Advent Calendar Day Eleven: All Together, (Sam/Annie/Gene, Green Cortina), danae_b

Dec 11, 2014 17:04

Title: All Together
Author: danae-b
Rating: Green Cortina (established relationship OT3, a little bit of angst, some fluff as well)
Pairing: Sam/Annie/Gene
Word Count: 3.1K words
Notes: HAPPY ELEVENTH (are you guys sick of me yet?) DAY OF THE ADVENT CALENDAR!!! Some Christmas Eve happenings at the Château de OT3.
Summary: Annie finds something hidden and wants to bring it out into the light, and Sam's just not sure it's a good idea.


'What do you think?'

Annie had been so eager to show off what she'd found, she'd rushed out of the storage room as she brushed the dust from her sleeves, her hair. When she spotted him in the kitchen, she grabbed Sam about the wrist and tugged him back towards the storage room. 'Why the rush, Annie?' he'd asked, though he was letting her lead him along.

She flashed a grin right back at him, happy to see he was seemingly in an agreeable mood. The storage room really was in a miserable state, she can't have got all the dust... not off of herself, and definitely not in that cramped little room. Well, plenty of time to sort through it all as the new year approaches. She'd not mind seeing to it much sooner than that.

As it is, Gene's out, and Sam was tidying up in the kitchen. She'd just been getting a bit of a head start on that cleaning, as well as snooping about the house. It's her first Christmas away from home in this manner, and she just couldn't help herself - it being a new place for her to explore, she wanted to do so completely. She's used to her brothers making a racket, her mum and dad keeping the peace - boys will be boys, there's just no denying it when it comes to those lads. So something like this, cosy, intimate, with her Sam and their Guv, that and a big old house that stood about them, keeping them warm...

Something completely new.

So she kept on grinning, squeezed his hand. 'Just wait til you see.'

Well, now he's seen it, and other than sneezing twice against the sleeve of his yellow and pale-green striped shirt, he hasn't said much. Nothing positive, that's for certain, and that realisation is wearing at the edges of Annie's rather ample holiday cheer. It's a bit tiresome, trying to hold it all together - between Sam, who seems extra glum as the season approached, and Gene, who's only just ever been himself, it's getting bloody old.

'Sam?'

He sighs, shakes his head, looks like he might just end up sneezing again, though the urge ends up passing him by. 'What do you want me to say?'

She rolls her eyes, pokes him in the side with her index finger. 'Anything would be a nice start.'

He chuckles, shakes his head, rubs at his cheek. 'Well then, right - that's not asking for too much.'

'Sam - '

'If it was at the back of the storage room beneath taped up boxes, a bloody thick layer of dust, and various other sundry on top of all that - he probably kept it back there for a good reason. Whatever you're planning, it's a bad idea.'

That's Sam right there, always attempting to be sensible, even though when it comes to dealing with Gene - and the three of them, altogether - it sometimes needs you need to lean a bit more towards the heart of things, instead of the brains. If, on first meeting Sam (and giving him a nice hard jab in the kidney - what? He's the one who'd asked), it was hard enough to imagine being in relationship with one of her superior officers, let alone two.

Life does just have a funny way of catching you by surprise, throwing you for a complete loop along the way.

'Oh?' She's trying not to sound like she's too disappointed, but given the way Sam's frowning, she knows he's heard it in her voice. Well, let him hear it - she's certainly not going to act like she feels guilty about any of this. No, it's Christmas Eve, and you just aren't allowed to be unhappy on Christmas Eve.

Maybe that's a childish thing for Annie to think, the sort of belief leftover from when she was an actual child, but it's one more thing she'd rather not let the cynicism of adulthood (and of being a copper on top of all that) steal away.

He shrugs, could just leave it at that - however, it being Sam, he doesn't. 'You know the Guv - out of sight, out of mind.'

She sighs, shakes her head, reaches out to grab his hand. 'Well I think it's a right shame to keep it hidden.'

'Annie...' He's already made up his mind to go through with it, hasn't he? Because he's a bit of a daft sort, the good sort of daft, and he can't bear to see her so unhappy, and over something as silly as all this. 'This really isn't a good idea.'

She gives his hand a tight squeeze, and Sam squeezes back. 'Where's your sense of holiday cheer?'

He gives a small laugh, and as she smiles up at him, he smiles right back. 'Hiding behind my sense of self preservation, I think.'

-

It's a very nice piano. She remembers her grandmother having had one that was just as nice as this one, but that was a lifetime ago, so faded from memory she hardly remembers the details. She never did pick up how to play, though she's sure she must have tried. She liked singing much more than that, though her brothers tended to agree she sounded like a yowling cat.

Who needs brothers, really?

It takes them a half-hour to get a clear path from the back of the storage room to the front, and another half-hour on top of that to get the piano moved out into the lounge.

It seems to fit - Annie had always thought there was something lacking, between the sofa and the telly and the Dutch cabinet stuffed with leftover remnants of Gene's previous marriage and his distant childhood. There's a spot directly to the left of the front window that really needed something to fill it in, and in Annie's opinion, this does a perfectly good job.

Perfectly good? No, so much better than that.

Annie dusts it off, polishes the wood til it gleams. Sam makes sure it still works, plunking his fingers across the row of keys, his expression thoughtful. Maybe she's just being too hopeful, but it almost sounds like the piano can still keep a tune. That Sam might just know a bit more about them than he's gone and let on. He's like that, clamming up about the little things, and after he'd shared so much with her - and so much of having been bloody difficult to believe - it's silly that he'd get worked up over this.

'Well?'

He's sitting on the bench in front of it, lowered the case over the keys. 'Still don't think it's a good idea.' Sam grins, shakes his head, pushes the bench back before he stands up. 'But it does look nice. Hopefully Gene won't kill us too much for having shoved our noses into his business - it being Christmas Eve and all.'

'Oh, you.' She takes a few steps closer to him, and Sam takes a few more closer to her. They end up face to face, or close enough, and she presses in for a kiss.

That, of course, is how Gene finds them. He'd gone out for a few more bottles of something hard to drink, hopefully would make it before the nearest shop closed - he'd complained about the vintage of the wine Sam had chosen, which is what led to them both insisting he go out and buy something more suitable. He only went on his own because Annie and Sam had promised that dinner would be ready on his return.

It's done, staying warm in the oven. Then Annie had done a bit of snooping about, and she'd end up finding the piano... If Sam clams up then there are just some details of Gene's personal life that he protects with lock and key.

'...what's going on here, then?'

He certainly isn't asking about the kiss. Sam blushes as he pulls back, smiles, the nervous twitch of it. 'Nothing you haven't seen before.'

Gene rolls his eyes. 'Ha-bloody-ha. Good one, Tyler - you know that's not what I meant.'

Sam's tensing up in response to Gene's aggressive tone, the air's thickening beneath it, and Annie definitely doesn't want them to end up hitting each other tonight. Punch-ups on Christmas Eve? Right, definitely not allowed. No bloody way.

She steps in, puts herself between Sam and Gene, the two rather fragmented pieces of her heart. She's mostly sure that Gene would never hit her. 'It's a piano, Guv.'

'Yes, I can bloody well see what it is, Cartwright - I know what they're called.' He's scowling, but that hasn't stopped him from taking steady steps towards it, and them. She edges closer to it as well, trails her fingers across the well-polished wood. She'd done such a good job, hadn't she?

'What's it going in my sodding living room, what's what I'd like to know?' The tension has lessened - there's something else in Gene's voice now, something that Annie can't find it in her to name, something tremulous, nearly soft - and he reaches out now that he can, presses his hand to the cover.

A sigh, Sam's. 'I told her it was a bad idea.'

A soft chuckle, hardly the cheery sort. 'Tis the bloody season for them, isn't it?'

'Oh, hush up now - stop being such grinches, the both of you.' She frowns, crosses her arms over her chest, looks from Sam - standing, at a loss, in the middle of the living room, his attention focused on Gene's back - and Gene, right there beside her, running his fingers across the wood.

'Humbug,' Gene mutters.

Sam sighs. 'Annie...'

She frowns, feels like she's done wrong somehow, and it's an important night so she needs to make it right. 'Guv - '

'It belonged to me mam.' He's tugged his hand away, resolutely pushed both of them down into his pockets.

'Oh, I - we'll put it back, I didn't - ' Oh, that explains it, those unspoken things in his voice, the mix of emotions that's just now crossing his face, what must amount to an entire load that Gene doesn't want to deal with. A bit of sorrow, a bit of joy, the result of which is a very confusing blend of the two.

'Right, you didn't know.' He stares her down, grabs hold of her attention and doesn't let it go. 'I never meant to tell.' Right, but that's the Guv - always hiding the little things, the details that matter most, these closed off parts of his life that Annie can't help but want to be allowed into, her and Sam both. She has a lot of love for the both of them, and she can be just as stubborn as they are combined. He gives a little, and she appreciates it, but it only means she's left wanting more.

'Gene...' Sam's stepped up close now, has wrapped his arms around their Guv, hugging him from behind. Gene huffs on a sigh, closes his eyes, and Annie finds herself hugging him as well. It's these simple moments that leave her the most surprised - sex is one thing, and she knows she has a deep enough emotional connection with Sam, but sometimes she feels it's lacking on Gene's part, not that she doesn't try.

She gets the feeling she'll marry Sam one of these days, it seems like he gets close to asking but then he takes a few steps back. Annie wonders if it'll still just be the three of them together, rather the way it should be - the newly-weds and their divorced boss, isn't it good of the young couple to take care of the poor daft sod?

Because Gene has a way of holding things in. It's up to her and Sam to pull him out of that, bit by slightest bit.

He's still caught up in their hug, not doing much of it in return. He mumbles, running through his memories, his voice gone deeper, more sombre: 'It was a gift to her from me da, back when he was less of a prick. Me mam learned to play while she was in school, and da gave her this piano as a wedding gift.'

She gives a tight squeeze, feels that Sam's just done the same thing. 'I... we'll put it back, right away. Won't we, Sam?' Annie edges back, just slightly, only then Gene's shaking his head, and Annie stops dead in her tracks.

'Guv?'

They'd had him caught up in their arms, and now he's slipping free. He moves back to the piano with purpose in his stride, puts both of his hands down on the casing atop the row of keys, wordlessly flipps it back open.

'No bloody way - and that's an order. It being our first Christmas together... and it being something of a family heirloom...' More sorrow, more things that Annie can't explain, more reasons for her to want to wrap him up in hugs and never let him be. It must be related to his brother Stu, the one she's heard mention of but Gene doesn't do any talking about at all. Something she could press to know more about, only it never seems to be the right time. Sam knows more than he's saying, but if she's digging into this mess, she'd rather it be at the source.

'Well, I'd think she'd like knowing it was getting played.'

Sam laughs softly, eyes wide with amazement. 'You can play?'

Gene rolls his eyes, sits right down on the bench, claims it as his own - which, of course, it is. 'Course I can - don't tell me, you never could have guessed.'

'Well, no - no, I couldn't.' Sam shrugs, runs a hand back through his hair, looks askance at Annie and smiles at her in wonder. Then he's stepping up to the piano as well, dropping down to sit beside Gene. 'I taught myself to play when I was younger... my auntie Heather had a piano and, well, she didn't play it too well - marks for effort though, right? We spent a lot of time at her house, you know, mum and I, we moved around a lot... and, well, y'know. Had a lot of time on my hands.'

Gene grins, bumps his shoulder against Sam's. 'You? Surely you were the most popular lad in school.' Plunk, plunk, plunk, his fingers are running over the keys, one by one, depressing them before releasing them and letting the sound wash through him.

'Honestly, Guv - ' Sam shakes his head, but he's grinning. For as scrappy as he is now, that can't have been a recent development - Sam's probably been the stubborn sort who'd been fighting from the onset, never knowing when it was smart to back down.

Gene reaches up, snakes his arm about Sam's neck, pulls him close. 'Oh, hush up - give us a kiss.'

Sam does, happily, and Annie feels the heat building on her cheeks, running down her neck, the swell of her heart, suddenly too big to fit in her chest. She'll never get tired of watching them, this open intimacy than she's been allowed to share in. When Gene thought it was best for it to end between him and Sam, when Sam hadn't been happy enough to just settle for one thing when he wanted it all, when Sam made sure he got everything he wanted.

No, he's been fighting all his life, he's certainly not going to up and quit now.

He looks dazed, after all that, the colour high on his cheeks, the way it's running down his neck as well. Somehow, Annie had moved closer to them both, not that she'd noticed it as it happened.

'You next, petal.'

'Yes, sir.' A grin, Annie stooping down, one knee pressed against the edge of the bench, Sam's back warm against her front. Being kissed as Gene is even better than watching it happen to some other person, and anyhow, she knows Sam likes the outside experience just as much as she does. They've talked about it, a lot.

She's dizzy, afterwards, licking her lips as she stands back up. Sam pushes his shoulder against Gene's, and the one she's gripping - the opposite one - she gives it a tight squeeze, her other hand coming up to rest at the back of Gene's neck, her fingers curling into his hair.

'Hrm. Bit rusty.' Gene hits a few more keys, then another set of them - Sam, at the far end of it, hits a number of them as well. They're not making much harmony at this point, only just trying to get things sorted out and settled down.

'Still - sure it'll be something, Gene' Sam even rolls his eyes, as though to add extra emphasis. 'It being our first duet and all.'

They're managing something now, a but closer to a proper melody, but, with them being themselves...

'You're going too fast.' Gene bumps into Sam's elbow.

Sam grimaces, elbows back. 'No, you're just going too bloody slow.'

'What?' Gene bumps into Sam once more, they're going at it like little boys - no matter what, it always comes down to a fight with these two. They find balance, but very rarely is there harmony. 'You never complained about that before!'

She almost laughs. Sam, though, does, snorts as well. He elbows Gene again, really getting into it now. 'Stay on your side of the piano.'

'It's my bloody piano, I can go wherever I want!'

'But you're going to ruin the song!'

'Just stay on your side of the piano, you bloody git!'

More laughter ('it doesn't work that way, Guv!'), bloody chaotic piano playing going on in the midst of it. She doesn't know how they're getting it done, because to her eye there's absolutely no cohesion to their antics.

But isn't that just how they work?

Annie laughs again, shakes her head. Whoever knew she'd be so lucky to get stuck with the two of them in her life? Because she really is lucky.

'Any requests, Cartwright?'

'Hmm... Deck the Halls?'

'Know that one, Gladys?'

'Course I do, Guv.'

She hums along, at first, when the song switches over - they're a lot more organised this time, which shows just how well they do work together. Live a little, learn a lot.

She hasn't seen either of them this happy in a long, long time - if ever. It's an unguarded thing, pure and simple, a little bit of effort and she's seeing something she hadn't been blessed with before.

And Annie's not stupid, she knows a blessing when she sees one.

She also knows she'll have to go all I told you so on Sam once the moment for it is better: in the end, making sure they pulled this piano out of storage was probably one of the best ideas she's had all year.

But for now, she shuts her mouth, and hums along instead.

advent calendar 2014, genre: fluff, character: annie, fic, rating: green cortina, genre: established relationship, character: sam, pairing: sam/annie/gene, character: gene

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