Primeval Fanfic: A Cry In The Night
Title: A Cry In The Night
Author: TalliW
Characters: Nick Cutter, Stephen Hart
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: Primeval is the property of Impossible Pictures. I write just for fun. So don't bother me.
Warning : Post 2.07 & all that entails.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Fredbassett for beta-reading. I couldn't have done it without you.
Nick Cutter still hears the screams in his dreams. Horrible noises, loud enough to penetrate the thick metal of the door.
He can still hear it when he wakes up, sweating and whimpering, in the middle of the night.
It isn't Stephen's screams. Those had stopped a few seconds after the pack had closed in on his former friend.
What he hears are the excited screams of the creatures before they tore into Stephen's flesh, leaving behind only small bloody shreds of a man who had meant everything to him.
Nick wanted to extinguish those screams with his own, crying out his pain and loss. But there was still that voice inside him, whispering, nagging, reminding him what the neighbours would think and he buried his face into the pillow to stifle his cry.
A choking sound escaped his lips, a laugh, bitter and desperate, as he realised the implication.
Pillow-biter! He never had been one, too concerned about the opinion of his parents and friends to dare to experiment and explore his own sexuality.
He still wasn't sure what he felt. He only knew that life had lost its appeal without Stephen's intense blue eyes looking at him every day.
The last time he had seen those eyes they had been filled with pain and grief.
Pain because Nick had thrown eight years of friendship away in his rage, too proud to accept that his wife had betrayed him all along and that Stephen was just another victim of her manipulations. And full of grief because now what could have been, never would be.
That night Nick Cutter came to a resolution.
Next time he wouldn't run, next time he wouldn't fight. There was nothing to fight for anymore.
He would just sit down, waiting and hoping that he would find on the other side everything he had lost: Claudia, Stephen and the ability to be happy.
Nick Cutter closed his eyes in contentment. Everything was said, everything was done. Connor would continue his work and life would go on. Perhaps occasionally one of his team mates would remember him, for a fleeting moment only. At the end there wasn't much to remember anymore. Just a worn out, cranky old workaholic. He had made sure of that.
When he opened his eyes because the radiant light was too alluring to resist, it was Stephen who reached out to him, with an expression on his face Nick had seen a thousand times before but had always denied to himself that he had seen.
Stephen's blue eyes were filled with affection and the promise of happiness. This time Nick Cutter wasn't afraid to look. With a contented smile, he seized the proffered hand and let himself be pulled into the glittering light.