For @gumnut-logic's Fluffember2021. Day 28. Wish/Shaft of Sunlight
~
John grumbled to himself as he made his way to the kitchen. He was desperate for a coffee. He’d come down from Five last night at the insistence of his oldest brother, but he’d not slept any. Damn gravity.
He wished that his brother would leave him alone sometimes.
But then John sighed. That wasn’t fair on Scott. His brother was born to worry about his siblings, and John had been run ragged with the recent spate of non-stop rescues. Grandma had called a 24-hour shutdown and Scott had insisted John came down to rest.
As he got closer to the kitchen and the caffeine he both craved and needed, he yawned widely…and stumbled over nothing, falling down onto all fours. John groaned. He was tired and gravity was…brutal.
And then the sun came out.
Without even thinking anything more than how tired he was and how warm the shaft of sunlight was, John promptly curled up and fell asleep.
When Scott came back from his run and saw the orange cat asleep in the sunbeam he smiled softly.
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What a year it’s been! But we’ve made it amazing and filled it with buckets of Tracy goodness! This is the last chapter of my Fluffember multi-chap and my Christmas present to you wonderful people since I didn’t take part in the Secret Santa.
I thought I’d share it on here since it involves two of the most christmassy prompts from @gumnut-logic‘s ‘Fluff & Fun’ list: Delicious cookies and the secret, secret launch chute.
Sidenote: this is over 3k words long so a link to AO3 will be at the end; you can continue reading it there.
*****
Christmas on Tracy Island. One of Scott’s favourite and least favourite times of the year. Why? Well, I’ll tell you why.
You see, last year, stuff happened. And by that, Scott meant the whole house nearly burned down. All thanks to Alan and Gordon messing around in the kitchen and accidentally knocking a candle over onto the gas oven. Which, by the way, was turned on. It was one of Grandma’s favourite scented candles too and they had to bin it afterwards.
As well as that, Gordon pulled a seemingly funny prank on Virgil by painting Thunderbird 2 red. Yes! Red! Just like expected from Scott, the darkest-haired brother didn’t take it lightly.
But this year he was determined for it to go smoothly. He’d created a list of jobs for Christmas and he was wanting to get them all done. If it came to it, he’d take Alan’s X-Box away and Gordon’s bedroom TV for the entire season so make sure they did work to help.
Came the day of preparation: December 18, one week ‘til Christmas. The week when, to the Tracys, the madness of the season truly began.
“Hey Virg, can you help me get the tinsel down?” Gordon shouted from the top of the attic stairs.
“Yeah sure, hold up,” Virgil climbed up the wooden slats of the ladder up to the entrance of the attic. Gordon passed him a box full of brightly multi-coloured tinsel which they’d put all around the house. He slowly went back down and launched the box towards John who took it into the lounge with its sunken floor.
Kneeling on the floor, Alan and Scott were getting crafty by making something the youngest Tracy had learned while online learning: handmade strings of decorations. As John wandered past, he heard Alan complain to Scott,
“I can’t believe you let Gordon of all people go up into the attic and not me. I’m more sensible than him,”
“Are you really, though?” Scott lifted his brother’s head up by the chin so they made eye contact.
Alan was confused, “Err yeah…?”
“You learned a lot from Gordon as a child, which worried me and Mum and Dad. We were afraid we’d get “another Gordon” as it were. Tell me, if he planned to shoplift from a store for fun and asked you to come with him, would you?”
“Hell yeah! It sounds fun. As long as we didn’t get caught of course.”
“Exactly. You’re just like Gordon. Just as playful and mischievous as him. You don’t see it or admit it to yourself because you’re still young. Your mind is still developing.”
John stopped and butted in, amazed at the eldest’s words, “Wow Scott. That was beautifully said.”
“Thank you. Now you Alan, carry on. I’m gonna—”
BANG CRASH!
“Ow! Virg!” Gordon’s enraged yell could’ve been heard from a mile away.
“Oooh…” cringed Scott as he stood up. “That can’t have been good…”
@gumnut-logic's Fluffember Day 30: Special Dream/Family
~
It had been Alan’s dream since he was about four. To fly a rocket to the moon.
In some way it wasn’t a particularly special dream, not for him, not like it would have been for many other children. A family that already had one astronaut and another in training, there really was no surprise that Alan wanted that too.
No. Flying to the moon might be a dream, but it wasn’t a special dream.
His special dream started when he was about eight.
Alan was eight when his dad, Uncle Lee and Aunt Val along with Brains, set up International Rescue. He was eight and Scott was 20, two years into a five-year stint for the USAF. John was 19 and already scheduled for the next trip to the moon in a few months while Virgil was 18 and half-way through an engineering degree that had benefitted enormously from working with their father and Brains. Gordon was 15 and getting ready to start his tenure with WASP in the fall.
Alan found all the discussions about the Thunderbirds and all the plans his brothers had to become pilots and save the world so exciting! It was something he also wanted to do, no matter that he was only eight.
And then he saw her.
She was beautiful and sleek and everything he’d ever wanted in a rocket. And she was red, to boot. Alan now had a new dream. He didn’t want to fly to the moon. He wanted to pilot Thunderbird Three.
His brothers kinda included him in their discussions about their respective birds and how what they were doing would help them be better at their roles, but no one really spoke to Alan about what he could do to be pilot of Thunderbird Three.
So he listened to what all his brothers were learning and he took the information to heart and he applied himself to school in the hope of learning what he needed,
The next 20 months were a nightmare for the family. IR was slowly building up, but first Scott was MIA for three weeks and then invalided out of the Airforce, and then Gordon had his crash. And suddenly Alan realised that the world really wasn’t a carefree place for him.
Seeing his brothers hurt so badly, and the efforts they needed to expend to get better made him more determined. He doubled down at school. Alan could see that International Rescue was a special dream, a dream with real meaning and purpose. Watching the occasions when his dad and Lee were out was both awesome and frightening, and when Scott, John and Virgil joined iR when he was 10 that fear increased.
But he never wavered in his belief that iR was important and worthwhile.
Not even when that special dream took his dad away from him when he was eleven.
No, it just made the family dream that much more special. And when Scott brought him home from school he felt that one step closer to achieving his dream. Of course, he realised that eleven was too young to fly a rocket. And so was twelve. And thirteen. But he spent those three years learning everything thing he could about their ships, he flew the sims, he bested scores, he listened to mission briefs and learnt tactics.
And one day when he was fourteen going on fifteen, Scott granted his special dream.
He flew Thunderbird Three. And he flew her brilliantly. John was with him, and his family all remarked on how well he had done.
The strokes were slow and deliberate, applying layer upon layer of colour, building up and deepening it. The sketch he’d made earlier was rough, fingers aching from being used intensively in a way they hadn’t been used for a long time.
Now the outline was slowly taking form, green paint glistening in the light. He rinsed the brush out and added a hint of yellow to the green, adding a stroke of slightly lighter green to show the play of light, adding white and yellow and a touch of blue to build more depth in every layer, until he was happy.
He had washed the background in a pale orange, and now that he was happy with the Cahelium, he turned his attention to the other areas of the painting, picking out detail in the orange with pale grey and dark grey.
Eventually he put the brush down.
His hand was trembling slightly, and he massaged it as he cast a critical eye over the painting. It wasn’t quite right, there was something off about the shape of Two’s wing, of the curve of her hull, but he knew that if he kept going he would just ruin it. At least the green was right.
He got up, stretching the kink out of his back, and moved away, viewing the painting from a distance. Yeah, that was better. He’d even managed to outline the figure standing underneath the behemoth.
Smiling to himself, he left the painting to dry as he went to get coffee and food, pleased at the outcome. Later that night he’d finish prepping it ready for tomorrow. But now was time for food and family.
The next morning Virgil was whistling to himself as he went about the last checks on Two. He knew that Brains, Scott and Gordon would have kept on top fixing her while he was out, but he needed to be sure.
As he brushed a hand down her hull he was alerted to the fact that he was no longer alone by the echoing footsteps of his eldest brother. Knowing it was Scott, Virgil didn’t bother to turn around, yet he didn’t fail to notice the pause before Scott joined him. They walked together in silence until Virgil was satisfied and they made their way back over to the work trolley.
There was a small parcel on the trolley with Virgil’s name on it, and a glance at Scott told Virgil where it had come from. His brother was uncharacteristically quiet, and nervous even. As he reached for it, Scott suddenly decided that coffee would be a good idea and shot off before Virgil could stop him. He’d be back, though, so Virgil fixed his attention on the small package, carefully opening it to reveal the small painting of Two.
He smiled. His ’bird was the only source of real colour there, everything else was picked out in greys, except for the tiniest splash of red on one of the figures.
Virgil couldn’t remember the last time Scott painted anything, another one of the talents his eldest brother had that had been deemed unnecessary and left alone, and he appreciated the effort this must have taken Scott.
While he’d been laid up, unable to paint or play and had been thoroughly frustrated, his brother had done this. And Virgil knew exactly where it would go, pride of place in his bedroom.
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I had to take a bit of a break after the flurry of Flufftober 2021 (see what I did there?), but as I am finishing up the last few prompts for that event, I am also working on a WIP for my 9-1-1 Bingo (Prostitute AU) and I have two holiday/Secret Santa events to write fics for as well. Lots of writing left for the year.
So here is a snippet of my WIP for Love Notes for Flufftober 2021:
Aunt May had been a bit protective at first, wondering what an older man was doing, helping out her nephew, and Bucky didn’t fault her for her initial reaction at all, which had been wielding a cast iron frying pan when she first came upon them studying. Kind of impressive, honestly. But when Bucky revealed who he was, wanting to be completely honest, he was shocked when her response was to hug him. He flinched initially, but then felt himself instinctively relax into the hug, which reminded him slightly of hugs his mother used to give him. “Thanks for your service,” she said quietly, patting his back, waiting for Bucky to be the first to pull out of the hug.
Smiling at the memory, he came back to the present, realizing that May and Peter were still staring awkwardly at Sam. Throwing his arm around Sam’s shoulders, he pulled him closer to the two. “This is Sam. Sam, this is Peter, and his Aunt May,” he said, making the introductions. Peter started shaking Sam’s hand saying what an honour it was to meet the new Cap and Aunt May gestured Sam in for a hug, reminiscent of Bucky’s first hug from her. Bucky couldn’t help but feel relieved when Sam’s hug was done, that she pulled him in for one as well.
I am fresh out of ideas for Fluffember 2021 so I’m going to stop. It’s barely got any attention on fanfiction either so after the latest one is posted I’m marking it as complete.
For the Fluffember prompts Image and Clouds, with thanks to @gumnut-logic for the prompt list! It's not much, but I wanted to add something!
The rescue had been successfully completed, family re-united, minor injuries treated and the area made safe. Gordon was securing the POD in the Module, and Virgil took a moment to just breathe.
It was a cool day, but the sun was shining and there was enough strength in her rays to warm his weary shoulders. He let his gaze sweep upwards above the winter-bare tree branches to the cloud-scattered blue sky.
A slow smile spread lazily across his face as the combination of silver-grey and blue made him think of Thunderbird One, and by extension, Scott. The sky was so much a part of Scott. They belonged to each other just as Gordon and the ocean did.
As his focus drifted upward further still he spotted the gibbous moon, high above the clouds and far enough from the sun to be floating amid a deeper azure blue. The moon triggered memories of his Dad. Bedtime stories of adventures up there with "Uncle" Lee that always held the boys enraptured - especially John, who's eyes would sparkle with the light of the stars with every mention of the wonders of space.
Virgil's thoughts turned to John, now spending more time up there among the stars he loved than he did down on solid earth. He could remember John telling bedtime stories to Alan about brave explorers traveling through space to far off places and the things they learned there - including stories about Dad's mission to Mars. And as Alan had grown John had taken him stargazing and shared his knowledge and love of the celestial wonders found way beyond the blue of Earth's atmosphere.
He took out his phone and snapped a photo. The resolution wasn't great on his phone's camera, but he didn't need minute detail, just a lasting reminder of this moment. An image that somehow encapsulated so much of his family. Scott was in the colours of the sky, the racing wind, freedom itself, streaking through the blue. Memories of Dad were in the moon, and John and Alan were tied to the thought that the moon was more often associated with a darker sky pin-pricked with starlight.
The only one missing from the image was Gordon, but he was here in the moment, yelling at him to stop standing there gawping at the view.
