#thehood

He was supposed to get thunderbird two and bring it back to base, not leap out of the craft to save one of the Tracy brothers. John gasped as he stumbled to his feet. He looked out over the ocean, squinting to see the green thunderbird disappearing into the distance. 

“Hey…” The warm voice brought out a snarl on his face. He didn’t understand why the man's comforting tone did things to his insides. It made his heart ache and his stomach squirm, and he backed off before a hand could grab at his shoulder. 

“Easy, John, deep breathes.”

He was the reason John couldn’t suck a full breath into his lungs. He’d gone against his orders to save this man but couldn’t even remember his name.

“My name is Virgil.”

Apparently, the dark-haired Tracy was a mind reader. John flashed him a cautious glance, but it hurt his chest to look at him for too long.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” John said.

“Done what? Saved me?”

“Yes.” John scrubbed at his face. “I mean no. I don’t know.” He looked to the horizon. “She’s gone.”

“There are systems in place. When she runs out of fuel, she’ll automatically look for the closet place to land.”

John felt like he knew that, but didn’t know why, but still, it wasn’t the reason he was hyperventilating. He was supposed to bring the thunderbird to the hood. He’d failed, which meant he would get his brain repeatedly scrambled, and grow delirious with pain. The hood would sneer down at him as he withered and spluttered and begged for mercy. Again.

Vomit attempted to rise up the back of his throat, but he kept it at bay, moving away from Virgil.

The pain, the humiliation, the vomit and the blood were all worth it to save Virgil. Somewhere deep inside, John knew that, but at the same time, he feared the inevitable punishment for his traitorous actions.

“Are you hurt?” Virgil asked.

Every step he took towards John, John took a step back. He didn’t make eye contact with Virgil, but he heard him sigh and felt the waves of frustration coming off him. 

“I can see you’re hurt,” Virgil said. “Your arm.”

Now Virgil had drawn attention to it, John felt the sting in his forearm. A deep gash dripped blood onto the floor. He clasped his other hand around it, keeping the skin together.

“Don’t do that,” Virgil said. “You’ll get dirt in the wound. We need to wash it.”

John shook his head. “It’s fine.”

They’d deal with the injury back at the base like all the others John had obtained on missions. 

“I wish you lot would let me do my job, not tell me you’re fine all the time when you’re clearly not.”

“You lot?”

Virgil hummed. John sensed him approaching but didn’t back away. “Scott, Gordon, Alan. Even Brains sometimes is a tricky patient.”

The names plucked at his brain, pulling a different emotion into his chest. They all ended in heartache though, a deep endless heartache he’d attached to any mention of the Tracy’s. The hood hated them, but that wasn’t the emotion that assaulted John’s senses whenever their names were spat in his direction.

“Scott gets hurt the most, but it’s you that worries me more, always high above, so independent, and stubborn when it comes to your own safety. I wish for once you’d tell me something was up, rather than waiting until you’re unconscious on the floor. Ask for my help, that’s all I want, for you to ask for my help when you know you’re in trouble.”

There was no mistaking the barbs in Virgil’s voice. The repressed anger. John frowned at his feet.

“Do you not like me?”

“What?” Virgil pulled John back by his shoulder and spun him around. John looked at his face. There was anger there too, just a flicker of it amongst the shock. 

“Of course I do, I just worry that's all. I love you. We all do. You’re our brother.”

John winced at that. He hated when they called him their brother. It wasn’t true. Even if it had been once, there was nothing but phantom emotions and gut feelings left of their brother, and if John could rid them from his body, he would in a heartbeat. 

“I’m not,” John said, pulling his arm away before Virgil could reach for it. 

“John, please. You said you trust me.”

“I never said that.”

“Jumping out of thunderbird two kind of implied it.”

John took a deep breath. “I only jumped after you because I couldn’t let you die.”

“Why?” Virgil pressed.

“I don’t know.”

“And if I had of died,” Virgil said, pointing at the patch of disturbed dirt where they’d landed. “If I’d smashed into earth…”

John winced, curling away from Virgil. Something that sounded suspiciously like a sob broke through his lips. If Virgil died….if he’d killed Virgil. No. John shook his head. The heartache he associated with the Tracy’s would’ve morphed into something un-survivable. It would’ve stopped beating in his chest. He would’ve curled up into a ball, unable to function no matter what the hood tried to make him.

“It hurts.” He whispered.

“That thing in your head?”

“No. Being around you. It hurts more than the humming inside my skull. I understand that. It’s pain, white-hot scalding pain, but this other one, this one in my chest.” John shook his head. “It’s like being crushed. It’s like not being able to breathe, but it doesn’t make sense.” He looked up at Virgil. “You’re not doing anything, you’re not even touching me, but it feels like you’re corrupting my body, making it weak. The hood does it with a snarl, but you do it with a concerned frown. It’s worse.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

John swallowed. “Then you’ve got to let me go.”

“Back to the hood? Absolutely not.”

“I would take the hood scrambling my brain over you crushing my chest with a single look.”

“I’m not letting you go back to him.”

“He’ll come looking.”

Virgil took a deep breath. “And so will Scott.”

“Then it’s a case of who gets here first. I know who I’d bet on.”

“That’s only because you can’t remember, Scott.”

John looked away. He started walking towards the woods and heard Virgil following.

“Where are you going?”

He lifted his wounded arm. “You said I’ve got to clean it. For that I need water.” 

****

John tried to lose Virgil in the woods, but he was persistent and stayed glued to his back. He waited for the roar of jet engines to stop over the island, but there was nothing but the leaves shaking in the wind and the trickle of water from the stream they found.

When Virgil wasn’t watching him, he was looking at the woods with an expression of wonder on his face. John felt that in his chest too. Being around Virgil left him tired, worn thin, but he couldn’t make sense of it. All he could do was turn his back on it and hope it faded to a more manageable level.

“It’s getting dark,” Virgil said.

The sun had gone down, and the air temperature had dropped. John parked himself on a fallen tree, touching his arm tentatively. He’d washed, and bandaged his arm as best he could, ripping a strip of his black uniform to use. Virgil had offered him an actual bandage from one of his many pockets, but John had declined.

His refusal earned him a sigh, and a flicker of annoyance across Virgil’s forehead. 

“I’m going to gather some wood,” Virgil said. “Stay put.”

He moved off through the trees but stayed in sight. John thought about making a run for it, but he slumped, utterly exhausted. He needed to lose Virgil. If the hood found him. John scrunched his face up, picturing what might happen. In the worst-case scenario, he’d scramble Virgil’s brain too, make him scream and beg.

John shuddered and dropped his head into his hands, plagued by nightmares he never remembered having, but they were fresh and raw, and so strong he gritted his teeth. Virgil screaming. Virgil in pain. Virgil dying. A barrage of them assaulted him, leaving him struggling to breathe.

“Hey.” Virgil skidded to a stop in front of him. John allowed Virgil to take hold of his face, and lean him back. His cheeks were wet with tears, and he all but fell into Virgil’s deep brown eyes. There was so much concern in them it stole the air from John’s lungs. “Talk to me. What's wrong? Is it your head?”

“No. I…I don’t want you to die.” Accept that wasn’t quite right. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I was thinking about something happening to you and…” John sniffled. His eyes flooded with tears again and ran down his face. “You have to go.”

“Go?” Virgil wiped his thumbs over John’s cheeks. 

“If the hood captures you, he’ll hurt you, Virgil.”

“He’s not going t—”

“He will.” John pushed against Virgil’s chest. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” Virgil grabbed one of John’s hands. “You’re freezing.” His frown intensified as he took hold of John’s wrist. “And your pulse is all over the place.”

He helped John off the tree, and onto the floor. “I’m going to get a fire going. It’ll help Scott find us, and keep you warm.”

John had no more energy to fight. He laid down on the ground and watched as Virgil busied himself with the fire. He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, Virgil was shaking his shoulder gently, waking him up. 

“Drink some water.” John let Virgil sit him up, drank the water on offer, and then sunk back down. Virgil stepped over him. “Move closer to the fire.”

John did, and Virgil lay down beside him. They both lay on their backs, staring up at the night sky.

“Good night to see the stars,” Virgil commented. 

John felt Virgil looking at him again. He turned his head to look back. It was somehow easier to look his way with only the flicker of fire on his face, but Virgil’s expectant expression left him frowning.

“What?”

“The stars, John.”

Virgil lifted his finger towards the night sky. 

John looked up and frowned. “There’s nothing there.”

“What do you mean there’s nothing there?”

“It’s black and endless.”

Virgil’s thick eyebrows met in the middle as he studied John. “The stars.” He whispered, again, putting so much emphasis on those two words.

The stars.

John had no idea what Virgil was talking about, or why he was so persistent. The night sky was dark and vacant as it had always been. He didn’t look at it.

Virgil shut his eyes, and his voice came out hollow, and sad.

“He took the stars from you too?”

"What stars?"

"The ones up there." Virgil waved his hand above, but John didn't look. He shifted an inch away from Virgil, thrown off by the bite in his voice.

“There were never any stars to begin with.”

“Yes, there was,” Virgil said firmly. “There is. Please, John, just look.” He pointed to the sky again, but this time there was a tremble in his finger.

“I have looked—"

“Please. Look again.”

He refused.

"For me." Virgil pleaded. He leaned closer, and the fire reflected from the tears on his lashes.

A knot tightened in John's chest. He sighed through his nose and rolled his head against the ground. He'd look for Virgil despite not knowing why.

He stared straight into the darkness, aware of Virgil’s gaze locked on him, and the upset he hadn't meant to have caused.

“There’s…” he trailed off. There was something, flecks of light on the black canvas. He blinked, and they remained. The more he looked, the more he saw until his eyes could distinguish between faint and bright, what was close, and what was so far away. 

All the emotions that suffocated him were lost in the darkness. John focused on the light, and it filled his chest with something new, something free, and special and John let out a slow breath.

“The stars,” Virgil repeated. “You love them.”

John couldn’t remember them. For him, it was the first time he’d ever seen them, but what Virgil said was true. He loved them. The awe he felt about them filled up his inside and he shot Virgil a smile. His smile was returned.

Virgil began pointing them out, naming the constellations, and telling John stories about the stars. He didn’t interrupt Virgil and tell them he knew. He didn’t know how he knew, nothing made much sense, but listening to Virgil while he looked up at the stars with no pressure to remember anything made him relax all tension in his body. The humming in his head almost faded to nothing, so consumed by the stars and the comforting tone of Virgil's deep voice.

Virgil’s waving hand stole John’s attention. He stopped admiring the stars and admired that instead while Virgil continued to talk about mythology. John reached up and caught Virgil’s hand. He stopped talking with a hiccup of a gasp, and let John manipulate his fingers

John stretched out Virgil’s long fingers and ran his thumb over his knuckles. Virgil’s concerned gaze bore into the side of his face, but he ignored the look in favour of studying his hand. John knew it was crazy, he knew it made no logical sense, but he could hear music in his head when he touched Virgil’s fingers. 

He heard notes that soothed him. And like the stars, John fixated on them rather than the darkness and oppressive emotions all around. Virgil’s hands made music. Music he enjoyed. Music he’d missed. Music he remembered.

“What is it?” Virgil whispered.

“The piano.”

And once he’d said those two words aloud, he could see it. The piano. Virgil sat at it, playing music, a slow, soft piece that instantly left his eyelids drooping. He yawned, and lowered Virgil’s hand to his chest, holding it hostage against his heart.

“You…you remember.”

“It’s…it’s not really a memory.” He flashed Virgil a glance. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, it’s more like a glimmer of one, a slither of one in the void. You at the piano, filling the room with music. It’s…calming.”

Virgil smiled. “Music is to me, what the stars are to you. They give us peace.”

John hummed. He forced his eyes open and took another look at the stars. “I think they’re extra special when they’re combined.”

He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. It wasn’t the first time he’d looked at the stars while he heard Virgil on the piano. It wasn’t the first time he admired their brightness while Virgil helped him drift off to sleep.  

“Thank you for giving me back the stars.”

When he stopped concentrating on the fragment of a memory, he feared it would vanish altogether, but it stayed. The first bright star in the endless darkness of his memories. Virgil at the piano. 

****

He fell asleep and woke with his face towards the fire, and Virgil pressed against his back. He’d slung an arm over John’s side at some point during the night, and snored directly against John’s nape. 

John didn’t wake him, he sighed deeply, content to stay in the place between sleep, and awake, drifting back and forth, warm and at peace for the first time in forever.

He could trust Virgil.

He'd returned the stars after all.

Maybe he could trust the other Tracy’s too.

John flinched and let out a scream.

The pain spiking in his head forced him to curl into a tight ball. He hissed, clawing at his temples. Virgil was on him, trying to uncurl him, speaking fast, and firmly, but John couldn’t make out a word.

“What do we have here?”

The hood had found them. John lifted his head enough to get a look at him, twiddling the dial on his wrist that made John’s head feel like it was about to explode. Virgil launched at him, but a gun aimed at his chest made him back off fast.

“Stop it!” Virgil yelled.

“That depends on you…”

“Me?”

“Are you going to come with us quietly, or are you going to cause a scene?”

Virgil’s eyes found John on the floor, withering, and gasping as a fire burned through his brain.

“I’ll come quietly, just stop hurting him.”

The pain in John’s head retracted to the familiar hum. He glanced around at the hoods men, all armed, all sneering at Virgil.

John turned to him. “Run.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” He helped John to his feet and wiped away the trail of blood from his nose then he slung John’s arm over his shoulder and dragged him close by the waist. “I’m not leaving you.”

The hood rubbed his hands together. “Two Tracy’s for the price of one. This is going to get interesting.”

John's stomach rolled. He glanced at Virgil, and the nightmares of the night before raced toward him. Virgil hurt. Virgil screaming. Virgil made into a weapon like him.

He couldn’t let it happen. 

He wouldn't let it.