Last chapter! Thank you for the reviews. I was glad that I could evoke at least a little bit of fear.

------------------------------------

Flickering Lights

by kaeera

------------------------------------

Chapter Four: Explaining

It was like dreaming, and yet it wasn't.

Dreams weren't supposed to be full of pain. They weren't supposed to feel as if someone was pouring hot acid down your throat, or holding your head under water, or making your bones hurt (damn, and how they hurt!).

There had been nightmares as well, but they had been different from the ones Gordon was used to. Instead of pictures, they came in feelings, and that was much scarier than the usual stuff. Damn, he could feel how the acid bubbled down his throat, dissolving flesh and making him gag on his own blood. Then there were brief moments where he was sure he was awake – only to see the world tilt around him, merge into swirling colours, or disappear altogether.

Once he woke up to find himself retching into some silver basin. Someone was holding him, wiping his sweat-covered brow, the only constant in a world that was moving like a ship in a thunderstorm. Without the firm grip on his arms, the aquanaut would have toppled over for sure. Never before had his limbs been that uncooperative.

He would have liked to look at the helpful person, maybe even thank him, but his eyes fell closed of their own accord. There could have been a voice, urging him to stay awake, but the words got lost in the haze of his mind. Gordon felt miserable, his stomach cramping even though there was nothing left in it.

Eventually, the nausea passed, but the pain remained. His muscles developed a will of their own and soon he found himself shaking and trembling, his hands clenching into fists, nails digging into his skin.

Someone shouted at him, but he was lost again, tumbling into the abyss. Why did it have to hurt so much? He needed...he needed...he wasn't quite sure what he needed, just that it wasn't there, and it hurt...

After a while, the pain began to recede, bit by bit. His awareness returning, Gordon was able to make out words, though he felt too worn out to reply. Someone gave him water and he drank it eagerly, only to throw it up again. Tears prickled in his eyes. This was hell!

Then there were times when he was shouting – he knew, because he had begun to listen to himself – but he didn't know what about. Sometimes, people would laugh, as if he was telling them something funny. Gordon would have frowned at that if he had the energy left to do so. Honestly, why were they laughing at him?

He tried to listen closer, but his ramblings didn't make much sense at all, almost as though his mouth wasn't connected to his brain. It seemed to be working on its own accord, something which Gordon found quite annoying. All his life, he had depended on his mouth, and now it was betraying him? Surely that wasn't fair!

Working himself into a snit about that matter seemed to help; his thoughts focused and the blurriness left him.

Eyes snapping open, he stared at the all-too familiar ceiling of the infirmary. A groan left his mouth. No. Infirmary meant that he was sick, and he didn't want to be sick, because that meant no swimming and no swimming was bad. Then again, he should have expected this; nobody could experience dreams like these and not be sick.

"Well, look who's gracing us with his presence." A familiar face loomed over him. Virgil, from the looks of it. "Do you recognize me this time?"

Gordon blinked. This time? And why shouldn't he recognize his own brother?

"Do you think I'm stupid?" he replied, lolling the words on his heavy tongue.

Virgil's face brightened. "Just a little bit. But you didn't before, you know."

"Didn't what?"

"Recognize me."

The redhead scrunched up his face. "Huh?"

"Never mind." Virgil leant back and Brains popped up as well, adjusting his glasses and looking relieved. "H-Hello G-Gordon. H-How are y-y-you f-feeling?"

"I'm fine."

Fine with the exception of an enormous headache, a sore throat and an aching body. God, he felt like an old man. What the hell had happened? He remembered a nightmare...being hunted? Dark clouds? Suffocating? Had that really happened or had it been a dream?

"Is he awake?" Another head appeared, this one with neat blonde hair. At the sight of Gordon's open eyes, the face bloomed into a happy smile. "Hi Gordon! It's good to see you."

"Hi John." To be quite honest, Gordon was getting a bit freaked out. What was all the fuss about? He lifted himself up and was relieved to see that he had no serious injuries apart from the headache, a couple of bruises and a bandage on his hand. "Are we having a party?"

"No, we're just celebrating the return of our one-and-only trouble-making brother." Virgil grinned.

"Return?" Why was everybody so intent on confusing him?

Much to his annoyance, they reacted as if they hadn't even heard him. Brains was the only one that looked at him, a calculating expression on his face. In the background, he could see a digital clock – past three o'clock on the morning. But which day?

The scientist turned. "S-Shall I go and w-wake S-Scott?"

"No, let him sleep," John shook his head. "He's been here the whole night and yesterday afternoon. He deserves the rest, and I bet he's going to be back in a couple of hours, anyway."

"Yeah, he only left after you slept peacefully." Virgil told Gordon. "Before that, you behaved like a raving lunatic."

"It was quite a sight, wasn't it?" John sat down on a chair, putting his arms on the headrest.

"And we filmed every single second of it," Virgil agreed with a satisfied look on his face.

Now Gordon became suspicious. "You filmed what?"

"Your venture into the madhouse, dear little brother."

"Huh?"

Upon his apparent confusion, the two exchanged meaningful glances while Brains checked the readings in the background. The scientist muttered to himself, and then, before Virgil or John had the chance to say anything, turned to Gordon. "The d-drug should have left your s-system by now. Everything y-you're feeling is an a-after-effect of the hallucinogenics a-and should s-soon pass; although y-you'll have t-to expect s-some w-withdrawal s-symptoms, b-but not a lot, s-since it w-was y-your first t-time."

"WHAT?" First time for what? And drugs? He didn't do drugs! His pride as a sportsman wouldn't permit him to, and besides, drugs were for losers!

Brains continued, oblivious to the stir he was causing. "I'm g-glad to see y-you're f-feeling b-better. That w-was quite a n-nasty c-cocktail in y-your s-system, t-though it had interesting r-results. I s-shall g-go and s-see y-your f-father now; he w-wanted t-to know as s-soon as y-you w-woke up." With those words, the small man shuffled out of the room, frowning at the medical papers he was carrying.

Gordon watched Brain's retreating back with something akin to horror and then turned towards the other two remaining people. "Explain. Now."

"I like it when he's angry," Virgil grinned, his eyes sparkling, "Then his face colour matches his eyes." The smile disappeared from his face and he suddenly became serious. "Tell me, what do you remember?"

This...was not the question he had expected. Raking a hand through his unruly hair, Gordon tried the best to bring some semblance of order in his mind. It was quite difficult, because he wasn't an orderly person to begin with, but after a few seconds, he managed to recall certain events. Though they didn't make sense at all.

"The things I remember could have been taken out of a horror movie," the aquanaut finally admitted sheepishly.

"What did you see?" Curiosity filled John's open face.

"Oh no," Gordon shook his head. "First you tell me what the hell happened."

"You..." Virgil paused, searching for the right words. "...were stoned out of your mind."

John snickered. "That's one way to put it."

"I...I...was WHAT?" Gordon clutched the bedsheets. "I don't DO drugs, Virg! How can you say something like that?"

"Hey, calm down." Thunderbird Two's pilot held his hands up in a pacifying gesture. "You remember the rescue, don't you? The fire?"

Oh yes, there was some vague recollection in the back of his mind. "In the university laboratories?"

"Yes, that one. Well, we don't have all the facts either, because you were the only one there, and by the time we reached you, you were pretty, uh, out of it. Anyway, from all we gather, you evacuated your part of the building – beautiful job, only minor injures, no casualties at all – and made one last round to check whether you had missed anyone. None of us knows what happened then. Scott lost contact with you for quite a while, because he was busy with the local authorities and the very real danger of chemicals leaking into the river. When he finally managed to get you on the comm, you sounded strange."

"Very strange," John nodded and continued. "I was just packing up and overheard most of it. You sounded distracted, and all of sudden, you would start yelling as if the devil himself was after you. Then – nothing."

"Scott was worried, of course, so he sent John after you."

Gordon scratched his head. "I was screaming?" Yes – he remembered. There had been a face in a glass jar, and it had been winking at him. But surely that must have been a dream?

"Very much so." John's eyes had a faraway look. "In fact, the closer I came, the more worried I became. You didn't sound coherent at all, started talking to other people, even though we knew the building had been empty the last time you checked in. It worried me. I told Virgil to come up as soon as he was finished; I didn't know what we were dealing with and I thought maybe some terrorists had caught you; the police warned us that 'suspicious subjects' might use the fire to steal explosives."

Terrorists? The redhead snorted. He would have loved terrorists. They would have been a pleasure cruise compared to the things that had been hunting him. Here in the bright light of the infirmary, it seemed like a dream, but he only needed to think of the creepiness of that place and his hands grew cold.

John continued, unaware of the reaction he was causing. "I came after you. Your last position had been the Biomedical research Department, so I went there. That place was a real maze, I can tell you! You must have wandered all around there, no idea why…I even found two autopsy rooms, one of them complete with a corpse. And a lot of blood, probably from the guy the paramedics treated – he had smashed his hand through a window. Anyway, I finally discovered you, standing on the corridor, completely drenched. The sprinklers had gone off, which meant that the fire had reached that part of the building and that we had to hurry to get out. So I ran towards you, but you...you yelled when you saw me, turned around and fled."

"I...fled?" Gordon couldn't believe it. "From you?"

"From me." John managed to look insulted. "I thought that maybe you had mistaken me for someone else – easy to do in those bad lighting conditions - and started to follow, screaming your name all the way – surely you would recognize my voice! – but it only made you run faster."

That didn't make sense. The only thing that had been following him had been that, well, thing. Gordon couldn't remember John at all! But then...horror crossed his features, as he realized that the zombie-thing had had blonde hair, just like John. And he had never taken a real good look at his pursuer, so scared that he had escaped immediately. It couldn't be, could it?

He had been running away from his own brother? Thinking that he was a fricking corpse?

Gods, the humiliation! Schooling his expression, Gordon did his best to appear as if the story John was telling wasn't new to him at all and that he had a sensible reason for his actions (even though he had no clue what that might be).

"By the time I caught you, I realized that something was wrong with you," John continued, "And I urged Virgil to go faster, because I needed help. I managed to tackle you on the stairs, but you didn't recognize me at all and started to fight like crazy. I thought you had been dropped on your head and were a bit disorientated, but...you were out of your mind with fear!" The look on the astronaut's face clearly told that this hadn't been a pleasant experience.

"I...see." Gordon blinked. "So what was wrong with me?"

Another look was exchanged between the two. "Well, as we found out much later (though we started to suspect it during our struggles to get you to come with us), you had somehow managed to, well, drug yourself. There was a cut on your hand, and according to Brains, the chemical entered into your bloodstream, causing severe hallucinations and paranoia."

Oh. So that had been the liquid he had been lying in when he woke up...and that explained the nausea and the blurriness and the heightened senses...

"So I was just hallucinating?" Gordon inquired, wanting to be sure. "Because it felt damn real to me."

"We noticed." Virgil rubbed his jaw. "You sure pack a punch."

"I punched you??"

"Not only him. You managed to get all of us," John admitted ruefully. "And I didn't know you could fight that dirty. You bit me! The last time you did that, you were four years old!"

"Though, it wasn't nearly as good as when he started confessing." Identical smirks appeared on both faces. Gordon inched backwards, not liking the change of mood at all. One reason why he didn't like drugs was because a person could never control their actions – and by the looks of it, his actions must have been very amusing. "What did I do?" he asked in a resigned tone.

"You confessed," was the smug reply.

„Confessed to what?" Gordon was on his guard now.

"Everything. At first, we were surprised – you were so out of it, we didn't think you'd wake up. But after the vomiting stopped, you were kind of...talking in your sleep-"

"Babbling is the better word," Virgil interjected.

"-babbling in your sleep while you were lying in the sickbay on TB2," John continued without a beat, "And confessing all of your misdeeds, telling us that you were sorry and asking if we could please stop making the lights flicker because it made your head hurt. I must say, I always thought it was Alan who set fire to my wardrobe when I was ten, but now I find out that it was you!"

"...I told you that?"

The smirks grew wider. "That, and a lot more."

There was only one word to sum up his situation: "Shit."

But wait. How had he gotten from the stairway to Thunderbird Two? Hadn't there been a roof involved? And lots of smoke? Were his brothers avoiding that particular part? Gordon turned steely eyes towards the chuckling duo. "What happened on the roof?"

They fell silent at once. Amazing, he reflected, if it only worked that way all the times. Virgil sighed, his face serious once again. "You...almost killed yourself."

Killed. Yourself. The words entered his brain, echoed around a bit and finally swam to the surface of his consciousness.

"No way!" Gordon objected flatly, because even in the most horrid of times, he had never thought of suicide, so why start now?

"Unfortunately, it's the truth." John turned serious eyes at him, guilt written all over his features. "By the time we got up there, we knew that something was wrong with you and we even suspected drugs – it was a chemical lab, after all – but we had no idea how bad it was. You didn't recognize us at all! You...ran away from things that weren't there! And then you jumped on the wall, almost giving me a heart attack. We were on the seventh floor, Gordon! The seventh floor! Falling down from there would have been certain death! And you were standing on the wall without any safety line, like a tightrope artist, the only difference being that you were swaying around and shouting incoherent things at us!"

"We couldn't get close to you – every time we tried, you started to shout and escape, which brought you even closer to the edge. So we stayed at a safe distance and tried to talk to you."

The event had taken its toll on his brothers; upon remembering it, they both looked flustered and distraught. Gordon tried to place himself in their position – he would have felt the same. Watching a member of his family risking his life and with no way of helping? It would have been torture.

Gordon paled as he realized how close to death he had been. Seven floors? Damn, the impact would have killed him almost at once. And just because of some stupid accident, some goddamn drug that he hadn't even wanted to take...He swallowed. "So if you hadn't helped me down in time, I would have died."

"What are you talking about?"

The memory fluttered back to him. "Weren't you holding out your hand and helping me down?" Gordon saw it clearly now; the slim, white hand urging him to step down. Something had compelled him to take it, and after that...there was only darkness.

Virgil sent him a strange look and shook his head. "You were all on your own. We were at least three yards away from you when you suddenly stepped down from the wall and collapsed."

"Neither of you gave me your hand?"

"Nope. We weren't even close to you. Every time we came near you, you'd start freaking."

"...Oh." It took some while to process that thought. So neither of them had helped him? But he was so sure that he had seen a white hand – or had that been another one of his hallucinations?

It was hard to think with a brain that seemed to be filled with mud. But somehow, Gordon managed. "So, to sum it all up, I was stoned out of my mind, almost killed myself and got rescued by you two?" The expressions on his brother's faces told him enough. "I guess I should thank you."

"You definitely should," Virgil crossed his arms, "It was no easy task to drag you back to TB2. You were unconscious at first, but then you started screaming and fighting like a madman. Scott came to help, but you gave him a black eye – you should have seen the look on Father's face when we told him that."

John smiled at the memory. "He wasn't very happy. Honestly, what did you see to make you freak out like that?"

"Ahh…" Gordon stalled for time. Normally, it would have been easy to think of a good excuse, but in his current state, every ounce of mischievousness seemed to have been drained by that damn drug. "Scary Things. Lots of scary things."

Virgil raised an eyebrow. "Scary things?"

"I don't really want to talk about it." Gordon shuddered. Even though he knew now that it had been a mere illusion, the fear had been real. He was going to have nightmares for weeks. "Just think of it as a really bad horror movie."

John tapped his lip in a thoughtful gesture. "Anyway, I'm glad you're back to normal. It was…disconcerting to see you like that. That drug really did a number on you; you were either puking or raving. Only when we settled you in the infirmary, you calmed down somewhat – but that was when you started babbling."

"Entertained us for hours." Virgil admitted with a smug grin. "Even Dad had to smile at some of your statements."

"I especially liked the 'Help me! Giant striped rabbits are trying to eat my toenails!'-bit."

"Ohh, my favourite was the 'I'm sorry Scott, I never wanted to make Ludmilla Thornton believe that you were gay, it just sort of happened'-bit. That left him speechless."

Gordon groaned. "I didn't really say that, did I?"

If it had been possible to grin wider than your face was broad, the two Tracys would have probably done so at the moment. John smirked and held up a small, black device. "We've got it all on tape."

Virgil leaned back and sighed happily. "After the first excitement passed, Alan realized the blackmail qualities of your statements and urged us to tape them."

Gordon's mouth fell open. Horror fluttered through his stomach. Heaven knew what he had told them in his intoxicated dreams – this wasn't fair! He hadn't wanted it!

"You realize that this calls for revenge." He glowered and tried to snatch the tape. But John was far too quick for his dulled reflexes, standing up before the aquanaut was even halfway there. "Now, we'd better leave you to your rest, dear little brother."

"Yeah, we want you to be in full health to see through your, ah, revenge," Virgil added with a superior look on his face.

"You wouldn't laugh so much if you knew what I mistook you for," Gordon muttered under his breath and flapped down on the bed.

"What was that?"

The aquanaut sighed. "Just go and bother someone else."

"We will. We shall watch this beautiful video. Over and over again. Until we know it by heart." They laughed and were already out of the room when Gordon chucked his pillow after them. It hit the doorframe with a dull thud, slid to the ground and lay there in an innocence that only a pillow could portray. The door itself, another creation by Brains, closed slowly, without any noise. Just before it clicked shut, Gordon saw something behind it that made his heart skip. He hid a bit deeper under the covers, though he wasn't afraid – just cautious.

Was it just his imagination or had there been a white hand waving at him?

Fin.