Things fall apart 5/5 : The second coming by fawsley, blue cortina with Gene and Sam
Title: Things fall apart 5/5 : The second coming
Author: fawsley
Characters: Gene/Sam
Rating: blue Cortina
Warnings: like the Curate's egg, angsty in parts
Word Count: 2800 (how the hell did that happen?)
Disclaimer: not my characters, all the property of Kudos and the BBC
Notes: I could have made it into six chapters at this rate, but let's just call this one double-bubble to round things off with.
Previous eps here: 1: A Keystone Cop, 2: Norfolk Bronze, 3 : Five minutes with me and you'll sing like a canary, 4 : The talented Mr Hunt
Things fall apart 5/5 : The second coming
He hated paperwork. And, doubtless, paperwork hated him back.
But he did it, got his head down and did it because, well, because it had to be done and if he didn’t do it then it’d pile up and up and up until it fell over on top of someone, though there were some people he’d like to see that happen to. And because without a DI there was twice as much for him to get through by himself. And because when he’d had a DI, a certain DI, that particular DI had been so damn hot on paperwork it was a miracle the whole place hadn’t gone up in flames on a regular basis. And because these days he always seemed to be able to hear Cartwright whispering in his ear even when she wasn’t in the same building, stuff about ‘working with the changes he made’ and ‘honouring his memory’. Cartwright could be a right picky pain at times.
Gene sighed deeply to himself without realising he was doing it. Stuck here long after hours, almost after closing time into the bargain, rubber-stamping reports when he could have been down the Arms sinking a pint or three. Stuck here in the pool of light from his desk lamp, only shadows for company, shadows that seemed to thicken and darken with every passing hour.
Sam’s loss was a hot needle through his soul, pushed one way by the guilt of what he’d done to try to get him home, driven back the other by the fact that it hadn’t worked. He’d even gone to Rathbone, gone crawling to the Super and asked that if Tyler didn’t work out in Norfolk then he be free to return to Manchester if he wanted. Asked - not ranted, not demanded, not threatened. How bloody humiliating was that? And Rathbone had watched him squirm, watched him writhe in his agony, then kept him waiting for an answer for two weeks whilst he jollied off to Morecambe, hankie on his head and no doubt interfering with the donkeys.
Damn it! Got to get the paperwork finished, not sit there running over and over and over again what had happened, what hadn’t happened, what should have happened. All too late now. Sam was lost to him, lost to them all. Cartwright was whispering at him again to get his head down. Funny, he knew damn well she was out with her mates at the flicks tonight but it was almost as if there was a presence in the room with him. He shuddered and applied his rubber stamp with particular vigour.
‘Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! Stamp on all yer bloody soddin’ reports!’
But by now the ink-pad had died from overwork and desiccation - much the way he’d go, he supposed - so he rooted around in the depths of the second drawer down for a new one, only to uncover another unhealthy helping of guilt. For a moment he just stared.
‘An’ you can bloody shut up as well, Tyler! All so soddin’ smug an’ sanctimonious, stop starin’ at me like that! Sod off, yer mangy runt!’
The leaning tower of paperwork shuddered dangerously under the force of the drawer’s swift closure.
‘And I thought I was supposed to be the nutter who talked to people who weren’t there…’
Gene shot backwards from his desk in shock, reaching for the gun that wasn’t at his side.
‘What? What the fuck? Who’s there?’
‘…Never got to the stage of thinking they were living inside my desk, though.’
The shadows coalesced into a figure, a far too familiar figure.
‘Tyler! What the fuckin’ hell are you doin’ here? Scarin’ me like that. How d’yer get in here, anyhow?’
Sam perched on the edge of Gene’s desk, face an expressionless mask.
‘Just walked in. You were so busy with all this lot you never heard me. And it was just too tempting not to watch you actually do some work for a change.’
‘Little prick.’
‘Not what you said last time we met.’
‘Oh shut it you tart! If you’ve got nothin’ better to say you can just piss off back under whatever stone you crawled out from. What yer doin’ here anyway? Thought the glorious city of Manchester were no longer good enough for yer.’
Sam reached into his jacket pocket and deposited the contents upon Gene’s desk.
‘Thought I'd better return your property.’
Gene stared at the cuffs and gulped audibly.
‘Oh, right, well, erm, thank you. Dumpling found yer okay then?’
‘Eventually. It was some considerable time…’
‘Well if the dozy twats runnin’ that station had ever learned to pick up the phone it’d’ve been a darn sight quicker! Nearly turned tail an’ came back to unlock yer meself!’
‘So you did have the keys all along?’
‘Course I did! You think I planned all that? I were just wingin’ it, every step o’ the way.’
Sam nodded sarcastically.
‘Pretty impressive, even for you, Gene. DCI Dunning said that the tip-off came from one Colonel Mustard…’
Gene looked down and away, not wanting Sam to see the smirk he could hardly control.
‘In the bedroom with the handcuffs. Guilty as charged. An’ anyway, had to drive round the city three times before I could get that call through, ended up outside the Colman’s factory… So… Yer was okay, then, when Dumpling found yer?’
‘Oh yeah. Fine and dandy. Apart from being found stark bollock naked by the whole of Norwich CID. Apart from screaming the place down in pain when I tried to move my arms again. Apart from being crusted all over with a nice thick layer of quick-drying cum. Just perfect apart from that. Thanks for asking.’
Looking up, Gene was faced by an implacable blank wall of Tyler. If his smirk hadn’t already died an unhappy death it would have shrivelled up howling under the force of that stern gaze.
‘I’m sorry Sam. Really I am. Don’t say sorry very often an’ mean it even less, but believe me, right now I’m meanin’ it so much it bloody well hurts.’
‘Why the fuck did you do it, Gene?’
‘I wanted yer back here of course! Yer know that. And I told yer I was wingin’ it. When yer started really comin’ on to me, wantin’ somethin’ a bit rougher, well… Thought that if Dumpling found yer like that, last thing he’d want was some kinky depraved bastard on his team. Thought I could get yer back.’
‘And totally humiliate me in the process?’
‘I said I was sorry, Tyler! I weren’t thinkin’ straight. An’ anyway, you think you were humiliated? I went snivellin’ to Rathbone to try an’ swing it at this end for yer! Never goin’ to live that one down. Crawlin’ to the Super beggin’ him for favours, seein’ him laugh at me…’
‘What did he say?’
‘Rathbone? Well, eventually, when he finally deigned to give me an answer, reckoned it were all up to you anyway, that he couldn’t influence any decision. If yer really wanted back in here he wouldn’t block it, but that from what he understood yer was happy as Larry down amongst the turnip-munchers.’
Sam nodded slowly then eased himself off the desk. With that one movement Gene realised he was about to be left alone, that this was probably the last time he would ever see Sam Tyler. His stomach flipped sickeningly at the thought.
Gene Hunt knew he had been called many things. A brute, a boor, a Neanderthal, a thug. But deep down he was an honest man, a man of honour, and he knew when to call on that. He stood up from his chair and held out his hand.
‘Shake, Tyler? Before you go? You were and are and will always be the best bloody picky pain in the arse DI I ever worked with. I would have done anythin’ to get yer back on me team. Did just about everythin’ I could, even if it were all the wrong things an’ it were all a waste of effort. But I’d do it all again if it meant gettin’ yer arse back in that passenger seat.’
Sam looked at the proffered hand for a long moment before he nodded and accepted it.
‘Thanks,’ he muttered. ‘I think.’
It was all Gene could do not to fling his arms around Tyler and beg him never to leave. Instead he tried desperately to find something else to say, something to prolong the final moment of contact.
‘Well, it were good of yer, drivin' all this way just to return me cuffs…’
‘Didn’t. Still got ties here. People to see, places to go…’
‘Ah, yeah… Of course…’
‘Getting late, must be moving along. Got a couple of flats to check out before…’
‘Flats?! You’re checkin’ out flats?! What the fuckin’ hell…?’
‘Yeah, well if I’m coming back here there’s no way I’m living in that dump of a place again. Want to find somewhere clean and decent and…’
‘You fuckin’ bastard, Tyler! You mean all this time…’
‘All this time what, Gene?’
‘You fuckin’ tricked me!’
‘And now you know how it feels.’
Gene was torn between hugging or hitting Sam, ended up raging around his office, swiping all the darts trophies from their pride of place and demolishing the leaning tower of paperwork instead.
‘You lied to me Tyler!’
‘Nah - just didn’t quite tell you the truth. Took some time to get everything sorted. The wheels turn a lot more slowly out in the sticks, however bloody pissed off with me they were.’
‘You bastard! I’ll never forgive yer for this!’
‘Actually, I think you’ll find we’re quits now. And be grateful I didn’t force you to get your kit off as part of the process.’
At that, Gene spun round to face his nemesis, found Sam sitting back on the edge of the desk, arms folded defiantly. Gene growled.
‘There was no bloody forcin’ involved, Tyler an’ you damn well know it.’
‘Did it mean anything, Gene?’ Sam hissed. ‘What happened back there, in Norwich, in my flat. Did it mean anything to you? Anything at all?’
‘Meant I got me DI back, didn’t it?’
‘And that’s all? Nothing else? A means to your own selfish ends and damn anyone stupid enough to get hurt in the process, right?’
Sam’s eyes were twin points of hate and pain, and Gene’s anger dissolved under their ferocity. He’d lost so much already. Little else left to lose.
‘Sam, oh Sam…’
Gene moved back to stand before his errant DI.
‘Told yer I’d do it all again if I had to, an’ I would. I hated leavin’ yer like that, worried meself sick all the way back here an’ ever bloody since as well.’
He moved a little closer, almost touching, breathing the same air.
‘It were bloody fantastic, Sam. Best ever, believe me. All the good stuff, the things I did, things I said - meant every moment of it. I told Cartwright I wanted yer back because yer the only bloody DI I can work with. S’true, an’ yer know it. But there was more to it than that. Hadn’t really ever admitted it to meself, but then you started openin’ up, tellin’ me stuff, an' I knew...’
He was running out of words fast, didn’t think he could find a way to make Sam understand what he was trying to say. Only one solution. He took the definitive step forwards and slipped his hands under Sam’s jacket, around his waist.
‘Meant this, Sam. Remember this?’
The kisses were soft and slow with gentle huffs of breath between each one, tender and caring in exactly the way that Gene Hunt wasn’t. Unless you were Sam Tyler, and then you were blessed with the gift of knowing what lay buried deep beneath that gruff, tough exterior.
‘Meant every one of these, every damned one. An’ you were so fuckin’ beautiful, laid out for me like that, givin’ yerself up to me. Christ, Sam! Don’t you bloody dare go thinkin’ I’d have let yer do all that an’ it meant nothin’ to me, cos it did. It meant the world, Sam. Meant everythin’. Still does.’
Sam’s lips remained resolutely closed, but Gene Hunt was nothing if not determined, keeping on keeping on until finally Tyler’s head moved, just a fraction, but enough. Gene’s tongue probed carefully, then he pulled back to regard what, if any, effect he was having.
‘Sam?’ he whispered. ‘Sam, you can drive the Cortina any time yer like, yer know. Yer only have to ask. Only ever had to ask.’
There was a glimmer of a smile at that one, a foundation to build more kisses upon.
‘Promise never to hurt yer again, Sammy. Apart from roughin’ yer up when yer deserve it of course.’
‘Wouldn’t want it any other way...’
And Sam's arms finally unfolded and slid into place around his Guv.
‘Don’t think we’ll ever stop fightin’, you and me.’
‘Bloody well hope not! Makes me feel alive. And horny.’
Sam's mouth was addictive. Sweet and wet and oh so very eager. Shame it didn't shut up talking.
'Gene, just one thing...'
'What the fuck is it now, Tyler?'
'Earlier, before you realised I was here...'
'What about it?'
'Well, why were you talking to me in your desk drawer? What was all that about?'
Gene chuckled and leant over the open the drawer in question, pushed Sam sideways so he could look inside.
'Bugger me!'
'I will, Tyler! Oh I will!'
'That's my photo from off the wall in Norwich!'
'Got it in one my clever little detective.'
'I thought Dunning had taken that down! Thought it was because of, well...'
'Nope. I swiped it. Same time as I smashed his floury face in.'
'You really are a bastard, Gene. A magnificent bastard, but a bastard all the same.'
'An' you love me for it!' Gene laughed, and got back to doing what he was doing when he'd been so rudely interrupted.
Deeper now, exploring Sam’s mouth and tongue and teeth and a hand slipping slowly between the buttons of his shirt, reacquainting itself with that gorgeous lithe body that had for one afternoon been Gene's and Gene's alone.
But then Sam pulled away.
‘Can’t, Gene… Got to go… Got flats to look at…’
Gene chuckled and resumed his oral attentions.
‘Forget it. All sorted.’
‘What you mean?’
‘Part of the deal with Rathbone. Nice new flat. Comes with the job. All mod cons. Down by the Irwell, view of the cathedral an’ everythin’.’
‘Fuck, Gene! How the hell did you swing that one?’
‘Used up me one trump card I had over the Super. Just dropped it into the conversation, like, when he got back from his hols and still hadn't given me an answer. Didn't threaten or anythin'. Simply reminded him what I knew about the county constabulary dinner an’ dance. Him and the Chief Constable’s missus. In a cupboard.’
‘Bloody hell!’
‘Thought I’d wasted me best weapon. Seems not, after all.’
‘You blackmailed the Super for me?’
Gene grinned his most evil grin.
‘Not exactly blackmail, Tyler. More like - what’s that thing yer always goin’ on about? Knowledge sharin’ - that’s it.’
‘Fuck me, Guv!’
‘All in good time, Sammy, all in good time. Specially as this flat has a nice new top of the range king size bed. Chose it meself.’
Sam Tyler rubbing himself against his leg was possible the most gorgeous experience Gene had ever had in his office.
‘Fancy test driving it with me then, Guv?’
‘Was thinkin’ more along the lines of ploughin’ actually…’
Gene muffled Sam’s groans with a particularly expressive, if somewhat wet and sloppy kiss. He’d just got his hand onto the bulging crotch of Sam’s jeans when the little twerp shot backwards and stared at him.
‘What?’
‘Shhh!’
‘What the fuck?’
‘Shhhhh! Listen! Someone’s outside!’
Gene froze and listened. Surreptitious rustlings and scrapings were indeed to be heard coming from the outer office. Sam sniffed. Sam was always one for sniffing things and he sniffed the air now, hard, then did it again, staring and nodding at Gene to do the same.
‘Smell it?’ he hissed.
Gene sniffed again and his eyes widened in realisation.
‘Oh yeah, do I smell it indeed! Sam - had a good fight lately?’
‘Can’t say that I have. Not for bloody ages.’
‘How’re yer dukes feelin'?’
‘You could say itchy…’
‘Fancy swappin’ them handcuffs for a spot of fisticuffs, DI Tyler?’
‘Thought you’d never ask, DCI Hunt!’
Gene grabbed Sam and hugged him tight, planting a large wet kiss upon his forehead.
‘Good to have yer back, Sammy-boy. Bloody good.’
‘Good to be back Guv!’
With perfectly synchronised swinging they burst out through the doors of Gene’s office, descending upon the unsuspecting intruder with blood surging and hearts singing, and proceded to lay waste to a particularly oily and offensive slick of Paco Rabanne.
fin
Author notes below but there's a little more ficcy first if you want it! Because draycevixen kept on poking me with her pokey stick for an epilogue... Hot male nudes
Closing notes: Just a few things that perhaps need tidied up before we ring down the curtain on this one.
Why did Sam end up in Norwich of all places? That puzzled a few people at the start of things, but there was far less to it that perhaps there seemed. I had to send him off somewhere that Gene would find totally alien but where he could still drive to and from relatively easily, so the flat, agricultural landscape of East Anglia seemed a good contrast to the more hilly and industrial Manchester. Plus I really wanted to put in a link to the Dead Ringers LoM spoof but sadly it's been taken off YouTube. For those who never saw it, it involved Jon Culshaw as Sam in the opening sequence of 1.01, waking up dazed and confused and doing his v/o about 'am I mad? in a coma? or back in time?', only to be told by a passing woman that 'this isn't 1973 love, this is Norwich', at which point he totally loses it. Oh the horror, the horror!
Also, I received a message asking whether there were any clues or meanings hidden in the titles. You think I'm that bright? Blimey! No, not at all, but I promised I'd explain where they came from.
Things fall apart comes from a poem by W.B. Yeats in which he laments what he saw as the decline of Western civilisation following WW1 and which seemed appropriate for chapter 1 where Gene's CID world is falling apart whilst he too collapses inside without Sam, not that he's admitting that bit to anyone, not even the soppy plonk.
A Keystone Cop alludes to Mack Sennett's bumbling, incompetent Keystone Cops of the silent film era, but also to Sam being - as Gene describes him - the lynchpin of the team, the keystone that kept the blocks together, in fact the total opposite of one of the original Cops. Without him, things do indeed fall apart.
A Norfolk Bronze is a traditional and very fine breed of turkey, nothing like the insipid water- and chemical-filled White Hollands to be found in every supermarket freezer and which keep Bernard Matthews in business. Excellent roasted with lots of butter inside a big brown paper bag. And nothing to do with chapter 2 apart from the fact of that episode being set in Norfolk and the Cortina turning up at the end.
I can't remember whether Gene really does ever say Five minutes with me and you'll sing like a canary anywhere apart from on the wonderful (and somewhat addictive) screensaver I got from the BBC site, but it fits nicely as he does indeed employ certain interrogation techniques to extract the truth as to why Sam ran away (the teapot may never be the same again) and also beacuase Norwich FC's nickname is The Canaries.
The talented Mr Hunt is of course a straight lift from the Patricia Highsmith novel (thanks umeedmerchant !) and Anthony Minghella film The talented Mr Ripley. Unlike Mr Ripley, Gene manages not to murder anyone although he does perhaps take on something of an unexpected identity. Sam does, however, suffer un petit mort...
The Second Coming is the title of the Yeats poem from which Things fall apart was taken, and felt like a good way of bringing the two titles back together in the final chapter with Sam's return and, well, you never know, maybe it's also a reference to some more hot sexing going on after they've duffed up Litton!
I hope people didn't mind my messing around with different voices, tenses, narrative techniques etc. That was very much why it was posted in chapter rather than one long fic - don't think the changes would have worked that way. I'm never very sure who is telling a story or how almost until the last minute, it always gets changed around a hell of a lot, but I hope that what I decided on in each case (and in some cases there was more than one technique employed) worked ok in the end and didn't detract too much from any enjoyment to be had.
And since these notes are now as long as a ficcy in themselves, it's about time I shut up and went away! Thanks for hanging on in there for this particularly bumpy ride - I'm off to pet the bunnies, make sure they have enough organic slash carrots and all get an early night. Cheers!
Author: fawsley
Characters: Gene/Sam
Rating: blue Cortina
Warnings: like the Curate's egg, angsty in parts
Word Count: 2800 (how the hell did that happen?)
Disclaimer: not my characters, all the property of Kudos and the BBC
Notes: I could have made it into six chapters at this rate, but let's just call this one double-bubble to round things off with.
Previous eps here: 1: A Keystone Cop, 2: Norfolk Bronze, 3 : Five minutes with me and you'll sing like a canary, 4 : The talented Mr Hunt
Things fall apart 5/5 : The second coming
He hated paperwork. And, doubtless, paperwork hated him back.
But he did it, got his head down and did it because, well, because it had to be done and if he didn’t do it then it’d pile up and up and up until it fell over on top of someone, though there were some people he’d like to see that happen to. And because without a DI there was twice as much for him to get through by himself. And because when he’d had a DI, a certain DI, that particular DI had been so damn hot on paperwork it was a miracle the whole place hadn’t gone up in flames on a regular basis. And because these days he always seemed to be able to hear Cartwright whispering in his ear even when she wasn’t in the same building, stuff about ‘working with the changes he made’ and ‘honouring his memory’. Cartwright could be a right picky pain at times.
Gene sighed deeply to himself without realising he was doing it. Stuck here long after hours, almost after closing time into the bargain, rubber-stamping reports when he could have been down the Arms sinking a pint or three. Stuck here in the pool of light from his desk lamp, only shadows for company, shadows that seemed to thicken and darken with every passing hour.
Sam’s loss was a hot needle through his soul, pushed one way by the guilt of what he’d done to try to get him home, driven back the other by the fact that it hadn’t worked. He’d even gone to Rathbone, gone crawling to the Super and asked that if Tyler didn’t work out in Norfolk then he be free to return to Manchester if he wanted. Asked - not ranted, not demanded, not threatened. How bloody humiliating was that? And Rathbone had watched him squirm, watched him writhe in his agony, then kept him waiting for an answer for two weeks whilst he jollied off to Morecambe, hankie on his head and no doubt interfering with the donkeys.
Damn it! Got to get the paperwork finished, not sit there running over and over and over again what had happened, what hadn’t happened, what should have happened. All too late now. Sam was lost to him, lost to them all. Cartwright was whispering at him again to get his head down. Funny, he knew damn well she was out with her mates at the flicks tonight but it was almost as if there was a presence in the room with him. He shuddered and applied his rubber stamp with particular vigour.
‘Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! Stamp on all yer bloody soddin’ reports!’
But by now the ink-pad had died from overwork and desiccation - much the way he’d go, he supposed - so he rooted around in the depths of the second drawer down for a new one, only to uncover another unhealthy helping of guilt. For a moment he just stared.
‘An’ you can bloody shut up as well, Tyler! All so soddin’ smug an’ sanctimonious, stop starin’ at me like that! Sod off, yer mangy runt!’
The leaning tower of paperwork shuddered dangerously under the force of the drawer’s swift closure.
‘And I thought I was supposed to be the nutter who talked to people who weren’t there…’
Gene shot backwards from his desk in shock, reaching for the gun that wasn’t at his side.
‘What? What the fuck? Who’s there?’
‘…Never got to the stage of thinking they were living inside my desk, though.’
The shadows coalesced into a figure, a far too familiar figure.
‘Tyler! What the fuckin’ hell are you doin’ here? Scarin’ me like that. How d’yer get in here, anyhow?’
Sam perched on the edge of Gene’s desk, face an expressionless mask.
‘Just walked in. You were so busy with all this lot you never heard me. And it was just too tempting not to watch you actually do some work for a change.’
‘Little prick.’
‘Not what you said last time we met.’
‘Oh shut it you tart! If you’ve got nothin’ better to say you can just piss off back under whatever stone you crawled out from. What yer doin’ here anyway? Thought the glorious city of Manchester were no longer good enough for yer.’
Sam reached into his jacket pocket and deposited the contents upon Gene’s desk.
‘Thought I'd better return your property.’
Gene stared at the cuffs and gulped audibly.
‘Oh, right, well, erm, thank you. Dumpling found yer okay then?’
‘Eventually. It was some considerable time…’
‘Well if the dozy twats runnin’ that station had ever learned to pick up the phone it’d’ve been a darn sight quicker! Nearly turned tail an’ came back to unlock yer meself!’
‘So you did have the keys all along?’
‘Course I did! You think I planned all that? I were just wingin’ it, every step o’ the way.’
Sam nodded sarcastically.
‘Pretty impressive, even for you, Gene. DCI Dunning said that the tip-off came from one Colonel Mustard…’
Gene looked down and away, not wanting Sam to see the smirk he could hardly control.
‘In the bedroom with the handcuffs. Guilty as charged. An’ anyway, had to drive round the city three times before I could get that call through, ended up outside the Colman’s factory… So… Yer was okay, then, when Dumpling found yer?’
‘Oh yeah. Fine and dandy. Apart from being found stark bollock naked by the whole of Norwich CID. Apart from screaming the place down in pain when I tried to move my arms again. Apart from being crusted all over with a nice thick layer of quick-drying cum. Just perfect apart from that. Thanks for asking.’
Looking up, Gene was faced by an implacable blank wall of Tyler. If his smirk hadn’t already died an unhappy death it would have shrivelled up howling under the force of that stern gaze.
‘I’m sorry Sam. Really I am. Don’t say sorry very often an’ mean it even less, but believe me, right now I’m meanin’ it so much it bloody well hurts.’
‘Why the fuck did you do it, Gene?’
‘I wanted yer back here of course! Yer know that. And I told yer I was wingin’ it. When yer started really comin’ on to me, wantin’ somethin’ a bit rougher, well… Thought that if Dumpling found yer like that, last thing he’d want was some kinky depraved bastard on his team. Thought I could get yer back.’
‘And totally humiliate me in the process?’
‘I said I was sorry, Tyler! I weren’t thinkin’ straight. An’ anyway, you think you were humiliated? I went snivellin’ to Rathbone to try an’ swing it at this end for yer! Never goin’ to live that one down. Crawlin’ to the Super beggin’ him for favours, seein’ him laugh at me…’
‘What did he say?’
‘Rathbone? Well, eventually, when he finally deigned to give me an answer, reckoned it were all up to you anyway, that he couldn’t influence any decision. If yer really wanted back in here he wouldn’t block it, but that from what he understood yer was happy as Larry down amongst the turnip-munchers.’
Sam nodded slowly then eased himself off the desk. With that one movement Gene realised he was about to be left alone, that this was probably the last time he would ever see Sam Tyler. His stomach flipped sickeningly at the thought.
Gene Hunt knew he had been called many things. A brute, a boor, a Neanderthal, a thug. But deep down he was an honest man, a man of honour, and he knew when to call on that. He stood up from his chair and held out his hand.
‘Shake, Tyler? Before you go? You were and are and will always be the best bloody picky pain in the arse DI I ever worked with. I would have done anythin’ to get yer back on me team. Did just about everythin’ I could, even if it were all the wrong things an’ it were all a waste of effort. But I’d do it all again if it meant gettin’ yer arse back in that passenger seat.’
Sam looked at the proffered hand for a long moment before he nodded and accepted it.
‘Thanks,’ he muttered. ‘I think.’
It was all Gene could do not to fling his arms around Tyler and beg him never to leave. Instead he tried desperately to find something else to say, something to prolong the final moment of contact.
‘Well, it were good of yer, drivin' all this way just to return me cuffs…’
‘Didn’t. Still got ties here. People to see, places to go…’
‘Ah, yeah… Of course…’
‘Getting late, must be moving along. Got a couple of flats to check out before…’
‘Flats?! You’re checkin’ out flats?! What the fuckin’ hell…?’
‘Yeah, well if I’m coming back here there’s no way I’m living in that dump of a place again. Want to find somewhere clean and decent and…’
‘You fuckin’ bastard, Tyler! You mean all this time…’
‘All this time what, Gene?’
‘You fuckin’ tricked me!’
‘And now you know how it feels.’
Gene was torn between hugging or hitting Sam, ended up raging around his office, swiping all the darts trophies from their pride of place and demolishing the leaning tower of paperwork instead.
‘You lied to me Tyler!’
‘Nah - just didn’t quite tell you the truth. Took some time to get everything sorted. The wheels turn a lot more slowly out in the sticks, however bloody pissed off with me they were.’
‘You bastard! I’ll never forgive yer for this!’
‘Actually, I think you’ll find we’re quits now. And be grateful I didn’t force you to get your kit off as part of the process.’
At that, Gene spun round to face his nemesis, found Sam sitting back on the edge of the desk, arms folded defiantly. Gene growled.
‘There was no bloody forcin’ involved, Tyler an’ you damn well know it.’
‘Did it mean anything, Gene?’ Sam hissed. ‘What happened back there, in Norwich, in my flat. Did it mean anything to you? Anything at all?’
‘Meant I got me DI back, didn’t it?’
‘And that’s all? Nothing else? A means to your own selfish ends and damn anyone stupid enough to get hurt in the process, right?’
Sam’s eyes were twin points of hate and pain, and Gene’s anger dissolved under their ferocity. He’d lost so much already. Little else left to lose.
‘Sam, oh Sam…’
Gene moved back to stand before his errant DI.
‘Told yer I’d do it all again if I had to, an’ I would. I hated leavin’ yer like that, worried meself sick all the way back here an’ ever bloody since as well.’
He moved a little closer, almost touching, breathing the same air.
‘It were bloody fantastic, Sam. Best ever, believe me. All the good stuff, the things I did, things I said - meant every moment of it. I told Cartwright I wanted yer back because yer the only bloody DI I can work with. S’true, an’ yer know it. But there was more to it than that. Hadn’t really ever admitted it to meself, but then you started openin’ up, tellin’ me stuff, an' I knew...’
He was running out of words fast, didn’t think he could find a way to make Sam understand what he was trying to say. Only one solution. He took the definitive step forwards and slipped his hands under Sam’s jacket, around his waist.
‘Meant this, Sam. Remember this?’
The kisses were soft and slow with gentle huffs of breath between each one, tender and caring in exactly the way that Gene Hunt wasn’t. Unless you were Sam Tyler, and then you were blessed with the gift of knowing what lay buried deep beneath that gruff, tough exterior.
‘Meant every one of these, every damned one. An’ you were so fuckin’ beautiful, laid out for me like that, givin’ yerself up to me. Christ, Sam! Don’t you bloody dare go thinkin’ I’d have let yer do all that an’ it meant nothin’ to me, cos it did. It meant the world, Sam. Meant everythin’. Still does.’
Sam’s lips remained resolutely closed, but Gene Hunt was nothing if not determined, keeping on keeping on until finally Tyler’s head moved, just a fraction, but enough. Gene’s tongue probed carefully, then he pulled back to regard what, if any, effect he was having.
‘Sam?’ he whispered. ‘Sam, you can drive the Cortina any time yer like, yer know. Yer only have to ask. Only ever had to ask.’
There was a glimmer of a smile at that one, a foundation to build more kisses upon.
‘Promise never to hurt yer again, Sammy. Apart from roughin’ yer up when yer deserve it of course.’
‘Wouldn’t want it any other way...’
And Sam's arms finally unfolded and slid into place around his Guv.
‘Don’t think we’ll ever stop fightin’, you and me.’
‘Bloody well hope not! Makes me feel alive. And horny.’
Sam's mouth was addictive. Sweet and wet and oh so very eager. Shame it didn't shut up talking.
'Gene, just one thing...'
'What the fuck is it now, Tyler?'
'Earlier, before you realised I was here...'
'What about it?'
'Well, why were you talking to me in your desk drawer? What was all that about?'
Gene chuckled and leant over the open the drawer in question, pushed Sam sideways so he could look inside.
'Bugger me!'
'I will, Tyler! Oh I will!'
'That's my photo from off the wall in Norwich!'
'Got it in one my clever little detective.'
'I thought Dunning had taken that down! Thought it was because of, well...'
'Nope. I swiped it. Same time as I smashed his floury face in.'
'You really are a bastard, Gene. A magnificent bastard, but a bastard all the same.'
'An' you love me for it!' Gene laughed, and got back to doing what he was doing when he'd been so rudely interrupted.
Deeper now, exploring Sam’s mouth and tongue and teeth and a hand slipping slowly between the buttons of his shirt, reacquainting itself with that gorgeous lithe body that had for one afternoon been Gene's and Gene's alone.
But then Sam pulled away.
‘Can’t, Gene… Got to go… Got flats to look at…’
Gene chuckled and resumed his oral attentions.
‘Forget it. All sorted.’
‘What you mean?’
‘Part of the deal with Rathbone. Nice new flat. Comes with the job. All mod cons. Down by the Irwell, view of the cathedral an’ everythin’.’
‘Fuck, Gene! How the hell did you swing that one?’
‘Used up me one trump card I had over the Super. Just dropped it into the conversation, like, when he got back from his hols and still hadn't given me an answer. Didn't threaten or anythin'. Simply reminded him what I knew about the county constabulary dinner an’ dance. Him and the Chief Constable’s missus. In a cupboard.’
‘Bloody hell!’
‘Thought I’d wasted me best weapon. Seems not, after all.’
‘You blackmailed the Super for me?’
Gene grinned his most evil grin.
‘Not exactly blackmail, Tyler. More like - what’s that thing yer always goin’ on about? Knowledge sharin’ - that’s it.’
‘Fuck me, Guv!’
‘All in good time, Sammy, all in good time. Specially as this flat has a nice new top of the range king size bed. Chose it meself.’
Sam Tyler rubbing himself against his leg was possible the most gorgeous experience Gene had ever had in his office.
‘Fancy test driving it with me then, Guv?’
‘Was thinkin’ more along the lines of ploughin’ actually…’
Gene muffled Sam’s groans with a particularly expressive, if somewhat wet and sloppy kiss. He’d just got his hand onto the bulging crotch of Sam’s jeans when the little twerp shot backwards and stared at him.
‘What?’
‘Shhh!’
‘What the fuck?’
‘Shhhhh! Listen! Someone’s outside!’
Gene froze and listened. Surreptitious rustlings and scrapings were indeed to be heard coming from the outer office. Sam sniffed. Sam was always one for sniffing things and he sniffed the air now, hard, then did it again, staring and nodding at Gene to do the same.
‘Smell it?’ he hissed.
Gene sniffed again and his eyes widened in realisation.
‘Oh yeah, do I smell it indeed! Sam - had a good fight lately?’
‘Can’t say that I have. Not for bloody ages.’
‘How’re yer dukes feelin'?’
‘You could say itchy…’
‘Fancy swappin’ them handcuffs for a spot of fisticuffs, DI Tyler?’
‘Thought you’d never ask, DCI Hunt!’
Gene grabbed Sam and hugged him tight, planting a large wet kiss upon his forehead.
‘Good to have yer back, Sammy-boy. Bloody good.’
‘Good to be back Guv!’
With perfectly synchronised swinging they burst out through the doors of Gene’s office, descending upon the unsuspecting intruder with blood surging and hearts singing, and proceded to lay waste to a particularly oily and offensive slick of Paco Rabanne.
fin
Author notes below but there's a little more ficcy first if you want it! Because draycevixen kept on poking me with her pokey stick for an epilogue... Hot male nudes
Closing notes: Just a few things that perhaps need tidied up before we ring down the curtain on this one.
Why did Sam end up in Norwich of all places? That puzzled a few people at the start of things, but there was far less to it that perhaps there seemed. I had to send him off somewhere that Gene would find totally alien but where he could still drive to and from relatively easily, so the flat, agricultural landscape of East Anglia seemed a good contrast to the more hilly and industrial Manchester. Plus I really wanted to put in a link to the Dead Ringers LoM spoof but sadly it's been taken off YouTube. For those who never saw it, it involved Jon Culshaw as Sam in the opening sequence of 1.01, waking up dazed and confused and doing his v/o about 'am I mad? in a coma? or back in time?', only to be told by a passing woman that 'this isn't 1973 love, this is Norwich', at which point he totally loses it. Oh the horror, the horror!
Also, I received a message asking whether there were any clues or meanings hidden in the titles. You think I'm that bright? Blimey! No, not at all, but I promised I'd explain where they came from.
Things fall apart comes from a poem by W.B. Yeats in which he laments what he saw as the decline of Western civilisation following WW1 and which seemed appropriate for chapter 1 where Gene's CID world is falling apart whilst he too collapses inside without Sam, not that he's admitting that bit to anyone, not even the soppy plonk.
A Keystone Cop alludes to Mack Sennett's bumbling, incompetent Keystone Cops of the silent film era, but also to Sam being - as Gene describes him - the lynchpin of the team, the keystone that kept the blocks together, in fact the total opposite of one of the original Cops. Without him, things do indeed fall apart.
A Norfolk Bronze is a traditional and very fine breed of turkey, nothing like the insipid water- and chemical-filled White Hollands to be found in every supermarket freezer and which keep Bernard Matthews in business. Excellent roasted with lots of butter inside a big brown paper bag. And nothing to do with chapter 2 apart from the fact of that episode being set in Norfolk and the Cortina turning up at the end.
I can't remember whether Gene really does ever say Five minutes with me and you'll sing like a canary anywhere apart from on the wonderful (and somewhat addictive) screensaver I got from the BBC site, but it fits nicely as he does indeed employ certain interrogation techniques to extract the truth as to why Sam ran away (the teapot may never be the same again) and also beacuase Norwich FC's nickname is The Canaries.
The talented Mr Hunt is of course a straight lift from the Patricia Highsmith novel (thanks umeedmerchant !) and Anthony Minghella film The talented Mr Ripley. Unlike Mr Ripley, Gene manages not to murder anyone although he does perhaps take on something of an unexpected identity. Sam does, however, suffer un petit mort...
The Second Coming is the title of the Yeats poem from which Things fall apart was taken, and felt like a good way of bringing the two titles back together in the final chapter with Sam's return and, well, you never know, maybe it's also a reference to some more hot sexing going on after they've duffed up Litton!
I hope people didn't mind my messing around with different voices, tenses, narrative techniques etc. That was very much why it was posted in chapter rather than one long fic - don't think the changes would have worked that way. I'm never very sure who is telling a story or how almost until the last minute, it always gets changed around a hell of a lot, but I hope that what I decided on in each case (and in some cases there was more than one technique employed) worked ok in the end and didn't detract too much from any enjoyment to be had.
And since these notes are now as long as a ficcy in themselves, it's about time I shut up and went away! Thanks for hanging on in there for this particularly bumpy ride - I'm off to pet the bunnies, make sure they have enough organic slash carrots and all get an early night. Cheers!