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There were the rescues which went well and there were the rescues which went wrong and then there were the missions which blurred the line in between. Actually, the majority fell into that latter category. There was hardly any job which could be considered cut-and-dry. There were almost always complications. Today was no exception.
It wasn’t a catastrophe – Gordon tended to reserve that title for multi-casualty rescues – but it did require more paramedics than were available. Usually this would involve Virgil stepping into the role of medic while Gordon took over retrieval operations, only Virgil wasn’t here, so the responsibility fell to the next most qualified person and, shockingly enough, out of himself and Alan it turned out that his younger brother had more medical knowledge.
Not that Gordon was complaining. He was already stressed enough trying to keep Two intact because Virgil had a sixth sense for discovering even the tiniest of scratches on that green paintwork and being struck down by the cold of death would not keep him from kicking Gordon’s ass halfway to Pluto and back if such a mark was found. Gordon had sat through the lectures too many times. He put on a front of not giving a shit, but in reality he actually did care and so had spent every moment at Two’s control overly conscious of his own actions and was sporting a killer headache as a consequence. So, frankly, Alan was doing him a favour by taking that medic role off his hands.
Seven painful hours later – literally painful, by the way: had he been tensing his shoulders this entire time? Because ow – he finally tracked Alan down. He’d heard the tail-end of a debrief by the various first responders on site. Most people had suffered minor cuts and bruises with the exception of one young woman who had required some intensive CPR, for which the credit went to a certain IR operative.
Gordon had spent ten seconds silently cursing the universe while his heart sunk because come on, CPR was stressful as hell and could be vaguely traumatising when you felt someone’s ribs literally crack under your hands. If he still found it horrifying after multiple past experiences, he could only imagine how Alan was faring now.
The fact it took him nearly twenty minutes to actually find his brother did nothing to ease his nerves. Let it be known that while he spent much of his time annoying Alan, the guy was still his little brother and so he still harboured the same instincts as Scott, John and Virgil – aka the gremlin-is-upset-and-I-must-fix-it radar, although he was probably the only one who called it that.
There was a fairly rickety observation tower – one of the only structures which had withstood the mudslide, which seemed ironic given its seeming lack of proper foundations – about halfway up the slope. Gordon glimpsed a flash of familiar blue-and-red, vivid against the bleeding sunset, and cradled his bag of snacks closer with a heavy sigh, steeling himself in preparation for a trek up several flights of stairs. Why couldn’t Alan have a mini crisis on the first floor? Why did he have to pick the roof? Did he have no respect for Gordon’s dwindling will to live?
Okay, maybe he was being a touch dramatic, but seriously – so many stairs.
“Goddamn,” Gordon whistled, stumbling onto the roof and promptly collapsing onto his knees in an attempt to coax a smile from Alan. “This thing needs an elevator. Ooh, hang on. I’ve got something for you.”
Alan wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “Will it explode?”
“Why would it explode?”
“Most things you give me tend to explode.”
“That’s… Okay, that’s fair and your suspicion is adorable, but nope, I’m being nice for once.” Gordon faked a shudder. “I know, disgusting, right? Anyway.” He jabbed a paper straw into the lid of a cola – courtesy of the only takeout place in the entire area still open and boasting business – and waved it under Alan’s nose. “Ta da! Sugar! Trust me, sugar cures everything.”
Alan shot him a doubtful look but took the cup anyway. “You sound like Penelope. She says that too.”
“Nah, Penny gets that saying from John.”
“Do you also get it from John?”
“Probably. John’s solution to anyone being upset is to make them hot chocolate. Which, weirdly enough, tends to work.”
“It’s his secret recipe,” Alan pointed out, taking an obnoxious slurp of cola.
“True,” Gordon conceded. He flopped onto his back, crossing his arms beneath his head. “Hey, do you think he laces it with something?”
Alan choked on his cola and spent the next two minutes spluttering and complaining about the pain of snorting a fizzy drink out of his nose. He mopped up the mess with a tissue and rolled onto his stomach to level Gordon with an accusatory look.
“Why would he put drugs in hot chocolate?”
“Just a lil bit. I’m just saying. Secret recipe – sounds a bit nefarious, doesn’t it?”
“Do you even know what that word means?”
“I will throw you off this roof.”
“No, you won’t,” Alan shot back, safe in utter confidence. He sat back up and drew his knees close to his chest to balance his drink on top, chewing absently on the straw. “You came to find me, remember? You were worried.”
“Ew,” Gordon quipped, tossing a fry at him. “As if I would worry. Nah. I just didn’t want Scott to lecture me about losing you again.”
“Again,” Alan repeated slowly, catching the fry mid-air. He made grabby hands for the takeout bag.
Gordon pushed it closer with an overly exaggerated eyeroll, as if he hadn’t picked up Alan’s favourite foods on purpose. See? He could be a good brother too. It was just… Okay, a lot of the time Alan acted older than his real age. He was weirdly mature, sometimes more so than Gordon himself to the extent that a stranger might have questioned which of them was actually the youngest. So, when Alan acted small and sad and generally looked like a stray cat that someone had kicked to the curb, it didn’t sit well with Gordon, such as right now, and so it became it his main mission to fix it. Hence the takeout and his willingness to climb several flights of stairs to sit on a tin-roof which wouldn’t pass any health-and-safety checks any time in the foreseeable future.
The sunset was slowly leaking into the ocean. There was a fine line of it, just visible along the horizon – a narrow ribbon of deep blue turned bronze by the sinking sun. Alan hunched over his knees and fixed his sights on it, blinking owlishly as the light struck strange stains into his vision. He picked listlessly at the fries, gaze faintly haunted as he recalled that awful moment of ribs splintering beneath his hands, inflicting more pain in the name of saving a life.
“So,” Gordon said conversationally, swinging himself upright to knock their shoulders together. He offered Alan an impish grin. “I don’t know if Virgil told you this during training, but you’re not supposed to actually sing Staying Alive aloud when performing CPR.”
The joke fell flat.
Alan scowled at him. “Virgil’s not here and I’m the next most-qualified medic.” He tossed up his hands. “I panicked, okay?”
“Right,” Gordon agreed slowly, tilting slightly to the left to lean against Alan’s shoulder. “But you did a good job, so now we can look back on the experience and agree that the fact you were singing Staying Alive to yourself was, objectively speaking, really frickin’ funny. Right? Like, that’s a thing we can agree on?”
Alan curled his hands into fists. “I broke her ribs.”
“You saved her life. Broken ribs heal. Stopped hearts? Not so much.” Gordon stole a fry from the bag and gestured with it grandly. “Believe me, I would know.”
“Your life is so concerning.” Alan took another sip of cola. “Seriously, I think your medical file is a doctor’s worst nightmare.”
“Oh, yeah,” Gordon agreed gleefully. “One hundred percent. But YOLO, am I right?”
“Did you just say YOLO aloud? Unironically?”
“Did you sing Staying Alive while performing CPR on a real person?”
Alan just looked at him.
“Too far?” Gordon guessed.
Alan took a fry and considered. “I’d say yes, but you brought me food, so I forgive you.” He slumped against Gordon’s side with a sigh. “I keep feeling her ribs break,” he whispered, picking at the rim of his cola cup. “Her life was literally in my hands. And I get that’s dumb, because people’s lives are in my hands every day, that’s our job, but…”
“It’s different.”
“Exactly!”
“I get that.” Gordon observed the sun dip below the horizon. “But…” He patted Alan’s back sympathetically. “You did a good job, Al. Really.”
Alan pushed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Why do I still feel kinda crappy then?”
“Because you are a precious sunshine child.”
“I will push you off this roof.”
“Unbelievable. I bring you food and you threaten me with fratricide.” Gordon offered him a hand and hauled him to his feet. “Would a donut make you feel better?”
Alan sniffed. “Maybe.”
“C’mon, I’ll buy you one on the way home.”
“That’s suspiciously generous of you.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be back to making your life a living hell by tomorrow morning. Enjoy the peace while it lasts.”
Alan ducked his head, but not so quick that Gordon missed his smile.
Hell yeah, Gordon thought to himself, looping an arm around Alan’s shoulders, I’m a freaking awesome brother.