Written for the Discovered Out of Context challenge on the discoveredinalj livejournal community


"I spent the night on my knees in front of the toilet if you must know," said Doyle, holding a wet rag to his aching head.

"What?" Bodie reacted with a percussive burst of sound that gave Doyle's aching head a ringing slap even though he stood four feet away.

"Shut it!" hissed Doyle. "Loud." He turned and sank back onto the couch.

"All this because of--"

"Shut it," Doyle repeated, this time more quietly, his eyes closed against the sunlight streaming in from the windows. "Don't."

Bodie advanced farther into the room and slid the drapes shut, blocking out at least the light that concentrated on Doyle's face. "You couldn't even draw your own curtains?" he asked.

"Couldn't get up, could I?" Doyle winced. "Easier to throw an arm up."

"Like the undead, you hiss and sizzle until you're nothing but ash and a blot of grease on the pavement."

"Very funny that. I'll laugh when I can."

"For Ann." Bodie sounded disgusted. "All this?"

"I said--"

"And I heard you," said Bodie. "I just didn't listen. I take it you don't give fuck all for the job? Should I call Cowley and tell him I want Murphy?"

"Oh, you want Murphy, do you?" Doyle rose from his couch like an animated pile of rags, his face ashen, with blue smudges under his eyes. "Like Murphy's going to watch your backside when you take one of your notions."

"My notions?"

"Yeah. You know. When you decide that loyalty is more important than common sense and keeping your thick bloody head from getting shot off."

"My thick bloody head?" Bodie was looking, but he knew he'd never seen this Doyle before. "Who in hell are you?"

"Ah, shut it," Doyle said again, and pulled himself to standing so he could move ever-so-slowly and carefully into the kitchen. "Coffee?"

"Ta." Bodie said carefully. Doyle as a wild animal, backed into a corner, was new.

Doyle placed the kettle on the hob, and they waited together in strained silence while it came to a boil. The piercing whistle caused Doyle to shudder and Bodie turned to hide a laugh.

With that first dug-from-the-jar spoonful of instant coffee Bodie felt civilization return to Doyle's thin frame, and he accepted a mug from him and reached for the sugar. Doyle glared at him, and went for the milk in the fridge, giving it a suspicious sniff before placing it on the counter between them.

"Now," Bodie ventured. "Tell uncle."

Doyle rested a tired head on what Bodie privately thought was a rather slim and delicate wrist. It was one of the many parts of his partner Doyle: a deceptive physical delicacy, implacable courage, unassailable honesty, and childlike faith in the goodness of people. All of which seemed so at odds with the unvarnished truth that Doyle was essentially a killing machine.

"I don't know mate, it was...the fantasy. Like being an accountant or a solicitor or something. Courting a woman, thinking it could be more."

"She didn't like what you were, Doyle. Wanted to change you. Put you in front of the fire like a lap dog."

"What do you know about it," Doyle said, not combative now, sipping his coffee, resigned.

"I know what you are," Bodie offered. "I know what you're worth."

"And what's that. I can stop a bullet with the best of them, eh?"

Bodie's eyes rested on his partner. "Not while I'm around."

Doyle closed his eyes. "She listened to me like I had something to say. Not just...joking around. You know?"

Bodie's lips lifted in a surprised smile. "Ah, love. You're deep water and we treat you all shallow-like." He saw in the flicker of his partner's eyes that he was stung. "Didn't mean it like that, mate," he said gently.

"I just, wanted it." Doyle's hands clenched and unclenched around his mug. "Soft places. More. Should have known."

"Should have. Yes. Should have known you were worth twelve of Ann Holly."

"I beg your pardon?" Doyle's lips pursed.

"What's she done? How does she even sleep at night? Puts on her cool suits and fine airs and drops you bang, for what? Doing your job. Likes to wake up at the mercy of drug smugglers and arms dealers, does she?"

"She doesn't know the first thing--"

"That's right, she doesn't. Should have trusted you. Should have seen you for who you are. Couldn't see your heart even though it's on your sleeve for the whole bleeding world to take a shot at."

"Nah," said Doyle. "Not the whole world."

"The conscious ones then," Bodie grumbled. "Doyle--" he broke off.

"What?"

"It's possible that when I met you I thought now here's a plodder, Detective Constable Doyle. Here's a man who doesn't have the faintest; he'll be dead before the week's out."

The green eyes rolled. "Oh, sure, because you're an international man of mystery, you are. The remorseless killer with the eyes of a shark, cold and dead." Ray snorted. "Bloody merc."

"And yet," said Bodie.

"And yet," agreed Doyle. "You sayin' I'm like you?"

"Are you sayin' you think you're not?"

Doyle took a sip of his coffee. "P'raps I'm saying you're more like me than at first suspected."

"Bollocks."

"Never try to tell me it's been easy."

Bodie looked down. "No."

"What then?"

"Maybe you wanted something soft and more. Ann wanted to take you home and remove your bits so she could watch her big, dangerous man read the paper over tea and toast every morning."

"She seemed to rather like my bits." Doyle remarked dangerously.

"Doyle," Bodie rose. "Maybe I should..."

"Say what you've got to say, Bodie," sighed Doyle. "Not like I haven't heard it before."

"Oh!" snapped Bodie. "You've heard it all before."

"I have, mate, you are nothing if not persistent."

"You've heard the part where I tell you we're more alike than you know."

"Oh, yeah, I have." Doyle sipped his coffee, crinkling his eyes. Bodie knew, he knew, that Doyle's coffee was getting cold and he didn't care for it.

"You've heard the part about me coming to respect you on the job, and how I like having a mate like you when the job's done and the nightmares aren't far off."

"Yes." Doyle eyed Bodie, who came around the counter and loomed, backing him into a corner. "Like you ever dream."

"You've heard me say Ann was a bloody waste of human skin and that for a farthing I could make you feel four hundred times more alive than she could." At that, Bodie was a breath away from Doyle. Doyle's surprised eyes rose to meet his and didn't look away.

"I would say I haven't heard that before."

"At last." Bodie whispered. "I've surprised even former Detective Constable Doyle, PC plod."

Doyle licked his lips and Bodie felt the change come over his own face; he couldn't help it. It went from menacing to...what? He felt the corners of his lips lift in a vaguely predatory smile. Ah. That. Doyle could always change things with a look, whether he liked it or not.

"Who are you calling a plod?" Doyle murmured against Bodie's mouth as it descended.

Bodie caught Doyle's curly head between large hands and held it, kicking the man's narrow feet apart and stepping into the cradle of his lean thighs. "Heard me say this, did you?"

After an impossible, heart-stopping moment, which to Bodie felt vaguely like leaving the Earth's atmosphere and coming home all at the same time, Doyle broke the kiss for a breath. "You never!"

"I did. You just didn't hear it." Bodie made his message loud and clear, grinding into Doyle's body so he could hardly fail to understand. He let Doyle go then, to slump against the counter. Doyle braced himself with one hand and pushed the hair away from his face with the other.

"My G--"

"Just Bodie will do." Bodie leaned in and took a last kiss, in case his plod should kill him where he stood. To be fair, he probably deserved it, but he had no regrets.

"How long?" Ray was still thinking hard; Bodie could almost see the fug as he churned in it, trying to comprehend.

"Always." Bodie whispered. "Never."

"Well," Doyle said at last.

"You want soft and more." Bodie shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

"You think you're the more?" Ray raised his eyebrows.

"I hope to fuck I'm not the soft," Bodie grinned.

Ray reached out and caught the collar of Bodie' caramel leather jacket. Shaking his head, he pulled Bodie into another kiss. Bodie pushed Doyle up to sit on the worktop and settled himself for a nice bit of friction and a kiss that caused Doyle's head to collide loudly with the cabinet.

"Bodie," Doyle's brows met in a 'v' over his hooded eyes. "What if I'd blacked both your eyes, and mind you I'm not saying I still won't...what was your plan for going back to the way things were?" The way his hips rocked against Bodie's took the sting from his words.

"You can't go back to the way things were, cause they were never that way in the first place." Bodie gripped his backside hard and pulled him in for a long stroking slide that made Ray gasp and smile and bump his head again.

"Oi," Doyle barked.

"Wait right here," said Bodie as he ran up the stairs like a lunatic. "Just wait," he called from Doyle's bedroom as he rummaged around in the old wardrobe opposite the bed. He found what he was looking for and raced triumphantly back down the stairs with it hidden behind his back.

"What," said Doyle, who looked suspicious.

Bodie skidded to a halt at the sight of Doyle's lips, richly red and swollen. Doyle's ruined cheek carried a bit more of a blush than usual. The breath Bodie felt escape from his chest left him with only enough strength for a wilted sort of half smile as he took in the sight of Ray Doyle, legs sprawled, arms wrapped protectively around himself as he sat on the worktop, dazed and clearly aroused.

"Ah, Raymond," Bodie sighed.

"This was your idea. Have you lost the thread of where you were going with it?" Green eyes mocked and challenged him simultaneously.

"Lost the thread, Sunshine?" Bodie took up his position again, nudging firmly into Doyle with a smooth and easy grace. "Nah." He pulled what he was hiding out from behind his back and seated it firmly on Ray's head, brushing the curls around, and tucking them behind the man's ears just so.

The hat, with it's shiny black visor and checkered stripe, a remnant of Ray's chameleon work under cover for CI-5 and not the actual one he'd worn as a copper, sat on his head like a triumph of Bodie's will over Ray's evolution.

"Ah," said Doyle, watching as Bodie impatiently fumbled with the belt and buttons of his blue jeans, freeing Doyle's cock into his waiting hands. "This explains a lot." Bodie looked up at him, grinned, then bent his head.

"Duthen ti jutht," murmured Bodie against Doyle's cock as a hand snuck back behind his balls to explore deeper places.

"Ahhh, hahah, Hah," Doyle jumped. "Bodie, either don't talk with your mouth full or fucking sing!" His head hit the cabinet again, this time hard. "Oh, shite!" he melted into Bodie's hands for what seemed like a long time until Bodie drew a protracted orgasm from him.

Doyle put his hand automatically on his hat so it wouldn't fall off, years of habit, Bodie supposed. He then fell over Bodie's shoulder bonelessly. Bodie shrugged and hoisted him up in a fireman's carry, making for the steps, which, even with his burden he managed to take two at a time.

"Ann fucking Holly do this?" Bodie muttered as he reached the top of the stairs, not even winded.

Dangling upside down behind Bodie's back and powerless to do anything but keep his hat on, Doyle grabbed a fistful of Bodie arse and gave it a painful nip. "Ann fucking who?"

-- THE END --

June 2008