Whump!bingo fic: Insanity (Gene/Sam, Green Cortina)
Title: Insanity
Rating: Green Cortina (allusions to happy times)
Word Count: 2,137
Notes: for the prompt 'black eye/bloodied nose'. I, er, got black eye in, but bloodied nose proved evasive- sorry! And this probably qualifies as crack, as well. Hehe.
Summary: Something is happening to Gene and Sam... could they be going insane?
It was a good morning. The sun was shining, birds were tweeting, and Gene Hunt stood at the bathroom sink, the radio on playing New World in the Morning and Sam Tyler downstairs cooking him breakfast as he dabbed shaving foam on languidly and picked up his razor. Sam had cited his scrubby half-beard as a reason not to kiss him earlier, elbowing him out of bed before Gene could push him back into the mattress and remind him just who was in charge here, and thus Gene now stood steadily getting rid of it, scraping away with anticipation in his gut as he watched the razor make way to smooth skin, perfect for rubbing over Tyler’s cheek as he whispered filthy nothings in his ear to get the div all worked up. They had two hours until work and two murderers in the cells, ready to be picked up later, and Gene still had yet to open the Glenmorangie single malt Sam had bought him for his birthday, a chore which he really felt he should try and summon the energy to complete today. Really, he was on top of the world.
“… and that was New World in the Morning, by Roger Whittaker- next up, I Can’t Decide, by the Scissor Sisters. Enjoy!”
Scissor Sisters? Sounded like something Tyler would listen to. Gene smirked to himself, drawing the razor across his top lip, down to his chin and over the curve to his neck.
“BLOODY ‘ELL!”
“Gene? Gene, what is it?”
He could hear Sam thudding up the stairs towards him as he scrubbed his hands violently over his face, his forehead, his hair; there was blood running down his throat from where he’d sliced it with the razor, and he lifted his hands away from his head and stared in confusion at the dry, cool skin, rubbing them back over his forehead and eyes as the door to the bathroom opened and Sam grabbed a wad of tissue paper to stuff into the cut on his throat.
“Y’know, there are easier ways of doin’ away with yerself, Gene,” he sighed as he held the tissues to his DCI’s skin, mopping a little stray blood up with his thumb. “What’s wrong? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Felt like… felt like someone was… lickin’ my ‘ead!”
“Lickin’ your ‘ead? Yer not runnin’ a fever, are you? Delusional?” Sam felt his forehead anxiously, only for Gene to yank his head away with a yelp, staggering out of the bathroom and towards the bedroom.
“Gene! Gene, what-”
“It was there! Again! All ‘ot an’ funny an’ wet but there isn’t any water there- Jesus Christ, I’ve gone bloody insane- no, worse, I think I’m turnin’ into you!”
“Oi! An’ when I’ve come all the way up ‘ere to ‘elp you, as well. An’ yer breakfast’s waitin’ downstairs.” Sam folded his arms, that hurt girly look on his face, and bugger it all if Gene didn’t feel just a little bit guilty. “Bacon sandwich an’ an egg. Made specially for you. I did promise, after all.”
“Alright, Gladys. No need to get yer knickers in a twist.” Gene scrubbed his hand over his now dry and perfectly normal forehead, sighing. “Erm… ta.”
“Much better. Let me know when you’ve finished thinkin’ yer John Edward.”
“Who?”
Shaking his head wearily, Sam headed back downstairs, padding back into the kitchen and calling a thank you through to the postman shoving Gene’s post into the letterbox. Gene decided to have a long, hot shower.
-0-0-
One bacon sandwich, two cups of strong tea and a rather aggressive (even for Gene) drive to work later, and Gene was trying to concentrate on examining Ray’s arrest report from yesterday, fag dangling from his mouth and foot tapping the desk in a slow beat as he squinted to try and decipher what Ray was trying to spell this time. Christ, sometimes he wondered if Ray just picked ten letters from the alphabet and re-arranged them according to some secret code, rather than bothering to write in the English language.
No good, he’d have to go out there and ask him himself. Rising slowly from his chair, Gene stretched his cramped shoulders out, wincing at the subsequent sting of pain from the nick under his chin. Annie had offered some cream to put on it, but he’d very firmly told her he wasn’t a nancy who needed girly creams for a little scratch and sent her back out to CID to do some proper detective work. Bird or not, she was a DC now and she needed to pull her weight. He wasn’t going to give her special treatment.
The word did look rather a lot like ‘intentionally’. If so, he’d need to have words with Ray anyway, to find out why he’d thought it was a good idea to intentionally concuss a suspect with the rubber hammer he’d been using at the fair when he was caught. It was an inventive use of the strength-o-meter, but Ray wasn’t paid for being bloody inventive, he was paid to ensure collars and now that the bloke’s lawyer had come down on them like a tonne of bricks, he was almost certain any prosecution would be thrown out.
“RAYMONDO… BLOODY ‘ELL NOT AGAIN!”
It was definitely someone licking his bastard head, some invisible gigantic bloody tongue sliding up over his forehead as he yelled, covering his own head with his arms and stumbling back towards his desk to sit down. A cunning plan that failed because, having blinded himself, Gene didn’t notice the stack of reports in front of his desk until his foot banged into them and he crashed down in an untidy heap over his desk, whining with the blast of pain from his face.
“Guv? Guv, you alright?” Ray, having rushed in at the sound of the banging and crashing from Gene’s office, hauled him up, stepping back as soon as Gene was back on his feet again. “Shall I get Cartwright with the first aid kit?”
“No, don’t you ruddy dare!... Oh, this is almost as bad. Morning, Dorothy, what can I do for you? An’ if you offer me bloody cream-!”
“I was goin’ to offer some ice, actually. You’ll ‘ave a lovely shiner there in a few minutes.” Sam moved forwards to prod at Gene’s eye, poking and pushing until Gene yelped and shoved him away into the filing cabinets. “Oh, right. Very sore then. Look, I’ll get Annie in, she’s dealt with so many bumps an’ bruises, she’ll know what’s best.”
“A holiday,” Gene muttered as he plumped back down into his chair, one hand cupped protectively over his throbbing eye. “Majorca, maybe. Somewhere a nice bloody long way away. Especially from you.”
“That was uncalled for. I’m only tryin’ to ‘elp.”
“Well, maybe you should try a bit bloody less, alright? I don’t need psycho-analysin’ by your little brain-washer friend, an’ I especially don’t need bloody ‘elp, unless it’s someone nickin’ the invisible tosser lickin’ my head an’ lockin’ them away for a very long bloody time! Which is what I should’ve done to you years ago!”
Sam simply raised his eyebrows, moved sideways, and beckoned Phyllis in with the first aid kit from Annie’s desk.
“NO! SAM! I didn’t mean it! Don’t leave me with- NOOOO!”
-0-0-
Sam couldn’t help but feel a little bit… well, satisfied as he headed towards his desk, the entire of CID sniggering behind their hands at Gene wailing and whinging under Phyllis’ less than tender administrations. He knew he deserved it, just a little bit, and Gene calling him his “bonkers little DI” when implying something completely different never failed to make him smile, but at the same time, being called mental all the time was, well, going to drive him mad sooner or later. That and he would have plenty of ammunition tomorrow to force Gene to do the washing up. Gene would even be willing to do the saucepans if under threat of Phyllis.
For now, he could get on with some paperwork in peace, he thought with a sigh as he rounded his desk and pulled his chair out to sit down.
And suddenly had the weirdest feeling.
It felt like… like he was being split in two, almost, but not; as though someone was- duplicating him! That was it. Someone had got a picture of him, here, right now, and they were making it into two, and three, and four, and it was bloody crazy and he didn’t know what the bloody hell was going on as he sank into his chair and desperately tried to gulp down his screams- how the hell would he know if he were being duplicated, and how could you do that to a living person, and he squeezed his eyes open and looked around but he was still the only Sam Tyler in the room, and he was acting mental again and he couldn’t help thinking that he’d finally gone round the bend this time-
And it was gone. All gone, and he was Sam again, staring round at CID as Ray mimed Phyllis tending to Gene and Chris doubled over in hysterics, yelping as the woman herself emerged from Gene’s lair and smacked him on the back of the head with her first aid kit.
“Oi! Yer not paid to play the bloody clown, so get on with something!” And to Sam, as Chris nursed his scalp: “I’ve given ‘im painkillers, your job is to stop ‘im drinkin’. Think you can do that?”
“I tell you what, Phyllis, why don’t I go out an’ try to bottle the entire river in a mug? I’d ‘ave more chance of doin’ that than stoppin’ him from drinkin’.” Sam scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to work out if he might have caught whatever brand of insanity Gene had developed. It was looking more than a little likely. “Chain ‘im to a table in the cells an’ ‘e might stay tee-total until ‘e gets desperate enough to will alcohol out of thin air.”
“Not a bad idea, Boss,” Phyllis mused, slapping the first aid kit down on Annie’s desk and heading out. “Let me know if ‘e gets annoying enough,” floated in her wake.
“Where was that offer when I first arrived, Phyllis?” Sam sighed, flopping his head down onto his arms and yelping as his pen speared the side of his face. “Ow! Oh, bloody bastard bollocks…”
“Nice sibilance, Boss,” Ray sneered from his desk, twirling a pencil in his fingers. “Might even learn to swear like a man at some point, if you grow some bollocks.”
“It’s alliteration, DS Carling.”
“Sod you.”
-0-0-
“What, you mean… like you were being… doubled? An’ tripled? There’s a scary thought.”
“No worse than you. Who’d want to lick your forehead? That’s just… bloody insane!”
“Keep on that train of thought, Sam,” Gene sighed, lifting his pint to his mouth and draining half of it in one gulp. “Christ, yesterday I thought my life was- well, as near normal as it’s been since you arrived, an’ now I find myself wonderin’ if I should take Phyllis up on ‘er offer of a rest down in the cells. Maybe you could join me. We could ‘ave matchin’ straight-jackets, you’d love that, picky-arse copycat pain that you are.”
“… Jesus, Gene. When I bought it, I honestly ‘ad no idea you owned that cardigan too.”
“S’not a cardigan, it’s a jumper, a manly bloody jumper… we’re digressin’! You thought you were being cloned, I thought someone was lickin’ me. Clearly something’s bloody ‘appenin’, but as I ‘aven’t seen any spaceships or vanishin’ police boxes, I suggest we just drink up an’ forget about it, alright? Just give that brain of yours a rest.” Gene raised the pint to drain the last of it, deliberately turning away from Sam’s glare. “Better. Drink.”
“Phyllis said you shouldn’t be-”
“Well, Phyllis isn’t ‘ere, is she?” Gene sniffed, scratching his cheek, wincing at the pressure on his bruise. “An’ I never swallowed the pills, anyway. Just told ‘er I ‘ad. Don’t like codeine.”
“You… right. Gene.”
“Mm?”
“They’re… they’re duplicatin’ me again. Whoever they are…” Sam grabbed blindly at his DCI as the pub started to spin, only to be thrown backwards as Gene clapped both hands to his forehead and howled, sending his pint skidding off the bar and over Phyllis’ skirt as she marched up to the pair of them and hauled them off their barstools, out of the door and away.
-0-0-
Sitting in front of her computer, Xys licked the last drop of tea off her Gene Hunt mug, tongue brushing Gene’s forehead, and re-blogged another Tumblr picture of John Simm with a smile on her face.
Rating: Green Cortina (allusions to happy times)
Word Count: 2,137
Notes: for the prompt 'black eye/bloodied nose'. I, er, got black eye in, but bloodied nose proved evasive- sorry! And this probably qualifies as crack, as well. Hehe.
Summary: Something is happening to Gene and Sam... could they be going insane?
It was a good morning. The sun was shining, birds were tweeting, and Gene Hunt stood at the bathroom sink, the radio on playing New World in the Morning and Sam Tyler downstairs cooking him breakfast as he dabbed shaving foam on languidly and picked up his razor. Sam had cited his scrubby half-beard as a reason not to kiss him earlier, elbowing him out of bed before Gene could push him back into the mattress and remind him just who was in charge here, and thus Gene now stood steadily getting rid of it, scraping away with anticipation in his gut as he watched the razor make way to smooth skin, perfect for rubbing over Tyler’s cheek as he whispered filthy nothings in his ear to get the div all worked up. They had two hours until work and two murderers in the cells, ready to be picked up later, and Gene still had yet to open the Glenmorangie single malt Sam had bought him for his birthday, a chore which he really felt he should try and summon the energy to complete today. Really, he was on top of the world.
“… and that was New World in the Morning, by Roger Whittaker- next up, I Can’t Decide, by the Scissor Sisters. Enjoy!”
Scissor Sisters? Sounded like something Tyler would listen to. Gene smirked to himself, drawing the razor across his top lip, down to his chin and over the curve to his neck.
“BLOODY ‘ELL!”
“Gene? Gene, what is it?”
He could hear Sam thudding up the stairs towards him as he scrubbed his hands violently over his face, his forehead, his hair; there was blood running down his throat from where he’d sliced it with the razor, and he lifted his hands away from his head and stared in confusion at the dry, cool skin, rubbing them back over his forehead and eyes as the door to the bathroom opened and Sam grabbed a wad of tissue paper to stuff into the cut on his throat.
“Y’know, there are easier ways of doin’ away with yerself, Gene,” he sighed as he held the tissues to his DCI’s skin, mopping a little stray blood up with his thumb. “What’s wrong? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Felt like… felt like someone was… lickin’ my ‘ead!”
“Lickin’ your ‘ead? Yer not runnin’ a fever, are you? Delusional?” Sam felt his forehead anxiously, only for Gene to yank his head away with a yelp, staggering out of the bathroom and towards the bedroom.
“Gene! Gene, what-”
“It was there! Again! All ‘ot an’ funny an’ wet but there isn’t any water there- Jesus Christ, I’ve gone bloody insane- no, worse, I think I’m turnin’ into you!”
“Oi! An’ when I’ve come all the way up ‘ere to ‘elp you, as well. An’ yer breakfast’s waitin’ downstairs.” Sam folded his arms, that hurt girly look on his face, and bugger it all if Gene didn’t feel just a little bit guilty. “Bacon sandwich an’ an egg. Made specially for you. I did promise, after all.”
“Alright, Gladys. No need to get yer knickers in a twist.” Gene scrubbed his hand over his now dry and perfectly normal forehead, sighing. “Erm… ta.”
“Much better. Let me know when you’ve finished thinkin’ yer John Edward.”
“Who?”
Shaking his head wearily, Sam headed back downstairs, padding back into the kitchen and calling a thank you through to the postman shoving Gene’s post into the letterbox. Gene decided to have a long, hot shower.
-0-0-
One bacon sandwich, two cups of strong tea and a rather aggressive (even for Gene) drive to work later, and Gene was trying to concentrate on examining Ray’s arrest report from yesterday, fag dangling from his mouth and foot tapping the desk in a slow beat as he squinted to try and decipher what Ray was trying to spell this time. Christ, sometimes he wondered if Ray just picked ten letters from the alphabet and re-arranged them according to some secret code, rather than bothering to write in the English language.
No good, he’d have to go out there and ask him himself. Rising slowly from his chair, Gene stretched his cramped shoulders out, wincing at the subsequent sting of pain from the nick under his chin. Annie had offered some cream to put on it, but he’d very firmly told her he wasn’t a nancy who needed girly creams for a little scratch and sent her back out to CID to do some proper detective work. Bird or not, she was a DC now and she needed to pull her weight. He wasn’t going to give her special treatment.
The word did look rather a lot like ‘intentionally’. If so, he’d need to have words with Ray anyway, to find out why he’d thought it was a good idea to intentionally concuss a suspect with the rubber hammer he’d been using at the fair when he was caught. It was an inventive use of the strength-o-meter, but Ray wasn’t paid for being bloody inventive, he was paid to ensure collars and now that the bloke’s lawyer had come down on them like a tonne of bricks, he was almost certain any prosecution would be thrown out.
“RAYMONDO… BLOODY ‘ELL NOT AGAIN!”
It was definitely someone licking his bastard head, some invisible gigantic bloody tongue sliding up over his forehead as he yelled, covering his own head with his arms and stumbling back towards his desk to sit down. A cunning plan that failed because, having blinded himself, Gene didn’t notice the stack of reports in front of his desk until his foot banged into them and he crashed down in an untidy heap over his desk, whining with the blast of pain from his face.
“Guv? Guv, you alright?” Ray, having rushed in at the sound of the banging and crashing from Gene’s office, hauled him up, stepping back as soon as Gene was back on his feet again. “Shall I get Cartwright with the first aid kit?”
“No, don’t you ruddy dare!... Oh, this is almost as bad. Morning, Dorothy, what can I do for you? An’ if you offer me bloody cream-!”
“I was goin’ to offer some ice, actually. You’ll ‘ave a lovely shiner there in a few minutes.” Sam moved forwards to prod at Gene’s eye, poking and pushing until Gene yelped and shoved him away into the filing cabinets. “Oh, right. Very sore then. Look, I’ll get Annie in, she’s dealt with so many bumps an’ bruises, she’ll know what’s best.”
“A holiday,” Gene muttered as he plumped back down into his chair, one hand cupped protectively over his throbbing eye. “Majorca, maybe. Somewhere a nice bloody long way away. Especially from you.”
“That was uncalled for. I’m only tryin’ to ‘elp.”
“Well, maybe you should try a bit bloody less, alright? I don’t need psycho-analysin’ by your little brain-washer friend, an’ I especially don’t need bloody ‘elp, unless it’s someone nickin’ the invisible tosser lickin’ my head an’ lockin’ them away for a very long bloody time! Which is what I should’ve done to you years ago!”
Sam simply raised his eyebrows, moved sideways, and beckoned Phyllis in with the first aid kit from Annie’s desk.
“NO! SAM! I didn’t mean it! Don’t leave me with- NOOOO!”
-0-0-
Sam couldn’t help but feel a little bit… well, satisfied as he headed towards his desk, the entire of CID sniggering behind their hands at Gene wailing and whinging under Phyllis’ less than tender administrations. He knew he deserved it, just a little bit, and Gene calling him his “bonkers little DI” when implying something completely different never failed to make him smile, but at the same time, being called mental all the time was, well, going to drive him mad sooner or later. That and he would have plenty of ammunition tomorrow to force Gene to do the washing up. Gene would even be willing to do the saucepans if under threat of Phyllis.
For now, he could get on with some paperwork in peace, he thought with a sigh as he rounded his desk and pulled his chair out to sit down.
And suddenly had the weirdest feeling.
It felt like… like he was being split in two, almost, but not; as though someone was- duplicating him! That was it. Someone had got a picture of him, here, right now, and they were making it into two, and three, and four, and it was bloody crazy and he didn’t know what the bloody hell was going on as he sank into his chair and desperately tried to gulp down his screams- how the hell would he know if he were being duplicated, and how could you do that to a living person, and he squeezed his eyes open and looked around but he was still the only Sam Tyler in the room, and he was acting mental again and he couldn’t help thinking that he’d finally gone round the bend this time-
And it was gone. All gone, and he was Sam again, staring round at CID as Ray mimed Phyllis tending to Gene and Chris doubled over in hysterics, yelping as the woman herself emerged from Gene’s lair and smacked him on the back of the head with her first aid kit.
“Oi! Yer not paid to play the bloody clown, so get on with something!” And to Sam, as Chris nursed his scalp: “I’ve given ‘im painkillers, your job is to stop ‘im drinkin’. Think you can do that?”
“I tell you what, Phyllis, why don’t I go out an’ try to bottle the entire river in a mug? I’d ‘ave more chance of doin’ that than stoppin’ him from drinkin’.” Sam scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to work out if he might have caught whatever brand of insanity Gene had developed. It was looking more than a little likely. “Chain ‘im to a table in the cells an’ ‘e might stay tee-total until ‘e gets desperate enough to will alcohol out of thin air.”
“Not a bad idea, Boss,” Phyllis mused, slapping the first aid kit down on Annie’s desk and heading out. “Let me know if ‘e gets annoying enough,” floated in her wake.
“Where was that offer when I first arrived, Phyllis?” Sam sighed, flopping his head down onto his arms and yelping as his pen speared the side of his face. “Ow! Oh, bloody bastard bollocks…”
“Nice sibilance, Boss,” Ray sneered from his desk, twirling a pencil in his fingers. “Might even learn to swear like a man at some point, if you grow some bollocks.”
“It’s alliteration, DS Carling.”
“Sod you.”
-0-0-
“What, you mean… like you were being… doubled? An’ tripled? There’s a scary thought.”
“No worse than you. Who’d want to lick your forehead? That’s just… bloody insane!”
“Keep on that train of thought, Sam,” Gene sighed, lifting his pint to his mouth and draining half of it in one gulp. “Christ, yesterday I thought my life was- well, as near normal as it’s been since you arrived, an’ now I find myself wonderin’ if I should take Phyllis up on ‘er offer of a rest down in the cells. Maybe you could join me. We could ‘ave matchin’ straight-jackets, you’d love that, picky-arse copycat pain that you are.”
“… Jesus, Gene. When I bought it, I honestly ‘ad no idea you owned that cardigan too.”
“S’not a cardigan, it’s a jumper, a manly bloody jumper… we’re digressin’! You thought you were being cloned, I thought someone was lickin’ me. Clearly something’s bloody ‘appenin’, but as I ‘aven’t seen any spaceships or vanishin’ police boxes, I suggest we just drink up an’ forget about it, alright? Just give that brain of yours a rest.” Gene raised the pint to drain the last of it, deliberately turning away from Sam’s glare. “Better. Drink.”
“Phyllis said you shouldn’t be-”
“Well, Phyllis isn’t ‘ere, is she?” Gene sniffed, scratching his cheek, wincing at the pressure on his bruise. “An’ I never swallowed the pills, anyway. Just told ‘er I ‘ad. Don’t like codeine.”
“You… right. Gene.”
“Mm?”
“They’re… they’re duplicatin’ me again. Whoever they are…” Sam grabbed blindly at his DCI as the pub started to spin, only to be thrown backwards as Gene clapped both hands to his forehead and howled, sending his pint skidding off the bar and over Phyllis’ skirt as she marched up to the pair of them and hauled them off their barstools, out of the door and away.
-0-0-
Sitting in front of her computer, Xys licked the last drop of tea off her Gene Hunt mug, tongue brushing Gene’s forehead, and re-blogged another Tumblr picture of John Simm with a smile on her face.