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fredbassettTitle : The Devil’s Crowll, Part 3
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Characters : Stephen/Ryan, Cutter, Lester & others
Rating : 18
Disclaimer : Not mine (except Lyle and the others), no money made, don’t sue
Spoilers : None
Summary : Life in the
Tags : fic, slash, Stephen, Ryan, Cutter, Lester
Darren Cooper, known to his unit as Kermit, rubbed his wrists and grimaced as the medic, who generally answered to the name of Ditzy, shone a pencil torch in his eyes.
“Probably nothing worse than sleeping tablets. Don’t drink for the next twelve hours.”
“Fuck off,” Kermit muttered, swiping a pint of beer off the table next to him and cradling it protectively.
The medic grinned and remarked, “He’ll live. He’s got a lump on his head where his lady-friend slugged him, lacerations and bruises on his wrists from the cable ties and I confidently predict he’ll have a headache tomorrow. But that’ll be from mixing booze with pills and refusing to follow good advice.”
“Since when has anyone ever followed your advice when it comes to not mixing pills with booze?” asked Lyle. “You don’t even follow your own sodding advice!”
Ditzy grinned, picked up his bag and sauntered out of the office, presuming correctly that his services were no longer required. That left the three officers, plus Lester, Stephen and Cutter, all staring expectantly at the prodigal soldier, who looked uncomfortable, shuffled his feet and clutched the beer glass even harder.
“Sorry, sir,” he muttered. “I was too close to stop. It just fucking appeared, right in front of me, then a second later I was through it and she thumped me on the back of the head before I even had chance to realize where I was.”
“So when were you, man?” interrupted Cutter. “What did it look like? What did she say?”
Ryan held up a warning hand, “Easy, Professor. This isn’t the way to do a de-brief. Too many questions, and I stop this and clear the room, OK?”
It was clearly anything but OK, but for once, Cutter didn’t argue.
The captain waved a hand for his soldier to continue.
“She called it the Cretaceous. I came round in a sort of cave-like overhang in a cliff……... she’d cable-tied my wrists and ankles. It was warm……... warmer than here in a hot summer. There was a forest of bloody great big monkey puzzle trees everywhere. And sodding great big insects………..dragonflies as long as your forearm………..”
He talked for nearly an hour, hesitantly at first, then growing in confidence in the face of Ryan’s strictly enforced minimal interruptions policy.
He hadn’t seen anything of Helen for the first half day. He’d led in the shade of the cliff, hot and by his own admission, scared. Tethered by a length of rope to a tree. When she’d finally come back, he’d been dying for a pee, and a drink, in that order. She’d helped with both, but had refused to untie his hands. Which had been awkward as they were tied behind his back, not in front of it.
Stephen carefully avoided Ryan’s eyes.
She’d kept him secured the whole time. She hadn’t said a lot and what she had said hadn’t been terribly comforting. She claimed not to know whether there was any way of getting him back to his own time but knowing the history of her appearances and disappearances, as all the teams did, he hadn’t let that rattle him too much, although there was still something deeply unnerving about being stuck in the past. It was clear than no-one in the room took issue with that statement.
She’d provided fresh water. She’d fed him. (Why did all weird reptile things tend to taste like chicken? Even Cutter hadn’t been able to answer that one.) She’d assisted with necessary bodily functions without embarrassment or comment, but she hadn’t freed his hands or feet, which had made for some interesting contortions. There’d been nothing he could use to saw at the plastic ties with. She’d made sure of that. And his weapons and his tac vest were still somewhere in the Cretaceous. He’d glanced apologetically in Ryan’s direction.
On the third day, she’d fed him as usual and he’d noticed afterwards that he was feeling more tired than usual, and thirstier. That had also been the day when he’d started to think he stood a chance of getting back home.
In the face of the inevitable question from Cutter, Kermit looked uncomfortable again but at a nod from Ryan he continued. “She told me she had some messages she wanted me to take. That made me think I was coming back.”
“What does she think her fucking name is, Galadriel?” muttered Lyle.
Kermit grinned. “She didn’t say anything about not chopping down trees, sir.”
“So what did she say?” asked Lester, speaking for the first time in over an hour.
The soldier elevated the art of looking uncomfortable to new heights. It took a glare from Ryan to get him to continue. Staring at a point somewhere behind his captain’s left ear he replied, still hesitantly, “She said, Tell them, Thanks, boys, it was a good show.” His eyes flickered over to Lyle, and somewhat less hesitantly he added, “She said to tell you to take up a safer hobby, sir.”
“What else, man?” demanded Cutter, ignoring Ryan’s warning glance and leaning forward, his blue eyes pale and intense. “What else did she say?”
Kermit shook his head. “Nothing, Professor. I’m sorry. That was all she told me to say.”
Before Cutter could say anything else, Ryan gave Lester a hard stare, and received a slight nod in return. The Special Forces captain slid his own untouched beer over to Kermit. “We’ll talk again tomorrow. Go and get drunk.” He gave Kermit’s shoulder a quick squeeze, “Welcome back, lad. And next time, stop a bit fucking quicker, OK?”
The soldier accepted the full pint with a grin. “Can I call my wife, sir?”
Lester opened his mouth to reply, but Ryan beat him to it. “Yes, but she knows nothing about this and it stays that way.”
In response to the barest flicker of Ryan’s grey eyes, Joel Stringer followed a grateful Kermit out of the room.
Once the door had closed behind the two men, Lester leant back in his chair and looked at Ryan, “So, what isn’t he telling us, Captain?”
The Special Forces leader studiously avoided Cutter’s eyes. “At a guess, sir, and with all due respect to the Professor, I’d say she did more than just help him take a piss. It’s a fair bet she fucked him.”
Lester sighed, ignoring the look of incredulity that was rapidly losing a war with horror and disbelief on Cutter’s lean features. “Do they still call it Stockholm Syndrome?”
Ryan shook his head, glad of the excuse to keep ignoring Cutter, “Our shrinks tend to refer to it as capture-bonding, sir. They’ll worm the full story out of him, but they aren’t fast. I’ll get Stringer to talk to him tomorrow. He’s done the courses. I’ll need to send Cooper back to HQ after. We can’t use him on this op now. I’ll get a replacement sent down.”
“Helen is not the enemy!” Cutter exploded.
Well, I wouldn’t call her behavior exactly friendly, thought Ryan. But that’s irrelevant. If I’m right, and she’s fucked the lad, then I can’t trust him to put a bullet in her if push comes to shove. That’s all there is to it.
“Calm down, Cutter,” Lester interjected smoothly, “It’s standard procedure after an incident like this.”
Lester found it interesting that Cutter hadn’t seemed to react at all to the suggestion that his (ex?) wife might have had sex with the unfortunate soldier. He also noted that Hart was strenuously refusing to make eye contact with either Cutter or Ryan. He mused wryly on the fact that a psychologist could write an entire paper just on the current social interaction in one fairly small room. “And the comment about Lieutenant Lyle’s hobby? Can anyone explain that?”
Ryan grinned, “Well it’s not his job that prevents him getting life insurance at standard rates, that’s for sure. He goes caving, sir. Most of his team do. On top of that, Lyle’s a cave-diver. Even I think that’s bloody suicidal.”
“And here I was thinking they were practicing formation mud-wrestling in their spare time,” muttered Sir James Lester. “Thank you for enlightening me, Captain.” Does he really think I’ve been oblivious to the last few days worth of bar-room conversation? And more to the point, does anyone really think Helen Cutter would send nothing more than a casual remark back from the Cretaceous?
A moment later the door opened and Joel Stringer appeared again, Jim Mitchell hovering behind him, looking concerned.
“Excuse the interruption, Sir James,” the captain drawled, his accent entirely the equal of Lester’s, “Jim needs a word with Lyle.”
Without waiting for a response, the other man followed him into the room, talking rapidly, “Jon, sorry, we’ve had a call from
“What and where?” Lyle asked, glancing at Ryan.
The Special Forces leader shrugged, wondering what was coming next. Would this explain Helen Cutter’s message?
“Broken leg at the far end of Southern Stream in Aggie.”
“Shit.” That was about as far from the surface as you could get. It was also nowhere near the
“There’s a team from Gwent C.R.T. on their way in, they’ve got a doctor with them. Our lot are on their way over and they’re calling out Mendip as well, but it’s going to be a long one. They need as many people ready to go over as possible. And they might need more medics.”
Lyle looked at Lester and was surprised to see both understanding and concern flicker across the man’s normally impassive features. The lieutenant started to explain, “It’s a bad place for an accident, sir, it’s ……..”
The civil servant held up a hand to stop him and asked, “Captains, can your teams cover whatever we might need here?” The pair exchanged nods. “Then do what’s needed, Lyle.”
Jim Mitchell completely failed to disguise his look of surprise and relief.
Lyle went off to start working out who needed to be sobered up. Stringer followed, leaving Ryan trying to decide how to stage a strategic withdrawal from the increasingly tense atmosphere of the office. He really didn’t feel like any more discussions about Cutter’s wife, her sexual predilections or her motives. The woman was in danger of giving him a nosebleed and for someone who was probably in a different era at the moment, that was pretty good going.
Lester flicked open his phone. A moment later, “Ms Brown? I’d appreciate your assistance in the
Cutter rubbed a hand across his eyes and traded puzzled looks with Stephen. “Have the rest of us just missed something?”
Stephen shrugged. Even Ryan looked puzzled.
Lester smiled but didn’t bother to elaborate. He just hoped he was wrong.
* * *
After an hour of difficult conversation with Cutter, Lester had started to change his mind. Even another emergency would be preferable to this.
The man was so deep in denial that he was in danger of losing a grip on reality. And from the look on Hart’s face he could see he wasn’t the only one thinking that. Did absence really make the heart grow fonder? Lester seriously doubted it, but maybe Cutter had spent so long chasing a dream that he just wasn’t ready yet to wake up and smell the shit.
Lester announced that he needed to talk to Ryan and left them to it. He ignored the poisonous look Hart shot after him. The man should be grateful to him. Why else did Hart think he’d summoned Claudia Brown? Cutter could cry on her shoulder if he needed to. It might give the rest of them some peace. She was also better at dealing with the inevitable public relations disasters that Ryan’s men had a habit of leaving in their wake. The captain was good at his job, but there were times when he lacked subtlety. The last few days had been one of those times
The only drinks in evidence in the bar now were non-alcoholic and Lester gratefully accepted the coffee that Mary Mitchell brought him. He noticed she’d slipped some whisky into it. It seemed to be a habit round here, but he wasn’t grumbling. He also noticed the fact that she was glancing at the clock every few minutes.
A CD was playing in the background, the music strangely haunting.
A moment later his own fingers started to prickle as he made out the words ……..
Now it’s Wednesday night in Amlwch town
Which means that it’s time to head on down
To the damp and the darkness all around
In the
There’s manky timbers everywhere
And the mud and the grot get in your hair
But there’s sights to see beyond compare
In the
So let’s all take our headlamp’s glow
Where the moonlight never shines
And we’ll sing this song as down we go
To the stopes and the levels far below
Where the mud lies thick and the waters flow
In the
The words weaved seductively around in his head, taking him back to places he’d not thought about in years ………where the moonlight never shines………….
He saw Mary Mitchell glance at the clock again.
Abruptly he asked, “What’s the call out time for the Devil’s Crowll dive, Mary?”
She looked at her watch, as though hoping it would tell her something different from the clock. “Five minutes time.”
Apart from the CD playing quietly, the bar was strangely quiet. He could see Lyle leaning against the window, staring out into the gathering shadows of early evening. Rubbing his thumbs.
The hairs on the back of Lester’s neck started to rise.
To the stopes and the levels far below ……
Two minutes was cutting it bloody fine to stand down a call out.
Helen Cutter hadn’t been talking about a rescue in Agen Allwedd. He was willing to bet his knighthood on that.
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Date: 2008-01-31 03:11 pm (UTC)