Looping - Part Two (End!)
Title: Looping, Part Two of Two
Author: mikes_grrl
Rating: Brown Cortina (NC-17) for torture, sex, torture!sex…you get the idea…but really, it’s plot driven, I SWEAR TO GOD.
Pairing: Sam/Gene kinda sorta…
Warnings: AU, really really AU, pre-2.08, possibly pre-2.07, did I mention AU? AU, as in “mind fuck.”
Word Count: 9,500 (in two parts; part two, 5,140)
Summary: Who is Sam, and what the crap is he doing here? Why does he want Gene dead? And is Gene really “queer as ‘ell”?
NOTES for Part Two: I am highly amused that the general comments on Part One consist of "Ow! My head hurts! In a good way!" You are a bunch of masochists, which is good I guess, or no one would be reading this!
CREDIT: Special loving THANK YOU to wajoma for her generous permission to use her original character, Missus, for this fic. I think you will agree that she might be the most important plot point in the whole thing, especially at the end.
Background:
Part One
Looping, Part Two
His mind weaved a tapestry of memories, and what he saw was himself, eight years old, standing outside of St. Mary’s orphanage and staring back at him. That was two - three? or four? - days ago. It sure as hell looked like him, that scruffy tow-head he used to be. It was weird and he did not think he would have noticed if the kid had not smiled at him. Innocent, all innocent the way he was once, and smiling at him, and running across the street to tell him what a swell car he had. No one said ‘swell’ anymore, it was…old. Like him. Like that boy. Odd, out of place, out of time…like Sam.
Thoughts filtered down to Sam, and his smile, and his annoying tight-arse attitude, and how much he loved getting Sam drunk just to see him smile. He felt his brain drowning in chemicals, endorphins and what-the-hell the docs called it. A mad rush, a liquid sensation to his thoughts, an escape from the pain all around him. Something about Sam, and he remembered, once, sitting at Sam’s flat, pissed out drunk, watching Sam laughing on his cot about something Gene was trying to say, and he was glad he was pissed out drunk because he would have humiliated himself. Kissing Sam. No, no that was not allowed. Not even acceptable to fantasize about. He shut himself down and let Sam go that night, because he had to, for both of them. Something like that would ruin Sam, who was girly ponce enough as it was without being raped by his superior officer.
Rape. Shit, the irony. His thoughts moved turgidly and the waters parted and he remembered where he was, and he saw Sam, and he felt the blow job but tried not to think about it, tried not to wonder how Sam knew every little trick that Gene loved and all the ways Gene wanted his cock sucked. He started groaning in protest as he came, the belt around his neck constricting him just enough to let him pass out again.
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“Sam, I’m not a cop. I don’t know buttfuck about procedures or techniques or what-the-bloody-majigger.”
Sam smiled. “I think that won’t be a problem.”
“What? Trying to pose as one of the greatest coppers in Manchester history? I bloody think it will.”
“Trust me. Just yell a lot.”
“Yell?”
“Shout.”
“No, I ‘ate shouting. Nuns did it all the time, gives me the heeby jeebies. Counterproductive, anyway. Much better to try to reason with people, I find.”
Sam laughed. “God, that sounds so wrong coming from you. Just trust me, please? We need to find Gene. My Gene.”
Gene looked at him and stepped closer, one hand out. Sam held his breath, because this was…beautiful.
“Your Gene.” He stopped and traced his fingers over Sam’s jaw, and god help him, it was everything he ever wanted from Gene, but not this Gene. He held still as Gene leaned in, his fingers frozen delicately against Sam’s neck, and kissed him. It was incredibly soft and he did not taste right - no whiskey, no cigarettes, no salt or vinegar or anything that Sam fully expected Gene to taste of. It was a mouthy warm flavor with a hint of mint, a bizarre counterpoint to the man who should have been standing there next to him. He reached up and pushed against Gene’s chest, forcing him back.
“Not me.”
“No. Not you. But…close.” Gene looked incredibly sad, and burdened. “So close.”
Sam wanted to understand this, but he knew they were on a tight timeframe, so he backed away. “Come on.” He walked out.
They walked into Gene’s office, past a crowd of utter confusion, because no one liked ‘Gene’ and no one understood what was going on. Sam forced himself to smile at Annie and Chris and shrug at Ray, as if this was normal after all. Inside, he closed the door.
“Our first step would be to go where ‘my’ body was found. You remember that?”
“I have the reports on you memorized. It’s part of my job….You were found stretched out at a cemetery…on top of a grave.”
Sam paled. “Whose?”
“Stuart Hunt.”
--------------
“You stink. I need to wash you off before we can go to bed.”
“Fhu…fuck off. Jus’ kill me you bastard.” Gene gasped.
“No! What fun is that? Oh, well, it will be fun. Later. Right now, bath time!”
Sam picked up the edges of the blanket and pulled it like a sled until they were on the other side of the large, cavernous room. Then he rolled Gene off it, and Gene yelled in pain. The burns flared and hurt, and his ass hurt and well fuck what did not hurt right now?
Nothing, apparently, hurt as much as cold water.
“Rub a dub!” Sam ran a freezing, soapy rag over him after dumping a bucket of water on him. Gene’s teeth started chattering. “You know, this is a first. Never thought about it this way before…” Sam said thoughtfully, scrubbing his arms and his legs and his dick like a hospital nurse…and Gene never liked hospital nurses, either. “Kill you, not him. I just never…well, no one’s perfect, I suppose. God you know how long I wanted you back then? I died wanting you, you fuck, I died dreaming of you.” Sam ran the rag over his chest, over the burns, and Gene gargled a scream as his body clutched in agony. “Every one I bring back isn’t you…they grow up wrong, it is never right. Maybe it was the War. Or Stu. Or hell, me! Hmmm, you know I suppose I’ll have to kill him anyway, just to wake up. Two for one! Now, I really should have taken you both together…oooooh, what an idea! Crap I’m so dumb, I should’ve thought of that. I suppose…no, there’s always next time.” He stood up and Gene assumed time passed because he came back with a full bucket and poured it over him, the ice cold water hitting his skin like glass shards. Gene’s mind went black.
---------------
Sam concocted a story about how the Cortina was stolen, and everyone looked more shocked about that then when they thought the Guv was kidnapped. It did the trick, though, of distracting them with something actually useful while he and Gene snuck out.
“Not surprised. You were actually killed somewhere else, probably a factory based on what little evidence they would pluck off your skin.” Gene stood with his hands in the pockets of the trench coat, his face scrunched up in that familiar mannerism as he looked away from the grave. Sam knelt over it, looking to see if it had been in any way disturbed lately, but saw nothing. He stood up.
“What else?”
“Mmmm. You were naked. Raped, beaten, nearly strangled - probably something sexual to that, no way to tell for sure, but that is certainly his…preference. Two toenails ripped out, but that was not as interesting to him. He whipped you on the bottom of your feet with an electrical cord from a television.”
“Makes sense.”
“Test Card Girl, yeah.” Gene nodded.
“How…how do you…”
“The reports. It’s all in the reports.” Gene grimaced, but something was there in his eyes, and Sam did not believe him.
“You know that Sam pretty well, don’t you? It’s not all from the ‘reports,’ is it?”
Gene shook his head. “No, it isn’t. But he does not talk about killing you…himself. He knows better. He’s still you, he’s a brilliant bastard.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“Factories. Empty factories. How many could there be, anyway?”
“This is Manchester in 1974, Gene. Don’t you read history?”
“The only history I ever read is yours.” Gene looked at him, and Sam felt pierced by the grief in those bright, green eyes. He turned and went back to his car, and got on the radio.
One thing that never changed about plods was they generally did not ask a lot of questions about orders. Sam got Phyllis to send couple of units to check defunct factories for ‘nothing in particular but they’ll know it when they see it’ and bless her, she worked with Gene’s ludicrous ‘hunches’ long enough to just do it as asked. But nothing came up, and the Cortina was still missing. Sam found a way to keep them out of CID for the rest of the afternoon by scoping out a series of factories and warehouse on their own. Later, the Railway Arms was, naturally, out of the question so they ended up eating curry at the Indian restaurant his Gene loved, and this Gene loved too, and going back to Sam’s flat. Sam tried to get him to go home but Gene simply said that his home was currently an orphanage he had very bad memories of growing up in and he did not want to sleep in some stranger’s bed, even if that stranger was him. Giving up, Sam called Chris to ask him to stop by and feed Missus, and set up drinks for both of them as Gene folded into the beat up chair that Sam considered ‘Gene’s Chair’ anyway.
“I got a cat named Missus?”
“Uh, yeah.” Sam sat down on his cot.
“Funny. At home I got a cat. Named Queenie.”
Sam nearly spit out his drink and some of it got up his nose, burning like hell. He tried to nod politely but the effect was already ruined and he grinned self consciously. Gene smiled at him paternally, and sipped his drink as if they had just shared a private joke.
Sam thought that it was almost normal, except for Gene’s haircut and his boots and the gentlemanly way he sipped the single malt as he sprawled in the chair. Sam knew he was staring, but could not stop.
“What yer starin’ at?”
“You look...weird.”
“It’s me boots. Not proper shods for this era, yeah?”
“And you’re not smoking.”
“Gah. ‘Ate ciggies. Stink.” Gene wrinkled his nose.
“Tell me…about me.” Sam played with his glass, and glanced up at Gene.
“Bloody mysterious soddin’ freak of nature, you are.”
“Well. That clears everything up.”
Gene laughed, and Sam smiled, because it was the same laugh after all.
“Look, Sam…you went insane. You purposefully drove yourself insane. What am I ‘posed to tell ya? Right now you are out there, probably torturing me because you think it is a bloody hysterical good time.”
Sam shook his head. He wanted to jump up and run out and start searching factories again. He looked at his phone.
“You got the coppers on the beat doin’ it, they know their jobs, yeah? He won’t kill ‘im…me…until Friday anyway.”
“How do you fit into all this? Aside from him kidnapping you?”
“He let’s ‘em know where to find me, how old I’ll be. They drag me in and start on me. This time…well, it was late, yeah? So I did not know anything until I was, what, thirty-five? Then I met you. The insane you. I was a reporter. Damn good one, too, worked the Beirut bureau for three years.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Good times.” He leaned back and smiled. “So they drag me in and introduce us and…the rest is history.” He grinned and it took Sam a second to get the pun, and he groaned.
Gene looked at the ceiling, then back down. “I’m your keeper, Sam. I’m the one they use to keep you in line, to keep coming back. Otherwise you could drift into any time and just disappear. But you’re mad, homicidal, and we can’t let that happen.”
“Christ…you’re bait!”
“Summat like that, yeah.”
“You…love him.”
“Destined.”
“But, well, are you…” Sam squirmed.
“Queer as ‘ell, thank you very much.”
“…my Gene?”
“Bet so. Never asked?”
“Never hit on me.” Sam said, and was mad about it.
“Not like he could. It’s 1973, Sam. I was born in 1931, for god’s sake. Try to keep that in mind.” He took another sip of the drink.
The phone rang. The Cortina was in a parking lot on the other side of town in a warehouse district. Four empty factories within decent walking distance. Sam told them to hold off until he got there, and it felt completely normal to run out the door with Gene on his heels.
------------------
Sam was at it again, fucking him. The boy was a damn bunny. Gene was on his side, legs pulled apart like scissors, Sam over him and holding down his arms at the wrists that were still chained together. His other arm was behind Gene, holding himself up as he plowed into him and don’t it beat all, if it was a fantasy it would have been a good one. But he hurt, and this hurt, and Sam calling out his name over and over annoyed the crap out of him.
He took a whipping to the bottom of his feet right before ‘bed’ and then Sam draped them in blankets and got naked and crawled in next to Gene and fell asleep. It was now late at night and Sam was awake again, hungry, fucking him hard, and really what Gene was thinking about was his torn up feet because his world had shrunk that much. He was not expecting to be saved, and he knew he was going to die at some point, so the only important thing he could concentrate on was how much his feet hurt. There was something comforting in that, as Sam tensed up and sped up and the sound of skin slapping against skin assaulted his ears.
“Oh shit.” Sam stopped and looked up into a spotlight.
-----------------
Nothing, but nothing - not Test Card Girl, not strange voices on the radio, not drug overdoses - was as strange as to look over the flashlight to see himself fucking Gene. Despite everything the other Gene told him, despite what he knew and how he felt, he was not ready to see that, and he froze. Gene ran past him and tackled Sam - wait, the other guy, not him - who was naked but still put up a hell of a fight. Sam forced himself to react and ran forward, joining in the battle, glad that he had clothes on so the other Gene could tell them apart, because he was blasting his Sam with power punches like a repressed boxer. They finally wrestled him to the ground and Sam handcuffed him - himself? - and they dragged him back to Gene, who looked unconscious in the darkness.
Sam dropped to his knees and he put a hand on Gene’s shoulder, and Gene looked over at him.
“Fucker.” Gene spat before dropping his head back down. Sam let go as if burned, and the other Gene walked up next to him with a flashlight. Running it over Gene’s naked body, Sam suddenly understood the reaction.
“Oh god…oh god…we need an ambulance.”
“Radio in the car. Keep an eye on them, I’ll be right back.”
It made more sense for Sam to go for the radio, but Gene seemed to know that he was not leaving the side of the man on the ground.
He looked over at himself, the naked Sam in handcuffs, bloodied from the fight, glaring directly at him.
“Enjoy it. I’ll be back.” He snarled, then he laughed, and he kept laughing, and Gene on the floor started trying to crawl away.
----------------
Their doppelgangers were stashed at the back of the factory when the ambulance arrived. Somehow the other Gene’s presence calmed the insane Sam down, and they sat quietly in the darkness, spooned together, Gene wrapping his arms tightly around the naked, handcuffed lunatic as if around a small child, keeping him quiet with whispers and kisses. Sam got his Gene loaded onto a gurney and rode with him to the hospital. Gene was out of it, and good thing, or else he would be screaming demands that they arrest Sam for attacking him. In fact, Sam was not sure how he was going to get around that exact scenario, once Gene clicked into some form of consciousness. The man was held hostage and tortured by ‘Sam’ for four days, and no way on earth would he be convinced otherwise. That Sam’s alibi was everyone in CID was not going to change his mind, Sam knew that much about Gene.
He was given the worst sort of reprieve when the doctors pushed Gene into a light coma once he was out of surgery. His body, his organs, his brain were all shorted out and the doctors did not want him waking up any time soon. They told Sam they were going to bring him out of it the following day, and Sam sympathized, and wondered if his Gene was now walking around in some 1950s western playing sheriff or something. He really hoped so.
That morning he walked into CID and with absolutely no explanation of the “Gene” who showed up the day before, told everyone that the Guv was badly injured from his kidnapping and was tortured and they had no leads. Chris threw up, Annie kept repeating “But we saw him yesterday!” and Ray was furious that Sam did not call them to the scene the night before. Sam resolutely would not answer any questions about it. He told them they could not visit Gene at the hospital for another twenty four hours, at least, then left and drove to his flat before they rose up in rebellion and tore him apart.
Gene let him in and fixed him a drink and they stared at himself. He did not look so bad handcuffed naked to the cot, he thought smugly.
“Threeway? You know you want it.” That Sam grinned up at them and rolled his hips.
Sam looked over at Gene in horror.
“Am I always like this?”
“Yes, a terrific shag. Some things never change.”
“No…no, I meant…”
“I know what you meant.” Gene grinned at him.
“He does, he’s good at reading our minds. Here, have a seat, Sammy, let’s give our Gene a show…”
“Christ, I’m going to gag you, you bloody fag.”
“Look, look, stop, both of you.” Sam stepped backwards, very uncomfortable with a cravenly insane version of himself.
“No! You took away my toy! My Gene Genie!”
“That’s it.” Gene pulled a very nice, clean handkerchief out of his pocket and shoved it into the other Sam’s mouth. “Now, you know you love it, you perv, so jus’ think of it as foreplay.”
“He looks furious.” Sam said, looking down, wondering if he looked that evil when angry. Evil Sam. It did not seem to fit, but he sure looked the part.
“Oh, he is. He’s murderous, in fact, so don’t uncuff him.”
“Gene…we need to. I need my Gene to know it wasn’t me. Else…”
“I know, I thought of that. I saw the way he looked at you. Look, call me here when he wakes up.”
“I had Chris drop the Cortina off down the street.” Sam handed him the keys.
“Really? I get to drive the Cortina?” Gene raised his eyebrows in boyish delight.
Evil Sam finally spit out the gag. “Oh brilliant fuck, he drives like a maniac…” He snarled and tried to bite as Gene shoved the fabric back into his mouth.
-------------
Gene felt groggy and he felt pain but it did not register. Yes, he was definitely in pain, a shit load of agony, but his brain was cut off from it. He chewed his tongue just to feel something, and opened his eyes because it was too bright in here for a factory floor, and will wonders never cease the nurse had nice tits.
He tried to talk but it did not work and she smiled at him and left, and he was alone in a hospital room, wondering if Ray killed Sam yet, and who found him, and how long he had been out.
“You look like shit.”
Gene flinched instinctively, against his will, but he was programmed now and it was Sam. Sam, smiling at him, the Sam he wanted to remember but who was dead to him now. Dead.
“Look, don’ be scared, it wasn’t me who did this.” Sam stood by the bed, not touching him, looking at him critically like that bastard always does when he thinks he’s right. Gene shook his head and forced him self to lay still. He was not going to let this son of a bitch, this dead son of a bitch, know how much he got to him.
They stared at each other, and Sam shook his head. “I’m sorry, Gene. God, what he did to you…”
Gene kept trying to glare at him, hatred flooding every cell in his body. It was a good thing that Ray had not killed Sam yet, because Gene was looking forward to pulling him apart himself. Slowly, yes, very slowly. Payback can be a bitch, and Gene was going to make sure this debt was paid in full.
Sam nodded at the doorway and Gene looked over.
Gene held a firm arm around Sam, who was wearing the same jeans and green turtleneck he was before, only this time he was in handcuffs and looking very angry about it. Gene twitched his eyes back and forth between Sam and himself, and he did not feel like he was looking into a mirror because he did not look much like himself. He actually looked pretty good, if a bit…like a ponce. He turned his head back to the first Sam, and thought that these drugs were better than anything he ever heard about LSD.
-----------------
Two days later, Gene finally believed what he saw. Sam knew the moment it happened, when Gene looked back and forth between the two Sams and understood that he was not flipped out on drugs, that the Sam he knew had not held him hostage and tortured and raped him, and that there were two Genes in the room. He looked confused, but it was crystal clear confusion, lucid and honest. He still cringed as Sam stepped in closer to the bed, but Sam could tell he was trying not to, and when he saw that, he nearly fell apart, crying in relief, and trying not to cry in front of Gene because he really did not need to provide any more evidence that he was a poof other than what Gene already had on him.
The other Gene tried to explain everything, but even to Sam it sounded crazy. The only proof they had was the Sam in handcuffs, who at perfect intervals lashed out with very lurid comments about the joys of Gene’s ass, and suggestively inquired about foursomes.
“Y’gon’ to see he gets charged, eh?” Gene asked, glaring at the other Sam with his own evil eye.
“Charged?” The other Gene looked at him quizzically, grappling with the antsy lunatic almost without with thinking about it, as if it were second nature. “No, of course not. He’s criminally insane, not a criminal.”
“WHAT the bleedin’ difference does that make?”
“Oh please let me show you.” Evil Sam lunged for the bed and was halfway on it before Gene yanked him off and threw him against the wall.
Sam almost smiled but then looked down at his Gene, who was, for Gene anyway, struck dumb with terror. It was just the way his body was tensed, the flashing look in his eyes, and only then did Sam understand what that Sam - what he, in fact, although it did not feel like him - had done.
“Gene…” Sam said softly, letting go of the bed and trying to adopt a non-threatening stance.
Gene glanced at him, and they locked eyes for a moment before Gene let out the breath he had been holding. “M’fine, Sammy,” he whispered. Sam did not believe him, and knew there would be long nights with all the lights on for Gene, and maybe even times when he could not have Sam in the same room with him. Sam knew this because he understood it clinically, but it was a crushing knowledge, and he looked at the floor because he was not able to look anyone in the eye right now - least of all, himself.
“Thank fuck he woke up. Now we get to go ‘ome.” Gene sighed, breaking his reverie and leaning against the bed, one hand still gripping the other Sam, whose eyes kept snapping between all of them, hungry and terrifyingly devious. Gene never let go of him, Sam noticed, not even asleep. It was touching but eerie in a David Lynch-movie kind of way.
“How?” Sam asked, genuinely curious. The Gene in the bed just watched critically, still half drugged and exhausted, but refusing to fall asleep.
“I don’t know. Just…it happens when the time is right. We wake up.”
“Together forever…” Evil Sam trilled, and Gene smacked him on the back of the head.
“Yeah, and you love it. Be a good boy and I’ll fuck you up the arse later, ‘kay?”
“What happens to you, here?” Sam pointed at them, trying to change the subject and glancing nervously down at his Gene, whose eyes were narrowed in distaste, displeasure, and a thousand other ‘disses.’
“We don’t stay around to find out.” Gene smiled, and reached across the bed. He ran his hand gently over Sam’s jaw, lovingly, until his Sam bit him viciously on the other arm. They heard Gene snarling something about ‘jealous bitch’ as he threw his trench coat over him and hauled him out of the room.
Sam turned to stare at Gene, who was staring back at him.
“You are crazy, then.”
“Not yet, apparently. I’m saving that for someone special.”
“Bloody ‘ell…” Gene rolled his eyes. Then he looked at Sam, and squinted. “I saw meself.”
“Yes, you just left.” Sam rolled his eyes, wondering how much more metaphysically bizarre this could get, and the mantra hit him: Alice...Dorothy...Wendy..Sam...
Gene grunted, distracting him out of NeverLand. “No, not ‘im, that bloody fairy poof. I meant me. A boy…”
“You’re at an orphanage right now, eight years old.”
“I know. St. Mary’s. That’s where I saw…me. Christ if this ain’t confusin’…” Gene tried to rub his head, but his arms were still weak, the muscles a long way from healed.
“That’s ‘im, the Gene who just left. He’s the one who was dropped here; he grows up in the orphanage and becomes a reporter and…he takes care of me.” Sam looked away, ashamed. He did not want to wake up, ever, if that is what happened to him. They were silent a while.
“So…I guess I never saw me attacker.”
“That would certainly be convenient.” Sam nodded gratefully.
“What you tell the others? Where’s my team, anyway? You got them chained to their desks filin’ reports in triplicate?”
“They think you are still in a coma. The hospital staff believes your attacker remains at large and won’t give out any information on you, on my orders, even to other officers, and there is a plod outside the door to keep everyone out but me and you.”
“A very confused plod.”
“Er, yeah.”
Gene frowned and looked hard at Sam. “You know what he did to me.”
“Yes, I do. Even without the medical report, he’s been very, er, graphic in the retelling. I think the thirteen stitches in your feet pretty much says it all, anyway.”
“You were always the imaginative type.”
“Gene….”
“So now you know.”
“…what? Know what?”
Gene nodded at the door. “Him. That nancy poofer. ‘E’s me.”
“Oh.”
“And I know.” Gene stared at him meaningfully.
“I swear, I will never lay a hand on you. Unless you hit first.”
“Good enough for now.” Gene sighed and laid his head back down, and was asleep before Sam could really formulate an answer. He paused, wondering what to do, although he was needed back at CID and he had to lift Gene’s quarantine before the team ripped him apart, specifically Ray. He put on his jacket and looked at Gene, then leaned over on tiptoe and lightly kissed the side of his mouth. He tasted exactly the way Gene was supposed to taste.
----------------
“’Oo are you?”
“I’m your dad. Now sit down.”
“I’ll sit when I feel like it, mister.”
“Oh, he’s yours alright.”
“Sam, shut up. Now look here boy, sit your arse…”
“Mr. Hunt!”
“Oh, sorry, Sister. Now, boy, sit ‘fore the nice penguin here gets her ruler out.”
The boy sat down like a stone.
“Now…er…I’m your dad, got that?”
“You got proof? Because you don’t look like my dad and I was born in 1931…”
“NO YOU BLOODY WASN’T!”
“Mr. Hunt!”
“Sorry, sorry. Er…”
“Eugene, let me explain. You’ve been through a lot, and I know it doesn’t make sense. But this is your father, the man you were named after, and he did not know you were here but now he’s found you and he wants to take you home. Would that be okay?” Sam kneeled next to the chair containing ‘Eugene Franklin Hunt, Jr.’ and talked quietly.
“I think I know you…”
“Mmmm, well, you might ‘ave seen me around…”
“You ‘is friend?”
“Something like that.”
“I don’ belong ‘ere, y’know.” Eugene crossed his arms and glared at him.
“I know how you feel.” Sam leaned forward and whispered. “I’m from 2006, and somehow I ended up here too.”
The boy’s eyes got wide, and he nodded uncertainly. “’Kay, then, I guess.”
“Good, Eugene, good…” Sam smiled and stood up, relieved, as Eugene turned with a familiar, intense concentration on Gene.
“Can I ‘ave a pet?”
“I got a cat, that’s all you get.”
“What’s ‘is name?”
“Her name is ‘Missus’ and yer gonna treat her like a queen.”
Eugene thought about that. “I used to ‘ave a cat, named Princess.”
Sam coughed into his jacket trying not to laugh, and Gene glowered.
“We can talk about that later! Look, you get a cat, so y’comin’ home with me or not?”
The boy looked at the two men and then at the nun, who smiled encouragingly. Eugene nodded in agreement, as clearly Missus was the deciding factor, and Sam smiled. It was easy, for Gene anyway, to ‘scare up’ the paperwork proving that the boy was ‘his’ and from there the legalities of it were simple. Now Gene was a father, his own father, and he looked utterly terrified of the prospect.
“Com’on then. Gonna go ride in me ‘swell’ car.” Gene turned and walked out, even now still limping.
Sam looked at the boy and held out his hand. Eugene stood up and took it, hesitantly, and looked up at him with the same creased-forehead frown that was, forever, Gene.
“Jus’ don’ call me Eugene. I ‘ate that.”
“No problem, Gene…’ey, tell me more about Princess…”
#####
Author: mikes_grrl
Rating: Brown Cortina (NC-17) for torture, sex, torture!sex…you get the idea…but really, it’s plot driven, I SWEAR TO GOD.
Pairing: Sam/Gene kinda sorta…
Warnings: AU, really really AU, pre-2.08, possibly pre-2.07, did I mention AU? AU, as in “mind fuck.”
Word Count: 9,500 (in two parts; part two, 5,140)
Summary: Who is Sam, and what the crap is he doing here? Why does he want Gene dead? And is Gene really “queer as ‘ell”?
NOTES for Part Two: I am highly amused that the general comments on Part One consist of "Ow! My head hurts! In a good way!" You are a bunch of masochists, which is good I guess, or no one would be reading this!
CREDIT: Special loving THANK YOU to wajoma for her generous permission to use her original character, Missus, for this fic. I think you will agree that she might be the most important plot point in the whole thing, especially at the end.
Background:
Part One
Looping, Part Two
His mind weaved a tapestry of memories, and what he saw was himself, eight years old, standing outside of St. Mary’s orphanage and staring back at him. That was two - three? or four? - days ago. It sure as hell looked like him, that scruffy tow-head he used to be. It was weird and he did not think he would have noticed if the kid had not smiled at him. Innocent, all innocent the way he was once, and smiling at him, and running across the street to tell him what a swell car he had. No one said ‘swell’ anymore, it was…old. Like him. Like that boy. Odd, out of place, out of time…like Sam.
Thoughts filtered down to Sam, and his smile, and his annoying tight-arse attitude, and how much he loved getting Sam drunk just to see him smile. He felt his brain drowning in chemicals, endorphins and what-the-hell the docs called it. A mad rush, a liquid sensation to his thoughts, an escape from the pain all around him. Something about Sam, and he remembered, once, sitting at Sam’s flat, pissed out drunk, watching Sam laughing on his cot about something Gene was trying to say, and he was glad he was pissed out drunk because he would have humiliated himself. Kissing Sam. No, no that was not allowed. Not even acceptable to fantasize about. He shut himself down and let Sam go that night, because he had to, for both of them. Something like that would ruin Sam, who was girly ponce enough as it was without being raped by his superior officer.
Rape. Shit, the irony. His thoughts moved turgidly and the waters parted and he remembered where he was, and he saw Sam, and he felt the blow job but tried not to think about it, tried not to wonder how Sam knew every little trick that Gene loved and all the ways Gene wanted his cock sucked. He started groaning in protest as he came, the belt around his neck constricting him just enough to let him pass out again.
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“Sam, I’m not a cop. I don’t know buttfuck about procedures or techniques or what-the-bloody-majigger.”
Sam smiled. “I think that won’t be a problem.”
“What? Trying to pose as one of the greatest coppers in Manchester history? I bloody think it will.”
“Trust me. Just yell a lot.”
“Yell?”
“Shout.”
“No, I ‘ate shouting. Nuns did it all the time, gives me the heeby jeebies. Counterproductive, anyway. Much better to try to reason with people, I find.”
Sam laughed. “God, that sounds so wrong coming from you. Just trust me, please? We need to find Gene. My Gene.”
Gene looked at him and stepped closer, one hand out. Sam held his breath, because this was…beautiful.
“Your Gene.” He stopped and traced his fingers over Sam’s jaw, and god help him, it was everything he ever wanted from Gene, but not this Gene. He held still as Gene leaned in, his fingers frozen delicately against Sam’s neck, and kissed him. It was incredibly soft and he did not taste right - no whiskey, no cigarettes, no salt or vinegar or anything that Sam fully expected Gene to taste of. It was a mouthy warm flavor with a hint of mint, a bizarre counterpoint to the man who should have been standing there next to him. He reached up and pushed against Gene’s chest, forcing him back.
“Not me.”
“No. Not you. But…close.” Gene looked incredibly sad, and burdened. “So close.”
Sam wanted to understand this, but he knew they were on a tight timeframe, so he backed away. “Come on.” He walked out.
They walked into Gene’s office, past a crowd of utter confusion, because no one liked ‘Gene’ and no one understood what was going on. Sam forced himself to smile at Annie and Chris and shrug at Ray, as if this was normal after all. Inside, he closed the door.
“Our first step would be to go where ‘my’ body was found. You remember that?”
“I have the reports on you memorized. It’s part of my job….You were found stretched out at a cemetery…on top of a grave.”
Sam paled. “Whose?”
“Stuart Hunt.”
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“You stink. I need to wash you off before we can go to bed.”
“Fhu…fuck off. Jus’ kill me you bastard.” Gene gasped.
“No! What fun is that? Oh, well, it will be fun. Later. Right now, bath time!”
Sam picked up the edges of the blanket and pulled it like a sled until they were on the other side of the large, cavernous room. Then he rolled Gene off it, and Gene yelled in pain. The burns flared and hurt, and his ass hurt and well fuck what did not hurt right now?
Nothing, apparently, hurt as much as cold water.
“Rub a dub!” Sam ran a freezing, soapy rag over him after dumping a bucket of water on him. Gene’s teeth started chattering. “You know, this is a first. Never thought about it this way before…” Sam said thoughtfully, scrubbing his arms and his legs and his dick like a hospital nurse…and Gene never liked hospital nurses, either. “Kill you, not him. I just never…well, no one’s perfect, I suppose. God you know how long I wanted you back then? I died wanting you, you fuck, I died dreaming of you.” Sam ran the rag over his chest, over the burns, and Gene gargled a scream as his body clutched in agony. “Every one I bring back isn’t you…they grow up wrong, it is never right. Maybe it was the War. Or Stu. Or hell, me! Hmmm, you know I suppose I’ll have to kill him anyway, just to wake up. Two for one! Now, I really should have taken you both together…oooooh, what an idea! Crap I’m so dumb, I should’ve thought of that. I suppose…no, there’s always next time.” He stood up and Gene assumed time passed because he came back with a full bucket and poured it over him, the ice cold water hitting his skin like glass shards. Gene’s mind went black.
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Sam concocted a story about how the Cortina was stolen, and everyone looked more shocked about that then when they thought the Guv was kidnapped. It did the trick, though, of distracting them with something actually useful while he and Gene snuck out.
“Not surprised. You were actually killed somewhere else, probably a factory based on what little evidence they would pluck off your skin.” Gene stood with his hands in the pockets of the trench coat, his face scrunched up in that familiar mannerism as he looked away from the grave. Sam knelt over it, looking to see if it had been in any way disturbed lately, but saw nothing. He stood up.
“What else?”
“Mmmm. You were naked. Raped, beaten, nearly strangled - probably something sexual to that, no way to tell for sure, but that is certainly his…preference. Two toenails ripped out, but that was not as interesting to him. He whipped you on the bottom of your feet with an electrical cord from a television.”
“Makes sense.”
“Test Card Girl, yeah.” Gene nodded.
“How…how do you…”
“The reports. It’s all in the reports.” Gene grimaced, but something was there in his eyes, and Sam did not believe him.
“You know that Sam pretty well, don’t you? It’s not all from the ‘reports,’ is it?”
Gene shook his head. “No, it isn’t. But he does not talk about killing you…himself. He knows better. He’s still you, he’s a brilliant bastard.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“Factories. Empty factories. How many could there be, anyway?”
“This is Manchester in 1974, Gene. Don’t you read history?”
“The only history I ever read is yours.” Gene looked at him, and Sam felt pierced by the grief in those bright, green eyes. He turned and went back to his car, and got on the radio.
One thing that never changed about plods was they generally did not ask a lot of questions about orders. Sam got Phyllis to send couple of units to check defunct factories for ‘nothing in particular but they’ll know it when they see it’ and bless her, she worked with Gene’s ludicrous ‘hunches’ long enough to just do it as asked. But nothing came up, and the Cortina was still missing. Sam found a way to keep them out of CID for the rest of the afternoon by scoping out a series of factories and warehouse on their own. Later, the Railway Arms was, naturally, out of the question so they ended up eating curry at the Indian restaurant his Gene loved, and this Gene loved too, and going back to Sam’s flat. Sam tried to get him to go home but Gene simply said that his home was currently an orphanage he had very bad memories of growing up in and he did not want to sleep in some stranger’s bed, even if that stranger was him. Giving up, Sam called Chris to ask him to stop by and feed Missus, and set up drinks for both of them as Gene folded into the beat up chair that Sam considered ‘Gene’s Chair’ anyway.
“I got a cat named Missus?”
“Uh, yeah.” Sam sat down on his cot.
“Funny. At home I got a cat. Named Queenie.”
Sam nearly spit out his drink and some of it got up his nose, burning like hell. He tried to nod politely but the effect was already ruined and he grinned self consciously. Gene smiled at him paternally, and sipped his drink as if they had just shared a private joke.
Sam thought that it was almost normal, except for Gene’s haircut and his boots and the gentlemanly way he sipped the single malt as he sprawled in the chair. Sam knew he was staring, but could not stop.
“What yer starin’ at?”
“You look...weird.”
“It’s me boots. Not proper shods for this era, yeah?”
“And you’re not smoking.”
“Gah. ‘Ate ciggies. Stink.” Gene wrinkled his nose.
“Tell me…about me.” Sam played with his glass, and glanced up at Gene.
“Bloody mysterious soddin’ freak of nature, you are.”
“Well. That clears everything up.”
Gene laughed, and Sam smiled, because it was the same laugh after all.
“Look, Sam…you went insane. You purposefully drove yourself insane. What am I ‘posed to tell ya? Right now you are out there, probably torturing me because you think it is a bloody hysterical good time.”
Sam shook his head. He wanted to jump up and run out and start searching factories again. He looked at his phone.
“You got the coppers on the beat doin’ it, they know their jobs, yeah? He won’t kill ‘im…me…until Friday anyway.”
“How do you fit into all this? Aside from him kidnapping you?”
“He let’s ‘em know where to find me, how old I’ll be. They drag me in and start on me. This time…well, it was late, yeah? So I did not know anything until I was, what, thirty-five? Then I met you. The insane you. I was a reporter. Damn good one, too, worked the Beirut bureau for three years.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Good times.” He leaned back and smiled. “So they drag me in and introduce us and…the rest is history.” He grinned and it took Sam a second to get the pun, and he groaned.
Gene looked at the ceiling, then back down. “I’m your keeper, Sam. I’m the one they use to keep you in line, to keep coming back. Otherwise you could drift into any time and just disappear. But you’re mad, homicidal, and we can’t let that happen.”
“Christ…you’re bait!”
“Summat like that, yeah.”
“You…love him.”
“Destined.”
“But, well, are you…” Sam squirmed.
“Queer as ‘ell, thank you very much.”
“…my Gene?”
“Bet so. Never asked?”
“Never hit on me.” Sam said, and was mad about it.
“Not like he could. It’s 1973, Sam. I was born in 1931, for god’s sake. Try to keep that in mind.” He took another sip of the drink.
The phone rang. The Cortina was in a parking lot on the other side of town in a warehouse district. Four empty factories within decent walking distance. Sam told them to hold off until he got there, and it felt completely normal to run out the door with Gene on his heels.
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Sam was at it again, fucking him. The boy was a damn bunny. Gene was on his side, legs pulled apart like scissors, Sam over him and holding down his arms at the wrists that were still chained together. His other arm was behind Gene, holding himself up as he plowed into him and don’t it beat all, if it was a fantasy it would have been a good one. But he hurt, and this hurt, and Sam calling out his name over and over annoyed the crap out of him.
He took a whipping to the bottom of his feet right before ‘bed’ and then Sam draped them in blankets and got naked and crawled in next to Gene and fell asleep. It was now late at night and Sam was awake again, hungry, fucking him hard, and really what Gene was thinking about was his torn up feet because his world had shrunk that much. He was not expecting to be saved, and he knew he was going to die at some point, so the only important thing he could concentrate on was how much his feet hurt. There was something comforting in that, as Sam tensed up and sped up and the sound of skin slapping against skin assaulted his ears.
“Oh shit.” Sam stopped and looked up into a spotlight.
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Nothing, but nothing - not Test Card Girl, not strange voices on the radio, not drug overdoses - was as strange as to look over the flashlight to see himself fucking Gene. Despite everything the other Gene told him, despite what he knew and how he felt, he was not ready to see that, and he froze. Gene ran past him and tackled Sam - wait, the other guy, not him - who was naked but still put up a hell of a fight. Sam forced himself to react and ran forward, joining in the battle, glad that he had clothes on so the other Gene could tell them apart, because he was blasting his Sam with power punches like a repressed boxer. They finally wrestled him to the ground and Sam handcuffed him - himself? - and they dragged him back to Gene, who looked unconscious in the darkness.
Sam dropped to his knees and he put a hand on Gene’s shoulder, and Gene looked over at him.
“Fucker.” Gene spat before dropping his head back down. Sam let go as if burned, and the other Gene walked up next to him with a flashlight. Running it over Gene’s naked body, Sam suddenly understood the reaction.
“Oh god…oh god…we need an ambulance.”
“Radio in the car. Keep an eye on them, I’ll be right back.”
It made more sense for Sam to go for the radio, but Gene seemed to know that he was not leaving the side of the man on the ground.
He looked over at himself, the naked Sam in handcuffs, bloodied from the fight, glaring directly at him.
“Enjoy it. I’ll be back.” He snarled, then he laughed, and he kept laughing, and Gene on the floor started trying to crawl away.
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Their doppelgangers were stashed at the back of the factory when the ambulance arrived. Somehow the other Gene’s presence calmed the insane Sam down, and they sat quietly in the darkness, spooned together, Gene wrapping his arms tightly around the naked, handcuffed lunatic as if around a small child, keeping him quiet with whispers and kisses. Sam got his Gene loaded onto a gurney and rode with him to the hospital. Gene was out of it, and good thing, or else he would be screaming demands that they arrest Sam for attacking him. In fact, Sam was not sure how he was going to get around that exact scenario, once Gene clicked into some form of consciousness. The man was held hostage and tortured by ‘Sam’ for four days, and no way on earth would he be convinced otherwise. That Sam’s alibi was everyone in CID was not going to change his mind, Sam knew that much about Gene.
He was given the worst sort of reprieve when the doctors pushed Gene into a light coma once he was out of surgery. His body, his organs, his brain were all shorted out and the doctors did not want him waking up any time soon. They told Sam they were going to bring him out of it the following day, and Sam sympathized, and wondered if his Gene was now walking around in some 1950s western playing sheriff or something. He really hoped so.
That morning he walked into CID and with absolutely no explanation of the “Gene” who showed up the day before, told everyone that the Guv was badly injured from his kidnapping and was tortured and they had no leads. Chris threw up, Annie kept repeating “But we saw him yesterday!” and Ray was furious that Sam did not call them to the scene the night before. Sam resolutely would not answer any questions about it. He told them they could not visit Gene at the hospital for another twenty four hours, at least, then left and drove to his flat before they rose up in rebellion and tore him apart.
Gene let him in and fixed him a drink and they stared at himself. He did not look so bad handcuffed naked to the cot, he thought smugly.
“Threeway? You know you want it.” That Sam grinned up at them and rolled his hips.
Sam looked over at Gene in horror.
“Am I always like this?”
“Yes, a terrific shag. Some things never change.”
“No…no, I meant…”
“I know what you meant.” Gene grinned at him.
“He does, he’s good at reading our minds. Here, have a seat, Sammy, let’s give our Gene a show…”
“Christ, I’m going to gag you, you bloody fag.”
“Look, look, stop, both of you.” Sam stepped backwards, very uncomfortable with a cravenly insane version of himself.
“No! You took away my toy! My Gene Genie!”
“That’s it.” Gene pulled a very nice, clean handkerchief out of his pocket and shoved it into the other Sam’s mouth. “Now, you know you love it, you perv, so jus’ think of it as foreplay.”
“He looks furious.” Sam said, looking down, wondering if he looked that evil when angry. Evil Sam. It did not seem to fit, but he sure looked the part.
“Oh, he is. He’s murderous, in fact, so don’t uncuff him.”
“Gene…we need to. I need my Gene to know it wasn’t me. Else…”
“I know, I thought of that. I saw the way he looked at you. Look, call me here when he wakes up.”
“I had Chris drop the Cortina off down the street.” Sam handed him the keys.
“Really? I get to drive the Cortina?” Gene raised his eyebrows in boyish delight.
Evil Sam finally spit out the gag. “Oh brilliant fuck, he drives like a maniac…” He snarled and tried to bite as Gene shoved the fabric back into his mouth.
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Gene felt groggy and he felt pain but it did not register. Yes, he was definitely in pain, a shit load of agony, but his brain was cut off from it. He chewed his tongue just to feel something, and opened his eyes because it was too bright in here for a factory floor, and will wonders never cease the nurse had nice tits.
He tried to talk but it did not work and she smiled at him and left, and he was alone in a hospital room, wondering if Ray killed Sam yet, and who found him, and how long he had been out.
“You look like shit.”
Gene flinched instinctively, against his will, but he was programmed now and it was Sam. Sam, smiling at him, the Sam he wanted to remember but who was dead to him now. Dead.
“Look, don’ be scared, it wasn’t me who did this.” Sam stood by the bed, not touching him, looking at him critically like that bastard always does when he thinks he’s right. Gene shook his head and forced him self to lay still. He was not going to let this son of a bitch, this dead son of a bitch, know how much he got to him.
They stared at each other, and Sam shook his head. “I’m sorry, Gene. God, what he did to you…”
Gene kept trying to glare at him, hatred flooding every cell in his body. It was a good thing that Ray had not killed Sam yet, because Gene was looking forward to pulling him apart himself. Slowly, yes, very slowly. Payback can be a bitch, and Gene was going to make sure this debt was paid in full.
Sam nodded at the doorway and Gene looked over.
Gene held a firm arm around Sam, who was wearing the same jeans and green turtleneck he was before, only this time he was in handcuffs and looking very angry about it. Gene twitched his eyes back and forth between Sam and himself, and he did not feel like he was looking into a mirror because he did not look much like himself. He actually looked pretty good, if a bit…like a ponce. He turned his head back to the first Sam, and thought that these drugs were better than anything he ever heard about LSD.
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Two days later, Gene finally believed what he saw. Sam knew the moment it happened, when Gene looked back and forth between the two Sams and understood that he was not flipped out on drugs, that the Sam he knew had not held him hostage and tortured and raped him, and that there were two Genes in the room. He looked confused, but it was crystal clear confusion, lucid and honest. He still cringed as Sam stepped in closer to the bed, but Sam could tell he was trying not to, and when he saw that, he nearly fell apart, crying in relief, and trying not to cry in front of Gene because he really did not need to provide any more evidence that he was a poof other than what Gene already had on him.
The other Gene tried to explain everything, but even to Sam it sounded crazy. The only proof they had was the Sam in handcuffs, who at perfect intervals lashed out with very lurid comments about the joys of Gene’s ass, and suggestively inquired about foursomes.
“Y’gon’ to see he gets charged, eh?” Gene asked, glaring at the other Sam with his own evil eye.
“Charged?” The other Gene looked at him quizzically, grappling with the antsy lunatic almost without with thinking about it, as if it were second nature. “No, of course not. He’s criminally insane, not a criminal.”
“WHAT the bleedin’ difference does that make?”
“Oh please let me show you.” Evil Sam lunged for the bed and was halfway on it before Gene yanked him off and threw him against the wall.
Sam almost smiled but then looked down at his Gene, who was, for Gene anyway, struck dumb with terror. It was just the way his body was tensed, the flashing look in his eyes, and only then did Sam understand what that Sam - what he, in fact, although it did not feel like him - had done.
“Gene…” Sam said softly, letting go of the bed and trying to adopt a non-threatening stance.
Gene glanced at him, and they locked eyes for a moment before Gene let out the breath he had been holding. “M’fine, Sammy,” he whispered. Sam did not believe him, and knew there would be long nights with all the lights on for Gene, and maybe even times when he could not have Sam in the same room with him. Sam knew this because he understood it clinically, but it was a crushing knowledge, and he looked at the floor because he was not able to look anyone in the eye right now - least of all, himself.
“Thank fuck he woke up. Now we get to go ‘ome.” Gene sighed, breaking his reverie and leaning against the bed, one hand still gripping the other Sam, whose eyes kept snapping between all of them, hungry and terrifyingly devious. Gene never let go of him, Sam noticed, not even asleep. It was touching but eerie in a David Lynch-movie kind of way.
“How?” Sam asked, genuinely curious. The Gene in the bed just watched critically, still half drugged and exhausted, but refusing to fall asleep.
“I don’t know. Just…it happens when the time is right. We wake up.”
“Together forever…” Evil Sam trilled, and Gene smacked him on the back of the head.
“Yeah, and you love it. Be a good boy and I’ll fuck you up the arse later, ‘kay?”
“What happens to you, here?” Sam pointed at them, trying to change the subject and glancing nervously down at his Gene, whose eyes were narrowed in distaste, displeasure, and a thousand other ‘disses.’
“We don’t stay around to find out.” Gene smiled, and reached across the bed. He ran his hand gently over Sam’s jaw, lovingly, until his Sam bit him viciously on the other arm. They heard Gene snarling something about ‘jealous bitch’ as he threw his trench coat over him and hauled him out of the room.
Sam turned to stare at Gene, who was staring back at him.
“You are crazy, then.”
“Not yet, apparently. I’m saving that for someone special.”
“Bloody ‘ell…” Gene rolled his eyes. Then he looked at Sam, and squinted. “I saw meself.”
“Yes, you just left.” Sam rolled his eyes, wondering how much more metaphysically bizarre this could get, and the mantra hit him: Alice...Dorothy...Wendy..Sam...
Gene grunted, distracting him out of NeverLand. “No, not ‘im, that bloody fairy poof. I meant me. A boy…”
“You’re at an orphanage right now, eight years old.”
“I know. St. Mary’s. That’s where I saw…me. Christ if this ain’t confusin’…” Gene tried to rub his head, but his arms were still weak, the muscles a long way from healed.
“That’s ‘im, the Gene who just left. He’s the one who was dropped here; he grows up in the orphanage and becomes a reporter and…he takes care of me.” Sam looked away, ashamed. He did not want to wake up, ever, if that is what happened to him. They were silent a while.
“So…I guess I never saw me attacker.”
“That would certainly be convenient.” Sam nodded gratefully.
“What you tell the others? Where’s my team, anyway? You got them chained to their desks filin’ reports in triplicate?”
“They think you are still in a coma. The hospital staff believes your attacker remains at large and won’t give out any information on you, on my orders, even to other officers, and there is a plod outside the door to keep everyone out but me and you.”
“A very confused plod.”
“Er, yeah.”
Gene frowned and looked hard at Sam. “You know what he did to me.”
“Yes, I do. Even without the medical report, he’s been very, er, graphic in the retelling. I think the thirteen stitches in your feet pretty much says it all, anyway.”
“You were always the imaginative type.”
“Gene….”
“So now you know.”
“…what? Know what?”
Gene nodded at the door. “Him. That nancy poofer. ‘E’s me.”
“Oh.”
“And I know.” Gene stared at him meaningfully.
“I swear, I will never lay a hand on you. Unless you hit first.”
“Good enough for now.” Gene sighed and laid his head back down, and was asleep before Sam could really formulate an answer. He paused, wondering what to do, although he was needed back at CID and he had to lift Gene’s quarantine before the team ripped him apart, specifically Ray. He put on his jacket and looked at Gene, then leaned over on tiptoe and lightly kissed the side of his mouth. He tasted exactly the way Gene was supposed to taste.
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“’Oo are you?”
“I’m your dad. Now sit down.”
“I’ll sit when I feel like it, mister.”
“Oh, he’s yours alright.”
“Sam, shut up. Now look here boy, sit your arse…”
“Mr. Hunt!”
“Oh, sorry, Sister. Now, boy, sit ‘fore the nice penguin here gets her ruler out.”
The boy sat down like a stone.
“Now…er…I’m your dad, got that?”
“You got proof? Because you don’t look like my dad and I was born in 1931…”
“NO YOU BLOODY WASN’T!”
“Mr. Hunt!”
“Sorry, sorry. Er…”
“Eugene, let me explain. You’ve been through a lot, and I know it doesn’t make sense. But this is your father, the man you were named after, and he did not know you were here but now he’s found you and he wants to take you home. Would that be okay?” Sam kneeled next to the chair containing ‘Eugene Franklin Hunt, Jr.’ and talked quietly.
“I think I know you…”
“Mmmm, well, you might ‘ave seen me around…”
“You ‘is friend?”
“Something like that.”
“I don’ belong ‘ere, y’know.” Eugene crossed his arms and glared at him.
“I know how you feel.” Sam leaned forward and whispered. “I’m from 2006, and somehow I ended up here too.”
The boy’s eyes got wide, and he nodded uncertainly. “’Kay, then, I guess.”
“Good, Eugene, good…” Sam smiled and stood up, relieved, as Eugene turned with a familiar, intense concentration on Gene.
“Can I ‘ave a pet?”
“I got a cat, that’s all you get.”
“What’s ‘is name?”
“Her name is ‘Missus’ and yer gonna treat her like a queen.”
Eugene thought about that. “I used to ‘ave a cat, named Princess.”
Sam coughed into his jacket trying not to laugh, and Gene glowered.
“We can talk about that later! Look, you get a cat, so y’comin’ home with me or not?”
The boy looked at the two men and then at the nun, who smiled encouragingly. Eugene nodded in agreement, as clearly Missus was the deciding factor, and Sam smiled. It was easy, for Gene anyway, to ‘scare up’ the paperwork proving that the boy was ‘his’ and from there the legalities of it were simple. Now Gene was a father, his own father, and he looked utterly terrified of the prospect.
“Com’on then. Gonna go ride in me ‘swell’ car.” Gene turned and walked out, even now still limping.
Sam looked at the boy and held out his hand. Eugene stood up and took it, hesitantly, and looked up at him with the same creased-forehead frown that was, forever, Gene.
“Jus’ don’ call me Eugene. I ‘ate that.”
“No problem, Gene…’ey, tell me more about Princess…”
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