A/N: After watching Tu£sday, starring Phil Glenister as a man in a red bandana, Kevin R. McNally (Harry Woolf from LOM) as yet another copper of dubious morals and John Simm as a man with a lollipop, I started to like the idea of Gene breaking the law (but only for a good cause!). Then this clicked and, after risking my life to get the computer (that actually is nearly not a joke ^^), I decided to write it. And here is the end result, fuelled by extra-chocolatey birthday cake and chicken nuggets. Enjoy, review, and… um… actually, I can't think of anything else. Well, I suppose you can favourite and alert if you want. ;) Jazzola
"Vault 192. That's what we need ter get into."
"And where exactly did you get that information from?"
"Mac can't miss what 'e throws in 'is bin. I went in ter 'ave a little rifle around."
It was almost pitch black in the small glass office within Fenchurch East CID, only the occasional bead of light from a cigarette or lighter and the tiger-striped glow from the street lighting outside keeping the void at bay. Two people lay parallel on mattresses arranged haphazardly on the floor, blankets draped over two bodies, cushions helping to prop the pair up as they faced each other in the gloom, unconsciously mirroring each other's body language.
Alex Drake broke the silence that fell as Gene Hunt lit a cigarette, idly stroking the cushion under her elbow in thought, knowing without looking that his eyes would be focusing on her lips as she spoke.
"Well, Vault 192's a start. Do you know what he's got in there?"
"I suppose prob'ly somethin' damnin', if 'e scribbled it out with marker pen."
Gene sniffed, retrieving the paper from the edge of his desk and looking it over again. Alex looked confused.
"Marker pen? So how do you know it's Vault 192?"
"Sam Tyler. One of 'is mates in Manchester 'ad some liquid that could dissolve marker pen. I brought a little with me. Thought it might come in 'andy."
Alex took the paper from him, turning it over in her fingers, reaching out for the two tumblers of whisky sitting patiently between their pillows. Her fingers found Gene's, also picking his glass up; he whipped his fingers away, almost spilling the whisky over his hand and the carpet in his haste. Alex rolled her eyes.
"Gene, you brushed my fingers by accident. No need to act like a startled virgin."
Gene opened and shut his mouth, eventually lapsing into a dignified silence; Alex giggled, enjoying the slightly surprised, slightly surly look he always had whenever she said something crude or unexpected.
"So?" she asked as his tumbler emptied, watching in mute fascination at his top lip stroking the rim of the glass, the imprint from his mouth left on the smooth sheen. Gene raised his eyebrows at her, setting the tumbler down, an amused smile flitting across his face for the bare minimum of a second before her eyes flicked back to his.
"So what?"
"So, now we know that Mac's hiding something in Talbot Street. And what are we going to do about it? He'll have some way of knowing if we get things out of there. He's a powerful man, Gene, he wouldn't hesitate to hurt you or even kill you if he knew we were onto him."
They both paused, mental images of Dawid Czarnecki burning simultaneously in their memories. Alex shivered.
"Then we 'ave ter keep it under wraps. Do somethin' so out of character 'e'll never fer a second think it could be us."
Gene lapsed into thought, his chin resting on his elbow; Alex sat watching him, half-daydreaming with her eyes on the blanket over his stomach, tracking the slow rise and fall of his chest, wondering at exactly how painful the notion of losing him really was. He was her one constant in this world, her eight-year-old self's saviour. Protectiveness threatened to overwhelm her for a second; she found herself reaching out to him, resting her hand on his warm, scarred arm, lying on top of the blanket. Gene jumped.
"Bolly?"
Her gaze softened so slightly he could barely see it; the amber glow from the half-closed blinds caressed her face, as though it was stripped down to the bare emotions, solely for him. He tried and failed not to stare.
"Gene, no matter how much we want to bring Mac down, please, please don't put yourself in too much danger with some hare-brained scheme. You're the only person who can show Mac for what he really is, and… and if something happened to you, I- I don't know how CID would cope."
Or me. But she couldn't say that. To say that would make it too real, this emotion she'd been battling for months now. She couldn't- shouldn't- had to resist- showing him her emotions too much. He'd only use them to stab her in the back.
OK, so she knew he wouldn't do that. But it didn't hurt to be wary.
"I can't promise I won't put myself in danger, Bolly," Gene said quietly, studying his blanket rather than his DI. "I do that every day. People do that just by bein' alive. If a criminal doesn't get yer, or yer not shot by a bent copper, it'll be fire, or food poisonin', or cancer."
"Aren't you a cheerful bastard to be around," Alex sighed, taking a gulp of whisky to hide her paled face. Gene talking about death- and specifically being shot- brought her own reality home far too starkly. He lifted his head, watching her for a long moment before speaking again.
"It's just life. We're dyin' from the moment we're born. That's not bein' morbid, that's just the truth. No escapin' it. Besides, death's the easy bit. 'S what 'appens afterwards that gets people's backs up. But I digress. My point is, if one thing doesn't kill yer, somethin' else will. Yer 'ave ter take the bull by the 'orns, an' try ter camel-toe around the big rats while yer find out just 'ow far the rot goes."
"Gene Hunt, founder of Metaphors United."
"Price o' membership, one stamped arse."
"In your dreams."
"Frequently."
Alex opened her mouth, trying to summon up a rebuke, and abruptly found her desire to argue gone.
"So. What do you plan to do about Vault 192?"
Gene lay back, closing his eyes, a faint smile flickering over his face in the dim light.
"Exactly what the doctor said ter me when 'e took my appendix out. "We pop in, whip it out, an' skedaddle before yer realise it.""
"You're going to rob Talbot Street?"
"That would've taken Poirot an hour."
He took the paper off her silently, rolling it in his fingers before throwing it neatly into an empty plant pot by the window, pulling the blanket up over his shoulders. Alex rolled her eyes.
"Please tell me you're not serious."
"What else are we goin' ter do? If we apply fer a warrant, someone'll tell Mac. If we ask 'im about it, it'll be suicide. If we send a member of my team, Mac'll 'ear. There's no escape. We slip in through the back, open it, nick everythin' that's inside, an' run. Simple as."
His eyes slid back open again, focusing on hers in the gloom. Alex sighed.
"Gene Hunt, you are the stupidest, most arrogant, reckless, downright difficult, stubborn, incredible person I've ever met."
"Eh?"
"You're putting a lot more than just your career at stake when you start rifling through Mac's files, Gene," Alex said gently, putting her hand on the blanket over his shoulder, choosing to ignore him stiffening beneath her fingers. Reflex. "He could so easily kill you. Kevin Hales found that out."
"I'm more experienced than 'im. I've met enough blaggers ter know what ter do. Shouldn' be that 'ard ter pretend I'm after money or somethin'."
"I await your incredible acting eagerly."
"Don't knock it. I was a Wise Man in the Nativity once."
"Such a boost to my confidence."
"Even got a clap all to myself. That's the mark of someone 'oo's missed their callin'."
"What was the clap for?"
"Throwin' a bucket o' water over Joseph. An' then bein' chased twice round the church an' just managin' ter take a bow before the bastard rugby-tackled me. Best Nativity the school ever staged."
Alex hid her mouth to stop herself laughing, rolling her eyes.
"You be careful. And I'll be outside, waiting as a getaway driver."
"No, Bolls. I'm doin' this on my own. I'm not puttin' you in danger too."
"We're always in danger. If it's not a criminal, it's a bent copper…"
"Not the time fer bein' a parrot, Bolly. This is serious. Mac's in deep, 'e won't 'esitate ter dispatch o' those 'oo piss 'im off. I can worm my way out of a robbery, especially if I 'ave my team on side. You, on the other 'and, would 'ave a considerably more difficult time."
"What, because I'm a woman?"
"Because Mac 'as it in fer you. I'm not quite as vulnerable as you."
Alex sighed.
"So what am I supposed to do, while you're robbing Talbot Street?"
"You do what you do best. Cover my back. Tell me if Mac catches wind of what I'm doin'. Keep a look out fer 'im leavin' the station, an' tell me which direction, tail 'im if possible. But don't be seen."
He stifled a yawn, closing his eyes once again.
"Now shush. I need rest if I'm goin' ter summon my inner blagger. Bugger that, I need rest."
"OK."
Despite her own fatigue, Alex stayed propped up on her elbow, watching Gene as sleep claimed her exhausted DCI, the frown vanishing from his face to be replaced with blissful blankness, the Manc Lion mask gone.
Her mind began to drift as she too let gravity pull her down, her eyes absently studying the ceiling. As always, Molly was the first thing she thought about, leaping up to catch her mother's kiss; it brought a smile to her face, even though the edges of the memory were hazy, almost dreamlike. As though it was the real world that wasn't real.
She'd never thought of that. Maybe she was in the real world, here in 1982? But that was ridiculous. She'd been shot. This was just a dream conjured up by her injured brain while she lay in a coma, trapped in her and Sam's joint imagination. This vivid world they'd managed to create between them, beautiful, horrible, and so bloody detailed.
The detail. Everywhere.
Her fingers brushed the pillow again, finding loose threads, a stitch here and there, a scribble of 'HUNT' on the label. Her feet were slightly cold, the blanket Gene had draped over her marginally thinner at the bottom end. The corner of one of the posters on the wall was torn; there was a damp stain next to it, just behind a slightly dented darts trophy with a name printed in wonky letters on the pedestal. As her gaze shifted, it found Gene once again, lying peacefully on his side, face snug into the pillow; his hair was set ablaze by the amber light, one hand draped carelessly on the floor, the other resting almost demurely on his stomach. She leaned over to pick it up, making to ease it back under the blanket, and caught sight of the edge of a scar under his ridden-up top, paled with age, a thin line just over where his appendix would have been.
Why would I bother making up that kind of detail? What's it to me if Gene had an appendectomy years ago?It's pointless detail. It won't influence anything happening now. So is my mind going into overdrive, is it all somehow relevant in some way I haven't yet figured out… or is it real? I just don't know!
Gene rolled over, a guttural grunt disturbing her thoughts as he re-positioned himself, knocking her half-empty tumbler of whisky over as he did so. Alex rolled her eyes, using his discarded shirt to dab at the golden stain spreading over the white square. The stubborn bastard couldn't have got it on the black, where it wouldn't show.
He rolled back, his arm finding hers; Alex gently eased it back onto the bed, unable to stop herself giving his warm, rough skin a little stroke as she did so. He looked so blissful, so innocent, so unlike her Guv it gave her a strange feeling, deep in her gut's gut. One she really didn't want to dwell on for two long. That way lies madness, Alex.
"Mam?" Gene mumbled, his fingers twitching at the feel of Alex's skin against his. Alex smiled softly, shaking her head despite knowing he couldn't see.
"No, Gene. Go to sleep. It's late."
"Stu back yet?"
Alex pursed her lips, trying not to smile. She knew she shouldn't, but Gene was half asleep and she was curious; what harm could it do?
"No. Not yet," she said softly, inwardly cringing at the tenderness in her voice as she eased the blanket up over his cooling skin, slipped his hand back to lie parallel with his torso. "He'll be back soon."
"Is my arm 'ealed yet?"
His arm? Would that have been his father?
"Erm, yes, Gene. Go back to sleep now. You're tired, big day tomorrow."
To her mingled relief and disappointment, Gene nodded into the pillow, turned onto his back and began to snore, completely out for the count. She made to tuck him in and stalled, her hand inches from his chest. Far too caring. He was her DCI. A good… friend, but nothing more. And he would never be. She'd rather shag Tony Blair.
OK, that's a lie. Just keep a lid on it, Alex, and concentrate on Mac. Who knows, maybe it'll get you back to 2008.
She shivered. In this warm, real office, with Gene lying less than a metre away from her, completely healthy and minus a bullet in the brain, 2008 suddenly seemed a very cold, scary place.
Talbot Street looked somewhat foreboding in the dusk light, its small windows and lack of lighting reminiscent of the run-down hideouts in films where the bad guys always scheme. The only speck of colour was the bright red car parked opposite it, and the glow of amber from the cigarette hanging from the driver's lips, crackling into life as the mouth contracted slightly, sucking deeply, the throat beneath it convulsing as the nicotine hit home.
Alex wrinkled her nose, winding her window down and promptly back up again as the cold swept straight into the car.
"For God's sake. Your Christmas present is going to be a box of nicotine patches. If anyone's bothered to invent them yet."
Gene gave her the look that clearly told her he hadn't the foggiest what she was going on about. A look that had come into frequent usage since her arrival.
"Yer should start, Bolls. Might bloody calm yer down."
"The day I start smoking is the day you Sellotape your balls to the pavement and hang a sign saying 'come and get it, bum-bandits' on your back," Alex muttered, taking a small selfish delight in the wince that crossed his face before he threw the smouldering cigarette butt out of the window and sniffed, pulling something out of the glove box. Alex raised her eyebrows.
"A balaclava? I thought you'd be more imaginative, Gene."
"'Alf the blaggers an' low-lives in London own a black balaclava. I could be anybody."
He glanced down at his feet, sighing forlornly. Alex followed his gaze, grabbing her seat in faked shock; a pair of battered trainers had replaced the snakeskin boots, tan and blue in colour, completely alien on Gene's highly-arched feet. Even she had to admit that the boots would be sorely missed.
"It's a good move, but won't you be uncomfortable?"
He snorted, handing her a radio and shoving the other into the army-issue duffel bag he yanked out from the back seat, taking the keys from the ignition and pressing them into her hands as though handing her the crown jewels.
"Any sign o' trouble, run. Don't wait fer me."
"You know I can't do that." Especially after what I realised last night. A world without Gene Hunt is not a world I think I can warm to quickly.
"Yer goin' ter 'ave ter get used ter the idea, Lady Bolly-Kecks, 'cos that's what's 'appenin'. If you get busted as well, 'oo's goin' ter break me out, eh? Keep the Quattro safe. More importantly…" He cleared his throat, shuffling in the seat, unable to meet her eyes. "More importantly, Bolls, you keep yerself safe. Can't 'ave us both locked up, eh?"
It truly wouldn't be so bad if I were in a cell with you. Oh, Gene. You're so determined to do the right thing.
"I'll try. You be careful too, Gene. I don't want to have to come and visit you in jail every time I want to see you, and the loss of your custom would probably put Luigi out of business."
But they both knew they were joking. They could see it in each other's expressions, the ever-so-slight angle of their bodies towards each other, the way their breath mingled in the cool air of the car. Gene chanced reaching out and laying his hand on her arm, gently caressing, the leather on leather a subtle comfort that neither felt totally comfortable with but would much rather have than do without.
One solitary light turned on in Talbot Street. A door opened, closed, bounced. Stood still.
Gene took the balaclava from the dashboard and pulled it over his head, pausing at his forehead, taking his hands away from a second, as though there was something he needed to do and had forgotten about.
"Gene?"
Now or never, Genie boy.
He leaned over, quick as the Quattro on speed, and kissed her cheek, then yanked the balaclava fully over his face, shoved a few stray locks of hair inside and shoved the door open, disappearing into the cold still of the night before Alex's cheek had even managed to goosebump at the feel of his lips on it.
Alex lifted her hand to it, stroked it softly, sighed, and shifted over to the driver's seat, clutching the Quattro keys to her chest as the door opened again and the dark figure stole in.
Vault 192. Be quick about it.
The old trainers padded on the black and white tiles, familiar and foreign, as a hidden figure stole through the aisles and corridors of the Talbot Street vaults, a solitary torch catching on the numbers engraved on the fronts of the many safes. This was normally something he locked people up for doing.
He wondered abstractly if CID would be handed the case.
He wondered if Ray might suspect him.
He then wondered if he'd lost his marbles. The few he had left. Some had been scattered by his father, some by Sam's death, and quite a few more by Alex Drake's arrival. Certainly the area of his brain controlling lust had decided it was going to become utterly hyperactive.
170. 171. 172. 173.
Each step like a funeral drum.
If Mac caught him, he was pretty much dead. He knew that now. Mac didn't tolerate this kind of thing. He'd be strung up by his bollocks and hung out like a kipper. Maybe Mac would give him a nice, quiet death, like poisoning. No. Mac would want it to be noisy, public, and probably messy.
He shivered. It wasn't a thought he particularly relished. It had been preying on him for a while, though, especially since he'd ordered the spaghetti bolognaise at Luigi's and found it closely resembled the intestines of the body they'd found earlier. Well, Ray had had it for him. Luigi, after much grumbling, had done some chips, but Gene suspected the Italian was fonder of him than he made out.
179. 180. 181.
He was thinking about anything and everything, the world and life, the universe and his DI, pizza and Dexys Midnight Runners, Mac and Sam. Anything to distract him.
Bolly probably had some word for that. She might have mentioned it once, but he wouldn't have been listening. Like the stupid idiot he was. He always felt she was out of his league, as much for her brains as for anything else. He only knew one term to do with psychology- Pavlovian- and that sounded so poncy he never brought it up, not even to impress her. It might have slipped out once or twice when he was drunk, but well, who would listen to him when he was drunk?
Sam. Bloody Sam. It had been one of Sam's things, to let the drink relax his DCI, because then he would talk. He'd managed to coax things out of Gene that a hypnotist would struggle to reach. Gene gritted his teeth.
Men like Mac were wrong. Men like Sam were right.
That's what he was doing here.
190. 191.
192.
His fingers didn't shake as they reached out. They stuttered, like a nervous speaker, like a coward.
Stuttered so much it took him a minute to get the bloody thing open.
And then the alarm sounded.
Shit!
He grabbed wildly at documents, shoving them into the bag haphazardly, creasing and tearing in his haste. Envelopes and sheets of paper scattered round him, like demented snow; he scrabbled around on the floor, banging his elbow on the corner of a safe, stunning the nerves. Hissing with pain, his arm near useless, he simply scrambled up and made to run, duffle bag swung over one shoulder, paper littering the tiles behind him.
He didn't realise he was surrounded until a police dog tackled him.
"AHH!"
The dog bit down on his leg, felling him like a rush; he kicked wildly, trying desperately not to injure the animal. He could tell he'd confused it by the way it sat back on its haunches, trying to work out what to do next, watching him with huge soulful eyes. Almost as though it sympathised with him.
"Good boy," Gene whispered, attempting a Southern accent and failing. "Good, good boy. Let me past now. Good boy…"
Two PCs grabbed his arms and shoved him up against the safes, banging his face into the metal as he hissed and writhed, stunning one and being tripped by the other. Someone called an order, and Gene was hauled up, pressed against the metal, blood soaking through the wool fibres of the balaclava.
"Let's have a look," an all-too-familiar voice said, and Gene could have cried with frustration.
Bloody Mac! What's he doing here?
"Caught red-handed, sir," one of the PCs said gleefully, yanking the duffle bag from Gene's shoulder and displaying it like a particularly shiny trophy. Gene's lip curled in contempt.
"Thank you, Crawford. Shall we see who our blagger is?"
Gene could only grit his teeth as the balaclava was ripped from his head.
There was complete silence.
"Hello, Gene," Mac said softly, moving round to Gene's back and sliding a pair of handcuffs from his waist, a triumphant smirk on his face. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."
He seized Gene's hands, cuffing them together at the small of his back.
"But then, a lot of things that happen are unexpected," Mac said quietly, his hand sliding up to Gene's head, smoothing his hair back to let him see the shocked and amused faces staring at him from all sides. The DCI focussed firmly on the safe number in front of his nose. 162.
"Terry Haslam. Your old friend Harry Woolf. Sam's death…"
Sam's death… wait.
"And now this," Mac murmured, his lips almost at Gene's earlobe, his breath brushing Gene's jaw.
And he knocked Gene's head so hard he dropped like a stone.
As a triumphant Mac watched Gene's senseless body being loaded into a police van, the tail lights of a very familiar Audi Quattro caught the corner of his eye.
A tiny smile quirked the corner of his lip up.
Don't think I'm not onto you, Drake. I always said you were trouble. If I can't bring Hunt round, you'll be next… and I won't be so lenient with you.
"I'll guard him."
And he eased into the back of the police van, taking his gun out of its holster and placing it on Gene's neck as he settled into a comfortable position for the ride back.
The Manc Lion out cold in front of him. Exactly the result he wanted. He dropped the gun to the floor of the van, a sly grin on his face. Persuasion. Call it persuasion.
Gene's eyelids flickered as the pain began to come.
A/N: So. Gene's been arrested and is in the back of a police van, Alex has been rumbled, they don't know what those documents were and Mac's got Gene exactly where he wants him. It's not looking good… but you know me, I look for something positive in everything. Er. Um. Well. At least… at least the Quattro doesn't have a puncture! *sheepish smile* Soo… please review, and more soon, should people want it! Jazzola
