#thunderangst

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.

A quick check in with Scott over comms revealed he and Alan were actually already attending to their brother in the satellite station above Earth. John had wanted Scott to check on the probability calculations of yesterday’s program, not trusting his own analysis being so close to the problem. At Eos’ absolute offense, Scott was there to provide another set of eyes, he admitted to Virgil. Smart move bringing along Alan, Virgil thought. Not just because of Three, but because Alan was best at giving John a distraction, via one of their online games or “space talk” or both.

“What have you found?” Virgil asked curiously. 

Scott grimaced, admitting he didn’t think he’d find anything wrong with the program. These things just happen. And, unfortunately, Virgil had to agree – he had the upmost faith in Scott’s math, John’s programs, and Eos’ quick computing.

“Hey, check in on the Squid when you can?” his brother asked, frowning at the numbers through a tirade from the AI. “I couldn’t find him earlier.”

His thoughts exactly.

He signed off with an FAB and sent a prayer off to the stars for his brother’s continued patience. For John’s sake. Despite the circumstances, it made him smile knowing Eos and Scott had gotten at least comfortable enough to argue math. John and Eos both were in good hands.

Gordon was in his.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take Virgil long to find him, and he hadn’t needed to start scouting the Island in the rain to do so. Gordon was safe inside, sitting at the kitchen table when Virgil entered to prepare his morning cup of coffee. The aquanaut was hunched over something – Virgil couldn’t quite see what since he had his back to him, but he recognized the poor posture of when Gordon was hyper-focused on whatever was in his hands.

He slid up to him and placed his hand gently on the curl of his spine between his shoulder blades. “Straighten up before you hurt yourself.”  Virgil was guilty of it too at times, but with Gordon’s bad back, he obviously needed the reminder this time. Obediently, Gordon pressed his shoulders down and stretched his neck from side to side where he’d accidentally formed stress in his muscles.

“Oh, ow. I forgot,” he grinned sheepishly up at Virgil, who used the opportunity to glance down at the table for just what had taken Gordon’s attention so completely to forget the key guidelines for the health of his spine. He was usually so attentive to that.

Virgil raised his eyebrow at the familiar array of art supplies in chaos across the kitchen table – a paint palette or two, his watercolors, the cup he used for his paint water complete with a selection of brushes tucked inside.

“I’ll replace everything.” Gordon at least had the good sense not to mess with his top shelf brushes, and expensive paints. So that’s where he’d been then while Scott was looking for him: in his studio. Automatically he bristled at the realization Gordon had been through his stuff without his permission, and it showed on his face despite him trying to reel in the immediate annoyance. Gordon noticed, adding, “I didn’t want to wake you. I think I found the more basic stuff, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Virgil grumbled, even though he didn’t often use his watercolors.

“Then go get some coffee so you’ll be less mad at me. Pot’s already made.”

Irritatingly, Gordon was right, and the aroma of fresh brewed coffee relaxed him while the caffeine surged through his system with a warm awareness. Feeling more himself, if not a bit more inspired by the rhythm of the rain against the closed glass despite the lack of sun, he sat across from him and grabbed one of the fresh postcard-sized, art-grade papers from the pile.

On one of Virgil’s palette trays, Gordon had mixed yellow and vermillion, forming a warmer shade of golden light for the shadows, and for the first time, Virgil inspected the artwork of Gordon’s piece, the confident movements of the brushstrokes, and the well-portioned ratio of water to paints. It was no work of a beginner.

“Wait, you’ve done this before!”

Gordon flicked his eyes upward to meet his gaze, “It’s been awhile. Nowhere near like you.  This is all the product of tutorials.”

“Still - Wow, since when?” He had no idea Gordon had tried anything similar to his own passions for art.

“There’s nothing to do in a bathyscaphe, but what there’s a lot of is water.” Gordon’s gaze darkened for just a moment, the brushed poised over the paper.  “Water is life.” He shrugged, quickly rotating his shoulders back into a better position on his own before Virgil could mention it. “Art worked for you, so I figured why not.”

That gave him pause, imagining that it must’ve gotten old quickly - the appeal of living in a bathyscaphe for an extended period of time, that is. How many little habits and hobbies had Gordon tried on his own? It seemed quite a lonely assignment to Virgil, but Gordon had been so excited to go. After, Gordon had raved about all he’d had the chance to research, the impact he’d been able to make on marine farming, and the possibilities for solving world hunger, though he’d also been equally excited about being back upon his return. As fulfilled as Gordon was during that time, Virgil remembered the first time Gordon had had the chance to skip through the rain after his deployment down below and what was probably the worst burn of Gordon’s life when the sun came out after.

Through his own tight embrace of his little brother’s return, perhaps he’d missed just how hard Gordon had returned the hug, blinded by the initial excited science babble.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Virgil knew the others sometimes dabbled in music, and it already broke him to know they often hid it away, embarrassed about their skill in comparison to Virgil’s. Though, they feared a lecture that would never come. It was unlike him to compare, and more than anything he wanted the world to know art was for everybody, in whatever capacity it inspired. For him, it was as important as air, and the main difference was that he’d given himself the time to develop his skills. He loved those brief moments where Scott would play Heart and Soul with him, and when John would grace them with his singing voice around the holiday season.

But it was Gordon that played his uke with all the confidence of a maestro. And he loved that for him. Gordon was always unapologetic about the things he enjoyed; it was a rare and special characteristic of his younger brother to be himself so fully and authentically. So, the idea that art was something he’d potentially hidden away, made him shrink in himself just slightly.

He suddenly cared a lot less about Gordon taking his supplies for this.

“Hadn’t come up,” Gordon quipped, not in the slightest affected by the swirl of thoughts in Virgil’s brain. “I just wanted to make some flowers in their memory, so I brushed off an old hobby.” He emphasized the statement with a flick of the paint brush, his eyes laughing at his own pun, despite the solemnity of what he’d just said.

When he caught Virgil’s expression, his smile faltered, and eyes widened. “What?”

Virgil shook his head, feeling light, and he swallowed his sadness. “I just can’t believe I had someone to talk art with all this time and didn’t know it.”

“Don’t get excited. I’m still not going to an art museum with you. It’s just flowers. The same ones I’ve done a thousand times at that.”

“They’re very good flowers.” He wondered where the other ones were, and if one day, Gordon would ever show them to him. If he even still had them…

“Really?” Pleased, Gordon squinted at the drying yellow petals, layered on a bed of green connected to stems that trailed down below the postcard.

Virgil nodded, finally finding his subject.

If he were among his paints without his brother here, he would want to channel every horrible thing about yesterday into his art, using the watercolors for the grey and dreary. He’s done it many times, and he would find himself there again. His art wasn’t always beautiful.

With Gordon sharing the load, as he’d done for them all so many times, Virgil found his creative self reaching for the same color of yellow. It felt just so Gordon to reach for the magnificence of what water could create to reconcile the parts that were awful. In the depths of the sea, that yellow - the first color to be swallowed by the ocean - must have been a beacon for his lonely soul, and with it Gordon's art created joy when light reserves were dim.

And so, he found himself inspired by his brother’s yellow.

Since the sky didn’t want them to have any sunlight, Virgil would make them some.