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‘What’re you doing in there?’
Gene straightened abruptly from Sam’s desk, an almost child-like guilt drawn into every line of his tall frame. And if that, combined with Gene’s conspicuous absence all bloody day until now, wasn’t enough to raise Sam’s curiosity, his lack of any other response certainly did the job. Gene Hunt did not take kindly to being questioned at the best of times, and never in his own domain. Especially not in the irate tone of voice Sam had thrown across the office.
Gene Hunt did not respond to yelling with tight silence. Until now.
Deeply suspicious, Sam strode briskly between the messy, ill-used desks towards his own tidy portion of CID, prepared to shove past Gene if need be but Gene was already stepping out of his way, far too hastily to disguise the desk drawer left partially ajar. Sam brutally yanked the drawer fully open, and froze in shock.
He struggled for breath, heart battering too large at his lungs and throat. ‘Guv-‘ he started, too quiet beneath the slamming of Gene’s office door. He had already disappeared.
Indecision beat the smoky, sweaty air while Sam stared down at the single cut stalk of a tiger lily resting neatly in his desk drawer. His fingers hovered, disbelieving, over the large orange petals before sense took over; Sam slammed the drawer shut and turned on his heel in pursuit.
‘Guv,’ he started, much louder than before but he fell silent again at the sight that greeted him inside Gene’s office. Not the unreadable blankness of Gene’s back turned to him, but the incongruity of several rough-worn cardboard boxes and two leather suitcases, all battling their seams and scattered like shrapnel on and around the settee. The larger of the two suitcases seemed to have already lost, its split zipper revealing wrinkled clothes bundled in knots, a single green plaid slipper, sole peeling away from the felt.
‘Thought you’d already gone home for the day.’
Sam jumped, startled by the tired rasp of Gene’s voice in the silence he had scarcely noticed settling in the room. He had been staring at that slipper, at the sleeve of an ugly knit jumper he could never imagine Gene wearing, let alone owning.
‘I didn’t mean for…’ Gene spoke quickly, then cut himself short with a frustrated huff of breath. Breaking his scrutiny of slipper and jumper, Sam glanced up, catching part of Gene’s profile as he rummaged for a cigarette. ‘Weren’t gonna do this until tomorrow,’ he finished, mumbling into his hands as they raised his lighter.
‘Do what?’ Sam could feel the silence now and he instinctively pitched his own voice low, cautious. ‘What’s going on? Why’re all these…’
‘S’over, Sam.’ Seemingly braced by his cigarette, Gene pushed off the support of his desk and turned to face him. Sam noted the slight sway of his body. ‘No more Missus. Done.’
‘Oh.’ The news seemed to be crawling sluggishly through Sam’s brain; his gut remained empty of pity or joy. ‘So… all your things…’
‘Helen gets the house. Least I could do.’
Sam nodded slowly, composing the proper sympathies in his mind and stuttering to a halt over a detail and a memory. ‘Helen?’
Gene didn’t elaborate, but stared him down with an intensity that inflamed Sam’s bitter temper as much as it gave him hope.
‘Not Gladys.’ The words sneered off Sam’s lips, an accusation that perhaps wasn’t fair but Sam could feel it all over again now, the months of denial, of hollow loneliness and quick fixes that did nothing in the end.
‘There’s only been one Gladys in my life, Sam.’ Gene’s eyes drifted away again, and Sam watched in fascinated horror as a flush of embarrassment coloured Gene’s cheeks. The sight was so unexpected, so utterly wrong that Sam wanted to laugh, and he tried, but the sound that came out of his mouth was a small, broken thing, almost a sob. Whatever it was, it drew Gene’s gaze again, hardened and defensive.
‘Don’t matter.’ Even though it was only half-depleted, Gene dropped his cigarette to the floor, crushed it beneath his heel with particular viciousness. ‘See you tomorrow, then, Tyler.’ With great deliberation, Gene turned to his encumbered sofa and began to move boxes down to the floor. Sam stared blankly, watched Gene’s foot catch the defeated suitcase and send the slipper skidding over the linoleum.
‘You’re sleeping here?’
‘Course I am, you pillock.’ Gene dropped a box to the floor and moved for the next as though it hadn’t rattled with the sound of broken glass.
‘Come home with me.’
The next box hit the floor from an even greater height, dropped from Gene’s suddenly still hands. His task forgotten, he scrutinized Sam with an open trepidation that made him want to squirm with discomfort, or something else.
‘Come home with me,’ he repeated. Sam turned his gaze to address the mess of Gene’s material possessions, unable to confront his increasingly hungry gaze. ‘You shouldn’t have to spend the night here. Not by yourself, not like this…’
‘I shouldn’t, should I?’ A slightly shaky hand brushed Sam’s cheek, making him jump and look up in shock, startled to realize that Gene had moved in close, too close.
‘Gene…’ And those were Gene’s lips against his own, and that had to mean that Gene was kissing him but this wasn’t how Sam had imagined it would go, not with soft, slow pressure building thick with need, the tip of his tongue so slight and hesitant that Sam barely felt it at all. Gene kissed like a supplicant, like a shy teenager and Sam wanted to cry but also didn’t want to be beaten to a bloody pulp. Trembling, he jerked his head back.
‘Wait…’ Sam licked his lips nervously, startled at Gene’s taste lingering there. ‘Wait, I…’
‘Waited too long already, Sammy…’
‘But…’ Gene brushed his lips over the vein in Sam’s neck, and the sensation of breath on skin nearly broke him, ‘Annie…’
Gene drew back, eyes narrowed. ‘Gene,’ he corrected, but the joke fell dead on its feet, killed by the shuttered light in his eyes. Frustrated, eyes prickling, Sam shook his head.
‘Can’t do this to Annie… I… she… I just…’ Sam winced, waited for Gene to hit him, to start yelling, wishing for any and all of those things and worse. But Gene just stared at him, soft lips tight, not even looking angry but almost…
Swallowing hard, Sam turned and walked away, walked out of CID as quickly as he could. He never wanted to see that look on Gene’s face again.
Gene could feel the telephone as much as he heard it, the heavy metallic ringer vibrating through the desk and into his skull. He reckoned he should lift his fool head off the desk if the damn thing was going to keep ringing like that – seven rings now, was it ever going to stop? – but he couldn’t quite muster the motivation to sit upright just yet.
Nine rings. Ten. Gene blinked rapidly, staring at the phone through the hazy amber of an untouched glass of whisky.
Eleven. He sniffed in a harsh breath, cleared his throat, clawed for the receiver. Dropped it alongside his prone head. ‘Hunt.’
‘…Gene?’
Shit. Gene flew upright in his chair, winced as he felt his neck crack.
‘Tyler.’ He aimed for aloof, ended up with rasping. Experimentally, he turned his head and cleared his throat again.
‘Um, listen…’ So Gene listened to the long pause crackling down the phone line, waited until Sam’s voice poured deep and lush into his ear again.
‘Er, how drunk are you right now?’
So much for sweet nothings, then. ‘Not nearly enough,’ Gene drawled back, and immediately cringed. How Sam managed to slip the truth out of his mouth without even trying… he really was far too sober.
‘So you can, er, drive over here?’
Gene’s hand tightened around the phone. He could feel his blood pounding fast right to his fingertips. Bowing his head, he forced his breathing to slow. ‘What about Annie?’ he growled, convincingly he hoped.
A bitter little sound scraped at Gene’s ear. ‘Reckon she’d push me off the roof if she had the chance. Not that I’d blame her…’ Sam’s voice diminished into an uneven sort of breath. ‘I tried to explain, hoped maybe she’d understand once I told her…’ A choked little inhale interrupted him; Gene ached to hear it. ‘She’s left now. And I don’t know what I’m doing, or trying to say, but… I’d like to see you. If… if you still want… I mean…’
‘Yeah.’ Gene’s voice rasped again, but he didn’t bother to conceal it now. ‘Yeah, alright, I’ll be right over.’
‘Okay.’
An awkward pause lingered. Gene wondered what else he was supposed to say, then: ‘Oh, and Gene?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Could you… I mean, if you’re hungry, might be an idea to pick up a take-away on your way over? Only Annie threw the bolognaise on the floor and I’m not sure what I’ve got left to throw together if you-‘
‘Sam.’ Gene cut him off sharply, though something warm was already easing through his tired body. ‘I’ll pick us up a nice curry or summat then, shall I? You’re paying, mind, you dozy git.’
‘Bastard.’ It came out like an endearment.
‘Be there as soon as, Gladys.’
Gene hung up before he dared get any more soft than that. The wild thrumming of what felt like hope was already rushing through him, making him fumble with his coat and keys.
Still, he reasoned, couldn’t hurt to stop at Sam’s desk to collect that flower on his way out.