Fic: Two Times Annie's Performed Mouth to Mouth (Sam, Gene, Annie, Green Cortina)
Title: Two Times Annie's Performed Mouth to Mouth (resuscitation...)
Rating: Green Cortina (whoever's driving this car has kidnapped me...)
Word Count/Length: 2,119
Notes: Two rounds of sort of character death. Random fic from the chat on Sunday- held me in a death grip (no pun intended) until I wrote it. The first one's even set after 1.06.
Summary: Annie's proud of her ability to use mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. And she's not short of opportunities, either.
Like being drunk on himself, Annie thought wryly to herself as she watched her DCI down another pint and slap Ray over the head as the DS tried to duck under him on his way to the bar. Drunk on everything else as well, from the look of ‘im. Sometimes the men of CID could be just as wearing as the criminals they caught. If not more.
The lock-in had been declared long ago, so long that her head was now spinning with exhaustion; Nelson had brought out whisky, beer and chips, and all three were vanishing at an astonishing rate, everyone circling the Guv like bees around jam, and only Sam close up to him. Sam and jam. She giggled, resting her chin on the heel of her hand. Maybe she was a bit drunker than she’d thought.
Phyllis had urged her to drink at a steady rate, that she’d be on the floor in half an hour if she tried to match anyone, let alone DCI Hunt. She thought she’d been taking the older woman’s advice. Maybe she really was just a lightweight.
It was nice, being here surrounded by grins and congratulations, pats on the back from anyone who wasn’t DS Carling, who’d tried to kiss her cheek and got a death glare from Phyllis. Relaxing, in a strange kind of way, songs playing on the jukebox, Nelson buzzing around keeping order, and the Guv a sodden, crumb-bedecked lynchpin, tossing whisky and beer down his throat as though it were water. He’d have quite the hangover tomorrow, but then, so would she. Maybe they could share a bottle of Lucozade.
Oh, speak of the devil. Here he was, swaying magnificently (how was he still on his feet?), whisky in one hand, a single chip held lightly in the other. Phyllis wrinkled her nose up at him.
“You smell like a bloody brewery, Guv.”
“’S the whisky… from earl’r,” Gene slurred, dropping the chip onto Phyllis’ lap and reaching carefully round, eyes crinkling in concentration, to pat Annie’s shoulder. “Got all ov’r me chest… y’wouldn’ do me a fav’r an’ clean it off, would y’?” He bellowed with laughter, turned and almost fell over his own feet. Phyllis stood up.
“You’re rat-arsed, Gene Hunt. Get yerself on a chair.”
“Dun wanna siddown!” Gene yelled, making every single person except Phyllis almost leap out of their skins. “’M drinkin’… eatin’… light’n up, ya cow…” He attempted to smack her on the shoulder but lost his balance somewhere along the way, thudding round and onto his back. Everyone burst out laughing.
“Great loony,” Phyllis sighed, crouching down next to Gene, whose eyes were closed. “Tyler! Give me an ‘and with ‘im, I’m not as strong as I used to be. Bastard’s put on a few pounds since the last time I ‘ad to do this…”
Sam, who to Annie’s experienced eye looked just as inebriated as Gene, somehow managed to manoeuvre himself round to his fallen Guv’s side, crouching down onto the dirty carpet. His hair was stuck up and damp at the roots, eyes slightly heavy; Annie wouldn’t have trusted him with nursing a gerbil right then, no matter how capable he might normally be.
Not to mention that the Guv really was looking quite pale right now. Definitely pasty.
“Stupid man’s fallen asleep with a gobful of chips,” Phyllis muttered, opening Gene’s mouth wider. “Annie love, you ‘aven’t got a spoon or something, ‘ave you?”
“I should ‘ave someting behind da bar,” Nelson called, squinting at his unconscious customer as he eased himself round to forage in a drawer somewhere. “Mistah Hunt doesn’t look too good.”
No, he most certainly didn’t. Turning gradually whiter with each passing second, and if Annie studied him closely, through the numbing haze of one too many wines, she could just about see his body starting to shake. Phyllis’ frown was deepening, even further when Sam tried to put his hand on Gene’s chest and somehow managed to pull his shirt right up, exposing his stomach.
Which, for some reason, drew Annie’s attention. The Guv’s white, scarred skin, the beer belly that threatened to hang over but never quite managed it. Nothing she hadn’t seen before, she’d managed to walk into his office when he was changing once, and his smirk had earned him an overflowing cup of tea plonked artfully down on top of his brand-new newspaper and a glare that could have melted steel. But there was something there, something that was just about missing, and if only Annie could engage brain enough to figure out what it might be…
Gene wasn’t breathing.
“PHYLLIS! GET AN AMBULANCE!” Annie screamed, scrabbling off her chair and to Gene’s side. Hooking his mouth open with two fingers, she scooped out handfuls of half-chewed chip, wincing as she deposited them on the floor beside Gene’s head and bent to listen. Still nothing.
Big guns, then. As Gene himself might say. Flattening her knees on the carpet, she bent fully to breathe into Gene’s mouth, sucking air from his lungs and blowing it back in, gasping and gulping in the suddenly silent pub as she worked over Gene’s head, tilting his mouth up to free his airway as far as possible. Still nothing.
“Come on, you stubborn bastard,” she hissed, smacking one open hand into Gene’s chest, eyes cracking open to the startling sight of her DCI’s sky blue lips. Gene had been so full of life just now, she wasn’t going to let it end like this, no bloody way… not when she could help it.
Fight, Gene, fight!
And suddenly lips were brushing hers, gulping in huge great breaths of air, and she reared back to see Gene’s eyes snap open, locking onto hers as Phyllis eased her hands behind his back and hauled him up to rest against the bar, chest heaving.
A collective sigh of relief rushed round the pub, only to be replaced by groans as Gene doubled over and was violently sick all over his own legs.
Nelson called the ambulance; everyone else was too busy attending to their Guv.
Chips were never served in The Railway Arms again.
-0-0-
Sam had been acting funny all of today, Annie thought to herself as she watched him bouncing from desk to desk, full of energy, a manic grin on his face as he brandished his pad and pen like lethal weapons. Gene was watching disinterestedly from the door of his office, evidently waiting for Sam to start making some connections; he’d been studying the case all morning himself, even managing to apply a little fledgling psychology to it, much to Sam’s delight, but everyone was coming up with blanks today, not least because of the darts tournament cum free-for-all yesterday. Even Ray had had some Lucozade with his breakfast.
Funnily enough, Sam had been one of the very few people not being carried out of the pub last night. Maybe that was why he seemed so energetic, compared to the rest of them. She’d have expected him to be bushed; he, along with Gene, had been the ones carrying the rest of the bloody department. Manchester’s taxis had certainly done good business.
Then again, this was Sam Tyler, DI Duracell Bunny (not that she quite understood the reference, and Sam refused to explain). He and Gene possessed the incredible ability to snap awake within a millisecond if a call came through, and be out the door within ten milliseconds, fully dressed and car keys in hands, if a bit unshaven and, well, bedraggled. So maybe this was Sam’s usual act and she was too tired to realise.
“Annie, Guv?” Sam’s voice startled her out of her daze; shaking off her lethargy, Annie smiled up at him, leaning back in her chair as Gene’s presence approached behind her. “Could we reconvene to somewhere a bit… well, let’s just go to the canteen. If I ‘ave to listen to Chris snorin’ for too much longer I think I’ll go insane.”
“Bit late to be worryin’ about that, Dorothy.” Gene leaned over to pick up a pencil sharpener from Annie’s desk, throwing it over towards his sleeping DC; Chris snorted and jerked awake as something small and metal thudded into his temple, toppling off his chair and onto Ray’s bin with a yelp. Everyone burst out laughing.
“Nice aim, Guv,” Sam said drily, turning on his heel and striding out of the office, only pausing to haul Chris back up onto his chair and right the waste paper bin. Gene smirked and followed, Annie trailing along behind him.
By the time they arrived at the canteen, having paused at the drinks machine for a coffee for Annie (Gene paying- he still hadn’t forgotten her good turn at the Railway Arms after the Gazette siege), Sam had already set out his notes and was planning a mind-map, dodging round the table with a nervous energy Annie had only ever seen in druggies, pointing frenziedly at random pieces of paper and pictures and titles, scribbling down links and theories as he gabbled endlessly. Gene, leaning over to scan the notes and trying to keep up, was starting to look more than a little lost; Annie, wondering if Sam should have kept a closer eye on his pint yesterday, gave up and snatched the largest piece of paper up, just as Sam went to point at it and wailed at its sudden disappearance.
“Annie! You disrupted my train of thought!”
“Slow down, Sam! We lost you about five minutes ago.”
“We were in CID five minutes ago.” Sam grinned, his top lip gleaming with sweat; Annie felt more than saw Gene tense beside her. “Couldn’t ‘ave lost me five minutes ago, because ‘ere you are.”
“If yer done being a smart alec,” Gene grumbled. “Would you mind goin’ over yer undoubtedly excellent theory, only a little slower, so the rest of humanity can bloody understand?”
“But…” Sam was suddenly stock-still, staring at them, his body shaking from head to foot. A radio nearby crackled on. “But you must’ve… unless… Gene- Gene, I don’t feel well, Annie, I need to sit down…”
And before Gene or Annie could even start forward Sam collapsed, smashing into the table in front of him, papers flying everywhere as he slid off as though in slow motion, crumpling into a heap on the concrete floor.
“SAM!” Gene yelled, skidding to his knees and grabbing his unconscious Inspector up, turning him over as Annie dropped down beside him; Sam’s mouth was wide open, his chest heaving as he wheezed in air, fists screwed up, knocking desperately against the dirty floor. Annie desperately tried to hold his head still, whispering to Sam to relax, let Gene take his weight, that it was all OK and they’d have someone here in a minute, just calm down, is there any pain, are you alright-
Page the doctor, his breathing tube’s become dislodged! Quickly!
Annie had barely had time to glance up at the radio, eyes wide as saucers, before Sam’s body sank onto Gene’s, a soft sigh escaping from his mouth as his chest stilled.
Respiratory arrest! Quickly- fetch me some adrenaline!
“Sam!”
Snatching Sam away from Gene, Annie dumped him unceremoniously on the floor, pushing his head back, feeling for a pulse; before Gene could do anything more than stammer Sam’s name, she had pushed her mouth onto their DI’s, pushing air into his lungs and sucking it back out again, hands on his face and arm, ducking up and down over him as Gwen walked in, yelped and rushed straight back out again. Sam was so still, his temperature cooling even as Annie worked his lungs ferociously, in and out, in and out, feel for pulse, in and out, please Sam please, in and out and in and out…
It’s working! Well done, Sam! Get his mother back in, quickly- tell her we’ve got him back, Sam’s back. Well done, Sam.
Sam’s arms jerked up, pulled Annie into a hug, and clutched onto her as he struggled up off the floor and manoeuvred himself round to look at Gene, both of them panting as though they’d run a race, lips red and bruised, eyes gleaming.
Gene stared at Sam, mouth working and no sound coming out, eyes flicking from him to Annie and back before rolling up in his head as he flopped backwards onto the floor, completely unconscious.
Annie and Sam looked round at each other, back to Gene, and back, and burst into peals of breathless laughter.
They told CID Sam tripped over a chair leg and took Gene out on the way, as the pair of them were stretchered away.