DISCLAIMER: Not mine; if they were, Debbie would be
            deader than a can of Spam.  Muahahaha!

TITLE:      Suburban Wing
AUTHOR:     kel
PAIRING:    Hollis/Taviner
RATING:     PG, L
SPOILERS:   Dead minor for Episode 013
            (The One After The Memorial Service)
CHRONOLOGY: After Episode 013.  Before Episode 014.
            Jesus I wish they still had titles, don’t
            you?

FEEDBACK:   Of any and all stripes welcome – to
            bessie@goldweb.com.au  .

THANKS TO:  Rie for brilliant beta and support and
            oh, just *everything* for so long...
            Dedicated to Claire for a thousand
            reasons, but especially for the Mallard
            Moment.  Stop being so damn self-
            deprecating, woman!.  Thanks also to
            (a) Eggbert and (b) everyone who’s told
            me to get back on the horse.  And to
            whoever invented Des ‘cos he’s the best
            thing to happen to The Bill in *years*.


==============================

Suburban Wing
by kel

==============================


Holes.

Black holes.

Three thousand, four hundred and ninety-two small black
holes, all staring down out of the night like little
wells, little *caves*, with little cavemen thugs lurking
in them, just out of sight.  Probably beating the
bejesus out of each other with big sharp rocks.  With
big sharp rocks around a blazing big fi--

Des closes his aching eyes, wishing the night and
everything in it would go to hell.  Wishing the whole
bloody lot would just come down and be done with it.

Three thousand, four hundred and ninety-two.  That’s a
lot of holes, in a lot of tiles, and a lot of bedroom
ceiling to house them.

Not that he’s counting, oh no.  That’d be sad-fuck
behaviour, that would.  That’d be last bus to
Twatsville, don’t bother to write.

And he doesn’t have to count.  Reg did it for him, bless
his little trainspotter heart.  Just calculated away,
and dropped the figure into the conversation at
breakfast refs.  As you do.  Just threw it out there, in
front of everyone, threw it out and lured a cold and
silent Des back from that magical, faraway place where
Worrell still wiggles her stupid doris arse.  Where Sam
Harker’s body is warm, and whole.

His eyes hurt.  Good.

With effort, he turns away, turns inside; runs it all
forward to a soft grey gaze and smile, masking the
barest touch.   Everyone looking, no-one to see in the
too-light, too-bright canteen, with its smells and
noise, its white and closing walls.

“‘Ere, Des, you’ll never get this...”

It had turned into a contest, of sorts; a desperately
brittle guessing game.  He’s not the only one who needs
something else to think about.  He shouldn’t have to be
reminded.

“Stupid prick“ he whispers, savagely, and stares even
harder at the ceiling, stares until it recedes to a safe
distance.  Until the holes merge, and dull, and
disappear.

It’s a crap ceiling, saggy-tiled, and stained by
something he doesn’t want to identify.   Reg says he’ll
get it sorted.  He knows a bloke.   Reg *always* knows a
bloke.  Then again Reg says he likes the stain.  It
reminds him of the Cotswolds.

Three thousand four hundred and when the fuck exactly
did you make this earth- shattering mathematical
discovery, Reggie-babe?

He loves the way no-one even thinks to wonder what Reg
was doing in his bedroom in the first place.  Well,
what’s to wonder about? It’s only Reg, only to be
expected.  Gets everywhere, that Hollis.  Like white
mice, tinsel and crumbs.

There are times he wonders how blatant they’d have to be
before the truth dawned.

By Christ, he’d love that.  He imagines walking into
parade, one strong, possessive arm slung round Reg’s
shoulders.  Like any day, like a hundred days.  Only
this time, he’d keep it there, pull him close.  This
time, he’d walk right up to Gilmore, right past that
touchy-feely cunt and show him how it *should* be done.

Me.  Mine.  *Respect*.  And you can shove that right up
the fucking Chief Super while you’re at it.

Pride be damned.  He doesn’t know the meaning of the
word.

The stony smile in his eyes doesn’t last.

Des rolls over onto his bad side, stares at the wall for
a bit while the pain makes itself at home.  While the
pain settles in with a bevvy and a fresh pack of fags.

Headlights come and go, playing into the room with
horrid intensity.  Busy night.  Cars, sirens, meat
wagons, fires...

Watching the beams spike through the curtains makes him
think of war films, of POWs frozen in searchlights, all
earnest looks and crap accents to show they were Real.
Scousers, Geordies, Cockneys, Scots, all there to do the
stupid shit, to fuck up and get lost and die so the
poncy gits in the hats could look good for the tottie
back home.  All the heroes, all the dead fucking heroes
who didn’t look right and didn’t speak right and did all
the fucking work.

Nothing changes.

They had crap ceilings too.

The little black holes insinuate themselves into his
peripheral vision, little worm heads, little monsters,
little wells.  He hopes Reg didn’t count them during
sex.  Then again, he couldn’t blame him.  At least it’d
prove *one* of them was in the room.

It’s not Reg’s fault.  And Reg’d never dream of blaming
Des.  Perhaps that’s the problem.  Not the chasm, but
the bridge.  Slender.  Strong.  And a fuck of a long way
up if you slip.

He thinks about Harry, defiant and straight-backed in
the van.  Safe in his cage.  Lying.   Smiling.  Basking
in stolen wannabe glory, in visions of backslapping by
lifers.  Of being Real.

Should’ve smacked his fucking teeth in while he had the
chance.  At least it would’ve got him off.  Stuck it up
the CPS, and got them both where they belonged.

There’s a word for men like Harry.  And one for men like
Des.

And now they both know what it is.

He jumps at the sudden movement beside him, at a low and
incoherent muttering.  Turns with difficulty, with care,
to shape himself around the restless, awkward warmth of
Reg, around his curling, anguished form.  Presses close,
burying his face in those greying, fresh-washed curls;
presses close and wills his sleeping lover peace.  Peace
        and freedom from dreams of the screams they didn’t hear.

Des doesn’t dream.  Des doesn’t deserve to.

He waits until Reg is quiet, then settles down, into the
pillows, bruises buried deep between them.  Looks up
with blind and burning eyes and counts the little wells.
Counts, and counts, and counts again, and wonders which
of them it is that holds the tears he used to own.

 === © bessie 2002 ===