, but her legs weren't supporting her anymore.
She fell.
Strong arms caught her and held her against a solid wall of trembling muscle. "God, Kay, please." His voice was hoarse and desperate.
She struggled, but she had no leverage and part of her knew where she was, knew she didn't want to hurt the man she loved.
Loved.
And he loved her.
A strangled sound twisted in her gut and rose up and out. It hurt. God, it hurt. "Virgil?"
"You're safe, love. You're safe."
She couldn't answer, her throat strangled by sobs she didn't want to let out.
"You're safe."
God, she loved his voice.
One gloved hand was rubbing her uninjured arm gently and she belatedly realised that he had shed his exo-suit.
His baldric was rough against her side.
But he was right, she was safe. She closed her eyes, allowing his comfort to soak in. His familiar aftershave more than reassurance.
The first tear dropped unnoticed, but more came in an inevitable tsunami of sorrow. She found herself crying into his shoulder, his uniform repelling the moisture to let it run down his chest. His arms tightened around her and he whispered incomprehensible words in her ear.
Too much. It was too much.
Kayo let go.
-o-o-o-
TBC