The One With The Gastropods
Summary: Primeval Lots of silliness and gastropods (In this case slugs) from the Mesozoic era... sounds like fun doesn't it? Warning: Slight cursing at the end, but mostly just a whole lot of silliness.
Slightly Stephen/Abby if you look really close, like with a magnifying glass.
Disclaimer: I feel a disclaimer is simply an invention to cause unnecessary hurt to the already fragile hearts of fan fiction writers by making them admit out loud that they do not own the characters they have written about. I believe this is a cruel practise that is invented only for the cruel entertainment of those lucky few who do own the show. I therefore start the fanfiction-writers-against-disclaimers-association! I will collect autographs so we can stop the cruel practise of making fanfiction writers write disclaimers, are you with me people?!
...But until then, just to be safe, I do not own Primeval, or any of it's characters. (Snif, snif)
Authors note: Besides being against disclaimers I am also Dutch, which means English is not my native language. That is why I apologise for any mistakes I might have made and ask anyone who finds a mistake to let me know because I like to learn from my mistakes.
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Cutter, Stephen, Abby and Connor sat scattered around an anomaly. It had been quieter than a high school on Sunday morning during summer. Claudia had long ago been called back by Lester to do some paperwork, and the SAS-team had gotten so bored that Cutter had finally just sent them away as well.
Stephen and Abby were talking quietly, Cutter was absorbed in some papers and Connor was sitting in front of the anomaly, just watching it.
Connor's stomach growled hungrily and Connor was about to pull a sandwich out of his coat pocket. "Hey, guys, look!" Connor pointed at the anomaly. There was something coming through it.
"What are they, and how many are there?" Abby asked as a whole horde of little critters sidled through the anomaly.
"Are those slugs?" Connor asked.
"Uhm, they seem to be going for Connor." Stephen pointed out.
"Aargh! Get them of me! Come on you guys, help me!" Connor swatted in a state of panic at the horde of critters swarming him.
"They seem to be Gastropods, probably from the Mesozoic era, gastropods were very numerous then." Cutter took a careful step back as one came flying his way by a well placed swipe from Connor.
"Get them of, come on, Stephen help?!" Connor tried.
"I'm not touching that." Stephen eyed them suspiciously.
Abby shook her head. "You're on your own Connor, I wouldn't want to touch one of those with a ten foot pole." Abby unconsciously edged a littler closer to Stephen.
"I think they're biting." Connor remarked.
"Don't be silly Connor, most gastropods are herbivores, well there are some like the T. Haliotidesthat lives today, but it's mainly a scavenger..." Cutter trailed of as Connor screamed.
"They're eating me alive!"
"Ehm, maybe we should do something, anyone got any salt on them?" Stephen asked as he watched Connor start running around in wild panic.
"Yes Stephen I always carry a sack of salt with me." Abby shot back sarcastically.
Cutter looked thoughtful. "Would have been useful if you did carry salt with you."
"Aaaaah! Get them off!"
"I'm not very knowledgeable about..." Abby gestured toward Connor. "gastropods, but couldn't we use some sort of bait to lure them away from Connor?" Abby suggested.
"Ow that hurts, that hurts!"
"What would be something no Mesozoic flesh eating snail could resist." Stephen wondered.
"Slug Stephen, they're slugs not snails, you see they lack the prominent coiled shell that snails have." Cutter added helpfully.
"Right sorry."
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
"Well apparently Connor looks like a pretty decent meal to them." Abby supplied.
"Aaah! Get of, get of, get of!"
"Connor would you mind, we are trying to come up with a solution for your slug problem here." Cutter shot Connor an annoyed look.
"But, ouch, they're trying to eat me!"
"Connor, just sit down and shut up!" Stephen barked.
Shocked Connor plopped down on the ground causing the sickening squelch of several slugs being squished.
"Ieew!" Abby said disgusted.
"We could try a water gun." Stephen suggested.
"Great idea Stephen, you think Claudia could get us one?" Cutter fished his phone out of his pocket and started dialing.
"Claudia, hi, it's Cutter... say can you get us a water gun...no not a super soaker, I was thinking more along the lines of a police high powered water gun...why? Ow Connor is being eaten alive by gastropods from the Mesozoic era...slugs...yes slugs...no I'm not kidding...no really, slugs...no without the shells, if they had shells they would be snails...yes, how long would that take?...couple of hours?..." Cutter glances at Connor who was looking slightly pale and was making odd faces. "I don't think we can wait that long...well just see what you can do...okay, bye." Cutter snapped his phone shut.
"And?" Abby questioned.
Cutter shook his head. "It's going to take Claudia at least an hour to arrange a water gun."
"Well we better think of something fast, cause Connor's not looking to good." Stephen pointed at Connor who looked absolutely miserable.
"Right." Cutter grumbled.
"Okay, so back to the bait idea then?" Abby shot Connor a worried look.
"That still leaves us with the problem of what to use for bait." Cutter answered.
"Uhm you guys?" Connor said carefully.
"Well they're flesh eating, so perhaps a dead cow or something would do." Stephen suggested.
Cutter shook his head. "Where would we get dead cow from right now?"
Abby seemed to be thinking hard. "Maybe we could...nah."
Connor tried again. "Fellows!"
"Connor shhh, we're trying to think." Cutter said without looking up.
"What if we tried the nearest supermarket." Stephen wondered.
"Yeah we might be able to find something there." Abby smiled hopefully.
Cutter nodded. "Worth a shot."
"Really guys you should see this!" Connor shouted.
Finally the others looked up annoyed.
"Hey, they're leaving." Cutter remarked confused. And indeed a slow steady stream of slugs was returning home through the anomaly.
"Why?" Abby asked nobody in particular, and nobody answered.
"Well that's that problem solved." Stephen smiled.
"They ate my sandwich..." Connor held up what was left of the sandwich.
"What was on the sandwich Connor." Abby suddenly asked.
Connor looked confused. "Egg, and lettuce and tomatoes, mayonnaise, cucumber."
"They were after the vegetables all along, Connor was just in the way." Cutter realized.
Stephen laughed. "So much for flesh eating slugs then."
"Are those sirens I'm hearing or am I just going crazy?" Abby wondered.
"Nope, those are sirens, I hear them too." Stephen squinted in the direction the noise was coming from. "It's the fire brigade."
A fire truck stopped in front of them followed by an ambulance and a black SUV. Claudia rushed out of the last one, then stopped dead in her tracks. "Connor's not being eaten alive by slugs, why not?"
"Oh yeah, sorry, the slugs were just after his sandwich." Cutter explained.
Claudia seemed to slowly get ready to explode. "Where are the slugs now?"
"They went back through the anomaly." Stephen supplied helpfully.
"You mean to tell me that I rushed an ambulance and the fire brigade over here for nothing?" Claudia asked eerily calm.
"Uhm, yes, but we are very grateful that you did?" Abby hid herself halfway behind Stephen, who looked decidedly unhappy about the prospect of being a human shield against Claudia's rage.
"Wonderful, that's just perfect, now they all think I'm crazy! You know that you guys are impossible to work with!"
"Look!" Connor pointed at the anomaly, it flickered for a bit and then disappeared.
"Alright, it seems we're done here." Cutter said and started to walk towards his truck, but Claudia stopped him. "Oh no, you are not leaving until you explain all this to them, I'm not going to get stuck with that alone." Claudia gestured towards the fire crew and ambulance personnel who were staring at the whole scene dumbstruck.
"Right...ehm..." Cutter tried.
Quickly Stephen walked up to the closest fireman and laid an arm around his shoulder. "What do you say man, did that look bloody real or what." The man nodded in confusion. "Good, you see we." Stephen gestured towards Claudia, Cutter, Abby and Connor. "are from...ITV and we are testing new equipment for a new show called..." Stephen hesitated.
"Primeval! It's about rips in time and space, and dinosaurs coming through them, it's going to be really cool ." Abby continued.
Stephen nodded, his arm still around the fireman. "Right, but apparently one of our gadgets has a sort of slug attracting quality." Stephen removed his arm from the fireman's shoulder and patted Connor on the head (Which was one of the few slime free areas on Connor). "Connor here, poor fellow, got swarmed by the slugs, seems we have a few glitches to still work out of the system." Connor smiled uncomfortably.
The fireman glanced at Claudia who quickly nodded. "Yes that's right, you guys better get back to the drawing board, because there is no way...primeval can air with slugs crawling all over the place."
"Right, if we're not needed then we'll just be going." A paramedic said looking quite uncomfortable.
"Yes of course, we wouldn't want to waste your time." Claudia answered.
They watched them speed of.
"ITV? Primeval?" Cutter laughed.
Abby and Stephen shrugged. "Well you didn't come up with anything better." Stephen answered.
Cutter shrugged as well and started to climb into the truck quickly followed by Abby and Stephen. "Claudia, you take Connor will you?" He said just before he too sped of, leaving Claudia with a slime covered Connor.
"Bloody Hell!"
The End.
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Tell me, next time I get the inexplicable urge to write about gastropods, should I just crawl into a corner and wait till it passes? Review please!