alyse: terminator genisys -full body shot of Sarah and Kyle walking away from the camera (Default)
alyse ([personal profile] alyse) wrote2009-05-03 12:12 am

Fic: My Mate (Primeval, Abby/Connor, PG13)

Title: My Mate
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Abby/Connor
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Primeval and its characters belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Word Count: ~2,000.
Status: Complete. Sequel of sorts to Kissing It Better.
Warnings: None.
Author's Notes: Written for [community profile] mmom. Thanks to [personal profile] temaris for doing the beta honours (even if she really wanted porn).

Summary: Kissing with confidence.

-o-

When Abby came through the door, Connor was waiting at the top of the stairs for her. At least, she presumed he was waiting for her, like a rather scruffy puppy. He was leaning against the balustrade, his back to her as he scratched at his arm, just above the top of his cast.

He looked like he'd been doing that for a while; his skin was red and white where he'd been digging his fingers in, and she smacked him on the back of his head as she stalked towards the kitchen, ignoring his startled yelp. She was desperate for a cup of tea and maybe even a biscuit, assuming that Connor had left any for her; it had been a bit of a crappy day, all things considered. She was parched and her feet were aching, and if Connor kept peeling off the top layer of his skin like that, it would get infected and knowing their luck, turn green and drop off.

She didn't have much sympathy for him and what little sympathy she did have faded when she discovered that he really had eaten the last of the biscuits. With a sigh, she reached for the breadbin - at least she could have toast with her tea.

"Make a cup for me, too, yeah?" Connor leant up against the counter separating the kitchen from the main living area, giving her one of his patented puppy dog looks to go along with his semi-scruffy appearance. It didn't look like he'd shaved today, but then he was so dark his five o'clock shadow was more or less in permanent residence. "I'm parched."

She snorted as she filled the kettle past the 'two cup' level on the side. "Connor, you're pretty handy with technology. That's your 'thing', right? And you can't operate the kettle?"

"Can't hold it and turn the tap at the same time," he said, waving his plaster encased wrist at her as though she'd have forgotten about it. "I've been dying of thirst, waiting for you to come home." He placed his uninjured hand on his chest, palm inwards, and gave her a dramatic look, all big eyes and wounded expression, and in spite of herself, she smiled.

It got her a bigger smile from Connor, who finally hitched himself up onto one of the seats on the opposite side of the counter, and beamed contentedly at her.

"Oh. So that's the reason you've been waiting for me to come home?" she teased as she popped the teabags into the pot. "I thought maybe you'd missed me."

His face turned an interesting shade of pink. "Yeah, that, too. And... um..." She watched him draw circles on the countertop with the fingers of his good hand. "Yeah, I might have missed you, too." And then he added, all flustered, the way he always got when they started circling around these sort of things, "Well, you know. It's sort of boring without you."

"Yeah?" She was oddly touched, and the smile she gave him this time might have matched one of his for being big and possibly even beaming.

"Yeah." He ducked his head, hiding his smile and shrugging his shoulders. "Daytime TV sucks and Rex, bless him, isn't exactly a great conversationalist."

She snorted again. "I'm sure he'd say the same about you, Connor."

"Maybe." Connor tapped his fingers against the counter, an absent minded and soft staccato that, for once, didn't irritate her, just reminded her that he was there. The toast popped up and she turned away to pluck it out, hissing a little as it burnt her fingertips before she could get it onto her plate. When she turned back it was to see Connor eyeing her plate, a little wistfully. With a sigh, she buttered the first slice, and then pushed it towards him. It was worth handing it over, even though her stomach was rumbling, just to see the way his face lit up, but she wasn't quite smitten enough to give him both. He'd just have to wait with her for the second slice.

"Thanks," he said, already making serious inroads on his slice before she'd even managed to put the next lot in the toaster. She rolled her eyes, and made the tea before settling back against the counter, leaning over it, just to be closer to Connor.

"I take it you didn't manage to get yourself anything to eat either," she said dryly. He shook his head, muttering something around a mouthful of toast that she couldn't make out and eyeing her remaining slice hungrily. She didn't love him that much and she wasn't taking any chances; once she'd buttered it to her satisfaction - right up to the edges - she reached for her secret weapon, ignoring his little moue of disgust as she spread a thin layer of it over her toast.

"What did you say?" she asked just before she took her first bite, chewing on it contentedly.

"Hmm?"

She swallowed down her first mouthful and repeated the question.

"Oh." He finished his toast and licked the butter from his fingers before smiling at her. "I said, I didn't think of toast. Kind of gave up on opening a can of something - they're either all ring pulls or need me to operate a can opener."

She took another bite of her toast and rolled her eyes again.

"You can laugh. Be a lot easier if they'd actually left more of my fingers out of this cast." He wriggled them at her and she had to agree; they looked a little ridiculous, poking up whitely from the grey edge of plaster. When she laughed, spluttering toast crumbs everywhere, he grinned at her, delighted, and then pulled on a mock mournful expression. "You can laugh. I've only got one useful hand. You have no idea what it's like. Seriously, stop laughing, Abby!" He was laughing himself, and she refused to feel guilty about it. "I can't open a can to have beans on toast, I can't make myself a cup of tea, can't play on the Playstation...

"I can't even have a wank."

She almost choked on her next bite, coughing hard as he went bright red - red, this time, not just a little pinkish. He stared at her in horror, almost as though he couldn't believe that the words had come out of his mouth. It was funny, actually, and her cough became a laugh before turning into a cough again.

"That was actually more information than I needed, Connor," she got out, pulling the milk out of the fridge and sloshing it into one of the waiting cups.

"Abby, I am so sorry. I didn't... I mean, I know that..." He was doing that thing with his hands, again, where he kind of flailed them around like he wanted to touch her but thought that if he did, he'd get a punch in the mouth.

She took a deep gulp of milk, swallowing it down so that she could talk.

"Connor, it's fine. Really. It was just..."

"Look..." He was still flailing. "I know... we've only just started... going out..." He paused, his expression almost stricken, "I... we are going out, right? I mean, I thought... the whole... kissing thing... and... stuff..."

She had to duck her own head to hide her smile. "Well, you haven't actually taken me out anywhere yet, Connor. Does that count as going out or not?"

"Oh. You want... um... okay?"

It might have been a little cruel to laugh, but sometimes he was so adorable, and yet so useless at the same time, she couldn't help it. She reached out and placed her hand gently on his arm - the broken one, her fingers resting over the place she'd signed - and kissed - the cast. "I'm teasing, Connor. Okay?"

"Okay." He relaxed under her touch, huffing out a breath, sounding relieved, and then gave her another smile, a little less anxious around the edges.

She left her hand on his arm when it didn't seem to pain him, her fingers stroking lightly over the heart she'd drawn as she took another bite of toast.

"Abby..." Connor was staring somewhere past her ear, his face still flushed. "I know we're not rushing into anything, that we're taking things slowly, so I wasn't... I mean, I wasn't suggesting..."

"You weren't suggesting I give you a hand there, too?" she asked brightly, just to watch him blush again.

"No. I mean, yes. I mean..." He let his head fall forward, and she winced as it hit the counter with a slight thump. "Can we just forget it?" he asked, his voice muffled.

She moved her fingers from his arm to stroke his hair. "If that's what you want," she said quietly. "Connor?"

"Hmm?"

"We can go as fast or as slow as you want, okay?"

He lifted his head, peering at her hopefully, although she couldn't tell if the hope was that she'd forgive him blurting it out or hope of an entirely different kind altogether. Sometimes Connor was as easy to read as Peter and Jane, and other times he was the Financial Times, all confusing numbers and statistics that made no sense to anyone normal.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." His voice was a little high-pitched and she smiled again, letting her fingers trace along his eyebrow and then down to his cheek. She leant in, slowly, giving him enough time to pull back if he wanted to, and then pressed her mouth to his, just as slowly, waiting until he relaxed under her touch before she traced her tongue along his lips, encouraging him to open up to her.

He pulled back with a grimace.

"Sorry," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand in a way that was designed not to turn her on. "I just can't stand the taste of Marmite. I don't know how you can eat that stuff."

"Huh," she said, not quite sure how to take that. She settled for pouring them both a cuppa, and pushing his towards him before taking a big gulp of her own. It was hot and wet, just the way she liked it, and she eyed Connor over the top of it as he took another sip of tea, looking at her apologetically.

"That's okay," she said finally, shrugging her shoulders again. "I know some people hate the taste of it. I'll clean my teeth after, okay?" Connor relaxed at that, giving a little relieved sigh and sending another smile in her direction. She waited until he'd put the cup to his lips again before she added, "I just can't help loving things that are hot and salty."

She made sure she'd leant back far enough for the tea that Connor spluttered out to miss her and, when he continued to cough, she leant over to pull a couple of pieces of kitchen towel from the roll by the kettle and hand them to him.

"You okay?" she asked, sweetly, as the coughing started to subside, and he gave her another nod, his face back to brick red. She didn't think that was all down to the coughing.

"Good," she said, picking her cup back up and beaming at him over the top of it. "Let me know if you need a hand."

The End

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