A/N: I've lost my appetite for any long fics at the moment, but it'll probably come back again once I've started college tomorrow. For the time being, hopefully this will suffice (lol). I have no idea where most of this came from, somewhere in the depths of my depraved mind, but I love reviews and anyone who gives them can claim Mr Hunt for a couple of days, as long as Gene doesn't s̶t̶r̶u̶g̶g̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ have somewhere else to be. Jazzola :P

5 Dreams Gene Hunt Had

1.

She falls into his kingdom looking like a hooker, and she struts into his wine bar looking like a queen.

In his head, they're always side-by-side, Alex fainting onto the grubby concrete only to wave her magic wand and swoop into Luigi's fresh, decent and even sexier than she looked flashing her knickers at him. Although he wasn't exactly averse to any future prospect of it happening. He knows it didn't happen that way, but does it really matter? All he cares about is re-living that moment, the moment when he realised she was his, his DI, really and truly and properly staying, already beginning to win him over with her cut-glass accent and the bouncy perm that she always cursed, even though she'd had the bloody thing done in the first place. The job's done now, she's done her best at taming him, and he wouldn't ever admit it to anyone but her, but he's bloody grateful.

Gene always wakes up to a wide-awake groin after that one. He doubts any red-blooded male couldn't. Christ, the woman would give Boy George a stiffy in those skin-tight jeans; God only knew how the hell she got them on as of a morning. He's grateful she does, though. And always shows her the moment they're somewhere in private.

Sometimes there are flashes of cases as well, holding her in his arms saving her from Chas Cale's fridge, smiling like a teenager on their almost-date, hauling himself off her warm body as gunfire smashes their trattoria to pieces. Comforting her in Edgehampton, bodies pressed together, sweat and heat and smell all mingling together on their fevered skin as they sought comfort in each others' arms. He'd never have admitted to a living soul that he'd needed that hug just as much as her, but he had. He'd known it wasn't his time.

She's sexy, crazy, complicated and a bloody good copper. He's proud to have her on his team, even if he doesn't show it. And he hopes that he'll be having Alex Drake at his side for a while yet, even if his chin might never recover from that right hook; at least he knows she'll be able to defend herself in a fight.

2.

He's underground. Trapped. Screaming at the earth packed around him, kicking wildly at the solidity he can't see as it pins him into place, yelling for Alex or Ray or even bloody Chris to save him- but they've all gone home and back to their lives and left him here to moulder slowly away, here with the worms and the rats, and he can scream until his throat is hoarse but nobody will ever hear him. He tries anyway, shouts until his ears are ringing, punches and thrashes and writhes in his unseen grave, but never does anyone come for him, only the suffocating darkness and the chill of the frozen earth until his eyes crash open and Alex is kneeling beside the bed.

It takes him a moment to re-orientate himself enough to realise she's asking if he's OK, but she won't leave him alone, snatches his whisky away when he grabs for it and steers him into the kitchen for a cuppa and a chat instead. Although he's always crap at the talking, and he knows it.

He's never thought where it might come from, only knows that dream started a while after his nineteenth birthday, sometime before his twentieth in any case. It doesn't come on often, but when it does he's lost, it's too powerful for him to fight, and the claustrophobia and fear and isolation snatch away any coherent thought to replace it with one single urge: scream.

Alex has tried to analyse it, of course, even made him keep a diary of when it comes on, but nothing's proven conclusive so
far. Gene assumes it's just some stupid trick his mind likes to play on him; maybe just something that happened to him, a long time ago. He still remembers Stu burying him in sand on a beach in Blackpool once, and the downstairs cupboard he and his brother used to hide in when Dad came home was always pitch-black, especially in winter when the whole house was gloomy. He's done a lot of hiding in his life.

All he really cares about- not that he'd admit this, of course- is that Alex is there to make it all better once he wakes up.

3.

There's no doubt about it. Alex looks gorgeous swathed in crimson silk, one perfect leg peeping out just for him, that enigmatic 'come-hither' smile on her face as she beckons him into his office with one slender finger.

He's only too happy to follow, the door softly closing behind him and the blinds sliding closed as Alex draws his chair back for him, motions for him to drop into it, grins cheekily as she leans down to trap his body with her own. Her breasts graze his chest and he sucks his breath in hard, tilting his head up to meet hers, velvet lips brushing his own in a featherlight touch designed to arouse and tease rather than satisfy.

She lifts herself into his lap, the silk trickling to the floor, leaving her exposed and beautiful, wanton, powerful. He positions her above his groin, the dampness of her seeping through the tent in his trousers and making him groan, thrust his hips upwards, desperate for her touch on his zip to free him.

And then he's sheathed in her, so warm and tight, and they gasp into each others' mouths as though exchanging souls, lips moulded together as they start to move. Synchronised, almost lazy to start off with, and then harder, faster, until his world is spinning, until she can barely breathe, until the white-hot heat envelops him and her moans grow louder and filthier and more insensible and the crackling pleasure shoots up his spine and-

And he's floating in bliss, Alex's head cradled in his shoulder, his hands stroking up and down her smooth back as his lips tug into a smile.

She always tuts at him in the morning when she finds the sticky sheets, but the moment Gene assures her she was the star of his fantasy he gets an adorable blush and an even more adorable biting of the lower lip, a smirk growing on her face as she glances down to his trousers and brushes her fingertips over his manhood.

One day, he tells himself as he follows her to the bedroom and lets himself be flung onto the bed, one day he will make that dream come true.

4.

He wasn't there, but he doesn't have to have been. He's heard the tales, seen the crime scene, and from there his mind has snatched it with both hands and mutated it whilst Gene was too busy grieving to notice.

He sees the blaggers, roaring away down the road in their stolen Austin, bags stuffed with jewellery and spattered with blood slung onto the back seats as the car roars away. And there's Tyler, strong, vital, and one sandwich short of a picnic, sprinting out to his car and revving away, not even waiting for Chris or Ray to run out with him. The Lone Ranger.

They're swerving everywhere, and he's yelling for Sam to be more careful because he doesn't have enough experience driving the Cortina to floor her like that, he can see the roof's violent vibrating and he knows that she's being pushed to the max. Sam veers round a corner and the tail-end swipes out to narrowly miss a lamp-post, making his heart thud painfully in his chest.

Slow down, you crazy bastard! never seems to make much difference, nor Tyler, you pansy-arsed little fairy, someone's goin' to end up dead if you carry on like that! He can only ever catch glimpses of Sam's face in the wing mirrors, but that's all he needs to see, and Sam's pursed brow and tight white lips tell him that he's going to catch these blaggers no matter what the cost…

And then the river. Glittering and gleaming, muddy waters and scrubby grass, and Sam ploughs straight over the edge and flips the car as though his whole life had been leading up to this one moment.

SAM! he screams. SAM! Get out of the car!

He hurtles down, ignoring the impossibility of it all, skids down towards the Cortina and the water's filling the cabin and Sam's drowning, lying there drowning, blood on his face and his long neck and however hard Gene yells he never moves, he never opens his eyes or smiles at Gene to tries to struggle out, simply lies there, doomed. The air bubbles dribbling from his mouth slow and cease as Gene watches helplessly, fists hammering at the windows, begging whoever might be listening to shove him in there next to Sam and die along with him because he cannot lose Sam, he can't, he won't survive.

Only he knows he will. He'll have to. No matter how tempting the sleeping pills in the bathroom cupboard look, no matter how secluded the back alley he traipses into on his way home from the pub is, he has to survive, because as lonely and unhappy as he is, life goes on, and it goes on for the people he protects as well. The sheriff might lose his deputy, but he does not abandon his citizens. He's just too badly needed.

Alex always knows when it's that one. He's cold and miserable afterwards, snapping at everyone and everything in sight, constantly complaining and whinging and yelling as he downs whisky like water and kicks the shit out of his long-suffering filing cabinets. Those are the days when the whole department works in a hushed silence, afraid of incurring the Lion's wrath, and although suspects get caught and paperwork gets filed everyone goes home feeling strung-out and headachy and very little ever gets done the next day. He always stays for half an hour after work, to read through Sam's article again, and if sometimes he gets something in his eye he hides it from everyone afterwards with drunken swagger and bullshit. It seems to them that it's finally over, and everyone's glad.

Only it's not over for Gene until he wakes up the next morning, hung-over and shaky from the lack of food the day before, and Alex wordlessly places a cup of tea and a packet of aspirin on his bedside table and drapes a cold flannel over his forehead repeatedly until he stops throwing it off. She reminds him that there is something worth fighting for, and someone to fight his corner with him, and only then can he move on again and return to work with a clear head on his shoulders and fawn file full of scribblings on the latest case tucked under his arm. Indecipherable, as always, but he has to be half-cut to do any bloody paperwork at all. He's a copper, not a sodding tax man.

He knows it wouldn't happen unless Alex was there.

5.

"Warm yer 'ands, nurse- this won't be an easy procedure."

"D'you reckon 'e's under?"

"Course 'e is! 'E ain't movin', is 'e? Pass us that trolley, an' if you could not knock all them knives on the floor this time, that'd 'elp too."

"Wasn't my fault. The floor was bumpy."

"You'll be bumpy in a minute if yer don't shut up. Come on, give us a scalp thingy, let's open 'im up an' see what needs doin'."

He's lying on a cold steel table, only a sheet to cover his dignity, his bare feet poking out the other end and starting to get chilly. Something clatters to his right, and he tries to move his head to see it, but when he does an unseen hand presses onto his forehead and directs it back.

"Ah ah, don't move now. You move, Ray might cut the wrong thing out."

"I wouldn't! I told yer, it looked like a tumour to me, I didn't know 'e actually needed it. Right then, Chris, let's get this show on the road- sharpest knife yer got, an' those tweezer things to 'old 'im open."

"What the bloody 'ell is goin' on?" he wants to say, but when he opens his mouth someone shoves something in it and he chokes instead. Coughing, tears streaming down his face, he only just catches Ray's voice from down by his stomach, Chris sidling along his body to stand next to him.

"Yer reckon 'ere'll do it?"

"Depends what yer tryin' to do."

"I know what I'm tryin' to do. You just stand there an' make yerself useful, eh? No need to worry, mate, we're completely competent, most people don't die. Stand by for the first incisor…"

"Incision, Ray."

"I knew that. Stop distractin' me an' let me get on with it… 'Ere, mate, you need to relax, be much easier fer us if yer not quite so tense…"

Gene tries to kick him, but his leg won't go in the right direction and Ray and Chris simply shake their heads, solemn looks on their faces.

"Right then. I know somethin' that'll relax 'im. Just pop 'im into position, Chris, an' we can get started… got the lube?"

Ray's zipper sounds loudly in the silence as Chris leans over Gene, grinning goofily as one hand retrieves a full bottle of gloopy translucent liquid.

"Just lie back an' think of England, mate. Works every time."

Gene generally wakes up somewhere on the floor of his bedroom, having fallen out of bed at some point during the dream. Alex can never quite understand why his face is so red as he drags the duvet back up and clambers into bed again, nor why he mysteriously starts avoiding Ray and Chris the next day at work, but Gene's not about to bloody explain why eye contact with his officers has suddenly become so difficult.

It's easily the most disturbing dream out of all of them.