Fic: Real Men (1/1), blue cortina, dak
Title: Real Men (1/1)
Author: dak
Word Count: 913
Rating: blue cortina
Warnings: discussion of a sexual nature, angst
Summary: Gene and Sam have a little "man" talk.
A/N: I've felt like I've been losing the character voices lately and decided to write a mostly dialogue piece to get back in the swing of things. Please enjoy!
“Beatrice.”
“Beatrice what?”
“Dunno,” Hunt shrugged, staring out the window. “Never got her last name.”
“Why am I not shocked?” Tyler rolled his eyes and raised his binoculars.
“Well that weren’t the important part, was it? What mattered were the parts ‘tween her--”
“Enough,” Sam raised one hand, while holding the binoculars in his other.
“Girl,” Gene muttered, biting into a cold bacon butty.
“I am not a girl,” Sam sighed, lowering his binoculars and jotting down a note in his pad.
“Nancy,” Gene corrected.
“Nope.”
“Poofter,” he baited Sam.
“Not that either,” Tyler sighed, then raised his binoculars again.
“Well, you’re not a real man,” Gene commented.
“And what is a real man, according to the Gene Hunt Dictionary of Bigotry?” Sam inquired.
“A real man...”
“Dear God, why did I ask?”
“Smokes.”
“No lung cancer, thanks.”
“Drinks.”
“I drink enough.”
“And tells other real men ‘bout his first time,” Hunt concluded.
“You didn’t tell me anything.”
“Told you her name, din’t I?”
“Only half of it,” Sam mocked, making another notation.
“She wouldn’t’ve told me her full name even if I’d asked,” Gene scoffed.
“Scared you’d track her down?” Sam smirked, taking a bite of his sandwich.
“How many prozzies’ surnames you know?” Gene shrugged, and Sam nearly choked on his chicken.
“She was a prostitute?” he gasped.
“What’d you expect?” Gene took another large bite of his butty. “Some schoolgirl fumblings behind me mam’s shed?”
“Well...”
“I was just about to go into the Service. Hadn’t the chance to get to dip the ol’ tickling stick in the local birds...”
“Is it too much to ask for a gun fight right now?” Sam shook his head.
“An’ me brother thought it were a shame I should go off to serve, my innocence still intact...”
“I don’t think you were ever ‘innocent,’” Tyler rolled his eyes.
“Don’t waggle your fingers at me. Ol’ Beatrice was a beauty, she was.”
“Old Beatrice? How old was she?”
“Not important,” Gene mumbled.
“Guv, are you blushing?” Sam teased.
“No,” Gene readjusted his tie. “So, what about you, Dorothy?”
“You don’t really expect me to--”
“Oi! I just shared a deep, personal moment with you. Course I expect you to do the same,” Gene scolded.
“And if I don’t?”
“Me. Your scrotum. A spanner.”
“Say no more,” Sam held up his hands in defeat, then dropped the binoculars in his lap. “Molly,” he sighed, after taking a deep breath.
“Odd name for a bloke,” Gene quipped. Sam ignored him.
“Molly Auster. We were in the same year. She sat next to me in maths class.”
“Pretty?”
“Gorgeous,” Sam smiled despite himself. “Legs up to here. Long blonde hair. She was a sixteen year old, English Heidi Klum.”
“Who?”
“Never mind. We’d gone on a few dates. Dinner. The flicks. Nothing much. One night, it just happened,” he shrugged and picked the binoculars up.
“And?”
“It was...good. Fine,” Sam sighed. “For all five seconds of it,” he blushed. Gene started with a small chuckle before building up to full blown laughter. “Don’t start!” Sam ordered. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it. You’re the own that pressured me,” he focused on watching the building across the street.
“Blimey. Hope you’ve improved since then, Tyler. Or is that why Cartwright’s looked so depressed?” Gene heckled.
“Well it was enough to get her pregnant!” Sam snapped, then quickly shut himself up. It was clear to both men that the declaration had been unintentional. Gene immediately stopped laughing and for once, decided not to press the issue. The deadening silence, however, was enough to get Sam talking again. “I didn’t even know,” he said quietly, staring at his hands. “She wasn’t going to tell me. She wasn’t going to tell anyone, but one of her schoolmates...she spotted Molly leaving the clinic.”
“She got rid of it,” Gene stated softly.
“It was her choice. Her body, her choice,” he repeated to himself. “Had nothing to do with me,” he stated, the repetition over the years cementing that reasoning in his mind. “Word got round at school. Everyone kept teasing her. Kept trying to guess who the father was. She wouldn’t say, so word started that she didn’t know. That she’d slept with half the school, half the teachers, even.” Sam wiped a hand over his face. “I never said anything. Never defended her.”
“Sam...”
“Leave it, Gene. Alright? For once, leave it,” he ordered, his voice shaking slightly. Gene pointed across him out the window.
“Is that Hopkins?” Hunt asked, staring at a figure moving in the shadows of a nearby alley. Sam raised the binoculars.
“No. No, it’s Maynard,” Sam corrected.
“Can you get a photo?” Gene handed him the camera.
“Yeah. I think so,” Sam dropped the binoculars and grabbed the camera from Gene, getting a few quick snaps of one of their targets. When Maynard disappeared, so did the brief excitement. The silence was almost deafening.
“Want a drink?” Gene finally asked.
“When Ray and Chris take over?” Sam asked, voice still low.
“That, too,” he said. Sam looked over to see a flask in an outstretched hand. He swallowed hard, then took what was on offer. He stared at it a moment before speaking.
“This make me a real man?” he asked with some spite.
“Never had me doubts, Sammy-boy,” Gene stated, looking the other direction.
“Well, that makes one of us,” Sam sighed sadly and took a sip, before returning to his surveillance.