culf
in
lifein1973
A Case of Severly Injured Limbs, Brown Cortina, by Culf
Title: A Case of a Severly Injured Limb
Spoilers: None, although it hints at something that happened in 1x06 once.
Rating: Brown Cortina
Warning: It's very, very angsty. Very. I'm going to hide this warning, as it's a spoiler, but highlight if you don't mind being spoiled. This story contains character death. If you don't want to be spoiled, I can say that, even though it's dark, it's not squicky.
Characters: Sam and Gene
Summary: Gene returns to the scene of a crime, only to find Sam there, and he's injured.
AN: This is dakfinv 's fault! She asked for this! Actually, she asked for Sam's legs to be broken, but that is a much longer fic, so she got this one to read when I finish the broken legs. It's all her fault, people!
Edit: I completely forgot to thank icudoc for the medical advice! Thank you!
Gene wasn’t going to go back to the factory. Not tonight. Why would he? There was nothing left for him to find there. That was forensics responsibility by now.
Yet he had returned. He’d lost one of his flasks, and it was neither at the pub nor station. He’d even searched the Cortina, which only left the factory as a plausible.
The drive wasn’t far, and that flask had saved his life, once. Wouldn’t do to give up on it like that.
~*~
It was quiet in the old, brick building, darkness creeping in the corners. He’d brought a flashlight, but could only illuminate so much with the thin cone of light. He moved swiftly up the stairs, reasonably sure it would have to be lost in the room in which Mr. Martin Travers had been beaten and left in a pool of his own blood, drifting into a coma during the time it took anyone to find him.
He was just about to enter the room when he heard a sound. Not so deserted as he’d first thought, then. He regretted not bringing his gun, but he hadn’t really expected running into trouble.
The sound returned, and this time, Gene could identify it. It was a whimper.
Someone was whimpering in the room next door.
Figuring a man who’d recently beaten another man to a pulp probably wouldn’t whimper like that, he slowly walked through the door, taking care to produce as little sound as possible.
There, inside the room, with his back turned, lay a shape. Gene saw the shape quiver, and as he approached, he could make out a man lying with his back turned towards him. The man whimpered again, and Gene could see his whole body shaking.
The man was crying. There was no doubt about it.
The man in the letter jacket, with the ridiculously short hair was crying.
“Sam?” He called out, and the form before him instantly froze. “Sam, is that you?”
“Gene?” The reply was hoarse, as if the voice had been worn out.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He asked, marching over to him with quick steps, striding over him and crouching down. Sam’s face was pale, his eyes bloodshot and his cheeks glistening wet. All his features were twisted into a pained grimace.
“I stayed behind,” he panted. “And that thing fell on me when I was going over one of the footprints by the machinery.” He indicated downwards. Gene pointed his flashlight in that direction, and saw, for the first time, the metal bar on top of the leg Sam was clutching. For a few seconds, he couldn’t understand what Sam was whining about. Sure, the bar was probably heavy, but not heavy enough to leave anything but a couple of bruises. Nothing near bad enough to keep him from getting up and getting out. That was, until he noticed the spike at the end. The spike that impaled Sam’s thigh, running all the way through.
For the briefest of moments, Gene wanted to be sick. He reached for the bar, set on pulling it out and getting Sam to hospital, but Sam stopped him before he got that far.
“Don’t!” He shouted. “It might have severed a main artery. If it has, the spike’s the only thing keeping it blocked, and pulling it out would cause me to bleed out in minutes.” Gene quickly pulled his hands back, making sure not to touch Sam’s legs at all.
“Jesus, Dorothy. How long have you been here?” He asked, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.
“Don’t know. Think it happened half an hour after you left,” he wheezed through clenched teeth. The flow of tears kept a steady stream down his cheeks. He tried wiping it away with a defiant hand, but only succeeded in smearing blood over his eye.
“That’s five hours ago!”
“Can’t say it felt any shorter,” Sam bit out sarcastically. His body gave a twitch, and Gene fell from the crouch down to his knees as Sam let out another whimper. He’d probably have held his hand like a little girl, hadn’t both of Sam’s hands already been quite busy holding his own thigh with all the strength left in him. Instead, he did something even girlier and stroked his hair. Running his long, slender fingers through Sam’s short, dark hair. Gently soothing him as his fingertips ran across his scalp. He slid his hand down to cup Sam’s cheek gently, running his thumb underneath his eye, wiping away the tears.
“I’m going to go get help, Sam,” he told him. “You’ll manage.” Sam, however, did not look like he could manage. The mention of Gene leaving him back here on his own once more was a terrifying prospect, judging by his facial expression.
“Don’t leave me!” He cried out, tears forming in his eyes once more, quickly spilling over in what seemed to be a never-ending stream. “Please!” He begged, his voice scared and needy. Gene knelt down once more, taking Sam’s head in his hands and lent in close.
“I have to leave,” he told him. “I need to get help, to get you out of here.” Sam just looked at him, his eyes filled with despair.
“Please don’t,” he mouthed silently, his eyes wide and wet, his lower lip quivering.
“I have to, Sammy,” Gene said quietly. “I’ll be back, I promise. I just need to find a phone.” He let his fingers slide through Sam’s short locks one last time before he got up and hurried towards the door. Every step was a followed by the sound of Sam’s whimpers, pleading with him to not go, to please, stay with him.
As he walked out the door, refusing to look back at the broken man on the floor behind him, he was intensely reminded of another situation he’d had to suffer in what felt like another life.
He couldn’t decide what was worse; walking out on Stu for the last time, or walking out on Sam now.
~*~
There hadn’t been any phone boxes nearby. He’d run up and down the street, searching for one, to no avail. In the end, he’d had to get into the car and drive to the nearest house, a few blocks away from the factory district. Getting driving away had almost been as hard as leaving Sam behind the first time. There was just something about not only leaving the building, but the area as well, leaving Sam to suffer on his own.
In the end, he’d found a house. He’d banged the door, shouting loudly. They’d threatened to call the police. In return, he’d threatened to bang them up for the rest of their natural life, then showed his warrant card through the crack in the door. That had finally made them unhook the safety chain and let him in.
He’d stormed for the phone, quickly dialing and shouted terribly loudly at the poor person on the other end to send an ambulance now, unless they wanted to know exactly how it felt to have the fresh, evening breeze gently caress their intestines, which would decorate the hospital parking lot.
By the time he hung up, it was half an hour since he’d left Sam on his own.
When he finally got back, Sam had been on his own for 40 minutes. In that time, one of his involuntary twitches had caused the metal spike to tear at his thigh, increasing the bleeding that had, so far, been partially stopped by the spike acting like a cork of sorts.
“Sam?” He called, running towards the now silent shape. There was no whimpering to be heard. He stepped over him and sunk down to his knees, taking one of Sam’s hands in his. He almost dropped it when he realized how cool it was. “Sam?” He called again, trying to gain his attention. “Sam!”
There was nothing. The only sound coming from Sam was labored hyperventilating as he stared off into space.
“Tyler, don’t you dare do this,” Gene shouted. “Stop being such a Jessie and hang in there. The ambulance will be here any minute.” He tried not to notice how pale Sam was. It should have been easy in the dark factory, but the white skin almost glowed, and Gene could hardly see anything else. He tore off his tie and secured it tightly around Sam’s thigh. He should have done so ages ago, really, before he left to find a phone, but the bleed had been minimal back then, and he didn’t once suspect it would actually take him that long to find a bleeding phone.
He went to hold Sam’s hand with one of his once more, stroking his hair with the other. He stayed like that, muttering encouragements to keep Sam going until the ambulance would arrive.
He didn’t have to wait that much longer, but that didn’t mean Sam hadn’t been lying with a rusty piece of metal through his leg for six hours straight by now.
Sam’s breathing had gone from hyperventilating to shallow by the time the ambulance had arrived. Gene didn’t leave Sam to show them the way. Leaving him once had been enough. Instead, he shouted at them, ordering them to hurry up. They quickly found their way.
They weren’t hesitant to pull the spike out. If it had acted as a block against bleeding, it didn’t anymore. Not after the tear.
Gene felt Sam’s hand clench weakly around his own when they pulled it out, heard the sharp intake of breath.
They wouldn’t let him ride in the ambulance with him. He had to take his car back to the hospital on his own. He arrived before they did.
He saw them wheel the gurney along at breakneck speed, saw several doctors and nurses taking it from the ambulance drivers, driving it further. He followed as far as he could, until he met a closed door.
“I’m sorry, Sir, but the doctors are going to have to operate on that leg. You can’t come any further.” Normally, he would have ignored anyone trying to order him around, but kicking up a fuzz might distract Sam’s doctors. He couldn’t do that. Instead he waited, pacing restlessly.
Everything about waiting was torture. He jumped at every sound, at every nurse that passed by. More than once he reached for his tie to loosen it, only to realize he wasn’t wearing one. That made him think of what he’d done with the tie, and he felt like he was choking. He reached for his tie to loosen it, only to realize he wasn’t wearing one…
“Sir?” He shot up as soon as one of the doctors entered the room.
“How’s Sam?” He asked, desperately.
“I’m sorry to inform you that… Sam,” He said the name as if it was unfamiliar. They obviously hadn’t known it until Gene mentioned it just now. “Sam passed away at the operating table.” Gene froze. “By the time he got here, he was in severe shock. He was also suffering from sepsis, due to the metal spike piercing his thigh. His chances of surviving either one, even after as long as Sam had to wait for medical support, would have been quite good, but both at the same time made saving his life all but impossible.” He reached out to rest a comforting hand on Gene’s shoulder. Gene shrugged him off.
“Can I see him?” he asked, never meeting the man’s eyes.
“In a little while,” the doctor answered quietly. “In the meantime, is there someone you’d like us to call?”
“No,” was the grave reply. “I’ll tell them myself. I’m their Guv. I’ll tell them soon.”
~*~
It was obvious that they’d tried to clean him up by the time Gene was allowed to enter. His face and arms had been washed off, and the rest of him was covered by a clean, white sheet. Any evidence of blood had been mopped off the floor, but Gene could still smell it. He almost vomited, just from the smell.
He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. How effective it was was questionable, but it gave him the strength to take that one final step, bringing him to Sam’s side. Sam’s body’s side.
He was so pale. He hadn’t exactly had a bronze than before, but he’d never had such a sickly, pale complexion. Like a ghost. He looked like a photo of Sam that had been left out in the sun for too long, washing out all the colors. It didn’t look like the real Sam at all.
He tentatively reached out to touch him, cupping his cheek gently with the palm of his hand. He was cold. Gene knew he would be. Didn’t mean he’d been prepared for it.
He forced himself to keep his hand in place for a few more seconds. Sam deserved this last bit of human contact, even if he could no longer feel it.
“I’m sorry your last words had to be begging someone not to leave you,” Gene muttered hoarsely, looking away from the body. “And I’m sorry I left. I would have stayed, had I known it wouldn’t make a difference.” Sam didn’t reply. Of course he didn’t. Gene didn’t know what he’d expected.
“I wish you weren’t such a good copper, Sam,” he confessed. “I wish you’d just walk out the door and down to the pub at the shout of ‘beer o’clock’. You wouldn’t be here if you did.” He couldn’t bring himself to say or if I’d been a better one, and stayed behind with you.
He reached for his tie again, only to find it missing once more. He couldn’t stay any longer. He turned around and marched out of the room.
He stopped by the phone in the hallway, remembering his promise to make the call. He did so, waiting for someone to pick up.
“Carling,” he heard Ray say at the other end. For a brief moment, he had no idea what to say.
“Sam had an accident,” he decided on, saying it coldly, almost angrily. “He’s dead.” He didn’t wait for Ray’s reaction. He just hung up and marched on, back to the parking lot, to his car.
He spent the next half hour beating the shit out of the Cortina’s interior.
Spoilers: None, although it hints at something that happened in 1x06 once.
Rating: Brown Cortina
Warning: It's very, very angsty. Very. I'm going to hide this warning, as it's a spoiler, but highlight if you don't mind being spoiled. This story contains character death. If you don't want to be spoiled, I can say that, even though it's dark, it's not squicky.
Characters: Sam and Gene
Summary: Gene returns to the scene of a crime, only to find Sam there, and he's injured.
AN: This is dakfinv 's fault! She asked for this! Actually, she asked for Sam's legs to be broken, but that is a much longer fic, so she got this one to read when I finish the broken legs. It's all her fault, people!
Edit: I completely forgot to thank icudoc for the medical advice! Thank you!
Gene wasn’t going to go back to the factory. Not tonight. Why would he? There was nothing left for him to find there. That was forensics responsibility by now.
Yet he had returned. He’d lost one of his flasks, and it was neither at the pub nor station. He’d even searched the Cortina, which only left the factory as a plausible.
The drive wasn’t far, and that flask had saved his life, once. Wouldn’t do to give up on it like that.
~*~
It was quiet in the old, brick building, darkness creeping in the corners. He’d brought a flashlight, but could only illuminate so much with the thin cone of light. He moved swiftly up the stairs, reasonably sure it would have to be lost in the room in which Mr. Martin Travers had been beaten and left in a pool of his own blood, drifting into a coma during the time it took anyone to find him.
He was just about to enter the room when he heard a sound. Not so deserted as he’d first thought, then. He regretted not bringing his gun, but he hadn’t really expected running into trouble.
The sound returned, and this time, Gene could identify it. It was a whimper.
Someone was whimpering in the room next door.
Figuring a man who’d recently beaten another man to a pulp probably wouldn’t whimper like that, he slowly walked through the door, taking care to produce as little sound as possible.
There, inside the room, with his back turned, lay a shape. Gene saw the shape quiver, and as he approached, he could make out a man lying with his back turned towards him. The man whimpered again, and Gene could see his whole body shaking.
The man was crying. There was no doubt about it.
The man in the letter jacket, with the ridiculously short hair was crying.
“Sam?” He called out, and the form before him instantly froze. “Sam, is that you?”
“Gene?” The reply was hoarse, as if the voice had been worn out.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He asked, marching over to him with quick steps, striding over him and crouching down. Sam’s face was pale, his eyes bloodshot and his cheeks glistening wet. All his features were twisted into a pained grimace.
“I stayed behind,” he panted. “And that thing fell on me when I was going over one of the footprints by the machinery.” He indicated downwards. Gene pointed his flashlight in that direction, and saw, for the first time, the metal bar on top of the leg Sam was clutching. For a few seconds, he couldn’t understand what Sam was whining about. Sure, the bar was probably heavy, but not heavy enough to leave anything but a couple of bruises. Nothing near bad enough to keep him from getting up and getting out. That was, until he noticed the spike at the end. The spike that impaled Sam’s thigh, running all the way through.
For the briefest of moments, Gene wanted to be sick. He reached for the bar, set on pulling it out and getting Sam to hospital, but Sam stopped him before he got that far.
“Don’t!” He shouted. “It might have severed a main artery. If it has, the spike’s the only thing keeping it blocked, and pulling it out would cause me to bleed out in minutes.” Gene quickly pulled his hands back, making sure not to touch Sam’s legs at all.
“Jesus, Dorothy. How long have you been here?” He asked, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.
“Don’t know. Think it happened half an hour after you left,” he wheezed through clenched teeth. The flow of tears kept a steady stream down his cheeks. He tried wiping it away with a defiant hand, but only succeeded in smearing blood over his eye.
“That’s five hours ago!”
“Can’t say it felt any shorter,” Sam bit out sarcastically. His body gave a twitch, and Gene fell from the crouch down to his knees as Sam let out another whimper. He’d probably have held his hand like a little girl, hadn’t both of Sam’s hands already been quite busy holding his own thigh with all the strength left in him. Instead, he did something even girlier and stroked his hair. Running his long, slender fingers through Sam’s short, dark hair. Gently soothing him as his fingertips ran across his scalp. He slid his hand down to cup Sam’s cheek gently, running his thumb underneath his eye, wiping away the tears.
“I’m going to go get help, Sam,” he told him. “You’ll manage.” Sam, however, did not look like he could manage. The mention of Gene leaving him back here on his own once more was a terrifying prospect, judging by his facial expression.
“Don’t leave me!” He cried out, tears forming in his eyes once more, quickly spilling over in what seemed to be a never-ending stream. “Please!” He begged, his voice scared and needy. Gene knelt down once more, taking Sam’s head in his hands and lent in close.
“I have to leave,” he told him. “I need to get help, to get you out of here.” Sam just looked at him, his eyes filled with despair.
“Please don’t,” he mouthed silently, his eyes wide and wet, his lower lip quivering.
“I have to, Sammy,” Gene said quietly. “I’ll be back, I promise. I just need to find a phone.” He let his fingers slide through Sam’s short locks one last time before he got up and hurried towards the door. Every step was a followed by the sound of Sam’s whimpers, pleading with him to not go, to please, stay with him.
As he walked out the door, refusing to look back at the broken man on the floor behind him, he was intensely reminded of another situation he’d had to suffer in what felt like another life.
He couldn’t decide what was worse; walking out on Stu for the last time, or walking out on Sam now.
~*~
There hadn’t been any phone boxes nearby. He’d run up and down the street, searching for one, to no avail. In the end, he’d had to get into the car and drive to the nearest house, a few blocks away from the factory district. Getting driving away had almost been as hard as leaving Sam behind the first time. There was just something about not only leaving the building, but the area as well, leaving Sam to suffer on his own.
In the end, he’d found a house. He’d banged the door, shouting loudly. They’d threatened to call the police. In return, he’d threatened to bang them up for the rest of their natural life, then showed his warrant card through the crack in the door. That had finally made them unhook the safety chain and let him in.
He’d stormed for the phone, quickly dialing and shouted terribly loudly at the poor person on the other end to send an ambulance now, unless they wanted to know exactly how it felt to have the fresh, evening breeze gently caress their intestines, which would decorate the hospital parking lot.
By the time he hung up, it was half an hour since he’d left Sam on his own.
When he finally got back, Sam had been on his own for 40 minutes. In that time, one of his involuntary twitches had caused the metal spike to tear at his thigh, increasing the bleeding that had, so far, been partially stopped by the spike acting like a cork of sorts.
“Sam?” He called, running towards the now silent shape. There was no whimpering to be heard. He stepped over him and sunk down to his knees, taking one of Sam’s hands in his. He almost dropped it when he realized how cool it was. “Sam?” He called again, trying to gain his attention. “Sam!”
There was nothing. The only sound coming from Sam was labored hyperventilating as he stared off into space.
“Tyler, don’t you dare do this,” Gene shouted. “Stop being such a Jessie and hang in there. The ambulance will be here any minute.” He tried not to notice how pale Sam was. It should have been easy in the dark factory, but the white skin almost glowed, and Gene could hardly see anything else. He tore off his tie and secured it tightly around Sam’s thigh. He should have done so ages ago, really, before he left to find a phone, but the bleed had been minimal back then, and he didn’t once suspect it would actually take him that long to find a bleeding phone.
He went to hold Sam’s hand with one of his once more, stroking his hair with the other. He stayed like that, muttering encouragements to keep Sam going until the ambulance would arrive.
He didn’t have to wait that much longer, but that didn’t mean Sam hadn’t been lying with a rusty piece of metal through his leg for six hours straight by now.
Sam’s breathing had gone from hyperventilating to shallow by the time the ambulance had arrived. Gene didn’t leave Sam to show them the way. Leaving him once had been enough. Instead, he shouted at them, ordering them to hurry up. They quickly found their way.
They weren’t hesitant to pull the spike out. If it had acted as a block against bleeding, it didn’t anymore. Not after the tear.
Gene felt Sam’s hand clench weakly around his own when they pulled it out, heard the sharp intake of breath.
They wouldn’t let him ride in the ambulance with him. He had to take his car back to the hospital on his own. He arrived before they did.
He saw them wheel the gurney along at breakneck speed, saw several doctors and nurses taking it from the ambulance drivers, driving it further. He followed as far as he could, until he met a closed door.
“I’m sorry, Sir, but the doctors are going to have to operate on that leg. You can’t come any further.” Normally, he would have ignored anyone trying to order him around, but kicking up a fuzz might distract Sam’s doctors. He couldn’t do that. Instead he waited, pacing restlessly.
Everything about waiting was torture. He jumped at every sound, at every nurse that passed by. More than once he reached for his tie to loosen it, only to realize he wasn’t wearing one. That made him think of what he’d done with the tie, and he felt like he was choking. He reached for his tie to loosen it, only to realize he wasn’t wearing one…
“Sir?” He shot up as soon as one of the doctors entered the room.
“How’s Sam?” He asked, desperately.
“I’m sorry to inform you that… Sam,” He said the name as if it was unfamiliar. They obviously hadn’t known it until Gene mentioned it just now. “Sam passed away at the operating table.” Gene froze. “By the time he got here, he was in severe shock. He was also suffering from sepsis, due to the metal spike piercing his thigh. His chances of surviving either one, even after as long as Sam had to wait for medical support, would have been quite good, but both at the same time made saving his life all but impossible.” He reached out to rest a comforting hand on Gene’s shoulder. Gene shrugged him off.
“Can I see him?” he asked, never meeting the man’s eyes.
“In a little while,” the doctor answered quietly. “In the meantime, is there someone you’d like us to call?”
“No,” was the grave reply. “I’ll tell them myself. I’m their Guv. I’ll tell them soon.”
~*~
It was obvious that they’d tried to clean him up by the time Gene was allowed to enter. His face and arms had been washed off, and the rest of him was covered by a clean, white sheet. Any evidence of blood had been mopped off the floor, but Gene could still smell it. He almost vomited, just from the smell.
He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. How effective it was was questionable, but it gave him the strength to take that one final step, bringing him to Sam’s side. Sam’s body’s side.
He was so pale. He hadn’t exactly had a bronze than before, but he’d never had such a sickly, pale complexion. Like a ghost. He looked like a photo of Sam that had been left out in the sun for too long, washing out all the colors. It didn’t look like the real Sam at all.
He tentatively reached out to touch him, cupping his cheek gently with the palm of his hand. He was cold. Gene knew he would be. Didn’t mean he’d been prepared for it.
He forced himself to keep his hand in place for a few more seconds. Sam deserved this last bit of human contact, even if he could no longer feel it.
“I’m sorry your last words had to be begging someone not to leave you,” Gene muttered hoarsely, looking away from the body. “And I’m sorry I left. I would have stayed, had I known it wouldn’t make a difference.” Sam didn’t reply. Of course he didn’t. Gene didn’t know what he’d expected.
“I wish you weren’t such a good copper, Sam,” he confessed. “I wish you’d just walk out the door and down to the pub at the shout of ‘beer o’clock’. You wouldn’t be here if you did.” He couldn’t bring himself to say or if I’d been a better one, and stayed behind with you.
He reached for his tie again, only to find it missing once more. He couldn’t stay any longer. He turned around and marched out of the room.
He stopped by the phone in the hallway, remembering his promise to make the call. He did so, waiting for someone to pick up.
“Carling,” he heard Ray say at the other end. For a brief moment, he had no idea what to say.
“Sam had an accident,” he decided on, saying it coldly, almost angrily. “He’s dead.” He didn’t wait for Ray’s reaction. He just hung up and marched on, back to the parking lot, to his car.
He spent the next half hour beating the shit out of the Cortina’s interior.