Fic, Rising to the Occasion, Becker/Connor, 15

[fredbassett]

Title : Rising to the Occasion
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Becker/Connor
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : In which Becker is oblivious and Connor rises to the occasion, in more ways than one.
A/N : Written for deinonychus_1’s birthday. I hope you have a lovely day. Thanks to lukadreaming for the beta.

The last thing Becker experienced before the world turned into a riot of snow, shattered glass, splintered wood and twisted metal was the pain from something sharp raking across his forehead, ripping his skin like tissue paper and sending hot blood running down his face to blind him.

He heard a scream and just had time to wonder if it had come from him before the darkness claimed him.

* * * * *

“Becker?”

The voice sounded anxious. It was controlled but brittle, the voice of someone trying hard not to panic.

“Becker? Can you hear me?”

It was Connor’s voice, definitely on edge, like he’d been asking the same question numerous times without getting an answer. Becker wondered how long he’d been out of it and where the hell he was. He tried to open his eyes but his eyelashes felt like they were stuck together. An attempt to lift his arm to scrub at his eyes sent a sharp pain lancing through his shoulder and neck.

“Becker!”

He must have groaned, because Connor now sounded even more worried.

Becker drew in a shallow breath and tried again to open his eyes. This time he was successful, although they felt gummy, like he’d been asleep for too long. He found himself staring up into a pair of very concerned brown eyes, set in a pale face smeared with blood and dirt. There was a scratch on Connor’s cheek and his hair was damp and messy.

Wherever they were was cold but dry. The only light seemed to be coming from a torch held in Connor’s hand. Becker blinked against the glare. This time, he lifted his hand more cautiously and managed to rub his eyes without feeling like someone was trying to wrench his head off his shoulder. His face was damp and sticky, and when he looked at his fingers they were covered in blood.

“What the fuck happened?” The words came out with difficulty, forcing their way past a tongue that felt thick and heavy.

“The weight of the snow brought a dead tree down and it hit us.”

Becker was impressed by the succinctness of that summary. He was even more impressed by the fact that Connor had contrived to get him out of the wreck of their vehicle and into shelter.

“Where are we?”

“A holiday cottage, I think. It was all locked up and everything’s turned off. There’s no telephone and I can’t get a signal on my phone. Yours got a bit… mangled.”

“Feels like I got a bit mangled too,” Becker muttered. “How the hell did you get me here?”

“You walked,” Connor told him. “I got you out of the car, you came around enough to get up and we walked here. Don’t you remember?”

Becker shook his head and immediately regretted it. Someone was trying to dig their way out from inside his skull with an ice-pick.

“What’s the last thing you do remember?”

“Something coming through the windscreen…”

“That was the tree,” Connor supplied helpfully. He stood up, doing a good job of not flashing the torch in Becker’s eyes whilst, rather bizarrely, balancing on one leg like a flamingo.

“Connor…? Are you OK? Are you hurt as well?”

“Nope, the tree was mostly on your side. I just got a bit shaken about when the truck flipped over.”

“So why are you standing on one leg?”

Connor grimaced and looked faintly embarrassed. “It’s nothing, I’m fine. I’m going to see if I can find a way of turning the lights on.”

Becker watched as Connor hopped away, using furniture to help his passage until he managed to put some weight cautiously onto the foot that was clearly causing him some trouble. A sharp hiss of indrawn breath from his companion told Becker that he wasn’t the only one in pain, much as Connor had claimed to be fine. Becker stared around the darkened room. He was sitting on a battered but comfortable sofa in front of a large open fireplace containing a pair of enormous iron firedogs. A small stack of wood had been left on one side of the open fire to dry. The room was cold but smelled fresh and clean. The furniture had a slightly mismatched look, and the number of leaflets for local attractions piled neatly on a coffee table to one side of the fireplace supported Connor’s theory that they were almost certainly in a holiday cottage

The sound of switches being flipped told Becker that Connor had probably succeeded in his search for the main fuse box. The sharp glare of light made his head throb even more and Becker was suddenly conscious of the fact that he had started to shiver rather badly, but hopefully they would now be able to make hot drinks and get some heat into the room. They were both soaked to the skin from struggling through the snow and Becker’s fingers were white and pinched, as well as being covered in blood. The throbbing pain in his forehead was a clue as to where most of the blood had come from.

Becker did his best to lever himself up from the sofa, ignoring the pain. He needed to empty his bladder, so would have to go in search of the bathroom.

“Stay there!” Connor told him briskly. “As soon as I’ve found the stop tap and turned the water on I’ll be able to boil a kettle and get you cleaned up. How’s your head?”

“Throbbing,” Becker admitted. He forced himself upright and glanced down at his black jacket, grimacing at the amount of blood soaked into the thick material. Head wounds always bled profusely but now he understood why Connor looked so anxious.

“Sit down! Blimey, Becker, don’t you ever do as you’re told?”

“Not often,” he admitted. “Need a piss. Have you found the bathroom on your travels?”

Connor rolled his eyes. “Too much information, mate. There’s a loo through there.” He waved at a door. “Second on the right. Just don’t do anything more than have a pee until I find where to turn the water on.” He hesitated and then added, “Becker, you really do look awful. Are you sure you can manage by yourself?”

Becker dredged up a grin from somewhere. “I can manage. Roughy-toughy soldier, remember?”

Walking slowly and carefully, Becker made his way down a white-painted corridor, steadying himself on the wall and leaving behind a streak of blood from his fingers. His hands shook as he undid his trousers and the shivering became even more pronounced as he started to relieve himself. The sudden gurgle of water in the pipes and the sound of the cistern filling told him that Connor’s search for the stop tap had been successful. Becker flushed the toilet and made his way over to the sink to wash his hands and inspect the damage to his forehead.

The face that stared back at him looked like something out of one of Connor’s beloved zombie films. The cold had been instrumental in slowing the blood flow from a long, jagged cut across his forehead. His face was caked with blood and it was obvious why he’d had trouble opening his eyes as even his eyelashes were encrusted with it. Connor was right, he really did look like crap, although Connor had put it slightly more politely than that. Becker wadded up some loo roll and used it to dab at the mess on his forehead. The raw pain made him wince. Maybe that hadn’t been a brilliant idea, but he couldn’t just sit around emulating an extra in Casualty. A quick search of the bathroom cupboards turned up a bottle of painkillers, some antiseptic and a reasonably well-stocked first aid kit.

Becker swallowed a couple of painkillers then surveyed the wreckage of his face and clothes again. A glance into the shower revealed the source of heating to be electric. Problem solved. All he had to do was get his boots and clothes off and the blood would be easily dealt with. He might even manage to get warm in the process…

He was half way through stripping off when Connor appeared in the doorway. “Kettle’s on and I’ve found coffee, milk powder and whisky. Becker, what the hell are you playing at?”

“Getting rid of the blood…”

“I’ll deal with that. I’m sure Lester can foot the bill for some towels and stuff.”

Becker knew Connor was eyeing him warily as though expecting him to topple over any minute. “I’ll be fine.” As reassurances went, it lacked conviction, but it was the best he could come up with in the circumstances. “If I get cleaned up under the shower you can stick a bandage around my head. OK?”

Without waiting for a counter-argument, Becker slid his underwear down over his hips with no thought for his own nakedness – his time in the military had long since cured him of shyness on that score. He turned on the shower and waited for the water to run hot. It didn’t take long before he was able to step into the cubicle, his face tilted down so the water didn’t directly strike the wound on his forehead.

Red-tinted water ran down his body and swirled around his feet as the blood was washed from Becker’s hair and face. As he gradually warmed up, his head started throbbing again but it looked like the worst of the bleeding had stopped. From what he’d seen in the mirror, he’d been lucky not to lose both eyes or be impaled straight through the skull. A branch had raked his skin to the bone, but that seemed to be his only injury apart from some badly strained muscles in his neck and shoulder, and a painful chest. A small amount of experimental prodding told Becker that he’d probably cracked a couple of ribs, but he was no stranger to injury and he’d certainly been knocked around worse than this in his life.

“Becker? I’ve made coffee and found some clothes that should fit you.”

Becker switched off the water. At least he’d stopped shivering and his hair and face now seemed to be free of blood. He wrapped himself in an enormous towel and took the mug that Connor was holding out to him. The coffee was hot and liberally laced with whisky. Connor had clearly been picking up tips from the rest of Becker’s team who were all firmly of the opinion that any crisis was instantly improved by a combination of caffeine and alcohol.

Connor had changed out of his wet clothes into a pair of loose cargo trousers and a sweater and appeared to be wearing socks decorated with penguins. He picked up the first aid box that Becker had left on top of the cistern and waved it in front of Becker’s nose.

“You don’t like the sight of blood,” Becker pointed out.

“I don’t like the sight of my own blood,” Connor remarked. “I’m getting used to other people’s. Hard not to in this job.” The lop-sided grin that accompanied Connor’s words just about said it all. The members of the anomaly response teams, both civilians and military alike, had all become accustomed to a wide variety of things outside their comfort zones and emergency medical techniques were high on that list.

Becker sat down on the loo seat and set his jaw tightly against the sharp sting from the antiseptic as Connor applied it carefully but firmly to the wound on his forehead. After covering the gash with a gauze pad, Connor proceeded to do a remarkably efficient job of turning him into a Pudsey Bear lookalike.

Connor stepped back to admire his handiwork and winced as he accidentally put too much weight on his injured foot. “Suits you, mate. How’s your shoulder?”

“Painful, but not life threatening. What about your foot?”

“Just a ricked ankle,” Connor replied lightly. “I’ll strap it up with one of the crepe bandages from the first aid box if you don’t need them.”

Becker waved a hand at the object in question. “Be my guest. I don’t want to be accused of hogging the supplies. What did you do to it?”

Connor grimaced. “If you must know, I tried to kick the door down.”

Becker laughed, and instantly regretted it when his neck and his chest expressed disapproval and Connor looked oddly hurt by his amusement. He held up a hand in apology. “That’s not why I laughed, Conn. Kicking in doors is a lot harder than it looks. You need to be built like a brick shit-house before you can do it without making yourself look a prat. I tried it once and the whole fucking squad fell about laughing when I did more damage to myself than to the door.” Connor’s face brightened at his words and Becker asked, “How did you get in?”

“Smashed a window in one of the bedrooms, padded the frame with my jacket and climbed through. I managed to miss the bed and ended up face down on the floor,” he added, obviously in the interests of full and frank disclosure. “I thought I was going to end up stuck for a nasty moment. It wasn’t a very big window. You were right out of it at that point, but luckily the keys for the back door were hanging up in a cupboard.” He grinned down at Becker. “Get dressed and I’ll get a fire going and make us something to eat. There’s a load of tinned stuff in the pantry.”

Becker carefully pulled on pair of jogging bottoms at least two sizes too big for him, donned a large pair of socks, thankfully minus penguins, and a thick shirt that came almost to his knees, whilst thanking his lucky stars that he hadn’t been on his own in the truck when the tree had come down.

He had no idea how long it was likely to be before someone on the ARC team came looking for them, but they had shelter, warmth and food, so they could at least sit this one out in relative comfort, which made a nice change. By the time he’d made his way back into the main room, Connor had got a log fire going in the hearth and had a pan of tinned stew simmering on the stove.

Becker sniffed appreciatively and suddenly realised how hungry he was. They balanced plates on their knees whilst sitting in front of the fire, revelling in the heat. According to Connor there was a well-stacked log-store outside the back door, so they were in no danger of running out of fuel. A tasty meal of stew and tinned peas made Becker feel almost human again, even though his head was still throbbing and he had to be careful not to make any sudden movements. Connor relieved him of the plate and came back a few minutes later with two bowls containing fruit salad and condensed milk.

“You’re spoiling me,” Becker commented.

“Well, you did stop me being trampled by that triceratops this afternoon,” Connor pointed out. “How long do you think it’ll be before someone notices we’re missing?”

Becker shrugged and instantly regretted it when pain flared in the muscles of his neck and shoulder. “They’ll probably notice fairly quickly, but whether they can get through that bloody snow for a while is another matter.”

“Should I go back to the truck and see if I can get the radio working?”

Becker narrowly managed to stop himself shaking his head. “We’ve got everything we need to sit things out in comfort here, No point in taking any unnecessary risks.”

Connor had done well to get them both somewhere safe. There was no way Becker was going to countenance either of them venturing back out into the snow at this stage. Someone would find the wrecked vehicle soon enough and come looking for them. For now he was quite happy to stay somewhere warm, dry and comfortable. By the time Connor had done the washing up and made them both another hot drink – coffee with whisky plus the remains of the condensed milk – Becker was beginning to think he could get used to being looked after. He leaned against the back of the sofa, listening to the quiet churning of the washing machine into which, in a fit of domesticity, Connor had bundled their blood-stained clothing.

He must have drifted off to sleep for a while because by the time he woke up, the washing machine had finished, Connor had arranged everything on a drying rack near the fire and had even found a wrought-iron guard to set around the brightly burning logs.

“Come on, sleeping beauty, I’ve aired the bed and there’s even an electric blanket. There’s just one snag…”

Becker looked up at him and successfully fought the urge to raise a quizzical eyebrow.

“The other bedroom is freeing cold because of the window I broke, so we’ll have to share. And there’s only one bed.”

“Do you snore?”

Connor looked shifty. “Do you hog the quilt?”

Becker grinned. “Looks like you’re about to find out, sunshine.”

The bed was large, comfortable and warm. Becker loathed sleeping in clothes if he could possibly avoid it and as his underwear was still drying in front of the fire, he stripped off his borrowed garments and burrowed until the duvet as quickly as cracked ribs and badly strained neck muscles would allow. Connor hesitated for a moment and then started to remove his own clothes. In the soft light of the bedside lamps, Becker saw a smattering of dark bruises marring Connor’s pale skin and a graze on one slender hip, probably gained in the course of his unorthodox entry into the cottage. Unable to stop himself, Becker gave into temptation and sneaked a quick look somewhere rather more intimate. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Connor naked, but there was a world of difference between their current situation and the communal showers in the ARC and Becker felt his own dick stirring at the sight of Connor’s cock nestling amidst a tangle of dark hair. Becker hastily closed his eyes. This wasn’t the time or the place to start indulging in his fantasies, not when they had to share a bed for the night…

A pair of freezing cold feet plonked themselves on his legs and made Becker yelp in surprise.

“You never said anything about cold feet,” Connor pointed out, reaching up quickly to turn the lights out.

“You should have kept your bloody socks on!”

“Gross!”

“Not as gross as those bloody lumps of ice at the end of your legs!”

“Does that mean I don’t get a cuddle?” Connor’s tone of voice was positively impish. “I’ve spent the entire bloody evening waiting on you hand, foot and finger after dragging your sorry arse half a mile through snow-drifts and now you’ve got the nerve to complain about my feet.”

Becker drew in a careful breath and exhaled slowly. “Connor Temple, are you propositioning me?”

“You’re not very quick on the uptake, are you?”

“I’m injured,” Becker countered. “I’m allowed to be slow on the uptake.”

“You haven’t been injured every day for the past couple of months.”

Becker cast his mind back over recent weeks and remembered all the times Connor had brought him cups of coffee when he’d been ploughing through his reports, given him biscuits and snacks when he’d not had chance to grab anything proper to eat and insisted on buying him a drink at the end of a bad day. “I’m not very quick on the uptake, am I?” he admitted.

Connor curled up against him and slipped an arm around Becker’s waist. “No, you’re not.”

“Are you going to take advantage of my weakened state?” Becker asked, doing his best not to sound too hopeful.

“I’m not sure knights in shining armour are meant to take advantage of the damsel in distress.”

Before Becker had chance of object to that description, a warm hand slid down to his groin and came to rest on his already half-hard cock. Connor had obviously decided that if he left it to Becker to make the first move, they would probably both grow old waiting for something to happen.

Connor’s hand slid lightly up and down Becker’s dick, tugging his foreskin back and teasing the sensitive head. “Tell me how you like it,” Connor said quietly.

“That feels pretty good,” Becker said, turning carefully onto his side and managing to get comfortable in a position that didn’t put strain on his injured ribs or pulled neck muscles. Connor’s own cock was hot and heavy in Becker’s hand as they stroked each other in the darkness of the bedroom. He could smell the mint tang of toothpaste on Connor’s breath and was suddenly conscious of the fact that they hadn’t even kissed yet, although they were now busily exploring each other’s bodies in other ways.

As though he’d realised the same thing, Connor leaned forward and covered Becker’s lips with his. There was the usual awkward repositioning of noses that inevitably accompanied a first kiss, then Connor’s tongue slid into his mouth as his hand continued to work Becker’s cock. The throbbing in Becker’s head gave way to a throbbing lower down his body and with a warm rush, Becker came over Connor’s hand. A moment later, Connor gasped and Becker knew he wasn’t the only one who had just reached a very satisfying climax.

“Will you still respect me in the morning?” Becker murmured sleepily.

Connor’s quiet chuckle was all the answer he got, and all the answer he needed.

* * * * *


The following morning, the snow had stopped falling but before they made any attempt to make contact with the outside world, Connor insisted on stripping the bed and putting the sheets and duvet cover through the washing machine along with the clothes they’d borrowed, then hanging everything up to dry in the main room.

Connor also wrote a very polite note in the visitors’ book he’d found on a table in the hall apologising for breaking the window and giving their contact details in the ARC so that they could reimburse the owner for the cost of repairs and the food they had eaten. He’d even found a piece of plywood in a cupboard and nailed it over the broken window in the bedroom to make things as secure as possible until they could trace the owners.

Becker’s neck and shoulder had stiffened up overnight and his head and ribs still ached, but he felt perfectly capable of making the trek to the main road to see if they could hitch a lift to the nearest village. Outside the cottage, the snow sparkled in the morning sunlight as they made their way down a short track to the road. Connor pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket as they walked and discovered, to his surprise and delight, that he now had a signal. A call to the ARC had them in contact with a very relieved Jess, who assured them that someone would be out to pick them up very shortly.

Becker pulled Connor into a hug, ignoring the warning twinge from his ribs. “You were bloody brilliant last night.”

The smile Connor gave him was a bright as the sun-warmed snow. “You weren’t so bad yourself, mate. And, yes, I do still respect you in the morning.”

Becker smiled. “Good. I don’t normally put out on a first date, you know.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “Becker, we’ve been dating for months. You just hadn’t noticed.”