Fic: The Consequences of Sherbet (ficathon)
Title: The Consequences of Sherbet
Author: me
Words: 2,500
Rating: Brown Cortina (not quite the NC-17 requested, but along those lines)
Pairing: Gene/Sam, slash
Spoilers: 2.04, set within and just after the ep.
This is my belated entry to the wonderful Ficathon, in response to a prompt from wiccagal1996, requesting Gene/Sam, NC-17, car sex. See me go straight for the most profound option! It's not a masterpiece, most of it was written on a succession of unexpectedly sunny Irish beaches and ferries. But I had great fun writing it, and I hope it promotes a smile or two, especially for Wicca.
It all started with the sherbet.
Sam still has a vivid mental picture of that moment, one which he occasionally takes out and dusts off when he’s feeling bored, or lonely. Or horny.
In retrospect, even after all that’s happened since, he still can’t totally get his head round the potency of the image. The sight of a fortysomething, overweight, and above all male, person attempting to carry on a serious and rather grumpy conversation with sherbet plastered over his upper lip should on paper have inspired amusement, derision maybe, even pity. What it totally should not have done was left Sam so instantly and fiercely aroused that he gaped, captivated, involuntarily imagining leaning over and gently but thoroughly cleaning off the dusting of white powder with his own tongue.
Stifling a gasp that would certainly have betrayed more than he wanted to share with the gruffly homophobic DCI, Sam turned away, hunched over in his seat to ease the restricting discomfort and try to hide the incriminating evidence. Lifting the binoculars, he glared malevolently at the unsuspecting Twilling as if it were all his fault.
The conversation soon turned to more operational matters, and the sherbet incident was quickly forgotten. Well, not forgotten as such. More stored, filed carefully away.
Sam had never had a homosexual urge in his life. Even the par-for-the-course same sex crushes of the early teen years had passed him by. If he bothered to analyse it at all, he would say that his attitude to men in the context of romance was strongly coloured by the unexplained departure of his own father. His mum had discouraged conversation on that topic, so Sam had over time formed his own conclusions, none of them favourable. Whichever way he looked at it, Vic Tyler’s actions were deeply questionable, shady and decidedly unheroic.
Freudian it may be, but Sam had idolised his mother and distrusted his father, and these characteristics seemed to have imprinted themselves on his attitude towards the genders. Also, on a wholly shallow level, women were far more aesthetically pleasing and, both physically and emotionally, intriguing, mysterious, an incomprehensible world to be discovered and explored. Sam was a meticulous and careful lover, taking and giving pleasure more through thoroughness and curiosity than through the altruism that this approach was often mistaken for.
Now, though, Sam’s perception had been rocked, leaving him more shaken than he had been since his forced emergence into 1973. Initially, assisted by the hectic pace of events in the case, he filed the whole thing away to think about later, hoping in truth that it was just some kind of bizarre aberration, and the whole matter would never resurface.
Then Gene burst without warning into the middle of the undercover operation, accompanied by some brassy but undeniably gorgeous prostitute, just as Sam was steeling himself to remain calm and unaffected while being confronted by WDC Cartwright’s breasts at close range. Later, alone with Carol, and just at the point where he felt he might at last be beginning to make some progress, he was distracted by a full-blooded yell from the next room. The sound, a tantalising blend of agony and ecstasy, had him on his feet without conscious thought, trembling with the effort to control the feverish string of images tumbling around his brain - crude, incredibly arousing pictures of the possible activities of Gene and Mrs Luckhurst, some at least of which must have been physically impossible without risking serious injury.
Dimly, as if through a tunnel, he heard Carol’s voice recalling him to the here and now. But his attention was elsewhere, his heart wasn’t really in it, and he was almost grateful for the sudden shrill cry from Annie, seizing on it as an excuse to put an end to things. Until he hared out onto the landing, barely managing to avoid cannoning into a half-naked DCI Hunt busily shrugging on clothes as he responded to the same summons.
Sam’s brain froze. He yelled the first thing that came to mind - “Santana! Santana!” Remembered with a chill, too late, that he had agreed the codeword only with Annie, and Gene had no idea what he was talking about. His eyes locked momentarily with the DCI’s, and Sam could see there a troubling mix of comprehension, suspicion and something he couldn’t immediately identify. Sam’s tension level increased palpably, and when the opportunity presented itself he was almost glad to let off steam by belting the unfortunate Twilling, warmed and irritated in roughly equal measure by Gene’s approval.
When it was all over, they handed Carol over to Phyllis’ less than tender ministrations. Annie took it for granted that she would be in charge of supplying tea and sympathy to the still-shaken Denise, and Sam was happy to let her get on with it. Gene had been taciturn and uncommunicative, even by his standards, since the close of the operation, and Sam was somewhat surprised when the Guv uttered the gruff monosyllable, “Pub.” And even more surprised when, diverting from the normal and well-trodden route to the Railway Arms, Gene turned the Cortina along a series of rambling back streets, past lines of washing-hung terraces that looked so unremittingly identical that, although he would have claimed to know the area well, Sam found his sense of direction wavering.
Gene drove for twenty minutes or so, face set determinedly forward, a grim, increasingly tense silence building between the two. Sam, intrigued and more than a little un-nerved, tried just once to open a line of communication. “Guv, exactly what…?”
“Shut it,” Gene replied tersely, eyes still firmly fixed on the road. Sam sighed, sat back, concentrating on staying upright as Gene tackled the narrow streets in truly death-defying style.
Finally, with a sickening lurch and a screech of rubber on gravel, Gene pulled up sharply in a car park behind a dilapidated-looking row of shops. Yanked on the handbrake, which gamely managed to survive the experience. A few moments passed, Gene still facing straight ahead, hands clenched round the steering wheel, Sam peering around in a vain attempt to get his bearings.
Inevitably, it was Gene who finally broke the tableau, twisting in his seat to gaze with blazing intensity at Sam, who froze, staring back defiantly while feeling uncomfortably like a moth pinned to a display board.
“Look, Guv,” he tried, “what the bloody hell is this all about?”
A pause.
“Tyler?”
“What?”
Another pause.
“Are you a pouf?”
A chill spread outwards from somewhere deep within Sam, radiating through his veins to every extremity. He swallowed, sharply aware of a tingling in his fingers and toes, at odds with a strange numbness in his lips that threatened to render him speechless. His senses were suddenly and preternaturally alert, adrenaline coursing through him in an instinctive fight-or-flight reaction, although for the life of him he couldn’t figure out which he wanted to do. Deciding that running away was unlikely to be the manliest course of action at this stage, he opted for fight, trying for some semblance of righteous outrage.
“Have you completely lost it, Guv? What kind of daft idea have you gone and got into your head now?” Sam was reasonably proud of this effort, despite the unwelcome knowledge that it would have been more convincing without the involuntary note of hoarse throatiness that, even to himself, sounded more like a come-on than a rebuff. The Guv remained unmoved.
“Oh, don’t give me that, Tyler. You know exactly what I’m on about. Are you a shirtlifter, a nancy, a screaming queen? Do you, Samuel Gladys Tyler, bat for the other team?”
Sam closed his eyes, letting his head sink back as a wash of emotions he didn’t know how to handle surged through him. He hadn’t properly thought this through himself yet, and had no idea how to start trying to explain the turmoil of his recent, unexpected fantasies to a man who already looked halfway to belting him one without any further provocation. Silently he asked himself the question he had had put to him. Am I gay?
“No,” he replied simply, knowing that this was by no means a full answer, but confident that this much, at least, was true.
He opened his eyes, the stark bewilderment of his own gaze countered by a calm assessment tinged with satisfaction. He was utterly unprepared for what followed.
“Good,” Gene said softly, with a tenderness that Sam wouldn’t have believed him capable of. And, with a shocking turn of speed, the DCI swooped across as if claiming a prize, and the two men’s lips clashed into contact.
The next hectic few minutes could, with the best will in the world, at best be described as graceless. Hands tangled in hair, tongues duelled and teeth crashed together, as two men completely unversed in the mechanics of homoeroticism fought desperately for the closeness they both craved with almost frightening urgency, hampered at all stages by the physical barriers of the cramped Cortina. The gasps and moans, increasing in frequency and potency as questing hands began to explore more boldly, were matched by yelps and muffled curses as the gearstick or steering wheel made its presence uncomfortably felt.
At last, frustrated by one particularly painful jab from the handbrake, Gene pulled away, shoving Sam back against the seat, where he slumped, mouth half-open, hair tousled, fighting for breath and totally incapable of speech. Or, indeed, much in the way of rational thought.
“Right, bollocks to this.” Gene’s voice was hoarse, rasping, yet to Sam incredibly soothing. “Sit still, Tyler. Let the dog see the rabbit.”
Sam let out a startled snort of laughter. “Right. Gene Hunt, last of the great romantics.” The sentence was cut off, ending in a choked gasp as Gene reached out and, with purposeful determination, placed one firm hand squarely on Sam’s groin, using the other to unbuckle and unzip, liberating the erection contained within.
Sam’s head fell back as Gene took hold of him, and he resisted with effort the urge to close his eyes, mesmerised by the utter concentration on Gene’s face as he began to stroke gently, taking pleasure just from watching the absorbed focus of the other man on the task at hand, even as the slow pace of the gentle friction threatened to drive him beyond reason with sheer impatience.
Understanding Gene’s need to take things slowly, aware that he needed time to accustom himself to the unfamiliarity of what he was doing, Sam bit his lip, fighting to remain still and in control despite an ever-increasing urge to beg for more, a soft moan the only concession to the fierce struggle. Gene looked up at the sound, a decided twinkle in the blue eyes letting Sam know that he was entirely aware of the effect he was having.
“Bastard”, Sam said softly, smiling with grudging admiration.
“Oh yeah,” Gene grinned. And suddenly Sam was capable of nothing more articulate than a strangled sort of yelp, as Gene increased the pace and got to work in earnest.
In the gathering gloom of the Manchester twilight, the world receded till there was nothing more than the two of them and the close confinement of the Cortina, Gene finding a rhythm that drove Sam half-mad with exquisite, tortuous lust, Sam trembling and sucking in great shuddering breaths. As Gene’s hand moved faster, enclosing and massaging Sam’s erect cock, Sam was unable to hold back a shout.
“Shit, Gene, yes.”
Gene’s free hand immediately moved up, covering Sam’s mouth, robbing him of breath. “Now now, don’t want to wake the neighbours, do we?”
Sam moaned through the rough fingers, allowing Gene’s hand to rest across his mouth until spots started to dance behind his eyelids and breathing became a serious issue. Only then did he pull back slightly, drawing Gene’s index finger in between his parted lips, swirling his tongue around and along it until Gene emitted a low groan of pleasure.
The older man retaliated by slowing the pace of his own strokes, sweeping a finger across the head of Sam’s by now moist and leaking cock, teasing at the tip with an expertise that Sam, his head swimming, had to admire. Gasping, he drew Gene’s finger more firmly into his mouth, sucking harder, setting up a rhythm that Gene copied, the two matching each other for pace as Sam finally found the presence of mind to reach out a shaking hand, connecting with Gene’s groin through the cloth of his trousers, finding him rock hard and ready.
With Gene dictating the rhythm, Sam mirroring with mouth and hand, the pair moved steadily and with mounting urgency towards climax, the only sounds the rasping of breath and the occasional whispered curse. Sam once again forced his eyes open, his gaze meeting the intense blue of Gene’s, the contact intimate as an embrace in itself as the two men drank in each other’s reactions, revelling in each tiny widening of pupils or spasm of muscles around eyes and cheeks. The whole experience moved further from the initial inelegant fumblings into a total, almost dance-like harmony, each man picking up on the tiniest of clues offered by the other, bringing each other in unison towards the inevitable conclusion. Sam could not remember ever being so completely in tune with a lover. Having said that, at this point he would have been hard pressed to remember his own name, let alone a litany of his previous sexual experiences.
In the end, it was Gene who came first, the rough friction of cloth against his aching erection pushing him over the edge with a low, hoarse moan of such overwhelmingly naked sexuality that Sam was tipped over after him, shouting Gene’s name, moved almost to tears by the unlikely but unarguable beauty of the moment. As he finally allowed his eyes to fall shut, listening to his heartbeat doing its best to return to normal, Sam felt the softness of Gene’s lips against his, just once, so briefly and tenderly that afterwards he wondered if he had imagined it. Certainly, by the time he glanced over, Gene was firmly back in his own place, glowering down at the distinct damp patch at his crotch.
As he sensed Sam’s gaze upon him, Gene turned his head, bestowing on Sam a glare that completely failed to dampen Sam’s buoyant mood. “Well, that’s just bloody perfect. I can’t turn up at the Arms like this, can I? Lads’ll think I’ve wet meself.”
Sam regarded the offending stain with an air of profound contemplation. “You’re right, Guv. I think it’d be a mistake.” Leaning forward, with a confidence he didn’t entirely feel, he drew a finger across the dampness, lifting it to his mouth to savour the taste, deeply satisfied by the sharp intake of breath he elicited as a response. “So, Guv, what do you suggest?”
Gene didn’t hesitate. “Your place,” he growled instantly.
Sam smiled beatifically. “Oh yeah.”
Author: me
Words: 2,500
Rating: Brown Cortina (not quite the NC-17 requested, but along those lines)
Pairing: Gene/Sam, slash
Spoilers: 2.04, set within and just after the ep.
This is my belated entry to the wonderful Ficathon, in response to a prompt from wiccagal1996, requesting Gene/Sam, NC-17, car sex. See me go straight for the most profound option! It's not a masterpiece, most of it was written on a succession of unexpectedly sunny Irish beaches and ferries. But I had great fun writing it, and I hope it promotes a smile or two, especially for Wicca.
It all started with the sherbet.
Sam still has a vivid mental picture of that moment, one which he occasionally takes out and dusts off when he’s feeling bored, or lonely. Or horny.
In retrospect, even after all that’s happened since, he still can’t totally get his head round the potency of the image. The sight of a fortysomething, overweight, and above all male, person attempting to carry on a serious and rather grumpy conversation with sherbet plastered over his upper lip should on paper have inspired amusement, derision maybe, even pity. What it totally should not have done was left Sam so instantly and fiercely aroused that he gaped, captivated, involuntarily imagining leaning over and gently but thoroughly cleaning off the dusting of white powder with his own tongue.
Stifling a gasp that would certainly have betrayed more than he wanted to share with the gruffly homophobic DCI, Sam turned away, hunched over in his seat to ease the restricting discomfort and try to hide the incriminating evidence. Lifting the binoculars, he glared malevolently at the unsuspecting Twilling as if it were all his fault.
The conversation soon turned to more operational matters, and the sherbet incident was quickly forgotten. Well, not forgotten as such. More stored, filed carefully away.
Sam had never had a homosexual urge in his life. Even the par-for-the-course same sex crushes of the early teen years had passed him by. If he bothered to analyse it at all, he would say that his attitude to men in the context of romance was strongly coloured by the unexplained departure of his own father. His mum had discouraged conversation on that topic, so Sam had over time formed his own conclusions, none of them favourable. Whichever way he looked at it, Vic Tyler’s actions were deeply questionable, shady and decidedly unheroic.
Freudian it may be, but Sam had idolised his mother and distrusted his father, and these characteristics seemed to have imprinted themselves on his attitude towards the genders. Also, on a wholly shallow level, women were far more aesthetically pleasing and, both physically and emotionally, intriguing, mysterious, an incomprehensible world to be discovered and explored. Sam was a meticulous and careful lover, taking and giving pleasure more through thoroughness and curiosity than through the altruism that this approach was often mistaken for.
Now, though, Sam’s perception had been rocked, leaving him more shaken than he had been since his forced emergence into 1973. Initially, assisted by the hectic pace of events in the case, he filed the whole thing away to think about later, hoping in truth that it was just some kind of bizarre aberration, and the whole matter would never resurface.
Then Gene burst without warning into the middle of the undercover operation, accompanied by some brassy but undeniably gorgeous prostitute, just as Sam was steeling himself to remain calm and unaffected while being confronted by WDC Cartwright’s breasts at close range. Later, alone with Carol, and just at the point where he felt he might at last be beginning to make some progress, he was distracted by a full-blooded yell from the next room. The sound, a tantalising blend of agony and ecstasy, had him on his feet without conscious thought, trembling with the effort to control the feverish string of images tumbling around his brain - crude, incredibly arousing pictures of the possible activities of Gene and Mrs Luckhurst, some at least of which must have been physically impossible without risking serious injury.
Dimly, as if through a tunnel, he heard Carol’s voice recalling him to the here and now. But his attention was elsewhere, his heart wasn’t really in it, and he was almost grateful for the sudden shrill cry from Annie, seizing on it as an excuse to put an end to things. Until he hared out onto the landing, barely managing to avoid cannoning into a half-naked DCI Hunt busily shrugging on clothes as he responded to the same summons.
Sam’s brain froze. He yelled the first thing that came to mind - “Santana! Santana!” Remembered with a chill, too late, that he had agreed the codeword only with Annie, and Gene had no idea what he was talking about. His eyes locked momentarily with the DCI’s, and Sam could see there a troubling mix of comprehension, suspicion and something he couldn’t immediately identify. Sam’s tension level increased palpably, and when the opportunity presented itself he was almost glad to let off steam by belting the unfortunate Twilling, warmed and irritated in roughly equal measure by Gene’s approval.
When it was all over, they handed Carol over to Phyllis’ less than tender ministrations. Annie took it for granted that she would be in charge of supplying tea and sympathy to the still-shaken Denise, and Sam was happy to let her get on with it. Gene had been taciturn and uncommunicative, even by his standards, since the close of the operation, and Sam was somewhat surprised when the Guv uttered the gruff monosyllable, “Pub.” And even more surprised when, diverting from the normal and well-trodden route to the Railway Arms, Gene turned the Cortina along a series of rambling back streets, past lines of washing-hung terraces that looked so unremittingly identical that, although he would have claimed to know the area well, Sam found his sense of direction wavering.
Gene drove for twenty minutes or so, face set determinedly forward, a grim, increasingly tense silence building between the two. Sam, intrigued and more than a little un-nerved, tried just once to open a line of communication. “Guv, exactly what…?”
“Shut it,” Gene replied tersely, eyes still firmly fixed on the road. Sam sighed, sat back, concentrating on staying upright as Gene tackled the narrow streets in truly death-defying style.
Finally, with a sickening lurch and a screech of rubber on gravel, Gene pulled up sharply in a car park behind a dilapidated-looking row of shops. Yanked on the handbrake, which gamely managed to survive the experience. A few moments passed, Gene still facing straight ahead, hands clenched round the steering wheel, Sam peering around in a vain attempt to get his bearings.
Inevitably, it was Gene who finally broke the tableau, twisting in his seat to gaze with blazing intensity at Sam, who froze, staring back defiantly while feeling uncomfortably like a moth pinned to a display board.
“Look, Guv,” he tried, “what the bloody hell is this all about?”
A pause.
“Tyler?”
“What?”
Another pause.
“Are you a pouf?”
A chill spread outwards from somewhere deep within Sam, radiating through his veins to every extremity. He swallowed, sharply aware of a tingling in his fingers and toes, at odds with a strange numbness in his lips that threatened to render him speechless. His senses were suddenly and preternaturally alert, adrenaline coursing through him in an instinctive fight-or-flight reaction, although for the life of him he couldn’t figure out which he wanted to do. Deciding that running away was unlikely to be the manliest course of action at this stage, he opted for fight, trying for some semblance of righteous outrage.
“Have you completely lost it, Guv? What kind of daft idea have you gone and got into your head now?” Sam was reasonably proud of this effort, despite the unwelcome knowledge that it would have been more convincing without the involuntary note of hoarse throatiness that, even to himself, sounded more like a come-on than a rebuff. The Guv remained unmoved.
“Oh, don’t give me that, Tyler. You know exactly what I’m on about. Are you a shirtlifter, a nancy, a screaming queen? Do you, Samuel Gladys Tyler, bat for the other team?”
Sam closed his eyes, letting his head sink back as a wash of emotions he didn’t know how to handle surged through him. He hadn’t properly thought this through himself yet, and had no idea how to start trying to explain the turmoil of his recent, unexpected fantasies to a man who already looked halfway to belting him one without any further provocation. Silently he asked himself the question he had had put to him. Am I gay?
“No,” he replied simply, knowing that this was by no means a full answer, but confident that this much, at least, was true.
He opened his eyes, the stark bewilderment of his own gaze countered by a calm assessment tinged with satisfaction. He was utterly unprepared for what followed.
“Good,” Gene said softly, with a tenderness that Sam wouldn’t have believed him capable of. And, with a shocking turn of speed, the DCI swooped across as if claiming a prize, and the two men’s lips clashed into contact.
The next hectic few minutes could, with the best will in the world, at best be described as graceless. Hands tangled in hair, tongues duelled and teeth crashed together, as two men completely unversed in the mechanics of homoeroticism fought desperately for the closeness they both craved with almost frightening urgency, hampered at all stages by the physical barriers of the cramped Cortina. The gasps and moans, increasing in frequency and potency as questing hands began to explore more boldly, were matched by yelps and muffled curses as the gearstick or steering wheel made its presence uncomfortably felt.
At last, frustrated by one particularly painful jab from the handbrake, Gene pulled away, shoving Sam back against the seat, where he slumped, mouth half-open, hair tousled, fighting for breath and totally incapable of speech. Or, indeed, much in the way of rational thought.
“Right, bollocks to this.” Gene’s voice was hoarse, rasping, yet to Sam incredibly soothing. “Sit still, Tyler. Let the dog see the rabbit.”
Sam let out a startled snort of laughter. “Right. Gene Hunt, last of the great romantics.” The sentence was cut off, ending in a choked gasp as Gene reached out and, with purposeful determination, placed one firm hand squarely on Sam’s groin, using the other to unbuckle and unzip, liberating the erection contained within.
Sam’s head fell back as Gene took hold of him, and he resisted with effort the urge to close his eyes, mesmerised by the utter concentration on Gene’s face as he began to stroke gently, taking pleasure just from watching the absorbed focus of the other man on the task at hand, even as the slow pace of the gentle friction threatened to drive him beyond reason with sheer impatience.
Understanding Gene’s need to take things slowly, aware that he needed time to accustom himself to the unfamiliarity of what he was doing, Sam bit his lip, fighting to remain still and in control despite an ever-increasing urge to beg for more, a soft moan the only concession to the fierce struggle. Gene looked up at the sound, a decided twinkle in the blue eyes letting Sam know that he was entirely aware of the effect he was having.
“Bastard”, Sam said softly, smiling with grudging admiration.
“Oh yeah,” Gene grinned. And suddenly Sam was capable of nothing more articulate than a strangled sort of yelp, as Gene increased the pace and got to work in earnest.
In the gathering gloom of the Manchester twilight, the world receded till there was nothing more than the two of them and the close confinement of the Cortina, Gene finding a rhythm that drove Sam half-mad with exquisite, tortuous lust, Sam trembling and sucking in great shuddering breaths. As Gene’s hand moved faster, enclosing and massaging Sam’s erect cock, Sam was unable to hold back a shout.
“Shit, Gene, yes.”
Gene’s free hand immediately moved up, covering Sam’s mouth, robbing him of breath. “Now now, don’t want to wake the neighbours, do we?”
Sam moaned through the rough fingers, allowing Gene’s hand to rest across his mouth until spots started to dance behind his eyelids and breathing became a serious issue. Only then did he pull back slightly, drawing Gene’s index finger in between his parted lips, swirling his tongue around and along it until Gene emitted a low groan of pleasure.
The older man retaliated by slowing the pace of his own strokes, sweeping a finger across the head of Sam’s by now moist and leaking cock, teasing at the tip with an expertise that Sam, his head swimming, had to admire. Gasping, he drew Gene’s finger more firmly into his mouth, sucking harder, setting up a rhythm that Gene copied, the two matching each other for pace as Sam finally found the presence of mind to reach out a shaking hand, connecting with Gene’s groin through the cloth of his trousers, finding him rock hard and ready.
With Gene dictating the rhythm, Sam mirroring with mouth and hand, the pair moved steadily and with mounting urgency towards climax, the only sounds the rasping of breath and the occasional whispered curse. Sam once again forced his eyes open, his gaze meeting the intense blue of Gene’s, the contact intimate as an embrace in itself as the two men drank in each other’s reactions, revelling in each tiny widening of pupils or spasm of muscles around eyes and cheeks. The whole experience moved further from the initial inelegant fumblings into a total, almost dance-like harmony, each man picking up on the tiniest of clues offered by the other, bringing each other in unison towards the inevitable conclusion. Sam could not remember ever being so completely in tune with a lover. Having said that, at this point he would have been hard pressed to remember his own name, let alone a litany of his previous sexual experiences.
In the end, it was Gene who came first, the rough friction of cloth against his aching erection pushing him over the edge with a low, hoarse moan of such overwhelmingly naked sexuality that Sam was tipped over after him, shouting Gene’s name, moved almost to tears by the unlikely but unarguable beauty of the moment. As he finally allowed his eyes to fall shut, listening to his heartbeat doing its best to return to normal, Sam felt the softness of Gene’s lips against his, just once, so briefly and tenderly that afterwards he wondered if he had imagined it. Certainly, by the time he glanced over, Gene was firmly back in his own place, glowering down at the distinct damp patch at his crotch.
As he sensed Sam’s gaze upon him, Gene turned his head, bestowing on Sam a glare that completely failed to dampen Sam’s buoyant mood. “Well, that’s just bloody perfect. I can’t turn up at the Arms like this, can I? Lads’ll think I’ve wet meself.”
Sam regarded the offending stain with an air of profound contemplation. “You’re right, Guv. I think it’d be a mistake.” Leaning forward, with a confidence he didn’t entirely feel, he drew a finger across the dampness, lifting it to his mouth to savour the taste, deeply satisfied by the sharp intake of breath he elicited as a response. “So, Guv, what do you suggest?”
Gene didn’t hesitate. “Your place,” he growled instantly.
Sam smiled beatifically. “Oh yeah.”