Fortune Challenge by echo_voice
Title: Don't believe in coincidences
Author:
echo_voice
Rating: Green Cortina (bit of swearing and lots of innuendo, but that's about it)
Word Count: 2252
Pairing: Gene/Sam
Summary: Gene discovers the mystic powers of the stars
A/N: This is just a silly little fic that sprung into my mind. Enjoy! Feedback would be great.
Sam’s hands tapped against the dashboard. “I’m bored.”
“Poor diddums,” Gene drawled. “What d’you want me to do about it? It was your sodding idea to watch Walter’s house to see if he makes a move anywhere.”
“You’re the one who wanted to collar him!”
Walters was small-fry really. One of the local druggies who Gene had caught with a load of cocaine on him had claimed he got the stuff from Walters, a lad who was new to Manchester. Sam highly doubted that he was a major dealer in the city, but Gene had insisted that they follow it up, so Sam had suggested watching his movements to see if they could catch him making a deal.
Only Walters hadn’t moved for hours and Sam was bored shitless in the stuffy Cortina. He sighed again and shot a sideways glance at Gene who was engrossed in the football pages of the morning’s paper. A smirk appeared at the side of the DI’s mouth and in a second he had grabbed the paper from his surprised Guv’s hands.
“Tyler! I was flipping reading that!”
“Don’t be silly guv, you don’t like reading. You were probably just looking at the pictures.”
“I’m gonna ram the sodding pictures down your throat in a minute!”
“Oh give over, let me glance over it for five minutes. You can do some actual surveillance for a bloody change instead of reading the bloody paper, or eating sherbert, or falling asleep again...”
“Why do I need to do the watching? I’m the sheriff: I delegate. I drive, you do the surveillancing or whatever. I didn’t bring you along so that I had something pretty to look at!”
Sam chose to ignore that little speech and rather pointedly opened the paper. He flicked through the pages for a while, but it felt oddly like a bloody history lesson and he soon tired of the news and even the sports pages. His interest was only caught when he came to the horoscope page.
“I suppose some things never change, most notably the human race’s love of trying to predict the future,” he murmured. “I’d be bloody brilliant at it…”
“What’s that, Gladys?”
“Horoscopes, guv. When’s your birthday?”
“April 2nd.”
“Ok, that’d be Aries…” Sam tilted his head at Gene and smirked. “Ooh Gene, it says here that there will be an issue at work as an error of judgement causes a spot of trouble,” he said, putting on a silly mystical voice. “It tells you that the best support you can get is from your colleagues - ha, this one knows what it’s talking about.”
“What a load of bollocks.”
“But it’s all okay though, as a windfall of money will improve your mood and your luck will be on the increase. Oh and look, your love life will take a passionate turn as a result.”
“How’s that, then? You bought something kinky, Tyler? Nicked some handcuffs while Phyllis wasn’t looking?” Gene asked, arching an eyebrow.
Sam laughed, his head tilted back against the car seat and Gene took the opportunity of his amusement to grab the paper back.
“Oi!”
“What d’you mean, ‘oi’, it’s my frigging paper!”
“Spoilsport,” Sam grumbled moodily. “I was reading those horoscopes.”
“Oh alright then, Petunia, what star sign are you?” Gene sighed.
“Capricorn.”
“Okay, here we go.” Gene cleared his throat and rustled the paper before he began to read. “‘Today you will piss off your boss by wittering on about a load of astro-bollocks but you will make it up to him by giving him a fantastic blowjob...’”
“Gene.”
“What? It’s not me who decides your future, it’s in the stars! I am but a willing slave to destiny.”
“You’re not funny.”
“Tyler, Tyler, you always have to be the one who thinks differently to the rest of the world, don’t you?”
“Because the rest of the world finds you hilarious, Gene.”
“I’m so glad you agree.”
Sam fell into a sulky silence, his arms folded as he slouched in his seat until Gene broke the spell with a heaved sigh as he flung the newspaper onto the backseat.
“You don’t really believe all that malarkey, do you?” Gene asked, trying to prompt his pouting DI into conversation again.
“Not really,” Sam said with a shrug. “But hey, who knows?”
“And there was me thinking that you were king of evidence and rational thinking.”
Sam stared out of the car window, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I used to be sceptical.”
“What happened?” Gene asked, interested in spite of himself.
“I…” …went back in time, his mind supplied helpfully, and Sam grimaced. “I learnt that sometimes what we believe to be impossible can in fact be more plausible than we would like to think, proving that our conception of what is certain can be flawed and that the human brain is fallible.”
Gene looked at him flatly. “You just like sounding like a bleeding dictionary to piss me off, don’t you Tyler?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “All I’m saying is that things are not always as they seem.”
“Rubbish,” Gene sniffed. “Things are always exactly as they seem. Sometimes it can just take you a bit longer than usual to realise that.”
Sam stared at him but at that precise moment the front door they had been watching opened and Walters walked out, shrugging his coat on and glancing from side to side. Gene stayed very still for a minute before cracking open the door.
“C’mon the, Mystic Meg, we have a villain to follow.”
“Mystic Meg?” Sam asked, flabbergasted. “But she wasn’t famous for ages yet…”
“What are you blabbing about? Get your arse into gear!” Gene shot over his shoulder.
***
They followed Walters to a nearby unused warehouse that Gene had thought to be empty of nothing but old storage boxes. Apparently someone else knew that it was unused however, and the boxes were unlikely to be empty now. Gene looked sideways at Sam, who was still worrying at his lip and muttering about Mystic Meg. Gene wished he hadn’t created the silly fucking nickname. They were flat against the wall at the side of the warehouse, watching as Walters slipped quietly inside.
“Right, we follow him in.”
“What? No, guv, we don’t know what’s in there.”
“We know precisely what’s in there. Walters and some happy powder just waiting to get caught having some alone time together.”
“He might not be alone. We should wait for back-up.
“What, so he can slip out when we’re not watching? I don’t think so. You can wait here if you’re going to be such a Jessie.”
“Gene…remember what your horoscope said.”
“Oh give over.”
He pushed away from the wall, rolling his eyes and slipping in through the door Walters had entered. He pulled out his gun just in case, blinking as he waited for his eyes to get accustomed to the gloom. He trotted down the steps and walked silently across the dusty floor, keeping to the shadows as he crept past stacks of crates and boxes. He hid behind a pile of boxes when he heard a slight noise and peered round to see Walters shifting a crate aside to pull up the floorboards, unloading bags of white powder. He smirked triumphantly and moved into the light.
“Drop it, sunshine! You’re nicked!” Gene said pleasantly, cocking his gun at Walters as the young lad shot up with his hands in the air.
But then there was a soft click and cold metal pressed into his temple. “DCI Hunt, what a nice surprise,” a cool voice stated in his ear.
Gene’s smile dropped from his face and he twisted ever so slightly to catch the features of Jerry Harman out of the corner of his eye.
Ah. This was an unwanted development. Harman was vicious scum, and not the sort of person you wanted to be holding the gun. Plus, Tyler would be unbearable now that he had been shown to be right. Gene sighed. “I should have guessed you were involved somewhere. Didn’t think you’d let a little wet behind the ears lad like Walters on your patch without your say-so.”
“It’s nice to have a fresh face, sometimes, if they’re careful.” Harman’s voice darkened slightly. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like young Walters here has been careful enough.”
“I-I didn’t know the cops were…”
“Oh come on, it’s not really an excuse, is it, Walters?” Harman said softly. “Now I have to get Mr Hunt off my back and it’s dreadfully inconvenient. So, Chief Inspector, how much does it take to get you to excuse little misdemeanours these days? You can take it out of Walters’ pay packet.”
The young lad opened his mouth to protest but then seemed to think better of it.
Gene scowled. “I can’t be bought off,” he murmured furiously.
“Rubbish, Mr Warren was slipping you notes for ages.”
“And Mr Warren is now in prison, which, incidentally, is where you’re headed.”
Harman tutted quietly and the gun pushed a little harder into his temple. Gene ignored the bead of sweat that trickled down his cheek. “Oh fine, play nasty, then. I’ll just have to kill you.”
Gene grimaced and his eyes searched the warehouse rapidly, hoping and praying that he hadn’t misplaced his trust, but sure enough there was the tiniest of movements in the shadows. He grinned. Sam might be irritating, but Gene was really rather lucky to have the sharp Inspector. Relying on colleagues and all that…for god’s sake, this was ridiculous. He wished he’d never bought the sodding paper. Pulling a face, he turned his attention back to Harman, grinning now in the knowledge that his back was covered.
“Do you believe in horoscopes, Mr Harman?” Gene asked casually, partly humouring himself more than anything.
“What?” the drugs baron snapped, thrown by Gene’s odd comment.
“Because I had quite a good one today. Said my colleagues were gonna help me out.”
Harman’s face pushed close to Gene’s. “There’s no one here but us, I’m afraid Genie.”
Gene frowned. “Don’t call me that.”
And with one hard shove he pushed Harman backwards. Before the thug could recover, Sam had appeared from the shadows and had twisted the gun out of his grip, his fist digging into Harman’s stomach as he forced him to his knees and cuffed him.
“Must you be so theatrical?” Sam chided gently.
Gene ignored that jibe and frowned at Sam. “You took your precious time!”
“Uh…guv…” Sam said pointedly, looking over Gene’s shoulder.
Walters was legging it and Gene swore, tearing after him and eventually cornering the young lad, barrelling him into a stack of boxes. They toppled to the floor and Gene watched amazed as the top box hit the floor, spraying bundles of notes over the warehouse. He arched an eyebrow at Walters. “Silly place to keep your cash, isn’t it?”
Walters moaned in reply and Gene cuffed him, scowling all the time he did so. Then he dragged him to his feet and over to where Sam and Harman were. His DI was wearing a predictably irritating grin.
“Error of judgement, helped by a colleague, windfall of money… Still a sceptic, guv?” Sam asked smugly.
“Tyler, shut your face. It’s all coincidence. Now radio Ray and get him down here to bag up that sodding money and get a few of those sacks of powder dusted for prints.”
Sam simply smirked and pushed Harman out towards the Cortina. “Already radioed. They’ll be here now-ish. Not everyone rushes in without back-up, you know, guv.” Sam flicked an innocent look over his shoulder. “I’ll brief forensics, shall I?”
“Smart arse,” Gene grumbled.
***
“Just coincidence, then?” Sam pushed as they sat together in the Railway Arms.
“Yes,” Gene snapped irritably.
“That’s quite a few coincidences for one day.”
“Tyler, if you don’t shut up my fist will coincide with your face!”
“Fair enough,” Sam replied, shrugging. “After all, it’s not like all of it came true.”
It took a few seconds for him to realise what Sam was referring to, but when he finally understood Sam had Gene’s full attention, especially given the dirty grin his DI was wearing. “What are you plotting?” Gene asked, eyeing him with interest.
“Absolutely nothing.” Sam said airily, sliding off his bar stool and making his way to the exit. “Seeing as horoscopes are a load of rubbish, and all that.”
Gene stared after him as he sauntered out the door. He downed his pint like lightning and followed Sam out, not surprised when a hand pulled him against the wall where they were shadowed from prying eyes.
“You are such a smug little git,” Gene muttered, pushing closer to his Inspector’s welcoming body.
“Yeah, but you love it.”
Gene heard a metallic sound and swallowed hard when Sam dangled the handcuffs he had pulled from his pocket in front of Gene’s nose. He cleared his throat slightly. “You know, I think I might be persuaded to be a bit more open-minded about this horoscope malarkey,” he told Sam, his voice slightly strained. “Given today’s events, of course.
“Really?” Sam purred, holding Gene’s gaze with heated eyes. Then he turned and began to make his way back to his flat, the handcuffs dangling from one finger and shining in the streetlight.
Gene quickly caught up and walked close to his Inspector so he could lean down and whisper in his ear. “Definitely. And maybe we might work on making your horoscope come true, too.”
Author:
echo_voice
Rating: Green Cortina (bit of swearing and lots of innuendo, but that's about it)
Word Count: 2252
Pairing: Gene/Sam
Summary: Gene discovers the mystic powers of the stars
A/N: This is just a silly little fic that sprung into my mind. Enjoy! Feedback would be great.
Sam’s hands tapped against the dashboard. “I’m bored.”
“Poor diddums,” Gene drawled. “What d’you want me to do about it? It was your sodding idea to watch Walter’s house to see if he makes a move anywhere.”
“You’re the one who wanted to collar him!”
Walters was small-fry really. One of the local druggies who Gene had caught with a load of cocaine on him had claimed he got the stuff from Walters, a lad who was new to Manchester. Sam highly doubted that he was a major dealer in the city, but Gene had insisted that they follow it up, so Sam had suggested watching his movements to see if they could catch him making a deal.
Only Walters hadn’t moved for hours and Sam was bored shitless in the stuffy Cortina. He sighed again and shot a sideways glance at Gene who was engrossed in the football pages of the morning’s paper. A smirk appeared at the side of the DI’s mouth and in a second he had grabbed the paper from his surprised Guv’s hands.
“Tyler! I was flipping reading that!”
“Don’t be silly guv, you don’t like reading. You were probably just looking at the pictures.”
“I’m gonna ram the sodding pictures down your throat in a minute!”
“Oh give over, let me glance over it for five minutes. You can do some actual surveillance for a bloody change instead of reading the bloody paper, or eating sherbert, or falling asleep again...”
“Why do I need to do the watching? I’m the sheriff: I delegate. I drive, you do the surveillancing or whatever. I didn’t bring you along so that I had something pretty to look at!”
Sam chose to ignore that little speech and rather pointedly opened the paper. He flicked through the pages for a while, but it felt oddly like a bloody history lesson and he soon tired of the news and even the sports pages. His interest was only caught when he came to the horoscope page.
“I suppose some things never change, most notably the human race’s love of trying to predict the future,” he murmured. “I’d be bloody brilliant at it…”
“What’s that, Gladys?”
“Horoscopes, guv. When’s your birthday?”
“April 2nd.”
“Ok, that’d be Aries…” Sam tilted his head at Gene and smirked. “Ooh Gene, it says here that there will be an issue at work as an error of judgement causes a spot of trouble,” he said, putting on a silly mystical voice. “It tells you that the best support you can get is from your colleagues - ha, this one knows what it’s talking about.”
“What a load of bollocks.”
“But it’s all okay though, as a windfall of money will improve your mood and your luck will be on the increase. Oh and look, your love life will take a passionate turn as a result.”
“How’s that, then? You bought something kinky, Tyler? Nicked some handcuffs while Phyllis wasn’t looking?” Gene asked, arching an eyebrow.
Sam laughed, his head tilted back against the car seat and Gene took the opportunity of his amusement to grab the paper back.
“Oi!”
“What d’you mean, ‘oi’, it’s my frigging paper!”
“Spoilsport,” Sam grumbled moodily. “I was reading those horoscopes.”
“Oh alright then, Petunia, what star sign are you?” Gene sighed.
“Capricorn.”
“Okay, here we go.” Gene cleared his throat and rustled the paper before he began to read. “‘Today you will piss off your boss by wittering on about a load of astro-bollocks but you will make it up to him by giving him a fantastic blowjob...’”
“Gene.”
“What? It’s not me who decides your future, it’s in the stars! I am but a willing slave to destiny.”
“You’re not funny.”
“Tyler, Tyler, you always have to be the one who thinks differently to the rest of the world, don’t you?”
“Because the rest of the world finds you hilarious, Gene.”
“I’m so glad you agree.”
Sam fell into a sulky silence, his arms folded as he slouched in his seat until Gene broke the spell with a heaved sigh as he flung the newspaper onto the backseat.
“You don’t really believe all that malarkey, do you?” Gene asked, trying to prompt his pouting DI into conversation again.
“Not really,” Sam said with a shrug. “But hey, who knows?”
“And there was me thinking that you were king of evidence and rational thinking.”
Sam stared out of the car window, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I used to be sceptical.”
“What happened?” Gene asked, interested in spite of himself.
“I…” …went back in time, his mind supplied helpfully, and Sam grimaced. “I learnt that sometimes what we believe to be impossible can in fact be more plausible than we would like to think, proving that our conception of what is certain can be flawed and that the human brain is fallible.”
Gene looked at him flatly. “You just like sounding like a bleeding dictionary to piss me off, don’t you Tyler?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “All I’m saying is that things are not always as they seem.”
“Rubbish,” Gene sniffed. “Things are always exactly as they seem. Sometimes it can just take you a bit longer than usual to realise that.”
Sam stared at him but at that precise moment the front door they had been watching opened and Walters walked out, shrugging his coat on and glancing from side to side. Gene stayed very still for a minute before cracking open the door.
“C’mon the, Mystic Meg, we have a villain to follow.”
“Mystic Meg?” Sam asked, flabbergasted. “But she wasn’t famous for ages yet…”
“What are you blabbing about? Get your arse into gear!” Gene shot over his shoulder.
***
They followed Walters to a nearby unused warehouse that Gene had thought to be empty of nothing but old storage boxes. Apparently someone else knew that it was unused however, and the boxes were unlikely to be empty now. Gene looked sideways at Sam, who was still worrying at his lip and muttering about Mystic Meg. Gene wished he hadn’t created the silly fucking nickname. They were flat against the wall at the side of the warehouse, watching as Walters slipped quietly inside.
“Right, we follow him in.”
“What? No, guv, we don’t know what’s in there.”
“We know precisely what’s in there. Walters and some happy powder just waiting to get caught having some alone time together.”
“He might not be alone. We should wait for back-up.
“What, so he can slip out when we’re not watching? I don’t think so. You can wait here if you’re going to be such a Jessie.”
“Gene…remember what your horoscope said.”
“Oh give over.”
He pushed away from the wall, rolling his eyes and slipping in through the door Walters had entered. He pulled out his gun just in case, blinking as he waited for his eyes to get accustomed to the gloom. He trotted down the steps and walked silently across the dusty floor, keeping to the shadows as he crept past stacks of crates and boxes. He hid behind a pile of boxes when he heard a slight noise and peered round to see Walters shifting a crate aside to pull up the floorboards, unloading bags of white powder. He smirked triumphantly and moved into the light.
“Drop it, sunshine! You’re nicked!” Gene said pleasantly, cocking his gun at Walters as the young lad shot up with his hands in the air.
But then there was a soft click and cold metal pressed into his temple. “DCI Hunt, what a nice surprise,” a cool voice stated in his ear.
Gene’s smile dropped from his face and he twisted ever so slightly to catch the features of Jerry Harman out of the corner of his eye.
Ah. This was an unwanted development. Harman was vicious scum, and not the sort of person you wanted to be holding the gun. Plus, Tyler would be unbearable now that he had been shown to be right. Gene sighed. “I should have guessed you were involved somewhere. Didn’t think you’d let a little wet behind the ears lad like Walters on your patch without your say-so.”
“It’s nice to have a fresh face, sometimes, if they’re careful.” Harman’s voice darkened slightly. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like young Walters here has been careful enough.”
“I-I didn’t know the cops were…”
“Oh come on, it’s not really an excuse, is it, Walters?” Harman said softly. “Now I have to get Mr Hunt off my back and it’s dreadfully inconvenient. So, Chief Inspector, how much does it take to get you to excuse little misdemeanours these days? You can take it out of Walters’ pay packet.”
The young lad opened his mouth to protest but then seemed to think better of it.
Gene scowled. “I can’t be bought off,” he murmured furiously.
“Rubbish, Mr Warren was slipping you notes for ages.”
“And Mr Warren is now in prison, which, incidentally, is where you’re headed.”
Harman tutted quietly and the gun pushed a little harder into his temple. Gene ignored the bead of sweat that trickled down his cheek. “Oh fine, play nasty, then. I’ll just have to kill you.”
Gene grimaced and his eyes searched the warehouse rapidly, hoping and praying that he hadn’t misplaced his trust, but sure enough there was the tiniest of movements in the shadows. He grinned. Sam might be irritating, but Gene was really rather lucky to have the sharp Inspector. Relying on colleagues and all that…for god’s sake, this was ridiculous. He wished he’d never bought the sodding paper. Pulling a face, he turned his attention back to Harman, grinning now in the knowledge that his back was covered.
“Do you believe in horoscopes, Mr Harman?” Gene asked casually, partly humouring himself more than anything.
“What?” the drugs baron snapped, thrown by Gene’s odd comment.
“Because I had quite a good one today. Said my colleagues were gonna help me out.”
Harman’s face pushed close to Gene’s. “There’s no one here but us, I’m afraid Genie.”
Gene frowned. “Don’t call me that.”
And with one hard shove he pushed Harman backwards. Before the thug could recover, Sam had appeared from the shadows and had twisted the gun out of his grip, his fist digging into Harman’s stomach as he forced him to his knees and cuffed him.
“Must you be so theatrical?” Sam chided gently.
Gene ignored that jibe and frowned at Sam. “You took your precious time!”
“Uh…guv…” Sam said pointedly, looking over Gene’s shoulder.
Walters was legging it and Gene swore, tearing after him and eventually cornering the young lad, barrelling him into a stack of boxes. They toppled to the floor and Gene watched amazed as the top box hit the floor, spraying bundles of notes over the warehouse. He arched an eyebrow at Walters. “Silly place to keep your cash, isn’t it?”
Walters moaned in reply and Gene cuffed him, scowling all the time he did so. Then he dragged him to his feet and over to where Sam and Harman were. His DI was wearing a predictably irritating grin.
“Error of judgement, helped by a colleague, windfall of money… Still a sceptic, guv?” Sam asked smugly.
“Tyler, shut your face. It’s all coincidence. Now radio Ray and get him down here to bag up that sodding money and get a few of those sacks of powder dusted for prints.”
Sam simply smirked and pushed Harman out towards the Cortina. “Already radioed. They’ll be here now-ish. Not everyone rushes in without back-up, you know, guv.” Sam flicked an innocent look over his shoulder. “I’ll brief forensics, shall I?”
“Smart arse,” Gene grumbled.
***
“Just coincidence, then?” Sam pushed as they sat together in the Railway Arms.
“Yes,” Gene snapped irritably.
“That’s quite a few coincidences for one day.”
“Tyler, if you don’t shut up my fist will coincide with your face!”
“Fair enough,” Sam replied, shrugging. “After all, it’s not like all of it came true.”
It took a few seconds for him to realise what Sam was referring to, but when he finally understood Sam had Gene’s full attention, especially given the dirty grin his DI was wearing. “What are you plotting?” Gene asked, eyeing him with interest.
“Absolutely nothing.” Sam said airily, sliding off his bar stool and making his way to the exit. “Seeing as horoscopes are a load of rubbish, and all that.”
Gene stared after him as he sauntered out the door. He downed his pint like lightning and followed Sam out, not surprised when a hand pulled him against the wall where they were shadowed from prying eyes.
“You are such a smug little git,” Gene muttered, pushing closer to his Inspector’s welcoming body.
“Yeah, but you love it.”
Gene heard a metallic sound and swallowed hard when Sam dangled the handcuffs he had pulled from his pocket in front of Gene’s nose. He cleared his throat slightly. “You know, I think I might be persuaded to be a bit more open-minded about this horoscope malarkey,” he told Sam, his voice slightly strained. “Given today’s events, of course.
“Really?” Sam purred, holding Gene’s gaze with heated eyes. Then he turned and began to make his way back to his flat, the handcuffs dangling from one finger and shining in the streetlight.
Gene quickly caught up and walked close to his Inspector so he could lean down and whisper in his ear. “Definitely. And maybe we might work on making your horoscope come true, too.”