Fic: The Only Thing Growing (Is Our History)
Title: The Only Thing Growing (Is Our History)
Fandom: Primeval
Summary: Matt's new life is complicated sometimes.
Characters: Matt/Stephen, appearances by and references to others
Rating: PG
Length: ~1800
Beta: ladydrace
Author's Notes: Written for bigtitch for the 2016 Denial Secret Santa, using the prompt 'curtains'. This is... not even remotely what I thought I'd be writing when I got the prompts, but here we are!
Title comes from 'Oh My God' by Kaiser Chiefs.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Matt doesn't often think about how things turn out the way they do. It might suggest he thinks he has control over anything or anyone around him. He doesn't. Control is something other people think they have, or can gain.
Matt grew up in a world that had ended long before he'd been born. There was never time to think, to contemplate the world as it could be. The hows and whys of life, the universe and everything meant nothing when every day survived was another day of not being a predator's meal.
Even in his new life Matt doesn't have control. Knows that there are things he can't control. Things that can't be controlled by anyone or anything.
Stephen Hart is one of those things.
At the other end of the hub Stephen is engrossed in conversation with Jess Parker. She waves a tablet in his face; he gesticulates with one hand but doesn't move from his half-seated position against her workstation. Legs outstretched, posture relaxed.
A few seconds too late Matt realises he is staring.
Stephen looks up, catches Matt's eyes for a split second. Something crosses his face then disappears as he continues talking to Jess.
Matt walks away before anything else can happen.
---
There's a betting pool in the ARC. Matt knows about it, knows about all the various bets and wagers that almost everyone in the Anomaly Research Centre has exchanged money and other forfeits over.
Matt gets the idea of a betting pool. Even vaguely understands why people with the luxury of time and relative safety would overextend their interest in other people's lives. If asked about it he'd raise an eyebrow and say he'd read about it in a book somewhere. In reality it had taken him almost a year to figure out why the rest of his Army unit was so invested in the colour sergeant's on-off relationship with his long distance girlfriend.
This betting pool is about him and Stephen.
One of the forensic anthropologists who knows Stephen from the original ARC is convinced they're in a non-romantic sexual relationship, and has wagered a large amount of money on her belief. Two of Becker's ex-Marine NCOs think they're legally (but secretly) married.
Becker was a surprising late addition to the pool. He put a month's worth of mission reports on there being no extra-professional relationship at all.
Connor thinks it's unrequited, with a mint condition misprinted Star Wars poster to back him up. Jess thinks they're in denial about their feelings.
Emily keeps him appraised of the pool, more out of her own amusement than anything else.
Matt wonders if this is what the colour sergeant felt like during all those months in Aldershot.
---
Stephen Hart's reappearance in the time line almost precisely paralleled his first appearance in Matt's bed. It just happened one evening, there was no real discussion of motives or feelings and the world didn't come to a roaring end because Matt focused on something other than the bigger picture for a few hours. The next day everything and everyone else carried on as if nothing had changed.
Stephen kisses Matt the same way he tracks a creature in the field or listens to Jess recap the last three series of Strictly. Intently, patiently, like there's nothing else in the world that is worth paying attention to. And when he's not doing any of those things he gives no indication that any of them would in fact hold his interest. Survival instinct at its finest.
In moments of distraction Matt stares. The first time he realised what he was doing they were in an empty school playground. One moment the team had been staring at an anomaly on the wrong side of a metal link fence, the next Stephen was looking for a handhold on the fence, his arse inches from Matt's face.
He'd looked for maybe half a second before he realised what he was doing. Jerked his gaze away, focused on what Emily and Abby were doing. Worried that someone had realised what he was doing until it slowly became clear nobody was paying attention to him.
Ten feet up and astride the fence, Stephen reached down for his rifle and one of Connor's gadgets and leaped gracefully to the ground. A small part of Matt was relieved he was no longer the only person watching Stephen as he cautiously approached the anomaly and followed Connor's instructions to activate the remote locking device.
A much larger part of him was aware that if there was an actual threat, he could have been killed by now for being so distracted.
His new life is complicated sometimes.
---
Another night the team is out late corralling a small herd of aardvark like creatures in a hedge maze. It's gone midnight by the time the last one is shooed back to where it came from. Everyone looks exhausted, and even Matt wants nothing more than six to eight hours' sleep.
Becker's got the keys to the ARC 4x4 tonight, and offers to drop Stephen back at the ARC, where his official residence is still one of the bunk rooms.
Stephen blinks a few times and shakes his head. "I'll crash at Matt's. He's closer." He glances at Matt, who shrugs. As if it was an actual question. As if he'd ever say no.
Becker looks too relieved to question it. Once he's dropped off Connor and Abby to their new place and Emily to Jess', the ARC's another seventy mile round trip. It's cumbersome, even in the middle of the night with no traffic.
It's also going to be a tight fit again. "We can walk," Matt says. "It's not that far."
Again Becker doesn't question it, just herds everyone else into the 4x4 before Matt or Stephen can insist otherwise.
It's a cool night, relatively quiet by city standards. The skies are mostly clear, and Matt can't help but keep looking up at the stars. Every so often Stephen tugs on his arm to stop him walking into something, or tripping onto the road.
The hand on his arm eventually becomes an arm round his waist, a lighter touch than Matt's used to from Stephen. It's not something they do - Matt thinks he can count on one hand the number of times Stephen's touched him outside of his flat - he never had the luxury of being touchy-feely and Stephen's one of the most self-contained people he knows in this time period.
Neither of them say anything, but Matt can feel himself relax into the hold even as he tracks the lines of Orion and Taurus. He can almost forget about the anomalies, his original mission, everything that's led to him walking down a street-lit road hundreds of years before he was born.
It should scare him.
Stephen's arm loosens as they reach Matt's building, but he stays close as Matt leads him through two sets of doors and up several flights of stairs. Separates only to pull off most of his clothes and crawl under Matt's quilt.
It should scare him, but it doesn't.
---
A Saturday comes around, and it's a weekend off for the primary anomaly response team. Even though he's familiar with the concept of weekends, it's rare that Matt is allowed to observe the idiosyncrasy. More so that he does so with no concrete plans. He used to visit Gideon, to share intelligence and devise new backups of backups of backups. Other times he'd conduct research, using falsified credentials to tour scientific and political facilities (on one occasion he'd created an alias with a mid-life crisis in order to access the same university open day as Connor, back when he thought the young genius had been responsible for the anomaly crisis).
This time there are no needs. There is no mission.
Matt still wakes up early, ingrained habit combined with the sunlight streaming through the windowed walls of his flat. He rolls over slightly to watch the clouds shift between buildings.
Beside him Stephen groans and pulls a pillow over his head.
"Daylight won't kill you," Matt tells him without looking away from the sky.
Stephen snorts and pulls the pillow tighter.
"I thought you were a morning person," Matt continues. "Becker still complains about you giving his people the run around at the crack of dawn to -"
There's a sudden cold jab in his side.
"No need for that," Matt says. He feels light, maybe giddy. It's new. He takes a chance on looking over at Stephen. The pillow hasn't budged.
After a few seconds Stephen grunts. Then the whole bed lurches, taking Matt with it. The thin sheet they'd been lying underneath disappears. Matt blinks and looks up, watches Stephen wrap it around himself as he walks across the bedroom to the bathroom door.
It's not the strangest thing Stephen's ever done, but Matt's baseline for that kind of thing is small still. He wants to see it improve. And that says a lot about this thing between them that neither of them have ever really talked aloud about. Or talked about at all.
When Stephen reappears a few minutes later, holding the sheet tightly against his chest, Matt is ready to ask a question but Stephen gets in there first.
“You need curtains.”
Matt frowns. “What?”
Stephen makes a show of falling onto the bed with the sheet still tightly wrapped around him. “You need curtains,” he repeats, and points at the bare, floor to ceiling windows that had been the main reason Matt had bought this flat in the first place. “You're exposed.”
“I'm not overlooked,” Matt says.
Stephen gives him a filthy look. “Try that one again.”
“I'm not overlooked much.”
Stephen snorts.
“Glass confuses future predators.”
Stephen makes a choking sound that could almost be a laugh. “Nice save. You're still exposed. And I don't feel comfortable being naked when any perv with binoculars could be watching.”
“You're sniper tra...” Matt stares at Stephen. Glances down at his body still hidden by the sheet.
Stephen waits patiently, fascinated by his new prey.
Matt cranes his neck back to look at the glass. Then back to Stephen. He chooses his words carefully, because he can. He has a luxury of time, even now. “Are you saying that if I get curtains, you'll be naked more?”
Stephen smiles slowly. “I might.”
Later, when they eventually get dressed and are in the kitchen watching the coffee maker whir into action, Matt opens his laptop and starts a rudimentary search for home furnishings.
He has a feeling this is supposed to be complicated, this new stage of whatever this is that he and Stephen have.
It's not complicated.
Matt finds he quite likes how things are turning out.
Fandom: Primeval
Summary: Matt's new life is complicated sometimes.
Characters: Matt/Stephen, appearances by and references to others
Rating: PG
Length: ~1800
Beta: ladydrace
Author's Notes: Written for bigtitch for the 2016 Denial Secret Santa, using the prompt 'curtains'. This is... not even remotely what I thought I'd be writing when I got the prompts, but here we are!
Title comes from 'Oh My God' by Kaiser Chiefs.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Matt doesn't often think about how things turn out the way they do. It might suggest he thinks he has control over anything or anyone around him. He doesn't. Control is something other people think they have, or can gain.
Matt grew up in a world that had ended long before he'd been born. There was never time to think, to contemplate the world as it could be. The hows and whys of life, the universe and everything meant nothing when every day survived was another day of not being a predator's meal.
Even in his new life Matt doesn't have control. Knows that there are things he can't control. Things that can't be controlled by anyone or anything.
Stephen Hart is one of those things.
At the other end of the hub Stephen is engrossed in conversation with Jess Parker. She waves a tablet in his face; he gesticulates with one hand but doesn't move from his half-seated position against her workstation. Legs outstretched, posture relaxed.
A few seconds too late Matt realises he is staring.
Stephen looks up, catches Matt's eyes for a split second. Something crosses his face then disappears as he continues talking to Jess.
Matt walks away before anything else can happen.
---
There's a betting pool in the ARC. Matt knows about it, knows about all the various bets and wagers that almost everyone in the Anomaly Research Centre has exchanged money and other forfeits over.
Matt gets the idea of a betting pool. Even vaguely understands why people with the luxury of time and relative safety would overextend their interest in other people's lives. If asked about it he'd raise an eyebrow and say he'd read about it in a book somewhere. In reality it had taken him almost a year to figure out why the rest of his Army unit was so invested in the colour sergeant's on-off relationship with his long distance girlfriend.
This betting pool is about him and Stephen.
One of the forensic anthropologists who knows Stephen from the original ARC is convinced they're in a non-romantic sexual relationship, and has wagered a large amount of money on her belief. Two of Becker's ex-Marine NCOs think they're legally (but secretly) married.
Becker was a surprising late addition to the pool. He put a month's worth of mission reports on there being no extra-professional relationship at all.
Connor thinks it's unrequited, with a mint condition misprinted Star Wars poster to back him up. Jess thinks they're in denial about their feelings.
Emily keeps him appraised of the pool, more out of her own amusement than anything else.
Matt wonders if this is what the colour sergeant felt like during all those months in Aldershot.
---
Stephen Hart's reappearance in the time line almost precisely paralleled his first appearance in Matt's bed. It just happened one evening, there was no real discussion of motives or feelings and the world didn't come to a roaring end because Matt focused on something other than the bigger picture for a few hours. The next day everything and everyone else carried on as if nothing had changed.
Stephen kisses Matt the same way he tracks a creature in the field or listens to Jess recap the last three series of Strictly. Intently, patiently, like there's nothing else in the world that is worth paying attention to. And when he's not doing any of those things he gives no indication that any of them would in fact hold his interest. Survival instinct at its finest.
In moments of distraction Matt stares. The first time he realised what he was doing they were in an empty school playground. One moment the team had been staring at an anomaly on the wrong side of a metal link fence, the next Stephen was looking for a handhold on the fence, his arse inches from Matt's face.
He'd looked for maybe half a second before he realised what he was doing. Jerked his gaze away, focused on what Emily and Abby were doing. Worried that someone had realised what he was doing until it slowly became clear nobody was paying attention to him.
Ten feet up and astride the fence, Stephen reached down for his rifle and one of Connor's gadgets and leaped gracefully to the ground. A small part of Matt was relieved he was no longer the only person watching Stephen as he cautiously approached the anomaly and followed Connor's instructions to activate the remote locking device.
A much larger part of him was aware that if there was an actual threat, he could have been killed by now for being so distracted.
His new life is complicated sometimes.
---
Another night the team is out late corralling a small herd of aardvark like creatures in a hedge maze. It's gone midnight by the time the last one is shooed back to where it came from. Everyone looks exhausted, and even Matt wants nothing more than six to eight hours' sleep.
Becker's got the keys to the ARC 4x4 tonight, and offers to drop Stephen back at the ARC, where his official residence is still one of the bunk rooms.
Stephen blinks a few times and shakes his head. "I'll crash at Matt's. He's closer." He glances at Matt, who shrugs. As if it was an actual question. As if he'd ever say no.
Becker looks too relieved to question it. Once he's dropped off Connor and Abby to their new place and Emily to Jess', the ARC's another seventy mile round trip. It's cumbersome, even in the middle of the night with no traffic.
It's also going to be a tight fit again. "We can walk," Matt says. "It's not that far."
Again Becker doesn't question it, just herds everyone else into the 4x4 before Matt or Stephen can insist otherwise.
It's a cool night, relatively quiet by city standards. The skies are mostly clear, and Matt can't help but keep looking up at the stars. Every so often Stephen tugs on his arm to stop him walking into something, or tripping onto the road.
The hand on his arm eventually becomes an arm round his waist, a lighter touch than Matt's used to from Stephen. It's not something they do - Matt thinks he can count on one hand the number of times Stephen's touched him outside of his flat - he never had the luxury of being touchy-feely and Stephen's one of the most self-contained people he knows in this time period.
Neither of them say anything, but Matt can feel himself relax into the hold even as he tracks the lines of Orion and Taurus. He can almost forget about the anomalies, his original mission, everything that's led to him walking down a street-lit road hundreds of years before he was born.
It should scare him.
Stephen's arm loosens as they reach Matt's building, but he stays close as Matt leads him through two sets of doors and up several flights of stairs. Separates only to pull off most of his clothes and crawl under Matt's quilt.
It should scare him, but it doesn't.
---
A Saturday comes around, and it's a weekend off for the primary anomaly response team. Even though he's familiar with the concept of weekends, it's rare that Matt is allowed to observe the idiosyncrasy. More so that he does so with no concrete plans. He used to visit Gideon, to share intelligence and devise new backups of backups of backups. Other times he'd conduct research, using falsified credentials to tour scientific and political facilities (on one occasion he'd created an alias with a mid-life crisis in order to access the same university open day as Connor, back when he thought the young genius had been responsible for the anomaly crisis).
This time there are no needs. There is no mission.
Matt still wakes up early, ingrained habit combined with the sunlight streaming through the windowed walls of his flat. He rolls over slightly to watch the clouds shift between buildings.
Beside him Stephen groans and pulls a pillow over his head.
"Daylight won't kill you," Matt tells him without looking away from the sky.
Stephen snorts and pulls the pillow tighter.
"I thought you were a morning person," Matt continues. "Becker still complains about you giving his people the run around at the crack of dawn to -"
There's a sudden cold jab in his side.
"No need for that," Matt says. He feels light, maybe giddy. It's new. He takes a chance on looking over at Stephen. The pillow hasn't budged.
After a few seconds Stephen grunts. Then the whole bed lurches, taking Matt with it. The thin sheet they'd been lying underneath disappears. Matt blinks and looks up, watches Stephen wrap it around himself as he walks across the bedroom to the bathroom door.
It's not the strangest thing Stephen's ever done, but Matt's baseline for that kind of thing is small still. He wants to see it improve. And that says a lot about this thing between them that neither of them have ever really talked aloud about. Or talked about at all.
When Stephen reappears a few minutes later, holding the sheet tightly against his chest, Matt is ready to ask a question but Stephen gets in there first.
“You need curtains.”
Matt frowns. “What?”
Stephen makes a show of falling onto the bed with the sheet still tightly wrapped around him. “You need curtains,” he repeats, and points at the bare, floor to ceiling windows that had been the main reason Matt had bought this flat in the first place. “You're exposed.”
“I'm not overlooked,” Matt says.
Stephen gives him a filthy look. “Try that one again.”
“I'm not overlooked much.”
Stephen snorts.
“Glass confuses future predators.”
Stephen makes a choking sound that could almost be a laugh. “Nice save. You're still exposed. And I don't feel comfortable being naked when any perv with binoculars could be watching.”
“You're sniper tra...” Matt stares at Stephen. Glances down at his body still hidden by the sheet.
Stephen waits patiently, fascinated by his new prey.
Matt cranes his neck back to look at the glass. Then back to Stephen. He chooses his words carefully, because he can. He has a luxury of time, even now. “Are you saying that if I get curtains, you'll be naked more?”
Stephen smiles slowly. “I might.”
Later, when they eventually get dressed and are in the kitchen watching the coffee maker whir into action, Matt opens his laptop and starts a rudimentary search for home furnishings.
He has a feeling this is supposed to be complicated, this new stage of whatever this is that he and Stephen have.
It's not complicated.
Matt finds he quite likes how things are turning out.