TITLE: "Wet Weekend"
PAIRING: Gene/Alex
GENRE: Humour
RATING: K+ for adult situations
A/N: This came as a result from my friend Lizzie from back in England and fellow A2A fan, who challenged me to write a crackfic with the stipulation that it had to take place in Suffolk. It isn't quite a crackfic. This is about as weird as it gets for me. But it does take place in Suffolk! And it is outside my comfort zone -- I think I needed a brief break from my current story, which has me a basket case. This, however, is pretty much angst free!

xxXXxx

"There must be worse places to spend a week-end than Lowestoft," Gene slurred, "But I'll be buggered if I can think of any."

It was the Met's new initiative, sending divisions out into remote locations for team-building exercises. Special Branch had got a golf holiday. Flying Squad spent a week-end in the Cotswolds. Fenchurch East CID had been packed off to Lowestoft, and they were now holed up in the worst seaside hotel in the whole of England on the gloomiest July week-end quite possibly ever, bonding over dodgy seafood.

They'd come up from London with visions of sunshine, sand, and free-flowing booze running through their mind, but it had rained they whole time, and they'd had spent the last two days doing poxy trust exercises, the kind where someone falls backward, and the rest of the team has to catch them. They'd accidentally dropped Ray, or at least they'd told him it was an accident.

They all sat now on their last night in Suffolk drinking their over-priced drinks in the awful hotel bar while Ray sulked with a bag of ice on his head. A combo made up of old men in mambo ruffles was playing "The Girl from Ipanema" for the third time in a row. The whole place smelled like rancid chip fat and stale fag smoke.

"It's not that bad," Alex said hopefully and looked out the window onto the beach. "Look, I think the sun is coming out. Come on. Come for a walk with me."

"Do I look like a 'long walks on the beach at sunset' sort of bloke to you, Bolly?"

"Oh, come on! It's our last night here! It's been ages since I've been to the seaside. I just want to walk on the sand and watch the sunset. Come with me."

"It's colder than a polar bear's knackers out there!"

She chewed on the corner of her lip for a moment. "I bought a new two-piece."

"I'll meet you down here in ten minutes."

xxXXxx

Please let it not be a banana hammock please let it not be a banana hammock please please please.

She muttered it under her breath as she turned the corner back into the hotel bar, and she was pleasantly surprised to see him standing there in a faded Manchester City jersey and a pair of trunks that came to a modest mid-thigh level. The battered trainers were all wrong, but at least he wasn't wearing boots.

He was leaning against the bar, looking up at the television overhead when she entered. "Ready?" she said, and he turned towards her. She could see his Adam's apple bob in his throat as he looked her up and down in her bikini with the sarong knotted over her hips.

"Flamin' Nora, Bolls…"

She raised an eyebrow and crossed ahead of him out onto the terrace, where he followed. They were hit by a wall of cold sea air. "It's fine!" she said. "Just a little brisk!"

They headed shivering out onto the nearly empty beach. A mum and dad in wooly jumpers sat bundled in chairs while their blue-lipped offspring made sand castles.

"Down to the pier and back, eh?" he said, and she nodded. He took off ahead of her, and she walked a few paces behind him, admiring the view.

Nice bum. Gene Hunt's actually got a very nice bum. Solid. And he's all leg! I'd never noticed it before. Big, broad torso sitting on top of two legs. Two long, firm legs. Oh, my.

"What are you doing back there, Bolls?" He stopped and looked over his shoulder at her impatiently.

"Me? Looking for sea shells."

"Well, shake a leg. I'm bloody freezing."

They walked a little bit on, knee-deep in the frigid water before she let out a cry of pain and collapsed on the sand with her hands wrapped around her ankle.

"Gene! Help!"

"What is it? What's wrong? You hurt yourself?"

"My foot!"

"You step on glass?"

"No, not glass. Jellyfish, I think. Shit shit shit!"

"What's a jellyfish doing in Lowestoft?"

"I don't know! Must've got caught in the current!" She sucked in a breath through her teeth. "Bloody hell, that hurts!"

"Well...what do we do?!" He sounded slightly panicked and stood bent over her with his hands on his knees.

"I don't know…first aid…"

"Can you walk on it?"

"No! Hurts too much! And you'll never be able to carry me all the way back to the hotel!"

He stood up, shuffling awkwardly in the sand. "Right. Well. I'll run back for help. Sit. Stay."

"I'm not a spaniel!"

"Well, what the bloody hell should I do?"

She sat huffing in pain, wheels spinning in her mind until she hit on something she read on the internet at some point. She let out a groan.

"What? What is it?"

"Ammonia," she said heavily. "I need ammonia. Ammonia will neutralise the venom."

"Well, let me just pull the toilet cleanser out of my Speedo, shall I?"

"Ammonia, Gene," she snapped. "Think."

He frowned for a moment, and then looked at her in wide-eyed realisation. "Oh, no no no no."

"It's the only way!"

"You want me to piddle on you?"

"Yes, Gene! For God's sake!"

"Here? You want me to whip out the wedding tackle here?"

"What, are you worried you might get nicked by the penis police? We are the penis police!"

"Will you stop saying penis police!" He exhaled and started to fiddle with the drawstring of his trunks. "Blimey, Bolls, I knew you were kinky, but I never took you for this kind of bird."

"Shut up and do it! Now!"

"All right. Brace yourself, Bolly." He reached into his trunks and pulled out a not inconsiderable eyeful.

"A little warning, please!" she said and turned her head away quickly. She couldn't quite resist cutting her eyes surreptitiously back over.

Oh. My. That's impressive, she managed to think through the pain. "Come on, Gene. Please," she whimpered as she waited. "Hurry."

"Sorry, sweetheart, but it's got a long way to travel."

She was sitting there, in pain, on the worst beach in England watching Gene Hunt about to wee on her. This was not the way she had seen this week-end shaping up. She watched in fascination as the amber flow arced out of the tip of his knob and splattered onto her ankle in a warm, liquid stream.

She shuddered when it was done. He sat down next to her on the darkened beach. She'd managed to miss the sunset on top of everything. No one said a word.

"That. Was awful."

"'Struth," he said quietly, shaking his head. "I'd like to think I'm a man of the world, Bolly, but I have never widdled on a woman while she writhes in pain on the sand."

"Don't tell anyone."

"Hadn't planned on it."

"In fact, we will never, ever speak about what happened just now."

"Fer Chrissakes, Bolls. I piddled on you. It's not like we crash landed in the Andes and ate human flesh."

"Oh, God," she groaned. "You're not helping."

He stood up and brushed the sand off himself. "Better?"

"Yes, I think."

He offered her his hand, and he pulled her up. She fell against him, and he put an arm around her shoulder. "I've got you."

She limped with him back to the hotel in silence. Something had happened out there on the beach. They shared bodily fluids. Well, he had anyway. She'd seen the wedding tackle. Not that she'd ever want to repeat it in any way, shape, or form, but far from being horrified by what had happened, she was strangely…titillated.

She could feel herself redden as they entered the hotel and walked into the bar. Shaz, Chris, and Ray were still sitting there nursing their drinks, and the band was still playing "Girl from Ipanema."

"I wonder if the Girl from Ipanema ever got whizzed on."

She shot him a hard look, but then Ray caught sight of them.

"Urinate!" Ray said, pointing up at Alex. She and Gene exchanged guilty looks.

"What? What was that?"

"You're in eight," he repeated, holding up a room key. "Someone left a key here. Must be yours. Room 8."

"Oh. Of course. Thanks." She grabbed the key and tucked it back into her bag.

Gene pulled out a chair for her, and she shivered as he put his hand on the small of her back. She smiled at Shaz as she sat down next to her.

"What pongs?" Shaz asked, sniffing.

"What? Nothing. I don't smell anything."

"Yeah. I smell it." Chris volunteered. "Smells like…"

"All right, we've got an early start back to London tomorrow," Gene interrupted. "Off to bed, the lot of you."

The others grumbled as they pushed back their chairs and started for the door.

"That was the worst holiday ever," said Shaz.

"Yeah," Chris mumbled as they left the room. "Just our luck it had to be pissing down all week-end."

After they were gone, Gene crossed to the bar and came back with two glasses. They sat sipping in the silence.

"Wasn't that bad, was it?"

"I suppose not." She looked at him sheepishly. "There was something rather…intimate about it."

He blinked and swallowed hard. "Eh?"

"Mmmmm. Strangely erotic." She leaned forward with her chin in the palm of her hand. "Yes. As a matter of fact, in some African cultures, we would actually be considered married now."

"That so?"

"No, Gene." She smiled at him. "But thank you. For helping me. I saw a whole new side of you. It was, shall we say…an eye-opening experience."

He smiled back and raised his glass. "Oh, I do love a woman who knows how to take the piss."

THE END

A/N: I'm told the jellyfish sting cure is actually an old wives' tale. But jellyfish do occasionally come down from the North Sea onto the Suffolk coast!