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Warning: Rated [MA] Mature Adults only. Contains adult themes
Title: Here there be Dragons
Series: Jurassic Park III
Status: WIP?
Author/pseudonym: Hellblazer
E-mail address: havisham06@yahoo.com
Rating: MA
Pairing: Alan Grant/Billy Brennan
Date: 18 June 2003
Disclaimers: The characters of Dr. Alan Grant, Billy Brennan, et al. are the property of Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment and (in Alan's case) Michael Crichton. No copyright infringement is intended or inferred.
Warnings: may contain slash, H/C, violence, m/m hanky panky, drug use, nudity, coarse language, horror, dodgy research, adult themes
Spoilers: Jurassic Park III
Summary: Going out on a limb here, ahem, as the boys deal with the scars from Isla Surna.
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They were going to be late out to the site but it didn't matter, it was expected. They'd been up late last night catching up with Ellie who had stopped by to check up on her 'other' boys, as she cheerfully called them.
There was still a slight awkwardness between Alan's former and current paramours, but in the main they were a reasonably happy extended family. Alan and Billy owed Ellie their lives, and they never forgot that. Alan particularly would never forget how Billy had just slumped into shock, and if Ellie hadn't made sure the ships surgeons were on standby, they would have lost him, right then and there.
Ellie had known there was someone new in Alan's life, someone who amused and perplexed him and made him as bright and giddy as a schoolboy. Her ears had pricked up when she heard Alan talk of Billy so proudly, so fondly, with a warmth that made her believe that Alan had finally found someone who was right for him, at last.
It was immediately after Isla Surna that Ellie had seen first hand just how much the boy had meant to Alan, after they'd airlifted Billy onto the mainland and Alan had been told in clinical detail just how bad things really were. Billy was a mess of broken bones and torn flesh and only adrenalin, dumb luck and the need to see Alan again had carried him down the river and into the swamp, covered in mud. Billy had crawled blindly into a patrol of marines, so unrecognisable as a human being that they'd drawn their guns on him, until the sight of the uniforms finally registered and he'd wept, just wept.
The will to live kept him clinging on, fighting infection and exhaustion. Alan tried to be there for him, tried to be strong, but Ellie had been there to witness first hand the impossibly stoic Dr Alan Grant shatter into a million pieces in the anonymous darkness of a hospital corridor in the unforgiving hours past midnight, after days and nights without sleep. Alan had sobbed on her shoulder, wrenching out the terrible truths: that he'd destroyed a young man's life through a few careless words.
Alan had grieved hard for the Billy he knew he had lost forever, the reckless, impulsive, stupid young monkey, so full of life and mischief. Billy had made Alan feel alive in ways he'd never known possible, he'd woken Alan from a lifetime's sleep with a single kiss, and now Alan had destroyed all that, forever.
Alan had told her in agonising detail the horror of Billy's leap into the chasm, of being unable to stop him or call him back, the look in Billy's eyes, just before he'd leapt. The stupid young fool had wanted to die rather than live estranged from Alan. Alan had broken Billy's heart, just ripped it out with the surgical strike of a few cutting words and he was responsible for everything that had come next. Alan had told her exactly what it was like to watch your lover be slowly torn apart right before your eyes, and being powerless to stop it.
Ellie had listened to all of this and she'd been shocked at just how deeply Alan had loved Billy, and how badly Billy was now breaking Alan's heart. Alan had forgiven Billy a thousand times over, but he would never forgive himself.
Discovering Billy was the love of Alan's life had not surprised her so much, Alan had always kept himself guarded and had dabbled with sexual relations rather than throwing himself into the fire, body and soul. That had changed with Billy, and the fierceness of Alan's passion for the boy, it frightened her to think that she had never really known Alan, not the real man, at least.
Still it had been Ellie who had invited Alan and Billy to her home for a sit down family dinner. Billy had not long been out of the hospital and it had been breaking Alan's heart to see Billy so thin and wan and sullen and snapping with anger every time he smashed or knocked over things when he reached without thinking, forgetting he had just plastic and metal where his arm used to be.
Alan, too much the product of all his years spent studying and teaching in Britain, had decided against coddling the boy and had thrown Billy back into the business of life without excuses, which had included dinner at Ellie's.
Ellie, bless her, had made the boy feel human again, a person more than the sum of his scars, and it had helped. The splendid sight of Billy Brennan striding across a dig site like a young, shirtless and sweat-sheened Adonis were now just memories, he only wore long sleeves now, not because he was particularly self conscious but because he was tired of the staring. If he had been in a car accident it would have been bad enough, but everybody knew he'd been bitten and clawed by dinosaurs and it made him a freak.
Ellie had treated him as nothing other than Alan's partner and a fellow professional in the field, and the children had been openly curious. Both Alan and Ellie had been witness to Billy showing off some of his more impressive scars to an appreciative audience of young fans, and they had known then that Billy would be all right. Billy had picked up his life again, but the shadows had lingered.
Which was why Billy enjoyed being out in the middle of nowhere on a dig. Here he had ceased to be a constant object of curiosity as people grew used to him and his history, but last night Ellie had arrived to check up on her friends with her own eyes, still worried for them, and so they'd stayed in town, and people had stared.
Worse, even though the conversation had steered well clear of Isla Surna it was still the large raptor in the room everyone was too polite to mention and both Alan and Billy had been touched by the nightmares that night.
Now they were driving back out to the dig, Alan at the wheel. Billy was leaning back in his seat, sullen or sleepy of both, watching the scenery go by.
Billy's moods these days washed back and forth like the tides and Alan patted Billy's jeans clad thigh as he changed gears, just a reassuring touch, as though he was trying to keep hold of Billy, to keep him from falling away again.
Billy flicked him the ghost of a smile, then turned back to staring out the truck window, alone with his thoughts, and Alan saw the shadows lengthening.
