Fic: Jabberwocky, Part 22b, Blue Cortina, Sytaxia

[sytaxia]

Chris’ face fell, and he looked down at the ground, “Didn’t think you’d remember that, Boss.”

Sam tried to crane his neck to look at Chris’ face, and found that it was an impossible feat.  “Chris, look, just…  Are you trying not to remember that?  Instead of…  Instead of dealing with it?  Did you ever think, maybe, the reason you’re not so good at remembering things, is because you spend so much energy on trying not to remember other things?”

Chris stared at Sam for a moment, confusion contorting his features, “You think, I mean, you think that if I just let the things I don’t want to remember stay, then everything else’ll stay, too, like?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Sam wasn’t sure how to begin.  “Chris…  Do you have anyone to talk to, someone that you can go over everything with?  I mean, absolutely everything?”  Sam was half hoping that he could convince Chris to talk to Annie about his past, and wondering if she’d be able to shed some insight into his recent changes in behavior, as well as his past patterns of forgetfulness.

Chris was silent for quite some time, and then looked back at Sam, meeting his gaze eye to eye, “Yeah, I think so,” he said, quietly.  Sam raised his eyebrows, not just a little surprised at this.

“Could you, do you think, talk to them, about your past?  About your mum?  Would you?  As a favor to me,” Sam asked, trying to tread as lightly as he could on the subject.  Chris looked at him for a moment, and then nodded.  “You will, then?” Sam asked.

“I…  I think I’ve started to already, Boss.  Last night, like.  They, this person, they were over at mine, and we were talkin,’ and it just…  It just slipped out,” he said, looking slightly ashamed.

“That’s good, Chris.  No, I mean it, it’s really good,” Sam said, noticing that Chris was starting to look embarrassed, and to lock himself off again.  “Just… Try to work through it all.  How it made you feel.  Everything that happened, just get it off of your chest, and try to find a way to deal with it, instead of just locking it away,” Chris looked almost as if he were going to cry, and Sam hoped that he wouldn’t.  That was the last thing that he needed right now…

“I s’pose I can try,” Chris said, and Sam tried to smile at him again.

“That’s good.  It’ll help, I promise.  It’ll make you a better copper,” he added, hoping that this would be the last bit of incentive that Chris needed to talk things over with his friend; likely the girl that he’d sicked up Pernod and Black on, Sam realized.  He considered this for a moment, and then decided that any girl that was willing to give a man that vomited liquor up on her face a second chance had more than enough compassion to meet the task.  The thought gave him some hope, and he reached out again, willing his arms not to give out on him, and picked up one of the bugs.  “Okay, you take the receiver out into the hall, walk down a ways, maybe to the…  I don’t know what’s where here,” he mumbled, frustration filling his voice.  “Just, just take it farther away, and tune into the frequency for this bug, all right?”

“Wilco, Boss,” Chris said, and he picked up the receiver, which was quite large, by Sam’s standards, and took it out of the room.  Sam waited for a few minutes, and then picked up the bug and held it up, cursing his arm as it started to shake, and grasping the bug with both hands, trying to hold it out, level with his face and a few feet from him.

“This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System, because the yanks are all paranoid,” he said in a very flat voice, trying to think of something that would amuse Chris, and thinking back to the odd moment that had occurred in one of his favorite television programs, when a character’s radio had suddenly stopped playing music, stated that line, and then blared a high, flat monotone out at everyone in the scene.  He’d googled the damned thing later on, and found out that the system had been in place since the 1960’s, so there was no worry about Chris not knowing what he was talking about.  At least, he hoped not.  A few minutes later, Chris came back in, beaming from ear to ear.

“I heard that, Boss!  All the way down the hall, and in the lift, gave some poor old bird a heart attack.  Well, not really.  Blimey, that’d be bad, wouldn’t it?  But it worked!  And what’s the ‘Emergency Broadcast System?’” he asked, a puzzled look overtaking his face.

“It’s a thing they have in America,” Sam said, and then felt his throat start to clamp on him again.

“Because the yanks are all paranoid!  All that cock-up with Nixon an’ all, can you believe…  Boss?”  Chris nearly dropped the receiver, but instead managed to place it on one of the chairs that sat against the far wall of the room, before he rushed to Sam’s side.

Sam tried to reach out and managed to knock the box of tissues from the bedside table to the floor, and Chris quickly picked it up and placed it in front of Sam, on the table, which Sam was gripping so tightly in his other hand that his knuckles were turning white.  Pain rippled up through his ribs as the coughs shook him once again, and he deftly yanked out a handful of tissues and then held them to his mouth with both hands, trying to turn away from Chris as he did so, closing his eyes against the pain.  He suddenly felt two hands, one at the base of his back and the other between his collarbones, pressing gently in and forcing him to sit up, taking the pressure off of his ribs and lungs in the process.  He hacked into the tissues, and then crumpled them in one hand and gasped for breath, the hand on his back slowly rubbing up his spine, and the one at his throat still holding him softly up, managing to avoid actually touching either ribs or throat.  He caught his breath, much more quickly than he had before, he was pleased to find, and then looked over to see Chris still standing there, his hands reaching out.

“How did you know…  Your mum?” Sam asked, and Chris nodded.

“Just like that, always made it easier for her.  I didn’t touch nothing I shouldn’t have, did I?  I mean, where you’re hurt an’ all?”

Sam shook his head.  “I’m fine,” he said, and Chris nodded again, pulling his right hand away from Sam’s back, and pushing him back against the bed with his left.  He straightened and turned, taking a few steps away from the bed, and then came back, holding a small metal dustbin in one hand.  Sam threw the tissues into it, giving them a disgusted sneer as he did so.  Chris put the bin down, next to the bed, and then moved the bedside table closer to Sam, so that everything on it was in easier reach.  He poured out a cup of water and held it out to Sam.

Sam reached for it, and found that his hand was shaking, his entire arm trembling horribly as he did so.  Chris pushed the cup into Sam’s hand, and wrapping his own hand around Sam’s as he did so, just as Gene had done the other night, and helped Sam move the cup to his mouth.  He remained silent as Sam drank, and then pulled the cup away and set it on the edge of the table, picking up the tissues and placing them next to it, so that Sam could reach either one with ease.  Sam smiled at him.

“Thank you,” he said, and Chris nodded, then started to pick up the bugs off of the table and place them on the same chair that he’d set the receiver down on.  “Chris?  I’m all right,” Sam said, and Chris, nodded, still silent.  “I mean it.  I’ll be fine.  I just need a few days,” Sam said, and Chris looked at him, fear in his eyes.  “I promise,” Sam said, and then the strange, frightened zombie look left Chris’ face again, leaving Sam with the old Chris that he’d come to know at the station, straight down to the goofy grin.

“Right, Boss,” Chris said, meaning it.  Sam grinned back at him.

“I promise,” he repeated, and Chris’ grin became wider.  He sat back down on the chair, and lit a cigarette, carefully blowing the smoke away from Sam as he exhaled, pulling the table away from Sam, the ashtray the only item on it now.  A few stray bits of wires were left in it, along with the butt from Chris’ previous fag, and Chris ashed on top of them, clumsily.

“This bothering you?” Chris said, trying to turn his chair away from Sam, and Sam shook his head.

“By now, I should be used to it.  I’ll probably be lighting up spare cigarettes around my flat like incense, soon, just to make it smell like Ge - CID,” Sam shook his head and chuckled at this, and Chris quirked an eyebrow at him.

There was a knock on the door, something that Sam was unaccustomed to, and a nurse entered, wheeling another one of the long, over-bed tables, this one topped with a covered bowl.  “Dinner call, Mr…”  She turned and looked outside the door for a moment, and then hurriedly moved all the way through it, smiling a much more sincere smile than the morning nurse had, “Mr. Tyler.”

“Great,” Sam said, eyeing the bowl warily, and readying himself for the challenge.  The sooner he could keep solid food down, the sooner he’d be strong enough to walk, the sooner they’d let him out of this damned hell hole, he thought to himself.

The nurse smiled at him, moving Chris’ table out of the way and wrinkling her nose at the cigarette, and then she moved her own table in front of Sam.  “What have you been up to?  Building a model, or sommat?” She asked, rolling her eyes slightly as if to say, ‘boys will be boys,’ in a silent manner.

“One way, long range, low-band FM receiver,” Sam said, and she gave him a confused look, and then eyed the items that Chris had placed on the chairs, and the box of other oddments, which he was attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to stuff under the same chair, his fag forgotten on the discarded table.

“Whatever that is, I’m glad you found a way to pass the time,” she said, pulling the blankets down to Sam’s waist and pushing the table forward, until it was nearly touching his chest.  “Is that all right?  You can situate yourself different, if you want,” she said, looking towards Chris, whose box of odd and end electrical components had finally split down the side.

“I’m okay like this,” Sam said, leaning back against the bed and lifting his hands up so that they rested on the table, feeling as if he were stretching before a marathon.

“Why don’t you tuck in, on your own, and I’ll lend a hand when you need it,” she said, and Sam suddenly wished she’d start giving out lessons in nursing behavior to the ICU staff.  He figured that she was probably used to patients that were more mobile than those on his former floor, but still couldn’t get rid of his contempt for most of the other nurses that he’d encountered.

Sam’s dinner turned out to be a soup consisting of incredibly soggy vegetables in beef broth, and he added ‘decent food,’ to the list of things that he was looking forward to, as soon as he regained his freedom.  Even by 1973 standards, hospital food was still absolute and utter rubbish, he thought.  Chris disappeared to the restroom for a bit, and then came back and smoked silently in the corner, while Sam struggled through the first few spoonfuls, and then conceded to let the nurse spoon feed him, trying not to let his frustration show too much. Chris ducked out of the room again, and was gone for quite some time, a fact that made Sam’s brow furrow as he and the nurse finally finished, and she recovered the bowl and wheeled the table away.  She looked about the room, and then sat down in the chair next to Sam.

“I’ll just wait here until your friend comes back, all right?” she asked, and Sam nodded at her.  “Is he a policeman, too?” she asked, and Sam suddenly realized that she’d been staring at Chris’ arse when she’d first entered the room.

“Yeah.  Detective Constable Skelton,” he said, and her eyes widened.

“Detective Constable?  On his way up the ladder, then,” she said, smiling wistfully at this thought.  Sam nodded at her, wondering if he should bother to tell her that Chris had a girlfriend, or at least, Sam thought he did.

Sam and the nurse continued to make small talk, discussing the weather, what it was like to be a detective, what it was like to be a nurse, and even David Bowie, whom the nurse seemed quite fond of.

By the time Chris returned, Sam had vomited his dinner up, and the nurse had helped him to wash out his mouth and lowered the bed back to a forty five degree angle, then tried to coach some water down him.  Chris was grinning as he walked through the door, but the expression ran quickly from his face as he saw the nurse leaning over Sam, who was laying limply against the bed.

“Boss?” Chris asked, and Sam looked at him, an embarrassed flush filling his cheeks as he saw Chris’ expression.

“There’s a half dozen of us at the station; you just have your friend come and get us, or one of the officers outside the door, if you need anything,” she said, and she rolled the table she’d brought in away, and Chris noticed the rather ominous-looking kidney-shaped bowls atop it.

“I, er, I thought you might like sommat else,” Chris said, and then started emptying his pockets of dozens of packets of sweets and cakes, and Sam couldn’t help but laugh.

“Did you empty every vending machine in the entire hospital?” Sam asked, and Chris gave him a sheepish grin, then started to stuff the items back into his pockets, which were all bulging.

“Guess you’re not really wanting any of that,” Chris said quietly, and Sam nodded, looking incredibly frustrated again.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said, and then he gestured towards the bedside table, “Hide that packet of jammy dodgers in there, if I can manage to keep anything down tomorrow, it’ll be the first thing I’ll go for,” Sam said, and Chris grinned, slipping the drawer of the table open and sneaking the packet in between two folded spare sheets.  “Thanks,” Sam added, and Chris nodded, still grinning, and sat down in the chair.

Sam thought back to the nurse, and to the person that Chris had mentioned he’d be able to confide in, and ventured a question, “You still seeing that girl that you met at the ice rink?”

Chris nodded, “Nice bird.  Real nice.  I see her from time to time,” he said, with a tone that Sam found impossible to read.  He decided not to continue questioning Chris, and closed his eyes.

“Mind if I grab some kip?” he asked.

“Sure, Boss.  Go right ahead.  You look knackered,” Chris said, quietly, and Sam felt his hand on his shoulder, just for a moment, as he tried to let himself drift, hoping for more dreamless slumber.

Sam’s attempt to sleep, however, was interrupted a few minutes later, when the door was flung open and Gene entered the room, followed by Ray.  “Skelton!  Tyler!” He bellowed, and the familiarity of it made Sam think, just for a split second, that his door had just been broken down, and that he was laying on the ramshackle camp bed in his own bedsit.  He opened his eyes and looked at Gene, who was advancing quickly towards him.  “Did you two have any luck with those radio bug things?” he asked, and Chris nodded, standing and moving towards the receiver and transmitters on the chair against the wall.

“All done, Gov, ready for action,” Chris said, smiling at Gene, and Gene grunted in acknowledgement of this.

“Get those down to the station before you’re off for the night,” Gene ordered, and Chris nodded, clumsily scooping up the items, and fumbling with them, juggling all of them in his arms and trying not to drop them.  Ray moved forward and took the receiver from Chris’ arms.

“I’ll get that, you div,” Ray said, and Chris nodded at him.

“All right, clear off, and be back here at eight in the morning.  Fletcher and the plonk-o’-the-year will be here, and we’ve got a lot to sort out.  I want Fletcher inside of Hyde, planting those things, before the sun’s down.  Those had better work,” he said, gesturing towards the radios, “or I’ll personally feed them to you, Skelton.  Speaking of which, you did make sure he ate something, and you smacked him on the head when he tried to get up again, didn’t you?”

Chris gave Gene a deer-in-headlights stare, and then looked to the floor, simply stating, “He didn’t try to get up, Gov.  An’ one of them birds came round with sommat for him.”  He nervously moved towards the door, pockets still bulging oddly and the three bugs precariously balanced in his hands.

“Good,” Gene said.  “Now clear off.  First thing tomorrow,” he added, and Ray and Chris nodded, then left, calling their goodnights out to Sam.

Once they’d exited, Gene stood over Sam, and Sam suddenly felt as if he were being appraised for auction.  He sat down then, heavily, and gave Sam a slightly angry look.  “You scared the piss out of me today, I’ll have you know, and you’re paying for it in whiskey, soon as you’re ready to come down the pub.”

Sam raised his eyebrows at Gene.

“Thought there was something wrong, way you blacked out after we got you on that damned table,” Gene offered by way of explanation.

“Just tired,” Sam said.  “You have to admit, I did walk.”

“More like you fell over in a straight line while I propped you up,” Gene said, and Sam gave him an annoyed look.

“I took a few steps,” Sam said, suddenly realizing how familiar the argument felt.

“Did not,” Gene said softly, a smile playing on his lips.

“Did to.”

“Not.”

“Did.”

“Not.”

“Did.”

Gene and Sam were both smiling now, and Gene reached up and ran a hand along Sam’s face.  Sam leaned into the motion, liking the sensation of Gene’s hand against his flesh, the smell of stale nicotine and aftershave and the odd remnants of the scent of leather, left behind from Gene’s driving gloves.

“I take it from the way Skelton looked about to piss himself that you’re still not eating?” Gene asked, and Sam gave him another annoyed look.

“I’m eating.  Just with some temporary inefficiency,” Sam said, and Gene gave him a sneer.

“Always got to bend everything around to sound like some government ponce has his head shoved so far up your jacksie, he’s talking up your arse and it’s comin’ out your mouth,” Gene said, and Sam crinkled his nose at this.

“Such a lovely image,” Sam quipped, turning his face so that Gene was stroking his cheek, running his thumb lightly along the bridge of Sam’s nose.

Gene continued to stroke Sam’s face in silence, fingers lightly playing along his cheek bone and brow, thumb brushing against his nose and jaw.  The two of them were silent for a minute, and Sam closed his eyes, taking in the smell and feel of Gene caressing him.

“You did have me worried.  Conked out, just like that, not even waking up when they picked up your soddin’ carcass, and you looked a bloody scarecrow when they did.  You were sparse to begin with, but I swear I’ve seen rakes and rails casting thicker shadows than you did when they put you on that damned x-ray table,” Gene said, and Sam suddenly realized that they’d likely stripped the gown off of him for the x-ray.  He opened his eyes, and Gene’s hand moved lower, fingers tracing amorphous shapes into the skin of Sam’s neck, lightly stroking the flesh there.

“Did you see the results?  What did Denslow say?  And what about the fingerprints?”  A thousand questions suddenly jumped into Sam’s mind, each vying against the others for space, shoving and crowding themselves out of his mouth hurriedly.  “Did you find out any more about this Williams?  Or the fellow that Annie’s witness, the secretary, saw?  Did you make any connection between the victims?  Did you -“  Gene cut him off then, pulling away his hand and holding it up, suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that he’d been touching Sam, and hadn’t even realized it.

“Maybe if you’d shut your yap for a second, I could tell you, Doris,” Gene said, holding his hand up in the air.

“Cartwright’s doing door to doors with your picture, asking if anyone’s seen a man that looks like you, but doesn’t look like they cut their hair by themselves, with a butcher knife.  Ray’s calling around other stations, asking if you’re from there, sayin’ he’s from the council and you’ve gotten some tax refund.  Phyllis heard back on the badge - the only new ones issued in the past five years were to new recruits, a DS in RCS named Branton, and, our own little dick-of-the-month, Samuel Williams.  And Superintendant Rathbone is personally requisitioning a full background file on Williams, and an audit of the files at Hyde.  Forensics came back on the prints - no match on any of the three doctors that were in here, so somehow, the bastard got in without being seen, despite you being on full watch the whole time.  Don’t make no bloody sense, but then again, you always do have to be difficult,” Gene’s hand delved into his pocket, and he pulled out his cigarettes and lighter, pulling a fag out of the packet and holding it to his lips as he lit it.

“I’m sure you know all the rest - we’re going to have Fletcher sneak in and bug Williams’ office, just in case that Morgan bastard finds some way to stall Rathbone,” Gene continued, and Sam closed his eyes, concentrating on the sound of Gene’s voice, and on the memory of his hand against his flesh.

“So that’s it, then?” Sam asked, and Gene was silent.  Sam opened his eyes and saw Gene reaching out with one long leg to draw the rolling table with the ashtray closer to him, his foot hooked around its lower rails.

“Still need your statement, Sammy,” Gene said softly, and he flicked ash from the end of his fag into the tray, then looked back over at Sam.  “I don’t want you to have to do it, but I need you to.  To remember everything, every soddin’ detail, right down to the number of times you reorganized your sock drawer so that it was correctly color coded the morning that it happened.”

“I do not color code my sock drawer,” Sam said, and Gene gave him a sad grin.

“Well…  That’s a start.”  They were both silent for a moment, while Gene blew a hideously misshapen ring out of his cigarette smoke, and then he looked back at Sam, “I’ve had Fletcher ringing up every Tyler in the city today, too.  Looking for your mum.  Haven’t found her, but I will,” he said, and Sam remembered what he’d told Gene earlier.

“You don’t have to,” Sam said, and Gene gave him an odd look.

“She deserves to know.  Old bat’s probably gone potty, wonderin’ why you haven’t called or rang in all this time,” Gene said, and Sam remembered the times he’d heard his mother’s voice, the pain and anguish there, as she’d spoken to him in his dreams, or hallucinations, whatever they were.  His eyes suddenly felt hot, and he felt Gene’s hand curl around his.  “I’ll find her.  I keep my promises.  So don’t go all girly on me, all right?  Get you your damned slippers soon, Dorothy, and they won’t just be a one-time, one-way ticket.”

“I was at the Railway Arms, Nelson was closing - no, he’d already closed.  He was letting me stay, tying to work things out about the case, while he cleaned up, not going to kick me out until he was ready to go home himself.  He does that, sometimes,” Sam said, and Gene took a long drag on his cigarette, his other hand still stretched out and clamped around Sam’s.  “I really don’t remember much, think I was a bit pissed,” Sam said, and Gene nodded again.  “But I think…  The hands…  They seemed so strange, at first, or maybe it was just adrenaline and anger and fear, or maybe it was just the chloroform, or maybe it was just that I was pissed.  But there was something, something that was off about the entire situation.  I…  I never thought about it, until now,” Sam stared at the ceiling, dreading what was coming next, and knowing that it probably would help him to talk about it.  “The fingerprints on my jacket, they matched the prints that we have for our mystery killer, yeah?”

“They do,” Gene said softly, pulling his hand away from Sam’s and settling it on his own leg, and Sam knew he was waiting for what was coming next, and was likely just as nervous about it as Sam was.

“I remember feeling the cloth against my mouth, and then the first thing, the only thing that I saw when I woke up was the light, and the sound of the torch.  I couldn’t see anything after that; never got a look at their faces.  I only heard voices, and felt…”  Sam felt himself starting to shake slightly, and drew in as long a breath as his aching lungs would let him take.

“I need to hear it, Sam.  I need the details,” Gene’s voice was soft, the only sound in the room, which suddenly seemed to have gone incredibly still, as if it were only the ghost of a room.  He heard Gene slowly exhale another smoke-laden breath, and then began again.

“The damage to the rib cage is done with a large, blunt object - either a piece of wood, or a cricket bat, something along those lines.  It’s smooth, but likely wooden.  It didn’t feel like metal.  They do that to keep the victim still, to keep him from being able to fight back or struggle.”  Sam tried to think of it as something that had happened to someone else, tried to distance himself from the memories, but the feeling of the object smashing into him, of his chest popping and cracking, still flooded his memory, drawing him down as if he were drowning in it.

“The shards are inserted in a very exact pattern.  I never had Oswald measure them, but I think if you have him do it, he’ll find that they’re not just the same size, they’re all along the same pattern, as well, just like the patches of flesh that are taken from the back.  Very meticulously measured, very precise.  They push them in slowly, deliberately, as if it’s some sort of ritual.”  Sam looked over at Gene, “It has to be some sort of ritual.”

“You don’t think the sick, twisted bastard is just doing it to pin the victims down, put them on display like some sort of…”  Gene’s voice was quiet, “art show?”

“No.  The original killer doesn’t seem to be connected to the art world, does he?  But there has to be some other reason for him to be doing this…”  Sam thought on this, glad that he didn’t have to spend any more time than was necessary dwelling on the memories.

“Williams.  He’s connected to the art world - two pieces, both twisting pieces of shit that look just like Myers’ own trash,” Gene said, a frown forming on his face.  “It has to be him, Sam.  He’s the only one that any of our leads are pointing at.”

Sam shook his head, “You can’t just pin it all on him because he’s made some sculptures, Gov.”

Gene snorted in derision, “Here we go again.  Look, Sam, he’s definitely the one that made those sculptures, and he’s from Hyde, and…”  Gene stabbed out his cigarette, angrily.  “You always have to do this!  I’m so sure of things, and the next thing I know, you’re twisting everything upside down until me bloody brain’s gone arse over tea kettle!”

“And we’ve got no evidence to suggest that it was him; there’s nothing to connect him to Myers, or to say that he’s even been anywhere near the hospital - the marking on the wall of the ICU room had to be done by someone that could get past hospital staff, and…”  Sam’s voice grew in pitch as he started to snap at Gene, and his words dissolved into a coughing fit as he did so.  Gene’s expression quickly shifted from one of anger and frustration to one of concern, and he reached forward and grabbed Sam by the shoulders, forcing him into a full sitting position as he shook.  Sam continued to hack for a while, and then slackened in Gene’s hands, gasping.

“Do you need…”  Gene looked towards the table, and Sam shook his head.

“Could you get me some water?” Sam asked, and Gene nodded, pouring out a cup and offering it to Sam, who took it with a shaking hand.  He reached forward to place his hand over Sam’s, and Sam shook his head again.  “Let me do it on my own,” Sam said, his hand still shaking as he drank.  His entire arm was trembling as he handed the cup back to Gene, but he managed to complete the task on his own.

They were silent for a few minutes, Gene withdrawing his hands and Sam leaning back and breathing heavily, gradually catching his breath.  It was Gene that eventually broke the heavy silence. “All right.  I’ve still got Fletcher bugging Hyde tomorrow, and a tenner says that it all ends up pointing to Williams.”

“And the other bloke, the one that looks like me?”  Sam couldn’t look Gene in the eye as he asked it.

“We…  We’ll do door to doors.  Ask around the Arms, around every other place that victims went missing, and…  And around Hyde.  Not just Annie; I’ll get others on it, as well,” Gene said, the idea only just dawning on him.  It had originally been Annie’s idea, the thought of their murder suspect looking anything like Sam having disappeared from Gene’s mind, pushed away by thoughts that their killer could be Williams.

“Find a picture of Williams.  Find out if it’s him,” Sam said, quietly, and Gene turned to him, eyes wide and angry, a great storm of green fire brewing in his face.

“You think it could be?  Jesus Christ shooting porno pictures of the queen mum, I didn’t even think of that,” Gene said, looking momentarily at the floor, wishing that there was someone available to punch.

“Of course it could be.  At this point, it could be anyone.  And check the picture around the hospital.  Ask if any other coppers have checked in, that sort of thing,” Sam’s voice took on the slightly irritated, authoritarian tone that it often did when he was trying to direct Gene on a case, and Gene smiled slightly.

“Same old Sammy-boy, always trying to tell his Gov what to do,” Gene said, and then he looked back at the floor.  “The hands, Sam.  The voices.  Anything that could point us towards a better suspect, if you’re so keen on dismissing my best lead.”

“I’m not dismissing it; I’m saying it’s highly probable, but we need more information.  Surveillance was the best possible route to take - I’m glad that you thought of that.”

“Ray.”  Gene said, and Sam’s eyes snapped fully open.

“Ray Carling thought of that?”

“Not as daft as he looks.”

“Neither is a bald chinchilla.”

“A bald what?  Don’t you go speaking that science bollocks at me again, Sam.”

“It’s an exotic pet.  And if you shaved one, it wouldn’t look as daft as Ray,” Sam said, and Gene rolled his eyes slightly, the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth again.

“What is it with you two?”

“Same thing it is with the two of us…  Except…”  Sam couldn’t bring himself to say any more, too afraid that he’d say the wrong thing.  He wondered, briefly, if Gene was aware of what the wrong thing was; he dismissed the thought.  ‘Him and Annie?’ he heard the double’s voice, softly, in the back of his mind, and he drove it away, and looked up to find Gene staring at him, his brows knitting together.

“Sam?”  Gene laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder, and Sam closed his eyes again.

“Tired,” he muttered, and Gene shook him slightly.

“Need you to tell me about the hands, Sam.  The voices.  Come on, don’t make me beat it out of you,” Gene pulled his hand away again, and then Sam heard the click and flare of another cigarette being lit.  He opened his eyes and looked at Gene, then swallowed, hard.

“The first set of hands, that had to be Myers.  They were clumsy, forceful, like they didn’t know what they were doing.  The next set was the one that did most of the work, the one that led.  It was generally the left hand doing the work, and sometimes, that set of hands would guide Myers.’  They felt…  Strange.  Not rough, like Myers,’ but still odd, still…  They didn’t feel human, I don’t think…”  ‘They were my hands, Sam.  Your hands,’ came the voice of the double in the back of his mind, and Sam fought it off.  He felt himself start to shake again, as he remembered the feeling of being pinned to the board, the flesh of his arms splitting and ripping, the flesh of his back being touched, his body taken down and placed back up again, ripped down and pinned back…

“They do the ribcage, a form of hobbling, and then they pin the victim up on the board.  Very methodical, just like the cuts on the back.  Very ritualistic.  Almost religious in the attention to detail, the deliberation.  Look for signs of fanaticism, OCD…”

“What the bloody hell’s OSD?”

“OCD.  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,” Sam sighed, “Get Annie to explain it to you.”  Sam kept his eyes closed and tried to concentrate on the feeling of the bed behind him, of the stale, acrid smell of second-hand smoke, at once disgusting and comforting to him now, and tried to use these as an anchor, a lifeline holding him in place in the hospital while he probed at his memories.

“I was pinned up first, and then taken down; sometimes slowly and deliberately, sometimes just madly, being ripped down.  I can’t remember if that was because I was trying to fight them, or if I started to fight them more after I was already down…”  Sam’s entire body started to quiver, and he felt increasingly cold as he realized that he was describing his own memories, in the first person.  There was no going back now.  ‘Is there ever any going back, Sam?’ he heard the double’s voice in his head, and the shaking increased in intensity.

“The pinning, even the wounding of the ribs, it’s all very methodical, very practiced, very precise, but the sexual assault is much more violent, much more animalistic.  It’s as if I was there as an object of religion, a prized possession, a prize on display, but then I was ripped down as an outlet for the most basic urges.  They took me down, and it wasn’t nearly as careful; it was like wild dogs, asserting dominance and mastery, biting, bruising, it was them using an object to purge their wildest and worst desires.  It wasn’t like sex, even forced sex, it wasn’t about power, it was about…  It was about purging, about using me, the object, to rid themselves of something they saw as disgusting…”  Sam’s mind tried to make sense of the actions, and suddenly he felt the hands and arms pushing him down, thrusting madly into him, tearing at his flesh with hands, and teeth, and…  Sam realized that the entire bed was shaking, and that his face was wet.

Gene looked over, wishing more than ever that there was something to punch, to kick, to pound and destroy, anger rising in him as he heard Sam’s voice start to waiver and break.  He had been staring at the floor, trying to listen to Sam’s psychology streaked rationalization for what had been done to him, and trying not to think of what the actions actually meant, and what had been done to Sam.  When he finally looked up, Sam was trembling violently, tears running down his cheeks.  Gene rose from the chair, and then moved to sit at the edge of the bed, leaning over to take Sam’s shaking form in his arms; it wasn’t deliberate; no, like the killers, Gene’s movements were instinctual, some odd part of him that he barely understood urging him forward, forcing him to wrap his arms around Sam and hold him to his chest.

“I couldn’t stop them,” Sam said, his voice high and thin, shaking as hard as the rest of him was, and Gene pulled Sam closely to his chest.

“The hands…  There was a sound…  Maybe he was wearing gloves?  Are we sure that the prints we have don’t match the other two?  The other killer, and the one that was helping move me…”  Sam’s memory locked onto an odd, snapping sound, and he was suddenly reminded of surgical gloves.  Had he felt something, an odd feeling at one of the wrists attached to the hands that pushed him, pulled him, ripped him down and forced him apart, beating and biting and tearing and violating in a sick, untempered fury of movements...  Sam’s memory circled around the sensations, and suddenly he was sobbing again.

“I couldn’t stop them…”  Sam started to choke as he whispered it again, and then he was coughing and sobbing all at once, his entire body shivering violently with the memories, wracked by the rebellion in his chest, the conflicting motions feeling as if they would tear him apart.

Gene struggled to hold Sam upright with one arm as he reached for the box of tissues and pulled out a handful, and then held it under Sam’s face, trying to steady Sam’s body as his shaking caused the entire bed to rattle on its frame.  The coughing eventually passed, but Sam was still sobbing, still shaking, and Gene threw the soiled tissues to the ground, and then pushed himself higher on the bed, until he was sitting on it, holding Sam tightly with both arms, pulling him against his chest and feeling his body shake and heave with the horrific sobs.

“I’m sorry…  I, I…”  Sam tried to speak, but his voice was swallowed up by the sound of his own crying, and Gene pulled him more closely, causing pain to spring up like blossoms of fire along his ribs and back.

“Don’t worry about it, Sam.  I won’t tell anyone.  You just get it all out, just, just now, and don’t worry.  I won’t tell anyone, not a soul.  You just cry.  Just now, just get it out.  I won’t tell anyone, I swear.  On me mum’s own grave, I won’t tell a bleedin’ soul.  Go ahead.  Just go ahead.  I won’t tell anyone,” Sam felt Gene rest his chin against the top of his head, felt his arms wrapping around him, felt the pain in his ribs and back rising, and suddenly comforting, like a well placed punch to the kidneys or a sudden knee to the groin, just another strange, bizarre sign that Gene Hunt was there.

Gene felt Sam continue to shake and shudder in his arms, and he felt a sudden rush of fear inside of himself, pushing past the weeks of rage and frustration and gripping his heart in a hard, angry grasp.  Sam felt incredibly fragile, trembling and sobbing in his arms, and the thought chilled Gene to the bone.  Sam was poncey and irritating, he was lean and lithe, but he was still Sam, and he wasn’t meant to be frail, to be shaking in Gene’s arms like a half-dead bird, spinning madly on one wing on the pavement.  Gene held Sam tightly, and suddenly felt hot, wet streams covering his own cheeks, and realized that he, too, was crying; he prayed that Sam wouldn’t notice, and he waited for the sobbing to subside, and for the flow of his own tears to stop.

It was an entire half hour before Sam finally collapsed into an exhausted sleep, still wrapped in Gene’s arms, and found himself waking to the wind and the rain of the bluff, overlooking the same strange, odd field, with his double standing there, soaked in the bizarre, sporadic raid, his 2006 suit jacket being whipped about by the wind.

While Sam returned to his nightmare world, Gene continued to cry, silently, cradling Sam’s limp body against his chest.

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