Fic: The Kept Man (30/40), brown cortina, dak
Title: The Kept Man (30/40)
Author: dak
Word Count: 1852 this part; [55,936 overall]
Rating: brown cortina
Warnings: angst, sexual situations, swearing
Spoilers: 1.04, 1.05, 1.07, 2.08
Pairing: Sam/Warren, Sam/Gene
Summary: AU. Sam woke up with amnesia when he landed in 1973, able to only remember his name, and ended up in the grasp of Stephen Warren. When he and Gene Hunt finally cross paths it starts a chain of events that will either save Sam or damn him.
A/N: From an idea from talcat given via culf. The angst monkeys have been particularly brutal the past few parts, so I slipped some sedatives into their food this morning. They are going to wake up eventually, though. Please enjoy!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40
The man was knelt down in front of the safe, a stethoscope pressed up against the metal as he ever-so-slowly twisted the heavy dial.
“Get on with it then,” Gene grumbled.
“Shhh!” Hissed the borrowed officer from Special Branch.
“This is just like in the movies,” Chris grinned. “Real James Bond stuff.”
“Bond wouldn’t need one o’ them doctor’s things,” Ray replied with crossed arms. “Q would’ve given ‘im some high tech fancy gadget. Or ‘e’d’ve beaten the combination outta someone.”
“Shhhh!” The officer scolded again.
“He wouldn’t beat someone unless ‘e had to,” Chris debated.
“Well, if ‘e needed to get in the safe, an’ ‘e din’t have a gadget, then e’d have to beat someone,” Ray concluded.
“Why does ‘e have to get in the safe?” Chris wondered.
The metal door clicked open and the officer angrily ripped off his stethoscope as he stood. “Honestly. Your men are chattier than my wife’s knitting circle.” He tucked his supplies back into his bag. “It’s a wonder you get any work done at all.”
“Believe me,” Gene shot his detectives a scathing glance. “I nearly die of astonishment every day.” Hunt leaned down and flung the door wide open, eager to reveal its contents.
“Well,” Ray proclaimed as he chomped on his Juicy Fruit, staring into the empty safe. “That were anti-climatic, weren’t it?”
Gene kicked the wall beside the now open safe. “Edwards. Must’ve gotten here soon as he caught wind of Warren’s death.”
“What do we do now then, Guv?” Ray asked.
Gene ran a hand over his mouth and chin, thinking. “I want you two trackin’ that lap dog down.”
“More like a pit bull, I’d say,” Chris thought out loud, earning him aggravated looks from both DCI and DS. “Er, sorry Guv.”
“I’m going back to the station. Look over the junk we brought in yesterday. You find anything...”
“We’ll let you know, Guv.” Ray nodded.
Gene stomped out of the eerie, red-themed room and down the metal stairs. He stopped himself halfway, jogging back up to the former VIP floor and heading down to the hall to where the staff quarters were located. Many of the doors had handwritten signs taped to the front, displaying the girls’ names.
It was the door at the end, the one that was left unmarked, that Gene opened and entered. The bed was neatly made. No, not just neatly. Meticulously. In fact, the whole room resembled something more out of a cheap hotel, rather than a person’s living space. Basic furniture: a nightstand, a small table and chair in the corner, the bed. Nothing more. There were two doors to the left of the room. One was open, revealing a simple bathroom. The other, Gene took it upon himself to open, discovering a built-in closet.
There wasn’t much inside, a few pairs of trousers, a few shirts, including the shirt he’d been wearing when Gene first met him. With no wardrobe to place pants or vests, those items were neatly folded and set on the floor, next to a makeshift laundry basket.
Gene didn’t know why he’d decided to come in here. He didn’t know what he’d thought he’d find. There were no pictures, no personal mementos, nothing to decorate the blank space. It was a simple enough room, a clean enough room, but it felt empty and hollow. It was a shell of a home, not a home itself, and it reflected Sam so perfectly, Gene had to leave before he became sick.
*
Sam had called in sick that morning. He didn’t think anyone would care. Gene had wanted him to take time off anyway, so now he was. He wasn’t sure if it was better to be at the station, surrounded by mementos of Warren, or alone in the flat, surrounded by memories. At least in the flat, no one could bother him. At least at the station, he could’ve found a way to keep himself busy. Wanting to avoid other members of the human race trumped all else, though, and Sam wondered if it was really so bad to be a hermit.
As he passed half the day listening to the radio and flicking through the television channels, waiting for any news on his condition, Sam was growing increasingly discontent with his decision to lock himself away for eternity. Since “discontent” was dangerously close to an actual emotion, he decided maybe a walk outdoors wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
He didn’t know when he decided on giving up on emotions. It must have been sometime during the night when he realized that every time he became emotional, something bad would happen. So, until he discovered how to escape from 1973, he thought it would be best to remain as passive as possible. Passivity was easy. Passivity he could do.
Sam remained very conscious of his outdoor wanderings. He didn’t want to end up outside The Warren again because that would lead to very bad things, like feelings and pain, and it was the whole point of this walk that he avoided such trivial things. He did, however, accidently find himself outside of the Railway Arms.
He’d never been a heavy drinker, and it was only the early afternoon after all, but the pub was open and a small beverage wouldn’t hurt. He had been walking for a long time and was starting to become thirsty. Thirsty wasn’t an emotion, so it was a perfectly acceptable sensation to acknowledge.
He pushed open the door and found the cozy pub empty, a rare moment of peace that would be broken around 5:30 or so, when the CID contingent was released from their duties and allowed to freely roam towards the watering hole.
“Can I help you?” A Jamaican voice from behind the bar startled Sam from his trance.
“Oh. Uhm, hi.”
“Hi there, yourself, mon brave,” the man raised an eyebrow while drying a glass. “You lost?”
“Yeah. Yeah, you could say that...” Sam trailed off, letting his eyes wander around the pub, taking in the warm, wooden tables, the well-used dartboard, the chalk-written score still indicating Hunt as last night’s winner. Sam remembered he was thirsty, and turned back to the bar. “Sorry, I’m, uhm, DI Tyler,” the title still rolled roughly off his tongue.
“Oh! So you’re the new CID boy,” the man’s face opened up into a wide grin as he immediately accepted Sam as one of his own. “Shouldn’t you be at the station, then?”
“I’m, uhm, taking some time off.” Sam ran his fingers over the bar. It was worn, but well kept, a few beer stains comfortably marring its smooth finishing.
“Look like you could use a drink.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I came in for.”
“Well the pub’s the right place for that, mon brave,” the barman smiled. “What’ll it be?”
“Diet Coke?” Sam mumbled hopefully. He received nothing but a confused glance in return. “Sorry. Joke. Pint of bitter.”
“One pint comin’ up.”
Sam reached into his pocket, then remembered he didn’t have any money, not even a few coins. “Shit...” he sighed as the glass was placed on the bar. “I’m sorry, I...”
“First one’s on the house,” he smiled broadly.
“Thanks.” Sam perched himself on the bar stool, reaching out his hand before reaching for the pint. “Sam.”
“Nelson.”
They shook, then Sam took a long sip from his pint glass.
“So, Sam, what brings you to Manchester?” Nelson asked, wiping down the bar.
“I’ve always been in Manchester. I just don’t know what brings me here,” he replied cryptically and took another drink.
“That why you’re feeling lost?”
“Partly, I guess. I don’t know. I thought...I thought things would get better, get easier, once I remembered who I was. Now they’re just more fucked than ever.” He didn’t know why he was speaking to the barman, why he was telling him anything. He hadn’t meant to go for a walk and actually speak with anyone. Nelson was nice, though. A nice stranger who didn’t know anything about Sam and that made him safe. Safe and nice was a good combination.
“Do you really believe that?”
“That’s how it feels.” It was a silly thing to say because Sam didn’t want to feel anything. “I shot a man, Nelson, I shot him and I was supposed to go home because of it, but I didn’t, and now...Now I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.”
“Not knowing your way can be a dangerous thing, mon brave. No wonder you feel lost.”
“I’ve been waiting to hear. To find out what’s happened, what I’m supposed to do next, but there’s nothing. No one to tell me what to do.” He gripped the pint tightly, some little part of him afraid of losing this sudden hold on humanity.
“Maybe you’re meant to decide on your own.”
“That’s what Hunt said but...but I can’t do this alone,” he implored.
Nelson leaned on the bar, tossing the bar towel over his shoulder. “There’s a difference between making your own choices and doing everything on your own.” His Jamaican accent was gone, and Sam wondered how that happened, and when. “You can have people help you on your path, if you know which path to take.”
Sam thanked Nelson for the pint and hurried out of the comforting confines of the pub. He had meant to run straight back to the flat but his feet had other plans and Sam suddenly found himself standing outside the station. He looked up the concrete steps, so unchanged from what he remembered in 2006, and thanked them for their familiarity.
He heard the car pull up beside him, a single door open and shut, and waited for Hunt to approach him.
“Thought you were takin’ the day off?” Gene stood next to him, staring at Sam while Sam stared at the steps.
“Got tired of doing nothing,” was his weak reply.
“Think you can handle some policing?”
Sam took a deep breath, and tried to remember that he was a DCI, not a rent boy. Tried to remember that he was a man of power, a man of influence, and desperately tried to remember what that felt like. All he could stir were watered-down traces of that feeling. He wasn’t sure if it was enough. “I can try.”
“Good,” Gene nodded and started towards the steps. “Good,” Sam heard him say again.
Sam closed his eyes and took another deep breath.
This is going to look very bad on your arrest report, Colin.
Interview commenced at 11:19am. The suspect will state his name.
Look at these photos, Colin.
This is your diary. We found it in your room. From the diary, quote. “I killed her. She’s been killed. I’m a killer. An ace killer.” That particular entry is not awash with ambiguity.
He wondered if that man was still in there. He wondered if he found that man, if that would make him strong enough to get home. He wondered if it would hurt to try. Sam opened his eyes and walked into the station.
______
Part 31
Author: dak
Word Count: 1852 this part; [55,936 overall]
Rating: brown cortina
Warnings: angst, sexual situations, swearing
Spoilers: 1.04, 1.05, 1.07, 2.08
Pairing: Sam/Warren, Sam/Gene
Summary: AU. Sam woke up with amnesia when he landed in 1973, able to only remember his name, and ended up in the grasp of Stephen Warren. When he and Gene Hunt finally cross paths it starts a chain of events that will either save Sam or damn him.
A/N: From an idea from talcat given via culf. The angst monkeys have been particularly brutal the past few parts, so I slipped some sedatives into their food this morning. They are going to wake up eventually, though. Please enjoy!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40
The man was knelt down in front of the safe, a stethoscope pressed up against the metal as he ever-so-slowly twisted the heavy dial.
“Get on with it then,” Gene grumbled.
“Shhh!” Hissed the borrowed officer from Special Branch.
“This is just like in the movies,” Chris grinned. “Real James Bond stuff.”
“Bond wouldn’t need one o’ them doctor’s things,” Ray replied with crossed arms. “Q would’ve given ‘im some high tech fancy gadget. Or ‘e’d’ve beaten the combination outta someone.”
“Shhhh!” The officer scolded again.
“He wouldn’t beat someone unless ‘e had to,” Chris debated.
“Well, if ‘e needed to get in the safe, an’ ‘e din’t have a gadget, then e’d have to beat someone,” Ray concluded.
“Why does ‘e have to get in the safe?” Chris wondered.
The metal door clicked open and the officer angrily ripped off his stethoscope as he stood. “Honestly. Your men are chattier than my wife’s knitting circle.” He tucked his supplies back into his bag. “It’s a wonder you get any work done at all.”
“Believe me,” Gene shot his detectives a scathing glance. “I nearly die of astonishment every day.” Hunt leaned down and flung the door wide open, eager to reveal its contents.
“Well,” Ray proclaimed as he chomped on his Juicy Fruit, staring into the empty safe. “That were anti-climatic, weren’t it?”
Gene kicked the wall beside the now open safe. “Edwards. Must’ve gotten here soon as he caught wind of Warren’s death.”
“What do we do now then, Guv?” Ray asked.
Gene ran a hand over his mouth and chin, thinking. “I want you two trackin’ that lap dog down.”
“More like a pit bull, I’d say,” Chris thought out loud, earning him aggravated looks from both DCI and DS. “Er, sorry Guv.”
“I’m going back to the station. Look over the junk we brought in yesterday. You find anything...”
“We’ll let you know, Guv.” Ray nodded.
Gene stomped out of the eerie, red-themed room and down the metal stairs. He stopped himself halfway, jogging back up to the former VIP floor and heading down to the hall to where the staff quarters were located. Many of the doors had handwritten signs taped to the front, displaying the girls’ names.
It was the door at the end, the one that was left unmarked, that Gene opened and entered. The bed was neatly made. No, not just neatly. Meticulously. In fact, the whole room resembled something more out of a cheap hotel, rather than a person’s living space. Basic furniture: a nightstand, a small table and chair in the corner, the bed. Nothing more. There were two doors to the left of the room. One was open, revealing a simple bathroom. The other, Gene took it upon himself to open, discovering a built-in closet.
There wasn’t much inside, a few pairs of trousers, a few shirts, including the shirt he’d been wearing when Gene first met him. With no wardrobe to place pants or vests, those items were neatly folded and set on the floor, next to a makeshift laundry basket.
Gene didn’t know why he’d decided to come in here. He didn’t know what he’d thought he’d find. There were no pictures, no personal mementos, nothing to decorate the blank space. It was a simple enough room, a clean enough room, but it felt empty and hollow. It was a shell of a home, not a home itself, and it reflected Sam so perfectly, Gene had to leave before he became sick.
*
Sam had called in sick that morning. He didn’t think anyone would care. Gene had wanted him to take time off anyway, so now he was. He wasn’t sure if it was better to be at the station, surrounded by mementos of Warren, or alone in the flat, surrounded by memories. At least in the flat, no one could bother him. At least at the station, he could’ve found a way to keep himself busy. Wanting to avoid other members of the human race trumped all else, though, and Sam wondered if it was really so bad to be a hermit.
As he passed half the day listening to the radio and flicking through the television channels, waiting for any news on his condition, Sam was growing increasingly discontent with his decision to lock himself away for eternity. Since “discontent” was dangerously close to an actual emotion, he decided maybe a walk outdoors wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
He didn’t know when he decided on giving up on emotions. It must have been sometime during the night when he realized that every time he became emotional, something bad would happen. So, until he discovered how to escape from 1973, he thought it would be best to remain as passive as possible. Passivity was easy. Passivity he could do.
Sam remained very conscious of his outdoor wanderings. He didn’t want to end up outside The Warren again because that would lead to very bad things, like feelings and pain, and it was the whole point of this walk that he avoided such trivial things. He did, however, accidently find himself outside of the Railway Arms.
He’d never been a heavy drinker, and it was only the early afternoon after all, but the pub was open and a small beverage wouldn’t hurt. He had been walking for a long time and was starting to become thirsty. Thirsty wasn’t an emotion, so it was a perfectly acceptable sensation to acknowledge.
He pushed open the door and found the cozy pub empty, a rare moment of peace that would be broken around 5:30 or so, when the CID contingent was released from their duties and allowed to freely roam towards the watering hole.
“Can I help you?” A Jamaican voice from behind the bar startled Sam from his trance.
“Oh. Uhm, hi.”
“Hi there, yourself, mon brave,” the man raised an eyebrow while drying a glass. “You lost?”
“Yeah. Yeah, you could say that...” Sam trailed off, letting his eyes wander around the pub, taking in the warm, wooden tables, the well-used dartboard, the chalk-written score still indicating Hunt as last night’s winner. Sam remembered he was thirsty, and turned back to the bar. “Sorry, I’m, uhm, DI Tyler,” the title still rolled roughly off his tongue.
“Oh! So you’re the new CID boy,” the man’s face opened up into a wide grin as he immediately accepted Sam as one of his own. “Shouldn’t you be at the station, then?”
“I’m, uhm, taking some time off.” Sam ran his fingers over the bar. It was worn, but well kept, a few beer stains comfortably marring its smooth finishing.
“Look like you could use a drink.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I came in for.”
“Well the pub’s the right place for that, mon brave,” the barman smiled. “What’ll it be?”
“Diet Coke?” Sam mumbled hopefully. He received nothing but a confused glance in return. “Sorry. Joke. Pint of bitter.”
“One pint comin’ up.”
Sam reached into his pocket, then remembered he didn’t have any money, not even a few coins. “Shit...” he sighed as the glass was placed on the bar. “I’m sorry, I...”
“First one’s on the house,” he smiled broadly.
“Thanks.” Sam perched himself on the bar stool, reaching out his hand before reaching for the pint. “Sam.”
“Nelson.”
They shook, then Sam took a long sip from his pint glass.
“So, Sam, what brings you to Manchester?” Nelson asked, wiping down the bar.
“I’ve always been in Manchester. I just don’t know what brings me here,” he replied cryptically and took another drink.
“That why you’re feeling lost?”
“Partly, I guess. I don’t know. I thought...I thought things would get better, get easier, once I remembered who I was. Now they’re just more fucked than ever.” He didn’t know why he was speaking to the barman, why he was telling him anything. He hadn’t meant to go for a walk and actually speak with anyone. Nelson was nice, though. A nice stranger who didn’t know anything about Sam and that made him safe. Safe and nice was a good combination.
“Do you really believe that?”
“That’s how it feels.” It was a silly thing to say because Sam didn’t want to feel anything. “I shot a man, Nelson, I shot him and I was supposed to go home because of it, but I didn’t, and now...Now I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.”
“Not knowing your way can be a dangerous thing, mon brave. No wonder you feel lost.”
“I’ve been waiting to hear. To find out what’s happened, what I’m supposed to do next, but there’s nothing. No one to tell me what to do.” He gripped the pint tightly, some little part of him afraid of losing this sudden hold on humanity.
“Maybe you’re meant to decide on your own.”
“That’s what Hunt said but...but I can’t do this alone,” he implored.
Nelson leaned on the bar, tossing the bar towel over his shoulder. “There’s a difference between making your own choices and doing everything on your own.” His Jamaican accent was gone, and Sam wondered how that happened, and when. “You can have people help you on your path, if you know which path to take.”
Sam thanked Nelson for the pint and hurried out of the comforting confines of the pub. He had meant to run straight back to the flat but his feet had other plans and Sam suddenly found himself standing outside the station. He looked up the concrete steps, so unchanged from what he remembered in 2006, and thanked them for their familiarity.
He heard the car pull up beside him, a single door open and shut, and waited for Hunt to approach him.
“Thought you were takin’ the day off?” Gene stood next to him, staring at Sam while Sam stared at the steps.
“Got tired of doing nothing,” was his weak reply.
“Think you can handle some policing?”
Sam took a deep breath, and tried to remember that he was a DCI, not a rent boy. Tried to remember that he was a man of power, a man of influence, and desperately tried to remember what that felt like. All he could stir were watered-down traces of that feeling. He wasn’t sure if it was enough. “I can try.”
“Good,” Gene nodded and started towards the steps. “Good,” Sam heard him say again.
Sam closed his eyes and took another deep breath.
This is going to look very bad on your arrest report, Colin.
Interview commenced at 11:19am. The suspect will state his name.
Look at these photos, Colin.
This is your diary. We found it in your room. From the diary, quote. “I killed her. She’s been killed. I’m a killer. An ace killer.” That particular entry is not awash with ambiguity.
He wondered if that man was still in there. He wondered if he found that man, if that would make him strong enough to get home. He wondered if it would hurt to try. Sam opened his eyes and walked into the station.
______
Part 31