Fic: You'll Never Wear White at Your Wedding
Title: You'll Never Wear White at Your Wedding
Author: shotaphile
Recipient: lozenger8
Rating: Blueish Cortina. Not so tame subject material approached in a relatively safe manner. Er, I think.
Word Count: 1661
Notes/Warnings: Conversation about sex, Heinlein reference, virgin!Sam and me, trying my hand at a bit of snogging. Ugh. There's a reason I write mostly introspection. (Quote may be paraphrased a bit, I wrote this in the cafe without any internet access and so could not check.)
Summary: "It was exactly the sort of conversation best had sober, and exactly the sort of conversation two men stuck in the seventies - be it either in body or state of mind - could only hope to attempt after getting absolutely shitfaced."
It was exactly the sort of conversation best had sober, and exactly the sort of conversation two men stuck in the seventies - be it either in body or state of mind - could only hope to attempt after getting absolutely shitfaced.
Or at least, Gene required it as such. Sam liked to believe that he was forward thinking enough to have broached the subject with his own team back in 2006 while under the influence of nothing more than a diet coke. The only reason he hadn’t, he hastened to assure himself as Gene staggered on about a dozen or so conquests that Sam had half a mind to refute, was because he had been courting Maya at the time and it would have been unfair to her to share anything of a particularly intimate nature with the others.
And perhaps because no one had wanted to imagine Williams involved in any sort of sexual escapade anyway.
(A piping, neatly malicious voice in the left corner of his mind intimated that he may have not had anything to share regardless, and Sam was a bit startled to find that it sounded a good deal like Maya.)
“So?” Gene elbowed Sam in a friendly manner and Sam could have sworn he felt a rib shift under the ministrations. Sam knew well enough from experience that Gene had no way of controlling the considerable bulk he had over slim blokes like Chris and Sam when he was soused, and he briefly considered stopping by hospital for a check up, but he was also all too aware that his own reaction to alcohol was a deep, burbling pit of paranoia.
He’d once accused Maya of only liking him for his mobile.
Sam exhaled deeply and burrowed sleepily into his jacket, casting Gene a sideways glance. “So what?” He said.
Gene frowned. “Haven’t you been listening at all?”
Sam was nearly tempted to say ‘no,’ but with the quantity of alcohol he had ingested thus far, a fist to the gut was almost certainly a bad idea. He settled for a perfectly constructed look of puzzlement and slight apology. “Sorry.” Was all he said, and he fluttered his eyelashes a bit after.
It had always worked on Maya anyway.
Gene huffed slightly and shot Sam a warning look. (Apparently the eyelashes bit only worked on girls and that strange bloke from the radio station.) “We was talkin’ about birds, Tyler. Or I was anyhow. But I can’t stand to repeat myself, and it’s likely too late for you to learn in any case. So. Let’s have it.”
“Have it?”
“Have it, Gladys. It!”
Sam only stared back blankly.
Gene looked about ready to throw things. Sam rather hoped he didn’t - there wasn’t much one could throw in his flat and cause any real sort of damage, and Sam had no doubt that Gene would limit himself to inanimate objects if it came to that. Sam subtly nudged the bottle of scotch out of Gene’s reach to avoid that tragedy at least. “A bird, you daft git! When was your last bird?”
“Oh.” Sam thought about it a bit before saying, “Linearly or chronologically?” and was terribly proud of having managed to properly navigate all those syllables.
“What?” Gene said.
Sam thought about it a bit more. “Joni,” he said, rather than attempt to explain the complications of time travel. It had been a while since he’d read Heinlein, and he was almost certain he’d mess something up in the retelling.
“Whuzzat? Linear or chrono-chronologicamal?”
Sam shrugged. “Both. Either.”
Gene set down his glass on the kitchen table with a muffled thump and stared at Sam long and hard, as though trying to see through him. “You mean you and Cartwright never…?”
“No.” Sam said, voice sullen and body hunching in on himself defensively. It was rather a touchy subject for him. He’d never been left by a girl for a car salesman before.
Though she had always been pushing him to do things he wasn’t comfortable with, so maybe it was all for the better. For a girl born in the fifties, Annie had been surprisingly modern minded concerning sex. So when Annie had introduced Sam to her new beau - a smallish, twiggy sort of man with a funny little mustache - Sam had been appropriately cordial and congratulatory, and had secretly resolved to key the twat’s Aston later.
(Annie had never suspected him; she hadn’t stuck around nearly long enough to discover what a vindictive little bitch Sam could be sometimes.)
“Okay, fine.” Gene said when it became clear that Sam wasn’t going to start talking again on his own anytime soon. Sam got like that sometimes, and the only thing for it was to drag him back to reality kicking and screaming, else he’d brood for hours. “Before Joni then.”
Sam sighed. “No one.”
“Don’t mean here you twit. Hyde. Mexico. Wherever.”
“Right.” Sam nodded once and quickly thought better of doing so again. He liked it better when furniture stayed on the ground. “No one.”
Gene nearly dropped the still half full bottle of scotch as he was refilling his and Sam’s glass. Sam shot him a dark, warning look, but Gene was having none of it. “You’re lying.” He said. If there was a bird out there besides their own ballsy Cartwright who could actually say no to those whiskey brown eyes and small, pink mouth then he, Gene Hunt, was a flaming queer. “What about you and that Mrs. Tyler?” He challenged, remembering the strangely needy looks Sam had taken to giving her every time they’d stopped by. ‘Course, he’d been giving that Vic Tyler the same sorts of looks, which was not exactly something Gene wanted to think too hard on. “Or that Layla bird. She was having a baby, wasn’t she, seems right up your alley that. Sweeping in like a white knight to help the damsel in distress raise her little tot.” Come to think of it, Mrs. Tyler had had a son as well. Sammy, he thought, which was a funny bit of coincidence. Gene didn’t hold much with coincidence.
Sam appeared to be properly scandalized. “Ms. Roy?”
“What?” Gene asked. “She seemed a bit of alright. Not terribly big tits, but some blokes go for that sort of thing.”
“She’s Maya’s mum!”
“Maya? ‘s that what she’s namin’ the little bugger?” Gene tried to sound suitably interested, but the topic was already beginning to bore him. And they were getting off topic anyhow. “C’mon Tyler, there had to have been some bird desperate enough to let you get your scrawny little legs up and over her.”
Sam stared stubbornly into the depths of his glass. “I believe in waiting ‘til marriage.” He finally said.
“Bollocks.” Gene shot back.
“S’true.”
“No, bollocks.” Gene insisted. “I cannot believe that you don’t have blue balls.”
Sam nibbled thoughtfully on his lower lip. “Might.” He shrugged. “But I don’t remember much of what happened with Joni and, frankly, I’d rather pretend the entire thing hadn’t happened at all.”
Gene stared at Sam with something akin to wonder scrawled messily across his face. “You are such a girl sometimes, you know that Gladys?”
“You like me that way.” Sam challenged him, tone somewhat sharp and bitter. He was tired and nauseous and not at all in the mood for this particular conversation. All he wanted to do was play his records extra loud and write in his diary, but it didn’t look like Gene was planning on leaving anytime soon. “Couldn’t get away with calling me all those ridiculous pet names otherwise.”
“You’re right.”
“And you - I - what?”
“You’re right. Wouldn’t be able to call you Dorothy or Gladys or Miss Mae if you didn’t insist on ironing your shirts and cooking with strange spices and spending hours in the bathroom every morning getting ready.” Gene emptied his glass and poured another.
Sam wrinkled his nose at that. “Miss Mae?”
“Haven’t called you that one yet, have I?” Gene leaned over to pour Sam some more as well, only to find that Sam still hadn’t touched the last serving. He looked at the nearly empty bottle, and then at Sam thoughtfully. “Was saving it. But I’m not going ta get much better ammunition than you wanting to wear white on your wedding day, so…” His eyes darted from the bottle and to Sam again and, as if having suddenly made a decision, buried his fingers in Sam’s hair with his free hand and gently tugged his head back, pushing the rim of the bottle to Sam’s lips and pouring the remainder of the scotch down his throat.
Said throat, arched back and bared, St. Christopher’s medal glinting against pale collarbone, worked to swallow the liquor, thin rivulets escaping the corners of his mouth and trailing tantalizingly downward. When he released Sam’s hair from the grip, Sam turned to regard Gene muzzily, lips glistening wetly and slightly parted. “You-” He started.
Gene dove in to lick up the stray drops of scotch, starting at the collarbone and working his way up to the lips.
Sam made a desperate keening sound into Gene’s mouth and clung tight to his shoulders.
When Gene finally pulled away, he regarded Sam silently for a moment before patting him lightly on the shoulder. “Consider that an early Christmas present.” He said, and dug under the table for a fresh bottle.
Sam took several deep breaths to clear his head. “But it’s July.” He finally said, and felt particularly thick for it.
“I did say early, didn’t I?”
Sam sipped idly at his drink and they passed the next several minutes in almost total silence. Then, “You do realize that I expect you to do right by me now and propose.”
Gene’s head hit the small table with a heavy thunk. “Fer God’s sake Miss Mae!”
Sam smiled sweetly into his glass.