Somnambulism - Primeval Fanfic
Title: Somnambulism
Author: Clea2011
Rating: 15
Characters: Ryan/Stephen
Disclaimer: Primeval belongs to Impossible Pictures, I'm just writing for fun and non-profit.
Spoilers: None
Word count: 1727
Warnings: Deals with character death.
Summary: Stephen doesn't cope well alone.
A/N: Written for the
primeval_denial 2nd Team Fest but it didn't get finished in time.
Thanks to
fififolle for beta-reading and to lsellersfic for the gorgeous cover.
Somnambulism
On that last morning, they'd argued.
It had been a stupid little thing, their arguments were always over stupid little things, but it had to have been that morning. They'd driven to work separately, tried to maintain an air of professionalism because that was the rule: you didn't bring your private life into work. It had always been the rule, Ryan had insisted on it right from the start. As soon as they stepped outside the flat, they had to be nothing more than co-workers.
It had never mattered before. The arguments had almost been a game, an attempt at one-upmanship, an excuse to fall into bed and fuck each other's brains out in some bizarre form of apology, by the end of which they'd both forgotten whatever they had argued about anyway and it really didn't matter.
It really didn't matter, until that day. There was no chance of resolution, none of the fun of making up, nothing. Just Stephen, alone in the flat, surrounded by a hundred things that reminded him, that would always remind him. And he would always wonder, because of the argument, if it was somehow his fault. Ryan never put a foot wrong, he never missed, he was faultlessly professional. But what if the argument had distracted him, what if his mind wasn't one hundred per cent on the job? What if...?
Stephen knew he could never get an answer to those questions. The only person who could've told him was no more than dust beneath his feet.
Cutter and Helen hadn't even brought the bodies back.
***
There was a small memorial.
Because there had been nothing to bury, it was just a stone. Stephen visited it once, twice, but there was no real tie to the man he had known. Just his name. He never went there again.
At home, in the flat, it was different. He was surrounded by memories. There was a mug of half-finished tea by the sink, a jacket still hanging in the hallway, the newspaper still open at the football scores page with the results not yet checked off on the pools slip lying there. Upstairs the sheets still smelled of Ryan. Stephen thought he might never be able to bear to wash them again.
When he lay down to sleep, his eyes stayed open. They would stay open all night sometimes. Something had broken inside him when Ryan died. His mental and physical exhaustion was almost overwhelming.
***
Sometimes Stephen felt as if he were sleepwalking.
It was like a dream, his life now. It didn't seem real. It hadn't seemed real since Cutter had returned from the Permian and announced that Ryan and his men hadn't made it. And before that Helen had spoken up, and turned everything on its head by digging up the past and things that just weren't relevant any more. What had she been to him? He'd barely known Cutter back then, he was just trying on a lifestyle that didn't fit. A married woman looking for a casual affair was a good way to go, better than hurting some young girl who was hoping for more than he could ever give her. How was he to know he'd end up working so closely with her husband years later? Helen Cutter had just been an experiment, and she'd failed.
He could remember standing there in the forest, the poison dripping from her mouth, the look on Cutter's face... and whatever she was saying didn't matter because the anomaly was right there and he was still waiting... and nobody else was coming through it. Ryan and his men were dead, but the Cutters were too wrapped up in their own personal pain to even acknowledge the fact. By the time they did it was too late, the anomaly had closed. He could've run for it before then, gone through, seen for himself and stayed there. There would be none of this half-life, none of the pretending, going through the motions as if it mattered. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
The trouble was, now that he really needed his friends, they just weren't there.
Helen was there. Helen, with her lies and her half-truths. Helen, thinking she could worm her way back into his bed. Well, she could, but he wouldn't be sharing it with her. She could think what she liked. He missed Ryan more than he could ever have thought possible. And there was nobody left close enough to him that he could talk about it with. He probably wouldn't know where to start, he realised.
Keeping Ryan's wishes alive, that was all he could do. At work, strictly professional. Always professional. So nobody knew. They all thought he was withdrawn because of the deterioration of his friendship with Cutter, but none of them bothered to find out because they were just too disgusted with him. One mistake, years and years ago.
In some ways they were right, and it was all about Cutter. The loss of his friend as well meant there was nobody he could talk to about Ryan. He would've talked to Cutter, professionalism be damned, he had come so close to telling him so many times when Ryan was still alive. Because that was what you did, with your friends. You confided in them.
Cutter barely spoke to him these days. Helen wouldn't leave him alone. It was hard to know who was your enemy and who was your friend.
It was hard to care.
It wasn't so very hard when the time came, to close the door on all that, and just wait for oblivion.
***
It was a simple grave. Just a plain headstone, and a few words, but it told him enough. Stephen was dead.
Ryan had been brought seven years into the future, when Stephen was long gone.
"You can't always change the past," Matt told him.
The hypocrite. He was trying to change the past and the future too. Playing God when it suited him, over and over again. Not that Ryan was complaining, not yet. Not while there was a chance to save Stephen.
Ryan had been the only survivor from the Permian. He wondered if his men might have been revived too, but the Cutters had buried them beneath him and there was no chance by the time they were pulled out. By the look of them they were too badly mangled anyway and there was no point in dwelling on what might have been. Who could have known that there would be some future ARC team that could come back and help those lost in time? He'd been more than lost. With what had happened to him, he shouldn't be up and walking around. But they'd found him, just in time, patched him up and brought him home. It had been a long recovery process.
Ryan didn't remember too much about the attack, but he remembered the pain and the creature looming over him. He remembered the smell of its breath, recalled Cutter sitting with him afterwards, unable to give him any words of comfort. They'd both been certain he was doomed.
Perhaps that certainty had meant that Cutter hadn't even checked properly, because they knew there was a body and once he'd lost consciousness it had to be him. But it must have been one of the men, one of the ones Matt couldn't get to in time, couldn't save. He wished they could all have got back alive.
"Isn't that what you're trying to do?" he retorted. "And yes, I can." There would be records of what happened. It was just a case of opening the right anomaly at the right time. Connor, apparently, had perfected that, although this would have to be accurate to within a few seconds. If they snatched him before he closed the door, Cutter would die at that point instead.
It was going to be quite a test of Connor's skills.
***
Stephen closed his eyes, and waited for the end.
He felt something clamp down on his arm and pull, and he tensed, expecting pain that never came as he was dragged across the floor.
His arm stayed whole, no blood, no tearing, and when he opened his eyes it was to a perfect blue sky. And Ryan was there, as he'd hoped. He was glad that he couldn't remember any of the attack. That was a blessing.
"You stupid bugger! What the hell were you thinking of?!"
That wasn't quite the reaction he was expecting. The fierce hug he was pulled into a moment later was closer to it, and the kiss that deepened into a battle of duelling tongues far more so. His body felt more alive than it had for months, and he wondered if they'd get sent straight down to the other place if they shagged right there on the heavenly plains, or wherever it was they were supposed to be. He had never been overly interested in theology. All that really mattered was that he'd got Ryan back.
And now Ryan was shaking him, angry, shouting at him. That wasn't supposed to happen.
"Stupid, stupid thing to do! I went back and found your bloody grave! Do you know what that did to me?! Have you any idea what that felt like?!"
Stephen didn't understand, and the confusion showed in his face. "Of course I know. You died..."
"No." Ryan gestured behind him, towards a man who was standing there watching them, his face impassive. "He saved me. I've been trying to get back to you for months."
It felt as if he were waking up from a bad dream. Dazedly he looked around, saw the anomaly hanging there, but frozen, spherical, like an over-sized Christmas bauble, and he somehow knew nothing could get through it now. Whatever horror he had been destined to meet was forever trapped on the other side of it.
There was another anomaly, further off, looking more normal but guarded by soldiers. The other man was already heading for it, and Ryan indicated they should follow. Stephen managed to stop himself asking if he really wasn't dead, because Ryan was going to dine out on that one for years if he realised that was what Stephen had thought. But it really didn't matter. They were alive.
***
Author: Clea2011
Rating: 15
Characters: Ryan/Stephen
Disclaimer: Primeval belongs to Impossible Pictures, I'm just writing for fun and non-profit.
Spoilers: None
Word count: 1727
Warnings: Deals with character death.
Summary: Stephen doesn't cope well alone.
A/N: Written for the
primeval_denial 2nd Team Fest but it didn't get finished in time.
Thanks to
fififolle for beta-reading and to lsellersfic for the gorgeous cover.
Somnambulism
On that last morning, they'd argued.
It had been a stupid little thing, their arguments were always over stupid little things, but it had to have been that morning. They'd driven to work separately, tried to maintain an air of professionalism because that was the rule: you didn't bring your private life into work. It had always been the rule, Ryan had insisted on it right from the start. As soon as they stepped outside the flat, they had to be nothing more than co-workers.
It had never mattered before. The arguments had almost been a game, an attempt at one-upmanship, an excuse to fall into bed and fuck each other's brains out in some bizarre form of apology, by the end of which they'd both forgotten whatever they had argued about anyway and it really didn't matter.
It really didn't matter, until that day. There was no chance of resolution, none of the fun of making up, nothing. Just Stephen, alone in the flat, surrounded by a hundred things that reminded him, that would always remind him. And he would always wonder, because of the argument, if it was somehow his fault. Ryan never put a foot wrong, he never missed, he was faultlessly professional. But what if the argument had distracted him, what if his mind wasn't one hundred per cent on the job? What if...?
Stephen knew he could never get an answer to those questions. The only person who could've told him was no more than dust beneath his feet.
Cutter and Helen hadn't even brought the bodies back.
***
There was a small memorial.
Because there had been nothing to bury, it was just a stone. Stephen visited it once, twice, but there was no real tie to the man he had known. Just his name. He never went there again.
At home, in the flat, it was different. He was surrounded by memories. There was a mug of half-finished tea by the sink, a jacket still hanging in the hallway, the newspaper still open at the football scores page with the results not yet checked off on the pools slip lying there. Upstairs the sheets still smelled of Ryan. Stephen thought he might never be able to bear to wash them again.
When he lay down to sleep, his eyes stayed open. They would stay open all night sometimes. Something had broken inside him when Ryan died. His mental and physical exhaustion was almost overwhelming.
***
Sometimes Stephen felt as if he were sleepwalking.
It was like a dream, his life now. It didn't seem real. It hadn't seemed real since Cutter had returned from the Permian and announced that Ryan and his men hadn't made it. And before that Helen had spoken up, and turned everything on its head by digging up the past and things that just weren't relevant any more. What had she been to him? He'd barely known Cutter back then, he was just trying on a lifestyle that didn't fit. A married woman looking for a casual affair was a good way to go, better than hurting some young girl who was hoping for more than he could ever give her. How was he to know he'd end up working so closely with her husband years later? Helen Cutter had just been an experiment, and she'd failed.
He could remember standing there in the forest, the poison dripping from her mouth, the look on Cutter's face... and whatever she was saying didn't matter because the anomaly was right there and he was still waiting... and nobody else was coming through it. Ryan and his men were dead, but the Cutters were too wrapped up in their own personal pain to even acknowledge the fact. By the time they did it was too late, the anomaly had closed. He could've run for it before then, gone through, seen for himself and stayed there. There would be none of this half-life, none of the pretending, going through the motions as if it mattered. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
The trouble was, now that he really needed his friends, they just weren't there.
Helen was there. Helen, with her lies and her half-truths. Helen, thinking she could worm her way back into his bed. Well, she could, but he wouldn't be sharing it with her. She could think what she liked. He missed Ryan more than he could ever have thought possible. And there was nobody left close enough to him that he could talk about it with. He probably wouldn't know where to start, he realised.
Keeping Ryan's wishes alive, that was all he could do. At work, strictly professional. Always professional. So nobody knew. They all thought he was withdrawn because of the deterioration of his friendship with Cutter, but none of them bothered to find out because they were just too disgusted with him. One mistake, years and years ago.
In some ways they were right, and it was all about Cutter. The loss of his friend as well meant there was nobody he could talk to about Ryan. He would've talked to Cutter, professionalism be damned, he had come so close to telling him so many times when Ryan was still alive. Because that was what you did, with your friends. You confided in them.
Cutter barely spoke to him these days. Helen wouldn't leave him alone. It was hard to know who was your enemy and who was your friend.
It was hard to care.
It wasn't so very hard when the time came, to close the door on all that, and just wait for oblivion.
***
It was a simple grave. Just a plain headstone, and a few words, but it told him enough. Stephen was dead.
Ryan had been brought seven years into the future, when Stephen was long gone.
"You can't always change the past," Matt told him.
The hypocrite. He was trying to change the past and the future too. Playing God when it suited him, over and over again. Not that Ryan was complaining, not yet. Not while there was a chance to save Stephen.
Ryan had been the only survivor from the Permian. He wondered if his men might have been revived too, but the Cutters had buried them beneath him and there was no chance by the time they were pulled out. By the look of them they were too badly mangled anyway and there was no point in dwelling on what might have been. Who could have known that there would be some future ARC team that could come back and help those lost in time? He'd been more than lost. With what had happened to him, he shouldn't be up and walking around. But they'd found him, just in time, patched him up and brought him home. It had been a long recovery process.
Ryan didn't remember too much about the attack, but he remembered the pain and the creature looming over him. He remembered the smell of its breath, recalled Cutter sitting with him afterwards, unable to give him any words of comfort. They'd both been certain he was doomed.
Perhaps that certainty had meant that Cutter hadn't even checked properly, because they knew there was a body and once he'd lost consciousness it had to be him. But it must have been one of the men, one of the ones Matt couldn't get to in time, couldn't save. He wished they could all have got back alive.
"Isn't that what you're trying to do?" he retorted. "And yes, I can." There would be records of what happened. It was just a case of opening the right anomaly at the right time. Connor, apparently, had perfected that, although this would have to be accurate to within a few seconds. If they snatched him before he closed the door, Cutter would die at that point instead.
It was going to be quite a test of Connor's skills.
***
Stephen closed his eyes, and waited for the end.
He felt something clamp down on his arm and pull, and he tensed, expecting pain that never came as he was dragged across the floor.
His arm stayed whole, no blood, no tearing, and when he opened his eyes it was to a perfect blue sky. And Ryan was there, as he'd hoped. He was glad that he couldn't remember any of the attack. That was a blessing.
"You stupid bugger! What the hell were you thinking of?!"
That wasn't quite the reaction he was expecting. The fierce hug he was pulled into a moment later was closer to it, and the kiss that deepened into a battle of duelling tongues far more so. His body felt more alive than it had for months, and he wondered if they'd get sent straight down to the other place if they shagged right there on the heavenly plains, or wherever it was they were supposed to be. He had never been overly interested in theology. All that really mattered was that he'd got Ryan back.
And now Ryan was shaking him, angry, shouting at him. That wasn't supposed to happen.
"Stupid, stupid thing to do! I went back and found your bloody grave! Do you know what that did to me?! Have you any idea what that felt like?!"
Stephen didn't understand, and the confusion showed in his face. "Of course I know. You died..."
"No." Ryan gestured behind him, towards a man who was standing there watching them, his face impassive. "He saved me. I've been trying to get back to you for months."
It felt as if he were waking up from a bad dream. Dazedly he looked around, saw the anomaly hanging there, but frozen, spherical, like an over-sized Christmas bauble, and he somehow knew nothing could get through it now. Whatever horror he had been destined to meet was forever trapped on the other side of it.
There was another anomaly, further off, looking more normal but guarded by soldiers. The other man was already heading for it, and Ryan indicated they should follow. Stephen managed to stop himself asking if he really wasn't dead, because Ryan was going to dine out on that one for years if he realised that was what Stephen had thought. But it really didn't matter. They were alive.
***