Returning Home Chapter 4
Title: Returning Home Chapter 4
Author: TalliW
Characters: Lester/Cutter, Becker/Connor, Abby, Sarah, Jenny, Danny Quinn
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Primeval is the property of Impossible Pictures. I write just for fun.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to the lovely Fredbassett for beta-reading.
Summary: Cutter and Connor have vanished in another universe through the artefact in episode 3x03. Now they are back in their own world but they are changed men after being held as sex slaves for years. Can they ever recover from that ordeal?
Warning:This story contains mentions of rape and violence.
"The wounds were healed the next day but the flesh was still tender. Cutter and I tried to move very carefully to avoid it tearing up again. But they didn't give us any break. Lady Jenny ordered him to kneel down. Cutter probably didn’t obey fast enough or it was something else that ticked her off. He had to stand up again and she... she just took the electro-shocker. Pushed it against his groin. And Mistress Abby laughed. They both laughed while Cutter twisted in pain on the floor. Then Mistress Abby said, 'Now the other. Just to make sure he understands his place.'
Connor started to tremble violently. Tears spilled over his cheeks and a low, guttural moan escaped his throat. With a sob he seeked shelter in Becker's arms.
"Connor, you’re home. No one will hurt you here. You’re safe."
Becker didn't know how often he had said there words in the last two days. He still was amazed that Connor calmed down instantly when he spoke to him. For whatever reason Connor had decided he could trust him, Becker was grateful for it. The young man had suffered enough. So Becker was glad to provide a sense of safety for him.
"Stop looking at me like that," Connor hissed at Lester. "It really wasn't so bad. In fact life was okay if you obeyed."
"I can't see you as the obedient type," Lester stated calmly.
Connor's face flushed with shame. "I learned to be. Quickly. Mistress Abby was...," he faltered for a moment. "She was very creative in her punishment methods. Within a week I did everything she ordered. I wasn’t as strong as Cutter."
Lester noticed how a shudder went through Connor's body every time he said Abby's name and made a mental note to keep Abby away from Connor at any price.
"What about Christine Johnson and Danny Quinn? You mentioned them several times in a very contradictory way."
"Christine Johnson is the head of Lady Jenny's guard. She is also the current leader of the resistance, the secret party against slavery and abuse. She and her husband, Danny, helped us. Certainly not because she is all good-hearted. I think she just wants the power she can't otherwise attain as a child of a low level family. But without her I would never have got hold of the artefact to get home. I'm glad Danny hasn't been caught or turned traitor. Christine would only take it out on the other servants if she had lost another husband to the cause."
"Connor, you realise this Danny Quinn you’ve met here isn't the man you knew in that other universe?"
Connor blinked, confused. "Oh. Right. I forgot."
"Well, back to your story. What about Helen? Was she involved in any of this?"
"Helen?" Connor thought hard for over a minute. Suddenly his face brightened. "Oh, you mean the Master's first wife. Lady Helen of Abingdon? I never met her in person, only heard about her fate from Cutter. She went mad one day and tried to kill the Duke and his second wife with a pair of scissors."
"Why I'm not surprised?" Lester muttered.
"But you should know all about that day." Connor looked in bafflement at Lester. "I was told that was how you got to be leader of the Duke's guard. You put half a dozen bullets in Lady Helen's chest and were promoted for that."
"So I was saving Leek's life?"
Connor nodded earnestly.
"Great! I must have been demented in that other universe."
"Other universe?"
"Never mind. Go on, Connor. Just imagine I know nothing about any of this. So I got promoted. What happened then? Tell me the whole story."
"You tried to kidnap the Duke last year. People say it was because you were secretly in love with Lady Jenny, the Duke's second wife, and wanted him out of your way. Only me and Cutter knew that you were working with Christine and Danny and trying to help the liberation front. Until I saw you here I believed you’d died in the dungeons ages ago."
Lester inhaled deeply. He wasn't sure he liked the personality of his alter ego, who had been a faithful servant to Leek and then later connived with the power hungry Christine Johnson.
But currently he was more worried about Connor. The boy seemed to have trouble distinguishing between both worlds and there were big memory gaps regarding his old life while he remembered his time as a slave in the palace with painstaking accuracy.
"It sounded like a simple task. Get a bunch of roses for the mistress from the garden, but only one at a time. It was summer and very hot outside. Lady Jenny and Mistress Abby were sitting under a canopy in the pavilion, watching me bringing the roses, one after another. My hands and feet were soon bleeding from the thorns and the loose gravel on the paths. The sun was burning down on my naked skin and the brands had started to blister. I hadn't had any food or water that day and the day before. Every time I stopped to rest, I was pushed forward by the guard until I just moved automatically. Just one step before the other, all day. In the evening, when Mistress Abby handed me her cup, still a quarter full with water, I was so grateful I sank to my knees and kissed her feet."
Lester, Becker and Ditzy sat in Lester's office and let the burning of the alcohol soothe their rattled nerves.
Ditzy had never felt so horrible before. Not even trying to stitch together a friend with a open stomach wound in the middle of a battlefield had affected him as much. Some of Connor's reports had been relatively harmless, almost funny in a sick sort of way but there had also been things that would give him nightmares for months. "And all that on top of the rapes. They were breaking their wills."
"In a very effective way," Lester muttered and decided against another shot of brandy. He would end up an alcoholic if he wasn't more careful.
"Connor hasn't mentioned any rapes," Becker objected.
"Do you think he did it voluntarily?"
"Well, Miss Maitland and Miss Lewis are good-looking woman and he's a young energetic man..."
Lester and Ditzy looked at Becker as though he had sprouted a second head.
"We're not talking about sex with his Mistresses. Although I doubt he was such a willing participant in that either," Ditzy said finally.
"So what are you not telling me?"
Ditzy glanced at Lester who gave his okay with a curt nod.
"They have been anal penetrated. Evidence points out that Cutter must have been gang raped. I found various semen samples and he had to be stitched."
Becker turned white as a sheet. "But Connor wasn't gang raped, wasn't he?" he croaked.
"I only found semen from one person in his anus but that only means he hasn't been subjected to it in the last few days. Don't forget they were there for over four years. Four years, Becker. "
Ditzy and Lester shared a look as Becker stumbled out of the room, slightly green around the edges and probably in search of the nearest toilet.
"Should Cutter ever wake up his mental health will probably be in the same bad shape or even worse. That frightened kid in the infirmary has barely any resemblance to the former Connor Temple. What for a sick world were a vibrant young genius gets reduced to a submissive sex toy."
"In the end he might not even have thought to rebel anymore," Becker tossed in as he re-entered the room, still very pale. "I’ve seen something like that in people who have been abducted by the National Liberation Army in Colombia. They didn't attempt to escape despite later being allowed to walk around freely. A few of them even tried to protect their captors when the rescue team arrived."
Ditzy filed that bit of information quietly away. Becker had said he had seen it for himself, not just heard or read about it. So the posh captain had seen some action in the field after all.
"But Cutter and Connor fled," Ditzy said loudly. "Something must have happened to wake up their resistance."
"My guess is they haven't managed to break Cutter completely. He always has been a very strong-minded, stubborn man."
While Ditzy agreed with Lester's speculation about Cutter's resistance he was sure it hadn't survived the period of four years. There had to be a trigger, something so horrible and more worse than everything they had endured before.
He hoped that event had been Cutter's gang rape but then Connor wouldn't be so badly traumatised as well except... Ditzy pushed the disturbing thought quickly back into a corner of his mind. Later he would compare the DNA of the semen samples with the DNA of all ARC employees.
"Sir, I recommend calling in a psychologist. We aren't qualified to deal with trauma patients. And Becker can't play babysitter to Temple forever."
"I will think about your suggestion, Lieutenant. Although I can understand your concern, I have to consider aspects of safety. In Mr Temple’s mind there are things buried that I don't want to have an outsider poking around in. We have to fall back on a professional with adequate clearance."
Three very subdued men left the ARC half an hour later. Jenny and Lorraine Wickes had given them a tongue lashing after they had discovered them drinking in Lester's office. With a touch of worry, Lester had registered that they had all stood to attention in fright when Jenny had entered the room. Connor's reports apparently had started to affect their view on the two women. Perhaps a psychologist wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.
Author: TalliW
Characters: Lester/Cutter, Becker/Connor, Abby, Sarah, Jenny, Danny Quinn
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Primeval is the property of Impossible Pictures. I write just for fun.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to the lovely Fredbassett for beta-reading.
Summary: Cutter and Connor have vanished in another universe through the artefact in episode 3x03. Now they are back in their own world but they are changed men after being held as sex slaves for years. Can they ever recover from that ordeal?
Warning:This story contains mentions of rape and violence.
"The wounds were healed the next day but the flesh was still tender. Cutter and I tried to move very carefully to avoid it tearing up again. But they didn't give us any break. Lady Jenny ordered him to kneel down. Cutter probably didn’t obey fast enough or it was something else that ticked her off. He had to stand up again and she... she just took the electro-shocker. Pushed it against his groin. And Mistress Abby laughed. They both laughed while Cutter twisted in pain on the floor. Then Mistress Abby said, 'Now the other. Just to make sure he understands his place.'
Connor started to tremble violently. Tears spilled over his cheeks and a low, guttural moan escaped his throat. With a sob he seeked shelter in Becker's arms.
"Connor, you’re home. No one will hurt you here. You’re safe."
Becker didn't know how often he had said there words in the last two days. He still was amazed that Connor calmed down instantly when he spoke to him. For whatever reason Connor had decided he could trust him, Becker was grateful for it. The young man had suffered enough. So Becker was glad to provide a sense of safety for him.
"Stop looking at me like that," Connor hissed at Lester. "It really wasn't so bad. In fact life was okay if you obeyed."
"I can't see you as the obedient type," Lester stated calmly.
Connor's face flushed with shame. "I learned to be. Quickly. Mistress Abby was...," he faltered for a moment. "She was very creative in her punishment methods. Within a week I did everything she ordered. I wasn’t as strong as Cutter."
Lester noticed how a shudder went through Connor's body every time he said Abby's name and made a mental note to keep Abby away from Connor at any price.
"What about Christine Johnson and Danny Quinn? You mentioned them several times in a very contradictory way."
"Christine Johnson is the head of Lady Jenny's guard. She is also the current leader of the resistance, the secret party against slavery and abuse. She and her husband, Danny, helped us. Certainly not because she is all good-hearted. I think she just wants the power she can't otherwise attain as a child of a low level family. But without her I would never have got hold of the artefact to get home. I'm glad Danny hasn't been caught or turned traitor. Christine would only take it out on the other servants if she had lost another husband to the cause."
"Connor, you realise this Danny Quinn you’ve met here isn't the man you knew in that other universe?"
Connor blinked, confused. "Oh. Right. I forgot."
"Well, back to your story. What about Helen? Was she involved in any of this?"
"Helen?" Connor thought hard for over a minute. Suddenly his face brightened. "Oh, you mean the Master's first wife. Lady Helen of Abingdon? I never met her in person, only heard about her fate from Cutter. She went mad one day and tried to kill the Duke and his second wife with a pair of scissors."
"Why I'm not surprised?" Lester muttered.
"But you should know all about that day." Connor looked in bafflement at Lester. "I was told that was how you got to be leader of the Duke's guard. You put half a dozen bullets in Lady Helen's chest and were promoted for that."
"So I was saving Leek's life?"
Connor nodded earnestly.
"Great! I must have been demented in that other universe."
"Other universe?"
"Never mind. Go on, Connor. Just imagine I know nothing about any of this. So I got promoted. What happened then? Tell me the whole story."
"You tried to kidnap the Duke last year. People say it was because you were secretly in love with Lady Jenny, the Duke's second wife, and wanted him out of your way. Only me and Cutter knew that you were working with Christine and Danny and trying to help the liberation front. Until I saw you here I believed you’d died in the dungeons ages ago."
Lester inhaled deeply. He wasn't sure he liked the personality of his alter ego, who had been a faithful servant to Leek and then later connived with the power hungry Christine Johnson.
But currently he was more worried about Connor. The boy seemed to have trouble distinguishing between both worlds and there were big memory gaps regarding his old life while he remembered his time as a slave in the palace with painstaking accuracy.
"It sounded like a simple task. Get a bunch of roses for the mistress from the garden, but only one at a time. It was summer and very hot outside. Lady Jenny and Mistress Abby were sitting under a canopy in the pavilion, watching me bringing the roses, one after another. My hands and feet were soon bleeding from the thorns and the loose gravel on the paths. The sun was burning down on my naked skin and the brands had started to blister. I hadn't had any food or water that day and the day before. Every time I stopped to rest, I was pushed forward by the guard until I just moved automatically. Just one step before the other, all day. In the evening, when Mistress Abby handed me her cup, still a quarter full with water, I was so grateful I sank to my knees and kissed her feet."
Lester, Becker and Ditzy sat in Lester's office and let the burning of the alcohol soothe their rattled nerves.
Ditzy had never felt so horrible before. Not even trying to stitch together a friend with a open stomach wound in the middle of a battlefield had affected him as much. Some of Connor's reports had been relatively harmless, almost funny in a sick sort of way but there had also been things that would give him nightmares for months. "And all that on top of the rapes. They were breaking their wills."
"In a very effective way," Lester muttered and decided against another shot of brandy. He would end up an alcoholic if he wasn't more careful.
"Connor hasn't mentioned any rapes," Becker objected.
"Do you think he did it voluntarily?"
"Well, Miss Maitland and Miss Lewis are good-looking woman and he's a young energetic man..."
Lester and Ditzy looked at Becker as though he had sprouted a second head.
"We're not talking about sex with his Mistresses. Although I doubt he was such a willing participant in that either," Ditzy said finally.
"So what are you not telling me?"
Ditzy glanced at Lester who gave his okay with a curt nod.
"They have been anal penetrated. Evidence points out that Cutter must have been gang raped. I found various semen samples and he had to be stitched."
Becker turned white as a sheet. "But Connor wasn't gang raped, wasn't he?" he croaked.
"I only found semen from one person in his anus but that only means he hasn't been subjected to it in the last few days. Don't forget they were there for over four years. Four years, Becker. "
Ditzy and Lester shared a look as Becker stumbled out of the room, slightly green around the edges and probably in search of the nearest toilet.
"Should Cutter ever wake up his mental health will probably be in the same bad shape or even worse. That frightened kid in the infirmary has barely any resemblance to the former Connor Temple. What for a sick world were a vibrant young genius gets reduced to a submissive sex toy."
"In the end he might not even have thought to rebel anymore," Becker tossed in as he re-entered the room, still very pale. "I’ve seen something like that in people who have been abducted by the National Liberation Army in Colombia. They didn't attempt to escape despite later being allowed to walk around freely. A few of them even tried to protect their captors when the rescue team arrived."
Ditzy filed that bit of information quietly away. Becker had said he had seen it for himself, not just heard or read about it. So the posh captain had seen some action in the field after all.
"But Cutter and Connor fled," Ditzy said loudly. "Something must have happened to wake up their resistance."
"My guess is they haven't managed to break Cutter completely. He always has been a very strong-minded, stubborn man."
While Ditzy agreed with Lester's speculation about Cutter's resistance he was sure it hadn't survived the period of four years. There had to be a trigger, something so horrible and more worse than everything they had endured before.
He hoped that event had been Cutter's gang rape but then Connor wouldn't be so badly traumatised as well except... Ditzy pushed the disturbing thought quickly back into a corner of his mind. Later he would compare the DNA of the semen samples with the DNA of all ARC employees.
"Sir, I recommend calling in a psychologist. We aren't qualified to deal with trauma patients. And Becker can't play babysitter to Temple forever."
"I will think about your suggestion, Lieutenant. Although I can understand your concern, I have to consider aspects of safety. In Mr Temple’s mind there are things buried that I don't want to have an outsider poking around in. We have to fall back on a professional with adequate clearance."
Three very subdued men left the ARC half an hour later. Jenny and Lorraine Wickes had given them a tongue lashing after they had discovered them drinking in Lester's office. With a touch of worry, Lester had registered that they had all stood to attention in fright when Jenny had entered the room. Connor's reports apparently had started to affect their view on the two women. Perhaps a psychologist wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.