[ The only silver lining to this mushroom cloud is that it’s not fucking snowing. Or raining. The chill that hangs in the air is damp and clinging, and Mace knows by nightfall he’s gonna be feeling it for real, especially in his extremities and his chest — but it’s not the kind of cold that can really bother him anymore. Not after the coolant tank, although he finds he has a new, special hatred of it precisely because of that.
Right now, though, there’s something more immediate on his mind. Keeping track of time is one of the most futile things he could attempt to do, but from what he can tell, it’s been well over a goddamn hour, and nothing. Not even the rustle of leaves, or the sound of small animals — there's a heavy stillness lying over the entire forest that’s setting his teeth on edge.
All around him, the grey malevolence of the fog remains the same, a perpetual near-dusk.
What Mace is keeping track of, however, is his step count. For one thing, it’s telling him how far he’s travelled — about a mile and a half, going by his usual brisk pace. For another, it tells him that the distance between each scattered thing he finds is irregular. Random. Ian's robe, which he’d slipped on. The quilt, which he’d rolled up into a ball and left by a tree stump, in case they could retrace their steps. A sad, crumpled packet of instant coffee that he’d pocketed into the robe immediately, without letting himself think about why.
No pattern. Not intentionally dropped. Pulled out of Ian’s grasp, maybe, when he’d been dragged —
Fuck, he doesn’t want to think about that. Can’t think about that. The one thing keeping him going, the one thing he has, is the hope that Ian’s out there, alive. He’s gotta hold onto that and not let go.
If something had happened to Ian — he’d know. He knows he’d know, because whatever the fuck was doing this to them would waste no time rubbing it in his fucking face, making it clear to him that he had absolutely nothing to keep fighting for.
Less than five hundred steps later, he hears something go off in the distance, a crack like a gunshot, and freezes mid-step.
It’s not a gun. There’s something in the trees, and it’s moving — it’s moving fast, and by the sound of it, it’s headed right in his direction.
Mace has barely enough time to make a judgment call of what he should do before he’s cursing and grabbing onto one of the low-hanging branches of the tree next to him, a great, sleepy beast of an ash tree. He swings himself up to the second branch and then goes still as he listens hard. For anything.
What he hears instead, is.
Is.
His blood runs cold, and then an angry heat suffuses him, chest to throat to face, knowing whose voice it is that he's hearing. That these fuckers are making him hear, because there's no way. No, this is a fucking distraction, or a trap. Like when they'd made him see a surgeon instead of Ian, trying to get him to attack — to kill. Or just a way to derail him so that he loses his focus and misses Ian passing right under his goddamn nose —
Mace's face hardens and his hand goes white-knuckled around the hilt of the hammer, the other tightening around a branch so hard that it creaks, wood cutting into his bruised palm. ]
no subject
Right now, though, there’s something more immediate on his mind. Keeping track of time is one of the most futile things he could attempt to do, but from what he can tell, it’s been well over a goddamn hour, and nothing. Not even the rustle of leaves, or the sound of small animals — there's a heavy stillness lying over the entire forest that’s setting his teeth on edge.
All around him, the grey malevolence of the fog remains the same, a perpetual near-dusk.
What Mace is keeping track of, however, is his step count. For one thing, it’s telling him how far he’s travelled — about a mile and a half, going by his usual brisk pace. For another, it tells him that the distance between each scattered thing he finds is irregular. Random. Ian's robe, which he’d slipped on. The quilt, which he’d rolled up into a ball and left by a tree stump, in case they could retrace their steps. A sad, crumpled packet of instant coffee that he’d pocketed into the robe immediately, without letting himself think about why.
No pattern. Not intentionally dropped. Pulled out of Ian’s grasp, maybe, when he’d been dragged —
Fuck, he doesn’t want to think about that. Can’t think about that. The one thing keeping him going, the one thing he has, is the hope that Ian’s out there, alive. He’s gotta hold onto that and not let go.
If something had happened to Ian — he’d know. He knows he’d know, because whatever the fuck was doing this to them would waste no time rubbing it in his fucking face, making it clear to him that he had absolutely nothing to keep fighting for.
Less than five hundred steps later, he hears something go off in the distance, a crack like a gunshot, and freezes mid-step.
It’s not a gun. There’s something in the trees, and it’s moving — it’s moving fast, and by the sound of it, it’s headed right in his direction.
Mace has barely enough time to make a judgment call of what he should do before he’s cursing and grabbing onto one of the low-hanging branches of the tree next to him, a great, sleepy beast of an ash tree. He swings himself up to the second branch and then goes still as he listens hard. For anything.
What he hears instead, is.
Is.
His blood runs cold, and then an angry heat suffuses him, chest to throat to face, knowing whose voice it is that he's hearing. That these fuckers are making him hear, because there's no way. No, this is a fucking distraction, or a trap. Like when they'd made him see a surgeon instead of Ian, trying to get him to attack — to kill. Or just a way to derail him so that he loses his focus and misses Ian passing right under his goddamn nose —
Mace's face hardens and his hand goes white-knuckled around the hilt of the hammer, the other tightening around a branch so hard that it creaks, wood cutting into his bruised palm. ]