SUBJECT TO CHANGE

by elfin


He stopped sometimes to consider the things he'd missed when he was... in the coma. 

His iPod, the internet, digital television, fast cars that smelt of pinecones rather than rotting food and stale cigarette smoke.  Simple, modern conveniences taken for granted by those who had access to them each and every day.  Take those conveniences away, and what's left?

Sports, card games, sharing a pint down the pub.  Conversation, however mundane and immature.  The old crackle of records and a decent radio station. 

Strange, then, as he sat in front of his computer terminal staring at the Google logo all dressed up in holly and animated coloured lights, how little it seemed to mean to him to have it all back.

He was just down over his Mum's death, Maya told him every morning.  A heart attack, as sudden and unexpected as his own accident, two months ago but she'd been glad to have had the time she'd had, a friend of hers had told him - her son back for four months before her death, enough to make her smile every time he'd visited - usually once a day. 

He missed her, yes, he missed her terribly.  But he knew, deep down, that she wasn't the reason why the 'glad to be alive' feeling had worn off so quickly after he'd left the hospital.

Waking up... that had been his own little miracle.  One minute he was walking back through Trafford Park, from his first match since being back there, his first match in a very long time, walking along the bricked alley he and his Dad had so often walked together.  United had won and the feeling of elation had been more than he'd known for ages.  Gene was at his side, pissed off at having watched City lose - and lose badly - but still smiling, still happy just to be there, it seemed. 

One minute there was happy chatter, sunshine on his skin and a feeling of belonging like he'd never known before...

�the next there were bright lights in his eyes, a shrill mechanical shrieking and pain like he'd never, ever felt in his life. 

In a second elation had turned to fear, peace to terror.

He was home.  Awake.  Alive.  Hurting. 

Maya and his mum by his bedside, holding his hand.  When he'd realised he was no longer in the unreal state he'd been living in for God-knew how long ("Four months, Sam, four long months, baby."), he'd had the urge to leap up and cheer.  The urge, but not the strength.

For the first few nights, lying in Intensive Care surrounded by love and cards and flowers, he'd been scared to sleep in case he woke up in that God-awful brown-wallpapered room.  He'd imagine he could smell cigar smoke when it was impossible that there would be any. 

But he'd remained in 2006, he'd been moved to a general ward after a couple of days and discharged a week after waking to go home.  Finally.

The accident had badly injured him - broken pelvis, two broken legs, four cracked or broken ribs, internal bruising, internal bleeding.  All healed by the time he stepped foot in his apartment again. 

Where a man died, slashed by a snapped loom belt, bled to death under his kitchen table with the blood on his stainless steel oven....

The flashback had been so strong that for a moment he'd thought he'd dreamt his waking, was still back in 1973 with the girl from the test card and the Neanderthals he worked with. 

Best people he'd ever known.  Best friends he'd ever had.

But the present had remained strong and solid all around him.  So he'd returned to work - restricted to desk duties for the time being - as DCI Sam Tyler.  Back to the modern, white, clean office block, back to his desk, with his computer and his laptop and respect he wasn't sure he'd ever earned.  Everyone was glad to see him back, they'd said so; relieved after so much worrying that he was alive and well. 

His mum's death had almost broken him, but even then he'd know - hadn't he? - the depression creeping around his relief to be alive. 

Maya had told him to speak to the police counsellor when she'd found him for the fifth night in a row in the Lamb and Flag in Trafford, drinking whiskey and talking to the barman. 

A few days later, sitting in a large comfy leather armchair he'd found himself talking nonsense to a stranger, talking about a time when his mum had been there for him - and mentioning in passing that she was still there, back in 1973.

They'd signed him off work for a week. 

When he'd gone back to see the shrink, he'd talked nothing but common sense, saying he'd had very little sleep that last time he'd been to see her, but he was sleeping much better now, everything was fine.  He was fine.

He felt just as insane as he'd felt back then.  Or not back then.  In a coma, not back in time.  One night, early on after he'd woken, Maya had asked him what it had been like and he'd laughed.  Words like 'crazy', 'exhausting' and 'emotional' had come to mind, but instead he'd found himself explaining about his mental adventures, about DCI hunt and his team of fellow animals.  When he'd finished, there were tears in his eyes, and a feeling in his heart that he'd hadn't been able to place and even now, almost six months on, still couldn't.

"Sam?"  His head snapped up.  He knew by Maya's stance that she'd been there for some time and he realised he had no idea how long.  "Sorry.  Miles away." 

"Are you sure you're ready to be back at work?"

"Yes!"  I never left work.  He took a deep breath, resisted hanging his head, "Sorry.  Didn't mean to snap." 

"Sam... since you came back you've been different."

"I was in a coma for four months, Maya." 

"I know, but you've been... harder somehow, like there's more fight in you.  Which is only to be expected, I suppose...."

"I got used to fighting."  Every order, every decision, every conclusion.   

Unable to think of anything more to say, and remembering that was exactly the root of their problems before the accident, Sam pointed at the papers in her hands.  "Are those for me?"

"In a way."  She glanced down at them.  "That officer you talked about - the one you dreamt about?  I looked him up." 

Sam didn't try to stop the bubble of laughter that rose from inside him.  "No, you don't understand."  It came out as a half-plea.  "I made him up.  I imagined him, I imagined them all, built a world in my own head, somewhere for me to live when I couldn't live here."

"The name rang bells.  There was a DCI Hunt working here over thirty years ago." 

Shaking his head, Sam was still smiling, "Co-incidence.  I must have read the name somewhere."

She looked at him steadily for a long time, then handed him a sheet of A4 paper, a service record of sorts. 

"DCI Gene Hunt, 1954 to 1973.  Started off police life as a lowly constable and rose up through the ranks to become a DCI in CID in 1969."

Sam barely heard her.  He knew the facts anyway.  Definitely facts.  Because there was a photograph on the sheet of paper she'd handed him; black and white but his memory filled in the colour like an artist deprived of paint for so long.  Hard green eyes, pink, craggy skin, the surprise of blond hair, yellow-hued teeth from too many fags and too much booze.  And that ironic smile - the one that had made him feel like he belonged somewhere he never should have been - beaming up at him now, so familiar it sent a shiver down his spine. 

"That's impossible...."

She shrugged.  "Like you said, you probably heard his name...." 

"No.  I mean... this is him.  This is the Guv."

"So you saw his photo somewhere, maybe just before the accident." 

But Sam couldn't buy that.  Something she'd said... "1954 to 1973?  He resigned in 1973?"  The details weren't on the sheet she'd handed him.

"He didn't resign."  She had a second piece of paper in her hand, what looked like a photocopy from where he was sitting.  "He was killed in the line of duty.  Shot while trying to stop an armed robber who'd held up a corner shop. December 19th, 1973." 

She handed him the copy of the old newspaper report.  Front page as far as he could tell, with the headline, Tragic Hero.  For a second he couldn't take his eyes from the name under the catchline.  Jackie Queen.  How had he known?  How could he possibly have got that right?

"A senior CID officer was shot dead this afternoon by an armed gunman fleeing the scene of a robbery.   

"DCI Gene Hunt confronted Edward Stokes after he fled a corner store in Trafford Park where he'd held the owner at gunpoint and stolen fifteen pounds in cash. 

"After armed CID officers cut off his escape root along an alley, Stokes grabbed and threatened a four-year-old boy.  DCI Hunt was attempting to bring about a peaceful end to the situation when Stokes released the boy and shot Hunt twice in the chest.  He then turned the gun on himself. 

"This was a tragic end to a bizarre story.  DCI Hunt had famously spent the last six months searching for a missing colleague."  Sam could feel his sense of reality twisting in on itself.  "DI Tyler vanished on the way back from a football match in June this year."  He felt sick, a slick blackness creeping around the edges of his consciousness.  "At the time, Hunt claimed Tyler had been walking beside him and couldn't have just disappeared.  But since that day there's been no trace of him.  Hunt was cleared of any blame and searched tirelessly to find him.  Now, it seems, that mystery will die with him."

A flash of something like a lightening bolt in his head had him suddenly bent-double in his chair before it all went black. 

 

"You're a right ray of sunshine this evening, aren't yer?"

"Sorry, Guv."  Sam hung his head, stared into the rich amber of the whiskey and tried to listen to the sounds beyond his immediate surroundings. 

"Don't be sorry!  Give me a smile."

He started when a large, surprisingly gentle finger touched the left corner of his mouth and pressed it upwards towards his cheek.  Flicking his gaze at the man on the stool next to him, Sam smiled of his own accord and despite himself. 

"See?  Strange thing, Sammy, but when you smile you light up this pub."

 

"Sam?"  Maya was at his side, hand on his arm, "Sam, I'm sorry." 

The lights were too bright.  He lifted an arm to shield his eyes and found his hand restrained.  He pulled it towards him, panicked and frightened.

"Sam?" 

Maya.  Turning his head to look at her he felt the pounding of a hammer against the inside of his skull.  For a moment he thought he was going to throw up, when he didn't, he sat up cautiously on the floor of the office and clutched at the sheet of paper.

"No.  No no no no.  That can't be right, it can't be real...." 

"Sam, do you want me to call a doctor?"

A few of the other officers had amassed, staying back.  Concern or a desire for gossip?  How many of them really gave a damn? 

 

Insistent hands on his arms, persuasive, frantic.

"You should have gone without me!  He could come back and he'll kill you!" 

"I don't leave any of my team behind, Sam.  Not even you."

 

Pressing his fingertips into his eyes, Sam willed the migraine to subside.  What the hell was wrong with him? 

Opening his hand again he stared at the thirty-three year old newspaper report.

It was impossible.  Gene Hunt couldn't be real, couldn't actually have lived.  And this missing DI� it had to be a coincidence.   

 

"Don't believe in coincidences, Sammy-boy."

 

"I think I need to go home." 

~

Maya drove him, still clutching the report of Gene's death, holding it scrunched up in his right fist as if letting it go would be to let go of the tattered remains of his sanity. 

What about Annie?  And Chris?  Ray and Phyllis?  He glanced at Maya but couldn't bring himself to ask her to look them all up.  Did he really want to know?  What if� if one of them was alive and well and living in Manchester?  What if he met them and shook their hand and they stared him in shocked recognition? 

Would they blame him for the Guv's death, for disappearing and leaving them?   

NO!  They're not REAL!  You weren't really there!!

Closing his eyes, he didn't watch the familiar sights pass by as the car sped through the city to his converted factory home. 

 

Maya dropped him off, promised him she'd come back later, after her shift was over.

Sam barely acknowledged her offer.  He didn't wait for her to turn the car around. 

He walked straight through into his bedroom, closed the curtains and dropped onto the bed, wadding the sheet of paper even tighter in his fist.  Closing his eyes and letting the tears leak from under the lids until the first sob broke free and he cried effortlessly into his pillow.

Exhaustion took him eventually.  He dreamt of grey streets, brick alleys, rusting cars and the pungent smell of beer and cigarettes.  So vivid were the images and the sensations rushing around in his mind that when he woke with an aching neck and insistent bladder, he could still smell the acrid smoke and hear Gene's voice calling his name. 

He went to the toilet, and returned to the chaos of the sheets to pick up the crumpled, tear-strained photocopy he'd clung to so desperately leaving the station.

Gene had died� six months after he'd left 1973.  Six months after he'd woken. 

A place, a time he'd never been to.

He'd been awake six months, give or take.  About this time, back in 1973�. 

What the hell was he thinking?  The fact was - apparently, because the whole fabric of reality and thus the realism of any facts, was starting to fray at the edges - that a DCI called Gene Hunt died after an armed robbery in December 1973.

Gene - or the idea of him - had kept Sam fighting, kept him feeling, hating, banging away with his fists on the false life built up all around him.  How did he imagine a man he'd never heard of?  How did his subconscious produce such an accurate sameness?  Why that man? 

And why were his memories - the recall of his dreams - so powerful even now?  Why could they make him cry, sweat, make his pulse race and twist his stomach in knots?  Why could he remember so vividly the sound of a gunshot and the image of Gene Hunt dropping like a rock to the floor of a newspaper office?  Why could he feel the tears on his face, the sudden, shocking loss in his heart?  And the flooding relief at the ridiculousness of a man being saved by a silver hip flask?

Why were those memories as real to him as the day he was made DCI? 

Because they really happened.  That was the only explanation for the newspaper report - the missing DI and the man who'd been so pivotal on what he'd imagined was a twisted journey through the labyrinth of his own mind.  He knew Hunt - how was that possible if he hadn't been there?

But how the hell could it have been real?  His body had lain in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital, only his mind had been back to 1973.  And unless it had all been some giant cosmic practical joke - the biggest the world had ever seen - he'd imagined it all.  He must have. 

So what about the sand in Annie's palm when she'd taken his hand that afternoon on the roof?  Why in god's name would he have drawn in such minute detail?

 

How hard he'd battled to get home.  Now he wasn't even sure if he wanted to be here. 

The phone started to ring as soon as he tried to get back to sleep, and it was only some professional autopilot that got him out of bed.

"'ello?" 

"Sammy-boy."

He dropped the handset, pulse off and racing like a runner at the starting pistol. 

"Sam?  Sam?" 

Reaching down, he picked up the receiver with shaking hands.  "Guv?" 

A short laugh.  "Not yet, but it's possible." 

Mike.  It was Mike, his inspector.  "What is it?"  Not Hunt.  His mind playing tricks like the expert magician it had become. 

"There's been a stabbing."

"Where?" 

~

His iPod battery was running low.  He could never remember to charge it. 

Moss Side was the same dumping ground it had always been.  Those who couldn't change and those who didn't want to.  He hated it, he always had.

Dave met him at the scene, just inside the blue and white tape which fluttered in the slight breeze.  Dull, sodium streetlights would soon be usurped by the bright white spots forensics were busy setting up. 

"When did it happen?"  Sam tried to keep his irritation to himself, no point in making Chris' - Mike's - night worse than it already was.

"Don't know, Sir.  We're waiting for the coroner." 

"Well, what have the witnesses said?"

"There weren't any."  Naturally. 

"Do we know who he is?"

"No, Sir." 

"What about his wallet?"

"We're waiting for forensics, Sir, before we search the body." 

Of course they were.  That was the procedure, the protocol.  No one could do or touch anything before forensics had processed the scene.  When had he forgotten that?  Wasn't all this structure exactly what he'd spent months trying to impress upon Hunt and his team?  Why was he fighting it now?

Looking around him at the miserable tower blocks in the now spitting rain against the backdrop of grey skies he felt more depressed than he'd ever been.  The fight was all gone.  No one was riling him up because no one thought they needed to, and anyway that wasn't the way to do things nowadays. 

Everything had changed after the scandal of the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad and the corruption subsequent investigations had revealed.  There was so much red tape now it was difficult to get anything done.

And yet - they were at the height of communications technologies.  There were databases that allowed fingerprint matches to be found quickly and with a massively high success rate.  Forensics was at the cutting edge of medical science, DNA profiling was one of the most powerful tools in their possession and they could convict on the evidence it gave them. 

So why was a part of him hankering after the freedom of Hunt's type of prehistoric policing?

"Call me when we have something to go on."  Sam walked away, feeling the weight of his inspector's eyes on his back all the way to the Jeep. 

 

When he got back to the apartment, Maya had apparently been and gone.  There was a note on the table which he read and dropped back where she'd left it.  It didn't mean anything anyway.

"Sam, I think it's best if we don't see each other socially for a while.  I think you need time to adjust.  I'll always love you.  Maya." 

Strange that he thought of Annie as he read the meaningless, Hallmark words.  Sweet Annie who'd anchored him right from the start and kept him anchored, telling him over and over that he should just enjoy it, that it was real - she was real - who was he to claim he'd made up her life?

Maybe she'd been right all along.  And maybe Gene had too.  Maybe he had loved it there, just hadn't been able - or ready - to admit it. 

 

He determined to enjoy the one pleasure he was still finding in this modern life - his kingsize bed - and climbed under the duvet after a quick shower.  He'd smoothed the crumpled report of Gene's death out on the bedside cabinet and brushed his fingers thoughtfully over it before turning out the light.

He dreamt of a sheltering from a bone-chilling wind in a mill with windows stained in blood from a body of a blond haired man torn apart by snapped rubber belts, flaying flesh in their insane dance around the echoing factory floor, and woke with Gene's name on his lips and sweat over his body. 

Ignoring the phone calls - first to his mobile, second to his landline - he took another shower.  Again two minutes later, his mobile playing Pulp's 'Disco 2000'.  Another joke?

The sun was up, the message light flashing on his answer machine and his mobile displaying the 'voicemail' symbol.  Drying, dressing, he barely had a thought in his head when he grabbed his iPod with his car keys and left the Nokia on the table beside Maya's note. 

There was nothing for him here.  Now.  He wasn't coming back.

As he drove up around the ring road he look a last look at the metropolis Manchester had become.  He'd spent all his life here, loved and hated it in equal measure.  He'd had a childhood as traumatic as anyone, a school life that had left him bruised, college years from which he still dreaded the deserved hangover.  He'd walked headfirst into a career which had given him the strength his early years had taken from him and had had the ambition to climb quickly up the ladder of rank. 

He was turning his back on it all.  In a way.

With one hand, he switched on the radio. 

"�and so they should be.  Welcome, if you've just joined us.  It's just coming up to ten o'clock on Tuesday December 19th�."  He pressed a small flat button and touched the iPod's jog-wheel as he turned off the ring road onto the slip road.

Look at those cavemen go

It's the freakiest show 

Slowing the jeep to a full stop, he left the engine running and took off his seatbelt.  All thought had stopped now.  There was nothing except the words of the song playing in the car and the memory of hard, dead eyes staring up at him accusingly from a torn and bloodied face.

Take a look at the Lawman

Beating up the wrong guy 

Winding down the window before opening the car door, he stepped out and closed it, crossing his arms on the sill and screwing his eyes tight shut.

Wonder if he'll ever know

He's in the best selling show 

He didn't have to wait very long.

~  

Is there life on Mars?

~

He could feel the sting of dirt and gravel against his cheek before he opened his eyes.  He lay there, listening, knowing his sanity depended on what was there when he was brave enough to look. 

Mad to imagine this could work.  Cruel to do this to those who did love him.  But one thing the past had made him was selfish.

He lifted one eyelid.  The billboard on its side up above him told him what he needed to know. 

"YES!" 

He scraped himself up off the ground and started off at a run, feeling more alive than he had ever done while his heart had still been beating.

~ 

"Where's the Guv?"

Phyllis stared at him, mouth open, colour fading, eyes wide; like she was face to face with a ghost.  First time he'd known her lost for words. 

"Where's the Guv?"

"Robbery, corner of Trent Road in Trafford Park."  Oh God.  He was too late.  He couldn't be too late.  "I need a car."

He drove like a maniac, revving the nuts off the ancient - new - Ford.  He was used to driving at high speeds through city centre traffic in rush hour.  Back then - now - there was less traffic: less yuppies in their BMWs, less youths in Radio Shack Renaults, less students in pink minis to contend with. 

He didn't know the roads now like he did in the future, but he had a fair idea about where he was going.  If he didn't make it in time he'd have done all this for nothing and the idea of that was gutting. 

There had to be method to his madness, there had to be at least the illusion of a reason, just the hint of meaning. 

The ride was bone-shattering, the suspension non-existent, the handling akin to what he'd always imagined an armoured tank would feel like.  As he jerked the car hard into the top of Trent Road, he almost snapped his wrist.  But the sound of a gunshot echoing off the walls meant he couldn't have cared less.  It scared the blackbirds, and set his heart hammering.

"No," he growled out from between clenched teeth.  "It won't be too late.  It can't be too late." 

The braking distance took him passed the commotion.  He couldn't tell from the general chaos of the scene what had happened and what yet hadn't.  He was out of the car and running, passed caring if he caught the bullet meant for Gene, as desperate as he was not to die before to stop the Guv from dying today; as if that would answer every question, solve every riddle and stop him from going completely insane.

Something caught his eye as he ran - a length of pipe lying on the pavement, close to the wall below someone's front window.  He dipped, grabbed it, weighed it up� 

"Everybody DOWN!"

�swung it when the gunman's head came into range. 

The guy dropped like a rock, straight down, his skull caved in from the blow so powerful Sam couldn't believe he'd been capable of it.

"Don't shoot!"  Chris' words like the voice of an angel hollered into the air. 

Sam dropped the pipe and glanced up, straight into his own eyes, wide and terrified, staring up at him from three feet off the ground. 

"It's okay," he managed to stammer.  "He's dead." 

And there was something oddly familiar about those words.  He didn't know what else to say, and didn't have time to think of something before himself as a four-year-old boy was off and running, up Trent Road, and Sam found himself crazily wondering what kind of mess he was making of his own psyche.

But when he saw the expression on Gene Hunt's face, it didn't seem to matter.  They'd all done as commanded.  They'd got down.  Gene was sitting in the middle of the pavement, one leg out in front of him, the other bent at the knee, flat to the cold ground, like he'd just made himself comfortable. 

Sam approached cautiously, threw a smile at a staring Chris and wiggled his eyebrows at a scowling Ray, stopped next to Gene's outstretched leg and took a deep breath before crouching down.

"Sorry I'm late, Guv." 

Without warning, Gene's arms wrapped around him in a bear hug he hadn't been expecting and he heard his name, "Sammy," muttered roughly into his ear.

It was nice, but he thought it would be quick, the emotion and heroics dismissed in the wave of a hand and a single, disguised 'thank you'.  But Gene held on to him like he was the lifeline the other man had once been, and slowly Sam returned the embrace, loosely, one arm going around the broad shoulders, his other hand cradling the large blond head into the curve of his neck.  He closed his eyes and breathed in cheap apple shampoo and cigarette smoke. 

"Sammy."

"It's okay.  I'm back now." 

~

Very little had changed.  Gene's office was more untidy than he remembered it being but it was only when he cleared a blanket and a pillow from the battered leather sofa to give them somewhere to sit that Sam realised he must have been spending more nights than usual there. 

He dropped onto the hard cushion and accepted the double measure of single malt he was offered by a still-shaking hand that had already tipped back a good quarter of the bottle down a thirsty throat. 

Gene sat next to him and Sam twisted around, stretching his arm out along the back, watching the other man carefully.  He was feeling something close to elation.  Finally - finally - he felt freed of all the tethers that had been holding him.  He felt as if he could fly, and he wanted to do it. 

"Where have you been?"

They were the first words Gene had said to him since his name uttered twice out there on the pavement in Trafford Park.  Not that he'd had much chance to get a word in between Chris' excited chattering and Ray's suspicious questions. 

"Asleep."  Sam took a mouthful of single malt and savoured the after burn of it in his mouth.

"You disappeared.  You left - without a word.  They thought I'd done somethin' to yer, hurt yer somehow with a hundred United and City fans as witnesses." 

"I'm sorry."

"Where have you been?" 

Sam shook his head slowly when Gene finally turned to look directly at him after emptying and refilling his own glass.  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you.  I don't know if I believe it myself.  But it's not important.  I'm back now."

"You said that." 

"It's true."

"Why should I believe you?" 

Sam closed his eyes for a second, listening for sounds beyond the general hum-drum of the office - the chirping telephones, the rustle of paper, male voices talking over one another.  There was nothing more.  No trained analysis, no rhythmic, electronic pulse.  He smiled.

"No more hearing voices, no more distracting warnings of impending doom."  He could see Gene's confusion quickly turning into frustration.  "No more wanting to go home.  I made a choice.  I came back.  I'm here to stay." 

Gene stared into his single malt, silent for a long time and Sam let him be.  He stared out into the office he'd so hated the last time around and determined to find all the good points about it.  Even Ray's stoney silence wasn't going to get to him.  Not today.

What was that corny adage?  Today was the first day of the rest of his life.  The world was, quite literally, his oyster.  He grinned to himself.

"I never knew what had happened to yer." 

Gene's quiet words brought him back into the confines of the office and wiped the smile from his face.

"Guv�." 

"Shut up.  I looked for you, tried to find you.  You might not have thought you'd be missed but I never leave a member of my team behind."  He could hear the anger creeping into Gene's voice; six months of repressed rage at� what?  Sam's betrayal?  His own inability to find some clue as to what had happened?

"I am sorry.  If I could have warned you I would have." 

"Why couldn't yer?  Just a word, Sam, didn't even need an explanation.  I'm not yer wife, I'm just not used to my men disappearing for six months then reappearing like some bleedin' rabbit out of hat to save me life."  Those hard eyes were softening, almost begging.

"What do you want me to say?"  What could he say?  "I'm not going anywhere now, that's all I can promise."  No going back. 

Gene swallowed half the whiskey in his glass and stared into what remained as if all the answers Sam couldn't give were at the bottom of it.

Half five came.  With nothing brewing that wasn't beer, the office cleared out to the pub within minutes of the event. 

When Gene spoke again, against the silent backdrop, it was nothing more than a whisper.  "Why?"

"Why what?" 

"Why did you come back?"

Sam smiled to himself.  "I missed you." 

Swallowing the rest of his whiskey, Gene shook his head slowly.  "Sam�."  There was a desperation in that single utterance of his name that was shocking.  He turned, and the pained expression on his usually careless face was just as much of a surprise.

"What's wrong?" 

Gene chuckled, a rough sound.  "Apart from one of my best men reappearing alive and well after six months to tell me he's been asleep but he's back now?  Absolutely nothin'."

"I mean� why aren't we in the pub?" 

The answer wasn't as straightforward as he'd imagined.

Gene had consumed a large quantity of alcohol in a short space of time even by his standards but still the second hug of the afternoon came as a surprise.  Sam went into it easily, wrapping his arms around the other man, biting back the urge to coo, to reassure.  Gene didn't need all that from him. 

Something else he needed though, apparently.  

As he turned his head Gene did too, and a rough, demanding mouth covered his own.  He felt a large hand come up to curl around the back of his neck and a solid thumb stroke across his nape and he opened his mouth to the onslaught of Gene's tongue sliding under then over his own. 

Sam heard a glass drop to the floor and let his drop too.  He battled to get his own tongue into Gene's mouth, tasted ash and whiskey, and pushed deeper, wanting a different taste.   

Gene's hands got a hold of him around his waist and half-lifted, half-pulled Sam into his lap.  Sam straddled his legs, their mouths still locked together, heads twisting as they tried for more and frustrated, couldn't find it.

Strong fingers scrabbled at Sam's shirt, stroked the taut skin and fine hairs over his belly before finding his fly and unzipping it.  He mirrored every action, chasing away any rational thought - how much of that had he done today anyway? - and the sudden, startling sensation of a large male hand wrapping around his hardening dick was comparable to the feel of Gene steely across his palm. 

Mouths locked together they jerked each other to quick, clashing climaxes, coming down fast from roller-coaster highs.

Sam broke away, lifting his head, leaning back slightly, sticky hand loosening.  He could see the stark fear on Gene's face and for a single moment he had complete and utter control. 

He smiled.  Then laughed.

"I think that's why I came back." 

"You could use this�."

"I don't want to use it!  I want to have it, enjoy it." 

"No one�"

"�can know.  Obviously.  Think how popular I'd be!"  Sam pressed his mouth to Gene's now closed one - unusual for him - before easing himself up onto trembling legs.  "Now can we go to the pub?" 

"Not until we've put our willies away, Sammy-boy."

~ 

First thing to do was find a new flat.  Not least because they'd had to let his old one to some other poor new boy who had the dubious honour of working with the drugs squad.  Sam was relieved - he'd hated the place on sight and he thought maybe he'd need somewhere with space for a bigger bed.

He lay on the hard sofa in the Guv's office, covered by a blanket and cushioned by more beer than he could remember drinking in a long time, and he listened to the building, still active even at this time of night, way passed closing time. 

As his eyes slowly closed and the dark unconscious of sleep crept along his limbs, he heard a distant voice, more comforting than any he'd heard the last time he was here.

"Ashes to ashes�"