Sorry Means Never Having to Say It, by Desdemon
Title: Sorry Means Never Having to Say It
Fandom: Life On Mars
Pairing: Chris/Sam
Rating: PG-13 (correct me if I'm wrong)
Warnings: descriptions of death, a bit of language
Summary: Chris raised his eyes, and Sam must have seen what was coming, because he said, “Don’t - please - don’t say you’re sorry again, Chris, I mean it.”
Author's Note: As requested by naughtyspirit (Chris/Sam, paperwork). Written for the Life on Mars Ficathon.
If Sam Tyler never saw another decrepit warehouse for as long as he lived, he would consider himself a happy man.
“Put down your weapons!” he shouted, gun in hand, from the safety of his place behind some sort of industrial vat.
“Or we’ll shoot the lot of you!” Gene yelled, never able to keep out his two cents. “Tell you what, I’m shooting him regardless,” he added in what could have benefited enormously from being an undertone, as he nodded at Tommy Adams, the leader of the little gang shivering back in the shadows.
Sam barely had time to wince before Tommy, who had been excitable before, in custody, where he had through his complete failure to answer a series of simple questions managed to stammer his way into Gene’s bad graces, legged it. It took about one and half seconds for the other three boys to follow.
“We lost him once, we’re not losing him again!” Gene bellowed, but Sam was already running, arms tight with the rhythm, gun at the ready and safety on and Tommy in sight, just disappearing out the back. And they must’ve propped the door open as an escape route, because when it banged shut behind Tommy, the others found it suddenly locked. They had a moment of pounding on it before they were forced in their own interest to turn to Sam, which quickly became Sam, Gene, Ray, and Chris.
“Is there another door?” Sam demanded, pointing his gun at the tall kid in the center. One second of silence was too long to wait. “Is there another door?”
The kid on the left pointed wordlessly - with his gun - and Sam ran. Behind him he could hear Gene saying, getting progressively fainter, “All right, boys, here we have ourselves a textbook case of you being nicked,” but he had no time to smile, because Tommy Adams was just a kid, and in Sam’s mind that made it all the more important to put him away, somehow, and then he had found the door.
He burst through it with such momentum that for a second he didn’t recognize the gunfire. Then he had to duck, and then he had to roll in between more vats to get in some return fire, and by the time Chris burst through the door himself Sam was coughing from the powdered mortar drifting down from the alley wall behind him, and reloading his gun, and so Sam wasn’t actually looking when the final shot was fired.
He looked later, squinting down at Tommy Adams’ body while someone from the Gazette took statements. Tommy’s legs were bent strangely from the force of the bullet to his chest, which had knocked him sideways. His face was slack, and with all signs of his nervous tics wiped away, he almost looked like a different person. His arms were flung out. The gun was a few feet from his left hand - he must have been left-handed, Sam realized.
“Shame, that, but you did a good job, Chris, no question,” Gene said.
Sam didn’t look away from the body on the ground. “He was just a kid,” he said quietly.
“And he would’ve shot you in the head if Chris hadn’t rode in here on a white horse,” Gene said sharply, raising his voice. “Why don’t instead of moping like a plunk you show a gnat’s whisker of gratitude and treat the man to a pint or three?”
Sam could hear Chris murmuring anxiously, “Gov, it’s all right,” and it made his heart sink, so he raised his head.
“You’re right. Sorry,” he said. Gene and Chris looked at him. “Of course I would be dead if it wasn’t for you. Thank you, Chris,” Sam said, at least seriously if not sincerely.
Chris shifted his weight and crossed his arms in an attempt to be casual. “Any time, boss,” he said, with none of the bravado he’d been aiming for.
“Here’s what I like to see,” Gene said, and then he raised his voice further to announce that DI Tyler, having just miraculously escaped death, was feeling unusually generous this afternoon and would be spotting each and every one of them for a round at the pub.
“I’m sorry,” Chris shouted in his ear over the pub noise later that night. When Sam replied with a bleary, “What,” Chris repeated, “I’m sorry I had to shoot him, boss. It’s just that he were shooting at us first, or I’d have…” He swallowed, and looked at the bar. “Done it different, I suppose.”
“Chris,” Sam said, closing his eyes for a moment. He shook his head slightly. “You did what you had to do,” he finally decided on saying, and he unlaced his hands so that he could take another swallow of bitter. “You don’t have to apologize for doing your job.”
When Chris finally said, “Right, boss,” he didn’t sound very convinced.
Neither could Sam really convince himself, later, that he wasn’t trying to make Chris apologize somehow when he let Chris back him up against the brick outside Nelson’s and kiss his face, wet and openmouthed, fists in Sam’s jacket and hips leaning into his; or later, when Chris slid down to his knees and blew him. Sam just let his head roll back against the wall and thought about how drunk he was, and how good this felt, and how much like dogshit he was going to feel in the morning. He thought about how the kid from Tommy’s gang had gestured with his gun, like he hadn’t known what it meant, like it was a Gameboy or something, anything. He thought about how Chris had shot Tommy Adams in the chest, and when he suddenly had to grip the back of Chris’s neck and push himself forward, hard, over and over until he came, he wasn’t sure anymore which one of them was apologizing, and who was supposed to be punished here.
In the morning, he did feel almost exactly like dogshit. But, then, so did most of the department, which is why Sam didn't think to look for Chris - lost and found, no; lockers, no; asleep in a corner, no; and then Sam opened the door to filing - until a good bit after lunch.
Chris looked up when he came in, then looked back down at the floor around him, which was littered with papers and files. “The gov is always telling us not to kill anyone or there’ll be paperwork as makes you want to kill yourself,” he said despondently. “I always thought he was joking.”
Sam took it all in and frowned at the semicircle explosion. “This can’t all be yours, can it? This is what came in through the fax? Through the - wire? This is what came in for you?” Sam blinked too much as he stumbled over it, but Chris only registered mild confusion.
“No, course not, some of it’s instructions on how to fill it out,” Chris said.
Sam had to blink again. “On how to fill out your paperwork.”
“Yeah,” Chris said, like it was obvious. Although, if faced with a mess like this, Sam might well have done with some instructions.
Sam got down on the floor, crossing his legs and folding his arms tightly. "Wow," he said, surveying the lot. Then he asked, casually, or he tried to be, “Have you ever killed anyone before, Chris?”
“Sure,” Chris said quickly. “Lots of blokes.”
“Chris, it’s not impressive, and it’s not cool,” Sam said, because he could let himself smile every time Chris talked, or he could teach him something. “You’re a police officer, and it happened, and it might happen again, so it has to be just something you did or didn’t do.” He studied Chris’s face, waiting for the answer Chris had basically already given.
Chris dropped his eyes. “No, I haven’t,” he said. “Just the one bloke.”
“Tommy Adams,” Sam said.
“Yeah, him.”
Chris raised his eyes, and Sam must have seen what was coming, because he said, “Don’t - please - don’t say you’re sorry again, Chris, I mean it.”
“Sorry,” Chris said to that. Then, hurriedly, “I mean - bollocks.”
Sam let himself smile. Chris didn’t want to smile back, but eventually it stole onto his face. “I’m sorry,” Sam said eventually.
“What for?” Chris asked. He furrowed his brows, and then his face took on a degree of suspicion.
Sam inclined his head forward a little. “For - you know,” he said, uneasily, hoping to God he hadn’t just imagined it like everything else. “For… “ He swallowed. “For… I’m sorry,” he finally had to say again; nothing else would do. His voice got hoarse as he repeated, “Chris, I’m so sorry.” He stared at the papers on the floor between them.
It was a long moment before Chris said anything.
“But you didn't do it, boss. I did it. I wanted to."
Sam lifted his head uncomprehendingly, and Chris wasn't frowning or tearing up or looking betrayed - just staring at Sam curiously. Sam felt his eyebrows lift as he tried to search for a way to put it. “I shouldn’t have let you,” he said finally.
“Don’t see why not, if I wanted to,” Chris protested, and then added in a mutter, “You liked it well enough.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” Sam said, having difficulty forming it into words. “I didn’t know if I liked it, or - or if I wanted to hurt you.” He wasn’t even sure if that was right, or if that was all of it. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
Chris was not particularly struck down by this revelation. “You could never hurt me, boss,” he said simply, as if this too were obvious, like paperwork for your paperwork.
Sam closed his eyes. “Could you not call me ‘boss’ while we’re having this conversation?”
“Sorry,” Chris said. He went silent. “I am sorry, though,” he said finally, as though the subject were anywhere near ready to be changed. “I would’ve done it different.”
“I know you would have, Chris,” Sam said quietly. Chris would have done anything to do it differently, because he had upset Sam. And that, there, was why Sam had something to apologize for. “You don’t - you don’t have to make things up to me.”
Chris stared at him, and Sam could watch the hurt bleed into his face, and it was so easy - too easy to look at him, and see the whole story, and change it however you wanted. “So it was making it up to you, then, it was.”
“Yeah, Chris. I think that’s obvious.”
“Gotcha,” Chris said, nodding slowly. “Well, this isn’t going to do itself, eh?” he said after that, gesturing at the paperwork and smiling at Sam. “Guess I’ll see you later, boss.”
Sam pursed his lips. Chris didn’t change his expression. There was nothing for it, so Sam stood up slowly and turned to go, feeling like he’d gone wrong somewhere, despite having been trying to fix it.
“And he weren’t just a kid,” Chris added, in such a mumble that Sam wasn’t sure at first that he’d spoken. But he stopped, and then turned around.
“What?”
“He weren’t just a kid,” Chris said after clearing his throat, with blaring guilt and apprehension. “He were the same age as us.”
Chris, cross-legged on the floor, all floppy hair and transparent expressions, was the same age as the lad he’d just shot dead, asphyxiated on the blood pooling in his lungs.
And you’re just a kid, too. Sam didn’t say it, but it swelled up inside him, stretching until it was just under his skin, aching.
Chris’s expression changed, and Sam knew that he’d seen it. Then Chris gave that wide, tight smile that was fooling nobody, and he said, “Paperwork.”
It took forever for Sam to say, “Yeah,” and then it seemed like he was already out the door without having turned or walked there. Outside he inhaled deeply, and he had to blink rapidly and look at the ceiling before he drowned, fell apart, disappeared. He let out the breath slowly.
Fandom: Life On Mars
Pairing: Chris/Sam
Rating: PG-13 (correct me if I'm wrong)
Warnings: descriptions of death, a bit of language
Summary: Chris raised his eyes, and Sam must have seen what was coming, because he said, “Don’t - please - don’t say you’re sorry again, Chris, I mean it.”
Author's Note: As requested by naughtyspirit (Chris/Sam, paperwork). Written for the Life on Mars Ficathon.
If Sam Tyler never saw another decrepit warehouse for as long as he lived, he would consider himself a happy man.
“Put down your weapons!” he shouted, gun in hand, from the safety of his place behind some sort of industrial vat.
“Or we’ll shoot the lot of you!” Gene yelled, never able to keep out his two cents. “Tell you what, I’m shooting him regardless,” he added in what could have benefited enormously from being an undertone, as he nodded at Tommy Adams, the leader of the little gang shivering back in the shadows.
Sam barely had time to wince before Tommy, who had been excitable before, in custody, where he had through his complete failure to answer a series of simple questions managed to stammer his way into Gene’s bad graces, legged it. It took about one and half seconds for the other three boys to follow.
“We lost him once, we’re not losing him again!” Gene bellowed, but Sam was already running, arms tight with the rhythm, gun at the ready and safety on and Tommy in sight, just disappearing out the back. And they must’ve propped the door open as an escape route, because when it banged shut behind Tommy, the others found it suddenly locked. They had a moment of pounding on it before they were forced in their own interest to turn to Sam, which quickly became Sam, Gene, Ray, and Chris.
“Is there another door?” Sam demanded, pointing his gun at the tall kid in the center. One second of silence was too long to wait. “Is there another door?”
The kid on the left pointed wordlessly - with his gun - and Sam ran. Behind him he could hear Gene saying, getting progressively fainter, “All right, boys, here we have ourselves a textbook case of you being nicked,” but he had no time to smile, because Tommy Adams was just a kid, and in Sam’s mind that made it all the more important to put him away, somehow, and then he had found the door.
He burst through it with such momentum that for a second he didn’t recognize the gunfire. Then he had to duck, and then he had to roll in between more vats to get in some return fire, and by the time Chris burst through the door himself Sam was coughing from the powdered mortar drifting down from the alley wall behind him, and reloading his gun, and so Sam wasn’t actually looking when the final shot was fired.
He looked later, squinting down at Tommy Adams’ body while someone from the Gazette took statements. Tommy’s legs were bent strangely from the force of the bullet to his chest, which had knocked him sideways. His face was slack, and with all signs of his nervous tics wiped away, he almost looked like a different person. His arms were flung out. The gun was a few feet from his left hand - he must have been left-handed, Sam realized.
“Shame, that, but you did a good job, Chris, no question,” Gene said.
Sam didn’t look away from the body on the ground. “He was just a kid,” he said quietly.
“And he would’ve shot you in the head if Chris hadn’t rode in here on a white horse,” Gene said sharply, raising his voice. “Why don’t instead of moping like a plunk you show a gnat’s whisker of gratitude and treat the man to a pint or three?”
Sam could hear Chris murmuring anxiously, “Gov, it’s all right,” and it made his heart sink, so he raised his head.
“You’re right. Sorry,” he said. Gene and Chris looked at him. “Of course I would be dead if it wasn’t for you. Thank you, Chris,” Sam said, at least seriously if not sincerely.
Chris shifted his weight and crossed his arms in an attempt to be casual. “Any time, boss,” he said, with none of the bravado he’d been aiming for.
“Here’s what I like to see,” Gene said, and then he raised his voice further to announce that DI Tyler, having just miraculously escaped death, was feeling unusually generous this afternoon and would be spotting each and every one of them for a round at the pub.
“I’m sorry,” Chris shouted in his ear over the pub noise later that night. When Sam replied with a bleary, “What,” Chris repeated, “I’m sorry I had to shoot him, boss. It’s just that he were shooting at us first, or I’d have…” He swallowed, and looked at the bar. “Done it different, I suppose.”
“Chris,” Sam said, closing his eyes for a moment. He shook his head slightly. “You did what you had to do,” he finally decided on saying, and he unlaced his hands so that he could take another swallow of bitter. “You don’t have to apologize for doing your job.”
When Chris finally said, “Right, boss,” he didn’t sound very convinced.
Neither could Sam really convince himself, later, that he wasn’t trying to make Chris apologize somehow when he let Chris back him up against the brick outside Nelson’s and kiss his face, wet and openmouthed, fists in Sam’s jacket and hips leaning into his; or later, when Chris slid down to his knees and blew him. Sam just let his head roll back against the wall and thought about how drunk he was, and how good this felt, and how much like dogshit he was going to feel in the morning. He thought about how the kid from Tommy’s gang had gestured with his gun, like he hadn’t known what it meant, like it was a Gameboy or something, anything. He thought about how Chris had shot Tommy Adams in the chest, and when he suddenly had to grip the back of Chris’s neck and push himself forward, hard, over and over until he came, he wasn’t sure anymore which one of them was apologizing, and who was supposed to be punished here.
In the morning, he did feel almost exactly like dogshit. But, then, so did most of the department, which is why Sam didn't think to look for Chris - lost and found, no; lockers, no; asleep in a corner, no; and then Sam opened the door to filing - until a good bit after lunch.
Chris looked up when he came in, then looked back down at the floor around him, which was littered with papers and files. “The gov is always telling us not to kill anyone or there’ll be paperwork as makes you want to kill yourself,” he said despondently. “I always thought he was joking.”
Sam took it all in and frowned at the semicircle explosion. “This can’t all be yours, can it? This is what came in through the fax? Through the - wire? This is what came in for you?” Sam blinked too much as he stumbled over it, but Chris only registered mild confusion.
“No, course not, some of it’s instructions on how to fill it out,” Chris said.
Sam had to blink again. “On how to fill out your paperwork.”
“Yeah,” Chris said, like it was obvious. Although, if faced with a mess like this, Sam might well have done with some instructions.
Sam got down on the floor, crossing his legs and folding his arms tightly. "Wow," he said, surveying the lot. Then he asked, casually, or he tried to be, “Have you ever killed anyone before, Chris?”
“Sure,” Chris said quickly. “Lots of blokes.”
“Chris, it’s not impressive, and it’s not cool,” Sam said, because he could let himself smile every time Chris talked, or he could teach him something. “You’re a police officer, and it happened, and it might happen again, so it has to be just something you did or didn’t do.” He studied Chris’s face, waiting for the answer Chris had basically already given.
Chris dropped his eyes. “No, I haven’t,” he said. “Just the one bloke.”
“Tommy Adams,” Sam said.
“Yeah, him.”
Chris raised his eyes, and Sam must have seen what was coming, because he said, “Don’t - please - don’t say you’re sorry again, Chris, I mean it.”
“Sorry,” Chris said to that. Then, hurriedly, “I mean - bollocks.”
Sam let himself smile. Chris didn’t want to smile back, but eventually it stole onto his face. “I’m sorry,” Sam said eventually.
“What for?” Chris asked. He furrowed his brows, and then his face took on a degree of suspicion.
Sam inclined his head forward a little. “For - you know,” he said, uneasily, hoping to God he hadn’t just imagined it like everything else. “For… “ He swallowed. “For… I’m sorry,” he finally had to say again; nothing else would do. His voice got hoarse as he repeated, “Chris, I’m so sorry.” He stared at the papers on the floor between them.
It was a long moment before Chris said anything.
“But you didn't do it, boss. I did it. I wanted to."
Sam lifted his head uncomprehendingly, and Chris wasn't frowning or tearing up or looking betrayed - just staring at Sam curiously. Sam felt his eyebrows lift as he tried to search for a way to put it. “I shouldn’t have let you,” he said finally.
“Don’t see why not, if I wanted to,” Chris protested, and then added in a mutter, “You liked it well enough.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” Sam said, having difficulty forming it into words. “I didn’t know if I liked it, or - or if I wanted to hurt you.” He wasn’t even sure if that was right, or if that was all of it. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
Chris was not particularly struck down by this revelation. “You could never hurt me, boss,” he said simply, as if this too were obvious, like paperwork for your paperwork.
Sam closed his eyes. “Could you not call me ‘boss’ while we’re having this conversation?”
“Sorry,” Chris said. He went silent. “I am sorry, though,” he said finally, as though the subject were anywhere near ready to be changed. “I would’ve done it different.”
“I know you would have, Chris,” Sam said quietly. Chris would have done anything to do it differently, because he had upset Sam. And that, there, was why Sam had something to apologize for. “You don’t - you don’t have to make things up to me.”
Chris stared at him, and Sam could watch the hurt bleed into his face, and it was so easy - too easy to look at him, and see the whole story, and change it however you wanted. “So it was making it up to you, then, it was.”
“Yeah, Chris. I think that’s obvious.”
“Gotcha,” Chris said, nodding slowly. “Well, this isn’t going to do itself, eh?” he said after that, gesturing at the paperwork and smiling at Sam. “Guess I’ll see you later, boss.”
Sam pursed his lips. Chris didn’t change his expression. There was nothing for it, so Sam stood up slowly and turned to go, feeling like he’d gone wrong somewhere, despite having been trying to fix it.
“And he weren’t just a kid,” Chris added, in such a mumble that Sam wasn’t sure at first that he’d spoken. But he stopped, and then turned around.
“What?”
“He weren’t just a kid,” Chris said after clearing his throat, with blaring guilt and apprehension. “He were the same age as us.”
Chris, cross-legged on the floor, all floppy hair and transparent expressions, was the same age as the lad he’d just shot dead, asphyxiated on the blood pooling in his lungs.
And you’re just a kid, too. Sam didn’t say it, but it swelled up inside him, stretching until it was just under his skin, aching.
Chris’s expression changed, and Sam knew that he’d seen it. Then Chris gave that wide, tight smile that was fooling nobody, and he said, “Paperwork.”
It took forever for Sam to say, “Yeah,” and then it seemed like he was already out the door without having turned or walked there. Outside he inhaled deeply, and he had to blink rapidly and look at the ceiling before he drowned, fell apart, disappeared. He let out the breath slowly.