oddegg | Primeval fic: Connor/Danny

Title: Like an Inelegant Ballet (with skinny jeans instead of tights)
Pairing: Connor Temple/Danny Quinn
Rating/Warnings: NC-17 - containing slash and stickiness and S3 spoilers.
Summary: Sometimes, when you rub things up the wrong way, sparks fly…
Word Count: 3,792
Disclaimer: Strangely enough; not mine. Just borrowed and made to do nasty things.
A/N: This one is shared out between three wonderful people. fredbassett , who suggested the handcuffs (more in spirit than fact, I’m afraid luv!); thefakebook , who suggested the ice cream (& ok, I totally cheated with your other prompts as well!); and telperion_15 , who said there was no way, never, nuh-uh that she was reading Quinn porn! To which I said; wanna bet? :)

It was meant to be just straight PWP porn and came out as something a bit more. Which, for some reason, I’m blaming on the ice cream.

* * * * * *

They started out not liking each other.

To be honest, it was loathe at first sight. Danny being aggressive and officious, Connor being sarcastic and offensive.

The fact that the second time they met Danny had slammed Connor up against the wall, cuffed him and hauled him off to a police cell didn’t encourage Connor in thinking that Danny Quinn was someone he could grow to like.

The fact that Connor had spent the whole of the couple of hours he’d been in the cell moaning non-stop didn’t encourage Danny in seeing him as anything other than someone it would be a pleasure to shoot. Maybe then the irritating little bastard would shut up.

* * *

Their reunion didn’t start off auspiciously either.

Abby had pulled Connor away from the computers with a ‘Come ON, Connor! We need to go meet the new guy that Lester’s hired!’ and he’d come willingly enough because from what little they’d been told about the man he sounded interesting – an investigator and sharp shooter, even Becker had sounded impressed with his marksmanship – and so he’d been bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet as they stood in the doorway of the conference room and he’d chirped out
“So, what’s up daddy-o’s?”

- just as the guy sitting with his back to them turned round and Connor had looked into blue eyes and freckled, craggy features that were taking on a similar look of dismay to the one he was sure he was now wearing himself and then he and former Detective Constable Daniel Quinn were both saying at the same time

“Oh no! Not him!”

* * *

Danny hadn’t quite believed it when he saw Connor again. Certainly hadn’t been able to hide his feelings about having to work with someone that had driven him crazy in the short time they’d been in contact during the Brook's House case.

So he got a very quick and easy insight into how James Lester worked when the man had watched both of their reactions and then, not even trying to hide his smirk, had said
“Now that the team is a bit larger again, I think it would be a good idea if people worked in partnerships unless otherwise called for. Connor, I think you should be the one to show Mr Quinn around”

Lester’s smirk had slid into a genuine happy smile at the horror on Connor’s face. Danny had tried to lock his own expression down and carefully filed away the knowledge that his new boss was an evil son of a bitch who was both self aware and proud of it.

It was always good to know these things as early as possible.

There had been quick, friendly greetings from that Jenny woman and the little blonde-haired bit of stuff called Abby and a gruff, slightly absent-minded ‘hello’ from a floppy haired guy introduced as Professor Cutter.

Lester had swept out with a drawl of
"I have a phone call with the Home Secretary to attend to – try not to shoot anything on your first day, will you? And if you get injured try to do it on a wipe down surface; the cleaning bills for this place are becoming difficult to justify”

Wondering with a sinking feeling exactly what it was he’d managed to get himself into, Danny had turned to Connor as the room emptied and said resignedly
“So. After you, Laughing Boy”

Connor had just stared back at him with those big brown eyes and said, gloomily
“Oh, this is like some Bizarro world version of the end of Casablanca”

Danny snorted and just for a moment he’d felt that there was a flash of fellow feeling between them. Then he’d sighed and said
“Well, I promise not to call you Louis and we’ll hope no Nazis come through those ‘anomaly’ things, how about that? In the meantime, want to kick off our beautiful friendship by giving me the guided tour before we both die of old age?”

As he followed Connor and his skinny-jeaned arse out into the ARC complex, he’d begun to have nostalgic longings for the police job he’d just quit. At least there he’d just had to deal with murders and gang crime, not annoying idiots who dressed like an emo band reject.

* * *

So Connor hadn’t been happy.

Because, while Quinn had definitely made an impression (of Connor’s face into the plaster, he’d thought sulkily), and Connor had seen how intense the bloke could be in his work (for some reason the sight of him through the viewing slot in the cell door kept coming into Connor’s mind; tall, rangy body leaning down and those blue eyes burning into his through the reinforced glass), he didn’t think the man was going to fit in and play nicely with others.

And alright, maybe even with all the aggravation that had erupted between them on the camouflage creature case, it had still been Connor’s questioning look that the man had answered first after the shooting, and Connor hadn’t quite been sure whether it was the vest or the attitude or… something else that he’d wanted to get. But Danny Quinn was still irritating.

A big, brash, tough guy, with the manner to go with it. And even though he was used to that with the soldiers – even though he teased Becker about it now and called him ‘Action Man’ – in Quinn, for some reason, it got his back up.

* * *

Danny wouldn’t have put his mood as ‘happy’ either.

The setup in the place looked amazing, he had to admit, and the army guys had seemed like a good lot – maybe a bit too fixated on their tea break time, but good guys.

The others had seemed ok, too. Abby was a tiny little pixie-like thing but he could tell she’d take no shit, same as the other woman he met – Sarah Page, who looked a bit of a laugh. Cutter, who they’d stumbled across again doing what looked like meditating under some weird sculpture thing, he wasn’t sure about – but there must be some brains under all that shampoo advert hair.

Jenny, while she’d pissed him off by going over his head and stealing his case, he respected as a first class ball-breaker and obviously not a woman to cross lightly.

No – it was Connor Temple who was the sticking point. The potential burr in his hide. Like, even in the confrontation with Jenny, it had been Connor’s sly little smirk that had really ramped his temper up, made his fists itch to slap it off the kid’s face.

It had been Connor his attention had automatically skipped to after shooting the – whatever the hell it was – and Connor he’d found himself telling about the anti-stab vest and having some strange, probably adrenaline fuelled moment of connection with before he’d turned back to Jenny and, hopefully, an explanation for the freaky shit that had just happened.

Something about the kid just rubbed him up the wrong way.

* * *

So. They’d settled into a routine for their Lester-mandated ‘partnership’ pretty much immediately.

Unfortunately for everyone else, that routine consisted of constantly bickering, contradicting each other, sniping and insulting each other at every opportunity and generally driving their team mates crazy.

And Connor had found, to his faint horror, that after a while he was even enjoying it in some twisted way. That he was actually spending time thinking up some of his insults and quips, liking the spark in Danny’s eyes when one of the cleverer ones hit home, relishing the quirk of lips that the other man didn’t seem to be able to stop at some of the more obscure ones.

Because it also turned out that they had stuff in common. He couldn’t quite remember when they’d found out that they could also bicker quite happily about cult sci-fi and comic books, but noticed the ‘oh god, they're off again!’ looks the team started to throw them and he remembered quite clearly the day – and the blank look on Lester’s face – when Danny had thumped his head down against a desk in the main labs and cried in what sounded like genuine anguish
“I can’t believe I work with a man who believes that the remake of the Quatermass Experiment was better than the original!”

Connor had fought to keep his face blank and said with cheerful evil intent
“I happen to think whatshisname was quite good in it!”

Danny had looked a bit manic as his head shot up and he pointed at Connor with a trembling finger
“See! SEE! You can’t even remember the bloke’s name! That’s how memorable it was!”

As he'd lost control of the grin he’d been fighting, and seen with glee the scowl creep onto Danny’s face as he realised he’d totally been had, he'd heard Lester sigh behind him and as he turned to leave Connor could have sworn he heard the director mutter
“I’ve created a monster…”

As if to highlight his point, at that moment the anomaly claxon went off.

* * *

Danny had quickly grown used to the call outs and to the chaos they usually entailed.

This one just involved splashing around in an abandoned quarry trying to round up some weird looking lizardy-things that may have looked odd with the stubby feathers and the two little fore-leg claws, but which could move like quick little bastards when they wanted. What with the sliding tackles and the slips and trips onto ground that, in the rain coming down, was fast turning into a quagmire, everyone had quickly been looking less than pristine – but it was almost fun in a way, trying to head them off and tag-teaming them with the others in moves that Danny had suddenly realised with a laugh he was remembering from games of British Bulldog when he was younger.

He'd chased one over to Connor, who’d been laughing a lot at the antics of the things and the little squawky noises they were making, and as Connor made a stumbling grab for it the creature executed a perfect sharp twirl like a pirouette and Connor landed up sprawled on the ground.

The creature had paused for a moment to chatter at the kid like it was telling him off, and then dashed away through the anomaly shining a few metres away.

Connor had flopped over and pulled himself into a sitting position – and then looked back over to Danny and rolled his eyes, saying
“It’s like trying to catch the bloody Road Runner! I think we need to order some stuff in from Acme!”

And Danny had looked down at the younger man, grinning back up over his shoulder at him – wet and muddy and a bit scratched up and tired looking, but so joyful – and for some reason he'd suddenly thought that if his brother had lived, if his brother was still out there somewhere, then he’d be older even than Connor was now and his heart had gave a very peculiar sort of lurch.

He didn’t know why. The kid had turned out to be alright, in an odd sort of way, but he didn’t have any brotherly sort of feelings towards Connor Temple. So he really didn’t know why he'd stood there, in the rain, feeling a bit winded like he’d just been kicked in the stomach and a bit like he wanted to cry and strangely, oddly happy.

* * *

Connor had been muddy and tired, but that was pretty standard for an anomaly call out and at least this time he hadn’t been attacked by something with big teeth or poisonous stingers or big claws or even, like that one time, by something that had all three. So he'd been mostly counting this experience in the win column from the beginning and even with the mud, he was having fun.

He’d just been completely outwitted by one of the Mononykus that they were trying to round up and put back through the anomaly and was sitting in a puddle laughing at the audacity of the little thing, and he'd looked back to make some silly comment to Danny who was standing behind him and his breath had caught in his throat.

Because Danny was just standing there, staring at him, looking like he’d been hit over the head or something, and his face had been so open and young looking, and so oddly vulnerable, that Connor’s mind had gone blank and he started to get to his knees, to turn round and reach out his hand to Danny – started to say something...

And that, of course, was when the whole situation went to pot. When all the Mononykus still in the quarry suddenly made for the horizon in a chorus of terrified shrieking; when a Tarbosaurus suddenly lunged out of the anomaly behind him and Connor nearly got eaten and Danny Quinn had lost his fucking mind.

* * *

Danny didn’t do gracious. Didn’t do polite. Christ, even when he was apologising to Brian for sticking a gun in his face and for fifteen years of suspicion he managed to sound grudging about it.

So when his, frankly, crazy bull-headed behaviour and his rushing blindly, gun blazing into the situation and shooting and killing the huge monster that had appeared so heart-stoppingly close to his partner had ended up meaning the thing toppled over like a fucking Redwood and nearly got Connor squished by something big, bad and bipedal, the nearest thing to a soulful plea for forgiveness he could make consisted of showing up at the med-room Connor had claimed to sleep overnight in because he was too shaken to make his way home with beer and grunting something that you might, possibly, after long study and professional sound interpretation, have managed to make out to be ‘sorry’

Strangely, a beer and a grunt had not been enough to buy Connor’s forgiveness.

The large tub of Haagen Dazs Bailey’s ice cream Danny had brought as backup worked quite well though.

It probably also helped that he’d brought a bottle of whiskey so they could have chasers with the beer, and that they ended up sitting on the floor together working their way through it all, with Danny spending several minutes teaching Connor the noble drinkers art of doing depth charges.

It turned out that a drunk Connor was something that Danny found quite amusing, what with the giggling and the slightly slurred pontificating and the way the younger man’s cheeks flushed up and made him look like he was blushing. It was cute, really.

And then Danny was blinking and was so busy being mentally gob-smacked at that thought that he didn’t notice Connor trying to get his attention for something. Which was probably why Connor decided a good way of making him pay attention was to lob a spoonful of melting, very cold ice cream onto him.

Danny had gasped at the cold shock of it and looked down in disbelief at his chest where the blob of cream had hit him smack in the unbuttoned centre of his shirt on his bare skin. Then he’d looked back up blankly at Connor, who’s eyes had gone very wide like he’d just realised what a foolish thing that had been to do to a man who was still armed, but who was still trying to stifle giggles behind his hand. The hand that still held the spoon, which was now leaving a smear of white across Connor’s cheekbone.

Their gazes locked for a long moment, and then Danny had bared his teeth in a feral smile and said
“Right. That the way you want to play, is it?”

And he'd made a grab for the container.

* * *

Connor had squeaked and managed to avoid the first lunge that Danny made but then he’d had to scramble to his feet and make a dash to the safety of the other side of the bed – which turned out to be no safety at all when Danny vaulted over the damn thing and snatched at his shirt.

Connor had twisted away somehow and run, shrieking and laughing, back round the room, scooping out ice cream with his fingers because he’d lost the spoon and throwing it over his shoulder at Danny, who had been sputtering and swearing and laughing too until he’d managed to grab Connor and slam him back against the wall, panting down at him, sticky and covering them both in the stuff where they were pressed together and he’d said through a grin
“Got you!”

And Connor had used one of the tricks Becker had taught him in some hand-to-hand work, hooked his ankle around Danny’s and brought them both down.

It had degenerated into an all-out wrestling match then, with Connor distinctly outmatched in the weight class and outclassed in the skills department, so that it was only a couple of minutes before Danny had him pinned and was growling down at him
"Do I have to fucking cuff you to keep you still?"

Danny’s voice had still been playful but it had been rough and there had been some annoyance creeping in there that added an extra edge as well. And, oh god – he couldn’t help it – something about that suggestion had just gone straight to Connor’s groin and he’d arched up slightly against Quinn’s body where he was still pressing Connor down and his voice had been breathier than he’d like when he’d replied
“Yeah…”

Maybe he could have still got away with it, laughed it off, but then Danny’s head had came up and he’d stared down at Connor, eyes darkening, face going serious and for a second Connor had been flashed back to that first time they’d tussled, back in the abandoned house, and Danny had pulled him up then and looked at his mouth for a moment before swallowing hard and looking away. And Connor had a moment to think with surprise, ‘Really? Even then?’, before Danny suddenly grabbed his head in both hands and kissed him, mouth hot and hard, tongue slick against his.

Then the wrestling had been back on, except this time they’d been wrestling to get closer, not away, wrestling clothes off, trying to pin each other down, mouths and hands everywhere. And they’d both been panting and moaning so much that Connor hadn’t been able to tell which exclamation was which, or who’s – groans and sighs starting off in one of their mouths and being caught and swallowed and echoed back into the other.

And then Danny had got the upper hand, held him down firmly and dragged his arms up to grip his wrists together almost painfully hard above his head, thrusting Connor’s legs apart so he could lay down between them on top of him, all the while saying roughly
“Let me… let me, will you bloody hold still and let me… I’ve got to… I need…”

Connor hadn’t had the breath any more to tell him that he was, he was holding still, he wanted it as much as Danny, needed it as much. Hadn’t had the breath at all because Danny was big and solid and hard on top of him and against him and there had been so much skin, so warm and smooth on his and trying to focus on that had been taking all his concentration because it was so good and then Danny had slid a hand down between them, slick with melted ice cream and sticky with sweat and he’d wrapped it around both of their cocks, so hard and needy between them.

And then Connor had pushed and Danny had moved and Connor hadn’t had to concentrate anymore because then it had all just been feeling, rippling through him, through both of them. Filling them up till they exploded with it.

* * *

“So”

So Danny was on his back, on the floor next to Connor, staring up at the ceiling and had been trying to get both his breath and his sanity back. His breathing had grown steadier but his sanity seemed to be lost to him forever because when he looked over at Connor’s voice and saw the sweaty, dishevelled mess of him all he’d been able to think was
‘Had that. Want it again. Often’

He’d croaked out, querying
“So…?”

Connor had still been frowning up and hadn’t looked over at him yet. He’d waved a hand (that Danny had seen was covered in what could have either been ice cream or come – and which he’d realised with something like dismay that, whatever it was, he still wanted to lick clean) and said intently
“So. I’m going with the theory of a delayed reaction to adrenaline”

“Huh?”

And yes, Danny’s reaction could probably have been more eloquent than that but the kid’s thought tangents lost him sometimes. And then Connor had rolled his head over and looked at him with an expression of disappointment and said
“You know – reaction! To adrenaline. As an explanation for why we had sex”

And before Danny could begin processing the fact that that – Connor wanting to explain away what they’d just done – gave him what felt like a kick in the ribs Connor had continued in a thoughtful tone
“Of course, next time we’ll have to come up with something different…”

“Next time?”

And he’d known it was far too late to try and be cool about this when he could feel the slightly manic grin begin spreading over his face, and Connor’s eyes had been twinkling and telling him ‘you my friend are pwned, totally pwned’ even as he’d said in a grave voice
“Yeah. I’m thinking we should stick to the classics myself. So if there’s an anomaly around we claim it was sex pollen”

And Danny had snorted and rolled over and desperately tried to quell the giggles of relief bubbling up in his chest. A chest that all of a sudden felt very light and free. And then, on an impulse he’d bitten Connor’s shoulder and then mumbled, as he kissed it better
“What do we say if it’s a water anomaly?”

Connor had said “Ow!” slightly absent-mindedly and then hummed with deliberation.
“I don’t know – sex plankton?”

The giggles had broken out properly then and Danny had muffled them against Connor’s chest, which was also quaking with laughter. Then he’d leaned up on one elbow to look down into Connor’s shining eyes, not bothering to wipe off the stupid grin he knew he had. And as he’d lowered himself back down to kiss his new lover he’d murmured
“Ok. Sex plankton it is”