isamazed

Title: Be careful what you wish for
Author: isamazed
Word count: approx. 4,200
Characters: Ryan/Lester, Becker, Lyle, Danny, Cutter, Ditzy, Matt, Blade, (incl. a surprise pairing!), OCs
Rating: M
Warnings: *points to title*, also one element could potentially be seen as dub-con
Disclaimer: Primeval belongs to Impossible Pictures. I only write for fun…
Summary: Weird things happen at the Minister’s annual Christmas ball.
A/N: This is the Secret Santa for knitekat . I hope you’ll like it. Have a very merry Christmas!
Lyle, Ditzy and Blade are fredbassett ’s. A big THANK YOU goes to her for thesuper speedy beta! All remaining mistakes are my own.

The annual Christmas ball at the Minister’s country estate was one of the few occasions that made Ryan question his decision to request a permanent deployment to the ARC. This year more than ever.

Generally, his work at the Ability Risk Control, ARC for short, gave him a sense of pride and purpose. Ever since they’d come into existence, there’d been a steady decline of magical accidents and attacks. They watched over magicians who had used their abilities in unethical and unlawful ways. One prime example being the ex-wife of one of their magical creatures professors, one (bat-shit crazy if you asked Ryan) Helen Cutter, who had used her ability to manipulate space and time to start a flourishing business dealing in prehistoric creatures. The ARC still had an entire out-of-time zoo while they were looking for someone to reverse the dilemma. Mrs. Cutter, of course, refused to help clean up her mess.

They also taught control to the people next door who were shocked to discover that their abilities manifested in ways like random explosions or sucking all the water out of the soil within a 50-mile radius.

Yep, that water-sucking thing had been a bit of a bummer, but with a careful combination of spells and coercing a thunderstorm into helping they had finally got the accumulated water back to where it belonged. Nevertheless, dealing with the freaked-out hormonal teenager who had caused all the excitement had made Ryan almost feel like a social worker. Which was a career path he had very deliberately not chosen.

Although that was always an option if he decided to leave the ARC. With his own set of magical skills, they would hire him on the spot for any type of social work.

Ryan’s abilities lay primarily in projecting a sense of calm and confidence, paired with a talent in protection and deflection spells. Contrary to popular belief, the forces didn’t favour only those with more aggressive forms of magic but had long since realised that it was a healthy mix of abilities that made up the most successful teams. So Ryan had climbed the ranks, moved to special forces and finally landed at the ARC.

Today, though, wasn’t even a tiny little bit like a normal day at work for him and his team. The minister had pulled rank and demanded the ARC to deal with the security issues around this stupid ball. Of which there naturally were a ton.

Which is why they’d spent Christmas Eve guarding the fancy crowds and scanning for intruders and hidden destructive spells. A task not made any easier by the fact that the minister had opted for a bloody masked ball, which in a world of magic meant that everyone used a little wizardry for their masquerade.

Ryan was still in denial about the level of stupidity it took to make such a decision.

At least it meant he could ogle his partner’s behind once in a while. Lester (who happened to be Ryan’s boss as well as his partner) was a real charmer (in every magical and non-magical, honest and sarcastic sense of the meaning) among the guests. However, he had refused wear a full costume, only going so far as summoning a Venetian mask. Ryan had made sure he’d picked the suit that hugged his arse perfectly, though.

The ball had been in full swing for a couple of hours and children, who in Ryan’s mind had no business still being out and about, were milling around the estate, playing hide and seek and trying out their magic, all full of mischief. So far, Ryan’s team had caught a Christmas tree that had been magically equipped with legs (and who had decided the ball’s noise wasn’t for him, ergo making a break), and reversed a spell that had made the marble fountain flow mulled wine instead of water. Ryan wondered if they’d ever get the stone back to its normal white colour but that wasn’t his problem.

The whole thing was also playing havoc with Lyle’s abilities. His magic concentrated on spotting impending doom, making him an invaluable addition to the ARC. That he was friends with Ryan and had a hilarious (and sometime headache-inducing) brand of humour didn’t hurt in their line of work, either. His abilities, though, were the reason he was currently manning the main entrance with Ryan.

All the while, Becker, who could zero in on targets from scary distances (and could make a whole pound of sugar turn into salt with just one look – the annual ARC Christmas cookie baking was always good for a surprise) and Danny, who was talented in sensing structural security risks (and so driving Becker up the walls – literally more often than not) were walking the perimeter. More team members were keeping an eye on the ball itself. Apart from the aforementioned incidents, everything was going smoothly so far.

“Don’t jinx it, boss,” Lyle said and pulled Ryan out of his train of thought.

“I didn’t even say anything,” he protested.

“Yeah, no need to, that satisfied smile said enough. Seriously though, my thumbs are permanently itching with these bloody kids. I can’t even guarantee any more that I’d realise if someone really was up to no good; other than them, I mean,” Lyle huffed.

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. So far everything’s nice and a few little pranks haven’t hurt anybody. A masquerade ball, though.” He shook his head. “And then they complain they don’t know what to do about security.”

His radio chose that moment to crackle alive with Lester’s voice. “Ryan, Lester here. Can you come up to the bathroom on the first floor on the right wing? We’ve got a bit of a situation over here and need your help.”

He eyed Lyle reproachfully. Nothing good starts with ‘I need your help’.

“Don’t look at me like that. With those kids there’s no telling if it’s a serious threat or just a cloud raining candy canes.” Lyle shrugged.

With a roll of his eyes, Ryan left. When he rounded the corner of the first floor hallway, he found his lover standing in front of a door, the look on his face halfway between amused and pinched. Ryan briefly checked the area and when he found it empty, he gave Lester a peck on the cheek. Their relationship was by no means a secret, but Lester hated public displays of affection in the vicinity of people with whom he had to play the game that was politics.

“So, what does this ‘situation’ entail, darling?” Ryan asked.

“Well, the minister’s son and the Canadian ambassador’s daughter got… Let’s call it ‘stuck’.”

“Stuck? Surely you should’ve called the caretaker and not the Head of Security?”

“Believe me, we don’t want anyone to know about this,” Lester replied, leaving Ryan puzzled.

Lester turned around and knocked on the door. “William, Claire? This is Lester. I’ve got Ryan, my Head of Security, with me. May we come in?”

“Yeah, yes, come in,” came a pitiful reply.

Ryan was surprised to find Lester checking the hallway again before opening the door barely wide enough to squeeze through inside the elegant and obscenely large bathroom. As soon as they were both inside, he immediately locked the door.

“What the…?” Ryan’s words trailed off.

“Hey, Mr. Ryan,” the young man, William, greeted him sheepishly while an equally young woman who must have been Claire hid her face in the crook of his neck. The ear Ryan could see was burning red.

Startled, Ryan looked to where the voice came from and through the obscenely large room just to… His eyes widened. The young couple, barely 20, was perched on one of two huge plush velvet armchairs. William’s slacks and underpants were in a heap around his ankles and Claire was sitting astride his lap, her dress pulled down over her bottom just far enough to hide where they were obviously still joined. ‘Stuck’ as Lester had put it.

William tried to sit up straight which led to Claire letting out a sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan, immediately followed by the boy closing his eyes and huffing out a barely controlled breath.

Ryan turned to Lester, cocked his head to the side with an unbelieving and expectant look. “Explain,” he demanded.

“His knot won’t go down.”

“His… What? His knot?”

“Yes, his knot. Any ideas?”

His knot, Ryan repeated in his head. The boy had a knot. How did he have a knot? They were wizards, not werewolves. Did werewolves even have knots? Were there werewolves at all? Probably not, considering not even the ARC had come across any as yet. So, no knots anywhere. There was no precedent for knots. And even if there was, how would he know about it? It’s not like you go into combat waiving your cock.

Well, there was a surprising amount of cock waiving at base or in the camps, but that was beside the point, Ryan thought.

Facing the young couple again, he fixed his eyes on the boy. “You have a knot,” he accused.

William lit up like a tomato. “Ehm, I usually don’t?” he suggested.

“But you do now. How?”

The boy gulped. “I don’t know? It just kind of happened? We thought it would be kind of, ehm, great, and then suddenly I had one?”

“Bugger me, please don’t tell me that’s where your wolf and Red Riding Hood costumes come from?”

The pair looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“So, it’s a spell? Why don’t you just reverse it then?”

Claire whimpered and William winced.

“It’s not exactly a spell. We just really wanted it, then I suddenly had it.” The young man now looked severely disconcerted.

“No spell then,” Ryan summarised.

“No,” the boy said regretfully.

“Well…” Ryan scratched his chin. “Shit.”

“We were hoping you could help, darling? You are an expert in deflection spells, after all,” Lester chimed in.

“Yes, exactly, deflection spells. Which means rerouting a spell before it hits. The hitting has clearly taken place already, and it’s not a spell.”

William’s face got even redder (who would have thought that was even possible?) and Claire visibly tightened her hold where she was grabbing his shirt.

Ryan sighed. “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. I am going to call Ditzy. He’s our unit’s medic. He’s not a vet, and since knots aren’t exactly human, I don’t know if he’ll know what to do, but he obviously knows his way around biology, so let’s give it a try.”

“Excellent idea, darling. What do you say, Claire, William? Shall we?” Lester smiled and clapped his hands as if the couple wasn’t still half-naked and occasionally moaning obscenely.

+++

Ten minutes later, Lester and Ryan were shooed out of the bathroom. As expected, Ditzy hadn’t encountered such a situation (for situation read knots) before but had thrown himself into it with excited curiosity. He assumed that the knot would go down in time if the couple relaxed a bit. He’d helped Claire and William out with a bit of cream so that they wouldn’t get sore and the three of them had settled in for a wait. Apparently Ditzy didn’t think that Ryan wondering out loud whether the knot would make a reappearance during future sexy times was helpful, hence the shooing out.

The young couple hadn’t looked happy at all, so Ryan assumed that knotting wasn’t half the fun they’d expected. He could understand, though. When Ditzy helped them apply some of the cream, Ryan caught a brief look at the size of the knot and just thinking of having something like that inside him made his arse hurt. No, not happening, thank you very much.

Ryan turned to his partner and fixed him with a glare. “No. Knots. Ever. Don’t you even think about it. I am too old for this shit.”

“Oh, but you would look so beautiful on my knot, darling,” Lester replied and looped his arm through Ryan’s and patted the limb gently.

“No. Knots.” There couldn’t be any room for doubt.

Lester chuckled and led him down the hallway. Just a few yards down though, he suddenly stopped in front of a pair of French doors leading out to a balcony and let go of Ryan when he stepped closer to them.

“Darling, remind me again of the weather report,” he said pleasantly.

“Ten degrees, no clouds. Why?”

“Because it’s snowing outside.” Lester gestured towards the glass doors.

Ryan swivelled his head around to look outside and indeed, big fat snowflakes were slowly falling from the sky.

This was going to be one long night, Ryan thought. He could only hope that the morning would be an improvement.

“Bloody witchcraft. Life would be so much easier without all this magical bullshit,” he swore under his breath and snatched up Lester’s hand and led him to the front door and back to Lyle.

The soldier was eyeing a flock of people babbling in wonder about the unexpected snowfall. It was too warm and the snow melted before really reaching the ground, but a group of excited kids, none older than five, ran around trying to catch the flakes with their mouths. Ryan still thought that they had no business being up at this hour at all.

“Oh, good, you’re back. I was just about to radio you. Look, it’s snowing,” Lyle said conversationally.

Ryan gave him a side eye.

“Thank you for the succinct description of the current weather phenomenon, lieutenant,” Lester replied. “Any ideas how that came to be?”

“Not a fucking clue, sir.” Lyle grinned. “It’s pretty, though.”

“No threat then?” Ryan peered down to the soldier’s hands where his magic usually manifested with a strong itch in his thumbs.

“I don’t feel different from before. And none of the kids who started eating the snow has exploded yet.” Lyle shrugged unapologetically.

Lester lifted an eyebrow and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “If that happens and one of your fingers did just so much as tingle, you are going to explain to the minister exactly why Security was standing by watching people eat disguised bombs, when we were explicitly hired to unmask black magic during this display of thinly veiled ignorance and self-adulation.”

Just then a little girl (Ryan wasn’t sure but he thought she was dressed up as some Disney princess who’d iced her entire kingdom) threw herself into the skirts of a woman (masked as said princess’s sister?) and crowed, “Look, mummy, it’s snowing! I was wishing for it so much, and now it’s snowing! This is awesome! Can we build a snowman, mummy? And charm it, just like Olaf in the movie? I want snowman hugs!”

Her mother patted her hair. “Yes, darling, it’s snowing. I am so happy for you. It’s too warm to stay, though, I am afraid. How about we go inside and build a snowman from the marshmallow buffet, sweetie?”

“YES!!! Marshmallow snowman!!! You are the bestest!”

As they watched mother and child retreat, Ryan’s radio came to life again.

Danny’s amused voice sounded over the static. “We’re at the rose garden, Ryan. You might want to come by before there’s nothing left of it.”

Ryan released a heavy sigh and let his shoulders slump. That didn’t sound good.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Nothing left? Spill, Quinn.”

There were wrestling noises on the other end and a high-pitched “ouch” and then Becker’s voice replied. “The situation is under control, Ryan. We have a Santa who insists he’s the one and only, a sleigh loaded with presents and a herd of reindeer. They’re happily chewing on the remaining leaves of the roses. Cutter saw them landing and is now poking at the one animal with the red nose. I swear, if he gets trampled, I won’t own up for this. I told the blithering idiot to get away from those hooves.”

After a beat of silence, Ryan cleared his throat and asked, “You two realize that drinking on the job is a big no-no, right?” Those two paired up were a recipe for disaster. He really should’ve known better.

There was a commotion on the other end again and what sounded like an entire busload of squealing kids running by.

“Believe me, I’d prefer this to be a hallucination from too much booze. Sadly, I haven’t drunk a single drop. On another note, I’ve changed my mind. We need some backup here because a dozen children have just swamped the rose garden and are now trying to ride the bloody animals.”

“Roger, we’re on our way. Hold your position.”

Ryan radioed Matt and Blade to guard the entrance to the house, trusting that the pair looked threatening enough for nobody to attempt anything and motioned to Lyle to follow him and Lester to check up on the rose garden.

“So, we have knotting, snow at 10 degrees and Santa with his reindeer. Any ideas? A curse maybe?” Lester said.

“Knotting?” Lyle perked up.

Ryan ignored him. “A curse usually has really bad consequences. So far, nobody’s been really harmed.”

“Tell that to William and Claire. I am sure they’re scarred for life. The minister will probably have to wait a long while until he gets any grandchildren.” Lester replied.

A few minutes later, they arrived at their destination and true to Becker’s word, they were faced with a tank-sized sleigh, an overweight man in a Santa costume handing out presents to bystanders and a group of kids trying to mount the small herd of reindeer. Only a lanky boy, maybe seven-years-old, dressed as Zorro, had succeeded yet and Cutter, grinning from ear to ear, was leading him and his reindeer around the rose garden, all the while babbling about reindeer and their magical and non-magical relatives as well as possible explanations for the brightly glowing nose of the very specific reindeer in question. For once, the perpetually grumpy Scotsman seemed in an excellent mood.

All the while Becker was ranting at the gaggle of kids to stay away from the animals while a few yards away, Danny seemed to have decided not to waste the opportunity and was trying to sneak a present from the sleigh.

“Oi, what’s going on here?” Ryan shouted over the clamour, and Danny froze guiltily in the middle of hiding a wrapped gift in his jacket, while Becker just stopped scolding the kids long enough to be sure that one of the others was going to explain the situation. And since Cutter, boy on the reindeer in tow, was walking towards the new arrivals, he chose to continue yelling at the children some more. Of course, they completely ignored him.

Ryan used the opportunity to cast a few protection spells on everyone around. He’d made a really painful acquaintance with a unicorn hoof once, an experience he didn’t wish others to make as well. He again silently bemoaned the fact that apparently today’s parents were unable to put their children to bed at a reasonable hour.

They met Cutter and his companions halfway and the professor gestured towards the brightly grinning boy on the back of the animal. “Meet Jason and Rudolph. Tell them what you told me, mate.” He nodded encouragingly at the boy.

By that time, Becker and Danny had given up on their respective tasks and joined the group as well.

“My friends didn’t believe that I could ride without a saddle, so I wished that I could show them how good I was while riding one of Santa’s reindeer! And look, I can do it!” the boy blurted proudly.

And in that moment, the same thought struck Lester and Ryan. They looked at each other completely flabbergasted.

“Let me check one thing,” Ryan said and again dug out his radio to speak to their medic. “Ditzy, can you find out what exactly William and Claire said before the… before their situation occurred?”

“Roger that, boss. Just a sec…”

“Ooooh, they wished,” Lyle said wide-eyed.

“Let me confirm that for you,” Danny grinned.

Both Lyle and Danny continued to speak at basically the same time, and a half second after Lyle’s mischievous “I wish I was a girl for one day,” Danny said “I wish all the ladies here were into me”.

And that’s how Danny found himself ravished by a distinctly female Lyle while a few disappointed women watched them from the other end of the rose garden.

“Hell, that’s going to be awkward tomorrow,” Ryan said. “Hey, you two, tone it down a little. Not in front of the kids!”

Lester pinched the bridge of his nose, looking like he was fighting a losing battle with the beginning of a headache.

Ditzy confirmed that indeed, William and Claire had wished for a good knotting, not that there was a doubt left considering how She-Lyle and Danny were practically eating each other in front of them.

Before anyone could react, Becker blurted, “Tank! I wish I had a tank!”

And suddenly there were huge spiralling lights through which a combat-ready tank rolled into the fine garden and waltzed all over the carefully trimmed plants.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me! We knew you were young for a captain, but we thought you had at least grown out of kindergarten,” Lester bellowed. “You better hope this one hasn’t disappeared from somewhere it’s actually needed, captain!”

Becker, looking only slightly guilty, decided on a tactical retreat and went to explore his new plaything.

Lester looked heavenwards in search of help. He really didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this. Finally, he just stared at Ryan and folded his arms in front of his chest, obviously putting him charge of clearing up this mess.

“I wish the one responsible for the wishes coming true was right here,” Ryan said, wand at the ready.

In a bout of green dust, a small, bearded man in a green suit appeared in front of them. According to the stream of swearwords falling from his mouth, he was not at all amused to be found out.

“Sir, I wish you would explain what exactly is going on here,” Lester inquired.

“Bloody humans! Think they can have everything they want. Even my gold! You can’t have my gold! I was only showing you the chaos that would ensue if you got everything you wanted!” The tiny man stomped the ground angrily but still couldn’t help himself answering Lester’s question. It surprised Ryan from time and time how little of Lester’s charms were needed to get people to cooperate. The only exception to date being the menace that was Helen Cutter.

“So, this is all just you educating people? Sheesh, a bit of an overreaction, don’t you think?” Ryan shook his head.

“It’s not your gold everyone is after, you… you… you boy scout!”

Ryan just raised an eyebrow at that. Lester’s charms were really doing their thing. The poor guy couldn’t even insult him properly any more.

“So what’s going to happen if we unwish all this? Can you reverse it?”

“Reverse? Did you hit your head too often? There should be more brain in that big head of yours! Of course, I cannot just undo all of this. Do you have any idea how much mind altering that would entail? What’s temporary will just fade within a day or two and the rest, well, deal with it! You wished for it, you greedy, huge –“

“All right, lad, we got it,” Cutter interrupted. “So, any last wishes before we put an end to this? I really need to use the time to study this nose before the reindeer attached to it just disappears.”

“Well, in fact, one thing comes to mind,” Lester said, surprising Ryan a good deal. Usually, Lester wasn’t one to use anything job-related to his own gain. “I wish Monty and the other prehistoric creatures could go back to their own time.”

Ryan felt warmth surging through him at his lover wishing the stranded animals back home. No charms needed.

Lester squeezed his hand briefly. “Anything else, darling?”

“I’ve got everything I could ever wish for,” Ryan said and pressed a kiss to his lover’s temple.

Cutter grumbled something that sounded distinctly like “disgusting” and turned around to poke the reindeer some more.

“All right then,” Ryan squared his shoulders and fixed a hard stare on the small, green man. “I wish for no more wishes to magically come true any more, just regular non-magical wishes-coming-true situations from now on.”

The tiny man pulled a face, huffed and then disappeared in a second cloud of green dust.

“Lovely.” Lester clapped his hands. “With that taken care of, who’s going to call Ditzy to equip Danny and Lyle with a box of condoms? I really don’t want to deal with a male pregnancy just because those two can’t keep their hands off each other tonight!”

A/N: Based on the prompts 1) Masquerade, 2) It had been a very long night, and the morning didn’t seem to be an improvement, 3) Nothing good ever starts with ‘I need your help’, 4) Magic/Magical. I didn’t get all of them in there, but they were a great challenge 😊 I did manage to squeeze a bit of fluff, creatures, Monty, team and a tiny adventure in there, I hope. And with regards to a happy ending… Well, let’s let Danny and Lyle decide on this one, shall we? 😉

A/N2: In case it’s not coming out properly, our culprit is supposed to be a Leprechaun. In my mind, his name is Lenny!