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fredbassettTitle : Entente Cordiale, Part 6 of 7
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Stephen/Ryan
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Word Count : 21,249 overall. This part 2,366.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Ryan whisks Stephen away to an undisclosed location for his birthday weekend, but presents aren’t the only surprises that come Stephen’s way.
A/N : 1) Set in my Stephen/Ryan series which can be found HERE, but can be read as a standalone. 2) Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lukadreaming who has been cheerleading for this fic for a year and for doing the beta. 3) All the places described in this story do exist, but any resemblance to real people is wholly accidental. 4) Links to previous parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
Stephen cast a last look back at the prone gastornis. Captain Lafarge was right. The bird didn’t look like it would wake up any time soon but as a precaution, he closed the door. The creatures were strong, but even if more came through the open anomaly, there was no way they would succeed in getting through a solid oak door.
Lafrage made his way back to the courtyard at a run with Stephen hard on his heels. As he emerged into the strong sunlight, Stephen could hear shouting and screaming in several languages. He could identify French and English amongst the babble, but that was all. The French special forces soldiers were getting their own way in the time-honoured manner by dint of shouting loudly and shoving people in the direction they wanted them to go. No one seemed to want to argue with a bunch of burly men wearing dark green combats and bulky equipment vests, and carrying large and somewhat futuristic-looking weapons.
He could see one of the terror birds in the middle of the courtyard, one of its taloned feet pawing at the gravel like a racehorse eager to be out of the traps.
The French captain lifted his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The bird squawked loudly as it was knocked off its feet by an invisible force. Lafarge drew a smaller version of the weapon out of a holster on his left thigh and walked over to the twitching creature and fired again, this time at the back of its neck. The bird jerked once and then was still.
Stephen watched in amazement. It appeared the French had developed a non-lethal method of dealing with visitors from the past. His best guess was that it was some kind of taser. He just hoped they wouldn’t take an only child attitude to sharing. The weapons weren’t toys, and wielded by experts, which these men clearly were, they made an impressive short-range alternative to conventional weapons. He knew several people, starting with Abby, who would give a lot to get their hands on something like that.
Lafarge holstered the pistol and smiled at Stephen. “It will be up to my lords and masters in our government whether they are prepared to share our technology.” He jerked his head to the impressive gatehouse over the moat. “I suggest we ascertain what progress is being made with the evacuation.”
As they jogged across the courtyard, Stephen said, “Do you have a means of detecting the anomalies when they appear?”
The Frenchman shot him a quizzical look. “Do you?”
Stephen smiled. “It will be up to my lord and master to decide whether to answer that question.”
“Touché,” Lafarge murmured.
They reached the gatehouse and from there could see cars being driven out of the car park.
“This will be all over the internet as soon as some of the younger ones start emailing the pictures they’ve taken on their phones,” he commented.
“The road is cordoned off in both directions,” Lafarge replied. “They’re going nowhere until my colleague in public relations has spun an appropriate tale and confiscated their phones and cameras. But as long as they are not still within the grounds, they are not my problem at the moment.”
Stephen couldn’t help grinning. Ryan held very similar views on the subject of their dealings with the general public, much to Claudia’s occasional chagrin. He was impressed to see that an ambulance was driving at a suitably French speed down the small access road. It came to a halt in a spray of gravel and two paramedics promptly took charge of the woman they’d hauled back through the anomaly. Ryan saw Stephen watching and raised his hand in salute. Next to him, Kevin brandished his spear, the sunlight glinting off its bloodied tip. The boy looked like he was having the time of his life.
A familiar squawk drew his attention to the deep, dry moat that surrounded the château on three sides. Stephen looked down to see one of the French soldiers in hot pursuit of a gastornis. The bird appeared to be steadfastly refusing to stay still long enough to give the man a clear shot. The pair of them disappeared from sight around the corner. The chances were that the man would catch up with it at the end of the gully.
A moment later, however, the pair appeared but in a somewhat different order. The soldier had underestimated the strength of the bird’s beak and its agility. He had now taken to his heels and the pursued had now become the pursuer, with the man’s rifle held firmly in its beak.
Lafarge exchanged glances with Stephen and gave a very Gallic shrug. “What can I say?” The French captain said in mock-apology. Stephen couldn’t see the man’s eyes behind his anti-flash glasses, but he knew they would be full of mischief.
Lafarge leaned over the wall and sighted his rifle on the rapidly-disappearing bird. He fired once, the bird twitched violently and dropped the rifle from its beak. He fired a second time, and it staggered drunkenly, feathers fluffed up in outrage, and no doubt pain, as the charge ran through its body.
The distraction was enough to allow the soldier it had been chasing to unholster the twin to the pistol Lafarge carried, and a third shot made sure that the bird wouldn’t be getting to its feet in a hurry.
The soldier looked up and gave his captain a salute. The look on the young man’s face reminded Stephen of the expression Finn would often sport during his madder escapades.
A moment later, a scream from the direction of the ornamental garden claimed their attention.
“It seems that not all the visitors have been eager to leave,” Lafarge said, breaking into a run.
Stephen hefted the spear in his hands and followed him. The noise was coming from the far end of the ornamental garden, overlooking the river. He heard a voice yell in English, “No you bloody well don’t! Pick on someone your own size, you ugly bugger!”
He recognised the voice as that of one of their companions on the terrace of the hotel the previous night. As he and Lafarge rounded a corner, Stephen could hear the sound of running feet behind them and knew without needing to look back that Ryan was rapidly catching them up, but it seemed like they were the only ones in this section of the gardens with any weaponry.
The noise of something heavy striking the ground made him wonder what the hell was happening. He ran through a gap in the tall box hedge and found himself facing what looked like an entire flock of gastornis, of varying sizes, some clearly adult, others smaller but equally formidable. It looked like one of the women had managed to lever an enormous ornamental plant pot off the wall and propel it in the direction of one of the larger birds. The weight of the pot had sent ceramic shards and clods of earth flying everywhere, showering the attaching birds.
It looked like the two Englishwomen were shielding a woman holding a baby to her chest. All three of them were backed up against the wall that overlooked the river, with the two older women acting as human shields. Before Stephen and Lafarge had time to react, Ellen Harris had grabbed the baby’s pushchair and swung it hard at the head of the largest gastornis. The bird recoiled, its stubby wings flapping in annoyance as its prey had the temerity to fight back.
Larfarge yelled something in French. Stephen’s command of the language didn’t run to a translation, but he was pretty sure whatever it was hadn’t been very polite.
The words had their desired effect and a couple of the gastornis broke away from the main group and eyed Lafarge with a predatory gleam in their small eyes. Lafarge shot first one, then the other, using his rifle rather than the pistol. Both birds staggered but neither fell. Stephen had no idea how much charge the strange weapons held, but unless Lafarge had lowered the setting, the rifle didn’t seem to be packing quite the same punch as when he’d originally seen it used.
One of the larger birds lunged again at Ellen Harris and managed to snatch the pram from her hands and shake it like a terrier would shake a rat. As improvised weapons went, it was certainly in line for an honourable mention, but it had only served to slow the lead bird down for a minute or two. Kathy Morse let out a yell that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a parade ground and waved her arms at their attacker, bravely putting herself between the terrified woman and her baby. A vicious slash from its beak painted a long red line on one forearm just as Stephen swung the spear in a wide arc, hitting the gastornis hard on the side of its head.
A moment later, Ryan entered the fray, wielding his own spear to good effect. Keeping the predatory birds alive was clearly not one of Ryan’s priorities and one of the larger birds collapsed in a welter of bloody feathers. Stephen held his own spear like a quarterstaff and used the butt end to deliver a second bone-cracking blow to the head of the bird that had been menacing the women. Its knees buckled and it crumpled to the ground.
Two of the smaller gastoris simply broke and ran, heading back into the ornamental garden. A series of shots from Lafarge’s rifle brought both of them to the ground, and although they were still awake and angry, they were both having trouble regaining their feet and the French captain was able to send them into oblivion with head shots from his pistol.
That left one large bird to contend with.
A sudden volley of barking from the brushes caused heads to turn. The small Pekinese that Stephen thought had earlier fallen victim to one of the birds burst out of a flower bed, white teeth bared. It clearly had a score to settle. The gastornis’ heavy head turned to stare at the new noise and in that moment, Stephen and Ryan jabbed the butts of their spears hard at its body as Lafarge sent shot after shot into its body. The distraction caused by the dog’s low level assault resulted in so much confusion for the bird that it didn’t appear to know where to launch its own retaliatory attack.
With a look of something close to surprise in its eyes, the gastornis finally did the decent thing and collapsed onto the gravel path. The irate Pekinese celebrated its victory by jumping onto the bird’s back and barking even more loudly.
“FrouFrou!”
The dog turned around, gave another bark, and then promptly trotted over to Kevin, who appeared to have done a good job of following Ryan, no doubt despite the best efforts of Lafarge’s men. The boy scooped the dog up in the air and promptly succumbed to having his face licked by an armful of victorious Pekinese.
“A good ally,” Lafarge commented. “There have been suggestions that trained dogs would be of assistance to us, but I suspect something a little larger was envisaged.”
“Size isn’t everything,” Stephen said.
“So they say. Personally, I have always had my doubts on that subject.” Lafarge looked down at the gun in his hand. “I can assure you that the larger version is more effective.”
“Are you going to let us play with your toys, Etienne?” Ryan asked a speculative gleam in his grey eyes.
Lafarge sighed theatrically, and said, “Don’t break it.” He casually tossed the gun to Ryan who caught it in one hand and threw the spear to the Frenchman in return. Lafarge leant it against his shoulder and Stephen had no doubt that the captain would be able to use the antique weapon just as well as he wielded the stun guns, or whatever they are. “Come, may I suggest we escort these ladies and their charge to a secure area and obtain some medical assistance for them?”
Ellen Harris had her arm around the shaking woman whose baby seemed fortunately oblivious to what had gone on around it but she was clearly concerned for the injuries her partner had sustained. Kathy Morse was cradling her left arm, the adrenaline from the fight probably sparing her much of the resultant pain for the moment. It would be a different matter when the adrenaline rush receded.
Stephen pulled his teeshirt over his head and used it to wrap around her forearm. The gash was long, but not deep.
“I’m all right,” she said, although whether the reassurance was for the benefit of the onlookers or herself, Stephen wasn’t wholly sure, especially as she was now starting to shake with reaction.
“You did bloody well, both of you,” he said, staring at the wreckage of the pushchair and the large flower pot.
“I’ve spent more years than I care to remember facing down school kids. It made a pleasant change to be able to hit something.”
Her partner slipped her arm around Kathy’s waist and gave her a slight squeeze. “I think we’ve earned our drinks on the terrace tonight.”
“Is anyone going to tell us what those things are doing here?” Ellen asked as they made their way along the footpath that led to the car park. They’ve been extinct for rather a long time.” At the look of surprise Stephen had clearly failed to suppress, she added, “There’s a dinosaur park down the valley that has some rather good reproductions of something very like these little charmers. Not exactly the same but close enough to be recognisable.” When Stephen failed to offer any explanation, she didn’t look surprised.
Kathy looked at him, the lines on her face betraying the pain from her arm. “If you won’t tell us what’s been going on, you could at least buy the drinks.”
Stephen grinned at her. “It’s a deal.”
That was one promise he’d be very happy to keep.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Stephen/Ryan
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Word Count : 21,249 overall. This part 2,366.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Ryan whisks Stephen away to an undisclosed location for his birthday weekend, but presents aren’t the only surprises that come Stephen’s way.
A/N : 1) Set in my Stephen/Ryan series which can be found HERE, but can be read as a standalone. 2) Many thanks to
lukadreaming who has been cheerleading for this fic for a year and for doing the beta. 3) All the places described in this story do exist, but any resemblance to real people is wholly accidental. 4) Links to previous parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.Stephen cast a last look back at the prone gastornis. Captain Lafarge was right. The bird didn’t look like it would wake up any time soon but as a precaution, he closed the door. The creatures were strong, but even if more came through the open anomaly, there was no way they would succeed in getting through a solid oak door.
Lafrage made his way back to the courtyard at a run with Stephen hard on his heels. As he emerged into the strong sunlight, Stephen could hear shouting and screaming in several languages. He could identify French and English amongst the babble, but that was all. The French special forces soldiers were getting their own way in the time-honoured manner by dint of shouting loudly and shoving people in the direction they wanted them to go. No one seemed to want to argue with a bunch of burly men wearing dark green combats and bulky equipment vests, and carrying large and somewhat futuristic-looking weapons.
He could see one of the terror birds in the middle of the courtyard, one of its taloned feet pawing at the gravel like a racehorse eager to be out of the traps.
The French captain lifted his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The bird squawked loudly as it was knocked off its feet by an invisible force. Lafarge drew a smaller version of the weapon out of a holster on his left thigh and walked over to the twitching creature and fired again, this time at the back of its neck. The bird jerked once and then was still.
Stephen watched in amazement. It appeared the French had developed a non-lethal method of dealing with visitors from the past. His best guess was that it was some kind of taser. He just hoped they wouldn’t take an only child attitude to sharing. The weapons weren’t toys, and wielded by experts, which these men clearly were, they made an impressive short-range alternative to conventional weapons. He knew several people, starting with Abby, who would give a lot to get their hands on something like that.
Lafarge holstered the pistol and smiled at Stephen. “It will be up to my lords and masters in our government whether they are prepared to share our technology.” He jerked his head to the impressive gatehouse over the moat. “I suggest we ascertain what progress is being made with the evacuation.”
As they jogged across the courtyard, Stephen said, “Do you have a means of detecting the anomalies when they appear?”
The Frenchman shot him a quizzical look. “Do you?”
Stephen smiled. “It will be up to my lord and master to decide whether to answer that question.”
“Touché,” Lafarge murmured.
They reached the gatehouse and from there could see cars being driven out of the car park.
“This will be all over the internet as soon as some of the younger ones start emailing the pictures they’ve taken on their phones,” he commented.
“The road is cordoned off in both directions,” Lafarge replied. “They’re going nowhere until my colleague in public relations has spun an appropriate tale and confiscated their phones and cameras. But as long as they are not still within the grounds, they are not my problem at the moment.”
Stephen couldn’t help grinning. Ryan held very similar views on the subject of their dealings with the general public, much to Claudia’s occasional chagrin. He was impressed to see that an ambulance was driving at a suitably French speed down the small access road. It came to a halt in a spray of gravel and two paramedics promptly took charge of the woman they’d hauled back through the anomaly. Ryan saw Stephen watching and raised his hand in salute. Next to him, Kevin brandished his spear, the sunlight glinting off its bloodied tip. The boy looked like he was having the time of his life.
A familiar squawk drew his attention to the deep, dry moat that surrounded the château on three sides. Stephen looked down to see one of the French soldiers in hot pursuit of a gastornis. The bird appeared to be steadfastly refusing to stay still long enough to give the man a clear shot. The pair of them disappeared from sight around the corner. The chances were that the man would catch up with it at the end of the gully.
A moment later, however, the pair appeared but in a somewhat different order. The soldier had underestimated the strength of the bird’s beak and its agility. He had now taken to his heels and the pursued had now become the pursuer, with the man’s rifle held firmly in its beak.
Lafarge exchanged glances with Stephen and gave a very Gallic shrug. “What can I say?” The French captain said in mock-apology. Stephen couldn’t see the man’s eyes behind his anti-flash glasses, but he knew they would be full of mischief.
Lafarge leaned over the wall and sighted his rifle on the rapidly-disappearing bird. He fired once, the bird twitched violently and dropped the rifle from its beak. He fired a second time, and it staggered drunkenly, feathers fluffed up in outrage, and no doubt pain, as the charge ran through its body.
The distraction was enough to allow the soldier it had been chasing to unholster the twin to the pistol Lafarge carried, and a third shot made sure that the bird wouldn’t be getting to its feet in a hurry.
The soldier looked up and gave his captain a salute. The look on the young man’s face reminded Stephen of the expression Finn would often sport during his madder escapades.
A moment later, a scream from the direction of the ornamental garden claimed their attention.
“It seems that not all the visitors have been eager to leave,” Lafarge said, breaking into a run.
Stephen hefted the spear in his hands and followed him. The noise was coming from the far end of the ornamental garden, overlooking the river. He heard a voice yell in English, “No you bloody well don’t! Pick on someone your own size, you ugly bugger!”
He recognised the voice as that of one of their companions on the terrace of the hotel the previous night. As he and Lafarge rounded a corner, Stephen could hear the sound of running feet behind them and knew without needing to look back that Ryan was rapidly catching them up, but it seemed like they were the only ones in this section of the gardens with any weaponry.
The noise of something heavy striking the ground made him wonder what the hell was happening. He ran through a gap in the tall box hedge and found himself facing what looked like an entire flock of gastornis, of varying sizes, some clearly adult, others smaller but equally formidable. It looked like one of the women had managed to lever an enormous ornamental plant pot off the wall and propel it in the direction of one of the larger birds. The weight of the pot had sent ceramic shards and clods of earth flying everywhere, showering the attaching birds.
It looked like the two Englishwomen were shielding a woman holding a baby to her chest. All three of them were backed up against the wall that overlooked the river, with the two older women acting as human shields. Before Stephen and Lafarge had time to react, Ellen Harris had grabbed the baby’s pushchair and swung it hard at the head of the largest gastornis. The bird recoiled, its stubby wings flapping in annoyance as its prey had the temerity to fight back.
Larfarge yelled something in French. Stephen’s command of the language didn’t run to a translation, but he was pretty sure whatever it was hadn’t been very polite.
The words had their desired effect and a couple of the gastornis broke away from the main group and eyed Lafarge with a predatory gleam in their small eyes. Lafarge shot first one, then the other, using his rifle rather than the pistol. Both birds staggered but neither fell. Stephen had no idea how much charge the strange weapons held, but unless Lafarge had lowered the setting, the rifle didn’t seem to be packing quite the same punch as when he’d originally seen it used.
One of the larger birds lunged again at Ellen Harris and managed to snatch the pram from her hands and shake it like a terrier would shake a rat. As improvised weapons went, it was certainly in line for an honourable mention, but it had only served to slow the lead bird down for a minute or two. Kathy Morse let out a yell that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a parade ground and waved her arms at their attacker, bravely putting herself between the terrified woman and her baby. A vicious slash from its beak painted a long red line on one forearm just as Stephen swung the spear in a wide arc, hitting the gastornis hard on the side of its head.
A moment later, Ryan entered the fray, wielding his own spear to good effect. Keeping the predatory birds alive was clearly not one of Ryan’s priorities and one of the larger birds collapsed in a welter of bloody feathers. Stephen held his own spear like a quarterstaff and used the butt end to deliver a second bone-cracking blow to the head of the bird that had been menacing the women. Its knees buckled and it crumpled to the ground.
Two of the smaller gastoris simply broke and ran, heading back into the ornamental garden. A series of shots from Lafarge’s rifle brought both of them to the ground, and although they were still awake and angry, they were both having trouble regaining their feet and the French captain was able to send them into oblivion with head shots from his pistol.
That left one large bird to contend with.
A sudden volley of barking from the brushes caused heads to turn. The small Pekinese that Stephen thought had earlier fallen victim to one of the birds burst out of a flower bed, white teeth bared. It clearly had a score to settle. The gastornis’ heavy head turned to stare at the new noise and in that moment, Stephen and Ryan jabbed the butts of their spears hard at its body as Lafarge sent shot after shot into its body. The distraction caused by the dog’s low level assault resulted in so much confusion for the bird that it didn’t appear to know where to launch its own retaliatory attack.
With a look of something close to surprise in its eyes, the gastornis finally did the decent thing and collapsed onto the gravel path. The irate Pekinese celebrated its victory by jumping onto the bird’s back and barking even more loudly.
“FrouFrou!”
The dog turned around, gave another bark, and then promptly trotted over to Kevin, who appeared to have done a good job of following Ryan, no doubt despite the best efforts of Lafarge’s men. The boy scooped the dog up in the air and promptly succumbed to having his face licked by an armful of victorious Pekinese.
“A good ally,” Lafarge commented. “There have been suggestions that trained dogs would be of assistance to us, but I suspect something a little larger was envisaged.”
“Size isn’t everything,” Stephen said.
“So they say. Personally, I have always had my doubts on that subject.” Lafarge looked down at the gun in his hand. “I can assure you that the larger version is more effective.”
“Are you going to let us play with your toys, Etienne?” Ryan asked a speculative gleam in his grey eyes.
Lafarge sighed theatrically, and said, “Don’t break it.” He casually tossed the gun to Ryan who caught it in one hand and threw the spear to the Frenchman in return. Lafarge leant it against his shoulder and Stephen had no doubt that the captain would be able to use the antique weapon just as well as he wielded the stun guns, or whatever they are. “Come, may I suggest we escort these ladies and their charge to a secure area and obtain some medical assistance for them?”
Ellen Harris had her arm around the shaking woman whose baby seemed fortunately oblivious to what had gone on around it but she was clearly concerned for the injuries her partner had sustained. Kathy Morse was cradling her left arm, the adrenaline from the fight probably sparing her much of the resultant pain for the moment. It would be a different matter when the adrenaline rush receded.
Stephen pulled his teeshirt over his head and used it to wrap around her forearm. The gash was long, but not deep.
“I’m all right,” she said, although whether the reassurance was for the benefit of the onlookers or herself, Stephen wasn’t wholly sure, especially as she was now starting to shake with reaction.
“You did bloody well, both of you,” he said, staring at the wreckage of the pushchair and the large flower pot.
“I’ve spent more years than I care to remember facing down school kids. It made a pleasant change to be able to hit something.”
Her partner slipped her arm around Kathy’s waist and gave her a slight squeeze. “I think we’ve earned our drinks on the terrace tonight.”
“Is anyone going to tell us what those things are doing here?” Ellen asked as they made their way along the footpath that led to the car park. They’ve been extinct for rather a long time.” At the look of surprise Stephen had clearly failed to suppress, she added, “There’s a dinosaur park down the valley that has some rather good reproductions of something very like these little charmers. Not exactly the same but close enough to be recognisable.” When Stephen failed to offer any explanation, she didn’t look surprised.
Kathy looked at him, the lines on her face betraying the pain from her arm. “If you won’t tell us what’s been going on, you could at least buy the drinks.”
Stephen grinned at her. “It’s a deal.”
That was one promise he’d be very happy to keep.
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Date: 2012-09-15 01:09 pm (UTC)