fic - Primeval - Hypnagogic Places and Box-Shaped Spaces- Abby/Connor, Becker/Connor
A/N: And suddenly dark!fic! Seriously. I'd planned on finishing up my Metalocalypse fic then season 4 of Primeval came at me right the fuck out of nowhere and the next thing I know I'm writing this while riding in a car. Anywho, I signed up for dark_fest . One of the prompts I claimed was: "Any fandom, any characters, none of this is real. A character comes to believe that their life and experiences are just a hallucination and they are actually in a hospital for their 'delusions' (a la Buffy's 'Normal Again', and others) Author's choice which version of reality is the 'true' one. Bonus points if the fandom is historical/futuristic/has supernatural elements/some other 'out of the ordinary' set up.:
So, I guess I'm supposed to wait until the festival actually starts, but I asked and posting early isn't against any rules as long as I remember to e-mail the thing in come go-time.... Which is good, because I have no patience and was stealing the prompt anyway.
general warning- I'm from the southern US. Aside from a quick Google on the subject I have no clue about the specifics of psychiatric hospitals in the UK. As a teenager, I spent several weeks in one in the US. I assume most readers will have never been in a UK psychiatric hospital anyway and care varies hospital to hospital, so I just based it on my own experiences. If there's a glaring mistake, ignore it.... oh, or better yet, pretend it's some really deep dream symbolism that is totally there on purpose and not a factual error.
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If this is the new future, then the future sucks. Humans are living above ground now. That’s done fuck-all good. The military was still mean. Like, really mean. Like “Oh, look, three people walking through an anomaly. Let’s release the genetically engineered super creatures and ask questions later. Yeah? Yeah.”
Connor assumes they’re genetically engineered super creatures at any rate. It looked like someone had taken a lady future predator, introduced it to a gentlemanly megopteran, turned on the mood lighting, put on the Frank Sinatra, then realized that’s not how nature worked and smashed the two together with a baseball bat and a prayer… Probably to Satan or something from the Cthulhu mythos.
His hand is around Abby’s arm even though she’s twisting away from him. “Let go! I can’t aim!” she shouts over the clicking shriek of the creatures and the gunfire.
Becker’s in front of them both; standing on higher ground, spraying bullets at the opposition. “Either we surrender or we retreat!” he says in one breath while he’s reloading, giving Abby and Connor their options.
Connor lets go of Abby and unloads into one of the creatures as it tries to circle around and flank them. He squints across the flat, brown expanse between them and the nearest standing structure. A compound. All right angles and gray stone. People were crowded up against a fence that was so high it was really more like a cage. They’d been closer a few minutes ago and it hadn’t looked like a happy place.
“I vote we retreat!” Connor asserts, glancing back to his friends. “It’s like Thunderdome here. But with less Tina Tuner and more… science- ow! Abby I was jokin’.”
“Not the time for that, Connor.” Abby ducks down to reload.
“Well… I don’t fancy staying here.”
Becker nods. Abby nods back. All three of them crouch together behind cover.
“The anomaly is just around that cliff face,” Becker reminds them. “We can make it,” he says and Connor has been working with him long enough to know he’s just trying to raise morale.
A hand squeezes his shoulder. “We’ll make it,” says Abby. Connor moves to place his hand over hers but she’s removed it already. They’re fighting again. Well, not fighting. Connor did something stupid. Abby’s held a mostly silent grudge for the last couple of days. It happens. A lot. Too often, maybe.
“On the count of three.” Becker raises his gun. “I’ll take the rear, got it? One… two… three!”
Abby runs. Connor isn’t far behind. He can hear Becker laying down suppressive fire and hopes Action Man doesn’t do anything especially self-sacrificing and heroic. He can see the anomaly, make out the shifting lights just a short sprint away. Abby’s still ahead of him; arms and legs pumping, blonde hair refracting light bright enough to rival rips in space and time. And soon they’ll be safe. Safeish. All together, at least.
Connor trips. The ground rises up to meet him and it hurts.
“Connor!” Abby shouts.
He shifts onto his elbows and sees she’s turned to face him and it hurts. It hurts a lot.
“Get up, Connor,”
A ragged cry started deep and raw in Connor’s chest. He sat straight up and screamed, slapping one hand frantically over the back of his neck.
“What’s wrong?”
Connor was in bed. A bed. Not his bed or the one he shared with Abby occasionally. The sheets were white and stiff and way too scratchy. Abby was on the end of the mattress in jeans and a tank top. She crawled forward and took his face in her hands, angling his head down. “Let me see.” She slid her fingers under his. “That‘s nothing. Probably just a bug or something. Come on.”
Abby swung her legs over the side of the bed and hopped down onto the patchy industrial carpet. This room wasn’t his either, Connor realized. It was small, square, empty except for another bed and a rickety desk. “Where am I?”
Abby made a face, the kind of face she made when they couldn’t save a creature or when they had to crowd into some of those velvet-draped aluminum folding chairs at yet another funeral. She leaned down and planted a kiss on the top of his head. “I’ve got to go They’re doing rounds, so..” she backed out the door, raising one hand and waving briefly before jamming it back into her pocket. “Talk to ya later, yeah?”
Somewhere along the tired edges of his mind, Connor wondered if he was dreaming. All at once, he was aware that he was in a hospital (the psychiatric kind of hospital) and he’d been there for some time (the involuntary kind of time.) He’d spent a few weeks in a place like this before, when he was a teenager and having trouble with the kids at school and, admittedly, the science lab had exploded - but, really, they’d just gotten the wrong idea. And, while time in a hospital was preferable to a juvenile record, Connor had been miserable. And why not? It was a miserable place.
Connor got dressed, barely pulling his shirt on before a nurse knocked once and opened the door to take blood for testing. “Sit down on the bed, please sweetie.” And because he couldn’t think of any particularly good reason not to and because she had used the words “please” and “sweetie”, Connor did. He rolled up his sleeve and watched the woman remove a hermetically sealed needle from a zippered canvas bag.
Asking the nurse why he was here crossed Connor’s mind, but he decided against it. It felt like the nth degree of admitting you’d lost track of what month it was. Besides, words were pretty elusive to him at the moment. He only managed a startled “Ow!” when he felt the needle slide through his skin.
“Sorry!” Abby pulls her hands away. In the distance, someone is talking through what sounds like a megaphone, telling them to stay where they are, lay down, and surrender.
“That may well be our only option,” says Becker to Abby who swallows hard and nods.
Connor’s on his back. His upper-half’s at an odd angle. He feels grit under his nails like he’s been dragged through the dirt. Tripping is the last thing he remembers but somehow he knows he’s really messed it all up for everyone this time.
The people in the fence cross Connor’s mind. He wonders what they’ll do with three armed strangers who just came through an anomaly. Probably nothing good. Connor starts to say something to that effect, but he can’t. He can feel something long and narrow beneath his skin, swears he can feel the rounded sides of it with his tongue. It gags him and makes him want to cough, but that seriously hurts.
“Hey, hey stay still. It’s all right.” Abby puts one hand behind Connor’s shoulders and lays the other over his chest. She says a string of generically soothing things while he fights the reflex to either vomit, pass out, or die. He’s not sure which. Possibly all three.
Connor reaches back behind his head. He feels something leathery and distressingly creature-shaped. He recoils from it.
“Keep still, Connor,” Becker says then pauses, during which time there’s a short burst of gunfire. “It’s dead.”
That doesn’t do much to comfort Connor, not with a particularly sharp bit of aforementioned dead creature lodged in his throat.
Abby tosses her gun aside. She finds Connor’s and does the same with it. “You’re welcome to run for it, Becker,” she’s says earnestly, the fact that she won’t leave implied.
“Right.” Becker steps to Connor’s right side and scans the area for immediate threats. Evidently, there are none. He places his gun in the dirt and slides it away with his boot. “Don’t worry,” he tells the other two. “It’ll be fine.”
Not much done for morale this time. In his periphery, Connor sees both Abby and Becker take submissive positions on the ground. Abby’s cheek is flat against the back one hand, facing Connor. Her lips move.
“Don‘t fall asleep.”
Connor barely caught himself before gravity pulled him out of his chair.
“That’s rude,” Abby amended quietly so as not disturb the person speaking. There were half a dozen of them in the small room; chairs and sofa arranged in some semblance of a semicircle around Sarah. The lights were off and several lamps were on, probably to make the room seem more safe and calming. Connor was just confused.
Duncan was explaining at length how Tom’s release earlier that week was part of one big conspiracy. “I’m telling you, he’s dead. Probably in pieces on one of the lower floors down there.”
“I’m sure that not true,” Sarah said with measured patience. She let Duncan keep talking, but Connor wasn’t listening. He turned to the window and looked through the blinds at the day room and adjoining nurses’ desk. Jess was in scrubs, spinning idly in her chair and wearing a grin as she chatted to Becker who was leaned over nearby, filling out a form on the counter. Behind them, Nick Cutter walked by and disappeared down a hallway.
“Something to say, Connor?” asked Sarah before Connor even realized he had stood.
“It’s the professor,” he said, pointing at the window as if that were explanation enough.
Sarah shook her head. “I’m sorry?”
“Nothing,” said Connor, drawing out the syllables as a murky sort of realization washed over him.
“No, share,” Sarah insisted. “I think it’s about time Duncan let someone else have a turn.”
“It’s nothing,” Connor repeated. “Just, I’ve seen this plot rehashed in a lot of television stuff. Urban fantasy stuff mostly. None of you are real. No offense.”
No one really looked convinced or even surprised. Except, maybe, Duncan who’s sudden and obvious discomfort with his current reality made Connor feel a bit guilty.
“Connor…” Abby stood and started to approach him, stopping when Connor backed up to the door.
“I don’t even know what you’re doing here,” Connor said to her. “I mean - as a patient, not in my imagination. You’re in my imagination all the time - Not in a perverted way! …Wait. No. You’re not real. Why am I even worried about what you think? Wow, I really am mental… I’m getting off topic here. Abby, why are you a patient? What’s wrong with you?”
Abby just stared at him for several seconds. She opened her mouth to say something but seemed to be at a loss.
“Right,” Connor said, satisfied. “You’re perfect… And I’m leaving.” He wasn’t sure how exactly, but leaving the room seemed like a good start.
“Connor!” Sarah came after him but didn’t try anything. Over his shoulder, Connor saw her take a detour and go speak with Becker at the nurses’ desk.
Connor moved through the day room. He went around the sofa and stopped in front of the television where a snuff film was playing; an attractive woman with pale blonde hair, naked and dirty, alone in a small square cell, in a large square compound, in a huge, brown expanse of miles and miles of nothing. With considerable difficulty, Connor raised both hands to the back of his neck.
“What are you doing?” asked Becker.
The thing feels thin and brittle. Connor isn’t sure he has it in him to pull it out, but he’s reasonably confident he can break it off.
“Connor,” says Becker firmly.
“No, don’t do that,” says Abby, scrambling onto her knees.
The thin brittle thing snaps. Something warm and wet spills over his fingers. When Connor sits up his head swims, turning sights and sounds into blurs and barely decipherable noise.
“All right then, no surrendering. Abby, get all the weapons you can carry.” Becker says all of this very fast, slightly faster than Connor can make sense of the words. He puts both arms around Becker’s neck, letting him pull him to his feet.
Connor woke up in white. Literally white. Lots and lots of unforgiving-on-the-eyes, blank, blindingly dull white. A padded room. How… cliché. “Nice. Really subtle.”
Connor stood and went to the door. He leaned against it, finding it surprisingly hard and heavy for something covered in overstuffed quilting. There was one of those small sliding windows up top and looking through it he could see everything; an empty hall outside but with the whole building superimposed over it. Three stories and a basement, the whole establishment opened up like one big dollhouse.
James Lester was on the top floor. He had an office there.
The first floor was on fire. Professor Cutter was in there somewhere. So was Helen. Not cool.
The basement was host to a cling-wrapped body shoved into the back corner of a meat locker, It was probably Tom’s. (The body, not the meat locker.)
Connor found himself on the second floor along with the day room and the nurses’ desk and the bedrooms and the dimly lit comfortable spaces reserved for group therapy. He spent a few minutes trying to find Abby somewhere in all that but couldn’t.
“Move it Abby!” Becker shouts, leaving Connor lying in the foliage to climb up onto an outcropping rock and wave his arms. “Over here! I’m not dragging both of you back to the ARC!” He squints into the distance and, seemingly satisfied with Abby’s progress away from the Thunderdome anomaly, turns back to Connor.
“How are you feeling?”
Connor blinked, waking up to the same square, white room. He sat up on the padded floor as Becker sat down across from him. “Any better?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“Are you feeling any better?”
“Ah,” Connor began, but talking to Becker here in this room felt way too surreal and the words got caught in his throat almost painfully. He coughed and swallowed and felt a little better after a while. “If I say I feel great, will you let me out of here?”
“No,” said Becker. He fixed his gaze on Connor, just sitting there and staring at him like he was sizing him up.
Connor looked away after thirty seconds or so. He picked at the pleated seam of the floor with the sneaking suspicion that Becker was waiting for him to say something. “What?”
“Do you know where you are?”
“If I had to take an educated guess, I’d say in a metaphor.”
Becker raised his eyebrows. “A metaphor for what?”
“Oh, no. Not that. I was never really great in literature… No. Wait. I don’t have to answer you. You’re a figment of my subconscious.”
“Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say.”
“Sorry,” said Connor.
“Sorry,” says Becker. “It has to be done, Abby. You said so yourself.”
“But I don’t know what I’m doing. What if I make it worse?” Abby’s busy with something near the fire. Apparently, they’ve made one of those. Apparently, it’s already gone dark.
“I have a feeling it’ll get worse anyway. Better than doing nothing… Right? …Abby?”
“Fine! …I mean, yes, you’re right.” Abby pulls the edge of something small and metallic out of the fire but her hands are shaking too badly to keep a proper hold of it. “Shit,” she curses as it falls into the dirt.
“Want me to do it?” asks Becker but Abby shakes her head.
“No… No, I’ve studied a few animals like that one back there. I know what I’m looking for.”
“I’ve had some first-aid training, you know.”
“Yeah? How were you with it?”
“Lousy.”
Abby glares at him, but something like a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “I’ll do it… Just help me out, yeah?”
Becker had pulled Connor close. Awkwardly close. His head was against Becker’s shoulder. He could feel his fingers move through his hair, brushing it away from his neck. Connor really felt like he ought to say something but suddenly it hurt too much.
“Shit,” Abby curses again and the pain ebbs momentarily.
“Keep going,” says Becker to Abby, voice admirably level even though Connor has his hands around the man’s wrist so tight he can feel his own finger’s going numb. “You’re doing fine.”
“Talk about something. Talk to Connor.”
Becker holds the sides of Connor’s head a little more firmly, preventing him from jerking when Abby starts again.
“I missed you the most,” Becker said abruptly, in a matter-of-fact sort of tone that caught Connor off guard. “I don’t want to play favorites, but it‘s true. I’m sure it was only because of the sex… Which is something I assume Abby knows.”
Somewhere, Abby gives a strained laugh. “Abby knows,” she says. “And after much consideration, Abby’s fine with it.”
“Yeah… Was I not supposed to tell her?”
Becker shook his head and Connor appreciated that. It usually worked out for the best when people kept their expectations low for him in matters that involved much secrecy. “Well, you two lived together for year. I assumed it must have been mentioned in passing at least once somewhere within that timeframe.”
Connor screams. It hurts more than anything. Possibly ever. His eyes open and close several times in quick succession. He sees Becker’s face, distorted through odd prisms of light and realizes it’s because his eyes are watering. Watering and not crying, because Becker’s so close; holding his head and staring at him intently and if Connor is crying, well, that’s pretty humiliating on top of everything else that’s gone wrong today.
Connor stifles the next scream. He opens his mouth and inhales sharply. More than once, he tries to move away from the sharp pain in his neck but can’t. He sees Becker lean closer, pressing a kiss to his forehead which is moderately embarrassing just because he knows Abby’s nearby. Becker pulls him back against his shoulder and Connor breathes in the smell of him, remembering considerably better days spent in the captain’s apartment. After work and on days off and sometimes in a hotel room if an anomaly took them especially far away. Not all that often, but often enough.
When Connor came to, he was up against the wall - literally and sexually and not figuratively. It was a little jarring and unpleasant but he knew it was Becker and telling him to stop now would feel weirdly rude somehow. Besides, he didn’t want to be alone and his small padded metaphor was starting to feel pretty lonely. Like nothing outside that door even existed. He didn’t want Becker to leave.
Connor gasped. Strong, familiar hands slid under his shirt, making Connor squirm self-consciously beneath Becker. His fingers dug into the wall and the padding started to peel off beneath his hands.
“I didn’t do it right,” says Abby.
“You did fine,” says Becker as something loose and soft is wrapped around Connor’s neck.
“What do we do now?” asks Abby. “What do we do?” she asks again when Becker doesn’t answer.
“I have to go. I have to get back to work before someone comes looking for me.” Becker put his belt back on. Everything felt distant and a little businesslike - which was fine. Becker was a friend. Connor still didn’t want to be alone.
“You could stay a little longer. We could c-” What? Cuddle? He hadn’t been about to say ‘cuddle’. Had he? What else stated with a “c” given that kind of context? Oh, God, Becker thought he was about to say cuddle. He had to think of something else, something manly, and he had to think of it quick. “…certainly arm wrestle.” Flawless.
Becker gave him an odd look, shook his head, and laughed. He went to Connor and pulled him into an affectionate hybrid; half headlock, half hug. “I’ll see you later. Maybe I can talk them into letting you out before dinner.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Connor leaned back against the wall and watched him go. Becker couldn’t see or didn’t care to notice the padding flaking off the walls of the room like so much dead skin. It kind of reminded Connor of the science lab after it had (accidentally) exploded. When the door closed, Connor turned to face it, stripping off lengths of fabric in big white patches.
There was a drawing under there somewhere. Possibly a carving.. Like hieroglyphic graffiti. It was a jungle, maybe. There were people there, maybe. Sitting around, just waiting. For a moment of transcendental clarity, Connor thought he knew what they were waiting on.
“Connor can you hear me?”
The door opened again and the moment was gone. Connor looked and saw Abby, standing there looking absolutely phenomenal in one of those skimpy nurse uniforms you see a lot of around Halloween. “I’m a nurse now,” she clarified.
“Yes you are,” Connor agreed.
Abby closed the door back and started stripping down. Connor momentarily considered informing her that he’d actually just had sex so ‘Thanks, but maybe later.’ - except that was a completely ridiculous thing to say now that she was standing there in just her knickers.
The whole thing was over in several frustrating flashes of comprehension: Abby was pushing him down. She was on top. Connor’s hands fumbled over her body as he drifted in and out of the moment. Somewhere in all the confusion, his fingers brushed her hips, tracing the reptilian tail of a tattoo presumably on her back. He wondered how long that had been there.
“I love you, Connor,” said Abby, from Connor’s right. He was tired and didn’t look over but knew she was there. She kissed him and, for a second, he thought she was crying.
“Hey, wake up,” says Becker.
When Connor does wake up, he realizes Becker’s just a few inches away. He’s startled and nearly falls off the bed, except there’s a wall there. “Ow,” he seethes, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Come on. Dinner,” says Becker with minimal sympathy. He holds up a hand, spinning a keyring and smiling before shoving the whole thing back in his pocket. “Doctor Cutter said I could let you out. It took some convincing. Don’t blow it.”
Connor looks around. No padded room, just a normal room. Well, relatively normal. It is small, square, empty except for another bed and a rickety desk. Connor gets out of bed and follows Becker to the door. He feels like he’s forgetting something. He’s not sure what.