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whatgaviiformes · 2 months

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Fic: Reflection

Summary: Gordon stares at himself.

Words: 1K

A/N Prompts used - window mostly, but also thoughtful because it became a Gordon pov character study. Happy birthday, squidling.

~*~*~*~

Gordon startles as his reflection becomes apparent in the now clean glass of Two’s windshield. Not to where he’s unsafe; Virgil’s made sure of that with both of them secured from above within her hangar. But enough that he pauses, sitting back on his heels. It gives his shoulder a break, since his entire right side is sore from channeling all that elbow grease into relieving his brother’s girl of the dirt and grime left over from their latest rescue. A mudslide. Naturally.

He can imagine the jokes now. If Alan were here, it would be unending laughter at the fact he was startled by his own reflection. And if it were Scott or John or even Kayo, there’d be a nudge or two towards the fact he can’t yet stop looking at himself. But since it’s none of those siblings, and it’s instead Virgil – Virgil, who’s obliviously focused with his headset blocking out the rest of the world – there’s no one that can make Gordon embarrassed by his entirely human reaction. Not that he would feel embarrassed. No regrets and all that. Plus, he had dirt on all of them, including Tin, if they tried to imply otherwise.

His expression in the window pulls into an amused smirk. This is one usually directed to others and isn’t one he sees for himself all that often. Except, he’s pretty sure he’s passed on his mischievousness to Alan, so he’s at least had it mirrored back at him from his youngest brother. There’s a bit of John in it too. He raises his hand up to where the inherited competitive streak sits along the curl of his lips.

The image of himself does the same.

It’s more prominent in his own features than John’s. His older brother was more subtle about his ruthlessness simply because he didn’t have to try to be the best in most things. He just was. In Gordon’s case, the tenacity had always been there – probably ever since he was lucky enough to be conceived in a family of overachievers. By the time he was able to think for himself, the sky had been done, the stars had been done. Hell, even math and sciences and music were all spoken for.

Whether Gordon then found things unique to his brothers’ passions on purpose, or whether those things found him, he didn’t really know. But they came to him, and through swimming and the sea and marine life and laughter, he found out how to be his own man. But he worked hard to get there.

The determination, though; that lives in his eyes. Honey-brown, and soft where the light catches joy, but hard as topaz when alight with fire. Today, they stare at him somewhere between amber and jasper, heavy with the memories they are cleaning off the window. If he had to put a pin on what exactly had originally caught his attention, it was them: the eyes and their unnatural brightness staring back at him.

In order to keep the hair out of his face, he’s pinned back his fringe with a few bobby pins stolen from Kayo’s collection. There’s scarring above his brow, long since healed over time, but still stripes a shade lighter than his natural skin tone if one looked closely enough.

Shrapnel.

From the same accident that injured his back. And yet, so grievous was his injury to his spine, he hadn’t really had time to think about how his face had changed, how serious the head wound could have been. More times that he cared to admit, he wondered why. Why he survived. Why it happened to him in the first place.

Maybe in another life, he would have been able to stay in the service long enough to be decorated like Dad, like Scott. He imagines who that man would’ve been, WASP Lieutenant Tracy. For a moment, his eyes catch those across from him, the scars fade behind a company issued cap, and the gaze hardens.

He shakes himself free of the image. It’s a distant dream. Though medically released from duty, he parted ways with WASP knowing he’d given his all to the path he’d chosen for himself. At least he could always say that – he never wavered. And when all he had was his heart beating that kept propelling him into the next moment, it was knowing he hadn’t given up that kept him from true despair.

Virgil was a large part of that too.

He glances to his right and Virgil’s watching him, not saying a word, just observing him survey himself. Gordon slides down to begin cleaning another section of the window – because contrary to popular belief – he likes this work. Sure, he sometimes might get a little behind in straightening his own room, and there’s literally no sense in not trying to play basketball with trash when the disposal is right there asking for it. But this is nothing on the tasks the military would use to break him down with his fellow recruits. Plus? There’s something incredibly satisfying about revealing the pristine beneath the dirt, just like those oddly satisfying videos of grime being cleaned off old rugs.

When she shines, she really shines.

Oh, lord. He loves this ship. He’ll never admit it to Virgil, and Four is still his number one girl, but he loves what Two represents – steady, strong and sturdy through heavy winds. She’s an extension of Virgil himself, and if he didn’t love her already he’d still adore her for that alone.

Gordon sighs, and when he does so, Virgil lifts one side of his headphones off his ear and tilts his head curiously.

“You ok?” he asks.

Gordon beams at him. “Just admiring my handsomeness.”

“No shit.” Virgil tosses a wet rag at him, which Gordon catches in his left hand before it hits him in the nose. He eyes the bucket below them, then leans over to let it drop. Virgil grins when it misses, and he grabs a clean one he’d left hanging from his side pocket. For a moment, Gordon fully thinks he’s gotten away with it. But then, Virgil says “you’ve come a long way” – the words chuckled to himself only once he’d realigned his music and began humming in that way that meant he hadn’t meant for Gordon to hear.

Gordon smiles to himself, and he winks at his reflection.

#gavii scribit #gordon tracy #virgil tracy #fabfivefeb #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction

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seathesilverlinings · 2 years

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Less Like A Lady pt2

I have a title! And I may have been working on this while at work... Oops?

“I wonder who the new flavour of the night is,”

“Does it matter?” Gordon downed the last of his beer. “He’ll be gone by tomorrow, one way or another,”

“Gordon!” Scott’s tone was admonishing, despite having invited the remark.

“Tell me I’m wrong!” He protested.

They all remained silent.

He wagged a finger at them all. “Exactly.”

“Who knows, she dated that last one for a couple of months before he vanished,” Alan shrugged.

“Alan!”

“Look. You can be as annoyed as you want by them Scott, but we all know it’s true,”

Virgil had long since joined the other members of his family in attendance at the party, filling them in on his and Penelope’s exchange before pointing out the oblivious blond gentleman, clearly enjoying all of the attention from their hostess.

“Nothing’s true unless you can prove it,”

“Kayo!”

“I’m just saying, they’re not exactly the most desirable people to keep on the planet. Maybe she’s doing us all a favour,”

Scott fixed them all with a stare that put paid to any other remarks they might have. Kayo rolled her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter what they’ve done or who they are. It’s not for us to pass judgement on things like that, and especially not take matters into our own hands.”

“We don’t have to, she does it for us,” John didn’t even look up from his phone to see the glare his eldest brother sent his way. “Our new friend is Albert Humphries. New money, inherited a French estate as well as… Four other properties in different countries when his seventy-eight-year-old wife passed away last spring…”

Gordon narrowed his eyes at his usually space dwelling brother.

“What did she die of?”

“Apparently, she had a heart condition that she was on daily medication for. She was supposed to take two tablets each morning and then she was able to take more if she started to feel unwell, like an emergency dose. He was out for the day, came home and found her collapsed on the floor in the bathroom, bottle of pills in her hand,”

“So, natural causes. Couldn’t get her meds in time and she died?”

“That’s what they’re saying, now at least. There was some controversy for a few months afterwards, surrounding Mr Humphries, accusations that he often withheld her medication. But he had multiple alibis, they had no evidence, so they couldn’t prove anything.”

“You know what,” Gordon sat back in his seat. “I think I’ll let her have this one,”

“What did I just say?”

“Oh, come on Scott. It’s not like they’ll be able to prove anything anyway. They never can, she doesn’t even fall on the radar half the time. We just know it’s her because we know her,”

To an outsider who knew each family’s story it would have seemed extremely unusual for them to even associate with each other, let alone be friends as they were seen to be. But it had been an odd set of circumstances. Both families having money had meant that Mr and Mrs Tracy had run in the same social circles as Lord and Lady Creighton-Ward, unavoidable that they should meet really. And when they did, the children getting along well had cemented their friendship somewhat.

That’s not to say Jeff Tracy was blind, far from it. He had heard the rumours, seen the circumstantial evidence, even gotten the story straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak. But, as with his daughter, that is all the evidence against the English aristocrat ever was circumstantial at best. The accusations were quietened down with threats of lawsuits for harassment without proof, and those who didn’t run in the right circles were often non-the-wiser, save for the usual whispers. The Creighton-Wards gave to charity, they hosted benefits, they were polite and kind, and always looked after their friends.

Gentleman thief. That was the term the three eldest had heard their parents toss around in casual conversation where Lord Creighton-Ward came up.

‘Such a lovely little girl’ that had been their mother’s take on Penelope. Often said with a sad sigh from her, and a look of sympathy on their father’s face.

#thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #villain penelope au #Penelope Creighton Ward #Scott Tracy #Gordon Tracy #Alan Tracy #Virgil Tracy #Kayo Kyrano #John Tracy #AU April

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