He feels like he’s walked for weeks. It takes forever to move around nowadays. Because of a much-hated object. Granted, he’s in dire need of said object, but still. The cane he’s dependent on, due to his psychosomatic limp, makes him look old. At least to other people, if the not-so-hidden glances are anything to go by.
John knows, deep down, it will get better. One day. It might be next week, in three months, a year. He can be patient when it’s called for. Waiting for his limp to vanish however, tests his self-restraint.
At night, he runs freely, no cane in sight. He’s back in Afghanistan, wearing fatigues, his weapon drawn against the hidden enemy. It’s exhilarating; a sensation he yearns to know again, his nightmares notwithstanding.
***
He’s broken several bones over the years, but never in his legs. A shudder runs through him by the mere thought of being restraint, forced to lie in bed or sit in a chair all day because of a cast enveloping his most faithful limbs.
Heights have never scared him. He thrives when he gets to jump over rooftops in pursuit of a criminal, or when he gathers access to Barts’s roof to admire the city below.
His nightly terrors appear infrequently, but are vicious, leaving him whimpering and breathless as he wakes. Tangled in his sheets that have lured his brain into thinking he’s been trapped, unable to move his legs especially, shakes him more than he is willing to admit.
***
“Walk towards the light, John. It’s always there if you just bother to look.”
His Nan’s words when he told her about his bad dreams as a boy.
He tries, but it’s hard when his brain short-circuits in the hellish Afghan desert. When the bullet penetrates his muscles, even though it’s a dream; he can’t think of anything but the excruciating pain. The only visible thing is a blood-red fog.
***
“There is always a light in the end of the tunnel.”
Sherlock’s grand mère is persistent when he tells her about his dark thoughts. How his peers in school terrorise him for being different and bigmouthed.
She is right, of course. At least when it comes to actual tunnels, but he knows it’s the metaphor she’s referring to. He’s not sure she’s right about that.
***
“Afghanistan or Iraq?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Which was it?”
“How?
“Yes, he’s always like that.”
***
It took them a while to get to their final destination – to a shared home.
221B embraced John as a long-lost son when he stepped over the threshold a January day.
Sherlock adored the flat the moment he saw John walk around, surveying it in that soldier way of his as if he was inspecting a barrack at Sandhurst.
Not long after, they fell in love with each other; a journey was over, but a new one was about to start. They had finally found solace in the company of another person.
Embraces, kisses, arguments, banter, and lovemaking ensued in the safety of the address that became just as famous as the iconic duo who lived there.
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I done wrote a thing!! Thankyou @flashfictionfridayofficial for giving me a kick up the backside with this one. It's a bit introspective and possibly nonsense, but it's ideas I've had for a long time - I'm hoping that this might finally prove to be the start of me actually finishing Lone Star, but we'll see I guess... (I've made promises like that before. 😅)
Anyway, no particular warnings, just a lot of ponderous existential blah.
Or read it on AO3
Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go
Rating: Universal
Genre: angst
Warnings: none
Words: 945
------------------------
John gazed down at the planet below him, and blue seas and brown-green lands looked back at him. The slowly-revolving view was vast, taking up the entire fused quartz window, and yet with landscapes, vistas, mountains and lakes rendered almost indistinguishable by the sheer scale of it; the Earth writ large and incalculably small all at once.
Planet Earth.
Home.
To him that was a uniquely complicated word.
He took a sip of cocoa from his leak-proof mug. The world turned.
Of course, it never used to be that difficult a concept. Way back in the beginning home was actually very simple: wheat fields, a dirt track, a farmhouse painted blue. Roses in the yard, cookies warm from the oven, an apron-wrapped hug. Laughter, joy, love.
But that sense of home had disappeared far too quickly.
Home was somewhere else now. Right now his family were all safely back on Tracy Island, tucked up in their beds, rescues complete and flight hours exhausted for the next… - he checked his watch - ten hours at least. By that time the sun would be high in the sky over the villa, and the petrels would be chitting and charping up there with it. But for now there were only snores and the sound of breaking waves drifting softly in through the windows: the island’s own heartbeat.
By rights John should be asleep now too - he’d been up just as long as they had - but he couldn’t feel less like sleeping at the moment.
He took another sip of his cocoa, ignoring the small knot that grew in his chest every time he looked out of the window.
Instead he began idly calculating the exact distance between him and Tracy Island right now, incorporating the gap between Thunderbird Five and Earth of course, but also estimated distances from his current position above the Kaloo Desert back round to the South Pacific, reckoned both circumferentially and directly through the planet itself… Was that cheating? If a direct path wasn’t actually travelable, did it still count?
He frowned. Like so many things, how far he was from home was very much a matter of perspective. Miles and kilometers obviously, but also time. After all, the journey from Thunderbird Five to planetside took only twenty minutes by space elevator; fifteen at a push. Factor in the time it took to reposition Five and by that measure he really wasn't very far away at all.
The knot in his chest twisted.
It was never just a matter of measurement.
The fact was that despite the communications links, the regular care packages, the day-to-day check-ins and obviously the rescues, up here he was still a world away from everything down there. In every practical way he existed in an entirely different realm to the rest of his family, and the rest of humanity pretty much. He breathed a different atmosphere, he experienced a different gravity, night and day were rendered practically alien concepts to him. It wasn’t just a different landscape up here - there was no landscape!
When he’d first moved to Five he’d missed movement more than anything else. There was no cool morning breeze in space, nor the swish of leafy trees. There were no plants, no animals, no other living being of any description that wasn’t either computer-based or tin can-enclosed. Everything here was metal and glass; cold and sterile and still.
But even that didn’t fully describe it.
He sighed and set his half-drunk cocoa on the side table and sat back on his bunk, eyes closed.
The feeling of detachment was far more profound than the things he missed or the sensations that space lacked. It was more than just the distances. It wasn’t quantifiable. Wasn’t explainable. It was barely comprehensible. And it was all-encompassing.
Everything he was, everything that identified him as a person, as a human, was down there. His family, his history… Every concept of personhood, every aspect that had made him who he was and everyone whose existence in turn determined the shape of his own was now separate from him. The whole world - the whole of civilization past, present and future - could implode tomorrow into a single speck, and he would still remain, a final monument to the existence of the human race, drifting in his man-made cocoon until the end of time. Just him, alone, endlessly floating until the last star blinked out.
It was a lonely thought.
And yet…
He sat there for what seemed like an age, listening to the whirs and creaks and hums of Thunderbird Five, as familiar to him now as any home he’d ever known planetside. He knew every nut, every bolt, every corner and every cranny. He’d memorised the layout the same day Dad had first showed him the initial plans. He’d even personally had a hand in designing some of the systems. This was the sanctuary his father had custom-built just for him: his dreams made real in cahelium and silica.
He thought of Tracy Island once more, and all his family: seven people in one house, clattering and talking and bumping and tripping over each other, teasing each other, borrowing each other’s stuff, stubbed toes, hurt feelings, arguments, jokes, noise…
He loved his family. Of course he did. And he believed they loved him too.
And yet…
Home is somewhere you’re comfortable, right? Somewhere you belonged. Somewhere you wanted to be.
His chest ached.
What did he want? Where did he belong?
The world kept turning. His mind drifted.
One foot in one world and one in another, he thought just as sleep finally pulled on him, dragging him under.
written for Flash Fiction Friday 319, event hosted by @flashfictionfridayofficial
WIP ✵ Revolve
Trigger Warnings ✵ N/A
Rating ✵ Gen
Wordcount ✵ 597
Lukiat has his arm halfway into his backpack when the rustle of wings and the flutter of wind make themselves known in the room's window. He doesn't turn around at the wood panel's slide against its frame though. He's gotten familiar with the mana signature he can feel from behind it, light and quivering and whirling.
"Running?" comes Kea's voice from the now-open window, immediately followed by the soft thump of feet against the floor.
Lukiat stuffs the last tunic into the backpack and sighs. "I felt a familiar mana signature down at the market. I have to–"
"I know," Kea says, draping one hand over Lukiat's back as he leans beside him. A soft rustle of fabric drops into his open backpack and feather-light lips press to his cheek. "I get it."
"I"m sorry," Lukiat says, voice barely a whisper.
Kea doesn't reply. Not at first. He just keeps one hand on Lukiat's back, claws slightly digging into his coat, and keeps packing away at Zhang existence.
It's only when Lukiat starts to wander the room, patting every surface to tuck away the loose bits, that Kea speaks up, his hand leaving Lukiat's back as he walks over to the makeshift desk. "Y'know, I had plans to leave too in a couple days."
Lukiat's head snaps up, and he whirls around so fast that he nearly loses his balance. Only Kea's hands on his shoulders keep him from falling ."Really?"
A rustle of fabric and wings, and Lukiat can nearly hear the smile in Kea's voice. "It's getting boring here."
"I'm sure it is," Lukiat says before he can think about it.
Kea's laughter puffs air onto his neck. His hands leave Likud shoulders. "Point is, I can pack up quickly, and I don't mind compromising on destination," he says, voice far quieter than usual. Clawed hands grab his, lifting them up between them. "We could go somewhere together."
Lukiat falters, squeezing Kea's hands. "I… I don't know. Wouldn't it be harder to find somewhere to sleep?"
"Not with the right contacts."
"Kea," Lukiat hisses. He tries to step away, but the other holds his hands tight.
"Hear me out, Zhan," he says, quiet as the wind. "You know the kind of jobs I take. I'm not dragging you deep, you know that. And if you want to do this long-term you need a lot more stuff. A fake ID, certifications, covers. We can get those. Void, the Idefexi would even keep an eye on whatever you're running from."
Lukiat sighs. He thumps his head against Kea's shoulder and just leaves it there. "I hate this."
"I'm sor–"
"Don't be," Lukiat interrupts. "You're right. I just…"
"We're not bad people. I promise." Kea pulls away slightly, and his hands come back to Lukiat's shoulders. "Do you trust me?"
"For some insane reason," Lukiat half-laughs. He takes a deep breath and lays a hand over Kea's wrist. "Alright, let's do this. Together."
Kea's wings flutter behind them, sending the slightest breeze through the room as he steps away. "I'll go pack my bag. Meet you at Madam Eripatla's?"
Lukiat hums. "Of course."
Kea's fingers drift over his hand again. "Be right there," he says, before dropping out of the window in a flutter of wings. Lukiat can feel his mana signature fly off. And like a summoned monster, the other he'd recognized passes below the window.
Lukiat flinches away from the glass. He takes a deep breath, steels himself. If Ilibenomk is so dead set on finding him, then Lukiat is going to make himself disappear.
