Life on Mars fic
It rained so hard yesterday I couldn't get out of the house. Was going to take my little girl to nursery and then sneak off to the internet cafe for an hour - we got to the end of the balcony and even with an umbrella she was complaining the rain was hurting. Just continuous downpour from when I went to bed far too late Thursday night until about 5pm Friday. That would be my excuse for not answering comments from my last post, but to be perfectly honest I'd entirely forgotten I'd posted anything, was rather surprised when I opened hotmail. If I'd opened LJ first I'd've just posted it twice. Is 27 too young for senility?
And this has been sitting in my inbox for a week too, just waiting for me to change two little sentences that made no sense. ::is lazy::
If is for Children, Part Two
'Nothing that wouldn't heal' wasn't the cheery prognosis it sounded. Gene may have been right, more or less, but healing, it turned out, was a long and painful process that left scars. A week of laying in a hospital bed having his dressings changed every six hours soon took the shine off not being dead.
When the alarm on that bomb had sounded Sam had done his best to get away, survival instincts overriding any idea that this might be the way home. He'd wriggled out from under the car, this much he could remember for himself now, scraping his back on the tarmac in his haste to be out from under the doomed car. He'd grabbed the bumper from underneath, intending to pull himself upright and run, and that was where the memories had stopped. The blast had lifted him up, apparently, and thrown him forward, powerful enough to destroy his favourite and only leather jacket and burn a good deal of the skin off his back. The back of his neck was a bubbling collection of blisters and aside from his fringe he would not be needing the services of a barber for some time to come. He hadn't yet dare ask how silly he looked and the thick turban of bandages prevented him taking a quick peek in the mirror.
His hands were what bothered him most. Both still touching the car at the initial blast, presumably, and badly burnt. Gene had been cagey about what happened next, but Sam gathered from Annie that Gene had been dragging him away from the car when the petrol tank had gone up seconds later and the car had blown apart, scattering shrapnel everywhere. One piece had ended up in his left hand, luckily for the right-handed Sam, as the doctors said the tendons might never be what they were. The burns would heal but Gene had been right - he'd never play piano. In the meantime his hands had been bandaged out of use.
In the hours of lying in bed Sam had plenty of time to wonder if something had happened in 2006 that translated itself into his 1973 fantasy, but he heard no voices, no bleeps. He was almost impatient to get back to his pokey little flat and check he still had the company of the test card girl and her creepy clown.
Not that he was short of company in the hospital. Despite Gene complaining endlessly about being short staffed with his skiving DI laid up, both Annie and Chris had spent a good deal of their work hours sitting by his bedside. Even Gene cut short his male-bonding-and-booze time in the pub to come up every evening and fight with the duty nurse who insisted visiting hours ended at six. He brought the booze with him, stank out the tiny room with deadly smoke, seemed to delight in the fact that he shouldn't be there, but still the gesture warmed Sam. And there was always entertainment to be had watching Gene face off against the nurse. He noticed it was more of a ritual than an argument; both participants knew going in who would come out the victor and once Gene was safely ensconced the sour faced woman seemed quite happy to bring him endless cups of tea and sweep up his carelessly discarded fag butts without complaint. It was an affect Sam had noticed before. Despite his appalling crudity, misogyny, and advanced years, women of all ages somehow tolerated Gene Hunt.
It was the nurse who had told Sam how DCI Hunt had sat there every night while Sam had been unconscious. Turning up straight from work in the same dishevelled state to chivvy his other visitors home to their beds and all the cajoling of nurses hadn't shifted him for longer than it took to change bandages. The first time he came in when Sam was actually conscious he was a good deal cleaner, and Sam's vision a good deal clearer, he could see just how battered his DCI was. And he knew there were wounds he couldn't see, more shredded bodywork from the destroyed green Ford, again information that came from the nurses rather than Gene.
All the complaining he heard from his DCI was about the bloody coat. And just in case anyone might for a second forget the depth of his loss, Gene continued to wear it. Someone, presumably the elusive Missus, when Gene finally took the time to go home, had cleaned out the soot and sewn up the shrapnel shaped holes, but nothing could be done about the side where Gene had hit the tarmac with his DI. The thick material looked like it had been attacked by a cheese-grater and the overall effect was one a tramp would turn their nose up at. A cold tramp. Still, a week later Gene was stubbornly still wearing it and if anyone dared to suggest it was time he got a new one they weren't stupid enough to dare twice.
Sam might have pointed out how scruffy it looked, as it was generally his lot to say what others wouldn't, but he wasn't picking fights with his DCI this week. Though no-one had said as much, particularly not Gene, Sam realised he would be in several large chunks if not for his superior officer. Besides, he was rather fond of that coat himself. It was hardly flattering and added a good two stone to Gene's already substantial bulk but that suited the larger than life man it covered. Gene wore it so constantly that the coat had woven itself into Sam's sexual fantasies and he could hardly imagine the DCI without it.
He could and did imagine himself in it. Just sometimes, when he'd had too much beer and too much of his own company. Not wearing it, just creeping inside, snuggling against Gene - they'd both fit, he was sure - pressing up against him, feeling the firm contours that the coat hid.
Sam pulled the emergency cord on that train of thought too late to avoid a most unwanted erection. Just one of the many, many frustrating things about having both hands tightly bound, and not in the nice handcuffs-and-leather way. No fancy light-weight bandages in 1973; his arms were two mummified gourds that the nurses laboriously unwound four times a day to change the dressings. Bad enough that thinking about a fat, forty-plus Neanderthal got him horny, worse when even the reliable right hand wasn't available for a spot of relief.
No distractions, either. No BUPA in 1973, no tellies over the hospital beds. Sam didn't have a hand to hold a book or press the buttons on the tape player Annie had brought in for him, and if he did moving at all was still painful and very slow. The healing skin on his back was still tight and sore and his neck worse.
Annie had been a reliable distraction in daylight hours, every evening, every lunch break, every hour she snatched from work (with Gene's tacit consent, he was sure). But Annie had gone home for her tea when it got dark and thinking of her now somehow led his thoughts straight back to Gene. Sam knew, because Annie had told him, that Gene had an important darts match this evening, and for the first time since Sam regained consciousness he hadn't turned up after a few pints to chase Annie home.
It was rather pathetic to Sam just how much he missed his presence. Not just the company, the latest work talk to keep Sam's active mind busy, conversation to alleviate the boredom of recuperating. Not for the eye candy either, though his brain had to pause to realise that he was now terming Gene Hunt as eye candy and made a note of just how disturbing that was. He just missed the warm fuzzy feeling that came with incontrovertible proof he was cared for.
1973 was a lonely place. No family, no old friends, no past, the closest thing to a home he had here was Manchester CID headquarters. His mother might be sitting by his bedside but she was doing it 33 years away - warm fuzzies were hard to come by. Gene might, and did, point out that Sam's predicament was his own stupid fault and blame him, loudly, for the damage to his coat. He might claim he'd only sat by his unconscious DI because it was the only way of chasing Cartwright out of the hospital. He could give any other excuse to maintain the facade of uncaring hardman, but every night for a week he'd halved his pub time to sit on a criminally uncomfortable chair and chew the cud with his bedridden colleague.
It wasn't the frantic man-on-man action Sam idly thought he wanted but it was something and maybe, to an extent, better. Friendship, duty, affection - the closest thing to family he could ever find here. Lying in a hospital bed with no voices from the future 'here' felt far too real and it would be a depressing feeling indeed without Gene to look forward to.
And Sam knew it was petulant and childish to resent one missed visit, one evening on his own, but he did. Gene had gone well over what Sam would consider necessary if it was his DI stuck in hospital, taken the place of a family who didn't yet know Sam existed, spent more time with his annoying DI in the last ten days than with his wife or his beloved boozer. And Sam knew how much Gene loved sticking it to RCS, even in a 'friendly' darts match, and how much he'd earned his R&R and the 'friendly' punch-up that usually followed. But Sam resented it just the same. Nearly as much as he resented the thick bandages that prevented him slipping his hand under the sheet and giving himself a quick tug.
So his childish, petulant heart flipped a little when Gene appeared in the doorway of his hospital room at half past eleven. He brought every scent of a good booze-up with him but walked steadily enough to his customary chair and landed in it with a dramatic creak. He cast a speculative look over his prone DI and raised his eyebrows.
"Pleased to see me, Sammy-boy?"
Sam followed Gene's eyes down and closed his own with embarrassment. He'd been wrong, he realised, when he'd decided that frustration was the worst part of being helpless - it was the humiliation. The plain, tightly stretched hospital blanket did nothing to disguise his lingering erection. Blood rushed to his face, but wherever that blood was being diverted from clearly wasn't his cock, which stayed perversely hard through Sam's mortification.
"Fuck off." It really was the most dignified response he could come up with. Gene sniffed loudly.
"Charmin'! What's the matter, Tyler? They get you a pretty young doctor to puff up your pillows?"
Doctors, to Gene, were presumably male. It was only the second time he'd alluded to Sam's sexuality since that terrifying Monday morning talk, apart from the homophobic name calling that Gene practised indiscriminately on anyone who annoyed him. His DCI had shocked him that day with his casual dismissal of something Sam had assumed would be a huge deal, he'd had to re-evaluate quite a few opinions he'd held of the man. But he was still sure if his boss knew the thoughts that had lead to Sam's current state of perkiness he would run screaming from the building. Or possibly just kill Sam. Either way it would be the end of a not-entirely-ugly friendship. Gene's opening comment hit far too close for comfort and his amusement added an extra note of whinge to Sam's voice as he answered defensively.
"You try laying on your back for a week with your hands in fucking breezeblocks!" Sam opened his eyes again to glare at his DCI, found him smirking back, not without a measure of sympathy. "I can't even pee by myself, never mind wank. And it's fucking miserable! So if you've just come up here to take the piss out of me then you can fuck off back to the pub!"
Where Gene would rather be, most probably, a thought Sam resented even though he'd skipped the lock-in to come and visit him and he was vaguely aware that he was being a selfish little twat. But he'd been laying on his back for a week, not doing anything or sleeping properly, and he thought that was a good enough excuse for the occasional bad temper. It wasn't exactly what was causing his bad temper but Sam didn't want to admit what was.
"And you know something else? I'm not a bloody poof!"
Gene's eyebrows climbed higher but his composure remained unruffled. "That bloke just tripped and landed with his dick in your arse?" he asked calmly.
"That's not... Just because I like that doesn't mean I don't like girls. It could have been a pretty nurse plumping up my pillows."
"Was it?"
"No," Sam admitted with a whine. He glanced down at the stiffy that was still ignoring all his entreaties to leave. "It's not anything. I haven't had a wank for a fortnight; the bloody thing's grown a mind of its own. It's like being a bloody teenager again, it's mutinied, it's-"
"Christ, Tyler! Queer or not you're a frigging drama queen."
In one forceful movement Gene caught the edge of Sam's sheet and ripped it from its stays, leaving Sam with just the covering of his hideous thigh length hospital gown. Gene flicked that out of the way too and wrapped a calloused hand around Sam's erection.
"What are you doing?"
Okay, it was a stupid question, but Sam's brain had shut down. Gene treated it with the contempt it deserved.
"What do you think I'm doing?" he grunted. His hand moved up and down, gripping tightly, and Sam's dick sighed approval as his brain stuttered.
"You're... What... You..."
"Shut it, Tyler."
And Sam had to obey because Gene was sliding his thumb over the head of his cock just as Sam did to himself. And hard as he was Gene's gruff order made him harder and God, Gene was right, he really was a kinky little bastard. And for a couple of glorious minutes Sam really didn't care. Gene Hunt was leaning over him, gaze fixed on the opposite wall, blond fringe flopping over his forehead, and he was fisting his cock. And Sam knew if Gene could read his mind right then he'd be out of the hospital quicker than Bannister after a vindaloo but as he couldn't, Sam let his fantasies take flight and bit his lip.
It was never going to last very long, however desperately Sam tried to prolong the moment. He might have held back a little longer but Gene's eye flickered sideways to meet Sam's and Sam was lost, coming hard over his stomach and willing himself to be silent. Then the deliciously strong hand was gone, reappearing a second later with a rather grubby handkerchief. Gene wiped the cum off his stomach as Sam panted out his high, tossed the soiled cloth into the corner of the room and carefully re-tucked the blanket.
"Better now, Dorothy?"
Sam nodded, and damn the pain of his burnt neck rubbing against the pillow - he couldn't have spoken right then.
"Good." Gene sat back in his chair and put his feet up on the bed as he pulled out his hipflask. "Did Cartwright tell you about Davy Connor?"
Sam blinked and tried very hard to come up with an answer that wasn't 'guh'. "The suspect for the Magdalen Road robbery?" he asked, after a long minute of racking his rather confused brain.
"That's the one. Pulled him out of the canal this evening. Bloody inconvenient timing - nearly missed the darts and we haven't lost to RCS since I got A division. Stabbed 16 times, the doc says."
"Uh..."
"C'mon, Tyler. You're still on the payroll you know. Reckon we're going to need some of your laconical thinking on this one."
Sam laughed. He was fairly sure his mind would never really work again, laconically or otherwise, but then he'd spent far too much of his life thinking. As a pastime it was overrated. He gave the ceiling one last beaming smile and tried to affect some of Gene's nonchalance.
"Okay. Brief me."
TBC....
And I have a request. Watched Clocking Off Thursday night, all six hours because I have no self-restraint. Bloody good telly. Is there fanfic? Somebody please tell me there's fanfic.
And this has been sitting in my inbox for a week too, just waiting for me to change two little sentences that made no sense. ::is lazy::
If is for Children, Part Two
'Nothing that wouldn't heal' wasn't the cheery prognosis it sounded. Gene may have been right, more or less, but healing, it turned out, was a long and painful process that left scars. A week of laying in a hospital bed having his dressings changed every six hours soon took the shine off not being dead.
When the alarm on that bomb had sounded Sam had done his best to get away, survival instincts overriding any idea that this might be the way home. He'd wriggled out from under the car, this much he could remember for himself now, scraping his back on the tarmac in his haste to be out from under the doomed car. He'd grabbed the bumper from underneath, intending to pull himself upright and run, and that was where the memories had stopped. The blast had lifted him up, apparently, and thrown him forward, powerful enough to destroy his favourite and only leather jacket and burn a good deal of the skin off his back. The back of his neck was a bubbling collection of blisters and aside from his fringe he would not be needing the services of a barber for some time to come. He hadn't yet dare ask how silly he looked and the thick turban of bandages prevented him taking a quick peek in the mirror.
His hands were what bothered him most. Both still touching the car at the initial blast, presumably, and badly burnt. Gene had been cagey about what happened next, but Sam gathered from Annie that Gene had been dragging him away from the car when the petrol tank had gone up seconds later and the car had blown apart, scattering shrapnel everywhere. One piece had ended up in his left hand, luckily for the right-handed Sam, as the doctors said the tendons might never be what they were. The burns would heal but Gene had been right - he'd never play piano. In the meantime his hands had been bandaged out of use.
In the hours of lying in bed Sam had plenty of time to wonder if something had happened in 2006 that translated itself into his 1973 fantasy, but he heard no voices, no bleeps. He was almost impatient to get back to his pokey little flat and check he still had the company of the test card girl and her creepy clown.
Not that he was short of company in the hospital. Despite Gene complaining endlessly about being short staffed with his skiving DI laid up, both Annie and Chris had spent a good deal of their work hours sitting by his bedside. Even Gene cut short his male-bonding-and-booze time in the pub to come up every evening and fight with the duty nurse who insisted visiting hours ended at six. He brought the booze with him, stank out the tiny room with deadly smoke, seemed to delight in the fact that he shouldn't be there, but still the gesture warmed Sam. And there was always entertainment to be had watching Gene face off against the nurse. He noticed it was more of a ritual than an argument; both participants knew going in who would come out the victor and once Gene was safely ensconced the sour faced woman seemed quite happy to bring him endless cups of tea and sweep up his carelessly discarded fag butts without complaint. It was an affect Sam had noticed before. Despite his appalling crudity, misogyny, and advanced years, women of all ages somehow tolerated Gene Hunt.
It was the nurse who had told Sam how DCI Hunt had sat there every night while Sam had been unconscious. Turning up straight from work in the same dishevelled state to chivvy his other visitors home to their beds and all the cajoling of nurses hadn't shifted him for longer than it took to change bandages. The first time he came in when Sam was actually conscious he was a good deal cleaner, and Sam's vision a good deal clearer, he could see just how battered his DCI was. And he knew there were wounds he couldn't see, more shredded bodywork from the destroyed green Ford, again information that came from the nurses rather than Gene.
All the complaining he heard from his DCI was about the bloody coat. And just in case anyone might for a second forget the depth of his loss, Gene continued to wear it. Someone, presumably the elusive Missus, when Gene finally took the time to go home, had cleaned out the soot and sewn up the shrapnel shaped holes, but nothing could be done about the side where Gene had hit the tarmac with his DI. The thick material looked like it had been attacked by a cheese-grater and the overall effect was one a tramp would turn their nose up at. A cold tramp. Still, a week later Gene was stubbornly still wearing it and if anyone dared to suggest it was time he got a new one they weren't stupid enough to dare twice.
Sam might have pointed out how scruffy it looked, as it was generally his lot to say what others wouldn't, but he wasn't picking fights with his DCI this week. Though no-one had said as much, particularly not Gene, Sam realised he would be in several large chunks if not for his superior officer. Besides, he was rather fond of that coat himself. It was hardly flattering and added a good two stone to Gene's already substantial bulk but that suited the larger than life man it covered. Gene wore it so constantly that the coat had woven itself into Sam's sexual fantasies and he could hardly imagine the DCI without it.
He could and did imagine himself in it. Just sometimes, when he'd had too much beer and too much of his own company. Not wearing it, just creeping inside, snuggling against Gene - they'd both fit, he was sure - pressing up against him, feeling the firm contours that the coat hid.
Sam pulled the emergency cord on that train of thought too late to avoid a most unwanted erection. Just one of the many, many frustrating things about having both hands tightly bound, and not in the nice handcuffs-and-leather way. No fancy light-weight bandages in 1973; his arms were two mummified gourds that the nurses laboriously unwound four times a day to change the dressings. Bad enough that thinking about a fat, forty-plus Neanderthal got him horny, worse when even the reliable right hand wasn't available for a spot of relief.
No distractions, either. No BUPA in 1973, no tellies over the hospital beds. Sam didn't have a hand to hold a book or press the buttons on the tape player Annie had brought in for him, and if he did moving at all was still painful and very slow. The healing skin on his back was still tight and sore and his neck worse.
Annie had been a reliable distraction in daylight hours, every evening, every lunch break, every hour she snatched from work (with Gene's tacit consent, he was sure). But Annie had gone home for her tea when it got dark and thinking of her now somehow led his thoughts straight back to Gene. Sam knew, because Annie had told him, that Gene had an important darts match this evening, and for the first time since Sam regained consciousness he hadn't turned up after a few pints to chase Annie home.
It was rather pathetic to Sam just how much he missed his presence. Not just the company, the latest work talk to keep Sam's active mind busy, conversation to alleviate the boredom of recuperating. Not for the eye candy either, though his brain had to pause to realise that he was now terming Gene Hunt as eye candy and made a note of just how disturbing that was. He just missed the warm fuzzy feeling that came with incontrovertible proof he was cared for.
1973 was a lonely place. No family, no old friends, no past, the closest thing to a home he had here was Manchester CID headquarters. His mother might be sitting by his bedside but she was doing it 33 years away - warm fuzzies were hard to come by. Gene might, and did, point out that Sam's predicament was his own stupid fault and blame him, loudly, for the damage to his coat. He might claim he'd only sat by his unconscious DI because it was the only way of chasing Cartwright out of the hospital. He could give any other excuse to maintain the facade of uncaring hardman, but every night for a week he'd halved his pub time to sit on a criminally uncomfortable chair and chew the cud with his bedridden colleague.
It wasn't the frantic man-on-man action Sam idly thought he wanted but it was something and maybe, to an extent, better. Friendship, duty, affection - the closest thing to family he could ever find here. Lying in a hospital bed with no voices from the future 'here' felt far too real and it would be a depressing feeling indeed without Gene to look forward to.
And Sam knew it was petulant and childish to resent one missed visit, one evening on his own, but he did. Gene had gone well over what Sam would consider necessary if it was his DI stuck in hospital, taken the place of a family who didn't yet know Sam existed, spent more time with his annoying DI in the last ten days than with his wife or his beloved boozer. And Sam knew how much Gene loved sticking it to RCS, even in a 'friendly' darts match, and how much he'd earned his R&R and the 'friendly' punch-up that usually followed. But Sam resented it just the same. Nearly as much as he resented the thick bandages that prevented him slipping his hand under the sheet and giving himself a quick tug.
So his childish, petulant heart flipped a little when Gene appeared in the doorway of his hospital room at half past eleven. He brought every scent of a good booze-up with him but walked steadily enough to his customary chair and landed in it with a dramatic creak. He cast a speculative look over his prone DI and raised his eyebrows.
"Pleased to see me, Sammy-boy?"
Sam followed Gene's eyes down and closed his own with embarrassment. He'd been wrong, he realised, when he'd decided that frustration was the worst part of being helpless - it was the humiliation. The plain, tightly stretched hospital blanket did nothing to disguise his lingering erection. Blood rushed to his face, but wherever that blood was being diverted from clearly wasn't his cock, which stayed perversely hard through Sam's mortification.
"Fuck off." It really was the most dignified response he could come up with. Gene sniffed loudly.
"Charmin'! What's the matter, Tyler? They get you a pretty young doctor to puff up your pillows?"
Doctors, to Gene, were presumably male. It was only the second time he'd alluded to Sam's sexuality since that terrifying Monday morning talk, apart from the homophobic name calling that Gene practised indiscriminately on anyone who annoyed him. His DCI had shocked him that day with his casual dismissal of something Sam had assumed would be a huge deal, he'd had to re-evaluate quite a few opinions he'd held of the man. But he was still sure if his boss knew the thoughts that had lead to Sam's current state of perkiness he would run screaming from the building. Or possibly just kill Sam. Either way it would be the end of a not-entirely-ugly friendship. Gene's opening comment hit far too close for comfort and his amusement added an extra note of whinge to Sam's voice as he answered defensively.
"You try laying on your back for a week with your hands in fucking breezeblocks!" Sam opened his eyes again to glare at his DCI, found him smirking back, not without a measure of sympathy. "I can't even pee by myself, never mind wank. And it's fucking miserable! So if you've just come up here to take the piss out of me then you can fuck off back to the pub!"
Where Gene would rather be, most probably, a thought Sam resented even though he'd skipped the lock-in to come and visit him and he was vaguely aware that he was being a selfish little twat. But he'd been laying on his back for a week, not doing anything or sleeping properly, and he thought that was a good enough excuse for the occasional bad temper. It wasn't exactly what was causing his bad temper but Sam didn't want to admit what was.
"And you know something else? I'm not a bloody poof!"
Gene's eyebrows climbed higher but his composure remained unruffled. "That bloke just tripped and landed with his dick in your arse?" he asked calmly.
"That's not... Just because I like that doesn't mean I don't like girls. It could have been a pretty nurse plumping up my pillows."
"Was it?"
"No," Sam admitted with a whine. He glanced down at the stiffy that was still ignoring all his entreaties to leave. "It's not anything. I haven't had a wank for a fortnight; the bloody thing's grown a mind of its own. It's like being a bloody teenager again, it's mutinied, it's-"
"Christ, Tyler! Queer or not you're a frigging drama queen."
In one forceful movement Gene caught the edge of Sam's sheet and ripped it from its stays, leaving Sam with just the covering of his hideous thigh length hospital gown. Gene flicked that out of the way too and wrapped a calloused hand around Sam's erection.
"What are you doing?"
Okay, it was a stupid question, but Sam's brain had shut down. Gene treated it with the contempt it deserved.
"What do you think I'm doing?" he grunted. His hand moved up and down, gripping tightly, and Sam's dick sighed approval as his brain stuttered.
"You're... What... You..."
"Shut it, Tyler."
And Sam had to obey because Gene was sliding his thumb over the head of his cock just as Sam did to himself. And hard as he was Gene's gruff order made him harder and God, Gene was right, he really was a kinky little bastard. And for a couple of glorious minutes Sam really didn't care. Gene Hunt was leaning over him, gaze fixed on the opposite wall, blond fringe flopping over his forehead, and he was fisting his cock. And Sam knew if Gene could read his mind right then he'd be out of the hospital quicker than Bannister after a vindaloo but as he couldn't, Sam let his fantasies take flight and bit his lip.
It was never going to last very long, however desperately Sam tried to prolong the moment. He might have held back a little longer but Gene's eye flickered sideways to meet Sam's and Sam was lost, coming hard over his stomach and willing himself to be silent. Then the deliciously strong hand was gone, reappearing a second later with a rather grubby handkerchief. Gene wiped the cum off his stomach as Sam panted out his high, tossed the soiled cloth into the corner of the room and carefully re-tucked the blanket.
"Better now, Dorothy?"
Sam nodded, and damn the pain of his burnt neck rubbing against the pillow - he couldn't have spoken right then.
"Good." Gene sat back in his chair and put his feet up on the bed as he pulled out his hipflask. "Did Cartwright tell you about Davy Connor?"
Sam blinked and tried very hard to come up with an answer that wasn't 'guh'. "The suspect for the Magdalen Road robbery?" he asked, after a long minute of racking his rather confused brain.
"That's the one. Pulled him out of the canal this evening. Bloody inconvenient timing - nearly missed the darts and we haven't lost to RCS since I got A division. Stabbed 16 times, the doc says."
"Uh..."
"C'mon, Tyler. You're still on the payroll you know. Reckon we're going to need some of your laconical thinking on this one."
Sam laughed. He was fairly sure his mind would never really work again, laconically or otherwise, but then he'd spent far too much of his life thinking. As a pastime it was overrated. He gave the ceiling one last beaming smile and tried to affect some of Gene's nonchalance.
"Okay. Brief me."
TBC....
And I have a request. Watched Clocking Off Thursday night, all six hours because I have no self-restraint. Bloody good telly. Is there fanfic? Somebody please tell me there's fanfic.