First line language warning, ouchy Virgil!whump warning. -o-o-o-“Fuck!”Virgil closed his

First line language warning, ouchy Virgil!whump warning. -o-o-o-“Fuck!”Virgil closed his eyes and tried not to puke.Even without sight, he could sense the hangar spinning around him. He had to swallow repeatedly as his left arm and shoulder, tangled above him, screamed.His head spun in the opposite direction to the hangar and he had to swallow again.But he had to open his eyes.Had to.So, he did.The rock walls rotated slowly past him. So familiar, just not from this angle.Ow.Ow.Shit.The air was cool over the heat in his skin. He looked down. It was a mistake and he had to force his stomach under control again as the concrete floor and his toolkit, so far below, danced in and out of focus.It was his safety line that had saved him from joining his tools.He let out a pain-filled breath.It was a bat. A damned bat that must have found Two’s tail plane a convenient place to roost overnight, but had objected to Virgil’s intrusion. It had flown at him in a panic. He hadn’t expected it, had reacted badly, took a misstep, and over he went.The world still lazily rotated past.Carefully, he looked up at his arm, almost afraid to see what he would find. He could guess by the amount of pain he was in, but confirmation was going to suck.Backlit by the overhead light shaft and the red of Two’s rear thrusters, the safety line was looped around his wrist, cutting the circulation off to his hand. Every joint in the limb all the way down to his shoulder was screaming.Because it wasn’t the carbine at his waist that had taken his sudden wrenching halt mid-air, it was his arm.He let out a groan. There was no doubt that he had likely dislocated his shoulder again. The pain was far too familiar for it to be anything else.He let another moment pass before gathering himself. He couldn’t stay here. The thought of his brothers finding him like this was embarrassing. Gordon was never going to let it go.So bats weren’t one of his favourite animals. Sure, they could be considered cute, in a snarly kind of way, but Virgil had never liked their smell or their ability to scare the living crap out of him.Just like this.Gordon was going to laugh his ass off.Falling off his own Thunderbird because of a stupid bat.The world continued its lazy spin.He forced himself to focus. He could retract the safety line. This would pull him back up to Two and he should be able to clamber onto her fuselage and make it back to her overhead hatch.But first he had to untangle his arm.This was going to hurt.He wasn’t wearing his uniform, something he was regretting right now. If he had, the tough material would have protected his arm much better than the flannel caught in his maintenance harness. His uniform had extra padding for a reason.So, preferring his more comfortable casual clothes had earned him this. Not only was it a stupid accident, but at least a partly preventable one.He swore through his teeth.All his own damned fault.Scott would have his hide, and Dad… shit , Dad.His life may not be worth living.He eyed the line above his caught arm. His wrist was wrapped in a simple loop. All he had to do was take some of his weight off the line so the loop could be widened and his hand could slip through.His throbbing hand, attached to his dislocated arm that was pure agony to move.He bit his lip.He’d had worse.He could do this.He could.He drew in a deep breath.It hissed between his teeth.Focus.He grabbed the line he could reach with his right hand, and using every abdominal muscle he had, he flipped his body upside down, tangling his feet in the rope to take his weight.The spinning rock walls echoed back his cry.He hung there, boots looped in the line and willed everything to stop screaming. He ran his brothers’ locations through his head like a mantra of reassurance that they hadn’t heard him.Scott was with Dad in his office. Alan was with John on Five. Gordon…Gordon was probably in the pool…though he did have that video conference this afternoon. Maybe he was in his office preparing?Who was he kidding?Kayo was in England with Penelope.Brains was in his lab.Grandma…Grandma was gardening. Gardening.His breath was harsh in his ears.Get his wrist out of the loop, get back aboard his ‘bird…and work out what the hell he was going to do from there.The loop came off deceptively easily and he was able to use his right arm to gently fold his left against his chest and secure it with his shirt.The paramedic in him that wasn’t strangled by pain eyed the wrist under his controller with trepidation. He’d done a proper job of it. There wouldn’t be any piano for a few weeks.If he had been wearing his uniform, his reinforced glove would have taken most of the punishment.He groaned as he fumbled with his shirt buttons, trying to keep his limp arm still as gravity toyed with it.The moment he had it secured, he lowered himself slowly and flipped back the right way up, letting the carbine do the job it was designed for and take his weight.A shaky sigh and he hit the retrieval button.The safety line retracted and drew him up to his ‘bird, her cool, green fuselage calming against his forehead.God.It took some struggle and not a little bit of pain to clamber back onto Two. Once he made it, he took a minute or ten and just lay there panting and squeezing the moisture from his eyes.This wasn’t his first shoulder dislocation. Working as he did, there had been several prior incidents. It was one of the reasons he carried the exosuit with him wherever he went. It protected him.Just like his uniform.God, he was a moron.He deserved to get his ass kicked.But first he needed to assess the damage and work out whether he could get away with it or have to serve himself up for the lecture of the century, likely in triplicate.He pushed himself up off her green hull and got his feet under him. The world managed to stay steady and his arm settled into the Bonaparte temporary sling. He tugged the safety line along its rail the length of his ‘bird and clambered up over the body of her cockpit until he reached the overhead hatch. It was with some relief he slid his feet onto the elevated platform and was able to finally disengage the blessed safety line.He staggered a little as he was lowered into familiar surroundings, but he stabilised himself, made it to one of the overhead lockers and dragged out a handheld scanner.A flicker of yellow light and he found out exactly what he had done to himself.Definitely dislocated, that wasn’t really news, but his wrist and elbow…His elbow was strained, but intact. His wrist, however, was already swelling echoing both the extensive bruising and the fracture.Damn.All for a stupid accident.He stared at the wall and focussed on his breathing. He wouldn’t be able to hide this.His working shoulder dropped and his injured one tried to do the same.Ow.There wasn’t enough profanity in his vocabulary.And there was no choice. He was going to have to face the music.Scott was with Dad.He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe he could wait. Wait until Scott was alone, corner his brother and beg him to keep the specifics of how he had injured himself confidential. Keep it from the younger two at least and maybe even Dad.Virgil knew how stupid he had been, he didn’t need to be reminded for the rest of his life.The world shifted a little and he realised he was lightheaded. He really shouldn’t be on his feet.He would go back to his rooms, message Scott to contact him when he was finished with Dad, and lie down.As if to emphasize this last, the world wobbled again.Rooms.Message Scott.Painkiller.Bed.He stepped back onto the hatch and lowered it. Steadying himself he made his way to the elevator. It wasn’t until he was hidden by its silver doors that he realised he would have to remove his arm from its makeshift sling otherwise one glance by any family member and he was doomed.Gritting his teeth, he released the limb and lowered it with a groan until it hung. The level of pain doubled. Every movement was accompanied by white flashes and a stomach clenching nausea, but he only had a short corridor between the elevator and his rooms.He could do this.He could do it.The elevator car slid to a smooth halt and chimed his floor.Virgil stepped out and almost collided with Gordon running down the corridor.A sucked in breath as he narrowly avoided his brother.Gordon halted and smiled happily at him. “Oh, hey, Virg.” The smile turned into a frown. “I thought you were down in the hangars polishing your ‘bird?”Virgil struggled to keep a calm façade as the world wobbled around him.“Gordon…”“What?” His younger brother frowned even more staring at Virgil. “You okay? You’re looking peaked.” Gordon had somehow managed to stand exactly where Virgil wanted to go.“What do you want, Gordon?”His brother was still staring at him, brown eyes suspicious as all hell. “Have you had your coffee this morning?”Virgil opened his mouth, but another voice interrupted before he could say a word.“Gordon Cooper Tracy!” Grandma’s voice echoed down the hall. “If you think I’m cleaning up that mess you left in the kitchen, you are dreaming, young man!” And his purple-dressed, eagle-eyed, medically qualified grandmother strode onto the scene.Well, hell. Today was just not his day.“Grandma, I was just getting my shoes.”“Really?” The cocked hip and arms crossed across her chest screamed disbelief.“Really. My new ones were rubbing.” Gordon held up a foot.When did Gordon buy bright pink shoes?“You can clean up your mess in bare feet. You left syrup all over the counter.” Grandma glanced at Virgil only to suddenly narrow her gaze. “Good morning, Virgil.”“Hey, Grandma.” He tried not to faint.It was his grandmother’s turn to frown at him. “Are you feeling okay, dear?” She took a step closer and Virgil forced himself to straighten.He swallowed. Could he lie to his grandmother’s face?“He’s good, Grandma. Just hasn’t had his coffee refill yet, have you, Virg?”Virgil would have appreciated Gordon’s brotherly deflection gesture, after all, they needed a united defence against Grandma’s traditional cures for anything and everything, but unfortunately, Gordon followed his words up with a whack to Virgil’s arm.His dislocated arm.And everything whited out.-o-o-o-The Tattoo -- source link

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