fredbassett

Title : Cold Comfort Cave
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Becker/Ethan
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Stuck on the wrong side of an anomaly in the snow with Ethan Dobrowski isn’t Becker’s idea of a good time.
A/N Written for

eriah211’s

primeval_denial Gift Box for the prompt Too Cold To Sleep

Ethan stared at the empty space in the air that had, until a heartbeat ago, been occupied by a anomaly spinning lazily in the air, its fractured light reflected in the crystalline surface of the snow.

“Bloody fucking hell!” Becker kicked at the snow in frustration. “Connor said that fucking thing was good for at least another couple of hours.”

Ethan shrugged and turned away, scanning the nearby crags for shelter. The sun was already low in the sky and the light was starting to fade. There was no point in worrying. The anomaly would return, or it wouldn’t. This one had been intermittent over the last three days, but Ethan had learned never to take the damn things for granted.

And he’d told Becker that going in on the off chance that a missing local kid had gone through was dangerous.

They’d seen immediately from the lack of tracks that the kid hadn’t managed to evade their hastily erected cordon, but as they’d turned around to return to their own time, the anomaly had flickered twice and then abruptly snapped closed.

“No point in crying over spilt milk, cupcake. I’ll check that cliff for shelter. You find something to use to mark the spot. Or build a snowman, or something. Might stop you from having a temper tantrum.”

“Is that what Danny used to get you to do when you were an ickle babby?”

Ethan ignored him and kept walking. The young captain didn’t approve of him and lost no opportunity to rub that in. Lester had been more pragmatic. Whether they liked it or not, they needed his knowledge of the gateways. What they didn’t know was that he was tired of being alone, tired of having no one to call a friend. Charlotte’s death had hit him hard. One death on top of many had been the final straw. He wanted to repair his relationship with Danny but didn’t know how. He wasn’t the adored little brother any more. He seen too much, done too much. Acceptance would be hard won, and he was just too fucking tired of all the shit all to care

The grey cliff rose above him, a few meagre clumps of vegetation slinging to its sides with trailing ferns and some clumps of straggly grass higher up. So, late Cretaceous or younger. They needed shelter, or they’d be in even more trouble, At the base of the cliff, a few deep undercuts looked like they might provide some respite from the bitter wind, but what they really needed was a cave, somewhere they could get out of the way of the worst of the storm.

He dropped to one knee at the base of the cliff and shone his torch into the shadows. A low, narrow passage ran back into the rock. He’d seen worse prospects in the time he’d spent travelling the gateways.

Ethan dropped flat and wriggled into the tube, holding the torch in front of him. After two metres, it opened out into a wide chamber and he was quickly on his feet again, sweeping the beam of his torch around the bare walls. Flicking the beam off, he let his eyes accustom themselves to the darkness and quickly realised that from somewhere above him, the last remnants of the day’s grey light was filtering in

The rock wall looked easy enough to climb, even with a torch held in one hand. In a few simple moves, he’d gained a wide ledge looking out over the snow field. He could see Becker dutifully building a cairn beside the site of the gateway. The point at which their footsteps began.

The ledge was shielded by a curtain of over-hanging ferns, but some gardening would turn this into a good place from which to keep watch over their possible way back to their own time.

“Oi, sweetpea!”

Becker looked around, trying to place where the call had come from.

Ethan grinned. Soldier boy could play follow my leader with the tracks in the snow. It wasn’t bloody rocket science.

He settled down on the ledge to wait.

Five minutes later, he watched Becker walk in his footsteps up to the cliff and then heard the scrape of his equipment vest as he wriggled through the crawl and into the chamber. The climb posed no difficulties and he was soon on the wide ledge, staring around at their accommodation for the night.

“Not up to your exacting standards?” Ethan muttered irritably.

“Good find,” Becker said. “Might have to leave a shitty review on TripAdvisor, though. No bugger’s left us chocolates on the pillow.”

“I hate to break it to you, cupcake, but there’s no pillows. No towel origami, either.”

Becker’s eyes widened. “They have towel origami in the past?”

“They did in the Ritz in Paris when I stayed there for the opening of the Eiffel Tower.”

“When the hell was that?”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Didn’t they teach you lot any feckin’ history at your posh school? 1889. Bloody good party.” He’d spent the night getting shagged senseless by a rich young architect and had woken up in the morning with a pleasantly sore arse, being stared at by a large swan fashioned out of a white bath towel. The impressive creation was eying him disapprovingly from the armchair where they’d deposited it in their scramble for the bed.

The architect was long dead, but Ethan remembered him with a certain amount of fondness.

He ripped away enough of the ferns to give him an unobstructed view of where the gateway wasn’t and settled down with his back against the rock wall. Unfortunately, clearing the ferns also let in more cold air, and even with gloves on and his hands tucked inside the pockets of his jacket, he was soon cold.

Becker opened one of the many pockets in his tactical vest and pulled out two foil packets.

Ethan opened in eyes in mock shock. “If your cock’s big enough to need a condom that size, I don’t want it anywhere near my arse.” And if he told himself that often enough, he might even believe it.

“You should be so lucky…” Becker chucked one of the survival blankets to him. “Sit on that. It’ll provide some insulation.”

Ethan unwrapped the blanket, which turned out to be considerably larger than it looked. He wrapped the foil around himself and settled down again, while Becker did the same. They sat shoulder to shoulder, looking out into the darkness.

“No point in both of us staying awake,” he said, nudging Becker with his elbow. “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you in two hours.”

“Too cold to sleep.”

“Thought you lot were meant to be tough.”

“I am. Tough and fucking cold.”

“There, there, princess. Close your eyes and think of somewhere nice and warm…”

“Fuck off.”

“Go to sleep!”

Becker looked like he was about to argue, but some vestige of soldiery common sense clearly won as the young captain just nodded, closed his eyes and rested the back of his head against the cave wall.

“And when we get back, I’ll buy you a nice fleecy blanky,” Ethan muttered.

The blanket rustled and Ethan presumed he’d just been flipped the finger. Five minutes later, from the depth of Becker’s even breathing, Ethan knew the soldier had fallen asleep, despite his whinging.

Two hours passed slowly, like an arthritic snail dragging itself over frozen ground. Ethan was cold, hungry, in need of a piss and desperately wanted to stamp some feeling back into his feet. The only problem was the special forces captain now fast asleep on his shoulder, whiffling softly when his breath caught in his throat.

Two hours stretched to three. The darkness outside the cave remained obstinately dark. Really, really dark. Heavy clouds obscured the sky, so there weren’t even any stars he could count to keep himself awake.

Eventually, Becker stirred and muttered, “Wassthetime?”

“Time I went for a piss.” Ethan stretched his legs out, feeling the cold in every joint. He was getting too old for dossing down in freezing caves. And going for a piss was easier said than done, as well, but he managed to accomplish peeing over the edge of the cave into the darkness without either wetting himself or falling off the ledge, both of which he counted as a win. Getting the feeling back into his feet was a harder proposition, and eventually he gave up and wrapped himself in the foil blanket again as Becker did the same, then settled down to keep watch.

“Should’ve woken me up earlier,” Becker said.

Ethan shrugged and the survival blanket rustled in the darkness. “Listening to you snore kept me awake, so it wasn’t a problem.”

“I don’t snore!” Becker retorted indignantly.

“Last girlfriend deaf, was she?”

“No, he had perfectly good hearing,” Becker snapped.

He? Bloody hell. Ethan had wondered but hadn’t been sure. For once, he bit back any sharp remark. He strongly suspected Becker didn’t often give himself away like that.

The silence stretched between them like a wire, wound tighter with each passing second.

“Well?” Becker demanded.

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to make some smart-arsed joke?”

“Only if you want me to.”

“I’ll pass, thanks. Go to sleep.”

“Too feckin’ cold.” And two could play at that game.

“Aw, diddums.”

“No pillow, either.”

The silence stretched a bit further, then, “The one I had wasn’t bad.”

Ethan grinned in the darkness. “Was that an offer?”

“Best one you’re going to get tonight.”

“Suits me.” He shuffled into a comfortable position, or as comfortable as any position could be with his arse on the rock floor of a freezing cold cave, rested his head on Becker’s shoulder and promptly fell asleep.

****

The anomaly returned just as the grey light of dawn was seeping into the cave.

They scrambled down the climb and wriggled out of the cave just as Danny burst through the anomaly, with Abby and a security team hard on his heels.

Ethan was promptly enveloped in a bear hug by his brother then hauled back into the welcome warmth of the right century.

“Didn’t kill each other, then, Becks?” Danny grinned. “I win the pool.”

Becker casually glanced at Ethan, a half-smile on his face. “Thought about it. Decided I couldn’t be arsed with the paperwork.”

“Won him over with my sunny nature,” Ethan said, extricating himself from his brother’s clutches.

As they walked towards the waiting Range Rovers, Becker said quietly, “Fancy a beer tonight?”

“Thought you’d never ask, cupcake. And no, I won’t forget I promised you a blanky.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

eriah211.livejournal.com

Aaawww, so cute ^_^
Lovely banter, it was nice to see them getting along and lol at Danny winning the pool. Of course there was a pool! *g*
Thank you very much for this, fred, it was lovely ^_^