Fic: Life On Mars, Sam/Gene (ish), PG13 - Definitions are Complicated

[mooging]

DEAR MOOG: PLZ TO STOP WRITING AND REVISE NOW. LOVE MOOG.

Anyway. Seeing as my brain refuses to leave me the hell alone, I thought you lovelies might like some more fic (if you're not all sick of my rubbish spilling out on to the interwebs by now, as you should be).

Title: Definitions are Complicated
Fandom: Life On Mars
Pairing: Sam/Gene (...ish) and some slight implied Sam/Annie (shh, not the straight pairing!)
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 1111
Disclaimer: Not miiiiine. BBC > me. I have nothing, I make no money, don't sue me.
Summary: Set after 1x06, and Sam is coping by...not.
A/N: WHY CAN'T I WRITE GENE? WHY? And now Sam is turning on me too, and in general, grrr.

Sam's had a gun pointed at his head with 2007 ringing in his ears and he's damned if he'll let that slip away from him now.

One day, a week, and Sam doesn't go back to work after the hostage incident. He sits in his little squalid flat with a cracked glass of something alcoholic in his hand with the television constantly on and the sound soon becomes little more than a necessary interaction.

There are no trans-time messages, and Sam stays perched on the end of his rickety bed and waits. An alcoholic coma seems vastly preferable to a car crash coma with a hallucinatory life as a side-effect that no-one ever warns you about.

There are plenty of messages from 1973.

His phone sat silent for the first day and seven days later, Sam has lost count of all the times it's rung.

At some point, there was a knock at his door and Annie's soft voice calling his name.

Sam didn't even turn around.

She knocked louder, louder, until the noise became too un-Annie and she stopped, and Sam heard her sigh through the thin barrier of his door.

"Come back, Sam," she said, and after a few silent moments, Sam heard her leave.

She came back the next day and said, "I can hear your television."

Sam ignored her that day too.

The day after that, she came back and said, "The guv said you should...you should...oh, Sam."

She didn't knock that time, nor did she stay.

Then there was nothing for two days - the weekend, Sam supposes, although he's not really sure - and it rolls round to eight solitary days away from the station and too many empty liquor bottles on Sam's dirty kitchen counter.

He's barely slept but he's finally stone cold sober.

He won't go back to work.

He hears the footfalls in the corridor over the early evening crackle from the television, and there is one knock before his door is broken through.

Sam hears it hit the wall and ricochet back, and then he hears it slammed shut, and then someone heaves him up to his feet by planting their hands under his arms and tugging, hard.

Sam pulls away, and stumbles round, and Gene says, "What the bloody hell are you doing, Tyler?" Sam opens his mouth, but Gene keeps going. "You're being a shit, you're being thick and you're being bloody selfish to boot. Get over yourself and get back to work, because God knows I've thrown people off my squad for less."

Sam stares, and stares, and then he laughs and Gene twists one arm up against his back and shoves him into the wall.

"I don't know what nasty little bug is squatting up your arse and making you more of a twonk than you already are," he hisses, breath hot on the side of Sam's neck. "But you sure as hell need to get rid of it."

He jerks away from Sam like his hands are burning, and Sam turns to face him, still smiling, but there's something off about the way his mouth is turning up, no mirth in his expression.

"You think this is about what happened at the newspaper office, don't you?" he says, and shakes his head. "God, I - I just can't anymore."

"Can't what?" says Gene, and the look in his eyes is the one that usually preceeds bloodshed and violence.

"Just get out," says Sam, wearily, looking at the floor.

He wonders when it was over the last week that he lost the facade of life he'd clung to since he first sat up under the sky where the Manchester overpass should be.

"I am your superior," says Gene, and Sam sees his hands clench into fists, arms tense by his sides. "You do not tell me what to do."

"Get out," says Sam, again, and Gene swings for him but Sam dodges the blow, just, and anger bubbles up through his veins, against all the stale sloth built up and wallowed in for eight self-pitying days, and he shouts. "You're not my superior in my own bloody home!"

And he freezes.

His home.

In the moment Sam is still, Gene cracks a fist into his face and Sam reels round from the impact, catches himself with the tips of his fingers bending against the side of his bed, stops himself from falling, somehow, and his throat is burning, burning, and he won't cry in front of Gene.

Gene comes closer, grabs Sam's shoulder, and Sam shrugs him off with a breath that's too heavy, too painful to be anything even approaching all right.

Facing away, Sam hears Gene cross to the kitchen counter, hears the chink of glass as Gene handles the empty bottles, doesn't hear a reaction. He pulls himself round to sit on the end of his bed, puts his head in his hands, and his face is wet.

There is sudden silence: Gene switches off the television.

Sam feels the bed sag and Gene is sitting down next to him.

"Sam," he says.

Sam doesn't move, or speak, or think.

The quiet is overwhelming after eight days of background noise.

Sam feels something, a change in the array of air, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end like someone's about to sling an arm around his shoulders and tell him everything will be fine, but the only person with him is Gene and so he figures he's just over-tired.

Then the bed moves again and Sam hears Gene move to the door, hears the door open.

Gene pauses.

"See you tomorrow," he says, and Sam must be tired because he can't be hearing that hesitant note in Gene's voice. "Don't be late."

The door almost slams shut but the lock, broken, doesn't rattle like it should do.

Sam lies back, aching and exhausted, stares at the ceiling and falls asleep in the stupor of his flat. He is still fully dressed.

When he wakes up, he's running late but he drags himself up and out in eight day old clothes with bed creases on his face, and he looks a mess, and he looks insane, but Gene nods at him from his office as he steps into the station not a minute too late, and Sam nods back.

It's better this way.

It's almost home.

*

And now to revise for Religious.

Comments

[strangeumbrella.livejournal.com]

In the moment Sam is still, Gene cracks a fist into his face and Sam reels round from the impact, catches himself with the tips of his fingers bending against the side of his bed, stops himself from falling, somehow, and his throat is burning, burning, and he won't cry in front of Gene.
I think this is my favourite part. I'm not quite sure why, but it is. It's just incredibly real.

You can write Gene, really, I don't know why you think you can't. I get genuinely excited every time you post new fic--which, to my utter delight, is a lot--and asdkjkjhf, carry on doing it. This was so painful and exactly them, and, yes.

RS was about the easiest exam I took last year; dooon't worry. It'll be fine. Did you have to study Mark's Gospel? That exam was brilliant: we just basically had to recite the stories.

[moogle62.livejournal.com]

I love that you pick out favourite bits, it makes me all happy.

I get genuinely excited every time you post new fic - asbbvjb, thank you (a lot).

This was so painful and exactly them, and, yes. - things like this provide a large part of the reason I like your comments so much. *hugs you*

Religious was a baaaad lesson - the teacher was awful, the class was hideous and I just didn't like the subject matter (it was being really heavy-handedly drilled into us and, in general, ick) and so I resented revising for the exam and really, the questions were stupid. For example: 'what would a Christian say to someone who wanted to die?' "DON'T DIE", I imagine. *headdesk*