Fic: Captain Becker's Zombie Apocalypse
Title: Captain Becker's Zombie Apocalypse
Fandom: Primeval
Summary: In which Connor has an upcoming birthday, and Becker doesn't buy any apples.
Characters: Becker/Connor
Rating: PG
Length: ~3500
Beta: fredbassett
Author's Notes: Written for explodedpen's birthday back in December, and which I've finally got around to posting with her kind permission.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
'T' minus two weeks and counting
The first of December loomed over Hilary Becker much like a G-rex would loom over its equally prehistoric but much smaller and infinitely more defenceless prey (or Becker, if that nightmare at Heathrow was anything to base analogies on). It would have been exceptionally difficult for it not to; aside from it marking a twenty-four day countdown to what was arguably hell on Earth - a turkey dinner with all the familial Beckers and not nearly enough booze to dull the senses - it was also Connor Temple's birthday.
In the current context, Connor was... 'boyfriend' seemed too serious for what pretty much amounted to a handful of kisses and gropes in between rips in time and space that occasionally spat out dinosaurs and other creatures that belonged very much in the realm of science fiction, or preferably picture-less reference books, but definitely nowhere near the British countryside of the twenty-first century.
Similarly, 'friend' was too casual and impersonal to cover the squishy feelings that Becker felt in his stomach every time Connor got excited about something. Which happened a lot, and precipitated most of the aforementioned kissing and groping, usually rushed and in places as private as you could get in the CCTV-happy Anomaly Research Centre. They hadn't yet got to the stage of moving events to either of their flats, or even outside of work.
All of this, however, was to say that while Becker had tried and mostly failed for a while now to label this... thing between him and Connor, there was that oh-so-seemingly trivial matter of an impending birthday.
If Becker scrunched up his face and thought about it really hard, he could just about remember the last time he'd been in a romantic relationship - and Lily's less than positive reaction to getting the complete works of J. R. R. Tolkien for her birthday. In fact, if Becker really scrunched up his face and thought about it even harder, that had been the end of their relationship. It had taken him a while (and a lot of questionable humour from his friends) to get over that one.
He couldn't imagine Connor being horrified at being presented with a boxed collection of classic fantasy fiction along with apocryphal essays and indices. Then again Connor probably already had everything by Tolkien either on a bookshelf or committed to memory. Same for those films he was into, the ones with the light sabres.
Becker had never been one for films. Connor was, though - maybe this thing between them was doomed to failure, so long as Becker preferred literary escapism to Connor's choice of large screens and special effects. Not that those held anything to the power of the imagination, or so Becker kept telling himself.
So. Books were probably a no-no. On the other hand...
“Anomaly alert! Gear up and move out!”
Sometimes those rips in time and space came in handy. At the very least they forced Becker to focus on the matter at hand and not abstracts that made him question his capabilities as a potential boyfriend.
“Come on, Wallace! You too!”
Becker was pretty sure that Clinton's didn't stock cards for people you'd quite like to be sexually intimate with but hadn't quite made it past fumbles and idiotic smiles at inappropriate times yet.
Yet. Yet was a good word.
The anomaly site was devoid of any and all prehistoric life, and Becker had long since trained himself not to look relieved at that fact. It simply meant that he got to stand slightly off to one side and look vaguely bored while the scientists oohed and aahed over sparkly shards of space-time continuum suspended in mid-air.
“Hey, Becker.”
Maybe not all of the scientists. Becker tried not to smile, purely for the sake of professionalism. “Connor. Shouldn't you be over there, doing...” whatever the hell you did with wire coils, a compass and enough computers to run a small country, “...your thing?”
Connor bounced on the balls of his feet. “Nah. Cutter's doing his best Yoda impression trying to get some more data for that model of his. Thought it best to stay out of the way.”
“Ah.” That explained the hand gestures and glazed expressions on everyone else in the professor's immediate vicinity.
All of a sudden Connor stopped bouncing and fixed Becker with a wide grin. “It's my birthday soon.”
As if the date hadn't been marked in fluorescent lime and pink lights in Becker's head for ages already. Connor wasn't the only one who snooped in other people's personnel records in their time off. “Is it? I didn't know that.”
“Yeah.” Connor's grin grew impossibly wider. “Haven't decided what I'm going to do yet.”
This was a Chance. A full blown Opportunity to gather intelligence and have enough time to formulate a plan before the first of the month. “What do you usually do?” Becker asked politely.
Outwardly he looked the dictionary definition of armed and bored out of his mind. Inwardly he was hyper-alert, ready to soak in every detail, every nuance of Connor's answer and analyse everything for potential stratagems.
“Well...” Connor thought about it for a moment. “There was the year me, Tom and Duncan went to the seaside and acted out Return of the Jedi on the beach.” His face fell. “That was a long time ago, though.”
Now there was a fun mental image and, if Becker had any idea what Return of the Jedi was about, his mind would have been able to provide a lot more detail. What he had was good, though, and it seemed exactly like Connor to go for something like that. He vaguely recognised Tom and Duncan's names from ARC security reports, and knew better than to press that without permission.
“And the time Luke - from when I was at school - we put together a zombie survival kit.”
“For your birthday?” Becker wasn't sure he'd heard that right.
“Yeah. We'd spent most of November watching every horror film we could get our hands on instead of doing homework and naturally the best thing to do after watching the world get overrun by the living dead was to make sure we could protect ourselves in case it actually happened.”
Becker raised his eyebrows. Somehow, that explained a lot. “How did that work?”
Connor pulled a face. “Not very well, actually. We couldn't really be bothered in the end. But planning it was fun.”
Becker smiled. “Well, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, I will do my very best to protect you. From the living dead and anything else that gets in our way.”
At that, Connor beamed as though all of his birthdays were coming at once, not just his twenty-ninth. “Really? You mean that?”
This was ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as the pit of mush where Becker's stomach had been just a few minutes ago. “Of course.”
“I could kiss you for that! Not now, though, obviously. Later?” Connor's expression turned hopeful, which in turn gave Becker renewed hope. Connor didn't have any more of a clue than him what was happening between them.
Not that kissing was a hardship in any case. Becker inclined his head, grinning on the inside. “So, what do you want to do for your birthday this year?” he asked, deciding the direct approach was probably better for all concerned.
Connor's answer came after some serious-looking deliberation. “Anything, so long as it doesn't involve dinosaurs.”
Becker could see his point, but as answers went, it was spectacularly unhelpful.
Clearly some creative thinking was going to be needed here.
o o o o o
Eleven days and counting...
The next reminder of Becker's impending doom coincided with, of all things, a trip to the supermarket. He was standing in front of the racks of apples, trying to remember which variety he hated the least when musical notes - the heavily modulated ones that had been squeegeed through a blender, two dead cats and a 1950's computer - came floating through the air towards him.
It was the birthday song.
Becker glanced over from the never-ending rows of orchard fruit to see a grubby-fingered little child opening and closing a card with a moronic grin on its... his face. God only knew where his mother was.
But anyway. The birthday song continued to play, in child-induced fits and starts, much to said child's apparent delight. Becker couldn't remember ever having been that easily amused as a child. But then again, wasn't it the duty of all twenty-somethings to imagine themselves as having been the perfect children as a means of justifying the very terrifying act of procreation and...
There was a distinct possibility that Becker was over thinking entirely the wrong thing.
He abandoned the apples - and also staring at the little nuisance before his mummy reappeared and decided there was something very wrong with Becker - but the mangled birthday song continued to haunt him all the way to the checkout.
o o o o o
216 hours, give or take
Becker had decided that his only problem with thinking up something to do or arrange or acquire for Connor's birthday was that he had a complete lack of context. He had drifted away from most of his university friends because of his military training and the fact that he had forgone graduation to duck mortar shells in Afghanistan. His school friends were a distant memory that was thankfully growing dimmer by the day. His brother was a dirty-minded attention whore who was never to know that Becker was attempting to court another man, while his sister's interest in his life ranked somewhere above the mating habits of arachnids but below the inner workings of Parliament, and his parents... well, they meant well, but the less they knew about his personal life - or pitiful attempts to actually, finally have one - the better.
Becker's idea of a good night was a steaming mug of tea, his yellow blanket and the continuing literary adventures of Priscilla Hutchins.
And as he was only just discovering, Connor's idea of a good night was a back-to-back movie marathon of whatever currently held his attention accompanied by production audio commentary and copious amounts of popcorn and carbonated drinks.
They were incompatible.
They were doomed.
They were... his phone buzzed, and Becker fished it out his pocket.
The text message was from Connor. In a fight, who do you reckon would win - Gimli or Paul Atreides?
It was so absurd that Becker laughed. In fact, it was so absurd that he thought very seriously about his answer.
Dead heat. Paul's got the whole of Arrakis behind him while Gimli's got Legolas.
Connor's reply was quick. One elf against the whole of the spice planet?
Becker's thumbs flew over the keypad. You'd be surprised.
The history of science fiction, my captain, is not on your side. And I can prove that, by the way.
Becker's stomach flopped a little at my captain, but it was a secret he would take with him to his grave. You and whose literary back catalogue? He was smiling like an idiot now, not that he cared.
Are you trying to imply that I have a less than rounded genre education? came Connor's reply.
Mainstream does not a superior argument constitute.
He could almost hear Connor's incredulous laughter from wherever he was texting. Are you trying to make me tie you down and make you watch all six Star Wars films?
Becker raised an eyebrow to nobody in particular. Isn't that a sanctioned method of torture?
Mainstream does not equate to the devil's handiwork. Live a little, soldier boy.
Becker smiled, and downed the rest of his tea - lukewarm by now, but still drinkable. I can't think of anything witty or intelligent to say to that. Normal service will be resumed by morning.
Half an hour later, just as he was about to get into bed, Becker's phone buzzed again.
:-)
o o o o o
Six, five, four...
Becker spent three days up to his balls in freezing cold water as part of what Major Ryan liked to call 'team bonding'.
All the other lads and ladies of the ARC's Special Forces contingent liked to call it 'death by assault course'.
At the end of it all, having completed the umpteenth circuit to his commanding officer's satisfaction, Becker wrenched himself home, into something resembling clean clothes and dived straight under his bedclothes, ignoring the mobile phone on his bedside table, which purported to have nineteen unread messages waiting for him.
Those had not been a good three days.
o o o o o
3
Becker huddled further inside his fleece parka and hoped that his miserable expression only existed in his mind.
Some interfering, snot-nosed little paper-pusher somewhere in Whitehall had knocked a zero off the ARC's budgets somewhere along the line, and the end result was that there was no heating on three levels of the building.
Becker's office fell smack in the middle of no man's land, and his office now resembled an ice box as opposed to a professional workspace where actual work and such could be undertaken.
Several hours into his self-imposed sulk, there was a knock on the door.
It was Connor - and he had come armed with two steaming mugs.
Becker might have been a little bit in love.
“Bit chilly in here,” Connor commented, kicking the door closed behind him. He handed one of the mugs to Becker, who was very careful not to snatch it and potentially spill blessed hot drink everywhere.
“Did you, er, get any of my messages?”
Becker blinked, then shook his head. His phone had had the tenacity to wake him up at six that morning when all he wanted to do was hide under the covers and pretend the world didn't exist. It was probably still blasting out Top 40 crap where he'd left it next to his bed.
“Okay.” Connor was undeterred. “Nothing world-shatteringly important, just running commentary on how utterly useless your temporary replacement was, really.”
He smiled, and Becker smiled back.
“So how was the assault course?” Connor continued.
Becker scowled, then took a sip from his mug. It was chicken soup, but Connor didn't have to know he didn't like it that much.
“Cold,” he said. “And wet.”
Connor grinned. “There are some proper legendary stories about Ryan's military exercises.”
“No one told me.”
At that, Connor laughed. “I've figured out what I'm doing for my birthday,” he announced.
The non-sequitur left Becker a bit nonplussed and, to convey this, he frowned.
“Yeah,” Connor confirmed. “I think it's going to work out quite nicely; just need to get some stuff in for it first.”
“Anything I can help with?” Becker enquired, drinking some more of the soup.
“Nope! You don't need to do a thing.” Connor fidgeted slightly, like he was thinking about doing something but was still working up the nerve to actually do it.
Becker had a fleeting moment of cold-induced madness, which involved suggesting to Connor that if Whitehall were so willing to skimp a few quid on heating bills they might as well share body heat to boost the effort.
It was times like this he wished he was a little less neurotic. He was almost completely the opposite of how most of his colleagues saw him - the wonders of a well-drilled professional demeanour - and he wondered if Connor had any idea of what he was letting himself in for.
“Hey, I know it's instant soup, but it can't be that bad!” Connor had seen him staring glumly into cream coloured slop and drawn the obvious conclusion. Becker had been right before; he was useless at this sort of thing, but before he could protest, Connor had pulled the mug out of his hands and... was... rubbing them instead.
Holding hands? Becker could do that. He wrapped his fingers around Connor's very warm hands and did not think about the mushy pit that had yet again taken the place of his stomach.
“Day after tomorrow,” Connor said, breaking through Becker's thoughts. “After work - your flat?”
“All right,” Becker nodded. Now he was the one wondering what he was letting himself in for.
o o o o o
And one
As non-eventful days at the top secret Anomaly Research Centre went, Tuesday was spectacularly dull. There were no anomalies showing up on anybody's radar, no reports of dinosaurs or other temporally displaced creatures running amok in the British countryside, and - better still - not a meeting in sight.
Becker made it through the day without wanting to shoot, maim or kill one of his co-workers once.
He had also made it through the day without either seeing or hearing from Connor, which was almost as unusual as the lack of violent thoughts. Miss Lewis had popped her head around the door a few times to check on the progress of various reports, and Dr Page had dragged him off for lunch in the car park while she bitched about Cutter's possessive tendencies towards the anomaly model in his lab. Even Dr Hart had put in an appearance, asking if he fancied a couple of hours down on the shooting range (he declined politely, preferring solitude to potential public humiliation).
If Becker was a suspicious man, he might have suspected that something was up. As it was, he was, but he didn't.
What he did do was head home as soon as he could. All the way back he wondered what Connor was up to, but he kept drawing blanks. He tried to console himself at one point that at least the relationship would never be boring as long as he was unable to second-guess Connor, but was it so wrong to hope for at least a degree of predictability?
Apparently it was: Connor was waiting outside Becker's front door.
“Hey!” he greeted, bounding over and hugging Becker briefly before pulling back.
It was then that Becker noticed that Connor had a bulky-looking rucksack hanging off one shoulder.
“Hi,” Becker said. “Er, shall we take this upstairs?”
Connor nodded, and dutifully followed Becker up the two flights of stairs to his flat. Once inside he dropped the rucksack, pulled Becker close and kissed him briefly.
“Been wanting to do that all day.”
“I haven't seen you all day,” Becker pointed out.
“Hence the wanting,” Connor said, quite reasonably.
Becker smiled. “So, what now?”
“Ah!” Connor pulled away and started rummaging through his bag. A few seconds later he withdrew a couple of boxes and held them up for Becker to see.
He blinked. One of them was a complete Star Wars anthology, and the other was the extended editions of Lord of the Rings. Both on DVD.
“Consider this furthering your education.” Connor was beaming now. “I thought we'd start with this one,” he added, jiggling the Star Wars DVDs around.
“I've already read those books,” Becker said, pointing at the other boxed set.
Connor sighed. “Like talking to a three-year-old. Yes, I know you've read the books, but I bet you've never seen the films.”
Becker smiled, then frowned. “How is this for your birthday?” Which was tomorrow, and there was no way Connor could consider re-watching films to be a suitable activity.
Connor just grinned. “You'll see. Come on.” He tugged Becker through to the living room and pushed him onto the sofa while he started fiddling with the television.
And so Captain Hilary Becker found himself curled up on his sofa on a Tuesday evening with his sort-of boyfriend pressed up against him and giving him a constant monologue on the films they were supposedly watching.
Halfway through the second of the six films, Becker had given up on understanding any of the plot. He'd also given up on movement, full stop. But Connor was a very comfortable presence, gradually taking up more and more of the sofa as he demonstrated fight scenes that were playing out on the screen at the same time.
There was also every indication that Connor intended to stay for the night, something about which, again, Becker had absolutely no complaints.
It might have been for Connor's birthday, but Becker wouldn't change a thing.
Fandom: Primeval
Summary: In which Connor has an upcoming birthday, and Becker doesn't buy any apples.
Characters: Becker/Connor
Rating: PG
Length: ~3500
Beta: fredbassett
Author's Notes: Written for explodedpen's birthday back in December, and which I've finally got around to posting with her kind permission.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
'T' minus two weeks and counting
The first of December loomed over Hilary Becker much like a G-rex would loom over its equally prehistoric but much smaller and infinitely more defenceless prey (or Becker, if that nightmare at Heathrow was anything to base analogies on). It would have been exceptionally difficult for it not to; aside from it marking a twenty-four day countdown to what was arguably hell on Earth - a turkey dinner with all the familial Beckers and not nearly enough booze to dull the senses - it was also Connor Temple's birthday.
In the current context, Connor was... 'boyfriend' seemed too serious for what pretty much amounted to a handful of kisses and gropes in between rips in time and space that occasionally spat out dinosaurs and other creatures that belonged very much in the realm of science fiction, or preferably picture-less reference books, but definitely nowhere near the British countryside of the twenty-first century.
Similarly, 'friend' was too casual and impersonal to cover the squishy feelings that Becker felt in his stomach every time Connor got excited about something. Which happened a lot, and precipitated most of the aforementioned kissing and groping, usually rushed and in places as private as you could get in the CCTV-happy Anomaly Research Centre. They hadn't yet got to the stage of moving events to either of their flats, or even outside of work.
All of this, however, was to say that while Becker had tried and mostly failed for a while now to label this... thing between him and Connor, there was that oh-so-seemingly trivial matter of an impending birthday.
If Becker scrunched up his face and thought about it really hard, he could just about remember the last time he'd been in a romantic relationship - and Lily's less than positive reaction to getting the complete works of J. R. R. Tolkien for her birthday. In fact, if Becker really scrunched up his face and thought about it even harder, that had been the end of their relationship. It had taken him a while (and a lot of questionable humour from his friends) to get over that one.
He couldn't imagine Connor being horrified at being presented with a boxed collection of classic fantasy fiction along with apocryphal essays and indices. Then again Connor probably already had everything by Tolkien either on a bookshelf or committed to memory. Same for those films he was into, the ones with the light sabres.
Becker had never been one for films. Connor was, though - maybe this thing between them was doomed to failure, so long as Becker preferred literary escapism to Connor's choice of large screens and special effects. Not that those held anything to the power of the imagination, or so Becker kept telling himself.
So. Books were probably a no-no. On the other hand...
“Anomaly alert! Gear up and move out!”
Sometimes those rips in time and space came in handy. At the very least they forced Becker to focus on the matter at hand and not abstracts that made him question his capabilities as a potential boyfriend.
“Come on, Wallace! You too!”
Becker was pretty sure that Clinton's didn't stock cards for people you'd quite like to be sexually intimate with but hadn't quite made it past fumbles and idiotic smiles at inappropriate times yet.
Yet. Yet was a good word.
The anomaly site was devoid of any and all prehistoric life, and Becker had long since trained himself not to look relieved at that fact. It simply meant that he got to stand slightly off to one side and look vaguely bored while the scientists oohed and aahed over sparkly shards of space-time continuum suspended in mid-air.
“Hey, Becker.”
Maybe not all of the scientists. Becker tried not to smile, purely for the sake of professionalism. “Connor. Shouldn't you be over there, doing...” whatever the hell you did with wire coils, a compass and enough computers to run a small country, “...your thing?”
Connor bounced on the balls of his feet. “Nah. Cutter's doing his best Yoda impression trying to get some more data for that model of his. Thought it best to stay out of the way.”
“Ah.” That explained the hand gestures and glazed expressions on everyone else in the professor's immediate vicinity.
All of a sudden Connor stopped bouncing and fixed Becker with a wide grin. “It's my birthday soon.”
As if the date hadn't been marked in fluorescent lime and pink lights in Becker's head for ages already. Connor wasn't the only one who snooped in other people's personnel records in their time off. “Is it? I didn't know that.”
“Yeah.” Connor's grin grew impossibly wider. “Haven't decided what I'm going to do yet.”
This was a Chance. A full blown Opportunity to gather intelligence and have enough time to formulate a plan before the first of the month. “What do you usually do?” Becker asked politely.
Outwardly he looked the dictionary definition of armed and bored out of his mind. Inwardly he was hyper-alert, ready to soak in every detail, every nuance of Connor's answer and analyse everything for potential stratagems.
“Well...” Connor thought about it for a moment. “There was the year me, Tom and Duncan went to the seaside and acted out Return of the Jedi on the beach.” His face fell. “That was a long time ago, though.”
Now there was a fun mental image and, if Becker had any idea what Return of the Jedi was about, his mind would have been able to provide a lot more detail. What he had was good, though, and it seemed exactly like Connor to go for something like that. He vaguely recognised Tom and Duncan's names from ARC security reports, and knew better than to press that without permission.
“And the time Luke - from when I was at school - we put together a zombie survival kit.”
“For your birthday?” Becker wasn't sure he'd heard that right.
“Yeah. We'd spent most of November watching every horror film we could get our hands on instead of doing homework and naturally the best thing to do after watching the world get overrun by the living dead was to make sure we could protect ourselves in case it actually happened.”
Becker raised his eyebrows. Somehow, that explained a lot. “How did that work?”
Connor pulled a face. “Not very well, actually. We couldn't really be bothered in the end. But planning it was fun.”
Becker smiled. “Well, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, I will do my very best to protect you. From the living dead and anything else that gets in our way.”
At that, Connor beamed as though all of his birthdays were coming at once, not just his twenty-ninth. “Really? You mean that?”
This was ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as the pit of mush where Becker's stomach had been just a few minutes ago. “Of course.”
“I could kiss you for that! Not now, though, obviously. Later?” Connor's expression turned hopeful, which in turn gave Becker renewed hope. Connor didn't have any more of a clue than him what was happening between them.
Not that kissing was a hardship in any case. Becker inclined his head, grinning on the inside. “So, what do you want to do for your birthday this year?” he asked, deciding the direct approach was probably better for all concerned.
Connor's answer came after some serious-looking deliberation. “Anything, so long as it doesn't involve dinosaurs.”
Becker could see his point, but as answers went, it was spectacularly unhelpful.
Clearly some creative thinking was going to be needed here.
o o o o o
Eleven days and counting...
The next reminder of Becker's impending doom coincided with, of all things, a trip to the supermarket. He was standing in front of the racks of apples, trying to remember which variety he hated the least when musical notes - the heavily modulated ones that had been squeegeed through a blender, two dead cats and a 1950's computer - came floating through the air towards him.
It was the birthday song.
Becker glanced over from the never-ending rows of orchard fruit to see a grubby-fingered little child opening and closing a card with a moronic grin on its... his face. God only knew where his mother was.
But anyway. The birthday song continued to play, in child-induced fits and starts, much to said child's apparent delight. Becker couldn't remember ever having been that easily amused as a child. But then again, wasn't it the duty of all twenty-somethings to imagine themselves as having been the perfect children as a means of justifying the very terrifying act of procreation and...
There was a distinct possibility that Becker was over thinking entirely the wrong thing.
He abandoned the apples - and also staring at the little nuisance before his mummy reappeared and decided there was something very wrong with Becker - but the mangled birthday song continued to haunt him all the way to the checkout.
o o o o o
216 hours, give or take
Becker had decided that his only problem with thinking up something to do or arrange or acquire for Connor's birthday was that he had a complete lack of context. He had drifted away from most of his university friends because of his military training and the fact that he had forgone graduation to duck mortar shells in Afghanistan. His school friends were a distant memory that was thankfully growing dimmer by the day. His brother was a dirty-minded attention whore who was never to know that Becker was attempting to court another man, while his sister's interest in his life ranked somewhere above the mating habits of arachnids but below the inner workings of Parliament, and his parents... well, they meant well, but the less they knew about his personal life - or pitiful attempts to actually, finally have one - the better.
Becker's idea of a good night was a steaming mug of tea, his yellow blanket and the continuing literary adventures of Priscilla Hutchins.
And as he was only just discovering, Connor's idea of a good night was a back-to-back movie marathon of whatever currently held his attention accompanied by production audio commentary and copious amounts of popcorn and carbonated drinks.
They were incompatible.
They were doomed.
They were... his phone buzzed, and Becker fished it out his pocket.
The text message was from Connor. In a fight, who do you reckon would win - Gimli or Paul Atreides?
It was so absurd that Becker laughed. In fact, it was so absurd that he thought very seriously about his answer.
Dead heat. Paul's got the whole of Arrakis behind him while Gimli's got Legolas.
Connor's reply was quick. One elf against the whole of the spice planet?
Becker's thumbs flew over the keypad. You'd be surprised.
The history of science fiction, my captain, is not on your side. And I can prove that, by the way.
Becker's stomach flopped a little at my captain, but it was a secret he would take with him to his grave. You and whose literary back catalogue? He was smiling like an idiot now, not that he cared.
Are you trying to imply that I have a less than rounded genre education? came Connor's reply.
Mainstream does not a superior argument constitute.
He could almost hear Connor's incredulous laughter from wherever he was texting. Are you trying to make me tie you down and make you watch all six Star Wars films?
Becker raised an eyebrow to nobody in particular. Isn't that a sanctioned method of torture?
Mainstream does not equate to the devil's handiwork. Live a little, soldier boy.
Becker smiled, and downed the rest of his tea - lukewarm by now, but still drinkable. I can't think of anything witty or intelligent to say to that. Normal service will be resumed by morning.
Half an hour later, just as he was about to get into bed, Becker's phone buzzed again.
:-)
o o o o o
Six, five, four...
Becker spent three days up to his balls in freezing cold water as part of what Major Ryan liked to call 'team bonding'.
All the other lads and ladies of the ARC's Special Forces contingent liked to call it 'death by assault course'.
At the end of it all, having completed the umpteenth circuit to his commanding officer's satisfaction, Becker wrenched himself home, into something resembling clean clothes and dived straight under his bedclothes, ignoring the mobile phone on his bedside table, which purported to have nineteen unread messages waiting for him.
Those had not been a good three days.
o o o o o
3
Becker huddled further inside his fleece parka and hoped that his miserable expression only existed in his mind.
Some interfering, snot-nosed little paper-pusher somewhere in Whitehall had knocked a zero off the ARC's budgets somewhere along the line, and the end result was that there was no heating on three levels of the building.
Becker's office fell smack in the middle of no man's land, and his office now resembled an ice box as opposed to a professional workspace where actual work and such could be undertaken.
Several hours into his self-imposed sulk, there was a knock on the door.
It was Connor - and he had come armed with two steaming mugs.
Becker might have been a little bit in love.
“Bit chilly in here,” Connor commented, kicking the door closed behind him. He handed one of the mugs to Becker, who was very careful not to snatch it and potentially spill blessed hot drink everywhere.
“Did you, er, get any of my messages?”
Becker blinked, then shook his head. His phone had had the tenacity to wake him up at six that morning when all he wanted to do was hide under the covers and pretend the world didn't exist. It was probably still blasting out Top 40 crap where he'd left it next to his bed.
“Okay.” Connor was undeterred. “Nothing world-shatteringly important, just running commentary on how utterly useless your temporary replacement was, really.”
He smiled, and Becker smiled back.
“So how was the assault course?” Connor continued.
Becker scowled, then took a sip from his mug. It was chicken soup, but Connor didn't have to know he didn't like it that much.
“Cold,” he said. “And wet.”
Connor grinned. “There are some proper legendary stories about Ryan's military exercises.”
“No one told me.”
At that, Connor laughed. “I've figured out what I'm doing for my birthday,” he announced.
The non-sequitur left Becker a bit nonplussed and, to convey this, he frowned.
“Yeah,” Connor confirmed. “I think it's going to work out quite nicely; just need to get some stuff in for it first.”
“Anything I can help with?” Becker enquired, drinking some more of the soup.
“Nope! You don't need to do a thing.” Connor fidgeted slightly, like he was thinking about doing something but was still working up the nerve to actually do it.
Becker had a fleeting moment of cold-induced madness, which involved suggesting to Connor that if Whitehall were so willing to skimp a few quid on heating bills they might as well share body heat to boost the effort.
It was times like this he wished he was a little less neurotic. He was almost completely the opposite of how most of his colleagues saw him - the wonders of a well-drilled professional demeanour - and he wondered if Connor had any idea of what he was letting himself in for.
“Hey, I know it's instant soup, but it can't be that bad!” Connor had seen him staring glumly into cream coloured slop and drawn the obvious conclusion. Becker had been right before; he was useless at this sort of thing, but before he could protest, Connor had pulled the mug out of his hands and... was... rubbing them instead.
Holding hands? Becker could do that. He wrapped his fingers around Connor's very warm hands and did not think about the mushy pit that had yet again taken the place of his stomach.
“Day after tomorrow,” Connor said, breaking through Becker's thoughts. “After work - your flat?”
“All right,” Becker nodded. Now he was the one wondering what he was letting himself in for.
o o o o o
And one
As non-eventful days at the top secret Anomaly Research Centre went, Tuesday was spectacularly dull. There were no anomalies showing up on anybody's radar, no reports of dinosaurs or other temporally displaced creatures running amok in the British countryside, and - better still - not a meeting in sight.
Becker made it through the day without wanting to shoot, maim or kill one of his co-workers once.
He had also made it through the day without either seeing or hearing from Connor, which was almost as unusual as the lack of violent thoughts. Miss Lewis had popped her head around the door a few times to check on the progress of various reports, and Dr Page had dragged him off for lunch in the car park while she bitched about Cutter's possessive tendencies towards the anomaly model in his lab. Even Dr Hart had put in an appearance, asking if he fancied a couple of hours down on the shooting range (he declined politely, preferring solitude to potential public humiliation).
If Becker was a suspicious man, he might have suspected that something was up. As it was, he was, but he didn't.
What he did do was head home as soon as he could. All the way back he wondered what Connor was up to, but he kept drawing blanks. He tried to console himself at one point that at least the relationship would never be boring as long as he was unable to second-guess Connor, but was it so wrong to hope for at least a degree of predictability?
Apparently it was: Connor was waiting outside Becker's front door.
“Hey!” he greeted, bounding over and hugging Becker briefly before pulling back.
It was then that Becker noticed that Connor had a bulky-looking rucksack hanging off one shoulder.
“Hi,” Becker said. “Er, shall we take this upstairs?”
Connor nodded, and dutifully followed Becker up the two flights of stairs to his flat. Once inside he dropped the rucksack, pulled Becker close and kissed him briefly.
“Been wanting to do that all day.”
“I haven't seen you all day,” Becker pointed out.
“Hence the wanting,” Connor said, quite reasonably.
Becker smiled. “So, what now?”
“Ah!” Connor pulled away and started rummaging through his bag. A few seconds later he withdrew a couple of boxes and held them up for Becker to see.
He blinked. One of them was a complete Star Wars anthology, and the other was the extended editions of Lord of the Rings. Both on DVD.
“Consider this furthering your education.” Connor was beaming now. “I thought we'd start with this one,” he added, jiggling the Star Wars DVDs around.
“I've already read those books,” Becker said, pointing at the other boxed set.
Connor sighed. “Like talking to a three-year-old. Yes, I know you've read the books, but I bet you've never seen the films.”
Becker smiled, then frowned. “How is this for your birthday?” Which was tomorrow, and there was no way Connor could consider re-watching films to be a suitable activity.
Connor just grinned. “You'll see. Come on.” He tugged Becker through to the living room and pushed him onto the sofa while he started fiddling with the television.
And so Captain Hilary Becker found himself curled up on his sofa on a Tuesday evening with his sort-of boyfriend pressed up against him and giving him a constant monologue on the films they were supposedly watching.
Halfway through the second of the six films, Becker had given up on understanding any of the plot. He'd also given up on movement, full stop. But Connor was a very comfortable presence, gradually taking up more and more of the sofa as he demonstrated fight scenes that were playing out on the screen at the same time.
There was also every indication that Connor intended to stay for the night, something about which, again, Becker had absolutely no complaints.
It might have been for Connor's birthday, but Becker wouldn't change a thing.