1. Five Times Sam Tyler Lost a Fight

Characters: Gene Hunt, Sam Tyler

Narrative mode: third-limited

Word count: 704

First published: September 10, 2009

Last updated: September 10, 2009


1. Waiting all day for the damned ponce to show up, and when he does – late, first day, bad: does he get that? Accident my arse – he starts railing about the office like he’s king of the jungle. As if it’s a contest. But this is CID, this my country and kingdom and there never was, never will be, a challenger for it. I’ll leave when I’m damn good and ready and bad luck that his first day was not that day. I showed him who is boss, who is KING and it was barely more trouble than lifting a pinkie to drink my tea. Lightweight. He lost, of course he lost: he had nothing to win.

2. Bastard lost. I have to remind him of that fact, he don’t remember things right. He makes like he went easy because of June but she was out cold in the hospital bed, dumb as a door knob poor thing so not like she knew what the hell we were doing, making a riot in her room. Four nurses – four – stopped to chase us out but you see what Tyler’s made of in moments like that. Flashed his warrant badge and all but snarled just so he could keep after me. Like a badger, he is, when he gets his teeth in. No, more like a terrier, come to think of it, all trimmed up nice and house trained. Stubborn git, thought I was going to have to hurt him, but his pretty feet don’t match up to fifteen stone and size eleven. Still bitches that I broke his toe. Trust me: if he won, he wouldn’t be bitching.

3. Ashamed. I’m not too proud to admit I was damned ashamed of my own DI chasing after Superintendent Woolfe – Harry, for chrissakes – like he was a corner junkie. Floored, I was, when Harry called it in, and someday I’ll think about apologizing to Phyllis about knocking her arse-over-teakettle trying to get out the building fast enough. By the time a made it to me car I was fuming like a steam train and Sammy Boy was lucky there was a ten minute drive to get to him so I had time to calm down. A bit. Not too much. Needed to conserve my energy because I knew before I pulled out the drive that I was throwing his arse in the boot. And I did.

4. I know it was a stupid idea. I’m not stupid so I know when I’m being stupid, and I don’t need that skinny arse to tell me when I’m being stupid. But I trust my gut instincts, and I knew I needed to get into CID – said I needed the smell to get the old investigative juices flowing, but hell I know why I had to go: to remind myself what I was fighting for. Maybe to show Sam where I belonged. He had to argue and sometimes I think he fights me for the sport of it, to prove he’s right no matter how wrong he is, just arguing with me because it’s ME. And because it is ME he is always going to lose, and hell he’d argue that too. Anyway, after Sam got his opinions out his gob, I set him straight on how things are done: My Way. That’s the only way…not in a bleeding squirrel suit, though, Christ that boy knows how to get revenge.

5. About kills me to say it. Don’t think he’ll ever know that, not that he’d believe it anyway, but it does. That is one argument I want to lose. Every day, I want to lose that fight, but I can’t, because that bastard left us to die, and I’ll never be able to agree with him that he did the right thing. He always argues that he came back – for the team, for US – and I believe him. I know it cost him somehow, I can see that, I respect it. But the right thing? No. The right thing would have been to stand by his team, his Guv, from start to finish, but he didn’t do that. Sometimes winning a fight is the biggest loss of all.


Scene Info

Characters: Gene Hunt, Sam Tyler

Narrative mode: third-limited