#evil jeff

John wasn’t even sure why he bothered referencing maximum flight hours, he should have known that it wouldn’t make any difference to Jeff’s opinion, his word was final. John did manage to at least get Jeff to agree to someone other than Virgil flying ‘Two. He grudgingly conceded that Virgil could make up the rest of his rack time in the crew bunks on ‘Two. Although John thought that might have had more to do with Jeff wanting to be seen landing the recognisable craft himself. It didn’t go unnoticed by John that Jeff’s uniform had undergone some additional tailoring recently and a colour tweak that really did compliment the silver in the commander's hair. Vain didn’t even cover it.

Well, John might not be able to stop the call out, but he could definitely buy Virgil a little more time. Setting EOS to watch over the rescue situation, with instructions to alert him if it actually escalated to the point where they needed to be involved, John set to work. A fuel line “fault” necessitated back up protocols and secondary pipelines to be used, which added at least 3 minutes to the launch. A few carefully crafted adjustments to the programming slowed down Jeff's suit-up, robotic arms supplying an older uniform even had Jeff giving up on the automated process, with some choice swear words, and opting for manual settings instead. The real skill came in making adjustments that wouldn’t implicate Brains, but John liked a challenge. 

 This left enough time to allow John to change the usual klaxon alarm in Virgil’s room for instead slowly bringing up the room lights for a gentler wake up, this helped eliminate the usual adrenaline spike that rocketed Virgil's heart rate. 

A few slightly doctored weather readings during the flight even managed to buy Virgil an extra 20 minutes in the narrow reserve bunk. It wasn’t much in the scheme of things, but as the saying goes, every little helps. 

Virgil might still look like death, but at least he knew his brother had his back. 

John turned his thoughts to waking up Virgil when Thunderbird two was nearing the rescue site he had always been notoriously hard to wake up since his teens, but when his hologramme lit up the small bunk John found Virgil staring at the back wall with a glazed expression. 

“Hey, Virg. 5 minute warning, you’re coming into land.”

“Brace for impact then?” Virgil joked weakly, a smile briefly flitting across his tired face. 

“Well it is Jeff in the driving seat.” John admitted. 

Virgil just groaned, rolled himself out of the bunk and started struggling into his uniform baldrick.

“So what have we got Jay? Cat up a tree? Stalled vehicle?”

“Not far off. It's a bunch of high ranking officials who thought it would be a good idea to go up in a flying restaurant despite local weather warnings. So yeah, they had to make an emergency landing on the side of a mountain and now they’re moaning because the local emergency services can’t get to them until after they have cleared the access road to a school.”

“So…..definitely a good use of our resources then?”  then he caught himself “wait, is the school ok?” 

“Oh yeah, they’re fine.” John waved a dismissive hand. 

Virgil staggered as the chequer plates beneath his feet lurched and he grabbed the edge of the top bunk to steady himself. 

“I see his parking hasn’t got any better,” Virgil grumbled, hurrying to finish suiting up. 

“Well take it easy out there, no lives are at risk so don’t let him push for theatrics - you hear me?”

“I’m flattered that you think there are any theatrics left in me by this point.” Virgil joked, casting John a quick wave he strode out to face whatever fresh hell his day was going to provide. 

Jeff was already out “Pressing the flesh” and schmoozing the big wigs as Virgil came down the ramp. Rigby and Dosela were already assembling a couple of pods.

“Hey there sleeping beauty!” Sadie offered a high five, which was not left hanging.

“John filled me in on the situation, what’s the plan, what do you need me for?”

“Honestly, I think we’ve got this, isn't that right Rigs?”

Rigby walked over with Virgil’s spare helmet which he pushed towards him. “Yeah, I don’t think we even need the Pods, but the commander wants to put on a bit of a show.” He shrugged “put the helmet on though” Virgill raised a questioning eyebrow, confused why it would be needed. “Yeah, it's not needed, but there’s camera drones all over the place and you look like shit. You know how that will go down with the colonel if you make the gossip rags anything short of parade ground ready.”

“Ouch!” Sadie smacked a hand on Virgil's shoulder. Virgil looked to protest, but he was cut off as she carried on, “Oh no, he's completely right, you do look like shit, but I thought he might be the one to sugar coat it with some professionalism. I’m clearly a bad influence on him.” She took the helmet out of his unresisting hands, rammed it forcefully on his head and finished off with a patronising little pat on the top of the helmet. 

The Pods were assembled and taken out for some pointless manoeuvres. Getting the restaurant back up in the air was not going to happen given the current crosswinds and the replacement parts needed. Jeff had not been happy about that, but there wasn’t much he could do. After all they were a rescue organisation for people and not a recovery service, but that seemed to have slipped Jeff’s mind as he continued his sales pitch at full force, listing off all the features of their machines.

Virgil busied himself setting up additional seating for the restaurant staff, since nobody else seemed to be concerned with how they were going to get down the mountain. The peacocking looked to be coming to a close and Jeff was bringing his exalted guests up towards the cockpit so Virgil ducked out the module to gather up the rest of their passengers, keeping his fingers crossed that Jeff wouldn’t take off without him. 

His footsteps echoed around the empty dining room as he headed towards the kitchen. 

“Hello! We’re ready to head off!” he pushed open the swing doors and suddenly the quiet was shattered by a hubbub of chattering voices. He felt like even more of an idiot with his helmet still on, because the stacks of food looked amazing. Going on the assumption that the cameras would have followed the dignitaries, Virgil figured that it would be safe to take it off. The second the seals disengaged Virgil's senses were assaulted by glorious smells, his mouth was instantly watering.  

“Ahhh! You’ll eat won't you! You look hungry! Come here - eat!” a short dark haired woman surged towards him, brandishing a platter of assorted Dim Sum.

“Oh, wow, that looks great, but we really need to get going.” he gestured towards the door a little apologetically. 

“No problem, we’ll make it to go, Gina, box it up! We’re not wasting this! Move move move!” 

Virgil was left standing awkwardly in the doorway as kitchen staff were mobilised. He had no idea how he was going to heard this lot out before the commander lost patience and left them on the hillside. But even as he was groping around in his brain trying to make a plan the woman was back, once again hollering to her staff.

“Right! Let’s go everybody, SERVICE!!” and with that they flooded out of the kitchen in one long line, each person carrying a neat stack of boxes. Someone had even wiped down the counter tops on their way out, it was impressive. He ended up just following along in their wake. They had already been organised into the reserve seating in the module by the woman in charge by the time he made it up the ramp. 

“Ahh good, there you are, now you can eat - yes? You look starved. Here take these, for you and your colleagues - go, take them.”  He was loaded up with boxes containing rows and rows of perfect steamed buns and shoved gently on his appointed errand. 

He stumbled off toward the cockpit, thoroughly distracted by the delicious smells coming from the boxes. So distracted in fact that he nearly walked headlong into the commander.

“Virgil, watch where you’re going! Where have you been? We're about to take off.”

Virgil went to open his mouth to answer but Sir carried on regardless. 

“What have you got there?” Jeff flipped the lid on the top box, releasing another wave of delicious scents to torture Virgil with. 

“The restaurant staff bought food for us,” 

Jeff didn’t even try to hide the sneer that pulled the edge of his mouth as he looked down his nose at the contents of the box.

“Ugh, no, never eat something you can’t easily identify, god knows what's in those. Get rid of them before you stink the whole place out.”  he turned Virgil around by his shoulders and sent him back towards the pod bays. “You might as well stay down there for the flight too, our guests are sitting up front, and you're hardly looking presentable, sort yourself out Virgil, you know the standards I expect.” he gave him a little shove in the back to hurry Virgil on his way, nearly dislodging the top box. Only some hasty footwork on Virgil's part saved the buns from hurtling down the corridor and meeting an untimely death on the metal flooring. 

For once Virgil was quite glad to be excluded. When he got back into the pod bay he pulled down a fold out jump seat with one hand and, parking himself heavily, he attacked the top layer of buns with little regard for decorum. So engrossed was he in his meal, that he barely noticed the slightly jerky take off and was only roused back into the present by the arrival of the formidable woman from earlier, this time brandishing a flask.

“Ju Hua tea” she said, an indulgent smile on her face, “best thing to have with Baozi.” He was going to protest that he was fine, that he would grab himself some water, but the determined look came back into her eyes and he took the flask with a grateful nod of his head, since his cheeks were still full of deliciousness. 

Dosela came briskly through the door while Virgil was mid-gulp, so he stuck with head bobbing as his main form of communication for the time being. 

“Ah thank god, I thought for a minute we might have actually left without you. All Home Alone style” she ruffled his hair with one hand before zoning in on the buns. “Oooooh,” 

Virgil tilted the box towards her in a clear invitation. She plucked one carefully out and was soon making appreciative noises and waving her thanks to the kitchen staff who were passing similar boxes between themselves and enjoying an impromptu picnic in the rows of passenger seats. 

“Trying to keep these all to yourself?” she nudged his shoulder lightly.

“I was banished from the cockpit,” he lifted the box of buns again slightly, “Sir was concerned his guests wouldn’t appreciate the smell.”

“I didn’t think you smelled that bad” she jostled his shoulder again, laughing. “We better dispose of these quick then.” she grinned. “He’ll probably want you up there to fly the home stretch once we’ve dropped off his ‘guests’” Virgil had stuffed his mouth full again, so only rolled his eyes by way of reply. 

His door was open, he would have been able to hear the noises from the rest of the house, if there were any. The whole place felt empty, void of life, once again mirroring its occupants. Scott rolled onto his side with a sigh, he’d get up in a minute, probably, inactivity was never his natural state.

 A movement caught his eye, switching all systems to alert, even if his body stayed resolutely still to not give away his position.  A second more and his brain caught up with the muscle reflex and called all systems to stand down.

 “hey Alan, you ok?”

 Alan edged his way into the room. He was wearing an old stolen oversized hoodie, although, Scott blinked, it wasn’t oversized anymore. Alan had stolen that hoodie out of Scott’s kit bag years ago, and at the time it had threatened to envelope his knees. Alan had worn holes at the cuffs so he could poke his thumbs through, but these now sat resolutely at his wrists. One pull tie was distinctly shorter than the other where Alan had chewed it as a child. Scott remembered tying it off to stop the fraying and the stern warning Alan had been given about not doing it again. Gordon might have exacerbated things by fabricating a great tale of how the bits of string would get tangled up inside Alan and trap his intestines just like those pictures of dolphins trapped in fishing nets. Where had the time gone? Alan now stood before him, and even if Scott still saw the slightly awkward teen, the world most definitely saw a capable young man.  No, more than that, he was a force to be reckoned with. But right now, he looked as lost as Scott felt.

 Alan shrugged, apparently still pondering Scotts question. “ I guess... You?”

 Scott shrugged as best he could whilst lying on his side, it caused him to flop over onto his back again, and he wasn’t able to disguise the involuntary wince quick enough. It was enough to draw Alan further into the room, eyebrows doing all the questioning.

 “I’m fine, it's fine.” Scott waved away the concern with one hand, then patted the mattress to his side 

Alan perched on the edge of the bed, up by Scotts shoulder, still facing away from him. The mattress dipped with his weight, causing Scott to lean in towards Alan's back. Scott did the only sensible thing in the situation and poked  his baby brother in the back.

 “when did you get so big?” he could almost feel the eyeroll this summoned, even through the back of Alan's head. But his voice had a little more life in it when he delivered the required reply:

“When did you get so old?”

 Scott just smiled, he’d been dubbed “old” since the age of 15, when a fluke of pigmentation (or more likely external stresses) had gifted him his first white hair. All things considered he was doing well not to be challenging the colonel by this point.

 At least it made Alan turn to face him, shifting himself around so he could rest his back against the headboard. Alan went to pull his legs up on the bed, but a slap to the knee and a hard stare from Scott was enough to remind him to kick his shoes off before continuing. This earnt Scott another eyeroll, he was doing well today, he grinned, annoying a younger sibling was an essential brotherly duty.

 Alan picked at the fraying threads of his cuff, he looked really lost.

 “Hey, Alan. Thank you for everything you’ve done these last couple of days, it's not easy dealing with the hoards descending on your home, so thank you .”

 “I thought it was your name on the deeds?” Alan retorted with a smirk. That gained him another prod in the side.

 “you know what I mean. You better watch out though, I think all the colour captains will be petitioning to recruit you for your cooking alone.” Alan batted his hand away before another prod could make contact with his ribs, it was no fun when you couldn’t retaliate because of healing wounds.

 “Ha! There’s no way they would take another Tracy after experiencing you and Gordon.”

 “ and don’t forget John, he made quite an impression when he crash landed”

 “ah yes, exactly, Spectrum is well over its Tracy quota, any more and they’ll have to offer counselling”

 “for us or them?”

 “…Yes” Alan deadpanned. It was such a "John" response that Scott felt the laughter bubble out of him unchecked. He rolled back onto his side and hooked an arm around Alan's waist. More of a tackle than a hug, but it got the message across. Scott's face ended up buried under Alan's arm and pressed against his ribs. 

"thank you Alan," he mumbled through the fabric of his own long abandoned hoodie. 

"anytime," Alan said softly, patting the back of Scott's head. 

Scott eventually retreated, flopping back into a more conventional sprawl across the bed. They shared a few minutes of companionable silence, each seemingly lost in their own thoughts. 

 Scott glanced across at Alan, before batting at him lazily with one arm. 

"you better wash that hoodie before you give it back" it was another old faithful retort.