A/N: I am having the worst time at the moment, with coursework and university applications and personal things, so I have taken time out to write this and get rid of some of my misery. Yes, it is misery. Reviews would be hugely appreciated.
WALKED INTO A WALL
1: October 1945
Gene's six and proud of it. He's not the cleverest boy in his class, but he's not far off, and the teachers are always telling him he could go far if he pulls his socks up and stops picking fights with the other boys. His little brother Stu has just started in the Reception class, and Gene enjoys showing off in front of him with his friends, swearing him to secrecy about climbing the old chimney behind Classroom Five and planting mud pies in the desks of anyone who dares to mess with either of them.
On the twelfth of October, at four o'clock, Stephen Hunt comes home, already crying drunk, and minus his flat cap.
Gene instinctively knows something's very wrong, but Mam's shushing look is enough to send him and Stu scurrying back into the kitchen and he occupies himself with placating his little brother instead, dipping his fingers in the pot of red paint Gene nicked from school and helping him to draw a dog on a spare bit of paper. It's rather lopsided, and its tail is twice as long as its body, but Gene insists that some dogs are like that and starts making up a story about a dog whose tail was a mile long, plastering a fake grin over the worry in his face and rushing about the kitchen telling his story as Stu sits by the sink and gurgles with laughter, reaching for his brother with his bright red hands.
"An' then the dog 'ad to go an' get 'is golden ball from the junkyard- where d'you think it'd gone?"
"Under a car!" Stu cries, his tongue poking out from behind his teeth, and Gene drops to the floor to duck under a chair, sniffing at the dirty tiles, waggling his bottom to peals of laughter from his attentive audience. "Under a car an' covered in spiders!"
"Why spiders?"
"Cos dogs don't like spiders. Miss Reed said so."
"OK. It's all covered in spiders- so what does the dog 'ave to do? 'E 'as to bark at the spiders, bark an' bark an' bark until they're scared an' they run away, an' they leave the ball so the dog can get it back!"
Gene opens his mouth to bark, but before he can draw breath the kitchen door bursts open and smacks him straight in the face, knocking him back against the wall, blood streaming from his nose.
When he comes to an hour later, his father is standing over him, mumbling apology after apology between swigs of whisky, mopping at his little boy with a wad of tissues, his other hand grasping the whisky bottle, half-full. His mother is sat in the corner, hands clasped in her lap, refusing to meet his eyes as she does her best to disappear.
Gene's too scared to do anything but lie there and wait for his father to drink himself to sleep.
When Miss Reed asks him what happened, he says exactly what his mother told him to.
2: February 1957
Finally, he's eighteen. Ready to face the world on his own, ready to earn his own keep, and ready to drink every single one of his mates under the table at the pub. Except the last one doesn't go quite as planned, and on the eleventh of February, Gene Hunt wakes up outside his house in a puddle of his own sick, head pounding and mouth so furry he wonders for a moment if something's crawled in and started nesting there. As soon as he's summoned the energy to crawl up off the ground and examine himself in the glass of the front door, he's struck by how well the scribbling of 'pansy' on his forehead in wobbly fountain pen has persevered. Some of it's been washed off by God knows what; what remains has left the skin beneath red and angry. He has a horrible feeling the beer shower might have been the cause of that.
Mam'll be worried, she was expecting him home at about ten. He can't help but feel a little bit guilty as he stumbles up the steps and lets himself inside, heading straight to the kitchen to wash his face and gulp down a glass of water, which he promptly throws back up again. Groaning, his head more painful than he thought was humanly possible, Gene uses the wall to guide himself towards the stairs, dropping to his hands and knees to stop the world spinning and making a valiant attempt to get up and to his bedroom. Which fails quite spectacularly.
He's surprisingly comfortable passed out on the top stair until his father's boot connects with his stomach and he's thrown straight back down the stairs he worked so hard to climb, his head bashing against the banister spindles so hard he sees stars, his arm cracking beneath him as he tumbles onto the final step. Gene waits until he's come to a complete stop, until he can crack his eyes open and see his father standing on the top step, and only then screams with pain, screams that his father promptly muffles by stomping down the stairs and laying into him for being home so late.
Gene doubts the hospital doctor believes him when he gives his excuse, but nobody's about to pry. His father is standing right outside, after all.
3: September 1963
Even he's not quite sure where it came from. But the moment Henry Sanders looks up at him, sneers through his toothless gums, and tells him how tight and hot little Nancy Baker had been, Gene lays into him like he's never done before, punching and kicking, screaming his rage to the world, only clearing when Henry is lying on the floor, covered in blood, two ribs broken.
He'd known Nancy from when she was a tiny baby, entertained her by blowing raspberries on her tummy, given her dad a little painted bluebird he'd found on the street one day to make a mobile for her cot. He'd looked after her occasionally when Mrs Baker had had Gerald, sometimes palming her off on Stu, more often taking her along to the park and buying them both ice cream with the money Mr Baker had given her. He'd warned her off boys and chuckled along with her tinkling laughter, guarded her when she needed to wee behind a bush, watched her growing from little girl to confident, sweet ten-year-old with long strong hair and sparkling hazel eyes.
And then she'd been found, stripped, raped and strangled, in the very park Gene had taken her to during the summer holidays.
Old Mavis Harris had seen a man who looked a bit like Henry Sanders stealing away from the park, a minute or so after hearing Nancy scream. The cloth that had been used to gag the little girl came from the same garage Henry worked at, the vital connection Gene made, and thus it was Gene and his mate Tommy who had gone and hauled Henry in and within minutes had a confession, one that spared no detail, designed to cause Gene the maximum amount of pain possible.
And Christ, but it does.
It takes Tommy, Carling and eventually two uniform to pull Gene off him, fists spattered with blood, red-faced and roaring. Tommy hauls him out of the room and marches him down into the toilets, wrestles him over to the sinks and cleans the blood off his hands and face, all the while telling Gene that they have the bastard good and proper, he won't be able to escape, and the Guv will take control of things from here, everything will work out fine.
One month later, Henry Sanders is executed for the murder and rape of Nancy Baker. The injuries sustained after his arrest are quietly explained away with the standard excuse.
Gene is promoted to DS for his instrumental part in the case, but he will never shake from his head the memory of Catherine Baker clutching at his shirt, blotchy face glittering with tears, screaming for her little girl.
4: August 1975
It's all Sam's fault.
If Sam hadn't persuaded him to stay at the Railway Arms for another hour, hadn't paid for another whisky chaser and another after that and another after that, hadn't taken him back to his flat and let him sleep on the floor there so Sam could be there if he choked on his own sick, he wouldn't be where he is now.
But as it is, he's staggering home at five past six in the morning, head thumping, mouth dry, and the sound of him knocking the hall table over as he stumbles inside and promptly falls over wakes the missus up. He knows this because she's not subtle. They can probably hear her over in Rusholme.
"GENE BLOODY HUNT! YOU GET UP 'ERE THIS MINUTE!"
They've been married for ten years, and Gene swears she's changed his middle name without his knowledge, she uses this term of address so often. He's probably been called it more times than he has his proper name.
"Give me a second," he calls feebly, ducking into the kitchen and grabbing a clean glass from the Welsh dresser. He has to yank at the tap a bit- another thing Marie's always nagging him to do- but the headache banks down just a tad as he sips at the water, slowly, the way he's learnt to.
A door bangs out in the lounge, and Gene carefully turns to the woman stood behind him, hair in curlers, nightie ruffled, face like thunder.
"I'm sorry, love, just got a bit out of 'and last night… went 'ome with DI Tyler so's not to wake you up when I got 'ome."
"An' what time d'you call this?" She marches up to him, prodding him in the chest, and Christ but her fingernails are sharp when she's prodding them into his flesh. Gene winces, scooting backwards.
"Six? You told me you get up about now. I told you, I didn't want to wake you up." He feels like a lost puppy, one who thinks they've done what their owner wanted them to do, and can't understand why the owner's smacked their muzzle instead. It must show on his face, despite his exhaustion.
"What about spendin' time with me?" Marie hisses, shoving him back towards the counter, and Gene didn't think she would get physical but she's actually starting to scare him now. "Eh? An early night once in a while, some time with the man I love? Did you not consider that? Goin' out drinkin' all night an' expectin' me to be fine with it- God, you selfish man!"
"Calm your bloody self down, woman! I 'ad a night out with the boys, it's not like I went off an' 'ired a prozzie!"
"You bastard!"
SMACK.
Gene staggers back, clutching his face, staring at Marie as blood dribbles down his cheek and onto his shirt. Marie stands, her face slack with shock, eyes wide and misting over as Gene silently turns away to pick up a tea-towel and hold it over his face.
"Gene- sweetie-"
"I won't say anything. Just let me get ready for work."
She reaches out, as though to caress his face, but when he flinches away she snatches her hand back and runs upstairs, slamming her bedroom door. Gene can hear her muffled sobs coming through the floorboards as he gingerly takes the tea-towel away and prods at his cheek, examining the cut in the hallway mirror. Sore. He'll live. He knows how to fob Tyler off.
He sticks a plaster over it, daubing on the disinfectant cream his mam gave him last time he got injured on the job, and goes upstairs to put his arm around her, whispers apologies into her hair as they hold each other on the bed, rocking slowly. Both promising the other nothing like this will ever happen again.
It does.
5: October 1982
He wakes up on the cold ground, eyes flickering open to dim sodium lighting and the scrubby bush by the road hiding him from view. A car drives past, someone whistles for their dog to come, and it feels like the whole world has forgotten him as Gene groans, rolling onto his side, gasping at the flares of pain from his shoulder and head. Christ.
He struggles to sit up, rubbing his face with both hands, wincing. His skull throbs.
"Edgar? Edgar!"
Gene barely has time to register the posh voice that reminds him of Alex before a blur of Labrador is jumping on him, licking his face, nuzzling him, whining pitifully back at its owner; he tries to fend it off, hissing obscenities under his breath, but the moment he focusses on two big brown eyes, full of confusion and affection, his resistance fades away. He might be a lion, but there's something about the unconditional adoration that comes from a dog that he finds incredible.
The dog pants and starts lathering his hand.
"Oh my Lord, are you alright, sir? Would you like me to call the police? Ambulance?"
Edgar's owner has caught up, a grey-haired woman wearing an expensive coat, but Gene's vision is too blurred to make out anything else. She crouches down beside him, her hands on his shoulders and neck, and he's amazed at how warm her fingers feel, how cold he realises himself to be.
"I am the police," he manages to get out through chattering teeth, fumbling in his coat for his warrant card and holding it out to the woman peering at him past the excitable mass of dog. "Just g-gimme an 'and up, p-please."
"Of course, DCI Hunt." The woman catches hold of his arm and helps him to his feet, hurriedly bracing him as he tries to put weight on his injured ankle and nearly topples straight back over. "How long have you been here, Detective? Since kicking-out time? You must be frozen. Someone needs to take a proper look at you."
"I'm sure it could've been worse." Gene gently reaches up and brushes his aching eye with his fingertips, wincing. Painful, yes, but he's come off lucky; the angle they were going for, they could've fractured his skull, and then he would be in trouble. Edgar licks his spare hand, tail swishing eagerly.
"If you won't let me call an ambulance, Detective, at least let me take you back to my house," the woman says, motioning Edgar back over to her side. "Something to warm you up."
"Thanks, but I'll be fine. Don't live that far away."
"If you're sure?"
"Yeah. Course I am. Cheers, pal," he tells the dog, rubbing its back, and the tail speeds up threefold, the huge brown eyes gazing up at him with eternal love in their depths. "Although, should we meet again, the face is off limits." That's reserved for another brown-eyed creature, although one with a little more finesse. He hopes.
The woman smiles at him, gently tugging Edgar over to put his lead on.
"Sorry about that. Take care, Detective, and please see a doctor."
No way on Earth he can promise that, so he just nods, patting Edgar's rump one more time and gathering himself together before limping away, trembling uncontrollably beneath the thick Crombie coat.
As of yet, he is too dizzy and cold to think about the day ahead. But the excuse will come, as it always does, time after time; the same one that's got him through so many sticky situations in life, explained away so many incidents, but only hides a pain deeper than any physical one. A pain he simply doesn't know how to put into words. Could never admit to, would never want to, but one that eats away at him day after day, wearing him out until not even the burn of whisky can dissolve it. The pain he knows only Sam has ever really seen.
"Walked into a wall."