An Aquanaut Walks Into a Bar...

Summary:

Gordon has a conversation in a bar, and Virgil has strong opinions about that. Childhood memories, and the stories we tell ourselves and others.

Notes:

This is the first in a series about the boys and their reactions to Lucille's death. Alan's up next. The connections will not always be obvious.

Once again, my deep thanks go to Soleill Lumiere for her encouragement, her beta efforts, and the many long conversations about these fascinating boys and girls of TAG!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

"So, come here often?"

It wasn't even worth a groan, but it got the raised eyebrow Gordon was going for.

"No, as a matter of fact. Here for a psychology convention. But I do love Hong Kong."

"Oh, yeah. It's the best. Well, not the best for everything. Not for- you know, surfing and stuff. And stuff. But it's beautiful, right? And the food is insane!"

"Why don't you leave the professional diagnosis to me?"

"Oh, ha ha, good one. A shrink joke. Hey, I'm sorry – you must get people telling you their sad stories in bars all the time, soon as they discover you're a psych."

The stranger smiled.

"Some. But I have ways of avoiding ones that don't interest me." She tilted her head, an invitation. "So, do you have one?"

"One what?"

"A sad story?"

"Oh! Oh, no, no. Ask anyone. I'm fine." Gordon looked around the bar. "I like those big dragon things on the wall. I got a brother who's an artist – part time, not professional, though he could be, even if he won't admit it- he could tell me what colour that is, that red. It's gorgeous. Reminds me of some of the colours I see on the reefs."

"Yes, I like what they've done to the place."

They both chuckled then.

"So before you trotted out the worst pick up line ever, you were telling me what it's like to grow up the fourth of five boys?"

"Well, I guess you'd know already. That birth - birth order stuff, right?"

The stranger grimaced.

"Please. That is the cheapest sort of pop psychology. I don't know how it is that bad science based on poor research can linger on in the public's mind for years while the solid science that debunks it stays somehow buried."

Gordon nodded. "My second oldest brother would agree to that. He's forever ranting about how people still think Veli- Velikovsky was right about Venus and Jupiter."

"Well, birth order as a predictor of personality is just as completely debunked, and has been since the 1990s. So go on – what was your experience of being fourth born like?"

"Great. It's great." Gordon managed a smile, even if it was a sloppy one. "Always someone there for you. Always a big brother around somewhere, or a little one to play with. Was great."

The stranger's face stayed neutral, but she kept her gaze on Gordon.

"You know, when people tell me something is great five times in one breath, I sometimes wonder."

That got a short laugh.

"Okay, so maybe not all the time. But it was - mostly good."

"And when it wasn't?"

"Ooh, go in for the drama. It really was fine. I was fine. I do remember though – I remember when I was real little, just a kid, and my dad was away so much, work- working. He'd ring us every night, usually from the airport, usually in a rush, grabbing the next plane. So the call would come in, and he'd speak to Mom, and then the phone would go to my oldest brother, and then the next one, and then the middle one. And by then my youngest brother would be jumping up and down and they'd be calling his flight, so sometimes I'd get to say hi and bye, and sometimes it would just be tell Gordon goodnight before it got handed to my little brother."

"Did you mind?"

Gordon thought a little. It was hard to do, with the noise around him, but images of those long gone days started coming back to him.

"Not really? I mean, I guess I just figured it made sense? I saw the reason for it or something. I mean, with four brothers, you were always waiting for your turn or sharing or whatever, so I kinda got the logistics."

The stranger shifted where she sat but said nothing. After a pause, Gordon picked up the conversation again.

"But on some level, maybe I wanted some of Dad for myself? Because one day, as V – as my next brother was on the phone, I said something silly, and everyone laughed, and Dad wanted to know what had happened, so Virgil passed me the phone and I said it again, and Dad - Dad laughed. And the next time he rang, I tried for it again and whaddya – whaddya know, everyone laughed again and I got to tell Dad. And the next time he rang, he asked to be put on to me, and I knew what he wanted. So from then on – from then on it was my job to make Dad laugh."

"Was that a burden?"

"A burden? You kidding me? Hell no. I loved it! Was my job, and I knew Dad was busy and tired, Mom said so, so making him laugh at the end of the day? That was my thing."
"And you were perfectly happy being the punchline to his day."

"Yes!" Gordon paused. "Okay, no, right, I see what you did there. But when I was really little, I loved it. It wasn't till I was a bit older, seven or so, that I started to see things a bit differently."

"How so?"

"Oh, well… like, Dad would come home, and we'd pile into the yard, and he'd ask my oldest brother about school and sport, cos he was into football then, my brother, real good at it, too. He made regional squad, he totally coulda been pro if he wanted it. You should have seen him, he played quarterback, and there was this one time, right, me and my brothers got to see it, he took a pass and ran sixty yards for a touchdown even though Greg Baumgartner was playing linebacker on the other team, and Greg went on to be linebacker for the Chiefs."

"Sounds like he was very talented."

"Oh, you know it."

"But you were telling me about when your Dad came home?"

Gordon chuckled. "Whoops, yeah, sorry. Don't get me started on what my brothers can do. So where was I?"

"Your dad would ask your oldest brother about sport..?"

"Sure, yeah, and then the next oldest, he's kinda a genius, he'd have his stargazing stuff, and you better believe Dad just loved hearing about that. And then by the time we'd reach the porch steps he'd be listening to my middle brother, because he did lots of cool stuff, art and music, and he'd make things too, he'd tell Dad what he'd learned on the piano or what he'd made in the shed."

"And then?"

"Well, I guess – you know, he'd already had three kids go through second grade, wasn't a whole lot to interest him there, but my little brother was in his first year and he was gonna be the last one of us doing that so I suppose it made sense – made sense that Dad was just enjoying watching him discover everything for the first time for the last time. If you know what I mean."

"I do."

"I'm not sure what I'm saying here, bunch of garbage. You're good at hearing what people are saying, huh."

"The best." The stranger gave a self-deprecating smile. "Did you still have a joke for your dad?"

"Oh, yeah. And he still loved them. Or hated them, but that was funny too. But I guess – I guess I just started to think, huh, you know, everyone's doing something or got something that makes them special and I'm just doing jokes."

"You wanted your father to value your for who you were, not for how you might entertain him."

Gordon blinked. The light in the bar was dull, but he could tell the stranger was actually listening to him, eyes intent, leaning forward.

"Well, yeah. But I mean, it's not that big a deal. We're not talking about trauma here. Yeesh."

The stranger gave a rueful smile.

"Of course not. First world problems, right? But that's how I make a living, so you might humour me."

"Telling you about how I stubbed my toe in fourth grade? How is any of this even remotely interesting?"

A shrug.

"I find people fascinating. Wouldn't do what I do if I didn't. And it's not often I meet a fourth born son of five."

"So – you can listen to me and maybe you can learn something that would help someone who needs it?"

The stranger took a sip of her bottled mineral water.

"Something like that."

"Huh." Gordon thought about getting more comfortable, then figured out Virgil was going to be coming in any minute, and he'd be pissed to find him here, so decided against it. "You know, it's been ages since I went into a bar in the afternoon. But he's still gonna be mad at me."

"Who?"

"Ah, never mind. You'll meet him soon enough, I bet. Say, is it me or does the bar have a lean to it?"

"Hmm. Maybe order soda water next round?"

A grin. "Yeah, maybe."

"You were saying you wanted to have something of your own, something that made you special?"

"Yeah. I suppose I did. Funny thing was, it was round about then that I began making the underwater city, and I never told Dad about that after all."

"Now that sounds interesting. How did you make an underwater city?"

Gordon gave a light laugh. "Well, not for real. No, my middle brother, he could probably figure out how to make a real city underwater back then, and my second oldest, there's nothing he couldn't figure out. Nah, I just found a packet with about a thousand cards in them, blank cards, I mean really old. They were water stained, and in the bottom of an old box we found when we were cleaning out the backroom so Mom could do her painting and stuff. She said I could use them, and for some reason I just started drawing these little houses on them. Lots of them, little underwater houses, all different. They were done as if you were looking down on them, whaddya call it, aerial view? But inside things were flat and upright. So I guess two - two perspectives? It bothered me for a while that they weren't any good because good drawing didn't look like that, so I kept them in an old wardrobe in the basement."

"How did it make you feel when you drew all these little houses?"

Gordon screwed up his face in thought.

"Like a narcissist with megalomaniacal fantasies?" He laughed again. "I dunno. I remember liking them, though. I mean, really liking them. Obsessive. I found a way to open the old wardrobe – it had a broken lock, but I found you could twist wire into it in a certain way and it would open –and I'd go in, lock it behind me, I'd use the old glow stick lights we used at Halloween and I'd sit in there drawing these stupid little houses and after a while I stuck then on the sides and the roof of the wardrobe so that they surrounded me. I'd draw these tubes that they used to travel between houses, and I made a king, put him in there, and all his subjects, all doing stuff. I dunno. S'weird."

"Sound wonderful."

"Wonderful? Nah. Just my scribble. Not like my brother can draw, I mean, you should see what he does."

"Did you ever show anyone?"

Gordon hesitated, and it was an ongoing source of surprise to him that a grief so old could still spike a sharp little pain in his heart.

"Mom. Showed her one day, when I had covered the entire surface of the wardrobe and was going back over them all with colour."

"You drew in black and white?"

"Yeah. Huh." Gordon paused. "Wonder why I did that?"

The stranger gave a little shrug.

"Hard to say. So how did your mother respond?"
"Oh, she – " This was a happy memory. "I invited her down. I remember dragging her over and then waiting outside, I couldn't show her and be there, just opened the door and told her to look and then wait- waited. I don't know why I was so anxious, but I was, and then she opened the door and beckoned me in and we sat there with the glow stick and her face – she thought it was amazing. Although she said something strange."

"What was that?"

"Hmm. Don't remember." Gordon laughed. "Something about Dad, I think?"

"So the underwater city was your special thing for your Dad..."

"Yeah, and I only ever told Mom." He laughed again, shaking his head. "Wow, can't believe you got me talking about that. I haven't thought about the city forever."

"Did it have a name?"

"Something embarrassing, I bet. Don't remember. God, so long ago. Funny, the things kids get up to, right?"

So much noise in there. The stranger leaned closer.

"I believe we all find ways to meet our needs, and how we go about that helps to determine our mental health. Sounds to me like you found a safe and creative way to pass your time – nothing too weird about that."

"I guess." Gordon went to run his hand through his hair, an old habit when confounded by a conversation, then thought better of it. "I suppose I haven't thought much about it for a while because I kinda ruined it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Well, it wasn't really Dad's fault, he didn't know, and I carried on so much about it I ruined Grandma's day, and Sc – my oldest brother, god, it was his middle school graduation and there was I, just in hysterics over this goddamned old wardrobe."

The stranger said nothing, waiting for him to explain.

"It's ten years ago now, I guess. Twelve? Wow. And I still feel bad." He gave a self-conscious little laugh. "Look at me, beating round the bush. My grandad would just say, 'Spit it out, boy!' So stupid."

"You'd be surprised. I once worked with someone who was still struggling with a memory from fifty years back. It's not at all unusual."

"Yeah, but that's probably something really bad. This was nothing. I just came home one day and went down to the basement and the wardrobe was gone. When I asked where it was, Grandma said Dad had got rid of it. I thought it was just given away or something, but then she said he'd put it through the wood chipper."

He gave another odd little laugh. Funny how old memories could make it hard to breathe.

"I remember running outside, and sure enough, there was Dad just putting the woodchopper under cover, and there was a pile of woodchips there, and that's all that was left of my stupid little drawings. And for some stupid reason I got really upset and – wow, I almost forgot! I punched Dad. Wow. I really forgot about that. I punched my old man. Eight years old, scrawny as hell, and I just hauled back and punched him one."

"Why did you do that, do you think?"

Gordon sighed, shrugged.

"Got no clue. Just mad about it I guess. Wasn't Dad's fault. It was – see, Mom had died only a few months before, and my dad was so caught up in grief he was almost paralysed some days. This was Scott's graduation day, and Grandma knew it would be tough on him, so she got him doing odd jobs, and one of them was to clear out the old wardrobe."

The stranger said nothing, just waited, her eyes on Gordon's. It should have been embarrassing, really, but somehow it was kind of nice.

"They wouldn't have been able to open it, and there would be no sound when he shook it, so he had no reason to know there was anything inside that mattered. God, not that it did, hell, it was my brother's grad and Dad was hurting so bad over Mom and I carried on so much that Grandma had to stay back from the graduation and look after me. What a brat, right?"

He chuckled, shaking his head.

"My oldest brother, he nearly killed me, he was so mad. I mean, it was his big day. I ruined it. Go me."

"How many years had you been making the city?"

"Hmm?"

"How long had you been creating the underwater city?"

"Oh, I dunno. 'Bout two years, I guess? Mom had started finding pictures of underwater buildings and she'd give them to me, I'd try and incorporate them into my city. I finished the whole thing and then I went around updating with Mom's input. But anyway, that is seriously enough about me. Talk about bend your ear! How about you tell me some of your deep, dark secrets? "

"No, you know what? I think it is really important that you keep talking for now. This obviously really matters to you on some level. Did none of your brothers know about the city? Did they all blame you for being upset?"

"Really? You really want to hear this? Well, okay. I guess my middle brother knew something was up when I had such hysterics over an old wardrobe, but I never told him what it was. He came and sat with me when everyone came home and I was kinda the pariah. Completely in the – what's the word? Doghouse, yeah, doghouse, that was me. But he just sat and read beside me on the bed. Good old – well, yeah, good old him."

"Have you ever explained to your older brother what happened?"

"What's there to explain? Hey, sorry I got upset my doodles got chipped. Yeah, world of sympathy there. No, he was right to be mad, but he got me back. Hey, you want me to buy you another drink? Least I could do, telling you all this."

"No, you know, I think the bar-keeper's called time."

"Really? Kinda early, isn't it?"

"Not really. It's hard to keep track of time in places like this. So tell me, how did your brother get you back?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter. Just something he said. A bit later, he had us doing a team building exercise he called it, where we had to tell each other something that we should each work on and something that was a strength. I think?"

"Ah. The Kouroffsky Exercise. It was big in the 2040s. They do that in the armed forces sometimes, management training, that sort of thing."

"You think it's a good idea?"

"Frankly, no."

Gordon chuckle. "Me either. Who needs that shit, right? Anyway, so my big brother looks at me and says, "Gordon keeps too many secrets." And I was like, woah, no way, because I'm an open book, right? And then I got kinda sad, because my one secret got trashed I guess, and then I got mad because – I dunno, but I got mad."

"Why do you think you were angry?"

"Like I said, got no clue. I was a feisty little pain in the ass sometimes 'bout that age. Hey, I'm still feisty, but I bring a whole lot more muscle to the table now."

"Whereas back then you were scrawny as hell, right?"

"Right! Seriously over-matched in firepower. But I remember thinking it was so unfair, because – well, it just seemed unfair."

"Can I suggest a possibility?"

"Sure, knock yourself out."

"Maybe because you'd found it necessary to keep things to yourself because there wasn't much of a forum for your voice to be heard? So you'd learned to keep things to yourself, covering up with jokes, and now you were being blamed for the very thing that they had positioned you into becoming?"

"Hehehe. You're good." Gordon grinned at her. "But no, no. I was just a little asshole. And I like to keep things light. No, I figure I still owe my big brother for that graduation day blowout."

Light flooded in as the door crashed back, and with it came Virgil. And, just as predicted, he took one look at Gordon and his face got that Grumpy Virgil look so beloved by his family.

"Thought I told you not to come in here?" Virgil said.

"Eh." Gordon did the finger waggle of indifference. "I was passing. Thought a cool ale or two was a good idea on a day like today."

"So I see." Virgil turned to the stranger. "And you ended up trapped with him. Thanks for staying with him."

"I kept him talking. Seemed to be a good idea."

"Lots of good ideas in here," said Gordon.

"Uh-huh." Virgil knelt down, but he kept his eyes on the stranger, appraising. "Seriously, thank you. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Thanks to him."

"Good to hear. Well, we've stabilised this building for now, but you better clear out, just to be safe. The control center is down the street, get there as quick as you can because the other buildings are still under stress. Let them know I've got Thunderbird Four."

"Will do." The stranger touched Gordon's arm. "Thank you. If you hadn't gotten us all out of that back room we'd all have been killed. Professor Joon-il was on his fifth whisky, we'd never have moved him."

Gordon waved a hand. "De nada. And hey, thanks for all the listening. Sorry about- about the boring childhood stories."

"Nothing boring there at all. I'll see you out there, Gordon."

The stranger left, after one long backwards look.

"Childhood stories?" Virgil frowned, even as he busily began lifting one of the beams. "Should I be worried?"

"No identifiers, I promise."

"So what kind of stories?"

"Rambling. I've got a head injury. It was all complete craziness, promise. I've got a head injury."

"You do at that." With an adjustment of the exo-skeleton, Virgil managed to straighten his legs and pick the largest of the wood off Gordon's leg.

The pain was excruciating. But then, it had passed a hazy kind of agony level some time back.

"Just gonna check some vitals here." Crazy how fast Virgil could whip around pulse oximeters and blood pressure tabs. "Hmmm, BP of 190 over 90. You've been overdoing it again. I'm gonna give you a little morphine sulfate just about now, just to keep you in that happy hour mood."

"S'nice bar. Seriously. Just need to tidy – tidy up a bit."

"And I think we're gonna start you on some calcium gluconate as a membrane stabilizer."

"Yeah, good, miss me with that globalized destabilisation shit."

"And with a little extra sodium and dextrose, just to keep those potassium levels happy."

"A hyperkalaemia cocktail. You're my kind of bar-keep, Virge. Do I get a little umbrella with that?"

"You get me not yelling at you for getting squashed. How's that instead?"

"No f – " And then all the words went away, as the last piece of wood was lifted and it snagged in his thigh, lifting him partway off the floor, causing Virgil to swear and Gordon to become nothing but noise and flesh turning itself inside out to escape itself.

"Thunderbird Five! Tell One I need the stretcher in here, quick as you can."

"Understood, Thunderbird Two."

"Easy, easy, Gordo, I got you. Oh, Gordo, what have I told you about going into bars in the afternoon?"