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A Fresh Start
Tremors: the Subtext #1
by Setcheti
Rating: FRT:MV,MP,SLC
Spoilers: Feeding Frenzy, Ghost Dance, Project 4-12
Disclaimer: I don’t own Tremors, nor would I want to: it’s
in great hands now as it is.
Author’s Note: I started tagging episodes of Tremors a while
back, starting with the giant killer shrimp episode (“Water Hazard”),
mainly because I noticed a lot of subtext going on between Burt and Tyler
and I wanted to explore it. And the more I wrote, the more I noticed…and a
bunch of half-finished tags became a half-finished series of snippets and
missing scenes.
Additional Note: I love Tremors, and I’m a huge fan of Michael
Gross. And I’ve been told he sometimes cruises fanfic, so if he’s reading
this…No, Mr. Gross, I don’t think you’re gay. Please don’t be offended,
this wasn’t intended to insult you.
Burt Gummer adjusted his glasses against the glare of
the harsh desert sun and peered out across the flat valley floor to where a
fragile plume of dust marked instant death’s current hiding place. El
Blanco was restless today for some reason, and that was reason enough for
Burt to be keeping the rocky ridge between them instead of driving around
at a distance like he usually did. Not that his all-terrain vehicle
couldn’t outrun the Graboid; it could, it had…but Burt didn’t take chances
he didn’t have to. He had too much to lose.
He smiled. Far too much to lose, now. More than he’d
ever expected to have, especially after his wife had left. Having someone
else share his life was something Burt had never given much thought to
after that, he’d just resigned himself to being alone.
And then he’d run into a ‘tourist’ out by the sign he’d
told Twitchell they shouldn’t have put up. El Blanco had just sucked down
the man’s car, and he’d found out later that Tyler Reed probably would have
gotten away car and all if he hadn’t been trying to help another, stupider
tourist who’d been eaten before the car had. His first impression of Tyler had been indignant blue eyes, deep as the desert sky, and they’d struck him so
deeply that he’d been a little more rude with the man than he usually was.
Tyler had bowed to his authority, backed off, but he
hadn’t backed down. Burt was to discover very quickly that Tyler didn’t back down for anyone, and it intrigued him. Jack, the previous owner of the
tour business, had been brash and loud and something of a con artist; Burt
had tolerated him, but not much more than that. Tyler, however, was
forthright rather than brash, not prone to empty posturing but not at all
reticent about his capabilities either. There was a quiet confidence about
him that said he was a man who knew who he was, but there was also an
inexplicable hint of well-concealed vulnerability there and the combination
drew Burt like a magnet.
So when the rumors started, placing the man in a
different woman’s bed every week, he was somewhat shocked. He knew that
the racing circuit wasn’t exactly a hotbed of abstinence, but he hadn’t
thought Tyler was the type. And several of those rumors had the younger
man out dallying at times when Burt knew him to have been somewhere else
and alone…something wasn’t adding up. And Burt Gummer didn’t like things
that didn’t add up, not one little bit, so he’d pulled back a little to
reassess the situation. But then Cletus had shown up, half out of his head
and looking for a monster – his personal and lovingly nurtured monster, no
less – and Burt had found himself almost instinctively relying on Tyler anyway. It felt natural. It felt right.
It felt too right, which was all wrong. And
Cletus had thought it was funny, and he’d told Burt a few things when they
were alone that had opened his eyes – Tyler was obviously interested in him
too – and pointed out a few things that Gummer wouldn’t have though of on
his own – like the fact that you didn’t have to be a full-out homosexual to
be interested in another man. He’d also had advice. “Take a little time
to get your head on straight about this before you jump in,” he’d said.
“He’s not going anywhere, and you’ll just screw things up if you rush.
When the time is right, you’ll know.”
Burt had found the advice sound and taken it. Weeks
later he’d still been dancing around Tyler, trying to figure out what he
wanted and why at his age he suddenly wanted it now, when they’d
found out about the abandoned underground lab and encountered the
aquaphilic bacteria cloud. Tyler had been right there beside him through
the whole thing, easy, natural, no problem…until the younger man had
volunteered himself to go after the bacteria with their hastily
cobbled-together vacuum containment chamber. Burt’s heart had been in his
throat the entire time; he knew – and so did Cletus – that the motor had
burned out not because of the amperage running through it but because
Gummer in his anxiety had been giving it too much gas.
Cletus had taken him aside and talked to him afterwards,
before the old man had gone back to his shack on the other side of the
valley. Burt had been ashamed and furious with himself, but Cletus hadn’t
given him an inch. “No one knows but you and I and no one else is going
to,” he’d said flatly. “You almost screwed up, but you had a damn good
reason – you’d seen that thing feed and the rest of them hadn’t.” He’d
made a face. “I’d seen it feed too, once, right before we sealed it up,
and even after twenty years I didn’t have any trouble imagining what was
going to happen if that suit wasn’t as air-tight as it was supposed to be.
Just a pinhole would have done it.”
“I know.” And Burt had; he’d been watching through the
binoculars when the EPA agent had bought his ticket to the afterlife
courtesy of a cracked faceplate. “But that still doesn’t excuse…”
“You being human?” Cletus’ tone had been sarcastic,
bitingly so. “Let me tell you something, Mister Professional Monster
Killer, that boy was scared absolutely shitless when he walked into that
cloud; he didn’t know if the suit had a leak in it either, you know. But
then his adrenaline kicked in and he was fine, and he’ll be ‘fine’ for a
couple more hours tonight until the rush wears off…and when it does he’s gonna
come apart at the seams. You know I’m right,” he’d insisted when Burt had
started to protest. “You’ve been there, you know exactly what I’m talking
about. He’s a tough kid, but this is outside of his experience and he’s
gonna wake up at about 3 a.m. thinking that thing is eating him, so the
question is are you gonna be there to hold him together when it happens or
will you be at home in your hidey-hole sucking on your feelings of
inadequacy?” When Burt had hesitated the old man had snorted and fixed him
with a firm glare. “It’s time, Gummer, and you know it. You’re
either there or you’re not.”
Tyler woke up screaming at 2:48 a.m. and then threw up until his body had nothing left to eject. Burt had been there, steadying him,
grounding him, cleaning him up, and then just holding him until he’d
stopped shaking. Tyler fell asleep in his arms, and the next nightmare
died a quick death when one of the younger man’s hands twitched against his
chest and curled over his heart; never in his life had Burt felt so
trusted. And the next morning after a slightly awkward awakening, they’d
talked.
And talked, and talked. And then did a little bit more
than that, almost by accident, after which they relocated back to Burt’s
compound and tried it again on purpose. They reluctantly came back to town
the next day with the cover story that they’d decided to become partners,
and just like Cletus had assured Burt would happen everyone misunderstood
at once and their secret was safe.
The partnership worked and worked well. Tyler was, by his own admission, an adrenaline junkie; he didn’t just like taking
risks, he needed to. Burt could understand that, and he also
understood that most people couldn’t handle being involved with someone who
lived life on the edge. He and Tyler were more alike than he would have
originally thought; outward appearances aside, they were both very private
people, both self-reliant, and both highly suspicious.
Of course, Tyler had better reason than Burt to be
paranoid; Gummer was the only person in Perfection who knew why the younger
man had really left racing. Supposition around town and in Bixby was that
he’d cracked up on the track and lost his nerve, which was partially true.
Tyler had been in an accident on the track, and he had lost his
nerve, but the two things weren’t as directly related as they might seem;
what no one else knew was that the crack-up hadn’t been an accident.
Someone in Tyler’s pit crew had found out about his sexual orientation and
had ‘forgotten’ to tighten a few lug nuts after his third lap. Tyler had walked away from the crash, a testament to his skill as a driver, but the call
had been too close even for him once he knew why it had happened. The
homophobe who’d started the whole thing had paid a little on account for
costing Tyler Reed his career, though; Tyler had run across him in a bar
one night, the man had gloated over what he’d done…and Tyler had mopped the
floor with him. The fight had introduced him to Desert Jack, and less than
a week later he’d moved to Perfection for a fresh start.
And Burt swore to himself that his lover was going to
get one.
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