constance_b

Some days I wish I was grown in a test tube.

2009-12-01T12:42:23Z

Spent the last hour pissing around with dying laptops and TalkTalk disks trying to get my mother (okay, and me) temporary internet access until her shiny new computer arrives next week. Worth the effort, as it turns out, and I shall type very quickly before the damn thing bluescreens me again. Some things just have to be shared.
My Dad phoned me up this morning, started whittering on about where he'd moored his boat north of Coventry miles from anywhere and how he'd got his chainsaw out to harvest firewood. I tuned him out at that point because these anecdotes usually end with 'and I saw a most unusual six hundred year old beech coppice'. Also, I was wrestling with cables and trying to concentrate. When I tuned him in again he was saying 'and what do Emus eat anyway?'

'Huh?'
'What do they eat? It doesn't seem to want bread or rice and-'
'Did you say emu?'
'Yes. It seems awfully hungry. I don't want to leave it here but it won't get on the boat.'
'There's an emu and you invited it on to your boat?'
'Well I can't stay here all day. Can you get someone to come and pick it up?'
'Emu? What? And why are you asking me?'
'My modem's not getting a signal. Didn't you used to work for the RSPCA?'
'Uh... No.'
'Are you sure? You-'
'I'm sure. It was a dog sanctuary, extremely light on emus. Also, fifteen years ago.'
'Well you'll have to do something. It must be someone's pet, it's very friendly.'
'You're a hundred miles away. There's an emu. Why are you calling me?' [Actually, I have no clue how far apart Coventry and Oxford are. Probably a long way.]
'Well I don't know anything about emus.'
'I watched Rod Hull as a child, does that help?'
'Not really. I wasn't planning on sticking my hand up it's arse.' [I realise sentence will sound strange to anyone not English. Think I shall let you wonder.]
Then there's noises and a large splash. Dial tone. Couple minutes later he phones back.
'It knocked my geraniums in the canal. Have you phoned the RSPCA yet?'
'Is it still an emu?'
'You're not being very helpful, are you?'
'There's an emu. What do you want me to do?'
'Well phone the RSPCA. Obviously. I don't have the number.'
Because now I'm yellow pages and also Google. My conversation with the nice lady at the RSPCA went along similar lines. 'Did you say emu? Are you sure? It couldn't be a black swan?' It was when I mentioned that I hadn't actually seen it she got really sceptical. And never phoned back. Presumably my call got put in the same file as the people who report the yeti living at the bottom of their garden. Fortunately for all a young man came to collect his emu and several others that had escaped through a hole in a fence. Apparently they were farming them. Presumably for families with really big ovens, for when a turkey just isn't enough.
Things I have learnt today: My mother is not the only parent I have who's completely loopy.

Sha'n't be around the next couple weeks because I'm seriously sick of computers that don't work properly. I'll be over there, smashing looms.

Trials, Tribulations and Christmas Cards

2009-11-17T10:56:33Z

In the less-than-two-months since I quit smoking I have put on a whole stone. Also, I still want a f****** cigarette.

My kid's birthday on Thursday, and her party on Saturday. My first ever kiddie's party. I've always managed to bribe/distract her with outings before. It's going to be hell. I hate parties. And children.

My Mum got knocked off her bike last weekend by another cyclist, last week she had a broken thumb, now it's not broken, she'd ripped a tendon or something. I don't even know what she's done to it, she's too squeemish to describe it in anything but euphemisms. She wouldn't let me go to the hospital with her but I suspect she stuck her fingers in her ears every time someone used a phrase like torn ligament. She was scheduled for surgery today but she just called and said they've decided to put it in a cast for a couple weeks instead, see if it fixes itself. I'm not sure if that's a changing medical opinion or if she just bottled it. Either way, I'll be doing her washing up for a few more weeks. I hate cyclists.

Got a new computer last Monday, new compared to the last one at least. Blew up last Wednesday. I exaggerate slightly, but there were sparks and fusing of electrics and a burnt smell. Strangely, it worked just fine afterwards, but I'm a little reluctant to use it. I'm hoping it's the house rather than the computer because my reading lamp blew up the other week, cable at the back popped open and kinda melted, scared the crap out of me. Wasn't even switched on.

My half-sisters came down for Halloween, took the kiddie trick-or-treating then gorged themselves until they were too full to move. They were strangely conscientious about not dropping their wrappers on the floor. I moved the armchair yesterday to vacuum and found it stuffed full of not only every single wrapper but also enough sweets and chocolate bars to keep a five year old busy for a week. It must have taken my rat hours to gather them all up and make herself a nest out of food. And explains why she's been getting steadily fatter the less I feed her.

And cards. I failed last year. This year, I'm organised, ready and eager to celebrate all types of winter festival by posting pictures of snow. If you've given me your address before, I probably still have it, though it never hurts to make sure. Comments are screened. Don't be shy.
My address is 37 Starwort Path, Blackbird Leys, Oxford OX4 6RN, and if you're going to send me a card could you address it to Rosy and Jennifer? Partly because I don't want to put my surname where Google can find it, mostly because the child whinges that I get more post than her. Like I wouldn't put the utility bills in her name if I could.

And while I'm collecting addresses, are there any David Hewlett fans on my flist? I have a spare copy of Cypher, in which he has a ten minute turn, and also Redemption, the SG-1 Season Six two-parter in which McKay has a large part. Free to a loving home, if anyone would like them.

Recipes?

2009-10-22T11:47:49Z

Every year my mother grows marrows, and every year we all agree that the only thing more disgusting than a marrow is a marrow cooked by my mother. This year she conned me into making her eight more raised beds, little knowing that I was aiding and abetting the growing of yet more marrows.

So help me out, flist. What can I do with eighteen marrows? Last year I made jam but it was a) pretty gross and b) mouldy within six weeks. Ideally, the kind of thing you can make in bulk, freeze, and feed eccentric parents with over winter. Bonus points if your recipe includes squash, pumpkin, onion, carrots, apples or corgettes (zuchinis).

I've been trying to get her house back to something fit for human habitation, it's frustrating work. She gets genuinely distressed at the idea of throwing anything out, even if it's something no-one could possibly want. She's a very generous person, not at all materialistic, and if I said 'can I have all your favourite stuff' she'd say yes, but if I say 'can I throw out this one cable of which you have two spares already and by the way not the faintest idea of what it is for' then that's a no, because it might one day come in handy. It might, pretty soon, because if I hear the words 'it might come in handy' one more time I'm going to need something to strangle her with. She's figured out that when I say 'no, of course I haven't thrown anything out' what I mean is 'I haven't thrown anything out that you'll remember owning and I've found an inventive place to dispose of it that you'll not think to look' so now she's getting stressed out by the tidy bits, even when I genuinely haven't thrown anything out. She came home for lunch yesterday even though her office is three miles away just to check up on me. And she looked very suspicious when I claimed a longing for a broken food mixer and two 'spare' pestle and mortars. Though, strangely, entirely trusting when I claimed to want two dozen wrinkly and slightly squishy apples. So trusting I felt mildly guilty for putting most of them in a litter bin at the top of the road, even though I had three marrows in my rucksack already and a three mile walk.

I'd leave the whole mess alone, really, but I think trying to live there is messing with her head more than me rearranging stuff. Her kitchen, for instance, is pretty well designed, tons of cupboards, but so cluttered she can't really cook in it. She'll spend hours blanching green beans for the freezer but won't make a casserole and actually eat the bloody things because the casserole dish is buried under junk she never uses. Hours prepping blackcurrents to freeze, but she can't make a crumble because the crumble dish is in a cupboard that hasn't been opened in a couple months and so is crawling with spiders that she's scared of. Doing the simplest thing becomes a project because you have to clear a work surface or operate in the tiny space left uncluttered, and finding the stuff you need can be impossible. And of course, the less you use stuff, the more everything becomes covered in dust and unuseable. The other reason I really can't leave her alone is because my kiddie has now seen how the place comes alive at night and started saying she doesn't want to go there any more. Sunday lunch is pretty much the only time she makes the effort to clean up a little. And, I'm starting to suspect, the only time she cooks anything more complicated than boiling vegetables. Also, she'd be really upset if Jen stopped visiting.

And a conversation I had with the kiddie yesterday

Jen: Are these my trousers?
Me: No, these are your jacket, dummy.
Jen: Mum! You mean this is my jacket.

I'm raising a grammar Nazi. I'm so proud.

Six months? Really?

2009-10-04T20:42:12Z

I'm in Oxford. My house keys are in Bath. My Mum is in Bridgwater with her spare key. We broke into her house, so I'm not sleeping on the streets tonight but... There might actually be less spiders on the streets. The kiddie is refusing to sleep here and I can't really blame her. Eighty percent of the living room floor is covered in apples, pumpkins and courgettes. They're passed their best. The spare bed is covered in onions. They used to be on the floor, but there's no floor space left. Basically, she's a health hazard. And possibly a danger to herself. She hasn't even retired yet. The place is creepy enough in daytime, but at night the spiders all come out to eat each other. I'd say sod school and be on the train back to Bath but I have a job interview tomorrow. I'll be going in today's jeans. And our rat is sat in her cardboard carry case. She's already chewed a hole in it. We call her a pet but she's basically feral and if we lose her in this house I don't think we'll ever see her again. At least she wouldn't starve.

On the up-side, internet. Theoretically, I've had internet all weekend, but I've been baby-sitting three teenagers and they're all bigger than me now so, they get priority. Heh. At least I'll have fanfic while I'm sitting up all night fending the spiders off.

And you can have photos of my summer holiday. If I can remember how to post them. Boy, it's been a long time.

The hut we stayed in.

The view.

My stepmother. Easily my favourite and least-nutty parent.

Jen bodyboarding.

My half-sisters bodyboarding.

The kiddie again

A couple group shots.

And the one shot of me, when I forgot to keep a firm grip on the camera.

And yes, I did promise at least three people I would have a new chapter of Dreidel up by September. I, uh, lied? Sorry. I'm not yet willing to admit it's abandoned, but it's been a long time since I wrote anything at all, so I really hope no-one is holding their breath. As ever, defriending is noted without rancour.

And one last random fact. It's been eight days since my last cigarette. This is the third time I've managed as much this year. Contrary to what people tell you, the first week is the easiest. For the first week, you can tell yourself 'it'll get easier'. I'll have cracked by Friday.

Life on Mars

2009-03-25T11:07:16Z

Chapter Six of Yellow Ribbon here, all parts here. And seeing as I've neglected linking back, also ficlet for Porntoberfest and even tinier ficlet for the ABC Exchange

I have some confessions to make:

2009-03-17T11:31:18Z

1/ There's no particular reason for me not posting since September. I'm just dull.

2/ Signed up to Seasonal Spuffy. That's not actually the confession, though it says nothing good about my impulse control. I, um, I don't read Spuffy fic any more. I have stuff from the last two SS's bookmarked, and some of it sounds really good, and I know I like the authors but I just haven't been in the mood for Spuffy. At all. Very occassionally, I might revisit an old favourite. I have no idea why I keep putting my name down and worse, I have no idea what I'm going to write. None. If I rack my brains any harder they're going to fall out my ears. So, if you have a spare plot bunny/vague idea of something you'd like to read/random sentence you're just dying to see used in a fanfic... Prompt me. Please.

3/ Dreidel. Not abandoned, I swear. I've nearly finished the next chapter, there's maybe another four after that. But... My posting rate is not going to get any faster, and I'm not going to be starting anything new (except, hopefully, for SS, which will, obvously, be posted to SS). Any new chapters will be up on BSV and TSR. So, feel free to defriend me. I won't cry. If you were just here for the Spuffy fic, well, check back in three years or so and I'll have finished Dreidel. In the meantime, you can avoid the bi-annual spam.

4/ If I've snuck up and stealth-friended you recently, I'm ashamed to say that's pretty much standard behaviour from me. I lurk. It's probably because I'm reading your SGA fic.

And lastly, some advice. Don't watch the first four seasons of SGA in three weeks. It's not good for a person, and things will atrophy. Apparently, Dr McKay is my strange crush for 2009.

Dreidel Chapter Eighteen

2008-09-28T01:18:26Z

Over a year? Really? Doesn’t time fly?

Thanks to slackerace, beta-ing this fic for over two years now. And thanks also to my dad, bringing his internet to visit so I can post at two in the morning.

Previous parts are here in memories or here at my website.

Chapter Eighteen

Everyone's juggling and everyone's acting
With smiles of greasepaint three feet wide
Everyone's caught on a carousel pony
One time around is a lifetime ride
~ Circus Song, Don McLean

When Spike awoke the sun was high in the sky and the house was empty. He could tell at once - that strange background humming of white goods, but otherwise silence. Which meant, Spike presumed, that the littlest Summers was at school and the eldest already departed for the airport and he'd slept through the morning routine of two noisy young women. He stretched slowly and concluded that a long heavy sleep had done him the world of good. And by Spike's calculations he had a few more hours alone. The Slayer had been quite emphatic when she declared she'd be taking the bus to meet her friend at LA International.

Spike was not eagerly anticipating the arrival of the witch. Seemed she'd moved on a great deal from the tasty, nervous teenager he remembered and he'd had more than enough of people poking around in his head. Also, a day with no serious upheaval would be a very nice thing and Spike didn't need any vampire sixth sense to tell him that today would not be that day.

Last night's revelations were enough for him to be mulling over for a week or two, but Spike wasn't in the mood for mulling. He nuked some blood, put the telly on and surfed the daytime soaps until his brain shut down and time lost all meaning. By the time the back door rattled open, Spike'd more or less resigned himself to be the show-and-tell for another day, even if he didn't feel the need to get up and greet his fate with enthusiasm. But the voice that drifted in after the sound of the door closing was male and only vaguely familiar.

"Buffy?"

Not being Buffy, Spike held his peace. He heard a thud, then the kitchen door, and then the voice again, louder now. "Willow? Dawn?"

The Slayer's other sidekick, he realised. His brain wouldn't provide a name right then, couldn't recall if he'd ever known it, but it gave Spike a face. The face of another American teenager not old or wise enough to be tangling with the forces of darkness, last seen unconscious. For a split second Spike's instinct considered the options for concealment in the living room, but then his brain caught up and he pulled himself together. If the boy was still close enough to the Slayer to wander into her house then he'd presumably seen Spike much more recently than Spike had seen him and would know he was defanged.

The name - Xander - came back to Spike on seeing the floppy brown hair. The boy froze in surprise when he spotted Spike. He stared, blinked, and stared some more.

"Slayer's gone to the airport," Spike supplied helpfully. "Be back soon, her and the witch."

"You... What... You!"

"She knows I'm here. S'alright."

Spike watched the young man with a good deal of curiosity as the blood drained from his face. It had been a long time since Spike had managed to cause fear in anyone or anything and he was tempted to bask awhile but training and a very practical desire not to piss off the Slayer won out. "Still got the chip," he added, remembering how Buffy had been reassured by that piece of information. "Completely harmless." He only realised his mistake when purple took over from white as the dominant colour on the boy's face - what he'd taken for shock was in fact fury.

"You!" It was an impressive amount of venom to fit into the one syllable. Spike took a swift step back as the boy came further into the room.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Slayer said to-"

"Shut up!"

The furious command for silence brought out a Pavlovian response in Spike, snapping his mouth shut, but a second later he opened it again. Well fed and welcomed, the conditioning was getting weaker by the hour.

"You asked me a bleeding question, mate. How would you like me to answer, interpretive bleeding dance?"

Another step back, but the boy wasn't coming for him. Too late, Spike realised his destination was Buffy's weapons chest.

"I can't believe you'd be stupid enough to come back here."

"Look... Harris, right? It's not-"

"Shut up!"

Maybe 'fury' wasn't quite the right word, either. 'Murderous rage' might be closer to the mark. Murderous rage now holding an axe and coming straight for him. Spike dodged, and a rickety lamp took the fall in his place.

"Shit! You've got-"

Another swing, another dodge, and this time the back of the sofa took the brunt of the blow. Spike looked from the blade to the formerly-expensive-looking upholstery in horror.

"Slayer's gonna have a fit-"

Turned out, furious people weren't all that concerned with the furniture. Spike should have remembered that; he'd started enough killing sprees of his own. This time when the axe came towards him, Spike grabbed the handle, to save himself and the one lamp still standing. There was a brief and one-sided tussle before Harris let go suddenly, leaving Spike unbalanced and unprotected against the fist that ploughed into his nose. The chip fired and Spike reeled back as Harris cursed and cradled his knuckles. Spike rubbed his head and struggled to right himself.

"I hurt your fist with my nose?" he complained. "How the fuck is that fair?"

But the boy wasn't interested in the vagaries of Spike's chip either and, deprived of his weapon, he switched tactics. He grabbed one fistful of hair and one of T-shirt and pulled. Spike let himself be dragged past fragile knick-knacks but dug his heels in when he realised they were heading for the front door.

For the first time it occurred to Spike to be afraid. Strange maybe, after three years living in fear, but the Slayer'd told him he was safe and the girl had a way about her that was hard to disbelieve. And being hacked to death by a child having a tantrum was not high-up on the list of things that kept vampires awake at night. But if the chip kept firing every time Harris bruised himself on his face Spike would soon be too unconscious to defend himself. And it was plain to see there was no reasoning with the boy. Spike tried anyway.

"If you would just let me explain-"

A vicious punch to the stomach cut Spike off, driving the air out of his lungs and making speech impossible. At least the boy was aiming for softer targets and the chip stayed silent. A few more punches before Harris found another weapon - it didn't surprise Spike to realise the Slayer kept a cudgel behind her front door - and the blows went from inconvenient to painful. Spike gave up his hold on the door frame, twisting free and leaving behind a fistful of hair, but there was nowhere to go next. The stairs were cut off by the sunlight streaming through a landing window, kitchen likewise impassable, Harris shoving him away from the living room. Each punch and push moving Spike inexorably closer to the front door and a dusty introduction to the California sun.

********

A half hour after Buffy had loaded a distraught Willow onto the bus home, the girl was still shaking. It had taken a half hour more to get her to the bus stop, make any sense of the near-hysterical rambling. All Buffy's explanations and reassurances on the long bus ride from LAX to Sunnydale and the young witch was still nowhere near calm as they disembarked at Sunnydale's urine-scented bus depot and started the final leg of their journey on foot.

"But it was her, Buffy. The way she spoke, the words she used, the way she ducked her head and let her hair fall. Everything."

"Apart from the way she told you to kill yourself," said Buffy firmly. "That wasn't Tara."

"No," Willow conceded miserable. "Unless-"

"No unlesses. You know Tara wouldn't come back from the dead to tell you to kill yourself. It's just the same pathetic overrated ghost that's been messing with Spike. Of course it would look like Tara. That's how it gets you to listen."

"But she knew me, Buffy. She knew everything about us. Tara and I."

"She - It - knows all of us. It made Dawn think it was Spike, right down to all his stupid nicknames. This is good, really. Now we know it doesn't want you using magic, so that's like a clue. Magic must be the key to defeating it. You make it take its true form and I'll beat it to a bloody pulp. Easy."

Willow managed a watery smile at her friend's scraped-together peppy confidence, but the fear never left her eyes. Buffy struggled to hide her own disappointment. The weirder life got the more Willow's return had seemed like a lifeline, but it was obvious now her friend was only just keeping her own head above water. Whatever healing might have taken place in England had had the scabs ripped open by The First's untimely appearance.

Buffy's feelings about this latest big bad were veering into distinctly personal territory. It had messed with her boyfriend, not something that Buffy forgave easily. Three years on, the thing that stood out in Buffy's mind was the miracle that had saved him but she hadn't forgotten how easily and expertly The First had played Angel. And it had threatened her sister - capitol offence number two. Nearly tricked her into staking Spike, upset her fragile best friend, made her have a whole heap of conversations she'd much rather have avoided and given her one hell of a headache. Buffy wasn't quite sure how The First tied in to the sister-kidnapping-demon-slave-ring thing but until she knew otherwise It would be taking the blame for that too. But by far its worse crime was having no corporeal head that Buffy could rip from its body and squish like an overripe tomato.

"Knowing it wasn't really her doesn't make it better." Willow cut into her friend’s vengeful thoughts softly. "And just because it wasn't Tara doesn't mean it wasn't right."

The Slayer shuddered at the implication. "It was wrong."

"I don't mean... The killing myself thing. But I am dangerous, Buffy. I nearly killed you. I nearly killed everyone. And she - it - was right. I could do it again."

Buffy pursed her lips, knowing Willow was right, but unable to articulate why she was also wrong. They'd turned this subject every which way on the bus ride home and she had no more reassurances to offer, except the one that secretly made the Slayer feel safe. As Willow was unlikely to find another Tara, she was unlikely to lose another Tara. Reassuring, to the people who'd witnessed Willow's grief, but not exactly a consoling thought to share with Willow. Their interminable journey was nearly at an end, anyway, as they turned in to Buffy's front garden.

"It's not just the magic, anyway," Buffy said. "It's trying to split us up. Make it so we don't trust each other - don't trust ourselves. We just need to stick together. That's what Giles said too, right? Do the magic with other people, that it's safer. Work as a team. Not let The First distract us with petty squabbles."

Buffy put Willow's case down on the front step and opened the front door. Xander and Spike stared back, in a passable imitation of an action photograph. Buffy, more than used to the cosmic joke that was her life, didn't really appreciate the humour. She gritted her teeth, tried and failed to maintain her upbeat smile and motivational-speech mode. "We've got to make sure we don't get distracted fighting each other. Wouldn't you agree, Xander?"

She didn't give him time to disagree, snagging the sleeve of his T-shirt and yanking Xander upright, surprising him out of his death-grip on Spike. They both looked vaguely guilty for a split second, before Spike straightened his features into neutrality and Xander remembered his anger. Hardly missing a beat he turned his anger onto Buffy.

"I can't believe you let him back in you house. What he did... I can't believe you haven't staked him. What-"

"'Hi Buffy, how are you?' 'Oh, mostly fine. Being haunted by primordial evil, you know how it is. Yourself?' 'Well, I've taken up that kill-first, ask questions later thing that works so well for the bad guys. Hey Willow, fancy seeing you here.'"

This last at least got Xander's attention, before Buffy strained her sarcasm muscle, as he finally noticed Willow, still standing in the doorway. He dropped the anger long enough to greet Willow with traditional welcome-home-from-foreign-climes enthusiasm. Buffy couldn't help but feel that some of that effusiveness was aimed pointedly in her direction. It was a very short break before Xander resumed the let's-stake-Spike-now lecture. Every other sentence, Buffy noticed with a wince, was one she had used herself.

Spike was standing half to attention against the wall, just out of reach of the sunlight, wary but not cowed, eyes on Buffy as Xander ranted. Intentionally or not, Buffy suspected his lack of reaction was driving Xander to ever-greater heights of tantrum. Willow still hovered uncertainly on the threshold, looking very much like Buffy felt. Her eyes flickered tentatively to Buffy for her cue and Buffy shrugged. Xander had covered the dangers posed to humanity in general and was moving into distinctly personal territory before Buffy decided that enough was enough, shouldering past Xander to put Willow's bags in the living room. If she put a little Slayer strength into the shouldering then she justified it with all the bitchy replies she could have made but didn't.

"...and after Angel you'd think-"

"I get it," Buffy interrupted, as calmly as she was able. "You have issues with Spike. We all have issues with Spike. Willow fixes him, he leaves, voila, no more issues."

"How can you possibly 'fix' evil? Gonna soul him up? Get yourself an Angel replacement complete with apocalypse?"

"Not the evil thing. Spike has amnesia-"

Xander snorted with disbelief, and Buffy conceded he had a point. Her life seemed to be one long list of unbelievable.

"You have no idea what's going on, Xander. Couldn't you at least let me catch my breath before judging? Maybe, I don't know, listen?"

"I'm listening. And do you know what I'm hearing? I'm hearing that helping this... this rapist is more important than your friends. You've got him in your house, with Willow, with Dawn-"

Anger flared over Buffy's weariness. "Don't you dare! You're the one making Spike more important than our friendship. I haven't seen you in two months and I don't even rate a hello, because Spike is so much more important. To you. It's been a really long few days, Xander, and I don't really need this. Stay and listen, or go away."

"Now you're picking a vampire over me?"

"I'm picking peace and quiet over this! Dammit, Xander, I can't throw him out in the sun. He saved Dawn's life."

"Well maybe you should stop letting her get nearly killed!"

Both still lingering in the doorway, Willow and Spike winced in sympathy. Buffy glared and Willow opened her mouth to intervene but Xander got there first.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I just-"

"Hate Spike so much it turns you into a blithering idiot?"

"I worry about you," Xander corrected. "There's something wrong that you could... Yeah, I hate him. Can you really blame me?"

Not really. Not if she was being fair; if she remembered Jesse and six years since of learning to hate. Having that fear and loathing reinforced at every turn. That didn't stop her privately wishing Xander had been delayed in LA just a day or two longer.

"I don't understand why you don't. How can you have him here after... I don't understand."

"Maybe we could make coffee and I could explain?" Buffy offered silent gratitude as Willow left her ringside seat to link her arm through Xander's, tugging him gently towards the kitchen. "I can do that, mostly. The explaining thing."

Xander hesitated. Deflating, ranted out, but looking very much like he didn't want to leave Buffy and Spike alone together. "Would you rather I made the coffee?" Buffy prompted.

Xander managed a watery smile. "You threatening me now?" he joked lamely and Buffy managed to smile back, mostly with relief as Xander allowed himself to be led away.

"Don't think he likes me much," Spike deadpanned.

"No."

"That another of those things you don't want to talk about?"

"No. That's a whole six years I don't want to talk about. You slept with his ex-fiancée, and then there's that, well..."

"The Thing?" Spike suggested.

"Yeah. And there's Angel issues. And the whole vampire thing, which is fair, really. It's not like you haven't tried to kill us all once or twice. And then, well, you're not exactly, um..."

"I'm an aggravating bastard and I get on his wick?"

"Also a factor," Buffy agreed. "You have a remarkable talent for annoying people even when you're trying not to be evil. And he doesn't have a long fuse where you're concerned."

"It was the axe that gave it away. Speaking of which, there may have been an accident or two with your furniture. Sorry."

Ten minutes later Buffy and Spike were still collecting the last of the broken glass when Willow came back in. She nodded toward the door and reluctantly Buffy followed her silent directions. Xander was in the kitchen, building a sandwich from the unlikely ingredients he'd scavenged from Buffy's fridge.

"Hey Buffy."

"Hey."

"Willow said I had to start over so... It's nice to see you, you're looking good. Still a little on the skinny side. You want a sandwich?"

Buffy allowed herself to relax slightly. Xander's grin was a pale imitation of his old, irrepressible smile, but it was there and Buffy struggled to respond in kind. "Don't you think I face enough dangers already?" she quipped.

Xander shrugged. Added a second slice of bread and licked the mayonnaise off his fingers. "Some things are worth the risk. So, I'm a little late. Do I get my hug anyway?"

Silently thanking Willow, worker of miracles, Buffy threw herself into a Xander-sized hug with some enthusiasm. "I just worry about you, Buff."

"And you hate Spike."

"And I hate Spike," Xander agreed, releasing her. "But quietly, because Willow threatened tears if there was any more shouting. So I'm going to pretend he's not here, until he isn't any more. Just, please tell me this is about solving the mystery and getting the bad guy? I think I can cope with that."

"At least seventy percent," Buffy reassured. "Xander, he's-"

"No! Don't tell me. Don't say he's changed or he's sorry or- We're doing the elephant-in-the-room dance here. Heavy on the denial. Lying, if necessary. Can we do that?"

It wasn't exactly perfect, but a world better than Buffy could have hoped for after their first acrimonious exchange in the hallway. Maybe, Buffy realised, she wasn't the only person who'd matured since the year from hell. "We can totally do that. Denial is virtually my middle name. I missed you, Xand."

"Missed you too, Buffster. I really did."

"It's been so dull this summer. No Scoobies, no evil."

"LA's dull too. In a well-paid way. But..."

"You needed to get away?"

"I really did. It all got kind of crazy for a while there. But I've recharged the old evil-fighting batteries, and- What the hell was that noise?"

Buffy groaned. "My guess? Dawn's home. And she's spotted Willow."

"Ah. Little bit of residual anger there?"

"Just a tad. She hasn't got the whole yellow crayon history to fall back on." Reluctantly Buffy took a step towards the kitchen door, but Xander stopped her.

"It's my turn," he said. "And I've got novelty on my side. Not even one of Dawn's sulks can withstand the charm of LA anecdotes."

"Fashion based anecdotes?"

"Fashion, and even the occasional minor celebrity. I took notes especially." Xander picked up his sandwich, bussed her on the cheek on his way past. "You stay and hide. Longevity's all very well but we don't want you to be the first Slayer in history to go grey."

"Thanks Xander."

Apart from the excited squeal that greeted Xander, all was quiet long enough for Buffy to walk back into her living room without bracing herself for more drama. Xander had been right, Dawn was eagerly interrogating him on his time away with no energy left over for ignoring Willow or worse. The ten minutes that followed were the closest Buffy had come to normal for a week. Small talk reigned until Buffy's front door opened yet again and Anya appeared, with manacles. She cast a brief, disdainful glare over Willow and Xander, but addressed Buffy, holding the manacles aloft.

"I found these in my glove compartment. I thought you might want them back. They're very high quality and could be very useful for-"

"Keep them," Buffy interrupted hastily. "Really. Call it a thank you gift for lending me your car."

Anya shrugged. "Okay. But I think you might need this."

She held out the pamphlet Buffy had been given with her newly purchased vampire. The handy diagram on the front made Buffy shudder.

"Thanks Anya. But I don't think I can read that."

"Well I think you should. There're a few chapters that are very enlightening."

To Be Continued...

constance_b @ 2008-09-22T11:54:00

2008-09-22T10:57:10Z

Bought a rat at the end of August, for the child. Really, for the child. Actually, she wanted a flamingo, but the flat's a little small for a lake so we compromised. She's called Lola (as in Charlie and... not L-O-L-A) and is mostly brown. She's also mostly wild, and lives off cables and furniture. We're working on that. When I was in sixth form, I had a brown hooded rat called Angel, who was sociable to the point of annoying and used to accompany me to school whenever I felt I could get away with it. Lola is taking a little more work. This is exactly the only part of my life that is possibly interesting enough to bother sharing with anyone. I need a new fandom.

Here is my Life on Mars ficathon entry. Thanks to kispexi2 for her beta work, not yet thoroughly implemented. And the one written for me by t_eyla.

constance_b @ 2008-07-20T21:35:00

2008-07-20T20:36:08Z

Spent four days trying to get this stupid computer to download iTunes. I've broken it. It starts fine, then the speed goes down and down, until it gets to 1kb a second. So, trip to my mother's, bribing the child with the most horrendously unhealthy sweets and Robin Hood Prince of Theives. Yes, she's only four, but she wanted to see it. It kept her quiet, okay? She'll grow new teeth. I'm going to hell, probably, but...

I'm no longer the only person on LJ who hasn't seen Dr Horrible.

Whinging

2008-06-13T18:55:52Z

Two weeks ago, after several heated disagreements with Daniel, my next door neighbour, about what he ought and ought not encourage his child to do, particularly to my child, (and after two years of putting up with the foul-mouthed, aggressive and constantly present little brat) I said she couldn't play in my house any more. Kayley lasted two days without a built in child minder and then she's effing and blinding at me for picking on her kid every time I won't let her in. I pointed out her kid had been trying to hit mine with the rusty end of a discarded broomstick under the proud eye of her father.

Things got worse rather quickly, and by Wednesday hit the point where Jen stops asking why she can't go outside to play with the other children and is too scared to want to. Kayley and Daniel and two of her chav friends, other neighbours, swearing at me when ever I go outside or banging on my door at one in the morning and offering to kick my head in. Or sometimes, for variety, trying to kill each other. Like the staunch and stable person I am, I've run to stay at my Mum's. Haven't stayed here overnight for years, because every tiny crevice that isn't crammed with clutter is full of daddy-long-legs spiders, which happen to be my least favourite kind of spider. Apparently, they're less disturbing than my neighbours. On the up side, there is internet. And considerably less ants than last year.

I'm going on holiday tomorrow, a week in a caravan in Dawlish Warren with my Mum and sister. Having done it two years previously, I wasn't looking forward to it all that much, my Mum is best taken in smallish doses. Feeling very differently today, and wondering whatever I'm going to do when I haven't got my Mum to run to. I'm going to spend all week not allowing her to eat clotted cream, the only vice she has likely to prove fatal. And dealing with the guilt of knowing my child is miserable and not knowing what to do about it.

So hugs to LJ, and its defriending/banning system, and the throngs of polite and rational people who make it so I've never been tempted to use either. And hugs in particular to kispexi2 for the beautifully random Rhinoceros and pfeifferpack for the unexpected feedback, you both cheered me up yesterday. And pfeifferpack , I'm sorry about Dreidel. It'll be finished one day, if I live long enough. I try to make amends with a hastily-written and sucky 500 word ficlet. Naturally I want Buffy to admit to herself and the others that she was not some innocent victim of Spike but an abuser herself....bout time she came clean ... I always wanted that and never got it.

"And then you twirled your moustaches and cackled evilly?"

Spike's head jerked sharply around to stare at Buffy. "You getting all sarky over my apology?"

"No. I'm getting 'sarky' over your seventh apology. And that you seem to be casting me as the damsel in distress."

"I'm-"

"Sorry? Annoying? Ever-so-slightly wimpier since you got the soul? You know, if anyone gets to be the damsel, I think it's you."

"Strangely I forget the part where I was tied to the railway tracks."

"The girl, then. Classic Oprah scenario. And I'm the red-neck guy with the drink problem going 'she don't deserve no respect,' which definitely makes you the battered wife."

This comparison surprised a laugh out of Spike. "I think I'm insulted."

"Well you should be. Those women are idiots. Not enough sense to go and find someone decent, all that sitting around, saying 'he loves me really' - like that matters. No self-respect - you just want to shake them. Which is the problem, I guess, and why I get to be the red-neck."

"A remarkable solidarity with your gender, there."

"They go on Oprah, which means I get to judge them," said Buffy lightly. "And I was mostly talking about you, anyway. You were virtually a stereotype. You'd take me back every time I'd walk out, put up with anything as long as you could convince yourself I loved you really. The only part missing is where you snap one night when I've had too much whiskey and stab me to death with a kitchen knife."

"I just tried to rape you."

The ease in the air dropped dead; Buffy winced and shrugged. "Well I guess metaphors only go so far. In real life I'm a Slayer, not a drunken red-neck. And you're a vampire. It's pretty hard to slot us into an Oprah episode." She glanced over at Spike, then away again. "Mostly, I'd rather not think about last year at all. I really don't like red-necks."

"Lucky. Or you'd be looking to get yourself kicked out of the feminist club, love."

"I'm the Slayer, I was born with honorary membership." Buffy allowed herself a small smile. "Basically, I'm allowed to make excuses for you, and you're not. And you're allowed to make excuses for me, but I... Well I don't want to any more. I think then we're covered on the equality front."

"Your logic is a beautiful thing."

"Pfft. Logic and people aren't mixy."

"No they aren't."

A minute or two passed to the muted sounds of the potential Slayers inside the house.

"I'm sorry too," said Buffy. "But you made it so very easy to walk all over you. And you're so very irritating."

"That sounds awfully like an excuse."

"No, it's... knowing your weakness. I'm just saying, it would be easier for me to be a better person if you'd ditch the big 'kick me' sign on your head. You're enabling me."

"Fine. I renounce my last apology. Also apologies two through six. I think we're agreed that the first should stand. I suppose I'll just go and find myself a strapping teetotal red-neck who'll treat me right."

"Cool."

constance_b @ 2008-05-17T15:28:00

2008-05-17T14:33:51Z

My Dad's gone off to the Wilds of Gloucestershire. Or the wilds of somewhere where there's no 3g signal. Okay, I don't really remember where he's gone, there was definitely a river involved. Possibly a canal. I wasn't listening, because he brought his modem, and left it behind. To get to the point, I have internet. And a laptop, on loan. I'm typing this from my bed, I feel so decadent. (I'm not still in bed, that would be taking decadence too far, even for a weekend. I'm just sitting on it.)

From left to right, my half-brother Bill, sister Ruth, my Dad, my daughter Jen and my littlest half, Sally.

Sandford. Not the one in the film.

Half-sisters on Betty the narrowboat

Jen, near Didcot

Jen again

Ruth

My sister Joan, me and Jen

And I have a random HTML question. I've found a site that tells me how to break a page into sections and jump to those sections from the top of the page. Is it possible to link to one of those sections from another page? And if so, how?

If anyone's interested, the page in question is a list of Life on Mars fanfiction recs

constance_b @ 2008-04-30T16:23:00

2008-04-30T15:24:09Z

It's raining a lot. Oxford will soon be underwater again. The local news will show endless new office buildings built on flood-planes, three foot underwater, and idiots asking 'how could this happen?' and nobody answering 'because you built stuff in the way of the frigging Thames, you moron'. Osney Island, the bit that made national news in the summer, was built on a sandbank in the middle of the biggest river in England. Just in case any of you were wasting sympathy. And for a random bit of ranting, I'm sick of hearing 'isn't it ironic how we can get floods and droughts at the same time'. No. You tarmac over the country, and every time it rains try and get that water to sea as fast as possible through pipes built back when people were sane and didn't do that. Causing both floods and droughts. It's not irony. It's stupidity.

And then there's my usual whinges about no home internet, coupled today with whinges about Seasonal Spuffy because I got very wet getting to the internet cafe to post my entry. I'm resenting that, because my fic really sucks and was in no way worth getting wet over. And I needed a couple more months to finish it, by which time it might have stopped raining. I really don't know why I signed myself up. I didn't want to start another Spuffy fic, I think I've proved I didn't really have one in me, I haven't even read most of the fics already up yet. It's been horrible trying to finish it, I've been getting very cross and I don't have anyone to be cross at because it's entirely self inflicted. No doubt I shall do exactly the same next season.

Was listening to Humphrey Littleton's obituary program on the radio this morning. It was about 60% PMT but I had to have a little cry over that. Been listening to I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue since before I knew what innuendo was, and I'm kinda shocked, which is weird. I was always glad Clue was prerecorded so every time one of them said 'is Humph dead?' I could be sure the answer was no. But some people have been so old for so long you expect them to live forever.

ETA: I have no idea why my journal thinks it's last December. That wasn't me, LJ have gone crazy.

I has me a website!!!

2008-04-09T15:04:18Z

My dad has got embroiled in some nasty argument with a bunch of old biddies who run a small nature reserve. Now he has gout and can't cause as much trouble as he'd like, he wants to provoke them from a distance by making his own website. Or rather, having me make a website for him. So I've spent two days trying to learn about this HTML stuff. Not quite as hard as I was expecting - I was surprised to find I've been using HTML on LJ, I just didn't know what it was.

So for practise, I made a website for my fanfiction.

http://constance-b.bravehost.com/index.html

Well, okay, I've half made a website for my fanfiction. It's going to take me another four hours just to put the paragraph breaks in to Dreidel. I'm really starting to appreciate the effort that goes into such things as bulletpoints. But still, I'm very excited. My dad's never getting his mobile modem back.

constance_b @ 2008-04-05T17:02:00

2008-04-05T16:21:11Z

THERE IS INTERNET IN MY HOUSE!

My Dad persuaded my Mum to get one of these mobile modem things (they wouldn't give him a contract, having no fixed address) but he has gout, and is stuck in the middle of nowhere (okay, outside Reading) unable to move his boat and come and collect it. So I'm going to exercise it for him, because I'm so kind.

Now he wants me to help make him a website, a case of the blind leading the lazy. I'm weighing up the advantages of regular modem-borrowing against the technophobia. I suspect it's generally better for my health not to have internet - I'm about to spend the next week downloading new forms of patience and watching youtube clips.

This post is just me enjoying being on the internet two days in a row

2008-03-19T12:23:08Z

My child is on an all-day nursery trip today, I get to luxuriate in five whole hours of internet, TalkTalk willing. Don't ask me why her nursery is still open. Easter holidays start two weeks after Easter, this year, presumably to make it harder to visit relatives in counties where they have their Easter hols at, like, Easter.

And hey, LJ is striking. http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/394838.html Haven't had the time to follow exactly what they've done wrong (this time), but I do like the idea. And as long as LJ can't tell the difference between me boycotting and me just being too far from a computer to log in, then I shall be joining. Anything is better than everyone running away to a new site. No running away to new sites, okay? I'll never have time to follow.

Life on Mars fic

2008-03-18T13:39:14Z

Some bastard taught my four-year-old how to use Paint at nursery. The program, not the substance. Okay, it's not as bad as teaching her that strangers are evil, or that you should open toilet doors with a paper towel, and I suppose I can't complain. (And boy did I complain about the stranger danger thing. Am I the only person in the world who would rather just supervise their child, than teach them every one they don't know is out to get them? When did Paedophiles become more important than manners? And she's four, last week she cleaned my toilet with her toothbrush, a fact I only discovered when she told me it tasted funny. She's already got every germ going, and probably bred a few new ones. Is she going out of the toilet to perform surgery? No. She changed nursery at Christmas, the new one made me sign a form giving permission for them to seek medical help in an emergency. I worry about leaving my child in the care of people who would check for the correct form before calling an ambulance.)

Oops, wrong rant. I'm not complaining about teaching her computers, at least, I'm trying not to. But now she's realised that the big, boring-looking box mummy types into is actually a giant toy, and now, instead of just wanting my attention every time I get near the internet, she wants the bloody computer. Needless to say, I did not get online at the weekend. Probably for the best - last time I got online I signed up for Seasonal Spuffy, despite deciding very definitely not to. How the f*** did that happen? And now I'm wasting today's time whinging, when I have fic to post.

Beta'd by the superlative kispexi2, saving you from my cheesy porn phrases.

Sam dumped his transcripts and interview tapes on Gene's kitchen table with the air of a conjurer but Gene headed straight for the kettle and didn't bother glancing at the pile until there were two mugs of tea standing beside it. Then he sat down, lit a fag and sifted through the lot, a quick glance at each transcript until he got to the MARS folder. Sam leant against the kitchen counter and watched, firmly ignoring the nervous energy that was trying to dictate he pace. His tea went cold as Gene read carefully through each loose sheet in the folder until at last he was done. He looked up at Sam expectantly.

"What's this then?"

Sam was wrong-footed. 'This,' he thought, was fully explained in the folder and it wasn't like Gene not to catch on quick. Or to be backward about expressing himself with his fists.

"My resignation," he said eventually.

"Thought you'd come for a bit of the old slap and tickle, meself." Gene's tone was casual, at odds with his penetrating stare. "Maybe it was on my mind."

"And I thought you didn't like to kiss. Guess we're both full of surprises."

As happened all too often since he'd landed in 1973, Sam winced at the sound of his own words and the petulant tone they seemed to come out in. His conscience might have led him here but it turned out his pride still had an objection or two. Though Gene's expression didn't reflect the dig, his stare now felt reproving to Sam.

"I'm an old dog, Sam. Takes me a while to learn new tricks." .

That admission was bordering on Gene's second apology of the night and as such should have been jaw-dropping, but Sam's shock sensors were so burned out after a fortnight of revelations that one barely registered. Added only slightly to the guilt wrapped around Sam's intestines, because he knew the failing was his and not Gene's. If he hadn't let himself get so mired in self-pity he might have remembered little things like patience and tolerance. If he hadn't let that self-pity turn to anger he'd never have taken Morgan's hand so easily. Life, as usual, dealt its own punishments. He'd been a melodramatic twat and now he was squirming under Gene's hard gaze and not discovering where that doorstep kiss might have led.

"Is that why you're resigning?"

Sam shook his head though, in a convoluted way, it was quite true. Looking back, eyes unclouded by hurt or misery, it seemed depressingly simple. Like a petulant child denied the thing he wanted, he reacted with spite and every bad decision led back to the man he fancied not stopping for a snog. Bad enough thinking in those terms, worse when he remembered how spooked Gene had been that night. There was no sign of that now; Gene sat calmly at the table, twirling one of Sam's neatly labelled cassette tapes between his fingers and regarding his DI thoughtfully.

"I don't want you to resign."

Sam laughed incredulously. "My job is to take you down."

"No." Gene tossed the cassette into the middle of the table, eyes boring into Sam. "Your job is to keep the streets of Manchester that little bit cleaner and you're damned good at it. You were born for it." That registered on the shock-o-meter, Sam's jaw worked in silent surprise as Gene carried on. "I don't accept your resignation, Tyler." He dusted off his hands, as if that was one matter settled. "Now, that twat from Hyde got copies of this little lot?"

"No. He's got the tape of the McEwan interview. And he knows about Danny Croucher."

"Is he going to get the rest?"

"No."

Gene leaned back in his chair and sparked up a second cigarette. Took a long slow drag and then another and Sam couldn't read him at all.

"Kicking a nonce, won't get me nothing but a pat on the back from my revered superiors. I should bleeding well sack you, Sammy-boy."

"I just resigned."

"No you didn't. Eight bleeding months undercover and all you've got by way of a case is a couple tapes of summat that'd only count as violence in the fairy world in your head. You should be ashamed of yourself."

"I am, Guv."

Gene narrowed his eyes, gave that short, barely perceptible nod that let Sam know he'd been understood. "You're not cut out for undercover. Better on the mean streets."

"DCI Morgan-"

"If he'd wanted to keep you he shouldn't have sent you to me. You're staying put."

Gene stood, ground his cigarette out on the manilla cover of the MARS report and swept the lot into the kitchen bin. He advanced slowly on Sam.

"I had one of those cacophony jobbies," he said conversationally. As if he was unaware of the affect he was having on his prey, though Sam was sure he wasn't. "A whatchamacalit, when you see the light?"

"An epiphany?"

"That's the one. All this thinking bollocks you put yourself through - not good for a chap. Plays merry hell with me constitution."

"It does?"

Gene stopped less than a foot away and Sam was frozen, a rabbit in those piercing green headlights.

"Aye. Throws me off my game." One step more and Gene's knee was between Sam's legs. "I'm giving it up. Don't say you haven't been warned."

Sam missed the warning, heard the words but he'd stopped listening, his eyes following Gene's hand as it moved towards him, until they crossed and could follow no longer. Gene's fingers slid slowly through Sam's short hair with more tenderness than Sam would have thought him capable of, saying more than the words he'd tuned out, more than the lust he could hear in Gene's rough voice. The combination was having a dual affect on Sam's brain and knees and he wobbled uncertainly toward a coherent sentence.

"We're in your kitchen, Guv."

"Well I didn't mean I'd given up thinking that much. I- Oh. Wife's away. With her sister. New nephew just arrived. Now you wake me up in the dead of night with this pile of manure. I'm owed some recompense. A shag, to be specific."

Sam gulped. Tried to remember the shagging was where it had all gone wrong in the first place. But Sam's voice wouldn't help him share his objections so he nodded instead.

"What I don't want is you moping around the office like a wet weekend."

Sam shook his head, hair threading through Gene's fingers as he moved.

"Don't want none of that fluffy talk, neither. I'm not a poof, right?"

"I'm a bloke, Gene."

"Well yeah. You be how you like - but you're not signing me up for knitting classes or getting me up in Lycra."

Sam blinked, taken aback by that mental image. Gene's eyes were drawing him in, his mouth inches away, and Sam felt himself smiling. Couldn't tamp it down, though the sensation was unsettling after two weeks of pouting.

"No Lycra?"

There was a brief answering crease at the corner of Gene's mouth. "You need someone to buy you flowers and tell you you're pretty, you know where the door is."

"I hate flowers. Maybe we could compromise."

More than a crease, this time, and Sam could feel laughter bubbling up inside. "Fine," Gene growled. "You're pretty." He dipped his head, stopping, frustratingly, an inch from Sam's mouth. Sam didn't close the distance, didn't seem to be able to move at all.

"You get under my skin, Sam, and sometimes it itches."

Fluffy talk, bloke style. It was more than enough of a promise for Sam, compliment and confession and when Gene moved that last inch Sam's lips were already parted.

There was no feeling around, testing each other. Gene kissed thoroughly, pressing Sam back against the kitchen counter and holding him there as he ravished his mouth. Confirming Sam's initial impression that being kissed by Gene Hunt was quite an experience, that invaded every sense and left him thoughtless. He struggled to give as good as he got, pushing back until they were grinding against one another, finesse disintegrating into a desperate fumble for bare skin under cloth. Sam won the clothing race, making short work of outsized buttons and pushing down Gene's pyjama bottoms as Gene was still blindly trying to untuck Sam's shirt. His tugging stopped as Sam wrapped a firm hand around Gene's rock-hard erection. New territory and Sam might have stopped to look and linger but Gene thrust into his hand with an obscene noise of want that went straight to Sam's cock and instinct took over.

He took advantage of Gene's distraction to reverse their positions, so it was Gene pressed back against the counter and Sam attacking him. Hand sliding eagerly over hot flesh, mouth hungry and clumsy until Gene pushed him away.

"Slow down, you mad bugger. I'm not going anywhere," he panted.

Sam could hear the crack in his breathless voice as he batted Sam's hands away and reached for his belt buckle. It was an extra turn-on for a mind almost overloaded. Deprived of his own groping Sam took an evasive step back to regard Gene. The bed-hair was nicely complimented by the just-kissed mouth and a look in those green eyes that Sam hadn't seen before. His eyes followed the line of Gene's now open pyjama top to where Gene was standing proud over the elastic of his trousers.

"Slow, huh?"

Gene's eyes narrowed, a mix of lust and suspicion, then widened as Sam dropped to his knees. His hand stroked up the inside of Gene's solid thigh, skimmed lightly over rough hair and tight balls to encircle the base of his shaft, Gene's eyes following every movement. Sam leaned forward, mouth open and intention obvious, savouring the scent and anticipation.

"I'm not doing that," said Gene bluntly.

Sam looked up at him, ran his tongue over his top lip in a nervous motion that made Gene shudder. "You'll fuck me up the arse but you don't want a blow-job? Are there rules to this 'not a poof' thing I should know about?"

Gene tugged on Sam's short hair, a gesture clearly meant to bring Sam to his feet rather than closer to his goal. Sam stayed on his knees, dampened his lips again and this time the effect was deliberate.

"Looking for a shag, not an apolo-" Gene cut off with a hiss as Sam ducked forward, swiped his tongue over Gene's purpling helmet. He looked up again to catch Gene's wide eyes and shrugged.

"I want to."

He wrapped a hand firmly round the base of Gene's cock, tight enough to feel the blood pumping underneath. Slid his fingers up, silky skin over rock-hard vessels. The scent of Gene's arousal filled his nose and mouth, that universal earthy musk drowning out yesterday's sweat and beer. Holding Gene's gaze he stretched his tongue out to trace over the slit.

"If you don't like it...?"

Sam licked again, careful and deliberate, starting a slow rhythm with his hand. Waited for permission. Gene's eyes fluttered closed, then open again.

"You're a dirty, filthy man, Sam Tyler."

Sam grinned broadly before taking Gene into his mouth. A snog and a grope had brought them both close to the edge and Gene was leaking steadily as Sam sucked on the head of his cock. His hands returned to Sam's hair, gripping tightly, and the tingle in his scalp went straight to Sam's groin. He wriggled as he worked Gene, finding friction against the seam of his thin polyester slacks.

Gene's hips started moving in time to Sam's bobbing head, pushing further down with each thrust. Sam swallowed around the head as it pushed into his throat and let Gene take over - fucking his face to his own rhythm - one hand clutching Gene's arse, holding him up, the other frantically rubbing himself through his trousers. He could hear Gene talking now, half-finished swearwords and a hissing, choked noise that could have been Sam's own name.

Gene's low groan as he flooded Sam's mouth vibrated through his body and Sam's; that and his own hand through fabric was enough to get Sam off and, as Gene finished spending, Sam came in his pants.

When awareness returned Sam was slumped uncomfortably against one of the kitchen cupboards. Gene was still leaning against the counter opposite, head tilted back, a towering giant from Sam's viewpoint near the floor and his expression out of sight.

Half-wary, half-sated, Sam started the long climb back to his feet, until he was leaning next to Gene. The broad grin on his face as he turned to look at Sam was calming. He glanced down at the wet patch that was making Sam's trousers uncomfortably clingy, hitched his eyebrows in what could have been surprise or mockery but said nothing. Gene rolled his neck and stretched, shoulder jostling companionable against Sam's, and it wasn't flowers and kisses but it was perfectly them, a much-missed easy silence as intimate as any touch.

They must present an interesting tableaux, Sam thought - Gene naked from the waist down, Sam damp and dishevelled - but the floral kitchen blinds were closed against any early morning audience and Gene either hadn't noticed or didn't care that his pyjamas were pooled round his feet.

"Me fags are over there," Gene said eventually. Sam's eyes followed the jerk of his head to the kitchen table and slowly caught Gene's meaning.

"A long and arduous journey. Would you like me to fetch them for you?"

Gene, typically, ignored the heavy sarcasm and smiled his agreement. With a long suffering sigh he couldn't really feel, Sam pushed off the counter and took a step towards the table. He was stopped short by Gene's hand fisting in his shirt, yanking him back until they were nose to nose and Sam's lips parted in anticipation.

"And a fresh pot, while you're there," Gene added, releasing Sam with a little push. Again, it took a second or two for Sam to process, his eyes and mind both fixed on Gene's lips.

"Tea?" he asked stupidly.

Gene nodded towards the window, still dark though the world was beginning to stir outside. "Bit early for whisky. In fact, you may as well get brekkie on."

Sam obeyed, tossing Gene his cigarettes on his way to the stove, the sticky and cooling mess in his trousers making itself felt as he moved. When he looked again Gene was decent, watching Sam with an unreadable look as he warmed the pot and slid some toast under the grill. He smoked in silence until his cigarette was done and Sam was buttering the toast.

"Are you staying?" Gene asked suddenly, voice ringing over the low scrape of the butter knife. Sam shot him a questioning look over his shoulder.

"A division. Salford," Gene expounded. "My team."

Sam considered the question with surprise. He'd been told he was staying, and somehow that had seemed the end of that.

"If you'll have me."

Gene snorted. "Bein' coy, Tyler, or picking up the double-entendre? I'll have you on my team as long as you get results same as every other bastard. What I want to know is - do you want to stay?"

Sam nodded. So many explanations and apologies that he owed Gene, he didn't know where to start. "Guv..."

"I don't want to talk about it," said Gene hastily, the difference between talk and torture not apparent in his tone. "That'll do for me. We'll leave Morgan for tomorrow. Let the little prick think his mole's still digging away."

He crossed the kitchen in two long strides, took his toast and tea out of Sam's hands and left the bemused DI to follow. Sam had no wish to talk or think of Morgan either, and Gene's new philosophy had never seemed more attractive, so follow he did, into the sitting room where the light was dimmer. And it felt perfectly natural to sit and sip tea as Gene demolished his toast. When Gene put the plate aside to light yet another cigarette Sam tilted his head back on the sofa and his eyes drifted shut to the contented rasping of abused lungs.

He'd not drifted far when the cushions shifted beside him, but the sleepless nights caught up in a rush and Sam didn't open his eyes until Gene seized his feet and swung his legs round. He struggled to focus as Gene deposited Sam's Cuban heels on the far arm of the sofa.

"Best you get forty winks, or you'll be useless today. 'M gonna get dressed."

Sam made a half-hearted attempt at a nod, squinting against the first light sneaking past the curtains. Let his eyes close fully and didn't once think of the chance to get home that had never been real. He was asleep before Gene's footsteps had reached the top of the stairs.

constance_b @ 2008-03-02T13:57:00

2008-03-02T14:02:14Z

Ahh, sweet internet... Half term, a stomach bug and TalkTalk have left me very deprived. I have nothing to say, per usual, except I've missed you all. I had to read a book this week, I ran out of fanfiction.

And thank you muchly louise39 for the card. I'm still young enough to get excited by oldfashioned post, especially when it comes with exotic stamps.

Slash, and Stuff

2008-02-01T18:18:29Z

I have been worrying about slash fic, and more specifically, why I seem to have started writing it. Not worrying in an 'OMG, I'm gonna go to hell' way, it just puzzles me. I used to avoid it. I don't find the sight of two men kissing erotic. I'm vaguely squicked by the idea of two men having sex. I'm a girl, I don't have a prostate, my own experience of anal sex is pretty much 'that bleeding well hurts, I'm not doing it again without substantial sexual bribery' And that's still true. So why have I started writing fics where the whole point is to get two men into bed?

Because I'm weird, according to the person reading over my shoulder. (Hazard of borrowing people's internet. She didn't use the word weird, but she's definitely giving me funny looks now.) And it's fair comment. But I'm very far from alone. And if 'because they're weird' is the answer, how is it all these slash writers share the same weirdness? Every kink has its own little corner of the Internet, that's to be expected, how come slash is the one that's nearly taken over? I don't know if anyone has done a proper survey, but it seems to me, pretty much half of all shipper fic is slash. That's a lot of weirdos. It's very curious. I've been hanging around fandom too long to think it that strange, but it is. It's very strange. There's no Mills and Boon equivalent, out in the real world, few trashy gay romances written for women, but here in fandom - pretty much 50/50. And I'd like to know why.

The 'how I came to read slash' question is much easier to answer. I've been corrupted by all you Internet freaks. Left to my own devices it would probably never have occurred to me that, say, House and Wilson might be getting it on after hours or that I'd like to read about it, but I've been so won over to the dark side that it's almost my first thought. I've read a lot of Due South Slash fic just recently. Not because I watched the program and thought they should get it on, but because spuffyduds started writing it and I enjoyed her writing so much I didn't want to miss it, even though it was slash. And being a shipper, it's not long before that's my OTP and I'm rooting for them and avoiding het DS fic. Same thing with Firefly, way back when. Most of the fics I clicked on were gen or canon ships so I didn't bother reading the pairings/warnings, before I knew it kispexi2 has me knee deep in a Mal/Simon fic and it's too gripping to put down just because it's slash, though I might not have started it for the same reason. And afterwards, I could never read a Mal/Inara fic with the same kind of interest. Then I start wondering about all the other great fics I might be missing out on because they're slash and I learn a gay sex scene can be every bit as hot as a straight one if you're invested in the relationship. And there you are, I'm converted.

That bit, that makes perfect sense. Me overcoming prejudices and learning a good writer can make anything interesting and involving. Doesn't come close to explaining why all these writers are writing slash in the first place, or why, given a new fandom, I'll head straight for the slash, or why I'm writing slash now. I'll read a fic because it's worth reading, I don't write a fic because it's worth writing. That came out not quite right. For me, and a lot of other people I think, the writing is the point, not the end product. I've never actually asked anyone, but if I picked a random slash writer and asked 'did you write that because you thought you could write a slash fic well, or because you wanted to write a slash fic' I could guess at the answer. I write shipper fic because I'm already invested in the ship and because those are the stories that form in my head, that I want to write. So why do I want to write them?

That's actually really bugging me, because I'm not sure I know the answer. It goes against logic. I find it easier to identify with female characters and I'm not turned on by gay sex, so why are there slash stories in my head? I have a few possible reasons.

1/ I'm a shipper, I love romances more than gen fic. To the point where I wouldn't chose to write a gen fic. I might write something that seems like a gen fic, but you can guarantee, somewhere in my head, it all ended happily ever answer with my OTP forever together. It's my self-indulgent hobby and I want to write romances. When Life on Mars moved into my brain I had to ship someone, and not only is the relationship between the two male leads the main focus of the series, there are also no het ships I could care about. Or indeed women I could care about. Which is pretty much reason number two.

2/ Lack of good female characters. I love Buffy (way more than I love Spike), I love writing her, if Spike had never been in BtVS I'd've shipped her with someone else. If there'd been a female character in Life on Mars that I could love or even feel interested in I would probably be writing Het LoM fic. Well, maybe.

3/ I fancy people on TV that just aren't good boyfriend material. I fancy Spike, he's very pretty, he's endlessly fascinating, but (assuming some fantastical situation where he was real and interested in me) I wouldn't date him. He's not someone you could imagine settling down and growing old with, even if he could grow old. For many reasons, this doesn't stop me shipping him with Buffy, but I can't apply those reasons to DCI Hunt. You get the general impression that his wife rarely sees him sober. It's hard to imagine any romantic relationship that could be more important to him than his relationship with his team, or any woman that could be more important than his job.

4/ Because it's the side of that character brought out by another character that I love best. Not my most coherent sentence ever. What makes me love Gene Hunt is the way he deals with Sam, and that's a side of him no woman would ever get to see. Unless, maybe, she was his DI, and even then you couldn't imagine him hitting a woman as casually as he does Sam. Or that I could see it as a good thing if he did. Maybe that is why Spuffy is the Het exception, her being preternaturally strong equalises the sexes in a way you just can't have in real life where men are bigger and stronger and generally more powerful. To pick a better known example, Spike brings out a petty and childish side of Angel that he would never show to Buffy. I don't really like the character, or Spangle or Bangle, but he's a lot more interesting to read, believable and three dimensional, when paired with Spike.

5/ Angst and violent confrontation all make a fic more interesting. It's hard to have any violence in a het ship without it being an abusive relationship that you couldn't root for. I can happily read a fic where two men beat the snot out of each other and then have sex. That reason might just be one of my personal kinks.

6/ There's no traditional happy ending for a friendship fic. They're not exclusive, or formal. A best friend is rarely as big an influence on a person's life as a husband or wife. It's very rare to find someone who shares their life with a best friend in the same way people do with their romantic partner. You never get to finish, to say 'reader, I married him' or 'they lived happily ever after and had many fat children.' Sam and Gene might be the most important people in each others lives but they'll move on, if their careers took them to separate cities. Sex makes it a 'real' relationship, in the eyes of society and possibly the characters themselves.

7/ I'm addicted to UST. In any fandom, any pairing, my favourite kind of fic has big heaps of angst and a will they/won't they that stretches on forever. Once it gets to the point where they obviously will, I lose interest in all but the best fics. The more obstacles to a happy ending, the better, and what could be a bigger obstacle than sexual orientation? Spuffy comes close. Different species, that whole mass-murdering thing, Seeing Red, that's a lot for love to overcome, but not as much as changing your self-identity and a genetic disposition towards a particular sex. With almost any slash pairing, there's a whole raft on inbuilt obstacles, even in the open-minded and equal society we don't quite have yet.

Those are my reasons, as far as I understand them myself. And there's a couple others that don't really apply to me, but I've seen other people mention.

8/ Writing descriptions of female genitalia is squicky. Personally, I entirely fail to find the genitalia of either sex pretty, and writing the graphic details of any sex scene is always a bit unpleasant.

9/ Some authors only write characters they have the hots for. IMO that's a tiny minority. I only want to write characters I love, but I love Buffy and Willow and Zoe and Kaylee every bit as much or more than I love the characters I'm crushing on.

10/ Some people just find gay sex hot. In the same way, presumably, that men like to watch lesbian porn videos. Fair enough, not my thing. And again, I have to assume that's a minority, because the vast majority of slash fics I stumble on aren't PWPs.

And I have one more reason, which only really occurred to me after far too much thinking about Ashes 2 Ashes. If Sam had been a girl in Life on Mars I'd probably have happily shipped it for a little while. I wanted a het ship. Now, in A2A, I'm being given exactly that, but I don't want it. Not just because Sam and Gene is now my OTP in that fandom. First up, I resent being told that they've added sexual tension to make the program more appealing to women. It makes me think murderous thoughts about Matthew Graham and if I end up liking A2A I'll feel bad about it. I resent being given what I want, I'm petty like that. But more germane to my slash puzzlings, I don't trust the writers not to screw it up.

I could watch Life on Mars, and ship Hunt/Tyler, secure in the knowledge that the writers couldn't ruin it for me. They could ruin the ending, but not the ship, because it's not and never would be a canon ship. And I think that applies to most slash pairings. Life on Mars was never going to show Sam and Gene getting romantic, so they couldn't show it badly. I was able to invest in that relationship, because of that. And it's not necessary a good/bad writing issue. Even if I'd managed to have the same kind of blind faith in the creators of LoM that I managed for Joss Whedon, I don't think I'd even want to see how that relationship might have played out on screen. If it's not a canon ship they can't show it reaching a conclusion. They were never going to take away my UST by making them a couple. And I can't think of any heterosexual examples, where you could be sure Male Character and Female Character weren't going to end up together and boring, except in closed canon. Maybe that's why I just can't get into Torchwood. There are no two characters, regardless of gender, generation or species, that might not jump into bed at any second.

so 11/ Because it's not a canon ship.

Eleven whole reasons. I'm not sure that's enough to explain why so many fandom members prefer slash. Or why they don't seem to apply to mainstream media. If anyone has a better answer, I'd like to hear it. And if anyone knows how it can be possible that I don't know myself why it is I do the things I do, I'd like to know that too. In fact, I think this is probably my longest ever non-fic post by a wide margin, I'd be quite impressed if anyone got this far. You can just consider this post one long advert for rough-drafting.

Life on Mars Fic

2008-01-17T17:23:17Z

Sequel to The Seat with the Clearest View and If is for Children, Part Two, Part Three Yellow Ribbon, Part One Part Two

For my own nefarious reasons I've played around a little with the timeline of the final episode. 2.06 never happened, 2.07 happened in November, not July. If MG can write pre-finale Christmas fanfic I feel I'm entitled. This chapter picks up about two weeks after the last part.

Many thanks to kispexi2 and her colour scheme for the beta and gentle prodding (and the ego-stroking). Thanks to liquorishflame for details about the final episode. If anyone could furnish me with the name of the place Danny Croucher worked/was found dead at I'd be grateful.

For reasons of secrecy, Morgan didn't drive Sam back to the nick after their clandestine meeting and Sam was glad of it. There was too much buzzing around in his head to walk back into the station and pretend everything was normal. He was sure the shock of it all must be written on his face and the tiny part of Sam's mind not already devoted to its new cause wondered if his colleagues would be able to sense his betrayal. His mind had been made up from the moment Morgan had said the word 'home' and Sam was already starting to think of A division in a new light - not friends or figments but the enemy, an obstacle between him and his own time.

There had been days, more and more of them over the last few months, when Sam had really felt he could settle down in 1973. He'd never stopped fighting to get home, because it wasn't in his nature to give up, but he had started to wonder if he still wanted the thing he was fighting for.

He'd started living the fantasy in a way he'd never thought he'd be able to. He'd got used to things. His perspective had changed. He'd let go of the obsessive desire to Google anything that puzzled him. The Post Office on the corner had stopped being an unsettling nostalgia trip and become simply the place he bought his morning paper. Every tiny inconvenience no longer prompted a comparison of how much easier things would be in 2006. Sam could pick up a new case and his first thought was no longer 'is this the one that will get me home?'"

If Morgan had shown his hand two weeks ago when Sam first met him, it would have thrown him into one hell of a quandary. Now he clutched at Morgan's offer like the lifeline it literally was.

Because in that fortnight he'd discovered his whole fantasy life revolved around just one person and there was nothing in it that hadn't been tainted by that one night of wordless sex. The shift was tiny, Sam reflected bitterly. The Guv hadn't fired him, nothing so dramatic. Just ignored him with a determination that made his interview techniques seem wishy-washy and uninvolved. The fact that Gene - incredibly - had not once punched him since that ill-considered night should not have been cause for complaint, but Sam felt the snub. He gave Sam his own cases, paired him off with Chris or Annie and whole days could go by without Sam crossing paths with his superior officer though their desks were not ten feet from each other. Just like that, it felt to Sam, the easy camaraderie that had made this backwards CID home had evaporated and he was isolated in a foreign land once more.

There was no-one here who believed in 2006 but that hadn't stopped Sam talking about it. Everyone here believed in Gene Hunt and Sam couldn't confide in one of them. The idea of telling Annie that the Guv had shagged him and now wasn't talking to him was so ridiculous it was virtually the only thought that could raise a smile from Sam in those dark days. She noticed the shift in dynamic and the change in Sam's mood - it would have been hard not to - but Sam couldn't tell her the why and she soon stopped asking. His reticence and her hurt had gone a long way to severing another connection he'd made here.

There was no-one he could talk to because there was no-one here who didn't belong to Gene more than him. And no thing. Sam had made the effort to go to The Railway Arms once or twice but Gene was always there in the centre of it and he couldn't swallow his pride long enough to intrude where he didn't seem wanted. Didn't want to spend his evenings watching the Guv, still exuding that animal charisma for everyone but him. He was still the same force of nature that had drawn Sam in in the first place. Nelson's welcoming smile wasn't welcoming enough.

His support network - the friends and family and drinking buddies and casual acquaintance he'd built up through his life - were all thirty-three years away. His Mum, the last refuge for any troubled young man, didn't even know who he was. He wanted - needed - to be home, where people loved him.

And along came Morgan. With bizarre tales of tumours and a thousand other details which Sam barely heard because Morgan had used that magic word - home.

Even his subconscious seemed to be working against him. It couldn't go with the obvious, no. No big door marked '2006 this way' and a handy arrow. Everything had to be complicated, ambiguous, talk of cancers and undercover missions when all Sam wanted was to leave Gene bloody Hunt in whatever pit in his mind he'd crawled out of. Walk out of his fantasy with whatever was left of his sanity.

If it could be called sane to be so angry with a figment of his own imagination. And he was a figment. Sam had to believe that or there was no way home and that was a thought Sam could no longer bear. It was so much easier to believe the figment thing when Gene stopped being a physical force that threw him against walls as a form of punctuation and dwindled into a lurking presence, rarely seen. But knowing he was a figment, believing it, wasn't enough to dilute the anger. He didn't have Gene's tolerance for the flaws of the people around him. Took it all personally. He felt betrayed, didn't care if he repaid that with a betrayal of his own. Maybe even got a measure of satisfaction from the thought. Every time he was paired off with Chris on some case not worth his attention, every time it was Ray sat in the passenger seat of the Cortina and not him, every time Gene didn't quite look at him when he marched into the office, Sam felt it.

If it was a story about two people not them, Sam might have been sympathetic. A married man, his direct superior, in a world where sodomy was still considered a direct path to hell, if no longer gaol - not exactly a recipe for happy endings. Sam should have been able to understand a hundred different reasons for Gene to keep his distance. He tried for understanding but he never got there because it hurt.

Sam defended himself by giving up. Stopped challenging, stopped pushing. Felt a little vindicated when Morgan told him Gene was only a cancer - it was such an attractive thought. Better than believing he'd been rejected by his own subconscious, or that this loneliness was his life now. Better to believe a friendship was imaginary than that it just couldn't survive a little trial, could just disappear. Took away Sam's culpability too. He was no longer the victim of his own bad decisions - Gene Hunt was a growth and Sam could be rid of him, back to the man he had been in the century in which he belonged.

By the time he got back to the station he'd fully acclimatised to his new role as traitor. And he was greeted by the perfect opportunity. A case of Sam's, a fourteen year old girl raped in her own home. It hadn't taken a tenth of Sam's detective skills to identify the uncle, one Bruce McEwan, as the likely culprit and put out an APB. While Sam had been playing secret agents with the moustachioed man from Hyde, plod had apprehended the suspect at Old Trafford and, as Phylis informed him the second he walked in, Gene had started the interview without him.

It felt like a sign. It was Sam's case, he had every reason to be in at the finish, and nothing was more likely to bring out the excessive force in his DCI than a Man U supporting paedophile. It was easy for Sam to set the tape recorder going on one of the shelves in lost and found, because Gene barely glanced at him. Sam didn't join in the interview, just watched as Gene kicked and punched his way to a confession then kicked and punched some more. The crunch of breaking ribs sounded no more pleasant than it ever had but this time the violence didn't seem real; Sam's only thought on the unconscious suspect Uniform carried to the cells was - if he keeps this up I'll be home in no time.

********

Three days later Sam had got so immersed in the collection of evidence for Morgan he rarely resurfaced long enough to remember he did have another job. Almost every arrest Gene involved himself in ended up with some infraction of proper police procedure and Sam had it all neatly documented. By 2006 standards he had enough to have his superior drummed off the force but here, he knew, he needed something much bigger. Still, every piece of paper and every cassette he added to the file in his bottom desk drawer told him he was on track. On his way home.

It became his only goal. Sam no longer cared if Gene Hunt was the physical manifestation of a growth or just a figment of the more disturbed side of his imagination; he was sick of having him in his head. A second later that became more literal and he had Gene echoing through his eardrums as he threw open the door of his office and bellowed a summons the CID office hadn't heard in a fortnight. Before Mogan's bombshell this might have been a notable event for Sam, something to be approached with apprehensive pleasure, now he saw it only as an interruption to his journey home. He stomped into the office with no preconceptions - Gene had always used the same annoyed shout to precede a new lead and a bollocking alike.

The Guv was sitting behind his desk.

"Working hard, Tyler?"

"Just finishing the paperwork for the Trelawney case, Guv," Sam lied woodenly.

"Not been much of a team player this week."

Sam had steeled himself to 'yessir' until Gene was done and get back to his notes but the injustice of that remark got under his skin. His tightest self-control couldn't keep him silent. Only just kept his voice level, icy instead of angry.

"I rather got the impression you were avoiding me, Guv."

Gene grunted at this, steepled his hands. "You're a DI, aren't you, Gladys? Don't need me to hold your hand. Should be leading the troops, not shuttering yourself away with that never ending bleeding paperwork."

"Yes Guv." Back to wooden. "Is that all?"

He met Gene's eye for a moment, arrogant and aloof. Hoped the other man didn't notice how short the moment was before he turned on his heel. A fortnight of mutual avoidance and Sam had forgotten how dangerous Gene's eyes could be. When it came to getting confessions they were more than fit for purpose - scary as hell, looking right into his head. It was a combination that had hardened criminals blabbing like children and Sam had to turn away before they worked their magic on him. Three careful, measured steps towards the door and he heard the clatter of a chair that signaled Gene standing, the slap of his palm and the rattle that followed as the desk reverberated.

"No, Tyler. That is not bleeding all."

Sam turned, reluctantly.

"Now you can be as arsey with me as you like, dare say I deserve it. But I'm still your boss - you've not been pulling your weight and it's starting to show in my clear-up rates."

"I'll clear my desk then, shall I?"

Gene looked like he'd been slapped. He recovered quickly, eyes flashing. "Only if you want to be a melodramatic twat. What am I saying? Of course you do. Flounce off then, Gladys, I'm sure that's easier than getting on with your job."

Sam laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound and he didn't seem to have control of it. "Maybe I'll pop right out of existence. That would suit you, right? Or wouldn't you care either way?"

So much for wooden. Somehow the words coming out of his mouth were so horribly bitter and personal even Sam winced. He wanted to walk away. Out of the station and this impossible situation and never look back. He remembered the promise of home, if he could just survive this one last trial of 1973, and tried to tell himself it was all worth it. Gene didn't give him time to decide, stepping round his desk, grabbing the front of Sam's shirt and bouncing him into the wall. Sam felt a flicker of something and maybe Gene did too because he let go, though he didn't step away.

"I care about my city, Tyler, and my team. I care that there's villains roaming free because you're taking personal summat that ain't. You've got a job to do here, whatever those little voices are telling you, and if you won't do it, I'll have to find someone that will. It's not because I want rid of you."

Because he knew Gene, Sam knew that little speech must have cost him and felt a twinge of guilt. Then anger at the guilt because Gene had to be a figment, a figment that had shunned his company since the sex. Sam utterly refused to acknowledge the thrum this figment produced by his proximity. His mind had fooled him too often like this, offering a way out and then tricking him into not accepting it. This time he was determined to see this through, find his way back home to a place where he wasn't lonely.

So he opened his mouth to say the thing he thought would placate Gene, escape this uncomfortable doubt and get back to collating his evidence, but he didn't have the chance. Chris ambled in after a light tap on the door, stumbled slightly when he saw he was interrupting a heated discussion between the Guv and the Boss but carried on manfully.

"We've got a body, Guv," he announced. "Down the colliery. Shot."

Gene paused a second, eyes darting over to Sam, then he jerked his head towards the door. "C'mon then, Tyler. Let's get you some exercise."

Part Four

Gene grunted his thanks as Ray slapped a pint on the bar beside him and turned back to the darts. At least, ostensibly he was watching the darts match. He'd angled his stool to keep one eye on Tyler who was brooding alone in a corner and couldn't have recounted who was playing, let alone the score.

There'd been a flash of his old, uniquely obnoxious DI this afternoon. Eyes, if not mouth, clearly blaming Gene for the death of his 'informant' Danny Croucher. The face of a man poised to give a lecture and follow it up with a demonstration of proper police procedure. But the lecture hadn't come and one phone call from Hyde later - Gene had checked with the operator as soon as Sam had left the room - his DI was missing in action for the rest of the day. Emerging just in time for a rare visit to the Railway Arms.

Action was required, no doubt about it, and Gene wasn't one to baulk at doing the necessary but he had a sneaking suspicion that the seven or eight pints he'd knocked back while watching Tyler counted as baulking. Gene found the lack of confident resolution more disturbing than the newly discovered penchant for buggery. He just didn't trust himself. He'd decided shagging Tyler would be A Very Bad Idea when the sexual attraction was still a nebulous and much denied wisp at the back of his brain; it was a knock to his rock-solid confidence when he found he'd gone ahead and done it anyway. He'd blame it all on Tyler, but acknowledging Sam affected his actions was hardly comfort. All it took was a day with the memory of Sam's drunken kisses, the tension of not knowing if the sly little bastard remembered, stir in a drop of alcohol and he was doing the nasty with his very male deputy. Some drunken frigging excuse for an idea that the doing would get rid of the wanting to. What sort of woolly gay decision-making was that?

His latest beer slid down without Gene noticing. He ordered two more pints and whacked them down on the table in front of Tyler before he could indulge any more in this nasty Sam-inspired habit of second guessing himself. Tyler flicked a slightly surprised gaze over his DCI as Gene sat down beside him with some determination, then glowered at the beer in front of him. Gene couldn't help but feel they had things arse over tit here - he was playing Sam's role. He soldiered on regardless, and if he was playing Sam he may as well get the lines right.

"Your dog bin run over?"

Another surprised glance sideways as Sam recognised his own words. He laughed, that rather unpleasant and slightly-crazier-than-usual laugh Tyler'd taken up over the last day or two. The one that came without a hint of a smile.

"No Guv. Just... having a quiet drink."

Gene settled himself more comfortably beside Sam on the tatty bench seat and sparked up a ciggie. Threw out a few casual remarks about the state of Sam's beloved Reds, got nothing but a disinterested grunt in reply.

He was starting to realise that the mistake he'd made with Tyler wouldn't be so easy to fix. Shagging him had been so far out of line it was dizzy, to borrow one of Sam's lively metaphors, but after, even Sam seemed to realise they'd overstepped that line. So damage control should have been simple, a little pretending it never happened until they both forgot about it. Gene couldn't do it. Remembered all too well the gleam in Sam's eyes as they'd fought and doubted his own self-control if he found that gleam was still there. He'd been so afraid to be his usual hands-on self that he'd gone to some great lengths to avoid the little poof altogether.

He had succeeded so well it had taken him a while to notice how very odd Sam had become. Now Gene had nothing against a little oddness, but Tyler'd never been the full shilling and odd for him was way past the minimum requirement for a padded cell. He'd been sullen in the office, on the few occasions Gene had found it necessary to speak to him, and Gene assumed that was for his benefit, could hardly complain. He'd not challenged Gene, fought him on any one point, and for that much Gene was grateful. Let Sam have his sulk. But his team wasn't the same clunky, badly oiled but effective machine without Tyler's strangely shaped cog. And his old oddities had started to intrude on Gene's notice again. The loud conversations on phones that weren't plugged in, sudden nonsense rants he addressed to the ceiling.

"Got any brainwaves on the colliery case?"

Gene wanted this killer, very badly. Needed his old DI back on the case, insubordination and all. Needed his DI back on the planet of human beings before he took that final step from eccentric to strait-jacket. But Sam wasn't playing ball; he shook his head silently.

"Not even going to tell me how the dead bloke were my fault? Most unlike you."

Like blood out of a stone. Tyler didn't even bother with a silent response to that one. Even now, with Tyler withdrawn, no hint of a gleam anywhere, and Gene still found himself distracted by the sense memory of that wiry frame against his in a hundred different fights and a handful of times that weren't fights. And every night, around the fifth beer, it got harder to remember the wrong of it. Wiry wasn't an adjective he'd every looked for in a woman but it suited Sam and the thought of sinewy muscle now had the same affect on Gene as passing cleavage. Sam's every muscle was tight now, belying his disinterested slouch.

"C'mon Tyler. Need ideas. How we gonna get these blaggers?"

"Beat someone up?" suggested Sam listlessly.

"That's half a plan," Gene agreed mildly. "Needs you on board to tell me when to stop, but."

Something flickered across Sam's face at that, something that Gene couldn't quite interpret but it pinged his copper's instincts and if Sam had been a suspect he'd've pushed on for a confession. As he didn't suspect Sam of anything more than being a bit of a drama queen, he just hammered the point home.

"Got used to you holding me back, Tyler. Necessary role and all that."

That flicker again. Guilt, Gene decided, and he didn't like it. Couldn't see the why of it. Was used to his DI always being sure he was in the right and he'd expected anger. Anger he got in Sam's words, but his tone lacked conviction.

"Are you going to give me a lecture on being a team player? Because that's be a bit rich, don't you think?"

"Well I'm an arsehole. Can't say you've only just noticed. That enough to make you forget you're a copper?"

Sam took a sip of his beer. Didn't look at Gene. In the same wooden tone he'd used earlier in the office he assured his superior officer he'd seen the error of his ways and his work would improve. Gene kicked him in the shin, just for the fun of seeing a more genuine reaction. Non-contact violence, he mused, that could work.

"You can cut that bollocks right out. If I wanted a DI that agreed with me I'd'a fired you a long time ago. And I'm trying-"

"I think I should leave."

He addressed his pint and for all Gene knew the drink had asked Sam a question. Gene brushed it off, wasn't a day went by when Tyler didn't talk about leaving.

"Back to Hyde? Where the constables weave daisies into their hair and the DCIs have magic wands?"

"No." Sam replied with some vehemence, though his eyes never left his pint. "Just... You don't want me here, Guv. I'm dangerous to you."

Gene narrowed his eyes, knew that already and didn't like that Tyler knew it too. "We talking mad axeman dangerous or Christine Keeler dangerous?"

"I could end you."

"There's hardly a week you don't come close. Got used to it."

"I should go. I'm not-"

"Oh, shut your cakehole. What you need is to quit feeling sorry for yourself. I'm trying to say sorry here and all you can do is blather on 'bout running away."

That got a genuine reaction. Surprise first, naturally enough - Gene Hunt was not in the habit of handing out apologies. Then that something else again and Sam was standing up, scooping his keys from the table. Gene caught him by the shirt-tails of that ridiculously neat jacket and yanked him back down. Half hoped to see that spark of a fight behind hazel eyes but Sam prised his fingers from the leather with such gentleness that Gene had to let him. The look in his eyes was a hundred different things but none of them confrontational. Though Gene didn't like to admit it, the man looked defeated already.

"I have to go, Gene. I just... I need to think."

He stood again and this time Gene let him go. His eyes followed Sam's determined stalk to the door then he turned his attention back to the beer in front of him, tipped the dregs from his own pint into Sam's barely-touched one and appropriated his glass. It wasn't unusual from Sam to have an unsettling affect on Gene's substantial gut nowadays but he'd never before touched the part that housed his famed copper's instincts. Was worrying, that. Moreso even than the way Gene couldn't help but watch that rear view as he'd made his exit.

********

After Morgan had left Sam sitting on his own grave, his feet had taken him back to CID automatically. At five o'clock he followed the crowd, still on autopilot, to the Railway Arms, noticing no-one and nothing but his own inner turmoil until Gene had slapped a pint down in front of him. Knocked him for six. He left - fled - the pub with no less turmoil and a good deal more guilt. Had walked the four miles back to his grave and sat and sat until he was sober again and numb with cold and a few things drifting in the maelstrom in his head solidified and began to make sense.

Sam had been back and forth like a ping-pong ball all day and as he'd left the Railway Arms one tiny word, one more conflicting emotion, might have sent him over the edge into insanity. The gibbering kind, not the pale imitation he dealt with every day.

The talk with Gene in his office earlier - years ago - had been... surprising. Set something unpleasant nagging at the back of his brain though he'd tried to stay focused. Fifteen minutes later he'd been staring at a corpse that put him right back on track. Immutable confirmation that Gene's cavalier methods ended lives, even if they were imaginary lives, and that he was doing the right thing in this world to get back to his own. His meeting with Morgan had rocked that certainty to its foundations.

He played his part, handed over the transcript of that first interview he'd secretly taped, told Morgan all about the death at colliery, only to find out that the cancer was a metaphor. He had heard exactly what he had wanted to hear - a way back home when all that had been offered was some career-aiding destruction. And the man he'd thought of as some kind of guide dreamed up by his mind to lead him home was nothing but a policeman with a vendetta.

Sam's anger and righteous indignation might have kept him going but the anger had melted in the face of Gene's apology and the indignation seemed now to be on the petty side of righteous. Angry as he had been, Sam had never been able to deny that when it came to policing Gene did the best he knew how for the good of his city. And that best could be - had been - better with Sam's tempering and guidance. Morgan, who Sam had looked at as some kind of benevolent saviour, took on a certain malevolence as he'd talked about destroying Gene Hunt. Sam's judgement cleared without the promise of home dangling so temptingly in front of his nose and he could see that Morgan was wrong. Gene's sometimes indefensible methods were nothing more than a product of the force he served in and that force wouldn't be strengthened by removing him when there was so much worse to be found.

Getting home and doing right, the two things he'd been sure of the last three days. And if he had to doubt them he had to doubt everything. As Sam stared at the graves of his imaginary parents, he realised he was thinking of Gene as a real man again and now it seemed impossible that he'd ever believed he was a figment. Arrogant, almost, to believe his mind could dream up such a complex, unique individual. All too much to deal with when his mind was still reeling from the shock of discovering he wasn't on his way home at all. That there was no escape.

Real or unreal, right and wrong, everything blurred together until the only thing Sam was certain of was Gene Hunt. Gene who might not exist but had to because Sam knew him.

By five am Sam was almost frozen solid, but his mind was made up. For once in his tightly controlled life there was no place for rational argument and, decision made, he wasted no time in acting.

If anyone was surprised by DI Tyler walking into the station hours before dawn on a freezing November morning then that surprise didn't register with Sam; he was entirely focused on his task. Five minutes at his desk was all it took to collect the tapes and transcripts he'd gathered, and the MARS folder Morgan had given him. He walked straight to the Guv's house from the nick, not daring to stop moving, to give himself the chance to bottle out. It took a very brave man to destroy his own life, his hope for the future, and Sam was afraid he'd find his courage lacking if he stopped for just a second to consider the consequences.

2006 was lost to him. There was no way back home and even if there had been it wouldn't have mattered. If destroying Gene Hunt was what it took to get back to his own time then he'd left it too long, would never be able to push the button while he could remember that brusque apology, that awkward attempt at reconciliation. He'd never take that definitive step and he could live with that. No, it was the consequences in 1973 that he couldn't bear to think of. He couldn't look Gene in the face with that folder sitting in his desk, had no choice but to confess, though he knew it would be the final nail in the coffin of a friendship that might just have survived the sex. So he wouldn't think. He'd turn over everything he'd gathered, follow it up with his resignation and afterwards, that's what he'd think about what the hell he'd do next.

Sam secretly believed it would never come to that. That once he'd given up the fight here there'd be nothing keeping him going in 2006 and he would cease to exist. He did wonder briefly if that meant this world would cease to exist also but that was a conundrum beyond his understanding and made no difference to his actions. His choices were made not according to what he should do but what he couldn't, and any thoughts concerning what might or might not be real were going to get the mental equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and humming. It was Sam's single-minded focus that carried his feet all the way to Gene's front door, that raised his fist and demanded entrance and it didn't fail him until the front door swung open.

He'd been prepared for the Guv's glowering disapproval, before and after he confessed. He hadn't been prepared for six foot of sleepy Gene, in flannelette pyjamas, pillow creases across his face and bed hair that was nothing short of adorable. Took much of the sting from the predicted glower. It was steeling yourself to face a dragon only to be met with a cuddly teddy-bear and maybe it was closer to hysteria than humour but Sam couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face. Here was one image that could keep him warm through an unemployed 1970's existence or whatever afterlife he was destined for.

He raised one hand in a slightly ironic wave as Gene dragged a palm over his six o'clock shadow. "Hi," he said perkily.

Gene stared at him a second, impassive, unblinking, green eyes alert and searching. Sam had half expected the meaty fist that shot out in his direction, grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked; things deviated from expectations when the surface he crashed into was Gene's bulky form and the plot took a sharp u-turn as a hot, insistent mouth closed over his.

As a way of stopping all thought it was a thousand times more effective than his mental humming. Sam's world shrank to the tongue searching his mouth, the hand on the back of his neck, bristles rubbing against his chin. He was swept away by the momentum of it all and he obviously hadn't learned his lesson from their last, disastrously intimate encounter because Sam let himself be swept. The kiss was forceful like Sam would have expected and soft like he hadn't. Gene's free hand wandered slowly, down Sam's back and over his hip, commanding him closer until Sam could feel them both start to harden.

Gene pulled back first, though he kept a tight hold on Sam's shirt as he growled: "I thought I told you to stop doing that!"

"I'm sorry," Sam started, because he'd come here with a heavy conscience, those words ready on his tongue. "I... Wait. Do what?"

"Bein' all... available!"

He backed Sam against the door-jamb, the intensity in his eyes belying the mock-ire in his voice. This time Sam could see his intention and wriggled out of his hold while he could still remember why he had to. There was only so much one man could give up. He stood in the middle of the pavement, clutching his messy sheaf of papers in front of him like a shield. Gene narrowed his eyes, cocked his head slightly in that assessing look Sam knew so well.

"Now you start doing what I tell you?"

If Gene had moved then, Sam couldn't have stepped away twice. But Gene didn't move.

"I've got something to tell you, Guv."

Maybe it was the use of his title, maybe something he heard in Sam's voice, but the man in front of him was suddenly all policeman again, pyjamas notwithstanding. He jerked his head towards the darkened interior of his house and stood aside to let Sam pass.

Seasons Greetings

2007-12-25T17:32:22Z

My little girl is spending Christmas with her Grandparents in Doncaster, so I've spent Christmas Eve, my first child-free day this year, redecorating her room. Four o'clock this morning I was still assembling a bed, blasting Christmas Carols. Then my Mum had to drag me out at ten to have 'family time'. She thinks me spending Christmas day on my own would be a terrible thing, despite being an atheist. Personally, I think this is the best Christmas ever.
Tonight, I shall be varnishing furniture and building a desk. Just as soon as I've eaten enough food for three people, which is apparently a pre-condition of my mother letting me out of the house.
Wishing you all a merry Christmas, and a happy new year. May your day be filled with family, laughter and Dr Who specials.

constance_b @ 2007-12-08T14:35:00

2007-12-08T14:42:30Z

Today is the Armed Bastards Chistmas Exchange at Martian Holiday. I've just slogged through the pissing rain to post my story, if anyone's interested.

My neighbours, the 20 year old couple with the weekly domestics and two small children (they had a boy in the summer, called him Jordan, not that I'm being snobbish or judgemental or anything) had a miscarriage yesterday, to sighs of relief all round. Kayley spent the morning in hospital, then discharged herself after a bit of a spat with her grandmother-in-law. She came round with this huge lump of something squidgy and disgusting on a bit of clingfilm last night and she said 'do you think this bit was the baby?' I don't know whether to comfort her or lock the doors and hide. It's a miracle this story got finished - there's nothing like someone else's guts to disrupt the creative process.

constance_b @ 2007-11-28T15:57:00

2007-11-28T15:59:43Z

Why will my flist only go back 999 entries? It is insuffiecient. I'm so very internet deprived and not likely to catch up before Christmas. Right now I'm hating each and every one of you for having internet connections in your homes. Shameful decadence.

I haven't got around to posting my Christmas cards yet (this is probably good for the people in my real life who would die of shock if they got a Christmas card from me before Hogmany). If you'd like to get a card from me leave your address, comments will be screened. If you don't want to hand your address to a complete stranger on the internet that's cool. I quite often think I'd like to be an axe-murderer so you're right to worry. Christmas for me is entirely without religion, btw. If you'd prefer a card for the religious festival of your choice then just tell me how to spell it. (And if your religion celebrates in August, I may need reminding.) My own address is under the cut.
37 Starwort Path
Blackbird Leys
Oxford
England
OX4 3AY

I've written barely a word in two months. I signed up for one of these secret santa fic thingies in the hope it would kick start something. No. There's been some panic, but no writing whatsoever. I'm starting to hope that whoever is writing mine is really crap, I shall feel less guilty. My head just won't stay in the right fandom.

And right now I'm too busy squeeing over Cranford to write. I'd steeled myself to sit through it, because of the rampant Philip Glenister crush (and oh does he look stern and tasty in period costume), but I half expected to hate it. I loved that book and read it several times when I was a teenager, and I knew they'd f around with it and it would annoy me and I'd end up bitching at the BBC. I do that quite a lot nowadays, I'm not sure if it's a symptom of old age or if I'm subconsciously still holding a grudge over Torchwood. Anyway... They'd f'd around with it much, and it did annoy me, but then you could see that they had to and I enjoyed it all the same. I think if I hadn't read the book I might go as far as to say it was very good.

In other squeeing news I finally got around to reading Reginald Hill's latest Daizel and Pascoe book (I've got too tight-fisted to buy books new - £16.99 for a detective novel) and Daizel has started to look like DCI Hunt. At first I worried that Philip Glenister has completely taken over my brain but now I've realised, they're actually the same character. It's Life on Mars without the time travel.

The books start way back in the seventies. You have a large, ill-mannered, un-PC, violent, beer-swigging, chain-smoking but strangely lovable copper faced with a new deputy, university graduate, head full of science, determined to disdain the old ways. The North/South divide is pretty much exactly the same as thirty-three years timetravel. They never have the gay buttsecks, so I suppose my analogy falls down there. Also, the books are consistantly well written...

I would heartily recommend them, if I haven't before. And if you're a slash fan you should start with Pictures of Perfection, for the sweetest gay romance outside of fanfiction.

constance_b @ 2007-10-26T17:16:00

2007-10-26T16:17:36Z

Ahh, sweet internet. I’ve been deprived for weeks, it feels like. I’ve spent the last week on my Dad’s narrow boat, without even the luxury of running water (I’m very smelly right now, but computer trumps washing) and the week before painting my house in all my child-free time. My Mum’s house, where I usually sneak my internet access when I’m supposed to be visiting, is infested with Pharaoh ants. They’re not actually in the computer yet, but my Mum’s plan for getting rid of them is basically throw out all her food, turn off the gas and electricity and wait for them to move somewhere more hospitable, so we’ve not been visiting. I expect to find her clean-picked bones when I get back to Oxford.

But now, iMac and central heating. And other rooms for the children to be in. Heaven. In case anyone was wondering, spending a week in a cramped space with three teenagers and a nearly-four-year-old – not relaxing. And cooking on a log stove – that only sounds like fun. And being six foot five? That’s actually dangerous on a boat. My little (hah!) brother has knocked what few brains he had out of his ears. And the cold, my god was it cold. Sleeping in six layers of clothing and trying not to touch the sides of the sleeping bag because it feels frosty. And there’s an awful lot of locks between Birmingham and Reading. But you know? Still easier than trying to get a train from Reading to Bath. Went in the back door of Reading station, a place that holds many bad memories for me, with bikes, a buggy and an awful lot of luggage, but you wind up inside the ticket barrier and of course they won’t let you through to buy a ticket because you haven’t got a ticket. Spent forty-five minutes arguing with several pillocks from First Great Western who told me I must have got off a train, like I’m the first person ever to follow their bloody signs through the car park. We got to the ‘F*** it, I’ll get a bloody bus’ part of the conversation but then they wouldn’t let me out, despite insisting I couldn’t be there in the first place. Such fun. Trapped in a non-smoking building being yelled at by idiots. I was near hysterics by the time they sold me a ticket, it was so frustrating and ridiculous and I was so tired. And the one time I’ve been grateful for such a grubby, disreputable tribe of siblings. They obviously decided it would be easier to sell me a ticket in the end than arrest us. Next time I’m taking the ‘not buying a ticket’ option.

My step-mother gets home tomorrow and I get to off-load three of the kids, and in the meantime I have the run of her computer. I am craving fanfic. I don’t think I’ve put pen to paper this month except for lists – hope you’ve all done better.

LoM Fic

2007-09-23T14:35:45Z

Previous parts are... somewhere down the page. I'd link, but I'm bone idle.

Beta'd by the marvellous kispexi2

Gene sat in the bar of the Railway Arms knocking back pint after pint of best while the survivors of his team tiptoed round him in rather scared silence. Sam watched from a safe distance as Gene picked up his glass and gave it a thorough glowering before taking a long swig. The Guv had been off all day, shutting himself in his office whenever possible and giving the sharp side of his tongue to anyone who bothered him. Sam, as usual, got the lion's share of Gene's ire. This might be fair, overall, even Sam had to concede he was probably the most irritating, but today had not been the usual disagreements over cases - he'd go as far as to say Gene had been avoiding him. The one time the Guv had marched out of his cave to visit a crime-scene it was Ray he'd taken with him, and Gene's defection was starting to get to Sam.

Sam had woken up in his own bed, fully clothed, front door swinging open and absolutely no recollection of leaving CID the night before. He did recollect, vaguely, dancing on one of the desks with Chris. And he could hardly forget the amount he'd drunk, given the pounding hangover he'd woken up with. But a couple paracetamol and a handful of antacids had taken the edge off and he'd turned into work more cheerful than was usual for mornings like that and very likely still tipsy. The Guv had soon put a dampener on Sam's fine mood and he felt the unfairness of it.

The night before had been all smiles and whisky and Sam had been pleased with the world, largely because Gene had been pleased with him. And so he should be. Sam had put his imaginary career on the line to dig the Guv out of the shit and together they'd got a result. But today he was relegated to that picky pain from Hyde - no longer a good thing, apparently, when he wasn't being picky on Gene's behalf - and he was starting to wonder if it would always be this way in this decade, two steps forward and three back.

He'd managed to put it down to a hangover for most of the morning. It wasn't often you saw Gene suffering like other mortals but when he did, by God, everyone suffered along with him. But by beer o'clock there was no doubt in Sam's mind he was being singled out for avoidance and hair of the dog did nothing to improve Gene's temper.

It would have been a quiet night in the Railway Arms anyway; there wasn't anyone who hadn't imbibed too much the night before. Annie had gone straight home from work, pleading the excuse of a girl's stamina, Chris left after his second pint looking positively green and the rest of CID were starting to drift off. Gene was the only one who'd put in any serious drinking. He carried his black mood with him and it affected everyone. He'd cried off the regular poker game and without the Guv presiding no-one else had bothered to play. The poor sod who'd proposed a darts match had been given an earful and now even Nelson didn't dare go near except to refill Gene's frequently empty glass.

So it was left to Sam, as usual, to beard the lion in his den. And even he had to top up his Dutch courage first and wait until the drunken sense of injustice overrode a more basic sense of self preservation. It took four and a half pints - Gene must have knocked back three times that in a couple of hours. Sam plonked his glass down on the bar and himself down on the stool next to Gene's with the air of someone who intended to stay. The Guv didn't bother to acknowledge his presence, just glared harder at his pint.

"Your dog been run over?" Sam asked, by way of getting the ball rolling. Gene turned his head and his scowl briefly to Sam and that had to serve as his answer. But Sam was nothing if not persistent.

"I know," he guessed sarcastically, "you were really looking forward to prison and now you're sulking because you didn't get to go?"

"I'm having a quiet pint," Gene growled, not taking his eyes off the pint in question. "Go pester someone else."

"That's not quiet, that's ominous silence, that is."

"Bugger off."

"Sure. Just as soon as you tell me what I've done to you that you're being such a-" It took a brave man to finish that sentence, Sam faltered slightly. "-such a prick."

Gene turned to look at him, eyes narrowed, that assessing, calculating glare Sam had seen directed at a thousand suspects. Sam had watched him knock back enough booze to fell an ox but he could see no trace of it in his face.

"Nothing," Gene spat eventually. "But you're not my Missus, Tyler. It's not my job to make you feel special. Sod off."

Sam drained the glass in his hand, prevaricating. Stayed put, quietly, with the ready-made excuse of waiting for a refill. Turned Gene's words over in his head. It was the 'nothing' that puzzled him, said heavily with a significance Sam couldn't understand. On any given day Sam irked Gene to the point of physical violence at least once. Today had started with an overly perky Tyler and a Guv with a sore head, there had to be excuses aplenty if Gene was spoiling for a fight. Sam started mentally reviewing all the things he might have failed to do and was still drawing a blank when his musings were interrupted by a fresh pint.

"It's not your birthday, is it?" he asked, after he'd paid for his beer. This, at least, got a reaction - Gene turned his head in an astonishment that quickly turned to anger.

"Tyler," he started, voice dangerously calm and low, "are you trying to imply I'm the kind of man that would have a sulk because someone forgot my birthday?"

"No, I-"

"'Cause there's only one fucking pansy in this station and you might want to try remembering that, Gladys, before you get yourself into serious trouble. No, it is not my frigging birthday!"

"But you are sulking about something?"

That was Sam's weak try for a joke, a half-hearted attempt to lighten the leaden atmosphere and take the sting out of Gene's words. But he might have predicted the reaction. Gene punched him swiftly and viciously, below the level of the bar, out of sight of Nelson and the pub's few lingering patrons. Gene's favourite - a hard blow to the solar plexus that left Sam gasping for air. By the time Sam had recovered enough to think about retaliation Gene had turned back to his drink and he decided against. Wandered off, frustrated, feeling the insult more than the injury.

There wasn't exactly much to distract Sam's attention. Though it was barely nine Ray headed off with a couple of the older CID men, leaving no-one in the pub that Sam knew by name. Just a couple of the nameless ones, stubbornly playing crib at a corner table, oblivious to all around them, and a couple of brave old men who'd wandered off the street despite the unfriendly atmosphere. And the Guv, of course, keeping up a steady pace at the bar and putting Sam in a quandary. He had a very recent example of how a pissed up, pissed off Gene could be a danger to himself, if not others. And Sam hadn't decided to be a policeman in an idle moment - the job was in his blood and an unexplained mystery was a red rag to him. He couldn't help feeling that Gene wasn't just taking out his aggression on the nearest target, but that he actually blamed Sam for his bad mood. Not knowing what he'd done was vexing in more ways than one but the mystery that really puzzled Sam was why Gene wasn't taking that aggression out with the knock-down fight he obviously needed.

If he'd had one pint less, if he wasn't still feeling the affects of last night's binge, Sam might have left it alone. Gone home to his lumpy bed and let Gene sort himself out. He'd managed forty-odd years, after all, without Sam's coddling. But the desire to know was eating away at him and the booze was eating away at his restraining good sense.

He took his glass back to the bar and sat down next to Gene, who didn't react to his presence with so much as a flicker.

"Time to go home, don't you think, Guv?"

Gene didn't acknowledge him for so long that Sam began to wonder if he'd even heard him. The Guv'd managed another three or four pints while Sam had sipped his one - it had to catch up sometime. He was opening his mouth to repeat the question, slow and loud, when Gene finally answered.

"You go," he said flatly. "See you tomorrow."

It wasn't exactly friendly but neither was it the punch Sam had been half expecting. Gene's hand was wrapped tight round his glass, muscles tense as if a great deal of restraint had gone into that one sentence. Restraint wasn't really a Gene Hunt characteristic - Sam should be taking advantage but he'd rather have the punch and the explanation than neither. If he was honest with himself he knew the next sentence out of his mouth was almost guaranteed to push Gene's buttons.

"Don't you think you've had enough? I could drive you home."

"No."

Sam shrugged and ordered two whiskies. If he couldn't bring a halt to the drinking, he could at least hurry things along to the spilling-guts stage. Or the fight. Whatever it took. Nelson complied with none of his usual good cheer.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"No."

"I don't think it's healthy to-"

"Bloody well shut it, Tyler! How no-one's figured out you're a poof is beyond me - I've never met such a flaming woman! Nagging and pestering."

"I didn't realise it was gay to be concerned about your friends."

"How 'bout shoving your tongue down their throats? That qualify?"

The drink was starting to show now. In the droop of Gene's eyelids and the unfocused rage leaking past a brittle veneer of calm. The way he looked like he could have bitten his tongue a second later. It was that more than anything else that helped Sam extrapolate from the general to the personal and come to a conclusion that turned the beer he'd drunk cold in his stomach.

Very little of the night before remained in his memory, after the dancing. A vague recollection of Chris passing out and Sam helping an equally drunk Ray get him upright again. Ray carrying Chris home. Gene pouring him another drink - that was something of a recurring theme. Then a huge big gap before waking up in his flat. Sam was suddenly scared to know what that gap contained, so, being Sam, he came straight out and asked.

"Did I... make a pass at you?"

Gene looked around him, furtive and angry though there was no-one close enough to hear.

"Just this once, Tyler, leave it alone."

No swearing, no threats, and Sam should have realised that something so close to a polite request from the Guv was virtually begging. But fear and a lifelong aversion to the unknown compelled Sam to keep pushing.

"I really don't remember anything. I don't even remember going home. So if I did something..."

He trailed off; there was no point continuing. As soon as he'd opened his mouth Gene had knocked back the whisky Sam had bought, chased it down with the dregs of his beer. By the second sentence he was on his feet, swept his coat with him and stalked out of the pub. Inevitably Sam followed. He found Gene outside, leaning against a stack of empty barrels and lighting a cigarette.

"You're so frigging predictable." Gene took a deep drag and blew it up into the air, the cold November night obscuring the smoke behind clouds of condensation. He looked calmer out in the night air but Sam knew well enough not to take these things at face value. "Follow a man straight off a cliff once you'd got your teeth in."

"I just want to know."

"And I don't want to talk about it."

"No, talking would be gay, right? But it's okay to take it out on me. Not to mention anyone else within spitting distance."

Gene shrugged. "You could always piss off."

"Fine. And what about work. Should I resign? How far do you want me to go? Birmingham? Dover?"

Gene didn't answer and the cold in Sam's stomach grew positively icy.

"I'm sorry, okay? Whatever it is I did, I'm sorry."

"I'm not a poof, Sam."

"I know that! Is that was this is about? Did I impugn your manliness? Why don't you just beat me up and have done with it?"

Gene smiled then, a grim sight. Shook his head. And never had Sam come closer to understanding Gene's habit of kicking confessions out of people. Right now he wanted to shake the man until he spilled exactly what Sam had done. He'd hit on the Guv, apparently, which was cringesomely embarrassing - but only for Sam. Surely not enough to cause such a black humour in a man who didn't seem to have the slightest problem finding out his DI swung both ways. His mind turned to worse scenarios, the things he might have said, the feelings he might have shared. Something so bad Gene was wary of getting in range for a punch.

"Just tell me what I did and I'll go. All the way to fucking Australia if that's what you want."

"You kissed me."

Gene was staring straight at the bricks in front of him. He took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it away. Sam waited for the rest, wincing, but nothing else came. It didn't seem sufficient, somehow. Kissing Gene had been unwise, yes, and Sam was surprised he hadn't woken up with considerably more bruises in that case, but it wasn't enough to explain the furious temper Gene had been indulging all day.

"Well sorry, I guess. But it's not catching, Guv. You trying to say you've never got drunk and snogged someone you shouldn't have? I was just drunk." Sam crossed his fingers and hoped he hadn't said anything that would show the lie in his words. "And it was you that got me drunk in the first place. It's not some terrible crime."

"Did I say it was?"

"So what is your fucking problem?"

Gene moved then - with that speed Sam never got used to he had his DI by the neck against the wall. Leaned in close and for one heart-stopping second Sam thought Gene was going to kiss him. But he stopped an inch from Sam's mouth and growled: "I'm not a frigging pansy."

"Did I say you were?"

"You make me feel like one!"

The silence behind the pub got a whole lot quieter. Only Sam's soft panting could be heard as he struggled to breathe past Gene's restricting fingers. He could hardly have spoken and couldn't have thought of a thing to say. Except 'take me now' and the part of Sam's brain not too drunk or riled up for thought decided against that.

"You kissed me and I liked it," Gene hissed, a stage whisper that echoed round the alley. "And it's not fucking on, Tyler. 'Cause I'm not a queer, never been queer and you're flaming well wrong - it must be catching. 'Cause now... You won't leave me alone. Even when you're not bleeding well there. And every time I think I've got it sorted you stir it up again."

Gene was spitting furious again, resembling nothing more than a fire-breathing dragon, each angry sentence adding to the brume surrounding him in the freezing air.

"And don't think I don't know it's on offer. I'm not blind. I know I could have you. Could fuck you right there on my desk if I wanted to. It affects me like it shouldn't, Sam, and it's got to stop."

To illustrate the point Gene pushed against him. Sam could feel his erection pressing hard against his hip and knew Gene was receiving mirroring sensations. It was too much to swallow down, the hand round his neck, the solid body trapping his own slender form and Sam would have been panting even without that extra charge of feeling another man's arousal. Of seeing the affect he could have on Gene. There were a thousand things Sam could have said to calm things down but the words that came out of his mouth were: "Fancy a shag, Guv?"

Gene used his grip on Sam's neck to pull him forward as he stepped to the side, caught the collar of Sam's jacket as he stumbled and for a second Sam braced himself, thinking Gene was going to slam him face first into the opposite wall. But he steered them both deftly round the corner and threw him into the Cortina instead. Strode past Sam, around the car and into the drivers seat. Gunned the engine and waited for Sam to gather his wits and get in beside him.

He didn't like to ask and Gene was oppressively silent but a few turns told Sam they were heading to his flat. The Guv showed nothing but a kind of grim determination that filled the tiny space, an atmosphere almost solid with things unspoken. And it felt good, in a terrifying way, in a guilty pleasure way. The same kind of buzz as when Gene was half strangling him in that alley and Sam hadn't known if he was going to kiss him or kill him. The tingle of anticipation and the ball of dread were fighting for space in his stomach.

This time he wasn't even sure it was his fault. Okay, apparently he'd got sufficiently shit-faced to snog his superior officer but even Sam was astute enough to realise that wasn't what had Gene doing hoops. Now was the moment Sam realised he should have taken Gene's advice in the first place and let it well alone. Left Gene to his temper, let him sort himself out. It was a hugely pointless realisation. And this, now, should have been a moment straight out of fantasy but it felt more like the eye of the storm. Like life imploding.

If Gene was thinking anything at all none of it showed on his face. He drove with his usual single-mindedness and when they got to Sam's building, far quicker than law allowed, put only a fraction more care into parking than his usual slew-to-a-dramatic-stop method. Got straight out and strode purposefully towards the entrance, not looking to see if Sam was following. When Sam finally caught up Gene was outside his front door, staring menacingly at the battered and much repaired door frame. One hard push and the door swung open.

"Bust it in again last night."

"I don't remember."

"That's because you were unconscious. On account of me punching you."

"Oh." It was killing Sam not to know the details of last night's drunken escapade but he knew better than to ask. "Gene..." You shouldn't be here. This is crazy. So many things he might have said but Sam didn't want to say any of them, blood pounding, dick rock hard in his jeans. And maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. Maybe he'd already gone too far when he followed Gene out of the pub; maybe they'd been heading here for months.

"Shut it, Dorothy."

Sam shrugged, walked past Gene into his open flat. He didn't get far. Gene grabbed his arm and twisted, slamming Sam face first into his hideous, damp stained wallpaper. A swift kick and the door closed behind them, cutting off the murky light from the hallway. Sam could feel Gene's warmth behind him, looming close but not quite touching, except for the crushing grip on Sam's wrist.

"This how you like it?"

It was amazing how quickly better judgement evapourated with the arousing heat of that low growl. No, Sam would have said, but he didn't trust what might come out of his mouth, so he kept it tight shut.

"Caught the floor show, remember?"

A rhetorical question, of course he remembered, but Sam nodded anyway, as best he could with his face forced against the wall. Then Gene's free hand was on his belt buckle, a few swift, jerky movements and Sam's jeans were round his knees, cock tapping hopefully against the wall. The sound of a zipper and Sam could feel Gene's thighs against his arse and Gene's own erection even through the thickness of his leather jacket. Gene slipped his hands under Sam's shirt, fingers digging into his hips, lifting Sam clean off the ground until he had him where he wanted him. Sam could feel him lining himself up; he wasn't so far gone that the thought of Gene fucking him dry was a turn-on.

"Lube," he choked out, the word distorted by the wall. "Guv - Gene - lube."

Gene froze. For a second Sam thought he was about to turn around and walk away, the reality of what he was doing only now just sinking in. Sam's body groaned in protest - a dry, painful shag was better than no shag to his cock's way of thinking and the rest of Sam wasn't being given a voice. Then Gene moved, pressing his weight forward to hold Sam up, cock nestling in the cleft of his buttocks as Gene spat into his hand. Sam wriggled under his hold, apparently enough oxygen-deprived thought left for a little self-preservation.

"That's not lube, it's spit. Kitchen drawer."

Gene dropped him abruptly and Sam stayed were he landed, afraid even to turn his head in case he broke the spell. He was sure Gene had never even thought of doing this before but he showed no hesitation as two cold, coated fingers found his hole and Sam had to quash the bizarre and suicidal impulse to ask if Gene had ever taken his wife this way. One thrust and the fingers were gone, Sam was hoisted up again, he could feel Gene's slicked up stiffy slipping back into position.

Sam was leaking already though Gene hadn't touched him, didn't touch him as he thrust hard into Sam's arse. It stung but Sam had had rougher and the sting disappeared in a blaze of stars as Gene shifted Sam's weight and thrust in deeper. He heard Gene's slightly startled grunt as Sam exercised his muscles and clamped down on him. The grip on his hips tightened and Gene slammed him into the wall, over and again. His cock rubbing tantalizingly against the plasterboard with each movement. Sam snuck a hand between to touch himself as Gene picked up the pace and it was joined by Gene's larger one, grasping tightly over Sam's fingers, moving in time.

He could feel Gene's stubble against his ear, hear his half-stifled moans escalating until he came with a gasp. His fingers tightened convulsively and Sam followed a second later, coating the wall and their joined hands.

While Sam caught his breath Gene withdrew and stepped back, by the time Sam turned around he was all zipped up and cleaning his hand on his shirt. The silence was deafening. Sam straightened himself out. He cleaned his own hand and snaked it round Gene to pull him close but Gene pushed him away, confirming what Sam already knew.

"I'm not a queer, Tyler," he said angrily and Sam didn't have any answer so he watched him leave in silence.

TBC...

BtVS Fic

2007-09-20T15:53:21Z

Season Two. Some time post Surprise. 6800 words. Rated a mild R. Beta'd by slackerace.

Equal Opportunities

Fucking wanker! Spike hurled an ornamental table angrily and ineffectively at a passing minion, kicking out at his battered wheelchair with petulant fury. He'd show that overbrowed bastard who was a fucking invalid - just as soon as he managed to right the hated chair and drag his crippled form back into it. It was a tricky job, made slower by the vampire's impatience and frequent pauses to hurl things; by the time Spike was back on four wheels he couldn't be madder.

To think he'd welcomed the bastard back with open arms. Literally. Been dicking a Slayer, Angelus? Killing your own kind? Never mind, old chap, welcome back to the evil fold. He'd been pleased. To be taunted, tipped out of his chair for the older vampire's amusement, left impotent on the floor while that indescribable git went off to shag his girlfriend. He could still hear them at it, Dru's oh-so-familiar moans and squeals, the occasional low rumble of encouragement from her beloved daddy.

To make it even worse the poncy one's cracks about impotence had been right on the mark. Little Spike hadn't stirred since the Slayer'd snapped his spine, and feeding on Dru's leftovers was hardly enough to speed the healing. He was healing, Spike was sure. He could wiggle his toes now, if he put all his effort to it, a sure sign he'd be back on his feet eventually, but it couldn't come soon enough to deal with Angelus. Could send out a minion for dinner but they'd all fled his wrath and Spike didn't want the indignity of yelling for aid, afraid the useless little shits would ignore him. With no means of reprisal if they disobeyed, now wasn't the time to be testing his authority over minions who detested him; sometimes Spike suspected the only reason he hadn't found himself with a stake in his back was because the scurvy fledges were too afraid of Dru.

He'd just have to do it himself then, if the Slayer wasn't waiting outside to stake his defenceless arse. The thought of that bitch roaming free just added another layer to his frustrated rage, and the vampire was struck with a far better idea than trying to sneak past her. Wheeling his way over to the messy pile of weapons in the corner Spike dug out a shotgun taken from a night-watchman back when the vampire could still exercise such luxuries as stealth and, you know, standing upright.

Slayer's blood, that's what'd fix him. He'd bloody well show her defenceless. He'd shoot the bitch, spatter that vampire's ambrosia all over her slinky little body and lick his dinner off her stiffening corpse. Even after a gunshot wound there'd be enough blood left to fill his belly, finish knitting that spinal column. Then he'd go back with her head and show Angelus defenceless. Picking up a piece of wire from the dirty warehouse floor Spike attached the gun to the side of his chair, where it blended invisibly with the bare metal frame. Then he rolled determinedly into the night.

********

Right now, Buffy was cursing Dolce and Gabbana. The very favourite purchase that she'd wrangled from her guilt-ridden father over the summer in LA looked likely to be the cause of her death. For months the elegant stiletto sandals had been reserved for dates with Angel, until a fraying around the toe and the whole boyfriend-turned-evil problem relegated her pride and joy to patrol-wear. Turns out? $300 shoes? Great thing for the shopping buzz. Fantastic for stretching her calves just so in a Bronze-type environment. But even $300 didn't buy a lifetime guarantee and as Buffy had landed lightly to face the two fledglings foolish enough to challenge her, the elegant wooden heel shattered.

It was enough to turn a pair of easy dustings into a life or death situation; they rushed just as she lost her balance, and before Buffy knew where she was she was flat on her back. Even downed she managed to stake one but he'd wrenched free in a hopeless attempt to save himself as he dusted and taken her weapon with him to grainy oblivion. And even as she'd dealt that killing blow the other vampire was kneeling on her chest, his full weight knocking the breath out of the prone girl as he fought for access to her neck. She fended him off with one arm, the other groped for anything she could use as a weapon, but her desperate fingers could feel nothing but the graveyard turf.

Changing tack, Buffy made one last attempt to jerk upright and throw him off but the vampire held firm and as her body arched it gave the fledgling the opening he needed to sink his fangs into her neck.

To Buffy the dull scrape of teeth was echoed by a sharper stinging pain along her arm, and the load crushing her suddenly lightened. She threw the vampire off, blood flowing freely from the holes he left in her neck, and realised with one stomach churning glance that half his face was gone. His torso hadn't fared much better, half the ribcage opened up by the same metal buckshot that peppered her own arm.

Sitting now Buffy turned to look at her rescuer and started to see a familiar leather-clad vampire, on an entirely unfamiliar wheelchair.

"Spike."

The vampire gave her a mocking salute with the still-smoking gun. "How do, Slayer?"

Buffy raised one hand to the still trickling wound at her neck and stared, open-mouthed, at William the Bloody. Her eyes flicked down to the mutilated vampire at her feet, indistinguishable from a corpse with half its brain blown out.

"I thought you were dead," she said eventually, and Spike raised his eyebrows in faked surprise.

"Do you know, Slayer? I think you might be right. Wanna take my pulse to make sure, like?"

"I... I mean... the church..." Buffy winced at the sound of her own stuttering but it was beyond her control. One second she was facing near-certain death, the next facing a more unlikely rescuer than her imagination could ever have dreamed up. It was enough to loosen a girl's grip on the English language. Still, as her mind groped for sense the Slayer instinctively kept one eye on the gun.

"You thought you'd got rid of me?" the vampire asked pleasantly. "You need to be working harder on those studies, pet. Church organs don't happen to be on the list of things fatal to vampires. Slowed me down, but."

Spike spread his arms in an 'as you can see' gesture, the gun in his hand naturally moving too and Buffy tensed, poised to leap for the nearest cover. He caught the tiny change in posture and smiled again, knowingly, as he tossed the gun away.

"These things are only good for two shots, and that blighter got both barrels."

"Oh," said Buffy stupidly. She could feel the blood from her neck seeping through her fingers, slower now, registering that the bite was only a flesh wound. But even if it had been her life's blood dripping onto the grass she wouldn't have been able to tear her eyes away from the vampire who watched her with barely concealed amusement.

"Was'a matter, Slayer? Your brain fall out too?"

"Maybe." Maybe she was dead and her brain, not ready to accept the fact, was hallucinating. It was more credible than what she thought her eyes were telling her. "Probably," she amended, "because there's no way you just saved my life."

Spike made a disgusted noise. "No way!" he agreed emphatically. "I kill Slayers, me. Grind their bones to make my bread, and that sort of thing."

"Of course you do," Buffy reassured. She looked down again at the grotesque vampire remains then at the scattering of pellets in her own arm. A few trickles of blood ran sluggishly across her skin but mostly the metal kept the red stuff on the inside and, like her neck, the wound merely stung. Nothing a half hour with some tweezers and a roll of band-aid couldn't fix. Nothing like fatal. "You're just a really crummy shot," she added doubtfully.

Spike opened his mouth to protest, shut it again. "Right," he said eventually. "That bugger was in the way of your head."

"Okay."

The implied death threat lacked edge, given Spike's current condition. Long years of political correctness and lectures on manners left Buffy a little uncomfortable about threatening back. It felt wrong to be exchanging insults with a cripple. She kicked off her broken shoes and started a little debate in her head over the ethics of slaying something currently harmless. There was some more staring, and a few seconds where neither moved. Shaking her head to clear the spell Buffy took a long stride backwards, waving her injured arm in explanation, ready and eager to flee this unlikely scene.

"I have to go take the bullets out, so..." She was already a good few steps between the gravestones, earth damp between her toes, when Spike's indignant 'hey' caught up with her. Reluctantly, Buffy turned around.

"Where the bloody hell do you think you're going? Come back and fight!"

And just when she thought this evening couldn't get any weirder. Buffy stared incredulously at the paraplegic vampire and he glared back. Buffy blinked. "You want to... fight? Now?"

"Mortal enemies!" Spike countered. "You going to run off home 'cause of a little scratch? I don't think so." He patted the arms of his chair meaningfully. "I think I'm the one with the real handicap here."

"You're in a wheelchair! What are you planning to do, arm wrestle me to death?"

"Well if you're scared..."

"Terrified," Buffy deadpanned. "I'll just stand here on this uneven ground..."

But Spike carried right on giving her that challenging look, pulled up his sleeves to emphasize just how much he meant business. Buffy frowned. She hadn't quite been prepared to stake a helpless vampire that had just saved her life, however much it might be her duty, but if he was literally going to ask for it... Still she paused, offered him one last out as she walked back to his chair.

"This is going to be no kind of fight, you do realise that? More like putting down a sick dog, which, okay, appropriate, but..."

Spike shrugged, though his gaze never wavered. "Make a better tale of it for the Watcher's Diaries, would you pet? Epic battle, blaze of glory, bit of a dramatic touch?"

Buffy took the last step to within striking distance. She half expected him to leap from the chair and shout surprise but he didn't, just waited. His human face, as expressive as any real person's, held a touch of pleading and something softened in Buffy. Vampires regularly threw themselves onto Buffy's stake in moments of overconfident stupidity but she'd fought Spike too many times to write him off as entirely stupid - things must be bad indeed if he was ready to let her end him. But there was something in his eyes that dared her to pity him at her own risk and Buffy was certainly not going to lose sleep over a vampire that wanted to be dust so she reached out to snap a branch off a convenient tree. Still Spike didn't move, watching her approach calmly; didn't so much as twitch as she raised the makeshift stake to his chest.

It didn't look like he'd offer even a token resistance for her to 'make a better tale of' for the history books, and that struck Buffy as rather sad. Evil though Spike was, you couldn't argue with his status as worthy opponent and this end was an anticlimax. Better if he had really perished in that abandoned church. Of course, Buffy had to concede, if he had she'd've recently been drained by an incompetent fledge but that didn't make it any less sad, for him. She couldn't remember ever having staked a vamp in human face, they always brought out the fangs to fight, and Buffy found she couldn't drive the stake home with those blue eyes staring back, unblinking. She turned her head away to finish the task.

It was a weakness of heart rather than shoe that was to prove her undoing this time; in a movement too fast for Buffy to process, let alone prevent, Spike struck. In the second she glanced away the vampire's weapon appeared and for the second time that night Buffy found herself with fangs stuck into her neck as strong arms grabbed for hers. To jerk away now would leave half her throat in his mouth and herself fatally wounded, but bent in half and pulled off balance against his chest Buffy was at a perilous disadvantage. And every moment that he suckled at her neck turned the tables further in his favour.

Whatever injuries she'd dealt him last month weren't severe enough - in that weird second a brain takes for abstract thought in moments of extreme danger Buffy wondered if wheeling himself around hadn't rather built up his upper body strength. He was too strong or she was too slow and then it was too late for thought or action as he dragged her into his lap, her own hands pinned tightly behind her back and her struggles weaker by the second. Instead of her life flashing before her eyes - she'd lived very little in the five minutes since it last flashed - Buffy cursed her own stupidity.

She was starting to feel light-headed as he pulled her close against him, mouth tugging hungrily around the new holes in her neck. Buffy felt him shifting his bear-hug around her and binding her hands with wire and just as her vision started to blur the fangs slid out. A rough tongue cleaned the dribbles of blood that leaked from the wound as Buffy fought to stay conscious, and by the time she was sure she'd won the fight those clear blue eyes were back, laughing at her.

"Of course," the vampire drawled cheerfully, "there's always an outside chance that I might actually win."

Buffy took a deep, panicked breath and forced herself to take stock of her situation. She was sitting astride Spike's legs, short skirt fanning over his lap, knees jammed into the sides of his wheelchair and two strong arms holding her firmly in place. Thin wire bound her hands behind her back - so tight her fingers were tingling. Her head was swimming with bloodloss.

So not a good situation then.

Even under-strength she might have been able to snap the wire, given purchase, but Slayer flesh was soft as any other and the more she struggled the deeper the wire bit, until she was forced to cease or slice off her own hands in a bid for freedom.

On the plus side, he still couldn't use his legs - she only had to get back on her feet to survive tonight's second near-death experience-and he seemed to be taking the textbook villain moment to gloat. So in a nearly hopeless attempt to turn the false-sense-of-security thing back on him she stopped struggling, lifted her chin defiantly.

"It's not enough to kill me, you have to get the last word in too?"

The vampire grinned wider. "Spoils of victory, Slayer. You win, you get to decide which word is the last."

So her next sentence might be her dying words - Buffy used them to show she wasn't afraid, although she was.

"Technically, you haven't won until I'm dead."

"Give us a minute. Haven't had a belly this full in quite a while. Don't want to waste the rest of that lovely Slayer blood by doing something rash like snapping your neck, do I?"

"Oh, by all means, let your first course go down," snapped back the Slayer. "I wouldn't want my last act on this plane to be giving you indigestion. And by the way? So not fair! I wasn't even going to stake you until you practically asked me to."

"And you wouldn't have been around to stake me if I hadn't just saved your arse. Easy come, easy go, eh love?"

"I didn't come easy," said Buffy furiously. "I was ten and a half pounds, my mother spent 23 hours in labour. And I'm not going easy either, damnit." With these words she flung herself to the ground, or would have done if she had had the leverage of her arms. As it was, each of her shins were trapped between an armrest and a denim clad thigh and though the chair wobbled dangerously she remained firmly wedged with only the slightest effort from Spike. To be sure he pulled her flush against his chest. Buffy did her best to wriggle backwards but froze as she found to her horror not everything below the waist was completely immobile. She felt a growing bulge rubbing against her inner thigh, the vampire noticed her noticing and chuckled.

"Gotta thank you there, pet. I haven't had a stiffy on since you severed the old spinal column."

Hands on her hips, Spike pulled the weakened girl closer until her knees were digging painfully into the depths of the chair and the bulge was rubbing directly against cotton panties. Spike leaned forward as she leaned back to add: "Amazing what a few shots of Slayer's blood will do for a bloke's constitution."

Making no effort to hide her disgust, Buffy's eyes were wide as she made another desperate bid for freedom, twisting her shoulder into his chest to shove herself backwards off the chair. But without arms she was no match for his firm grip on her waist and her efforts were openly amusing the vampire. He closed his eyes with an exaggerated sigh and, confident she was safely trapped, let his hands slide down to cup her buttocks, the better to grind himself against her. "Just a little to the left, love."

It was enough to make Buffy give it up. The effort of straining against him was making her dizzy and getting her nowhere and deep down she knew it was a useless struggle. Worse than useless, the sick little bastard was getting off on it. There was real fear now, of a kind Buffy wasn't used to. She'd done the facing death thing last year, it hadn't been as bad as she'd expected. Not that she hadn't felt a flutter of terror as Spike sucked the life out of her but that death at least would have been relatively painless. And though Buffy had never, ever, ever let the thought to the surface of her conscious mind, her death would make Angelus some other Slayer's problem and maybe that helped take some of the sting out of her impending demise.

This was looking to be infinitely worse than death - this was being helpless. Humiliating enough that she'd been so easily neutralized by a paraplegic vampire. Such a stupid slip that moment of compassion, from the one girl in all the world that should know better; so stupid that maybe she deserved the ignominious death, but Buffy wasn't about to let him do worse. The hands clutching her butt took on connotations besides restraint and Buffy gulped, knowing the vampire was enjoying every nuance of her reaction. He leered down her blouse with theatrical lasciviousness.

"Whatever shall we do to pass the time, sweetheart?"

Buffy jerked forward, smashing her forehead into his nose. In life-saving terms it was a pointless gesture but Buffy was fighting for more than her life now and if her only line of defence against rape was to batter at him until he killed her then it was a line she was willing to take. Besides, it was worth it for the split-second it wiped that smug smile off his face. Only for a second and then he was grinning again, extending his tongue to clean the blood dripping from his broken nose.

"That wasn't very nice. Don't you want to be friends, kitten?"

"Don't you touch me!"

The vampire hooked his fingers through the wire binding her wrists, freeing his other hand. He raised one elegant eyebrow and poked her deliberately in the stomach. "Or...?"

Buffy went for the head butt again, but his grip on the wire pulled her sharply back, digging into her skin, twisting the muscles in her upper arms. The eyebrow climbed higher.

"Let's assume I'm not stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice, shall we? So you got anything else?"

Buffy glared back defiantly without answering, and he could plainly see that she didn't. On top, quite literally, it felt like she should be able to act, but she couldn't. He'd taken more blood than she liked to think about, even thinking was getting difficult and every slight movement left her head swimming. The only thing she hadn't tried yet was biting his face and even that was impossible with him pulling her shoulders painfully back. And unless she lucked out with something important, like an eyeball, he'd only laugh at her again and Buffy didn't really want to end her life with an eyeball between her teeth.

Really didn't want to be raped either. And that had to be impossible, to rape someone sitting on top of you. Buffy tried to tell herself he was just taunting her, enjoying her poorly concealed horror at the idea; she was determined not to give him another reaction. But she could feel the bile rising at the back of her throat as he coasted his free hand down her blouse, fingers running lightly over her breasts through the thin material and finishing on the patch of bare skin at her midriff.

"So whatcha gonna do about that, then?" he asked with a smirk. "Scowl at me?"

"You can't rape me," she said, trying hard to make it sound like a certainty.

"No," he agreed solemnly. "That would be evil and... Wait a minute - I am evil!"

His nails were bitten down to the quick, Buffy noticed as he undid the bottom button of her blouse. She managed to wriggle enough to fumble his grip as he went for the second button but the small movements seemed to give him more pleasure than exasperation and he pulled her tighter against his crotch with a wink.

Of course, this put her in head butting distance again.

"Fuck!" His eyes flashed yellow as his hand abandoned her buttons to fly to his increasingly misshapen nose. "Would you cut that out! You're spoiling the pretty."

"You're trying to rape me!"

"And you're making it much less pleasant than it ought to be." Licking the blood off his fingers Spike shifted his grip to the back of her neck. "Why not have some fun before you die, eh?"

Buffy shuddered. "I'd rather just be dead, thanks."

"Oh well. You were stupid enough to wander onto my fangs, which makes you outvoted, darlin'." No fumbling with buttons this time. Spike gave the front of her blouse a sharp tug and they pinged every which way. He bent his neck to lick at her collar bone, tracing a line down to the lacy border of her exposed bra. The hand gripping her neck followed the general trend downwards leaving her head free but Spike's nose was well out of range for a third head butt - so Buffy bit his hair instead. That distinctive platinum was all hardened clumps thick with gel and she ripped out a sizeable tuft, solid and sticky between her teeth.

"Ow!" Spike's head shot up. "Of all the childish, girly-"

Buffy spat the clump of hair at his open mouth then spat some more to get rid of the disgusting taste. Spike growled and got in her face, putting his nose in just the right place for that third head butt.

"Tell me again, Spike," she mocked. "How many times will you fall for the same trick?"

Pain and murder flashed across his face, blood now running freely over his lips and down to his Adam's apple. Fingers caught her chin in a bruising grip and Spike leaned forward until they were mouth to mouth. "That's it, bitch. No more Mr. Nice Guy."

His eyes yellowed an inch from hers, the fangs descending; Buffy had never seen the change so close up and for a split second she was fascinated. Then she remembered she was about to die, either right this second or slowly, horribly, and took the only course of action left to her - bringing her bound hands up and over her head and his.

It hurt. The skin of her wrists tore as her hands twisted inside the tight wire and there was an audible pop as her right shoulder dislocated. Pain and bloodloss combined to shake Buffy free of her tenuous grasp on consciousness and though she fought to make that one final move that might save her life the world went red and then black.

When Buffy's brain floated back down to reality the eyes in front of her were blue again, and laughing. Too busy laughing to realise that now, with her arms around his neck, he didn't have her so securely pinned.

"If you'd wanted a cudd-"

But Buffy wasn't about to wait and listen to even one more witticism. A sharp jerk and this time her hold took Spike sideways with her. The chair toppled, her dislocated shoulder hit the ground as they rolled, and Buffy blacked out again.

When she came to it was the middle of an earthquake and instinctively Buffy made to get up and run for the nearest doorway but she couldn't. It only took a split second to remember what had gone before, and as her vision cleared Buffy added a few new facts. She was hopelessly tangled in vampire limbs and twisted metal, and what she'd thought for an instant was rumbling ground was actually the vampire beneath her, convulsing with helpless laughter.

"You're not dull, are you Slayer? I think I like you. You ever considered living forever?"

Buffy ignored him - there was one fear she would never, ever come to terms with. Gingerly she tried to move again, with a great deal of pain and little success. Her bound hands were still looped around Spike's neck, Buffy's weight sprawled across his chest, one of his arms trapped beneath her. Her legs lay between his, left feet tangled together in the toppled wheelchair.

"If you lift this arm up," Spike suggested helpfully, "you'll be able to get this one out from underneath."

Just how blonde did he think she was? Okay, there'd been that one, tiny, near fatal error of judgment but she'd learnt from it and on the best of days that tone would have raised suspicion. Technically, she could see he was correct. One wrist was under his neck, one over, bound on the other side so her one arm was effectively pinning the other in place. With Spike's neck in between.

"Do you mean the arm that's stopping you biting me?" she asked sweetly. Spike chuckled again.

"That's the one. Don't fancy it, huh?"

"Not so much."

"Bugger."

Buffy waited out the silence patiently, tensing for his next move, but Spike didn't move. And slowly it dawned on Buffy that he couldn't. Legs useless, and as trapped as hers were in the frame of the chair, one arm pinned by her weight, his options were as limited as Buffy's. Couldn't roll her off him because they were effectively tied together, didn't have the balance or leverage to sit them both up. Any false move on his part would give Buffy her hands back and even Spike must realise that wasn't something he wanted to risk. Likewise Buffy couldn't move because if she shifted her weight he only had to lift his head to sink his fangs back into her neck and Buffy had already lost as much blood as she could survive in the one night. After a few minutes of pregnant silence Spike sighed theatrically and rolled his eyes.

"Fine. I propose a truce. We'll call this one a stalemate and walk away, yeah?"

"You have got to be kidding me!"

"What's your grand plan then love? Gonna chew my head off? Might take a while with those itty bitty human teeth."

"It's a better plan than trusting you. You tricked me!"

"Did not! I didn't know you'd be moronic enough to put your neck where I could bite it. Can't blame me, Slayer. I've got all these animal instincts, see?"

"You've got lying evil thing instincts. 'Please stake me Slayer, I'm just a helpless little vampire,'" Buffy mimicked, sounding more like Dick van Dyke than anything human. "You've played that card, buster."

"I promise this time, Slayer. Straight up. Vampire honour."

"Oh yeah, that infamous vampire honour! I don't think so."

Spike sighed again and she could feel the muscles tensing in his neck as he gritted his teeth. "Look pet, we either cooperate or stay here forever. Does that sound like a better idea to you? Because I'm not getting any older."

"Nope. But you'll get a little flamier." Buffy had a plan. It was hardly a brilliant feat of derring-do and it did involve spending the next six or so hours tied to the most annoying vampire in existence, but it beat the hell out of dying. She felt as smug as she sounded when she added: "Sun'll come up sooner or later."

"Oh great idea," Spike agreed sarcastically. "Let the vampire you're laying on top of catch fire. You're bright as a fucking button, you! I'm sure it'll say so on your headstone when you've been bleeding well incinerated."

It was more or less impossible to shrug with your arms tied around someone else's neck but Buffy was sure Spike got the gist of her meaning. "Not combustible," she said. "Slayer healing. I'll be a little bit singed and rolling around in your dust. Sounds like a fair trade to me."

That gave the vampire pause. For the first time there wasn't the faintest trace of humour in his voice as he exclaimed: "You cannot be serious?"

Buffy didn't bother to answer. He might be right, it wasn't a flawless plan, but on balance still a better chance of a long and fruitful life than trusting Spike again. And it seemed to annoy Spike, a tiny payback for the terror he'd caused her.

"What are you going to do if another vampire comes along, you little ninny?"

"That's my problem."

"Oh come on, Slayer! That's just no way for a master vampire to die."

Buffy glared. His face was so close to hers that her eyes nearly crossed with the effort. "Do you really think I care? Do you think I wanted to be raped and murdered?"

"Better than this! In fact," and despite his situation Spike managed to inject the words with a suggestive leer, "sounds like a nice way to go."

"Tough."

"I can't stay still for six hours, you hear me? I'll annoy you so much you'll be ready to off yourself before the sun comes up." It was, Buffy had to admit, a distinct possibility. But suicide-by-irritation was still better than moving. And irritation went both ways, Buffy happened to know just what pushed Spike's buttons - she ignored him.

"Slayer! You've not thought this through. Let me up and we'll do this proper."

Meditation, that was the answer. Of all the techniques Giles had tried to teach her there had to be one that could drown out a vampire, or make six hours fly by.

"I'm not gonna just lay here, you stupid bitch. Let me up and I'll kill you quick."

Lacking a crystal with a flaw or a shiny coin - unable to see anything but Spike's face in extreme closeup without exposing her neck to him - Buffy focused on the blue of his eyes. As a crystal substitute they were surprisingly apposite. The colour ran deeper than should have been possible, a sparkling swirl of canyons and shades and flaws that seemed to be moving.

"Angelus'll be out on the prowl. Whatever will your boyfriend think when he finds you crawling all over me?"

Meditate, meditate, meditate. Look at all the pretty colours. Close as she was losing visual focus was easy and Buffy allowed herself to be hypnotised by all those different blues.

"Slayer! This is fucking ridiculous! You miserable, stinking coward - you let me up and fight like a... girl."

He was shouting right into her face but Buffy concentrated on the ignoring. A chant, that's what was called for, something of the 'om' variety. She started humming. Spike made the same futile attempts at escape that Buffy had tried earlier, bucking and wriggling beneath her. But the meditation was working, or maybe it was the pain fading, either way Buffy's thoughts were clearer and she could see as well as him it was useless. Buffy stopped humming long enough to allow herself a smug smile.

"Fucking hell, Slayer! I'll die of boredom if you take all night to dust me. At least talk to me."

That was a little too much for Buffy to let by. "You can't seriously expect me to take pity on you," she said, humming forgotten.

"I saved your life!"

"You tried to kill me!"

"I'm a soddin' vampire!"

"And I'm a Slayer. And this is me, slaying you."

"Well it's not on." Spike gave up straining and let his head fall back with a thud. "Aren't you white hats supposed to be all moral and humane? This's gotta be against the Slayer code of conduct."

"Well your dust can file a complaint."

"Slayer..." He was pleading now, pouting in what he must think was an appealing fashion, as if he seriously thought she might give in and feel sorry for him. "Let me up and fight."

"You mean let go of your neck so you can bite me."

"I won't, I swear. C'mon, I can't friggin' well stand up, what are you so afraid of? Better odds against me than hoping nothing else is out on the prowl tonight. This is Sunnydale."

He'd made an effort to turn the volume back down, sound conciliatory, but Buffy wasn't buying. She started humming again and Spike sighed, rolled his eyes back to glare at the sky.

"I suppose this isn't so bad," he said eventually. "Tied to a pretty girl. Least it's nice and warm. Cosy, almost, don'cha think Slayer? Intimate. Like we're friends or something."

The less irate Spike became the harder he was to ignore. That last comment caused a definite stutter in Buffy's humming but she stuck to it with resolution.

"Anyone comes looking for you might jump to the wrong conclusion," Spike continued conversationally. "Be embarrassing that, wouldn't it? You know, if I was you I'd want to forget this ever happened. We could just both get up, go our separate ways. Never mention this day again."

He left several pauses for her to respond but every time she didn't carried right on talking. Buffy was starting to wonder if he was physically capable of shutting up.

"I don't do boredom, you know. You don't entertain me and I'm likely to combust way ahead of schedule. 'Specially if you keep flashing you titties at me."

Buffy screwed her eyes shut. No way would she give him the satisfaction of glancing down. Her blouse was probably open but he bra still on - thank god she'd taken to sensible underwear since Angel's deflection - and she was pressed up against him. He couldn't possibly see much.

"Slayer's blood is a powerful aphrodisiac, did your watcher ever tell you that?"

Spike wiggled again under her and Buffy lent her weight forward as far as possible, elbow digging into his collar bone, but she soon realised his purpose was something other than escape. Her thigh, laying between his legs, could feel something it hadn't felt a moment ago.

"And all that heat. Does things to a fella."

Well there wasn't enough meditation in the world to block that out. Spike was wriggling against her in earnest now, thrusting his denim clad crotch against her thigh, rucking up her short skirt. Buffy's leg was stuck where it was, her bare foot trapped against his heavy boot in the frame of the chair and Buffy didn't know what shift of weight might let him up. She screwed her eyes tight shut against the smirk she could hear in his voice.

"Mmmm, that's good, love. All warm and enticing. I think I could just come in my pants, you smell so good. I'm just going to imagine your hot little-"

"Okay! Stop!" That squeak was not the Slayerly tone of command she'd been going for.

"Stop what, love?" Spike purred. "Humping your leg? Because it feels so-"

"Shut up! I give in, okay? Truce. We'll untangle, just... shut up. Stop moving."

And for once, maybe realising he'd pushed his luck far enough, Spike complied. "Move your arm then, pet," he said, his voice instantly different from the seductive tone he'd been putting on.

"You've got to promise," said Buffy suspiciously. "You won't even move until I've got this wire off my hands."

"Well if I'm promising you have to too. No staking, right Slayer?"

"No fucking way. As soon as I get my hands free I'm ramming that tree branch into you. And if it takes me a few goes to hit the heart then so much the better."

"Okay." Spike started to move again and even through his restricting jeans Buffy could feel another movement. It was a decent sized bulge, Buffy had to admit, before realising she was speculating about the size of Spike's penis and would have to wash her brain out with soap. Trustworthy or not, she was beginning to decide the risk was worth escaping this mental trauma.

"I'm happy here, Slayer. I've changed my mind," Spike was saying. "If I'm going to die either way I may as well co-"

"OKAY! No... fighting. We'll just- Forget this ever happened. I'll kill you tomorrow instead."

They both waited in expectant silence for a minute or two. "You have to say it too," Buffy prompted. Spike rolled his eyes.

"Bleeding hell, Slayer. I promise, okay? No biting, no violence. You get the fuck off me and I'll be the bestest behaved, non-Slayer slaying Slayer of Slayers you even did see. Scout's honour."

Buffy ran that convoluted sentence through her mind, checking for get-out clauses. "You weren't a boy scout."

"No," he conceded. irritation creeping back in. "Was a bit old to sign up, time they started. And also dead. But I've eaten quite a few."

"You try anything..."

"You'll dust me. Repeatedly. With just the power of that cute little glare. Just bloody well move."

It took more wriggling in much closer proximity than Buffy would have liked but in a couple of minutes they were both sitting, now joined only at the foot. Spike reached for the wire binding Buffy's wrists and she belted him soundly with her joined hands.

"Helping!" the vampire protested, holding up his own hands in surrender. "Not so sure I want to kill you now anyway, Slayer. This is the best fun I've had in ages."

"You're sick."

"Well yeah. Someone broke my spine - I ain't been getting out much."

He watched Buffy fumble with the wire for precisely a second and a half before losing patience and reaching out again. Though it went against every instinct Buffy held still while he unwound it.

"Right little goer, aren't you? Don't ever quit, I like that in a woman."

"Shut up!"

"It was a compliment. Best Slayer I've ever fought, if a little slow on the uptake. We'll have to do this again soon."

Her hands free, Buffy wasted no time in releasing her foot from the chair and scrambling up. She was a little wobbly, and several of her joints didn't feel quite right, but she was upright. Checking the damage could wait until she was safely home. She looked away as Spike licked her blood from the wire in his hand.

"The next time I see you you're dust," she snapped, pulling her torn blouse tightly around herself. For good measure she kicked the chair, sending it out of Spike's reach. "You and your crazy girlfriend."

"Yeah yeah."

Later Buffy would ask herself why she didn't stake him, promise or no, but right then she just wanted to be out of there so she went. Turned a blind ear as Spike shouted after her.

"You know, love, we worked together we could take your ex down without breaking sweat. We'd make one hell of a team."

Buffy walked faster, the feel of cut grass under her feet soothing to the ache of movement. She was well out of sight by the time Spike moved, didn't see him haul himself to his feet or the tentative, unsteady steps he took toward the chair. She missed his grin of triumph.