lady_bols | [oom] Room 6620

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[oom] Room 6620

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Alex waits for the door to close behind Ace before turning back to face an utterly boneless Gene. He's laying half on his side, his jacket wrinkled, his hair mussed. One leg hangs over the edge of the bed.

She stands over him for a long moment, before picking up the one errant foot and slipping the boot off. The other soon follows and she tries not to let her hands linger, tries to keep her movements clinical and impersonal. She slips off his jacket and his tie, hanging them on the hook behind the door. His belt follows, and if she rests her head on his chest while her hands work it through the loops, then so be it.

She sits on the bed next to him, one leg folded beneath her. He's warm, and even through the booze and the cigarettes, she can smell his aftershave. She smooths his hair back from his face and makes sure his neck is supported by a pillow. Her hands do slow then, and she bends to brush a kiss against his cheek.

"Thought for a moment I'd lost you today." Her voice is the barest whisper, and the memory of that sickening moment when she didn't know if it was Mac or him that had taken the killing shot makes her throat tighten and her mouth go dry. "And not just when you asked that Glaswegian nutter to marry you," she laughs, biting back the tears that rise.

She rests her head against his shoulder, the strain making her lower back twinge, but she won't stretch out next to him. Ace's warning to not fall asleep across his chest still rings in her ears. (Oh but to wake up with his arms around her...)

The thought makes her sit up abruptly, scrubbing her hands over her face, dragging her fingers through her hair. She rises and toes off her boots, stepping into the bathroom. She fumbles the hot water on and grabs a cloth to remove her makeup. A few minutes later, she returns to the sound of his snoring.

Numb fingers pull the duvet up from the one side of the bed, gently covering him . She turns out the light and slips between the covers beside him, turning to lay with her back to him. Her eyes close and she listens to the sound of his breathing. Each breath, she urges another part of her body to relax. Her shoulders, her back, her legs, willing herself to let it go. Let that shot go. Let Jackie's little joke go. Let Summers go. Let it all go.

She focuses on her breathing, matching it to his, one breath at a time, until the heaviness takes over and her body slips into unconsciousness.

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He doesn't move so much as an inch all night and all of the next morning. Considering he was already pissed when he picked up the Atlantean, it's something of a miracle that midday sees him stirring, if not exactly awake.

Even in a strange room, she has slept long and deep. There's no telly to turn on at random, no phone to ring with eerie voices on the other end, no white clown looming. It's bliss, really, and her body is taking full advantage.

She's still out, her breathing deep and even, and not even his stirring wakes her.

It's perhaps another hour before his eyes open and then he wishes they hadn't. He doesn't register where he is or what happened or anything, he just stumbles to the bathroom, vaguely wishing he were dead.

A slash, a washed face and brushed teeth do nothing to make him feel better so he decides to go back to bed. Which is when he sees Alex in the bed.

His first instinct is to look down to see whether he's still got his clothes on - yes, though no belt which concerns him a little - and whether she does. He can't see much of her but her shoulders are covered which would suggest she's still decent.

To hell with it. He feels too rough to process thought. He gets back into bed, turns his back to her and tries to go back to sleep.

Her turn to slip from between the covers, still in her jeans, and stumble bleary-eyed into the bathroom. A moment later she emerges, carrying a glass of water and a bottle of paracetemol. These are deposited on his bedside table without comment. She rests a hand on his shoulder, just a brief reassuring touch, and then she returns to her side of the bed.

She lays back, one arm over her eyes, and tries to go back to sleep.

He dozes on and off but, despite the headache, can't drop off again properly. He's too aware of her presence behind him. Eventually, he sighs and rolls on to his back.

'Where're my fags?'

She mumbles something into her pillow.

'Not helpful,' he mutters, mostly to himself.

And nudges her with his elbow.

'Oi. Mrs. Woman. Where're my fags?'

Mrs. Woman?. She opens one eye.

"I smoked them all."

'Not funny, Drakey.'

A hungover Gene isn't the most fun man to be around. A hungover from Atlantean Gene, mixed with nicotine withdrawal = possibly worse than the Devil himself.

'Give.'

Almost as bad as a sexually frustrated, emotionally spent DI? Possibly. Certainly more easily remedied.

"Presuming facts not in evidence. Since when did I become the keeper of your vices, hmm?"

'Keep a pretty tigh' handle on one of 'em,' is the muttered reply, barely audible.

He looks over at her and, perhaps for the first time, really becomes aware of their situation.

He's in bed with Alex Drake.

'Wha' happened?'

I almost lost you.

"You got pissed. You drank Atlantean wine. You passed out. Ace and I muscled you up two flights of stairs. She left. I didn't."

She can't think of it as anything more than that. They're mates, colleagues, nothing more. (She can't think of that New Year's kiss, or that hour in the dark vault, or any of the rest of a thousand gloriously detailed fantasies.)

Whereas he can't help thinking that it'd be the easiest thing in the world to just...roll over. Give it a go and see what she does. Blame it on still being pissed.

But he knows he can't. She asked him, all those months ago, to accept that she couldn't, or wouldn't. And despite everything they've done together since, he doesn't think anything's changed in that regard.

'Can't remember it. Las' thing I remember is Luigi's, with you.'

He drags himself up to sitting and fumbles around for his boots.

'I'm goin' for smokes.'

She reaches for him, and misses. Her hand rests on the sheets still warm from his body, and she closes her eyes, her heart in her throat.

"Take the key," she says, pointing to the bedside table.

Which he assumes is a request for him to come back.

'Yeah,' he says, and picks it up.

He's only gone about ten minutes and along with three packets of cigarettes, has a big bag of food. It's mostly laden with grease because everyone knows that's the best hangover cure, but he does pull out a box of cereal and some milk, in case she's feeling healthy.

Everything's all over the table and he stays sitting over there, smoking (of course) because he's not going to risk going back near the bed. Besides, the bacon butties are over here.

'Hungry?'

Ten minutes is plenty of time for her to get vertical, freshen up, drag a brush through her hair and make the bed. It's more than enough time to talk herself into and out of taking a run at him, three or four times. Which is why, even with the bed made, she's still laying down.

(She can't get the idea out of her head, of just laying down with him, eye to eye, just looking at one another. It's driving her a bit spare. Because she's never been one to just look.)

She murmurs something as he settles in, and forces herself up. The electric kettle is just about whistling, and she makes them both a cup of tea. Another tea cup is commandeered for the cereal, and she sits across from him, reaching for the milk.

"Spoons in the bag?"

He nods and then discovers that that sort of head motion really isn't a good idea just now.

He can't take his eyes off the bed. It's neatly made now but that doesn't mean it isn't hiding evidence. And he has to muse to himself that it's come to something that he's letting himself think about this because it's actually the easier alternative to thinking about work, for once.

'Anythin' happen I should know abou'?'

He asks it without looking at her, keeping his face carefully neutral.

She's rummaging in the bag when he asks, and she stops, her hands falling back to the table top.

Like she would take advantage of him in that state, when he's been such a perfect gentleman with her in the past. Like she hasn't put him to bed herself, and even though it killed her to do it, walked away from that very kind of invitation. And worse, like she would slip and let something happen between them, and then let him get out of bed and walk away like it was nothing. She wonders if he really thinks she's a stone cold bitch.

"You were unconscious when I got here." There's an edge to her voice, anger thinly veiling a deeper hurt.

He raises his eyebrows and doesn't look at her. Her tone of voice is confusing for a moment before he realises she must have got the wrong end of the stick.

'Didn' realise.'

He takes a bite out of a sandwich and swallows before continuing;

'Jus' wondered if there was anythin' I should be apologisin' for this mornin'.'

He wasn't doubting her integrity, he was doubting his own. It hasn't been easy recently, especially with more and more other people openly exchanging looks and asking questions about them. He hasn't been able to forget the look on Viv's face the night they bugged Mac's office and did such a rubbish job at concealing they were going off together. Add Jackie's comments yesterday into it and the way Alex avoided the question he asked about them...yeah, it's not been easy.

Oh if only...

"Not. As. Such."

She gives up on trying to find a spoon for the cereal and steals one of his bacon butties, still fuming a little.

He has to know how much she wants him. Has to. If things were different... She doesn't look at him as she eats. She has no will right now to resist. Not after yesterday.

What he should know and what he does are two entirely different things. And what his head tells him is completely different to what his gut tells him - one says that there has, quite clearly, been no encouragement from her back at home. The other tells him that if he were to make his move, he could be on that bed, between her legs, before the fag in the ashtray has made it down to the filter.

Listening to one of these options leaves a lot less room for embarrassment and hurt and awkwardness. And he's tired and his head feels like it's about to fall off. So his brain gets the benefit of the doubt.

'Wha's wrong?'

It'd be rude not to ask. He even digs the spoon out for her.

She takes the spoon from him, and it seems like such a small thing but it still strikes her as touching. She glances up into his face and just looks at him for a long moment.

So many answers to that simple question, and he's here with her. Not shot dead. Not off with Jackie.

"Nothing. Just still tired. Food will help."

His lips purse and his eyes examine her face for a brief moment. He's acutely aware of how much he needs a bath and a shave and also, how much he doesn't care. All he wants to do is sit here and eat breakfast with her and ignore everything else.

When did they ever get what they want?

'It's goin' to be a mess when we get back. Inquiry after inquiry. I don' even know if they'll squash the Plymouth transfer. Wouldn' surprise me if the Chief Constable doesn' push it through anyway.'

Not that he'll let it happen. After what they just did, he's not going to be afraid of throwing a few threats around if the brass get difficult with him. He just wants her to realise that they're going to be walking out of here into a shit storm.

She focuses on eating the greasy mess of carbs in her hand until he mentions the transfer again.

"You can't be serious. Surely they'll know that he -- I mean, that you -- after all he put us through."

There's that touch of wildness around her eyes again, the same he saw standing in his kitchen. For someone who talks about leaving as often as she does, she certainly seems intent on keeping him close at hand.

'They don' care about us, Bols. They'll care what it looks like.'

He's never been more glad that he resisted signing that false custody report on Kevin Hales, like Mac asked him to. That'd have him out the door already, if he had.

'An' I don' know if it's escaped your notice bu' I'm not exactly well-loved by the brass. They migh' just try an' use this as an excuse t'get rid of me.'

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