I needed fluff. Y'all need fluff. Have some fluff.
…
“Excuse me, is Nurse Malinda Russell on shift today?”
Nic turned, then readjusted their eyes downward. There was a maybe seven or eight-year-old boy with brown hair, bright blue eyes, and some killer dimples standing in front of them. There were also a pair of brown eyes peering around one side of the boy, and the most incredible green eyes they had ever seen on the other.
They got down on one knee. “Are you lost, little man?”
That got them a look. “We aren’t lost. This is the neonatal intensive care unit, and if Nurse Russell is on duty today, please tell her that Scott, Virgil, and John Tracy are here to see her.”
That got their attention. Scott Tracy was kind of a legend around the NICU. His art still hung on the break room fridge. Nic stood up. “If you’d wait over there, Mr. Tracy, I’ll see if she’s available.”
Scott, and it had to be Scott, gave him a nod, then herded his younger brothers over to the small waiting area. Nic headed back to the desk and called back. “Hey, Neil, is Mal busy?”
“She’s doing the draws. Should be done in about ten minutes. Why?”
“Because she’s got a visitor.” Nic was feeling ornery and decided to tease it out. The staff of the NICU took small joys whenever and wherever they could.
“Oh, Lord, now what? Not the Jamisons, again.”
Perfect opening. “Nope. Mr. Scott Tracy, and family.” There was a crash, and Nic mentally marked down making Neil drop the handset.
“WHO!?”
“Mr. Scott Tracy, and family.” They couldn’t keep the smirk off their face or out of their voice. Not that they tried very hard.
“You toadlicker. I’ll tell Mal as soon as she’s finished with the draws.”
Nic chuckled to themself and hung up. They kept a weather eye on the three boys. Not that there was any real reason to. Backpacks were taken off, and coloring books and pencils were produced. Juice sacks came out of Scott’s bigger bag for the littles. Scott himself settled down on the couch and started reading an actual paper book! Nic didn’t know many adults, let alone a seven-year-old, that could handle a physical book.
Fifteen minutes later, Malinda popped out through the doors. “Nic? Neil said I had -”
“MS. MALINDA!!”
That was what Nic had been expecting, as a small blue rocket crashed into Mal’s legs and glommed on.
“What! Scott!” Mal freed her legs and returned the hug. Then pulled back. “My word! Look at you. You’ve gotten so big!”
Nic revised their opinion of Scott’s dimples. On a serious face, they were distracting. When paired with a glowing smile, they were devastating. Good God Almighty, that boy was going to be a heartbreaker when he got older without even trying. They shook their head, hopefully, that power would be used for good. Otherwise, the world was doomed.
“Ms. Malinda, you might not remember Virg -”
Mal knelt down to be on eye level with the two younger boys. “Of course, I remember Virgil. I never forget one of my babies.” She held out her hand. “How do you do, Virgil?”
Huge brown eyes stared at her. Scott reached over and held out Virgil’s hand. Which she shook gently. “You’ve gotten big too. You were small enough I could have held you in one hand when you first came here.”
“This is Johnny.”
Who was slightly braver and held his own hand out to be shaken.
“It’s very nice to meet you, John.” The formalities dealt with, she turned to Scott. “As thrilled as I am for the visit, why are you here? Where are your parents?”
“Momma and Daddy are upstairs waiting for Gordon. He’s late.”
“Oh, Sweet Baby Jesus. Nic, call up to maternity and let Col. Tracy know his boys are down here.”
Nic busied themself with that and missed the next part.
“It’s loud up there! Johnny and Virg were getting scared.” Scott stood straight. “I brought them down here because it’s safe.”
Oh, if that didn’t rip the heartstrings, nothing would. Though it said a lot of what Scott thought of the NCIU.
“Sweetie, thank you. But you can’t stay here. Your momma and daddy are going to be worried.”
“Daddy’s in with Momma,” Scott said, then lowered his voice, “there’s yelling in there.”
Mal turned back to them. “Nic?”
“Mrs. Tracy is in hour 10 and holding at 6. Dominic said they are looking at a C, if she’s still like that, at hour 14.” They grinned. “Col. Tracy said, ’Oh thank GOD. I owe you all dinner.‘”
“See! Daddy knows we’re here. I told him before we left. First rule!”
Nic had to laugh at that. “Mal, it’s just for a few hours. I think we’d be willing to give up the nap room for Misters Tracy.” They grinned. “After all, one of them is ours.”
-o-o-o-o-
Nic was still working the desk six hours later when an exhausted father staggered out of the elevator. Not an uncommon sight in the NICU. But usually, they knew all the parents.
“Excuse me. I was told that my sons were down here?”
Damn, if Scott got the voice to go with those dimples, he was going to rule the planet.
“Col. Tracy?”
An exhausted nod.
“Come along, I’ll take you to them.” They led him back into the NICU. “So, everything alright with the new baby?” Nic was pretty sure it was, or they would have heard.
“Yeah. 6 lbs, 10oz, 15 inches. Perfectly healthy, just tiny and stubborn.” He gave a rough chuckle. “I don’t blame him for wanting to stay where it’s warm and safe.”
Nic frowned, that was a damn small baby. They had a cat that was bigger. But maternity would have called if he had needed the NICU. Nic held a finger to their lips and opened the door to the nap room. There, curled up on the bed, were the three boys. Scott had cuddled both his brothers in a contortion only available to very young children.
Their dad leaned on the doorframe and just looked at them. “My hostages to the future.” He looked at Nic. “Would you all mind if I stayed with them for a bit?”
“Not at all, Colonel. Shift change is at five. It will get pretty noisy then.”
He waved his hand. “Can’t be any worse than these three on sugar.” But there was a tired grin to go with the words. He walked in, laid down, and brought all three boys into an embrace.
Nic smiled and started to close the door. “Oh, Colonel?”
“Hmmh?”
The man was half asleep already. “Congratulations and Happy Valentines.”
This is everything I needed right now. Beautifully written!
With everything going on in the world and our personal lives I thought it might be a nice idea to help lift all of the Thunderfam spirits by filling our dashboards with some Thunderbirds art, screenshots, fluffy fic goodness etc..
#TFamLove so we can all find it
❤️
And here’s my first contribution some of my favourite screenshots
Before we went I decided John was also joining us because he needed some sun ☀️ John tried to protest saying he had ‘things’ to do at home but I wasn’t having it. Once we began our walk he admitted he was enjoying himself and we had a lot of fun on our walk…
At lunchtime we stopped for drinks and food.
They we then had more fun climbing trees on our walk back - we also had ice cream but we ate it before taking a pic.
At one point CG had an accident and slipped backwards onto some spiky bushes. She was a bit stunned at first but then afterwards thought it was really funny. Virgil wasn’t laughing when he inspected the cuts on her arm when we got home.
He fixed her up and told her to rest - she still finds it funny
We then heard about Virg, Alan’s & Gordon’s day - Apparently they ordered food and chilled in the sun - We are all relaxing together now before going to bed.
I just wanted to get Scott to wear a suit. I wonder if he wears a suit when he has meeting with GDF. I think Scott would call his family suddenly to say I love you in peaceful day when he has no rescue operation. And John will say “you’ll be Marked For Death?”
I prefer to draw the body rather than the face. But I know, no matter what we say, the most important thing in drawing a character is the face, so I’ve been practicing drawing faces a lot lately. I want to draw a body soon, John’s butt and so.
（後日追記） play to win = 直訳は「勝つためにプレイする」ですが、ここから考えて「何としてでも成し遂げる、成功させる」派生して「遊びではない」という意味にもなるかものことです。な～るほど！ つまりアランは、ミッションに出たからには絶対成功させる、とか、遊びでやってるわけじゃないというのがわかるでしょう。という訳ですね。ご指南ありがとうございます！！
and just for posterity, here’s everybody together!
I did this using a site called artbreeder, mostly just on a whim after I used it to make my current DND character. I’ve always had a hard time visualizing the cast with the same degree of realism that I treat them in most of my writing, but I’d say this is right about spot on. If anyone else is further interested, I might tool around with some of the extended-extended cast, and make Casey and Jeff and Lee Taylor and etc.
Japanese singer YOASOBI sing in Simlish! We can hear her singing on the radio in the Sims4 game. Several other Japanese artists have also contributed songs to the game. It’s fun, a little strange to coming hear from Sim’s radio and also I’m proud to hear Japanese songs in the world-class games.
EOS sent me this asking for an explanation after John saw it and immediately scheduled “essential maintenance” in which he would be “unreachable” up on Five from April 30th to lunch time on the 1st of May…
I’m not an expert on gardening and couldn’t find much to verify this tradition, but John seems to be playing things safe…
It’s all a lie, he’s not unreachable because of this, he’s unreachable because I have another workshop at a festival and he doesn’t want me to drag him to it again. This one isn’t a small one for my local groups, it’s a federation run one, so it’s thousands of people. The cucumber is an excuse, he knows I don’t grow vegetables.
*heaves a deep sigh and picks up her comm* EOS? you don’t need to worry about cucumbers or why they were planted like that. In the old days the men worked the fields and they sometimes did it naked so that they wouldn’t get their clothes dirty.
*turns back to Scott, checking her comm was off* That’s a total lie, the tradition is there because of the peen. Apparently, if a woman or an old man planted them the cucumbers would be small and useless. If they were planted by a young man in the prime of his life the cucumbers…well, let’s just say that you’d pick the young man who already had an impressive… cucumber…as a way of showing the seeds exactly what they were supposed to be measuring up to. Their “visible virility” I believe was the term used.
I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to go into more detail about your brother in that way so it’s probably best we just let it go, yeah?
Happy birthday to my bestie. He’s the best big bro in the world and he deserves all the good things in the world. But instead he’s going to get a day off (we hope) a cake not made by Grandma, and John turned off his morning alarm. What ever else he gets is determined by him.
