Written for the "Discovered in a Sketchbook" challenge on the discoveredinalj livejournal community.


The only downside to working for CI5, in Bodie's estimation, was that it wasn't all gun battles and car chases. There were also long hours spent doing absolutely nothing at all, while the terrorists were off visiting their mums. Or whatever it was terrorists did when they weren't busy terrorizing honest folk.

Bodie stared into the bottom of his coffee mug. He tilted it and watched the last few brown drops slide across the porcelain. The break room was safe enough. Close enough to hear Cowley bellow, but far enough away he couldn't be accused of being underfoot.

He could hear Doyle behind him at the table, his pen scratching paper. He was most likely drafting an apology to his latest bird for standing her up. Bodie had sent his Jane a dozen carnations, which should mollify her. If not, he was going to have to shell out for roses, but he'd rather not. Birds had a way of taking roses, particularly red ones, a bit too seriously.

Bodie glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Doyle's arm land on top of the paper. "Hey, what's this?" The glimpse he'd caught hadn't looked anything like a love letter.

Doyle scowled. "Nothing that concerns you."

It was an unwise answer. "Come on, let's see."

"No!" Doyle's elbow hit his biro, knocking it onto the floor. He didn't move to pick it up. Instead he stayed where he was, covering the paper and glaring.

"You were drawing a picture," said Bodie. He leant forward and planted both hands on the table, looking down at Doyle. To his delight, he noticed that Doyle's ears had taken on a pink hue.

Bodie paused a moment and then without warning grabbed the exposed corner of the paper. Doyle's reflexes were not slowed in the slightest by his obvious embarrassment. He snagged the other end and the paper ripped.

Bodie straightened and was delighted to discover that he had most of the picture in his possession. He examined his prize.

"I told you it was nothing," growled Doyle after a moment.

Bodie turned the paper sideways and tilted his head. Random pen lines abruptly came together into a clear picture. "It's my cup," he said, delighted.

"It's a cup." Doyle pushed his chair back and got to his feet.

"No," said Bodie, jabbing a finger at the sunflowers on the cup in the picture. "That's my cup, which means that's my hand."

"Give it here!" Doyle leant across the table and yanked the paper out of Bodie's hand. He crumpled it into a tight ball.

"Hey," protested Bodie as Doyle tossed the drawing into the wastepaper basket. "What are you throwing your picture away for? It was good."

"Bollocks," said Doyle. He seemed about to say more, but Cowley's dulcet tones interrupted him.

"Bodie! Doyle! With me."

Bodie glanced at the door in time to see Cowley walk past, clearly not prepared to wait for either of them.

Relief flickered briefly across Doyle's face before he hurried out to the hall.

Bodie pursed his lips thoughtfully. Moody sod, he thought. But the picture had been good. He retrieved the crumpled paper from the bin and smoothed it out. Yeah, that was his cup. And his hand, looking just like a real hand, which was more than he'd ever managed any time he'd attempted to put his own pen to paper. Bodie slipped the picture into his pocket, and dashed out of the room to catch up with Doyle.



Doyle had long ago accepted that obbos were an inescapable part of working for CI5. Hours spent freezing in drafty garrets or baking in stuffy vans with either headphones or binoculars, and sometimes both at once, was the price he paid for helping keep England smelling like roses.

This time however it was neither a garret or a van, but rather a car, and Doyle had neither headphones nor binoculars, but a camera with a telescopic lens. He was almost comfortable for a change.

A man in a business suit turned the corner and began walking down the street. Doyle took a couple of shots, but lowered his camera when he realized that the man had no intention of stopping at the address he was watching.

"I suppose photography appeals to your artistic side," commented Bodie, beside him.

"I don't have an artistic side," said Doyle.

"Of course you do," said Bodie. "You went to art school, didn't you?"

Doyle glanced over at Bodie. He was leaning against the door, idly examining his fingernails. "I went for the birds."

Bodie snorted disbelievingly. "Except for your life drawing classes, where you weren't at all interested in the nudes."

"It's the--"

"Aesthetic appreciation of the human form, I know," interrupted Bodie. "Why did you leave art school?"

No, thought Doyle. He wasn't going to start telling tales just to entertain a bored Bodie. "First tell me why you left Africa." That was safe enough, Bodie had never given him a straight answer on that one.

Bodie's eyes widened innocently. "Why, I left for the birds, of course."

"Because there were no birds anywhere on the continent of Africa," said Doyle, flatly.

"Oh, sure. Lovely dark birds, in town, and if you were willing to pay. Out in the bush, however..." Bodie shook his head sadly. "None but us lads. And when that hairy bloke on your right starts looking good, that's when you know it's time to catch the next boat home."

A bark of laughter escaped Doyle, surprising him.

"Why did you leave art school?" asked Bodie, again. "Remember, I've seen you draw. You're not half bad."

Doyle's good humour vanished. "Bollocks."

Bodie's eyebrow lifted. "That's what you said before."

Doyle sighed and glanced up and down the empty street. There was no real reason not to answer Bodie's question. "I drew a lot when I was a kid. Always scribbling in notebooks. People said I was good."

"And?"

"And so I went to school and discovered that I wasn't very good after all." Doyle shrugged. "That's all there is to it."

"So you gave up."

Doyle thought he could hear censure in Bodie's voice. "Look, imagine if you were trying to shoot and you kept missing the centre of the target."

"I'd want to check my sights," said Bodie.

"It's not the gun," said Doyle, "it's you."

"Eh?"

"You're on the range and you're watching other people hit the bullseye. But every time you fire, you miss. You're an inch to the right, or the left, and everyone says that's just great. But you can see the target sitting there in plain sight, and you know it's not good enough."

"Right. If you can't have what you want, it's not worth trying." Bodie shrugged. "I suppose that's to my benefit, right? Bloody useless you'd be to me as an artist."

Doyle's R/T buzzed at that moment. He gave Bodie a warning glance as he thumbed the button. This was a subject close to Doyle's heart and he wasn't going to tolerate any ragging.

Then the dispatcher's apologetic words sank in.

"What do you mean we're at the wrong address? We're where you told us to be!"

---

Much later, when the dust had settled, Doyle had time to wonder about what Bodie had said.

...when that hairy bloke on your right starts looking good...

Obviously he hadn't meant it seriously. Most likely, Bodie had just become bored with the routine.

Doyle wondered how much longer it would be before Bodie decided to move on from CI5 as well. The merchant marines, the mercs, the Army, the SAS... none of them had kept him for long.

Doyle glanced over at Bodie, who was now asleep against the passenger side door. Then he looked at the front door of the house -- the right house -- and found it just as quiet as it had been a moment earlier.

Patting his pockets he found a biro, and a notebook. Just a moment to catch a sketch of Bodie's hand on his knee. He was good at drawing hands, always had been.

It felt right to put pen to paper, exercising long neglected skills. The first time he'd tried it, just a few days ago in the break room, he'd expected it to hurt. But to his surprise, he'd discovered that the old wound was completely healed.

He wasn't an artist, and that was all right.



Bodie couldn't let it go. Something about Doyle and art school and drawing continued to bother him. He could understand where Doyle was coming from. Certainly there was no reason pursuing a career you weren't suited for. Like himself and higher education. He'd known by the time he was ten that there was no future for him in books. It'd only taken him another four years to find a way out.

That wasn't the problem. But Bodie was certain that there was a problem. It was just a matter of working out what the hell it was.

He began to watch his partner closely. And what he quickly discovered was that Doyle sketched more frequently than he'd realized. He sketched during meetings and breaks, on napkins and in the corners of books. His pictures were always tiny, sometimes barely more than few lines, and they always ended up in the bin.

Bodie began discreetly rescuing them, tossing them in his desk at the end of the day, with the sketch Doyle had made of his mug. There was a boot crossed over a knee, a bit of chair with the faintest hint of a person sitting in it, a shoulder holster pulled tight across a back... And lots of hands, all of which Bodie suspected belonged to him.

The next time he caught Doyle in the act was at a pub, when he was supposed to be listening to his bird sing.

"And what's this supposed to be?" Bodie leant over Doyle's shoulder, catching a glimpse before Doyle's arm covered it. His own bird, Jane, was off in the ladies, doing whatever it was birds did in there. Besides the obvious, which shouldn't take half the time it always seemed to take them.

"What does it look like? I was scribbling," said Doyle.

"No, mate," said Bodie, into his ear. "Scribbling is what Anson does when he decorates his reports with naked birds smoking cigars. Or those atom bomb clouds Tommy keeps leaving on napkins."

"I thought those were flowers."

The music was making it hard to hear, and Doyle's bird was still caterwauling away up on stage. "Thought you were more observant than that," said Bodie, loudly. "The bloody corpses of the stickmen are a dead giveaway."

"Why do you care anyway?"

"Because Anson draws naked birds, and Tommy draws mushroom clouds, but you draw me."

"Bollocks!"

"You keep saying that!" It looked as if Doyle might make a break for it, so Bodie grabbed his shirt and made sure he stayed seated. "You draw my cup, my jacket, once you even drew my shoe! And hands. You keep drawing my hands."

"You think too highly of yourself." The music had stopped, and Doyle deliberately turned away from Bodie and began clapping enthusiastically.

Bodie let him go. He had an outline of the problem, but not enough detail to know what the hell it was. He'd have to find a different way to look at it.

And then Jane came back with her blouse open two more buttons and her skirt two inches shorter, and he had something else entirely to think about.

---

Jane liked Bodie, she really did. He was handsome, engaging and uncomplicated. You could dress him up and take him out and he wouldn't embarrass you. But he was also dreadfully unreliable, constantly begging off dates at the last minute and blaming it on his job.

"But what do you really do for a living?" Jane asked, over the music. All he'd ever told her was that it was very boring.

Bodie was staring at her chest. Her own fault really. No point waving it in their faces if you want them to notice what you're saying. Jane did up one button and asked her question again.

He smiled brightly and slid his hand around her waist. "I'm a portrait artist," he said, smirking. "I specialize in hands."

"You liar!"

He pouted, pretending to be hurt. "I'm the sensitive artistic type. Can't you tell?"

"If I went by looks, I'd think you were into something dodgy." Jane had entertained the notion for a while that Bodie was a bank robber, but he didn't seem nearly twitchy enough, nor rich enough to be successfully retired from a criminal career.

"Artists make the best lovers," he said, cheekily. "If I was creative, I could write poems about you. Oh, my love's like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in June..."

"Did you make that up?" she asked, utterly charmed.

He laughed and pulled her onto his lap. "Of course not. Robbie Burns wrote it."

"Anyway," she said. "You wouldn't be an artist then, you'd be a writer."

He kissed the side of her neck.

Jane wouldn't be put off so easily. She twisted in his lap and put her hand over his mouth. "Tell me what you do, or I'll find myself someone more respectable, who shows up for dates when he says he will."

Bodie mimed helplessness, looking at her over her hand, his eyes creased with amusement. When she pulled her palm away, he blew out a long breath as if he'd been half-suffocated.

"I'm a civil servant," he said.

"You are such a liar," said Jane. But then he kissed her properly and she decided it didn't matter. Bodie was all right.

Even if he wasn't the sort you'd ever bring home to mother.



The bullet shrieked as it ricocheted off the top of the wall. Bodie ducked, feeling a stone chip score his cheek. He wrenched back the slide on his pistol, trying desperately to clear the stoppage before anyone realized he was unarmed.

Then he heard another shot, this one from the side, followed immediately by an agonized yell. Bodie peered cautiously over the wall.

Doyle was standing in the open, his grin all teeth. "Clear," he said. "Got the other one on the far side of the tower."

Bodie stood, his useless gun dangling from his fingers. The last man was down and writhing with a bullet in his shoulder. Because that was where Doyle always put his bullets. Shoulder, or leg. Sometimes the knee if he was feeling stroppy. But never in the head or heart. He wouldn't give up that last bit of the copper in him.

"You're an artist," said Bodie, admiringly.

Doyle's smile widened.



Doyle needed a pen. Not for drawing. He was fairly certain he was done with that. It had been amusing as a diversion, but Bodie was getting entirely too interested. Nosey Parker. And he had this idea that all Doyle drew was him, which was as big a load of bollocks as he'd ever heard. He'd drawn loads more than just Bodie. Couldn't think what at the moment, but he knew he had.

No, he needed a pen because adding notes to the margins was better and easier than retyping the entire report. And for some reason he didn't have a pen anywhere in his desk.

He'd just borrow one of Bodie's, then. Doyle yanked open the top drawer, and pushed papers aside, searching. He didn't know why Bodie fussed so much about people going through his things when he couldn't even keep them in anything resembling decent order. Half of these sheets looked like they'd been rescued from the rubbish, and was that a mustard stain...?

Doyle stopped. Reaching down he extracted one of the papers and held it up, feeling humiliation burn in his gut. He'd sketched this one in the car, watching Bodie waiting for Cowley outside the Minister's house. It was a piece of crap. Cack-handed. Out of proportion and worse. How the hell had Bodie got his hands on it, and why would he save it?

"Hey," said Bodie, walking into the office. "What are you doing in my desk?"

Doyle turned around. "Want to tell me about this, mate?"

"What's to tell?" said Bodie, propping his hands on his hips. "I thought it was a good picture."

"Good for what? A joke?" snapped Doyle. He reached into the drawer and pulled up a thick sheaf of paper. All of his pictures. He hadn't realized he'd drawn so many. "Where was I going to find these? Pasted up on the duty board with captions? What took you so long?"

Bodie's expression darkened. "I suppose I couldn't be arsed. Found me out, sunshine. It's all just one bloody joke."

Doyle slammed the handful of pictures into Bodie's chest, knocking him back against the wall. "Fine. They're yours."

---

For a brief moment Bodie was tempted to go after Doyle. Drag him back to the office and... do what?

Beating the crap out of the obnoxious little sod was an appealing thought, but hardly productive. It wasn't as if this was the first time he'd been on the sharp end of one of Doyle's tempers. It was just that Bodie was certain he hadn't done anything to deserve it this time.

Bodie blinked. Contrary to rumour, Doyle didn't lose his rag without a reason.

Bending down, Bodie began to pick up the pictures. He shuffled them together in a stack, looking at the one on the top. That one had made him laugh the first time he'd seen it. Sure, he knew he had been standing with his back to Doyle, his arms crossed, but if you didn't know the context, you could almost think he was taking a piss. Right there on the Minister's doorstep.

That didn't mean it wasn't a good picture. It was unmistakably him. Doyle had got the shoulders just right.

Except, maybe Doyle couldn't see that.

Bodie thought about what Doyle had said about art school, and why he'd left. He probably couldn't imagine why anyone would save any of his pictures, unless it was to mock him.

There was a card folder on Doyle's desk. Bodie tipped the contents out and stuffed the pictures inside. Finding a chewed biro on the floor, he wrote a short note in large letters on the front of the folder. Then he placed it directly in the centre of the desk.

After a moment's thought he reopened the folder and pulled out the picture of himself pissing on the Minister's doorstep. He slipped it into his inside pocket. That one he'd keep, but the rest could go back to Doyle.

---

Common sense caught up with Doyle about a hundred yards from HQ. He couldn't just walk out on the job. There was still the report to finish.

And pictures to burn.

God. He'd stormed out of there because the alternative was punching Bodie right in his smirking face. But to Bodie it probably looked like he was throwing some kind of artistic temper tantrum.

All the temperament, none of the talent. Someone up there had to be busting a gut.

Art school had been all right. At least the other students were nice enough. But Doyle had quickly discovered that he didn't appreciate what the profs termed 'art'. He also didn't understand proportion or balance, and he had no eye for colour.

"Oils are for creating mood and atmosphere. Let the light speak through the paint, don't just colour in blocks of empty space!"

"I can see you're trying for dissonance and imbalance with this painting, but you'll need to convey more intentionality."

He left feeling that he knew less about art then when he'd started. If he'd known he lacked talent, he'd have given it up years earlier. He'd never have started.

Doyle shoved his hands into his jacket pocket and turned back. Bodie could say what he wanted. But if any of the others tried teasing him about the pictures, he'd make them eat them.

The last thing Doyle expected to find when he returned to his office was a folder stuffed full of his pictures. He stared at it, perplexed. Across the front was written, I think they're good. Don't throw them away.

Bodie was nowhere to be seen.



The tea was almost brewed when Bodie heard Doyle let himself in the back gate. A moment later, he was at Bodie's back door, making disapproving noises over the lack of security.

"I left it open for you," said Bodie. "Predictable bastard that you are." He poured himself a cup and then held the pot over another cup. "Tea?"

Doyle put the folder down on the counter, and crossed his arms. "You really think they're good?"

Bodie decided to go ahead and pour the tea anyway. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it."

"You're not taking the piss?" Doyle's tone suggested dire retribution if he was.

Bodie handed him his cup, and then picked up his own. "Maybe I like looking at pictures of myself."

"Narcissist," but there was no venom in Doyle's voice. Looking at him, Bodie saw the last piece of the picture fall into place. He could see all of it now, and it wasn't half bad.

"Or maybe I just like the idea that you're looking at me." Bodie could feel the tea-warmed porcelain of his cup. It felt fragile, as if one incautious move might shatter it in his hands.

"This is when you move on, isn't it? When the hairy bloke on your left starts looking good." Doyle's voice was tight, but there was more bewilderment than anger in his voice.

Or so Bodie hoped.

"Did I say left?" asked Bodie. "I thought I said he was on my right." He was talking too much and he knew it. He barely bit back a daft comment about the bloke in question actually standing right in front of him.

Doyle put his cup down on the counter. One step forward and then his hand was twisted into Bodie's collar. "If you're--."

Bodie kissed him.

---

Jane pressed the doorbell again, and sighed irritably. She was beginning to suspect she'd been stood up again.

As she leant on the doorbell a third time, she heard a window open on the floor above.

Jane stepped back and looked up. A tousled head -- most decidedly not Bodie's -- peered down at her.

"Can I help you, love?" asked the man in the window.

Jane folded her arms, scowling. "I want to speak to Bodie. Now." Yes, Bodie was very nice to look at, but there was only so much a girl should have to put up with.

"Erm. He's... occupied. At the moment."

"We have a date," said Jane, clearly. "For tonight."

"Something... uh, came up," said the man. Ray, that was his name.

He was sounding oddly choked. And he kept shifting position against the window sill.

"Not his bloody work again," protested Jane. And really, what kind of worthless bounder sent his mate to tell his girl that he couldn't make it? Unless he was in the bath, but even then the polite thing to do would be to invite her in and offer her a cup of tea.

"These things happen," said Ray. His voice cracked on the last syllable, and he coughed, clearing his throat. "Unavoidable, really. And quite unexpected."

This was really too much. "And he can't even be bothered to call? Or tell me in person?"

Bodie's head suddenly appeared in the window beside Ray's. "Jane, love! I'm terribly sorry."

"Sorry!"

Bodie looked just as flushed and rumpled as his so-called partner. Partners in crime, most like. "I did mean to call. But now, I've really got to... er, finish up here. Go on home now, there's a good girl. I'll ring you later..."

"Don't bother!" snapped Jane. As she stormed off, she wondered what kind of flowers he'd send this time.

---

Doyle collapsed face first on the floor under the window, his cheek pressed into the cool hardwood. "God." He opened his eyes to find Bodie's face less than an inch away, smirking at him.

"Why, thank you," said Bodie. "But I really can't claim divinity..."

"Berk." Doyle felt warm air on his cheek as Bodie laughed.

The window was still open, and he could hear cars passing and voices in the distance.

Oh, sod it all. The window. How the hell did he ever end up hanging out the window with Bodie taking him up the arse? The girl -- what was her name? She'd been clueless enough, but anyone could have seen.

"This is insane," said Doyle. He pushed himself up and sat against the wall. He looked up at the curtains blowing in the open window.

Bodie's smile disappeared. He retrieved his trousers from the floor and stood up to pull them on. "It's not like you've never done it before."

"I know you have," said Doyle, deliberately not confirming anything. He'd always chalked up his art school experiences to being an artist. Everyone knew artistic types were all shirt lifters. Bodie had surprised him, however.

"Might even do it again," suggested Bodie, hopefully.

Doyle wanted to say something sarcastic, perhaps about Bodie's illusions of irresistibility, but there was a look in those blue eyes that gave him pause. In this moment he had the ability to wound Bodie deeply, if he chose.

Suddenly shaken, Doyle looked down at his own bare legs. His clothes were downstairs still, shed in an instant's abandonment of sense and prudence.

"Or not," said Bodie, with deliberate carelessness. "It's not like either of us is hard up for birds to shag."

"Yeah," said Doyle, relieved. He stood up, and looked at Bodie closely, trying to fix his face in his mind. Then he looked out of the window. Bodie moved up beside him, and when Doyle closed his eyes he found he could see him as clearly as ever.

He didn't need to draw Bodie. And Bodie wouldn't be leaving any time soon. He had him captured in a way he'd never manage with just pen or paint.

---

Bodie was as close to content as he'd ever been in all his unsettled life. Yes, Doyle had said it was too dangerous to risk having sex with each other ever again, but Bodie knew how long those sorts of vows tended to last. He'd observed more than one affair between men, and been involved in a few himself.

He hadn't liked any of them quite as much as he liked Doyle, though.

The last rays of the setting sun were slanting through the window. As Bodie closed the sash, he examined the pensive contours of Doyle's face, the texture of his skin, the angles of his broken cheekbone and the shape of his eyes. He wished he had a talent for art or poetry, to try to capture this moment and stick it down on paper in permanent form.

But there was only one artist in this partnership, and it wasn't him.

---

Jane never did get her flowers. She blamed the curly haired bloke.

-- THE END --



September 2007