Title: One Flash Of Light But No Smoking Pistol
Fandom: Ashes To Ashes
Pairing: Gene/Alex
Challenge/Prompt: 30randomkisses, #17 Rock & Roll
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2166
Genre: Het
Copyright: Title is from Ashes To Ashes by David Bowie.
Summary: Hunt and Drake have begun getting systematically pissed. It’s a clear message.
Author’s Notes: Spoilers for 1x07, set after that. I’m not going to write for Life On Mars any more ‘cause the characters are too far out of my frame of reference (yes, I know, I’m not a doctor or an alien catcher either, but shush) and they scare me, and I’m probably not going to write for ATA after this either (no matter how much fun crazy!Alex is, I can’t do the characterisation of the others properly). But when an idea pops into your brain when you’re half-asleep on a bus, who are you to deny it?



For once, they’re agreed on something.

They’ve actually decided to share the blame for Shaz’s almost-murder, and not let anyone else get their hands on it (though there’s no guarantee that one of them won’t nick it and run off while the other one’s back is turned; it’s that sort of a night). Luigi, in resigned deference to the fact they’re ordering bottle after bottle of booze and not talking to anyone while they drink it, has turned off the music and is now wiping glasses silently behind the bar.

Hunt and Drake have begun getting systematically pissed.

It’s a clear message: they’re in for the long haul. Might even be here until Christmas, and wouldn’t that be bloody funny?

Alex’s mind is sifting through its file cards and helpfully chucking up memories of her father reading The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, when she was young and impressionable. Always winter but never Christmas. It feels like that here sometimes; all the hard work with none of the payoff.

And she’s developing a headache like that bullet is actually drilling its way straight through her skull, here and now. What would Gene do, she wonders idly, if she dropped dead right here, now, at this table.

Belatedly, she remembers that he isn’t real. None of them are. So when did she stop thinking of them as mere constructs? At some point, she forgot that her mind made them as an obstacle course to try and save her life. Synaptic playthings, dressed up in retro clothes. And that’s all they are.

“You’ve really outdone yourself, Bolly,” Gene informs her. His mouth is twisting a little into what obviously wants to be a sneer, but he’s drunk just enough to start the lack of co-ordination. So his lips move, and Alex watches them for a second before she remembers to reply.

“I thought,” she says, voice just the wrong side of prim, “That we agreed it was both our faults.”

Gene’s fingers close around another bottle of beer, pull it closer.

“Trying to get me suspended was just you being a bloody idiot,” he says calmly. “And a bitchy bloody idiot at that.”

Alex preferred the drinking in morose silence part. This bit is more difficult, and she doesn’t want to have this argument again. Not since it went so well last time. Her throat stings when she swallows. Gene is hurt, she can see that, and sooner or later he’s going to admit it because they’re at that point of the drinking arc. Oh, of course he won’t say it in so many words, but it’ll be there.

”You’re a Rubic’s cube,” she mutters a little resentfully. “You’re a Rubic’s cube, you shouldn’t have emotions.”

“See,” Gene begins, “I could easily get you suspended on account of you being nuttier than my mother’s walnut cake, but I don’t, do I?”

Alex is in control. Alex isn’t in control. Alex is beginning to suspect it would be easier to peel the coloured stickers off the Rubic’s cube and stick them back on in order, rather than keep twisting it around.

“Why don’t you?” she asks, sharp.

Watch the construct get uncomfortable. Watch as the edges of his mouth tighten. It really isn’t healthy in Alex’s head.

“You should get me suspended,” she mumbles.

Yes, of course, she’d like that, wouldn’t she? Sitting around on the sofa, talking to the clown that isn’t on the TV screen, rolling over in the night and screaming for Molly. She might as well face it; getting back’s barely an option any more.

“I’m not playing this game, Bolly,” he warns her.

Her mouth tightens. “You could call me Alex,” she suggests.

Gene snickers in reply, soft and derisive.

“But you won’t, will you,” she continues. “Because you’re a mis- mis-” Gene watches her fumble the word around her mouth for a while, bemusement flaring in those bottomless eyes. “Misogynist,” she finishes triumphantly.

Gene shrugs. “I’ve been called worse by far greater tarts than you, love,” he replies.

Watch the stakes change. Watch Alex try and fight her own mind. But Gene leans over her, gestures to Luigi, bottle of your most battery-acid red, please. Wouldn’t want to enjoy this or anything.

The curls are falling out of her hair because she’s too exhausted to do this. Pockets of her mind pop open and just where did that bloody clown come from anyway? Alex bites her tongue, and can’t swallow for a long moment.

“But you asked me out,” she continues, flicking the ace up her sleeve across the tabletop. “So what’s this, an experiment?”

It’s sort of cruel to do this, even if he is a construct. He doesn’t know that he isn’t real, after all. And they both very nearly got Shaz killed today, if only because they couldn’t open their mouths and say stop fast enough.

“This isn’t a date, Bolly,” he says. “I know most of your dates seem to involve getting pissed and leaping on the nearest man, but that’s not going to happen tonight.”

“Night’s still young,” she reminds him.

“It isn’t,” Luigi tells them both, putting the uncorked bottle on the table.

“At least we’re not saying grassy-arse and pretending it’s your language,” Alex points out.

Luigi shrugs in a you may have a point, much as I hate to admit it sort of way, while Gene pours himself a glass of wine.

“Ooh,” he groans, swallowing. “That’s foul. Good man.”

Alex looks at the red wine for a minute, weighing the results of drinking it with the results of not drinking it, and sighs, reaching across the table. Gene smacks her hand away and pours her glass for her – some weird shred of chivalry left clinging – before sliding it across to her.

“To first-class cock-ups,” he says, holding up his glass. Peace offering? It seems unfair of her constructs to be impossible to read. They’re her damn imaginary friends, after all. Well, maybe not friends, but…

Alex hesitates, and then clinks her glass against his. Taking a sip, she shudders, and watches Gene laugh.

“I want better wine,” she says. “You’d better take me somewhere decent.”

“Who says I want to take you anywhere?” he asks. “You kicked my stuff to little pieces on the pavement, love. I won’t want to have dinner with you if you’re prone to temper tantrums every time you don’t get your own way.”

Alex looks at her wine and wonders if her mascara is smudged. She is bloody crazy, really, it’s more than a little depressing. And trampling on Gene’s belongings, stamping the cardboard box flat, gave her a moment of peace. Well, whatever passes for peace, which probably isn’t very peaceful at all.

“I don’t have temper tantrums,” she protests finally. Sticks out her bottom lip like a child, and ooh, he’s watching her mouth with a little much interest.

“Sulking,” he informs her, and his tone might be called singsong on someone else. Probably not on Gene Hunt though.

Alex musters every last trace of dignity she’s got left before it sinks without trace. “This is… inadvisable,” she manages. She feels faintly amused that she can manage words of three syllables while metabolising that much alcohol; maybe she’s finally learning to hold her drink.

Gene smiles; or at least his mouth moves, and Alex hopes for the best. “You and me, sweetheart, we’re the bloody monarchs of ‘inadvisable’,” he says.

Alex finishes the wine in her glass, spilling a drop down her chin. She wipes it with a shaky hand, and notices miserably that she’s got blood on her dress. A smear of Shaz’s blood, going brown as it dries. Her hand shakes as she tries to put her glass back on the table, it falls and smashes.

Gene nods to himself, pushes himself to his feet on the table. He doesn’t forget to grab the rest of the wine.

“We’ll take this upstairs,” he informs Luigi, pulling Alex to her feet. His fingers are too tight around her upper arm, and she mutters this, a spill of words that are mostly expletives. He ignores her, and practically pulls her towards the stairs.

“I thought you said this wasn’t a date,” Alex mutters.

“It isn’t, Bolly,” he replies. “But someone’s got to take you home.”

She leans on him just a little too much, just a little more than necessary. Alex wonders if he’s noticed, but his fingers are still biting into her arm. Dragging her more than supporting her, and she collapses against the sofa. Gene sits beside her.

“This is where you take advantage, isn’t it,” she mutters.

“Not me, love,” Gene tells her. “I’m a gentleman.”

Alex scoffs. “You’re not. You let Chris and Ray beat up-”

“Didn’t touch him myself, though, did I?” Gene smirks.

The construct is a stupid dick. The construct should stop talking.

“That just makes you a bully,” Alex spits, “In charge of your gang of thugs.”

If he’s bothered by her accusation, Gene doesn’t show it.

“It’s all a playground ‘round here, Bolly,” he says. “Take you and me.”

“There is no ‘you and me’,” Alex protests. Her voice feels shrill.

“Like kids in the playground,” Gene continues, ignoring her. “Little boys pull little girls’ pigtails in the hope they’ll get a glimpse of their knickers behind the bike sheds.”

Alex thinks about this for a confused, protracted second. “You’ve already seen my knickers,” she manages finally. “On more than one occasion.”

“Well,” he smirks, “There’s always one in every class.”

“If you call me a slut again I shall…” Alex thinks. “I shall be sick on you.”

“Bloody marvellous,” Gene murmurs dryly.

Alex swallows. If she wanted, she could probably play this right the way through. Gene’s her figment of imagination, she can make him say whatever she wants, if she pushes. She managed boybands earlier, slipped them into casual conversation. She could turn the conversation into casual clichés, fuel it on song lyrics. Bryan Adams, maybe, or…

“When you call my name, it’s like a little prayer,” Gene says.

Alex cricks her neck when she turns to look at him. “What?”

“Didn’t say anything,” he shrugs. “You’ve had far too much to drink, Bolly.”

Madonna won’t be dancing in front of burning crosses and annoying everyone for another eight years. Alex bites down on her tongue, forcing herself to think clearly.

“Can’t hold my drink,” she mumbles.

You can’t drink much when you’re a single mother; she thought about it on bad nights, but Alex figured out quickly that she couldn’t face sitting alone in the living room with a bottle of white wine while Molly slept on the other side of the wall. The most she ever came to was a drink or two with Evan.

Oh, Evan. Jesus. Even if this isn’t the real Evan, just a shade of him conjured up by her subconscious to try and keep her here, the problems that are surfacing are starting to worry her. There’s something really rather terrifying about trying to seduce your parent-figure. A psychiatrist would have a field day, and what’s Alex again? Oh, right.

“Right,” Gene decides, “I’m putting you to bed.”

Alex allows him to drag her to her bedroom, push her onto her bed. She collapses onto it, and watches with bemusement as he tugs her boots off for her.

“Gene,” she begins hesitantly.

“You’re drunk,” he says. “You’re drunk and you’ve been through a load of shit today. So we’re not doing this.”

Alex nods, and sits up anyway. She catches him before she can straighten up fully, catches Gene with a hand in the back of his hair and presses her mouth to his. His mouth opens, presumably to express a warning and tell her to bloody stop, but she breathes in sharply and he doesn’t.

It’s interesting to note that, just for a moment, he can’t resist kissing her back.

“Bad girl,” he whispers, pulling himself away. “Naughty Bolly.”

Alex can’t think of anything to say. A mere imaginary creation shouldn’t get her this flustered and confused. After all, Gene Hunt isn’t real, and he isn’t even an original manifestation of her subconscious, because she stole him from a dead man’s cassette tape. Sam Tyler created Gene, and Alex is merely borrowing him. She gets a brief, surreal image of the two of them fighting over these people, over whether Alex plagiarised them or not. Can you copyright your own hallucinations?

She groans, rolls onto her side, and buries her face in her pillow. Look how grown-up she can be.

“You should go away,” she murmurs.

“I’m rat-arsed,” Gene tells her. “I’m sleeping on your sofa. You can make me a cuppa in the morning.”

“For a figment of my imagination, you’re awfully demanding,” Alex tells him.

“For a DI, you’re awfully bloody insane,” Gene responds blandly. “Goodnight, Bolly.”

“Are you ever going to call me Alex?” she asks.

He laughs quietly in the dark. “Not yet.”