fredbassett

Title : Underground with the Effra
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Ethan/Becker, Connor
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Chasing oversized prehistoric rodents around London’s Victorian sewer network isn’t Ethan’s idea of fun.
A/N : Written for eriah211’s Denial Stocking

Ethan’s broken fingernails scraped at the rough brickwork, feeling desperately for any gaps, searching for anything he could get hold of to drag himself out of the grip of the rapidly rising water.

The fall had left him with a badly sprained ankle, a throbbing pain in his head, a dislocated left shoulder and a strong feeling that he wasn’t going to survive.

He was alone in the dark, in what he thought might be a brick-lined tank on the wrong side of a collapsed tunnel, with water jetting out of cracks all around him.

Even in the dark of other dangerous nights, this wasn’t the way he’d ever imagined dying.

****

The team had been pursuing some sort of oversized, long-haired rodent around a section of London’s crumbling Victorian sewer network. To cover more of the tunnels, they’d split up.

Ethan and Connor had ended up in a series of low passages, crawling along by the side of fast flowing water that looked surprisingly clean compared to some of the foul-smelling muck they’d passed when they’d first dropped below ground.

“River Effra,” Connor panted, crawling along behind Ethan. “Takes mainly surface water drainage.”

“How the feck d’ya know that?”

“Jess sent the details to our phones on the way over. You should try checking yours sometime.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Can you still see any tracks?”

“Some, and there’s some hair caught on the bricks here. Why, want to turn back?”

“Don’t like confined spaces,” Connor admitted. “It’s getting lower up ahead, isn’t it?”

Ethan looked up, shining the powerful headtorch attached to his helmet along the brick-lined tunnel. The roof was definitely getting lower. Spiders’ webs glistened in the torchlight and thin dark fibrous roots dangled from the roof.

“’fraid so, princess.”

Ethan went down on his elbows, thankful that the ledge they were on was just over a body’s width – for the moment, at least, although that looked about to change. A few heartbeats later, he felt cold tendrils tickle the back of his neck and knew the roots were now directly above him. The caress was startling, but he’d once spent a month hiding out in the Paris catacombs, so he had no intrinsic fear of confined spaces. Or what lay within them.

Connor, on the other hand …

“Shit!”

The yell echoed up and down the tunnel, probably sending the creature they were tracking scuttling away from them as fast as its short hairy legs could carry it.

“Something touched my neck!”

“You should be so lucky.”

“Spiders!”

“Roots.” Not for the first time, Ethan wondered how the hell Connor Temple had survived a year in the Cretaceous.

“Yeah, whatever …”

“My line, princess.” Movement ahead sent his hand reaching for his EMD pistol, but the vague shape resolved into a fat brown rat scurrying towards him along the ledge. “Rat,” he warned.

Another loud squeak confirmed that Connor wasn’t keen on them, either.

Ethan didn’t bother to stifle a snort of laughter.

“Don’t tell me they’re more scared of me than I am of them …” Connor warned.

Ethan grinned. Despite all appearances to the contrary, he actually liked the lad, but Connor was very easy to wind up, and that was hard to resist. “Nah, rats aren’t scared of much, and this one’s a big bugger.”

The rat launched itself into the water and swam to the even narrow ledge on the other side. Another one quickly followed it. A sharp intake of breath from Connor told him that he’d seen them both and wasn’t a happy bunny.

The roof was definitely lowering, and Ethan had a nasty suspicion that the water level was creeping up, but he could see tracks on the ledge ahead of him and knew their quarry had gone that way. In the next four feet, he’d be down on his belly with roots trailing over his back …

Ethan turned on his side and looked back at Connor. “Find the others. Tell them I’ve gone on by myself. From what I saw on the maps, the river runs above ground not far ahead. Tell Becker to get a surface team over to the tributary with the Ambrook near Sydenham Hill Wood.”

“You did look at what Jess sent!”

“Of course I fucking did, you muppet.”

“I can’t leave you on your own …”

“If you panic in the next section, we’ll both be in the shit - literally. Go back and tell Becker where I’ve gone. And don’t fucking argue! I’m hardly in danger from an oversized guinea pig having a bad hair day.”

“Are you sure …?”

“Fuck off, Connor.”

Ethan didn’t look back as he dropped to his stomach and wriggled forward, following the tracks in the film of mud covering the ledge. Waste of fucking time, though, after Connor’s shrieks the bloody thing had probably found its way to the surface by now.

The low section lasted three body lengths then the roof abruptly lifted, allowing him to kneel and then stand. Ethan got to his feet, making a mental note to add knee pads to the next kit requisition. He drew in a deep breath and steadied himself against the wall for a moment.

That was a fucking mistake …

****

The ancient brickwork had collapsed inward, bringing the roof of the tunnel down with it.

Ethan had fallen in a hail of rubble into a deep pit, knocking his helmet off his head and smashing his light, leaving him winded and in pain in the pitch dark. He’d landed awkwardly in a mix of water and mud about two feet deep, crashing into the chunks of brick and masonry that had accompanied his precipitous descent.

When he’d finally come to his senses enough to kneel up to his thighs in the thick, slippery mess, supporting his injured shoulder as best he could, he’d gingerly explored the area immediately around him. That hadn’t taken long. He was in what felt like a brick-lined tank, no more than ten feet square. He had no idea how far he’d fallen, but he couldn’t reach the top of the brickwork, not even by piling up the rubble and standing on it.

He’d yelled a few times, but all that had come back were the echoes of his own increasingly frantic shouts and the ominous sound of running water. Whether the collapse had weakened the structure or whether the louring grey clouds had finally decided to shed their load, he had no way of knowing, but soon the water running down the sides of the tank had given way to thin jets squeezing through gaps in the brickwork, spraying his aching head and already cold body.

His feet and hands were numb and he started to shiver as the water crept up his shins and advanced inexorably up his thighs. Balanced precariously on the top of the rubble pile, there wasn’t much he could do other than exercise his lungs and yell for help that was highly unlikely to come.

By the time the water had reached his balls, Ethan was shaking with cold and in danger of losing his footing. The only good thing was that he could no longer feel the vicious throbbing in his ankle, but he knew that it was unlikely to bear his weight much longer. The darkness was disorientating, and it was hard to tell whether his eyes were open or closed. Either way made no difference. He still couldn’t see a fucking thing or hear anything other than running water and he had lost all track of time.

With one arm out of action, he very much doubted whether he would be able to prolong his life by treading water, but it wasn’t in his nature to just give in, either.

He went back to yelling, putting every ounce of strength he had into his voice. His throat was hoarse, and his head was pounding, but while there was still a chance that someone might come for him, he kept yelling.

Finally, the freezing cold water tightened its hold on his chest, and it was all he could do to drag the breath into his lungs. He had no energy left to spare for yelling.

He rested his aching head against the brickwork and wondered how long it would take for him to drown.

The sound of brick scraping on brick made his breath catch in his throat. If the roof was about to give way, drowning was likely to be the least of his worries.

The scraping sound got louder and he then he heard a muffled curse. Someone was trying to edge their way through the collapse in the tunnel.

****

“Down here!” he yelled as loudly as he could, but even to his own ears his voice was raspy and weak.

“Ethan! Where the fuck are you?” The voice belonged to Becker and it was clear the time the special forces captain had spent on the parade ground hadn’t been wasted as his voice carried clearly above the deadening sound of running water.

“Below you! Some sort of settling tank,” he panted. “Wall collapsed!”

“Yeah, I can see that. “We’ll get you out, don’t give up!”

“Who said anything about giving up, cupcake?” Ethan demanded. “Just don’t fucking hang around. Water’s up to my chest.”

“Then swim!”

“Shoulder’s fucking dislocated, smartarse!”

He could hear Becker yelling to Danny to pass him a rope, then a torch beam split the darkness and Ethan could see water fountaining out of the brickwork all around him. It wasn’t a comforting sight. The top of the tank was about five feet above his head, which explained why he’d not been able to get his hand over the lip and even with a rope, he wouldn’t be able to pull himself up, but it would at least be something to hang onto.

“Rope coming down!”

A heavy coil hit the surface of the water. Ethan grabbed it and wound it around his forearm, almost overbalancing in the process, but Becker quickly hauled on the other end and held him upright.

One of the lightweight ladders they carried for emergencies was chucked down after the rope. Its hard plastic rungs and heavy duty tape sides made it a handy piece of kit but here was no way Ethan could climb it with a shoulder that lanced red hot agony through his nerves every time he tried to move it and an ankle that wouldn’t bear his weight. He lunged for it and managed to grab a rung with his good hand and hang onto it as Becker slithered through the hole above him and then slid down another rope to tread water at Ethan’s side while he looped the rope around his waist and tied it tightly.

Becker yelled, “Pull him up, Danny!”

As the rope tugged at him, jolting his shoulder and drawing a pained gasp that he couldn’t bite back, he was dragged slowly but surely out of the grip of the water, Becker was able to get his feet in the rungs of the ladder and help the ascent.

After an age of agony, Ethan was dragged over the lip and onto the ledge, lying there gasping like a stranded fish.

“Christ, you look like shit,” Danny exclaimed, his light shining straight into Ethan’s eyes.

“You’re no fucking oil painting, either, big brother,” Ethan muttered and avoided the need for any more conversational niceties by promptly losing consciousness.

****

“He’s coming round!” Becker sounded anxious and Ethan wondered why.

“Give him some space,” a calm voice instructed. “Ethan, how are you feeling?”

Memory crashed back with the force of the collapsing brickwork. “Where am I?” His voice sounded slurred, even to himself.

“In an ambulance on the way to hospital,” a female paramedic told him. “You’re hypothermic and we need to start warming you up. I’m going to put a mask over your nose and mouth to let you breathe some warm air. Is that OK?”

Ethan nodded.

As she turned away to get her kit, a pair of warm lips covered his and Becker kissed him gently.

“You scared the fuck out of me.”

Ethan dredged up the ghost of a grin. “Sorry, cupcake. I’ll make it up to you later.”

Then a mask covered his nose and mouth and he started to breathe warm air.

Becker held his hand all the way to the hospital, refusing to leave his side for a moment.

And Ethan kept equally tight hold of him.