Fic: Mosaic
(Internet still up and down. MOSTLY DOWN. If I don't answer it's just because I can't get on. Am piggybacking on some unsuspecting neighbor's linksys, but will get off after posting this.)
Title: Mosaic
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: End of LoM
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Gene
Word Count: 2600-ish
Summary: Bits and pieces of a relationship
Notes: I'm not a member of 1sentenceorder, but I did steal the idea and one of their prompt tables. The idea is to take your pairing of choice, use the fifty prompts provided, and write one sentence on each of the words. The word itself can be included in the sentence or not. The one-sentence format lends itself to wanton abuse of commas, semi-colons, and dashes, for which I apologize in advance. *g* All feedback welcome!
1. Walking
He says that if he walks long enough, his mind will have to stop making things up, but that's a rationalization--a fiction that hides the fact that all he really wants to do is run, and hide from whatever this madness is, forever.
2. Waltz
His new DI won't shut up, won't back down, and they go back and forth, shouting and yelling, pushing and shoving, hitting and blocking; it's a bizarre, twisted kind of dance, and Gene discovers that he doesn't actually mind it, but he's damn sure that he'll be the one leading.
3. Wishes
Genies are supposed to grant three wishes, Sam knows, and when he's drunk enough he considers asking: "I want to go home", and "No, really, right now, I mean it", and only as an afterthought, or when he's very drunk, "Please, help me."
4. Wonder
He has to wonder why his subconscious has brought him here, to this place; he passes the time coming up with ever more desperate theories, or attempting to modernize the department, and he tries not to think about which is the more futile pursuit.
5. Worry
Gene's starting to think that his DI really has lost his mind, and wondering what the hell he's supposed to do about it, and thinking that overall, it was much easier when he thought that Sam was just trying to take his job.
6. Whimsy
"Down the rabbit hole", he thinks, and "Through the looking glass" and "Into the wardrobe" and "Over the rainbow", and sometimes he catches himself wondering who the wizard is.
7. Waste/Wasteland
Sometimes, when Sam gets that certain lost look and wanders out of the pub without saying anything, Gene slips his coat on as well, following him quietly to the waste ground where the report says Sam had his RTA--the one that Sam claims he can't remember--and he watches from the shadows as Sam just stands there, alone, in the middle of nowhere.
8. Whiskey and rum
Gene doesn't ever need to glance at his watch at the pub; he knows it's time to roll out and go home whenever he slides another whiskey across to Sam and Sam slurs, "But WHY is the rum gone?" and starts giggling uncontrollably.
9. War
Every morning, Gene sweeps a careless hand over Sam's desk on his way in; and every morning, he watches Sam walk in later, roll his eyes, and carefully rearrange the pencils, straighten the stacks of paper, and line up the folders neatly along the edge of the desk.
10. Weddings
"It's my damn car, Gladys, I'll smoke in it if I want, and you can stop nagging me about what I eat, too, 'cos the last time I checked we weren't married!"
11. Birthday
Apparently the Missus is away again--it's been happening more and more often lately--because Gene hauls Sam out for a quiet meal after work; Sam spends the whole time lecturing him about the proper way to search a crime scene, and it's only a couple of weeks later that he realizes the significance of the date.
12. Blessing
Gene fights for justice as hard as Sam ever has, albeit in different ways, and he's funny in horribly politically incorrect ways, and he's tough but kind-hearted underneath (way down deep underneath) and very, very physical, and all in all it's a good thing, Sam decides, that certain things are frowned on in this time, because otherwise he thinks he might wind up hitting on his superior officer, and that would be a really bad idea in any time.
13. Bias
So, all right, he turns a blind eye to Sam's crazier ramblings, and okay, he reluctantly checks out even Sam's wildest theories, and maybe he puts up with levels of insubordination from Sam that nobody else would even dare to attempt--it doesn't mean anything.
14. Burning
It's damned hot in this car, and Sam is sweltering, and his shirt--the jacket was discarded long ago--is sticking to him; he glances over at Gene, but Gene is staring out the window at the warehouse, as if he doesn't even notice the heat, so Sam stays quiet.
15. Breathing
They're on a stakeout, and nothing at all has happened in hours, and they've exhausted the conversation for the moment and are sitting in silence--and Gene can pinpoint the moment when he knows he's in trouble, because he can hear Sam breathing, and something about the sound is so right.
16. Breaking
"You can't make omelets without breaking eggs", he's heard that all his life; he doesn't know what Sam's trying to make, but he's breaking a lot more than eggs, and Gene only hopes that one of them will be able to put things back together when he's done.
17. Belief
Sam's never sure what's real and what's in his imagination; he knows Ray hates him and Chris is puzzled by him and Annie thinks he's crazy and he can't quite bring himself to care (mostly), seeing as they're only figments of his imagination anyway (probably), and the only thing in this crazy place he can really believe in (sometimes) is justice.
18. Balloon
He wants to make a comparison to feeling like a balloon--stretched out, stressed to the point of exploding--but he hears Gene's voice in his head: "What, full of hot air?" and the existential angst dissipates somewhat.
19. Balcony
Balconies, Gene knows, are for leaning on, meditatively, maybe with a cigarette in hand for added relaxation--they are not, firm emphasis on not, for dangling from while being shot at, with Sam yelling from below, "Come on, let go, I've got you!"--and the scary thing is, Gene believes him.
20. Bane
If he didn't know better, Gene would swear that Sam has shown up out of nowhere with no other purpose in life than to get under Gene's skin--to argue with him, yell at him, hit back when Gene pushes him, smirk obnoxiously when he's proved right; to smile, far too rarely, and make Gene forget what the hell they were fighting about in the first place.
21. Quiet
It's unusually quiet in CID today, and Gene should be enjoying his uncontested mastery over his domain; he would be, too, if he didn't know that Sam's late, and hasn't called in, and he knows perfectly well that that means nothing but trouble.
22. Quirks
He's ignored the warning signs, trusted Sam when he probably shouldn't have, overlooked a lot of odd behavior because it was "just Sam", and it hurts like hell to find out that it was a masquerade all along.
23. Question
He's bewildered, lost, terrified; he has no theories left, no ideas anymore, and in the confusion as everything goes black he only has time to wonder the reverse of the question he asked before: If this isn't real, then what happens to Gene now?
24. Quarrel
Sam's forgotten, if he ever realized, how nothing is straightforward here; it's all, "Yes, but we have to consider the ramifications," and "Sam, I'm not sure if this is really the wisest course of action," and he never thought he'd be wishing that somebody would just throw a punch and settle the argument already.
25. Quitting
It's too hard, waking up every day, trying to remember when he is now, not knowing whether he's crazy or not, deciding which reality to live in; it's ridiculous, because when you have to talk yourself into believing that you're alive, then clearly you're not.
26. Jump
He does.
27. Jester
For once, Sam is thankful for Chris' inability to take anything seriously for too long, because as soon as it's clear that no one is badly hurt, it's Chris who cheerfully monopolizes the conversation at the hospital, obliviously filling in the painful silence of the others.
28. Jousting
It's not dancing anymore, it's flat-out fighting, and not even fighting fair at that--Gene obviously wondering if he can ever trust Sam again, and Sam unable to defend himself, knowing that any explanation he gives will only make things worse.
29. Jewel
It's been years since Sam's mum hauled him along to the occasional church service, but he remembers hearing the story about the man who found a "pearl of great price" in a field; the man sold everything he had in order to buy the field, and Sam wonders if the man ever looked back at what he'd given up and questioned if he'd made the right decision.
30. Just
It takes a while, but Sam forgot to account for one thing about Gene--that for the sake of his men, and for demonstrated loyalty, Gene will overlook a hell of a lot; in fact, he's much more fair than Sam could imagine himself being, in the same situation, and that makes Sam work even harder to prove himself.
31. Smirk
The first time, after Morgan, that Sam tilts his head and gives his "I'm-so-clever" smirk, Gene realizes two things: that he's completely forgiven Sam for whatever the hell it was that happened; and that he's still in way over his head, where Sam is concerned.
32. Sorrow
"You know, we're all sorry about things we've done, but I wonder sometimes if we don't regret the things we didn't do even more, 'cos we should have--done them, I mean--there's stuff that I wish I'd done, or wish I was brave enough to do only you'd probably kill me...and now I think I'm sorry I had those last couple of drinks."
33. Stupidity
He's known for a long time that he's capable of doing some incredibly dumb things, but this--manhandling his DI up against an alley wall--this tops them all, and he thinks for a moment that said DI gasping out "Not here, wait--my place," is even dumber, but when he does wait, he knows that that's the stupidest thing of all, because now it's not something he can pass off as a drunken fumble; now it's pre-meditated.
34. Serenade
*Insert the love song of your choice here, keeping in mind that it will no doubt be wildly inappropriate both for the characters and to the scene which is actually occurring--Jace Everett's "Bad Things" might work, though*
35. Sarcasm
It seems that "What the hell just happened here?" was mostly a rhetorical question, and even if it weren't, the correct answer probably wasn't "I tripped, and my mouth landed on your cock," but as Gene's response is both short and--in Sam's opinion--to the point, neither one of them cares much.
36. Sordid
Gene knows there are people who'd say that what they did was sick, perverted, sordid, but he knows it wasn't--he knows that "sick" is the feeling in the pit of his stomach, and "perverted" is the scumbag he's currently beating the shit out of, and "sordid" is Sam lying motionless and bleeding in this filthy, stinking alley.
37. Soliloquy
"Listen, Sam, we tried to call your next-of-kin but your paperwork's a mess and we can't read the number, and Cartwright didn't want you left alone, so I'm here--just until you wake up, mind, 'cos I've got better things to do than babysit some damn-fool DI who doesn't even have enough sense to duck when some nutcase is swinging a cricket bat about with intent to cause grievous bodily harm."
38. Sojourn
Gene's stay at the hospital is short enough to not attract any untoward attention, but long enough for him to convince himself that this is an incredibly bad idea, that he can't let himself be distracted like this, that this is wrong for both him and Sam; and when Sam finally wakes up, he leaves, as he'd said he would.
39. Share
He argues over the cases with Annie, yells at Chris a bit, and takes Ray to the pub, but none of it's the same, and he can't even pretend that it is.
40. Solitary
Sam's off work for a few days, doctor's orders, and he doesn't feel well enough to go anywhere anyway, so he lies on his crappy bed and tries not to look at his crappy wallpaper, and wonders why Gene doesn't drop by (break in) after work.
41. Nowhere
Maybe the concussion is what's making him feel so distant and apart from everything, and maybe as he heals he'll remember which world he belongs to; at least that's what he has to believe, because right now he's not sure he fits anywhere.
42. Neutral
Sam's back at work, finally, exhibiting no signs of damage beyond the usual, except that he's a little quieter than normal, a little less inclined to fight back, more likely to do what he's told without argument; and he stays out of Gene's personal space completely, and Gene hates all of it.
43. Nuance
"He was there the whole time in the hospital, Sam--I mean, we all visited but he never left--that crack on the head, we thought for a bit there that we might lose you, and I think it really scared him, but of course he'll never say so."
44. Near
Jacobs is shooting at them, and their cover is completely inadequate and they haven't got guns and back-up may or may not be on the way, depending on whether or not Ray understood what Gene was yelling at him over the radio before it fizzled out completely, but Gene can barely keep from smiling because they're squeezed so tightly together that he can feel Sam's heartbeat, and it's racing and Sam is alive and right there, with him.
45. Natural
"If you'd just listened to me in the first place he never would have got the drop on us, and I don't know what your problem is, but if you don't stop swanning around pretending that you know better than everybody else--what the hell are you grinning about?"
46. Horizon
In the city there's no view, there's only the next block of flats, the next brick building and line of washing, the next dark alley and crime being committed, and Sam longs sometimes for things to be clear; to be able to see all the way to the horizon for once, to be able to see what's coming.
47. Valiant
He's tried to do the right thing, tried to fight this off for both their sakes, but he's tired of fighting and Sam didn't seem very appreciative anyway; so maybe he's been looking at it wrong, and maybe he should be trying to find something to fight for, instead of against.
48. Virtuous
It's odd, when he stops to think, that he considers himself to be a virtuous person, more or less, because the two best-known virtues are patience and chastity, and he's never been very patient and he sure as hell isn't planning on chastity anytime soon, not with the way that Gene's looking at him over their drinks--and Christ, those aren't even bedroom eyes, those are right-here-on-the-table eyes, and maybe both of them leaving right now would be a really good idea, to preserve any tiny scraps of virtue he might have left.
49. Victory
Whatever game they've been playing--since they met, almost--if this is the outcome, with both of them sweating and holding on tightly enough to leave bruises and neither one of them capable of speech right at that moment, then Sam knows it doesn't matter who's playing which side, because they're both winning.
50. Defeat
He's lost the fight, totally and completely, but as Sam goes boneless against him and his labored breathing smoothes out into sleep, Gene's last thought is that sometimes losing is a lot more fun.
Title: Mosaic
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: End of LoM
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Gene
Word Count: 2600-ish
Summary: Bits and pieces of a relationship
Notes: I'm not a member of 1sentenceorder, but I did steal the idea and one of their prompt tables. The idea is to take your pairing of choice, use the fifty prompts provided, and write one sentence on each of the words. The word itself can be included in the sentence or not. The one-sentence format lends itself to wanton abuse of commas, semi-colons, and dashes, for which I apologize in advance. *g* All feedback welcome!
1. Walking
He says that if he walks long enough, his mind will have to stop making things up, but that's a rationalization--a fiction that hides the fact that all he really wants to do is run, and hide from whatever this madness is, forever.
2. Waltz
His new DI won't shut up, won't back down, and they go back and forth, shouting and yelling, pushing and shoving, hitting and blocking; it's a bizarre, twisted kind of dance, and Gene discovers that he doesn't actually mind it, but he's damn sure that he'll be the one leading.
3. Wishes
Genies are supposed to grant three wishes, Sam knows, and when he's drunk enough he considers asking: "I want to go home", and "No, really, right now, I mean it", and only as an afterthought, or when he's very drunk, "Please, help me."
4. Wonder
He has to wonder why his subconscious has brought him here, to this place; he passes the time coming up with ever more desperate theories, or attempting to modernize the department, and he tries not to think about which is the more futile pursuit.
5. Worry
Gene's starting to think that his DI really has lost his mind, and wondering what the hell he's supposed to do about it, and thinking that overall, it was much easier when he thought that Sam was just trying to take his job.
6. Whimsy
"Down the rabbit hole", he thinks, and "Through the looking glass" and "Into the wardrobe" and "Over the rainbow", and sometimes he catches himself wondering who the wizard is.
7. Waste/Wasteland
Sometimes, when Sam gets that certain lost look and wanders out of the pub without saying anything, Gene slips his coat on as well, following him quietly to the waste ground where the report says Sam had his RTA--the one that Sam claims he can't remember--and he watches from the shadows as Sam just stands there, alone, in the middle of nowhere.
8. Whiskey and rum
Gene doesn't ever need to glance at his watch at the pub; he knows it's time to roll out and go home whenever he slides another whiskey across to Sam and Sam slurs, "But WHY is the rum gone?" and starts giggling uncontrollably.
9. War
Every morning, Gene sweeps a careless hand over Sam's desk on his way in; and every morning, he watches Sam walk in later, roll his eyes, and carefully rearrange the pencils, straighten the stacks of paper, and line up the folders neatly along the edge of the desk.
10. Weddings
"It's my damn car, Gladys, I'll smoke in it if I want, and you can stop nagging me about what I eat, too, 'cos the last time I checked we weren't married!"
11. Birthday
Apparently the Missus is away again--it's been happening more and more often lately--because Gene hauls Sam out for a quiet meal after work; Sam spends the whole time lecturing him about the proper way to search a crime scene, and it's only a couple of weeks later that he realizes the significance of the date.
12. Blessing
Gene fights for justice as hard as Sam ever has, albeit in different ways, and he's funny in horribly politically incorrect ways, and he's tough but kind-hearted underneath (way down deep underneath) and very, very physical, and all in all it's a good thing, Sam decides, that certain things are frowned on in this time, because otherwise he thinks he might wind up hitting on his superior officer, and that would be a really bad idea in any time.
13. Bias
So, all right, he turns a blind eye to Sam's crazier ramblings, and okay, he reluctantly checks out even Sam's wildest theories, and maybe he puts up with levels of insubordination from Sam that nobody else would even dare to attempt--it doesn't mean anything.
14. Burning
It's damned hot in this car, and Sam is sweltering, and his shirt--the jacket was discarded long ago--is sticking to him; he glances over at Gene, but Gene is staring out the window at the warehouse, as if he doesn't even notice the heat, so Sam stays quiet.
15. Breathing
They're on a stakeout, and nothing at all has happened in hours, and they've exhausted the conversation for the moment and are sitting in silence--and Gene can pinpoint the moment when he knows he's in trouble, because he can hear Sam breathing, and something about the sound is so right.
16. Breaking
"You can't make omelets without breaking eggs", he's heard that all his life; he doesn't know what Sam's trying to make, but he's breaking a lot more than eggs, and Gene only hopes that one of them will be able to put things back together when he's done.
17. Belief
Sam's never sure what's real and what's in his imagination; he knows Ray hates him and Chris is puzzled by him and Annie thinks he's crazy and he can't quite bring himself to care (mostly), seeing as they're only figments of his imagination anyway (probably), and the only thing in this crazy place he can really believe in (sometimes) is justice.
18. Balloon
He wants to make a comparison to feeling like a balloon--stretched out, stressed to the point of exploding--but he hears Gene's voice in his head: "What, full of hot air?" and the existential angst dissipates somewhat.
19. Balcony
Balconies, Gene knows, are for leaning on, meditatively, maybe with a cigarette in hand for added relaxation--they are not, firm emphasis on not, for dangling from while being shot at, with Sam yelling from below, "Come on, let go, I've got you!"--and the scary thing is, Gene believes him.
20. Bane
If he didn't know better, Gene would swear that Sam has shown up out of nowhere with no other purpose in life than to get under Gene's skin--to argue with him, yell at him, hit back when Gene pushes him, smirk obnoxiously when he's proved right; to smile, far too rarely, and make Gene forget what the hell they were fighting about in the first place.
21. Quiet
It's unusually quiet in CID today, and Gene should be enjoying his uncontested mastery over his domain; he would be, too, if he didn't know that Sam's late, and hasn't called in, and he knows perfectly well that that means nothing but trouble.
22. Quirks
He's ignored the warning signs, trusted Sam when he probably shouldn't have, overlooked a lot of odd behavior because it was "just Sam", and it hurts like hell to find out that it was a masquerade all along.
23. Question
He's bewildered, lost, terrified; he has no theories left, no ideas anymore, and in the confusion as everything goes black he only has time to wonder the reverse of the question he asked before: If this isn't real, then what happens to Gene now?
24. Quarrel
Sam's forgotten, if he ever realized, how nothing is straightforward here; it's all, "Yes, but we have to consider the ramifications," and "Sam, I'm not sure if this is really the wisest course of action," and he never thought he'd be wishing that somebody would just throw a punch and settle the argument already.
25. Quitting
It's too hard, waking up every day, trying to remember when he is now, not knowing whether he's crazy or not, deciding which reality to live in; it's ridiculous, because when you have to talk yourself into believing that you're alive, then clearly you're not.
26. Jump
He does.
27. Jester
For once, Sam is thankful for Chris' inability to take anything seriously for too long, because as soon as it's clear that no one is badly hurt, it's Chris who cheerfully monopolizes the conversation at the hospital, obliviously filling in the painful silence of the others.
28. Jousting
It's not dancing anymore, it's flat-out fighting, and not even fighting fair at that--Gene obviously wondering if he can ever trust Sam again, and Sam unable to defend himself, knowing that any explanation he gives will only make things worse.
29. Jewel
It's been years since Sam's mum hauled him along to the occasional church service, but he remembers hearing the story about the man who found a "pearl of great price" in a field; the man sold everything he had in order to buy the field, and Sam wonders if the man ever looked back at what he'd given up and questioned if he'd made the right decision.
30. Just
It takes a while, but Sam forgot to account for one thing about Gene--that for the sake of his men, and for demonstrated loyalty, Gene will overlook a hell of a lot; in fact, he's much more fair than Sam could imagine himself being, in the same situation, and that makes Sam work even harder to prove himself.
31. Smirk
The first time, after Morgan, that Sam tilts his head and gives his "I'm-so-clever" smirk, Gene realizes two things: that he's completely forgiven Sam for whatever the hell it was that happened; and that he's still in way over his head, where Sam is concerned.
32. Sorrow
"You know, we're all sorry about things we've done, but I wonder sometimes if we don't regret the things we didn't do even more, 'cos we should have--done them, I mean--there's stuff that I wish I'd done, or wish I was brave enough to do only you'd probably kill me...and now I think I'm sorry I had those last couple of drinks."
33. Stupidity
He's known for a long time that he's capable of doing some incredibly dumb things, but this--manhandling his DI up against an alley wall--this tops them all, and he thinks for a moment that said DI gasping out "Not here, wait--my place," is even dumber, but when he does wait, he knows that that's the stupidest thing of all, because now it's not something he can pass off as a drunken fumble; now it's pre-meditated.
34. Serenade
*Insert the love song of your choice here, keeping in mind that it will no doubt be wildly inappropriate both for the characters and to the scene which is actually occurring--Jace Everett's "Bad Things" might work, though*
35. Sarcasm
It seems that "What the hell just happened here?" was mostly a rhetorical question, and even if it weren't, the correct answer probably wasn't "I tripped, and my mouth landed on your cock," but as Gene's response is both short and--in Sam's opinion--to the point, neither one of them cares much.
36. Sordid
Gene knows there are people who'd say that what they did was sick, perverted, sordid, but he knows it wasn't--he knows that "sick" is the feeling in the pit of his stomach, and "perverted" is the scumbag he's currently beating the shit out of, and "sordid" is Sam lying motionless and bleeding in this filthy, stinking alley.
37. Soliloquy
"Listen, Sam, we tried to call your next-of-kin but your paperwork's a mess and we can't read the number, and Cartwright didn't want you left alone, so I'm here--just until you wake up, mind, 'cos I've got better things to do than babysit some damn-fool DI who doesn't even have enough sense to duck when some nutcase is swinging a cricket bat about with intent to cause grievous bodily harm."
38. Sojourn
Gene's stay at the hospital is short enough to not attract any untoward attention, but long enough for him to convince himself that this is an incredibly bad idea, that he can't let himself be distracted like this, that this is wrong for both him and Sam; and when Sam finally wakes up, he leaves, as he'd said he would.
39. Share
He argues over the cases with Annie, yells at Chris a bit, and takes Ray to the pub, but none of it's the same, and he can't even pretend that it is.
40. Solitary
Sam's off work for a few days, doctor's orders, and he doesn't feel well enough to go anywhere anyway, so he lies on his crappy bed and tries not to look at his crappy wallpaper, and wonders why Gene doesn't drop by (break in) after work.
41. Nowhere
Maybe the concussion is what's making him feel so distant and apart from everything, and maybe as he heals he'll remember which world he belongs to; at least that's what he has to believe, because right now he's not sure he fits anywhere.
42. Neutral
Sam's back at work, finally, exhibiting no signs of damage beyond the usual, except that he's a little quieter than normal, a little less inclined to fight back, more likely to do what he's told without argument; and he stays out of Gene's personal space completely, and Gene hates all of it.
43. Nuance
"He was there the whole time in the hospital, Sam--I mean, we all visited but he never left--that crack on the head, we thought for a bit there that we might lose you, and I think it really scared him, but of course he'll never say so."
44. Near
Jacobs is shooting at them, and their cover is completely inadequate and they haven't got guns and back-up may or may not be on the way, depending on whether or not Ray understood what Gene was yelling at him over the radio before it fizzled out completely, but Gene can barely keep from smiling because they're squeezed so tightly together that he can feel Sam's heartbeat, and it's racing and Sam is alive and right there, with him.
45. Natural
"If you'd just listened to me in the first place he never would have got the drop on us, and I don't know what your problem is, but if you don't stop swanning around pretending that you know better than everybody else--what the hell are you grinning about?"
46. Horizon
In the city there's no view, there's only the next block of flats, the next brick building and line of washing, the next dark alley and crime being committed, and Sam longs sometimes for things to be clear; to be able to see all the way to the horizon for once, to be able to see what's coming.
47. Valiant
He's tried to do the right thing, tried to fight this off for both their sakes, but he's tired of fighting and Sam didn't seem very appreciative anyway; so maybe he's been looking at it wrong, and maybe he should be trying to find something to fight for, instead of against.
48. Virtuous
It's odd, when he stops to think, that he considers himself to be a virtuous person, more or less, because the two best-known virtues are patience and chastity, and he's never been very patient and he sure as hell isn't planning on chastity anytime soon, not with the way that Gene's looking at him over their drinks--and Christ, those aren't even bedroom eyes, those are right-here-on-the-table eyes, and maybe both of them leaving right now would be a really good idea, to preserve any tiny scraps of virtue he might have left.
49. Victory
Whatever game they've been playing--since they met, almost--if this is the outcome, with both of them sweating and holding on tightly enough to leave bruises and neither one of them capable of speech right at that moment, then Sam knows it doesn't matter who's playing which side, because they're both winning.
50. Defeat
He's lost the fight, totally and completely, but as Sam goes boneless against him and his labored breathing smoothes out into sleep, Gene's last thought is that sometimes losing is a lot more fun.