Title: Birthday Boy
Author: Ponytales
Rating: PG-13 for some bad words
Disclaimer: I don't own Primeval, if I did there would be a lot more snuggling and way too much PDA.
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"Why didn't you tell us today was your birthday?" Connor managed to shout across the whole entire operations floor early one Tuesday morning. Becker froze in the door for just an instant before he cursed quietly and walked into the room, glaring at Jess.
She shrugged. "I didn't say anything. He found out on his own." Highly skeptical, Becker gave her the eyebrow of doom but she only giggled. "He got an email about it, and so did I." Jess disavowed all knowledge of disseminating top secret birthday information.
It did not escape his attention that two of his men were very casually slipping out the door heading towards the barracks, probably to arrange something embarrassing and not funny at all that he would then have to shout at them about. But they wouldn't really care because to a soldier an ass-chewing was only an ass-chewing and birthday pranks were always hysterical to everyone except the victim and totally worth the verbal fall out.
Someone sending out a mass message about his birthday was a really low blow.
That someone was getting an ass kicking, not just a chewing. "Email? From who?" By then Connor had joined them around the detector. Becker turned to face his friend. "What email?"
"From Facebook. See?" Connor set his laptop down on Jess's desk and pulled up his email. Right there in blue and white was a deceptively cheerful email from Facebook, "You have 1 friend with a birthday today."
The birthday boy groaned and rubbed his forehead. "Facebook betrayed me," he lamented and ignored Jess's giggles. "Why did I ever let you talk me into getting on there?"
"Because you have to join the twenty first century somehow." Jess answered him a bit severely. She was a still a bit annoyed he rarely posted anything on FB. 'That defeats the purpose of social networking if you never update Becker!' Jess had tried to explain it to him weeks ago and he had only responded with that inscrutable look. That look said, 'please, keep talking Jessica.'
He had learned he could keep her babbling on until she put her foot in her mouth spectacularly. During that conversation she kept talking until she sounded like a crazy stalker girl that was checking his page for updates fifty times a day. Once she realized that and shut up, she blushed furiously whenever she saw him for the next two days. He smiled to himself just remembering. Everybody needed a hobby. Making Jess blush and squirm was his.
By now Connor had pulled up Becker's facebook page. His profile picture was a beautifully etched limited edition Colt .45 that he had selected the first day and never changed. He wasn't tagged in any pictures. His very first wall post was 'Due to surprisingly effective peer pressure I have now joined the needy masses desiring positive affirmation of my existence and joined Facebook. Hurray.' He didn't even put a smiley face on it.
All his other posts were very brief comments on someone else's status.
Becker sighed and braced himself for another lecture on social media from Jess and the importance of keeping up with people from Connor. It was a lecture he really didn't need. He stayed in touch with people just fine through email, where the whole world couldn't see every little detail. It wasn't everyone's business anyway. This birthday was getting worse and worse.
"Look at this!" Connor was leaning over the computer and grinning like a damned chipmunk. Becker rolled his eyes. "What?" Connor highlighted the birthday information. Specifically, the year.
"I'm older than you!" The nerd was acting like that was some big earth shattering revelation. Becker didn't understand his fascination. "So?"
Connor looked at him like he was daft. "So? So? I'm older. I always thought you were older, y'know, the way you always act so bossy."
Becker resigned himself to the fact that work was not going to get done anytime soon. "I'm bossy because I'm. The. Boss. Connor." He explained it very slowly, using small words.
"Actually I'm the boss." Lester had walked up behind them, curious as to what exactly was going on. He had been in his office and didn't hear Connor's announcement to the world about Becker's birthday.
"Oh, it's Becker's birthday today." Jess informed him and resolutely ignored the glare Becker sent her direction. Lester didn't seem impressed with any of them. He rarely seemed impressed with any of them even when they had done something impressive. This certainly wasn't one of those occasions.
"Oh. Well, don't expect me to sing you happy birthday," Lester tossed off sarcastically, "Can we get some work done today or are we all waiting around for a happy little clown and magician to arrive?"
"Sorry, getting back to work now," Connor replied and he closed the internet browser on his laptop. Lester treated them all to a general harrumph and he wandered off to see who else he could harangue before he had to return to the dreaded budget forms waiting on his desk.
Becker picked up a black box with a fresh battery, his whole reason for walking into the ops floor when Abby came through the double doors. It was a good thing Lester had vanished because Connor immediately forgot about working again. Connor could focus like a laser beam on something but unfortunately, he had the multitasking ability of a gerbil and right now his laser beam wasn't focused on 'work.'
"Hey Abby!" Connor hollered at her as soon as she walked into the ops floor, "I'm older than Action Man." He seemed so pleased with himself, like he had actually accomplished something by being born a year sooner.
Abby seemed a bit surprised that this was newsworthy. "So? Does that matter?"
He batted his puppy dog eyes at her. "Abby, it always matters. I've got a whole year more life experience-"
The derisive snort coming from the birthday boy was audible to the whole room but Connor kept on with his explanation. "I've got a whole year more maturity-"
This time Becker couldn't keep it in, "Connor, sometimes Rex has more maturity than you." He just couldn't let this continue or Connor would be insufferable. Becker strolled over to where his friend was standing. "You might be a year older..." he leaned in a little, just enough to see Connor get slightly tense and curious what he was going to try. Becker dropped his voice just a hair. "But I'll always be taller."
With that parting shot he headed off to the barracks to cheerfully derail any plans his soldiers were plotting about his birthday. Maybe a nice long run around the perimeter a few times was in order. Jess and Abby's laughter serenaded him out of the room. Maybe this birthday wouldn't be so bad after all.
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Fin
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