Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.

Whumptober Day 4 "Do you trust me?", "Taken Hostage" and "Pushed"

The cliff edge was right behind his heels; as his weight shifted, pebbles wriggled loose and tumbled down, landing in a rustle of disturbed foliage. Scott wasn't sure how far down it was, or what was at the bottom, and he wasn't particularly interested in finding out, either.

Alan was near tears. Scott couldn't blame him; a gun to the temple was terrifying, and they'd both heard the click of the safety coming off when Scott hadn't complied with the demands instantaneously enough for the owner's liking.

If it was just him, he'd probably have considered fighting back, but he hadn't come out alone, and as he looked into the too-bright eyes of his terrified youngest brother he regretted the decision to bring him out as well. Alan was far too young to be exposed to this sort of situation, far too young to be used as a hostage to force compliance.

Scott shivered, and it wasn't just fear for his brother. Beside him, folded up with military precision, sat his flight suit, with the rest of his gear stacked up neatly on top. Alan's was in a scruffier pile, partially due to his personality, and partially due to the gun kissing his skin the entire time.

Even still wearing the undershirt and shorts, the wind was cold. Beneath his bare feet, the cliff edge crumbled a little more.

"Thank you for your co-operation." The man was alone, but alone with a gun still put the power in his hands, especially when he had it pointed straight at Scott's youngest brother and a pincer grip on the teenager's shoulder to hold him in place. Despite his terror, Alan was smart enough to know to stay still rather than try and escape, although having been instructed to step back to the cliff edge, Scott was concerned about their survival chances regardless.

Certainly he was looking at an imminent drop unless a miracle occurred.

"Now that I have what I need," the man continued, finger threateningly perched on the pistol's trigger, "I don't need you."

Scott's heart leapt up into his mouth and he frantically scrambled for a solution, a way to save Alan at the least even as he met wide blue eyes. Help me, they begged, moisture beading and threatening to overflow. Scotty, I'm scared.

At the end of the day, Alan was still a child. Scott knew that, even when Alan was wearing IR Blue with his signature red baldric. He couldn't forget that his youngest brother, no matter the feats he pulled off as part of International Rescue, shouldn't be worrying about anything more important than his homework, not facing life and death situations almost daily. He certainly shouldn't be facing his own death.

"Don't-" he started, breathless and desperate. "Not him. He's just a child, please-"

A bark of laughter cut him off and his eyes tore themselves from Alan to look at the man. There was a crazed grin on his face, and something calculatingly vicious in his eyes.

"How easy it is to get the Commander of International Rescue to beg," he drawled. "Move."The word was aimed at Alan, alongside a kick to the back of his legs that had him stumbling forwards a pace, held up only by the vice-like grip on his shoulder and the gun still pressed to his head.

Another step and he'd be in Scott's reach. The metaphorical chasm that yawned between them felt far more dangerous than the literal one beneath Scott's bare heels.

"If you don't want him to die," the man continued. "Then you'd better think fast, Commander."

The hand left Alan's shoulder, then thrust into his back, sending him staggering him forwards, towards the cliff edge. A foot joined the effort, and Alan's arms pinwheeled in a vain attempt to keep his balance.

He wasn't going to make it.

Scott was moving before his thoughts caught up, the ground falling away beneath his feet as he threw himself between Alan and the cliff edge. The action left him off-balance, too.

Alan slammed into him and then they were both falling.

It wasn't a long drop, Scott discovered as his back crashed into something leafy, crushing it beneath his body as he came to a stop that stole the breath from his lungs. Safely encased in his arms, Alan was tucked up against his body, shielded from the impact as best Scott could manage.

For a brief moment, it felt like they'd escaped unharmed.

Then his nerves set on fire.

Every inch of exposed skin burned, including where his undershirt appeared to have ridden up his back slightly at the contact, and a gasp erupted from Scott's throat unbidden.

"Scott?" At Alan's small, scared, voice, he tightened his grip further, pinning him in place. "Scott, are you okay?" He wrenched open eyes he didn't recall closing to see a mop of blond hair rising from where it'd been tucked under his chin. Stray strands tickled his lips as Alan looked up at him with big, blue eyes.

He couldn't say he was fine, not when his skin was crawling like a colony of fire ants had decided to hold a festival on it and his lungs were constricted by the resultant pain combined with the brother on top of him. He wasn't sure he could say anything at all, but he had to try.

The first thing out of his mouth was a hiss of pain. "What," he started, gasping the word more than saying it and watching Alan's already wide eyes widen further, "did… did I, land on?"

It had to be some sort of aggressive foliage to hit his entire body at once; an upset animal bite would have a specific epicentre, and it was definitely an external cause, not an injury – the same foliage that was objecting severely to his presence had cushioned his fall enough that he didn't think he'd seriously injured anything, although there would definitely be several bruises.

"Huh?" Alan moved, shifting his weight and inadvertently pressing parts of Scott's body further into the plant below. He swallowed back the resultant hisses. "Oh." He started wriggling to get up and Scott pinned him down as firmly as he could as his biceps started trembling from the prickle of fire assaulting them from below. "Uh, Scott, it's a giant nettle patch."

Well that explained the fiery sensation crawling across his skin.

Alan tried to escape again, but Scott grit his teeth and held on.

"Scott, let me up!" his brother protested. "We have to get out of here."

He couldn't argue with that, but he could and would argue at Alan wandering through a field of nettles in bare feet and shorts.

"Stay still," he grunted.

"But, Scott-"

"No point-" he broke off with a gasp, chest heaving, "-both of us, ah, getting stung."

"I don't think that's avoidable," Alan mumbled. "There's a lot of nettles."

Scott didn't care how many nettles there were; he'd failed to protect Alan from the man with the gun, he wasn't going to let him get hurt by nettles, of all things, as well.

"Shift your… weight," he instructed with another gasp. "On my stomach."

"Are you sure?" Alan still sounded uncertain, but Scott was sure he could hear a touch of relief underneath it. "Can you carry me with all those stings? You don't look too hot."

"Do you… trust me?" Scott pressed with a wheeze, knowing that the answer had to be yes, or he might just break.

"Of course I do!" The response was lightning-fast and soothed a spike of anxiety before it could take hold, even if it couldn't sooth the prickling burn of nettle stings as they sank deeper into his skin. Scott had been stung before, although never on this level, and knew that it'd be days before his body recovered from this torture.

The affirmation of his trust, however, seemed to be the catalyst Alan needed to get moving, shimmying off of Scott's chest to coil up on his gut. The air squeezed out of his stomach was alleviated by the sudden ability to get air into his lungs, and Scott drew in several deep breaths before approaching the challenge of moving.

His palms shrieked as he sacrificed them to the nettles for leverage, unable to use just his abs to sit up while Alan was sitting on them. At the same time he drew his knees up, blocking Alan from sliding too far down, and as soon as he was sat vaguely upright he shuffled his hands around until only one was needed to keep him semi-vertical. The other wrapped back around the back of Alan's knees, holding him in place like a much younger child as he gasped an instruction for Alan to hold onto him.

Thin, child's arms wrapped around his neck, uncomfortably tight but Scott wasn't going to tell him to let go.

Instead, he groaned with dread before finding all the strength left that could be mustered and thrusting his torso up and forwards to force himself to his feet.

He almost overbalanced entirely and ended up flat on his face, as though half his body was annoyed at missing out on the stings, but thankfully a couple of staggers and a second hand wrapping tightly around Alan kept him upright.

His back wasn't appeased, despite no longer being in direct contact with the nettles, and none of the rest of his body was, either. The soles of his feet screamed as they were roped into the punishment of crushing stinging nettles with every step, but Scott was good at working through pain and kept staggering forwards, taking the shortest looking path out of the patch.

Alan's hold on him tightened as he swayed, although whether it was reassurance or fear, Scott didn't like to guess.

(It was probably fear, his mind hissed anyway.)

The burn wasn't fading even though his skin – tormented and abused feet aside – was no longer in contact with the cause. How many minor barbs, hairs, whatever nettles used to sting, were buried in him he tried not to think about. The answer was too many, enough that his body was shaking, limbs supporting his and Alan's weights trembling, and the nettle patch could likely be justifiably referred to as a nettle forest based on its footprint.

Too big, too agonising, too everything. He staggered more than he walked, more than once his vision blurring or even whiting out entirely, but they had to get clear before he could risk setting Alan down. He didn't want to set Alan down at all.

His body disagreed, despite his best efforts to the contrary. Adrenaline, stubbornness, and anything else he could use to force the dregs of his body to forge through the prickling, rushing, fire of thousands of nettle stings, could only get him beyond the border of the nettle patch by one, single, step.

Knees hit the ground hard, one hitting something hard and sharp that was probably a stone and splitting open to let liquid run down into the ground below, as though it really needed any more feeding. He barely released Alan in time, little brother scrambling backwards on his palms with blue eyes just as wide as they'd been throughout the entire experience as Scott crashed down onto his front.

"Scott!"

They were clear of the nettles. Alan was clear of the nettles. Scott had no idea how they were going to get any further; their comms were gone, just like the rest of their gear. He couldn't even summon Thunderbird One to pick them up, let alone call John for help.

He could do nothing except lay in a somewhat crumpled heap, vaguely grateful that his front wasn't also being assaulted with nettles as Alan fussed worriedly, and hope that their bad luck was over for the day.

Will this get a follow up? Who knows - it depends on the rest of the month's prompts.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari