A Fresh Start

Tremors: The Subtext story #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.

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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.