![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Title: Haze
Author:kat_lair
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Nick/Stephen
Tags: Ficlet, Shippy Gen, Fog
Rating: G
Word count: 450
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: The anomaly glows the familiar white-blue, exactly where the warden who had reported it had said. Through it, thick fog is pouring out, white tendrils twisting like something alive, carpeting the forest floor.
Author notes: Spooktober 2023, Day 24/31. Prompt/theme: fog.
Haze on AO3
The anomaly glows the familiar white-blue, exactly where the warden who had reported it had said. Through it, thick fog is pouring out, white tendrils twisting like something alive, carpeting the forest floor. Already, Stephen can barely make out his boots when he looks down.
Next to him, Nick curses. “Do we have any idea where that goes?” he asks. “Or what came through, if anything?”
Stephen shrugs. They’re first on the scene, the only ones so far. They’d been driving back from a conference when the call had come through, placing them nearest to the sighting. Back up was on the way but it would still be at least a couple of hours until it would get here. Until then, they were on their own.
Or, perhaps, not entirely on their own.
“Something did,” Stephen mutters.
There are dark shapes in the distance, darting between the trees, human sized but not human shaped, although it’s difficult tell for sure, the mist making even the familiar look strange and distorted.
“Any ideas?” Stephen’s lifted his tranquilizer gun, even though he knows it’s next to useless in the circumstances. If something were to come at them, they wouldn’t see it until it was too late.
“It could be any number of things,” Nick says, frustrated. “We should follow them though. If we wait for the others, the creatures will be half-way to Wales by then.”
“We’ll lose each other!” It comes out more alarmed, more revealing than Stephen meant, but the fog around them is only growing denser, muting sounds, hiding dangers.
“Never.” There’s something solemn in Nick’s voice, his grip on Stephen’s shoulder almost bruisingly tight. Suddenly, it’s difficult to catch his breath.
“In the fog, I meant,” Stephen says, weakly. He can’t make himself look away from Nick’s face.
“That either,” Nick says. He starts rummaging through his backpack and comes out with a coil of nylon rope. With deft movements, he loops one end around his waist and ties it snuggly, before handing the other end to Stephen.
It’ll be a disadvantage if they have to move fast, but right now visibility, or lack of it, is the bigger problem. Stephen takes the rope and ties it around himself. Each of them gathers up the excess, looping it around their arm, leaving only four feet of slack between them.
“There,” Nick declares, “Now we won’t lose each other.” He says it with such conviction that Stephen almost believes him.
But in the end, he knows there’s no rope strong enough to guarantee that. For now, though, it’ll have to do.
They step forward together, the white mist reaching out, eager and hungry, swallowing them up like a beast.
***
Title: Haze
Author:
kat_lair Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Nick/Stephen
Tags: Ficlet, Shippy Gen, Fog
Rating: G
Word count: 450
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: The anomaly glows the familiar white-blue, exactly where the warden who had reported it had said. Through it, thick fog is pouring out, white tendrils twisting like something alive, carpeting the forest floor.
Author notes: Spooktober 2023, Day 24/31. Prompt/theme: fog.
Haze on AO3
The anomaly glows the familiar white-blue, exactly where the warden who had reported it had said. Through it, thick fog is pouring out, white tendrils twisting like something alive, carpeting the forest floor. Already, Stephen can barely make out his boots when he looks down.
Next to him, Nick curses. “Do we have any idea where that goes?” he asks. “Or what came through, if anything?”
Stephen shrugs. They’re first on the scene, the only ones so far. They’d been driving back from a conference when the call had come through, placing them nearest to the sighting. Back up was on the way but it would still be at least a couple of hours until it would get here. Until then, they were on their own.
Or, perhaps, not entirely on their own.
“Something did,” Stephen mutters.
There are dark shapes in the distance, darting between the trees, human sized but not human shaped, although it’s difficult tell for sure, the mist making even the familiar look strange and distorted.
“Any ideas?” Stephen’s lifted his tranquilizer gun, even though he knows it’s next to useless in the circumstances. If something were to come at them, they wouldn’t see it until it was too late.
“It could be any number of things,” Nick says, frustrated. “We should follow them though. If we wait for the others, the creatures will be half-way to Wales by then.”
“We’ll lose each other!” It comes out more alarmed, more revealing than Stephen meant, but the fog around them is only growing denser, muting sounds, hiding dangers.
“Never.” There’s something solemn in Nick’s voice, his grip on Stephen’s shoulder almost bruisingly tight. Suddenly, it’s difficult to catch his breath.
“In the fog, I meant,” Stephen says, weakly. He can’t make himself look away from Nick’s face.
“That either,” Nick says. He starts rummaging through his backpack and comes out with a coil of nylon rope. With deft movements, he loops one end around his waist and ties it snuggly, before handing the other end to Stephen.
It’ll be a disadvantage if they have to move fast, but right now visibility, or lack of it, is the bigger problem. Stephen takes the rope and ties it around himself. Each of them gathers up the excess, looping it around their arm, leaving only four feet of slack between them.
“There,” Nick declares, “Now we won’t lose each other.” He says it with such conviction that Stephen almost believes him.
But in the end, he knows there’s no rope strong enough to guarantee that. For now, though, it’ll have to do.
They step forward together, the white mist reaching out, eager and hungry, swallowing them up like a beast.
***