Oh God, I dun fic.
In Deep fic, so there's only one person in the entire world who will be interested in reading it, but I dun it nonetheless.
Story: Character Assassination: to thine own self be true.
Author: Lolabobs
Characters: Garth O'Hanlon, Liam Kettman, Nicola Kettman,
Rated: 18? I don't know - Reference to suicidal ideation, violence and child abuse.
Spoilers: All three seasons.
Summary: Garth has an unfortunate tendency to fall in love with the people he sleeps with.
(Inspired in part by Jekesta and her delight in this show (and specific episode reactions) and her generosity in loaning me the discs and enabling me to delight in it too.)
Speaking with Sophie is always antagonistic. Angry - a competition between who could hold out longer. Questions against questions, bluff, double bluff and outright lies. Surprisingly it was a game they *both* played. How could distrust and obfuscation typify a professional partnership that was supposed to be supportive, curative, caring and positive? And how ironic that it worked, that Sophie was the one he turned to when all other options were exhausted (all other options including 'say nothing' of course.) Ironic that she trusted him too - kind of - when she could trust no other.
As for Liam, well, he trusted Liam with his life. His life but not always his words. Is it any wonder that Sophie got so little from them when he and Liam could barely communicate?
The only truly honest words they had shared, involved Garth pointing a gun at his best friend and threatening to kill him. Threatening him with death in order to save his life - don't kill yourself, you bastard, because I need you to live. “Stay alive, for me.”
Can't imagine The Samaritans embracing that technique.
Can't imagine them doing what came next either - the deliberately casual, slightly too hard cuff to the side of the head as they parted, morphing somehow into him gripping Liam's head, fingers threading through his hair and pulling him in for a hug. A too-long hug that ended in clashing lips and brutal, silent sex.
Nothing gentle, no soft embraces or tender caresses. No, it was cruel. Angrily abrasive, teeth bared sex. Clothes pushed roughly aside, quick harsh stripping of cocks and climax as punishment.
Afterwards, panting and somehow angry. Glaring face to face before Garth turned on his heel and left, door dropping closed behind him.
Afterwards, nothing said.
Afterwards, watching Liam continue with his destructive grief and his single minded conquering of the female population. Targets, marks, victims, it didn't seem to matter. But it didn't affect their relationship. Why would it? Liam shagged with scant regard for who it was he was with. Why should this be any different?
He didn't tell Sophie any of this of course. Denning had crushed the combative challenge out of her anyway.
And then came Gina and with her, his own stupid, momentary lack of concentration. "I have an unfortunate tendency to fall in love with the people I sleep with."
He hadn't even meant it when he said it. Not like that. It was just a generally true statement. Love and the job were so intrinsically entwined anyway. Kelly had learnt that the hard way. "Make your target love you" Liam had said. What none of them had acknowledged was that you had to fall a little bit in love back.
Even that bastard Sullivan had him lying there, weeping in his arms. Lying in the arms of a man he hated on every damned level. A man who raped children, a man who had destroyed his own son's life, who'd held a gun to Garth's head and made him fear for his life. Yet, weeping in his arms he'd felt an overwhelming sense of love - to the extent that even now he wasn't sure how much of the eventual execution had been revenge and how much an act of compassion.
So love didn't mean the same thing to people like he and Liam. When your whole life is a lie, why should love be any different?
But, seeing Liam stiffen under the weight of his words, he listened to them anew and reconsidered.
He'd always loved Liam. Liam was the family he never had, the father he could trust, the brother he needn't resent. The one who held him back from his true self, yet never judged him.
Why should an ugly hand job change that?
But: “I know who I am”. The undercover operative’s mantra. To thine own self be true. Poncy shit, but essential.
And therefore, he had to accept the difference. Somehow he was in love with Liam. And so Liam fucking Gina wasn't just a risk to the job, it was fucking him over.
And so the words settled over them and Liam, as always, heard the truth beneath the throwaway remark, saw Garth bare. And walked away. Fuck a duck - well, fuck a stool pigeon anyway.
He didn't tell Sophie that either.
And life still goes on and shit still needs to be sorted, so when he hears Nicola is mixed up in the wrong crowd, he sorts it. Tries to at least.
And it's as confusing as hell anyway. Nicola is family. Pam was family and he'd stood by and watched Liam screw them over with other women time and time again. And now he's one of them. Or something. He'd shagged Nicola's dad and couldn't see how that fit in with Uncle Garth, friend of the family.
But drugs at least, he could deal with, information gathering he could deal with. No problem...
Except Nicola's femme fatale act was something else that didn't fit in.
He'd bathed her and Max. Way back when. When Liam had time for family, for nights in, all of them messing around, watching tv, eating together. When Uncle Garth would play with the kids, prep them for bed while Liam and Pam made eyes at each other downstairs.
Christ knows when it had all changed. When Liam withdrew and Pam started looking daggers at Garth, seemingly just for existing. When Liam stopped talking, stopped living there in anything other than name.
And now Pam's gone, Liam - well, Liam's Liam and Nicola's standing there all breasts and legs and angry seduction.
Christ.
Walking away was easy, nothing but incredulity and a little embarrassment that Nicola had seen through his 'just popping in' ruse so easily. Not a second's temptation. Easy.
Waking up that night, fevered and sweating, his dick hard as iron - not so much.
Is that why Sullivan had taken to him so easily, so intensely? Had he seen something, sensed a shared perversion that Garth couldn't even recognise? Nicola's a child. Jesus Christ was that the secret, the reason he could fit so convincingly into his role?
His wilting dick answered that, stopped the hysterical panic, along with his rising gorge. "I know who I am."
And if stealing the drugs from Josh involved a chunk of punishment for Nicola as well as heroic life-saving - well there was nothing wrong with that.
Until, of course, there was. Until a bitter, immature little girl told her Daddy that Garth had touched her.
Liam had punched him before. It was practically a weekly occurrence. In role, out of role it was what they did. Was it like pulling a girl's pigtails to show you liked them? Sophie might say so. Maybe sometimes it was, other times though; he knew it was because Liam was angry. Always so angry, and Garth was the one person who would take it, who could absorb the blows and deflect them with love - with fist raised, foul language and sometimes retaliation, but with love, nonetheless.
Let’s go back to the revised Samaritans handbook; add in swallowing the other person’s pain in physical form, tension, build up, glares, seething thrusting rage, ending with sudden abrupt release. Pissy comments and post climax cigarettes optional.
This time, though, it was real. This time there was nothing but coldness in Liam's eyes. He was closed down, simply cold rage and betrayal.
This time the shattering of all they were screamed out across the rooftops, across their life, past, present and future fracturing into shards. Fragmenting and twisting memories. Pam staring cool resentment at him, Max crushed under the weight of one more disappointment, one more betrayal, Nicola - scared and triumphant.
False images raining down on him, stealing the past and tainting the future. All based upon an impossibility - that Liam could think that... could believe that...
Working undercover you trust your partner with everything. Working undercover you got close to the scum of the earth, but you didn't become them.
“I know who I am.”
Liam should know too.
And how screwed up is it that even still, it's Garth that Liam calls when he knows Nicola is in danger. What the fuck does that even mean?
He remembers the dream. Questions himself again. How the fuck is his brain even possible? Has the job messed him up completely or did he pick the job because he was already broken? The last time he talked of love - before burning his boats with Liam that is, it was in regards a filthy pervert with a gun to his head. The last time he felt whole was fucking Liam - after holding a gun to his head. He'd planted a bomb and watched people die - then stopped caring when Liam told him he could. Did the deaths stop mattering when he hadn't caused them? None of this made sense.
And Liam, who hated him, who didn't know him at all and thought he could hurt his own family in the worst way ever, still called upon him to rescue that same family. How fucked up were both their lives, where that was an option. Where Liam could still ask and he would still go.
Of course he'd still go.
And shattered lives notwithstanding, the case was closed and, oh look, it turns out, hey big surprise, Gina was involved up to her pretty little neck.
And who knew that the glue of life, glue strong enough to piece together a fragmented, shattered life, could be made up of a sulky teenager, mistaking insults and ultimatums for an apology.
Guess it's all to do with working undercover and knowing that words are sometimes just that.
Garth falls in love with the people he sleeps with - Liam's dick is a little less discriminating.
But Liam punches and insults and dicks around with and trusts (kind of) the people he truly loves. Liam lets them in. There's no welcome mat and the invitation’s as diffident as all get out and probably written in code - but it's a lifetime invitation.
So Garth O’Hanlon is a family man. It might be in the world’s most fucked up and dysfunctional family, but he can cope with that.
Story: Character Assassination: to thine own self be true.
Author: Lolabobs
Characters: Garth O'Hanlon, Liam Kettman, Nicola Kettman,
Rated: 18? I don't know - Reference to suicidal ideation, violence and child abuse.
Spoilers: All three seasons.
Summary: Garth has an unfortunate tendency to fall in love with the people he sleeps with.
(Inspired in part by Jekesta and her delight in this show (and specific episode reactions) and her generosity in loaning me the discs and enabling me to delight in it too.)
Speaking with Sophie is always antagonistic. Angry - a competition between who could hold out longer. Questions against questions, bluff, double bluff and outright lies. Surprisingly it was a game they *both* played. How could distrust and obfuscation typify a professional partnership that was supposed to be supportive, curative, caring and positive? And how ironic that it worked, that Sophie was the one he turned to when all other options were exhausted (all other options including 'say nothing' of course.) Ironic that she trusted him too - kind of - when she could trust no other.
As for Liam, well, he trusted Liam with his life. His life but not always his words. Is it any wonder that Sophie got so little from them when he and Liam could barely communicate?
The only truly honest words they had shared, involved Garth pointing a gun at his best friend and threatening to kill him. Threatening him with death in order to save his life - don't kill yourself, you bastard, because I need you to live. “Stay alive, for me.”
Can't imagine The Samaritans embracing that technique.
Can't imagine them doing what came next either - the deliberately casual, slightly too hard cuff to the side of the head as they parted, morphing somehow into him gripping Liam's head, fingers threading through his hair and pulling him in for a hug. A too-long hug that ended in clashing lips and brutal, silent sex.
Nothing gentle, no soft embraces or tender caresses. No, it was cruel. Angrily abrasive, teeth bared sex. Clothes pushed roughly aside, quick harsh stripping of cocks and climax as punishment.
Afterwards, panting and somehow angry. Glaring face to face before Garth turned on his heel and left, door dropping closed behind him.
Afterwards, nothing said.
Afterwards, watching Liam continue with his destructive grief and his single minded conquering of the female population. Targets, marks, victims, it didn't seem to matter. But it didn't affect their relationship. Why would it? Liam shagged with scant regard for who it was he was with. Why should this be any different?
He didn't tell Sophie any of this of course. Denning had crushed the combative challenge out of her anyway.
And then came Gina and with her, his own stupid, momentary lack of concentration. "I have an unfortunate tendency to fall in love with the people I sleep with."
He hadn't even meant it when he said it. Not like that. It was just a generally true statement. Love and the job were so intrinsically entwined anyway. Kelly had learnt that the hard way. "Make your target love you" Liam had said. What none of them had acknowledged was that you had to fall a little bit in love back.
Even that bastard Sullivan had him lying there, weeping in his arms. Lying in the arms of a man he hated on every damned level. A man who raped children, a man who had destroyed his own son's life, who'd held a gun to Garth's head and made him fear for his life. Yet, weeping in his arms he'd felt an overwhelming sense of love - to the extent that even now he wasn't sure how much of the eventual execution had been revenge and how much an act of compassion.
So love didn't mean the same thing to people like he and Liam. When your whole life is a lie, why should love be any different?
But, seeing Liam stiffen under the weight of his words, he listened to them anew and reconsidered.
He'd always loved Liam. Liam was the family he never had, the father he could trust, the brother he needn't resent. The one who held him back from his true self, yet never judged him.
Why should an ugly hand job change that?
But: “I know who I am”. The undercover operative’s mantra. To thine own self be true. Poncy shit, but essential.
And therefore, he had to accept the difference. Somehow he was in love with Liam. And so Liam fucking Gina wasn't just a risk to the job, it was fucking him over.
And so the words settled over them and Liam, as always, heard the truth beneath the throwaway remark, saw Garth bare. And walked away. Fuck a duck - well, fuck a stool pigeon anyway.
He didn't tell Sophie that either.
And life still goes on and shit still needs to be sorted, so when he hears Nicola is mixed up in the wrong crowd, he sorts it. Tries to at least.
And it's as confusing as hell anyway. Nicola is family. Pam was family and he'd stood by and watched Liam screw them over with other women time and time again. And now he's one of them. Or something. He'd shagged Nicola's dad and couldn't see how that fit in with Uncle Garth, friend of the family.
But drugs at least, he could deal with, information gathering he could deal with. No problem...
Except Nicola's femme fatale act was something else that didn't fit in.
He'd bathed her and Max. Way back when. When Liam had time for family, for nights in, all of them messing around, watching tv, eating together. When Uncle Garth would play with the kids, prep them for bed while Liam and Pam made eyes at each other downstairs.
Christ knows when it had all changed. When Liam withdrew and Pam started looking daggers at Garth, seemingly just for existing. When Liam stopped talking, stopped living there in anything other than name.
And now Pam's gone, Liam - well, Liam's Liam and Nicola's standing there all breasts and legs and angry seduction.
Christ.
Walking away was easy, nothing but incredulity and a little embarrassment that Nicola had seen through his 'just popping in' ruse so easily. Not a second's temptation. Easy.
Waking up that night, fevered and sweating, his dick hard as iron - not so much.
Is that why Sullivan had taken to him so easily, so intensely? Had he seen something, sensed a shared perversion that Garth couldn't even recognise? Nicola's a child. Jesus Christ was that the secret, the reason he could fit so convincingly into his role?
His wilting dick answered that, stopped the hysterical panic, along with his rising gorge. "I know who I am."
And if stealing the drugs from Josh involved a chunk of punishment for Nicola as well as heroic life-saving - well there was nothing wrong with that.
Until, of course, there was. Until a bitter, immature little girl told her Daddy that Garth had touched her.
Liam had punched him before. It was practically a weekly occurrence. In role, out of role it was what they did. Was it like pulling a girl's pigtails to show you liked them? Sophie might say so. Maybe sometimes it was, other times though; he knew it was because Liam was angry. Always so angry, and Garth was the one person who would take it, who could absorb the blows and deflect them with love - with fist raised, foul language and sometimes retaliation, but with love, nonetheless.
Let’s go back to the revised Samaritans handbook; add in swallowing the other person’s pain in physical form, tension, build up, glares, seething thrusting rage, ending with sudden abrupt release. Pissy comments and post climax cigarettes optional.
This time, though, it was real. This time there was nothing but coldness in Liam's eyes. He was closed down, simply cold rage and betrayal.
This time the shattering of all they were screamed out across the rooftops, across their life, past, present and future fracturing into shards. Fragmenting and twisting memories. Pam staring cool resentment at him, Max crushed under the weight of one more disappointment, one more betrayal, Nicola - scared and triumphant.
False images raining down on him, stealing the past and tainting the future. All based upon an impossibility - that Liam could think that... could believe that...
Working undercover you trust your partner with everything. Working undercover you got close to the scum of the earth, but you didn't become them.
“I know who I am.”
Liam should know too.
And how screwed up is it that even still, it's Garth that Liam calls when he knows Nicola is in danger. What the fuck does that even mean?
He remembers the dream. Questions himself again. How the fuck is his brain even possible? Has the job messed him up completely or did he pick the job because he was already broken? The last time he talked of love - before burning his boats with Liam that is, it was in regards a filthy pervert with a gun to his head. The last time he felt whole was fucking Liam - after holding a gun to his head. He'd planted a bomb and watched people die - then stopped caring when Liam told him he could. Did the deaths stop mattering when he hadn't caused them? None of this made sense.
And Liam, who hated him, who didn't know him at all and thought he could hurt his own family in the worst way ever, still called upon him to rescue that same family. How fucked up were both their lives, where that was an option. Where Liam could still ask and he would still go.
Of course he'd still go.
And shattered lives notwithstanding, the case was closed and, oh look, it turns out, hey big surprise, Gina was involved up to her pretty little neck.
And who knew that the glue of life, glue strong enough to piece together a fragmented, shattered life, could be made up of a sulky teenager, mistaking insults and ultimatums for an apology.
Guess it's all to do with working undercover and knowing that words are sometimes just that.
Garth falls in love with the people he sleeps with - Liam's dick is a little less discriminating.
But Liam punches and insults and dicks around with and trusts (kind of) the people he truly loves. Liam lets them in. There's no welcome mat and the invitation’s as diffident as all get out and probably written in code - but it's a lifetime invitation.
So Garth O’Hanlon is a family man. It might be in the world’s most fucked up and dysfunctional family, but he can cope with that.