"Balls!"

Bodie looked up from a dog-eared Mayfair as Doyle adjusted a camera on a wonky tripod yet again, seeking the perfect angle through the dirty windowpane of their grotty squat. They'd been on this obbo for six excruciatingly boring days, and except for Doyle's attempts to be David Bellezzi reincarnated, Bodie had remained singularly unamused. Bodie sighed and dropped the Mayfair onto the dusty floor.

"What now, oh great artiste?" he inquired of Doyle, who was still struggling with the camera at the window.

"Bleedin' punk keeps spoiling my shot... Giant Pink Mohawks there keeps walking right into it. We'll never get the Minister's holiday snaps if this lot doesn't clear off our doorstep."

Bodie levered himself off the ancient armchair someone had obviously scavenged off the tip, and came to stand behind Doyle, peering over his shoulder, close enough for a soft brown curl to just brush his cheek.

"Bloke or bird?" he enquired softly.

"Bird," Doyle returned shortly.

"The one with the bin liner...and the er-strategically placed safety pins?"

"Yeah...oh, bugger! There she goes again."

Bodie laughed.

"Oh, thank you! Don't suppose you'd care to take a turn, Your Majesty?"

"Not on your life. I've seen enough of the hoi polloi to last me a while, thanks."

"Oh, a bird in a bin liner and safety pins doesn't do it for you?" Doyle turned away from the window to grin challengingly at Bodie, their noses almost-but-not-quite brushing in the suddenly intimate space. His eyes were alight with mischief, and Bodie stepped away before he could make a fool of himself.

"Nah." The ex-merc made his tone deliberately blasé and world weary. "Not a patch on this bird I knew in Africa ."

"Oh, Africa ," Doyle said knowingly. "Snore."

"No, really," Bodie grinned. Doyle was going to love this. "She had her lips pierced. Wore a bone right through both of 'em."

"Didn't that make it hard for her to talk?"

"Not those lips." Bodie made a rude gesture towards his cream trousers, indicating female genitalia, and waited. Doyle didn't disappoint.

"Oh. OH!" The bionic golly's scowling face broke into a wide white grin accompanied by rude laughter, and followed up by gasping and pointing at Bodie's trousers.

"Ye-es?" that worthy drawled.

"Didn't it...I mean wasn't it...rather risky when you...Oh Christ!" Doyle dissolved into another helpless paroxysm of laughter.

"Spice of life, my son, spice of life," Bodie said sententiously, then spoiled it by smirking. Doyle was practically rolling on the floor at this point. "Hey! Mind the fixtures!" Bodie made a grab for the precariously perched camera. "Break that and Father won't be pleased." Thus recalled to duty, they both turned to look out the window.

Doyle sighted through the camera, and tried to line up another shot of yet another highly placed civil servant purchasing that which he oughtn't. Bodie leaned forward, and breathed a question into a curl-covered ear.

"So, you don't think 'anarchy is freedom', then?"

"Balls!

Somewhat taken aback by the explosiveness of the response, Bodie pursued the inquiry as a bored hound might take up a faint but promising scent.

"So a bird in a bin liner doesn't do for you either, eh Doyle?"

"No." Green eyes narrowed to scowl through the camera lens.

"Don't you think all that...rebelliousness...and...hardware...might be very interesting in bed?"

"Rebels. Hah! That's a laugh!" Doyle turned suddenly angry green eyes onto his astonished partner. "Anarchy, freedom, football...whatever they're riotin' for this week, it's P.C. Plod who'll have to clear away the mess, every time. And what about HER, then?" Doyle pointed through the grimy glass. Bodie looked.

A girl, who appeared to be all of sixteen at most, was edging past the punks on the pavement, a baby papoosed in her grubby green anorak. She clutched a much-abused paper from the labour exchange in one white knuckled hand. Large boots that had never seen combat clomped aggressively near cracked leather shoes that had clearly seen better days, as well as several previous owners, but she pushed past the punks into the chippy, waving the crumpled paper ahead of her as a white flag of truce.

Grubby Anorak girl came out again almost at once, accompanied by the indignant proprietor. White aproned and spattered with grease, he pointed to a large sign in his window. Bodie could almost hear him saying 'the position 'as been filled. Push off!'" Anorak girl waved the paper under Mr. Chippy's nose, but he turned his broad back on her and went back inside. She turned, glared at the punks, squared nonexistent shoulders, and marched off down the pavement. One heel of her shoe flapped at them in silent reproach.

Doyle looked at him measuringly and said, "She's the REAL rebel, mate. She gets up every bloody day God sends, and gets on with it. She's fighting a war most of those kids haven't got the stomach for, every day of her life. She's got real courage. That lot down there" and Doyle scornfully indicated the mohawked punks, "that lot down there are all noise and show. They haven't got the guts for a real fight."

"All 'sound and fury, signifying nothing', you mean?" Bodie inquired. Doyle looked at him for long moment, and Bodie got the feeling that he'd passed some kind of ...test.

"Yeah." Doyle nodded. "Exactly."

"So what are you, then?" Bodie nudged washboard ribs with a friendly elbow. "Rebel With a Cause, eh?"

Doyle grinned. "Yeah."

"Which cause?"

Doyle turned, and the fading grey light from the window silhouetted him there, in his black leather jacket, white t-shirt, and faded denims. He gave Bodie a smouldering Marlon Brando look.

"What have you got?"

It has to be love, Bodie thought. Or at least some form of insanity. That was his last coherent thought for some moments, as he leaned forward and lip-locked Doyle.

The bionic golly had to break for air at last, and they both drew back panting. Green eyes glinted warmly at Bodie.

"Whew! Give you a cause, and you're well away."

"Well, it's one that I've got a lot of time for," Bodie averred.

"That's good," Doyle said dazedly. Their noses bumped intimately, and Bodie laughed.

"What?"

"I've never seduced someone standin' in a window before."

"First time for everything...see how we go, eh?" Bodie complied enthusiastically, and the camera tripod was in real danger of toppling over until Doyle recalled them to duty.

"Hey! That's our lad!" Bodie groaned and peeled himself off Doyle.

"You've got a real sense of timing there, y'know!" he grumbled.

"I know," Doyle sympathized, "but-later, OK?"

And all thoughts of rebellion postponed, the Dynamic Duo got on with taking some snaps that they felt Father was really going to be pleased with.

-- THE END --

November 2007