Shades of Grey Chapter 39
Title: Shades of Grey Chapter 39
Author: TalliW
Characters: Stephen Hart, Tom Ryan, Nick Cutter, James Lester, Abby Maitland, Connor Temple, Jenny Lewis, Lyle, Finn,
Cutter, Ditzy
Rating: K+, T in later chapters
Disclaimer: Primeval is the property of Impossible Pictures. I write just for fun.
Lyle and Finn belong to Fredbassett.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to the wonderful Fredbassett for beta duty.
Summary: Ryan has survived but he isn't the man he was. Can Stephen and Cutter manage to work together to help him? Perhaps Ryan has changed in more ways than it appears on first sight.
AN: For the former chapters look at my Masterlist
"Cutter, Major Ryan only wanted to make sure that Tom is in good hands here."
"From the look of him, he wasn't overly happy with what he discovered."
"If you’re referring to the way he was frowning, that's just a reaction to the measures Lieutenant Owen took to block the major's olfactory organ. A precaution I deemed necessary to ensure that the major could form his opinion without any outward influence. I can assure you the man looks quite different when he's really displeased."
"He got angry at you?"
"We had a misunderstanding. The major didn't believe me when I told him about how attached Tom had got to all of us, and Stephen in particular. He said his son doesn’t do emotion well."
"That doesn't sound like Ryan at all. We always had an easy rapport despite our different opinions about certain things."
"Well, the Ryan I met on another assignment three years ago fitted Major Ryan's description perfectly. Ryan started to ease up a lot after working here."
"And what happens now?"
"You heard the major. For now, Tom's care will remain in the capable hands of the ARC personnel."
"Hey, hey, everything's all right. Stop crying. You’re already a big boy, aren't you? Stephen will be back before you know it." Lorraine tried to soothe the distraught Ryan.
Ryan nodded through his tears. After he'd blown his nose with the hanky Lorraine had handed him, he stifled another sob and brushed his tears away.
"Stephen didn’t say goodbye. He just left," he said in a small voice.
"It was an emergency. There was no time to say goodbye properly to you."
"Why couldn't I go with him? Is it dangerous?"
"No, no. More a nuisance."
Lorraine smirked briefly as she thought back to the recording sent over to Lester, giving an inkling of the chaos a bunch of mammal-like creatures were causing in Westminster. It served the Home Secretary right for cutting the ARC’s budget.
"Come on, we’ll see if Uncle James has a nice colouring book for you."
"I don't want a colouring book. I want my Stephen," Ryan shouted and stamped his feet.
"Tom, I won't accept that sort of behavior. If you are a good boy, you can come with me. But only then," Lester said sternly as he heard the racket Ryan was making in the outer office.
Ryan quietened immediately.
"I'm good," he declared and looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
Lorraine giggled as Lester rolled his eyes.
"We shall see," Lester answered with a sigh. "Lorraine, we need every bit of help we can get. See who else is available from the staff and send them over. Cutter said there are over 30 creatures on the loose with an appetite for anything solid. The buggers shredded the Home Secretary's mahogany desk in under six minutes. It doesn't bear contemplating what will happen to the building if they continue to eat through the walls."
With an uncanny certitude, Ryan walked into the building past a row of offices, then rounded two corners and found Stephen and Cutter, who were trying to keep a small group of diictodons from disappearing into a tunnel in the wall.
Cutter breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed the backup and immediately gave instructions to Lyle and his men to round up the diictodons.
Ryan ignored the squeaking of the diictodons as they were unceremoniously grasped and lifted in the air by the soldiers. He only had eyes for Stephen.
With a big smile on his face, he surged forwards, flung his arms around Stephen's neck and drew him into an embrace that crushed the air out of Stephen's lungs.
Stephen made an exasperated sound and halfheartedly tried to pull away but Ryan wouldn’t let him go so easily.
"I missed you," Ryan whispered and gave Stephen a sound kiss on the mouth, which lingered a tiny moment too long to be casual.
When Ryan finally stepped back, Stephen's face was flustered, raising in Cutter the suspicion that Ryan had used tongue too.
Ditzy and Lester exchanged an uncomfortable look, quite put out by this display of intimacy, and a second of silence followed until Lyle cleared his throat forcefully, drawing all attention to himself and the struggling diictodon in his arms.
"Where to with the little monsters?" he asked as the skittish creature he was holding at arm's length out from his body started to water the front of his uniform.
"The anomaly is in the ladies' toilet on the first floor," Cutter declared with a chuckle, quite amused by the irony of the situation.
The next moment he uttered a curse as the diictodon he was holding took a bite out of his jacket collar and chewed with relish.
"All right, let’s get them back before they begin to eat us."
Grinning, Finn marched towards the stairs. His diictodon was quite peaceful. Snuggled up against Finn's chest, it purred in delight as Finn gently scratched its neck.
With growing interest, Ryan watched the soldiers carrying the prehistoric creatures past him.
Suddenly he reached out to the diictodon in Cutter's arms, his face bunched in a frown as he tried to grasp a memory hovering at the edge of his mind.
The little animal screeched in fright as Ryan's fingers closed around its hindleg and it struggled to free himself from Ryan's tight grip.
Ryan released it immediately, his eyes widening in shock as a memory from his last trip in the Permian surfaced.
"The Greys. They hurt me," he whispered in anguish as his whole body started to shake.
"He's going into shock," Ditzy yelled and dropped the diictodon he had carried to the floor where it quickly scuttled into the safety of the tunnel.
In an instant, Stephen and Ditzy were at Ryan's side, just in time to prevent Ryan from collapsing in a heap.
"It hurts. It hurts as much," Ryan whimpered. "I don't want die." The rest of his words went over into an incomprehensible babble as more memories of pain and darkness assaulted him.
"Stephen?" Ryan croaked, his voice hoarse from screaming.
"I'm here."
"I was afraid you’d left me."
"Never."
"I'm really sorry."
"For what?"
"For misbehaving. I promised Uncle James I would be a good boy. And I wasn't."
"That wasn't your fault. Are you feeling better now?"
"My head has stopped hurting but my arm itches."
"That might be from the injection. Ditzy had to give you a sedative."
Ryan looked up into Stephen's haunted eyes and wondered if he should tell him that the spot on his elbow had itched for days. But he didn't want to worry Stephen more than he already had.
"Are they gone? The critters?" he asked instead.
"Yes, we were be able to catch them all. They are now back where they belong. Finn wanted to keep his but Abby and Cutter convinced him that with a habit of eating through walls it wouldn't make such a good pet."
Ryan cracked a small smile before his face turned serious again.
"I scared the little critter and I scared you."
Stephen didn't deny Ryan’s assertion. When Ryan had started screaming they had all been scared. It had been so similar to the time Ryan had staggered out of the anomaly, bloody and out of his mind.
"I remember now," Ryan declared.
Stephen's heart made a skip until he realised that nothing had really changed. Tom still called Lester Uncle James. The adult Ryan certainly wouldn't do that.
"What do you remember?" he prompted softly.
"The Greys, and how I woke up. It was so dark and I couldn't breathe. When the critters came I started to dig. Then I walked torward the pulsing light. After that I only remember pain."
Cutter, watching from the doorway with the medic, swallowed audibly. It confirmed what Ryan had already said under hypnosis. So he really had buried Ryan alive and Ryan had had to dig himself out of the ground. The thought was horrible.
"Did someone help you?" Ditzy asked, sure that Ryan couldn't have survived without help, and was quite disappointed when Ryan answered, "I didn’t see anyone, Uncle Dave."
Stephen tugged the duvet up to Ryan's chin and smoothed his hand over Ryan’s hair.
"All right. Go to sleep now. You must be exhausted."
Ryan looked thankfully up to Stephen and snuggled deeper into Stephen’s bed.
"Can I have Robby? And Stanley?"
After the cactus in its pot was placed on the bedside cabinet and Ryan was holding his stuffed rabbit happily in his arms, Stephen moved to turn off the light. He was stopped by Ryan's pleading voice.
"Please leave the light on."
Stephen switched on the bedside lamp and turned off the big light. He wasn't surprised when Ryan asked him to join him.
"I’ll come to bed in a minute," Stephen promised, ignoring Ditzys's frown as he ushered him and Cutter out of the bedroom.
Nimble fingers trailed over Stephen's neck along the chain of the necklace, then attacked the first buttons of Stephen's pyjama top and delved under the fabric.
Stephen opened his eyes with a start as a fingernail scratched over his left nipple, sending a lightning bolt of fire through his entire body.
"Wha..." Stephen managed to gasp out before he was silenced with a kiss.
It wasn't a soft kiss to show affection. Ryan's lips were demanding, insistent, urging him to open his mouth so he could slip his tongue in.
Forcefully, Stephen pushed Ryan away and scampered to the edge of the bed.
"What are you doing?"
Ryan just moved towards Stephen, like a predator on the prowl.
"Stop, Tom. Stop that."
"Why? I’ve just started."
A shiver ran down Stephen's back as he heard those words. Quizzically, he studied Ryan's face, afraid to hope that the miracle might finally have happened.
Bright blue eyes, wrinkled with a smile, stared back at him. The childish innocent look was gone, replaced with something Stephen was afraid to fathom just yet.
"Ryan?" Stephen asked tentatively.
"The one and only. Sorry, didn't mean to tell you like this. I just couldn't resist the temptation. Do you know how hot you look with your hair tousled and your lips half-open in sleep? And it isn't as if we’ve never kissed before."
Stephen blushed furiously, knowing quite well that the kisses Ryan had given him before had already overstepped the boundaries and that he shouldn't have allowed them at all.
"So you remember."
"Yep. Everything. Although I wish I could blank out some of it. Kissing Lester for instance. I will probably never live that down."
Ryan chuckled whilst Stephen was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Ryan, the adult Ryan, had actually returned.
"What happens now?" Stephen whispered, suddenly feeling vulnerable and uncertain in the presence of Ryan. He had opened up to Tom in a way he had never done before with anyone, not even Cutter. And now the adult Ryan remembered everything.
"That's up to you. I'm not adverse to continuing from where we left off."
Ryan waggled his eyes suggestively.
That was the last straw. Stephen jumped off the bed and vanished into the bathroom.
When Ryan checked the door knob he found it locked.
With a sigh, Ryan donned his clothes and headed off to the kitchen. Stephen's mood had always brightened up after a good breakfast. Besides it was easier to talk with a full stomach. And it seemed there was a lot they had to talk about. Perhaps he should make piggy pancakes to give them some common ground.
Whilst Stephen sat down heavily on the toilet lid, his head buried in his hands, and contemplated the messy situation, Ryan started to prepare the pancake mixture.
His happy whistling could be heard all the way back to the bathroom.
Author: TalliW
Characters: Stephen Hart, Tom Ryan, Nick Cutter, James Lester, Abby Maitland, Connor Temple, Jenny Lewis, Lyle, Finn,
Cutter, Ditzy
Rating: K+, T in later chapters
Disclaimer: Primeval is the property of Impossible Pictures. I write just for fun.
Lyle and Finn belong to Fredbassett.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to the wonderful Fredbassett for beta duty.
Summary: Ryan has survived but he isn't the man he was. Can Stephen and Cutter manage to work together to help him? Perhaps Ryan has changed in more ways than it appears on first sight.
AN: For the former chapters look at my Masterlist
"Cutter, Major Ryan only wanted to make sure that Tom is in good hands here."
"From the look of him, he wasn't overly happy with what he discovered."
"If you’re referring to the way he was frowning, that's just a reaction to the measures Lieutenant Owen took to block the major's olfactory organ. A precaution I deemed necessary to ensure that the major could form his opinion without any outward influence. I can assure you the man looks quite different when he's really displeased."
"He got angry at you?"
"We had a misunderstanding. The major didn't believe me when I told him about how attached Tom had got to all of us, and Stephen in particular. He said his son doesn’t do emotion well."
"That doesn't sound like Ryan at all. We always had an easy rapport despite our different opinions about certain things."
"Well, the Ryan I met on another assignment three years ago fitted Major Ryan's description perfectly. Ryan started to ease up a lot after working here."
"And what happens now?"
"You heard the major. For now, Tom's care will remain in the capable hands of the ARC personnel."
"Hey, hey, everything's all right. Stop crying. You’re already a big boy, aren't you? Stephen will be back before you know it." Lorraine tried to soothe the distraught Ryan.
Ryan nodded through his tears. After he'd blown his nose with the hanky Lorraine had handed him, he stifled another sob and brushed his tears away.
"Stephen didn’t say goodbye. He just left," he said in a small voice.
"It was an emergency. There was no time to say goodbye properly to you."
"Why couldn't I go with him? Is it dangerous?"
"No, no. More a nuisance."
Lorraine smirked briefly as she thought back to the recording sent over to Lester, giving an inkling of the chaos a bunch of mammal-like creatures were causing in Westminster. It served the Home Secretary right for cutting the ARC’s budget.
"Come on, we’ll see if Uncle James has a nice colouring book for you."
"I don't want a colouring book. I want my Stephen," Ryan shouted and stamped his feet.
"Tom, I won't accept that sort of behavior. If you are a good boy, you can come with me. But only then," Lester said sternly as he heard the racket Ryan was making in the outer office.
Ryan quietened immediately.
"I'm good," he declared and looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
Lorraine giggled as Lester rolled his eyes.
"We shall see," Lester answered with a sigh. "Lorraine, we need every bit of help we can get. See who else is available from the staff and send them over. Cutter said there are over 30 creatures on the loose with an appetite for anything solid. The buggers shredded the Home Secretary's mahogany desk in under six minutes. It doesn't bear contemplating what will happen to the building if they continue to eat through the walls."
With an uncanny certitude, Ryan walked into the building past a row of offices, then rounded two corners and found Stephen and Cutter, who were trying to keep a small group of diictodons from disappearing into a tunnel in the wall.
Cutter breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed the backup and immediately gave instructions to Lyle and his men to round up the diictodons.
Ryan ignored the squeaking of the diictodons as they were unceremoniously grasped and lifted in the air by the soldiers. He only had eyes for Stephen.
With a big smile on his face, he surged forwards, flung his arms around Stephen's neck and drew him into an embrace that crushed the air out of Stephen's lungs.
Stephen made an exasperated sound and halfheartedly tried to pull away but Ryan wouldn’t let him go so easily.
"I missed you," Ryan whispered and gave Stephen a sound kiss on the mouth, which lingered a tiny moment too long to be casual.
When Ryan finally stepped back, Stephen's face was flustered, raising in Cutter the suspicion that Ryan had used tongue too.
Ditzy and Lester exchanged an uncomfortable look, quite put out by this display of intimacy, and a second of silence followed until Lyle cleared his throat forcefully, drawing all attention to himself and the struggling diictodon in his arms.
"Where to with the little monsters?" he asked as the skittish creature he was holding at arm's length out from his body started to water the front of his uniform.
"The anomaly is in the ladies' toilet on the first floor," Cutter declared with a chuckle, quite amused by the irony of the situation.
The next moment he uttered a curse as the diictodon he was holding took a bite out of his jacket collar and chewed with relish.
"All right, let’s get them back before they begin to eat us."
Grinning, Finn marched towards the stairs. His diictodon was quite peaceful. Snuggled up against Finn's chest, it purred in delight as Finn gently scratched its neck.
With growing interest, Ryan watched the soldiers carrying the prehistoric creatures past him.
Suddenly he reached out to the diictodon in Cutter's arms, his face bunched in a frown as he tried to grasp a memory hovering at the edge of his mind.
The little animal screeched in fright as Ryan's fingers closed around its hindleg and it struggled to free himself from Ryan's tight grip.
Ryan released it immediately, his eyes widening in shock as a memory from his last trip in the Permian surfaced.
"The Greys. They hurt me," he whispered in anguish as his whole body started to shake.
"He's going into shock," Ditzy yelled and dropped the diictodon he had carried to the floor where it quickly scuttled into the safety of the tunnel.
In an instant, Stephen and Ditzy were at Ryan's side, just in time to prevent Ryan from collapsing in a heap.
"It hurts. It hurts as much," Ryan whimpered. "I don't want die." The rest of his words went over into an incomprehensible babble as more memories of pain and darkness assaulted him.
"Stephen?" Ryan croaked, his voice hoarse from screaming.
"I'm here."
"I was afraid you’d left me."
"Never."
"I'm really sorry."
"For what?"
"For misbehaving. I promised Uncle James I would be a good boy. And I wasn't."
"That wasn't your fault. Are you feeling better now?"
"My head has stopped hurting but my arm itches."
"That might be from the injection. Ditzy had to give you a sedative."
Ryan looked up into Stephen's haunted eyes and wondered if he should tell him that the spot on his elbow had itched for days. But he didn't want to worry Stephen more than he already had.
"Are they gone? The critters?" he asked instead.
"Yes, we were be able to catch them all. They are now back where they belong. Finn wanted to keep his but Abby and Cutter convinced him that with a habit of eating through walls it wouldn't make such a good pet."
Ryan cracked a small smile before his face turned serious again.
"I scared the little critter and I scared you."
Stephen didn't deny Ryan’s assertion. When Ryan had started screaming they had all been scared. It had been so similar to the time Ryan had staggered out of the anomaly, bloody and out of his mind.
"I remember now," Ryan declared.
Stephen's heart made a skip until he realised that nothing had really changed. Tom still called Lester Uncle James. The adult Ryan certainly wouldn't do that.
"What do you remember?" he prompted softly.
"The Greys, and how I woke up. It was so dark and I couldn't breathe. When the critters came I started to dig. Then I walked torward the pulsing light. After that I only remember pain."
Cutter, watching from the doorway with the medic, swallowed audibly. It confirmed what Ryan had already said under hypnosis. So he really had buried Ryan alive and Ryan had had to dig himself out of the ground. The thought was horrible.
"Did someone help you?" Ditzy asked, sure that Ryan couldn't have survived without help, and was quite disappointed when Ryan answered, "I didn’t see anyone, Uncle Dave."
Stephen tugged the duvet up to Ryan's chin and smoothed his hand over Ryan’s hair.
"All right. Go to sleep now. You must be exhausted."
Ryan looked thankfully up to Stephen and snuggled deeper into Stephen’s bed.
"Can I have Robby? And Stanley?"
After the cactus in its pot was placed on the bedside cabinet and Ryan was holding his stuffed rabbit happily in his arms, Stephen moved to turn off the light. He was stopped by Ryan's pleading voice.
"Please leave the light on."
Stephen switched on the bedside lamp and turned off the big light. He wasn't surprised when Ryan asked him to join him.
"I’ll come to bed in a minute," Stephen promised, ignoring Ditzys's frown as he ushered him and Cutter out of the bedroom.
Nimble fingers trailed over Stephen's neck along the chain of the necklace, then attacked the first buttons of Stephen's pyjama top and delved under the fabric.
Stephen opened his eyes with a start as a fingernail scratched over his left nipple, sending a lightning bolt of fire through his entire body.
"Wha..." Stephen managed to gasp out before he was silenced with a kiss.
It wasn't a soft kiss to show affection. Ryan's lips were demanding, insistent, urging him to open his mouth so he could slip his tongue in.
Forcefully, Stephen pushed Ryan away and scampered to the edge of the bed.
"What are you doing?"
Ryan just moved towards Stephen, like a predator on the prowl.
"Stop, Tom. Stop that."
"Why? I’ve just started."
A shiver ran down Stephen's back as he heard those words. Quizzically, he studied Ryan's face, afraid to hope that the miracle might finally have happened.
Bright blue eyes, wrinkled with a smile, stared back at him. The childish innocent look was gone, replaced with something Stephen was afraid to fathom just yet.
"Ryan?" Stephen asked tentatively.
"The one and only. Sorry, didn't mean to tell you like this. I just couldn't resist the temptation. Do you know how hot you look with your hair tousled and your lips half-open in sleep? And it isn't as if we’ve never kissed before."
Stephen blushed furiously, knowing quite well that the kisses Ryan had given him before had already overstepped the boundaries and that he shouldn't have allowed them at all.
"So you remember."
"Yep. Everything. Although I wish I could blank out some of it. Kissing Lester for instance. I will probably never live that down."
Ryan chuckled whilst Stephen was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Ryan, the adult Ryan, had actually returned.
"What happens now?" Stephen whispered, suddenly feeling vulnerable and uncertain in the presence of Ryan. He had opened up to Tom in a way he had never done before with anyone, not even Cutter. And now the adult Ryan remembered everything.
"That's up to you. I'm not adverse to continuing from where we left off."
Ryan waggled his eyes suggestively.
That was the last straw. Stephen jumped off the bed and vanished into the bathroom.
When Ryan checked the door knob he found it locked.
With a sigh, Ryan donned his clothes and headed off to the kitchen. Stephen's mood had always brightened up after a good breakfast. Besides it was easier to talk with a full stomach. And it seemed there was a lot they had to talk about. Perhaps he should make piggy pancakes to give them some common ground.
Whilst Stephen sat down heavily on the toilet lid, his head buried in his hands, and contemplated the messy situation, Ryan started to prepare the pancake mixture.
His happy whistling could be heard all the way back to the bathroom.