Fic: Pocket Change (1/1), blue cortina, dak
Title: Pocket Change
Author: dak
Word Count: 2236
Rating: blue cortina
Warnings: angst, swearing, discussion of sexual acts (but nothing explicit described)
Summary: A drunken, after-work discussion leads to Sam reveal a dark truth from his past.
A/N: I had meant for this to be happy. It didn't happen. I may still be able to write the funny version, now that the angsty one is out of my system. This is a result of me watching too much young!Simm stuff, and slipping into a "Sammy had a tortured, angsty, teenage past" phase. Please enjoy!
“I jus’ don’ get it. What kind a bloke gets off on some boy knobbin’ ‘im in the alley behind the bookie’s?” Ray burped into his pint.
“Well a faerie’s not goin’ to want to get off with a prozzie, now is ‘e?” Chris slurred.
“Good point,” Ray agreed, wobbling over the table. “If yeh can’ get it up o’er a reg’lar bird, won’ be able to with one yeh ‘ave to pay.”
“Those boys don’t just do blokes neither,” the Guv decided to interject, though he was considerably less pissed than his officers. “Ray, remember that time, were reports of a brawl over on Princes Street? Get to the house, bust in...”
“An’ it’s some mouthy bird gettin’ ‘er jollies from ol’ L’il Billy,” Ray finished with a laugh.
“Little Billy?” Sam asked with a sigh, completely disinterested.
“Most notorious rent boy in the district,” Gene informed him.
“Weren’t so ‘l’il’ from what I ‘ear,” Ray smirked.
“Still don’ get why a bloke’d wan’ to do that,” Chris wondered.
“Them queers ‘ave to get it where’er they can,” Ray belched again.
“I always thought it were druggies,” Chris shrugged. “Why else would yeh let some hairy bloke up yer back passage, ‘less you needed the money.” Chris stared into his pint, deciding whether or not to take a sip, paling, and ultimately choosing against the prospect.
“Who said ‘e has to be hairy?” Ray asked.
“Dunno,” the DC shrugged. “Jus’ always pictured a hairy bloke ‘s all.”
Sam, too tense for the amount of alcohol Gene had seen him consume, rose from the table with his empty pint glass. “I’ll go get the next round in,” he said quietly and slunk away from the table. The drinks arrived via barmaid a short time later, with Sam nowhere to be seen. Deciding his deputy had just gone for a slash, Gene let the matter slide until he realized a half hour had passed since Tyler’s disappearance.
Excusing himself from Ray and Chris’ company he strolled up to the bar for a better look. “Seen me picky pain anywhere, Nelson?” he asked casually.
“Would that be the sullen man in the corner drinkin’ more than his weight in scotch?” Nelson nodded to the opposite side of the pub, a dark little corner where Tyler and a bottle of Bell’s had taken up residence. Gene could see him swaying even from that distance.
“That’d be the one,” he sighed and, foregoing a refill himself, decided to figure out what had crawled up Tyler’s jacksie this fine evening. He plopped himself, without ceremony, next to his very drunk Inspector, and grabbed Sam’s bottle for himself, taking a decent swig before setting it back down on the table.
“Tha’s mine,” Sam pointed out.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to share?” Gene countered. “So, what’re you doin’ over here, Gladys? Some plod stamp all over your favorite stapler?”
“Din’t like the conversation, Guv,” Sam grabbed the bottle and nodded towards Ray and Chris, the younger of which had finally passed out on top the table.
“What?” Gene asked looking from the other table back to Sam. “Jane Seymour’s knickers?”
“No,” Sam rolled his eyes. “The other thing,” he added quietly.
“Rent boys?” Gene said quite loudly, causing Sam to drunkenly shush him. “Sorry,” Gene scoffed.
“Yeah. That,” Sam sighed. “Rent. Boys. Rent a boy...” The words tripped off his tongue with a distinct distaste that apparently had to be washed out with a healthy dose of scotch. So healthy, in fact, that Gene needed to pull the bottle away before Sam downed the rest in one go. “Oi,” he tried to shout and reached for it back, but Gene kept it at arm’s length.
“Hate to say this to any man, Dorothy, but I think you’ve had enough for tonight.”
“Then don’ say it,” Sam snarled, still reaching for the bottle. He suddenly overbalanced and fell into Gene’s lap, the motion causing his skin to turn a distinct shade of green.
“Okay,” Gene sighed, setting the bottle on the table. “Out you go.” He hauled Sam out the back of the pub, steered him to a decent spot, and let him sick his guts up for a good five minutes. He kept his distance as Sam swayed on his hands and knees, watching uncomfortably as he brought up anything he’d consumed in the last hour or before. The stench was awful and Gene soon had to intervene and grab Sam before he fell into his own sick.
“Alright, Sammy-boy. Over here.” Taking him by both arms, he sat Sam down on the opposite side of the alley, able to see, even in the darkness, Sam’s mind going in and out of focus. “Better?” He asked, after Tyler had a chance to catch his breath.
“It was an alley just like this,” he said softly, so softly, Gene had to bend down to hear him.
“What are you on about now, Tyler?” Gene moaned, resigning himself to the fact that he’d have to listen to another bout of his DI’s inane ramblings, and sat down beside him, leaning back against the wall.
“The first time,” Sam continued, and already Gene did not like where this was going. “I was hanging ‘round on the corner, waiting for some mates. We were goin’ to catch a film. Fifteen, I think. Yeah, I was fifteen an’ this...this man comes up to me, ordinary enough, asks if I want to make a bit of cash.”
“Sam...” Gene warned, now knowing where this was headed and not wanting to hear the rest, though he couldn’t bring himself to go back inside.
“I said, yeah...I was skint,” he laughed. “Didn’t even have enough for the flicks. Was goin’ to borrow some off me mate Charlie. I hated borrowing money, but I couldn’t get a job and Mum didn’t have any to lend. So I said yeah. Yeah, why not? What’s the worst that could happen?”
Sam shifted nervously on the ground, as if for the first time realizing what story he was telling, but unable to stop. “I asked him what he wanted me to do. He smiled, said I had a nice mouth and did I want to put it to good use. I got scared, then, but I didn’t want to back down. So I said, fine. What exactly did he want me to do with my mouth? He smiled and nodded for me to follow. I made sure none of my friends were around and followed him into this dark alley.”
Gene knew there were reasons Tyler never usually drank that much. Whenever he did, he always ended up opening up about his past. He was learning now just why Sam took such effort in concealing it. Still, he couldn’t leave him out here on his own.
“Before...before I knew what was happening, he was undoing his zip and telling me to get on my knees. I was scared, of getting caught, of my mates finding me, of my mum finding out...I knelt down. I’d never done it before, had never done anything, but I knew what he wanted. I’d seen it in some films Charlie stole from his step-dad. Only, in the films, it was the girls on their knees,” he laughed but the sound was filled with grief.
“Turns out, he didn’t need me to do anything. My hair was longer then. He grabbed onto it, held my head still and...” Sam swallowed, unable to finish the sentence. “I...when he...I didn’t want to get it all over my shirt. He zipped himself up, stuffed some money in my hand, and told me I did a good job. As soon as he was gone, I ran home. Locked myself in the bathroom. Then I finally opened my hand and saw what he’d given me. Twenty quid. Twenty quid,” he repeated, almost in awe. “For almost nothing. For a blow-job. And it was my money. All mine. I’d earned it and I didn’t have to repay it. I could spend it on whatever I wanted. After Dad left...it was something I’d never had before.”
Gene was still, frozen somehow. It was either from the shock of hearing that straight-arrow DI Sam Tyler would do something so stupid, anger that Sam had let himself do something so stupid, or rage that some bastard had taken advantage of a desperate kid. He wanted the story to end there. He remembered Sam had started it with “the first time.” He didn’t want there to be anymore.
“I spent it so fast. Bought my first album, a new shirt. I thought it was so much money, but it was gone, just like that. So I went back to that corner and waited. Only took a half hour before some punter came up. I followed him to a different alley. That time, he sucked me off. Paid me fifteen quid. I went to an Adam Ant concert.”
Gene knew he should be disgusted. He was trained to be disgusted by this sort of behavior, but this was Sam Tyler. This was his DI. A man so clean you could eat your dinner off him. A boy so fragile it would take only one harsh word to break him.
“It got easier each time. A hand-job here, a blow-job there. I learned which alleys to take them to. Which to avoid. Who would pay. Who were coppers. It was all so easy to learn. And no one knew. It just became part of the routine. Go to school, finish my homework, hang out on the corner. Mum was working nights. She never noticed I was gone.”
The pain was creeping into his voice with each word. Gene could feel him shaking beside him. It made him nervous, so he put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, willing it to stop. It didn’t.
“I only...I...once. When...when I was seventeen. I’d had girlfriends by then. I’d...but I’d never...that...He...he offered so much money, Guv...It was horrible. Hurt like hell. Couldn’t sit for a week. Called me names the whole time. Called me his bitch, his whore. Said I was filthy, disgusting, diseased. Told me I should kill myself for being such a dirty slut. Smacked me around while he...”
Gene didn’t know when, but he had started gripping Sam’s shoulder tightly, started pulling him closer to his chest.
“I stopped. After that, I stopped. Cut my hair. They always liked to grab my hair, so I cut it. Kept it short ever since. Took a real job, in a DIY store. When I applied to the Academy, I was afraid they’d know. That they found out somehow, but I’d never been caught. Never arrested. My record was spotless, even if it was a lie. It was a lie...My whole fucking life, one utter, bloody lie.”
In the light from the street lamp, Gene could see the silent tears tracing their path down Sam’s pale cheeks. He knew he should push him away. Call him a queer. A fudge-packer. An uphill gardener. A faerie. Everything they weren’t. But this was Sam. His deputy. His Inspector. His Sam, that some perverted fucks had used and manipulated and taken advantage of. Sam was already ashamed. Did he need his Guv rubbing his nose in his shite like a misbehaving puppy? If it had been anyone else...any other copper...but it wasn’t. It was Sam, and Sam always proved the exception to the rule.
“You’re pissed,” he muttered, breaking the silence.
“Incredibly,” Sam snorted out a tearful laugh.
“You should get home. Sleep it off.”
“Yeah,” he weakly agreed.
“I’ll give you a lift,” he started to rise, but something caught his sleeve, pulling him back down. It was Sam’s hand.
“Gene, I’ve never...not anyone. No one ever knew...” he pleaded with him. Gene could see it now, see the terror in his eyes. See that Sam hadn’t meant to reveal it to anyone, and now he’d told the man who could cause him the most damage.
“No one will, Sammy. C’mon. Let’s get you home.”
Sam nodded and started to stand, but this time, it was Gene who pulled him back down.
“Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“When we...d’you think of him? That bloke who...” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“You don’t hurt me, Gene,” Sam assured him. It made Gene feel wrong because he was supposed to be reassuring Sam, though he didn’t know how. Silently, he helped Tyler to his feet and carried him to the Cortina. Sam passed out on the drive to his flat, barely waking enough to help Gene move him inside the building. He laid him on the cot, and took off his jacket and shoes. In the light, Gene could see just how tear-stained his cheeks were. He looked so young laid out like that. So very young. It was easy to picture him as a boy of fifteen. Gene wondered what sort of scum could take advantage of a boy like that. He wondered if it was possible to find all those bastards and hang them up by their scrotums.
He settled himself on the armchair, knowing Sam was safe, knowing he was fine, relatively speaking, but feeling the need to protect him, even so. Besides, someone would need to make tea for the bloody awful hangovers they were going to be suffering come morning, and Tyler was bloody awful at making tea.