1. Div

Gene walks past DS Richardson's desk, trying to look at his feet and the furniture at the same time. It works as well as it always does, and he trips, and Richardson (the arrogant bastard) laughs as Gene scrambles for the edge of the desk before he crashes to the floor in an almighty heap of bones and legs and goddamnit when did he get to be so long? It was as if his last growth spurt was yesterday, and now he is still trying to figure out how to walk. He pulls himself back to vertical and ignores the laughter around him, scowling at his feet as if he intends to arrest them for assaulting an officer, and holding himself back from just shoving Richardson's desk right over the slimy git. DC Baker is jeering at him and he is not surprised that the matter of Althway is being thrown at his back again, as if he hanged the man with his own hands. Gene stuffs his shame down and makes for the desk that WDC Dobbs said was his.

He stands there, staring at it, nonplussed in action but blushing to his core. Where do they even find these things? He does not want to touch them. He knows it is not personal, thank God or he would not be in CID now -- Hell he'd be dead in the canal, courtesy his own father -- but it still hits home. Flustered, now, thinking of his own dark sins which are so perverse that no man in the room can even imagine them and are all so far from what everyone thinks his sin is, he stands and stares and the laughter picks up again, louder this time.

"Y'div! Not seen a bit o'dick yet?" Someone crows out across the room.

"Bet he don't even look at his own," Richardson snarls with a smile.

"Or the fags got yer horn up, boy? Yeah? Enjoying looking at that, are yeh?" Baker snorts, refusing to look at the cheap magazine pictures taped to Gene's desk.

Furious at himself, holding back from throttling the sons of bitches like they deserve, Gene grabs and shoves and rips at the papers until his desk is clear, balling up the obscene queer porn and shoving it into a waste paper basket. Everyone is roaring, and he realizes too late that he handled this all wrong, that once again his insecurities drove the situation down the road to public humiliation. Those bastards barely had to work at it, Gene just walked in like a moron and let them have at his weak side like a pack of wolves. He knows these things, and he understands people, so he sees what happened, where he zigged when he should have zagged, when he went into retreat when he should have attacked. What he would have done, if he were not a goddamn div.

A div with a brain, he reminds himself. A div with a hell of an arrest record, for a plod. A div who took the test for 'detective' and passed with some of the highest marks ever on the books. A div who somehow caught DI Harry Woolfe's eye and got himself a desk in CID.

The day continues in that vein, like opening a vein and letting CID drink his blood, and he comes home whipped, put up wet. Woolfe did not defend or protect him and Gene was grateful for that favor; if those bastards thought he was Harry's new favorite, they would be out for more than blood. As it stands Gene is the new guy on the the team, the youngest in the room, the div who blushes like a virgin (which he is NOT, thankyouverymuch Mrs. Glasser) every time he opens his fucking mouth. They did not invite him to the pub after work, and he was not about to crash that gate. Harry gave him a curt nod of approval as he walked out of the office and Gene clings to that faint praise with every step homeward.

He walks into his house -- his because he pays for the damn thing, to hell with his father's name on the mortgage -- and hangs up his coat like his mother taught him and listens, while he does that, for Stu. Any sound from his younger brother is a good sound, and Gene is praying for something, but all he hears is the raspy breath of his father in the parlor that is his bedroom now. He can't make the stairs, not with emphysema, so he lives in the front room with the old black-out curtains from the damn WAR (we won, Dad, time to move on). As if their family needs any help being any more peculiar, with a disgraced war vet, a drug addict, and a div of a copper all under the same roof. The only reason Gene doesn't drown in his own humiliation at work is that he's got worse at home.

He looks in on Dad and sees the man hunched near the radio, maybe drooling a bit now that the pain meds they give him are so damn strong. Gene is thankful because it means the old man took the pills Gene set out for him, and Gene is not trusting Stu enough these days to not worry about him stealing the meds when he can. Gene's got a key to the lock box with the medicines in it, in fact he's got the only key, and every time he opens it he checks to make sure there is no evidence of lock picking. He knows every scratch on that lock by heart. He counts the pills each time he opens a bottle. He hates his brother for it.

Those thoughts won't make dinner, though, so he lopes into the kitchen and nails his shoulder on the door jam, because after seventeen years in this same house he still isn't sure where it is or something. Grumbling, he takes out bread and cheese for sandwiches, because he is not a girl and only girls cook. Mrs. Potter down the road who used to baby sit him and Stu right after Mum died still sends down a casserole via her youngest daughter Amy every Thursday, but Gene thinks they have all given up on that courtship. At least he's still getting the casserole.

He makes the sandwiches and leaves one out on the counter with a towel over it for Stu, who might be home or not, Gene's not up to checking just yet, and walks into the parlor. Dad shifts a bit, looks him over with something like disdain. The eternal disappointment, Gene shuts off the radio.

"Ay!"

"Dinner, Dad. Here." Gene puts the plate on the table at his father's arm.

"Yuck."

"Dad, just eat, else the medicines will get you all sick, and I'm not cleaning your puke up again tonight." Gene says through a mouthful of food, and earns a glare.

"Shut yer mouth, boy, what'd your mum say?"

"She'd tell you to eat your food." Gene leaned back in the upholstered chair. His father prefers the hard wooden captain's chair, easier to move around he says but he never shifts it an inch. Keeps it close to the radio.

"You back from work, then?" His father chews slowly, his mouth open while he tries to breathe and eat at the same time.

"Yeah, Dad, that's why I'm home."

"Smart arsed mouth on you, boy, should take you down a notch." His father growls the familiar, empty threat. It has been years since his father could land a blow on him. Gene ignores the threat and wishes that his father had anything but emphysema, because Gene wants a smoke. Needs it. He finishes his sandwich and leans in to turn the radio back on.

"Work good?"

Surprised, Gene is honest. "No. Them bastards in CID hate me, treat me like a div."

"You ARE a div, always were. Can't even walk in a straight line. Don't know how you got on the force, 'cept yer uncle..."

"Shut it! Uncle Terry didn't do shit for me! I did this on my own."

"Don't snap at me, you ungrateful brat. Should be thankful I got this house for you, else you'd be sleepin' in the streets."

"This house don't stop Stu from sleeping in the streets, does it?" Gene snarls, hurt and angry because, again, he's handling this wrong. And Stu is the baby, the golden boy, the one who looks like Mum and reminds Dad of better days and who is smart, handsome, and athletic and who can do no wrong, even when he's pissing on himself and sleeping on park benches because he is too fucked up to walk home. Stu is threatening to leave, go to London, and Gene knows it is because he thinks the drugs are better (cheaper) there but Dad thinks it is because Gene is threatening to throw out the competition and nothing Gene ever does, including bail Stu out of jail (twice!), changes his father's mind about it.

His father rages, or tries to, and Gene apologizes forty times over and gets rattled and breaks one of the plates cleaning up, and is so mad at himself he leaves the house before he breaks something else, like, his own leg or something. Mrs. Potter always said that he grew too fast for his own good, that he never figured out his body or his mind before the boy became a man, and now he's permanently out of step, and as he trips over a curb while trying to light a fag he knows she's right.

The next day in CID is no better than the first, and the week crawls by marked by a series of humiliations that would hurt, if Gene had not been putting up with that kind of crap for so long. He once thought National Service would make a man of him, but he never got stationed anywhere interesting and he was always stuck on KP and he saw more fucking potatoes in his life than he ever wanted to know existed. Potatoes. If it weren't for fish and chips, he'd hate the damn things. And he got out of National Service no better than he went in, except the bastard sergeants there were even MORE cruel and vicious and the jerks in CID are amateurs in comparison.

It's the last day of the week for him, and he is looking forward to a long weekend of fighting with his father and trying to keep his brother out of trouble and probably moping up puke again because between the two of them, they manufacture the stuff. DCI Brooks calls a meeting, though, about a kidnapping, and everyone is staying until a lead surfaces or the missing girl is found, and Harry gets up then to brief everyone while Brooks leans against a cabinet and smokes. Gene is sitting towards the back, out of the line of fire, watching Harry.

Who stutters.

No one sees it. No one notices the bits of stutter that fall like confetti through Harry's fierce talk, while he outlines what they know (very little) and what they don't know (a lot) and rides everyone's arse for being lazy, stupid, useless fucks. For once Gene doesn't need to feel alone, but what he's really watching is Harry. He always took Harry's pauses as part of his commanding presence, holding the conversation on the tip of his tongue until he felt everyone was paying attention. But no. That's not it at all, Gene realizes as he studies the man he admires. Harry is stopping because he has to. He stops, thinks about what he wants to say, then says it. He wears a look of utter confidence when he does it so it looks like a serious man considering his words carefully, but sometimes Harry stops too long and a consonant will trip him up. Just for a moment, and he knows it too -- Gene sees the look in his eyes, the blink of frustration that disappears instantly.

No one sees it. No one but Gene. These men, they worship that man in front of them, they hang on every word and would follow him into the bowels of hell and they are fucking BLIND to the fact that Harry Woolfe is a stuttering div.

Gene works the case, stays late and gets home to a man in pain and a brother passed out in bed and after unlocking enough pills to get his father to sleep, Gene opens a window in his room and smokes a cigarette and thinks. He thinks that Harry Woolfe could be anyone or anything, but it doesn't matter because to the men in CID, he is their DI -- second to God, right? -- and go hang the rest of it. Whatever Harry does in his life, whatever he doesn't do, or stutter, or trip over or it doesn't matter what, he will be a hero to these men. He's just a stuttering div, no better than Gene and sure as hell no smarter, but he's got respect and admiration and everything and if Harry Woolfe has that, then Gene can too.

Gene just doesn't know how to get it, get past it, get on with it. But no one ever said the Hunts are cowards, and the next day when the missing girl's body is found at the dump and the mother tries to beat the hell out of Richardson and they got no one to arrest for the crime, CID filters out quietly to the pub and Gene, for the first time, follows. He's watching Harry, carefully, while he's shoved aside at the bar and spills half a pint down his front and Baker tries to trip him, which isn't hard to do after all. Harry is casual, might know he's being watched or might not; he's king of his kingdom and they all go to him, not the other way around, and so Gene could stare all night and it would not ruffle Harry's feathers.

A week later he's kicking himself while he cleans out garbage from his locker. Rotten food, mostly, kitchen garbage that someone got from the canteen girls. He's no closer to Harry's secret and he's still a div -- he's got the cast to prove it now, from breaking his arm when he tripped while chasing a suspect. Bad enough, but that he was with Richardson at the time, and bad enough, the only reason he tripped was because he was checking to see that Richardson was behind him. He is fuming and the room stinks from the garbage and his arm hurts, even with the sling the cast is heavy, and Gene thinks that he needs to lock up his father's drugs so HE doesn't try to steal any tonight.

"Stinks."

Gene looks up and Harry is there, leaning against a locker and watching Gene clean his out. Gene nods curtly, swallowing his first reaction of "Figure that out on your own, did you?" because, well, because.

"Trying to figure it out, are you?"

Gene doesn't answer, because he is tired of the games and he doesn't even want to guess what Harry's game is or why he's here. He respects Harry and assumes Harry has some modicum of respect for him and he's doing his goddamn best to live up to it. Aside from the cast on his arm.

"My stutter."

Gene glances at him sharply. "Don't know what you mean, sir."

"Oh yes you do. Don't be lying to me, boy, I see right through that crap. You're watching my mouth, and unless your cock got a fancy for it, then you are waiting for me to stutter."

Gene blushes, and Harry laughs. "Hell I know you ain't queer, wouldn't have you on my team otherwise. So it's the stuttering, then."

Gene sends a short prayer of thanks to God then nods. "Yes sir." He studies the dripping pile of goo sliding down the back of the locker and sneers.

"Atta boy. Follow your instincts."

Gene has no idea what the hell he is talking about.

"The only way I don't stutter is to not think about it. I stutter when I second guess myself, question my words. Think twice, and you stutter."

Gene gets it, then. "Yes sir." He looks directly at Harry, who snorts.

"We're all divs, Gene. Every one of us, some more than most. Richardson." Harry nods to himself at the name, and relief floods Gene. So it isn't just him. "Got no idea how stupid he is, and good thing too, or I'd have to beat some sense into him. As it is he does what I tell 'im and he stays out of trouble. You, on the other hand...you could go either way."

Gene returns to cleaning out the locker while Harry lights up a cigarette and watches him. "All I'm saying, Gene, is trust your instincts. You got the right stuff inside of you, but you keep stomping it down. I didn't bring you into CID because of your scores or your arrest record or despite what happened with Althway. You got something I can use."

"I expect so, sir."

"Good man." Harry inhales deeply and lets the smoke out of his mouth slowly. Gene doesn't look at his mouth any more. "Brooks is retiring soon," Harry starts, looking at the wall across from him. "I'll be DCI. Got no worries about that, it's in the bag. And sure enough I'll have to make Richardson DI, because that is how things are done, you understand." Harry takes another drag and is not expecting any kind of answer. "But he's on the wrong side of forty, and I'm looking to make my own team down the road. Men I can trust. Men I know."

Gene smiles, because really, that is just what he feels like doing. "Seems you know me pretty well already, sir."

Harry smiles again, slyly, looking almost mischievous, then drops his stub and puts it out with his heel. "Maybe I do."

Gene slams the locker closed, deciding then and there that he's going to confiscate a new one. Probably Richardson's.

"So, then, what's your instinct, now, DC Hunt?"

"Pub, sir."

"That's the best idea you've had all day." Harry saunters out and Gene follows him.

The pub is quiet but busy, and Gene is at the bar ordering his pint when Baker comes up and pushes him off.

"Sorry, mate. Accident." Baker sneers, and Gene shrugs. He's blushing, he feels it, but he refuses to back off. He'd just trip anyway. So he stands there and leans back in and grabs the pint that the bartender puts down before Baker can take it, but Baker (being stupid) grabs it anyway, giving Gene the momentum he needs to toss it into his face. Dripping and howling with beer stinging his eyes, Baker is trying to fight but walks backwards and Gene just laughs, and several people laugh with him. It is the best he's felt in years.

The next day, Richardson storms in and asks who the hell changed the lock on his locker. When Gene admits it, Richardson bows up, but Gene gut punches him first and hard, and Richardson is down on his knees. Gene doesn't laugh this time, and doesn't look at Harry who has come back into the room from the hall to catch what is going on. Instead Gene twists Richardson's arm behind his back and tells him to clean his OWN damn locker out because all that fucking garbage smells almost as bad as he does, and Gene might be a DC but he deserves some respect and Richardson is going to learn to give it to him or eat the goddamn garbage.

And it works because he is big, which has never been a positive aspect before, and it works because Harry just nods and walks back out, and it works because now everyone knows that Gene Hunt is a div, but a div with guts, a div who fights the fuck back even with one arm in a bloody cast. As he heads for his desk, he notices DC Ross looking at him, watching him, and it is respect there in the man's face, and admiration, and while Gene knows Ross has seniority it is as clear as day to him now that he will be promoted ahead of Ross, hell, ahead of Baker even. Gene is going to be Harry's DI someday, and no one will ever remember that he was a div, or see it, or treat him with disrespect ever again. Gene knows it is going to take time and a few more fights and probably some blood, but that's fine. His father will never like him and his brother is halfway to an early grave but Gene...he leans back as he lights his first cigarette of the day, and smiles. Gene Hunt knows that one day he's going to be DCI.

It's a good life, for a div.

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