Birthday fic for Telperion_15: This Old House
Happy birthday telperion_15! Hope you have a lovely day.
Title: This Old House
Author: Athene
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing/characters: Nick/Connor
Rating: 18
Warnings: Smut
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Not mine. ITV and Impossible Pictures own them.
Word count: approx 3265
Summary: Nick and Connor go away on holiday together for the first time.
AN: Birthday fic for telperion_15. I do occasionally pay attention when people mention their random kinks... *evil grin*
“Wow! This place is huge!”
Nick smiled at Connor’s wide-eyed surprise, and a tension he hadn’t even been aware he was feeling gave way to relief. The big old house on the west coast of Scotland had been something of a gamble, but now they were finally here, Nick could almost feel himself beginning to relax into the holiday spirit.
Nick retrieved his bags out of the boot of the car and went to unlock the front door while Connor juggled his rucksack, laptop bag, and all the other stuff he had refused to leave behind, ‘just in case’.
The hallway was a tiled corridor that ran the full length of the house to a door that presumably opened out onto the back garden. There were doorways off the corridor to either side, and a wide staircase up to the first floor. It was an old house, Nick knew, and even just the dark curving polished wood of the banister and the solid wood doors made him feel more at home than any modern flat with all its sharp lines and bright colours.
He just hoped Connor would feel the same.
“It’s warmer in here than I was expecting,” Connor commented, arriving in the corridor behind Nick and dropping practically all of his bags onto the floor.
“Phil said he’d been up yesterday to air the place out before we got here. He must have put the central heating on as well,” Nick said. “And before you ask, yes, there is cable TV and Wi-Fi internet. I checked before I agreed to take it.”
Nick chuckled at Connor’s attempt to look affronted.
“I thought you wanted to get away from it all?” Connor said.
“I do. But I know what you’re like when separated from the home comforts for more than a day or two.”
Nick slipped a hand around Connor’s head and pulled him into a soft kiss to get rid of the pout that he could see forming. Connor responded eagerly, and wrapped his arms around Nick’s waist, tugging them closer together and proceeding to kiss Nick back enthusiastically.
“I take it you approve, then?” Nick said when they finally parted.
“Yep,” Connor grinned.
“Good. Now, shall we find the kitchen and make a cup of coffee before we start unpacking?”
“You stick the kettle on, I need to go find the bathroom.”
Connor bounded off up the stairs before Nick could reply, so Nick left their bags in the hallway and began to explore the ground floor.
The kitchen was at the back of the house, and it was large enough to have a big wooden dining table in the middle of the room. The window was covered by a net curtain, but Nick suspected it looked out onto more of the rolling, windswept hills that they had driven through to get here. Nick took a quick mental inventory of what supplies were already here and what they would need to pick up from the village shop, and then filled the kettle and left it to boil while he continued his exploration.
It was true, he had wanted to get away from it all for a while, which was partly what had made him suggest Scotland when Connor voiced the idea of them going away on holiday together. Nick knew both himself and his lover too well - if they didn’t get far enough away from the ARC, they would end up getting dragged in if there was an anomaly alert, no matter how many good intentions they had about having a proper break. From here, it would take them literally hours to drive back down south if anything happened, so it really would have to be the end of the world before they were called in, or before their own curiosity got the better of them.
Still, he had been nervous. It was the first time they had ever gone away together, and Nick wasn’t sure whether Connor was really the type to like isolated countryside, no matter how picturesque it was. But then, neither of them were the type who particularly wanted big city holidays either. And to be honest, it was the first time in several years that either of them had actually taken a holiday of any sort, let alone together as a couple, so it was new ground for both of them.
Nick wandered into the living room and stopped in his tracks. There was a huge open fireplace, with a fluffy-looking sheepskin rug spread out in front of it, along with a big leather sofa and matching armchairs. A decent sized flat screen TV sat in one corner, while a bookcase full of magazines and what appeared to be a random assortment of paperbacks faced the TV from the opposite corner.
But it was the massive window on the far side of the room that had caught Nick’s attention. He walked over and stared out across the gently rippling waters of the loch, to the snow-covered mountains that lay beyond on the other side of the water. Okay, perhaps not actual mountains, Nick reflected, but they were certainly steep and rugged and imposing, even from this distance. The sun had just gone down behind the almost-mountains, and the sky was bathed in a soft pinkish light that threw everything into shadows and contrast, and was reflected a thousand times over on each gentle wave that crossed the surface of the loch.
“Hey, Nick, I found the bedroom.” Connor clattered into the living room and headed over to join him at the window. “The bed’s huge, and really soft and bouncy an- oh, wow!”
Nick smiled as Connor stopped at his side and gaped at the view. He could almost imagine Connor bouncing on the bed, just to test it out, but he hadn’t expected Connor’s reaction to the scenery. Nick put his arm around Connor’s shoulders and leaned close enough to press a soft kiss to his head.
“You really must be impressed if it’s made you actually speechless,” Nick commented.
Connor snuggled closer. “I can think of a few other things that make me stop talking as well,” he replied with a cheeky grin. Then Nick felt the young man shiver. “But possibly not until we’ve got that fire going. Even with the heating on, it’s still a bit nippy.”
“Southern softy,” Nick teased.
“Oi!” Connor poked him in the ribs. “Less of the ‘southern’, thank you very much.”
“You’re all southerners as far as I’m concerned,” Nick replied.
“When you’ve quite finished maligning my good Yorkshire heritage, it’s still cold, and I still want that fire on!”
Nick rolled his eyes. Then his stomach rumbled.
“Fine.” Nick said. “While I’m getting the fire going, why don’t you take the car down to that fish and chip shop we saw in the village on the way through, and pick us up something to eat. The shops are all going to be closed at this time anyway.”
Connor grinned. “Cool. Deep fried battered mars bars all round then?”
Nick just gave him a look. “Now who’s maligning a national heritage?”
Connor dropped a quick kiss on Nick’s lips. “Fine. Just fish and chips twice, then.”
While he was gone, Nick did indeed get the fire lit, although it took him rather longer than he expected - it had been some time since he’d been anywhere with a proper open fire. He wasn’t going to admit that to Connor, though, and by the time Connor returned with the food, the living room was already becoming toasty warm, and Nick had made two cups of tea.
Once they were fed, caffeinated, and warm, Nick turned the TV on and channel hopped until he found something that neither of them objected to, and Connor curled up on the sofa next to him and cuddled closer.
“This is nice,” Connor said quietly.
“You really like it?” Nick asked, before he could stop himself. Apparently his earlier nerves hadn’t been banished entirely after all. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be a huge fan of being in the middle of nowhere like this.”
Connor looked up at him and snuggled up to Nick’s shoulder.
“I like it. I’m not saying I’m going to be thrilled if you suddenly decide to start traipsing around the countryside and climbing up mountains in the middle of December, but it’s nice. It’s cosy. And the best part is, I’ve got you all to myself.”
Nick couldn’t help being both relieved and amused.
“Are you getting soppy in your old age, Connor Temple?”
“Me? I’m not the one who booked a romantic holiday in the country on the shores of a beautiful lake with mountains and stuff in the distance.”
“Fair point,” Nick conceded. “And it’s a loch, not a lake.”
“Same difference.” Connor hesitated, and then gave Nick a particularly cheeky grin. “So, do you fancy test driving the bed before this conversation gets any worse and we both turn into characters from a Mills and Boon novel?”
Nick rolled his eyes again, but let himself be dragged upstairs to the bedroom for their first night on holiday together.
It turned out Connor was right - the bed was very soft and bouncy.
Nick found the spare bedroom on the morning of the second day. It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t finished exploring the rest of the house before he was distracted by fire-lighting and fish and chips and Connor the previous night, so he left Connor ensconced in front of his laptop, and investigated all the rooms he hadn’t seen yet.
Well, ‘bedroom’ possibly wasn’t really the right word for it, although the sofa looked like it was actually a fold-out sofa bed. Perhaps study or office, or even library might have been a better description. But to be honest, Nick’s attention was immediately drawn to the most unexpected thing he had found in the whole house - a piano. It was one of the upright types rather than a grand piano, but with its smooth, polished dark wood it looked right at home in this old stone-built house in the country.
Nick let his hand trail gently across the top of it. There was a layer of dust, suggesting Phil hadn’t bothered to do anything with this particular room, no doubt assuming they wouldn’t need or want to use it. Nick hesitated a moment, and then used his sleeve to wipe the dust off, and lifted the lid that covered the keys. He pressed a key, more as an experiment to see if it was still working than in expectation of harmonious music. He was pleasantly surprised when it actually sounded far more in-tune than its apparently neglected state would suggest.
He sat down at the piano and let his fingers slide over the keys, testing notes here and there, the memory of all those childhood lessons directing his movements without Nick even consciously thinking about what he was doing.
But those weren’t the only memories that it brought back. Nick had used to own a piano, until the timeline changed on him, and the piano in his house had been one of the many casualties lost to that event, along with Claudia Brown and a thousand other details, big and small. And somehow, with everything else that was going on, it had never seemed important enough to acquire a replacement.
This wasn’t what he wanted to be thinking about when he was supposed to be having a relaxing holiday, though. Nick was on the point of closing the lid and getting up when he realised Connor was in the doorway.
“I thought I heard something,” Connor said. He came over to Nick, his expression reflecting a level of fascination usually reserved for dinosaurs and particularly exciting computer code. “I didn’t know you could play the piano.”
“It’s been a while,” Nick admitted.
“Can you play something now?”
“Like what?” Nick said, more to cover his surprise than anything else.
“I don’t know. Anything.”
Nick was beginning to suspect that Connor wasn’t going to going to let him get away from this now, so he turned back to the piano, settled himself down, and let himself relax as his hands remembered how to do this.
He barely made it through the opening bars of Für Elise before he suddenly became self conscious and stopped. He glanced at Connor, expecting to find the young man amused, or possibly outright laughing at him. Instead, the fascination was still there, and now there was something else as well. Nick tried not to squirm under Connor’s scrutiny.
“I’m a bit rusty,” he mumbled.
“That sounded pretty good to me.” Connor hesitated, and then gave Nick a hopeful look. “Could you teach me something?”
Nick stared at him in surprise for all of ten seconds before he shuffled aside on the bench and Connor sat down next to him. Of all the things he had imagined doing on their holiday, this certainly hadn’t been on any of his mental lists.
He showed Connor some basic notes and chords, and how to string them together. When Connor tried it for himself, Nick found himself placing his hands over Connor’s, letting his fingers control both their movements, showing Connor how to apply just the right amount of pressure to the keys, and for how long.
Nick tried not to wince when Connor managed the equivalent of a random keyboard mash.
“Sorry,” Connor said, but he was smiling. “I may be a genius at a lot of things, but music isn’t really one of them,” he admitted.
“Modest, as well,” Nick said with a chuckle.
“Yep. That’s probably why you love me,” Connor said with a cheeky grin.
Nick rolled his eyes, but leaned close and kissed his young lover.
“Anyway,” Connor added. “Now that we’ve established that I’m completely rubbish at it, maybe you could show me how it’s done properly.”
Nick had a vague feeling he had been manoeuvred into a corner, but this time he realised he didn’t mind so much. He turned back to the piano, nudged Connor a little further out of the way, and began to play again. Nick allowed himself to become lost in the music, only peripherally aware of Connor standing up and moving around, until he felt Connor’s arms slide around his chest from behind, and Connor gently rested his chin on Nick’s shoulder.
“That’s quite distracting, you know,” Nick said, only faltering a little this time.
“This is actually really sexy,” Connor replied, and turned his head slightly to nuzzle Nick’s ear.
At that, Nick really did pause in his playing.
“You think playing the piano is sexy?” he asked, with rather more incredulity in his tone than was perhaps strictly necessary.
“No. I think that you playing the piano is sexy,” Connor corrected. One of his hands moved south to Nick’s crotch and gently caressed the denim of his jeans.
Nick leaned back against Connor and turned his head enough to find Connor’s mouth and kiss him.
“You are a very strange man, Connor,” he mumbled.
“Again, I’m fairly sure that’s why you love me. That, and the sex.” Nick felt Connor’s smirk against his face. “Speaking of which...”
Nick had a momentary vision of them attempting sex against the piano, and then decided it was probably safer for both their backs and for the piano itself if they didn’t. He swung round on the bench and stood up and pushed Connor back towards the sofa. Connor quickly got the hint, and they tumbled down onto the cushions in a tangle of limbs and kissing and groping.
Connor somehow managed to use his mouth to distract Nick long enough that he only realised his jeans had been undone when he felt Connor’s hand worming its way inside them. Nick trailed kisses and nips down Connor’s throat until he ran into the obstacle of Connor’s shirt collar.
“Trousers off,” Connor murmured, his free hand apparently trying to shove Nick’s jeans and underwear down, while his other had continued to be occupied driving Nick slowly insane.
Nick quickly obliged, and kicked his shoes off before he wriggled out of his trousers and underwear, more or less managing to continue kissing Connor while he did it. Before he could settle back down, Connor twisted them and flipped their positions so that Nick was the one sitting on the sofa, and Connor was on top. Connor gave Nick a very satisfied grin, and then slid off to kneel on the floor in front of Nick, and proceeded to take Nick’s cock in his mouth. Nick moaned out loud, letting his head fall back against the sofa as Connor’s mouth yet again proved how good it was at things other than talking. This felt far too good, and Nick felt only a momentary sense of guilt at letting Connor do all the work.
Abruptly, Connor stopped and pulled back. Nick opened his eyes and made a vague disgruntled noise. Connor responded with a quick grin, and then shoved his own trousers and underwear off as fast as he possibly could. Then Connor clambered onto Nick’s lap, reached round for Nick’s cock, and slowly lowered himself down onto it. Nick almost came right away. Even after the activities of the previous night, Connor was tight, and they both knew that spit wasn’t really an adequate lubricant, but apparently Connor was too eager and Nick had very little inclination to move right then, even if he had been able to.
Connor shifted a little, adjusting his position with a small gasp. Then he began fucking himself on Nick’s cock, lifting himself up and then sliding back down far too slowly for Nick’s liking. He slipped his hands around Connor’s hips and held him still, at the same time thrusting up, and this time they both made incoherent noises of pleasure. Connor threw his head back, exposing his throat in a way that made Nick want to bite him, mark him, claim him.
Without warning, Connor clenched around him, and that was enough to tip Nick over the edge as well, and Nick emptied himself into Connor at the same time as Connor came rather messily over his own shirt and Nick’s lap.
A few moments later, there was the inevitable collapse into a tangle of limbs and heavy breathing and stickiness. Nick waited a moment, and then nuzzled Connor’s face and held his waist as the young man lifted himself up and let Nick’s cock slide out. Connor shuffled round to sit next to Nick, curling up against him and snuggling against Nick’s chest with a very self-satisfied, and sated, expression.
“I’m getting too old for sex on sofas,” Nick muttered, as various limbs and joints protested in the aftermath of their activities.
“No you’re not,” Connor said in a voice that clearly did not expect any further argument. “Besides, how many rooms are there in this house?”
“What?” Nick asked, more than usually confused by Connor’s latest non sequitur.
Connor’s face took on a look of concentration, and Nick could almost see him mentally counting the rooms.
“What does the number of rooms have to do with anything?” Nick asked again.
Connor smirked and snuggled closer. Nick wrapped his arms around Connor and nuzzled his hair.
“I’m just wondering what the chances are of us having sex in every room in the house before we leave.” There was another brief flash of that self-satisfied look again, and this time it was accompanied by a cheeky grin. “Two down...”