Moonage Daydream (Two/?)
“You knew? You knew and you never told anyone?”
“Course I knew, Sam! And I didn’t tell you because you weren’t completely gone. It was your own choice to go back or not.”
“What about Chris and Ray and all the others? Christ, even Annie’s dead.”
“They don’t know, though. They forgot their old lives.”
“Hang on,” Sam had a brainwave. “How come things I do now effect my life in the future?”
“Christ, Sam, stuffed if I know. I only live here.”
∞
Test Card Girl liked Gene, and they spent the afternoon playing checkers while Sam went food shopping.
That night, after some delicious Eggs Mornay, when Test Card Girl was curled up in Sam’s bed and Gene was sitting in the chair, with Sam leaning against the bed on the floor, they began to talk.
“Ya can’t keep calling her Test Card Girl. She’s a person. She needs a name.”
“Well the real girl who was in the test card was named Carole. I looked her up on Wikipedia when I went back.”
“That’s a good name. What the sod is Wikipeedy-whatsit?”
“She’s lovely.”
“That she is; a fine little specimen. Does she go to school?”
“No, she’s older than me really.”
Gene shifted to lie on the floor near Sam. Sam began to stroke his fingers through Gene’s hair.
“So where are you gonna go?”
“Don’t know, no good places on my wages in Manchester.”
“Get a roommate.” Sam suggested, hoping and praying.
“Well what about you and Carole?”
“What about us?” Sam said faux-absently, playing with the roots of Gene’s strands.
“Well you can’t stay here, it’s a shit hole.”
“That’s true enough.”
“So why don’t we pool resources, you ponce?” He barked as he batted Sam’s hands away, but Sam, more than a little drunk, would not be discouraged.
“Sounds like a plan.”
They fell asleep like that, Sam’s head falling back against the bed and Gene’s cheek resting in Sam’s hand. When Carole woke up she giggled quietly and climbed up onto the bench to get another box of Chex.
∞
“So how long you been here, Guv?” Sam asked over coffee and the paper the next morning.
“Long time, Sam. Longer than you’d think.”
“Nothing changes here, does it?” Sam rubbed his face, wishing he’d drunk less last night.
“Nope. 1973 over and over again. Good year though.”
“Mmm, no more of Bowie’s album come out though.”
“He big, is he?”
“Oh yeah. Think he’s retired.”
“A fairy?”
“When the mood strikes him I’d imagine. Married a woman.”
“Hmm. But what’s he doing here? Not dead. Not a cop. Don’t make sense.”
“He dressed up as a cop once. He’s restless. And he dies eventually, Gene. Everyone does.”
“Shut it, you’re making me depressed.”
“If it’s any consolation, you can’t kill yourself.”
“Samuel, how in any way, shape or form is that consolation?”
“This one looks good. We could turn the dining area into a bedroom.”
“That’d make three. Eating on a couch sounds good.”
∞
“Gene, don’t be ridiculous. It’s one sodding night. I’m not sleeping on a couch. I pay just as much as you do.”
“Sam, I don’t want to go fishing around in these boxes for some ruddy jammies.”
“Gene, we can just sleep in the nud. You’ve seen me handcuffed to a bed and I’ve seen you wobble in your budgie-smugglers.
“I do not wobble!” Guv stated indignantly.
“Shush, Carole is in the next room!”
“Fine. Whatever.”
∞
The third room will never exist, but neither of them are to know that yet. All Gene knew was that sleeping next to his DI was exceedingly comfortable, and tricking him into changing both of their address paperwork was pure genius. Something else he knew was that he was slowly falling in love with Carole’s beautiful ethereal quality and her confusing ways. She was a lovely girl - the daughter he never had and the housewife he missed. His feelings for her were strictly fatherly - which is more than he could say for Sam. Every time he saw Sam, he felt warmth spread through his chest and a smile across his face. He’s begun waxing lyrical in his own bloody head about a bloke. And those weren’t worst times. The worst times where when he remembered snatches of the drink-fuelled night - the one spent together in more ways than one. The worst times where when he feared it might happen again less than he wanted it to.
∞
Sam left that afternoon briefly while they were on a blag prevention - a punishable offence. Even Sam’s weak ‘I was checking on Carole’ hadn’t been enough to curb the wrath of a sober, frustrated and marginally emasculated Gene. After a few punches to the stomach and possible permanent kidney damage, Sam had agreed it was his shout at the pub tonight and the argument was amiably settled. After assigning tomorrow’s paperwork, Sam sat on the bonnet of the Cortina, waiting for Gene to make his merry old time leaving the CID office. He finally did twenty minutes later.
“Oh, take your time then,” Sam said loudly, faking annoyed.
“We aren’t going to the pub,” Gene mumbled and Sam, who had now taken his seat in the car, stared at him questioningly.
“Why the ‘ell not?” He demanded, really annoyed at having been kept waiting.
“Because I don’t want to.” Gene said, starting the engine. Sam frowned.
“If this is about today with Carole, I am sor-“
“It’s not about anything. I’ll drop you off if you want.”
“Wha- no. I’m shoutin’ you!” Gene sighed.
“Sam, I just don’t wanna go, okay.”
Sam was silent for the rest of the ride. When they reached the Railway Arms, he turned in his seat and looked at Gene.
“Just come in for a while. You don’t have to drink or whatever you don’t wanna do. Just come in.”
Gene rolled his eyes but conceded, and he learnt that night that when your DI housemate buys you five beers in a row you cannot turn them down.
∞
Sam was slammed against the wall and he was sober this time, and Gene was too. Well, relatively.
“What’re you doing?” Sam breathed into Gene’s face, eyes only centimetres apart.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and Sam clutched at his hair.
“Well don’t stop,” he whispered and their lips finally met for a messy and savagely long kiss. Sam felt Gene’s tongue run along his top lip and he shivered, whimpering. His eyes opened wide, embarrassed, but Gene only pulled back a tiny amount to whisper, ‘Oh, fuck,’ in a rough, harsh voice, and rolled his hips forward.
Then a little voice piped up. “Ahem.”
∞