Four separate drabbles written for the 2-Day Drabbles challenge on the discoveredinalj livejournal community


Armistice

Bodie uses too much soap when washing up. He overfills the sink, soaks the counters and floods the floor. He tackles this domestic task with customary mad abandon, over the top and into the enemy trenches. Broken dishes are casualties of war.

An unexpected lull in the combat catches Doyle's attention. Bodie has captured a soap bubble and is holding it up to the light.

Doyle steps forward.

The bubble pops and Bodie turns, defensively.

This thing between them is fragile, stretched almost too thin to see. "I thought you'd dropped the soap," says Doyle.

"I still might," replies Bodie.

---

Culture Clash

Bodie frowned at the extradition papers, neatly filed behind a transparent plastic cover. "Terrorists get vacations now? Who's this Lieutenant Castillo?"

Doyle's eyes were closed and his head was on the back of his chair. "That would be Lieutenant Castillo. He's American."

"Lewd-tenant?" Bodie propped his hip on Cowley's desk and grinned.

One green eye cracked open. "Loo-tenant."

"S'pose it depends on where he's got his office," began Bodie.

"And what he does in it," finished Doyle, resignedly.

Bodie sniggered. "We should volunteer for escort. Give those coppers some Miami adVice."

Doyle was proud of himself. He didn't murder Bodie.

---

Elaborate

By preference, Bodie carries a Browning. He could sign out any other gun, but this is the one he wants. He explains to Doyle that the Browning has history. When Belgium was overrun in 1940, the Germans began manufacturing the gun for their own army. Belgian workmen sabotaged production lines and smuggled the plans to Canada…

Doyle pretends to fall asleep.

Bodie finishes his story anyway, because he knows Doyle is still listening. And because when Doyle's eyes are closed, Bodie can look as much as he likes.

"You're a romantic," says Doyle, later.

"You have no idea," replies Bodie.

---

Overnight

Love, decided Doyle, was an incomprehensible thing.

Bodie wasn't a particularly attractive sight. He was lying on his back with his mouth open, dribbling onto his chin. Lovely habit, that. When Bodie was tired enough he could soak whole pillows.

And then there was that other thing Bodie did. The reason why Doyle was awake at three in the morning.

"Oi!" Doyle kicked him. "Stop snoring!"

Bodie blinked and smiled drowsily. Rolling over, he threw an arm across Doyle's chest and fell damply asleep on his shoulder.

Three in the bloody morning, and...

Maybe not as incomprehensible as all that.

-- THE END --

September 2007