"Hullo, this is Detective Constable Gabrielle Mancini. I can't answer your call right now, so just leave a name and number and I'll get back to you ASAP. Cheers."


[Muse or mun]

[Follows THIS, THIS, THIS, and THIS]


Gee really wasn't sure if she was comfortable leaving Stuart alone, or not. She still wasn't sure that he'd get much out of Ethan, or if he'd even be able to cope with the information he did glean. She understood that people had exes - they just did. If she had a secret porn stash she'd probably be wary of Euan discovering it, but then she might have told him in the first place. And it wasn't like she had slept with a best friend's brother-in-law. It wasn't like she had a best friend right now apart from Stuart. It was only when she got her new partner that she realised how isolated she'd made herself.

And it was when she met Euan that she realised just how boring being isolated was. She pushed her fingers through her hair and tried to tidy her unruly curls. Even with her hair growing they seemed to get out of control. She let herself into Euan's building and found his flat without trouble. Since he'd come out of hospital she'd got a key to his flat and had been looking after him when she wasn't at work.

( His place was starting to become like a second home and even when they were still at each other's throats, she didn't actually want to change anything.Collapse )

If Stuart was a woman, people would probably be wondering if he was knocked up by now. The only way he seemed to be able to explain his behaviour since returning from the cruise was 'nesting'. In fact, Jules had spent the morning sniggering at him when he went so far as to Google these special muffins for people who needed to eat certain things after abdominal surgery... and then proceeded to bake them, even if they looked nothing like they did in the picture he printed out by the time he was done. And so what?! He was a copper, not Jamie Oliver. He still made them, though, and they tasted pretty damn good, if he did say so himself. That was just one thing, though. Since they got that, he hadn't exactly been overprotective of Tom, he just had an intense urge to take care of him. They were now officially living together for the first time, too, in their own that used to just be Tom's but was now theirs. It felt good. More than good. Despite the difficulties, Stuart was happy for the first time in a long time. He just wanted to make sure Tom was okay, and do what he could to make things easier. It didn't even bother him that they now had both Jules and Gus staying with them. The house was huge, and there was plenty of room. They were in separate rooms, and hardly a bother. It made sense to have them both here, and Stuart was getting too used to having his brothers on tap. It could get messy when they went back to Scotland, but that was a problem for another day.

( It was now his day off, and after the Martha Stewart moment in the kitchen, he went on to tackle the living room, which had somehow gotten messy when they got home with them both returning to work pretty much as soon as they came back from the cruise.Collapse )

Euan hadn't been joking when he told Vee that she could fight it out with Ronnie about the lift. To be honest, he just didn't have the energy to care how he got home, he just wanted to be there and well out of the hospital. He felt like a patient, and that aggravated him more than anything else. Well, maybe not as much as being placated. That still pissed him off, to the point even just remembering the conversation with Gee had him pausing in trying to get his t-shirt on before he even had it hooked over his hands. He stopped, breathless, dropping the shirt back into his lap as his face scrunched up in pain. He unfolded just a little and looked at the large dressing over the surgical wound. It hurt like a bitch, and that was being kind. They had him up walking, but not too far. He had also lost count of the amount of nurses who were frowning on his choice to leave. A string of lectures about post-op infections, and tearing sutures, and being isolated in an apartment. Euan didn't give a flying fuck about it all. He just wanted to lie in his own bed, even if it still felt like a hotel room to him.

( He was sweating slightly now with the effort, not even waiting like he was told for a nurse to help him.Collapse )

[Simultaneous to THIS and THIS]


Stuart was seriously struggling to shake the sensation that his desk belonged to someone else and he was intruding. With Euan apparently checking out extremely quickly, his stuff was still all over the place, and even though he had scooped a lot of it up and covertly stacked it at the back of Gee's desk without her realising, he was still finding it hard to get his feet at work again. He swivelled back and forth his his chair a little, still feeling a little woozy at times. Ironic, when he first got on a boat, he spent the first few days puking his guts up while he found his sea legs. Now he was back on dry land, there was another odd sensation of being too still. He wished his inner ear would make up it's fucking mind. A mind which kept wandering back to Tom, and sex, and everything between. They had no cases yet, and he was a bit at a loss, leading him to start playing with an elastic band, twirling it over and over between his fingers while he rocked back and forth on his chair.

( Until he accidentally let go of it and it flicked over the desk and hit Gee in the head.Collapse )

[Follows THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS]


Euan didn't know whether he felt more crap before, or after waking up in hospital again. Last time there had been no surgery, just a whole lot of awesome drugs. Ironically, considering he had probably had every illegal substance in his body at some point in his life in the past, and it turns out to be surgical anaesthetic that leaves him feeling like chopped dogs balls. After the initial aggravation of waking up in another hospital bed in agony, he had settled down into a slightly subdued fuming and asked the nurse for more sedatives because he felt like shit. He knew he must be in a semi-serious condition when she not only agreed, but offered him another dose of morphine. He took both, and was out like a light.

( It was now the following morning and he woke a little less abruptly now, oddly enough finding himself in a private room now.Collapse )

[Follows THIS]

Matt had been about two steps from getting into the ambulance with Euan to go to the hospital with him, but then he remembered Gee, who was apparently still in the interrogation room with the suspect. After some debate back and forth, it was Ronnie that agreed to accompany Euan in the ambulance. Euan had been drifting in and out of consciousness, and Ronnie had it in hand with his typical Ronnie Brooks reassuring calmness. As he watched Euan be loaded onto a gurney, shoved on oxygen and then wheeled away down the corridor, Matt felt guilty for not going. Almost like he was letting Vee down, and he just knew in his gut Vee would probably chew him out for it once she found out. "Fuck," Matt murmured to himself, scratching his fingers through his hair. He didn't know what the hell was going on with Euan and Gee, but he had to let her know he had just arranged for her partner to be packaged off into the back of an ambulance... and then he would have to go home and tell Vee. Thank god his shift was nearly over and considering they had just reached a crossroads in their investigation, Natalie let him knock off a bit earlier.

( He waited outside the interview rooms, pacing up and down waiting for Gee to exit, which she did, after their suspect was led off in handcuffs in the other direction by two uniforms.Collapse )

In a somewhat uncharacteristic turn of events that probably took Gee by surprised, Euan actually wanted to fuck in a bed. Even went so far as requested it when they got back to his apartment in London after the flight home from Amsterdam. Despite the full-on and impromptu trip there, once they hit the airport, Euan was a lot more subdued. True to his word, he had been nothing but the attentive date the whole time they had been there. He paid for everything, he held doors open for her, he picked expensive wines, he gave her his coat if she needed it, and the list went on. Under all the dating glitz, though, he was still Euan Fitzpatrick. His language was still in the gutter, he could still be crude in regard to sex, he would still blantly perve and ogle her if he felt like it, he still smoked like a chimney and drunk enough Guinness to sink a ship. That wasn't ever going to change, but over the days spent together, without a doubt Gee got a glimpse of the other side of him that so far had been like the Loch Ness Monster, apparently. Or like Dolly Parton's natural boobs - non existent. Or at least, it was believed to be non-existent. Euan had still maintained over and over again that he had qualities neither Gee or Vee had seen.

( But now they were home, the intense dirty weekend of sex, booze, and really, really good weed was over and they were back to reality, with Euan wanting to fuck in his bed.Collapse )