Faded Echoes by Clonesgirl
When Gene invites Sam to move in with him little does he realize how his life will be transformed.
The technical stuff:
RATING: PG-13 Green Cortina
PAIRING: Gene/Missus, Gene/Sam, Sam/Gene
WORD COUNT: 4,700
WARNINGS: Slashiness and tales of household goods and appliances
SPOILERS: None
ARCHIVE: The Motley Collection
DISCLAIMER: Characters borrowed from BBC and Kudos strictly for fun, not profit. No offence intended.
BETA: Not betaed. Apologies. If you spot any goofs please let me know.
FEEDBACK: Would be lovely, not to mention encourage me to scribble some more fic.
NOTE: If you wish to link to this story it would be much appreciated if you could let the
author know.
SUMMARY: This is a room, a very small room, at the back of a very small house...
* * *
The spare room had always been merely the spare room, filled with old and even not-so-old stuff. The stuff that accumulated over the years and there didn't seem to be anywhere else to put it. Stuff that no one wanted but couldn't quite bring themselves to part with either. Somewhere in Gene Hunt's spare room he knew there was a single bed, a wardrobe, a dressing table, a chair and a small bedside table, all of which had systematically been covered with the unwanted detritus of a marriage - the things that were never used. The unwanted things. Things that the missus had bought that she'd lost interest in. Things of his that he no longer had a use for and, in some cases, never did. Unwanted Christmas gifts that neither of them had known what to do with. Boxes filled with old books, old clothing, even older shoes and God only knew what else. It was the room he never went into. The room with the closed door that was perennially cold and decrepit and dusty for it was full of echoes of the past; of a marriage that was over and done with and had been long before his missus had walked out the door for the final time.
On the dressing table there was an old art deco lamp with a faded pink fringed shade that never matched it. Next to it was a large pile of old 78s from the Forties and Fifties that were no longer in vogue and had been dumped there years earlier after the old gramophone had broken down. Also sitting on it was the old seventeen inch black and white Pye television. It had been their very first one. Still worked too but now superseded by the colour one downstairs. Leaning against the dressing table were a pair of tennis rackets which had never been used, golf clubs ditto, and next to them was an old vacuum cleaner which the missus said didn't suck properly any more. Stuffed in one corner and buried under a pile of boxes he knew there was even a rocking chair which the missus had fallen in love with and insisted on buying only last year even if it was too big for the sitting room and didn't go with the rest of the furniture. "We're keeping it," the missus had said. "Maybe one day we'll have a bigger house," she'd added, giving him a dirty look. "And maybe one day we'll all live on the Moon," he said. So he'd brought it up here, thrown a few boxes aside and shoved it in the corner beside the wardrobe before throwing said boxes on top of it so that it was properly buried along with everything else in the room.
In the wardrobe there were their old wedding clothes sealed in clothing bags that shrouded them in anonymity. Never to be worn again and never to be seen again either. Beside them hung his old army uniform and various other pieces of clothing that were long out of style but he hadn't wanted to part with including ties. On top of the wardrobe there was even more stuff including, he knew, the wedding album. All the pictures taken of the happy, smiling bride and groom long forgotten amidst the arguments, the charges of infidelity, the drinking and the constant reminder of "My mother warned me not to marry a copper. He'll drink, she said. He'll never come home, she said. He'll play up on you with anything in a skirt, she said. The phone will ring all hours of the night, she said - and she was right!" And he'd seriously wondered if marriage and being a copper could ever be compatible. Somehow he doubted it. Far too many decent officers wound up divorced and God knows he was no exception now himself.
Over the years he'd made an effort now and then to clean out the junk but it only seemed to pile up again even worse than before. Besides, after the missus had finally left the room got even worse as he'd tossed into it all the stuff she'd left behind. All the things she hadn't wanted to take with her on her new start in life, or so she said. "And guess what, Gene Hunt? I'm even leaving your name behind. I'm going back to using my maiden name!" had been her parting words. After almost twenty odd years of being Mrs Hunt he thought that that was more than a little ridiculous and said that she was a bit long in the tooth but if she wanted to be a pop star and call herself Lulu II then he wished her luck and she'd called him an ignorant sod before slamming the front door for the last time. So after that the room had only got worse and was now up to the rafters with stuff largely thanks to him throwing in there everything of hers that he didn't want and didn't really have time to dispose of. He'd phoned her at her sister's place to ask if she'd wanted any of it but she said no on account of it would only remind her of the twenty years she'd wasted on him.
Gene Hunt's marriage had been teetering on the brink when his new DI had burst into his life acting king of the jungle and demanding to know what year it was. But that was Sam Tyler for you - brilliant but had to be held in check as he had a tendency to go off the deep end. That was the day they arrested Edward Kramer. What a day that was. So had been the day they'd become more than mere colleagues or even friends. After that time - God, that night in Beckwith Lane on a stakeout - when Sam had bent over to take him in his mouth and, much to his own surprise, he'd returned the favour, they'd spent the night at Sam's place and did a whole lot of things that were just plain impossible in the bucket seats of a Cortina. Things that bible thumpers would condemn them to hell for. Though they'd managed to keep their voices low at certain strategic moments - and God only knows how - that rotten fold-up bed had nearly done his back in, not to mention the noise from the creaky, rattling old springs was enough to wake not just the rest of the building but the whole ruddy street. In fact he couldn't work out how the rickety old thing was still in one piece after the workout they'd given it.
Then there'd been Sam's next door neighbour, one Mrs Brown, a faded blonde harridan with hair perennially in curlers and a spotted scarf knotted on top of her head so that a bunch of curlers always showed over her forehead. The next morning Gene had left early to go home first and change but when Sam left she not only gave him a filthy look but muttered something about some people needing their beauty sleep. He'd apologized for the noise and said that he'd had a little party the night before. "Party?" she'd said. "Some 'party' that was. I heard you at it all night." When he told Gene about it they'd both agreed that utilizing Sam's bed in future was out of the question, not to mention if any of their colleagues happened to drive along Sam's street they'd see the Cortina and wonder why it was parked outside his DI's flat all night. Trouble was he didn't like parking it out of sight around the block where he couldn't keep an eye on it as it wasn't the best of neighbourhoods. So after that it was strictly Gene's house where at least the car could be safely parked in the garage and there was a comfortably large queen size bed with springs that wouldn't wake the whole street, or even the next door neighbour. The neighbours all knew he was a copper anyway and thought nothing of seeing Sam coming and going with a bunch of files in his arms.
Sam coming over every other night and sometimes cooking dinner for two had worked well. Gene was happy like he hadn't been in a very long time. Being with Sam, waking up next to Sam, just talking with Sam about anything and everything, even arguing with him, made him happy. And the sex... Christ, but he couldn't believe it. He thought he'd been around and then some, but then again for the sake of his career, his marriage and his reputation he'd never done the one thing he'd always wanted - sex with another man. Oh, he'd imagined plenty and sometimes he'd ache with wanting it, but that was only in his mind where no one else could see, touch, or taste the things he wanted. Until one day Sam Tyler burst into his life and all his hidden desires suddenly had a focus. And sex with Sam was like... Well it was like... God, it's a wonder he didn't have a heart attack. He couldn't remember when sex had ever been this good, even when he was first married, and Sam never held back. Sam would do anything and everything he wanted and then some. The feel - hell, just the look - of that slim body in tight jeans and body shirts, medallion glistening at his throat, could turn him on like nothing and no one else he'd ever seen. In fact things were going so well that he decided he may as well ask Sam to move in. Well it only made sense, didn't it? Two bachelor blokes rooming together and no one needed to know what they did in their spare time. However, it hadn't been as easy as he'd thought to persuade Sam to move in. For one thing Sam was convinced that they'd fight over anything and everything from what to cook to whose turn it was to clean the bathroom, vacuum, wash up, do the washing and ironing, not to mention deciding what to watch on telly. Sam had also made a point of reminding him that even though he could cook he was not going to be a wife to him and fully expected him to do his share. After all, they were both blokes so it would have to be share and share alike. Oh, and since he wasn't a wife he wanted his own room too. So he'd advised Gene to think about it and decide whether he really wanted him, or a woman who would pick up after him, clean for him, cook for him, do his washing and ironing and sleep with him no questions asked - in other words a wife. Or did he want Sam, companionship, equal sharing of household chores and fantastic sex?
Well at first he'd been angry that Sam was being so demanding. He didn't need this. What was he that he needed sex all the time anyway? A slave to his hormones or some such bollocks? You'd think he was a randy teenager all over again. But then he looked at Sam, really looked at him, and, worse luck, his heart seemed to be getting in the way as it hadn't for a very long time. So he'd given in and given his word that he'd do his share. Now all they had to agree on, according to Sam, was how much he'd pay for board and they'd argued over that too. He was adamant he was not going to charge Sam and Sam was equally adamant that he'd pay. In the end they'd agreed on a sum and also agreed to halve all the household bills and expenses. However, thinking that it was all settled and that Sam could move in on the weekend proved somewhat premature. The first thing Sam wanted was a complete tour of the house, especially the parts he hadn't had occasion to see yet. The laundry did not meet with his satisfaction.
"A bloody twin tub! You have to be kidding."
"What's wrong with it? It's better than the old wringer machine we had before."
"A wringer? God help me! If I move in we're getting a fully automatic."
"And how much is that gonna set us back?"
"We'll investigate. It's what we're good at - remember?"
Then there was the guest room, which would be his room - and he hadn't liked that either. Not one little bit.
"I've seen bigger shoe boxes," he'd remarked.
"Yeah, well it's Victorian. What do you expect?"
"Dark too. No wonder, looks straight onto the wall of the house next door."
"Yeah, well, not many people have ever stayed in it."
"I don't wonder."
Then it was "What's in there?" indicating the closed door of the room next door.
"You don't want to go in there, Sam. Nothin' but an heap of old shite in there."
But of course Sam had done just that. He'd gone straight into the spare room and he'd looked... and he'd looked...
"Hey, this room is much bigger! It's got a decent size window too. Looks out the back of the house, doesn't it?"
"Sam, it's full of old rubbish."
"We can clean it up."
"You want to clean up this lot, Marjorie? You're off your head you are."
"Yeah. This room'd be perfect."
"I should've known."
"You mean you should have known better with a girl like me?"
"Always knew you were a big girl."
"Don't you know your Beatles?"
And Gene had rolled his eyes as Sam had pushed his way further into the room, disturbing the old dust which now began to float about in the still air.
"Oi. I will not be responsible if you do yourself an injury in there. Room's not fit for human habitation."
"This is great! What a treasure trove! Hey, you got an old telly! Does it work?"
"Did last time we used it but it's only an old black and white."
"So are lots of movies. It'll do for now and stop us fighting over what to watch. That lamp has a nice base. Art deco. All it needs is a new shade. And look at all the old records." He climbed his way over to the dressing table and started rifling through them. "You've got early Frank Sinatra, you've got Forties big bands, you've got jazz..."
"Yeah, they were mine."
Sam spotted something else under some boxes and moved them aside. "It's a tea chest. So what's in it?" Eagerly, he opened it. "Hey, more records. You've got Connie Francis, you've got Rosemary Clooney, you've got Perry Como, you've got Doris Day, you've got Julie London..."
"That were the missus. They're mostly hers."
Sam sneezed loudly. "God, this place is dusty. You've even got Eartha Kitt. Don't tell me your wife bought that."
And so it went on. Sam was like a kid at Christmas. "Tennis rackets? Cool! We can whack a ball around. Great exercise."
"Bollocks. Game for poofs that is. Gene Hunt does not hit nancy little balls around a tennis court."
"You think tennis is easy? Hey, golf clubs! I hear the Met have a tournament for their officers every year. You could practice and beat them at their own game."
"God help me."
"Gene, you've been holding out on me. This is amazing. What else have you got in here?" There was no stopping him. "Hey, you've got crockery!"
"That one were a wedding gift," he muttered. "Missus hated it. Should've been thrown out years ago."
"And there's more of it. Three sets? Hey, this one's Noritake. That's good stuff."
"Yeah, well you'd be the expert, Gladys."
"This is great! We'll use them. What's that?"
He'd seen the base of the rocking chair over in the corner beside the wardrobe and climbed over some other stuff to get to it. He immediately started lifting boxes off it.
"It's a rocking chair!"
"Don't start. The missus bought it only last year but it's too ruddy big for the living room. I'll get rid of it."
"Oh, no, you won't."
"What? You don't mean to say you like the nancy thing?"
"Yeah, it's great. My Auntie Heather had one just like it. When I was little she used to hold me on her lap and rock me in it."
"Oh, I can just see you sitting in it, Martha, knittin' yourself a shawl."
"I can use it for meditation."
"What? You mean like that tranny Maharishi bollocks?"
"It's trancendental..." But Sam had spotted something else. "Hey, what's that? Is that a...?" He pulled the old blanket off it. "It is! It's a sewing machine."
"Don't tell me you know how to work one of them girlie contraptions."
"My mum had one but hers was electric. My dad bought it for her. Used to make me clothes with it. This is an old treadle one like the one Auntie Heather had." He started to open boxes. "Shit, look at all the patterns too. Must be at least a hundred of them." Grinning, he held up one illustrating a long, sleeveless gown with a full skirt and a large bow at the waist.
"It's you to a 't', Dorothy."
He spotted something else. "What's that?" He indicated a large box still partially covered in Christmas wrapping paper and climbed his way over to it, pulling off the remainder of the Christmas wrapper to expose the box. "A set of saucepans?"
"Yeah. Her cousin in Canada sent them last Christmas but she didn't like them. Said there were nothin' wrong with the ones we have. Wanted me to give 'em to a charity shop but I never did."
"These are stainless steel with copper bottoms. Much better than your old aluminium ones. Hey, there's a steamer too! These are great, Gene. We can throw out the old ones. I'm taking these downstairs and we can use them tonight."
He started to open more boxes. "Books! You've got books in here too! And what's that? It's a slide projector. And look at all the slides. This is amazing..."
"God help me," he'd moaned as he stood there shaking his head. "That were the missus too. Loved to take pictures when we went on holiday and nagged me into buyin' that contraption so we could look at them in glorious colour and she could bore the panties off all her friends."
Sam stopped then and climbed his way back over to the door. "Sorry, Gene. I wasn't thinking. I didn't mean to dredge up old memories and..."
"Hey, you know me. Water off a duck's back and all that..." But before he could finish Sam gave him a contrite kiss that made him forget all about old holidays with the missus.
He'd already known that his life would never be the same that night in Beckwith Lane. Now it seemed to have taken a permanent turn to the left because, for better or for worse, his home would never be the same now either since the poncy Sam Tyler seemed to be hell bent on improving it.
In the end, a task that he would have found tedious at best had been fun with the two of them doing it. What wasn't worth saving they took to the local tip or donated to charity and slowly the room had taken shape. Lunchtimes they'd go home, pile another load in the car and get rid of some more, but there was a lot they saved too because Sam kept saying that this or that would be worth good money in the future at some computer auction place though he hadn't been able to work out how unwanted household goods could be worth money at some place where they auctioned computers. In the meantime Sam had moved in and his clothes were hanging neatly in the guest room wardrobe.
They finally got to the stage where the single bed was once more visible. Just needed a bit of a dust, in his opinion. Only trouble was Sam hated it. Said he'd had enough of single beds and squeaky springs to last him a lifetime. They could get rid of it and he'd buy himself something better.
*
Two months had passed since Sam had moved his belongings from the guest room into the spare room - and the room had been transformed. True to his word Sam had invested in a new bed.
"A double? For a big fairy like you? Thought you'd be wantin' a queen."
Sam had merely looked his manly physique up and down and said he already had one. Cheeky sod! "Besides it's nice and firm. Good back support too. Now I can lie in bed and watch telly in comfort. And while I was at it I bought a heater too. Winter's around the corner."
Sam had also found a nice little art deco style shade in gold and cream for the lamp. There was now a bookshelf that the two of them had made loaded not just with his own books but many that had been found in the room too. The incongruous cane rocking chair with its dark wood sat before the window looking strangely, to Gene's eyes, like it had always belonged there. Beside it was a small round table in a matching dark wood with a scented candle on it. The black and white television now sat on the tea chest at the foot of the bed. The old Singer sewing machine, now oiled and dusted, had been moved to the guest room. Gone were the old faded pink curtains and in their place was a cream holland blind and dark green curtains in a heavy material with a thick, fade-proof backing. Nothing matched, Gene thought, yet it all seemed to somehow fit together. It wasn't the spare room any more - it was Sam's room now, and he'd really made it his own.
They also had music now. The old records were downstairs, stacked neatly upright in racks on shelves so they wouldn't get all warped. Alongside them sat the brand new hi-fi which, according to Sam, had an amplifier, a tuner, a solid state turntable and a cassette player/recorder too and was the best that they could get for the money.
"It'd better be," Gene had grumbled while admiring the size of the speakers. He also had to admit that the sound quality was excellent whether it was the old 78s that hissed a lot - it had a noise reduction switch - or the newest Led Zeppelin or The Who that Sam brought home. And it could play them little cassette things too. He remembered the talk they'd had while looking at cartridges and cassettes in a store with Sam advocating cassettes.
"Are you sure? What about them 8-track things?"
"Trust me, Gene, cassettes are the way of the future - well until CDs come along."
"What?"
"Compact Disks. You need a laser to play them but they're a ways off."
"A laser?"
"Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation."
"You mean to say we'll need nuclear power in the house just to play music?"
"Music quality is brilliant and when the video cassette recorder comes along we're buying a VHS model, not a Beta 'cause, just like the audio cassette, VHS is the format that survives - well until DVDs come along, then HD DVDs."
"What?"
"Technology comes and technology goes. For now we have a good system."
"Bollocks. If half what you said is true it's not gonna last long."
Even the laundry had been spruced up somewhat. In place of the old Hoover twin tub there was now a brand new gleaming, white Westinghouse heavy duty, push button, automatic washing machine which one Gene Hunt seemed to like very much trying out the settings and pushing different buttons. This had proved somewhat more expensive than first thought as it also involved more than one visit from a local plumber to install proper hot and cold taps for an automatic which the old twin tub had never needed.
There was also a new tumble dryer which one Gene Hunt decided that he also liked a lot because everything came out of it all nice and crinkly and smooth and didn't need ironing. And as far as ironing went, Sam had taken one look at the perfectly good iron and said "Where's the steam?" That resulted in another purchase, so they now had a nice, new steam iron as well.
Next on the agenda was the kitchen which didn't have enough shelves and had a benchtop the size of a pinhead, at least according to Sam, but that was for the future when they had the money, as was Gene's room. For now, they were broke.
*
Gene Hunt had never liked the spare room but he could honestly say now that he really did like it. He loved to walk in and find Sam curled up in bed so he could join him. It was Sam's room now and he'd made it his own. He remembered the first night he'd walked into the room and found Sam propped up against the pillows in the double bed watching telly and looking downright cosy with the bedcovers snugly around him and the small art deco lamp glowing softly on a low chest of drawers next to the bed. He'd asked if Sam was going to sleep right there and Sam had smiled at him, rearranged the pillows so they were side by side and slid down in the bed. So Gene had turned off the TV, removed his bathrobe and slippers and Sam had welcomed him into his new bed with the warmest of welcomes. Thereafter they could both attest to the fact that it was cosy and warm, firm, quite bouncy but quiet with not a squeak to be heard and very, very comfortable.
From then on whenever Sam wanted to watch something different on telly - and often when he didn't - they'd spend the night in Sam's room. They both liked the room very much now. It was a nice room anyway, almost as big as the front bedroom and it even had a decent view of the city landscape whereas the front bedroom merely faced across the narrow street. Sometimes Gene would find Sam in the room at night with the lights out looking out the window at the city and the moonlight shining on the back garden. He would rest his hands on Sam's shoulders and the two of them would stand there in silence contemplating the quiet scene before them yet knowing that so much of the city was riddled with crime. He'd always thought of it as 'his city', but once when they were gazing out the window one night Sam had murmured, "Our city" and he knew it was true, and he'd whispered the same in Sam's ear.
Once, many months earlier, he had asked Sam why he often seemed so unhappy and all Sam had said was "Echoes." So he'd asked what he meant by that and Sam had sat there drinking scotch in his dreary little flat and muttered "Hyde."
That first night in Sam's new bed as they lay sated and sleepy he'd asked Sam if he still got echoes.
"No. Not any more. And you? Does this room still remind you of your wife?"
"Nah. Reminds me of me picky, pain-in-the-arse DI now. Not sure if it's Arthur or Martha, not sure if it's comin' or goin', got more twists and turns than a James Bond plot... but it's you, Sam. It's you."
There was no answer and when Gene turned to look at him he discovered that Sam had fallen asleep. So he reached over and turned off the little lamp before gathering him in his arms and covering them both up. Smiling, he whispered, "You're such a girl, Dorothy."
"I heard that."
* * *
