Written for the "Discovered in The Anarchist Cookbook" challenge on the discoveredinalj livejournal community.


“Trick or treat, Mister, and don’t think I’m messin’, coz I’ve got some fuckin’ awful tricks in this bag.”

Doyle took in the vision before him on the doorstep this chilly Saturday morning. About ten, hair shaved to a nit-ridding two millimetres, it had a Tesco’s carrier bag in one hand and if looks, haircuts and matching ratty jumpers were anything to go by, its younger brother in the other.

And the voice? The voice was so Scouse it hurt.

Under Doyle’s amused gaze a pair of scowls simply got fiercer. The younger one sniffed wetly and raised his free left hand to take a pass at it with his sleeve. The older one fidgeted and glared.

Doyle couldn’t help it, he turned his head and raised his voice.

“Bodie! It’s for you.”

He looked at the pair on the doorstep again.

“I’m off, I’ll leave you in his capable hands.” He tilted his head back a little, to where the thump of Bodie’s tread was now stomping its way off the couch.

“And he has absolutely no treats, so you make sure you show him the tricks, yeah? Good lads.”

Doyle took himself off the front steps and thought how much better the day was suddenly looking.

The previous night he’d been pestered awake by a Bodie late back from a three day badger op. He’d had to get up and sit at the table while Bodie’d polished off an unholy number of reheated chips and told him all about it. Doyle had then been assured with a particulary sloppy kiss-bite to his neck that more than spirits had been restored, and if Sir would care to strip and retire to the boudoir...? Sir had cared to and did.

Only to stagger up a freezing forty minutes later to find Bodie in the living room, unbuttoned, and fast asleep in front of the test card. Doyle had prodded him semi-conscious and to bed and had lain there, plotting a thousand ways to kill him while his chilled flesh warmed up enough to sleep again.

First thing, he’d risen early and cooked up a storm -- fried bread, bacon, sausages and an egg with ketchup. A bleary-eyed Bodie had had no choice but to stagger up as the smell tortured him to the point of no return.

“You,” he’d croaked over a mouthful of sausage, “are a total bastard.”

“That’s what they all say, mate. Eat up, ’s almost daylight.”

Bodie had showered and dressed, albeit reluctantly. His attempt to continue any kind of a lie-in on the couch had already been interrupted twice by foolishly optimistic local kids ringing the bell. It seemed that the street had decided to start early this year and ruin Bodie’s Saturday, so as far as Doyle was concerned, this charming pair should be worth their weight in decibels. He glanced back.

Christ, was the carrier bag moving?

---

If the vision on the front door step had amused him, the vision that greeted him in the kitchen when he returned dropped his jaw. Far from long gone and disturbing someone else’s Saturday, the ratty jumpers and solemn eyes were still there. Only now the possessors thereof were seated at the kitchen table, legs swinging freely, grubby hands wrapped around a glass of coke and mouths busy with penguin biscuits.

Make that three mouths busy.

“Ray.” A spray of crumbs. “’Bout time, I’m starving and this was all I could find, wasn’t it lads?”

Two nods.

Unseen behind the pair, Doyle looked at Bodie and shook his head at the marshmallow that lived beneath all that lip-curling disdain sometimes.

“Mickey, Kevin, that’s Doyle. And if you play your cards right, you can show him your tricks.”

Doyle spied the carrier bag, still bulging suspiciously near a table leg.

“That’s all right lads. Here, why don’t you take this...?” He rummaged in his own carrier bag and what he brought out lit up three pairs of eyes, “...and go and make someone else’s day fun?”

He carefully divided the curlywurly in half, paper and all, and handed it over, getting a ‘tanks’ from the older one and a wide-eyed blink from the younger one.

“Well, hop it, then!” He smiled, and in a flurry of scraping chairs and an “Oi, where’s mine?” from the third child in the room, he ushered the pair out and down the hall, making sure the carrier bag was firmly wrapped round the hand of the older one.

“Number 22, lads! She’ll love it.” Bodie’d come up to stand beside him at the open front door, and his shout actually got him a wave and a grin from the younger one. The boy took his hand out of his brother’s long enough to turn round, then drew the sleeve back across his nose in a sniff that emptied his brain as it echoed off the surrounding brickwork.

“Delightful,” said Doyle, resisting the urge to shake his head again.

Bodie made a non-committal noise next to him. “They’ve just moved down here. Dad’s unemployed.”

Eyes still on the retreating pair, Doyle nudged his shoulder.“You,” he declared, “are a soft touch.”

“Who bought who a curlywurly for elevenses?”

“I was going to split it with you. So much for that.”

“Miserly bugger. Couldn’t stretch to one each, then?”

“I could not, and what are we pratting around on the doorstep for? It’s bloody freezing out here, move it, Esther.”

Doyle pulled Bodie back inside and shut the door.

“Esther?”

“Yeah, Esther Rantzen, always doing good deeds, you’ll be wittering on about seat belts next-”

Bodie caught his arm and pushed him flat against the wall. He bracketed his arms against the wall either side of Doyle, and lowered in until his mouth was an inch away.

“Who’re you calling a soft touch, sunshine?”

Doyle’s heart did what it always did when he knew Bodie was about to lean in and kiss him hard. So he let it skip and licked his lips in anticipation. He thrust his hips off the wall a little, gratified to feel an instant leap in the groin now pressing into him.

“You, mate. I’m calling you a soft touch.”

A tongue, feather-light, touched his lips. Once, twice. Third time he caught it and pulled it in, sucking and kissing until he could taste chocolate and cola and...He broke off suddenly, panting slightly.

“Bodie...”

But Bodie was gone, mouthing his way down Doyle’s jawline and neck while his hands began working the zip on Doyle’s jeans.

“Wait,” gasped Doyle. When it was clear that Bodie was not going to, he got his hands on Bodie’s head and pulled him back up. “The bag, you bulldozer, what was in the bloody bag?”

Bodie ground his pelvis forward again and Doyle flinched. Bodie grinned, and Doyle was about to give up holding him off because what the fuck did it really matter anyway when Bodie was this warm and fucking close and-

“A ferret,” came the whisper.

“What?”

Bodie straightened and sighed. “Bloody hell, Doyle. Kill the mood, why don’t you? A ferret, sunshine. A ferret was in the bag.”

The clock in the hall was suddenly loud and Doyle studied the face he held in his hands. Bodie’s eyes crinkled and it took a second for Doyle to believe him, then he relaxed and began to smile back.

“A ferret?”

“Yeah,” said Bodie, openly chuckling now. “Doped to the eyeballs on some valium nicked out their Mum’s handbag.”

Doyle shook his head, impressed. “Inventive little sods. Just as well you hadn’t scoffed all the penguins-”

A shriek rent the air.

Muffled, but still a shriek.

Doyle locked gazes with his partner.

“That’s the old bat in 22,” said Bodie with scarcely a twitch.

“So..,” began Doyle, “that means...”

“...that the tablets...”

“...have worn off.”

It took a lot to make Doyle crack up to the point where he would slide down a wall clutching his sides. Who knew all it was going to take this Saturday was Bodie being a soft touch?

He grabbed on and took Bodie down the wall with him.

-- THE END --

October 2007