Fic, Caged, Becker, Ryan, 18
Oct. 29th, 2013 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredbassettTitle : Caged
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Becker, Ryan
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Sometimes there are worst things than death.
A/N : Thank you to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lukadreaming for the beta. This is for my ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
trope_bingo square ‘immortality/reincarnation’. This can be read as a sequel to the drabble On Display, or alternatively as a standalone. This completes a line for me! WOOT!
“Where the fuck are we?” Becker demanded, keeping his voice as low as possible. “And what the fuck’s going on?”
He’d arrived home after a long shift, eaten the remains of last night’s pizza, and then fallen asleep on the bed fully clothed. He’d woken up briefly at 3.45am, pulled his boots and jacket off and then promptly gone back to sleep.
The next thing he remembered was waking up with a stinking headache, trussed like a Christmas turkey, rolling around in the back of a moving vehicle. He’d slid in and out of consciousness until he’d finally come fully awake while being dragged by the feet down a dusty corridor before being thrown into a cage, his hands still bound behind his back.
The place looked and smelt like a zoo. There were cages all around, some inhabited, some not. A sabre-toothed cat in a cage opposite him paced backwards and forwards, its yellow eyes betraying the madness that captivity had instilled in a creature more used to roaming free than confined in a cage little more than twice its own body length. A raptor tapped the hard floor with a huge, sickle claw, its head tilted to one side as it stared at Becker.
His captors looked like a bunch of extras straight out of Ben Hur but none of them spoke a language he understood. Nor did he understand how the hell he came to be sharing his captivity with a dead man.
To be precise, one Captain Tom Ryan: his former commanding officer, the man who’d encouraged him to try for entry to the SAS. The man whose place he’d eventually taken as head of the Anomaly Research Centre’s military contingent. The man he’d been told had died millions of years ago in the past.
“When I encouraged you to follow in my footsteps I didn’t expect you to take me this fucking literally,” Ryan muttered grimly. “Turn round, I’ll see if I can free your hands.”
The world canted uneasily on its axis as Becker struggled to his knees, doing his best not to throw up. He failed, but all he brought up was some yellow bile. The pizza he dimly remembered eating was clearly long gone. Becker coughed and spat, feeling the unpleasant trace of slime on his chin. His chest heaved as he fought for air and Becker could feel panic start to rise. This was worse than anything he’d ever been through in training. He couldn’t decide if he was comforted or scared shitless by the sight of a dead man in the next cage.
“Breathe,” Ryan ordered. “I don’t know how much time I’ve got before they come for me, and if I don’t get your hands free, no one else will bother.”
Becker did as he’d been told, drawing air into his lungs as best he could, feeling like he’d just been kicked in the stomach. His head was starting to spin, but he managed to shuffle uncomfortably back to the bars to let Ryan reach the ropes that were biting hard into his wrists.
As Ryan worked on the knots, questions buzzed around in Becker’s brain like angry wasps, but he was feeling too sick to manage to do anything more than drag in dry gulps of air, his throat still burning from the bile he’d brought up, as some sadistic swine seemed to be beating out a military tattoo on the inside of his skull.
“You’ve been drugged,” Ryan said. “You’ll feel crap for at least a day, then it’ll wear off. There’s a bucket of clean water in the corner of my cage if they forget to bring you any. I’ll leave it in reach. Eat and drink what you can, when you can, and try not to throw it up again. They only clean the cages out once a week, so if you have to be sick again, do it in a corner and if you’re lucky whatever ends up in the next cage might clean up after you.” Ryan paused and then, in a softer tone of voice said, “I’m sorry, Becks, this really isn’t a bad dream.”
“I think I’d worked that one out for myself,” Becker said, closing his eyes and leaning his aching head back against the bars of his cage.
* * * * *
Becker had no idea how long it took for Ryan to work the knots out of the ropes binding his wrists, but when he was finally able to start rubbing some feeling back into hands that felt like pieces of dead meat at the end of his arms, he could see that Ryan’s fingertips were bleeding and his nails were broken.
“Is this something to do with the ARC?” Becker asked.
“Probably,” Ryan conceded. “Otherwise it’s a bit too much of a coincidence that we’ve both ended up in the same place. Enemy action’s a more likely explanation.”
“So how long have you been here?”
Ryan shrugged.
He was naked to the waist, wearing only a pair of tattered pair of shorts that might – a long time ago – have started life as black combat trousers, but his torso seemed almost surprisingly devoid of scars. He had no more than a few days growth of stubble but his eyes had the haunted look of a man who had been pushed to the limit of his endurance and then beyond.
Before Ryan had chance to reply, the metal doors at the end of the cage room were pushed open and a handful of men came in, yelling loudly and brandishing what looked like cattle prods. Between them they managed to drive the sabre-toothed cat out of its pen and through the open doors. When the snarling cat had gone, two of the men walked over to the door to Ryan’s cage, unlocked it, and gestured at him to move.
“Ryan…?”
“I’ll see you later, Becks.”
Becker watched as Ryan made his way between the rows of cages, the look on his face that of a man who didn’t particularly care whether he lived or died.
Becker wondered if he’d found an old friend only to lose him again immediately.
* * * * *
Propped up against the back wall of his cage, Becker slept fitfully. His head still hurt and he had a nasty feeling that somewhere along the line, his abductors had left him with a couple of cracked ribs, but that seemed to be the extent of his injuries.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he heard noises that indicated the return of the guards. Becker scrambled to his knees, staring out through the bars, trying to see if the activity heralded Ryan’s return.
It did, but it took all Becker’s self-control to stop himself being sick again when he saw the state the other man was in.
Ryan was being dragged by his arms by two guards, his body leaving a snail trail of blood behind in the dirt of the cage room. They hauled him into the cage next to Becker and left him there, unmoving on the floor. Becker forced himself to look, cataloguing Ryan’s injuries in his mind, the way he’d been taught by the field medics he’d worked with, doing his best to remain dispassionate.
A long slash from a claw or a knife had laid Ryan’s forehead open to the bone, any sort of head wound bled profusely, though, Becker told himself, trying to close his mind to the fact that one of Ryan’s eyes looked to have been gouged out. And from there his injuries only got worse. His throat was a ruin of torn red flesh, his stomach had been ripped open and yellowish intestines spilled out, unconfined, and his left leg was missing below the knee.
In spite of that, Ryan’s chest was still rising and falling unsteadily, and Becker could hear the rattle of breath in his friend’s ruined throat.
There was no fucking way anyone could survive injuries like that. Becker had only once seen worse damage to a human being when one of his teammates had been thrown into the air like a ragdoll by a roadside bomb in Helmand Province. Becker had held the young man in his arms as he’d died.
Becker stretched an arm through the bars and managed to take hold of one of Ryan’s outstretched hands. Ryan’s fingers were cold and unresponsive. Becker knew that it was only a matter of time.
The medics who’d done their best to teach him how to cope in situations like this had told him to talk to the casualty and to keep talking until the light finally faded from their eyes.
So that was what he did.
* * * *
A movement next to him jerked Becker awake. He heard a groan that didn’t sound like it had come from his own throat. Becker rolled over, coming to his knees, expecting a stabbing pain in his chest from his broken ribs, but it didn’t come. Becker stared into the cage next to his that had held Ryan’s broken body.
The sight that greeted his eyes brought him elation and blind terror in equal measures.
Ryan looked like he’d been dragged through an abattoir, with blood and grime covering his body the way it had done the previous night, but where before his left leg had ended just below the knee in a ruin of torn flesh and splintered bone, the same limb was now whole again. Ryan stared back at him out of two good eyes, the skin on his forehead unmarked, free of the deep gouge that had marked him.
“You were dead!” Becker said, throwing the words out almost like an accusation. “Something had eaten your fucking leg!”
Ryan nodded. “The day before yesterday, something ripped my arm off and ate it while I watched.” He held out his arms, slowly clenching and unclenching his fists. “It feels a bit weird for the first couple of days but then it’s back to normal again – or what passes for normal around here.
Becker was conscious of the fact that he was gawping at Ryan like a stranded fish, but he just couldn’t manage to form any words at all. After a moment he simply settled for a very heartfelt, “Fuck.”
“Yeah, if you’re unlucky.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before you got dragged off?”
“Would you have believed me?” There was no challenge in Ryan’s voice, just simple enquiry.
Becker met the other man’s blue eyes and slowly shook his head. “No. I don’t suppose I would have done. Is it going to happen to me, too?”
“Are your ribs still painful?”
Becker couldn’t bring himself to answer the question aloud, half-hoping that if he didn’t say anything, he wouldn’t have to face up to something almost too hideous to contemplate.
The fact that it wasn’t staying alive that was going to be the problem.
Staying dead was going to be an even harder task.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Becker, Ryan
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Sometimes there are worst things than death.
A/N : Thank you to
lukadreaming for the beta. This is for my trope_bingo square ‘immortality/reincarnation’. This can be read as a sequel to the drabble On Display, or alternatively as a standalone. This completes a line for me! WOOT!“Where the fuck are we?” Becker demanded, keeping his voice as low as possible. “And what the fuck’s going on?”
He’d arrived home after a long shift, eaten the remains of last night’s pizza, and then fallen asleep on the bed fully clothed. He’d woken up briefly at 3.45am, pulled his boots and jacket off and then promptly gone back to sleep.
The next thing he remembered was waking up with a stinking headache, trussed like a Christmas turkey, rolling around in the back of a moving vehicle. He’d slid in and out of consciousness until he’d finally come fully awake while being dragged by the feet down a dusty corridor before being thrown into a cage, his hands still bound behind his back.
The place looked and smelt like a zoo. There were cages all around, some inhabited, some not. A sabre-toothed cat in a cage opposite him paced backwards and forwards, its yellow eyes betraying the madness that captivity had instilled in a creature more used to roaming free than confined in a cage little more than twice its own body length. A raptor tapped the hard floor with a huge, sickle claw, its head tilted to one side as it stared at Becker.
His captors looked like a bunch of extras straight out of Ben Hur but none of them spoke a language he understood. Nor did he understand how the hell he came to be sharing his captivity with a dead man.
To be precise, one Captain Tom Ryan: his former commanding officer, the man who’d encouraged him to try for entry to the SAS. The man whose place he’d eventually taken as head of the Anomaly Research Centre’s military contingent. The man he’d been told had died millions of years ago in the past.
“When I encouraged you to follow in my footsteps I didn’t expect you to take me this fucking literally,” Ryan muttered grimly. “Turn round, I’ll see if I can free your hands.”
The world canted uneasily on its axis as Becker struggled to his knees, doing his best not to throw up. He failed, but all he brought up was some yellow bile. The pizza he dimly remembered eating was clearly long gone. Becker coughed and spat, feeling the unpleasant trace of slime on his chin. His chest heaved as he fought for air and Becker could feel panic start to rise. This was worse than anything he’d ever been through in training. He couldn’t decide if he was comforted or scared shitless by the sight of a dead man in the next cage.
“Breathe,” Ryan ordered. “I don’t know how much time I’ve got before they come for me, and if I don’t get your hands free, no one else will bother.”
Becker did as he’d been told, drawing air into his lungs as best he could, feeling like he’d just been kicked in the stomach. His head was starting to spin, but he managed to shuffle uncomfortably back to the bars to let Ryan reach the ropes that were biting hard into his wrists.
As Ryan worked on the knots, questions buzzed around in Becker’s brain like angry wasps, but he was feeling too sick to manage to do anything more than drag in dry gulps of air, his throat still burning from the bile he’d brought up, as some sadistic swine seemed to be beating out a military tattoo on the inside of his skull.
“You’ve been drugged,” Ryan said. “You’ll feel crap for at least a day, then it’ll wear off. There’s a bucket of clean water in the corner of my cage if they forget to bring you any. I’ll leave it in reach. Eat and drink what you can, when you can, and try not to throw it up again. They only clean the cages out once a week, so if you have to be sick again, do it in a corner and if you’re lucky whatever ends up in the next cage might clean up after you.” Ryan paused and then, in a softer tone of voice said, “I’m sorry, Becks, this really isn’t a bad dream.”
“I think I’d worked that one out for myself,” Becker said, closing his eyes and leaning his aching head back against the bars of his cage.
* * * * *
Becker had no idea how long it took for Ryan to work the knots out of the ropes binding his wrists, but when he was finally able to start rubbing some feeling back into hands that felt like pieces of dead meat at the end of his arms, he could see that Ryan’s fingertips were bleeding and his nails were broken.
“Is this something to do with the ARC?” Becker asked.
“Probably,” Ryan conceded. “Otherwise it’s a bit too much of a coincidence that we’ve both ended up in the same place. Enemy action’s a more likely explanation.”
“So how long have you been here?”
Ryan shrugged.
He was naked to the waist, wearing only a pair of tattered pair of shorts that might – a long time ago – have started life as black combat trousers, but his torso seemed almost surprisingly devoid of scars. He had no more than a few days growth of stubble but his eyes had the haunted look of a man who had been pushed to the limit of his endurance and then beyond.
Before Ryan had chance to reply, the metal doors at the end of the cage room were pushed open and a handful of men came in, yelling loudly and brandishing what looked like cattle prods. Between them they managed to drive the sabre-toothed cat out of its pen and through the open doors. When the snarling cat had gone, two of the men walked over to the door to Ryan’s cage, unlocked it, and gestured at him to move.
“Ryan…?”
“I’ll see you later, Becks.”
Becker watched as Ryan made his way between the rows of cages, the look on his face that of a man who didn’t particularly care whether he lived or died.
Becker wondered if he’d found an old friend only to lose him again immediately.
* * * * *
Propped up against the back wall of his cage, Becker slept fitfully. His head still hurt and he had a nasty feeling that somewhere along the line, his abductors had left him with a couple of cracked ribs, but that seemed to be the extent of his injuries.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he heard noises that indicated the return of the guards. Becker scrambled to his knees, staring out through the bars, trying to see if the activity heralded Ryan’s return.
It did, but it took all Becker’s self-control to stop himself being sick again when he saw the state the other man was in.
Ryan was being dragged by his arms by two guards, his body leaving a snail trail of blood behind in the dirt of the cage room. They hauled him into the cage next to Becker and left him there, unmoving on the floor. Becker forced himself to look, cataloguing Ryan’s injuries in his mind, the way he’d been taught by the field medics he’d worked with, doing his best to remain dispassionate.
A long slash from a claw or a knife had laid Ryan’s forehead open to the bone, any sort of head wound bled profusely, though, Becker told himself, trying to close his mind to the fact that one of Ryan’s eyes looked to have been gouged out. And from there his injuries only got worse. His throat was a ruin of torn red flesh, his stomach had been ripped open and yellowish intestines spilled out, unconfined, and his left leg was missing below the knee.
In spite of that, Ryan’s chest was still rising and falling unsteadily, and Becker could hear the rattle of breath in his friend’s ruined throat.
There was no fucking way anyone could survive injuries like that. Becker had only once seen worse damage to a human being when one of his teammates had been thrown into the air like a ragdoll by a roadside bomb in Helmand Province. Becker had held the young man in his arms as he’d died.
Becker stretched an arm through the bars and managed to take hold of one of Ryan’s outstretched hands. Ryan’s fingers were cold and unresponsive. Becker knew that it was only a matter of time.
The medics who’d done their best to teach him how to cope in situations like this had told him to talk to the casualty and to keep talking until the light finally faded from their eyes.
So that was what he did.
* * * *
A movement next to him jerked Becker awake. He heard a groan that didn’t sound like it had come from his own throat. Becker rolled over, coming to his knees, expecting a stabbing pain in his chest from his broken ribs, but it didn’t come. Becker stared into the cage next to his that had held Ryan’s broken body.
The sight that greeted his eyes brought him elation and blind terror in equal measures.
Ryan looked like he’d been dragged through an abattoir, with blood and grime covering his body the way it had done the previous night, but where before his left leg had ended just below the knee in a ruin of torn flesh and splintered bone, the same limb was now whole again. Ryan stared back at him out of two good eyes, the skin on his forehead unmarked, free of the deep gouge that had marked him.
“You were dead!” Becker said, throwing the words out almost like an accusation. “Something had eaten your fucking leg!”
Ryan nodded. “The day before yesterday, something ripped my arm off and ate it while I watched.” He held out his arms, slowly clenching and unclenching his fists. “It feels a bit weird for the first couple of days but then it’s back to normal again – or what passes for normal around here.
Becker was conscious of the fact that he was gawping at Ryan like a stranded fish, but he just couldn’t manage to form any words at all. After a moment he simply settled for a very heartfelt, “Fuck.”
“Yeah, if you’re unlucky.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before you got dragged off?”
“Would you have believed me?” There was no challenge in Ryan’s voice, just simple enquiry.
Becker met the other man’s blue eyes and slowly shook his head. “No. I don’t suppose I would have done. Is it going to happen to me, too?”
“Are your ribs still painful?”
Becker couldn’t bring himself to answer the question aloud, half-hoping that if he didn’t say anything, he wouldn’t have to face up to something almost too hideous to contemplate.
The fact that it wasn’t staying alive that was going to be the problem.
Staying dead was going to be an even harder task.