Fic, Bunking Up, Becker/Connor, 15
Oct. 27th, 2014 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredbassettTitle : Bunking Up
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Becker/Connor
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : It’s midnight in the ARC…
A/N : 1) Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deinonychus_1’s birthday. I hope you have a lovely day, Theropod! 2) Many thanks to lukadreaming for the beta and the title.
Becker glanced up at the clock on his office wall.
It was nearly midnight. Drawing the short straw for the graveyard shift at the ARC on a Friday night had at least meant he’d managed to catch up on a week’s worth of reports and kit requisitions that Lester had been hassling him about for days.
Revelling in an unaccustomed feeling of virtue, he hit send on the email to his boss and then turned the computer off. He fancied a coffee and a couple of chocolate biscuits and would then catch a few hours sleep, hopefully uninterrupted by the siren song of the ADD. The wretched machine had finally fallen silent a couple of hours ago after a long day punctuated at irregular intervals by a series of false alarms that had driven Connor – and everyone else in the building – to distraction.
Fortunately for Becker’s rapidly-diminishing sanity, it looked very much like their resident geek had finally got a grip on the problem. He presumed Connor had long-since gone off to join the others for last orders down the Black Swan but, out of habit, Becker paused before turning off the lights in his office and stopped to check the computer screen on his spare desk that monitored the security feed from the various closed-circuit cameras positioned throughout the building.
Scrolling quickly through the various feeds, it was soon apparent that there was quite literally nothing stirring throughout the building, not even a mouse. The large, prehistoric rodent – nicknamed Colin, for reasons Becker still failed to understand – currently living in a cage in the corner of Abby’s office, was curled up fast asleep in the midst of its shredded bedding.
Becker tapped in the code for the camera feed in the main atrium, intending to check that Connor had tidied away the usual mess of toolboxes, wires, cables, soldering irons and other assorted paraphernalia before causing yet another entry in the accident book. The screen was promptly filled with a scene replete with enough clutter to keep a car boot sale in business for a month.
In the midst of the chaos, its perpetrator was slumped over the desk, head pillowed on his arms, seemingly fast asleep.
Becker rolled his eyes. It looked like someone was in need of some TLC. But coffee and biscuits would just have to do. He made his way down to the atrium via the rec room to put the kettle on.
The time he’d spent working in the ARC had taught Becker that it was never wise to startle anyone who worked with dinosaurs for a living, no matter how inoffensive they might seem, so he stayed safely beyond arm’s length whilst attempting to wake Connor up.
“Come on, Sleeping Beauty, time to call it a day before today turns into tomorrow and you turn into a pumpkin.”
Connor gave no sign of having heard him, making Becker wonder when the lad had last had a proper night’s sleep. They’d all spent the previous night freezing their arses off in the middle of the Kent countryside. The one before it, Connor had been up half the night helping Abby look after a sick creature, and before that they’d spent most of it driving in convoy up the M1…
Christ. Becker shook his head, irritated by his own failings. He should have realised Connor had been running on empty for several days now. Today’s problems with the ADD had obviously been the final straw. No doubt Connor had told Abby and the others that it wouldn’t take him much longer, then he’d kip down in one of the bunkrooms. But here he was, several hours later, fast asleep in a position that would no doubt lead to a painful crick in his neck, at the very least.
Becker tried again. “Connor, come on, mate. It’s time to get some proper sleep.”
A muffled snore was all the response he got.
Becker stepped closer, reaching out to gently shake Connor’s shoulder. That had no discernible effect, either. Becker shook a little harder. Connor grunted and tried to burrow his face into the crook of his arm. Becker stepped back to give the matter due consideration. Buying time before he had to decide how to deal with the problem of a somnolent Connor, Becker did what he could to tidy up the mess in the immediate vicinity, returning tools to boxes and pushing what he couldn’t deal with closer to the desks. Eventually, he gave up the unequal struggle and fetched a few ‘warning – slippery floor’ signs from the nearest cleaning cupboard and stuck them up at strategic intervals around the danger zone. That would just have to do.
“Come on, genius,” he said, louder than before. “If you’re still like this in the morning, Abby’ll have my guts for garters.”
When that drew no response either, Becker decided to throw subtlety to the winds. He pulled Connor’s chair back from the desk and promptly hoisted the still-sleeping young man into his arms. Instead of struggling, Connor just burrowed his face into Becker’s neck, let out a rather endearing snuffly snore and stayed limply pliant.
Becker hitched him up slightly higher, thinking that Connor was actually quite a bit heavier than his spare frame implied, and started to make his way carefully up the ramp to the first floor and from there to the bunkrooms, taking care to stay out of sight of the soldier’s rec room where the night shift were probably busy gambling next week’s wages away whilst ignoring the no smoking signs, having already disabled the smoke detectors.
With some degree of difficulty, Becker managed to get the door to one of the bunkrooms open without dropping his gently snoring burden. All the team spent long enough in the ARC these days to have started to personalise the white-walled bedrooms. The one Connor had taken over as his own had a couple of Star Wars posters blu-tacked to the stark walls, a heap of his spare clothes thrown onto the top bunk, and a brightly-coloured knitted blanket covering the duvet. A couple of mugs on the small bedside table appeared to be trying to emulate the biology labs from what Becker could see of their interior, but he’d seem a lot worse after living amongst soldiers for so long.
Becker managed to fold back the duvet and the blanket before gently depositing Connor onto the lower bed. Connor promptly rolled onto his side and buried his face in the pillow. Becker stared down at him, resisting the temptation to execute an eye-roll of the type normally associated with Lester. Connor was even more oblivious than usual at the moment, so there wasn’t much point in wasting the effort. Instead, he knelt down and started to undo the knots that Connor had somehow managed to work into the laces of his scuffed, well-worn boots.
Eventually, after nearly giving in to the temptation to just use his knife, Gordian-knot style, on the intransigent laces, Becker managed to wrestle the offending footwear off, revealing a pair of striped, mismatched socks that had very definitely seen better days. Becker pulled the duvet over Connor and was about to leave him to get some much-needed sleep when Connor’s hand slipped into his and held on tight.
Becker stared down in exasperation. This wasn’t what he’d bargained for.
“’m cold,” Connor muttered, his voice muffled by the pillow.
“You’ll soon warm up.”
“’m cold!” Connor said, still sleepy, but this time with added emphasis.
With difficulty, Becker managed to extricate his hand from Connor’s clinging paw so that he could turn up the thermostat on the room’s heating. When he turned around, Connor had levered himself up onto one elbow staring at him with a rather endearingly baffled look on his face.
“How did I get here?” he asked, blinking owlishly at Becker.
“I carried you,” Becker said, deciding that honesty was probably the best policy. “You were spark out, in breach of Christ only knows how many health and safety memos.”
Connor wriggled his toes under the blanket, his look of surprise deepening. “And you took my boots off? You really are tough, mate.”
Becker grinned. “I held my breath. I’m not that bloody tough. Play your cards right and I might make you a hot chocolate.”
Connor’s dark eyes took on a hopeful expression that wouldn’t have been out of place behind a wire cage in an animal shelter. “And a choccie biccie?”
Becker allowed his eye-roll out to play. “If the other buggers haven’t eaten them all. Clean your teeth and get in bed properly…”
“Yes, nan…”
“And no back-chat…”
“You really are channelling her…”
Becker flipped Connor the finger and made his way back to the rec room to make a long-overdue coffee for himself and to microwave a mug of hot chocolate for Connor. By the time he got back, Connor was snuggled under the duvet wearing an old, faded teeshirt. He sat up, and took the mug Becker held out to him, revealing a barely-legible slogan on his chest that proclaimed: Geeks Do It Beta. Becker decided against asking for an explanation.
Connor had turned off the main light in the room, leaving a soft yellow glow from a small bedside lamp decorated with things that looked like extremely furry teddy bears.
“Ewoks,” Connor said. “Abby gave it me for Christmas.”
Becker stood there, coffee mug in hand, doing his best to ignore how ridiculously cute Connor looked with his rumpled hair, slightly sleep-dazed expression and long-lashed dark eyes that could easily win him the starring role in Bambi.
“You need to get some sleep,” Becker said, in an attempt to distract himself.
“Need to drink this and get warm first,” Connor countered. “Sit down, mate, you’re giving me a crick in the neck.” He patted the edge of the bed.
Becker sat down, taking care not to bash his head on the upper bunk, and pulled half a packet of chocolate biscuits out of his jacket pocket. Connor promptly fell on it as though he hadn’t had a square meal for days, which, Becker had to admit, was quite probably true. He was going to have to make more of an effort to see that Connor ate and slept properly. They relied on him too much for it to be safe having a key member of the team walking around half-starved and dead on his feet.
“I can look after myself, you know,” Connor said through a mouthful of biscuit, sounding faintly aggrieved.
“Says the person who fell asleep at his computer after forgetting to eat all day.”
Connor finished off the last biscuit, washed it down with the last of his hot chocolate and then brushed the crumbs onto the floor. “I needed to fix the ADD.”
Becker resisted the urge to ruffle Connor’s hair. There was actually very little between them in age, but there were times when it was hard to remember that. “Looks like you succeeded.”
Connor snuggled down again, pulling the duvet around him. “I did, didn’t I?” he said, sounding sleepy.
As Becker started to get up, Connor’s hand settled on his again.
Becker looked down, his expression quizzical.
“Keep me company?” Connor said softly.
Becker allowed a small smile to curve his lips. “Well, I suppose I did carry you over the threshold…”
He took the mug from Connor’s loose grip and set it down on the small, cluttered bedside table. Stripping down, quickly and efficiently, to his boxers, Becker turned out the small light and slid under the duvet. Connor promptly snuggled up against him like a limpet attaching itself to a rock.
“You’ve left your bloody socks on,” Becker groaned.
“I’ve got cold feet,” Connor said plaintively, before promptly falling asleep, his head resting on Becker’s shoulder.
Lying in a narrow bunk bed with an armful of sleeping Connor wasn’t quite how Becker had envisaged spending the rest of the night, but it certainly beat sleeping alone.
And maybe tomorrow they could progress to a slightly more conventional first date.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Becker/Connor
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : It’s midnight in the ARC…
A/N : 1) Written for
deinonychus_1’s birthday. I hope you have a lovely day, Theropod! 2) Many thanks to lukadreaming for the beta and the title.Becker glanced up at the clock on his office wall.
It was nearly midnight. Drawing the short straw for the graveyard shift at the ARC on a Friday night had at least meant he’d managed to catch up on a week’s worth of reports and kit requisitions that Lester had been hassling him about for days.
Revelling in an unaccustomed feeling of virtue, he hit send on the email to his boss and then turned the computer off. He fancied a coffee and a couple of chocolate biscuits and would then catch a few hours sleep, hopefully uninterrupted by the siren song of the ADD. The wretched machine had finally fallen silent a couple of hours ago after a long day punctuated at irregular intervals by a series of false alarms that had driven Connor – and everyone else in the building – to distraction.
Fortunately for Becker’s rapidly-diminishing sanity, it looked very much like their resident geek had finally got a grip on the problem. He presumed Connor had long-since gone off to join the others for last orders down the Black Swan but, out of habit, Becker paused before turning off the lights in his office and stopped to check the computer screen on his spare desk that monitored the security feed from the various closed-circuit cameras positioned throughout the building.
Scrolling quickly through the various feeds, it was soon apparent that there was quite literally nothing stirring throughout the building, not even a mouse. The large, prehistoric rodent – nicknamed Colin, for reasons Becker still failed to understand – currently living in a cage in the corner of Abby’s office, was curled up fast asleep in the midst of its shredded bedding.
Becker tapped in the code for the camera feed in the main atrium, intending to check that Connor had tidied away the usual mess of toolboxes, wires, cables, soldering irons and other assorted paraphernalia before causing yet another entry in the accident book. The screen was promptly filled with a scene replete with enough clutter to keep a car boot sale in business for a month.
In the midst of the chaos, its perpetrator was slumped over the desk, head pillowed on his arms, seemingly fast asleep.
Becker rolled his eyes. It looked like someone was in need of some TLC. But coffee and biscuits would just have to do. He made his way down to the atrium via the rec room to put the kettle on.
The time he’d spent working in the ARC had taught Becker that it was never wise to startle anyone who worked with dinosaurs for a living, no matter how inoffensive they might seem, so he stayed safely beyond arm’s length whilst attempting to wake Connor up.
“Come on, Sleeping Beauty, time to call it a day before today turns into tomorrow and you turn into a pumpkin.”
Connor gave no sign of having heard him, making Becker wonder when the lad had last had a proper night’s sleep. They’d all spent the previous night freezing their arses off in the middle of the Kent countryside. The one before it, Connor had been up half the night helping Abby look after a sick creature, and before that they’d spent most of it driving in convoy up the M1…
Christ. Becker shook his head, irritated by his own failings. He should have realised Connor had been running on empty for several days now. Today’s problems with the ADD had obviously been the final straw. No doubt Connor had told Abby and the others that it wouldn’t take him much longer, then he’d kip down in one of the bunkrooms. But here he was, several hours later, fast asleep in a position that would no doubt lead to a painful crick in his neck, at the very least.
Becker tried again. “Connor, come on, mate. It’s time to get some proper sleep.”
A muffled snore was all the response he got.
Becker stepped closer, reaching out to gently shake Connor’s shoulder. That had no discernible effect, either. Becker shook a little harder. Connor grunted and tried to burrow his face into the crook of his arm. Becker stepped back to give the matter due consideration. Buying time before he had to decide how to deal with the problem of a somnolent Connor, Becker did what he could to tidy up the mess in the immediate vicinity, returning tools to boxes and pushing what he couldn’t deal with closer to the desks. Eventually, he gave up the unequal struggle and fetched a few ‘warning – slippery floor’ signs from the nearest cleaning cupboard and stuck them up at strategic intervals around the danger zone. That would just have to do.
“Come on, genius,” he said, louder than before. “If you’re still like this in the morning, Abby’ll have my guts for garters.”
When that drew no response either, Becker decided to throw subtlety to the winds. He pulled Connor’s chair back from the desk and promptly hoisted the still-sleeping young man into his arms. Instead of struggling, Connor just burrowed his face into Becker’s neck, let out a rather endearing snuffly snore and stayed limply pliant.
Becker hitched him up slightly higher, thinking that Connor was actually quite a bit heavier than his spare frame implied, and started to make his way carefully up the ramp to the first floor and from there to the bunkrooms, taking care to stay out of sight of the soldier’s rec room where the night shift were probably busy gambling next week’s wages away whilst ignoring the no smoking signs, having already disabled the smoke detectors.
With some degree of difficulty, Becker managed to get the door to one of the bunkrooms open without dropping his gently snoring burden. All the team spent long enough in the ARC these days to have started to personalise the white-walled bedrooms. The one Connor had taken over as his own had a couple of Star Wars posters blu-tacked to the stark walls, a heap of his spare clothes thrown onto the top bunk, and a brightly-coloured knitted blanket covering the duvet. A couple of mugs on the small bedside table appeared to be trying to emulate the biology labs from what Becker could see of their interior, but he’d seem a lot worse after living amongst soldiers for so long.
Becker managed to fold back the duvet and the blanket before gently depositing Connor onto the lower bed. Connor promptly rolled onto his side and buried his face in the pillow. Becker stared down at him, resisting the temptation to execute an eye-roll of the type normally associated with Lester. Connor was even more oblivious than usual at the moment, so there wasn’t much point in wasting the effort. Instead, he knelt down and started to undo the knots that Connor had somehow managed to work into the laces of his scuffed, well-worn boots.
Eventually, after nearly giving in to the temptation to just use his knife, Gordian-knot style, on the intransigent laces, Becker managed to wrestle the offending footwear off, revealing a pair of striped, mismatched socks that had very definitely seen better days. Becker pulled the duvet over Connor and was about to leave him to get some much-needed sleep when Connor’s hand slipped into his and held on tight.
Becker stared down in exasperation. This wasn’t what he’d bargained for.
“’m cold,” Connor muttered, his voice muffled by the pillow.
“You’ll soon warm up.”
“’m cold!” Connor said, still sleepy, but this time with added emphasis.
With difficulty, Becker managed to extricate his hand from Connor’s clinging paw so that he could turn up the thermostat on the room’s heating. When he turned around, Connor had levered himself up onto one elbow staring at him with a rather endearingly baffled look on his face.
“How did I get here?” he asked, blinking owlishly at Becker.
“I carried you,” Becker said, deciding that honesty was probably the best policy. “You were spark out, in breach of Christ only knows how many health and safety memos.”
Connor wriggled his toes under the blanket, his look of surprise deepening. “And you took my boots off? You really are tough, mate.”
Becker grinned. “I held my breath. I’m not that bloody tough. Play your cards right and I might make you a hot chocolate.”
Connor’s dark eyes took on a hopeful expression that wouldn’t have been out of place behind a wire cage in an animal shelter. “And a choccie biccie?”
Becker allowed his eye-roll out to play. “If the other buggers haven’t eaten them all. Clean your teeth and get in bed properly…”
“Yes, nan…”
“And no back-chat…”
“You really are channelling her…”
Becker flipped Connor the finger and made his way back to the rec room to make a long-overdue coffee for himself and to microwave a mug of hot chocolate for Connor. By the time he got back, Connor was snuggled under the duvet wearing an old, faded teeshirt. He sat up, and took the mug Becker held out to him, revealing a barely-legible slogan on his chest that proclaimed: Geeks Do It Beta. Becker decided against asking for an explanation.
Connor had turned off the main light in the room, leaving a soft yellow glow from a small bedside lamp decorated with things that looked like extremely furry teddy bears.
“Ewoks,” Connor said. “Abby gave it me for Christmas.”
Becker stood there, coffee mug in hand, doing his best to ignore how ridiculously cute Connor looked with his rumpled hair, slightly sleep-dazed expression and long-lashed dark eyes that could easily win him the starring role in Bambi.
“You need to get some sleep,” Becker said, in an attempt to distract himself.
“Need to drink this and get warm first,” Connor countered. “Sit down, mate, you’re giving me a crick in the neck.” He patted the edge of the bed.
Becker sat down, taking care not to bash his head on the upper bunk, and pulled half a packet of chocolate biscuits out of his jacket pocket. Connor promptly fell on it as though he hadn’t had a square meal for days, which, Becker had to admit, was quite probably true. He was going to have to make more of an effort to see that Connor ate and slept properly. They relied on him too much for it to be safe having a key member of the team walking around half-starved and dead on his feet.
“I can look after myself, you know,” Connor said through a mouthful of biscuit, sounding faintly aggrieved.
“Says the person who fell asleep at his computer after forgetting to eat all day.”
Connor finished off the last biscuit, washed it down with the last of his hot chocolate and then brushed the crumbs onto the floor. “I needed to fix the ADD.”
Becker resisted the urge to ruffle Connor’s hair. There was actually very little between them in age, but there were times when it was hard to remember that. “Looks like you succeeded.”
Connor snuggled down again, pulling the duvet around him. “I did, didn’t I?” he said, sounding sleepy.
As Becker started to get up, Connor’s hand settled on his again.
Becker looked down, his expression quizzical.
“Keep me company?” Connor said softly.
Becker allowed a small smile to curve his lips. “Well, I suppose I did carry you over the threshold…”
He took the mug from Connor’s loose grip and set it down on the small, cluttered bedside table. Stripping down, quickly and efficiently, to his boxers, Becker turned out the small light and slid under the duvet. Connor promptly snuggled up against him like a limpet attaching itself to a rock.
“You’ve left your bloody socks on,” Becker groaned.
“I’ve got cold feet,” Connor said plaintively, before promptly falling asleep, his head resting on Becker’s shoulder.
Lying in a narrow bunk bed with an armful of sleeping Connor wasn’t quite how Becker had envisaged spending the rest of the night, but it certainly beat sleeping alone.
And maybe tomorrow they could progress to a slightly more conventional first date.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-07 08:53 pm (UTC)