Life is stressful. That's it. That's the author's note.
Also, hey, look who survived the roller-coaster! I saw my life flash before my eyes. Never doing that again, no sir...
Everything hurt. Scott was used to the bone-deep ache of post-rescue, when the adrenaline crash hit him and the scrapes and bruises he hadn't previously noticed finally flared up to make their presence known with a vengeance. This was different. He could hardly put one foot in front of the other. He thanked his lucky stars that it was Virgil and Penelope that met them in the hangars, because Virgil was the only person capable of taking his full weight for more than a few metres and Penelope's focus was almost entirely on Parker.
"I might pass out on you," he warned his brother.
Virgil simply tightened his grip. "Don't worry about it. I've got you."
Scott sucked in a breath through gritted teeth as his ribs decided to act as though they were on fucking fire. He couldn't clench his fists to fight through the pain either, because even through reinforced gloves his palms had taken some serious hits. It felt suspiciously like he'd stripped away the top layer of skin.
Parker was only mildly better off, but then again Parker hadn't been fighting for his life in zombified New York only a couple of days previously. He attempted to bat away Penelope's hands as she inspected his battered suit with open concern.
The world wavered at the edges. Scott blinked dots away. His suit felt damp, which was strange given it was waterproof. He prodded his ribs gingerly and examined his hand under the bright lights of the elevator. Blood dripped from his fingertips onto the pristine floor. Virgil made a small sound of horror.
"Huh," Scott said casually. "We only cleaned in here last week. Sorry."
He imagined Virgil was staring at him as though he'd lost his mind, but Virgil was currently just a vague blob in the corner of his vision, so he couldn't be sure. There was a distinct mutter of something uncomplimentary, but then the ringing in his ears dialled up. He shook his head to try to clear his hearing, but that only caused the pounding around his temples to rage into an inferno, and then there was crimson over his shoes and the floor and he could taste copper.
Virgil sounded panicked. Scott couldn't make out the words but there was a definite edge to his brother's voice that hadn't been there previously.
"Too loud," he ground out.
Virgil reappeared, very close, eyes wide and fearful. His hands were patting at Scott's face and they were cold and reassuring so he leant into the touch.
"Parker," Virgil was saying, voice tilting in a question, the rest of the sentence trailing into obscurity.
The elevator rocked to a gentle halt, but it felt more like an earthquake. Scott could still taste copper, but it was warm and he wanted to hurl. Virgil murmured something reassuring in his ear, but he couldn't understand the words and then they were stepping forwards and his feet were distinctly not working. He couldn't breathe properly, like there was a weight on his chest, or maybe a fist constricting his lungs like the zombie that had ripped open that soldier's flesh with its bare teeth, and oh god, he retched, and hands were rubbing circles across his back, but then something shifted under his skin, like bone against bone, and the world vanished. All that existed was lightning hot, soul-consuming pain.
Someone was shouting.
Scott made the executive decision to pass the hell out.
He awoke to the gentle whirring of aircon. A warm weight was pressed against his side, not so close as to put pressure on his bandaged ribs, but enough to provide reassurance. There was the distinct chemical tang of medicines, combatted faintly by traces of coffee. Scott blinked up at the ceiling a few times until his eyes decided to focus. Whatever the hell he'd done to himself, it must have been bad. He was never normally this groggy when regaining consciousness.
The person sharing the bed with him was wearing his old Yale hoodie. It was hopelessly oversized on the culprit, with the sleeves rolled up and the hood drawn low, drawstrings tucked into the corner of a tight fist. Blond hair stuck out at random angles, greasy and tangled, as though the person had been running their hands through it a lot from stress. One hand was clutching the corner of Scott's shirt, a loose ratty old thing that he usually only wore for gym workouts. When Scott moved slightly, his visitor's grip tightened, as though scared to let go, even in sleep. Scott tried to ease their hand away and earnt himself a protesting whimper.
"Alan," he murmured, tugging his brother closer. "You've gotta let go, kid. I can't sit up like this."
"You shouldn't be sitting up at all," an accusing voice announced.
Scott glowered at the ceiling. "Fight me, John."
John closed his book with an echoing snap and rose from his chair. "I don't need to. Grandma will be back soon, so you can face her wrath."
Scott dropped his head back against the pillow. A tinge of pain sparked across his temple. He probed it with his thumb and John reached over to smack his hand back down with a frustrated hiss.
"Would it kill you to just take it easy for a while?"
"Yes," Scott replied instantly. "Taking it easy isn't in my dictionary."
"Don't I know it," John muttered.
"I may actually drop down dead if I take it easy for more than five minutes."
"I'll kill you myself in a moment."
"Please don't kill him," Virgil sighed, returning to the room with Brains at his heels. "I spent way too long fixing him. Don't make my efforts go to waste."
Brains made a small noise of indignation.
"I may have had a little help," Virgil admitted, shooting their resident scientist a fond look.
John retreated back to his chair and returned to his book, but he wasn't turning any pages, not-so-secretly keeping his attention on Scott. There was a peaceful sort of calm in the room that was hard to come-by on Tracy Island. If Scott tried his upmost and employed some serious imagination skills, he could almost pretend that everything was normal, that he'd ended up in this bed in their infirmary after a close call out on rescue. But whenever he closed his eyes, all he could see was bloody drool and rotting fingers clawing at his suit, blackened nails raking across the material above his heart. He kept his sight set on the sleeping brother at his side.
The door latch softly clicked as Brains left the room, arms piled high with specialised medical equipment that was usually kept in the storage closets but was now to be brought into the light after years of collecting dust. Virgil hovered around the IV line that Scott was already plotting to remove, eager for something to do to keep his mind off darker thoughts but finding himself at a loss.
"Virgil," John said at last after observing another five minutes of his brother's endless pacing. His voice was stern but underlain with a gentleness that was usually only used to address Alan. He caught Virgil's gaze and held it, silent communication flitting between the two.
Virgil finally gave in, sinking onto a chair. For a moment he stared at the wall, unseeing, watching memories play out in front of him and unable to distinguish them from this point in reality – Scott knew what those kinds of flashbacks looked like. He struggled to raise himself from the bed, scoring himself a complaining whine from Alan as he was jostled and a frustrated glare from John. Scott relented, flopping back against the bedsheets, because an angry John was not someone to be trifled with and there were enough problems right now without adding a family civil war to the mix.
John slunk closer to Virgil's side. He moved like shadows – quickly, almost imperceptible, as though he were stepping through the fabric of space rather than across it – similar to Kayo. He'd have made an excellent GDF agent if he hadn't been so in love with the stars, Scott thought.
"Virg, you with us?"
Virgil clawed a hand through his hair. Usually, he protested whenever anyone so much as looked at his precious hairstyle for too long, and if Scott dared to ruffle it just to see the angered bear in action, well… Scott had experience sprinting to safety from an irate Virgil in the past. The point was that Virgil hadn't looked this awful the last time Scott had seen him. Having said that, John hadn't looked this gaunt.
"Hey." John knelt down in front of his brother. "Virgil. Come back to me. I know you can do it."
Virgil blinked owlishly. His hands were trembling on his knees. He stared at them mutely, examining the tremors with a detached fascination, until John reached out and covered them with his own hands.
"Look at me," John coaxed, unmoving from his spot on the floor. "Can you feel this?" He squeezed Virgil's hands and after an unbearably long minute Virgil squeezed back. John's smile rivalled the sun. "There you go. Back with me?"
"Y-yeah," Virgil said shakily. "Sorry."
John frowned. "We've been over this. Stop apologising."
Virgil tipped back in his chair until he could knock his head against the wall. "Scott, stop freaking out," he muttered in an absent voice.
Scott flapped a hand in protest. "I'm not freaking out."
It was a blatant lie, but no one called him out on it. John's attention was still on Virgil, and Virgil himself appeared preoccupied with tethering himself to reality. Scott managed to stuff a pillow behind his back so that he could shuffle upright without putting too much pressure on his bound ribs. Propped up, he had a clearer view of the room, enough to notice that the other bed had crumpled sheets, proof that someone had vacated it fairly recently.
"Who was hurt?"
John glanced over. "Oh, that. Gordon's been… practising. Let's just say his workout routine's changed from swimming to sparring."
Scott had the distinct feeling that he'd stumbled out of time into an entirely unknown century. He seemed to be completely out of touch. Exactly how long had he been unconscious? And more to the point, what had happened during those days?
"Gordon's stopped swimming?" he asked instead.
John chose his words carefully. "He thinks practising other skills will be more valuable."
"What skills?"
"Zombie killing skills," Alan muttered, shifting a little so that he was no longer crushing his arm beneath his head. He yanked his hood down further, casually draping an arm across Scott's chest, but very deliberately placing his hand above his brother's heart. His voice was muffled amongst the bundled fabric of the hoodie. "He's been running sims in the gym. Kayo helped him. EOS set up entire training sequences."
So how had he ended up in need of a bed in the infirmary, Scott wondered. Virgil read the question off his face. Even at the end of the world and drowning in their own minds, they could understand each other without a need for words.
"Gordon's pushing himself past his limits, repeatedly. If I've spoken to him about it once, I've spoken to him about it a thousand times."
Virgil didn't even sound too concerned anymore, just exhausted, and that sent so many alarm bells ringing that Scott wasn't sure where to start. He was beginning to wish he could just roll over and fall back asleep again, because everything seemed too confusing and monumentally more messed up than he could recall his family being the last time he'd been conscious. Also because his ribs ached and there was the faint pounding of repressed emotions at the mental wall he'd constructed and holding back the inevitable breakdown was growing harder by the second.
However.
He couldn't afford to focus on any of his own issues right now - and God knew there were a lot of them. What he had to do was figure out what had happened and fix it to the best of his abilities, because what was abundantly clear was that his brothers were hurting and that was simply unacceptable.
So.
He tugged on Alan's hood until the kid batted his hand away, the glimmers of a smile finally peeking through the doom and gloom that his little brother had been sporting ever since waking up. Alan didn't suit frowns, in Scott's very professional opinion.
"Stop," Alan growled, but didn't look particularly irritated based off the grin on his face as he attempted to duck out of Scott's reach and nearly tipped off the bed altogether.
Scott made a mad grab for him – because Alan was a walking disaster and Scott could vividly recall the incident when the kid had somehow sprained his arm by falling the five inches between the sofa and carpet – and was immediately treated to a hot flare of pain across his ribs. He recoiled instinctively, exhaling through gritted teeth until his body decided to stop feeling as though he'd been trampled by a herd of rampaging buffalo.
Alan sat up, hood falling back down to reveal a wide-eyed, pale look of horror.
"Are you okay?" His hands hovered above Scott's chest, unsure of how to react. "Did I do something?" He shot a panicked glance at Virgil. "I swear I didn't elbow him."
"I'm still right here," Scott pointed out. He eased himself higher up the bed and tried not to catch Virgil's exasperated stare. "I'm fine. See?" He lifted a hand to tousle Alan's hair and immediately regretted this decision. Ouch. Okay. Moving was not on the cards for a while, it seemed. He forced a bright smile. "I am a-okay, little brother."
Alan arched a brow, looking both incredibly doubtful and creepily similar to John when their usually space-bound brother was calling one of them out on making a stupid call in the field and ignoring advice to contrary.
"Hey Al," John asked. "Could you give us a minute?"
Alan looked between his brothers and identified some sort of hidden meaning. He swung his legs off the bed and hopped down, bare feet smacking against cold tiles. He hesitated a moment longer, tugging at his sleeves, before a hand darted out and patted Scott's shoulder.
"I'm gonna go find Gords," he announced, practically fleeing the room.
Tension descended so quickly that it was almost laughable. Scott didn't blame Alan for sprinting away. If he'd been able to move without losing the ability to breathe, he'd probably have done the same thing. As it was, he was stuck in bed with John and Virgil having some sort of staring contest as though they were trying to decide via sight alone who would pull the short straw and have to fill Scott in. Virgil looked down. John tutted but swung his chair around to face Scott anyway, despite having apparently been the victor.
John set his hands on his knees, pinned Scott with a look that could have sent the entire island into a mini-ice age, and announced without a trace of humour, "How many times have I had to tell you not to throw yourself off rooftops?"
Ah. Right.
Scott offered a tentative smile. "It wasn't a very high rooftop?" he suggested.
John narrowed his eyes. "Not the point and definitely not helping your case." He gestured to the IV line and the bandages, and the way Virgil was shuffling his feet looking as though he'd rather be anywhere else. "I'm just having a hard time understanding your thinking. Taking risks out on rescue is bad enough, but we're in a literal fucking apocalypse right now, Scott, so what in God's name made you think tackling Parker off a building and taking the full force of the impact yourself was a good idea? Severe internal bleeding, cracked ribs…"
"Well," Scott began hesitantly. "It's plausible that I wasn't actually thinking very much at all."
Virgil made a strange choking sound that was partway to a laugh but was closer to a sob.
John's hands clenched into fists. "I'm having a serious case of humour failure, so now is not the best time to fuck with me. From this point on, you don't take risks. You don't play the hero. Not anymore. We don't live in the kind of world where you can put your life on the line and trust that we'll be able to pull a miracle out of our asses if you mess up."
"John, our jobs involve us putting our lives on the line every day."
John stared at him, unspeaking, and Scott wanted to tear his gaze away, throw himself out of bed and run until his heart was too loud to hear his own thoughts, because he knew that look in his brother's eyes, knew what grief looked like on John, and knew the implications of seeing it there now.
Don't say it, he begged silently, but John had never been one to hold his tongue and he wasn't going to start now.
"International Rescue is gone. It's over. There's no one left to save. The world's dying and there is nothing that we, or anyone else for that matter, can do to stop it. We have the Thunderbirds, but we can't use them. There's nothing left. International Rescue was... it's part of a world that no longer exists and as much as I'd love to, we can't turn back the clock."
"John," Virgil said quietly, almost a whisper. "Stop."
Scott pushed past the pain until he was upright, bracing himself against the wall. "It's never too late. There's always a way."
John launched out of his chair, practically trembling with emotion, which seemed crazy because this was John, who repressed and compartmentalised all feelings to the point that it was scary, the very epitome of a closed book, and yet here he was pacing back-and-forth like a caged tiger.
"Look," Virgil interjected again, voice laden with that same soul-weary exhaustion from before. "I get it. Dad didn't believe in no-win scenarios. But this is-"
"I wasn't talking about Dad," Scott blurted out before he could stop himself. He eyed that dreaded IV line with the upmost distrust. Whatever was pumping into his veins may well include truth serum. He wouldn't put it past John, anyway, even if Virgil had morals. But he'd started speaking and now his brothers were waiting for him to finish, and both John and Virgil had the infinite patience and sheer stubbornness required to not let it go.
Scott tipped his head back. His vision was swirling with the dots that came from sitting up too fast with low blood pressure, a sensation that was all too familiar to him. The words were right there, so easy to reach…
"I wasn't talking about Dad," he repeated softly. "I was talking about Mom."
Mom, who promised him that there was no such thing as too late. Mom, who taught him never to give up, because like the darkest hour of the night is just before the dawn, so too is the hardest part of the journey just before the successful conclusion. Mom, who loved the sky and the stars just as much as her husband and sons, who watched Star Trek with Scott when he was very little, when Dad had just flown into space for the first time, and repeated James T. Kirk's words with religious reverence, because while Dad was stubborn, it was Mom who 'didn't believe in the no-win scenario'.
Virgil fell mute. He slouched in his chair, none of that artist's posture to be seen that Gordon so often teased him about. His eyes were rimmed with red. He stared at his hands, resting limply in his lap, and bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.
But John…
John moved silently back to his chair, like a shark returning for the fatal bite. He was graceful and deadly and yet there was something jagged about him all the same, a raw pain that had been kept hidden so tightly under wraps that Scott hadn't realised just how badly his brother had been hurting.
"Mom was wrong," John said at last, gripping the back of the chair until it left welts across his hands. He lifted his chain, meeting Scott's eyes in some sort of painful challenge. "There's no possible outcome in which we beat this thing. If you can't accept that, you're going to get yourself killed. It's just…" His voice broke and he swallowed, trying to recover. "It's over. International Rescue's done." His words became hushed. "We're done. Do you get that?" He let the chair fall from his grasp and reached over to grip Scott's wrist, gaze fierce and burning. "We're done, Scotty," he murmured. "I'm sorry."
There was always a moment in tough rescues where control over the situation wavered: a heartbeat of panic, a brief instance of self-doubt, a second when there didn't seem to be any viable solution. But every time, every time without fail, International Rescue found a way. They hadn't lost a single member of their team, a single part of their family, because that just wasn't an acceptable outcome. Likewise, giving up on the world and letting it fall to the bloodied hands of the undead was not an acceptable outcome. There was a way to fix this, they just had to find it. It was like a puzzle: once you fitted the outer pieces together, it was a lot easier to identify the others until you could assess the full picture.
Of course, this would have been a lot easier had Scott not been so goddam tired. It wasn't just the physical exhaustion that came with recovering from injury. He could have coped with that. But this… He couldn't sleep because the nightmares left him hyperventilating on his bedroom floor, unable to distinguish reality from fiction. The voice in his head, the devil on his shoulder, his own crushing guilt; it all whispered that he wasn't doing enough, that he was going to get his family killed, that maybe they were dead already and he was hallucinating all of this as some tragic coping method.
The panic was constant, just beneath the surface, prickling at his skin like a swarm of needles. Sometimes he forgot how to breathe, how to focus on the moment, and he was cast adrift like a boat in a storm, unable to find his way back. The world was on fire and he was losing his mind, but everywhere he turned were more flames, more smoke to conceal a possible escape.
There was blood on his hands and he couldn't wash it off. He couldn't look in the mirror. He thought and he fought, and he patched himself back up, but he was shattering and the broken glass was painful to hold together and it was all threatening to come tumbling down.
But he couldn't break.
Too many people needed him. His family was relying on him. So what if he couldn't tell where the pain in his ribs ended and the emotional pain began? It didn't matter, so long as he could hold it all together and plaster a smile on top. He'd damn near broken his body to keep Parker safe during the escape from Israel, so if he had to break his soul to keep his family safe during the apocalypse, then he'd do so without question.
But dear god, he was so tired.
Brains had officially discharged him from the infirmary two days previously. Scott had retreated to his room where he remained undisturbed. His arm had fully healed and so long as he continued to send scans of his ribs to Brains' lab, Virgil had no excuse to hunt him down. Alan was keeping his distance, sticking to Grandma's side like a limpet. Gordon still hadn't materialised, beyond brief moments during Scott's nights in the infirmary, when a shadowy figure had taken his hand and sat at his bedside unspeaking for hours, only to be gone again so suddenly that Scott wasn't completely convinced that he hadn't imagined the entire encounter.
As for John, Penelope, Parker and Kayo? EOS informed Scott that all four were fine. He'd check in with them himself soon enough, but for now…
He lay on his mattress for hours, unmoving, picking out patterns among the ceiling, staring at a single point until spots filled his vision. He was sinking. Sometimes he couldn't feel his own pulse and questioned whether he was already dead or dreaming. He wasn't sure if he cared.
The tap in the en-suite was leaking and the tip-tapping sounded like the blood dripping from his fingers, curled as though they were already reaching for the next trigger, to murder another person who had once had a life and a family and hopes and dreams.
Yeah. Scott didn't care what John said. These had been people once and he'd point-blank shot them. He knew it was survival instinct, but it didn't prevent the guilt. It didn't stop him from washing his hands over and over until they were scrubbed raw and soap stung so viciously that it brought tears to his eyes.
There were things he needed to do. Rations, for starters – they'd had roughly a week and a half left of food last he'd known and that had been before his trip to Israel. He needed to check on each of his family, particularly Alan. He needed to get out of his room, that was the point.
But Scott did not, in fact, get out of his room.
By the end of the second day, he couldn't even drag himself from his bed. The sunset stained the carpet blood-red and the distant wind sounded like screams. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw lunging faces, eyes bulging, teeth rotten with blood and drool. He would see himself raise the gun, only to be blinded by the flash of a wedding ring, a photo tucked into a pocket, the reflection off the face of an International Rescue watch… and suddenly it wasn't strangers, it was his family, all around, and he wouldn't hurt them, couldn't hurt them, so he lowered the gun and let them rip him apart, heart, body, soul, until he lunged upright in bed, struggling to catch his breath, drenched in sweat with his pulse pounding like a sledge hammer.
He was very conspicuously alone. Not that he expected anyone to make him a priority right now, it was just… noticeable. Both Virgil and John had his access codes. So did Grandma, but she was busy with Alan. Not that it mattered. He would be fine. He just needed some more time to piece himself back together.
At one point he heard raised voices in the corridor. Not angry shouts. Those were different. These were concerned, perhaps fearful, but mostly filled with unmistakeable love, because that was the one constant under every other emotion.
Scott didn't know how Gordon got in his room. One minute he was alone and the next minute there were arms around his waist and a younger brother plastered to his back. Gordon was shaking like a leaf, but Scott was too out of it to provide comfort. He tried to lift a hand, but it was too heavy.
"I'm sorry," Gordon was whispering. He pressed his face to the space between Scott's shoulder blades. "I'm so sorry, Scotty. I should have realised, but I was too focussed on keeping Virgil and Kayo afloat, and John's so obviously not okay so I was trying to keep an eye on him too, and I thought you were just recovering still, but that's no excuse and I'm sorry."
Scott attempted to find his voice. He couldn't recall the last time he'd drunk anything, so it came out as more of a croak, but hey ho.
"Quit 'pologising. M'fine."
Gordon's grip tightened.
"No, Scotty," he murmured. "No, you're not. You're so far from fine right now."
Scott couldn't bring himself to argue. What was the point? He'd had one job – protect his brothers – and he'd fucked it up. Here he was, worrying Gordon, but he couldn't even find the words to offer a glimmer of reassurance. He could feel Gordon trembling, feel his shirt getting hot and damp, because his little brother was crying, but he didn't know what to do to help anymore, because everything he did seemed to make things worse.
"You've gotta come back to me, Scott," Gordon was saying, begging even, in that awful broken manner. "Please. You can't leave me, you can't."
Scott blinked. "Didn't go anywhere," he mumbled at last.
Gordon inhaled slowly. "Yeah," he whispered. "You are. You're giving up. I've seen what happens when people give up. I won't let that happen to you. I won't let you go. I let you leave, let you go to Jerusalem, and you came back dying, and I'm not gonna make the same mistake again."
"M'not leaving," Scott repeated.
Gordon relinquished his tight hug around Scott's middle in favour of reaching for his eldest brother's hand, running a thumb along knuckles that Scott hadn't noticed were bleeding. Suddenly, the world was beginning to drip with colour at the edges, and it hurt, it hurt so badly to feel again. He turned his face into the pillow and struggled to breathe.
"G'way, Gords," he murmured. "Please."
Gordon snagged Scott's t-shirt and clenched the fabric into his fist, directly above Scott's heart.
"No," he snarled. "Never. I'm not fucking leaving you, alright? Get it through your thick skull. I don't know what's going through your mind right now, but I'm fairly sure it's all baloney. Here's the truth: you're good and you're kind and you're brave and if anyone's gonna figure this thing out, it's gonna be you."
"I can't do that anymore. I can't be that."
"Then don't. Just stay here, with us. No one ever wanted you to be anyone other than yourself, Scott, and they still don't." Gordon's voice was taut with urgency. "I won't ask anything of you. None of us will. I just… I just want you. I want my big brother." His voice cracked on a sob. "I want my brother, Scotty, and you're…"
"Did you kill any of 'em?"
Gordon fell quiet. "No."
"I did. They had families. If there's a cure… if that's possible… then I stole that from them. They had wedding rings and others were just kids, younger than you, and some were mothers and fathers, and I put a bullet between their eyes. So, if we can fix this… if we don't, there's nothing left, but if we do… either way, that makes me a killer."
Gordon held him tightly, so close that Scott could feel his brother's heart racing, and he was jolted back to that moment on the sofa, all those days ago.
"That's the biggest bunch of bullshit I've ever heard."
"Gordon."
"No. Nope. Nuh-uh. I don't want to hear it. And hey, here's another idea: quit this entire act you've got going. I don't know who told you that you weren't allowed to be upset around us, because being an overprotective smother-hen and hiding away until you have an actual mental breakdown and I have to kick your door in… those are two very different things. You look out for us, but we look out for you too… you've just got to let us."
Scott didn't have a reply. He didn't have any words full-stop. He was at the edge of a precipice, and it would be easier to give in, but Gordon was right there, tethering him to reality, warm and alive and determined enough to fight for the both of them.
"I don't know what to do," Scott admitted, voice breaking, and his eyes stung, and there was something awfully close to a sob in his chest. "I can't… I can't do this."
"Let it out." Gordon sounded suspiciously like he was crying himself. "It's okay."
"I can't."
"Yeah, you can. I've got you, brother."
Everything hurt so badly, right down to the fabric of the universe. There was so much pain and anger and grief that Scott didn't know what to do with it. That one traitorous sob made it to the surface, and he bit down on his fist to stifle it, but Gordon caught his hand and then he couldn't stop himself, because all he could do was cry, but it was damn near a scream, and he shouldn't be like this, not in front of Gordon, but he was falling apart and he couldn't stop sobbing, curling in on himself to try to stop the hurt.
But Gordon was there.
His little brother was there, and he wasn't letting Scott go.
"I've got you, Scotty."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, so sorry, I…"
"Why? Because you're not okay and you think you have to be? That's bullshit. You're my brother and I love you. I'm always gonna love you, no matter what."
Scott took a shaky breath.
"See?" Gordon whispered. "You're okay, Scott. I've got you, bro. We're the fricking Tracys, man. We can get through anything, so long as we have each other. Yeah?"
Scott decided that he had never loved his brother more than in that moment.
Um... sorry? There's uh... okay well there's comfort next chapter but there's also angst so...
More Gordon & Scott interactions though, because there's not enough of these two and I have to fix that.
Review?
Kat x
