A/N: Hello! I'm a relative newcomer to Ashes (better late than never), I watched it all for the first time last summer and fell in love with it - Galex especially captured my heart and then subsequently shattered it with that ending *sobs forever* so there was only one thing for it in my wounded shipper heart - write fic! This is my first A2A fic and I don't plan for it to be my last.
This fic is set part way through 3.3, swerves away from canon, goes back again...but I won't spoil too much. Hopefully I've captured the characters okay (not gonna lie, as much as I adore Gene I was nervous of writing him - even as a Brit Northerner living not too far from Manchester)...
Disclaimer: Ashes To Ashes belongs to Kudos/BBC/Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah.
Everybody's Looking For Something
Chapter 1
# Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused #
In the offices of Fenchurch East CID, the volume of the small, slightly worse-for-wear radio was turned up in response to the song that had started to play. The sound coming from the speakers was tinny and distorted, and it did nothing for the general atmosphere which had already plummeted to a dangerous low.
Shaz, as ever, took it upon herself to lighten the mood – or at the very least, give it a decent attempt.
"Oh, I love this one!" she exclaimed, turning the notch yet higher and bopping her head in time to the music. "Annie Lennox is amazing."
"Dunno," Ray piped up from the seat opposite, "looks like a dyke to me."
"Ray, honestly! That's got nothing to do with the music." Shaz's tone lowered after her first exasperated statement, swiftly realising she was fighting a losing battle trying to educate Ray in the basic morals of not judging a book by its cover. "Anyway, it's androgyny."
"Oh ey," Ray pointed his thumb towards Shaz whilst flicking a glance in Chris's direction, "she's swallowed a dictionary again."
Chris kept his head down, saying nothing.
"It's the fashion," Shaz continued, "in case you hadn't noticed." The beginnings of a smirk crept up onto her lips as she appraised Ray's appearance, his favourite leather jacket reliably in place. "Although, it's fairly obvious that you haven't."
A chorus of impressed jeers rang out, and predictably, Ray took immediate offence.
"Oi, there's nothing wrong with the way I dress!"
"And when was the last time you had a date with a woman that lasted longer than the time it takes to finish a pint and a packet of pork scratchings?" Shaz added on sweetly before going on a sweep of the mugs laying about the desks.
"She's got a point, mate."
Chris chanced a hopeful smile towards Shaz as she stopped by him, and felt less deflated than he had done recently when she gave him a small smile in return, even if she did leave ten seconds later.
"Hey, I think there might still be a chance," he said in a low voice, leaning over the desk.
"You what?"
"With Shazza," Chris explained to a blank-faced Ray. "I've heard she's seeing this posh bloke, but she doesn't look happy after she's been out with him. Not like she was when...you know." The longer he talked, the further he convinced himself. "And she smiled at me just then. Like, properly smiled. I really think I'm getting somewhere."
Files in hand, Ray cast a glance up at Chris, just to appease him in all his enthusiasm. Swiftly, he brought him back down to earth with a bump.
"Twonk."
As the rest of CID bickered and sniggered at their own jokes, Alex raised her hands to her temples, hoping that she could rub away the headache that was rapidly getting worse as the afternoon stretched on. Momentarily she deeply regretted having got out of bed at all that morning and wished she could sneak away unnoticed and crawl back to her flat, pouring herself a glass of red to blot out the day from hell. Except it wasn't just one day lately, and that meant she was at serious risk of developing a certifiable drink problem – not to mention a liver blitzed beyond all repair - if she turned again and again to the same solution.
There came a particularly raucous explosion of laughter from a couple of desks away, and Alex used it to disguise her deep sigh of frustration. This arson case was getting nowhere fast, evidence was scarce and worst of all, the humongous creep that was Jim Keats was hanging around like a bad fart after a dodgy curry, perennially niggling and gnawing away, convincing the mind that it could all turn into something much worse without a minute's notice.
Shit, she'd been around Gene so much that she was starting to adopt his oh-so-pleasant metaphors like second nature.
"Cup of tea, ma'am?" Shaz interjected in the whirlwind that was her mind, waggling a mug in front of her face.
"That'd be lovely, Shaz, thank you," she managed a genuine smile, the feeling foreign. "Although truth be told, I could do with something much stronger."
Shaz laughed in recognition. "Well, it is five o'clock somewhere in the world."
Alex sighed heavily. "And it can't come soon enough here."
The whirring of the kettle was soundly drowned out by the blaring radio, and Alex unhappily returned to her thoughts after the unexpected yet welcome distraction. For that reason, amongst others, Shaz was still her favourite.
And then, in the midst of everything else, there was Gene.
With all the will in the world and all of her previous experience she had never been able to work him out. Perhaps it was the challenge that kept her going, gave her something to focus on in this existence. She'd been on the verge so many times, thought she had everything about him figured out, and then on the turn of a pin he'd be compelled to go and bugger it up, do something she'd never expected. Did she really know what she expected of him? All bluster and bravado when they were out in the field, crude remarks about some aspect of her physical appearance when they were sharing a bottle or several of house rubbish in Luigi's, something altogether different – dare she even think vulnerable – when it was just the two of them, upstairs in her flat.
Why was she even thinking about it? It was all pointless. It hadn't been just the two of them for months, not since she had received a bullet square in the stomach. He hadn't meant it, she knew that much. She believed him when he insisted that it had been a mistake. She believed him, in spite of all of the forces that were screaming at her to do the exact opposite. The files from Manchester and Sam Tyler's personal effects had resulted to nothing but a guilty feeling that plagued her from day to night and she knew that Gene was onto her about it. While it stood that things didn't add up about Sam's sudden disappearance and subsequent death the doubts that she had let be planted in her head were diminishing by the hour, enough by the minute and second. Gene Hunt was capable of many things, a lot of them irresponsible, but murder was not one of them. She knew that; she knew him.
At least, she wanted to believe that she did.
Things were off between them, and she took her part of the blame for the sorry situation. Telling him that she was from the future had always been a terrible move, even if he had tore it from her by telling her to talk if he meant anything to her at all. It had all but confirmed her as an escapee from the nearest asylum in his eyes. Now she was insisting on playing with fire when her fingers had already been burnt, repeatedly. She regretted having been in touch with Manchester for more information; she wouldn't put it on Shaz but she'd send it all back with the first chance she got.
Unbreakable; that's what they were. It had been touch-and-go for a while, but a misfired bullet and a coma-within-a-coma hadn't broken them. She was damned if she would let someone as insignificant as Jim Keats cause the cracks to strengthen. She had accepted this world rather than explained it – even if the very concept of going with the flow without getting to the centre of it all pissed her off more than anything – and one thing remained. Gene Hunt was her constant, and she needed him to see whatever it all meant right through to the bitter end. If she was brutally honest with herself, she needed him for much more than that.
Without realising she rested her head down on her desk, her eyes closing drowsily and almost beyond her control. In an instant it was though she had been transported from the walls of Fenchurch East to the hospital bed she had occupied not too long ago, not that she had much recollection of the time or would trust herself much if she did.
The only thing she was able to make out from the blackness that surrounded her was his voice, the rough quality of it strangely soothing. He had sounded desperate, she recalled; as desperate as he was willing to reveal to her.
Wake up. Come back to me, I need yer! Drake. Alex. Alex! Wake up!
"But what do you need me for, Gene?" she said to herself, repeating the words through her haze, in the absence of being able to say them out loud.
Her awakening in that particular moment came in the almighty crash of a door meeting a defenceless wall, and out he emerged, a disgruntled lion lured from his den.
"Two things," he started, not looking in the least bit personable. "First, 'ooever started that racket can shut it off pronto before I take the sodding aerial and shove it very sharply where the sun don't shine."
In Shaz's absence, Chris reached an arm over and swiftly silenced the radio, causing a larger silence to fall over the occupants of CID.
Gene failed to acknowledge the action, fixing a hardened glare at one very specific point in the room. Oh joy, Alex thought.
"Lastly; Drake," he barked, eyes of steel boring a hole into her, "My office. Now."
Alex pulled herself from her seat, resisting the strong urge to roll her eyes as she made her way once more towards the Guv's revered personal territory.
"If he shuts the blinds, we know it's goin' down. Or rather, Drake will be," Ray chuckled, thoroughly amused by his smutty insinuation. He looked towards Chris, who was completely oblivious. "A fiver says they'll be at it, and she'll be carried out on a stretcher afterwards... owww, Jesus Christ!"
A slosh of freshly-brewed tea flew from the mug and landed inches away from DI Carling's groin.
"Sorry, Ray," Shaz chirped, a perfect picture of innocence. "My hand slipped."
Gene banged the door shut behind them, though he kept his hands away from the blinds. Alex stood firm on the spot, watching him as he rounded the desk and poured himself a measure of scotch. For all her soul-searching she was going to stay stubborn on this one; he was the one to invite her in, and seeing as the case hadn't moved along since their last trip out a couple of hours ago she hadn't the first clue to what this summons could be about. Unless, of course, he just wanted to shout the odds at her as a way of relieving some tension.
Another method of achieving the same results briefly crossed her mind as she observed his long legs crossing at the ankles upon the top of his desk, but she quickly chased that away. It really wasn't the time for those thoughts and she should have left them behind long ago, but damn it, she just couldn't shake him off. It had been too long; maybe she just needed to pick some random bloke out after work one night and resolve her fantasies that way. It'd help if he happened to be northern or at least willing to act the part.
His glass came down with a resounding echo and she felt herself flinching, barely perceptible, as he straightened himself out.
" 'ave you looked in the mirror recently?"
Well, that wasn't exactly what she was expecting.
"No," she replied curtly. "Why?"
He huffed at her response; perhaps he had expected more of a fight from her. Times really had changed. "Because, Lady B, at present you 'ave a face that resembles a smacked arse." He ignored the loud tut she exhaled and went on. "I've got enough on my plate right now without 'aving to deal with your mood swings an' all."
She looked at him, arms folded against her as she stayed rooted. She was aware she was causing his blood pressure to rise further with each passing second but she got a perverse kick out of not giving anything to him, at least for a peaceful minute.
"So it's the silent treatment now, is it, Bols? Dunno what I prefer more out of that an' you chewin' me ear off insistently."
She smirked a little. "You're a saint, Guv. I'm sure they're polishing your halo as we speak."
He raised his eyebrows in indignation. "Now you are bloody jokin'." Alex watched him raise the glass to his lips again, pausing before he slugged down the rest of its contents in one go. "Yer not usually backwards in comin' forwards. Come on, Bollykecks, spit it out. 'avent got all day."
Alex stood taller on her heels, not daring to break gaze with him. It might not have been quite their old style, but it was a good stand-off all the same and she felt her energy renewing for it.
"You're right, we are on the line with this one," she rounded, not swerved by the 'no-shit-Sherlock' expression written upon his face. "Keats is circling us like a vulture, ready to strike whenever he sees that we're in the least bit exposed."
"Don't like the idea of that, Bols," he scoffed. "Not that I've got anythin' to worry about in that department. Jimbo on the other hand...well I reckon a mouse could out-do 'im."
She went on, refusing to let her stride be put off by his point-scoring. "And we're not doing so well at the moment, not when the only evidence is against us by way of police brutality towards a witness."
He stared at her in confusion for a moment or two before the penny dropped.
"Yer not still on about that little scrote Wright, are ya? Christ, it's not like I've sent 'im down for a ten-year stretch on bread an' water. A few hours in a cell until 'e's pleadin' for mercy and cryin' for 'is mam, an' 'e'll be as right as rain. Nothin' wrong with a bit of tough love, isn't that what you lot call it?"
Alex couldn't believe what she was hearing, even if it was 1983 and it was Gene Hunt's policing methods that were being discussed.
"He's twelve years old, Guv!"
"Yes, yer 'ave told me about two million times, Bols. In my book that's old enough to know better." He gave her a lingering look, and if she didn't know better she'd say that she saw concern in the depths of his eyes. "Anyway, I dunno why yer so concerned about 'is welfare, 'e was being an annoyin' little bastard, especially to you."
"That's besides the point, and it's also perfectly typical behaviour from adolescent boys," she replied, doing her utmost not to reveal that she was almost touched by his misplaced attempts to defend her honour. "Their first defence is to deflect, especially to figures of authority. You just have to ignore it and keep to the line of questioning."
"Not sure I need tips from you, Bolly," he interjected. "I am the DCI after all."
DCI or not, he wasn't going to shut her up, not when he was acting like a twelve year old himself.
"I was actually getting somewhere with him, before you saw fit to intervene with brute force."
"Well, if it ain't broke," he reached for the bottle again, bringing a clean glass out of one of his drawers. "What you need to calm down and see sense, Lady B, is a drop of the good stuff."
She lifted her eyes to the ceiling; God, it really was hard work sometimes, though it didn't help that they were both as stubborn as each other.
Replaying the interview room scenario in her head, as she was prone to do in the search for the slightest scrap of information, it suddenly occurred to her the exact moment when Gene had lost his rag completely and particularly the comment that Barney Wright had made. She could have burst into laughter about it, and simultaneously berated herself for not spotting it sooner. It really was utterly textbook.
At the same time, she found her deepest fantasies roaring to life within her once more with the same power as the Quattro's engine.
Unable to keep the smile from curving her lips, she placed both of her palms flat on the edge of his desk as he poured out a measure into both glasses.
"Children are often the most insightful of witnesses," she said, carefully and deliberately. "We dismiss the things they say offhand but they show the keenest observation."
For his part, Gene was not the least bit fazed, sipping his scotch and waiting for her to get to the bloody point.
Alex placed one leg in front of the other, sauntering her way slowly from the front to the side of his desk.
"And Barney did make some very good observations," she reached her arm languidly to the cut-crystal, lifting her glass and placing the rim tentatively to her bright red lips. "I don't think his questions should be ignored, not when they are so valid."
His pout suddenly shifted as she perched herself on the edge of the desk, mere inches away from him. If he angled himself just a little bit, he'd have an amazing view down the front of her blouse.
"About yer bra size? The lad is only human."
Alex noticed him wriggling in his seat, leaning forward and putting the weight back onto his feet.
"Yer never did tell me whether you were a C or D cup," he continued, making his intentions blatantly obvious. "Think I'd need another close-up appraisal to be sure. Maybe when things are quieter and Jimbo has buggered off for good we could arrange an identity parade. Give me somethin' to look forward to."
She simply smirked, arching her back and downing the rest of her scotch, even though it burned against her throat. Before she got up again she noticed the impressed bob of Gene's head towards her.
Walking back to where she started, she placed her hands firmly in her pockets. Time to get to it, she thought, perhaps in more ways than one.
"Don't you think he has a point, Gene?" She used his first name deliberately, delighting in the way she stretched it upon her tongue. "I mean, if a twelve year old can sense it, it must be fairly obvious."
"Yer losing me again, Bolly," he said gruffly, the mark of frustration. "Which is not unusual."
She suppressed the urge to sigh heavily, or otherwise launch herself over the desk and snog his face off.
"You and me," she spelt it out, so that he could be in no doubt. "And sex."
It reverberated, bouncing off every surface in the room and echoing against her ribcage as her heart beat a heavy rhythm. It wasn't often that Gene Hunt was dumbfounded, but on this occasion Alex took no satisfaction from it. Instead she felt vaguely nauseous, racked with nerves as she waited for him to accept or decline. He prided himself on slamming straight to the point, with everyone else but her.
He quickly recovered, and she could see the walls rebuild themselves right in front of her eyes.
"Steady on, Bols. You may be a tart, but I'm not that type of bloke."
"I don't know why I hadn't thought of it sooner. It's basic psychology."
"Oh, give me 'alf a chance at least. No quicker way to take down the flagpole than bringing the psycho-bollocks into it."
She stopped pacing for a moment, her eyes flicking briefly to his before raising to the ceiling once more. "Getting it out both of our systems." God knows she'd pent up too much of whatever it was over the last couple of years and it was affecting her in all kinds of peculiar ways. Such as suggesting the blatant offer of a shag to the Guv. "All that prolactin and serotonin, it'd calm so much of the aggression."
Alex pursed her lips, assured in her knowledge of the human body while he continued to stare at her. His eyes were really terrifically blue, pools she could submerge herself in. Was drowning a better method of dying than taking a bullet to the brain?
"And what'd it do for you, Bolly?" There was a genuine curiosity in his voice, as if he'd given thought to what he might do for her a thousand times or more. It sent a shiver careening down her spine, settling somewhere a little further.
Her expression hardly moved, and she hoped that her display of nonchalance was working.
"I'm not sure I can think off the top of my head, but there'd be lots of benefits."
He lifted his arms from his desk, languidly stretching in his chair so much that she was able to notice every sinew and fibre, his pulse throbbing in his neck and the buttons of his shirt straining against his chest. Bloody hell, he knows how to take the piss. He rose to his feet, standing like a tower again, and Alex willed herself to keep breathing in through her mouth, keeping herself steady. She could have had her pick, if this world really was of her own making, and that she'd elected to become so infatuated with Gene Hunt was the strongest sign she had that it wasn't her creation after all.
"Dunno," he muttered, simply, infuriatingly. "The way you're goin' on, it's as though a bit of slap an' tickle is the answer to everythin' in the universe."
Not for the first time and certainly not the last, his attitude had made her see red.
"My god, how old are you? You can say the word, Gene!" Her cheeks were blazing, her breath caught in her throat as she shouted herself near-hoarse. She stepped closer, so much that she was almost toe-to-toe with him, red leather nudging snakeskin. "Say it. It's not that hard."
He scoffed, the warmth of his cigarette-and-whisky stained breath breezing upon her face, hands planted firmly in the pockets of his trousers.
"It isn't anymore, Bols."
She wouldn't let him defeat her challenge, angling her neck that bit higher.
"Say it," she persisted. "Sex. Hot, frantic, absolutely mindless sex."
His eyes held with hers, his hand near enough to push her sharply back if he so wanted.
A smirk curved her lips at the corners. "Just one night. No strings, no questions or answers. That's all it is." For this moment, she would fool herself that was all it would be, purely to gain a victory over him. "Just sex. What do you say?"
It was the longest he had stayed silent, the look he was fixing her with in the absence of his words partly unreadable to her. There was something in his eyes, a flicker, and she wouldn't believe that it was softening the steel. However briefly she glimpsed it, the voice that she had banished to the back of her mind told her that she'd only ever seen him looking that way once before. He'd looked away from her, for a split second.
"You know, Bolly," he said after an eternity had seemed to have passed, "you've had a lot of fruitcake ideas in yer time."
She held her breath; this may finally be what kills her.
"But I'd say that this is the worst of them all."
Her heart sunk within her chest, though she hadn't known what she had been expecting. A year ago, six months even, it might have been different. They had fallen too far, divided in the unbearably close proximity where they stood.
Alex went back on her heels, her gaze directed at the floor so he wouldn't notice the tears that were springing to her eyes. Why she should feel so wretched she had no idea, or rather, she wished she hadn't. Amnesia would have been ideal, but unfortunately it couldn't be brought on.
"Let's forget I ever said anything," she said when she felt strong enough to look him in the eyes again. "We've got other things to focus on, haven't we?"
He nodded almost imperceptibly, swigging from the glass he held delicately in his grasp.
"I'll take a closer look at Nigel Trueman. Chris might be able to dig something out of the files, he's getting better at that."
She had the sense that she might as well have been talking to the wall, watching him for the faintest notion that he was paying any attention to her as he leaned against the edge of his desk, ankles crossed. She was about to turn to the door before his voice stopped her in her tracks, a faint air of hope possessing her.
"If you really want to get yer juices flowing again, there's someone close by 'oo'd be more than 'appy to oblige."
As though knowing he was being referred to, the shadow of Jim Keats transpired beyond the blinds, a devilish smile crossing his smug face. Her stomach twisted, bile rising in her throat. It was just as though the gun had been fired again, the bullet piercing her skin without mercy, stinging intensely where she believed she had grown numb. Gene finished off his glass, half-turned from her as she was close to breaking to her knees before him. How could he even dare to think? Quite easily, I presume.
He hung his head as she silently dared him to look at her again. Once more, he didn't accept.
"Get out, Drake," he uttered quietly, rather than bellowing the command. It made it all the worse. "Go."
"With pleasure, Guv."
She left the door rattling behind her, blocking out Shaz's cries of "Ma'am?" the best she could, holding her hand over her mouth until she got to the bathroom. She wretched for a while, the cloying smell of disinfectant hitting the back of her throat.
When there was nothing more, she put the lid back into its place and slowly lowered herself to sit, eyes pinned to the back of the closed cubicle door. Don't you dare. You're stronger than this.
You're the best of them, Alex. It's not fair.
No, no, he'll come around. He knows he can trust me. He cares about me.
Her hand went up to her temple, wanting to stop the ceaseless voices in her head, her own most of all. Keats and Summers merged into one, until she could no longer tell them apart.
Look what he's done to you.
You're alone, Alex. It's over.
For the first time in months, and acknowledging everything she'd lost – including her own sanity – Alex Drake cried.
She made herself go to Luigi's in some misguided attempt to save face but couldn't stay to finish one solitary glass. Ray muttered something about it being her time of the month, but she didn't have the energy to raise two fingers towards him. She didn't even cast a glance back at the team as they sat huddled round the two same tables. Gene had kept his distance from her all night, and though she told herself that she didn't care, that he could stay sulking like an overgrown child for the rest of eternity for all she was bothered, the ache in the middle of her chest that expanded every time she thought about him told her otherwise.
Her throat was still killing her as she unscrewed the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc she'd bought as a treat. Making her way through half of it, alone with only the television for company, she tormented herself with unwelcome thoughts. Her solitude hadn't fazed her in 2008. She had Molls, she had Evan. Here, she pretended she could get by, but in truth she was so bloody needy.
Screw him. I don't need anyone, least of all Gene bloody Hunt.
Why didn't he want her? There was a time when she could have offered herself on a plate in that scrap of material that passed as a dress and his trousers would have been off quicker than you could say 'armed bastards'. A lot of shit had happened, and perhaps it had all been too much. Bolly and the Guv – done and dusted, with a single gunshot and a ghost from a past she knew nothing about.
She laughed bitterly, her eyes drooping as she placed the bottle down, teetering on the worktop. Somehow she managed not only to take her suit pants off as she headed towards the bedroom but avoided tripping up over them too. She clicked her fingers. Still got it.
Don't listen to them, Alex. You'll be just fine.
With the wine coating her tongue and humming in her head, she drifted off into a deep sleep.
Her mouth was covered by his, his arms pinning her in place against the wall. She breathed heavily through blistering kisses, her fingers losing dexterity as she hitched her skirt up over her thighs. His pout turned into a wicked smile while he glared at her, hair all dishevelled from her hands.
"Tell me, Bolly," he growled, his hands working their way up her body. "Want to 'ear it from that posh gob of yours."
"I want you, Gene."
He pressed in closer to her, and she repressed a whimper feeling the unmistakable rigid bulge in his trousers. Her hips flexed of their own accord, her gaze on fire as she looked up at him.
"Dirty mare," he said, capturing a half-exposed breast in his palm. She couldn't help herself, moaning at his touch. "You sure about that? Because 'alf the time I don't know if you want to shag me or kill me..."
"For God's sake, Gene, please! I want you," her hands dived down, undoing his belt buckle with haste. "I want you inside me, now."
She would have cringed at the words she had just uttered at any other time, but her desire for him was at tipping point.
He chuckled before letting his trousers fall to his ankles, revealing his amazing organ. "About bloody time."
She let out a gasp as he lifted her leg over his hip, kissing her fiercely again.
" 'old on tight, Bollykecks."
He filled her with one swift stroke, and she clawed at his back, crying into his shoulder and inhaling his man-stink as he claimed her over and over again, her head spinning with the most intense pleasure she'd ever known.
"Oh god, Gene." Her voice was reaching a higher pitch as she crested a wave of pure ecstasy, not giving a toss of who was outside to hear them. "Harder, please..."
Harder, faster, until she was spiralling into oblivion.
"Gene! Yes, oh god..."
"Bolly, fuckin' hell," he groaned, his mouth next to her ear as he pressed her tighter against the wall, hands drawing her hips ever closer to his. "Alex..."
Before she could get there she woke with a start, not being shagged perilously near a filing cabinet in his office but sprawled on her back lying against her blood-red sheets. With one hand resting upon her forehead, her other wandered beneath the sheets and between her legs, sighing with deep frustration as she encountered the flood of moisture.
"Damn you, Gene Hunt," she cursed out loud, knowing that she'd need to finish off what the image of him had started, her subconscious apparently not letting her have any say in the matter.
Her subconscious was such a stubborn bitch that she ended up having the same or strikingly similar dream for nights on end.
It had been deathly quiet the last few days, with only a couple of petty thefts to occupy them – hardly the crimes of the century. Even Keats hadn't seen fit to poke his nose in, keeping himself locked away in his makeshift office.
Gene eyed her as she sauntered down the corridor, readying herself for another day looking after overdue paperwork, and he hadn't missed the unusually wide smile on her face.
"Washing machine, Bols?"
Alex smirked, folding her arms against her. "Actually, I find that a rabbit does the job much better."
His look of puzzlement was something to behold. "Do I even want to know what Bugs Bunny's got to do with yer bits an' bobs? Or is this another of yer weird fetishes?"
She bit back a laugh while she looked at him straight in the eyes. "You never need be any the wiser, Guv. Trust me on that."
Little did he know that she'd spent the previous hours dreaming of him, her and the back seat of the Quattro – which had taken her by surprise somewhat, she'd always imagined it would be the bonnet, but then Gene was still Gene in her sleep-altered mind and wouldn't stand for any arses on his precious car, even if the one in question was hers. His gaze was raking over her uncompromisingly and she flustered where she stood, shifting on her heels so that she didn't give the game away completely. If she wasn't careful she'd have to make another dash to the loo, just so she could go on with the rest of her day with some semblance of normality.
He piped up again, apparently not caring that the rest of CID were on the other side of the door. "No shortage of Thatcherite wankers around now. I thought yer'd be takin' advantage."
"Learned my lesson, Guv. Full of false promises, not exactly something a girl wants."
"Sounds about right," he huffed in amusement. "Well it's good to know you'll 'ave yer mind on the job and not in the gutter, Lady B, even if yer need to rope in the cast of Watership Down to see to it."
Oh, Gene. She smiled sweetly and said nothing more, being assured that he wouldn't cross the boundaries between her waking and dreaming worlds. Yet another dimension to contend with; it was all getting very complicated.
"You were right though, Bolly," he announced, draping himself against the wall.
For a moment she thought she was back in a state of REM. "Has someone spiked your full English, or is my hearing going?"
He scoffed. "Charmin'. I mean about the fundamentals of psychiatry."
Her eyes cast themselves upwards. "Honestly, I could be here for twenty years and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference..."
"Andy Smith turned into a pyromaniac because 'is wife was 'avin it off with his brother."
Alex tutted. "I think there was a little more to it than that, Guv. Like PTSD, for one thing."
Jesus, even Ray had figured that one out. No, that was unfair – she was doing Ray a disservice, he had genuinely connected with Andy and the whole case. Since its resolution something had shifted in him, and though it had seemed to have happened overnight with little explanation Alex was glad to have witnessed it.
"Still remains though, Bols," Gene went on, waxing lyrical about his newly-discovered theory. "All the shit that 'appens is because of three things."
He held out his fingers to demonstrate.
"Sex, money and pride."
Gene Hunt turning into a psychologist? Wonders would never cease. His thinking was rough, but she had to concede that he did have a point, if they were working on the principle of boiling matters down to the absolute minimum. As she held her gaze steadily with his, not daring to comeback with any expanded theories of her own, she had to wonder what the driving force would be behind his own motives. Possibly sex, though she had to stop flattering herself that he'd commit grievous acts due to seething jealousy over someone else ravishing her body. He wouldn't have turned down an extra bit of cash here and there, but it wasn't his main motivation.
Which left pride. That was deeply significant to a man as Alpha as Gene. He hated being taken for a mug – she knew that much from firsthand experience – and the nit-picking presence of Keats was irritating him to the point that she genuinely feared he might snap some day soon, turning the tables on himself with only a second's thought. Sam Tyler had been clever, in ways that Gene might have been considered to be lacking. Perhaps he had got too good, caught too many collars with his modern thinking, pissed Gene off no end with the suggestion that he might just be the one to take the crown after so many years of it going uncontested...
No, she promised herself that she wouldn't go down that road any more. She didn't need to know the ins and outs of it. Gene was innocent. He had to be.
If he wasn't, everything she held dear would be torn to shreds. Then where would that leave her?
His lips parted slowly, and Alex shook herself when she realised that she had been staring at them for longer than was necessary.
"Don't say I don't appreciate yer, Bols," he drawled, sending the hairs on the back of her neck to prickle. "And not just for that pretty face and scrawny arse of yours."
So they were back to it. Teasing, fighting, ignoring one another for a while and then submitting to a degree as the electricity between them sparked anew. The cycle would go on another revolve, and Alex was almost a hundred per cent certain that this limbo would persist until both of them were too defeated to cause any real shift of the axes this world was balanced on.
She supposed there were worse situations to be in.
Shaz burst through the door from CID, quickly puncturing the tension that was crackling in the air.
"Guv, Ma'am, something's just come through. Suspected abduction, and it's not a one-off."
Alex let out a sigh, planting her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and looking desolate.
"Paint on a smile, Bollykecks," Gene commanded, allowing her a moment of contemplation before yanking her by the wrist. "We've got scum to catch."
A/N: Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) written by Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. I could hardly go for any other song, timeline wise and plot wise (and Eurythmics are brilliant).
Keeping to a T rating (for now), although I'm not responsible for Alex's subconscious ;)