moonlettuce | Fic: Bloom, Primeval, Nick/Stephen

So, I had the urge to write Primeval cliché fic, and since I've never been one to resist temptation, here it is.

*ticks 'prehistoric sex pollen' off the list*

Title: Bloom
Author: Claire
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Nick/Stephen
Spoilers: Set series 2
Summary: It was all the prehistoric sex pollen's fault…
Disclaimer: Not mine, more's the pity.
Notes: Beta'ed by

alyse, who picked up on the stuff I missed and gave me the perfect last line when my brain failed to engage.

Requisition. Requisition. Bribe. Requisition. Expenses form. Another requisition.

James Lester couldn't help the sigh of contentment as he finished signing his name to the last of the documents in front of him, even as he eyed the pile of folders still in his in-tray with distaste. He knew he should have gone with the Torchwood position; aliens always seemed to be less trouble than dinosaurs.

When glaring at the folders didn't make them vanish in a puff of smoke, James reached out and grabbed the top one. Opening it as he pulled it towards him, he tried not to let his eyes glaze over as he scanned down the report it held, cursing the fact that his plan to have everyone submit two reports - one in Science and one in English - had failed miserably.

He'd just reached a fascinating paragraph regarding the mating cycle of Mesephemeroidea, and who the hell knew what that was, when the knock on his door distracted him.

"Sir?" James looked up as young man in a lab coat took two steps into the office before shuffling to a halt.

"Yes? What is it?

"There's a--" the technician - Hooper, Harper, oh god, what was the man's name again - paused slightly, "problem down in lab three, sir."

"An issue," James corrected automatically.

Harper, he looked more like a Harper James decided, looked confused. "Sir?"

James sighed. It was getting harder and harder to employ the right kind of people on secret government projects these days. "We don't have problems in the ARC, we have issues, and that's the way I'd like it to stay."

Harper nodded. "Okay. Then we have an issue in lab three, sir."

"Lab three, lab three--" James muttered to himself. Was that where they'd put the geologists, or had they been moved into lab four?

"Botany," Harper supplied helpfully.

"Ah, yes." James closed the folder on his desk and stood up, motioning the lab tech out of the room and following. "The plant people. What sort of issue?" he asked, although it was apparently quite an interesting one judging from the way there were several people crowded around the window looking into the lab.

Harper didn't answer.

James stopped, glancing down at the group still looking into lab three and feeling a headache coming on. "Tell me it's not another Triffid." There were only so many times he could requisition new computers to replace the ones that had been killed by being sprayed in planet guts before it started to get annoying.

"Ah, no, sir," Harper finally replied.

James glared at him. "What is it?" Maybe keeping it to words of one syllable would make the infuriating man actually answer his question.

Harper looked away briefly, his gaze going towards the lab window and looking like he'd drawn the short straw in coming to get James. "We think it's something to do with the seed cuttings that were brought back from the Pliocene last month. At least, they're the only specimens in there."

Which, although being more than James had previously known, still wasn't an answer. "You know what, never mind." Striding the rest of the way down the ramp, James reached the edge of the crowd around the lab. "Out of the way, out of the way," he muttered, nudging people aside until he was standing between Connor and Abby at the front, finally able to see into the lab.

"Wondered when you'd get here," she commented lightly, but James wasn't really listening.

"Good god, I think my eyes are bleeding."

"You should have been here ten minutes ago," Abby replied, and James could hear the grin in her voice.

"I'm rather glad I wasn't," he said, suddenly grateful for all the hesitation in Harper's telling him. "What happened?" he asked, unable to tear his eyes away from where a naked Nick Cutter was stroking the shoulder of the equally naked, and apparently asleep, Stephen Hart lying on top of him. There were clothes, plants and soil all over the lab floor and it looked as though Cutter and his lab assistant - and James had always known that was a euphemism - had liberally rolled over all them.

"We're not exactly sure," Connor answered. "One minute Cutter and Stephen had gone into the lab to talk and the next thing we know something hits the glass and when we look in the window they're--" Connor trailed off.

"The word you're looking for is naked," Abby supplied helpfully.

"Actually, I was trying not to look at all."

"And you don't have any idea what caused it?" Because James might believe Cutter wasn’t entirely sane, but even he didn't think the man would randomly drag Hart into a lab for illicit sex for no apparent reason. Especially not one with a huge great window looking into it and CCTV cameras on the wall.

Connor and Abby looked at each other.

"Well?" James prompted.

"We're not sure," Abby started.

"But we think it might be some sort of, ah, prehistoricsexpollen," Connor said, the words running together as he spoke and pointedly not looking at James. "We noticed that there were puffs of seeds coming out of the flowers. At least there were before they all ended up across the floor."

"And this led you to prehistoric sex pollen?"

Connor nodded, meeting James's gaze. "You know, like This Side of Paradise when Spock's whammied with those spores. Except I guess it's different because that was about love and this was more about Cutter pinning Stephen down and ripping his clothes off." Connor continued without pausing, "Not that Stephen didn't give as good as he got, mind."

"I thought you weren't looking," James muttered, turning to Abby when Connor blushed and stopped talking. "And they're still in there, why?"

"Door's locked," she answered. "We tried to get in there before other people noticed what was going on, but--" she gestured to the crowd. "Well, didn't exactly work."

"So you decided to stay and watch instead?"

Abby just grinned, not as easy to embarrass as Connor was. "Had to make sure there were no other side effects. Which, as you can see, there weren't." She motioned towards the window, where Cutter had finally noticed the people watching him and was waving happily at them.

James felt the headache rack up a notch. "Get them out of there," he said. "I don't care how, but get them out of there. And get them some clothes." He paused for a moment. "And if there's anyone still here instead of working when I turn around, there will be issues."

When he turned to go back to his office, he, Connor and Abby were alone.

*

The strange thing was, it had turned out Connor was right. It really had been prehistoric sex pollen that had caused Cutter and Hart to pounce on each other. The botanists had been gleefully talking spores and alleles and James had just looked at them and told them to burn all the samples.

There had been objections and complaints and at least one rather impressive pout from Harper - who, as it happens, was actually called Smith - but the fact that James authorised everything in the ARC, including the budget for botany, had won out.

Unfortunately, once James had dealt with the cause that just left the consequences. Sitting back in his chair, he motioned Cutter to a seat on the other side of the desk.

"You wanted to see me?" Cutter said, hesitating for a moment before he sat.

James laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them. "Yes, I wanted to talk about your apparent refusal to speak to Mr Hart."

Cutter flushed red for an instant as he met James's gaze. "That's none of your concern."

"On the contrary, Professor, everything that goes on in here is my concern. Especially when it threatens my people's ability to do their jobs." He paused. "Do you want Mr Hart off your team?"

"No," Cutter's reply was instantaneous. "I want--" The words trailed off as Cutter looked away and cleared his throat. "My team is fine."

James sighed internally. This was why he hated dealing with people; they never actually said what they meant. "Absolutely. In fact, they've been so fine over the past four days that I've watched you walk out of rooms as soon as Hart walks into them."

Cutter didn't answer for long moments and then, "Are we done here?" He didn't wait for a reply before he got to his feet and headed towards the door.

"I've seen the CCTV footage, you know," James said lightly, as Cutter reached the door.

Cutter didn't look at him.

"It was quite impressive actually, the way you went from talking to rutting against a bench in less than a minute," James continued.

"Lester." Cutter's knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the door handle. "Don't."

"Don't what?" James asked. "Don't compliment you on your technique? Don't point out that Hart appears to have no tan lines whatsoever."

The growl was almost inaudible as Cutter spun to face him, five strides bringing him back to the desk, his hand slapping down onto the glass.

"Or don't point out that it was blatantly obvious to anyone watching that you both wanted exactly the same thing," James finished, watching as Cutter froze at his words.

"What?"

"Didn't it occur to you, Professor, that Hart often trains with the Special Forces teams?" James pointed out. "Trust me, if there was anything going on in that room that Hart didn't want, then he was more than capable of stopping it. I think it says enough that he didn't, yes?"

"I--" Cutter sat down heavily in the chair, his gaze flicking between the door and the window overlooking the main room before fixing back on James, who found himself taking pity on the man.

"Go and talk to him. With actual words. You might find it works."

"I-- yes."

James watched him not move. "Feel free to leave any time now."

Cutter stood up and headed towards the door, stopping before he reached for the handle. "Thank you," he said quietly. "Although, I would have thought you'd be the last person to advocate a relationship between me and Stephen."

James didn't comment on the way his voice hitched over the last few words. "Cutter, we're the British government. We don't care who you sleep with so long as we know about it." And if it also had the effect of tying the two men together as opposed to that harpy Helen, well, James wasn't going to complain.

Cutter nodded before finally opening the door and leaving.

James watched Cutter's back as the other man left the office, standing up and walking to the window to track his progress down the ramp and over to where Hart was standing. He didn't know what Cutter said, but it caused Hart to glance up at James's office before he nodded and followed Cutter towards the locker room. As soon as they were through the doors, James moved back to his desk, resolutely ignoring the two thumbs up Abby was giving him as she stood next to the detector.

*

"Anomaly!" Connor shouted, as though the siren ringing through the ARC wasn't obvious enough.

"Where?" Cutter asked, joining the younger man next to the detector.

Connor waited for a moment until the detector had pinned down the signal. "Forest of Dean," he replied.

"Back to where it all began?" James commented, overseeing them from his position on the ramp. "I'll have Jenny meet you there with the Special Forces team," he said, visions of gorgonopsids running through his head. He was already pressing the speed dial on his mobile when Hart and Abby came out of the locker room, handing off backpacks to Cutter and Connor respectively.

"Who's driving?" Hart asked, holding up the keys to the truck.

"I'll do it," replied Connor, holding out his hand and frowning when Hart threw the keys to Cutter.

"I'd rather get there in one piece, Connor," Hart commented as Cutter caught the keys easily and pocketed them.

"Never mind, Conn." Abby moved to Connor's side, linking arms with him, "When we get back I'll buy you dinner."

"Really?" Connor grinned.

Abby nodded. "Yeah. After all, why should they be the only two to have fun around here," she said, nodding towards where Cutter and Hart were standing.

"Children, shouldn't you be going and playing nice with the dinosaurs?" James broke in, tuning them out when Jenny answered her phone. "Jenny? Forest of Dean. Soon as, please," he said, snapping the phone shut as soon she told him she'd be there.

Slipping his phone back into his pocket, James looked over just in time to see Cutter's team leaving the ARC. Abby still had her arm through Connor's and the back of Cutter's hand was brushing Hart's as they walked side by side.

He waited until they'd gone before he went back to his office and picked another folder out of his in-tray.

Requisition. Expenses form. Requisition. Requisition. Another expenses form. Requisition. Urgent request from the Ministry.

He put it on the small pile to one side of his desk. Just another problem to solve.