Title: Gardening Leave
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Stephen/Nick
AN: inspired by katlair and razorxrosary
Summary: That anomaly that brought Stephen, Nick, and Taylor back to our time? Well what if it led somewhere else? LET THE NAKED SWIMMING BEGIN.
Location: Unknown
Date: Unknown. Zero for reference
The first thing Stephen was aware of when they reached the other side of the anomaly was a wet hotness pressing in around him, suffocating him. He stumbled as he took a huge breath of the damp air, oxygen flooding his brain, and reached out weakly to Nick for support as a blinding pain exploded behind his eyes.
"Where are we?" he choked out as the pain subsided, left hand fisted in Nick's shirt, right hand clutching Taylor. "Some sort of rainforest?"
"Looks like it," Nick agreed, hand pressed to his chest. "Don't know what time period though."
"It's really hot!" Taylor pointed out, sitting down at the base of an enormous tree and pulling Stephen with her. "Can we sit here for a while? There ain't no monsters here."
"There could be some camouflaged, or stalking us, we need to find protection…"
"Yeah, we can stay here for a bit," Stephen cut in, shooting Nick a warning look. The other man rolled his eyes and turned away, busying himself with his bag, and Stephen glanced around them.
He assumed that the sun was shining brightly above the thick canopy of leaves over their heads – shafts were streaming through, casting beams of shattered emerald around their feet and sparkling off the large lake a hundred or so yards away. The place was far from silent; squawks and screams and buzzes assaulted Stephen's ears as the birds and bugs went about their business all around them, and he swatted at a mosquito as it shot towards him.
"So where d'you reckon we are then?" Taylor asked, taking a swig of water from Stephen's flask. He shrugged and looked up at Nick, who was inspecting some animal tracks.
"A rainforest somewhere. Probably South America, if I had to guess. Unfortunately I've got no idea what era we're in until we see some sort of creature. So we'll just have to wait."
Taylor sighed and looked around, eyes lighting up as she noticed the body of water not too far away.
"D'you think it's safe?" she asked, and Stephen inwardly marvelled at her astuteness.
"We can go have a look, if you want," he suggested, making to stand up, but Nick suddenly turned and threw himself down at the base of the tree beside them both.
"Don't move, and stay quiet," he breathed, arm over Taylor and hand resting on Stephen's arm. "There's something coming."
Stephen felt his breath hitch as he heard the crack of a branch to their left, and twisted his head to look around. A tree shifted fifty yards away.
"What is it?" Taylor asked, a hint of fear tingeing her voice, and Stephen's grip on her tightened.
"Ssshhh," he whispered, and felt Nick's hand twitch on his biceps. There was a huge rumbling as the creature approached, each of its footsteps accentuated by a resonating thud that they felt through the ground rather than heard, the thick high foliage blocking their view so that all that could be seen was a massive hairy mound moving towards them.
"Is it gonna eat us?" Taylor asked, and Stephen met Nick's gaze over her head.
"I don't know," he replied honestly, eyes locked.
"We'll be fine," Nick shot back, not breaking the eye contact.
The thumping and rumbling stopped ten yards away.
And an enormous, hair-covered beast reared up on its high legs, reaching out with one front legs to wrap around a thick tree, supporting itself as it pulled at the branches with the other. Nick's breath escaped him in a huge whoosh that ruffled Taylor's hair.
"Megatherium," he explained. "Giant sloth. Herbivore, not aggressive. It's not going to attack us, it's too slow."
"So now we know the time period…"
"We're in South America, you were right. No carnivores here, not at this time. We're safe."
Stephen glanced down at Taylor, who was staring at the sloth in fascination.
"Well, I reckon we could all do with a wash. How about checking out that lake?"
Taylor grinned up at him.
"How long?" Stephen asked Nick, watching Taylor as she splashed in the warm water. Nick shrugged.
"I have no idea. Connor's device will let us know if any anomalies are nearby."
"That's not what I meant."
Nick sighed and turned to fix him with a sharp blue gaze
"There's plenty of water, and berries and plants that we can eat. I'm sure we could get some hunting done too. We could survive for a long time yet."
"What about Taylor? A young girl can't be expected to live here."
"What, and we can?"
"You know what I mean," Stephen replied, exasperatedly, and sat down hard on a rock, running a hand through his wet hair. "She needs to socialise, she needs friends. We've got each other, but she barely knows us. How long will she have to cope? A week? A month? We need to get her back."
"I know," Nick said simply, sitting down beside him. The trees swayed above them. "But I can't help that. We'll just have to do the best that we can. Hopefully it won't be too long."
"Were you telling the truth earlier?" Stephen asked, eyeing Nick out of the corner of his eye. "When you said that there weren't any carnivores?"
"Maybe. It depends on what the date is. Sloths were around for millions of years, the majority of which didn't coincide with any carnivore period in this part of the world. But towards the end of their existence, carnivores started appearing. Ones like the Smilodon, at the same time the landmass between the Americas re-formed. So long as we're in the period where there was no bridge, we're safe. If not… we won't last for very long."
"Well then. We'd better hope that we arrived during the middle of their reign."
"I couldn't agree more," Nick said gravely, and stripped off his T-shirt as Taylor clambered out of the lake. "My turn."
Comments welcome & much appreciated.