Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.

Whumptober Day 23: "Pursuit"

Heavy breathing. Air rasps on the way in and chokes on the way out. Running is something he does for fun, a stress relief when the world gets too much and he just needs the steady pounding of sneakers on rocks, forest paths, any solid environment beneath his feet.

It shouldn't make him lose control of his breathing. Not like this.

It's partially the fault of fear. No matter how rational the fear is, its response is irrational, fight or flight kicking in and draining reserves until there's nothing but emptiness in the barrel. That's where he is now, scraping the barrel for whatever endurance he can eek out.

It's also, no matter how much he doesn't want to admit it, because he's never run this fast, for this long, before. He can run for miles, no problems at all, but there's still a point where his body starts to give out and his knees judder as his feet stagger and stumble. Normally, he gets to regulate his speed. He's capable of sprinting or endurance, but not both together.

If he stops, if he slows for a single moment, then he'll be finished. They'll catch him and tear him to shreds, monsters with human faces and humans with monstrous faces. Or maybe they're just all monsters; he doesn't know.

He just knows that if they catch him, it's the end.

But he can't keep going much longer. He can feel it in the way the blood is straining beneath his skin, cycling through the veins and arteries at a rate beyond what they can take. He can feel it in the weak feet faltering with every step. He can see it in the way his vision lost pin-sharp clarity a mile or ten ago – he doesn't even know how long, how far, he's run, anymore. Everything blurs and spins and exists in overlapping duplicates, triplicates. Even quadruplets.

Blood pounds past his ears, deafening him to all but the throb throb throb of his pulse and the harsh, gasping rasps of his breaths.

Every step is jarring, and every one feels like it'll be his last. His body is buckling, shutting down, but Scott Tracy isn't a quitter and can't do anything except going until his limits are obliterated and his body follows suit.

He can't escape, his mind tells him. Sooner or later – sooner – they will catch him. If he couldn't escape when his limbs and mind were fresh, then there's no chance at all that he can escape now.

They'll catch him, take him, destroy him, and his family will be heartbroken.

It's that last point that has him still going, drives him when his body has nothing left to give. Keeps him upright when his head wants so, so badly to give in to gravity and fall to the ground, leading the way for the rest of his limbs.

He has to keep going. Delay the inevitable as long as possible and then venture into the impossible. There's a reason for that, his mind thinks, but it can't recall what. Why.

Just that he can't stop. Can't fall, can't trip, can't let them catch him.

Keep going. Run, run, run, as his lungs burn and air scorches his throat. As his vision distorts and spins and darkens for moments at a time. Moments that stretch ever longer whenever they occur, suspending him in blindness as his thighs scream and his ankles roll awkwardly over feet that can't land square.

The cacophony in his ears bleeds into a roar, shutting out anything that doesn't originate within him, reverberating beneath his skin like it's the hide of a drum.

Badumbadumbabadum.

It's inevitable. International Rescue can do the impossible, but alone he's just a man, mortal with mortal limits.

Time slows, stretching out painfully as the realisation settles in at an agonising pace and sinks straight into his bones, carving itself deep into the calcium. His ankle, abused and going beyond anything that should ever be asked of it, catches a stray pebble wrong. It bites into the arch, the exact wrong point that throws the whole thing sharply on an angle that his ankle just can't recover from.

Bones fold, grinding together with the heart-stopping crunch of two equal yet opposing forces colliding, and his knee sinks to the ground. In slow motion, it feels almost graceful, like he's a ballerina and he meant to do that, but he isn't, and he didn't.

He hangs there, just for a few seconds. Heartbeats, maybe; his body is emitting enough of those to count as a formal measurement.

Then the moment passes and the ground is rushing up towards him. Fast, furious, as though his continued defiance of gravity has somehow offended it. Contact is heralded by cracks and pain cascading through the bone-weariness that is exhaustion, but he can't place their origins. His ankle. Maybe an arm. Maybe his face took a hit.

He can't tell. His nerves are on fire but their wires are crossed and his brain can't unscramble the messages.

It doesn't matter, anyway. He's down, and his body's on strike, or just too empty to so much as twitch, because he can't get back up. The countdown's begun; any second, they'll be upon him and he'll be gone.

Hands grab him.

They're here.

The skin is warm. Somewhere in the back of his mind that's a surprise; warmth means life, means hope and family and everything that will be stripped from him.

Their movement can only be described as pawing. Like an animal that wants something but doesn't want to break something else in the process. Pawing at his throat, at his arms, his legs, and even his torso. Blood pounds and pounds his ear; if there are other sounds, they're entirely drowned out.

He tries to pull away from the grip but his body has nothing left at all. His vision is more dark than not, a small pinprick of unidentifiable colour the only thing to stand out, but there's nothing special about it at all.

Beneath him, the ground vanishes. Instead, there are sharp points of contact that flare and scream at him. He doesn't know where they're originating, only that they're there. Any attempts for freedom are stifled before they even take form, living purely within his mind but fizzling into nothing before they can be actioned.

The warmth spreads, enveloping everything from the points they touch and radiating outwards.

Breath ghosts past one ear, warm and wet yet all he can do is shiver, his own lungs still screaming for air that can barely reach them. Fingers tighten against his arms, tight enough to leave a bruise, and he can't even begin to struggle as he's drawn firmly against a solid, living mass.

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, goes something against his ear, inadvertently pressed against the mass with no way of escaping. It's regular and overpowers the rush inside his own head, singing out to his blood and dragging it down to its pace beat by beat.

As his heartbeat slows, so does the desperate breaths in and out of his mouth. His lungs cease their gasping, step by minute step, but it doesn't help his awareness, or his vision. Eyelids droop shut unwillingly, closing over useless vision of blue and green swirls.

Those colours should mean something. He knows they mean something. His mind can't grasp the knowledge, tendrils of thought stretching but falling just short of the answer.

Falling. Falling, down, down, down, and the blue and green shifts to greys, darkening and darkening the more the rush of his pulse throbbing in his head slows.

He's been caught. He knows he has.

So why is the overwhelming sensation as he slips away relief?

Rather a hazy pov today, because it's nearly 1:30am and I've been up since 4:30am so that's really the only mode my brain can do right now. Still, hazy povs can be fun to play with.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari