fanfic: Need
Title: Need
Author: Athene
Fandom: Primeval
Paring/characters: Nick/Connor,
Rating: 18
Warnings: slash, violent sex, dubious consent.
Spoilers: all of series 2, especially 2.7
Disclaimer: Not mine. ITV and Impossible Pictures own them.
Word count: approx 550
AN: Follows on from The Substitute.
Nick had thought he was doing okay.
Things had got better after that first time, when Connor had shown up on his doorstep and offered ‘whatever you need’ to help him deal with this new world. Even though Nick himself had been shocked and a little frightened by what he had almost done to the young man, Connor had shown no such feelings. In fact, he continued to come round whenever he believed that Nick might have had a bad day, usually bearing alcohol, always carrying an unspoken offer in those expressive brown eyes. An offer that Nick had always resisted, no matter how much he wanted it.
Then Stephen died.
The night after the funeral Connor turned up on the doorstep, unbidden, and asked the question, “What do you need?”
Four simple words, loaded with such complicated promise.
And that night Nick had taken what he needed. He had taken Connor. He had taken the compassion and the comfort and the support that Connor offered, and in return he had poured his grief and his rage and his pain into the younger man.
That might have been it, it might have been enough. But Connor came back again the next night, and the next, and any night from then onwards when he believed that Nick would need him.
So Nick continued to take whatever he needed.
On some level he knew it was wrong and selfish. Connor’s own grief was always there, just below the surface. And yet he continued to offer, even when Nick’s pain was translated into blood and bruises, even when Nick could see the silent tears. Always silent.
Today had been particularly bad. They had cleared out Stephen’s office in the day. In the evening, Connor had come round, as Nick had known he would.
For the first time, though, Nick saw more than just the silent offer in Connor’s eyes. He saw the tiniest hint of something else, and if he was being honest with himself he knew what that thing was. But he wasn’t being honest, and he was too consumed by his own pain to dare ask himself the questions that he should have asked long ago; why did Connor let him do this? How far would he let it go before he said ‘no’?
So Nick held him down and fucked him over and over, until he knew there would be bruises on top of the ones that hadn’t yet faded from the last time. Chasing that precious moment of oblivion, when he didn’t have to feel anything any more. Taking every last drop of Connor’s humanity, just as Stephen’s death had taken his own. Taking everything that he thought he needed. Even though he knew it was destroying both of them.
Afterwards, Connor lay there shaking, his hands bunched into fists hiding the tears that Nick knew were there, stifling his desperate sobs.
Nick could only watch, hoping that one day, one of them would be strong enough to say no.