Fic: The Kept Man (39/40), brown cortina, dakfinv
Title: The Kept Man (39/40)
Author: dak
Word Count: 1770 this part; [72,392 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 talcatgiven via culf . 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
It had taken a careful combination of arguing, false promises, and a few slammed doors, but Hunt was able to convince Rathbone to allow Tyler to stay on the team. Closing four mysterious homicides, discovering a direct line of drug traffic into the city, and no objections from Hyde certainly helped his cause.
Gene left the Superintendent’s office, stepped into the lift, and took a heavy swig from his third flask, (the first two having already been emptied), in order to calm his adrenaline rush. Two weeks forced leave, and Tyler would be allowed back on duty. It was an acceptable compromise. Gene screwed the top back on the flask and tucked the near empty cannister back in his pocket. Finally, after months of too heavy case loads and unbalanced power struggles, DCI Hunt would have a team again.
He stepped out onto the third floor, surprised to see Cartwright standing there, chatting away with some of those harpies from the Women’s Department.
“WPC Cartwright!” He barked and the other girls scattered, leaving Annie standing there alone in the corridor. She’d flinched slightly, but stood straight, hands clasped neatly in front of her, ready to take whatever Hunt was going to dish out. She was a good girl, that Cartwright.
Hunt strode up to her, stopping just a step away, his tall frame able to tower over her. “I thought I told you to stay with my DI,” he sternly reminded her.
“You did, sir,” she replied calmly.
“Well unless he’s hiding underneath your sadly regulation length skirt, why the bloody hell aren’t you with him?” He crossed his arms.
“I did escort him back to the flat, sir. I made him some lunch, which he ate, and stayed with him while he slept and showered. He wanted some time to himself, and he seemed alright enough, so I left.”
“How alright?” The last time Gene had seen him, earlier that morning, the man had looked ready to crumble into a million pieces.
“I wouldn’t have left him if I thought he was unstable.” Cartwright was smart, and honest. Gene could occasionally trust her opinion.
“Where is he now? Back at the flat?”
“I think he went for a walk, but he promised to meet a friend of mine at five o’clock,” she added nervously.
“What sort of friend?”
“A...psychiatrist friend, sir.”
Gene hoped he was expressing his agitation clearly enough. Cartwright did quickly explain herself.
“I thought he should to talk to someone, about what he’s been through. He wanted it to be someone outside the station, and Neil owed me a favor, so...”
“Fine. You’re the one with the degree in quack, an’ if Gladys needs someone to cry with, I’m glad I don’t have to volunteer.” Having found out all the information he needed, Gene started down the hall to his office.
“DCI Hunt?” Cartwright called after him.
“What is it now, Nancy Drew?” He sighed and turned back.
“The...what Charlie Edwards said...It was true, wasn’t it?” She asked the question but it was obvious she already knew the answer.
Gene was on her in a flash. Not touching her, of course. He’d never hit a woman, but his bulk was close enough to intimidate the shite right out of her. “Edwards is scum,” he growled fiercely. “He’s a rotten bastard who made a living out of beating, killing, and dumping anything and anyone for an even more twisted bastard. He’s a lying, little prick, who’d do anything to destroy the reputation of an honest copper. And if I hear you repeat one lick of anything he said, or what you just said, your uni educated arse will be out on the street so fast, you’ll be beggin’ me for work scraping grease off the floor in the canteen kitchen. Is that understood, WPC Cartwright?”
“Y-yes, Guv,” she whispered.
“Good. Now get yourself home. Enjoy your weekend, and don’t ever forget this little chat, okay?”
She nodded and Gene backed away, allowing her to escape to the locker room, as Gene stormed into his office. There would not be rumors about his DI. His Sam. His...
Gene collapsed in his chair. Sam wasn’t his anything. He wouldn’t claim him, not like Warren had. He’d told Sam that. He’d told him that he wouldn’t be his DI unless he wanted to be. It was all official now. Sam Tyler was the DI to Gene Hunt’s DCI, but that didn’t make him his. Gene had no idea what Sam wanted.
Gene knew what he wanted. He’d kissed him. He’d shagged him. Once had been enough with the others, for the others. Once with Sam hadn’t been enough for him. Had it been enough for Sam? Either way he looked at it, Sam Tyler was going to make his life a complicated hell. Gene knew he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to it.
*
“Sorry, are you Sam?”
“Yeah, yeah I am.” Sam sat up in the booth.
“I’m Neil. Annie’s ex-boyfriend,” the shaggy haired man smiled and firmly shook Sam’s hand.
“Oh. She didn’t mention that,” Sam replied, offering Neil the seat across from him.
“I didn’t think she would. Well, it wouldn’t have convinced you to meet with me, would it?” Neil sat down.
“No, I guess not.”
“We’ve maintained a close relationship since then and...well, we’re not here to talk about Annie, are we?” Neil laughed. “You two aren’t...”
“What? Oh. No. No! I just transferred to Manchester. I met her at the station a few days ago. I’ve been, uhm, having trouble adjusting and she thought you might be able to help.” Sam smiled and hoped he wouldn’t suddenly be on the receiving end of a close ex-boyfriend’s interrogation. He remembered having a similar chat with one of Maya’s exes. It hadn’t ended well.
Neil seemed to sense his apprehension. “It’s alright if you are. Annie and my fiancee get on quite well.”
“Trust me, Neil. We’re not.” He must have finally convinced the man, as Sam saw the young psychiatrist relax.
“Well, now that’s settled, let’s talk about you.”
Sam smiled nervously. He’d had to visit the police therapist every once in awhile in 2006, it being policy, but that was before he’d been through anything this genuinely traumatic. “Right. Okay. Where should we start?” Sam mentally reminded himself not to say anything that could get him committed.
“You said you’ve been having difficulty adjusting to the transfer? Where did you transfer from?”
2006. “Hyde.”
“That’s not too far, is it?”
Three decades. “A few miles.”
“And rank are you?”
DCI. “Detective Inspector.”
“And what were you in Hyde?”
DCI Williams. “The same.”
Sam wondered if one could truly get therapy if you lied for all the answers.
“What’s been the most difficult part of the transition for you?”
Forced prostitution. “Uhm...”
“Are you having trouble fitting in with your new boss? Your new coworkers?”
My boss had no trouble fitting in me. “No,” Sam gulped and hoped he wasn’t blushing.
“Sam, I’d like to help you, but I can’t if I don’t know what the problem is.”
It was time for the truth. At least the part that wasn’t scientifically impossible. “On the way here, to Manchester, I was in a car accident. I lost most of my memories.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I have them back now, but I still feel displaced. Like I don’t belong in this world.”
“Maybe you don’t,” Neil replied in all seriousness.
“Sorry?”
“Do you remember why you transferred? Was it your own decision, or was it someone else’s?”
Sam remembered what Morgan had told him. He’d been sent here on an undercover operation. He wasn’t meant to stay here. Morgan had chosen Sam for the job. “I think it was someone else’s.”
“That could explain your feeling of displacement. You were being forcibly transferred to a new station, a new home, just as you lost your memories. With the amnesia, there was absolutely nothing familiar about this world. Now, even with your memories restored, everything is still unfamiliar because this isn’t your home. You have no connections here. Nothing holding you to the here and now.”
Sam folded his hands to keep them from shaking. “How...what should I do?”
“You should return to some place familiar. Sam, you should probably go home.”
Sam frantically shook his head. “It’s not the simple.”
“Do you want to go home, Sam?”
“Yes. I think so. I mean, I do, but it’s complicated. It’s not like I can just walk back there.” This had been a ridiculous idea. How could he explain to a psychiatrist that home was thirty-three years in the future?
“Everyone wants you to go back, Sam.” Neil was looking at him with a somewhat vacant expression.
“What did you say?” Sam waved his hand in front of Neil’s face, but there was no response.
“Your mum. Maya. They all want you to come home.”
Sam shrank back in his seat. “How...how do you know that? How do you know them?”
Neil didn’t answer him. “Everyone’s waiting for you, but you need to make the choice, Sam. You have to make the final decision. You have to take the final step. All you have to do is take the definitive step, and you can wake up.”
He couldn’t breathe. This was surreal. Hearing voices through the telly and radio was more than unusual, but this? He and this man had been having a normal conversation, then suddenly...
“Unless you want to stay. Do you want to stay, Sam?”
He leapt out of the booth. Neil remained staring blankly where Sam had just been sitting. The chip shop’s radio crackled.
He’s at a critical stage.
Sam backed away from Neil. Away from the radio.
Be strong, Sam. You can wake up, but you need to hang in there.
Neil was blank. The radio was talking to him. He closed his eyes, covered his ears. An image. He had his foot outstretched over the edge. His eyes snapped open.
“Sam?” Neil asked.
“I know,” Sam responded, his voice shaking. “I know what I have to do now. I know how to get home.”
“Sam, where are you going?”
He tore out of the shop and ran off down the street. It was simple now. It was so much less complicated than Warren or Morgan or Hunt. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before. He’d escaped from Warren. He’d recovered his memories. Neil was right. The girl was right. He’d figured out the puzzle. Now, all he had to do now was take the final step.
_____
Part 40
Author: dak
Word Count: 1770 this part; [72,392 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 talcatgiven via culf . 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
It had taken a careful combination of arguing, false promises, and a few slammed doors, but Hunt was able to convince Rathbone to allow Tyler to stay on the team. Closing four mysterious homicides, discovering a direct line of drug traffic into the city, and no objections from Hyde certainly helped his cause.
Gene left the Superintendent’s office, stepped into the lift, and took a heavy swig from his third flask, (the first two having already been emptied), in order to calm his adrenaline rush. Two weeks forced leave, and Tyler would be allowed back on duty. It was an acceptable compromise. Gene screwed the top back on the flask and tucked the near empty cannister back in his pocket. Finally, after months of too heavy case loads and unbalanced power struggles, DCI Hunt would have a team again.
He stepped out onto the third floor, surprised to see Cartwright standing there, chatting away with some of those harpies from the Women’s Department.
“WPC Cartwright!” He barked and the other girls scattered, leaving Annie standing there alone in the corridor. She’d flinched slightly, but stood straight, hands clasped neatly in front of her, ready to take whatever Hunt was going to dish out. She was a good girl, that Cartwright.
Hunt strode up to her, stopping just a step away, his tall frame able to tower over her. “I thought I told you to stay with my DI,” he sternly reminded her.
“You did, sir,” she replied calmly.
“Well unless he’s hiding underneath your sadly regulation length skirt, why the bloody hell aren’t you with him?” He crossed his arms.
“I did escort him back to the flat, sir. I made him some lunch, which he ate, and stayed with him while he slept and showered. He wanted some time to himself, and he seemed alright enough, so I left.”
“How alright?” The last time Gene had seen him, earlier that morning, the man had looked ready to crumble into a million pieces.
“I wouldn’t have left him if I thought he was unstable.” Cartwright was smart, and honest. Gene could occasionally trust her opinion.
“Where is he now? Back at the flat?”
“I think he went for a walk, but he promised to meet a friend of mine at five o’clock,” she added nervously.
“What sort of friend?”
“A...psychiatrist friend, sir.”
Gene hoped he was expressing his agitation clearly enough. Cartwright did quickly explain herself.
“I thought he should to talk to someone, about what he’s been through. He wanted it to be someone outside the station, and Neil owed me a favor, so...”
“Fine. You’re the one with the degree in quack, an’ if Gladys needs someone to cry with, I’m glad I don’t have to volunteer.” Having found out all the information he needed, Gene started down the hall to his office.
“DCI Hunt?” Cartwright called after him.
“What is it now, Nancy Drew?” He sighed and turned back.
“The...what Charlie Edwards said...It was true, wasn’t it?” She asked the question but it was obvious she already knew the answer.
Gene was on her in a flash. Not touching her, of course. He’d never hit a woman, but his bulk was close enough to intimidate the shite right out of her. “Edwards is scum,” he growled fiercely. “He’s a rotten bastard who made a living out of beating, killing, and dumping anything and anyone for an even more twisted bastard. He’s a lying, little prick, who’d do anything to destroy the reputation of an honest copper. And if I hear you repeat one lick of anything he said, or what you just said, your uni educated arse will be out on the street so fast, you’ll be beggin’ me for work scraping grease off the floor in the canteen kitchen. Is that understood, WPC Cartwright?”
“Y-yes, Guv,” she whispered.
“Good. Now get yourself home. Enjoy your weekend, and don’t ever forget this little chat, okay?”
She nodded and Gene backed away, allowing her to escape to the locker room, as Gene stormed into his office. There would not be rumors about his DI. His Sam. His...
Gene collapsed in his chair. Sam wasn’t his anything. He wouldn’t claim him, not like Warren had. He’d told Sam that. He’d told him that he wouldn’t be his DI unless he wanted to be. It was all official now. Sam Tyler was the DI to Gene Hunt’s DCI, but that didn’t make him his. Gene had no idea what Sam wanted.
Gene knew what he wanted. He’d kissed him. He’d shagged him. Once had been enough with the others, for the others. Once with Sam hadn’t been enough for him. Had it been enough for Sam? Either way he looked at it, Sam Tyler was going to make his life a complicated hell. Gene knew he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to it.
*
“Sorry, are you Sam?”
“Yeah, yeah I am.” Sam sat up in the booth.
“I’m Neil. Annie’s ex-boyfriend,” the shaggy haired man smiled and firmly shook Sam’s hand.
“Oh. She didn’t mention that,” Sam replied, offering Neil the seat across from him.
“I didn’t think she would. Well, it wouldn’t have convinced you to meet with me, would it?” Neil sat down.
“No, I guess not.”
“We’ve maintained a close relationship since then and...well, we’re not here to talk about Annie, are we?” Neil laughed. “You two aren’t...”
“What? Oh. No. No! I just transferred to Manchester. I met her at the station a few days ago. I’ve been, uhm, having trouble adjusting and she thought you might be able to help.” Sam smiled and hoped he wouldn’t suddenly be on the receiving end of a close ex-boyfriend’s interrogation. He remembered having a similar chat with one of Maya’s exes. It hadn’t ended well.
Neil seemed to sense his apprehension. “It’s alright if you are. Annie and my fiancee get on quite well.”
“Trust me, Neil. We’re not.” He must have finally convinced the man, as Sam saw the young psychiatrist relax.
“Well, now that’s settled, let’s talk about you.”
Sam smiled nervously. He’d had to visit the police therapist every once in awhile in 2006, it being policy, but that was before he’d been through anything this genuinely traumatic. “Right. Okay. Where should we start?” Sam mentally reminded himself not to say anything that could get him committed.
“You said you’ve been having difficulty adjusting to the transfer? Where did you transfer from?”
2006. “Hyde.”
“That’s not too far, is it?”
Three decades. “A few miles.”
“And rank are you?”
DCI. “Detective Inspector.”
“And what were you in Hyde?”
DCI Williams. “The same.”
Sam wondered if one could truly get therapy if you lied for all the answers.
“What’s been the most difficult part of the transition for you?”
Forced prostitution. “Uhm...”
“Are you having trouble fitting in with your new boss? Your new coworkers?”
My boss had no trouble fitting in me. “No,” Sam gulped and hoped he wasn’t blushing.
“Sam, I’d like to help you, but I can’t if I don’t know what the problem is.”
It was time for the truth. At least the part that wasn’t scientifically impossible. “On the way here, to Manchester, I was in a car accident. I lost most of my memories.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I have them back now, but I still feel displaced. Like I don’t belong in this world.”
“Maybe you don’t,” Neil replied in all seriousness.
“Sorry?”
“Do you remember why you transferred? Was it your own decision, or was it someone else’s?”
Sam remembered what Morgan had told him. He’d been sent here on an undercover operation. He wasn’t meant to stay here. Morgan had chosen Sam for the job. “I think it was someone else’s.”
“That could explain your feeling of displacement. You were being forcibly transferred to a new station, a new home, just as you lost your memories. With the amnesia, there was absolutely nothing familiar about this world. Now, even with your memories restored, everything is still unfamiliar because this isn’t your home. You have no connections here. Nothing holding you to the here and now.”
Sam folded his hands to keep them from shaking. “How...what should I do?”
“You should return to some place familiar. Sam, you should probably go home.”
Sam frantically shook his head. “It’s not the simple.”
“Do you want to go home, Sam?”
“Yes. I think so. I mean, I do, but it’s complicated. It’s not like I can just walk back there.” This had been a ridiculous idea. How could he explain to a psychiatrist that home was thirty-three years in the future?
“Everyone wants you to go back, Sam.” Neil was looking at him with a somewhat vacant expression.
“What did you say?” Sam waved his hand in front of Neil’s face, but there was no response.
“Your mum. Maya. They all want you to come home.”
Sam shrank back in his seat. “How...how do you know that? How do you know them?”
Neil didn’t answer him. “Everyone’s waiting for you, but you need to make the choice, Sam. You have to make the final decision. You have to take the final step. All you have to do is take the definitive step, and you can wake up.”
He couldn’t breathe. This was surreal. Hearing voices through the telly and radio was more than unusual, but this? He and this man had been having a normal conversation, then suddenly...
“Unless you want to stay. Do you want to stay, Sam?”
He leapt out of the booth. Neil remained staring blankly where Sam had just been sitting. The chip shop’s radio crackled.
He’s at a critical stage.
Sam backed away from Neil. Away from the radio.
Be strong, Sam. You can wake up, but you need to hang in there.
Neil was blank. The radio was talking to him. He closed his eyes, covered his ears. An image. He had his foot outstretched over the edge. His eyes snapped open.
“Sam?” Neil asked.
“I know,” Sam responded, his voice shaking. “I know what I have to do now. I know how to get home.”
“Sam, where are you going?”
He tore out of the shop and ran off down the street. It was simple now. It was so much less complicated than Warren or Morgan or Hunt. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before. He’d escaped from Warren. He’d recovered his memories. Neil was right. The girl was right. He’d figured out the puzzle. Now, all he had to do now was take the final step.
_____
Part 40