Fic: UNNATURAL, Sam/Gene, Brown Cortina (my first slashfic)
OK, so this is literally the first time I’ve ever written any kind of slash whatsoever. (Apart from a forehead kiss, but that didn’t count. I was about thirteen.) So I am hugely nervous about posting this anywhere, especially here, because there are so many incredible writers and artists whose talent far surpasses mine. But if I don’t get it out there, I’m never going to know if I’m any good or not- so please, just leave a comment telling me whether you liked it or not, that’s all I ask. Danke. (Or thank you if you don’t know German.)
A/N: This would have been posted a little while ago, but due to a lovely Trojan virus (thank you older brother for downloading infected games…) and a seriously ill grandmother on the Continent I’ve been delayed somewhat. So be nice, because I have no parents at the moment and no computer games either. And I’ve lost my many bookmarks of LOM fics and such. I spent years on that.
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Gene knew he’d be going to hell for this.
As a boy, he’d solemnly watched the Public Information films broadcast on the pockmarked screen of the local cinema, his mother’s eagle eye trained on the back of his head, a surely-too-posh-to-be-real voice proclaiming the homosexual to be ‘disease-ridden’, ‘unnatural’, ‘unwanted in civil British society’. His little brother Stu had always been wide-eyed, giggling at anything vaguely funny or amusing to a six-year-old and hissing any ‘adult’ words said in Gene’s ear, but Gene had let his eyes grow used to the glare of the screen in the dark cinema and daydreamed until it was over and the newsreel came up instead, hopefully with some aeroplanes so he could pretend he was flying them. He got the message. Homosexuals were bad and he should never approach one, especially without Mam there. Mam didn’t need to tell him for the forty-fifth time, he’d rather be out playing with his friends.
Dad had always used it as an insult. Or rather, many of his insults. Fairy, poof, fudge-packer, uphill gardener, fruit-picker, sodomite, bum-chum, nancy-arse, all of it would come out in one long colourful stream and leave any nearby women blushing or cursing right back at him for his language. Mam had always told him to ignore it, but Gene could always remember sitting there and listening to the tirade of abuse directed at whoever had been unlucky enough to piss Dad off this time, silently exulting at how powerful he seemed, how vital and strong. Like a dad should be.
He never thought that again after Stu’s seventh birthday, and the rushed trip to the new NHS hospital for the letter-opener in his arm to be removed. Dad was too powerful. Much too powerful.
As a teenager, he’d learnt more, blushing furiously at his mate Billy’s description of what a ‘nancy’ did as they bounced a ball off the roof of someone’s garden shed and wolf-whistled at Valerie Morton showing her new sundress off to her friends. Billy spared no expense as they wandered down street after cobbled street, glancing round furtively as though disclosing war secrets from MI5, telling Gene in hushed whispers everything he’d got from his cousin’s friend’s uncle, who’d apparently had a friend who knew someone who knew a pair of blokes who, unnaturally, liked to shag each other rather than women.
“It’s two blokes. Instead of a bloke an’ a woman. They get naked together, an’ one of the men ‘as to put, like, slippery stuff on ‘is willy. So it doesn’t get stuck. ‘Cos of where they put it. They stick it up yer… up yer arsehole. Honest ter God. That’s what they do.”
“Why?” Gene, at the tender age of thirteen, was more than a little shocked, forgetting to catch the ball Billy bounced back at him as they rounded the corner to Billy’s uncle’s house; Billy, eyes shining at Gene running after the ball, shook his head, the corners of his mouth pointing sternly downwards.
“They enjoy it, Gene. You reckon you’d enjoy it? If someone shoved their John Thomas up yer arse?”
“No. Would ‘urt,” Gene muttered, returning to Billy’s side, both hands clutching the ball as though it were the Crown Jewels. Billy nodded sagely.
“Exactly. Tom’s mate’s uncle said that too. But they like the pain, too. Like-” Billy dropped his voice, beckoning Gene closer and leaning in conspiratorially until Gene thought he would be sharing Government secrets rather than idle gossip. “Like masochists. That’s ‘ow they get off. They ‘urt each other an’ then they- they climax.”
“Eurgh.” Gene shuddered, giving the ball an extra-hard bounce and grabbing it as it catapulted up past his nose. “Shouldn’t ‘urt people unless they’ve done somethin’ wrong.”
“Yeah, but you think that ‘cos yer normal, you like things the natural way. Like, if Valerie Morton took all ‘er clothes off in front of you, what would yer John Thomas do? Stand up?”
Gene, face red enough to signal ships off the coast, jerked his head down.
“Yeah, that’s normal. If a bloke did it, you’d run. But these masochists and ‘omosexuals, they’d stay an’ shag ‘em. ‘Cos they’re not natural. An’ you remember not ter do it, ‘cos the police’ll find out an’ they’ll lock yer up. To protect everyone else.”
That had been the end of Billy’s information on homosexuals, and somewhat confused explanation of masochism, but Gene had remembered it all through childhood, all through National Service (blown up by some bastard he never saw coming in Palestine and sent home after three weeks), and through into his early adulthood.
They’d covered it in police training, of course. ‘Lewd acts’ and ‘offensive sexuality’, and Gene had sniggered with the rest of them, joked about making sure to keep their backs to the wall when they arrested them, stood proud in the changing rooms as his cock stayed clearly limp when he was presented with the others’ as flesh and blood proof that he was normal, he should therefore be approved of as a proper bloke, not a nancy-arsed fairy. Onto the beat he’d gone still thinking of homosexuals as he had at thirteen, as dirty and a disgrace and fit only to be locked up, and had managed to stumble through life very happily labouring under this delusion, content to be one of the lads and straight as a die, convinced that to feel anything else was unnatural, pathetic.
And then.
He didn’t quite know where it had started. The missus clearing off in ’72, maybe. He’d come home from the leaving do of his DI, Morris, only to find his dinner on the table, her half of the wardrobe empty, and a note telling him she was sorry, she didn’t want him to feel bad or inadequate, that it was simply not working out between them and she just wanted him to know that it was nothing he did wrong. She’d gone off with an accountant. Died of cancer six months later. Gene couldn’t quite believe it was karma. He’d been an awful husband, after all.
Couldn’t bring himself to eat the dinner, either. It’d stayed there on the tabletop, dried, gone mouldy, until his mother had come round and thrown it away for him. She’d cleaned his house from top to toe, shoved a broom into his hand for him to sweep whilst she dusted and polished, firmly told him that it didn’t make him a nancy if he did a bit of hard graft once in a while and prodding impatiently at his burgeoning beer gut as though it were proof that he sat on his arse all day doing nothing whilst she worked her fingers to the bone for herself and her country.
It could have been then, sweeping every last inch of dust and dirt off the tiled hallway floor as Mam sang old wartime songs upstairs, rubbing eyes sore from long nights of poring over case files in the dim light of his bedside lamp and little sleep. Pushing his mother away as she pulled him in for a hug, both their hands dusty from the long day’s cleaning, and passing her her handbag from beside the key bowl as she headed out to walk the seven streets home.
Or it could have been after the train tunnel. The day he threw DI Sam Tyler up against a filing cabinet for the millionth time but this time could feel the beginnings of interest stirring in his officer, really saw the look he gave him from beneath his eyelashes, not quite just hate, a hint of attraction, almost sultry. He’d drunk himself half into a coma that night, trying to convince himself it was just a trick, he’d gone without sex for too long, he was getting desperate, that was natural. Natural. Completely.
Only the willing bird he’d picked up the next night hadn’t satisfied anything. She’d enjoyed it, screamed in all the right places, clenched onto him satisfyingly and dragged his orgasm out from him, but something, somewhere, had felt wrong. Like he’d been betraying someone. And he could have sworn, as he shrugged his clothes on and gave her a swift kiss on the mouth farewell, that he could feel DI Tyler’s eyes boring disapprovingly into his back, see his frown in the shadows of the alleyways, hear his tsk of reproach in the static of the radio he turned on to try and rid the house of its empty silence at night.
The next day he’d felt like turning himself in.
Even as he’d made lewd jokes with Carling and Skelton, and boasted about the size of her tits, and hinted at getting a phone call that morning from her as well, he’d felt Sam’s scowl boring into his body from every angle, disapproving, dark. All through the day he’d felt like grabbing Sam, hauling him out, telling him that it had been a one-night stand, nothing, worthless, that it hadn’t meant anything to him. That he’d felt dirty afterwards, wrong, as though he’d been pretending to be something he wasn’t, had closed his eyes to see her naked body once more and felt not a flicker of arousal anywhere in his being. It scared the shit out of him, and the only way he could show his fear was through violence, against suspects, against his dartboard, against Sam.
Sam, who last night had made the first move.
Sam, who had seen right through his little charade about Diana Dors.
Sam, who had dragged him into the alleyway behind the Railway Arms and kissed him senseless, firmly told him that it was legal now, they were two consenting adults, and if he wanted him to stop then he had to say now because Sam wasn’t going to rape him, not if he didn’t want this.
God only knew what had made him dive back in to cover his DI’s burbling lips with another kiss, an incredible kiss, one that had filled him with longing and pleasure and total, total abandon, hardened him and softened him in one. Led him back to Sam’s flat and splayed him out on the bed like a sacrifice, still fully-clothed, gasping for breath, watching Sam undressing in front of him with every single word running through his head on repeat: fairy, poof, fudge-packer, uphill gardener, fruit-picker, sodomite, bum-chum, nancy-arse. His Mam’s voice. You won’t betray me like that, will you, my love? Billy, so long ago now, a lifetime ago: they stick it up yer… up yer arsehole. Honest ter God. That’s what they do.
“Gene?”
“Yeah.” The word burned his mouth. Sam moved forwards, slowly, as though approaching a startled beast, only his boxer shorts left to preserve his dignity.
“We don’t ‘ave to do this. It’s only if you want to.”
“I want to.” I’m scared to.
“There’s nothin’ wrong with this. We’re consenting adults in the privacy of our own ‘ouse. If it’s what we want, nobody can stop us. You know that. An’ nobody else ‘as to know either. We don’t ‘ave to tell a soul, because nobody can stop us, an’ nobody needs to know.”
His hand was warm on Gene’s shoulder, branding him through the camel coat, the layers of clothing beneath. Gene drew in a deep breath.
“What… what d’you… want to do?”
“What, sex?” Sam grinned mischievously at Gene’s blush, hopped off the bed and stripped his boxers off too to reveal his bobbing erection. “Well. Depends ‘ow knackered you are. I’ve done this before, so… I’m guessin’ you ‘aven’t.”
“Course I bloody ‘aven’t! I’m not a pansy, Sam!” Debatable.
Sam just smiled, reaching forwards to slide the coat off Gene’s tensed shoulders, run his fingers along his DCI’s neck, the smooth ridge of his collarbone. “You don’t ‘ave to be. Just ‘ave to be human. Right then… since you’re knackered, an’ your leg’s still sore, I’m the buck, you’re the doe. You’ll find out what that means in a minute.”
Gene could only watch as Sam’s dexterous little fingers slid down to undo his tie, flinging it off somewhere into the dark recesses of the room, then his shirt buttons, slowly, so slowly, one by one. His belt buckle, the leather hissing through polyester and dropping to the floor with a satisfying thud. His flies. Shoes. Socks. Tickling his bare feet, making him squirm in a very un-manly way before Sam’s laughter relaxed him slightly.
And then it was a blur, and his knees were up by his chest, Sam kneeling between them and leaning down to kiss him, rubbing his erection, mouth-fucking him, slow and tender, like Gene had never had it before. Hands everywhere, down the crack of his arse, around his back, sliding into his hair, teasing at his nipples before gliding back to the secret spot between his cheeks no-one but himself had ever touched, ever wanted to touch, pressing against it as he choked on a breath in. Sam shushed him, lapped his nervous babbling up with a kiss, pulled a bottle from the bedside table and drenched his fingers in something cool and slippery before gently, so gently, but firmly and swiftly, sliding his finger into Gene’s-
“Ahh!”
“Told you it was good.”
But it wasn’t. It hurt. It hurt despite the lube Gene could now see smeared over Sam’s hand, his muscles clenching and spasming against the invasion, and he could tell Sam knew because he carefully withdrew and looked straight into Gene’s eyes, mouth slightly open, red from kissing, hair mussed and damp. Only one word to describe him, and Gene hated himself for it: shaggable.
“Gene, it’s OK. Relax. It won’t ‘urt if you relax. I’ve done this before, remember? Relax.”
Only Gene had never done this before. Never done anything like this before. And Sam could tell him to relax until he was blue in the face, but it wouldn’t make any difference, it would still hurt, because it was unnatural and they shouldn’t be doing this and Mam was right all along and-
Ohhh. Oh, that was good. So good, like all his nerve endings were sparking, the warmth within him spreading outwards, his cock twitching and jerking as he moaned despite himself, eyes wide at the sight of Sam’s finger gently twisting within his body. Sam had penetrated to the knuckle, his finger a cool solidity within Gene, anchoring him and pleasuring him as he struggled upright to get a better look and Sam eased him back down, a smile on his face.
“See? Enjoying it now, aren’t you? Knew you would if you gave it a chance. Lie back.”
And though he hated himself for it he did, because the authority in Sam’s voice and the pure pleasure coming from his arse were enough to persuade him to do so, rested his head on the pillow and bit back his moans and gasps as Sam sped up, scissoring within him (when had he put that second finger in?), brushing against something that felt incredible, withdrawing just at the moment that he felt his orgasm building with a speed that made Gene want to scream.
“Ah ah,” Sam laughed, ignoring Gene’s pleas for him to continue, lining himself up, and God that was hot but it made him want to bolt too, was intimidating from this angle, seeing himself exposed like that and all of Sam’s raw power. Sam inched forwards, and it was all Gene could do to stop himself pulling away, force his hips to stay still as the head of Sam’s cock teased at his hole in a way he would never have believed could be anything but painful-
“Sa-am!” Was that really him?
“Shh… God, you’re tight, Gene. Oh wow. Oh wow wow wow wow. Beautiful. Beautiful, Gene. You should see yourself… wish you could. Oh God. Oh wow.”
He was moving now, thrusting in and out, building a steady pace that inflamed and frustrated Gene. His warmth was burning within Gene as one hand carded through his hair, gripped his shoulder, reached down to encase his erection as he gasped and groaned into Sam’s mouth, eyes flickering closed. There was no pain now, not a thing, just the rush and crackle of steadily-building pleasure as Sam’s thrusts grew harder and Gene’s cries louder, Sam eventually crushing his mouth against Gene’s to drown out the sounds as both men trembled with anticipation, so close, nearly there, so nearly there, oh God so close-
Gene’s scream sounded more like a sob, but it was enough to send Sam over the edge with him into Nirvana, his body tumbling into Gene’s as both men collapsed back onto the bed and lay entangled together, Sam still inside his DCI, sweat and spunk cooling on their skin.
It was a long time before Sam dared, or could breathe enough, to speak.
“You alright?”
Gene had never felt so alright in his life. Or so dirty.
“’Op off, Gladys. Me leg’s goin’ numb.”
Laughing, Sam forced his boneless body to slide off Gene’s and onto the mattress beside him, just catching the other man’s shiver as the cold air hit him. Gene was breathing heavily, eyes lightly closed, his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, skin warm and slick as Sam gently brushed a hand over it to stroke his fringe back into place.
“Oh God, Gene. That was… incredible.”
“Maybe for you. I don’t think I’ll ever feel my arse again.”
“Did I hurt you?” Sam sat bolt upright, the blissful grin dropping like a lead weight, eyes wide as he pushed at Gene’s hip to view the sheets beneath; Gene shook his head, gently taking Sam’s hand and sliding it off his arm, reaching over Sam to cover them both with his sheets as Sam looked down into his lover’s eyes and shuddered at the intensity in them.
“You didn’t ‘urt me, Sam. Just strange.” Unnatural.
“Strange? You didn’t seem like a stranger to the concept.” Sam rested his head on Gene’s shoulder, lifting his head briefly to let Gene slot his arm underneath it and cushion his DI’s skull. “Mmn. You’re comfy. Could very easily get used to this. Seriously, Gene: better than being with a woman?”
“Couldn’t say, Sammy. Depends on the tits of the woman in question.” Gene lifted an idle finger to flick Sam’s nipple, grinning at the sharp intake of breath as Sam’s over-sensitised body reacted. “But I prefer lithe. Skinny. Not enough meat for a butcher’s pencil. Think you know someone ‘oo’s got that covered?”
“Might do. Someone ‘oo prefers a big, strong man to cuddle up to them an’ make them feel safe?”
“I do not ‘cuddle’.” The pout that appeared on Gene’s face would have made any seven-year-old proud. “Gene Hunt does not ‘cuddle’.”
“Manly hug?”
“That’s more like it. Now shut up. I’m knackered.”
“Figures you’d be the ‘shag an’ snore’ type,” Sam muttered, but without any real malice as he pulled Gene closer and snuggled further into his body. “You know this won’t change anything in the office? We’ll still fight, we’ll still both believe we’re right, an’ eventually we’ll manage to find the truth an’ put the bad guys away after a couple of punch-ups an’ a few impromptu meetings between my back an’ your filing cabinets.”
“No more of those, Sammy-boy. Don’t want the filing cabinets gettin’ ideas about that arse of yours. Now you sleep, want you up early for Round Two.” Gene rested his head back into the pillows, staring at the ceiling until he was certain that Sam was asleep, only then letting his head fall to watch the man peacefully slumbering in his arms.
All his life, he’d been told that to do this would be unnatural, freakish, wrong. Mam had warned him against it; Dad had branded him it and then punished him for it. His friends had laughed about it, used it as an insult, a failsafe way of alienating the odd, the misfits, the non-conformers. The police force had used it as a way of filling a few more cells, protecting the public from what they saw as a threat, ridiculing and oppressing until no sane homosexual would be within five miles of a police officer without double-locking their doors and pretending to be out.
And then the marriage Mam had shepherded him into had fallen to pieces. His Dad had died with the ghost of his last insult still on his lips, filled with hate and spite and shame. His mates treated their wives in the same way he would treat an old sofa he was trying to get rid of, citing them as a reason to have to leave the pub early, complaining about the drain on their wages, never once saying anything complimentary other than “nice tits on my wife, but you know ‘ow it goes, in time they’ll be as saggy as ‘er mouth”. The police no longer considered it illegal, even if they did disapprove of it, even if he and Sam would be out on their arses if anyone found out. The message bred into him, branded into him, fed to him a thousand times in the hope that he would never question it simply didn’t stand up anymore: if he could feel so good with another man, better than he’d ever done with a woman, why was it so wrong, unnatural, to feel that? Was there something wrong with him, or with Sam, or was it the rest of humanity that was labouring under this falsehood of oppression and disgust, labelling what they just did not understand as offensive and disgusting?
Gene’s eyes drifted down to Sam’s half-open mouth, the smooth lips, the even white teeth, the slight stubble around the chin and upper lip. This man had made him feel more valued and alive and understood than any other person in his life. Made an effort for him, listened to him, sat there with him when everyone else had been bullied away and coaxed his problems out. Nobody else knew about Stu’s death, nobody else ever would, and yet this man had managed to wheedle it out of him just by being him, by being there, by being a listening ear and a friend and an equal. By being Sam.
He dipped his head to kiss Sam’s mouth. Smiled into the kiss.
If this was unnatural, then nature just didn’t matter.