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whatgaviiformes · 3 years

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Ficlet: Sleep, and a Rainy Morning

For @gumnut-logic, who wanted Virgil. I may be the newbie, but I am learning that is not too much of a surprise for anyone.

This might be boring - I don’t know are we cool with just following them around the villa for no reason? Hope so. Enjoy this quiet morning/slice of life with some H/C undertones. Also, coincidentally, this is exactly 700 words

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Virgil awoke to the sounds of rain tapping against the glass of the broad windowpanes that separated their island villa from the exposures of the tropics. It wasn’t the downpour they were anticipating last night when they closed all of the windows, at least not yet it wasn’t. So, he welcomed the soothing pitter-patter as his lashes fluttered his dreams away to make room for consciousness.

Sleep. Sleep was nice.

The organic progression to awareness was a welcome reprieve from the many days of aggressive transition from asleep to awake, prompted by too-cheerful-for-mornings brothers or by the shrieking of the IR klaxon. Into his pillow, he hummed a few notes of the melody dancing around in is head before he reluctantly rose, leaving the cloud soft comfort of the previous night behind to start his day.

The night’s sleep had quelled the soreness in his strained muscles, but it was hard to ignore the persistent ache that remained in his neck and shoulders from the tropical storm that decided to start an argument with Thunderbird 2 the day before. Hopefully, the incoming storm would be kinder to Tracy Island than she had been with Virgil and his girl.

Turbulence was a bitch.

Gently, carefully, he stretched, holding back the wince before he realized he was alone. Somehow, the groan seemed to help.

Once he cleaned up a bit and dressed, finding a white tee to accompany his pajama bottoms – the grey ones with the piano keys down the side - he made his way to the kitchen where the promise of caffeine lingered in the aroma of nutty coffee, freshly brewed. Scott would have made a full pot a few hours previous once back from his run - or rather, his date with the treadmill due to the rain.

The pot was only half full by the time Virgil greeted it, plenty for Virgil to fill his cup and come back for a second helping. He dug through the cabinet before finding his third favorite mug, which was a gift from John last Christmas. I’m sorry for what I said before coffee. The others must have been in the dishwasher with their dirty dishes.

The warmth of the coffee raced through ceramic to his fingertips, breathing gentle fire into his skin. He continued humming into the delightful, welcoming scent, letting the steam blend with the melody, as he walked into the lounge.

“…coming down on a sunny day,” sang a strained voice from the recliner.

“Huh?” The caffeine clearly hadn’t taken hold yet and the voice surprised him. The lounge had been so quiet he thought it was empty.

“The tune you’re humming.” Ah, so it was. “I don’t see any sun around here, Virg,” Gordon jested lightly. Tired Virgil was; oblivious he was not: the smile never reached his brother’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Virgil’s fingers twitched with the desire to assess and he knelt next to Gordon, running a hand through his hair to hide the fact that he was really checking his temperature. But Gordon was not oblivious either and he knew Virgil’s tricks, better than Virgil probably knew them himself.

“Oh, stop, Virgil. It’s just the pressure system.”

Virgil nodded in sympathy, but he did not fail to notice the heating pad peeking out from behind his brother’s lower back. The storm incoming would be wreaking havoc with Gordon’s sensitive back, probably already had been for a while.

“Do you want anything?”

“A new spine?” It was as close as Gordon would get to admitting the pain he was in and Virgil knew it. “No,” he sighed, “not at the moment. Just sit with me for a bit?”

“Sure thing, squid.” Sitting with Gordon was familiar. He knew the frustrated sighs of boredom, could pinpoint the exact tone of which sounds were signs of larger issues and which ones were exhaustion. Gordon would be ok. Eventually.

By the time Virgil’s cup was empty, Gordon’s occasional winces had eased into the steady breathing of slumber. Virgil checked the recliner’s positioning before nodding his approval, then retrieved a knit blanket from the couch to tuck around him.

Outside the storm had begun to rage. Time for that second cup.

#gaviiadastrafic #gaviiadastra #virgil tracy #gordon tracy #slice of Tracy Island life #is this even worth posting anywhere i am not sure #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds fanfiction #Gavii Scribit #ficlets and bits

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whatgaviiformes · 3 years

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5. John & Alan - Scenes from Gordon’s Bedside

Tumblr, you get the full clip under the “read more” this time because I just had to include the phone conversation. I hope you enjoy science!bros Gordon and John, plus some Alan in there. Links are also below for both Ao3 and FF if you like.

John had been in G-force training, clinging to consciousness by repeating his latest round of Russian vocabulary words, when his younger brother slammed into the ocean at 400 knots. He had just been talking to him that morning, so it feels surreal that in the short amount of time it took for John to finish his bagel, brush his teeth, and head to the training compound, Gordon had boarded the hydrofoil that may have taken his life. From experience, Johns knows just how life can change in an instant, even if an instant is not a true measurement of time. The fact that they’d been through this before in their family does not make today’s events any less surreal or any less terrifying.

“Hey Alan?” His brother has been quiet since he picked him from school. It’s understandable considering the circumstances, and normally John would appreciate the silence. But today, the worry has been exhausting, and he’s been piloting for a long time.

“Hmmm?”

“Did you know that time moves faster for your face than it does your feet?”

He glances over at the small figure for a reaction. Alan shrugs, which is unfortunate because that’s a really good factoid.

Gordon’s message this morning was a picture of a clam, followed by the words Abra Cadabra. Open. Accurate for a clam, but also who said scientists didn’t have a sense of humor? He wondered when and where it was discovered and had started to open a search on his phone, when Gordon’s second message came through.

If you look it up though it was reclassified as theora in the mid 1990s. Of course he’d known John would go looking. Neither taxonomy nor malacology were their specialties, but where Gordon was full of unbridled curiosity for any and all interests in orbit with his love for the sea, John yearned to know, understand, research, catalogue, as if it were a basic need like food. His research this morning started with theora mesopotamica and ended with clam life spans.

“Giant Clams can live up to 150 years old,” he shares with the small blond slouching in the co-pilot’s seat.

“Mmm...”

To let Gordon know he appreciated the hello that morning, John had sent him back a picture of a nebula shaped like one of the creatures he loves so much. Just as Gordon knows John, John knows Gordon, so when his little brother sent back the heart eyes emoji, John knew that Gordon really meant it – he probably expanded the picture, saved it, and showed it to his shipmates that morning with a “LOOK at this AMAZING thing!”

It might have been the last picture many of those men and women ever saw.

Gordon definitely would have shown the picture to his friend, Dan. Gordon always said John would love Dan because he was into naval navigation and always had his head in the stars. His chest aches for the kid he never knew, but who knew him through his messages to Gordo. The anguish he feels for his brother’s grief is overwhelming, because Daniel Cabrera was among the first names released to the public.

“Hey John?” Alan asks. “Did you know the micro quasar’s jets in W50 make it look like scarring, and that’s part of why it’s called the Manatee Nebula. Manatees are on the endangered species list, and they often are pretty scarred from being injured by boat propellers.”

The yeah is heavy in his throat, and he chokes. He does know. It’s the message that he shared with Gordon that morning. The message that Gordon must’ve shared with their youngest brother.

“It was the last thing he sent me.”

“It’s the last thing I sent him,” he reveals, and it hits him that he and Alan have been thinking of the same picture this whole time.

Alan is ever so young at seven years John’s junior and barely a teenager. There’s a lot of Alan’s childhood that John had missed by pursuing his university has young as he did. The thought makes him sad. There’s a lot of Gordon’s that he missed too.

“Since when are you into quasars?”

“Since ever. Since Star Trek.” Alan quips. That’s a language John understands. He may or may not be fluent in Klingon, which in hindsight he really should not have learned before Russian. You need Russian to be assigned to the ISS. Alan continues, “I like space, though. I want to be an astronaut like Dad. Like you.”

That’s new.

“An astronaut? You wanted to be a racecar driver a month ago.” And before that he wanted to be a pilot like Scott.

“Still do, but rockets go faster.”

They do indeed.

John’s smiles at him weakly, quelling the pridejoyexcitement he feels in having his baby brother share a similar love. It feels wrong to smile while Gordon is dying.

End note: Thanks for reading, maybe one day I can get to >1000 words. - FF, Ao3

#scenes from gordon's bedside #gaviiadastra #gaviiadastrafic #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds 2015 #john tracy #gordon tracy #science!gordon #science!john #alan tracy #hydrofoil accident #hydrofoil accident fic #these honestly are ficlets thank god for shared themes because i cannot write long things #thunderbirds angst #thunderbirds are go #thunderangst #Gavii Scribit

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whatgaviiformes · 3 years

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Scenes from Gordon’s Bedside - 7. Interlude II

The seaside is lovely this evening. Salt air dances in zephyrs, bearing particles of sand in her waltz and sweeping through strands of blond as the sun sets.

Breathe in, exhale.

Some might say that Gordon sits at the edge of the world, his arms circling his knees curled into his chest as the tide tickles his toes, but he knows better. He knows the expanse of the universe below the water; he came from there himself, just as life had at the start.

The ocean is no more a boundary for Gordon than the skyline is for Scott, whose big brother wingspan could right a misaligned world, could wrap a torn family twice over and keep them warm against the snow. What is the horizon if not a simple mile marker to a child of the sky?

Inhale.

Gordon releases his knees and reaches his legs towards the ocean, collapsing backwards into the bed of sand. With gentle strokes, he kneads at the fine grain beneath his fingers, creating little dunes where he lets the granular particles fall as he sighs deeply. Exhale.

He feels a distinct texture press against his wrist. He lifts it up to the sky to examine the shell he’s found, a piece of history with its own story. Pholas chiloensis, he identifies, an angel wing, so petite in his grasp and all that’s left of the home that once belonged to the mollusk within. Maybe that’s the part of the shell that makes him think of Scott. Scott with wings that protect instead of fly and feel like a home instead of an escape.

The sun dips into the Beyond with a last surge of rays converging into an artist’s palette across the sky with oranges, reds and purples all at once. This is the golden hour according to Virgil, who sees the seascape in shades, highlights, and pigments, and frames them in palm trees within his canvas. Virgil, who sees the beauty of the world as Gordon does, just differently.

The sky bathes Gordon’s skin in copper as he breathes the day away…

Inhale.

…fading into late evening.

Exhale.

The best time for the beach according to John is this time when the sun slumbers and the stars rise with their laughter twinkling over the moon’s reflection. For that is when the skies come alive.

The cold sea water of night tingles against his toes.

Opposite, it is broad daylight for Alan who looks out at the shore and sees movement, sees the surf and the balance of his board as the waves roll. For Scott, the perfect time is at the clouds’ first glow, in the earliest hours of morning when he can hitch a ride on the back of Apollo’s chariot and chase the sun.

Gordon himself doesn’t have a golden hour for the ocean; he comes when it calls. He can blend into orange, breathe with the motions of the currents, swim with the moon’s reflection, and race Apollo at the end of night to welcome day. He is made of ocean waves and salt air, of shells powdered into white sand.

For that reason, he knows he is welcome among the seashore; he’s practically a part of it.

But still, there are no brothers here to call him back home. Just memories and the faded fossil of Scott’s wings in his hand.

Night turns into day, day into night, and Gordon breathes with the motion of the spheres, collapsed along the beach where the water nips at his toes, and he wonders what kind of lonely place exists where time passes without tides. Perhaps he is at the edge of the world.

He inhales. And he holds his breath.

A/N: Some continuity in themes in this segment! I am so happy the threads are coming together, fam. I might be able to write an actual story one day yet. Thank you for your support. Sorry this was a short one.

Cross posted here: FF | Ao3

#gaviiadastrafic #gaviiadastra #scenes from gordon's bedside #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds 2015 #Gordon Tracy #Scott Tracy #hydrofoil accident fic

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