It's No Fun Being Four Years Old

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Title: It's No Fun Being Four Years Old
Fandom: Life on Mars
Rating: White Cortina
Word Count: 1,540 approx
Pure fluff.  Once more thanks to my beta jinxed100 

 

DI Tyler was clearly not happy with his senior officer’s plans.  “It’s not fair.  I’m not doing it.”  And to prove a point he stamped his feet on the floor.

Thwack!

“Ow, what was that for?” he exclaimed as said senior officer smacked him hard on the backside.

“If you’re going to behave like a four year old, then I shall treat you like a four year old.”

Sam responded in true four year old fashion, by bursting into tears.

“Right Gladys, I shall walk out of my office and go and collect the file from Cartwright.  When I return I expect you to have got your act together.”

Gene collected the file, paused to argue about the probable result of the match the following day with Ray and came back to his office.  What he expected to see was a slightly shame-faced DI being very apologetic, what he didn’t expect to see was his DI curled up on the settee sucking his thumb.

“Okay Dorothy, I think it’s time we took you home.”

“Don’t want to go.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do.”  Sam looked mutinous. “But, unless you want another smack, I suggest you do what your Uncle Gene tells you.”  Sam muttered something, but the rebellion didn’t happen.

As they left CID Gene told the others that DI Tyler wasn’t feeling very well, so he was taking him home.

Having driven Sam back to his flat, Gene walked him to the door and then seeing the younger man make no attempt to unlock it, searched his pockets for the key.  Sam watched unresistingly as Gene let them both in.  He sat down and looked expectantly at Gene.

‘Great,’ thought Gene, ‘for some reason the twonk really is behaving like a four year old.’  He tried to remember anything useful about that age group.  His cousin had a couple of small children, but all that he could recall was that they had tea early and then went to bed.  Nothing for it then.

“What do you want for your tea?”

“Honey sandwiches.”

Gene had a look through the cupboards.  “There’s no honey, you’ll have to have jam.”  Sam smiled.  Jam sandwiches it was then.  But what did little boys drink?  Gene was fairly sure they didn’t drink tea or coffee, and he was definite they didn’t drink either cans of beer or whisky, which were the only alternatives he could see.  Then, to his relief, he found some milk in the fridge and poured a mugful.

“Right, yer tea’s ‘ere. Eat up.”  Sam ate his jam sandwiches with evident enjoyment whilst Gene looked round the kitchen area.  It appeared that Sam was growing a number of what he assumed were herbs, not that he recognised them.  The missus grew mint and parsley but these looked much more exotic.

“Finished,” said Sam.

“Right, bed time.”  Gene hoped this would work.

“Not tired,” said Sam, rubbing his eyes.

“You will be soon. Just get ready.”  Gene crossed his fingers and was relieved when a few minutes later Sam came out of the bathroom with his pyjamas on.  The jacket was incorrectly buttoned, but Gene felt that this was the least of his problems.  Sam walked across the room and climbed into bed.  Two minutes later he was fast asleep. 

The following morning Gene walked into CID feeling concerned as to what he would find.  He needn’t have worried.  DI Tyler was there and behaving as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.  Later, in Gene’s office, they went over Rathbone’s request, which had been the source of the original outburst.  Apart from Sam’s comment that the whole thing was a waste of time and wouldn’t achieve anything, which Gene had to agree with, there was no untoward behaviour.  Gene thought he’d see if Sam remembered anything from the previous afternoon.

“Did you have a good night’s sleep?”

“Yeah, I felt really refreshed this morning, as if I’d slept for hours and hours.”

Sam said no more, so Gene decided that ‘least said, soonest mended’. 

Gene had more or less forgotten the incident until a few days later, when Phyllis phoned.  “You’d better get down here as fast as you can Guv.  It’s your DI.”

He reached the front desk, but there was no sign of Sam.

“I’ve put him in one of the cells for the moment.” Phyllis told him.  “It’s okay, I’ve left the door open.”

“You’d better tell me what happened,” Gene muttered gruffly.

“An old dear had come in, wailing about having had her bag stolen.  The Boss was going past and began to shake and say something about being frightened by her.  I can’t think why, she was a harmless old biddy.   And she hadn’t had her bag stolen, just left it in the opticians after having her eyes tested.”

“What did you do with Tyler?”

“In the end I took him by the hand and put him in the cell.  I don’t know about him being frightened of her, she was getting very worried by him.  And I’ve got enough to do with these new recruits all but needing their nappies changing without having to nursemaid your DI as well.”

“I’ll take him home,” Gene’s tone was resigned.

He walked down to the cells, where sure enough, Sam was curled up on the bench sucking his thumb. 

“Right, time to go home.  Oh, and do your lace up before you fall over it.”

Sam leant over and made some ineffective attempts at tying it up.  

“I can’t,” Sam’s lower lip began to tremble.

“For goodness sake,” Gene bent over, tied the offending shoe lace and marched out of the cell.  Sam trotted behind him.

Once again they returned to Sam’s flat and Gene let them in.  This time it was far too early for Gene to send Sam to bed, and he wandered into the kitchen, trying to decide what to do.  What did you do with small children?  He’d been to the zoo once with his cousin and family, but there was no way he was taking his DI for a day out.  He realised that he was looking at Sam’s herbs again, only now he noticed that some of them had been cut; which must mean that Sam had used them in one of the exotic dishes he liked to cook.  Gene broke a piece off and smelled it gingerly.  He was no expert with home grown drugs, but this one certainly had the appearance of qualifying as one.  He knew Sam well enough to be sure that he wouldn’t have grown them knowing they were drugs, which had to mean that someone had made a mistake.

“Sam,” he called out.  “Where did these come from?”

Sam just looked confused.  Then Gene remembered how Nelson had had some plants at the back of the pub.  Occasionally Nelson would give Sam a plant – some sort of pepper or something, Gene had never paid much attention.  What if Nelson had given Sam something in error?  Gene looked around, found a box and packed the plants in it.  He’d take them back to Nelson.  He’d have to bring Sam with him as he didn’t want to leave him by himself.

“Come on, we’re going out,” Gene called and Sam obediently followed.  Gene nearly told Sam to carry the box of plants, but decided that in the circumstances it would be wiser not to.

When they reached The Railway Arms Gene marched up and bashed on the door.

“We’re not open yet, even for you Mr Hunt,” Nelson shouted.

“This is a police enquiry, so you had better open up.”

Nelson unbolted the door and let them in.

“And now that I’m here I will have that pint you’re about to offer me.  And a lemonade for m’laddo.”

Nelson looked surprised, but did as he was told.  “What can I do for you, Mr Hunt?”

“What do you know about these?”  Gene banged the box of plants down on the bar, scattering soil in the process.

Nelson looked at the plants and then picked up one particular plant.  “Oh.”

“Yes, Oh.  My guess is that DI Tyler has eaten some of that plant, with some rather unfortunate results.”

“The effects should be temporary.”

“So that’s alright then.  My DI can trot around thinking he’s four years old, but it’s only temporary, so I don’t need to worry.”

They both looked across at Sam, who was sucking the thumb of one hand and drawing patterns in the lemonade he had spilt with the fingers of the other hand.  Gene tried very hard not to laugh, but the situation was so ridiculous, he couldn’t help himself.

“Can you assure me there will be no after effects?”

Nelson nodded, a broad grin on his face.

“In which case I think that it would be simpler if this was treated as a simple misunderstanding.   Make sure that plant and any like it are properly destroyed and we’ll forget the whole thing.  And I’ll just pass this off as one of DI Tyler’s unfortunate episodes.  Thanks for the beer, Nelson; we’ll be off before we get arrested for permitting underage drinking.  Come on, Sammy boy, let’s go and buy you some honey for your tea.”