Title: Dusk Fades to Grey
Author: Flatkatsi
Email: flatkatsi@optusnet.com.au.
Status: Complete
Category: Little bit of hurt – not a lot of comfort
Pairings: None
Spoilers: None
Season: Any
Rating: G
Content Warnings: None
File Size: 45kb
Archive: Incoming Wormhole, Jackfic
Summary: Jack has an encounter in the woods.
Disclaimer: Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.
Author’s Note: This was originally the drabble “When Darkness Falls” for the word ‘Twilight’. It changed <g> Blame Elizabeth. Thanks to Nutty for the very late night beta. Who needs a muse when you’ve got a Nutty?
When darkness fell they came, slinking forward.
They waited and watched.
The prey was injured, the smell of blood arousing. They moved back when it moaned, all except the grey leader. He recognised something in this other.
But the prey was weak. It wouldn’t be long, and then they would feast.
Blood dripped, wasted into the earth. Some licked their lips, their anticipation growing.
They waited for the signal. Their leader would know when it was safe.
The leader always protected the pack from harm.
*************************************
He tried to stay alert, tried to stay focused, but it was getting more difficult by the second. He felt his head starting to drop, weighing heavily, his attention shifting.
The sound of soft movements brought him back with a start. He straightened and glared around him, daring them to come closer.
It was mere bravado.
He knew he was no match for them. There were just too many, and he was too weak. But he had never been one to go down without a fight and tonight was no exception.
Death moved forward on grey, quiet feet, patient as always.
***************************************
He never intended to get himself in these sort of messes. It just always seemed to happen. Put Jack O’Neill down on a quiet little planet, and unleash the dogs of war.
Only, this time it was literal.
Okay – not dogs exactly, but those big hairy things could have passed for wolves if it wasn’t for the extra long teeth and the glowing eyes. Hound of the Baskerville’s, eat your heart out.
Just don’t eat mine, he thought, ruefully.
He raised his eyes and tried to peer through the thick canopy of branches above him. There was no moon. Or moons.
It was getting darker.
It often did at night.
There was no sound of birds coming home to roost. No secretive little rustling of tiny creatures moving in the dusk. Only the harsh sound of panting, theirs and his, discordant in the silence of the forest.
*********************
The leader moved forward cautiously, step by silent step, sniffing the air.
This prey was strange, an unknown. Care was needed. Planning.
He wasn’t one for just rushing in. He always assessed the situation, weighed up the risks to his pack, and acted accordingly.
Some of his companions were like brothers to him. They had been at his side in many battles, saved his life. He was loath to put them in danger. At times he thought that he might be getting too attached to them. It wasn’t normal for a pack to stay unified for as long as his had. The other packs viewed them with suspicion and not a little awe.
They seemed invulnerable.
He didn’t realise that it was his leadership that made the difference. It always had.
He waited.
*******************************
The huge grey creature sat back on its haunches and opened its mouth.
It was as if it was smiling at him – the sort of smile that predators give when they know that they have all the time in the world in which to wait. He recognised that smile. He had given it often enough.
He had tried to stem the blood from his leg, but without success. It was slowly trickling out and he knew from the light-headed feeling that it was running out too fast. He didn’t have anything to tie around it; his medical supplies having been left along with his pack somewhere back at the start of this whole sorry mess.
He clasped his hand around the wound, pressing hard and willing it to stop bleeding.
Wasn’t working.
He only succeeded in making it throb.
That one bite had sure packed a punch. Now his back was against the wall, so to speak, or at least it was against a rough barked tree trunk, which was very uncomfortable, hard and knobbly.
He reached his hand slowly around to his radio and pressed the transmission switch for what seemed like the hundredth time.
“Carter?”
There was a low growl from the animal in front of him. He stared into its eyes, willing it to stay where it was.
“Teal’c?”
No answer.
Damn, but he was worried.
Who knew what the Jaffa were doing on what was a seemingly boring planet, with nothing what so ever to make it stand out from scores of others that they had visited recently. He only knew that they had been forced to split up and the last that he had seen of his team, they had been heading in the opposite direction to him, back towards the stargate. At the time, most of his attention had been concentrated on running as fast as he could, just a few steps ahead of the staff weapon blasts. He had drawn most of the Jaffa’s attention and managed to reach the trees.
That was where the trouble had really started, starting with the fall down the ravine. He had tumbled and slipped sideways, down about thirty feet, until he had hit the rocks at the bottom with a thud. Coming to his feet as quickly as he could, one foot refusing to cooperate, he had looked up to find his weapon dangling several feet above his head. There had been no chance to retrieve it. The sound of running feet had been loud at the top of the incline and he had only just managed to get out of sight before heads had appeared over the edge. There had been excited exclamations when they had seen his P90 and one of the men had risked injury by climbing down and grabbing the weapon. The find seemed to make them even more determined to find him.
He had lain; nursing various cuts and bruises, and a throbbing ankle, while the searching warriors had done everything but step on him. They had finally given up, climbing back up the rocks and disappearing off out of sight and he had gratefully stretched out his cramped legs and attempted to get to his feet.
That was when he realised that his ankle was going to be a problem.
It was broken.
He had managed to find a suitable branch to use as a walking stick, and, with its help, had limped his painful way through the steadily darkening forest in the hope of finding a route that he could use to get up the cliff and hook up with his team.
No such luck.
************************
They had stalked the prey for miles, watching it, while it moved slowly. Finally it had stumbled, slipped down to the ground and given a low moaning sound. That had been the first time that it had made any noise, and the pack had stayed hidden, waiting for the leader’s reaction.
The leader had observed the prey closely for a time. It was obviously injured, and injured prey was weak, but there was something about this unfamiliar creature that gave him pause.
It wasn’t until the prey had shut its eyes that he had moved. He always made the first move; he wouldn’t allow any of his pack to do something that he wouldn’t do himself.
He had lunged forward, swiftly grabbing an out flung limb in his strong jaws.
****************************
He had been tired and had found it increasingly difficult to put one step in front of the other. Finally, an exposed tree root had been his downfall and he had found himself face down on the loamy forest floor. Hours of hobbling, without food or water, had taken its toll, and he had let himself relax, revelling in the feeling of having the weight off his injured foot.
He should have known better than to let his guard down like that. There had been no excuse.
He had no warning, except the fraction of a second’s rustling, before a band of agonising pain had gripped his leg.
He had scrambled frantically backwards, ignoring the fact that his broken ankle was doing all the work. His right hand had groped for his side arm, and he had managed to draw it out and raise it, pointing it at the wolf like animal that was trying to pull him towards its waiting companions.
******************************
The crack had echoed through the trees, sending his pack running. He had felt a hot searing flash across his shoulder, and jumped in the air, releasing the prey as he did so. He twisted in mid air, and came back down already racing for the shelter of the trees.
One of the females had edged forward, belly to the ground until she was by his side. When she tried to lick the wound, he had given her a gentle snarl of warning.
It didn’t hurt.
She didn’t need to worry.
He licked the other’s blood from his teeth. Strange tasting blood, different and a little off-putting. His brother had come to him then and had taken on the task of cleaning the groove on his back, ignoring his protests. He stayed still and tried to hide the fact that it really did hurt. A lot.
****************************
The wild shot had given him some reprieve – time to get himself in a position where he could at least make some attempt to defend himself. The wolves – he really couldn’t help but think of them as anything else – had backed off, even the huge grey one. He knew that he hadn’t done more than annoy it; he could see it sitting back there behind a bush, another even bigger, black haired animal at its side.
They had stayed like that for hours, as the night stretched agonisingly slowly on. Sometime, towards dawn, the pack leader had stood, shaken himself and stalked confidently towards him, before sitting down once more.
That was how they had stayed.
Each watching the other.
Watching for any sign of weakness.
Two grey leaders, each watching the other, one keeping his eyes open only with effort, the other unblinking.
**********************
His small dark eyes were not the eyes of prey. They showed no terror, no defeat.
Just defiance.
Determination.
And the struggle to survive.
He was beginning to have a grudging respect for this creature.
This creature was not prey.
He was predator.
The place that he had sunk his teeth into was still bleeding sluggishly. Occasionally it would shake its head and stiffen up and he could sense that it was finding it harder and harder to stay awake. He could almost feel some sympathy for it. His own wound was aching and he thought with longing of his warm, comfortable den in the nearby caves.
There was an art to growing old. To not letting those small aches and pains that increasingly plagued him show. To keeping control, and with control, keeping the respect of the younger members of the pack. An art to being the leader.
He was distracted by a movement in the bushes near him.
************************************
Jack had watched, bemused, when a smaller and obviously younger wolf stood, padded off towards a patch of recently dug soil, and began to nose around it. The leader’s reaction had been immediate. He had moved in a grey blur, pinning the other wolf to the ground and snapping viciously at its ear. The youngster had yelped and, as soon as its ear was released, rolled, belly up, all four legs in the air in a show of total submission. With a final snarl, the elder wolf had casually turned its back and walked away, in a studied move that screamed of power.
It had then settled itself back on its haunches and yawned.
He couldn’t help but smile.
He eased his leg, and saw the keen eyes watch his movement.
Crap, his leg hurt!
He needed to stay alert. He needed to do something to keep himself awake.
“Well, this is fun.”
The grey wolf’s ears twitched.
Jack could see the pink of the dawn sky behind the heavy canopy of leaves. He would be glad when the sun came up, the cold had seeped into him, causing his misshapen ankle to ache, and the wound in his leg to pulsate with pain.
The sky gradually brightened into a brilliant clear blue, and the pack started to shift uneasily.
“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” More than one of them jumped at his voice.
The leader stood.
********************************
The pack was getting restless. They weren’t use to being out of their dens when the sun was so bright. They were creatures of the dusk, creatures of the night.
The daylight hurt their eyes.
They looked to him for leadership. They had waited patiently all night, but they wouldn’t wait much longer.
Their hunger was raw, imperative, and very, very real.
He didn’t know why he still hesitated. There was something about this strange creature, something that made him look at it, not as prey, but as if it were another one such as he, despite their obvious differences.
But one look around at his pack mates told him that he could afford to wait no longer.
*****************************
Jack held his gun firmly, staring straight into the leader’s yellow eyes. He knew that he didn’t have enough rounds for all of them, but he also knew that the hold that this grey wolf had over the pack was absolute. Kill him, and they would probably turn tail and run.
He didn’t want to do it.
He had a grudging respect for this animal.
It stood, tall and menacing, only a few short feet from where he sat.
Jack felt his hackles rise.
He felt the atmosphere change.
And he readied himself.
“Colonel!” The cry shattered the tense silence. The sound of heavy bodies crashing through the undergrowth broke the impasse and as one the pack rose and melted into the trees.
Their abrupt departure startled him as much as his team’s sudden arrival.
He had become somewhat used to the old wolf’s presence. It had been familiar somehow. The two of them had seemed to come to an understanding. Those golden eyes had stared at him with the same respect that he had felt.
Perhaps it was recognition, one leader for another that had saved his life this night.
He looked off into the brush, as the running footsteps of his team grew closer, wondering, wondering if he was not that much different.
The sight of his bedraggled team, worry in their eyes, was a relief. He was their leader, but a leader without a team, was lost.
****************************
The leader padded back a short time later, sniffing the air warily. He looked towards the tree, seeing traces of blood on the ground.
The prey that wasn't prey no longer lay there.
His pack had come and taken him away.
This was one battle that he was secretly glad to have lost.