Assorted Ficlets
To celebrate finally winning a teaching position for next year, I offered ficlets over on lifein1973. These are the result.
1. Sam/Gene caring!fic for basaltgrrl, G, 470 words.
Sam is oblivious about most things of importance, so he never notices all the little things Gene does to show he cares. He doesn’t seem to appreciate that Gene always leaves him the crumbs of his cheese and onion crisps, or that he always saves the crunchiest chips for him, ‘cause they’re his favourite. Instead of thanking Gene for saving him the trouble of walking up the six flights of stairs to CID every morning, he complains that Gene conned him into taking the lift, yet again. He’s wholly ignorant of the fact Gene keeps a flask on his person full of the only scotch Sam has ever claimed to truly enjoy, even though he despises the taste himself. If anything, Sam appears to think that Gene does everything he does to infuriate him, and while Gene’s not going to lie --- infuriating his perennially pernickety pain-in-the-neck DI is a highlight of his life --- that isn’t close to the truth.
Gene might be inclined to rant and rave about the whole situation, were he not aware of all the things Sam goes out of his way to do to show Gene that he cares. Like how he chooses exactly the right moments to stand by his side and put up a uniting front for their team, even if he personally disagrees with the plan they’re going to follow through. Or how he bought Gene his very own reclining chair, even though it takes up about half of his flat (he has never, ever seen Sam sit in the chair. It’s his, it’s obvious. It even matches his coat.) Sam makes him think long and hard about decisions that at one time would have been hasty and slap-dash, admonishing Gene when he thinks he’s failed in his duty --- because he wants Gene to be the best man he can be.
It works for them. Gene never tells Sam, “I love you, I worry about you”, but lets it show in a sweep of his hand up Sam’s back and clasp on his shoulder when things go awry up against bastards with weapons. Sam never says, “You’re the reason I’m here”, just means it when he complains about Gene’s insults, supressing a chuckle, amber eyes twinkling with mirth.
Gene thought he would find the depth of his feelings for Sam a hindrance, but if anything it makes him stronger, to know that there’s someone to care for, that someone cares for him. Even if Sam isn’t fully cognisant of all the ways Gene attends to his needs, every once in a while he’ll give Gene a soft, private smile and ask him back to his flat for a nightcap. And that is when it’s obvious every touch is a mark of love, even when it’s on the rougher side of filthy.
2. Sam/Gene, Gene!whump for fern_tree, PG-13, 925 words.
Blood trickles down Gene’s face and Sam is shocked by the visceral nature of his reaction --- his guts churn, his knees go weak, his heart gives an ominous thump before he swears it stops still for several seconds. A voice inside his head that sounds like Gene tells him to stop being a Jessie and grow some balls so he can get him out of this mess, and somehow that is enough to spur Sam into action. He creeps closer and closer to Gene’s position, flattening himself against the wooden crates.
Gene can’t speak. He has a gag around his mouth, stained from the blood drip, drip, dripping in rivulets against his skin. There appears to be a deep laceration on his head, more blood matting his hair, plus smaller cuts perilously close to his right eye. Sam curses to himself that he didn’t come sooner, didn’t figure out the puzzle before, you’d have thought he’d know. But Sam never really knew his father, did he? So how could he work out the incomplete clues? He only hopes he’s early enough he hasn’t fallen straight into Vic’s trap.
Gene’s gaze swiftly and unerringly lands on Sam as he crouches in the darkness. Sam chokes back a gasp at his almost psychic ability to sense him, then panics, wondering if maybe Gene’s not the only one. Gene can’t signal in any way to tell him the coast’s clear; he’s tied good and proper, the chair he’s attached to bolted to the floor, they neither of them know Morse code, so cleverly timed blinking is out of the question. It’d be comical if it wasn’t so cruel. Sam waits for minutes that feel like hours.
He has to take the chance. The van they’d been tailing in the hunt for Vic isn’t outside and perhaps for once in his miserable life, Sam’s lucky. He dashes into the cleared out space of the warehouse where Gene is situated and begins to untie the gag.
“Took you long enough,” Gene says, light-voiced and jokingly antagonistic.
“Had to wait to borrow one of the station cars, didn’t I? You’ve got your Cortina keys in your bloody pocket. Or are you just happy to see me?”
Sam slices through Gene’s bonds, careful to stop his hand from shaking too much. It’s bad enough he’s caused Gene these injuries by proxy, let alone to damage him personally.
“Surprised you didn’t bring the entire fleet with all the bells and whistles.”
“Wouldn’t want to alert the Morton brothers.”
“About that…” Gene starts, but Sam shakes his head.
“I know, I was wrong. I was so wrong, and I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how much.”
Gene flexes his arms as Sam bends down to free his legs. “He’ll be coming back any minute. Said he was just getting the gasoline.”
“Better hurry, then. Stop being a lazy git and shift it.”
Sam lifts Gene out of the chair. Gene’s favouring his right side, and when Sam presses him closer, gives a loud, rattling wheeze that speaks of broken ribs.
“Fuck,” Sam whispers on his exhale. He starts to drag Gene towards his former hiding place, but it’s hard going. He realises Gene must have a fractured ankle in addition to his other ailments.
“Oi, oi, oi, where do you think you’re off to, son of mine?” Vic’s voice asks, mild, but malicious. Sam swivels within Gene’s grasp to glare at the man who gave him life and now wants to take it away.
Vic’s holding a jerry can and a lighter. It doesn’t take their familial bond to know what his intention might be.
“Take me if you have to, but leave Gene alone,” Sam commands. “It was me who ruined your life, wasn’t it?”
“You don’t think Mr Hunt had a hand?”
“He may have, but you’ve well and truly slapped that hand now, haven’t you, Vic? So let him go free and do what you want with me instead.”
As he says the words, Sam’s aware of Gene struggling against him. It feels like he’s trying to stand in between him and his father, but Sam holds strong. He has to, for both their sakes.
“Alright,” Vic says, “your not-so-little friend can run free,” and Sam knows it’s a lie, but he still turns to Gene and kisses him as a parting gift.
There’s a sound of disgust, and Sam squeezes his eyes shut tighter as he reaches behind his back and draws out the gun he tucked into his waistband. In a second he pulls away from Gene, aims, and fires. Vic crumples to the ground and Sam’s remorse may be delayed, but all that washes over him is relief.
Gene looks as shocked as Sam feels, then buckles slightly in his grasp as his ankle gives way. Sam props him up.
“But Annie told me…”
“Forget what Annie said,” Sam orders, fierce in his conviction. “You are my family. I would never let anything destroy that.”
There’s a whuff of air and then Gene kisses him harshly. He’s panting when he breaks away. “Get your arse into gear, you great big soppy girl, or we’ll die of starvation before we ever make it out of here.”
Sam spares Vic one last glance, to check he’s dead, and then he’s moving towards the entrance to the warehouse, not feeling as burdened as he thinks he probably should.
“Rich of you to call me a girl, when you’re the damsel in distress,” he teases, and grins at Gene’s four-lettered response.
3. Glen-centric Gen for chamekke, PG-13, 430 words.
All his life he’d been pushed around and prodded because he wasn’t like other people. He wasn’t white enough, he wasn’t black enough --- what was he?
Well, he was determined, that was one thing. Smart, another. Likely a little touched in the head, either that or a masochist, if you asked anyone with sense.
He was himself. A man who believed in duty, in changing the world with small steps, from within the hotbed of corruption. He wasn’t just his colour, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t important. He recognised he came from a long line of culture, something huge and nebulous and conflicted and despised. He knew it meant he’d experienced things kindly open-minded white men like Sam Tyler could never even consider. When had Sam ever had to run away from teens who looked and sounded like him but called him ‘coconut’ and ‘zebra’?
At school he’d gone through a two year period where he hadn’t wanted to show how bright he was. Had wanted to fade into the darkness like half his persecutors said he could. He’d got bad report cards and disappointed looks, but that was mostly all the attention he’d garnered, and that was good enough. Then Mrs Richardson from down the road had been mugged and no one had done a thing to help her. Not even the cops on the beat, apparently just around the corner. And she’d been calling, witnesses said. Witnesses who’d watched, but wouldn’t act. This little old Jamaican woman who, for years, had been giving him candied fruits and calling him Gerry, she had been treated with such disrespect, it almost broke her. She’d had to have thirteen stitches. And that was when Glen thought, ‘No. Sod this for a lark. Who cares what they call me? I’m gonna make a difference.’
So he did his best. He proved he was made of mettle. And sometimes he melted a bit out of shape, but he could always be put to rights again by remembering that he had a purpose, he had a drive. So what if they laughed at him? So what if they could never understand? It was their loss, their failing. He knew that, in time, one day, the fact that he’d struggled and strived and fought tooth and nail and wit would be worth it.
All his life he’d been pushed around and prodded because he wasn’t like other people. And now that he had power, small as it may be, he was going to do his damnedest to ensure that this didn’t happen to anyone else.
4. Sam/Gen, Sam/Gene, Sam/Everyone, ice-cream featuring meta!fic, for thesmallhobbit, PG-13, 725 words.
Sam was scowling as he licked his ice cream. Gene wanted to look away, but he was compelled to keep watching, forehead creasing as he wondered why Sam was continuing to eat the damn thing if he hated it so much. Sam must have sensed his gaze, because his head snapped up and his scowl deepened. He glared back at Gene.
“I’ll take it off your hands, if you like?”
“Take what?” Sam asked before his eyes widened in comprehension. “My ice cream? You keep your greasy mitts off. I’m still not over you eating my entire box of ‘Quality Street’ last Christmas.”
“Well, if you insist on leaving things lying around.”
“It was in my locked drawer. At my flat. You were there for a minute, tops.”
Sam looked ready to rant for another twenty minutes, so Gene cut him off with the question he’d been dying to ask since he’d been mesmerised by Sam’s annoyed eyes and ever-licking tongue.
“If it’s not the ice cream that’s making you all doom and gloom, what’s wrong?”
“Have you ever heard the term ‘little black dress’?”
Gene raised his eyebrows. “I don’t make a habit of yammering on with the birdies, but it sounds fairly self-explanatory.”
“No, I don’t mean literally. It’s an analogy. All women have little black dresses, yeah? Because they’re versatile, they go well with anything, in any situation?”
“… right…”
Sam pouted. “I think they think I’m a little black dress.”
“Who?”
“The people who control my life.”
Admittedly, this was not the first time Sam had insisted that people controlled his life. He’d said, months before, that given what happened to him and how he usually reacted, he felt sure it was a few men and several women who dictated his every action and event. He didn’t seem to think they were Gods, but he did think they were all-powerful. Sam hadn’t said this for six weeks and Gene had hoped he’d realised he was being barmy.
“Sam...”
“Three weeks ago, Chris seduced me with a treacle tart and his gormless grin. Last week, Ray and I got into a fight and he ended up giving me an angry blowjob, saying I had to let off steam. On Wednesday, Annie turned off the emergency brake in the lift and had her way with me. Yesterday, Litton came by my flat, claiming he was trying to recruit me, and then claiming he was attempting to sweeten the deal with a solid rogering over the kitchen table. Just then, Gene, even you were ogling me. Little black dress, that’s me, there for the using.” Sam sighed. “It’s not like I don’t appreciate the action, it’s just… you know, sometimes a man’s tired. Sometimes he wants his life to be about something other than sex. Occasionally he’d like a bloody case to work on.”
“You can’t say no?” Gene asked. That’s all he could think to ask, because his mind was full of naked-and-sexually-provocative-Sam-images.
“I could, of course I could,” Sam answered. “At the time, I never want to.”
Sam gave a long and particularly suggestive lick, and Gene was surprised, but he felt himself harden in his trousers.
“So, what is it that you want? Some alone time?”
Sam hesitated. His cheeks flushed. “I thought I did.”
Gene edged closer, watching the flicker of Sam’s eyes to his mouth intently. “Mmm?”
Sam sounded conflicted. “You know they’re just doing again, don’t you? It’s getting to the point where I can’t have a day to myself.”
“I know that’s what you think, yeah,” Gene confirmed. He thought it was a little strange that the lust he was feeling for Sam was so sudden, but he wasn’t complaining. It had been an achingly long time since he’d seen the kind of action Sam had been describing. “Does it matter?”
Sam finished his ice cream, chucking the cone into the rubbish bin behind him. He grabbed hold of Gene’s hand and hoisted him up. “God no. Come on, I haven’t yet managed to do it in your office.”
“I should hope not, you saucy little minx.”
As Sam stripped and popped open his fly, Gene quite forgot that the plan for the night had been to finish off the paperwork and reorganise his filing system. But then, this was definitely destined to be much more fun.
5. Ray/Chris banter for talkingtothesky, G, 505 words.
Ray stared at the… thing Chris had pushed into his hand and stared up at him aghast.
“What is this?”
Chris looked temporarily set back, his excited grin faltering around the edges. “It’s a vol-au-vent.”
Ray looked down at the thing again. “It’s not.”
“It is! It’s chicken and mushroom. Only, I didn’t have any chicken. Or any mushrooms. So I improvised.”
The thing was soggy, and squishy, and when Ray made the grave error of lifting it closer to his face to inspect it, smelled suspiciously similar to moulding socks forever lost to the bottom of his airing cupboard.
“What in God’s blue sky did you improvise with?”
“The filling,” Chris said, clearly not taking note of Ray’s tone. “It’s not chicken, it’s spam. And they’re not mushrooms, they’re tiny little bits of aubergine. I reckoned it could be the same as the recipe in terms of texture, if nothing else.”
“You had aubergine, but you didn’t have mushrooms?”
“Me mam likes it grilled. Can’t see the appeal meself.” Chris waved a hand expressively. “Oh, and there’s cheese.”
“Doesn’t look like there’s cheese.”
“There is. You know. One of them ‘processed cheese slice’ doovers. I cut it into quarters and toasted it.”
“Why’s it wet?”
“I added some cream of mushroom soup, for the taste, like.” Chris took hold of Ray’s wrist and pushed his hand up. “Go on, try it.”
“Chris, have I done something to offend you? I know I bang on about Tyler and you wished I wouldn’t, but is that really worth malice aforethought? I thought we were friends? More than?”
Ray wiggled his eyebrows in what he hoped conveyed an allusion to every time after Christmas dos and birthday bashes that they’d found themselves curled up together on his bed, Chris’s face covered in a mysterious red rash.
Chris looked pained. Hurt. He pouted. There was nothing worse than a Skelton pout. Well, Ray thought, he’d think so right up until he tried some Skelton cuisine.
“If I die, I beg you to get Cartwright to flash her tits at my open casket. For everyone else, if not for me.”
“I’ve had one and I’m still standing,” Chris said, a frown not quite leaving his face.
“You have? Why didn’t you say so? Alright then. I’ll bite.”
Ray bit.
He really wished he hadn’t.
He couldn’t help but think that he wasn’t sure what love was, but if this sort of self-mutilation didn’t fall somewhere into that category, then it wasn’t the big deal everyone made it out to be. The thing was slimy, smelly, stretchy, and all in all one of the worst things he’d had in his mouth. He felt the deepest desire to replace it with something else entirely right this moment.
“Thanks, Christopher,” Ray said around a weak smile.
“You liked it?”
“No, it was vile. I’m not touching anything you’d a hand in making ever again.”
“Damn, you were me last hope. How am I gonna get rid of twenty-two of these things now?”
6. Sam/Gene, light-hearted!fic for _lethe_, PG, 520 words.
“Gene, I have something to discuss with you, and I want you on your best behaviour.”
“If this is about me going to say sorry to her at canteen about the lumpy gravy, I refuse. She may be your bit of stuff, but that’s no excuse for poisoning the rest of us.”
“They were peas! Anyway, this isn’t about Gwen.”
Sam took a deep breath, deep enough that Gene began to think this might well be serious. He pulled his legs down from up on the table.
“I’m listening.”
“I’m thinking about growing a moustache,” Sam said, thoughtfully.
“What?”
Sam continued, unfazed by Gene’s confusion. “Maybe a moustache, goatee combo, though not a Delgado special. Something classy that’ll help me fit in.”
Gene blinked. “When have you ever wanted to fit in?”
Sam spread his hands out wide, as if this explained everything. “I’ve decided to make a concerted effort.”
“No,” Gene said decisively, dismissively, hoping Sam got the hint.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I forbid it.”
“You can’t forbid it! It’s my face.”
“Your face is within my purview and my immediate concern. I’ll not allow you to mar it in any way.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “But, Gene, it’d give me something to talk about with the other blokes. It’d be a vehicle for that much hallowed ‘bonding’ you’re always going on about. You know, grooming techniques, the best beeswax, and the suchlike. Besides, I think I’d look quite dashing with some facial hair. It’d give my features more structure.”
Gene rose from his chair and stalked over to Sam. He grasped hold of his jaw and tilted his head up. “You’ve marvellous structure already. Poncy poets would write odes to the wonder that is your face. It's my opinion that no inch of it should ever be covered up.”
Sam smiled --- one of his unnervingly knowing smiles --- and it occurred to Gene that he’d fallen into a long and elaborately set trap. He took a step backwards, but Sam grabbed hold of him lightning-quick.
“I knew it,” Sam said, eyes narrowing in assessment. “I had a feeling if I pushed you you’d crumble. You think I’m good-looking.”
“In other news, politicians are liars, and so-called celibate priests are kinky, unnatural bastards.”
For a moment, Sam looked temporarily shaken. “Huh?”
“Of course I think you’re good-looking. My eyes are in perfect working order, and so is the whole of you. But that’s neither here nor there.”
Sam pulled Gene an inch closer. Body heat radiated between them, causing Gene’s nerves to tingle in not-entirely-unpleasant ways. “How come?”
“No one ever said you had to sample the wares on show in the shop window.”
“Even if they’re free?”
Gene pushed his lips forward in contemplation. Sam took that moment to surge forward to kiss him, all pushy dominance and warm lips. Gene wouldn’t admit he’d been waiting a long time for it, but he kissed back like he had.
“It’s decided,” Gene said, when they pulled apart. “Definitely no moustache for you.” He put his hands on Sam’s hips and ground against him. “Now, me, on the other hand…”
7. Sam/Gene, Sam!whump for debl_ns, PG-13, 570 words, this is sort of an AU of fern_tree's ficlet.
Gene didn’t think of Sam as frail. He thought of him as fragile sometimes --- because every so often he looked like he could crack --- but that wasn’t the same. At this moment, tucked up in a hospital bed in the corner of the ward, with a blanket around his shoulders, Sam looked frail. Delicate. Insubstantial.
He’d lost a lot of blood, the nurses said. It was a wonder he’d any left in him.
He was bruised and he was scuffed up, had three broken bones in different parts of his body.
Gene frequently thought of Sam as brave, though sometimes he amended the consideration to ‘stupid’. Sam, with dulled eyes, and drawn features, looked like he was trying so hard to be brave now. Gene wanted to tell him he didn’t have to be, that he could be brave enough for the both of them. The words wouldn’t come.
He sat down next to Sam and made a show of pressing a packet of humbugs into his hand, to give the contact he desperately needed and wanted for his own peace of mind, let alone Sam’s. The fingers against to his were cold as ice, cold and slightly damp. It took a moment for Gene to realise that it was with Sam’s tears. There were track-marks down his cheeks. Darkened spots on the hospital gown around his collarbones.
If they were alone, Gene would drag him into an embrace at this knowledge, pre-established ‘friends only’ relationship be damned. He’d hold Sam and wouldn’t let him go until he’d mended and gained his strength.
If they were alone, Gene would press kisses to his wounds, no matter how long it would take.
They weren’t alone.
“He tried to kill me, you know,” Sam said, sounding far away, like he was at the other end of a tinny telephone wire.
“That much is obvious,” Gene said, willing himself not to give into frustration and snap.
“My own father,” Sam continued.
“He’s not your father.”
Sam stared at Gene blankly. “He’s not anymore, but he was.”
“Sam ---“
“He said he’d come after everyone in my life if I didn’t meet with him. That should’ve been warning enough, shouldn’t it, but I kept forgetting he didn’t think of me as his son.”
Gene didn’t say that this would be hard to do if you were a good eight years someone’s junior. He listened.
“I didn’t want to do it, but he left me no choice. Said we’d ruined his life. Said he knew he could take you down if he had to. Spirit you away like a thief in the night. He said it like it was a joke, a bedtime story.”
“You did what had to be done,” Gene said, because it seemed appropriate.
“I know. Doesn’t make it any easier, though, does it?”
Tears rolled down his cheeks again and Gene said hell to propriety, convention, and the small-minded bigots who’d look at them askance. He wrapped his arms around Sam and held him tight until colour returned high on his cheeks and Sam gazed at him with an inquisitive expression that was so much more encouraging than the emptiness he’d seen before.
“Would you do that again, when we got out of this hellhole?” Sam asked, voice low.
Gene had a feeling he was answering a larger question when he said, “Yeah. Happily. But that won’t be for a while, so get some rest.”
8. Gen, team!fic for space_oddity_75, PG, 670 words.
It wasn’t the bullets that were gonna kill them all, Chris was sure of it; it was the in-fighting. DI Tyler was currently shouting at DCI Hunt. Ray was shouting at Annie. Nelson was shouting at the whole of them. And loud bangs were rocketing off all around them, like fireworks on Guy Fawkes’, only closer. It made a man glad to be alive, or something like that. Not proud to be a copper, at this rate, though. It was a sad state of affairs if the villains of the piece were winning because no one was in their right mind.
Chris didn’t even hear half of what they were yelling about. Something about how this was the other one’s fault, that they must’ve known the hall’d be double booked, by underground mobsters no less, and they were too important to be here setting up a Christmas party anyway. The same argument, in different timbres and registers, with various levels of stress and panic. Still no action, far as Chris could make out. Still no plan.
He wasn’t gonna tell anyone that he was the person who’d been assigned to book the venue. Didn’t seem to be much point, and anyway, he had a job to do.
Thinking about how the shots sounded like fireworks had given Chris a brilliant idea. He and Ray had been planning on pranking everyone later that night with a bit of a production. Chris wasn’t positive the Boss would see the funny side, it being his chair they were going to target, but Ray was insistent. To that end, Chris had stashed in the Gents’ a large collection of small red firecrackers that twelve year olds were typically seen with around this time of year.
Chris set his idea in motion, retrieving his quarry and staking out his look-out spot.
“What’re you doing?” Ray asked suddenly, having successfully annoyed Annie to the point she’d given up and was currently huddled next to Nelson, sharing a red wine they’d pinched from the bar. Nelson was muttering, “...said we could have the party at the Arms…”
“I’m laying in wait,” Chris replied in a whisper.
Ray’s eyes looked colder than ever before. “What’re you lying in wait for?”
“The perfect time.”
The perfect time was a lull in gunfire. It had only to be a few seconds long. Almost as soon as Chris had explained this, the opportunity came. Chris lit his firecrackers, kicked open the door, threw them out, then slammed the door shut again. There was a cacophony of bangs, whistles, and whimpers. Chris looked out the window again and saw the three mobsters who’d been assailing the joint scarpering away.
There were very few times in Chris’s life when he’d been proud of himself. One time when he’d won a poetry competition at the age of ten, for his limerick about a snail. Again when he’d graduated from the Academy and finally made it on the beat. One more then he’d passed his detective exam, with a lot of elbow grease, no small measure of writing scrawled on his left thigh, and a convincing note from his doctor that he’d bladder problems.
And now. Chris couldn’t be prouder. Because DCI Hunt was looking at him as if he were some kind of angel, DI Tyler looked strangely impressed, Annie and Nelson were hair’s breadths away from hugging him, and even Ray looked admiring as he patted him on the back.
“I think this’ll be perfect for the Christmas do,” Chris said encouraging.
“Oh yeah,” Sam added, and there was a tone to his voice that Chris didn’t recognise. “It’s so stylish… with all the bullet holes.”
“Pub?” Gene asked.
“Pub!” everyone chorused.
And Chris smiled to himself as he thought of his brave deeds, wit, and ability to get out of having an awful party in a place he didn't know, with a whole bunch of people from the station who'd never looked twice at him. A nice, homey meal with his friends at the Railway Arms seemed a much nicer bet.
1. Sam/Gene caring!fic for basaltgrrl, G, 470 words.
Sam is oblivious about most things of importance, so he never notices all the little things Gene does to show he cares. He doesn’t seem to appreciate that Gene always leaves him the crumbs of his cheese and onion crisps, or that he always saves the crunchiest chips for him, ‘cause they’re his favourite. Instead of thanking Gene for saving him the trouble of walking up the six flights of stairs to CID every morning, he complains that Gene conned him into taking the lift, yet again. He’s wholly ignorant of the fact Gene keeps a flask on his person full of the only scotch Sam has ever claimed to truly enjoy, even though he despises the taste himself. If anything, Sam appears to think that Gene does everything he does to infuriate him, and while Gene’s not going to lie --- infuriating his perennially pernickety pain-in-the-neck DI is a highlight of his life --- that isn’t close to the truth.
Gene might be inclined to rant and rave about the whole situation, were he not aware of all the things Sam goes out of his way to do to show Gene that he cares. Like how he chooses exactly the right moments to stand by his side and put up a uniting front for their team, even if he personally disagrees with the plan they’re going to follow through. Or how he bought Gene his very own reclining chair, even though it takes up about half of his flat (he has never, ever seen Sam sit in the chair. It’s his, it’s obvious. It even matches his coat.) Sam makes him think long and hard about decisions that at one time would have been hasty and slap-dash, admonishing Gene when he thinks he’s failed in his duty --- because he wants Gene to be the best man he can be.
It works for them. Gene never tells Sam, “I love you, I worry about you”, but lets it show in a sweep of his hand up Sam’s back and clasp on his shoulder when things go awry up against bastards with weapons. Sam never says, “You’re the reason I’m here”, just means it when he complains about Gene’s insults, supressing a chuckle, amber eyes twinkling with mirth.
Gene thought he would find the depth of his feelings for Sam a hindrance, but if anything it makes him stronger, to know that there’s someone to care for, that someone cares for him. Even if Sam isn’t fully cognisant of all the ways Gene attends to his needs, every once in a while he’ll give Gene a soft, private smile and ask him back to his flat for a nightcap. And that is when it’s obvious every touch is a mark of love, even when it’s on the rougher side of filthy.
2. Sam/Gene, Gene!whump for fern_tree, PG-13, 925 words.
Blood trickles down Gene’s face and Sam is shocked by the visceral nature of his reaction --- his guts churn, his knees go weak, his heart gives an ominous thump before he swears it stops still for several seconds. A voice inside his head that sounds like Gene tells him to stop being a Jessie and grow some balls so he can get him out of this mess, and somehow that is enough to spur Sam into action. He creeps closer and closer to Gene’s position, flattening himself against the wooden crates.
Gene can’t speak. He has a gag around his mouth, stained from the blood drip, drip, dripping in rivulets against his skin. There appears to be a deep laceration on his head, more blood matting his hair, plus smaller cuts perilously close to his right eye. Sam curses to himself that he didn’t come sooner, didn’t figure out the puzzle before, you’d have thought he’d know. But Sam never really knew his father, did he? So how could he work out the incomplete clues? He only hopes he’s early enough he hasn’t fallen straight into Vic’s trap.
Gene’s gaze swiftly and unerringly lands on Sam as he crouches in the darkness. Sam chokes back a gasp at his almost psychic ability to sense him, then panics, wondering if maybe Gene’s not the only one. Gene can’t signal in any way to tell him the coast’s clear; he’s tied good and proper, the chair he’s attached to bolted to the floor, they neither of them know Morse code, so cleverly timed blinking is out of the question. It’d be comical if it wasn’t so cruel. Sam waits for minutes that feel like hours.
He has to take the chance. The van they’d been tailing in the hunt for Vic isn’t outside and perhaps for once in his miserable life, Sam’s lucky. He dashes into the cleared out space of the warehouse where Gene is situated and begins to untie the gag.
“Took you long enough,” Gene says, light-voiced and jokingly antagonistic.
“Had to wait to borrow one of the station cars, didn’t I? You’ve got your Cortina keys in your bloody pocket. Or are you just happy to see me?”
Sam slices through Gene’s bonds, careful to stop his hand from shaking too much. It’s bad enough he’s caused Gene these injuries by proxy, let alone to damage him personally.
“Surprised you didn’t bring the entire fleet with all the bells and whistles.”
“Wouldn’t want to alert the Morton brothers.”
“About that…” Gene starts, but Sam shakes his head.
“I know, I was wrong. I was so wrong, and I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how much.”
Gene flexes his arms as Sam bends down to free his legs. “He’ll be coming back any minute. Said he was just getting the gasoline.”
“Better hurry, then. Stop being a lazy git and shift it.”
Sam lifts Gene out of the chair. Gene’s favouring his right side, and when Sam presses him closer, gives a loud, rattling wheeze that speaks of broken ribs.
“Fuck,” Sam whispers on his exhale. He starts to drag Gene towards his former hiding place, but it’s hard going. He realises Gene must have a fractured ankle in addition to his other ailments.
“Oi, oi, oi, where do you think you’re off to, son of mine?” Vic’s voice asks, mild, but malicious. Sam swivels within Gene’s grasp to glare at the man who gave him life and now wants to take it away.
Vic’s holding a jerry can and a lighter. It doesn’t take their familial bond to know what his intention might be.
“Take me if you have to, but leave Gene alone,” Sam commands. “It was me who ruined your life, wasn’t it?”
“You don’t think Mr Hunt had a hand?”
“He may have, but you’ve well and truly slapped that hand now, haven’t you, Vic? So let him go free and do what you want with me instead.”
As he says the words, Sam’s aware of Gene struggling against him. It feels like he’s trying to stand in between him and his father, but Sam holds strong. He has to, for both their sakes.
“Alright,” Vic says, “your not-so-little friend can run free,” and Sam knows it’s a lie, but he still turns to Gene and kisses him as a parting gift.
There’s a sound of disgust, and Sam squeezes his eyes shut tighter as he reaches behind his back and draws out the gun he tucked into his waistband. In a second he pulls away from Gene, aims, and fires. Vic crumples to the ground and Sam’s remorse may be delayed, but all that washes over him is relief.
Gene looks as shocked as Sam feels, then buckles slightly in his grasp as his ankle gives way. Sam props him up.
“But Annie told me…”
“Forget what Annie said,” Sam orders, fierce in his conviction. “You are my family. I would never let anything destroy that.”
There’s a whuff of air and then Gene kisses him harshly. He’s panting when he breaks away. “Get your arse into gear, you great big soppy girl, or we’ll die of starvation before we ever make it out of here.”
Sam spares Vic one last glance, to check he’s dead, and then he’s moving towards the entrance to the warehouse, not feeling as burdened as he thinks he probably should.
“Rich of you to call me a girl, when you’re the damsel in distress,” he teases, and grins at Gene’s four-lettered response.
3. Glen-centric Gen for chamekke, PG-13, 430 words.
All his life he’d been pushed around and prodded because he wasn’t like other people. He wasn’t white enough, he wasn’t black enough --- what was he?
Well, he was determined, that was one thing. Smart, another. Likely a little touched in the head, either that or a masochist, if you asked anyone with sense.
He was himself. A man who believed in duty, in changing the world with small steps, from within the hotbed of corruption. He wasn’t just his colour, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t important. He recognised he came from a long line of culture, something huge and nebulous and conflicted and despised. He knew it meant he’d experienced things kindly open-minded white men like Sam Tyler could never even consider. When had Sam ever had to run away from teens who looked and sounded like him but called him ‘coconut’ and ‘zebra’?
At school he’d gone through a two year period where he hadn’t wanted to show how bright he was. Had wanted to fade into the darkness like half his persecutors said he could. He’d got bad report cards and disappointed looks, but that was mostly all the attention he’d garnered, and that was good enough. Then Mrs Richardson from down the road had been mugged and no one had done a thing to help her. Not even the cops on the beat, apparently just around the corner. And she’d been calling, witnesses said. Witnesses who’d watched, but wouldn’t act. This little old Jamaican woman who, for years, had been giving him candied fruits and calling him Gerry, she had been treated with such disrespect, it almost broke her. She’d had to have thirteen stitches. And that was when Glen thought, ‘No. Sod this for a lark. Who cares what they call me? I’m gonna make a difference.’
So he did his best. He proved he was made of mettle. And sometimes he melted a bit out of shape, but he could always be put to rights again by remembering that he had a purpose, he had a drive. So what if they laughed at him? So what if they could never understand? It was their loss, their failing. He knew that, in time, one day, the fact that he’d struggled and strived and fought tooth and nail and wit would be worth it.
All his life he’d been pushed around and prodded because he wasn’t like other people. And now that he had power, small as it may be, he was going to do his damnedest to ensure that this didn’t happen to anyone else.
4. Sam/Gen, Sam/Gene, Sam/Everyone, ice-cream featuring meta!fic, for thesmallhobbit, PG-13, 725 words.
Sam was scowling as he licked his ice cream. Gene wanted to look away, but he was compelled to keep watching, forehead creasing as he wondered why Sam was continuing to eat the damn thing if he hated it so much. Sam must have sensed his gaze, because his head snapped up and his scowl deepened. He glared back at Gene.
“I’ll take it off your hands, if you like?”
“Take what?” Sam asked before his eyes widened in comprehension. “My ice cream? You keep your greasy mitts off. I’m still not over you eating my entire box of ‘Quality Street’ last Christmas.”
“Well, if you insist on leaving things lying around.”
“It was in my locked drawer. At my flat. You were there for a minute, tops.”
Sam looked ready to rant for another twenty minutes, so Gene cut him off with the question he’d been dying to ask since he’d been mesmerised by Sam’s annoyed eyes and ever-licking tongue.
“If it’s not the ice cream that’s making you all doom and gloom, what’s wrong?”
“Have you ever heard the term ‘little black dress’?”
Gene raised his eyebrows. “I don’t make a habit of yammering on with the birdies, but it sounds fairly self-explanatory.”
“No, I don’t mean literally. It’s an analogy. All women have little black dresses, yeah? Because they’re versatile, they go well with anything, in any situation?”
“… right…”
Sam pouted. “I think they think I’m a little black dress.”
“Who?”
“The people who control my life.”
Admittedly, this was not the first time Sam had insisted that people controlled his life. He’d said, months before, that given what happened to him and how he usually reacted, he felt sure it was a few men and several women who dictated his every action and event. He didn’t seem to think they were Gods, but he did think they were all-powerful. Sam hadn’t said this for six weeks and Gene had hoped he’d realised he was being barmy.
“Sam...”
“Three weeks ago, Chris seduced me with a treacle tart and his gormless grin. Last week, Ray and I got into a fight and he ended up giving me an angry blowjob, saying I had to let off steam. On Wednesday, Annie turned off the emergency brake in the lift and had her way with me. Yesterday, Litton came by my flat, claiming he was trying to recruit me, and then claiming he was attempting to sweeten the deal with a solid rogering over the kitchen table. Just then, Gene, even you were ogling me. Little black dress, that’s me, there for the using.” Sam sighed. “It’s not like I don’t appreciate the action, it’s just… you know, sometimes a man’s tired. Sometimes he wants his life to be about something other than sex. Occasionally he’d like a bloody case to work on.”
“You can’t say no?” Gene asked. That’s all he could think to ask, because his mind was full of naked-and-sexually-provocative-Sam-images.
“I could, of course I could,” Sam answered. “At the time, I never want to.”
Sam gave a long and particularly suggestive lick, and Gene was surprised, but he felt himself harden in his trousers.
“So, what is it that you want? Some alone time?”
Sam hesitated. His cheeks flushed. “I thought I did.”
Gene edged closer, watching the flicker of Sam’s eyes to his mouth intently. “Mmm?”
Sam sounded conflicted. “You know they’re just doing again, don’t you? It’s getting to the point where I can’t have a day to myself.”
“I know that’s what you think, yeah,” Gene confirmed. He thought it was a little strange that the lust he was feeling for Sam was so sudden, but he wasn’t complaining. It had been an achingly long time since he’d seen the kind of action Sam had been describing. “Does it matter?”
Sam finished his ice cream, chucking the cone into the rubbish bin behind him. He grabbed hold of Gene’s hand and hoisted him up. “God no. Come on, I haven’t yet managed to do it in your office.”
“I should hope not, you saucy little minx.”
As Sam stripped and popped open his fly, Gene quite forgot that the plan for the night had been to finish off the paperwork and reorganise his filing system. But then, this was definitely destined to be much more fun.
5. Ray/Chris banter for talkingtothesky, G, 505 words.
Ray stared at the… thing Chris had pushed into his hand and stared up at him aghast.
“What is this?”
Chris looked temporarily set back, his excited grin faltering around the edges. “It’s a vol-au-vent.”
Ray looked down at the thing again. “It’s not.”
“It is! It’s chicken and mushroom. Only, I didn’t have any chicken. Or any mushrooms. So I improvised.”
The thing was soggy, and squishy, and when Ray made the grave error of lifting it closer to his face to inspect it, smelled suspiciously similar to moulding socks forever lost to the bottom of his airing cupboard.
“What in God’s blue sky did you improvise with?”
“The filling,” Chris said, clearly not taking note of Ray’s tone. “It’s not chicken, it’s spam. And they’re not mushrooms, they’re tiny little bits of aubergine. I reckoned it could be the same as the recipe in terms of texture, if nothing else.”
“You had aubergine, but you didn’t have mushrooms?”
“Me mam likes it grilled. Can’t see the appeal meself.” Chris waved a hand expressively. “Oh, and there’s cheese.”
“Doesn’t look like there’s cheese.”
“There is. You know. One of them ‘processed cheese slice’ doovers. I cut it into quarters and toasted it.”
“Why’s it wet?”
“I added some cream of mushroom soup, for the taste, like.” Chris took hold of Ray’s wrist and pushed his hand up. “Go on, try it.”
“Chris, have I done something to offend you? I know I bang on about Tyler and you wished I wouldn’t, but is that really worth malice aforethought? I thought we were friends? More than?”
Ray wiggled his eyebrows in what he hoped conveyed an allusion to every time after Christmas dos and birthday bashes that they’d found themselves curled up together on his bed, Chris’s face covered in a mysterious red rash.
Chris looked pained. Hurt. He pouted. There was nothing worse than a Skelton pout. Well, Ray thought, he’d think so right up until he tried some Skelton cuisine.
“If I die, I beg you to get Cartwright to flash her tits at my open casket. For everyone else, if not for me.”
“I’ve had one and I’m still standing,” Chris said, a frown not quite leaving his face.
“You have? Why didn’t you say so? Alright then. I’ll bite.”
Ray bit.
He really wished he hadn’t.
He couldn’t help but think that he wasn’t sure what love was, but if this sort of self-mutilation didn’t fall somewhere into that category, then it wasn’t the big deal everyone made it out to be. The thing was slimy, smelly, stretchy, and all in all one of the worst things he’d had in his mouth. He felt the deepest desire to replace it with something else entirely right this moment.
“Thanks, Christopher,” Ray said around a weak smile.
“You liked it?”
“No, it was vile. I’m not touching anything you’d a hand in making ever again.”
“Damn, you were me last hope. How am I gonna get rid of twenty-two of these things now?”
6. Sam/Gene, light-hearted!fic for _lethe_, PG, 520 words.
“Gene, I have something to discuss with you, and I want you on your best behaviour.”
“If this is about me going to say sorry to her at canteen about the lumpy gravy, I refuse. She may be your bit of stuff, but that’s no excuse for poisoning the rest of us.”
“They were peas! Anyway, this isn’t about Gwen.”
Sam took a deep breath, deep enough that Gene began to think this might well be serious. He pulled his legs down from up on the table.
“I’m listening.”
“I’m thinking about growing a moustache,” Sam said, thoughtfully.
“What?”
Sam continued, unfazed by Gene’s confusion. “Maybe a moustache, goatee combo, though not a Delgado special. Something classy that’ll help me fit in.”
Gene blinked. “When have you ever wanted to fit in?”
Sam spread his hands out wide, as if this explained everything. “I’ve decided to make a concerted effort.”
“No,” Gene said decisively, dismissively, hoping Sam got the hint.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I forbid it.”
“You can’t forbid it! It’s my face.”
“Your face is within my purview and my immediate concern. I’ll not allow you to mar it in any way.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “But, Gene, it’d give me something to talk about with the other blokes. It’d be a vehicle for that much hallowed ‘bonding’ you’re always going on about. You know, grooming techniques, the best beeswax, and the suchlike. Besides, I think I’d look quite dashing with some facial hair. It’d give my features more structure.”
Gene rose from his chair and stalked over to Sam. He grasped hold of his jaw and tilted his head up. “You’ve marvellous structure already. Poncy poets would write odes to the wonder that is your face. It's my opinion that no inch of it should ever be covered up.”
Sam smiled --- one of his unnervingly knowing smiles --- and it occurred to Gene that he’d fallen into a long and elaborately set trap. He took a step backwards, but Sam grabbed hold of him lightning-quick.
“I knew it,” Sam said, eyes narrowing in assessment. “I had a feeling if I pushed you you’d crumble. You think I’m good-looking.”
“In other news, politicians are liars, and so-called celibate priests are kinky, unnatural bastards.”
For a moment, Sam looked temporarily shaken. “Huh?”
“Of course I think you’re good-looking. My eyes are in perfect working order, and so is the whole of you. But that’s neither here nor there.”
Sam pulled Gene an inch closer. Body heat radiated between them, causing Gene’s nerves to tingle in not-entirely-unpleasant ways. “How come?”
“No one ever said you had to sample the wares on show in the shop window.”
“Even if they’re free?”
Gene pushed his lips forward in contemplation. Sam took that moment to surge forward to kiss him, all pushy dominance and warm lips. Gene wouldn’t admit he’d been waiting a long time for it, but he kissed back like he had.
“It’s decided,” Gene said, when they pulled apart. “Definitely no moustache for you.” He put his hands on Sam’s hips and ground against him. “Now, me, on the other hand…”
7. Sam/Gene, Sam!whump for debl_ns, PG-13, 570 words, this is sort of an AU of fern_tree's ficlet.
Gene didn’t think of Sam as frail. He thought of him as fragile sometimes --- because every so often he looked like he could crack --- but that wasn’t the same. At this moment, tucked up in a hospital bed in the corner of the ward, with a blanket around his shoulders, Sam looked frail. Delicate. Insubstantial.
He’d lost a lot of blood, the nurses said. It was a wonder he’d any left in him.
He was bruised and he was scuffed up, had three broken bones in different parts of his body.
Gene frequently thought of Sam as brave, though sometimes he amended the consideration to ‘stupid’. Sam, with dulled eyes, and drawn features, looked like he was trying so hard to be brave now. Gene wanted to tell him he didn’t have to be, that he could be brave enough for the both of them. The words wouldn’t come.
He sat down next to Sam and made a show of pressing a packet of humbugs into his hand, to give the contact he desperately needed and wanted for his own peace of mind, let alone Sam’s. The fingers against to his were cold as ice, cold and slightly damp. It took a moment for Gene to realise that it was with Sam’s tears. There were track-marks down his cheeks. Darkened spots on the hospital gown around his collarbones.
If they were alone, Gene would drag him into an embrace at this knowledge, pre-established ‘friends only’ relationship be damned. He’d hold Sam and wouldn’t let him go until he’d mended and gained his strength.
If they were alone, Gene would press kisses to his wounds, no matter how long it would take.
They weren’t alone.
“He tried to kill me, you know,” Sam said, sounding far away, like he was at the other end of a tinny telephone wire.
“That much is obvious,” Gene said, willing himself not to give into frustration and snap.
“My own father,” Sam continued.
“He’s not your father.”
Sam stared at Gene blankly. “He’s not anymore, but he was.”
“Sam ---“
“He said he’d come after everyone in my life if I didn’t meet with him. That should’ve been warning enough, shouldn’t it, but I kept forgetting he didn’t think of me as his son.”
Gene didn’t say that this would be hard to do if you were a good eight years someone’s junior. He listened.
“I didn’t want to do it, but he left me no choice. Said we’d ruined his life. Said he knew he could take you down if he had to. Spirit you away like a thief in the night. He said it like it was a joke, a bedtime story.”
“You did what had to be done,” Gene said, because it seemed appropriate.
“I know. Doesn’t make it any easier, though, does it?”
Tears rolled down his cheeks again and Gene said hell to propriety, convention, and the small-minded bigots who’d look at them askance. He wrapped his arms around Sam and held him tight until colour returned high on his cheeks and Sam gazed at him with an inquisitive expression that was so much more encouraging than the emptiness he’d seen before.
“Would you do that again, when we got out of this hellhole?” Sam asked, voice low.
Gene had a feeling he was answering a larger question when he said, “Yeah. Happily. But that won’t be for a while, so get some rest.”
8. Gen, team!fic for space_oddity_75, PG, 670 words.
It wasn’t the bullets that were gonna kill them all, Chris was sure of it; it was the in-fighting. DI Tyler was currently shouting at DCI Hunt. Ray was shouting at Annie. Nelson was shouting at the whole of them. And loud bangs were rocketing off all around them, like fireworks on Guy Fawkes’, only closer. It made a man glad to be alive, or something like that. Not proud to be a copper, at this rate, though. It was a sad state of affairs if the villains of the piece were winning because no one was in their right mind.
Chris didn’t even hear half of what they were yelling about. Something about how this was the other one’s fault, that they must’ve known the hall’d be double booked, by underground mobsters no less, and they were too important to be here setting up a Christmas party anyway. The same argument, in different timbres and registers, with various levels of stress and panic. Still no action, far as Chris could make out. Still no plan.
He wasn’t gonna tell anyone that he was the person who’d been assigned to book the venue. Didn’t seem to be much point, and anyway, he had a job to do.
Thinking about how the shots sounded like fireworks had given Chris a brilliant idea. He and Ray had been planning on pranking everyone later that night with a bit of a production. Chris wasn’t positive the Boss would see the funny side, it being his chair they were going to target, but Ray was insistent. To that end, Chris had stashed in the Gents’ a large collection of small red firecrackers that twelve year olds were typically seen with around this time of year.
Chris set his idea in motion, retrieving his quarry and staking out his look-out spot.
“What’re you doing?” Ray asked suddenly, having successfully annoyed Annie to the point she’d given up and was currently huddled next to Nelson, sharing a red wine they’d pinched from the bar. Nelson was muttering, “...said we could have the party at the Arms…”
“I’m laying in wait,” Chris replied in a whisper.
Ray’s eyes looked colder than ever before. “What’re you lying in wait for?”
“The perfect time.”
The perfect time was a lull in gunfire. It had only to be a few seconds long. Almost as soon as Chris had explained this, the opportunity came. Chris lit his firecrackers, kicked open the door, threw them out, then slammed the door shut again. There was a cacophony of bangs, whistles, and whimpers. Chris looked out the window again and saw the three mobsters who’d been assailing the joint scarpering away.
There were very few times in Chris’s life when he’d been proud of himself. One time when he’d won a poetry competition at the age of ten, for his limerick about a snail. Again when he’d graduated from the Academy and finally made it on the beat. One more then he’d passed his detective exam, with a lot of elbow grease, no small measure of writing scrawled on his left thigh, and a convincing note from his doctor that he’d bladder problems.
And now. Chris couldn’t be prouder. Because DCI Hunt was looking at him as if he were some kind of angel, DI Tyler looked strangely impressed, Annie and Nelson were hair’s breadths away from hugging him, and even Ray looked admiring as he patted him on the back.
“I think this’ll be perfect for the Christmas do,” Chris said encouraging.
“Oh yeah,” Sam added, and there was a tone to his voice that Chris didn’t recognise. “It’s so stylish… with all the bullet holes.”
“Pub?” Gene asked.
“Pub!” everyone chorused.
And Chris smiled to himself as he thought of his brave deeds, wit, and ability to get out of having an awful party in a place he didn't know, with a whole bunch of people from the station who'd never looked twice at him. A nice, homey meal with his friends at the Railway Arms seemed a much nicer bet.