PRESENT - (Before 1932) Did You Do All This?
Title: Did You Do All This?
Pairing/Characters: Connor/Abby, Matt/Becker, Rex
Genre: Humour
Rating: T or 15
Spoilers: Takes place after episode 3 of Series 5 and before my oneshot "A Leader's Decision."
Summary: Drunk Connor interrupts a "fight" and suffers for it the next morning.
A/N: Part of my PPF series. This was so much fun to write! Connor is wonderful. Again beta'd by the most awesome fredbassett but all boo-boos and yogis are mine not hers.
“Rex? Rex! Little buddy? Where are you?”
Connor had to pause for a moment and lean against the wall. Everything was a little hazy and blurred, so stopping for a rest helped-just a little bit-to get things back in focus. The celebrations were still going strong in the Ops room, he could hear the laughter and the clinking of glasses, but he had a job to do.
Rex had been allowed free rein for the party, provided that someone kept an eye on him. He didn’t know how Abby had persuaded Lester, and Connor wasn’t exactly sure why he was now looking for the prehistoric lizard either, because he had consumed a large number of drinks and was quite tipsy.
Connor hiccupped, which was followed by a little belch before he carried on down the corridor wobbling in an uneven line.
“Rex? Come on, mate… Abby’s wondering where you are!”
Okay, no reply. No distinctive chirping or the fluttering of wings. Lester would not be impressed if Rex was lost somewhere in the building and neither would Philip. It was a good thing Connor had reprogrammed the lockdown software to allow Rex access to other parts of ARC or else no one would be going anywhere.
“Rex! Come out, come out wherever you are!” Connor giggled a little and then had to wipe a little bit of spit that dribbled from his mouth. Okay he was more than a bit tipsy, he was hammered. Connor also needed to go to the toilet. His bladder felt very full.
So the Rex hunt was put on hold as Connor proceeded to stagger towards the men’s toilets. Again, he weaved from one side of the corridor to the other, banging into the walls, the urge to pee getting more and more desperate with every step he took.
--------------------------
Connor wasn’t quite sure what he was hearing as he approached the gentleman’s room of convenience. There was shouting (swearing mostly) and a lot of banging and crashing. Something porcelain smashed, someone yelled and called out a very rude name, but there was also the constant sound of running water. Like a waterfall.
“Okay… I really need to go.” He moaned and squeezed his legs together to walk-as best he could-from the knees down, into the toilets.
Connor was oblivious to the state of the place. Everything was a slight blur as he looked around anyway, it made no difference to him that one of the sinks had been smashed to bits and water was pouring all over the floor. He didn’t notice the broken tiles coming away from the wall or the door of a cubicle hanging off its hinges.
Connor didn’t register Becker pinned up against the wall with his red and black shirt ripped, his jeans open and slipping slowly down his legs. Connor didn’t click onto the fact that it was Matt holding him there, his body pressed against Becker’s and his hands pinning Becker’s arms to the wall.
For a moment, the two men were just as oblivious to Connor as he struggled to unzip his fly and stay near one specific urinal. No one else appeared to even exist to them as they glared at each other, their mouths inches away from touching, the heat and adrenalin from the fight clearly still coursing through them like wild fire.
Connor was absolutely clueless for his only goal was to get that fly undone. When he did, everything else that needed doing in this process easily followed and Connor let loose a long, relieved sigh as his bladder began to empty.
“Aaaah! Thank God! How great is it to pee?”
“Shit!”
There was a cluttering sound as broken tiles from the wall fell to the floor, along with a rustle of clothes, more swearing and what sounded like a heavy booted kick to a cubicle door.
“Shit!”
Connor grinned happily, leaned forward over his urinal and let his head smash lightly against the wall. He stood there for a long time and even a little while after he finished. Then he pushed his head off the wall and tucked himself away. “That feels so much better! Now, Rex! Where--?”
His voice trailed off when he saw Matt and Becker standing side by side, blocked from the exit and looking more than a little uncomfortable in front of one of the cubicles. Connor peered round Becker and he saw a large boot print on a door which now lay broken over the toilet. Then he slowly turned round and finally saw the entirety of the wrecked men’s room. When he peered down at the puddle of water pooling around his boots, Connor was extremely curious as to how it had happened.
Connor was distracted from his rippling reflection in the water and he saw Matt and Becker trying to leave, he even heard Becker whispering angrily--urgently-to the Irishman to get the hell out of this place. They both froze when he blocked their way again and confronted them with a big happy drunken grin.
“Hey, guys. How are you doing?” Connor’s eyebrow rose in surprise when he saw that Matt was half-naked-covered in a way load of scars and bruises-and Becker was holding up his jeans and looking extremely pissed off.
“Er….we could be better.” replied Matt, glancing over to Becker, who just rolled his eyes in annoyance.
Connor grinned sheepishly and gave Matt and Becker the thumbs up.
“Great! Talking of things great, it is so great to have Emily back, isn’t it?” Connor swayed and nearly slipped over, but Becker grabbed his arm. “Right?”
“Sure. It’s absolutely bloody wonderful,” Becker disdainfully replied.
If Connor hadn’t been drunk and if Becker hadn’t had more than a few tipples, Connor might have questioned him about that tone of voice. How could he be so upset about Emily’s return? This party, this break from work, was all about their friend, so why would he be such a grump?
Then Connor realised what was going on, what he had interrupted. His genius but intoxicated brain connected everything together.
“Did you do all this?” he asked, gesturing to the ruined room and flooded floor. Matt and Becker exchanged looks. “Are you two fighting again? Like what is up with that and the constant visits to the medical bay? I thought you were friends! I thought I was the one who got injured all the time! You do realise that Lester is going to be seriously pissed off when he finds out what you’ve done! Jesus, guys! What the hell happened that would make you two want to destroy the men’s bogs?”
He didn’t get a proper answer out of Becker, other than an angry grimace and a muttered string of curses that Connor could have sworn sounded like Mutley the dog. Becker barged past Connor towards the exit pausing to hitch up his jeans before disappearing.
Connor looked to Matt for a more sensible answer.
The man sighed and scratched absentmindedly at the back of his head.
“He ran out of toilet paper.”
“You what?” Connor grinned uncertainly. “Are you serious?”
Matt patted him on the back and a smiled as he strode out of the room, his shoulders slightly slumped and what had once been his favourite grey shirt trailing in tatters on the floor behind him.
Connor was left more than a little confused and disorientated, but then he cautiously made his way over to the cubicles. There was no sign of toilet roll anywhere, all the holders were wrenched off the wall and only the cardboard rolls remained; a soggy mess on the floor.
Connor agreed that it was a huge inconvenience to be left with nothing after a trip to the loo, but to flip out and start fighting with your friend? Connor shook his head. Becker seriously needed to talk to someone.
The state of this room wasn’t of any importance any more and Connor was certain he wasn’t going to be blamed for it. He had done what he came here for and before he could go back to the party and have that dance with Abby, he had one more thing left to accomplish.
“Rex! Little buddy? Rex!”
Connor walked to the door and called out down the corridor for the Coelurosauravus. He had to lean against the wall again, but this time Connor really listened. He was rewarded after a few minutes by a faint chirping response.
“Talk to me, Rex! Tell me where you are, mate!”
The reptile’s vocalizing sounded again and again, but because of the alcoholic haze and the lack of co-operation from his feet, Connor took a while to reach the end of the corridor.
Rex was nowhere to be seen. Connor could hear him but as he looked behind some corners and even opened doors into labs and offices, there was no sign of him.
“Rex! Come on! Please?”
There was a squeak and a metal thumping up above and when Connor looked up his face was immediately hit by a load of unravelled toilet paper and a tangled up Permian reptile.
“Oh… Rex…. Becker is going to kill you.”
---------------------------------
“Argh!”
Abby nearly fell off the bed when Connor bolted upright and screamed. She hadn’t expected him to waken like that, but now as he began to calm down so too did Abby.
She shuffled a little closer to him and tried to ignore the waft of alcohol emanating from his body. It didn’t matter that he had come back to their apartment drunk-Abby herself had had a few-what mattered was that he came back. It was the first time he had spent the night with her for a good while. For once, Philip Burton’s New Dawn project hadn’t kept Connor in that lab and it was all because of Emily coming back. She had brought the team together.
“Connor. I’m here.” Abby wrapped her arm around him and held him tenderly until his erratic gasping breath evened out to normal and he slumped back down onto the pillow. She lay down next to him and snuggled up, coiling her legs around his. “What’s the matter, Connor? Are you okay?”
“Bad dream.” He moaned and his body did an involuntary shiver. “And a splitting headache. I shouldn’t have drunk so much. Oh God… I didn’t do anything stupid did I?”
“You weren’t that bad.” Abby chuckled slightly and stroked at his bed hair. “I found it quite endearing.”
“Found what quite endearing?”
Abby laughed.
“It wasn’t endearing at all. I made a right prat of myself, didn’t I?”
“A little bit, but it’s okay. A few of us did.”
Connor grinned and brought his face close to Abby so that he could rub his nose against hers. The touch of skin tickled her causing Abby to scrunch up her face and beam happily.
“So… do you want to tell me about it?” she asked, prodding him with a finger.
“Ow. Tell you about what? Last night at the party?”
“The bad dream.”
The cheeky goofy grin vanished as Connor pulled the sheets over his head and physically shuddered. Utterances of ‘No, no, no’ came from under and such a childlike reaction caused Abby to duck under the covers as well.
“Connor…” She grabbed his chin and made him look her in the eye. “It’s okay, you can tell me. What was it about?”
Connor shivered again and tried to cup his hands over his face. He sat up right again, flinging the sheets off the both of them.
“Oh Abby… it was…. I think I’ve been scarred for life. How can I go into work and face them? How can I ever keep a straight face around them?”
“Connor, it can’t be that bad. Surely it’s not as bad as the time you dreamt Lester was dancing through the ARC wearing only a corset, suspenders and black high heels?”
“It’s worse!”
“How could it possibly be worse than that?”
Connor’s hands dropped from his face and a pale and freaked out gaze looked back at Abby.
“Becker and Matt made out! I dreamt that my teammates, my friends… had kinky man-sex in the middle of the men’s toilets on the third floor of the ARC and Rex stole all the toilet roll!”
Abby wasn’t sure how to react, or to what; the hilarious scenario of the dream, of Connor hiding himself back under the sheets like a freaked out kid, or Rex walking past the bed, trailing a long line of toilet paper behind him.