First kiss fic meme results...
emeriin requested Sam/Tony Crane.
"How very kind of you to visit me. I suppose you want me to be grateful?" Tony Crane spat on Sam Tyler's shoes as he moved to sit down on the floor in Tony's cell.
Sam looked apprehensive, but waved the guard away and indicated wordlessly that he'd be fine if the guard wanted to wait outside the door. Which the guard promptly did, since he didn't care much for this cell's inhabitant, who was prone to what was, in the guard's opinion, extreme rudeness.
"Well...I..." Sam started, then stopped, staring at Tony, considering.
"Oh, oh, are you feeling guilty? Is that what this is about? You've come to assuage your conscience? You know, you could have a little class at least. It was a neat little trick you pulled back there, convincing everyone who mattered that I was the crazy one...I actually would have admired it if it hadn't been me you'd used it on," Tony offered a bitter little smirk as he gazed at the ragged remains of what had once been his regularly manicured fingernails.
"Actually, erm, I...I had a question." Sam had decided he wasn't going to give Tony Crane the satisfaction of seeing that he was right, and so scrambled for cover.
"And what would be so important you'd drag yourself down here to see me in person about it? Couldn't you just have asked someone here to ask for you? Or better yet, had my cell wired for surveilling?" Tony looked...bored, almost.
Time was up. Sam had to say whatever had come into his mind. Unfortunately, his mind was most uncooperative.
"I...I just have to know, how do you keep yourself looking so young?" Sam did his best to keep from wincing. He couldn't believe that was what came out of his mouth, either.
Utter boredom flickered away; now only shocked amusement was left on his face as Tony responded.
"Why...how old do you think I am?"
"Older than you look, certainly." Sam had realised something while he'd been standing here. The fact was, the Tony Crane he'd helped prevent from the future he'd known by locking him in the funny farm looked exactly the same as the one he'd known in the future he'd prevented. Far off into the future he'd prevented, in fact. It was as though the man hadn't aged a day, and Sam couldn't help but be impressed. "I've got to know your secret. Do you do yoghurt facials or what?" Sam tried his best to be conspiratorial.
Tony started, then laughed uproariously, as though Sam had just told him the funniest joke in world history.
"Do you really want to know? I suppose I can tell you, then. Come here, though...I don't want it getting out, you see." Tony lowered his voice and smiled in a way that seemed very nearly genuine.
Caught off-guard, Sam stepped in a bit closer.
Tony leaned in close to Sam's left ear and whispered "Truth is, I'm a vampire." Then he pulled just far enough away from Sam's face to gauge the shock in his eyes, which compounded exponentially when Tony then leaned in again and planted a sound, full, luscious kiss on Sam's surprisingly mute mouth. And then backed away, staring at Sam and laughing almost hysterically.
Without a word, Sam turned away and knocked crisply on the door, signalling the guard he wanted out, the kiss still burning on his lips as he stalked away.
rionaleonhart requested House/Jeremy Clarkson BECAUSE SHE IS EVIL. >3
"How did it happen?"
"I slipped and fell in my garage."
"With no pants on?" Dr. Gregory House raised an eyebrow in disbelief, in a tone of voice which should have been patented as the world's most effective desiccant.
"It's a bit of a long story, I'm afraid."
At this, House sighed, shoved his Nintendo DS into his pocket, grabbed his cane, and got up from his chair to come examine his patient, a British man who looked to be in his late 40s, and to whom the years had not especially been kind. The man stood to one side of the examining table rather than sitting, and looked as though he'd rather be just about anywhere else---an expression which House shared.
Without warning, House slipped, cane sliding on the tile as he struggled to catch himself and instead connected head-on with his patient, their lips meeting for a brief instant before both shoved violently away from one another as though they were oil and water.
"That can't have been an accident. I'll sue," the patient declared angrily, crossing his arms in adamant disdain.
"Your rectal foreign object can't have been an accident, either. Statistically speaking, my slipping and falling and accidentally kissing each and every one of the patients this clinic has seen fit to fill my afternoon with today is far more likely than the scenario you describe. Now, suppose you tell me what really happened...Mr. Clarkson?" House sat back down, smoothly popping a pill out of his pocket and into his mouth as he did it.
Jeremy Clarkson paled, then turned a livid shade of red. "I checked in under an assumed name! How do you know who I am?!?"
"I'm not an all-work, no-play kind of guy, Jeremy---if I may call you that. I feel like I can call you that, because I feel almost like I know you after watching Top Gear on the Discovery Channel every week. I TIVO it, actually. You're a delightful host." House smirked at Jeremy in typical bright-dark manner.
Now it was Jeremy's turn to sigh. "I suppose you're familiar with my co-hosts, then? Apparently, it was brilliantly decided amongst them that a lark should be had involving myself and a tailpipe expander..."
darthfi requested Gene Hunt/Ruth Tyler.
"I have something I should probably tell you," Suki said, popping her gum a trifle anxiously as Gene pulled up to deposit her kerbside, as unceremoniously as usual.
"If it's another protestation of your innocence, I'll believe that the day a woman becomes prime minister," Gene snorted, tapping his fingers on his steering wheel irritatedly.
"Come now, love, you think I would try to sell that old line? You and me, we know better than that, don't we?" Suki sounded almost...nervous. Gene was alarmed. He'd never seen Suki act anything other than sultry and cheeky. She was never nervous. At least, not that he'd ever seen.
"Is this something I'm not going to like?" Gene's eyes blazed into hers, not letting them stray for a second, not even to blink.
"It's...well...y'see...you're a DCI, right? Well...you've probably figured out by now I'm hardly 'DCI' of my operation, right?" Suki managed to break Gene's gaze and instead was staring directly down at her lap, in which her hands played with each other in no discernible pattern.
"Go on," Gene stayed absolutely still, and apart from saying this, only the sound of the Cortina's engine growling around them could be heard.
"You have to understand, what I'm about to tell you...I'd want protection," Suki's gaze shifted abruptly back up to Gene's, now holding it every bit as intensely as Gene's had been.
******
A few hours later, a rowdy, drunken Gene Hunt staggered up the walk outside a row of unassuming council flats, leaning on Suki to keep from sliding off into the gutter, where gravity would have loved to claim him. As they approached a red door on the left, it quietly swung open and Suki began to steer them toward it.
"I hear you're in need of the best," the small, attractive, birdlike blonde said, casually blowing a ring of smoke into Gene's face from the open doorway.
"I like to aim high," Gene said, winking either drunkenly or exaggeratedly---it was really difficult to tell which.
"I'll just bet. Well, in history, it's an interesting fact---red doors have always been signs of safe havens. I want you to know that whatever goes on here, you're safe with me." At this, she smiled, pulled Gene's face in close to hers, and took her time administering a deep, thoughtful, probing kiss---watching with eyes that were bluer than blue all the while.
Soon after, she pulled both Gene and Suki in and shut the door against the chill of the evening.
dorcas_gustine requested Warren/Sam. Apparently people love the bad guys. XD
"I won't have it." Sam declared angrily, stuffing a roll of crisp, new pound notes into Warren's fist with all the force he could muster.
"Oh, you most certainly will, Mr. Tyler. After all, it isn't as though you've got a choice, is it?" With this, Warren grabbed Sam's hand before he could yank it away, redeposited the roll of pound notes back into it, closed it around the money so it made a fist, turned it over, and very politely bowed and brushed a feather-light kiss across Sam's knuckles. The entire time he did this, his eyes stayed locked on Sam's, completely open and yet showing nothing.
Sam was so shocked he couldn't even pull his hand away. The moment seemed to stretch onward, and onward, until finally Sam asked, "Is this how you treat all your 'men'?"
"Oh no, only the ones I like. And I do like you, Mr. Tyler. Oh yes indeed. Perhaps in another time, in another place, with a change of profession..." Warren trailed off thoughtfully, smiling.
"As it happens, I'd like to think I've become of a bit of an expert in the concept of 'time,' Warren. And I'm pretty certain yours is 'never.'" Still shaken, Sam straightened the collar on his jacket and turned to leave, letting the roll of pound notes drop to the floor as he did so.
"You'd better watch those absolutes, Mr. Tyler. They have a nasty way of ocming back to haunt you; I should know." Warren said, and followed with a very nasty, cold smile.
And finally, m31andy requested Test Card Girl/Top Gear Dog. Because it's possible she's sicker than I am. FTR, I think Sam/Mobile is a perfectly valid OTP. TCG/TGD is worrying. >3
She'd known for some time she wasn't like other girls.
Other girls liked to run, and play, and do all sorts of fun things that they'd forget about moments later, because that was all part of the fun of being small. Fun which she didn't get the chance to have---no, she had far greater concerns weighing on her head than the mere fact of which dolls she'd have a tea party with today and whether the pansies had bloomed yet so she could make a necklace or wear them in her hair.
She sighed, sadly. She did love her clown...but sometimes, she wished he'd talk back. Just so she'd have someone with whom she could share her thoughts. It was nice having a companion who always listened and didn't judge, but it got to be a bit tiring that he was never able to respond, and since she was (as many had remarked before) so mature for her age, she was well aware the clown wasn't really a good listener. He wasn't really a listener at all. He was just a doll.
A dog, though...a dog would have been lovely. She really wished she could meet a nice one. She might even manage to forget herself, if only for a few minutes. It would still be a few more minutes than she'd ever had before, after all.
Suddenly, a beige-ish, friendly dog bounded over to her, jumped up, and started licking her face excitedly. She laughed and playfully tried to bat the dog away; she liked doggy kisses, but usually not on the face. This dog, like many, didn't exactly have the most inviting breath, and it had a way of lingering on one's skin after one had received a tonguebath.
"Hello there, girl! What's your name? Aren't you pretty?" She smiled, petting her new friend vigorously on the head and trying to figure out where she'd come from. The very fluffy dog bounded off ahead of her, then bounded back, then started bounding forward again. It was clear she was trying to lead the girl somewhere.
Because she had nothing better to do at the moment, the girl followed the dog. "Where are we going? Have you got an owner? I bet you have...you're far too nice a dog to be a stray," she said sadly, realising her new friend was not meant to last very long, and that she shouldn't get too attached.
Just ahead, the girl spotted someone lying facedown in the road. It was a rather short man with brown hair, and he appeared to be unconscious. The dog barked once and began pawing at his jacket pocket anxiously.
Seeming to understand, the girl dug into the pocket the dog had indicated and pulled out the man's wallet. "Richard Hammond," she read aloud from the licence inside. "I'd heard you were coming my way."
Actually, I'll still take requests if anyone isn't too terrified by what I've already written to make one. XD
ETA: lozenger8 requested Sam/Mobile OTP4EVAR, and so
More than anything else, Sam remembers the first time he fell truly, madly, head-over-heels in love.
It was 2001, and he was seated in a smallish auditorium in Linz, Austria, where he'd gone on holiday with a girl he'd been seeing called Lauren.
Lauren wasn't in the auditorium; she'd left a couple of days prior, after a particularly regrettable incident involving a lovely new white dress she'd gotten just for their trip and a misplaced slice of sachertorte. Declaring this to be the very last straw, Lauren had disappeared from Linz and indeed from Sam's life very shortly thereafter.
But that was OK. Sam had been looking forward to this event for months. Always a fan of modern technology, especially as regards music, he couldn't believe the advances mobile technology had been making. So when he got the invitation to attend Dialtones: A Telesymphony in Linz, he couldn't help himself. Immediately, he began to make plans. It was a good thing he was such a workaholic; all that accrued vacation time was a very nice thing to have on hand.
So it was that Sam found himself sat in this auditorium, Handspring VisorPhone in hand, waiting for the show to start.
And so it was that Sam found out that all he'd believed about his beloved VisorPhone was a lie.
Sam hadn't known what to expect, but all around him, various phones started playing various bits in a veritable digital symphony.
Instantly, Sam was in love. He wasn't sure what he was listening to, exactly, but he knew he and his VisorPhone were excluded somehow---and he began to understand why he'd been asked, upon registering, what sort of phone he had. All around him, people with sleeker, newer, more advanced phones were playing those phones like finely tuned violins---or rather, the two gentlemen onstage were playing those phones as their owners looked on delightedly. And Sam and his VisorPhone were left completely out of the loop---the poor VisorPhone couldn't do ringtones, you see, apart from the meagre selection of eight with which it had shipped from the factory.
After the performance, in the lobby, he'd asked (in halting, stuttered German) if he could please use someone's phone since he'd forgotten his at home. Instantly, he was surrounded with friendly Linzers proffering sleek new models for this poor, hapless tourist from all sides. Sam was overwhelmed, but instantly in love. The next generation had arrived, and he couldn't wait to go shopping tomorrow.
******
"That's got to be it. At last, I've found the key!" Sam was instantly wide awake in his flat in the Manchester of 1973. When he'd gone to sleep, he'd had no sense of purpose. His memory of that fateful concert in 2001, however, had brought things sharply into focus.
After that fateful trip to Linz in 2001, Sam had begun to do a lot of research on his beloved mobile technology and how it had evolved over time. Eventually, this meant he made the pilgrimage to see where it had all began: Motorola headquarters in Chicago. After much sweet-talking and thickly-plastered charm, Sam managed to view and even hold his own personal holy grail: the Motorola Dynatac 8000x. Quite heavy by today's standards, she nevertheless was beautiful for the sheer potential she represented. When no-one was looking, Sam found himself overcome with sheer joy at holding her in his arms (quite literally; she was rather large and bulky) at last, and he reverently laid a line of short, brief kisses down her length, starting from the tip of her antennae all the way down to her mouthpiece and slightly below. At last, happy and sated (for now), he boarded a plane back to Manchester and his life there.
But now he was stuck in 1973, he realised what his mind must have done, and he realised what he needed to do.
He immediately planned out his itinerary for a short holiday in Chicago, wherein he was scheduled for a business luncheon with one Martin Cooper, who Sam had convinced to meet him by persuading him that he was a long-lost relative with a personal interest in technology.
He checked his calendar. Not much time left before that magical date: 3 April 1973. It was a good thing that, however he'd ended up here, he'd somehow ended up in this particular year. None of this would have been possible if, say, he'd ended up just a year prior. He smiled to himself a little as he packed his things and planned to make history.
"How very kind of you to visit me. I suppose you want me to be grateful?" Tony Crane spat on Sam Tyler's shoes as he moved to sit down on the floor in Tony's cell.
Sam looked apprehensive, but waved the guard away and indicated wordlessly that he'd be fine if the guard wanted to wait outside the door. Which the guard promptly did, since he didn't care much for this cell's inhabitant, who was prone to what was, in the guard's opinion, extreme rudeness.
"Well...I..." Sam started, then stopped, staring at Tony, considering.
"Oh, oh, are you feeling guilty? Is that what this is about? You've come to assuage your conscience? You know, you could have a little class at least. It was a neat little trick you pulled back there, convincing everyone who mattered that I was the crazy one...I actually would have admired it if it hadn't been me you'd used it on," Tony offered a bitter little smirk as he gazed at the ragged remains of what had once been his regularly manicured fingernails.
"Actually, erm, I...I had a question." Sam had decided he wasn't going to give Tony Crane the satisfaction of seeing that he was right, and so scrambled for cover.
"And what would be so important you'd drag yourself down here to see me in person about it? Couldn't you just have asked someone here to ask for you? Or better yet, had my cell wired for surveilling?" Tony looked...bored, almost.
Time was up. Sam had to say whatever had come into his mind. Unfortunately, his mind was most uncooperative.
"I...I just have to know, how do you keep yourself looking so young?" Sam did his best to keep from wincing. He couldn't believe that was what came out of his mouth, either.
Utter boredom flickered away; now only shocked amusement was left on his face as Tony responded.
"Why...how old do you think I am?"
"Older than you look, certainly." Sam had realised something while he'd been standing here. The fact was, the Tony Crane he'd helped prevent from the future he'd known by locking him in the funny farm looked exactly the same as the one he'd known in the future he'd prevented. Far off into the future he'd prevented, in fact. It was as though the man hadn't aged a day, and Sam couldn't help but be impressed. "I've got to know your secret. Do you do yoghurt facials or what?" Sam tried his best to be conspiratorial.
Tony started, then laughed uproariously, as though Sam had just told him the funniest joke in world history.
"Do you really want to know? I suppose I can tell you, then. Come here, though...I don't want it getting out, you see." Tony lowered his voice and smiled in a way that seemed very nearly genuine.
Caught off-guard, Sam stepped in a bit closer.
Tony leaned in close to Sam's left ear and whispered "Truth is, I'm a vampire." Then he pulled just far enough away from Sam's face to gauge the shock in his eyes, which compounded exponentially when Tony then leaned in again and planted a sound, full, luscious kiss on Sam's surprisingly mute mouth. And then backed away, staring at Sam and laughing almost hysterically.
Without a word, Sam turned away and knocked crisply on the door, signalling the guard he wanted out, the kiss still burning on his lips as he stalked away.
rionaleonhart requested House/Jeremy Clarkson BECAUSE SHE IS EVIL. >3
"How did it happen?"
"I slipped and fell in my garage."
"With no pants on?" Dr. Gregory House raised an eyebrow in disbelief, in a tone of voice which should have been patented as the world's most effective desiccant.
"It's a bit of a long story, I'm afraid."
At this, House sighed, shoved his Nintendo DS into his pocket, grabbed his cane, and got up from his chair to come examine his patient, a British man who looked to be in his late 40s, and to whom the years had not especially been kind. The man stood to one side of the examining table rather than sitting, and looked as though he'd rather be just about anywhere else---an expression which House shared.
Without warning, House slipped, cane sliding on the tile as he struggled to catch himself and instead connected head-on with his patient, their lips meeting for a brief instant before both shoved violently away from one another as though they were oil and water.
"That can't have been an accident. I'll sue," the patient declared angrily, crossing his arms in adamant disdain.
"Your rectal foreign object can't have been an accident, either. Statistically speaking, my slipping and falling and accidentally kissing each and every one of the patients this clinic has seen fit to fill my afternoon with today is far more likely than the scenario you describe. Now, suppose you tell me what really happened...Mr. Clarkson?" House sat back down, smoothly popping a pill out of his pocket and into his mouth as he did it.
Jeremy Clarkson paled, then turned a livid shade of red. "I checked in under an assumed name! How do you know who I am?!?"
"I'm not an all-work, no-play kind of guy, Jeremy---if I may call you that. I feel like I can call you that, because I feel almost like I know you after watching Top Gear on the Discovery Channel every week. I TIVO it, actually. You're a delightful host." House smirked at Jeremy in typical bright-dark manner.
Now it was Jeremy's turn to sigh. "I suppose you're familiar with my co-hosts, then? Apparently, it was brilliantly decided amongst them that a lark should be had involving myself and a tailpipe expander..."
darthfi requested Gene Hunt/Ruth Tyler.
"I have something I should probably tell you," Suki said, popping her gum a trifle anxiously as Gene pulled up to deposit her kerbside, as unceremoniously as usual.
"If it's another protestation of your innocence, I'll believe that the day a woman becomes prime minister," Gene snorted, tapping his fingers on his steering wheel irritatedly.
"Come now, love, you think I would try to sell that old line? You and me, we know better than that, don't we?" Suki sounded almost...nervous. Gene was alarmed. He'd never seen Suki act anything other than sultry and cheeky. She was never nervous. At least, not that he'd ever seen.
"Is this something I'm not going to like?" Gene's eyes blazed into hers, not letting them stray for a second, not even to blink.
"It's...well...y'see...you're a DCI, right? Well...you've probably figured out by now I'm hardly 'DCI' of my operation, right?" Suki managed to break Gene's gaze and instead was staring directly down at her lap, in which her hands played with each other in no discernible pattern.
"Go on," Gene stayed absolutely still, and apart from saying this, only the sound of the Cortina's engine growling around them could be heard.
"You have to understand, what I'm about to tell you...I'd want protection," Suki's gaze shifted abruptly back up to Gene's, now holding it every bit as intensely as Gene's had been.
******
A few hours later, a rowdy, drunken Gene Hunt staggered up the walk outside a row of unassuming council flats, leaning on Suki to keep from sliding off into the gutter, where gravity would have loved to claim him. As they approached a red door on the left, it quietly swung open and Suki began to steer them toward it.
"I hear you're in need of the best," the small, attractive, birdlike blonde said, casually blowing a ring of smoke into Gene's face from the open doorway.
"I like to aim high," Gene said, winking either drunkenly or exaggeratedly---it was really difficult to tell which.
"I'll just bet. Well, in history, it's an interesting fact---red doors have always been signs of safe havens. I want you to know that whatever goes on here, you're safe with me." At this, she smiled, pulled Gene's face in close to hers, and took her time administering a deep, thoughtful, probing kiss---watching with eyes that were bluer than blue all the while.
Soon after, she pulled both Gene and Suki in and shut the door against the chill of the evening.
dorcas_gustine requested Warren/Sam. Apparently people love the bad guys. XD
"I won't have it." Sam declared angrily, stuffing a roll of crisp, new pound notes into Warren's fist with all the force he could muster.
"Oh, you most certainly will, Mr. Tyler. After all, it isn't as though you've got a choice, is it?" With this, Warren grabbed Sam's hand before he could yank it away, redeposited the roll of pound notes back into it, closed it around the money so it made a fist, turned it over, and very politely bowed and brushed a feather-light kiss across Sam's knuckles. The entire time he did this, his eyes stayed locked on Sam's, completely open and yet showing nothing.
Sam was so shocked he couldn't even pull his hand away. The moment seemed to stretch onward, and onward, until finally Sam asked, "Is this how you treat all your 'men'?"
"Oh no, only the ones I like. And I do like you, Mr. Tyler. Oh yes indeed. Perhaps in another time, in another place, with a change of profession..." Warren trailed off thoughtfully, smiling.
"As it happens, I'd like to think I've become of a bit of an expert in the concept of 'time,' Warren. And I'm pretty certain yours is 'never.'" Still shaken, Sam straightened the collar on his jacket and turned to leave, letting the roll of pound notes drop to the floor as he did so.
"You'd better watch those absolutes, Mr. Tyler. They have a nasty way of ocming back to haunt you; I should know." Warren said, and followed with a very nasty, cold smile.
And finally, m31andy requested Test Card Girl/Top Gear Dog. Because it's possible she's sicker than I am. FTR, I think Sam/Mobile is a perfectly valid OTP. TCG/TGD is worrying. >3
She'd known for some time she wasn't like other girls.
Other girls liked to run, and play, and do all sorts of fun things that they'd forget about moments later, because that was all part of the fun of being small. Fun which she didn't get the chance to have---no, she had far greater concerns weighing on her head than the mere fact of which dolls she'd have a tea party with today and whether the pansies had bloomed yet so she could make a necklace or wear them in her hair.
She sighed, sadly. She did love her clown...but sometimes, she wished he'd talk back. Just so she'd have someone with whom she could share her thoughts. It was nice having a companion who always listened and didn't judge, but it got to be a bit tiring that he was never able to respond, and since she was (as many had remarked before) so mature for her age, she was well aware the clown wasn't really a good listener. He wasn't really a listener at all. He was just a doll.
A dog, though...a dog would have been lovely. She really wished she could meet a nice one. She might even manage to forget herself, if only for a few minutes. It would still be a few more minutes than she'd ever had before, after all.
Suddenly, a beige-ish, friendly dog bounded over to her, jumped up, and started licking her face excitedly. She laughed and playfully tried to bat the dog away; she liked doggy kisses, but usually not on the face. This dog, like many, didn't exactly have the most inviting breath, and it had a way of lingering on one's skin after one had received a tonguebath.
"Hello there, girl! What's your name? Aren't you pretty?" She smiled, petting her new friend vigorously on the head and trying to figure out where she'd come from. The very fluffy dog bounded off ahead of her, then bounded back, then started bounding forward again. It was clear she was trying to lead the girl somewhere.
Because she had nothing better to do at the moment, the girl followed the dog. "Where are we going? Have you got an owner? I bet you have...you're far too nice a dog to be a stray," she said sadly, realising her new friend was not meant to last very long, and that she shouldn't get too attached.
Just ahead, the girl spotted someone lying facedown in the road. It was a rather short man with brown hair, and he appeared to be unconscious. The dog barked once and began pawing at his jacket pocket anxiously.
Seeming to understand, the girl dug into the pocket the dog had indicated and pulled out the man's wallet. "Richard Hammond," she read aloud from the licence inside. "I'd heard you were coming my way."
Actually, I'll still take requests if anyone isn't too terrified by what I've already written to make one. XD
ETA: lozenger8 requested Sam/Mobile OTP4EVAR, and so
More than anything else, Sam remembers the first time he fell truly, madly, head-over-heels in love.
It was 2001, and he was seated in a smallish auditorium in Linz, Austria, where he'd gone on holiday with a girl he'd been seeing called Lauren.
Lauren wasn't in the auditorium; she'd left a couple of days prior, after a particularly regrettable incident involving a lovely new white dress she'd gotten just for their trip and a misplaced slice of sachertorte. Declaring this to be the very last straw, Lauren had disappeared from Linz and indeed from Sam's life very shortly thereafter.
But that was OK. Sam had been looking forward to this event for months. Always a fan of modern technology, especially as regards music, he couldn't believe the advances mobile technology had been making. So when he got the invitation to attend Dialtones: A Telesymphony in Linz, he couldn't help himself. Immediately, he began to make plans. It was a good thing he was such a workaholic; all that accrued vacation time was a very nice thing to have on hand.
So it was that Sam found himself sat in this auditorium, Handspring VisorPhone in hand, waiting for the show to start.
And so it was that Sam found out that all he'd believed about his beloved VisorPhone was a lie.
Sam hadn't known what to expect, but all around him, various phones started playing various bits in a veritable digital symphony.
Instantly, Sam was in love. He wasn't sure what he was listening to, exactly, but he knew he and his VisorPhone were excluded somehow---and he began to understand why he'd been asked, upon registering, what sort of phone he had. All around him, people with sleeker, newer, more advanced phones were playing those phones like finely tuned violins---or rather, the two gentlemen onstage were playing those phones as their owners looked on delightedly. And Sam and his VisorPhone were left completely out of the loop---the poor VisorPhone couldn't do ringtones, you see, apart from the meagre selection of eight with which it had shipped from the factory.
After the performance, in the lobby, he'd asked (in halting, stuttered German) if he could please use someone's phone since he'd forgotten his at home. Instantly, he was surrounded with friendly Linzers proffering sleek new models for this poor, hapless tourist from all sides. Sam was overwhelmed, but instantly in love. The next generation had arrived, and he couldn't wait to go shopping tomorrow.
******
"That's got to be it. At last, I've found the key!" Sam was instantly wide awake in his flat in the Manchester of 1973. When he'd gone to sleep, he'd had no sense of purpose. His memory of that fateful concert in 2001, however, had brought things sharply into focus.
After that fateful trip to Linz in 2001, Sam had begun to do a lot of research on his beloved mobile technology and how it had evolved over time. Eventually, this meant he made the pilgrimage to see where it had all began: Motorola headquarters in Chicago. After much sweet-talking and thickly-plastered charm, Sam managed to view and even hold his own personal holy grail: the Motorola Dynatac 8000x. Quite heavy by today's standards, she nevertheless was beautiful for the sheer potential she represented. When no-one was looking, Sam found himself overcome with sheer joy at holding her in his arms (quite literally; she was rather large and bulky) at last, and he reverently laid a line of short, brief kisses down her length, starting from the tip of her antennae all the way down to her mouthpiece and slightly below. At last, happy and sated (for now), he boarded a plane back to Manchester and his life there.
But now he was stuck in 1973, he realised what his mind must have done, and he realised what he needed to do.
He immediately planned out his itinerary for a short holiday in Chicago, wherein he was scheduled for a business luncheon with one Martin Cooper, who Sam had convinced to meet him by persuading him that he was a long-lost relative with a personal interest in technology.
He checked his calendar. Not much time left before that magical date: 3 April 1973. It was a good thing that, however he'd ended up here, he'd somehow ended up in this particular year. None of this would have been possible if, say, he'd ended up just a year prior. He smiled to himself a little as he packed his things and planned to make history.