Fic: Good News, for master_pages
Title: Good News
Author: talkingtothesky
Recipient: master_pages
Rating: Green Cortina
Wordcount: 677
Prompt: an 'OMG Stu is alive after all' story with Sam playing awkward mediator between the estranged brothers. No pairing.
Notes/Warnings: Spoilers for 2x01 and 2x06. Happens in 1976. Sam and Gene friendship.
They're discussing (well, loudly arguing about) a case in the middle of the street when Gene starts looking over Sam's shoulder and his face goes weirdly slack. For a second, Sam thinks maybe he's having a stroke, all that greasy food finally catching up with him, but his eyes are too focused for that.
Sam turns around, shoulders heavy with expectation. There's a man with thinning blond hair standing there. He's tall, taller than Gene. He's grinning. "Hello, little brother."
Hold on. What the bloody hell - this doesn't make any sense. Gene told him...
Gene lunges at him, fists bunched in the front of his coat. He's wild and broken as he yells "Thirteen years! You let me believe you were dead for thirteen years!" Stu doesn't fight back, he just takes it, like he deserves it, but he's still smiling so maybe it's not guilt.
Sam's instincts kick in. He rushes forward to drag Gene off, gets between them and ends up shunting Gene backwards across the pavement, hand on his shoulder, other arm across his chest. The trunk of Gene's body is heaving with the eruption of long-suppressed emotion.
"You spineless piece of shit." He volleys past Sam, but he's not trying to smack him out of the way, so that's something.
"Nice to see you too, Gene," Stu answers, voice still maddeningly calm.
The lack of fearful reaction seems to communicate to Gene that threats are useless, and he gradually subsides. Sam lets go of him, releases his restraining grip.
"Where the hell have you been?" Gene says, and it's still confrontational but there's exasperation emerging as well. "Why come back now?"
Stu shrugs. "Got tired of avoiding you, didn't I."
Gene squares his shoulders. His eyes are suspiciously bright. Sam looks down at the concrete. "It's too late anyway. Mum's dead, Stu."
"I know. I was at the funeral. Hidden, of course."
This nearly causes another explosion, but Sam gingerly squeezes Gene's arm and luckily that's enough to forestall it.
"And who's this?" Stu is sizing up Sam.
"My DI," Gene replies, and Sam is surprised to note that Gene sounds...well, no, proud is definitely the wrong word, but...slightly less disgusted by that fact than usual, anyway.
Sam holds out his hand. "Sam Tyler."
Stu takes it. He has a warm, firm handshake. Sam doesn't know what he'd been imagining. Someone thin and feeble, weakened by substance abuse, shaking like Eve Crane had been, that last time Sam had seen her before Crane killed her, before Sam got him locked up and changed the course of her entire life.
This is a similar kind of life-changing event, right now.
("You told me you found him." Sam will point out later.
"Only so you'd keep your nosey arse out of it, Gladys.")
"I got clean." Stu says, haltingly. There's a wealth of painful history in that simple statement, details which Sam will never know, doesn't want to know. "Got a house, a wife, two kids."
Beside him, Gene breathes out heavily. Sam wonders if Gene'll lie for the sake of his pride, but..."You're doing better'n me, then. Missus left two year ago. What're you doing for work?"
"Logistics. I work in the office for a haulage firm."
"You ended up in an office?"
"Probably pays better than yours, copper." Stu teases, and Sam steps in before Gene's temper can flare up again.
"How about you both go and get a drink?" He suggests. He'll even offer to pay if the topic of money's a touchy subject between them. "You've a lot of catching up to do. I can take care of that lead, Guv."
Gene's gaze is full of gratitude. "Yeah, alright. But call me if anything gets out of hand."
"Wilco." He won't, but that's beside the point.
"Take care, DI Tyler."
Sam nods awkwardly, and leaves them to it.
It's only as he walks around the corner that he allows the smile to spread across his face. This is good news. And good news for Gene is good news for him.