Hi folks,

There's a few things I thought I could never write:

(1) serious (ie, non-parody) blokeslash
(2) yuk sex bordering on non-con
(3) Gina het!

Yet here they all are in one convenient package for your entertainment.
Enjoy!

Dedicated to those who gave me such great feedback over the past year or
so, particularly Mez, Charlie and kel, and especially the tireless
Augustus - Happy Birthday, mate!

VMG xxx

*************************************************** Title:
Rehabilitation

Author:     Viv Martella's Ghost
Email:      martellas_ghost@...
Fandom:     The Bill
Pairings:   Okaro/Klein, Okaro/Gold, Klein/Hunter,
            Okaro/other implied, Gold/other implied
Rating:     MA15+ - bit of nasty sex bordering on non-consensual
Length:     3374 words Category: first time, angst, n' a pinch of dark
Status:     complete new story
Spoilers:   late season 18 and early 19
Feedback:   always welcome - good, bad, whatever
Archivals:  Fabulae and Jasmine Alley
Summary:    Some drugs are more addictive than others
Disclaimer: not mine - Thames TV's
Note:       written for Fabulae April 2004 First Time Challenge -
            Happy Birthday, Aug!

***********************************************

//The bar of metal shelving feels cold, dusty and sharp on the fingers.
Unfiled shards cut into him as he grips it with one hand, spilling
powder down his shirt with the other and hanging for dear life onto the
foil.  Tracking the shuffle of evidence bags racing each other to the
shelf edge in syncopated jerks (blagged discman the odds on favourite,
dog-eared A to Z an outside chance) as that bastard grunts in his ear,
tearing into him.  Whispering, "I am the only thing between you and
oblivion, Nicky-boy," while Nick waits, trousers round his ankles, for
the coke to fully kick in.  Hard, despite everything.  Whores aren't
supposed to enjoy it, and he doesn't, not in his head.  It's Charlie
that makes him hard, not Hunter.  Charlie that winks, that soothes, that
calms, that makes it feel like God himself is inside him, filling him
with light.  Charlie that laughs with him, at him, an evil laugh that
makes him not care what a sad, sad git he is, nuts slapping the bunny
ears of an old television set some villain put his boot through.  "Don't
you forget it," growls Hunter with menace, and Nick can't figure out who
he hates more: him or his own fucked up, aroused self.//



It's easy to forget about Sun Hill out here.  The same river runs
through it, complete with an old gravelled tow path that would take you
all the way to the Weybank industrial estate if you followed it for long
enough.  But here it is green and quiet and smells almost clean.

Of course, it's fenced.  The fence is only a flimsy chicken wire one -
certainly easy enough to climb.  It's not a prison, after all.  But the
fence sets a limit on how far they can follow the river.  How much tow
path they can walk today.

Birds twitter in the remnant woods that separate the river from the
buildings.  Gravel crunches underfoot.  When they speak, it's slowly.
Measured.  Neither has the inclination to chatter mindlessly so there's
considerable silence, but it's comfortable silence.  Filled sometimes by
the intake of breath and tch from Klein's lips as he opens his mouth as
if to speak, then clears his throat and sighs loudly, saying nothing.
Okaro doesn't interrupt it.  They have an unspoken agreement to leave
room for the important thoughts to take shape.

Klein keeps putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again,
flicking his lighter open and snapping it back.  His body emanates a
strong odour of stale cigarette smoke.  Okaro's used to that now, after
weeks of visits.  It's to be expected anyway - he's rarely met anyone in
rehab, psych care or prison who can get through it without chain
smoking.  Something to fill the mind-numbing tedious emptiness.
Something to disguise that unpleasant smell of antiseptic and warm piss
that such institutions usually stink of.

He says quietly, "You can smoke if you want, you know it doesn't worry
me."

Klein replies, "I know, sir," puts a fag in his mouth direct from the
soft packet and lights it.  He removes it from his mouth with a shaky
hand and breathes out a big lungful of smoke, not bothering to direct it
away from Okaro.

That's fine by the super - he likes the smoke.  Klein's fags are the
same brand Gina smoked for twenty years before she started on cigars,
and there's a nostalgic resettling of memories when he smells them.
Whispers from The Old Days, the good days nested snugly between youthful
stupidity and middle-aged resignation.  The days when he and Gina had
finally worked out the truth about themselves, and rearranged their
relationship accordingly.  Their second adolescence: discovering life
anew and redefining their understanding of the word fun.  She always
with some woman in the wings, he with some bloke, but still each other's
greatest fans and too fiercely loyal to make the leap.  Deciding to stay
together, the best of friends, to buy whitegoods, to breed gorgeous
babies, to keep their assorted bits on the side.  To have it all, in
other words.  For a while it even seemed like they'd get it.

The smoke sets a vague discomfiture rising in Okaro.  A years-old
restless hunger.  Out of long practiced habit he normally squashes it
back inside himself, but these days he's finding he likes to hang onto
it.  To hold it in his hand a moment longer and feel its jagged edges
dig into his palm.  To remind himself what he could have had and to
punish himself for choosing otherwise.

It's the time spent with Klein that's done it.  Weeks of preaching to
the boy about how he's not living up to his potential.  How if there's
one thing he can't stand, it's waste.  Then, a fortnight ago, as he sat
at the wheel in the rehab centre car park, he heard Gina's voice in his
head saying, `Just listen to yourself, Adam.'

And then it hit him, really hit him for the first time.

Gina had always disapproved of him marrying Denise and he never quite
knew why.  In his arrogance, he had thought it was envy, some remnant
longing for the chance at heterosexual bliss she'd thrown off with such
apparent nonchalance.  But he saw it now.  She thought he was a coward.
Where she chose to follow her desire, thinking he would do the same, he
turned around and chose to hide behind another woman's skirts.  Too
scared - and too ambitious - to be disrespectable.

She always was braver than him that way.

It was she who'd set the ball rolling.  That Sunday night when she
didn't come home till Wednesday.  The way her eyes shone up out of her
face at him trying not to smile said it all really.  But he asked
anyway.

"How was it?"  Quietly, one tentative hand at her back, unsure for the
first time in years if he should touch her at all.

Gina only smiled a bit.

"That good, huh?" he said.

She nodded.

"You can tell me, you know," he insisted, although he was afraid of what
she would say for reasons he couldn't specify.

Gina pinched his cheek.  "I don't want to hurt you, Adam."

"You won't."

She leant past him to light up, levering herself comfortably on his
thigh as if nothing had happened, then sat back up with an elbow on his
shoulder, smoke curling around his ear.

"How can I put this?" she said.  "How's - what the hell have I been
doing for the past thirty five years?  Present company excepted, of
course."

He smiled, "Of course."

"You know I could never love anyone as much as I love you.  It's just
not possible," she said with conviction.  She stared at him with those
dark eyes glistening, making sure he knew she meant it.

"I know," he said, and he did.

He shouldn't have needed that reassurance.  They both wanted it this
way.  He should have been happy for her.

But he hadn't seen her so radiant in years, and it made him sad.
Tragic, how attractive lovers are when newly in love with someone else -
the smouldering eyes, the feline ease, the glow, the glitter, all
exactly like it was with him, long ago.

"How's your boy going?" Gina asked him, as if to remind him gently what
was what now.

"Give it time," he said dully.

How much time though, he didn't know.  Gina was always the one to act,
while he would sit back and think about it some more, consider his
options, dream.  Let the opportunity slip away.

It went on like that for a couple of years.  Gina spending more and more
time with whatever bit of crumpet she was seeing that week, and Adam
falling in and out of passionate but ultimately doomed affairs with men
whenever he could manage it.  It was always easier for her than him.
She had something that women simply flocked to, but he was so much more
reserved and awkward.  And if he got over the awkwardness, he was too
intense, scaring them away.

So then, when sex with each other had become rather laboured and silly
and they'd both rather've had a nice cup of tea, when it had started to
seem that perhaps by staying together they were holding each other back,
and when (as he later found out) a pap smear one year had brought the
realisation that there wouldn't be any gorgeous babies, Gina left.
Couldn't stand to see a beautiful thing rot, she said.  He believed her,
but he'd have been a fool not to also see her delight at finally being
able to fully stretch her new wings.

He was a fool.  Sitting in his car at the rehab centre that night, so
angry it was an hour before he was able to drive home, he knew it to be
true.  Rather than follow Gina's lead, he'd run away and hid from the
world for more than a decade, mainlining the mainstream, as dependent
and addicted as any of the residents here.  His habit had its highpoints
- he loved his kids, and Denise too - but ultimately, compared to what
it might have been, it was all rather shallow.  At nearly fifty, his
life had somehow slipped away unlived.

They reach one of the benches that have been placed at intervals along
the tow path, facing the river.  "Why don't we sit down," suggests
Okaro, and they sit.  Klein rests his elbows on his knees, his forehead
on his hand, and Okaro drapes an arm around the back of the bench.

"You were talking last week about using drugs to escape from yourself,"
says Okaro after a while.  "How do you feel about that today?"

Klein nods, draws deeply on his cigarette, scratches the rough stubble
on his jaw.

"More or less the same," he replies thoughtfully.  "Vulnerable.
Exposed.  Naked, I suppose.  Only it's worse now than it ever was
because back then, before I really started using heavily, I hadn't
actually done anything to be ashamed of.  Whereas, now..."

He sniffs, smokes, doesn't finish his sentence.

The polite thing for Okaro to do would be to let the boy deal with his
demons in private and in his own time.  But today the super's got a bee
in his bonnet about shame.  The idea of Klein letting it fester inside
makes him anxious.

"Are you referring to the theft of your colleagues' belongings?"

Klein shakes his head.  "It's not just that," he says.

There is a long silence in which Klein chugs on his fag, letting ash
fall all over himself.  Then he seems to tire of it and flicks the
cigarette away towards the river, where it rolls down the embankment.
He clenches his jaw and yawns and jiggles his leg.

"There's a lot of things you do to support your habit.  To keep your
dealers happy.  Not just stealing.  Not just sitting back and watching
while they kick seven bells out of some other punter who can't pay back
his debt."

He pauses, and Okaro watches him.  "Go on."

"Well there was this one geezer supplying me who didn't want cash.  Sick
bastard.  He weren't dealing for a living.  He did it for kicks."  Klein
sighs.  He opens his mouth a few times in wordless stammering and looks
at the ground.  "The point is that instead of money, I had to pay him in
kind.  I had to work for it.  Favours, he wanted.  All sorts."  He looks
at Okaro.  "You know what I'm saying, sir?"

"Oh, Nick," murmurs Okaro sadly.  It's no surprise, not really, but
still hard to hear.

"Anyway, it completely did my head in.  The first
time you came to see me here I thought you was after the same thing.
And the times after that, I had to wonder when you was going to pop the
question."

It stings, even though Okaro tells himself not to take it personally.
It is Klein's problem, not a reflection on him, but it was only too
recently that Mickey Webb suspected him of trading children with
paedophiles.

"Do you have such little respect for your commanding officer, PC Klein?"

Klein's eyes flare with a hint of the caged animal.  "No, sir," he says
hurriedly, thrown by this sudden assertion of authority.  "That's not it
at all, sir."

Okaro instantly regrets snapping at him.  "Forgive me," he says, looking
at Klein sheepishly.  When Klein gives him a semblance of a forgiving
smile, he continues quietly.  "What made you realise that wasn't what I
wanted?"

"Well, sir," begins Klein hesitantly, eyes flicking to and from Okaro's
rapidly, as if checking for further signs of aggression, "in my
experience most blokes'll take it any which way they can get it.  And
someone who's dependent on them's an easy touch, so they'll try it on,
or at least test the waters.  But you never touched me.  Literally, I
mean.  Never actually touched me for more than a second.  Not once,
after the day you arrested me.  Not even when I wanted you to."

Okaro is taken aback.  "Wanted me to?"

"Well not in that way, obviously."  Klein shrugs.  "Nobody else visits
me here.  I've got no friends left, no family to speak of.  And my
social worker isn't exactly the huggy type.  No one's touched me in
weeks.  I mean not even shaken my hand.  It's hard, sir.  This is the
hardest thing I've ever done and I honestly feel like I'm doing it
almost completely alone."

The super sighs.  His hand, at the back of the chair where Klein is
sitting, twitches.  He knows why he's not touched him with anything more
than cursory contact: as a general rule he avoids touching men these
days.  No point in tempting fate.  Having made his bed, he daily forces
himself to lie in it.  It's become almost second nature, made easier by
the requisite aloofness of his senior position.

But poor Nick.  He hadn't thought.

There have been men who've loved Okaro in the years since he got
married.  Wonderful, beautiful men that he simply said no to without
giving it a second's thought.  Seeming unreasonable, no doubt, but they
all went away quietly.  He had the moral high ground after all.  For all
the queer pride in the world, it's pretty hard to argue with a man whose
only flaw is being unerringly faithful to his wife.

It makes him feel sick to think about it now - what he must have put
them through.  Not to mention himself.  He let each one of them get just
so close, and then let them go with the stupid thought in the back of
his head that there was still time for something to happen one day.  No
specifics of exactly when and how it would happen - when he'd leave
Denise, or whether he'd do the dirty on her - just a vague naive hope.

Denial, some would call it.

His old sergeant, David Ackroyd, had come closest, when he was strung
out on smack and Adam was trying to make him give it up.  There was love
there, without a doubt, and David needed him.  But Adam couldn't do it,
wouldn't, held back, and David had turned his back on him with a
mouthful of nasty words.  Now he's dead, killed by Ron Gregory's thugs,
and Okaro still hasn't forgiven himself for failing to save him not
once, but twice.

Such a fool.

Such waste.

The splash of oars streaking the muddy water draw Okaro's gaze back to
the river.  It's four strong bodies in university colours, pale and
pink, bitten by the cold.  "Wankers," mutters Klein almost inaudibly,
and Okaro smiles.

"Come on," he says, "I'll walk you back to your room."

Klein gives him a brief smile and stands to walk, rooting around in his
pocket for his fags.  Okaro reaches out his hand and places it firmly on
Klein's shoulder.  Klein turns his black eyes to the hand, and then to
his face.

"You don't have to, sir.  I was only making a point."

"I know that, Nick.  I want to."

Okaro puts both arms around Klein and hugs him.  Klein hugs him back,
tight, closing his eyes and sighing loudly into his shoulder.  For a
moment Okaro stands there, holding him, feeling him breathe, feeling his
bulk, the measure of his ribs, the hardness of his lean body.  He
breathes in again the stale tobacco and sweat smell of Nick.  It seems a
lot less like Gina this close up, now it's imbued with more personality,
and he can't help but be glad of it.

Then he feels Klein fidgeting - wiping the corners of his eyes, pinching
the bridge of his nose - and when a sob escapes his throat, Okaro
realises he's trying not to cry.  He squeezes the boy tighter.  Klein
eventually pulls himself together, but he doesn't let go.  He holds onto
the big man with affection and relief.

And something else.

Okaro reacts to it, jerking back slightly, before his manners can tell
him to politely ignore it.  Then he feels like an idiot - a younger,
less uptight man would have done exactly the opposite.

But Klein is even more embarrassed than him and pulls away.

"It's the drugs, sir," he explains with painful slowness, rapidly
flushing red in the cold air.  "First melvyn on coke blows your mind.
The second is better.  But after it stops being casual use it's early
baths all round.  When you're chasing ten lines a day your libido only
lasts about five minutes a throw."  He swallows, sighs, casts a brief
look at Okaro.  "Now I'm clean, it's back with a vengeance.  Pops up at
the slightest provocation."

A laugh snorts through Okaro's nose - he can't help it.  "It's okay,
Nick," he says with a smile.  "If your body's kick-starting itself after
years of going to rust, who am I to object?"

The blush on Klein's face begins to drain away.  "That's very generous
of you, sir."

"No it's not.  I know how it feels."

He puts a hand on Klein's shoulder.  Klein meets his gaze, somewhat
guardedly, letting his mouth twist into a half smile.  Then he kisses
Okaro on the cheek, with a rasp of coarse stubble on smooth, then
beneath the ear, around his neck, under his chin.  It wasn't exactly
what Okaro meant, but that's okay.  It's nice.  In fact it's a relief.
He lets it happen, finally, after all these years.

Klein's kiss makes it all the way to Okaro's mouth and stops.  Okaro
kisses him back, briefly, gently.  But it's weird.  Sort of familiar,
but scary nonetheless.  It's not Denise, and he's forgotten how to kiss
anyone else.

"I'm sorry, sir," mutters Klein.

Okaro shakes his head.  "What for?"

"I must have misunderstood.  I thought that's what you wanted."

Okaro's lips part and he takes a breath, wary.   "How about what you
want?"

Klein looks away and sighs.  "Right now I only have two things in my
life.  The job and you.  And I want to keep them both.  You're a good
man, sir."

"Thanks," says Okaro with a slightly dubious snort.

"But if you don't want this, I won't mention it again."

Okaro grazes the boy's prickly beard with his fingers.  Klein is
certainly no David Ackroyd, and despite the fags he's no Gina Gold
either.  But he's here.  He understands.  He makes no judgements.  He
has plenty of time.

"I don't know what I want," says Okaro simply.  "I really don't, Nick.
It's been so long since I got what I wanted that I'm probably going to
have to start from scratch again in finding out."

"Amen to that," says Klein, and Okaro laughs.  For a minute he feels
like a teenager again.  A bit of giddiness in the belly, no idea what
he's doing or where this is going.  But just now - here, today - it
doesn't matter.

"Let's go find out then, shall we?" he says, and puts an arm around
Klein's shoulders to walk back down the tow path.



The End.

=====