Fic, In From the Cold, 12
Dec. 29th, 2023 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredbassettTitle : In From the Cold
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 12
Characters : Ethan/Becker, Stephen/Ryan, Claudia/Nick, Helen, Leek, Dave, Felix, Torrence, Sinister, Dexter, George
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : While stuck in the past in a freezing cold cave, Ethan is introduced to one of the ARC's best kept secrets.
A/N : Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eriah211 for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
primeval_denial Secret Santa for the prompts: There is a lot more mistletoe than one would expect. Then there is a lot more. And “That was not what I expected, which is a good thing.”
A/N : The wonderful world of Sanctuary was created bymysteriousaliwz.
“We’ve got enough to keep the fire going all night,” Becker said, carefully putting another lump of wood on the flames. “There’s no bloody sense in freezing to death. The anomaly’s due to open again tomorrow evening. And if we’re really lucky, the canteen will have saved us enough turkey for a sandwich.”
Sparks danced in the air, carried away into the darkness by a sharp wind that promised more snow by morning.
“You’re not counting on a present as well, are you, cupcake?” Ethan stretched his cold hands out, making the most of the warmth. They’d dragged fern leaves into the cave to cover the floor of the shallow sandy alcove, but the fronds didn’t provide much of a barrier between them and the rock, even with the addition of one of their foil survival blankets.
“You mean you’ve not got me one? Miserable bastard.” Becker grinned at him and held out a lump of charred meat. “I suppose you still expect me to let you have the last roast raptor leg?”
“If you’re offering. There’s plenty more where that stringy little sod came from. There’ll be another pack of them clamouring for round two as soon as it gets light.”
“Then it’s a good job that a) we’re three metres higher than they are, b) they can’t fly and c) between us, we have considerably more firepower than them.”
“Have I ever told you that a) gun-toting raptors aren’t yet a thing and b) it’s fecking irritating when you insist on playing the cheerful Little Princess all the fecking time?”
“You’ve mentioned at least one of those things several times. Now shut up and eat that mouth-watering delicacy I’ve just kindly given you. And I promise to catch you another one for a lovely Christmas day breakfast if you’re a brave little soldier and let me check your ankle before we cuddle up for the night. Only one more sleep to Christmas, remember.”
“Ankle’s fine,” Ethan muttered, then promptly gave the lie to his words with a hiss of pain as he shifted position to take the still warm raptor leg Becker was holding out to him.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
“Remind me how old you are again? It’s a sprain, not a break. I can still feel my toes. And who said anything about cuddling up for the night?”
“I did.” Becker delved into one of the pockets of his black combat jacket and pulled out a battered hip flask. “Now wash the taste of burnt raptor down with a mouthful of that.”
“Will it put hairs on my chest?”
“Probably. Certainly did for me.”
They shared a couple of mouthfuls of decent brandy in companionable silence and, to Becker’s surprise, Danny Quinn’s grouchy younger brother finally consented to his ankle and foot being examined. As far as Becker could tell, Ethan’s assessment was correct. The ankle was badly swollen, with dark bruising already starting to emerge, but there was no sign of compromise to the blood supply or the nerves in the foot. He carefully wrapped the puffy flesh in a support bandage and eased the sock and boot back on, eliciting what were presumably some inventively colourful curses in a variety of languages that Becker made no pretence of understanding.”
“I presume you’ve just impugned my parentage?”
“I might just have remarked that your mother fucks pigs and that your father sticks his cock in she-goat’s arses.”
“I’ll remember to bring that one up at family dinner on Boxing Day. It’ll amuse the hell out of my nan and she’ll insist I teach her how to say it.”
****
“Why the hell does every room in this godforsaken house look like Kew bloody Gardens?”
Stephen groaned as Nick Cutter’s irate demand reverberated down the hallway with the force of ricocheting bullet. He rolled over in bed and pulled the duvet over his head. Seven o’clock in the morning was too early to listen to Cutter in full on rant mode. Scrub that, any time on the morning was too early for that. Same for any time in the afternoon, evening or night …
“Sorry, Nick, but it wouldn’t be Christmas without mistletoe …” The Duty Manager didn’t sound quite as apologetic as her words implied.
“What about my hay fever?”
“Take some antihistamines.” Claudia was using her most studiously reasonable voice, which usually didn’t bode well for anyone foolish enough to cross her. Even Helen had learnt to give ground before that particular tone.
Cutter’s answering snort sounded like a formerly constipated pig finally enjoying an explosive bowel movement.
Stephen winched. He’d known generations of students traumatised by that derisive snort but Claudia was made of sterner stuff.
“It’s Christmas, Nick. You can live with the decorations for a few days.”
Ryan gave into the inevitable and sat up. “It’s only going to get worse, isn’t it?”
“It usually does.” Stephen seriously considered rolling himself up in a duvet cocoon and not emerging until Twelfth Night but unfortunately for him, his bladder had other ideas.
There’s plenty of hot water, boys,” a disembodied voice said wistfully. ”And Norman’s fixed the problem with the overflow in your ensuite.”
“Thanks, management, we’ll bear it in mind,” Ryan said politely.
That particular duty manager was well known for taking a keen interest in their showering habits. Usually, they were quite happy to oblige, but Claudia would almost certainly be glad of reinforcements. Cutter in full anti-seasonal flow was enough to try the patience of a saint.
Stephen emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later and pulled on an old teeshirt and a loose pair of jogging bottoms just in time to hear a warning shout from the hallway.
“Dexter!”
He opened the bedroom door just in time to catch a naked foot falling from the ceiling.
If a foot could be said to look embarrassed, Dexter did.
Looking up, Claudia urged, “Sinister, please be careful!”
Stephen looked up and saw another foot making a gravity defying leap from the top of an open door onto a lightshade whilst clutching a large spring of mistletoe in its toes. Sinister then produced a cable tie from a miniature utility harness strapped to his ankle and proceeded to hang yet another piece of greenery in the already over-festooned hallway.
When Ryan appeared in the doorway, Sinister jumped into his waiting arms then scuttled up to perch on his shoulder like a bizarre featherless parrot.
Dexter promptly wriggled free of Stephen’s arms and hopped over to Ryan’s other shoulder to be greeted with an indulgent eye-roll. “All right, I’ll make you a matching harness if you really want one.” The foot promptly flipped into a nimble somersault and dashed off into the living room to pluck another piece of mistletoe off the pile.
“Someone put a collar and lead on the damn things,” Helen said disdainfully as she stalked from her room towards the kitchen.
Claudia shot Helen an irritated look. “They’re just excited. They like Christmas!”
“They’re disembodied feet. Stop anthropomorphising.”
“They’re Connor’s disembodied feet! Of course they like Christmas!”
Sneezing loudly, Cutter stomped off after Dexter, yelling, “Not more bloody greenery! Enough’s enough!”
“Someone need’s to break it to him that they’re only just getting started. We can still see some of the ceiling.” Stephen hooked a hand around Ryan’s neck and drew his lover into a long, slow kiss. There had to be some perks for the poor duty manager who’d drawn the Christmas Eve shift.
“Go and kick a football around outside like normal feet!” Cutter demanded, pulling open the patio doors and letting in a flurry of dancing white flakes and a distinctly cold draught. “Go on, shoo!”
“Remember to put your socks and boots on!” Claudia called. “Dave, make sure they don’t go out in the snow unless they’re wrapped up warm, please.”
Through the open door, Stephen saw the future predator set down his knitting needles and shamble over to the excited pair of feet, tucking one into each armpit while he lifted up the sofa cushions in search of two pairs of yellow socks.
“Their socks are in their baskets,” Oliver Leek remarked, standing in the middle of the room under a large branch of mistletoe festooned with white berries, a hopeful look on his face.
The skeletal predator pounced on the missing socks, gave Leek a quick peck on the lips then proceeded to stuff the wriggling feet into their outdoor clothes.
Ryan made a low gagging noise.
“Come on, soldier boy,” Stephen commented. “Oliver looks quite hot now he’s grown a beard.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Hart. And since when did you start calling him Oliver?”
“Back me up here, Management,” Stephen said, staring up at the dense shrubbery that now mostly obscured the ceiling in the hall.
“He can kiss me under the mistletoe any day,” the duty manager agreed wistfully.
“In the shower or out of it?”
“You know I’m not fussy …”
“Never a truer word spoken,” Helen remarked, coming out of the kitchen carrying a bagel loaded with cream cheese and smoked salmon. “Haven’t you got anything better to do than hang around in the hallway lusting over that little creep?”
Stephen shrugged. “Not particularly.”
****
Ethan shivered as something cold settled on his nose. He opened his eyes to the dying light of their small fire now fading under the onslaught of fat white snowflakes that whirled madly in the freezing wind and hissed as they landed on the embers. He reached out and added the last of the wood.
Becker was plastered up against his back, the second survival blanket wrapped around them providing scant protection from the bitter cold.
He jammed an elbow into Becker’s ribs. “Wake up, cupcake. Weather’s got even shittier.”
Becker muttered something rude and tightened his arm around Ethan’s waist.
“I said wake up, unless you want to freeze to death in your fecking sleep …”
Becker’s next curse was less muffled but equally irritated.
In the end, there wasn’t much they could do other than share body heat, hoping the storm would blow over before they froze to death in the rapidly plummeting temperatures.
“There are worse ways to die,” Ethan said quietly, when he finally started to slip into a lethargy from which he knew he was unlikely to awaken.
Becker held him close. “Don’t fucking give up on me, Dobrowski …”
****
“Who said anything about giving up?” Ethan said irritably, opening his eyes to the unexpected sight of a large oak door set with a black iron knocker shaped like a T. rex’s head.
Warm yellow light shone through chinks in the shutters of a stone built cottage topped with a homely thatched roof, looking like something off a cheesy Christmas card. An open fronted porch provided some shelter from the biting, snow laden wind. He blinked furiously to clear the hallucination from his mind but when he opened his eyes again, all that had changed was that what looked like two security passes now swung on rainbow coloured lanyards from the knocker.
“Oh buggering hell,” Becker exclaimed, reaching out to grab the lanyards before the wind could snatch them away. He quickly scanned the passes then heaved a sigh of relief and held one out to Ethan. “Put that on, you’ll need it.”
With nothing better to do than go along with whatever final dreams his mind was busily producing while he froze to death, Ethan hung the pass around his neck then glanced at it without much interest. He’d never been a fan of out of body experiences, nor was he a fan of freezing to death, but it didn’t look like he was going to get much choice in either matter.
His own face stared back at him from a piece of white plastic decorated one of his better mugshots set beside the words VISITOR’S PASS.
Ethan looked up at the lintel above the door and could just make out the word SANCTUARY carved in cursive script in the grey stone.
Becker lifted the iron knocker and banged loudly on the door.
A cheerful voice from inside the cottage called, “Whatever you’re selling, we’ve already got one!”
“Stop taking the fucking piss, Hart,” Becker yelled. “Open the sodding door, I’m freezing my bollocks off out here!”
“What’s the magic word, Mr Grumpy?”
“Open the fucking door – please!”
The door swung open to reveal a wide modern hallway, strangely at odds with ye olde worlde exterior that only lacked a chirpy robin on a yule log to complete the faux Victorian image.
A good-looking man in his early 30s brushed wet dark hair off his forehead, making it stand up like a trendy hedgehog’s prickles. Ethan didn’t miss the concerned look the man called Hart quickly shot at Becker’s security pass before his face relaxed into an easy grin. “Joining us for Christmas, Becks? Hope you’ve bought me a prezzie.”
A woman’s voice called out irritably from one of the rooms on the left of the hallway, “Shut the damn door, there’s a howling gale blowing through my room.”
To cover his own confusion, Ethan turned to close the door and promptly did a surprised double-take. Instead looking dark with age, the imposing door was now a pale, elegant stripped pine that matched the doors on either side of a long, wide corridor. A long, wide corridor that was festooned with more mistletoe than Ethan ever seen gathered together in one place outside of an ancient woodland with exceedingly good air quality.
“It’s very green in here,” Becker commented, clearly groping for something to say.
Ethan was saved from the need to comment by a grey, skeletal head with naked, slavering jaws peering around a door down the end of the corridor. His hand dropped to his side, groping for a weapon that wasn’t there.
An attractive woman with wavy brown hair standing next to the man called Hart and another man whose watchful grey eyes positively screamed military addressed the predator. “Dave, have they got their shoes and socks on?”
The creature nodded vigorously, sending a shower of saliva flying around the hall. Two equally emaciated arms reached out, each holding a walking boot in vicious claws, with thick yellow socks turned down over the boot tops. The predator dropped the boots, which bounced up and down a couple of times then shot back into the room at a fast scuttle.
As the creature turned to follow them, several long tentacles snaked out of another room, each one holding a yellow knitted cloth, and proceeded to mop up the drool.
“Thanks, Felix!” the woman called. “We’ve got visitors! Would you be a darling and put the kettle on? I’ll be in to help in a minute.”
Ethan felt a steadying hand on his shoulder and was surprised at his unconscious mind taking comfort from Becker, of all people.
“Just go with the flow, mate, it’s easier that way. And look on the bright side, we’re only here on visitors’ passes, so that mean’s your idiot brother’s going to charge into that damn cave dressed in a Santa hat like the fucking festive cavalry.”
“You’re Danny’s brother? Lovely to meet you, Claudia Brown …”
“... Home Office,” a disembodied voice intoned from somewhere above them.
Claudia Brown smiled, made a rude gesture at the ceiling, then held her hand out.
Ethan took it and was surprised by how real it felt. Warm, solid and as comforting as the hand that had settled briefly on his shoulder.
“We deal with rips in time and dinosaurs for a day job,” Becker said calmly. “I promise you, this isn’t that much weirder.”
“What part of a future predator carrying a pair of boots that run around by themselves, did you miss, cupcake? Time for a visit to Specsavers. Oh, and you must have been looking the other way when a load of tentacles did some house cleaning.” Ethan took a moment to really look at the other people in the hallway before adding, “If you hadn’t noticed, there’s a bunch of dead people, too.”
“In the interests of strict accuracy, I didn’t actually die,” Claudia Brown remarked. “Anyway, Becker’s right, it can be a lot to take in on a first visit. If you’re connected with the ARC, I imagine you’ve read the former personnel files, most people do, but if there’s anyone you don’t recognise, I’m sure Becker will do the honours. The grey one in the yellow scarf is Dave. He’s quite harmless – providing you like yellow. The feet are Sinister and Dexter. It’s easy enough to tell them apart.”
“And the tentacles?” Ethan asked, trying to sound unconcerned.
“Felix,” Stephen Hart supplied. “He’s a genetically modified sentient sex toy from the future. He cooks, cleans, keeps house and makes sure no one gets lonely around here. And don’t worry about the voices from the ceiling, that’s just the duty managers.”
Ethan was rapidly reaching the inescapable conclusion that he might actually be experiencing something real, not a just vivid dream, as there was no bloody way his subconscious could dream up anything as weird as this shit.
“Large brandy?” Claudia Brown asked in the sort of calm, sympathetic voice that told Ethan this wasn’t the first time she’d had to deal with a confused and disbelieving visitor in the hallway.
She led the way into a large kitchen complete with a red Aga as well as numerous more modern appliances. A large octopus-like creature with more tentacles than Ethan could easily count was busily making tea, setting out biscuits and cake on a plate then popping them on a large farmhouse-style table in the middle of the floor whilst also busily rolling pastry and wrapping up pigs in blankets. Yet another tentacle reached out to politely shake his hand.
They’d barely sat down when a furry black and white creature hurtled into the room, leapt onto Becker’s lap, promptly put the special forces captain in a headlock then wrestled him to the floor.
“Torrence, house rules! No fighting in the kitchen!” Claudia ordered.
The arsey-looking raccoon dragged the chair upright and, as soon as Becker sat down again, jumped up onto his knee and started to smooth his hair back into place. From what Ethan could see, Becker looked more embarrassed about that than he did about having lost a wrestling match with a creature a fraction of his size.
The tentacle monster – Felix – set a large mug of tea in front of him, made just the way Ethan liked it. Strong, a dash of milk, two sugars and a large nip of much needed brandy. If this was a hallucination, which he now doubted, it was a good one. The sight of Beckler getting his hair smoothed by a raccoon would never get old.
Something black and fuzzy, considerably smaller than Torrence, scuttled out of a basket by the Aga and looked hopefully up at Becker – if a bundle of black fur with no eyes could be said to look hopeful. Becker leaned down, picked it up and settled the small whatever-it-was inside his jacket, where it promptly snuggled up against his chest and started purring. Ethan was tempted to ask its name, but decided not to push his luck as Becker was giving him a look that would have sent a battalion of heavily armed mercenaries running for cover.
The tea, plus a slice of extremely delicious chocolate cake followed by three warm ginger biscuits considerably improved Ethan’s outlook on life – or death – although if the words on his pass were to be believed, he didn’t have to worry about that on this occasion.
“So, does everybody end up here at some point?” he asked, accepting the offer of a warm scone straight out of the oven with a smile of thanks at the tentacle.
“As long as we like them,” the duty manager confirmed.
“So why’s Oliver Leek here?” Nick Cutter demanded, plonking himself down on a spare chair and helping himself to a large slice of cake.
“The beard, the voice muttered, dreamily.
Ethan was tempted to point out that in the personnel file photos he’d seen, the late unlamented Oliver Leek had been clean shaven, but he had a horrible feeling the answer wouldn’t be very enlightening, so he let it lie. The voice from the ceiling had a point. The close cropped beard turned the slimy administrator into someone Ethan probably wouldn’t object to being caught under the mistletoe with, and the crazy house certainly wasn’t short of that stuff.
“So this is the best kept secret on the project?”
“One of them.” Former Captain Tom Ryan tossed him a can of beer. “This’ll help.”
“One of them?” Ethan echoed, glancing at Becker, who was still cuddling the small black furry thing while the smug raccoon smoothed his hair. “So what else are you keeping from me, soldier boy?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
Before Ethan had chance to press for a better answer, a loud crash brought everyone to their feet. The raccoon tumbled to the floor and scuttled out of the kitchen after giving Becker a look that promised a fiery vengeance when he least expected it. Becker gently extricated the black furry thing from inside his tac vest and settled it back down in the basket by the Aga then followed Ryan and Hart at a run.
Claudia shrugged in response to Ethan’s puzzled look. “It could be anything around here. Management?”
“Not a scooby, sorry. There’s nothing planned for today, but someone might be winging it.”
“That’s all we need,” Cutter muttered darkly. “Can’t you lot come up with a coherent outline and stick to it?”
“Some of us can,” the voice said indignantly. “Look what we did with VS4 and 5.”
“And some of you can’t. From the sound of that crash, you’re going to need to get Maintenance in again.”
“On the case …”
Ethan pulled the tab off his beer and stood up. “Need a hand?”
“Probably,” Claudia and Cutter chorused in the world-weary tones of people who knew that what could go wrong would go wrong, usually in the most creative ways imaginable.
Ethan followed them into a large, airy living room that, five minutes ago, would have had an excellent view of a snow covered garden through two large sliding patio doors. Now, the festive scene was obscured by a large sleigh that appeared to have crash landed in the garden and skidded through the doors, knocking them off their hinges and crazing the safety glass into abstract patterns that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Tate Modern.
Two very large, very furry reindeer were placidly cropping the leaves off a couple of potted plants and starting to eye up the mistletoe while a rotund bloke in a red suit was busily lobbing badly wrapped parcels around the room.
“Can’t stop!” he called cheerfully, clambering back into the sleigh. “Places to be, stuff to deliver, you know how it is in this line of work!”
The reindeer gave the mistletoe a regretful look before ambling back out into the snow.
Just as they were gathering speed, the raccoon sprinted after them, scrambled aboard and promptly filched the man’s long red hat.
As the sleigh disappeared into the distance, a faint ho, ho, fucking ho! floated back to them along with a flurry of snow.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Becks,” Stephen Hart commented, lobbing another beer at the young captain. “The furry little sod’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“Is it always like this around here?” Ethan asked faintly, already knowing the answer.
A tentacle promptly handed him a large glass of brandy.
****
“Wake up, you lazy buggers!”
Danny’s loud, irrepressibly cheerful voice broke into probably the strangest dream Ethan had ever had the misfortune of experiencing; even the after effects of the magic mushrooms he’d eaten in the Upper Palaeolithic hadn’t come close to what he’d just lived – or nearly died – through.
Ethan groaned and tried to roll away from Becker, who was plastered up against his back, holding on with what appeared to be as many appendages as the weird tentacle thing that had made the best gin and tonics he’d ever drunk.
His muttered “Gerrof” went entirely unheeded. Becker just clutched him harder and started to burrow a very cold nose into the back of his neck.
The click of a phone camera, aided and abetted by a sharp elbow jab finally pushed Becker out of sleep and the grip on Ethan’s waist finally slacked.
“This’ll go down a storm on the work WhatsApp group!” Danny announced.
“Say goodbye to your bollocks, Quinn,” Becker declared, scrambling to his feet and making a grab for Danny’s phone.
“Sweet dreams, eh boys?” Danny enquired, wearing one of his usual shit-eating grins as well as the expected Santa hat.
Ethan lifted a surprisingly warm hand to give his irritating brother the finger and found himself staring at a thick, knitted yellow mitten. His other hand was similarly attired.
Beside him, Becker was trying – and failing - to surreptitiously shove a yellow scarf into his back pocket
Ethan turned to him and muttered, “So, what else have you been keeping from me, cupcake?”
“Delete that photo from your fucking brother’s phone before he sends it and I’ll tell you.”
“Deal.”
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 12
Characters : Ethan/Becker, Stephen/Ryan, Claudia/Nick, Helen, Leek, Dave, Felix, Torrence, Sinister, Dexter, George
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : While stuck in the past in a freezing cold cave, Ethan is introduced to one of the ARC's best kept secrets.
A/N : Written for
eriah211 for the primeval_denial Secret Santa for the prompts: There is a lot more mistletoe than one would expect. Then there is a lot more. And “That was not what I expected, which is a good thing.”A/N : The wonderful world of Sanctuary was created by
mysteriousaliwz.“We’ve got enough to keep the fire going all night,” Becker said, carefully putting another lump of wood on the flames. “There’s no bloody sense in freezing to death. The anomaly’s due to open again tomorrow evening. And if we’re really lucky, the canteen will have saved us enough turkey for a sandwich.”
Sparks danced in the air, carried away into the darkness by a sharp wind that promised more snow by morning.
“You’re not counting on a present as well, are you, cupcake?” Ethan stretched his cold hands out, making the most of the warmth. They’d dragged fern leaves into the cave to cover the floor of the shallow sandy alcove, but the fronds didn’t provide much of a barrier between them and the rock, even with the addition of one of their foil survival blankets.
“You mean you’ve not got me one? Miserable bastard.” Becker grinned at him and held out a lump of charred meat. “I suppose you still expect me to let you have the last roast raptor leg?”
“If you’re offering. There’s plenty more where that stringy little sod came from. There’ll be another pack of them clamouring for round two as soon as it gets light.”
“Then it’s a good job that a) we’re three metres higher than they are, b) they can’t fly and c) between us, we have considerably more firepower than them.”
“Have I ever told you that a) gun-toting raptors aren’t yet a thing and b) it’s fecking irritating when you insist on playing the cheerful Little Princess all the fecking time?”
“You’ve mentioned at least one of those things several times. Now shut up and eat that mouth-watering delicacy I’ve just kindly given you. And I promise to catch you another one for a lovely Christmas day breakfast if you’re a brave little soldier and let me check your ankle before we cuddle up for the night. Only one more sleep to Christmas, remember.”
“Ankle’s fine,” Ethan muttered, then promptly gave the lie to his words with a hiss of pain as he shifted position to take the still warm raptor leg Becker was holding out to him.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
“Remind me how old you are again? It’s a sprain, not a break. I can still feel my toes. And who said anything about cuddling up for the night?”
“I did.” Becker delved into one of the pockets of his black combat jacket and pulled out a battered hip flask. “Now wash the taste of burnt raptor down with a mouthful of that.”
“Will it put hairs on my chest?”
“Probably. Certainly did for me.”
They shared a couple of mouthfuls of decent brandy in companionable silence and, to Becker’s surprise, Danny Quinn’s grouchy younger brother finally consented to his ankle and foot being examined. As far as Becker could tell, Ethan’s assessment was correct. The ankle was badly swollen, with dark bruising already starting to emerge, but there was no sign of compromise to the blood supply or the nerves in the foot. He carefully wrapped the puffy flesh in a support bandage and eased the sock and boot back on, eliciting what were presumably some inventively colourful curses in a variety of languages that Becker made no pretence of understanding.”
“I presume you’ve just impugned my parentage?”
“I might just have remarked that your mother fucks pigs and that your father sticks his cock in she-goat’s arses.”
“I’ll remember to bring that one up at family dinner on Boxing Day. It’ll amuse the hell out of my nan and she’ll insist I teach her how to say it.”
****
“Why the hell does every room in this godforsaken house look like Kew bloody Gardens?”
Stephen groaned as Nick Cutter’s irate demand reverberated down the hallway with the force of ricocheting bullet. He rolled over in bed and pulled the duvet over his head. Seven o’clock in the morning was too early to listen to Cutter in full on rant mode. Scrub that, any time on the morning was too early for that. Same for any time in the afternoon, evening or night …
“Sorry, Nick, but it wouldn’t be Christmas without mistletoe …” The Duty Manager didn’t sound quite as apologetic as her words implied.
“What about my hay fever?”
“Take some antihistamines.” Claudia was using her most studiously reasonable voice, which usually didn’t bode well for anyone foolish enough to cross her. Even Helen had learnt to give ground before that particular tone.
Cutter’s answering snort sounded like a formerly constipated pig finally enjoying an explosive bowel movement.
Stephen winched. He’d known generations of students traumatised by that derisive snort but Claudia was made of sterner stuff.
“It’s Christmas, Nick. You can live with the decorations for a few days.”
Ryan gave into the inevitable and sat up. “It’s only going to get worse, isn’t it?”
“It usually does.” Stephen seriously considered rolling himself up in a duvet cocoon and not emerging until Twelfth Night but unfortunately for him, his bladder had other ideas.
There’s plenty of hot water, boys,” a disembodied voice said wistfully. ”And Norman’s fixed the problem with the overflow in your ensuite.”
“Thanks, management, we’ll bear it in mind,” Ryan said politely.
That particular duty manager was well known for taking a keen interest in their showering habits. Usually, they were quite happy to oblige, but Claudia would almost certainly be glad of reinforcements. Cutter in full anti-seasonal flow was enough to try the patience of a saint.
Stephen emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later and pulled on an old teeshirt and a loose pair of jogging bottoms just in time to hear a warning shout from the hallway.
“Dexter!”
He opened the bedroom door just in time to catch a naked foot falling from the ceiling.
If a foot could be said to look embarrassed, Dexter did.
Looking up, Claudia urged, “Sinister, please be careful!”
Stephen looked up and saw another foot making a gravity defying leap from the top of an open door onto a lightshade whilst clutching a large spring of mistletoe in its toes. Sinister then produced a cable tie from a miniature utility harness strapped to his ankle and proceeded to hang yet another piece of greenery in the already over-festooned hallway.
When Ryan appeared in the doorway, Sinister jumped into his waiting arms then scuttled up to perch on his shoulder like a bizarre featherless parrot.
Dexter promptly wriggled free of Stephen’s arms and hopped over to Ryan’s other shoulder to be greeted with an indulgent eye-roll. “All right, I’ll make you a matching harness if you really want one.” The foot promptly flipped into a nimble somersault and dashed off into the living room to pluck another piece of mistletoe off the pile.
“Someone put a collar and lead on the damn things,” Helen said disdainfully as she stalked from her room towards the kitchen.
Claudia shot Helen an irritated look. “They’re just excited. They like Christmas!”
“They’re disembodied feet. Stop anthropomorphising.”
“They’re Connor’s disembodied feet! Of course they like Christmas!”
Sneezing loudly, Cutter stomped off after Dexter, yelling, “Not more bloody greenery! Enough’s enough!”
“Someone need’s to break it to him that they’re only just getting started. We can still see some of the ceiling.” Stephen hooked a hand around Ryan’s neck and drew his lover into a long, slow kiss. There had to be some perks for the poor duty manager who’d drawn the Christmas Eve shift.
“Go and kick a football around outside like normal feet!” Cutter demanded, pulling open the patio doors and letting in a flurry of dancing white flakes and a distinctly cold draught. “Go on, shoo!”
“Remember to put your socks and boots on!” Claudia called. “Dave, make sure they don’t go out in the snow unless they’re wrapped up warm, please.”
Through the open door, Stephen saw the future predator set down his knitting needles and shamble over to the excited pair of feet, tucking one into each armpit while he lifted up the sofa cushions in search of two pairs of yellow socks.
“Their socks are in their baskets,” Oliver Leek remarked, standing in the middle of the room under a large branch of mistletoe festooned with white berries, a hopeful look on his face.
The skeletal predator pounced on the missing socks, gave Leek a quick peck on the lips then proceeded to stuff the wriggling feet into their outdoor clothes.
Ryan made a low gagging noise.
“Come on, soldier boy,” Stephen commented. “Oliver looks quite hot now he’s grown a beard.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Hart. And since when did you start calling him Oliver?”
“Back me up here, Management,” Stephen said, staring up at the dense shrubbery that now mostly obscured the ceiling in the hall.
“He can kiss me under the mistletoe any day,” the duty manager agreed wistfully.
“In the shower or out of it?”
“You know I’m not fussy …”
“Never a truer word spoken,” Helen remarked, coming out of the kitchen carrying a bagel loaded with cream cheese and smoked salmon. “Haven’t you got anything better to do than hang around in the hallway lusting over that little creep?”
Stephen shrugged. “Not particularly.”
****
Ethan shivered as something cold settled on his nose. He opened his eyes to the dying light of their small fire now fading under the onslaught of fat white snowflakes that whirled madly in the freezing wind and hissed as they landed on the embers. He reached out and added the last of the wood.
Becker was plastered up against his back, the second survival blanket wrapped around them providing scant protection from the bitter cold.
He jammed an elbow into Becker’s ribs. “Wake up, cupcake. Weather’s got even shittier.”
Becker muttered something rude and tightened his arm around Ethan’s waist.
“I said wake up, unless you want to freeze to death in your fecking sleep …”
Becker’s next curse was less muffled but equally irritated.
In the end, there wasn’t much they could do other than share body heat, hoping the storm would blow over before they froze to death in the rapidly plummeting temperatures.
“There are worse ways to die,” Ethan said quietly, when he finally started to slip into a lethargy from which he knew he was unlikely to awaken.
Becker held him close. “Don’t fucking give up on me, Dobrowski …”
****
“Who said anything about giving up?” Ethan said irritably, opening his eyes to the unexpected sight of a large oak door set with a black iron knocker shaped like a T. rex’s head.
Warm yellow light shone through chinks in the shutters of a stone built cottage topped with a homely thatched roof, looking like something off a cheesy Christmas card. An open fronted porch provided some shelter from the biting, snow laden wind. He blinked furiously to clear the hallucination from his mind but when he opened his eyes again, all that had changed was that what looked like two security passes now swung on rainbow coloured lanyards from the knocker.
“Oh buggering hell,” Becker exclaimed, reaching out to grab the lanyards before the wind could snatch them away. He quickly scanned the passes then heaved a sigh of relief and held one out to Ethan. “Put that on, you’ll need it.”
With nothing better to do than go along with whatever final dreams his mind was busily producing while he froze to death, Ethan hung the pass around his neck then glanced at it without much interest. He’d never been a fan of out of body experiences, nor was he a fan of freezing to death, but it didn’t look like he was going to get much choice in either matter.
His own face stared back at him from a piece of white plastic decorated one of his better mugshots set beside the words VISITOR’S PASS.
Ethan looked up at the lintel above the door and could just make out the word SANCTUARY carved in cursive script in the grey stone.
Becker lifted the iron knocker and banged loudly on the door.
A cheerful voice from inside the cottage called, “Whatever you’re selling, we’ve already got one!”
“Stop taking the fucking piss, Hart,” Becker yelled. “Open the sodding door, I’m freezing my bollocks off out here!”
“What’s the magic word, Mr Grumpy?”
“Open the fucking door – please!”
The door swung open to reveal a wide modern hallway, strangely at odds with ye olde worlde exterior that only lacked a chirpy robin on a yule log to complete the faux Victorian image.
A good-looking man in his early 30s brushed wet dark hair off his forehead, making it stand up like a trendy hedgehog’s prickles. Ethan didn’t miss the concerned look the man called Hart quickly shot at Becker’s security pass before his face relaxed into an easy grin. “Joining us for Christmas, Becks? Hope you’ve bought me a prezzie.”
A woman’s voice called out irritably from one of the rooms on the left of the hallway, “Shut the damn door, there’s a howling gale blowing through my room.”
To cover his own confusion, Ethan turned to close the door and promptly did a surprised double-take. Instead looking dark with age, the imposing door was now a pale, elegant stripped pine that matched the doors on either side of a long, wide corridor. A long, wide corridor that was festooned with more mistletoe than Ethan ever seen gathered together in one place outside of an ancient woodland with exceedingly good air quality.
“It’s very green in here,” Becker commented, clearly groping for something to say.
Ethan was saved from the need to comment by a grey, skeletal head with naked, slavering jaws peering around a door down the end of the corridor. His hand dropped to his side, groping for a weapon that wasn’t there.
An attractive woman with wavy brown hair standing next to the man called Hart and another man whose watchful grey eyes positively screamed military addressed the predator. “Dave, have they got their shoes and socks on?”
The creature nodded vigorously, sending a shower of saliva flying around the hall. Two equally emaciated arms reached out, each holding a walking boot in vicious claws, with thick yellow socks turned down over the boot tops. The predator dropped the boots, which bounced up and down a couple of times then shot back into the room at a fast scuttle.
As the creature turned to follow them, several long tentacles snaked out of another room, each one holding a yellow knitted cloth, and proceeded to mop up the drool.
“Thanks, Felix!” the woman called. “We’ve got visitors! Would you be a darling and put the kettle on? I’ll be in to help in a minute.”
Ethan felt a steadying hand on his shoulder and was surprised at his unconscious mind taking comfort from Becker, of all people.
“Just go with the flow, mate, it’s easier that way. And look on the bright side, we’re only here on visitors’ passes, so that mean’s your idiot brother’s going to charge into that damn cave dressed in a Santa hat like the fucking festive cavalry.”
“You’re Danny’s brother? Lovely to meet you, Claudia Brown …”
“... Home Office,” a disembodied voice intoned from somewhere above them.
Claudia Brown smiled, made a rude gesture at the ceiling, then held her hand out.
Ethan took it and was surprised by how real it felt. Warm, solid and as comforting as the hand that had settled briefly on his shoulder.
“We deal with rips in time and dinosaurs for a day job,” Becker said calmly. “I promise you, this isn’t that much weirder.”
“What part of a future predator carrying a pair of boots that run around by themselves, did you miss, cupcake? Time for a visit to Specsavers. Oh, and you must have been looking the other way when a load of tentacles did some house cleaning.” Ethan took a moment to really look at the other people in the hallway before adding, “If you hadn’t noticed, there’s a bunch of dead people, too.”
“In the interests of strict accuracy, I didn’t actually die,” Claudia Brown remarked. “Anyway, Becker’s right, it can be a lot to take in on a first visit. If you’re connected with the ARC, I imagine you’ve read the former personnel files, most people do, but if there’s anyone you don’t recognise, I’m sure Becker will do the honours. The grey one in the yellow scarf is Dave. He’s quite harmless – providing you like yellow. The feet are Sinister and Dexter. It’s easy enough to tell them apart.”
“And the tentacles?” Ethan asked, trying to sound unconcerned.
“Felix,” Stephen Hart supplied. “He’s a genetically modified sentient sex toy from the future. He cooks, cleans, keeps house and makes sure no one gets lonely around here. And don’t worry about the voices from the ceiling, that’s just the duty managers.”
Ethan was rapidly reaching the inescapable conclusion that he might actually be experiencing something real, not a just vivid dream, as there was no bloody way his subconscious could dream up anything as weird as this shit.
“Large brandy?” Claudia Brown asked in the sort of calm, sympathetic voice that told Ethan this wasn’t the first time she’d had to deal with a confused and disbelieving visitor in the hallway.
She led the way into a large kitchen complete with a red Aga as well as numerous more modern appliances. A large octopus-like creature with more tentacles than Ethan could easily count was busily making tea, setting out biscuits and cake on a plate then popping them on a large farmhouse-style table in the middle of the floor whilst also busily rolling pastry and wrapping up pigs in blankets. Yet another tentacle reached out to politely shake his hand.
They’d barely sat down when a furry black and white creature hurtled into the room, leapt onto Becker’s lap, promptly put the special forces captain in a headlock then wrestled him to the floor.
“Torrence, house rules! No fighting in the kitchen!” Claudia ordered.
The arsey-looking raccoon dragged the chair upright and, as soon as Becker sat down again, jumped up onto his knee and started to smooth his hair back into place. From what Ethan could see, Becker looked more embarrassed about that than he did about having lost a wrestling match with a creature a fraction of his size.
The tentacle monster – Felix – set a large mug of tea in front of him, made just the way Ethan liked it. Strong, a dash of milk, two sugars and a large nip of much needed brandy. If this was a hallucination, which he now doubted, it was a good one. The sight of Beckler getting his hair smoothed by a raccoon would never get old.
Something black and fuzzy, considerably smaller than Torrence, scuttled out of a basket by the Aga and looked hopefully up at Becker – if a bundle of black fur with no eyes could be said to look hopeful. Becker leaned down, picked it up and settled the small whatever-it-was inside his jacket, where it promptly snuggled up against his chest and started purring. Ethan was tempted to ask its name, but decided not to push his luck as Becker was giving him a look that would have sent a battalion of heavily armed mercenaries running for cover.
The tea, plus a slice of extremely delicious chocolate cake followed by three warm ginger biscuits considerably improved Ethan’s outlook on life – or death – although if the words on his pass were to be believed, he didn’t have to worry about that on this occasion.
“So, does everybody end up here at some point?” he asked, accepting the offer of a warm scone straight out of the oven with a smile of thanks at the tentacle.
“As long as we like them,” the duty manager confirmed.
“So why’s Oliver Leek here?” Nick Cutter demanded, plonking himself down on a spare chair and helping himself to a large slice of cake.
“The beard, the voice muttered, dreamily.
Ethan was tempted to point out that in the personnel file photos he’d seen, the late unlamented Oliver Leek had been clean shaven, but he had a horrible feeling the answer wouldn’t be very enlightening, so he let it lie. The voice from the ceiling had a point. The close cropped beard turned the slimy administrator into someone Ethan probably wouldn’t object to being caught under the mistletoe with, and the crazy house certainly wasn’t short of that stuff.
“So this is the best kept secret on the project?”
“One of them.” Former Captain Tom Ryan tossed him a can of beer. “This’ll help.”
“One of them?” Ethan echoed, glancing at Becker, who was still cuddling the small black furry thing while the smug raccoon smoothed his hair. “So what else are you keeping from me, soldier boy?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
Before Ethan had chance to press for a better answer, a loud crash brought everyone to their feet. The raccoon tumbled to the floor and scuttled out of the kitchen after giving Becker a look that promised a fiery vengeance when he least expected it. Becker gently extricated the black furry thing from inside his tac vest and settled it back down in the basket by the Aga then followed Ryan and Hart at a run.
Claudia shrugged in response to Ethan’s puzzled look. “It could be anything around here. Management?”
“Not a scooby, sorry. There’s nothing planned for today, but someone might be winging it.”
“That’s all we need,” Cutter muttered darkly. “Can’t you lot come up with a coherent outline and stick to it?”
“Some of us can,” the voice said indignantly. “Look what we did with VS4 and 5.”
“And some of you can’t. From the sound of that crash, you’re going to need to get Maintenance in again.”
“On the case …”
Ethan pulled the tab off his beer and stood up. “Need a hand?”
“Probably,” Claudia and Cutter chorused in the world-weary tones of people who knew that what could go wrong would go wrong, usually in the most creative ways imaginable.
Ethan followed them into a large, airy living room that, five minutes ago, would have had an excellent view of a snow covered garden through two large sliding patio doors. Now, the festive scene was obscured by a large sleigh that appeared to have crash landed in the garden and skidded through the doors, knocking them off their hinges and crazing the safety glass into abstract patterns that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Tate Modern.
Two very large, very furry reindeer were placidly cropping the leaves off a couple of potted plants and starting to eye up the mistletoe while a rotund bloke in a red suit was busily lobbing badly wrapped parcels around the room.
“Can’t stop!” he called cheerfully, clambering back into the sleigh. “Places to be, stuff to deliver, you know how it is in this line of work!”
The reindeer gave the mistletoe a regretful look before ambling back out into the snow.
Just as they were gathering speed, the raccoon sprinted after them, scrambled aboard and promptly filched the man’s long red hat.
As the sleigh disappeared into the distance, a faint ho, ho, fucking ho! floated back to them along with a flurry of snow.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Becks,” Stephen Hart commented, lobbing another beer at the young captain. “The furry little sod’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“Is it always like this around here?” Ethan asked faintly, already knowing the answer.
A tentacle promptly handed him a large glass of brandy.
****
“Wake up, you lazy buggers!”
Danny’s loud, irrepressibly cheerful voice broke into probably the strangest dream Ethan had ever had the misfortune of experiencing; even the after effects of the magic mushrooms he’d eaten in the Upper Palaeolithic hadn’t come close to what he’d just lived – or nearly died – through.
Ethan groaned and tried to roll away from Becker, who was plastered up against his back, holding on with what appeared to be as many appendages as the weird tentacle thing that had made the best gin and tonics he’d ever drunk.
His muttered “Gerrof” went entirely unheeded. Becker just clutched him harder and started to burrow a very cold nose into the back of his neck.
The click of a phone camera, aided and abetted by a sharp elbow jab finally pushed Becker out of sleep and the grip on Ethan’s waist finally slacked.
“This’ll go down a storm on the work WhatsApp group!” Danny announced.
“Say goodbye to your bollocks, Quinn,” Becker declared, scrambling to his feet and making a grab for Danny’s phone.
“Sweet dreams, eh boys?” Danny enquired, wearing one of his usual shit-eating grins as well as the expected Santa hat.
Ethan lifted a surprisingly warm hand to give his irritating brother the finger and found himself staring at a thick, knitted yellow mitten. His other hand was similarly attired.
Beside him, Becker was trying – and failing - to surreptitiously shove a yellow scarf into his back pocket
Ethan turned to him and muttered, “So, what else have you been keeping from me, cupcake?”
“Delete that photo from your fucking brother’s phone before he sends it and I’ll tell you.”
“Deal.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2023-12-29 12:03 pm (UTC)Sanctuary!
That was sublime. Everyone there for Christmas, the decorations, and poor Ethan totally at sea for most of it.
Loved it.
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Date: 2023-12-31 10:00 am (UTC)Sanctuary is such fun to write.
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Date: 2023-12-30 11:31 am (UTC)“ So why’s Oliver Leek here?” LOL
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Date: 2023-12-31 10:01 am (UTC)Thank you! Sanctuary is such an inspired creation. We have a lot to thank Ali for!
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Date: 2023-12-30 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 10:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-30 07:44 pm (UTC)I was worried for a moment, but then I read "Visitor's pass" and I could breath again! ^_^
Sanctuary is as crazy as always, it was lovely to see them all having fun and Ethan being confused as hell. Ethan/Becker is one of those rare pairings that I love, thank you very much for writing them all snuggly (and still alive by the end) for me, it was a lovely reading!
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Date: 2023-12-31 10:02 am (UTC)I'm so glad you enjoyed it. This was fuch fun to write.
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Date: 2024-01-01 09:03 am (UTC)I loved Sinister's little harness, hahaha.
What a great fic, poor Ethan, lol.
Loved Becker's reaction to seeing the fantastic passes, hee.
Superb xxx
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Date: 2024-01-01 10:41 am (UTC)Yes, I imagine it's always a relief to see what kind of pass you've got! Becker does not like the idea of spending more time than necessary with Torrence. Although he does like quality time with George. *g*
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Date: 2024-01-01 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-01 08:24 pm (UTC)So many good lines in this, but I think Cutter’s answering snort sounded like a formerly constipated pig finally enjoying an explosive bowel movement will stick with me! *g*
And Becker/Ethan snark is always a joy!
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Date: 2024-01-02 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-03 07:01 pm (UTC)“Will it put hairs on my chest?”
“Probably. Certainly did for me.”
🤣🤣🤣
And then it came back snuggling 🥺
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Date: 2024-01-08 09:10 am (UTC)