Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When it’s all over, Alan, rather unfairly in his anger and frustration, tries to blame Gordon. The whole thing had been, after all, his idea, but the hurt expression on Gordon’s face when Alan, red-faced and sobbing, had begun to yell at him, had made it clear to anyone that their aquanaut was blaming himself more than enough already. Scott feels too weary to shout, to be angry at Alan for blowing up, and instead does his best to softly reassure them both that this is nobody’s fault.

It had been an accident.

Just an accident.

He steers Alan away from his immediate older brother with a firm hand on each of those little shoulders: just like their Father would have done. Gordon doesn’t need this kind of confrontation right now. Alan’s baby blues spill over with tears and Scott has to force his own closed to prevent them from joining him. He doesn’t look back at the static shape of Gordon in the shadows. He can’t right now.

It’s been a long, long day.

...

Brains had gone up to Five to perform some routine checks and repairs at around 0900 hours and that had meant that John was coming home. They’d all been pretty excited; they haven’t seen their brother in person in a good couple of months and even John had felt the rare need to spend some time planet-side, reconnecting with them all.

He spends far too much time up in Thunderbird Five, and they all know it.

John had landed cleanly and promptly, and spent the customary first twenty or so hours in bed recovering from the always-tenuous shift back to Earth-pressure. It was Gordon who’d decided he should get their space case up and out for the day. Call it brotherly bonding or I’ve missed annoying you John, but, with whatever reasoning, he’d bound straight into his ginger brother’s room, pulled apart the thick blackout blinds and had cheerfully exhumed a tired, grumpy astronaut from his bed without a second thought.

“Australia.” Gordon grins from where he’s hovering in the doorway of John’s little ensuite bathroom. “We could fly over to Sydney, catch some waves.” The kid wiggles a hand through the air in what's probably supposed to be a sea-like motion, and John tries his best not to compare him to some kind of demented jellyfish. Alan sure would have.

“You’re kidding, right?” Instead, he catches Gordon’s eye in the bathroom mirror, where he’d been brushing his teeth. "I've just got down Gordy, what makes you think I want to go surfing?" But the mouthful of foam rather renders the long, unimpressed look John’s giving him ineffective.

The spaceman’s plans for this morning had involved a large mug of the fancy English tea from Penelope he'd been saving, and a good book in his favourite quiet corner of the living room. He’s still got the lingering edges of a headache at his temples and gravity feels twice as heavy when your body is still expecting to float. John is well aware he'd lost a fair amount of weight this rotation, the past month having been too busy to maintain a good fitness regime, and the plan had been to build that back up slowly in his downtime. Throwing himself in the deep end, literally, by going surfing ranks around a 3 out of 10 on his things I wanna do right now scoreboard, and that's only so high because he does love surfing with Gordon. 

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Gordon’s nose scrunches. “Come onnn,” He's bouncing on the balls of his feet, too excited to keep still, "It’ll be fun. You and me and the open sea, sounds awesome right?”

John sighs.

If he’s truthful, Gordon always feels a kind of distance from John that he doesn’t with his other brothers. The distance isn’t all just literal either. It’s not just the stuck-up-on-Thunderbird-Five thing. See, John and Alan have their love of space to bond over, and then he’s got the oldest sibling smothering going on with Scott and then there’s the thing with Virgil where they sit and take electronics apart just because seeing how they work is therapeutic. Gordon and John probably have the least in common of them all, at the core of it. They’re like chalk and cheese. The sun and moon. Gordon is wild and exuberant; untameably colourful, and John is quiet and clever; bleached out by life in space.

Curiously, the one thing they do have a shared interest in is swimming, and if Gordon can take advantage of that to see more of the brother he sees the least of, then he sure as hell won’t pass up the opportunity. See, gold rank in the NASA pools is not as different from Gold in the Olympics as you’d think, a little less fancy but nonetheless efficient. John is very used to neutral-buoyancy diving and its similarity to the weightlessness of space travel and if they’re going to take a swim off the reef they’re more likely to stick together as diving buddies than ever go alone. It’s their thing and Gordon needs their thing right now because damn he’s missed John.

Their spaceman’s not home nearly often enough. It’s becoming almost weird to see him in the flesh, and not just as a pale blue hologram.

Gordon jams a shoulder against the frame of his brother’s bathroom door and studies the lean figure of the other man as he finishes meticulously cleaning his teeth, waiting for a reply. John is pretty active when he’s on Earth - after all, he’s got to maintain muscle mass and bone density while there’s lots of that dreaded gravity around to help him do so. He likes jogging with Scott and swimming with Gordon and climbing with Alan and it’s not often he objects to a good workout, even if that’s Kayo taking him down or Virgil coaxing him through the weights... so Gordon doesn’t think it’ll be that hard to tempt him out surfing.

Even if he's hardly going to win any awards for grace or balance straight down from space. Man's vestibular system is shit.

“You know the sea is currently averaging 64.7 Fahrenheit along the Sydney Coast, right? Windspeed 7 knots.” John informs him, frowning. He's pulled up a holographic diagram from his wristwatch that evidently tells him as much. “64.7 is the official freezing to death in a pair of swim shorts temperature.” John shakes his head. “It’s July, remember? The coldest time of year?” His toothbrush goes back in its holder, and he picks up a comb to run through the soft curl of his hair. “Any other time it’s around 74, you know. You might find it easy to warm up as you swim but some of us don’t have regular circadian rhythms to maintain proper thermoregulation.”

“What?" Gordon blinks, "Ah come on Johnny.” Little brother seems to have understood, or perhaps selectively heard, only about half of what John just said. “It might be winter, but it's not gonna be that bad. Ten degrees is nothing to a good wetsuit, and besides, the wind speed'll make great waves; enough to be fun for me without constantly knocking you flat on your face.” He flashes his brother a fantastically cheeky grin.

John just worries too much , Gordon thinks; he over-calculates everything.

“You chicken big bro?” That makes John look up from his holograms, scowling. “It’ll wake you right up I swear. And we can get ice pops at that place in the cove you like... Uh, or maybe fries if it really is cold. Make it a fun, relaxing, no-working trip. Don’t you wanna spend time with your faaaaaaaaaavourite little brother?”

The unfortunate downside to being a big brother is the uncanny lack of ability to say no to the younger members of the Tracy posse. Gordon knows he’s won when John’s nose goes all scrunchy in consternation.

John supposes he does kind of want some almost-weightless time in the sky, so flying over there might not be all that bad an idea...

“If it’s freezing,” He says, slowly, “then I’m officially designating Alan the role of favourite little brother.” The edge of a smile creeping in at the corner of his mouth betrays him as he sets down his comb, persuaded. “And we’re not going to Bondi - I’m not putting up with all the tourists.”

“Fine.” Gordon heaves an over-dramatic sigh, “Deprive me of the hot lifeguards then. We’ll go to Collaroy, at least they have a shake hut.”

“Were you thinking of taking out the Tiger Moth?” John finishes making himself a facsimile of presentable with a last futile attempt to flatten the curl of his forelock backward out of his face, then leads his little brother out the bathroom door. “Alan’ll want to come if you do.”

Gordon’s eyes light up at the idea of taking out the Tiger Moth - their sixth Thunderbird in all but a line of vinyl lettering. The little biplane is much smaller and more manoeuvrable than the Tracy Two, and therefore a great deal more enjoyable to fly. The one thing all five Tracy brothers have in common is a love for being in the air, and the best way of achieving that has always been in Grandpa Grant’s old, 1930s biplane. She'd been his absolute pride and joy; his grandfather had served aboard her during the Second World War for the British RAF, running maritime surveillance. It makes the little plane over a hundred and thirty years old, having been handed down through generations of Tracy's ever since she was purchased from the military. It’s the craft their Father taught them all to fly in in the first place and, though the thing's an antique, with the way Alan slaves over it (with a healthy amount of guidance from Virgil's engineering expertise), it looks and runs as almost new.

The kid’s endlessly proud of it. He's loved the Tiger Moth since he was only just tall enough to wax the undersides of her wings and he was the last to learn to fly in her so, naturally, Alan’s the one who spends the most time at her yoke now. Scott has credited the plane more than once as being the reason their little brother is such a gifted pilot so young. 

It’s also one of Scott’s favourite pastimes to irritate everyone by comparing the little craft to the behemoths they have in the USAF nowadays; he seems to think the ‘massive leap in plane technology’ since the World Wars is the most incredible thing on the planet. Alan would argue to his last breath with him over it, but really they all know that, compared to all their fancy gear and ion engines and rigorous safety protocols, there's something just a little bit magical about taking the simple old plane out.

When you're just a man and a piece of old metal, abjectly and unapologetically defying gravity.

“Hey, Alan.” John has brushed past Gordon and crossed the landing to stick his ginger head around the door frame to their baby brother’s room before the aquanaut can formulate a suitable complaint about being joined by him. “You free for a trip to the mainland? Gordon wants to take the Tiger Moth out.”

Alan leaps up from the seat at his desk, rushing out to meet them with excitement bright on his young face.

“Oo! Where are we flying to?” Alan grabs hold of one of John’s big cool hands and pulls his brother into his room, “What do I need to bring? I am flying right?”

John laughs, the sound honey warm and good-natured. As Alan releases his fingers John brings them up to ruffle through his baby brother’s hair in a rare, brotherly moment of physical affection. Alan beams excitedly up at him.

“You better be quick short stuff,” Gordon’s got his arms crossed in the doorway; “I was planning on leaving in twenny.”

“Leaving in twenty for where boys?”

Uh-oh. Grandma's 'dubious activity detector' seems to have overheard, and she shuffles slippered into the corridor behind them, eyes narrowed suspiciously at her Grandsons as if to ask; What the devil are Jeff’s boys up to now?

“We’re just taking a trip over to the mainland Grandma.” Gordon flashes her his patented TracyTM persuasively charming smile, brown eyes all big and deceptively doe-like... though it seems to have little effect on her expression. She's almost entirely immune at this point. Time to bring out the big guns. “I wanted to take our Johnny here surfing while he’s home.” He slaps a hand hard on John’s shoulder, mindless of the annoyed look his brother gives him for it. “Don’t you think it’d be good to get him outta the house?”

Fortunately for Gords, Ruth’s eyes go very soft as the name of her space-bound Grandson gets dropped into the mix. There’s the crinkly edge of a fond smile and old fingertips reach out toward her outlying boy. John tolerates the gentle sweep of her fingers down his cheek... though it feels suspiciously like she’s checking he’s not just a hologram. His nose wrinkles.

Gordon Tracy really can play the best of them.

“Alright then,” Their Grandma smiles at them, though shakes her head as Gordon whoops noisily, punching the air. “You boys have fun.” She instructs, “Don’t do anything I wou... anything that John wouldn’t do, now Gordon.” Squid-kid pulls a face at her for that and Ruth has half a mind to clip him around the ear for the cheek.

“I’ll just grab my jacket and hat.” Alan pushes past John, “It’s gonna be a bit chilly this time of year.” Gordon freezes mid-celebration to glare at him for unknowingly siding with John. “What? It will b-”

“Ah, now, you hold on just one minute young man.” Grandma Tracy latches onto Alan’s shoulder before he makes it all the way out the door. Blue eyes narrow behind her large spectacles. Alan gulps audibly. “...Have you finished your homework ?”

“Uh...” The instantly guilty look on the youngest Tracy’s face speaks far too much for him. “Yeah, I mean... well mostly. I’ll... finish it when I get back?” He suggests weakly; pointedly trying to look anywhere but at his Grandma’s steely gaze.

“Oh no you won’t Mister.” The foot goes down and even Gordon winces, “You’re not going anywhere until you’ve given me those full fourteen pages on Newton’s laws. There are no shortcuts in this household Alan. If you’re going to be home-schooled then you’re...”

“Going to have to work for it, I know, I know.” There’s an awkward, disappointed shrug of Alan’s shoulders. He’s pointedly avoiding their eyes and then, traitorously, the pout of Alan's bottom lip starts to become a tremble. There’s a quiet pause, and all three other Tracy’s feel their hearts twist in sympathy.

“Oh Allie... Here, love, I’ll make you a deal,” Grandma gives the kid's skinny shoulder a firm ‘buck up’ pat, “If you get it all done in the next hour, I can have a batch of fresh baked cookies all ready and waiting for you.” That idea only seems to make things worse for some reason, as Alan’s face crumples traitorously, like he’s both gonna miss out and get tortured for it, and John feels like he has to step in before she makes the kid cry.

“Next time, ok Sprout?” There’s a gentle ruffle of the soft duckling down fluff atop his baby brother’s head and Alan looks up at him hopefully, all watery big blues and expectation. John’s always been up there with the Mercury Seven on Alan’s list of heroes, and if John makes a promise then you damn well know he’ll do his best to keep it. “We’ll take her out again before the end of this week, I’m sure.” Alan nods gratefully, clinging a little to John as he leaves his hand hovering in the line of fire.

John doesn’t comment on it.

Lucky kid. Gordon scowls, unable to reason with the gelatinous bubble of jealousy inside him.

“I’m getting together a shopping list of things I’d like picked up.” Grandma is pointing out, helpfully, “You boys can do me a mall run on Thursday in your Grandpa’s plane.”

“Urgh!” Alan makes that sound that only frustrated, upset teenagers have perfected before turning on his heel, pulling away from them, and disappearing back into his room. The door gets slammed behind him. John and Ruth exchange long looks. Gordon shakes his head.

Teenagers.

“Go easy on her gears!” Alan yells a moment later, his voice muffled through the wall. It makes John jump and provokes a spluttery, surprised laugh from Gordon. “If you grind them up I’m gonna get you Gordy!”

“Ala...?!?” Their Grandma starts some kind of shocked retort, but she’s stopped in her tracks by a gentle hand on her arm.

John, smiling fondly, is shaking his head at her. Alan’s just upset: it’s clear scolding him won’t do much to help matters here. Taking her grandson’s non-verbal point, Ruth relaxes, taking hold of his hand again and giving it an affectionate squeeze. Brothers will be brothers, she supposes.

“Well... You boys have fun.” She says, and both of them get dry kisses pressed to their cheeks. John has to bend down and Gordon, scowling, swipes at his skin afterwards with the back of his hand, but Grandma seems pleased enough all the same. “Fly safe now.”

“Meet you downstairs in ten.” Gordon slaps his brother’s arm playfully, eliciting another scowl from John, before he sprints down the corridor shouting; “Don’t forget your swim shorts!”

John, with a resigned sigh, shares a look with his Grandma – provoking a dry chuckle from her before he gives in and goes to follow Gordon. Ruth rather thinks the younger boys are lucky that John inherited his Mother’s patience over the Tracy fire-starter attitude they seem to possess.

Chapter Text

“Hey! What took you so long?” Gordon is leaning on the wall to the hangar in a tacky Hawaiian shirt, mismatched swim trunks and some truly ugly flip-flops. There’s an obnoxiously multi-coloured beach towel slung over one shoulder but otherwise he doesn’t seem to have packed any kind of bags to take with him (unless they’re already loaded into the plane - but John, personally, rather doubts it. He’s not convinced that ‘prepared’ even exists in Gordon Tracy’s vocabulary).

“Calm down Gordon.” The ginger head shakes at his brother, “Someone had to pack what we’re actually going to need... though, even now I feel like I’ve forgotten something.” John’s got a pair of folding chairs resting on one shoulder and a bag with his wetsuit, towel and other necessities looped over the other. There’s a cool box hanging from the crook of his elbow and another bag in his other hand. He’s ready for anything from scraped knees to a whole army of hungry little brothers rising up out of the surf.

“It’s lucky they have board hire.” Gordon points out, pulling a pair of square designer sunglasses from the pocket of his shorts and jamming them haphazardly onto his face. He gives his angular hips a sassy wiggle for added effect, trying his best to provoke an eyeroll from John, though John doesn’t give him the satisfaction. “I don’t know if all that is going to fit in the Tiger Moth, you know.” Gordon adds, “What have you brought chairs for anyway? Everyone knows there’s nothing better than a nice warm towel on the sand!” He grins in the vague direction of his big brother and it makes John wonder if Gordon can actually even see through those ridiculous glasses, given the darkness of the hangar.

“Mmhuh… and you’re going to be thanking me when you’re not finding sand in every orifice for the next week.” John replies dryly, passing his younger brother to bring their gear to the small, red and yellow striped biplane.

“But that's the whole point, J!”

John elects to ignore that. The latch on the luggage compartment is a bit stiff but it slides down after a good bit of technical wiggling, Jefferson smack-it style.

“What beers have we got?” Gordon pops up right behind him, nosing at the coolbox as it gets loaded into the compartment. John gives it a good shove to try to make sure there’s room for the bags as well. Hmm, Gordon might be right about all this not fitting... But John isn’t about to sacrifice the chairs in this game of luggage Tetris though. Dimensions are simple math. He can solve this.

“Couple of packs of Pirate Life IPA.” He replies after a moment more jimmying and there’s a victorious upward curve of his mouth as the cool box slides sideways into place. “They’ve been on ice for around four hours, so they’ll be nice and cold by the time we get there. Though, with these weather readings, I feel like I should have packed something like hot chocolate instead.” He holds up his wrist to show the thick bank of clouds that have begun to gather over their surfing spot on the holographic map. Gordon still doesn’t seem too bothered by this. He just shrugs it off, wanting his beer regardless. “I also have snacks.” John adds, because Gordon Tracy is a black hole and it’ll save John from his little brother buying far too much sugary junk food at the beach and getting all hyperactive.

“If there’re vegetables in there I’m not going to forgive you.” There’s a wrinkle of a pointed nose as Gordon suspiciously eyes up the little blue box. “Vegetables aren’t snacks Johnny… unless you got me a celery crunch bar?”

“No celery crunch,” John's nose wrinkles. “I don't know what colors they're putting in those things, but that green is practically neon. It can't be nearly as good for you as they claim. I've packed a protein salad for me,” Gordon rolls his eyes with a loud huffing sound at that, turning his back on John as if he’s a lost cause, “and pineapple pieces, Shapes crackers and vegemite sandwiches for you, if that’s more acceptable.” That gets a fist pump and an ecstatic whoop from the family goldfish as he tackles the air. It’s not chocolate ice cream and candyfloss but John sure knows which other weaknesses to exploit.

“You’re the best.” Little brother discloses, and the bags get taken from John and stuffed safely in the hold with Gordon’s classic impatience. If his sandwiches are squashy then so be it; it won’t affect the taste. John’s nose has gone all wrinkly at the destruction of his precision placing but Gordon doesn’t seem to notice.

“This is going to be awesome John!” He beams, clambering up to the nosecone to do the engine and pre-flight checks. “Let’s go have some fun in the sun, yeah!”

As a realist, not an optimist, John really isn’t expecting much sun but still, with a sigh, he strips his grey NASA t-shirt off over his head to reveal dazzlingly white skin and begins to precautionarily smother himself in sun lotion. because better safe than sorry, right?

“Whoa there Johnny!” There’s a splutter from the direction of his little brother that makes John look up, confused, from what he’s doing, “Hey, it’s a good thing I’ve got my shades on.” Gordon grins, “Jeez dude you need a tan.”

“I live in space. ” John pointedly reminds him, a little annoyed, as he rubs a generous amount of sun lotion over his honestly impressively pale skin. “Where am I supposed to get a tan? I don’t go brown anyway. I just freckle: it’s the redhead’s curse.” He waves a vague hand towards his ginger curl before smudging white down his nose and across his cheeks as liberally as warrior paint. “Plus I don’t want my ears to get crispy. Here,” He tosses the bottle at Gordon, trusting the kid’s dexterity to catch it over his space-disorientated aim, “You stick some on too.”

Gordon’s already tugging off his hideous tropical shirt and John narrows his eyes at his little brother’s tight, smoothly tanned abs.

“You’re such a showoff.” John informs him flatly, and Gordon outright laughs, spreading sun cream over his stomach in long, stupid lines that follow the ridges of his abs like a tic-tac-toe board. John’s far more on the lean, skinny side than Gordon is, and he just doesn’t seem to pack on the muscle like his brother is able to - it all just atrophies in space anyway, however many laps of the gravity ring he puts in. “You’re as bad as Virgil.”

“Yeah right. You should see him on the bench press, he's doing double my weight. You should come down and surf with me more often, space case. Build up those muscles properly.” Gordon, done with the sun cream, tosses it back, hitting John solidly in the shoulder as he fails to catch it. “What?” Still grinning, the younger of the Tracy’s tugs his ugly shirt back on and jams a flight cap and goggles down over his head, clambering back up to the nose cone. “Did you think it’d float or did those noodle arms of yours just let you down?” There’s a loud, disparaging sigh as John just follows him up, climbing carefully into the seat behind the pilot’s.

“Well excuse me if my job happens to have me in space all the time, relaying all the rescue calls.” John frowns, “We don’t all just get to bob around in the ocean whenever we want.”

The Tiger Moth has no electrical system and has to be started by hand, so there’s a clunking whirr as Gordon, perched near the nosecone, begins to manually coax her into ticking over. The whine of the starter gets higher and higher as Gordon, with his feet solidly on the wing, turns the crank. The force of him moving up and down with the handle’s motion rocks the plane until the engine splutters into life with a thick plume of white smoke and a guttural, choked kind of clunking as the blades begin to rotate.

“Awh Yeah! No Alan needed!” Short legs get swung over her side and Gordon settles into the pilot’s seat. There’s a satisfying crack and a plume of smoke as the propellers get up to speed, whirring through the air and pulling them forward as the younger of the brothers releases the break. “And anyway,” He shouts over the sound of it, “we’ve had two calls, like, all week John.”

“I have been busy charting a new star binary.” John frowns at the back of his brother’s head as they taxi unsteadily out into the dappled sunlight of the runway. There’s a bump bump of wheels on concrete as Gordon tries to persuade her off the ground. “I don’t do nothing when we’re not running missions you know. There’s been a whole range of telemetries that Eos and I have been... Oh! Whoa ...!”

The elder of the two takes a sharp breath, losing his train of thought as they finish taxing and pitch toward the sky.

The view as they rise up from Tracy Island is absolutely stunning and the pair are silenced completely by it. The pale golden sand of the beach shimmers in the sunlight and the water sparkles an iridescent turquoise: the greens darkening until they reach the deep water far offshore. The sun cuts a blinding golden line right over the surface; the waves make the light bounce and sparkle like a glitzy ribbon caught in a breeze.

Compared to the bleakness of space and the same four, rotating walls of Thunderbird Five it’s just so raw and natural and beautiful. The wind ruffles lightly through John’s hair, tousling it back in fluffy ginger waves as he pulls the leather cap and goggles of his own flight hat onto his head. On the ground the Tiger Moth makes a kind of awful spluttery ticking noise, like there’s a person inside trying to gargle paint, but in the air, she purrs just like a wild cat cub with a full belly of milk.

The tiny shape of Kayo, reclining by the pool with her headphones in, waves up at them as they pass over. She’s basking in the gentle sun: her long legs stretched out and her dark skin glistening with oil. She looks nothing short of stunning in a Malaysian batik swimsuit with tastefully placed gauze chevrons at the hips and her hair out of the way in a sleek braid behind her shoulder. Gordon gives a low appreciative whistle, then grins over his shoulder at his big brother, waggling his eyebrows.

There’s an awkward pause where John just looks blankly back at him.

“Hmm,” John frowns, “Do you think she knows there’s a rain front on the way?”

“Oh my goddd.” Gordon has to roll his eyes at the sheer obliviousness of his big brother. “Never mind.” He should know by now that John is the last of them he should try to talk about girls with. It’s probably a good thing that Kayo likes Alan the best anyway. Ugh. With a shake of his head, Gordon looks back out across the rolling, endless expanse of sea.

The Tiger Moth is really, truly, a thing of beauty. She cuts through the sky with a soft rumbling roar - as old and familiar as late summer nights on the Tracy farm, with the smell of Grandpa Grant's tobacco and their Father’s whiskey mixing with the sharpness of the old petroleum fuel and the memory of freshly combined wheat out in the field.

It’s worlds away from the clinically precise technology of a Thunderbird, but the clunky little biplane has her own charm with the NEYOWWWWWWWWWW of the engines as she turns, and the glint of sunlight bouncing off of her red and yellow striped wings.

The vibrations from the engine are a low buzz in their limbs, an edge of excitement, the skies blue and wide and free above them. The air tastes unlimited. Cold and crisp and weightless as Gordon handles her into a turn with a whoop of joy.

Like Grandpa Grant always used to say, the Tiger Moth is ‘easy to fly, but difficult to fly well’. Scott had taken that as somewhat of a challenge back when they were young, and he was turning barrel rolls in the sky before he turned eighteen. It helped him get his commission in the RAF, but it had taken a lot of air time from some of the younger of them for a long time. Gordon, though a goldfish at heart, can’t help but love the time he gets up in the sky just as much as any other Tracy. The joy of flying is deeply ingrained in all of them.

“Watch your turns.” John warns him over the old, narrowband radio system they’re both connected to by the big, flight-cap headphones. “Remember your wingspan.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Comes the reply, “I got this Space Case. No problem.” He dips down the right wing and angles them into a smooth turn through the wind just to prove he can.

John focuses out on the deep blue of the South Pacific below them as they glide across it. The peaks of waves blur with motion into a clean gradient of colour, darkening from aqua blues to greens to deep purples the further out he looks. The horizon, toward Sydney, is scudded with the heavy grey of clouds.

“Oh yeah, the weather out there is gonna be great for surfing.” John sighs, and he’s not sure if Gordon misses his sarcasm or not because little brother just laughs, jubilant on the high of adrenaline.

“It’s gonna be awesome!”

“If you say so.” John leans back in the seat, his eyelashes fluttering closed so that he can enjoy the sensation of the wind against his skin. He’s missed this kind of freedom so mu-

His stomach lurches with a sudden displacement of gravity and John's eyes snap open, alarmed, only to find the world is upside down: Gordon swooping them through a loop-the-loop with a jubilant yell.

“Jeez Gords! You show off!” John can’t help the way his voice breaks into a laugh across the radio as Gordon angles the wing back down, gracefully looping the plane over herself in the sky once more. “Give a guy some warning!”

“Awh, but where's the fun in that!”

They even out again, the sun golden above them; dappling the building cloud bank below with dancing light as they race toward it. The air is cold and crisp and it catches in John’s throat.

The clouds look so soft from up here. He knows, logically, that the water formations would be cold and wet, congealing H2O, but they look almost like dappled candyfloss; with the way the sunlight speckles the surface with soft, warm tones.

The sea, visible now only between gaps in the cloud bank, is shadowed and dark in contrast and the resistance in the yoke indicates the building of the wind against them. It’s obvious that Gordon has started to compensate for the air front in his flying but it’s not enough that it worries either of them.

… Mostly.

John takes another deep, cold breath. The wind is just another form of solar energy; the result of the uneven heating of the atmosphere by the sun, whipped up by the irregularities of the Earth’s surface and its rotation. Winds are often magnified by differences in terrain or by big bodies of water. It's simple science.

“Hmm... Maybe I should have worn a sweater as well.” The cold is prickling at the spaceman’s sensitive skin even through his jacket. He’s very used to the THC constantly maintaining an ideal onboard temperature on Thunderbird Five, and all the fine ginger hairs on his arms are standing up with goosebumps in protest. John shivers, knotting his arms together to try to keep them warm. He’s feeling less and less like going for a dip in the sea today. Call him melodramatic, but he doesn’t exactly fancy pneumonia.

“It’ll be warmer down there.” One of Gordon’s hands comes off the yoke to flippantly wave around, dismissing John’s complaint. “It’s always colder above the clouds.”

John doesn’t point out they’re not that much higher than them. Certainly not compared to what he’s used to.

Gordon’s showing off a little, enjoying his time in the air, and John can hardly blame him for it. The younger man returns his hand to its place and uses it to angle them barrel-over-wing once more, gliding on the colder currents, evening her out low to the thick cloud layer. It’s the kind of aerial freedom that each of the members of their family craves and Gordon doesn’t seem at all bothered by the chill up here. Maybe he hasn’t even noticed it; adrenaline can keep you warmer than a pullover sometimes.

John, a little jealous, wonders if he can persuade the kid that he's fit to fly for the way back.

Gordon turns them smoothly into a curve, the left wing dipping down into the cloud layer, stirring water vapour up into a wake that crests around the metal like the bow of a wave. If John reached out his arm he could probably run his fingers through it in the same manner - cutting through air and cloud alike and sending the currents contorting around them. The air pressure is balanced perfectly on each side to support the craft in flight and John thinks it rather beautiful - but then, it’s just like him to apply that label to machines. The curve angles them around toward Australia, gently gliding.

It's perfect until, abruptly, it isn't.

Neither of the plane’s occupants are expecting the sharp gust of wind that catches her large, inclined, upper wing. If John had had time to contemplate the science, he’d have known that the angle they were coasting would make air pressure build beneath it, stronger than the low pressure above. The shift shoves the broad piece of metal around over them - sending the plane into a sudden, sideways spin, and, embarrassingly, John cries out - though, to his credit, it's not every day that he's whirling through the air, spinning like the blades of a wind turbine.

But the abrupt flip wouldn’t have been a problem at all if Gordon’s cold hands hadn’t also slipped on the controls under the force of it, knocking them forward.

Because suddenly, instead of flying smooth and straight out of the spin, they’re spiralling forward and down.

Chapter Text

Gordon’s “What the...!!!” mixes with John’s cry of shock as he’s jolted painfully in his seat by the rapid drop in elevation; the harnesses locking tight over their chests as they're slammed into them. “Oh, sh-” The younger Tracy grapples for the yoke as they find themselves tumbling, uncoordinated, from the sky. "Hang on John!"

There's a grinding crunch of something in the engine as Gordon rapidly slides the gears home in an effort to rebalance, but then everything goes white-grey and blind as they punch straight through the thick, wet clouds: the both of them soaked instantly to the skin by precipitation. The younger Tracy twists the yoke hard left, trying to pull it upwards, to turn them out of their dive, but it’s too little too late and the blackness of the ocean is rising rapidly toward them. John shouts something undistinguishable behind him, and then...

The nosecone hits the surface like it’s made of concrete, with a sound like a thundercrack.

The sudden shock of cold water is like a punch straight to the centre of John’s chest and all the air is forced from his lungs in one choked gasp. He’s thrown back in his seat by the force, head snapping back as the thin old metal of the plane crumples in around them like paper. He must blackout for less than a minute because when he blinks alive again, his spine searing, they’ve half surfaced under the buoyancy of the sealed compartments. Seawater is sloshing in - the Tiger Moth's hull hardly airtight at the best of times - and it's trying to drag the heavy body of the plane back down.

John tugs frantically against the seat restraint as it cuts across his battered, constricted ribs. He thrashes hard, straining back as his numb fingers try to fumble down over the belt catch.

In the time he’s struggling to free himself from the restraint, the black water has risen enough to lap at John’s chin as the sea sucks the plane back downwards. The plane is old and open-top and there's going to be no capsule of air to breathe. It’s rising quickly, salty, up past his mouth and nose. Even as he tilts his head back to try to stay above it, it’s only delaying the inevitable, and John gets dragged under while he’s still grappling with the belt.

His jaw feels locked.  He can’t tell if it’s panic, lack of oxygen, or if something in his chest has snapped during impact, but there’s a sharp burning sensation blossoming in his lungs and deep into his side.

Bubbles of oxygen chase each other like tiny silver fish all around him, rushing upwards to escape the prison of the plane. One of John’s legs is stuck, jammed down into where the back of the other seat has caved inwards under the force of the dashboard being shoved back. John supposes that must have happened when the nosecone in front of it had crumpled in on impact. The force of the water has punched holes like morse code right through the casing.

The double linear cockpit is a mass of metal, dark and twisted out of shape. Salt water burns in his scrapes and cuts and John can feel his pulse throbbing hard at his temple. The feeling of sinking, of being trapped on all sides by crushed metal, flashes dread right through John, and he can’t help but do the stupid thing and gasp in a mouthful of water in response to it. His throat feels constricted horribly by something pressing against it, but he’s finally free of the seat restraints so with numb, fumbling fingers, he moves to wrench at the strap of the flight hat that’s pulled tight under his chin, trying to alleviate the pressure until he feels it snap.

Its removal doesn’t help anything near as much as he’d like.

The surface is still rising and so John begins to shove roughly against his metal prison, straining to get his leg free, to twist his body out of the seat. It strikes him as a little odd that the shape of the seat in front of him looks empty in the encroaching darkness and…

Gordon? Where’s Gordon?!?!

Terror, black and sharp, strikes a hole right through John’s heart and there’s a long moment of panic until his flailing hand catches a limp, white wrist in the darkness. John tugs the still, floating body of his brother into view and bile rises against the water in his throat at the sight. 

Gordon’s restraints must have snapped under the impact with the surface and thrown him clear. He hangs, tinted green and pale, in the murky water; unconsciousness rendering his body ghostlike and limp. His mouth hangs open and lax; lifeless but for the fine stream of bubbles escaping from between his lips, chasing toward the surface. His head lolls onto his shoulder, his body drifting a little in the ebb. There’s a ribbon of red blood from the younger boy’s forehead diffusing into the waters.

No no no no no... Please no.

John pulls his brother in closer, giving Gordon’s limp shoulders a firm, disbelieving shake. The usually golden halo of hair that fans out around his head appears verdigris through the filter of the water, swishing with the motion. John glances upwards at the rising surface. It’s getting further and further away and so the spaceman tugs again inefficiently against his trapped limb, panic tightening his trachea as he feels the jagged metal biting sharply into skin, tearing at the flesh.

His leg is well and truly stuck, the jaws of the wreck latched tightly around his awkwardly angled shin. If he lets go of Gordon, if John tries to push him up toward the surface, the air, on his own, there’s a very strong chance his brother won’t make it. The currents of the South Pacific are strong and even Gordon can’t swim when he’s unconscious. He’d get swept away and no one would find him and John just can’t let that happen.

There’s no oxygen and there’s a deep ache in his chest and Gordon is going to drown if John can’t get his leg free and that’s unthinkable and so his only option is-

Steeling himself, John twists his hip savagely to the side, pulling Gordon’s body in close to his own and slamming his free foot down hard against the metal, trying to get more leverage to fulcrum the limb.

The give is sharp and sudden. One second he’s straining and the next there’s an extra kind of twist, a wrench and a sharp snapping popping sound.

John’s scream diffuses underwater, but there’s no one conscious enough down here to hear the sound he makes as his leg breaks anyway.

White flares, blinding, across his vision. A sizzling, crackling electrical storm in his synapses. There’s a crunching grinding sound as John feels his leg slide free of the metal at an angle that really shouldn’t have been possible. A weak dizziness accompanies the pain but John knows better than to give in to the agony that screams broken bone. He knows that letting himself succumb to the light-headedness and the struggle for air will only kill him faster.

Him and Gordon.

John’s lost all sense of orientation though. He tries to cling to consciousness with the same determination he clings to Gordon, thrashing weakly against the hot, searing pain that slices up the nerves in his leg and burrows into his side.

John chokes, the world going blurred and grey at the edges. His lungs are full of water, his last weak reserves of oxygen bubbling through it. He’s always prided himself on his ability to keep a level head under pressure, but right now he can’t seem to stop the sheer, panicked terror that has a crushing grip around his throat.

They’re going to die if he passes out and John knows it.

His little brother is going to die .

John screws his eyes shut and blindly slams the hand that doesn’t have a death grip on Gordon hard against the underside of the biplane wing above his head. It seems to have collapsed in toward them during the crash and John has to shove it upwards so that he can drag the both of them out from underneath. The young astronaut is a strong enough swimmer - he’s done his laps of the neutral buoyancy lab and the NASA pools plenty of times, but his, don’t be broken, please don’t actually be broken, leg hangs limp and useless and agonizing, dragging them down.

John has never broken anything like this before and the pain is far worse than he’d ever imagined it could be. He remembers little Allie cracking his radius by falling off Gordon’s bike when he was about six. The kid had absolutely howled and howled and suddenly all that crying suddenly makes startling sense.

John feels, rather absurdly, sort of like crying too.

But there’s a definite darkness seeping in at the corners of his vision now. John’s limbs are too heavy. The water too deep. His chest feels like there’s a dark band of iron tightening up around it, crunching and crushing. The surface is so far away.

But Gordon...

John shoves hard off the plane’s crumpled metal wing, barely feeling the serrated edge of the twisted metal that slices across his palm as he slaps his hand down to give them an extra boost through the water. The light of the surface is a dull, beckoning white as he tries to kick lopsidedly; struggling toward it. He thrusts out his one free arm, scooping water past them and trying to get his good leg to provide enough momentum to reach oxygen. It’s such slow work, even kicking furiously. Gordon feels like a limp, potato-filled sack dragging him back down.

A film blurs over John’s vision. The dizziness is getting overpowering and the darkness is more than happy to watch him struggle.

Light and air can’t be more than five feet above him now…

He has to get there... He has to... Just a little more and...

John breaks the surface choking, his arms and lungs and limbs burning. He tries to drag Gordon’s dead, oh god please not dead, weight up out of the water but the towering black force of a wave throws them back under in a torrent of bubbles.

Gordon’s heavy. Too heavy for John with his wet clothes dragging him down and no power in his limbs. The shock of the cold and the crash have the spaceman gasping for air, sharp and panicked. Phosphenes bloom like fractal galaxies across his blurry vision and the water gurgles grotesquely in his throat as he frantically tries to clear it.

Another towering black wave crashes down almost immediately on their heads. Fighting against the drag of the deep, John struggles his way back to the surface with a hacking, spluttering noise as he tries once again to clear his own airways.

He tries to predict the onslaught of waves, clutching Gordon desperately close. He pulls the limp body round so that Gordon’s in front of him; an arm looped around his chest, fingers still gripping his brother’s wrist, so that he can keep him further out of the water - protecting him from the majority of the waves.

It’d be more successful if he wasn’t struggling so badly. There’s not enough air in John’s wet, pooling lungs. He can’t tell if Gordon is even breathing. There’s blood all over the younger man’s face. The smell of it heavy and metallic in the air. John doesn’t even know if he’s-

John opens his mouth to try to rouse his brother but he gets caught totally off guard as another wave almost plunges them beneath the surface once more. It’s almost impossible to swim with an unconscious Gordon and a broken leg dragging behind him, but John keeps kicking anyway, keeps fighting the sucking darkness of the sea.

He’s tiring fast.

Gordon’s head is limp and heavy against his shoulder, the younger boy’s back to the elder’s chest with one of John’s arms looped around his waist in a half-lopsided rescue swim. The waterlogged jacket John’s wearing is weighing him down, but he doesn’t think he can struggle out of it and keep a hold of Gordon at the same time.

He tries to keep his brother’s head tipped back and free of the water but the towering waves remain hard to predict, and they go under, gasping, all over again.

There’s a moment of uncoordinated tumbling, a whirlwind of limbs. Bubbles and blue and no kind of sense of which way is up and which way is down. The sky and the sea seem both equally dark and foreboding. Gordon’s been pulled away from him by the ebb but, as John forces his elbow into his side and brings his fist up towards his face with a mighty heave, he finds it still reassuringly full of his brother’s wrist.

Gordon's slack features get hauled into view through the murky green and John slides his arm firmly back around his brother, holding him close so that he can try to kick as hard as he can back up towards the light with his one good leg. The movement is searing agony in his broken, jumbled limb but if there's one thing the Tracy brothers will refuse to do, it's to let a little brother down.

Or drown, apparently, in this case.

“Gordon!” John tries to yell over the roar of the swell, as they break the surface once more. “Gordy can you hear me?!?” He’s rewarded by another mouthful of seawater for his efforts, but there’s no response from his brother as he’s left spluttering.

Half-blinded by water and the pounding of his heart in his ears, John drags a heavy arm up over Gordon’s chest so that he can more or less see his own wrist. His slashed palm bubbles up blood, hot and red and smearing on the shirt Gordon is wearing, only to be diluted and swept away by seawater, but they have bigger problems right now. His Comm watch is cracked, jagged and split, right across the face. There’s water swished into the dial and as John heaves his arm further out of the water to try to make a call it doesn’t so much as produce static, let alone connect to Tracy Island.

He fumbles for Gordon’s wrist next, still kicking hard with his one good leg, but all John’s numb digits can feel is smooth caramel skin and the slipperiness of the bloody trail his palm has left.

It’s not there.

Stupid ‘fun relaxing not-working trips.’ Gordon’s not even got his watch on.

Oh god.

They’re stranded out here, miles from shore, and John doesn’t even know if his brothers are aware there’s even a problem. The rest of their Communications gear went down with the plane, but surely... surely Eos would have noticed the crash?

But... Was Eos monitoring them? Eos is usually monitoring him, but she’s been so neurotic since he’d nearly crushed himself with the gravity ring trying to haul up Langstrom Fishchler, that the last they’d spoken, they’d had a fight about it and John had all but yelled at her to lay off.

He really, really hopes she realised that he just meant for her cameras to stop watching him twenty-four-seven. She might be just like an impossibly curious child, but he needs some kind of privacy, still... please, please let her have been watching them fly today.

Slightly irrationally, dizzied by a lack of oxygen to his brain, John finds himself laughing aloud at the smudgy blur of the island in the distance. It’s clearly impossible but no Tracy ever heeded by the laws of the impossible anyway, so John has to at least try. For Gordon’s sake. He kicks out, his bad leg pure agony as he pulls them through the water in that direction with short, lopsided strokes - hindered by his clothes and the pain and the towering water and the limp weight of his brother.

Another wave washes over them and, as he’s distracted, saltwater goes right up John’s nose, leaving him struggling and spluttering all over again, swept along as the ocean wills. The dark grey clouds above them are lined with the weak white of sunlight beyond and, disorientated, John tries to focus on that to steady himself. He lingers on the thought that the stars are up there somewhere, far beyond them... far beyond them all.

The distance he’s got to swim to reach dry land, illogically, doesn’t feel much closer.

He calculates his speed (too slow) and works out the distance travelled (not enough). There’s no time to catch his breath. John’s world has narrowed to the dark blot of Tracy Island in the distance and the weight of his brother against his chest. His vision tunnels in. He has to push forward through the water, dragging their bodies along with his free arm and kicking out hard with his one good leg. His muscles are burning. It’s just another stroke, then another. He counts each one as an accomplishment. A feat. Just one more he lies to himself, and somehow that works.

The cold has tightened icy arms around the young man’s ribcage, squeezing in. He’s forced to take sharp, shuddery breaths, panicked and too fast, wet and shaking as he keeps kicking out with his one good leg to keep them afloat. He feels like he’s been swimming forever, but he doesn’t seem to have made any progress at all. There’s absolutely no chance that he can get them back to Tracy Island under his own steam but John Tracy will be damned if he doesn’t try.

His senseless fingers have lost their grip but the muscles in John’s arm, the ones that are keeping Gordon pressed to his chest and above the water level, have locked up completely anyway. He’s wound Gordon’s shirt so tight around his arm that they can’t be separated. John’s got to tilt his head back to keep his mouth out of the water, only it fills his ears and regularly washes over his face instead, making him cough as he tries to keep Gordon higher up than he is.

Desperately, and perhaps a little deliriously, John wishes they’d brought the surfboards with them. If even one had survived the crash it would have floated, and he could have laid Gordon out on it and clung to the side, Titanic style.

He doesn’t want to think about what happened to ‘Jack’ in that film...

John presses his cheek hard against the wet side of Gordon’s head, inhaling deeply to keep enough air in his aching lungs to hold them above the surface for a few moments more. He can feel the disconnection of some terrified kind of shock setting in.

His head is spinning, and he doesn’t think he can even feel his leg anymore.

The island is so far away.

Oh please let Eos be watching them...

Chapter Text

The symbol for a incoming call from Thunderbird Five makes Scott look up from his holopad with a frown. He’s got his feet up on one of the curved, comfy sofas in the living room and so it’s not even much of a stretch as he reaches a hand over to activate the holographic display in the center of the room. Pale blue rotating circles fill the air and the small voice of John’s AI greets the occupants of the room with a stiff;

“I am concerned about John.”

Well. Eos is nothing if not to the point. Scott swings his legs over the edge of the sofa and leans in, elbows on knees, his expression puzzled. Virgil, reclined opposite, looks up from the engineering magazine he’s reading, equally confused.

“John’s off the island right now,” Scott tells her lightly, with a smile and a raised brow. “I’m surprised he didn’t let you know. Gordon’s taken him to Collaroy to go surfing this afternoon. Better him than me right?” Big brother laughs and there’s an amused kind of snort from Virgil opposite as he turns a page.

“I am aware of John’s excursion.” Eos sounds a bit snippy, maybe... frustrated? Scott always wonders if she thinks anyone who’s not her John is a bit of an idiot. Like they’re all some lower kind of intelligence, despite, he thinks, the fact she still has plenty to learn herself. What has John been teaching her up there anyway? Astrophysics with a side of spaceman-brand sociology? World peace? Or just how to beat them all horrifically at chess?

“We had a... disagreement about my level of monitoring before his descent.” She explains stiffly, ignorant to Scott’s thoughts, “But regardless, I have a duty to John and I am concerned about his present status.” She says, like it should be obvious as to why.

“I- uh, what’s concerning you Eos?” Scott’s eyebrows crinkle in, giving him their Father’s frown lines. It’s not like those two to fight. He really hopes she hasn’t been trying to monitor how long he spends in the shower again. John had come home for a whole week the last time she decided that 30 seconds was plenty long enough for a wash, and kept cutting off his hot water. “John and Gordon have only been out about three-quarters of an hour.” Scott tries to keep it light but his rising worry seeps into his voice all the same. Next to him, a line of tension has become visible through Virgil’s shoulders, his concentration torn from his magazine.

It’s kind of reassuring to see that Eos isn’t letting their disagreement affect her loyalty to John. Scott would rather not have ‘ Attack of the Killer AI’ happen ever again, after all. One close call like that is more than enough for a lifetime - save it for those old space horror videogames Alan used to play: the ones that, for some reason, he’s not gone near since.

RIP ‘2048 Space Odyssey; Zombie Edition’.

Still, if Eos is concerned about something to do with John, then so is Scott.

“Is John just not taking your calls?” Or, Scott worries, has she been reading John’s stats and there’s some discrepancy? What if something was wrong with reentry, and the effects have just taken their time to make themselves known? John had been quite wobbly after coming down, he thinks, but nothing too out of the ordinary. A little frantically, Scott wishes he’d taken his brother's BPA before they’d left. All kinds of things can go very wrong very quickly with space travel.

“I am concerned that I am unable to locate a signal from craft GT.TB6.1932, designation Tiger Moth.” Eos says, clipped and formal - perhaps even more so than usual. Scott wonders briefly if talking to them without John around makes her nervous. None of them can really tell the AI’s emotions like he seems to be able to.

“There’s no signal?” Virgil discards his magazine in favour of moving to stand by the table. His fists ball anxiously as he looks up at her hologram.

“Do you have recordings from their Comms?” Scott asks, pushing himself to his feet and taking a step closer to join him. Of all the something-wrong-with-John’s, he’d not been expecting a straight up lack of signal.

He has a bad feeling about this, even as Virgil’s fingers dip into the holographic field to try and pull up the tracking program.

“They were communicating via narrowband radio and as such, I do not have the data readout from their transmissions.” Eos outwardly sounds worried now. “I do not have a signal.” She repeats, just in case she’d not made herself clear. Why are humans so slow sometimes? Why are they not more like John?

“You were monitoring their position though?” Scott’s fingers tighten on the edge of the transmission table, watching a lack of results from Virgil’s efforts at the holograms. He doesn’t really want to consider all the possibilities that a lack of signal could be indicative of.

“Of course.” The AI sounds frankly annoyed now. “It is my purpose. Especially at times John is out of my camera’s range. I cannot locate their signal.” She tries to convey, once more, just how significant that is.

With a swipe of his hands, Scott tries to pull up a call to John. John’s always listening. Always. Right? It’s his job. It’s his life. So-

So Scott is entirely unprepared for the unsettled feeling he gets when all that comes through on the channel is empty static.

“Thunderbird Four is not wearing his Communicator,” Eos informs them, as Virgil moves to try Gordon’s too. “His signal is without life or heat signature, positioned at minus thirty-seven point eight degrees East, one hundred and seventy-five degrees South.”

“Is that his room on the Island?" Virgil's brows raise, "He's not just still here, is he? Surely he wouldn't have left it at ho...”

There’s a creak on the stairs followed by the regular tap tapping sound of feet on the polished wooden floor as someone makes their way into the living room behind them. Scott looks sharply over his shoulder and can’t help the way his heart sinks when he sees it’s only Alan - their youngest brother looking curious about all the noise.

“Alan!” He calls before Eos can reply, and it seems to startle the boy, “Was Gordon in his room?” Scott hardly wants to think about the alternative. He doesn’t want to think that Gordon’s not with his watch.

“John and Gordon are not on the island.” Eos repeats, sounding outright frustrated at him now: the human designated Scott Tracy is not acting with the urgency John needs. “I lost the signal from the plane twelve point four minutes ago, this is...”

“You what!?!” Alan’s face has drained abruptly of all colour. An image of the last time there was a lack of response from John haunts him all too often; blue and orange and dangerously low on oxygen. “Why don’t you have a signal?” He rushes, “What’s happened to Gordy and John?”

“Alan.” Scott has crossed the room in less than five long strides and he takes hold of each of Alan’s biceps, shaking the boy a little to get his attention. His voice has gained some kind of raw desperation, almost pleading that what he fears right now is not the truth. “Did they actually take off earlier? Eos can’t find a signal, but if they didn’t leave, then there won’t be a signal, right? Did you actually see them leave?”

“I, yeah? Of course. Th-They left at eleven.” Alan’s eyes are very wide and very blue and he winces as Scott’s fingers tighten suddenly. “Wh-What happened? Are they ok?”

“Scott.” Virgil’s hand is warm on his wrist in warning, and Scott, after a moment, peels his fingers away, apology and worry deep-set in his eyes.

“If Eos was tracking them and has lost their signal,” Virgil’s calm voice has a honey-like charm on the eldest of them. He’s ever the voice of good, stable calm and reason. “I think we should take One or Two out and find their last known flight path. It might just be a Communications error, but I think we’d all feel better to check.”

Alan absently rubs at the reddening marks on his arms – the spots where his hot-headed brother’s hands had been moments before. He’s looking between the two of them like he’s watching some kind of particularly frightening game of tennis, eyes wide and his mouth a little open.

“It’s their off-duty time so I doubt Gordon’s keeping on top of calls.” Virgil goes on, reaching out to rub a soothing pattern into Scott’s back. His other hand captures Alan’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Especially if they’ve got narrowband between them and he’s left his Comm here. You know what Gordon’s like, he’s probably just turned the beacon off by accident. It’s hardly going to be his priority.”

“I don’t know.” Scott says, pulling his hand away and looking back up at Eos’ rotating blue hologram. He doesn’t like this situation at all. Something just isn’t right. “John wouldn’t let him just turn off the tracking beacon. Eos doesn’t just lose John’s signal.”

There’s a long uncomfortable pause. Eos’ lights glow in their quiet, rotating circles. A bird calls from outside somewhere. Virgil rubs a worried hand over his mouth, his fingers itching a little at the fine, dark stubble he finds beginning to gather at his chin. He’ll need a shave by the morning but his priorities are so far from anything like that right now.

“I think they’re in trouble.” Alan pipes up, sounding scared. “W-What if they’ve crashed my plane? What if- I mean...” His voice chokes up, like the syllables are sticking to the lining of his throat, making it a struggle to get them out. “If... l-like Dad ...?”

Scott’s face suddenly goes a concerning shade of grey, as blood rushes away from it and in toward his vitals.

“Alan,” Scott addresses their baby brother, his voice sharp with tension. He all but sways on his feet, light-headed, as he pulls away from Virgil’s supportive hand. “You stay here in case there’s an emergency situation, or to notify us if the Tiger Moth returns. I’ll go with Virgil in Thunderbird Two to look for them. Eos will continue monitoring the frequencies, sensors, and flight path for signs of their location.” It feels wrong for him to be the one dispatching them.

“An emer...?” It takes Alan a moment to process the instruction. “What! Scott! This is an emergency situation!” Little brother’s cheeks flare hot and pink with anger at the very idea of being left behind. His fingers drop from his arms and ball into tight, furious fists. “You can’t just leave me here when Gordon and John are in danger!”

“We don’t know that they are!” Scott snaps back, though his feeling about all this just hasn’t gone away. “What if a rescue call comes in, Alan? What if someone needs Thunderbird Three, huh? What then? ”

More than that practicality though, Scott is genuinely scared of what they might find out there. That Alan might be right and this might be like their Father’s accident all over again or worse. And he can’t let Alan see that. He can’t. If there’s been a crash and there are... bodies... then...

“We don’t have time for this Alan.” The Field Commander voice comes out with an order, though Scott feels weirdly disconnected from the person saying it. “You are to Stay. Here. Virgil and I are going to get our stupid brothers and teach them how to use a radio again.” Not that he believes for a second that John could possibly ever forget such a thing when that’s his job - when even his degree is in Laser Communications.

“I am transmitting their last known position to Two’s console.” Eos says quietly, her voice somber with the mood in the Tracy living room.

Scott exchanges a look with Virgil. His younger brother’s eyes are that reassuring steady brown, and it forces the older of them to take a deep breath, steadying the pace of his pounding heart.

They can do this. They can find their brothers, whatever they’ve gone and done.

“Thunderbirds are Go.” He says, though with a great deal of trepidation. “Let’s go see what those idiots have done now.”

He really hopes they’ll just find them flying.

...

John’s hair is wet and cold, plastered down over his face. It's getting in his eyes, but he can’t spare a hand to swipe it out of the way while he’s trying to stay stable; trying to keep them both floating atop the black, seemingly bottomless ocean.

He's been trying not to think about what might be lurking down there.

Gordon wouldn’t be afraid if he were the conscious one, John scolds himself, but he’s also far too wary of the fact these waters are tropical enough that the smell of their diluted blood could summon some less than friendly wildlife.

The astronaut has never been afraid of the water before, but now the fear has settled into his bones and is trying to sink them with its weight.

John's hands are numb and stiff, curled as tightly as he can manage around his brother’m. They've fallen into a kind of rhythm, a motion influenced by the continuous rise and fall of the swell, and it’s helping to keep them afloat, but John knows he’s tiring fast. He feels like he's been clinging desperately on to Gordon for forever. He’s battered and exhausted; his consciousness in thin, ribbon-like tatters. The alluring drag of the deep weighs them down.

He isn’t shivering anymore. He hasn’t been in a while.

The sky is a heavy dark grey with the premonition of rain. The first droplet hits John’s upturned face, thick and fast; rolling off his cheek like a tear. The rest don’t take long to follow.

I told Gordon it would rain, the astronaut smiles deleriously at the rolling sky. I said it would.

It feels as though the waves are almost playing with them - the structures deep black-blue and reminiscent of Hokusai in their terminal beauty as the pair are tossed about. Water washes over John’s face and he just has to let it; only hoping now that there’s enough air in his lungs that they’ll bob back up again. The soft swush of the waves is like a siren's song, luring him under, whispering for him to just let go, let go of it all...

The wind sinks its icy teeth into their skin, chapping lips and lifting wet strands of hair from their faces to whip them about. The faint, blurred lights of Tracy Island are still so far away: beyond the world of wind and rolling water. They have a better chance of being found if they’re closer to the shore, but John can feel his faith that anyone might be coming slipping further and further away. He’s known since he started that just swimming isn’t going to get them all the way to safety.

His breath comes in weak, raspy gasps now. John’s fighting half-heartedly just to keep his face just above the water. He feels like broken glass; shattered into pieces. His ribs feel too tight. The surface of the ocean is a drum for the sky to beat against. The uneven rhythm of the rain blurs together to become a constant hissing, like Comm static or an old TV left out of tune. Fuzzy background noise. It’s a kind of lull that’s letting him just drift away...

Gordon in his arms is the only thing that’s keeping him going: keeping the black and grey that’s seeping in at the edges of his vision at bay.

No, John’s never been afraid of water. Not before now. Not before he’s found himself choking on the stuff with the weight of his little brother weighing them down. He has no idea if Gordon is even alive; there’s been no kind of distinguishable movement from him. There’s a slim chance that John might even have made it on his own, but it never crosses his mind to let the body he’s clutching go.

Distantly John wonders, not for the first time, what death might be like. He’s always expected to die up in space, really. Up amongst his stars, burning out with his space station. There's so much to go wrong in the amount of time he spends up there that it has always seemed inevitable. Depressurisation. Barotrauma. Radiation...

He didn't expect this.

He certainly didn't expect Gordon to be with him when it happened.

He doesn’t really know how or when everything slid out of focus and into darkness. At some point, they must have slipped beneath the water, because they’re just sinking slowly, all still and limp and kind of numb.

John feels weightless and disconnected from his own body. He’s strangely calm. It’s like he’s just falling asleep in the gravity ring with the G-force dialled down low. It’s familiar and reassuring and the pain through his side and up his leg and deep in his muscles doesn’t seem so real anymore. Everything has narrowed to the sensation of floating. Of drifting. As easy as falling asle...

Chapter Text

The thick, heavy splatter of rain against the front windshield of Thunderbird Two feels like a bad omen. 

The wipers sweep quickly across the large, curved pane in an attempt to clear it, but visibility is at barely thirty percent all the same. At the speed they’re going, the rain bounces like bullets off Thunderbird Two’s wide hull and water streaks in globules up from the bottom of the screen. Even Two's acoustic dampening can't fully block the sound of it battering the reinforced glass. 

Absently, Scott wishes that he were in Thunderbird One. One is sleek and silver and she cuts through rain like a knife blade through an envelope seal. Two feels... slow in comparison: the belly of their big workhorse weighed down by the mass of Thunderbird Four resting in her pod. Scott grimly hopes that they won’t need Gordon’s little sub, but they can’t discount the possibility that there might be a plane wreck that needs Four. That they might have to recover bodies.

He feels sick at the thought.

Out of the wide front view plane, the ocean below looks black and dark. The cloud front has come in hard, sullying the skies and the waters below them. There’s very little but choppy sea out here, and Virgil gets the horrible feeling that, if something has happened to his brothers, it’s going to be like trying to find their Mother’s sewing needle in a Kansas haystack. Scott’s mouth is a grim white line beside him: big brother must be thinking the same. 

Virgil’s hands tighten on the steering column, white-knuckled beneath his gloves. 

“Anything?” He can’t help but ask, for perhaps the seventh time now. Scott, who's been constantly scanning the radar and thermal display for signs of their brothers, only shakes his head. He’d have told Virgil immediately if there was. Eos' ring of white lights turns itself over in the air up on Thunderbird Two’s dashboard projector. 

“I am still detecting no flights along their predicted course.” Her quiet contribution only darkens the mood in the cabin. She’s stayed with them the whole time - giving Scott the impression of a frightened child, clinging to the closest thing to the familiar that she has. John is her whole world and she’s more than aware that he’s no less important to his brothers than he is to her. It’s, or rather he’s, one of those rare things she has in common with the boys.

Scott's eyeballs have started to ache from squinting at the screen. He barely dares to blink, in case he misses them. The worry contained in the small space is almost palpable - the tension between the brothers thick enough to be cut with a knife. 

There’s no need to discuss the fact that this is exactly how their Father went missing. They both know the other is thinking it and Eos might not have been… sentient? back then, but she seems aware that this isn’t the first time a family member’s plane has mysteriously lost signal.

They never found Jeff and Kyrano or any sign of the Tracy One when it went down. 

She’s not sure what she’ll do if they don’t find John. 

“We should double back,” Virgil says abruptly, his voice tight. “They’d have not gotten out this far if Eos lost the signal only thirty or so minutes into their flight.” There’s a deeper whirr of the massive engines as he yanks the yoke around, putting the Thunderbird Two into a sudden turn. Scott’s arms fling wildly out to the sides as he tries to keep his balance. 

“Careful, Virg.” He cautions, tense and stiff. He’s barely spoken more than five words the entire time they’ve been aboard Two, but it's not like either of them want to voice aloud the: what if we don’t find them? that’s blocking up his vocal tract. 

“I… I am detecting a small orange patch on the thermal cameras, around five hundred yards ahead of your position.” Eos reports suddenly, sparking Scott to slam both of his hands down on the radar screen, staring intently at its detections to see if he can spot any white blips. “It is likely marine life again.” She says above him, her voice small and not very hopeful. “The detection does not seem bright enough to be mammalian, and there appears to be only one-” 

“It’s them.” The words are not much more than a whisper from Scott’s mouth. His eyes are hard blue ice chips and his fingers curl over the lack of readings on his screen. 

That’s our needle.

He doesn’t know how he knows it. It’s just a feeling, a hard-set knowledge that only an older brother can have, not guided by screens or monitors or readings, but by the very beating of his own heart.

Virgil angles the huge hull of Thunderbird Two down without comment, bringing them in low toward the ocean, hardly able to hope.

“It has to be them.”

... 

It’s quiet and dark under the surface.

Peaceful.

A gentle pull of almost amniotic waters: John is cocooned and suspended - held gently, silently in an endless expanse of nothing. His mind has gone totally blank, and the absence of air feels strangely safe and calm when disconnected from memory. The blackness is an absence. There's nothing left but liquid lungs and a sense of drifting, floating, emptiness.

All urgency is gone.

If this is an end to this life and something new is seeping in then, if it’s as easy as this, John thinks, it might be alr-

It’s the smack of his broken leg against something underwater that snaps everything sharply back into focus. John screams as sheer white agony races up through his hip and, strangled, he can't prevent the way his body tries to gasp in saltwater. His lungs burn. Both hands flail out blindly, grasping for Gordon, where’s Gordon?!?! but that's when everything around them goes suddenly, overwhelmingly bright.

A beam of light slices down into the water, turning a giant circle of the sea around them into silky, slippery liquid silver, blinding John. He can barely keep his salt-stung eyes open against the abrupt change from all-encompassing blackness. He squints at his brother's blurry, orange-shirted shape, still thankfully drifting beside him. John tries to focus. Tries to exhale hard to push as much water as he can from his lungs, but the effort does no favours for his lightheadedness. As John's reaching fingers latch onto material, the spaceman realises that his bad knee must have struck against Gordon’s hip in his disorientation - and the pain had been what woke him.

Thanks, G.

John holds on tight and kicks upward, one-armed, one-legged and struggling under the weight of his brother.

It’s a long, long moment of burning lungs and dizzyness before John breaks the surface. He’s choking, spluttering and disorientated, but, crying out with the effort, he drags Gordon out of the water and into a lopsided recovery swim once again. The brightness all around them doesn’t dissipate. It wasn't imagined. Or from lightheadedness. It only focuses in, lancing sharp, swift agony right through his skull. His pupils shrink to tiny dots. It illuminates the pair of them bobbing in the ocean; John struggling to keep his brother afloat.

It’s like they’ve emerged into a totally different world.

A world full of icy wind, the bizarre, dazzling whiteness and a deep, guttural roaring that echoes all around them. It batters John's eardrums with all the consideration of a sledgehammer repeatedly bouncing off his skull. Gordon almost slips from his grasp again as he succumbs to the urge to block the noise out, clamping one ear awkwardly down onto his shoulder and slapping a palm over the other. It doesn't do much to help them stay afloat, but John feels like his head is trying to split in two.

He can barely see a thing.

Cold, wet strands of his hair are plastered down over his forehead, sticking to his eyelids and pounding temples. Everything narrows to the pounding of his adrenaline-spiked heart. His desperate splashing. The way his chest feels like it’s going to burst with the need to gasp in air. The waves whipping up around are very different to the sweeping, rocking motion John had become used to. The water is far more violent and unpredictable; churned up by airstreams created by... by massive turbine engines, sweeping in low.

John’s shocked, panicked confusion has him looking up, dazzled, into the bright white light and semi-consciously wondering if this is the moment, finally, that aliens are going to abduct him with their tractor beam.

But... John chokes on the relieved, slightly crazed laugh that escapes his mouth. He knows full well that there’s only one kind of craft that makes that kind of thundering.

It’s taken John far longer than it ever should have to recognize the vague green shape high above him. To identify the high voltage searchlights of Thunderbird Two for what they are.

Virgil. It’s Virgil. Their brother has come to pick them up. Oh, thank-  

John is struck, abruptly, by the relieved swell of hope in his chest. This is what people must feel, he thinks. Those people in need of a Thunderbird. This is how they must feel when one arrives. It’s an incredible sensation: a swooping fluttering faith that floods golden through his ribcage and spreads its wings comfortably over his heart.

He’s never been more grateful to see his brother’s ‘bird in his life. 

“V’rgil!” John, as he hollers up at the sky, is shocked by the roughness of his own water-damaged voice, “...Virgil! D’wn here!” There’s a moment of struggle as he tries to heave one heavy, wet arm out of the water to wave and the action compromises his already precarious balance. They're spared from going under all over again by his arm slapping down hard against the surface. The pain of it doesn’t register as consequential amongst everything right now.

The sight of the lowering rescue platform makes John feel, absurdly, like he could cry. Energy reserves that John had no idea he had left get dragged up from somewhere, and the astronaut kicks out hard with his good leg - propelled toward Virgil by a toxic cocktail of adrenaline and absolute faith as he drags Gordon's heavy shape through the water.

"Virgil!" The stocky shadow of Two’s pilot is standing on the plat, reaching a hand out towards them even though they’re still far too far away to possibly take it. John imagines the dark ‘O’ shape of his brother’s mouth is Virgil calling for them, even if John can’t hear a thing over the downpour and the roaring of the engines. 

Cutting through the waves, he takes a moment to be surprised that it’s Virgil coming down. It means that Scott, or maybe Alan, is the one up there with their hands on Two’s controls... and their most mountainous brother doesn’t exactly hand over that responsibility lightly. There’s no slim silver rocketplane alongside the green behemoth and so, John absently theorises, while launching himself and Gordon over the crest of another wave, that they must have been close enough to the Island to not warrant launching One first for recon. Or maybe they’d thought the three of them would be of more use working with the heavy-lifting capabilities of Two. Or maybe-

John’s brain feels a little... slushy as he thinks about it. That’s odd. He’s not sure if water’s going up his nose or coming out of it, at this point. His mouth tastes salty, and stirred up grit and seaweed sluice across his skin as he pushes forward. He's not even sure he's in his own body anymore, but still he forces it to move.

“Gordon! John!” He’s surprised he can actually hear Virgil shouting now. The slap of the platform touching down on the surface of the choppy water swushes John’s progress back by a few agonising feet. They’re so close and it’s still not quite en-

The rain is pelting down, running off the visor of Virgil’s helmet and obscuring both his face and his view. Apparently, water likes to cling to lashes and plexiglass alike. 

From John’s angle, his brother’s silhouette doesn’t look quite human. It’s all bulky and almost god-like as he towers above them. It’s as if Poseidon himself is taking pity on the mortals in his grasp, trying to fish them from his domain. Ha. That's ridicu-

“V’rgil...” John’s got some kind of awkward half-lopsided paddle going on, trying to keep both his and his younger brother's head above the water. Virgil drops to his knees with an audible slam, extending both arms out towards them. He’s leaning right out over the side so that, when they get close enough, firm fingers grip tight around John’s weakly reaching ones and both boys are tugged roughly in toward the edge of the platform.

“Here, let me get tethers around the both of you so I can pull you up.” Virgil’s voice is familiar and reassuring even through the speakers on his helmet. "Hold on." John has to physically ignore the fear that almost chokes him as Virgil lets go of his hand to retrieve the lines, but he keeps one arm securely around Gordon and uses the other to cling to the metal edge of the bobbing rescue platform: his fingers bone white. He digs his elbow into the grippy texture of the metal platform base, trying to get a stronger hold.

"Here." John gasps, and there’s a moment of struggle as he tries to hold his brother at an angle so Virgil can reach down and get a tether line around Gordon’s chest first. 

That’s the rule after all: deal with the least responsive first. Simple emergency medical protocol, though perhaps Virgil has been more than little swayed by the sight of the blood all over the younger man’s lax features.

He hooks John on just after and, as Virgil’s not quite super-human enough to haul the pair up together, Two's pilot reaches down to try and get a good grip under Gordon’s armpits, ready to haul him onto the rain-slicked surface of the rescue platform. John does his best to boost his brother up as Virgil pulls, but the spaceman isn't really sure how helpful he actually is. Treading water with one… less than cooperative leg is taking most of his dwindling concentration. Dazed, he lets Gordon be pulled from his grip: there one minute and then gone. If he wasn't sure it was Virgil, he would have panicked again.

But they're safe. Virgil's got them. It's all going to be ok.

There’s a moment, that can’t have been longer than a couple of seconds after Gordon is whisked away, in which John just tries his best to take a deep, gulping breath. To get enough air. His lungs crackle with the force of it. He can feel the adrenaline begin to seep out of him. John's leg burns and his ribs are a hot line of pain that slices all the way up into his throat. There's a dull thunk as the spaceman’s head meets the crook of his elbow on the edge of the platform. He coughs roughly. Wetly. He takes a moment to focus on the aching, heaving motion of his chest as his body tries to catch up with itself, trying to provide enough oxygen to his tingling limbs. 

His head feels way beyond light.

Could be blood loss from the deep gash across his palm. Could be that he’s not getting enough oxygen. Could just be exhaustion.

After all this he's going to fall straight into bed and not get up for a long, long time.

"Nngh..." John struggles to get his other heavy, wet arm up onto the edge of the platform, clinging on so that he doesn’t have to keep kicking lopsidedly with that one good leg to stay afloat. He can’t seem to lift his heavy head up from the crux of his elbow though. Not anymore. Not now he’s made it and Gordon’s safe up there with Virgil. It seems like all his energy has drained away, leaving him absolutely empty, his fingers numb on the platform edge. John certainly doesn’t have the strength to haul himself any further out of the water.

Not like this.

Rolling off his arm, his head bumps against the side of the platform. John's breathing hard through his mouth. He closes his eyes for just a moment. Exhaustion is like lead weights in his bones.

“Gordon!?!” Virgil’s strained voice sounds absurdly far away. "Gord-"

Chapter Text

Thunderbird Two’s pilot sinks to the floor of the rescue platform, cradling their blond little brother against him with a forearm wedged beneath his shoulder blades. Gordon's heavy head hangs back limply as Virgil taps at each of his icy cheeks, testing his levels of consciousness.

There's... no response.

"Gordon?"

The kid’s face is sheet white and there’s a sizable gash sluggishly leaking dark, wet blood across his forehead. The fine blue webbing of his veins stands out under skin that, instead of its usual soft golden tan, is almost translucent with cold. Gordon's lips are chapped and navy, and they hang weakly parted as Virgil jostles him. Big brother sucks in a sharp breath. He uses one big hand to swipe wet hair off the kid's face, revealing heavy, closed eyelids, ringed with dark bruising. The kid only lolls there; limp and senseless.

“Gordy?” Virgil prompts again, tapping his cheeks a little harder, “Hey Gords? Can you hear me? Hell ... ok, right, hold on a sec over there John.” He calls out, work mode activated, as he slings the wet cord of his tether over his shoulder with a resounding thwapp. He gently lays his little brother out flat and sets his limbs cautiously straight, checking quickly for breaks as he goes. Checking for anything that might make the fact he won't wake up make sen-

Wait -

There doesn't seem to be any movement in their aquanaut’s chest.

"Oh no." He breathes because Gordon isn't. "No, no, no, no-" Absolute, pure terror strikes Virgil in the chest.

With no time for the muttered expletive balancing on the tip of his tongue, Virgil holds the back of his hand a few inches above Gordon’s mouth and nose, hoping for the warmth of even a small exhale to brush against it. When there is none, no rise and fall at all to indicate working lungs, Virgil presses two fingers under the kid's chin and tilts his head back to check his airways. They seem clear enough: if a little raw and swollen from their exposure to seawater.

"Virgil to Thunderbird Two." He reports in, one hand keeping Gordon's head braced steady whilst the other rummages quickly through his field medkit. His big fingers slip over the rain-wet gear, and his voice falls into a growl. "Scott, me and Gords are aboard the plat. John's hanging in there but I've got no respiratory response from Gordon. I’m going to test for pulmonary activity now." 

Virgil's got his back to John, blocking the astronaut’s view, but his voice carries over to the exhausted spaceman.

John, with his head heavy on his arms, feels almost... detached from the situation.

Small and scared; it's like he’s seven again and watching the aftermath of the time Gordon had fallen down the stairs at the Tracy Farm. The blond boy couldn't have been older than maybe four or five and he'd taken a bad tumble, cracking his head on the corner of the side table and knocking himself out. It probably hadn't even been more than a minute of unconsciousness on Gordon’s part, but John, who’d rushed in after hearing the accompanying yell, had, in that moment of horror, been completely convinced that their family goldfish was-

The fear that surges up in John is the thick and heady kind. It fogs his already blurry senses and makes John’s pulse throb hard at his temples. Blunt nails scrape metal as his fingers curl, blood diffusing into the rainwater pooling on the platform, but the sharp sting of his palm feels muted. The dripping red quickly thins in the rainwater, diffusing and sluicing away. Dealing with the quietest first is standard medical procedure unless there’s imminent danger to other parties. John knows this; he’s had protocol drilled into him over and over, and a few more minutes bobbing here is nothing compared to the way Gordon... Gordon had just been so still and unresponsive the whole time.

With all that has happened to them since their crash and the way Gordon had never woken… it just makes John think that...  that Gordon might be... that it could actually be too late and he's been trying to save a cor...  

Was it his fault? John squeezes his eyes closed as the thought hits him, as rough as any wave and leaving him just as dizzy. He doesn't want to think about it but the ghost of recent memory, of clutching Gordon's limp, dead weight against his side, just won't go away. His bare fingers tighten further on the gritty metal edge of the platform and his throat feels tight and clogged. 

He’d not gotten Gordon to the surface fast enough. He’d not spotted the crosswind. He’d not grabbed his brother while he could. He’d not... 

John can see the blurry shape of Virgil leaning over Gordon through a kind of grey haze. He feels way past numb - the feeling of disconnection John has from his body has only gotten worse. His focus tunnels in, hyper-aware, on the way he can't hear any kind of sound from Gordon as Virgil jostles him. 

The vital signs monitor that Two's pilot has clipped to his brother's finger is taking too long to feedback, so Virgil has stripped his gloves from his own cold digits and pressed two of them to the thick carotid artery at Gordon’s throat.

"You've got to be kidding me..." Virgil flinches when, after a long moment, he discovers his brother’s heart is beating with all the strength of fairyfloss. "Scott, ok, geez,” He takes a ragged breath, visibly trying to steady himself. “I'm reading no breathing and a very weak pulse." The strangled noise Scott makes at the other end of his report is only a distraction, so Virgil ignores it in favour of springing into action with a series of quick checks. "Prepping for resus."

There's no blood coming from Gordon's nose, ears or mouth, and it's a good sign that he doesn't appear to have broken any teeth during whatever happened to dump them in the ocean. Running his hand over Gordon's torso, there's no obvious deformities to the shell of his brother's ribcage and the disturbing blue tint to Gordon's skin hasn't darkened too badly at the ends of his fingers just yet. It's likely not been long at all since cardiac arrest. The younger man's skin is too cold for the pulse oximeter sensor to be entirely reliable, but its reading, as Virgil checks the device on his finger, is worryingly low regardless.

Without a steady flow of oxygen, his little brother's heart must have begun to fail, and that's something Virgil just can't accept as permanent. 

"Right then, come on Crabcake." Ever practical, he slips the band of the Bag Valve Mask from their standard issue resuscitation kit over Gordon's head, trying to keep his brother as still as possible as he does so - just in case he's got injuries that Virgil hasn't spotted yet. Gordon's spinal column has been a tricky thing ever since the Hydrofoil accident that had cut a sharp end to his Olympic Butterfly days, and Virgil doesn't want anything he does now to come back to bite them later. 

Because there's going to be a later. 

There has to be. 

Mask in place, Virgil digs his thumb into the side button that activates it. The BVM is designed to provide positive pressure ventilation to an unresponsive rescuee and, as the device forcibly pushes two breaths worth of oxygen from its small tank into his brother's chest, Virgil finds himself kneeling at the side of Gordon's limp body and pressing the heel of one hand down hard onto his brother's breastbone, right at the centre of his chest.

There's less than a second to marvel at how big his hands are in comparison to the torso of their lithe little aquanaut, as Virgil places his other hand atop his first, interlocking his fingers, ready. Focused. He leans his weight over so that his shoulders stack, bone on bone and strong, above his hands, and then, using the whole of his considerable body weight, Virgil begins to press straight down on Gordon's chest.

One, two, three, four...  

After thirty good, solid compressions he clicks the device that's strapped over Gordon's pinched nose and cold, slack mouth once more. There's a forcible rise and fall in front of him as the younger man's lungs are made to inflate, once, then twice. 

"Come on Gordy, breathe for me now." Bracing his shoulders, Virgil tries to find himself a rhythm, pressing down sharply and repeatedly against Gordon's cold chest in an effort to get blood, and with it oxygen, properly circulating the aquanaut’s body. "Let me see that 02 level shoot up, alright little bro?”

After another thirty, precisely counted compressions, Virgil leans forward, tilting Gordon's head back a little with two fingers under his chin before reaching out to activate the BVM; hoping that the action of widening the passage will ease the transference of air. When the device inflates and deflates his brother's lungs this time, the plastic of the mask fogs heavily with some kind of strange condensation and there’s a deep gurgling noise in his chest. 

That... doesn't usually happen?

“Come on kiddo, come on,” Virgil begs quietly, brow crinkled as, leaning back again, he delivers another thirty compressions with the heel of his palm and his weight behind his hands. It’s not quite working right but he’s not sure what else to do. This is the standard response for casualties in this situation. This is how it should work but nothing is happening yet and…

Fear has formed a painful, hard knot in Virgil’s chest, stunting his own breathing. Making his usually-so-sturdy hands shake just that little bit. He gets the BVM to deliver two more rescue breaths, the machine blowing oxygen steadily and firmly into Gordon's airways. His chest rises and falls again but Gordon doesn’t seem to be responding to it at all.

His brother’s broken body is disturbingly different to the plastic dummies they practise Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation on in training. It’s even different to the people he’s used this technique on before out in the field. This is not just some clear-cut rescue, out on a job, where they’re called in to bring someone’s Dad or Mom or sister back home to them and they try their best to succeed.

This is his little brother.

He can feel the platform vibrating under them, the motion travelling down the giant cable that connects them to his behemoth above. Scott’s voice echoes in his ears - the eldest Tracy is talking via the radio link-up but not to Virgil, so he surmises that Scott has called up Brains or Kayo to apprise them of the situation, leaving the line open to keep Tracy Island in the loop. Hopefully, they’re getting medical assistance ready for their return, but Virgil isn't really focused on Scott’s voice - he’s a little preoccupied, so he can't quite be sure. Plus the sound of the ship's engines, the blood rushing in his ears and his own sharp breathing seem far too loud to be listening for things. He’s not John; who seems to be able to take in everything at once no matter how loud things get.

At every ten breaths, which falls about every minute, Virgil checks the VSM for a pulse reading with unsteady hands. At every ten breaths, he feels hope slide away just that little bit more as things stubbornly refuse to improve. The exertion from the constant compressions is starting to get to him and the meat of his shoulders aches and pulses in time to his own heartbeat as he tries to copy it.

"Come on Gordon. Don't do this to me, Fishsticks. Not like this..." Gordon’s lips are turning a disturbing purplish grey but still Virgil persists. He delivers another thirty compressions, two mechanised breaths, then another thirty. The repetition is starting to feel pointless and his fear is edging toward panicky. Three more rounds of thirty and two and the condensation that's being forced out of Gordon’s lungs is decidedly more liquid.

“Come on kid, breathe.” The middle Tracy boy demands, pushing down as hard as he can. The water coming up seems like a good sign and his hope outweighs his growing exhaustion. "Please Gordy, you need to just take a breath for me now."

He’s not sure how long Gordon’s been without oxygen but if you asked any of the Tracy boys they’d tell you that hypoxia is only survivable up to a certain point and they must be reachi... 

Gordon's eyes fly open and suddenly he’s coughing, gasping for air, his whole body jerking and shaking and Virgil can only grip his brother’s shoulders tight to try and hold him still, trying to try and prevent any more damage. Gordon's mouth opens and closes, quivering like a literal fish out of water; his lips parted as he tries desperately to suck in as much air as he can into waterlogged lungs. His eyes squeeze tightly closed again and his face is torn, twisted in a horrible grimace of pain, his whole chest shuddering under the force of his coughing, almost retching.

“That’s it!” Virgil cries, rubbing big circles into his little brother’s shoulders as Gordon tries to suck in oxygen all on his own, “There you go. You got this, Fishcake.” There’s a weak but steady heartbeat under his fingertips as he checks it, both manually and on the VSM. Virgil slides his hands under Gordon’s head, weaving his fingers into slippery wet hair to support his brother’s spine as he convulses. The way colour floods Gordon’s face blooms a staggering relief in Virgil’s chest. “Atta boy." He exhales the words, "Hey, Thunderbird Two?" Reporting in to Scott over the Comms is almost cathartic. "We’ve got breathing and a stronger pulse.”  

There’s a painful gurgling that signals a big rise of water in the youngest man’s oesophagus and Virgil responds quickly, rolling Gordon neatly onto his side and smoothly pulling the mask away to allow the stream of water that comes up out, splattering onto the platform surface. The blond coughs on it, sloshy and distressed sounding, but there’s a weak, high-pitched whine somewhere in his throat that follows it.

“I know bud.” Virgil smooths the hair carefully back off of his brother's forehead, taking in the pained crinkle of tension lines around Gordon’s tightly closed eyes. “Let’s get you sorted out with a spinal board and some lines and we’ll be back home before you know it.”

Thank you my Lady Luck. He’d have kissed his mother’s old engagement ring, the one that hangs on a chain around his neck, if not for the need of both hands to cradle his brother’s face. Gordon’s breathing evens out into something raspy but steady, his fingers curling at his sides. Thanks Mom.

And that's the moment, finally, bizarrely, that he glances over his shoulder at where he left John, only to discover that, well... 

His other brother isn't actually there.

" John!?!"

Chapter Text

For John, clinging to the platform edge, his fate had boiled down to three things: the exhaustion, the cold, and the repetitive slosh, slosh, sloshing of water.

The waves battering his back made it a constant struggle to keep both arms up, even with his head pillowed on them. John's one, mostly useful leg had given up trying to kick as soon as it could, and his hands had gone completely numb - fingers stiff and curled and useless. The paralytic feeling had crept up his elbows, into his shoulders, fizzling through his spine. His mouth tasted metallic. He couldn't get his neck to work. He didn't have the energy to try. Weak as a kitten, muscles just a little too atrophied by life spent in orbit felt drained of all strength. His eyelids were way, way too heavy. John was slipping-

It should have struck him as terrifying, but, instead, the spaceman's head was so full of fuzz he could barely even hear Virgil's frantic shouting. Shouting at... Gordon? Nothing new there. John's hazy mind supplies. What's the kid done n-

It was weird, how easily it happened; how he found himself, once again, drowning.

John's fingers, then his face, had slid from the platform without his notice, and, snatched by a wave and that dreaded old gravity, John had simply slipped beneath the surface. By the time Virgil had turned, he was gone.

...

Everything kind of slides away, tunnelling down, sinking into suspension. Some basic instinct screams at John to breathe, but he can't seem to work out how. Opening his mouth draws in pure H₂O, the burn numb and distant. Disconnected. He's not got much thought, though, for what it means that there's suddenly water, not air, in his lungs. His head feels like Grandpa Grant’s old TV box - filled with white noise. Everything is... fuzzy. Going away. He wonders where-

Gordon’s safe. He remembers. Virgil’s got him. Job's done, rescue complete, and so it doesn't really matter that he's...

Floating?

If anything, it’s kind of nice. Nothing hurts in this fuzzy, grey half-consciousness. Really nice. John's aware that everything had hurt before, but he's losing the memory of why. Oxygen deprivation seems to have stripped all sense from him - left his mind as slippery as silk sliding between fingers. John thinks that should probably worry him more than it does, but mostly, he feels... a lack of urgency?

Relief. A little voice whispers in his head. A voice just as familiar as any of his siblings. His girl... John hopes Eos doesn't mind that the last time they spoke, he'd been cross with her. He hopes she knows how glad he is that she (because it must have been her, who else?) had found him.

She's so special and brilliant and good, and he should tell her-

What was he doing? Trying to breathe? John tries, of course, but it doesn't take much to remind him that he can't.

O₂? No... H₂O. John almost laughs. They work bizarrely similarly - like maybe the sea is just a wetter form of air. Condensation, or something. It is, after all, common knowledge that air is denser the lower you are to the Earth and lighter the higher you fly. If you fly high enough, you become so light you're weightless - just like the perfect suspension of water. John finds himself smiling. After all, he’s been weightless more times than he’s felt gravity recently. Weightlessness feels... like home.

The dark of his closed eyelids is familiar too, in a way. He can almost trick himself into believing that the blossoming phosphenes in his vision are stars.

Like he never even left his Thunderbird.

If he focuses, John can almost remember the taste of the plastic (John-proof) mug of tea he’d made this morning. It had been warm, slightly bitter, and soft with chamomile because the drop from space never fails to shake him up. Ever since Penelope introduced him to it, John's found he prefers tea. It's... comforting. Peaceful. He thinks all he needs now is a good book. A real one, the kind with soft paper pages and blotchy inked-out words - the kind that can’t be edited once they’re published. Sometimes John wishes all his books could be like that. Too much of his life is blue holograms these days.

He’d slept for hours this morning, John thinks. He'd been exhausted.

Maybe he’s still there. Maybe he’s tucked up, curled around, tangled in his soft, blue blanket. Maybe the floating sensation is just the centrifuge dialled down low.

Why’s it so low? The gravity? It’s just physics. Right? Just physics. Simple. Eos, reduce the spin by 0.5, would you? ...Eos?

The darkness doesn’t seem bad. Darkness, space and silence. No blinking emergency lights. No frantic calls. Peace and quiet for once.

The cold and the pain are a low buzz in the back of his spine. Its only noticeable when he focuses on... the buzzing...? Is that his comm? No, his comm is broken. Why was it broken again...?

John thinks he's missing something from this picture, this painting. The world is just an image blobbed into life, artistically dabbed onto one of Virgil’s canvases. It’s something maybe important, but the fact that John's fingers are no longer clamped around a limp wrist doesn’t seem so vit... 

Gordon.

Sheer terror strikes through the tightness of John’s chest.

What the?!? Aqua eyes fly open to find that he’s not floating, he’s sinking! He’s sinking with limbs too heavy and stiff and locked up too tight to move. The soft, warm fuzz isn’t being caused by the reassurance of safety, it’s the lack of oxygen. He's drowning! In his panic, John misses the black blot of the rescue platform above him, and his waterlogged brain can’t recall where his brother has gone. He knows Gordon had been here, but he can't- he's not-?

The ocean is deep and dark and there’s blood ribboning around him in the water, but no sign of-

John chokes on panic. It feels like his throat has closed up completely. There’s water in his nose, his mouth, his windpipe. It burns and the salt stings and his broken leg is filled with a tight, clawing agony as it trails uselessly behind him in the water. It’s just so heavy, and he can feel the bones grinding, sharp and splintered under the skin, as he tries to kick for the surface - only he's scraped the barrel dry and he has no energy left and-

John tries to struggle, to not accept it. Thrashing increasingly weakly against his sinking fate he realises it’s hard to tell which way is up and which is down. He feels miles from breaking the surface tension. His chest has closed up. He... really is... suffocating...

The world goes white again. 

And John is-

Thick fingers close around his wrist, and there’s a heaving, agonising rush of water all around as John’s tether gets yanked. There’s a slam of his broken leg as it whacks against something solid, maybe the platform edge, as he’s heaved up out of the water. His shoulder is almost wrenched from its socket and the pain is overwhelming. He suddenly loses track of what's happening, but then, just as suddenly, John finds he's lying on his side, cheek pressed to cold metal, heaving up what feels like the entire watery contents of his stomach.

“John!” Someone is shouting in his ear, shaking his shoulder, “John? Oh hell.” Virgil’s face is big and grey and blurry above him. He sounds panicked. “Sorry! Shi… sorry! I shouldn't have left you. Hell.” The warm brown eyes of their gentle giant are wide and afraid. It strikes John, disconnectedly, that it’s rare to see the most composed and calm of them all looking so scared. He doesnt like it at all. Big, hot hands find his shoulders and begin rubbing his back in big, shaky circles. "Geezus, John..."

“My leg-” John gasps at Virgil peering over him, trying to get a good look at his face, “'S broken.”

“You didn't think that was important to mention sooner?” But any reply John could have made is smothered by his need to cough - great, wet, hacking coughs that feel like his whole lungs are trying to come out.

“Yeah, no- Scott,” Virgil must be talking into his Comm, but he sounds as breathless as John feels - panting with the exertion of hauling his brother out of the water. “I think he- he must have passed out- and slid under. Damn it.” One wet fist gets slammed down into one of the pooling puddles on the platform surface, saltwater splashing on impact. 

When Virgil had looked around for John, who’d been resting not moments before on the edge of the platform, and found him missing, a sharp spike of terror had gone straight through his heart. There’d been only been ripples of light on the surface, catching on the crests of waves and nothing else. Just empty sea. Thank goodness Virgil had tethered him, or else he may never have found...

“Ok, ok John, just stay with me now, yeah?” Virgil, watching the weak flutter of his brother’s eyelashes, taps a wet hand against John's cheek to try and keep him conscious. “Stay awake. Gordon’s looking pretty rough, so I need you to keep it together for me now, Spaceman.”

That shouldn’t be so hard, John thinks. He just has to follow instructions, right? It’s odd to be on the other end of that. To not be the one doing the ordering around. 

Catching himself slipping into his thoughts, John concentrates on trying to keep his eyes open through the haze of pain and cold. His ribs feel uncomfortably tight, his lungs heavy and inefficient. It’s like someone took Grandma’s eggbeater to his insides and left it running. He wonders if throwing up would be a good or bad thing. Distantly, he can hear Scott on Virgil's line: demanding to know how they are.

“M’wake...” John’s head tilts, only for him to recognise the motionless, fuzzy shape of his younger brother laid out on the platform next to him. The spaceman’s fingers curl in his direction, but he's too far - he can't quite reach. “Gordon.” John manages to find the breath to gasp, rough and croaky. “Che’k on Gordon.”

“Geez John, I...” Virgil rubs nervously at his own shoulder. Logically, even like this, John is more aware than Gordon, and, glancing over, Virgil doesn’t like the way the kid's skin is close to a concerning blue.

There’s a weak, choked kind of moan, Gordon’s shoulders weakly convulsing, and that makes the decision for him.

“Ok, John, just…” One big, warm hand gives the astronaut’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Just hold on a sec for me. Just, please. Stay there and stay. awake.” There’s a shuffle of knees on the platform as Virgil slides away from him, moving to look at Gordon. John’s eyes only half follow the motion, lazy in their tracking.

Their aquanaut’s breathing sounds more like someone forcing liquid through one of Penny’s tea strainers than it does an actual human trying to use his lungs. Gordon’s trembling, his skin mottled, goose-pimpled and pale in the pelting rain. Virgil slides a hand back under his brother’s neck, supporting his spine to prevent it from moving too much as he feels his vertebrae for any obvious damage. The hydrofoil accident that happened in Gordon’s late teens definitely complicates things. The time he's been out i the rain like this complicates things... but it’s not like Virgil could possibly regret diving in to save John.

If only he hadn’t had to leave Scott up there to keep Two steady in this wind. He really is regretting not bringing Alan. They could really use the help.

With his other hand, Virgil finds the oxygen rig from the med kit and slides the hard plastic mask over Gordon's face, hoping to get more O2 into his bloodstream. The Vital Signs Monitor attached to him glows with a worrying number of little red warnings.

"I've got you, kid, I've got you.” Virgil starts a litany of reassurances, though perhaps they’re more for his own sake than Gordon’s. He’s not sure if his brother can even hear him. He... highly doubts it. “It's gonna be alright..."

John, sprawled, is hyper-fixated on the way condensation blooms in short, sharp puffs against the clear plastic of the oxygen mask with each of Gordon's shaky breath. The kid is soaked through, his clothes wet and clinging to skin that’s freezing to the touch. There’s a short struggle to divest him of his wet things that involves taking a pair of scissors (Sorry, G) to that garish Hawaiian shirt of his (rest in peace, floral hell), followed by the ripping sound of a package being opened. It's a challenge to shake out the thermal Mylar blanket; the thin material gets snatched by the wind, trying to stream out like a fluid silver banner as Virgil fights to tuck the rippling, twisting thing firmly around the aquanaut’s shivering body. He snaps on a pair of blue plastic gloves, and leans in to peer the gash leaking no small amount of blood across Gordon's forehead and into his hair. It's worse, almost, without sea water constantly washing it away. Virgil wonders just how much blood he might have lost.

Too much.

Fishing a penlight out of the kit, Virgil chews on his bottom lip and tries to grade his brother’s almost certain concussion. Gordon’s vacant pupils react sluggishly as he flashes them, but it’s probably a good sign they respond at all, with how hard it looks like he’s hit his head. Virgil's just glad the wound seems to be a clean slice, with nothing obvious stuck in there.

He better get some kind of compression on that ASAP though.

Tearing the package for the cotton compress with his teeth, the beating rain soaks through and the tape that’s supposed to secure it faster than he can get it stuck down. The sticky tabs peel up at the edges, and Virgil finds himself smearing the blood across Gordon’s skin in his effort to mop it up and to put pressure on the wound at the same time. 

Holding it firmly down, Two’s pilot glances back over at John. Still where he left him this time, staring fuzzily back at him. Good.

Virgil takes a second to watch John breathe, and to breathe along with him. In, out. In, out. Reassured for now, a roll of bandage gets pulled out and wound as tightly as possible around Gordon’s head, fixing the patch in place so that Virgil can have his hands free. He activates his comm with a hands-free motion.

“I'm going to secure Gordon on a precautionary spinal board and keep a close eye on his O₂ levels.” He reports to Thunderbird Two, peeling off his bloodied gloves with a thwap sound and rummaging for clean ones. “His forehead needs at least seri-strips, if not stitches, and he’s going to have one hell of a headache when he wakes up."

If he wakes up. Virgil doesn't voice.

"It'll be less of a scar if we can seri it." Scott is obviously trying to sound positive, but there’s a strain to his voice that suggests they’re taking too long down there. He’s doing his best to hold Two steady against the rocking sea, but the wind and rain is battering them something fierce. What kind of stupid brothers would take a biplane out in weather that even a Thunderbird is struggling with? But then again, it seemed fine when they left. It had all changed so quickly... “Can we get them up in the dry yet?”

“Soon as I’ve got Gordy on a board and taken another look at John,” Virgil tells him, already busy unhooking a spinal board from its clasps and dragging it over to Gordon, swiping rainwater from his visor to try and improve his visibility as he does so. He makes sure to get another glance in at John as he does. “It sure is wet down here, but I don’t want to shake them up with the ascent before they're strapped down and I’ve made sure it’s not going to exacerbate anything.”

It doesn't take long to get Gordon rolled onto a precautionary backboard, securing him safely down against the hard surface. It’s the best thing to do in case he's re-injured his weak back. Virgil tightens the straps and packs support blocks in around his brother’s head, neck, and limbs, hooking their tethers together to keep the board stable.

Gordon secured and ready to go, Virgil slides back over to John, reaching out and laying a hand against the centre of his brother’s struggling chest.

Still here.

Chapter Text

"Alright, J?" Someone asks above him, but John's a little preoccupied with the deep ache that goes right through the centre of his heaving chest. It’s like there's a fist curled around his heart, and the person it belongs to is slowly tightening. their. grip.

It's not a pleasant sensation, that’s for sure.

"I'm-" John starts, but then he's coughing; a rough, wet series of barks that arc white-hot electric straight through his ribs. He pushes his cheek hard against the cold metal beneath him, trying to ground himself against how much it hurts, but bile rises in his throat - or perhaps it's mostly seawater - and then he's throwing up again. John squeezes both eyes tight shut, and his mouth hangs open and, between hacks, there doesn't seem to be enough air.

"John?" It takes John a very long moment to realise that the thunk of big boots on the metal platform means Virgil is back crouching over him. Having coughed up what feels like most of the South Pacific, John squints up at the dark shape of him. His vision has gone unhelpfully blurry, like an out-of-focus camera, and it leaves the hazy rain splattering his face with no definition to its droplets. The most he can decipher of his brother's fuzzy face is some heavily pinched dark brows. John hates to see stress in any of his siblings’ expressions, but it feels a hundred times worse when it's personal.

"M'ok-" He restarts, but a broad, warm palm settles in the centre of his chest, right where it hurts the most, and John cuts himself off with a breathy, choked groan.

Virgil's hand seems painfully hot.

"Sure you are," He sounds incredulous, "That's why you're lying on your face, throwing up half the ocean." Virgil rolls him a little, only to discover the spaceman's pupils are dark and blown, and there’s water leaking uncomfortably from his nose that he can’t seem to raise any kind of limb to do anything about. "Geez," A thumb swipes at it for him, lingering on John's icy jaw. "Gordon's ready to go, so let's get you sorted so we can all get out of this rainstorm."

John feels his brother manipulating one of his arms out his way, followed by the audible rip of sticky pad backing. The press of anodes to his skin suggests he's being hooked up to one of their standard Vital Signs Monitors.

That's... good. Good job, Virgil. John’s aching head strings together hazy admiration for his brother. This is all... textbook. Good.

He tries to tell him as much - to reassure from far away - only John’s not as far away from the situation as he usually is, and, as Virgil moves to carefully inspect his leg with those hot, gloved fingers, the words get lost under a pained whine. John's teeth grind hard together, and the little energy he has fuels the agonised arch of his spine.

“T’s... s'... defin'ley broken isn’t it?” If he angles his head, John can just about see his leg: there's an unhealthy twist between knee and ankle, and, compared to his right, the limb looks badly swollen. The pain coming from it is like nothing he's felt in his life - all hot and sharp, sparking tiny barbed fireworks along the paths of his nerves. He almost misses the numbness of drowning. Ugh. At least, when compared to his leg, it makes the broken-glass ache in his ribs not seem so bad anymore.

“Looks like,” Virgil reports, but he sounds distant; like he's at the end of a very long tunnel, “but at least it hasn’t gone through the skin. You got lucky, Johnny." John feels anything but. "I can strap it up now so we can get out of here. Do you want the green whistle?” It's not really a question, as Virgil has already fished one from his baldric, uncapped it, and is filling the chamber with powder. The 'green whistle' is one of their Penthrox inhalers: probably the most regularly used thing in their medkits; the coloured tube contains the analgesic methoxyflurane and it makes for sensational, quick pain relief. Trying to get John to hold the thing, though, let alone breathe it in, is nigh on impossible. Virgil helps John curl his fingers around it by covering them with his own, and raises it to his mouth for him, but John doesn't seem to get the idea he needs to breathe it in. "Come on, J, take deeper breaths now."

John mumbles something entirely incoherent around the tube in reply, and Virgil frowns. He can feel the spaceman shaking with cold against him, his teeth trying to chatter on the plastic, and checking, then abruptly re-checking the temperature readouts he’s getting, Virgil almost swears. John never runs warm at the best of times, but he’s noticeably a few degrees colder than even Gordon is.

"Let me grab you a mylar, then I'll take a look at that leg." He has to let go of John’s hand to do so, and the hand holding the whistle falls away from his mouth. Trying to work fast, Virgil spreads one of the emergency silver blankets from the field kit gently over his chest, tucking the edges around his shoulders.

As for that leg… reaching down, Two's pilot gently rotates the limb, feeling along the bone for the breakage and hoping the little of the drug John’s managed to inhale will mitigate the pain. It doesn’t. The spaceman’s gone stiff as a board, his breaths more like short pants, as anything that could even remotely be called colour drains from his face.

"Sorry, sorry John." Virgil finds a jagged lump about halfway up that’s going to need setting back into place. The tibia has snapped clean through. Oh hell… Virgil feels a little sick... he doesn’t want to imagine how John must feel. How he managed to swim. Glancing up, big brother’s got his eyes squeezed closed again. His face is grey, and that short, wet breathing has gone dangerously shallow.

“It’s a bad break, Scott.” The trepidation in Virgil’s voice is like a physical weight as he reports in, voice low and hushed, “The tibia’s rotated almost all the way around, and it feels like it’s shifted right across. I’m going to have to align it before we go much further. You get that, John?”

“Yeah...” John mumbles, breathless and dizzy. His head has tossed to one side, and his eyes remain stubbornly closed, but, classic John, he’s listening. “I... know the drill...”

He can feel Virgil’s hands either side of his calf. He knows his brother is assessing the break and visualising what would be the correct alignment, and he knows that without an x-ray it’s going to be hard to be precise. The longer the bone stays out of alignment, though, the less chance he has that it’s going to heal right, and John would rather not lose the use of his leg. He needs that . Needs it for... space things…

Ugh.

The little of the green whistle he inhaled might be dulling the pain, but it sure isn't helping his ability to think. Virgil's got this, though. Setting a bone is their type of standard field medicine. Virgil must have done this hundreds of times in his life, if not over a thousand. It’ll be fin-

John looks up, his forehead knitted in confusion as, instead of the sharp snap of his bone being shoved back into place, he finds the mylar blanket being tucked more securely around his shoulders and tugged down to cover his hips.

“You’re trembling.” Virgil points out as he double checks the mylar is snug. His brows have drawn together, and his eyes are honey-worried. “Resps are really shallow. I need you to take deeper breaths and focus on not going into shock for me. Alright? Especially when I set this." The warning signs of shock aren't always obvious, but Virgil doesn't need the VSM to point out the danger in the way John’s pulse went surprisingly rapid under his fingers. His breaths are quick and awful, and nowhere deep enough to be providing good oxygen, and there's a sheen of sweat to his pale, grey skin despite how cold he is. "Try and have a few more puffs of that whistle.”

John attempts a smile in response, before shakily obeying him, but it feels like more of a grimace. He's so focused on his own expression, on trying to school his features into something reassuring, that he misses half of what Virgil says next.

“-it's ok, Scott.” Their older sibling up in Two must have said something, too. Virgil leans down, studying John intently, and there's a swoop in the spaceman's stomach as he realises it's time. “Alright, J,” His brother says low, but comfortingly firm. "Let’s get this done, and we can get out of this rain.”

John gives him a half nod. Fatigue struggling with willpower as he tries to stay even moderately alert. Virgil’s hands line themselves up on his leg, ready to manipulate the bones under the skin into a better position, and he doesn't even count down from three before he-

John thinks he screams as the bone grinds back into place, but it's during the split second where everything goes white hot and fizzles out, so it’s hard to be sure.

“Sorry John.” Somewhere above him, Virgil can't help the breathless apology that escapes him as his brother thrashes, then falls limp. “Oh damn. Sorry Johnny, hell …”

Virgil holds his leg down, palms cupped around the break, and, if his fingers fumble like they never do as he fits a sturdy field brace to the limb, then there's no one aware enough here to comment. The brace will have to come off for an X-ray, at some point when they’re not rocking on a platform in the middle of an ocean gale, but for now it’ll hold everything in place like he needs it to.

John’s gone completely boneless, the green whistle rolling from a lax palm, and so, swallowing his worry, all Virgil can do is slide an arm around his brother's shoulders - pulling what feels like more like a ragdoll than a person in close to hold him steady. It’s way past time they got out of here. Each of John’s quick, shallow breaths against his side is both a relief and a worry. He reaches out and gets a hand on Gordon’s board, bridging a connection between them. Kid’s still out, but Virgil's not going to let anything more happen to his brothers. Not now. Not a chance.

“Right Scott, we're secure.” He tells his Comm, his voice thick, “We’ve got to get them back to the Island as fast as possible. Take us up.”

The platform rising doesn’t register with John. In fact, it feels like he blinked, slow and sluggish, and then, suddenly, he's in the warm, dry interior of Thunderbird Two. The purr of her engines is as loud and familiar as a large house cat all around him, and John finds himself bracketed, upright, against a broad chest. He's aware, first, that he’s just so cold; all shivery and achy right down through his muscles and into his bones. The arms around him are shaking under the force of John's shivers, and his teeth won't stop chattering. The spaceman’s mouth tastes metallic and, cloudily, he wonders when it was he bit his tongue. Second comes the awareness of his leg, and he’d much rather that hadn’t bothered coming back at all. John's eyelids flutter open to discover his face is pressed into thick, hot neck muscles.

Only one person that could be.

“Ugh... Hey... Vir...jul...” He mumbles, and is rewarded by a soft chuckle from above him. John thinks he feels relieved, on some level, but everything is too hazy to be sure. Virgil tilts him back a little, trying to get a look at his dim, glassy blue-green eyes, but it just makes the world swim wildly.

“Back with the world of the conscious, then?” A voice asks, but John can’t quite tell if it was Virgil's voice or if that was actually Scott, over the Comms. “You got told not to go to sleep.” They sound a lot like Dad, whichever they are. That's definitely weird... but then, he should probably expect that when everything's all blurred and swimming... Ugh, swimming.

“Not quite... th’re ye...t.” John groans, allowing his head to loll over and trying and failing to take some of his own weight as Virgil continues with manoeuvring his body off of the floor and over to the benches along the sides of the pod. “Wh’as happ’ing?” His breath rasps ugly in his throat, almost gurgling, and John realises his respiratory system must be shot to seven levels of hell.

Inhaling seawater probably does that to you.

The lack of the beating rain is jarring, safe in the belly of Thunderbird Two. John’s surprised how used to the constant drum-drum-drumming of water-on-water he’d become. His head is still pounding uncomfortably in time to it.

“I’m just getting you two fixed up, alright?” A hand sweeps itself through the back of John’s wet hair, where his head rests heavily against Virgil’s shoulder. The bigger man keeps his fingers there supportively as he manoeuvres his brother gently down to sit on the bench - it’s a good thing too, because John's neck muscles don't seem to be capable of much on their own and, slumped in a silhouette that's very un-John-like, his chin seems determined to glue itself to his chest. “Gordon’s out, so you just sit there and relax and focus on taking deep breaths for me, ok Johnny?”

The spaceman watches blearily, as if through a veil of water, as Virgil leaves him there to check on the VSM monitor that’s strapped to Gordon’s still, restrained form. At some point that John totally missed, Virgil had transferred the board off the floor and onto gurney wheels; bringing their brother up to a better height for treatment. Must have happened somewhere between the platform rising and Virgil standing him up. It also takes John longer than he’d have liked to realise that in that time someone, undoubtedly also Virgil, has peeled the wet clothes from his skin and that he’s just wearing his soggy undershorts under the damp mylar blanket.

He misses his nice, warm jacket, for a moment, then decides resolutely that he does not miss the heavy, wet weight it had become. His memory of everything that has happened feels... slippery. All he can focus on clearly is that Gordon… nearly died.

“Howw’es he?” The spaceman slurs, struggling to lift his head off his chest so that he can see better. He tries to lean forward to see, but he just ends up pitching sideways. John is saved from hitting the ground only by the instinctual slam of his palm on the surface of the bench. He stares in disbelief at his arm. At the stringy, shaking muscles under his skin. There’s still-tacky blood, sticky and viscous, clinging between his fingers.

It's so… red.

“Geez, John, just stay there for me a minute, ok? Just stay still.” Virgil sounds frustrated, and that confuses John, because it's not like he'd tried to get up. "You're distract-"

Abruptly, the remaining water in John's lungs chooses that exact moment to crunch him in half: making its exit from his body in a hacking, wheezing flood. John finds himself pitching non-consensually sideways onto the bench, retching. Panicked by the way he can’t draw in air around the saltwater, John’s fingers claw uselessly at the textured metal of the bench beneath him. More, fresh, hot blood smears across it from the cracked gash in his palm.

Absently, as if watching from outside his own body, and why is that sensation becoming so familiar? John distantly thinks he hears Virgil swear, and boots pound toward him. John tries to take a deep, gulping breath, struggling like a fish hooked on a line to gain some kind of control over his spasming body.

“Hey, hey. John. John calm down, it’s ok, yeah?” There are large fingers on his face, at his temple, smoothing back his hair as he tries to gasp in oxygen. His lungs feel like they’ve completely forgotten how to work. His ribs are searing. Saltwater spills, hot and wet, down his cheeks and John can’t work out where it's coming from as they get swiped away by his brother. “Breathe, ok, in, out, you got this, come on Johnny... Scott,” Virgil head whips to the side as he snaps into his Comm, teeth bared. “I need your help in here right now, stick her on Auto for the moment. I can't keep bouncing between them both. Don’t think we’re going anywhere just yet.”

Scott, for his own part, has been absolutely desperate to be down there with them, checking they're ok, from the second they were recovered, but he hesitates because-

“It might be better if I fly us straight home.” There’s an unfamiliar cadence to Scott’s voice - a raw, real kind of fear he never comes close to on ordinary rescues. “There’s better equipment there for this.”

“Scott I- I think… it might be better if we take them to Sydney General.” The confession that he might feel more than a little helpless hangs heavy off of him. There’s a moment of silence between the brothers, with only the soft sound of breathing across the comms and John wheezing awkwardly in the background.

“The Hospital?” He can hear Scott frown, "You think they’re worse than we can deal with at home?"

“We’re looking at some fairly advanced hypothermia.” Virgil has bitten his bottom lip red. “And, with the resus, Gordon could have any number of complications I’m not prepared for.” John seems to have calmed down now, at least; his body soft and listless as Virgil leans him back against the wall. “Alright J?” After a moment scrutinising John’s lack of reply, he shifts reluctantly back over to Gordon - reaching out to manually check his pulse, despite the positive VSM readings. The skin under his fingers feels like ice, and the temperature readings that are slowly dragging themselves upward aren't much better. “John’s leg is pretty bad, maybe his lungs too,” he tells Scott, “and I’m worried about the mess of Gordon’s head-”

“Gordon’s head is always a mess.” A third voice, far away from the seriousness of the situation, chirps its way merrily into the conversation. Alan's clearly decided now's a good time to check on them. Unfortunately for him; it's really not. Virgil can almost hear the grinding of Scott’s teeth without the commline connection projecting it. “Eos says you’ve picked them up!" The blond little hologram beams excitedly up at his brothers, "That's great! Hey, are you bringing them back now? What can I-?”

“Not now, Alan!” Tornado Tracy’s quick temper flares, and Scott snaps at their little brother - stopping the kid in his tracks, “We’re a little busy right now.” Alan has evidently persuaded John’s AI to patch him through to Thunderbird Two, because neither of them had opened the line. “ You got told to stay there, so stay there and stay out of it!”

“But Scott,” The hurt in Alan’s little voice is like a physical blow, “I just wanted to know if-”

“Later, Alan.” Virgil’s approach is much softer, but it’s still a firm brush-off. They don’t have time for their baby brother right now. As if to illustrate this, Gordon makes a little groggy noise of pain, eyelids fluttering. Virgil's attention flicks to the monitor. His BPM has suddenly spiked. “Scott-” Virgil’s voice is low with warning.

“On my way down.” The commline gets flicked closed before poor Alan can reply, and Virgil focuses in on the movement of Gordon’s eyes behind their lids.

“Y’ll have to apologise f’r that.” The voice takes Virgil by surprise. He glances back to find John giving him a hazy look from his slump over on the bench . “Both of y’u.” Blue-green eyes are focused unsteadily; all swimmy with disapproval. Virgil almost rolls his eyes. John’s ever the peacekeeper, even when he can’t hold his own head up straight. Ridiculous.

“Quiet, John.” Virgil softly hushes him. “One thing at a time, ok... Gordon?” He turns his attention to gently tapping at his other brother’s cheeks, “Can you hear me? I want to check how concussed you are.” There’s not much of a response from the family aquanaut, just a bit of a moan and a scrunchy nose, but it’s more than he’d honestly been expecting, so it helps ease the knot of acid in Virgil's stomach.

Concussions are tricky things. Sleeping with them is best avoided, and, early on, it’s hard to tell how much the brain injury might affect a person. Kid’ll probably have a fantastic headache when he wakes - that's for sure. Maybe problems with concentration, memory, balance, coordination, memory…

He hopes, privately, that Gordon’s not going to remember the crash in any detail. That he’ll be spared the haunted look John had had in his eyes when Virgil had helped lift their unconscious brother from his arms onto the platform. It’s clear the astronaut won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Virgil catches himself chewing his bottom lip again and firmly tells himself to stop it.

The hum of Two’s big engines deepen as Scott shifted her over to Auto - foregoing the stability of a primary pilot for the necessity of his presence below. He takes the stairs two at a time, but there’s only one near miss (worthy of John-under-the-influence-of-gravity) in which his boot misses a step, before he’s skidding through the door and freezing to take in the scene.

One brother is slumped, his head tipped back so he can take ragged, sharp little breaths, on one of the benches that line Two’s side. The other… Gordon is strapped to a backboard, prone and still and making awful, keening little hiccups. Like he’s in pain.

Virgil’s got a syringe of something ready to be loaded into his little brother’s bloodstream, and Scott really hopes it’s some kind of analgesic as he hurries over.

“How can I help?” There’s a moment of silence following his question as Virgil finishes administering whatever-it-is to Gordon and shoves the VSM into Scott’s waiting hands.

“Monitor Gordon,” He instructs, “I want to know any ups or downs. I think he's starting to come round, and if he manages consciousness, he's going to be feeling pretty rough. Keep an emesis bowl near in case he feels sick, and-”

Scott finds himself glancing to the side, at John, while Virgil talks. The spaceman seems mostly in one piece compared to their younger brother, save for the ugly black brace that Virgil’s secured around his leg. John stares blankly back at him, but there’s nowhere near as much focus in those aqua eyes as there should be. It feels more like being looked straight through… Scott has to forcibly suppress the shudder that creeps up his spine.

“...I don’t think Gordon’s lost vast amounts of blood,” Virgil is still talking, and Scott has to force the guilt of not-paying-attention off his face as he tunes back in, “but it’s not a small amount either.”

Scott nods, cradling the monitor between his hands while Virgil double-checks the gauze that’s taped to Gordon’s head. Frown firmly in place, he tosses an extra blanket over him, taking the time to tuck it in snugly around his shoulders and hips.

This seems wise enough to Scott. On the hard plastic screen, his little brother’s temperature is very low; the numbers illuminated in glowing blue just in case the user doesn’t know that 94.6 Fahrenheit is not a normal, healthy body temperature. Gordon’s BPM isn't much better, though it does seem to be gradually picking up. Maybe he’ll properly regain consciousness soon after all? That’d be good. Clicking through, Gordon’s blood oxygen levels have been recorded every thirty seconds, drawing a fairly slow, shallow graph for his respiratory rate. There’s a good spike that seems to correlate with the spike in his consciousness levels. It’s promising.

Scrutinising his unconscious little brother’s face for signs of movement, Scott wishes that life would stop trying to hand him and his brothers the sticky end of the stick.

"If we take them to Sydney, there's a pretty high chance someone there will put two and two together and make four Tracy’s.” Scott comments, reaching out to sweep wet blond strands off Gordon’s forehead, then drying them with the edge of the towel - for a lack of anything better to do, “We're hardly inconspicuous.” The need for secrecy is far less than it had been when their Father had been running the show, but they’ve always tried to deal with things inside the family where they can. He doesn’t like the idea of reporters getting wind of this and running a story about International Rescue being two members down. Who knows how they’d spin it? Incompetent International Rescue gets two of their own hospitalised! Should we really be trusting these people with our lives? Scott shudders despite himself. That’s a headline he never wants to see - he doesn’t want to know what The Hood might make of a title like that.

“Let me take another look at John.” Virgil is one of those men who are planed of teak so, as he claps a solid hand on Scott’s unsuspecting shoulder, it feels like being hit by a very well-intentioned chair. “Then we can make a decision.”

“S-ure...” Scott wheezes. “I'll keep an eye on Gords.”

Virgil shoots him a funny look but leaves him to it.

John is still sitting on the bench where Virgil had left him, sagging back against the cold metal of Two's hull. He thinks he feels too warm, even though his skin is prickled with goosebumps. The coolness of the metal seems… nice.

Numbing.

He's not been paying much attention to his surroundings, if he’s honest. He’s just sort of… phased out. He thinks he should be able to feel the way his limbs are shaking him apart, how his teeth won't stop chattering. But the world around the spaceman doesn't feel quite real. It’s like he's been disconnected: like his head is full of the kind of static you get from a bad Comm line. He’s been untethered - unplugged. The circuits are looping. His mouth tastes metallic.

He wonders if he’s in shock. Virgil said he might be.

“John?” There's a voice that wants his attention.

“M’f’ne...” Even to his own ears, the words sound disjointed - hollow and kind of slurred. A wide, flat palm that could only be Virgil’s presses against his forehead. It feels far too hot compared to how cold the water was, for how cold he is, and John tries to twist his head away, sparking a painful twisting sensation down his spine.

“Are you? I know I told you to be quiet, but I wasn’t expecting radio silence.” The astronaut’s face is too pale, his lips almost white, and- “You’ve started shaking pretty bad, J.” The pulse Virgil finds at his brother’s throat is weak, rapid, and uneven. He tries to hold him still, but John doesn’t seem to understand that the hands are here to help.

“M’ok...” John blinks blearily up at him, like he’s not quite sure where he is.

It’s not a good sign.

“You keep saying that. It's very unconvincing... but you’re gonna be, yeah?” Virgil tells him; because now they’re up in his ‘bird he can’t bear to think of any alternative. John makes a soft wheezing sound in response, his body sagging a little to the side before Virgil can shift his support. There's a sudden burn of fear in Virgil’s chest that Gordon’s not the only one he should have gotten a precautionary backboard for.

“Ok, J,” He shifts in close, trying to do a better job of propping up his brother’s listing shoulders. “We just wanna check we don’t need to get you guys to the nearest ER. Let me have a listen to your chest for a start, yeah?” He doesn’t like the wet rattle that’s happening whenever the astronaut inhales.

Holding his brother steady, Virgil tucks the ends of the kit stethoscope in his ears and pulls the mylar aside, ready to lay the cold disc against John’s chest.

There’s a pause as he winces at what he sees.

“Geez, John.” The whole left side of his brother’s ribcage is swollen and discoloured - purplish bruising having bloomed bright across the pale skin in the time since Virgil last had had a look. Gently, he probes at the curve of John's ribs, provoking a hiss from said rib-owner as he tries to shrink back from the touch. “How bad does that hurt?” Virgil asks, voice urgent, “Much worse than a big bruise?”

There’s a weak, lopsided shrug from John, and Virgil quickly lays his palm flat against the skin, feeling the shift of bone as his brother breathes. A gentle tap produces a wet thlap noise that'd not normally be associated with living tissue, and Virgil winces. Is there still water in his lungs? He slides his palm around John’s cold side and feels his brother’s sharp inhale as he presses on the worst of the bruising.

Shit. Shit. These feel cracked, maybe even broken, and all the moving John has done has undoubtedly made it worse. Oh hell . Virgil sucks in a sharp breath. What if he’s got a punctured lung? What if that’s why his breathing sounds so bad? They crashed a plane, for god’s sake. What if-?

“V’rgil?” John’s looking questioningly at him, his eyes like the tropical waters of the Island in summer, wide, greenish-blue, and endless.

“Hold on J, let’s get you lying down before you make these any worse.” Swallowing down his worry, Virgil gets his brother laid out along the metal bench and presses the cold end of the stethoscope gently back against his brother’s side. Taking a steadying breath and listening quietly, the younger Tracy notes that John’s lungs do sound fluid-ey and wet as he breathes, but it could just be some water remaining in them that he didn’t manage to heave up.

That’s also not ideal, though. Secondary drowning can be just as fatal as first-hand.

“Try and breathe as deep as you can for me, John.” He asks and watches carefully as John struggles to do as he’s told. He’s going to have to keep a close eye on him in case he starts bringing up blood.

And speaking of blood...

There’s a seep of red coming from between his brother’s fingers, one he must have missed earlier. Frowning at it, Virgil gently takes hold of John's limp wrist and rotates it to get a good look at his slashed palm. His nose wrinkles at the sticky mess of split skin and crusty blood, and Virgil has to wonder, briefly, how it even happened. He must have grabbed something sharp during the crash.

Well, he can’t leave it like this, that’s for sure.

Both brothers are quiet as Virgil's steady fingers push the flaps of skin together so that he can apply small strips of seri tape to hold them in place. A wipe takes care of the blood, Virgil meticulously cleaning each finger before a cotton pad and a rough bandage get pressed to his palm and wound around the hand to keep it sealed. It must hurt, but John reacts very little. Instead, he just gazes up at Virgil, his mouth a little parted with surprise, as if it’s his first time seeing him. 

“Howdd ‘ou find uzz?” John asks, only to appear taken back by how slurred his own voice sounds.

He knows he’s still shivering but, somehow, the cold doesn’t feel so bad. He feels numb and stiff - ossified - like any sudden movement could splinter him into a thousand pieces. His leg is burns, and he can’t feel his fingers. John wiggles them experimentally, only to be surprised as Virgil slaps his hand over his, preventing him from accidentally opening up the cut again. He knows they must have moved to provoke the reaction, but, the funny thing is, John’s brain receives no sensation to prove it.

Huh.

He blinks blearily at his brother. Virgil’s leaning over him again. He’s got his mouth open. Was he talking just then?

“John?” Tuning back in, Virgil sounds worried. “Don’t you remember?”

“Mmm?” is about the most cohesive response John can produce. His voice is raw and scratchy from seawater and screaming. He’s not quite sure how he got here. “Srry, wha...?”

There’s a gentle touch at the side of John’s face as his younger brother has a good look at his unfocused eyes. Virgil swipes away the water that’s leaked from John’s nose with a sterile wipe when he tries and fails to do it himself.

His arms and legs aren’t responding the way they should be. They’re just… too heavy.

“Alan’s waiting for us back home.” Virgil says, and John can’t remember if he asked where the youngest of his brothers was or if Virgil had just decided to tell him. He clings to the thought of Alan anxiously waiting for him as Virgil takes hold of his limp shoulders, pulls him in toward his chest, then carefully manoeuvres him off the bench and onto a backboard that, somehow, John has missed the entire arrival of. The spaceman’s head lolls disconcertingly, bouncing against the board as he’s lowered down despite Vigil's best attempts to prevent it from doing so. Blearily, John wonders if this is just precautionary. He can’t feel enough of himself to make an accurate assessment anymore, which is… surreal. Are the painkillers Virgil gave him kicking in?

He struggles to lift his head to get a look around.

“John.” Someone catches his skull before it ricochets again. “Stop that.”

John hopes it’s just the drugs clouding his big, clever computer brain - and not something considerably worse. Everything is foggy and frustrating and odd. His fingers have a weak grip on Virgil’s sleeve but John doesn’t remember telling them to do so. He doesn’t really understand what’s going on, but- but he knows it doesn’t feel right. It feels like he’s viewing everything through a veil of water. Like all this is just some kind of bizarre dream.

Where’s Gordon? John wonders. Is Gordon safe?

“Stop trying to talk, Johnny.” Virgil says, which is when John realises he’s been rambling all his thoughts out loud. “I know you’re kind of out of it, but you’re both safe now, remember?”

Gordon's safe. It's all over. The adrenaline drains completely out of him, leaving everything as fuzzy as being buried under a blanket. John’s head thunks back down against the board below his head, and Virgil winces even though the pain it must have caused doesn’t even register on his brother’s face.

John's skin is so pale it looks more like fine marble than anything organic. He’s gone practically translucent, his veins showing beneath the skin: all blue and long like someone has embedded a thin, snaking map of wires inside him… John did always seem to be more technology than not, but this is frankly disturbing.

There’s something very wrong here.

Virgil’s talking again, but it seems to be to Scott rather than at John, so John doesn’t mind that he’s not really taking it in. The phrases “Scott, get over here!” and “I don't think he's getting enough oxygen to his brain” seem like something he should probably be worried about, but he’s too tired to really understand it as he lets his body go completely limp. There are fingers on his face again and something hard and plastic presses itself in a ring around his mouth and over the bridge of his nose. Uncomfortable, John’s hand wanders off of its own accord to try and push it away but someone is carefully lifting his head to secure the band to hold the thing where it is behind his skull.

“John? John no, you need to leave that alone.” Is that Dad? It sounds like him. “It’s just an O2 mask, ok? We need to bring up those blood oxygen levels; your lungs haven’t been taking in enough.” There’s another sweep of fingers through his hair, and John’s own give up their fight against the plastic-weird-thing stuck to his face. “Just take deep breaths for me now, ok John?” John. Buddy, Sport, Kiddo… Son… “You’ve got to mitigate the buildup of carbon dioxide.”

“‘K Dad…” He breathes, “Miss’d… ‘u… kn’w...”

John’s unaware of the surprised, worried looks Scott and Virgil exchange with each other somewhere above him.

"John?" There are fingers on his cheeks, turning his head to look at the person above him. His eyes refuse to focus. "John, I need you to look at me now." They sound pretty urgent. "Do you remember hitting your head or anything? -John?"

Exhausted, John can feel himself slipping back towards unconsciousness. He becomes less and less in tune with the ringing of voices that surround him. His chest feels too tight, like someone’s looped enough rubber bands around it to crack a melon. The warmth of his surroundings seeping into his frozen bones, and with it comes a crackly, new kind of pain; like sharp, prickly pins and needles, jabbing into his limbs. His fingertips feel pierced to shreds. The edge of exhaustion that’s leeching his consciousness away is mellow and dark and painless and really, really tempting...

“Johnny?” Someone is shaking his shoulder, their voice urgent and low in his ears, but it hardly seems to matter. “John!” The heavy blackness is pulling him down, away from the cruel, deep ache of his body and the icy trembling of his limbs and the struggle, the fight for each hazy breath.

And then he embraces the darkness, and is finally, blissfully, out.