#JustALittleEVA

[starman-john-tracy]

Just A Little EVA [RP with @asteria-star]

starman-john-tracy:

“It’s just a little EVA.” John’s reassuring smile is interrupted as he tugs his helmet on over his head, fastidiously checking the seal around his throat as he does. “It’s gonna be a quick out and in, I just need an extra pair of hands while I make the hatch repair.” He knows full well that she hates going outside the ship but he could really use someone to watch his back… and hand him the right tools. “Come on.” He slaps her helmet against her palms, “It’s time to put some of that training we’ve given you to use," a grin creeps onto his face, "Freeloader.”

asteria-star​:

“What training,” Star grumbles under her breath, peering sulkily up at the taller man while jamming her own helmet over her head. “I don’t know if it counts as training if I just show up and figure it out as I go.” Training or not, she’s been outside of Thunderbird Five - in SPACE, which still makes her want to run away - more than a few times by now, and no matter how much she hates it, she is getting used to it. Rather than a heart-stopping plunge of terror it's mellowed out into a begrudging requirement, like going to the doctor or the dentist. Even the uniform is growing on her, though no one will ever hear those words pass her lips. “I’m glad you have confidence in my ability to identify tools, because I do not.” She said, and pats John firmly between the shoulder blades to let him know she’s joking. Kind of.

starman-john-tracy:

“I’ll have to start colour coding them.” John seems to pointedly ignore her comment about the training she’s received. He’s well aware she’s not a fan and if she’s taking all his little corrections and notes as something else, then that’s probably a good thing. Basic sims had been a compulsory minimum requirement of her placement on his Thunderbird, but John had got the impression from the one time she’d ever, scathingly, mentioned it, that he should have run them with her himself. The few weeks prior to their first meeting Star had been stuck in a GDF hyperbaric spacelab attempting to complete trials that, John gets the impression, essentially equated to trying out all the ways you could die. Auntie Casey had been thorough, and John’s not sure that getting yeeted out of a virtual airlock without a helmet is even his idea of a good time. No wonder Star had made a… surly first impression. Still, she’d come out of it with septicemia and a rudimentary space license, and John’s done his best to give her more practical, day to day training ever since. He had been surprised how necessary ‘please don’t open the airlock without cycling the other side’ had been though. Things change around quickly on his 'bird, between his and Brains’ tinkering, and keeping her knowledge fresh and up to date is important to him, however much she might grumble about it. Besides, there’s no way he’d have agreed to having her up here without making sure she’s got enough knowledge to keep herself safe. He’s been on the rescue end of too many uneducated astronauts to find such a thing acceptable here. The name Langstrom Fischler still brings him out in stress hives. “Torque wrench, pliers, spare wires, transistor, crocodile clips-” He’s made her up a little kit bag, with velcro tethers for all the tools, and it’s abundantly clear as he holds it out for her to take that he was never intending to go out alone. Space is always safer with a buddy to spot your six, after all. “It won’t be long, and then you can go back to that book you were reading. What’s it about anyway?” He hopes he isn’t going to regret his curiosity. He also hopes that his discomfort when thinking about her training doesn't show on his face. John’s well aware of her natural reluctance when it comes to life up here, and it’s always made him uncomfortable that the GDF’s idea of the perfect imprisonment for her had been his home. It worries him, sometimes, that his own attempt at her training might come across as torture too.

[starman-john-tracy]

Just A Little EVA - [RP with @asteria-star]

asteria-star:

Star is still grumbling as she places the helmet over her head, listening to the hiss of the rim sealing to the collar of her uniform. John is looking at her strangely, but she can’t work out why with enough confidence to do anything other than raise an eyebrow at him. “What are we even doing, anyway?” Star asks as John holds up tools and names them for her. She’s always been good at memory games, and runs it through her head, to try and remember the names of each tool rather than worrying about the vast expanse of space that will be one thin tether away from swallowing her whole once she’s on the other side of the airlock. They don’t even make it to the airlock before the tightness of her chest morphs into a steel-tight vice grip. Panic. She knows it’s panic. Star clenches her fists at her sides in the hopes that John can’t see them shaking and forces out a deep breath. It’ll be fine. John is there, John won’t let anything happen to her. And Brain’s is nerd enough to make the safety margins a mile wide on the Thunderbirds, so really, there’s nothing to worry about. The panic doesn’t ease. “I’m expecting to be able to pick the movie tonight after this,” Star tells him, hoping it still comes across with her usual level of blade. “Let’s just get this over with, yeah?”

@starman-john-tracy:

At her raised eyebrow, John suddenly becomes very interested in the airlock hatch they're approaching. Long, blue-clad fingers muscle memory their way over the keypad and there’s a hiss of air to indicate that the hatch is filling with oxygen. Good to know that they won’t subject the whole station to vacuum as they exit. John’s noticed that she dodged his question about what she’d been reading, and he decides that, perhaps, if she doesn’t want to tell him then he's better off not knowing. John laughs at her request for a movie though, the sound warm and fond. He offers her a hand to help guide her into the airlock, and he’s much more graceful without gravity than she’ll perhaps ever be. It’s like he was born to be up here. Perhaps he was. “Sure thing,” He shrugs weightlessly, “pick’s yours.” With four brother’s it’s very rare that he ever gets to choose what they put on anyway. There’s a reason John spent most of his formative years with his head buried in a book and that reason wasn’t just Grandpa Grant’s farming weekly. “Just no horror movies, ok?” He requests. John gets enough calls with situations that are real life thrillers, and there’s plenty of jumpscares trying to calculate which of his brother’s is going to fling himself off something he shouldn’t next. The airlock finishes filling with air with a shgung sckhck of the metal clamps being released, and John turns to check the display of suit sensors at her wrist, green across the board, seals tight, before he starts to cycle the airlock. “Depressurising now.” He tells her, and the process is so quick thanks to Brains’ ingenuity, that the hatch spirals itself open only seconds later, the motion not unlike the aperture of a camera lens. Star seems nervous at his side, and John can’t help the sliver of guilt he feels over that. Still, she’s got to keep those skills sharp to stay up here, and without using them, that’s not possible. “I got you.” His voice sounds just that little bit tinny through the helmet speakers, and it’s weird that she can’t feel the warmth of his hand at her elbow as he guides them both out of the airlock and into open space - the thin cord of their tethers the only thing keeping them from sliding off into the endless, empty black.