the whole thing... part one
Better late than never...
Sam/Gene Sam/OMC
Not mine, no profit taken.
Dark, NC17. Split into 2 as it's too long for one post...
Boxes
Kitty Fisher
Not mine, no profit.
Archive: www.devinemadness.com/kittyfisher
:::
1. Wardrobe
The first thing he understood was the smell of mothballs; sharp and sickly as memory. His gran’s wardrobe the day he’d accidentally locked himself inside, had smelled like this. He’d been seven years old and it had taken years before he’d been anything other than afraid of small spaces.
Spaces like this one. Bent double, one knee rammed under his chin, his joints aching from constriction; he felt akin to a broken toy rammed haphazardly into a box. Stirring, shifting one inch at a time, he tried to straighten his legs, and came up against something soft. Frowning, he tried again, one arm feeling into nothingness, and succeeded in knocking his funny bone so hard his eyes watered.
He tried for even breathing. Managed it. Wiped his eyes and reached again. To realise that not all the limbs he could feel were his own.
Locked in a box with someone else. Stirring the jelly that purported to be his brain, he tried to remember. There had been a car accident. No, not in a car. With a car. Hit and run, his face slammed into tarmac, his body smashed. But this wasn’t a hospital. This was… what? He reached again, brushing past cloth to a hard surface. Wood. Unvarnished wood that was rough under his fingertips.
Not a hospital. Not of any kind - even in 1973 psychiatric wards hadn’t had wooden walls.
1973. The thought brought him up short. Why should he think that…
With a twist that knotted his gut he remembered. And wondered if sanity was something he had any close relationship with after all.
Place your bets, mesdames et messieurs, today we play time roulette. Will you put your money on the past, or is the future a better bet? Is this real or imaginary? What’s up and what’s down… If a butterfly lies crushed on a forest floor, is Sam Tyler insane, or just temporarily out to lunch?
There was only one absolute -whatever name he decided to give this particular patch of time (past, present, future, hallucination, dream, nightmare), it was stuffed full of villains who didn’t give a monkeys about bashing coppers around. The last thing he could recall was watching Gene Hunt get a kicking to match his own. Then nothing, until now, where he was hunched up, squashed into somewhere dark and airless.
Gene Hunt, who used Avon’s best. Sam breathed in again. The air with thick with the chemical stink of camphor and bad aftershave, all of it overlaying the cloying scent of mildew. The mildew and mothballs were one thing, but the aftershave? It had to be Hunt. Oh, fuck. Sam wiped his fingers over his sweating face, then, leaning forward, fingered the nearest limb that wasn’t his own. Solid muscle. Warmth. Further up he found a pocket, weighted down with a hip flask and a chest that rose and fell.
At least the DCI was still alive.
Somehow the thought allowed his own bruises to throb more viciously. Ignoring them, he shifted, got one foot wedged flat and, with a push, reached upwards - and hit his fingers against metal. A rail. A hanging rail. Yep, it was a wardrobe. Great. Why would anyone knock him out and bung him in a wardrobe for chrissake? And with the less than petite Gene Hunt for company. What was his subconscious up to? Christ, the whole back in the Dark Ages thing was bad enough, but this as well? Maybe he was more into self-punishment than he’d ever believed. Maybe Gene Hunt was his conscience. Which was so ridiculous that he laughed out loud, shocking himself with the sudden rasping sound.
He listened, breathless, sweat clammy on his skin. Nothing happened. No one stirred. Less excitingly he didn’t wake up - neither from a coma in 2006 or from a nightmare in 1973. Bugger it, stuck in a cupboard with his boss - thank you, God. As much as anything it was all too humiliating, he was meant to be better than the pondlife from the past - better trained, more articulate, less Neanderthal... But clearly just as gullible. That Hunt was in this with him was only small recompense.
Fumbling in the dark, he found hinges, door panels and a lock. Pushing against it he heaved, hard. No joy. Though the body he’d ended up accidentally half kneeling on finally shifted.
One hand on the door, he blinked at where the darkness was slightly more dense. “Guv?”
A curse, one of the marginally less obscene from the Hunt repertoire, was followed by thump in the ribs and a mouthful of flailing arm.
“Hey, keep still!”
“What… the fuck…”
“If you could just keep still for a moment…”
“Christ on a crutch, my head hurts! Who slipped me a mickey?”
“Come on, it’s all right.” Trying in some way to reassure, Sam reached out, blindly searching.
“Go on like that chummy and I’ll remove your hand at the bleedin’ wrist.”
“Sorry. Ow! Mind out…” There was a moment of total confusion as, with all the grace of a small man-mountain, the DCI shifted himself. Sam bit down on a few curses of his own as, an elbow colliding with his chin, the darkness sparkled prettily with stars. “Jesus…”
“Sam? You all right?”
“Yeah, just about.”
There was a moment of rustling exploration that was only slightly painful. “Oy, we in a box?”
“No, in a wardrobe.”
“Bloody hell!”
“Yeah, and I’ve already looked for a lamppost.”
“Why? Not many fur coats round here - unless your bum’s got a comfier parking spot than mine.”
Well, well. Unfathomed depths. Or kids. “Didn’t take you for a reader, sir.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t take you for a dickhead, and yet we’re still in this delightful predicament.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” Sam bit the words off. He ought to have known that he’d get the blame. “I wasn’t to know he was a total nutter.”
“No? Well maybe you should’ve listened to me, I’m an expert on nutters.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“You can bloody talk.”
Sam ignored that one. “And besides, they’ve only just moved into the area. How could you know about them?”
“Instinct.”
“Of course, pardon me.”
“I’ll pardon you for anything apart from your foot - the one that’s half up me jacksie.”
“Oh.”
There was a pause for a rearrangement of limbs. A few muttered curses later they were still inextricably close and both of them were panting.
“Great.”
Sam agreed. Bloody great. His head still ached, and sweat was making his shirt cling to his skin. At least he wasn’t wearing his jacket, though he had no memory of removing it. All the aches didn’t help matters, and Gene had to be as badly off. “How’re your bruises?”
“Same as yours I should think.”
“Mmm.” A bony knee was pressing into a corker on his shin. Sam moved an inch and sighed in relief.
“So, mister-they-do-things-differently-in-Hyde, you tried to find the door yet?”
“It’s in front of us.”
“Which way are you facing?” A hand slapped into Sam’s face. “Oops, sorry. Got you.” The hand patted him, quite gently really. “It’s in front of you, yeah?”
“And it’s locked.” Just like when he was a kid. Though he’d been alone then and, remarkably, this was better.
“Maybe they’re saving us for later.”
Great. Sam could hear Hunt almost smacking his lips in relish. He knew a hook when one was dangled for him, but he had to bite: “Later?”
“Gladstone and his brother, I knew them back in ‘C’ Division. The pair of them’re like spiders - they like to hang on to their catch for a while before eating it. Soften it up. Tenderise the flesh unti -”
“Thanks, I get the picture.” He didn’t want to know. Really didn’t. He could feel the edges of his calm starting to erode. Wiping a hand over his face Sam drew his legs up, eliciting a curse from Hunt. “Hang on…”
“Oh, I’m hanging all right, just like a bloody suit. And I hate the smell of mothballs...”
Another shift, and Sam had both legs under him. One was fast asleep and he hissed as the blood started to flow back. Bracing his back, he tried to kick forward, slipped and tumbled sideways.
“Jesus, Sam, you want to watch where you put your hands, mate!”
“Sorry. Wait, I’ll have another try.”
“What, at getting to me todger?”
“No.” Sam took a patient breath. “At kicking the door open.”
“Oh, that. You should’ve said something.”
With a sudden, brief explosion of movement, a thump that half winded him and a crack loud enough to wake the dead, the door slammed open at the insistence of a cream leather casual.
Fresh air was a blessed relief. Gulping it down, Sam tumbled out onto greasy lino. The only light was that from a distant streetlamp, spilling in through a cracked and filthy window. The room was stacked with old furniture, and the two men looked around slowly as they stood up, stretching cramped limbs and listening warily. Neither of them still had their coats, and the DCI’s pale blue shirt was spattered with blood.
Hunt caught him looking and glanced down. “Blimey.” He pulled the shirt away from his chest and made a face. “Is it all mine?”
“Your eyebrow.”
“Oh, thought things were a bit dark.” He put up a hand and rubbed at the blood encrusting one side of his face. “Barry Gladstone always did like using his boots.”
“Yeah, and his brother’s a sweetheart.”
“He, you know, touch you up?”
“Did he what?” Sam wiped sweat from his face. “All I remember him touching me with was his size elevens.”
“Good.”
“What are you talking about?”
Hunt turned, his gaze casting up and down, assessing Sam’s body with a practised eye. “Jack Gladstone likes boys’ arses. Particularly nice ones like yours.”
“Oh.” Sam stared at his boss and for a nano-second debated asking if Hunt really thought his arse was nice. But then he’d never quite got a handle on the 70s male-bonding schtick. What was queer, and what was just lads together? Sometimes he thought he needed a handbook - non-PC speak for the time-traveller. That, along with fashion hints for the time Hugo Boss forgot.
“Come on, let’s find out where we are. I could murder a pint.”
Torn between exasperation and confusion, Sam watched as Hunt opened the door and just walked away. After a moment a head popped back around the doorjamb. “Oy, you staying for Jack - though I wouldn’t get your hopes up, apparently he’s hung like a stoat - or you coming?”
“He was only interested in bashing me about - and how do you know what size a stoat is?”
“Me dad kept ‘em. Tiny. As for Jacky, he’s a complete pervert, and you’re just his type - still alive.”
“Great.” Shaking himself, Sam followed. “Hell, I don’t even look gay.” Not in 2006, anyway. Damn it, but doubt was a terrible thing. “Do I?”
“You look as happy as Larry to me, son. As for being a bender, you just never can tell.” He was at the front door, holding it open to the night. Standing quite still, face like cold suet pudding, he was waiting as Sam caught up with him, until Sam was standing right by him. His eyes were bright with challenge. “Can you?” The look between them held. And then Hunt grinned, feral as a fox. “Mine’s a pint of Boddingtons'. I’ll stand you a Babycham, gorgeous.” And with a wink he pushed past and walked away, leaving Sam Tyler as confused as it was possible for a man to be.
:::
2. Van
Madonna (did she really have a new album out?) was singing about hanging up, which segued weirdly into button pushing with The Sugababes (fuel for fantasies there - Heidi or Mutya, or Heidi and Mutya… with Madonna in leather…) all of it overlain by the beep and click of hospital machinery. He could feel a hand holding his arm, the fingers squeezing…
“Come on, wake up… wake up!”
“Mam?”
“I should bloody well think not. Wakey wakey!”
“Fuck…”
“Couldn’t’ve put it better meself. Rise and shine, sonny.”
It wasn’t a wardrobe. It was the back of a transit. One that stank of old piss.
“Aw, Jesus...”
“Not exactly the Hilton, I’ll give you that. But this time we’ve all mod cons. Drink up.”
Sam muttered miserably under his breath and waved away the metal hipflask. After a long moment he gathered himself and slowly sat up, clutching his head in one hand. Shifting, sitting with his legs curled up he leant back on the cold metal wall and sighed. “At least this one’s not pitch black.” His hand dropped back into his lap.
“Nope.” Hunt took a sip, grimaced, and slowly screwed the cap back on the flask. “Door’s still locked, mind.”
“Great.” Someone had fitted a barrier behind the seats, the only way out was the double doors. “How about a good kick?”
“You already had that.”
“I noticed.”
“Jack likes you.”
“Great. What about you?”
“Oh, I’m too old and too ugly for Jacky. Drunk one too many pints, lost me sylph-like figure.”
“I meant,” Sam ground his teeth, “did you get a going over too?”
“No.” He took in a gusty breath and crossed his legs in front of him. One of his shoes had the beginnings of a hole in the leather sole. “Just a knock on the head. I’ve been awake for hours.”
“And the door won’t shift?”
“Be my guest - have a shot, big man.”
Casting an evil glance sideways, Sam shuffled on arse and heels over to the door. No handle. Rusty panelling. Ignoring all the protesting bruises and screeching muscles he leant back on his hands and kicked forward, hard.
“Jesus, fuck!”
“Yeah, we must be backed up against a wall.”
“Thanks for letting me know!”
“Yeah, well, thought you might like to try for yourself.”
With throbbing heels, and every joint and muscle in his body jangling, Sam eased himself up until he was sitting. “You’re a right bastard sometimes, Guv.”
“Ay, well, practice makes perfect.” He grinned suddenly, teeth white in the hazy twilight. “And you’re a lovely mover - grace, style? The way you fell over could give Jimmy Greaves a run for his money.”
“Thanks…” He sat up again, leaning back in miserable resignation. “So, we’ll have to rely on the squad to find us.”
“Or the Gladstones to come after their larder.”
“Oh, come on, they stashed us here to keep us out the way. Just like last time, and just like last time there’ll be no evidence of anything when we get out. Is this their M.O.? Back in ‘C’ division did you spend much time locked up while the villains blagged their way round -”
He broke off, choking as the DCI’s fist closed around his throat. The heavy face was close, so close he could - even in the half-light - see the open pores, and smell the acid taint of stale whisky. Dark eyes bored into his, vicious with intent. “You piss me off so much sometimes, you know that? Sometimes I could just…” Hunt shook his head, like a cat shifting water from its fur and whatever he’d been going to say was gone and the narrowed eyes were hard, smooth as glass. “Fuck you, Gladys. You think I had anything to do with this? You think I’d look the other way, let them play me? No way. We’re here for some shitty reason that I can’t work out. But I will. And you’ll help me, DI Tyler. Got it?”
Sam nodded, awkwardly. He tried to swallow, felt the thick fingers where they wrapped around his flesh and jerked as his cock suddenly thickened, fast and hot, until his hard-on was pressing against his flies. “All right.” He sounded half strangled. He was half strangled, but his cock was eager, almost standing up and begging as Hunt growled in his face and the stink of piss and sweat drowned his senses. “I got it…”
“Good.” The hand relaxed, just a fraction as the DCI smiled, mouth twisting wide and feral. “Why, I do believe you might be more to Jack Gladstone’s taste than I thought. Like a bit of slap before the tickle, do you?”
“No!”
“Right. And I’m a monkey’s uncle.” And without another word he let go, leaning back, his face expressionless, cold as stone in winter.
For a long moment, Sam sat exactly where Hunt had left him, anger pushing blood through his veins, arousal catching his breath in his throat. He lifted a hand and rubbed where the fingers had gripped him. “You’re really something else, you know that?”
“That’s me; really something. And one day, if you’re lucky, I might just sort out that problem in your Farah’s.”
“It’s not…”
“What? Not a problem? If you say so, sunshine. Not that we’ve time to debate the issue - ‘cos it sounds as if the cavalry’s finally got its finger out its fanny.”
“What…?” and then he heard it too. The sound of voices. Chris shouting their names again and again. “Here! We’re here!” Sam was on his haunches, calling out, slamming his hands on metal walls as the skipper just sat there, staring stolidly into space.
:::
3. Cake
Jack Gladstone didn’t wear a size eleven after all - his feet were smaller but looked longer as he favoured ridiculously pointed shoes. They shouldn’t have hurt as much as boots, but maybe the tips were reinforced, because Sam knew for certain that at least one rib was cracked. He twisted as a toecap slammed right underneath his lowest rib and ground itself in.
“Bloody coppers.”
“Jack, yours still awake?”
“You’ve got to be careful - delicate, fragile things are coppers. They break if you treat ‘em too rough. Don’t tell me you’ve worn yours out already?”
Sam blinked sweat from his eyes and peered helplessly across the room. Hunt was out cold, his face bruised into meat, blood smearing the floor under his head. No enclosed space this time, just a simple beating. Barry Gladstone walked slowly across the threadbare carpet and stared down, grinning when Jack put his weight behind the shoe that was pinning Sam to the floor.
“Right, Tyler isn’t it?”
Was that a question? Vomit snagging acridly at the back of his throat, Sam blinked in confusion. A fist, laden with sovereign rings, clipped the side of his head. “Speak up, copper!”
Another slap, casual as a handshake, and Sam spat blood. “Why?”
“’cos we like conversation, why’d you think?”
Sam grunted as Jack’s boot tried a little rearrangement of his spleen. “Then we should be having tea and cakes.”
“Jack likes cakes.” Barry crouched down at Sam’s side and glanced up at his brother. “Battenberg, that’s your favourite, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but the marzipan’s just never thick enough.” They shared a look, grinning.
And in the instant before they turned back to him, Sam heaved at the foot pinning him down and lashed out with an elbow, knocking Barry Gladstone backwards. But he didn’t quite manage to unbalance Jack, and though Barry went sprawling, the other brother merely danced backwards for a couple of steps and then came back at him, pointed toe-cap swinging before Sam even managed to get to his feet.
Both brothers enjoyed their work. Smeared across the floor, Sam only barely stayed conscious. Afterwards, with much swearing at each other and mutterings about horses and stable doors, they slammed him face first into the carpet, wrenched his arms behind his back and wound copper wire tight around his wrists.
It was a while before Sam was aware of much apart from pain.
“Now, Tyler.” A hand slapped his face. Sam blinked through sweat and blood to look up. Jack held his chin, smiling down like a priest administering absolution. “Naughty, naughty, copper.” Not absolution then. Maybe the Last Rites. Groggily, Sam clocked the dilated eyes, the heightened breathing. “You need a lesson or two in how it’s going to be around here. This town’s ours and you are ours. You want money, girls, drugs? We’ve got ‘em. You want to have a nice, peaceful time? We can manage that too. Just keep in mind that we’re your bosses. We call the shots. All of them. It’s easy peasy if you just get it right. And the lessons don’t all have to be this hard, do they?”
“You think…” Sam broke off, amazed laughter somehow turning into a cough that twisted the torn muscles in his chest and left his ribs burning. “You… Was all this to get us on your side, ‘cos let me tell you, it’s not working!”
“God, but you’re dim. This, copper, is to teach you what it’s like for those who aren’t on our side. Got it?”
“Yeah - get lost.”
Jack pulled a face. “Oh my, he wants to be difficult.”
His brother crouched beside him. “He just doesn’t quite understand. See, whatever you want, we can get it. All you have to do is look away.”
“In your dreams, mate.” Sam inched onto his side, biting his lip as he shifted and the world greyed out around him. “I’m not bent.”
“But your boss is. And you’ll come around. One way or another, mate.”
“In your dreams.”
He heard them laugh at that. Then hands were pulling him upright and his ears were ringing as someone screamed.
“I thought you hadn’t hurt him too badly?”
“So did I. Does it matter?”
“No. Come on, let’s get ‘im sorted.”
Sam knew he was being dragged along, but he couldn’t fight it. Could hardly stay awake enough to know when fresh air hit his face.
Shuffling footsteps. “Hold him.”
Half falling as he was released by one set of hands, held up finally by others that brought that sound close to his throat. Fuck. The scream had been his own. Jesus…
And then he was falling, tumbling into somewhere small, stinking of petrol. A fist thumped his groin and he curled up, shuddering, while a hand stroked his face. A gentle pat and the touch was gone, and with metal thumping against metal he met darkness like a shroud.
It took a long time for him to be able to move, then, just as he tried, whatever cover was over him lifted. With slightly more perception this time, he knew he was in the boot of a car. A big one, for as he lay there a second body was stuffed in after him, and, as pain slipped into a higher gear, time stopped.
:::
4. Boot
He’d thrown up. Or someone had.
Moving his head, fighting the dagger-like pain behind his eyes, he knew it was himself when his mouth stuck to whatever was under it.
“Jesus…”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Aren’t I?” Even to himself he sounded awful. Distantly he could hear the sound of a heart-monitor. Kylie was singing. A sob slipped from his mouth.
“Stop that!”
“What? Wanting to be in a coma rather than shoved into a car boot with you?”
“Sammy, Jack Gladstone came close to putting you into that coma you fancy - and as for the boot, be thankful it’s a Jag. I’m not sure they’d’ve got us into a mini without chopping bits off first.”
He could feel Hunt’s breath on his face, feel various portions of Hunt’s anatomy interwoven with his own. Sweat was sticking them together, and the air was thick with fumes and fear.
“Where are we?”
“How should I bleeding know, Doris? We drove somewhere. So wherever that is, we’re there.”
“Thanks.”
Sam closed his eyes, felt himself start to drift. Even the pain felt less appalling.
“Hey! Talk to me!”
“What…”
“Don’t nod off.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m lonely, why d’you think?”
“Oh.”
“Can you move your leg?” He seemed to think for a moment, muttering under his breath. “The left one. No, not up! Sam, down if you please.” Sam moved.
They were fitted together like a puzzle he’d had as a kid, a frame that held sliding squares that you had to shift around in order to make a picture. Slowly curling his leg back, somehow finding a space for it, he bit hard on his lip as the movement put more weight on his ribs.
“Sam?”
“Yeah…” Sweat burned into his closed eyes. Kylie wasn’t even bothering to sing words, just na-na-na, again and again. Despair, bleak as December rain blanketed out his thoughts. There was no real line anymore between what he knew was sane and what he feared was insanity. Hunt felt real, but he could easily be an illusion. The pain was real. The beating had been real, so was the wire binding his wrists. But were they all just weirdly shifted perceptions? Figments of a mind set into an altered state? Fucked up imaginings, drug or fever induced ravings?
“Sam, come back to me.”
Oh, he was back. At least, with certainty, he wasn’t there. “Gene?”
“Mm.”
“Where’s Hyde?”
“Where you came from. What’s this, university-bloody-challenge?”
“No…”
“You still on about that stuff Annie was worrying over?” He snorted a laugh. “The silly bint was talking about ringing the funny farm. I’d watch out if I were you, trick cyclists are nothing but trouble. And skirts aren’t much better.”
“What about the missus?”
A pause for thought. “My wife? What about her?”
“Is she just a ‘skirt’?”
“She’s Himmler in disguise. Not much of a disguise either. Used to have nice tits though.”
Sam’s mind was spinning away again. “Ray liked them.”
“Ray likes anything that wobbles.”
Ah, that brought a smile. “What about you?”
“Don’t ask, Sam.”
“Gene?”
“I, DI Tyler, would like to get out of here. Sorry, son.”
And he shifted, weight rolling against Sam as somehow Hunt curled up his sixteen stone and slammed a foot upwards, springing the boot-lid open.
Sam whimpered, air like a blessing, pain like a curse as the solid body pulled away from him and clambered awkwardly out to freedom.
A hand patted his face, stayed there a moment too long. “Hang on in there. I’ll see if I can get the cavalry out the boozer.” Then he was alone. Sam tried to sit up, but his ribs had other ideas, and instead he slipped back into darkness, strangely sure that Hunt would make it all better.
:::
5. Bedsit
The room was hardly a box. Bigger than the wardrobe and less pungent than the transit, it was still too small and way too redolent of fried meals and incalculable cigarettes to be anything but a hole. The wallpaper gave him nightmares. Or maybe the nightmares gave him the wallpaper.
Whichever, at three in the morning, his bed scattered over with paperwork regarding the Gladstone brothers, he was only drowsing in the kind of half-sleep that had taken the place of any real rest.
If he slept - properly slept - then would all this be a dream?
Was that what he wanted?
He shifted, the barely-there supports on the bed squeaking in counterpoint to the springs as he leant over, and popped a couple of aspirin into his mouth, swigging them back with Lucozade (a present from Chris), its cellophane rustling as he set it back on the floor. Wincing at the chorus of rusty metal, he lay back. Christ, the bed was a wreck. Did people really live like this? He (well, DI Tyler circa 1973) earned a reasonable wage, yet here he was, shacked up in a shit-heap that’d had some lunatic on crack as its interior designer. The carpet alone was enough to make a man colour-blind, and as for the curtains? Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen, eat your heart out, mate.
Shifting again, he plucked at the white cotton of his vest. He felt sticky in the heat. Lying on top of the greasy (despite, or possibly because of, multiple visits to the laundrette) covers, dressed in his underwear - for he couldn’t quite bear to strip off naked for bed like he had at home - he watched shadows from car headlights playing over the cracks in the ceiling. Not all the world was asleep. The good, maybe. The bad, almost certainly not. Was there more bad back here? Or was it all just more overt. Messier, less organised. Petty, dirty crimes, made by nasty, ugly criminals.
The Gladstones weren’t ugly, not on the outside, where they looked like Kilroy-Silk’s younger brothers. They disproved his theory though. There was nothing petty about them. Unless you counted their spite.
A week in hospital and he still wasn’t allowed back to work. On the bright side, at least his ribs were knitting nicely and all the bruises were finally past their worst. Apparently his blood was back up to volume too, though he still felt weak, leeched of energy. The girl from the Testcard tutted at him.
Sam looked at her, too half-asleep to be scared. “You again.”
The clown’s grin was a rictus; a death’s head in pastel shades. “You were the one who went away.” The girl sounded aggrieved. Sam wondered if that meant he blamed himself for getting beaten up.
“I was in hospital.”
“You are in hospital, don’t you mean?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Killing yourself won’t help.”
“No?”
“No.” She turned, started walking away then paused, frowning back at him over her shoulder. “There’s visitors.”
“Not at this time of night…”
And a fist hammered on the door.
She was gone, sitting back in the tiny square of TV screen, her face as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s, the clown’s simply viciously amused.
Clawing himself upright, Sam made it to the door - hopefully before everyone in the house was woken up. “Who is it?”
“Micky bloody Mouse - open up, Sam!”
Great. Though at least this time he had some clothes on - and there were no handcuffs attaching him to the bed. Sam unbolted the door. “It’s three in the morning!”
Gene Hunt filled the room even before he shut the door behind him with a slam. “Oh, and there I was thinking the sun shone out your arse.” He paused for a look at Sam. “Nice knickers.”
“Now I know what to get you for Christmas.” Sitting back on the bed, Sam pulled on his jeans. “I was asleep.”
“Really?”
“No.” He sighed, admitting the truth.
“You look like shit - not exactly rested.” A finger rummaged through the paperwork littering the bed and Hunt’s lip curled.
“Thanks. Gene, why’re you here? I mean, jokes aside, it is the middle of the night.”
“Past the middle, I’d say. The witching hour is gone and we’re free-wheeling towards morning.” He grinned in lopsided apology. “Too many shandies. You dressed yet?”
“Nearly.” Sam pushed his feet into a pair of casuals and stood up. “So, where we going?”
“Out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. How’s the ribs?”
“Knitting.”
“Good, make sure I get a scarf for Christmas.” He grinned, all teeth and shark-like amusement. “So, you up to playing goat?”
“Who’s the tiger?”
“Bright boy! Gladstone’s the tiger. Jack’s in Macy’s Nightclub, pissed as a newt and randy as a bitch in heat. I’m going to dangle you in front of him and see what happens. I thought about trying with Chris, but he’s too drippy. And Jack’s already got the hots for you.”
“He never touched me!”
“Yes he did.” A hand slid against Sam’s rib cage, felt along one mending bone. “You think this wasn’t foreplay?”
Held by the touch, and by the look that pinned him into immobility, Sam licked his lips. “Fuck.”
“I suspect he would - at a moment’s notice.”
There was no answer to that. Sam grabbed his jacket and walked to the door. “You’re making it up, I don’t think he fancies me at all, but…”
As he got the door open an inch, a hand reached past him and slammed it closed. Hunt’s breath was warm on the back of Sam’s neck, Hunt’s body big, oppressive, as it leant into him. “You doubting me, Sammy?” The words were little more than a whisper.
Turning his face slightly, Sam swallowed. He didn’t even think of fight, let alone flight. “Just wondering how you know.”
“Oh, I know all sorts. For instance I know that you’re going to be a good little goat and catch me a bastard, and I’ll warn you now, it’ll be no holds barred, Sammy. I get what I want any way I can.”
Weight leant him a little further into the door and he pressed his forehead against chipped paintwork. Somehow he kept his voice level. “You telling me I might end up as Jack’s goat supper?”
“Never seen myself as waiter before, but I guess you’re on a platter, being served up rare.”
“Great…”
“And I’ll tell you something else - you need to worry about more than Jack Gladstone.” Lips touched against Sam’s ear and he shivered convulsively. “Understand?”
Yes. No. Maybe. Sam forced his head around so his cheek was pressed to the door and looked into Hunt’s face. “I’m not queer.”
“Didn’t say you were. Didn’t say I was neither. But I’ll still have you on your knees, Sam. You like that idea?” The voice was soft-pitched yet utterly intense. “You ever sucked cock? Ever wondered about it? And I’m no stoat, Sammy.” A cant of hip and Sam knew it as heat and hardness pressed into the small of his back. “Go and catch me a tiger, and I’ll make it worthwhile.”
“Am I meant to find that an irresistible offer?” Sam was proud of his own nonchalance. Less proud that when Hunt laughed, leant an inch closer and bit gently down on the lobe of his ear, his cock leapt, the flood of arousal making him lightheaded.
“Oh, yeah, I think so…” And Hunt left him, stepping away as Sam turned around. “Don’t you?”
Insanity. Maybe here he was a different person. Maybe here not only the social mores were skewed. Sam straightened his shoulders and met Hunt’s eye. “I think we set a trap. Then we’ll see about who gets on their knees.”
And Gene Hunt smiled his own tiger-smile. “Right then. What you wasting time for?”
Sam/Gene Sam/OMC
Not mine, no profit taken.
Dark, NC17. Split into 2 as it's too long for one post...
Boxes
Kitty Fisher
Not mine, no profit.
Archive: www.devinemadness.com/kittyfisher
:::
1. Wardrobe
The first thing he understood was the smell of mothballs; sharp and sickly as memory. His gran’s wardrobe the day he’d accidentally locked himself inside, had smelled like this. He’d been seven years old and it had taken years before he’d been anything other than afraid of small spaces.
Spaces like this one. Bent double, one knee rammed under his chin, his joints aching from constriction; he felt akin to a broken toy rammed haphazardly into a box. Stirring, shifting one inch at a time, he tried to straighten his legs, and came up against something soft. Frowning, he tried again, one arm feeling into nothingness, and succeeded in knocking his funny bone so hard his eyes watered.
He tried for even breathing. Managed it. Wiped his eyes and reached again. To realise that not all the limbs he could feel were his own.
Locked in a box with someone else. Stirring the jelly that purported to be his brain, he tried to remember. There had been a car accident. No, not in a car. With a car. Hit and run, his face slammed into tarmac, his body smashed. But this wasn’t a hospital. This was… what? He reached again, brushing past cloth to a hard surface. Wood. Unvarnished wood that was rough under his fingertips.
Not a hospital. Not of any kind - even in 1973 psychiatric wards hadn’t had wooden walls.
1973. The thought brought him up short. Why should he think that…
With a twist that knotted his gut he remembered. And wondered if sanity was something he had any close relationship with after all.
Place your bets, mesdames et messieurs, today we play time roulette. Will you put your money on the past, or is the future a better bet? Is this real or imaginary? What’s up and what’s down… If a butterfly lies crushed on a forest floor, is Sam Tyler insane, or just temporarily out to lunch?
There was only one absolute -whatever name he decided to give this particular patch of time (past, present, future, hallucination, dream, nightmare), it was stuffed full of villains who didn’t give a monkeys about bashing coppers around. The last thing he could recall was watching Gene Hunt get a kicking to match his own. Then nothing, until now, where he was hunched up, squashed into somewhere dark and airless.
Gene Hunt, who used Avon’s best. Sam breathed in again. The air with thick with the chemical stink of camphor and bad aftershave, all of it overlaying the cloying scent of mildew. The mildew and mothballs were one thing, but the aftershave? It had to be Hunt. Oh, fuck. Sam wiped his fingers over his sweating face, then, leaning forward, fingered the nearest limb that wasn’t his own. Solid muscle. Warmth. Further up he found a pocket, weighted down with a hip flask and a chest that rose and fell.
At least the DCI was still alive.
Somehow the thought allowed his own bruises to throb more viciously. Ignoring them, he shifted, got one foot wedged flat and, with a push, reached upwards - and hit his fingers against metal. A rail. A hanging rail. Yep, it was a wardrobe. Great. Why would anyone knock him out and bung him in a wardrobe for chrissake? And with the less than petite Gene Hunt for company. What was his subconscious up to? Christ, the whole back in the Dark Ages thing was bad enough, but this as well? Maybe he was more into self-punishment than he’d ever believed. Maybe Gene Hunt was his conscience. Which was so ridiculous that he laughed out loud, shocking himself with the sudden rasping sound.
He listened, breathless, sweat clammy on his skin. Nothing happened. No one stirred. Less excitingly he didn’t wake up - neither from a coma in 2006 or from a nightmare in 1973. Bugger it, stuck in a cupboard with his boss - thank you, God. As much as anything it was all too humiliating, he was meant to be better than the pondlife from the past - better trained, more articulate, less Neanderthal... But clearly just as gullible. That Hunt was in this with him was only small recompense.
Fumbling in the dark, he found hinges, door panels and a lock. Pushing against it he heaved, hard. No joy. Though the body he’d ended up accidentally half kneeling on finally shifted.
One hand on the door, he blinked at where the darkness was slightly more dense. “Guv?”
A curse, one of the marginally less obscene from the Hunt repertoire, was followed by thump in the ribs and a mouthful of flailing arm.
“Hey, keep still!”
“What… the fuck…”
“If you could just keep still for a moment…”
“Christ on a crutch, my head hurts! Who slipped me a mickey?”
“Come on, it’s all right.” Trying in some way to reassure, Sam reached out, blindly searching.
“Go on like that chummy and I’ll remove your hand at the bleedin’ wrist.”
“Sorry. Ow! Mind out…” There was a moment of total confusion as, with all the grace of a small man-mountain, the DCI shifted himself. Sam bit down on a few curses of his own as, an elbow colliding with his chin, the darkness sparkled prettily with stars. “Jesus…”
“Sam? You all right?”
“Yeah, just about.”
There was a moment of rustling exploration that was only slightly painful. “Oy, we in a box?”
“No, in a wardrobe.”
“Bloody hell!”
“Yeah, and I’ve already looked for a lamppost.”
“Why? Not many fur coats round here - unless your bum’s got a comfier parking spot than mine.”
Well, well. Unfathomed depths. Or kids. “Didn’t take you for a reader, sir.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t take you for a dickhead, and yet we’re still in this delightful predicament.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” Sam bit the words off. He ought to have known that he’d get the blame. “I wasn’t to know he was a total nutter.”
“No? Well maybe you should’ve listened to me, I’m an expert on nutters.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“You can bloody talk.”
Sam ignored that one. “And besides, they’ve only just moved into the area. How could you know about them?”
“Instinct.”
“Of course, pardon me.”
“I’ll pardon you for anything apart from your foot - the one that’s half up me jacksie.”
“Oh.”
There was a pause for a rearrangement of limbs. A few muttered curses later they were still inextricably close and both of them were panting.
“Great.”
Sam agreed. Bloody great. His head still ached, and sweat was making his shirt cling to his skin. At least he wasn’t wearing his jacket, though he had no memory of removing it. All the aches didn’t help matters, and Gene had to be as badly off. “How’re your bruises?”
“Same as yours I should think.”
“Mmm.” A bony knee was pressing into a corker on his shin. Sam moved an inch and sighed in relief.
“So, mister-they-do-things-differently-in-Hyde, you tried to find the door yet?”
“It’s in front of us.”
“Which way are you facing?” A hand slapped into Sam’s face. “Oops, sorry. Got you.” The hand patted him, quite gently really. “It’s in front of you, yeah?”
“And it’s locked.” Just like when he was a kid. Though he’d been alone then and, remarkably, this was better.
“Maybe they’re saving us for later.”
Great. Sam could hear Hunt almost smacking his lips in relish. He knew a hook when one was dangled for him, but he had to bite: “Later?”
“Gladstone and his brother, I knew them back in ‘C’ Division. The pair of them’re like spiders - they like to hang on to their catch for a while before eating it. Soften it up. Tenderise the flesh unti -”
“Thanks, I get the picture.” He didn’t want to know. Really didn’t. He could feel the edges of his calm starting to erode. Wiping a hand over his face Sam drew his legs up, eliciting a curse from Hunt. “Hang on…”
“Oh, I’m hanging all right, just like a bloody suit. And I hate the smell of mothballs...”
Another shift, and Sam had both legs under him. One was fast asleep and he hissed as the blood started to flow back. Bracing his back, he tried to kick forward, slipped and tumbled sideways.
“Jesus, Sam, you want to watch where you put your hands, mate!”
“Sorry. Wait, I’ll have another try.”
“What, at getting to me todger?”
“No.” Sam took a patient breath. “At kicking the door open.”
“Oh, that. You should’ve said something.”
With a sudden, brief explosion of movement, a thump that half winded him and a crack loud enough to wake the dead, the door slammed open at the insistence of a cream leather casual.
Fresh air was a blessed relief. Gulping it down, Sam tumbled out onto greasy lino. The only light was that from a distant streetlamp, spilling in through a cracked and filthy window. The room was stacked with old furniture, and the two men looked around slowly as they stood up, stretching cramped limbs and listening warily. Neither of them still had their coats, and the DCI’s pale blue shirt was spattered with blood.
Hunt caught him looking and glanced down. “Blimey.” He pulled the shirt away from his chest and made a face. “Is it all mine?”
“Your eyebrow.”
“Oh, thought things were a bit dark.” He put up a hand and rubbed at the blood encrusting one side of his face. “Barry Gladstone always did like using his boots.”
“Yeah, and his brother’s a sweetheart.”
“He, you know, touch you up?”
“Did he what?” Sam wiped sweat from his face. “All I remember him touching me with was his size elevens.”
“Good.”
“What are you talking about?”
Hunt turned, his gaze casting up and down, assessing Sam’s body with a practised eye. “Jack Gladstone likes boys’ arses. Particularly nice ones like yours.”
“Oh.” Sam stared at his boss and for a nano-second debated asking if Hunt really thought his arse was nice. But then he’d never quite got a handle on the 70s male-bonding schtick. What was queer, and what was just lads together? Sometimes he thought he needed a handbook - non-PC speak for the time-traveller. That, along with fashion hints for the time Hugo Boss forgot.
“Come on, let’s find out where we are. I could murder a pint.”
Torn between exasperation and confusion, Sam watched as Hunt opened the door and just walked away. After a moment a head popped back around the doorjamb. “Oy, you staying for Jack - though I wouldn’t get your hopes up, apparently he’s hung like a stoat - or you coming?”
“He was only interested in bashing me about - and how do you know what size a stoat is?”
“Me dad kept ‘em. Tiny. As for Jacky, he’s a complete pervert, and you’re just his type - still alive.”
“Great.” Shaking himself, Sam followed. “Hell, I don’t even look gay.” Not in 2006, anyway. Damn it, but doubt was a terrible thing. “Do I?”
“You look as happy as Larry to me, son. As for being a bender, you just never can tell.” He was at the front door, holding it open to the night. Standing quite still, face like cold suet pudding, he was waiting as Sam caught up with him, until Sam was standing right by him. His eyes were bright with challenge. “Can you?” The look between them held. And then Hunt grinned, feral as a fox. “Mine’s a pint of Boddingtons'. I’ll stand you a Babycham, gorgeous.” And with a wink he pushed past and walked away, leaving Sam Tyler as confused as it was possible for a man to be.
:::
2. Van
Madonna (did she really have a new album out?) was singing about hanging up, which segued weirdly into button pushing with The Sugababes (fuel for fantasies there - Heidi or Mutya, or Heidi and Mutya… with Madonna in leather…) all of it overlain by the beep and click of hospital machinery. He could feel a hand holding his arm, the fingers squeezing…
“Come on, wake up… wake up!”
“Mam?”
“I should bloody well think not. Wakey wakey!”
“Fuck…”
“Couldn’t’ve put it better meself. Rise and shine, sonny.”
It wasn’t a wardrobe. It was the back of a transit. One that stank of old piss.
“Aw, Jesus...”
“Not exactly the Hilton, I’ll give you that. But this time we’ve all mod cons. Drink up.”
Sam muttered miserably under his breath and waved away the metal hipflask. After a long moment he gathered himself and slowly sat up, clutching his head in one hand. Shifting, sitting with his legs curled up he leant back on the cold metal wall and sighed. “At least this one’s not pitch black.” His hand dropped back into his lap.
“Nope.” Hunt took a sip, grimaced, and slowly screwed the cap back on the flask. “Door’s still locked, mind.”
“Great.” Someone had fitted a barrier behind the seats, the only way out was the double doors. “How about a good kick?”
“You already had that.”
“I noticed.”
“Jack likes you.”
“Great. What about you?”
“Oh, I’m too old and too ugly for Jacky. Drunk one too many pints, lost me sylph-like figure.”
“I meant,” Sam ground his teeth, “did you get a going over too?”
“No.” He took in a gusty breath and crossed his legs in front of him. One of his shoes had the beginnings of a hole in the leather sole. “Just a knock on the head. I’ve been awake for hours.”
“And the door won’t shift?”
“Be my guest - have a shot, big man.”
Casting an evil glance sideways, Sam shuffled on arse and heels over to the door. No handle. Rusty panelling. Ignoring all the protesting bruises and screeching muscles he leant back on his hands and kicked forward, hard.
“Jesus, fuck!”
“Yeah, we must be backed up against a wall.”
“Thanks for letting me know!”
“Yeah, well, thought you might like to try for yourself.”
With throbbing heels, and every joint and muscle in his body jangling, Sam eased himself up until he was sitting. “You’re a right bastard sometimes, Guv.”
“Ay, well, practice makes perfect.” He grinned suddenly, teeth white in the hazy twilight. “And you’re a lovely mover - grace, style? The way you fell over could give Jimmy Greaves a run for his money.”
“Thanks…” He sat up again, leaning back in miserable resignation. “So, we’ll have to rely on the squad to find us.”
“Or the Gladstones to come after their larder.”
“Oh, come on, they stashed us here to keep us out the way. Just like last time, and just like last time there’ll be no evidence of anything when we get out. Is this their M.O.? Back in ‘C’ division did you spend much time locked up while the villains blagged their way round -”
He broke off, choking as the DCI’s fist closed around his throat. The heavy face was close, so close he could - even in the half-light - see the open pores, and smell the acid taint of stale whisky. Dark eyes bored into his, vicious with intent. “You piss me off so much sometimes, you know that? Sometimes I could just…” Hunt shook his head, like a cat shifting water from its fur and whatever he’d been going to say was gone and the narrowed eyes were hard, smooth as glass. “Fuck you, Gladys. You think I had anything to do with this? You think I’d look the other way, let them play me? No way. We’re here for some shitty reason that I can’t work out. But I will. And you’ll help me, DI Tyler. Got it?”
Sam nodded, awkwardly. He tried to swallow, felt the thick fingers where they wrapped around his flesh and jerked as his cock suddenly thickened, fast and hot, until his hard-on was pressing against his flies. “All right.” He sounded half strangled. He was half strangled, but his cock was eager, almost standing up and begging as Hunt growled in his face and the stink of piss and sweat drowned his senses. “I got it…”
“Good.” The hand relaxed, just a fraction as the DCI smiled, mouth twisting wide and feral. “Why, I do believe you might be more to Jack Gladstone’s taste than I thought. Like a bit of slap before the tickle, do you?”
“No!”
“Right. And I’m a monkey’s uncle.” And without another word he let go, leaning back, his face expressionless, cold as stone in winter.
For a long moment, Sam sat exactly where Hunt had left him, anger pushing blood through his veins, arousal catching his breath in his throat. He lifted a hand and rubbed where the fingers had gripped him. “You’re really something else, you know that?”
“That’s me; really something. And one day, if you’re lucky, I might just sort out that problem in your Farah’s.”
“It’s not…”
“What? Not a problem? If you say so, sunshine. Not that we’ve time to debate the issue - ‘cos it sounds as if the cavalry’s finally got its finger out its fanny.”
“What…?” and then he heard it too. The sound of voices. Chris shouting their names again and again. “Here! We’re here!” Sam was on his haunches, calling out, slamming his hands on metal walls as the skipper just sat there, staring stolidly into space.
:::
3. Cake
Jack Gladstone didn’t wear a size eleven after all - his feet were smaller but looked longer as he favoured ridiculously pointed shoes. They shouldn’t have hurt as much as boots, but maybe the tips were reinforced, because Sam knew for certain that at least one rib was cracked. He twisted as a toecap slammed right underneath his lowest rib and ground itself in.
“Bloody coppers.”
“Jack, yours still awake?”
“You’ve got to be careful - delicate, fragile things are coppers. They break if you treat ‘em too rough. Don’t tell me you’ve worn yours out already?”
Sam blinked sweat from his eyes and peered helplessly across the room. Hunt was out cold, his face bruised into meat, blood smearing the floor under his head. No enclosed space this time, just a simple beating. Barry Gladstone walked slowly across the threadbare carpet and stared down, grinning when Jack put his weight behind the shoe that was pinning Sam to the floor.
“Right, Tyler isn’t it?”
Was that a question? Vomit snagging acridly at the back of his throat, Sam blinked in confusion. A fist, laden with sovereign rings, clipped the side of his head. “Speak up, copper!”
Another slap, casual as a handshake, and Sam spat blood. “Why?”
“’cos we like conversation, why’d you think?”
Sam grunted as Jack’s boot tried a little rearrangement of his spleen. “Then we should be having tea and cakes.”
“Jack likes cakes.” Barry crouched down at Sam’s side and glanced up at his brother. “Battenberg, that’s your favourite, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but the marzipan’s just never thick enough.” They shared a look, grinning.
And in the instant before they turned back to him, Sam heaved at the foot pinning him down and lashed out with an elbow, knocking Barry Gladstone backwards. But he didn’t quite manage to unbalance Jack, and though Barry went sprawling, the other brother merely danced backwards for a couple of steps and then came back at him, pointed toe-cap swinging before Sam even managed to get to his feet.
Both brothers enjoyed their work. Smeared across the floor, Sam only barely stayed conscious. Afterwards, with much swearing at each other and mutterings about horses and stable doors, they slammed him face first into the carpet, wrenched his arms behind his back and wound copper wire tight around his wrists.
It was a while before Sam was aware of much apart from pain.
“Now, Tyler.” A hand slapped his face. Sam blinked through sweat and blood to look up. Jack held his chin, smiling down like a priest administering absolution. “Naughty, naughty, copper.” Not absolution then. Maybe the Last Rites. Groggily, Sam clocked the dilated eyes, the heightened breathing. “You need a lesson or two in how it’s going to be around here. This town’s ours and you are ours. You want money, girls, drugs? We’ve got ‘em. You want to have a nice, peaceful time? We can manage that too. Just keep in mind that we’re your bosses. We call the shots. All of them. It’s easy peasy if you just get it right. And the lessons don’t all have to be this hard, do they?”
“You think…” Sam broke off, amazed laughter somehow turning into a cough that twisted the torn muscles in his chest and left his ribs burning. “You… Was all this to get us on your side, ‘cos let me tell you, it’s not working!”
“God, but you’re dim. This, copper, is to teach you what it’s like for those who aren’t on our side. Got it?”
“Yeah - get lost.”
Jack pulled a face. “Oh my, he wants to be difficult.”
His brother crouched beside him. “He just doesn’t quite understand. See, whatever you want, we can get it. All you have to do is look away.”
“In your dreams, mate.” Sam inched onto his side, biting his lip as he shifted and the world greyed out around him. “I’m not bent.”
“But your boss is. And you’ll come around. One way or another, mate.”
“In your dreams.”
He heard them laugh at that. Then hands were pulling him upright and his ears were ringing as someone screamed.
“I thought you hadn’t hurt him too badly?”
“So did I. Does it matter?”
“No. Come on, let’s get ‘im sorted.”
Sam knew he was being dragged along, but he couldn’t fight it. Could hardly stay awake enough to know when fresh air hit his face.
Shuffling footsteps. “Hold him.”
Half falling as he was released by one set of hands, held up finally by others that brought that sound close to his throat. Fuck. The scream had been his own. Jesus…
And then he was falling, tumbling into somewhere small, stinking of petrol. A fist thumped his groin and he curled up, shuddering, while a hand stroked his face. A gentle pat and the touch was gone, and with metal thumping against metal he met darkness like a shroud.
It took a long time for him to be able to move, then, just as he tried, whatever cover was over him lifted. With slightly more perception this time, he knew he was in the boot of a car. A big one, for as he lay there a second body was stuffed in after him, and, as pain slipped into a higher gear, time stopped.
:::
4. Boot
He’d thrown up. Or someone had.
Moving his head, fighting the dagger-like pain behind his eyes, he knew it was himself when his mouth stuck to whatever was under it.
“Jesus…”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Aren’t I?” Even to himself he sounded awful. Distantly he could hear the sound of a heart-monitor. Kylie was singing. A sob slipped from his mouth.
“Stop that!”
“What? Wanting to be in a coma rather than shoved into a car boot with you?”
“Sammy, Jack Gladstone came close to putting you into that coma you fancy - and as for the boot, be thankful it’s a Jag. I’m not sure they’d’ve got us into a mini without chopping bits off first.”
He could feel Hunt’s breath on his face, feel various portions of Hunt’s anatomy interwoven with his own. Sweat was sticking them together, and the air was thick with fumes and fear.
“Where are we?”
“How should I bleeding know, Doris? We drove somewhere. So wherever that is, we’re there.”
“Thanks.”
Sam closed his eyes, felt himself start to drift. Even the pain felt less appalling.
“Hey! Talk to me!”
“What…”
“Don’t nod off.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m lonely, why d’you think?”
“Oh.”
“Can you move your leg?” He seemed to think for a moment, muttering under his breath. “The left one. No, not up! Sam, down if you please.” Sam moved.
They were fitted together like a puzzle he’d had as a kid, a frame that held sliding squares that you had to shift around in order to make a picture. Slowly curling his leg back, somehow finding a space for it, he bit hard on his lip as the movement put more weight on his ribs.
“Sam?”
“Yeah…” Sweat burned into his closed eyes. Kylie wasn’t even bothering to sing words, just na-na-na, again and again. Despair, bleak as December rain blanketed out his thoughts. There was no real line anymore between what he knew was sane and what he feared was insanity. Hunt felt real, but he could easily be an illusion. The pain was real. The beating had been real, so was the wire binding his wrists. But were they all just weirdly shifted perceptions? Figments of a mind set into an altered state? Fucked up imaginings, drug or fever induced ravings?
“Sam, come back to me.”
Oh, he was back. At least, with certainty, he wasn’t there. “Gene?”
“Mm.”
“Where’s Hyde?”
“Where you came from. What’s this, university-bloody-challenge?”
“No…”
“You still on about that stuff Annie was worrying over?” He snorted a laugh. “The silly bint was talking about ringing the funny farm. I’d watch out if I were you, trick cyclists are nothing but trouble. And skirts aren’t much better.”
“What about the missus?”
A pause for thought. “My wife? What about her?”
“Is she just a ‘skirt’?”
“She’s Himmler in disguise. Not much of a disguise either. Used to have nice tits though.”
Sam’s mind was spinning away again. “Ray liked them.”
“Ray likes anything that wobbles.”
Ah, that brought a smile. “What about you?”
“Don’t ask, Sam.”
“Gene?”
“I, DI Tyler, would like to get out of here. Sorry, son.”
And he shifted, weight rolling against Sam as somehow Hunt curled up his sixteen stone and slammed a foot upwards, springing the boot-lid open.
Sam whimpered, air like a blessing, pain like a curse as the solid body pulled away from him and clambered awkwardly out to freedom.
A hand patted his face, stayed there a moment too long. “Hang on in there. I’ll see if I can get the cavalry out the boozer.” Then he was alone. Sam tried to sit up, but his ribs had other ideas, and instead he slipped back into darkness, strangely sure that Hunt would make it all better.
:::
5. Bedsit
The room was hardly a box. Bigger than the wardrobe and less pungent than the transit, it was still too small and way too redolent of fried meals and incalculable cigarettes to be anything but a hole. The wallpaper gave him nightmares. Or maybe the nightmares gave him the wallpaper.
Whichever, at three in the morning, his bed scattered over with paperwork regarding the Gladstone brothers, he was only drowsing in the kind of half-sleep that had taken the place of any real rest.
If he slept - properly slept - then would all this be a dream?
Was that what he wanted?
He shifted, the barely-there supports on the bed squeaking in counterpoint to the springs as he leant over, and popped a couple of aspirin into his mouth, swigging them back with Lucozade (a present from Chris), its cellophane rustling as he set it back on the floor. Wincing at the chorus of rusty metal, he lay back. Christ, the bed was a wreck. Did people really live like this? He (well, DI Tyler circa 1973) earned a reasonable wage, yet here he was, shacked up in a shit-heap that’d had some lunatic on crack as its interior designer. The carpet alone was enough to make a man colour-blind, and as for the curtains? Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen, eat your heart out, mate.
Shifting again, he plucked at the white cotton of his vest. He felt sticky in the heat. Lying on top of the greasy (despite, or possibly because of, multiple visits to the laundrette) covers, dressed in his underwear - for he couldn’t quite bear to strip off naked for bed like he had at home - he watched shadows from car headlights playing over the cracks in the ceiling. Not all the world was asleep. The good, maybe. The bad, almost certainly not. Was there more bad back here? Or was it all just more overt. Messier, less organised. Petty, dirty crimes, made by nasty, ugly criminals.
The Gladstones weren’t ugly, not on the outside, where they looked like Kilroy-Silk’s younger brothers. They disproved his theory though. There was nothing petty about them. Unless you counted their spite.
A week in hospital and he still wasn’t allowed back to work. On the bright side, at least his ribs were knitting nicely and all the bruises were finally past their worst. Apparently his blood was back up to volume too, though he still felt weak, leeched of energy. The girl from the Testcard tutted at him.
Sam looked at her, too half-asleep to be scared. “You again.”
The clown’s grin was a rictus; a death’s head in pastel shades. “You were the one who went away.” The girl sounded aggrieved. Sam wondered if that meant he blamed himself for getting beaten up.
“I was in hospital.”
“You are in hospital, don’t you mean?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Killing yourself won’t help.”
“No?”
“No.” She turned, started walking away then paused, frowning back at him over her shoulder. “There’s visitors.”
“Not at this time of night…”
And a fist hammered on the door.
She was gone, sitting back in the tiny square of TV screen, her face as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s, the clown’s simply viciously amused.
Clawing himself upright, Sam made it to the door - hopefully before everyone in the house was woken up. “Who is it?”
“Micky bloody Mouse - open up, Sam!”
Great. Though at least this time he had some clothes on - and there were no handcuffs attaching him to the bed. Sam unbolted the door. “It’s three in the morning!”
Gene Hunt filled the room even before he shut the door behind him with a slam. “Oh, and there I was thinking the sun shone out your arse.” He paused for a look at Sam. “Nice knickers.”
“Now I know what to get you for Christmas.” Sitting back on the bed, Sam pulled on his jeans. “I was asleep.”
“Really?”
“No.” He sighed, admitting the truth.
“You look like shit - not exactly rested.” A finger rummaged through the paperwork littering the bed and Hunt’s lip curled.
“Thanks. Gene, why’re you here? I mean, jokes aside, it is the middle of the night.”
“Past the middle, I’d say. The witching hour is gone and we’re free-wheeling towards morning.” He grinned in lopsided apology. “Too many shandies. You dressed yet?”
“Nearly.” Sam pushed his feet into a pair of casuals and stood up. “So, where we going?”
“Out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. How’s the ribs?”
“Knitting.”
“Good, make sure I get a scarf for Christmas.” He grinned, all teeth and shark-like amusement. “So, you up to playing goat?”
“Who’s the tiger?”
“Bright boy! Gladstone’s the tiger. Jack’s in Macy’s Nightclub, pissed as a newt and randy as a bitch in heat. I’m going to dangle you in front of him and see what happens. I thought about trying with Chris, but he’s too drippy. And Jack’s already got the hots for you.”
“He never touched me!”
“Yes he did.” A hand slid against Sam’s rib cage, felt along one mending bone. “You think this wasn’t foreplay?”
Held by the touch, and by the look that pinned him into immobility, Sam licked his lips. “Fuck.”
“I suspect he would - at a moment’s notice.”
There was no answer to that. Sam grabbed his jacket and walked to the door. “You’re making it up, I don’t think he fancies me at all, but…”
As he got the door open an inch, a hand reached past him and slammed it closed. Hunt’s breath was warm on the back of Sam’s neck, Hunt’s body big, oppressive, as it leant into him. “You doubting me, Sammy?” The words were little more than a whisper.
Turning his face slightly, Sam swallowed. He didn’t even think of fight, let alone flight. “Just wondering how you know.”
“Oh, I know all sorts. For instance I know that you’re going to be a good little goat and catch me a bastard, and I’ll warn you now, it’ll be no holds barred, Sammy. I get what I want any way I can.”
Weight leant him a little further into the door and he pressed his forehead against chipped paintwork. Somehow he kept his voice level. “You telling me I might end up as Jack’s goat supper?”
“Never seen myself as waiter before, but I guess you’re on a platter, being served up rare.”
“Great…”
“And I’ll tell you something else - you need to worry about more than Jack Gladstone.” Lips touched against Sam’s ear and he shivered convulsively. “Understand?”
Yes. No. Maybe. Sam forced his head around so his cheek was pressed to the door and looked into Hunt’s face. “I’m not queer.”
“Didn’t say you were. Didn’t say I was neither. But I’ll still have you on your knees, Sam. You like that idea?” The voice was soft-pitched yet utterly intense. “You ever sucked cock? Ever wondered about it? And I’m no stoat, Sammy.” A cant of hip and Sam knew it as heat and hardness pressed into the small of his back. “Go and catch me a tiger, and I’ll make it worthwhile.”
“Am I meant to find that an irresistible offer?” Sam was proud of his own nonchalance. Less proud that when Hunt laughed, leant an inch closer and bit gently down on the lobe of his ear, his cock leapt, the flood of arousal making him lightheaded.
“Oh, yeah, I think so…” And Hunt left him, stepping away as Sam turned around. “Don’t you?”
Insanity. Maybe here he was a different person. Maybe here not only the social mores were skewed. Sam straightened his shoulders and met Hunt’s eye. “I think we set a trap. Then we’ll see about who gets on their knees.”
And Gene Hunt smiled his own tiger-smile. “Right then. What you wasting time for?”