PARTING OF THE WAYS

The crash of a trolley in the passage outside permeated the soft, warm darkness, and Doyle became aware of the cool press of sheets, the smell of roses, the discomfort at his left arm. He blinked his eyes open, dazzled at first by the daylight streaming in through the half open blind, and focused on the IV needle that was taped into his arm. Disorientation lasted less than a second, and he was smiling as he untaped the needle and deftly removed it. In the room's other bed, he could see Bodie's still, sleeping shape, and he pushed up onto the pillows, luxuriating in the sight of his lover -

His lover? Ray's mouth twisted. Christ, it was just a dream. Just a dream, a nightmare. A terrible, shocking nightmare. He rubbed his face, feeling the rustle of the white hospital gown about his limbs. How long? Bodie had strangled him half to death, how long since then? He fingered his throat: long enough for the damage to be healed and gone, so it must have been days since the phonecall. But what was Bodie doing here? He could appreciate that he was in hospital - half strangled people usually were admitted - but Bodie should be in custody somewhere for attempted murder; or in a nut hatch for running amok.

Maybe I'm still off with the fairies, Ray thought bleakly, thinking back to the dream. It was not even vaguely like an ordinary dream; he could remember every tiny detail, every word, every sensation, as if it had all actually happened. His body trembled as he lingered over the memories... It was the loving that he remembered most, his flesh alive with it, every nerve alight, Bodie inside of him, hard and hot and wanting him so badly. What kind of a dream remained this vivid, growing stronger the longer he thought about it? Dreams usually faded away in seconds after waking, and were nonsensical while they could be remembered.

Doyle wrapped his arms about his chest, his eyes on Bodie's sleeping face. He was caught up in the memories now, remembering the nights he had lain in Bodie's arms, the good times, the bad times. The tragedy was that it was only a dream, the product of his own overstressed mind, and his eyes prickled with grief that none of it had been real. How long he sat there, mourning for what had never been, he did not know, but Bodie's voice roused him, sobbing his name. Ray slipped out of his own bed and padded to Bodie's, sitting on the side of it, one hand on his shoulder and trying to wake him.

But Bodie was still locked in his dreams. "Ray, oh Ray," he said softly. "Gandalf should have told you to leave me. Should've sent you away... How did you kill that monster? How did he hurt you? He killed you - Thorkill! I let him kill you. I took you there... Odinspeak... Let him kill you... Ray!"

By this time he was threshing about and Doyle had him in a firm grip, arms about him. "Bodie, wake up! He didn't kill me, I'm here! Bodie!" The blue eyes fluttered open; Bodie's face was pressed into Doyle's shoulder, his hands gripping the finely muscled arms tightly. "He set the big merc on me, but I killed him, remember? He drugged me, like he drugged you, but he can't have killed me, because we're out, Bodie, we're out."

"Ray?" Confusion drew Bodie's brows together as he propped himself against the pillows, crushing Doyle against him. "Christ, you were dead... cold, dead. Shot up... Drugs... I let them kill you."

"We got out, Bodie," Doyle muffled into Bodie's chest. "Dunno how, but we did it. Christ, I thought I'd had it; that merc, what's 'is name?"

"Gelbart. A real swine." Bodie pressed a kiss into Doyle's hair.

"I blew him in two halves. You see the body?"

"I saw it. Saw Schwerin with the hypo, too. Same one he used on me. He shot you up?"

"Yeah." Doyle drew away to look at his lover. "Mind you, he did me a favour. Busted ribs, broken arm, mate, I was hurting. All he did was put me out of my misery." He cupped Bodie's face. "Thought I'd failed... I wanted to finish it, for you. Knew how scared you were of being there."

"Terrified," Bodie affirmed. "Till I thought... Till I knew they'd killed you. Then it didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered. Didn't want to go on without you, did I?" He leaned forward, wanting Doyle's soft mouth and getting it as Ray kissed him. He wound his arms tightly about his lover and held on. "Gandalf should have sent you away."

"I wouldn't have gone," Doyle scoffed "I went there to help you, and I did. You were off your nut, Bodie; if I hadn't been there to keep you going you'd have run riot once too often and they'd have locked you up - and until the morning after Gandalf gave me the elven amulet, and the thorn, and you found out you could control what was happening, you'd have stayed locked up. You've got a very logical mind." He smiled, letting Bodie settle him on the bed, arms about him, lying back against the pillows; neither of them was as yet aware of their surroundings.

"Christ, the things I did to you," Bodie sighed.

Doyle gave an evil chuckle. "Yeah. And I can't wait to get home so we can do it all again." He wriggled closer. "I need you, Bodie. Hungry for you. Need you to love me."

"I do love you," Bodie whispered, yanking on a handful of curls. "You can't have forgotten already."

"Forgotten?" Doyle wriggled again as Bodie's hand found its way between his legs and began to stroke. "Clot. But you'd better not do that here, mate. If a nurse walks in we'll be for the high jump."

For the first time, Bodie saw the room. "Hospital. How did we..."

"Get here? I suppose they brought me here when you strangled me after you got Thorkill's - Schwerin's - phone call. You, I'm not so sure."

"I keeled over," Bodie said ruefully. "I remember going black and falling over. Murph was there, he must've pushed the panic button."

"All thanks to Murph," Ray murmured, almost on the point of sleep again. "God, I'm feeling weak."

"Hardly surprising, the amount of horsing around we've been doing lately," Bodie murmured, still unable to tell the real world from the dream.

Doyle was only marginally ahead of him in the orientation stakes. "I reckon it's the time we've spent flat out comatose," he suggested. "We ought to call a doctor in here. Where's the buzzer?" It was hanging up on the wall by the bed, far out of reach, as if the patient was never expected to be able to reach for it on his own. Doyle thumbed it and then sagged down onto the bed again, barely able to hold his head up, and Bodie kissed his temple. "Want to go home," he murmured. "With you."

The feeling was very mutual; neither of them was thinking clearly enough yet to tell one world from the other, or sense from nonsense. They were punchy, clinging tight together as if afraid to let go; and they were kissing when Doctor Michaels came rushing into the room.

It was four in the afternoon, five days after Bodie had tried to kill Doyle, and Cowley dropped his paperwork as if it had suddenly caught alight, diving from Whitehall to the hospital in time to get a garbled account of proceedings from his two dozing, confused operatives as they drank cups of tea and chewed their way through most of a packet of digestive biscuits. Much of their report was unintelligible, but he gathered that they had somehow shared the same 'dream,' and wanted to go home at once. Michaels was shaking his head in answer to that.

"They're weak, they need to get a little strength back," he said. "We should keep them here for observation for a few days, at the very least until tomorrow. I've had them on IV, so there's no damage done. They're remarkably healthy young men. I can appreciate that they wish to be alone; in their position, I think I'd like to have a few private hours!"

The CI5 man and the surgeon were standing in the doctor's littered office, and Cowley felt free to pursue the matter. "In their position?"

"Well, this sort of thing is always more traumatic if two people are so close. Being in love tends to complicate life."

Cowley frowned deeply, the lines about his eyes becoming pronounced. "And what makes you aware of this, Doctor?"

Michaels' colour rose. "Oh dear, I think I've put my foot in it... I assumed you'd be aware of... They did nothing wrong, Mr. Cowley, and I would be very distressed if you reprimanded them for my indiscretion; they were together when I barged into the room, answering the buzzer. They were kissing, nothing reprehensible. Perhaps it was unwise to do that here, but they are disoriented and confused even now, and doubtlessly they were unaware of the dangers. They meant no harm, Mr. Cowley, and none was done. I'd prefer it if you forgot about the matter."

Cowley's blue eyes were grave and he nodded, but not for a moment did he seriously consider that he could forget about Bodie and Doyle. Kissing? In love? Since when had that happened? Kate Ross had been making pointed remarks about the closeness of their relationship for years, but the Scot had chosen to take it that she meant they were family, as were brothers, cousins. And lovers? The closest of all family. Cowley said no more about it and looked into the agents' room only briefly on his way out. Information Bodie was suddenly able to provide, garbled though it has been, would be the key in slamming the lid on the whole Schwerin affair, so the chapter was approaching a close.

And Cowley had the oddest impression that the case was not the only thing coming to an end. An odd feeling prickled about his nerves as he looked at the two pale, weakened young men in the adjoining beds, and knew full well that if they were at home, they would have been in the same bed, curled up together, luxuriating in the comfort of closeness... There was nothing surprising or disquieting about it to an old army man like Cowley. He had spent too long watching men under stress to be very surprised by anything they did.

The more two men live, worked and played together, the more they came to think as one; slowly they began to feel as one, too. Then, one day, an awareness began, an awakening. One noticed the other's sexuality and was, quite naturally, fascinated. Then, pain, as the love affair raged, one-sided, until it reached blow-up point. A confrontation, a facing up to facts, either make the final step, into bed, as lovers, or part forever, because that kind of sexual tension could get them killed.

How many times Cowley had seen it happen, he did not know; and that it should happen to Doyle and Bodie was not very surprising; Bodie, big, much stronger, dark, broody, smouldery; Doyle, small, slight, slim as a reed, transcending gender, with a glittering humour and incandescent sexuality; the two men almost as opposite as if they had been of two different genders. The final detail mattered very little, in practical terms. Cowley nodded farewell to them, and left, taking the big Ford four door through the rush hour traffic, back to the office.

At last the nursing staff departed and the room was silent; they were waiting for something to eat, and Bodie was so ravenous he could have eaten a horse. He watched Doyle sink back into the pillows in his own bed, and gave him a sleepy smile. "You look shagged out, mate."

"Yeah," Ray admitted. "Can't think why I should be this tired after an hour's prodding and poking by Doc Crippin and his cronies, because we've just slept for days!" He peered at his torso. "Lost a lot of muscle tone, though, so I expect it's weakness - like, after you've had the 'flu or something."

"That'll be it," Bodie agreed. "Hope they don't keep us in too long, but..." He bit off a chuckle. "Wanna know something, love? If we went home tonight, I'm not sure I'd be capable."

"Capable? What of?" Doyle batted his long, dark lashes in a imitation of innocence.

Bodie just laughed. "Know what you look like? Little Orphan Annie. Going to get you a scruffy little pooch, and - ah, take no notice, I'm only teasing, you know that."

"I know," Doyle chortled, trying not to grin and ruin his crestfallen expression. "I'm thinking back to the elves. The tall elves. You... You made them look like me, Bodie. Is that really what I look like?"

And Bodie nodded honestly. "Don't get a swelled head about it, mate, but yeah. All legs and eyes and hair, and that nose..." He made a rueful face. "I'm going to be pumping your ego up the size of the Hindenburg if I don't keep my big mouth shut." He paused, bit his lip in thought, and whispered, "two things that I still can't accept. One is how you can remember my dream, and - "

"Oi, it was my dream," Doyle retorted. "And the other thing?"

"How you believed me, all the years I teased you about your looks."

"I'm gullible," Doyle shrugged, "and anyway, whatever it is you see, I don't. I guess I'm not my type, sweetheart - you're more my type. Now, if I was about thirty pounds heavier, and dark, with blue eyes and -"

Bodie gaped. "Christ, not on your life! Don't make jokes like that!"

"That," Doyle said pointedly, "is what you look like."

"I know," Bodie agreed. "And I guess I'm not my type either. Wish I was willowy, and who the hell wants blue eyes? Everybody's got blue eyes, but green - "

"Prat," Doyle said tiredly. "Okay, so each of us is happy with the way the other one looks, let's be satisfied. God, I'm hungry, where's the nosh? They said they've got lamb chops and mint sauce - "

"Don't talk about food," Bodie moaned; and his stomach growled noisily. "See? You've set it off again!"

They ate surprisingly little and felt very full, their stomachs having shrunk drastically, and then wandered into the TV room to watch the News and current affairs shows, trying to catch up on a week lost. The hospital became a chaos of visitors, and they were not surprised to see Murphy, Susan and Jax, bringing chocolates and flowers. The Black Magic did not even last out the visit, and by eight, when the CI5 people drifted away and they settled to rest, they were feeling much better.

Bodie read the paper aloud while Doyle puzzled over the crossword, their talk companionable and quiet, but it was after their light was out and the room's closed door afforded them a spurious privacy, that they began to want each other. Their talk became softer, sporadic, and at last Bodie could take it no longer. "Ray? Come over here, pet."

"And do what?" Doyle propped himself on one elbow, looking at his mate in the darkness. Mate. The word had a whole new meaning, and a thrill coursed through his nerves.

"Just slide in and give us a cuddle," Bodie asked. "Come on, I'm not up to ravishing you yet. Wouldn't mind a nice kiss though."

"In bed with you, in here? Dangerous," Ray murmured.

"But the whole place is quiet," Bodie argued, "and they won't look in on us for ages. Just for a bit, Ray?"

Refusing Bodie when he used that plaintive tone was absurdly difficult, and Ray slid out of his own bed, padded over and a moment later found himself under the covers and hugged tight, Bodie's lips nibbling on his ear. He wriggled closer and put his head down on the warm cotton over the pillow, seeking a kiss. Bodie took his mouth gently, for a long time, nipping and licking, exploring every nook and cranny of his lips, teeth, tongue, and Ray heaved a sigh of utter content.

They slept in the same embrace for hours, until Bodie tried to turn over in the ridiculously narrow bed, and almost fell over the side, and then Ray reluctantly slipped away before they could be caught in what had to be a very compromising situation. His own bed was cold and he missed Bodie's smothering body heat at once; sleeping alone was going to be awful, he guessed, and he whispered, "Bodie, you awake?"

"Not likely to get to sleep without you, am I?" Bodie grumbled.

"Was thinking the same thing," Ray sighed. "When we get out of here, we are going to live together, aren't we?"

There was a pause, then Bodie snorted with laughter. "Well, we'll sleep together. Eat breakfast together, as it'd be dumb to run away someplace to get your Wheeties. Then we'll shove off to work in the same car, because it's parked on the front, and if I want you to cuddle when I get home, you'll have to ride in the same car back from work. Hm. I expect we'll watch telly, or go to a film together, then, if we're in the same bed like good little lads before midnight, I reckon that might mean being in the same flat. Make sense?" Another pause, then, "of course we'll be living together, you silly sod!"

"Was only asking," Doyle giggled. "'Cause I don't much want to live alone anymore. Nothing much fun when you're alone."

"I know," Bodie said soberly. "I've been alone all my life, and I've been sick of it for years. I used to think that maybe there'd be a woman who could put up with me as I am - I'm too old to change now. Someone I could marry, or live with, who'd put up with me for a few years. Never found a girl who was game to try."

"Me neither," Ray whispered. "There's only ever us, isn't there? Just the two of us. Christ, why did we wait so long?"

"Dunno," Bodie said honestly. "Might have been a misplaced sense of duty - not wanting to compromise each other's virility, that sort of thing. I mean, if I'd indicated to you that I thought you were gay, you'd have wound me up a crack in the choppers."

"If you came right out with it as an insult, yeah," Doyle affirmed. "But if you'd made a pass at me, got a few drinks into me... I've worked with gays for donkey's years, Bodie, I know what nice people most of 'em are. Gay sex doesn't worry me, never did. I'll admit, going all the way, getting screwed, used to make me wonder a bit - I'm not very big, as you well know! But you stretch, don't you? Like nature intended it to happen." He paused, then added, "I reckon nature must have intended this kind of sex to happen, or why would you feel so bloody marvellous when you've got someone inside you? Wonder if women feel this way?"

"Ray," Bodie reminded him gently, "you're a virgin. Aren't you?"

"In body only," Doyle said tartly. "I need hardly remind you what you did with me back there. How many times? And every time easier and better than the last." He chuckled wickedly. "Nah, the idea of gay sex never did bother me, but I never wanted a man, you get what I mean? I thought men were nice to look at, sure - especially the likes of you - but touching them was something else. Maybe... Maybe I never met a man I could fall in love with, and maybe I had to be in love to want to try it."

"Makes sense." Bodie yawned. "A fair few women have to be in love to horse about. Psychological thing. Reckon they'll let us go home tomorrow?"

"Hope so," Doyle said fervently. "Another day in here and I'm going to be strong enough to start looking at you like Garbo under a lampstand."

"Dietrich," Bodie corrected drowsily.

"Was it?" Doyle turned onto his back and lifted one knee, sighing.

"What are you doing?" Bodie asked suspiciously.

"Stroking myself. Pretending it's you."

"Come back over here, and it'll be me."

"Love to," Doyle sighed, "but if somebody barges in we'll never talk our way out, and Cowley'll give us the sack on the spot."

There was silence for a while, punctuated by a long, lush sigh from Ray's bed, and then Bodie said, "want to talk to you about that when we're out of here and thinking straight."

"About what?" Doyle sounded dopy and saturated with pleasure.

"About working. For CI5," Bodie clarified. "I don't think... I mean, I'm not sure if..." Ray was listening intently, wide awake again, and heard him take a deep breath. "It's a dangerous job." Bodie whispered, "and we'd be idiots if we ignored what could happen. We could get killed tomorrow or the next day. Next week. I always knew I could be standing there beside the grave, throwing dirt in after you, but it was an idea I tried to ignore. I managed to ignore it pretty well until you got shot that time, and they all had you dead and buried, even Cowley, though he pretended to be paternally optimistic."

"Bodie, this isn't serving any purpose," Ray chided gently. "The point is, I didn't die."

"No, Ray, that's not it at all," Bodie corrected. "The point is, if I have to stand by the grave throwing dirt in after you, I'll do it. I'll follow you. I... I've done it once already. When I went in after Schwerin you were dead on the floor. I killed him, and then... I didn't have the guts to tell you before. I blew my bloody head off with the shotgun."

Again, there was silence, and then Ray slipped out of bed and went to slide his arms around Bodie, speaking softly into his hair. "Suicide pact, is it? Jesus Christ, Bodie, it's terrible loving someone this much."

"No it isn't a suicide pact," Bodie muffled against Doyle's throat, "it's a bid for freedom. Self preservation. I want out, love, before I'm holding you while you die, and then going home to finish myself off before I go right 'round the bend, once and for all. I don't want you for a night or a year, or ten years. I want you for good and all, jealously, possessively, and I can't take the bloody job any more. You don't know what it was like, sitting there with you in my arms, cold and still and dead. I can't do it again, Ray, and if you tell me it was just a dream I'll tell you that all the loving was just a dream, and it'll all look different in the cold light of day, and you'll wave bye-bye and ring up your girlfriend in the morning!"

"Bastard," Doyle accused gently. "No, it wasn't a dream. You forget your dreams when you wake up, nothing makes sense when you look back at what you were doing. All your memories playing back in the wrong order, s'what dreaming is. At least that's what the Reader's Digest said... Know what I think?"

"What?" Bodie let his eyes close for the lids to be kissed.

"I think the two of us were in this silly old head of yours, threshing around in there together. I think what we did, what we remember, is about as real as anything we ever did in the 'real' world. Five days, was it? Felt like six months. And it hurt."

"I raped you," Bodie whispered almost soundlessly.

"He raped me," Doyle corrected. "He was the killer Schwerin wanted to make of you. You sat on him, held him down, almost all the time, but when you couldn't anymore, when you got weary, he escaped. Lucky I was there to help."

"Or I'd have been straight jacketed in an asylum for the rest of my short life," Bodie muttered, and clung desperately to Doyle. "I don't want to be crucified every day by loving you, Ray. I want out."

Doyle rocked Bodie gently. "Cowley would probably agree with that - we'll be a liability to the department now anyway. Couple of flaming bis having a wild affair won't go down too well with the press!"

"Not having a wild affair," Bodie argued, tongue flicking into Ray's ear and making him shiver. "I married you, remember? If it wasn't a 'dream' and if the loving was real, and the dying, then that was real too. Buy you rings when we get out. Rings for your fingers, your toes, your - "

"Bodie!" Doyle's fingers dug into Bodie's arms. "I must be feeling - "

"You feel wonderful," Bodie said blissfully.

"- better, because you're getting me going."

"Yeah. S'nice, isn't it?"

"No, it bloody well is not, not here! I am not going to get laid in a hospital bed, so take your hands of... me..." He collapsed with a sigh as Bodie's fingers cupped and cradled his balls. "Oh, love, please. Later."

With a mutter of reproach Bodie let him go. "It's all your fault. If you were ugly and crabby tempered you could crawl into bed with me and I'd be chaste as a saint. As it is, a saint'd get excommunicated in ten seconds flat around you! And I am no saint." He patted the curve of Ray's soft backside and gave him a push. "Back to your own bed, before I change my mind and fling you on the floor and do you."

"Later." Doyle kissed Bodie's mouth as he slid out of the bed again. "And not on the floor, either. In bed, or under the shower'd be nice. I reckon we could do it standing under the water, don't you?"

"You can, if you lean forward a bit and spread 'em," Bodie grinned. "But I want you in bed. On clean sheets. Nice pillows... Go to sleep, Ray, before this bloody conversation gets away from us."

"'Night... 'Morning," Doyle corrected. "You seen the time? It's four o'clock. They'll be 'round flinging the blinds open and ladling out the cornflakes soon. And I'm not sleepy anymore."

"Neither am I," Bodie murmured gloomily. "And I'm starting to get itchy. God, sharing a room with you is worse than - worse than - " He laughed. "Can't imagine anything half as bad to compare it to."

"Sorry," Ray said meekly. "Didn't mean to be a pest, did I?"

Silence reigned for half a minute, and then Bodie heard his partner's shortened breathing. "Ray?"

"Talking to my glands," Doyle muttered. "They don't seem to be listening much, though."

"Ray?" Bodie's voice was just a purr. "Come back here."

"Dangerous," Doyle hissed sharply.

"We'll be quick. Promise. Nothing elaborate, just... Got to have it, Ray, got to have you. Please?"

Muttering beneath his breath about fool's errands, Ray slipped in between Bodie's sheets, ditching the open backed hospital robe, and gasped as his skin met Bodie's down every inch of their bodies. "Going to make a mess," he whispered.

"Kleenex in the cabinet," Bodie moaned. "I looked."

"Thorough bugger," Doyle said, and nipped Bodie's nose as he was pulled close and two large hands cupped his backside. "So warm, aren't you? And Jesus, so hard."

Then there was no more breath to speak with and they were writhing together, feeling the weakness of days of inactivity hampering them but unable to resist the surges of needing and the shimmering response of their nerves. It was, they thought in retrospect, laughing, a weird place to do it for the first time; a narrow hospital bed, with a vast building full of the sick, the dying and the nursing staff ten feet outside the door, but it was wonderful, and they had never felt more together, or less alone than in the moments after they came, lying stickily together, too exhausted to twitch a muscle.

Somehow Doyle summoned the strength to get back into his own bed before anyone could appear, and they dozed until breakfast, eating as if they were starved and finding themselves packed off upstairs to the physiotherapists. Their muscle tone was only marginally depleted, and a morning's work left them tired, sore but satisfied. Michaels put in an appearance as they were eating lunch and was delighted with their bright eyed, bushy tailed act.

When the surgeon left Bodie was crowing in glee. "Sprung! Free! Out! Loose! On the rampage!"

"At least as far as Chelsea," Doyle said drily, "where I expect to sink into an armchair and do my geriatric impressions for a week. Feels like I've had the 'flu, you know? Weak in the legs and all that."

"How weak?" Bodie asked, flashing him a sultry look.

Doyle giggled - an unashamed sound something like gurgling plumbing. "Not that weak, thank God. Oh love, your face! What is it?"

Bodie's eyes had widened and his jaw had gone slack. "I've just never heard you giggle," he admitted. "You were always such a macho little son of a bitch. And you giggled."

"I'll stop, if you don't like it," Doyle offered indifferently, inspecting his finger nails.

"Don't," Bodie grinned. "It, well, turns me on, you know."

Now Doyle chuckled richly. "You'd better warn me; what do I do that turns you on - what shouldn't I do at the wrong moment?"

"Don't walk in front of me," Bodie said seriously. "Don't lean back against walls the way you do, with your hips stuck out; don't squirm around in the car with your bum in the air. Don't flutter your eyelashes; for God's sake don't wriggle around trying to scratch an itch - and don't sit with your legs wide open, like you do. Don't - "

"Jeez, what can? I do?" Doyle demanded, exasperated.

"Not a lot," Bodie admitted. "Unless we're at home, in which case you can do as you like. And the more often you do it, the better I'll like it."

Doyle threw a bunch of grapes at him.

They were free to go at three, and Doyle phoned for a taxi to take them out to Chelsea, just across the river. He had enough in change in the pocket of his jeans to pay the fare, and was juggling his keys as he went through the doors a step ahead of Bodie, punching the lift button. For once, the device was operating.

Bodie had always liked Doyle's flat; it was a comfortable clutter where you could mess about, put your feet up, get things into a muddle, and not feel a pang of guilt, because every time you looked he had rearranged the furniture or brought some new object d'art that required the rearrangement of everything else he owned to accommodate it. 'Comfortable' best summed up a Doyle domicile, and Bodie knew instinctively where home would be.

Suddenly the door was closed and they were really alone, and the laughter was stilled. They wanted to hold, be held, to kiss and touch, and when Doyle reached out for Bodie it was like being set free. The embrace was familiar, the ravenous kisses craved for, and when they found themselves tangled on Ray's bed, naked and aching with arousal, it was all Bodie could do to remember that his lover was actually a virgin. Ray was trembling with desire, hot, flushed, his satiny skin sheened with a film of salty perspiration, so turned on already that he was wriggling.

Beautiful, Bodie thought, sitting up to look at him from arm's length; that furry chest with its rosy brown nipples was heaving, ribs just under the skin becoming more prominent with each indrawn gasp, those long, dancer's legs shifting as he tried to ease the aches of wanting, and between them, his cock was throbbing, dark and demanding. The green eyes were huge and misty, and every little caress made him moan.

"Ray," Bodie murmured, "you're forgetting."

"Forgetting?" Doyle turned onto his side and pressed back against Bodie's chest. "Forgetting what?" He wriggled until the nudge of Bodie's erection was between his thighs.

"This." Bodie's hand slid down between his buttocks, seeking the ring of muscle and pressing inward. "First time and all that."

For a moment Ray stilled, then his shoulders twitched in a shrug. "Survived it last time, didn't I? I mean - oh, Christ, you know what I mean. Just do it the same way, Bodie, but do it now. Please?"

"Not like you to beg," Bodie teased.

Doyle glanced over his shoulder. "I'm not begging. I'm demanding. There's vitamin E cream in the bathroom. Oily as hell. That'll do." He bit off a giggle. "I remember the time you used butter."

"I'll get it," Bodie said, kissing his nose. "The vitamin stuff, not the butter. S'been in the fridge, you'd go into orbit if I used that." Ray punched his shoulder as he slid off the bed, padding into the bathroom and returning with the yellow plastic tube. He was thinking back to their first night, in the hotel in Sutton Westcliff; he would never forget any detail of it - that was their first time, not this. This was just like a re-enactment for the fun of it. Still, he knew he had to be careful - as careful as Ray would have to be the first time he did this to Bodie.

Lying on his back, toes wriggling, breath already short, Ray looked too wanton to be believed, but it was an innocent kind of wantonness, like the sinless ardour of a wild creature. Bodie's weight sank the mattress and he lay down beside him. "Same way as last time?"

"Same way," Ray smiled dreamily. "You do remember - ?" Then he had to gasp as Bodie's mouth closed over his right nipple and his cock was taken in a firm grip, pulling and squeezing, and they began.

It was the same in almost every detail. Doyle pulled a pillow under his cheek, eager for the deep intrusion of oily fingers, but the feelings were gloriously familiar, not strange and distressing, and when Bodie entered him at last only the sharp jolt of pain attested to his virginity. He bit his lip as Bodie settled down on him, the impalement complete.

"Ray? Okay, love?" Even the words were the same, and Doyle nodded, wanting him to move, now that the pain was beginning to recede, pleasure replacing it. He wiggled, trying to take his weight on his knees; a thrill of pain returned as Bodie did move, but in moments was gone again, and Bodie's hand had hold of him, slippery with his own pre-ejaculate, rubbing until his mind spun.

Suddenly the coupling was the same as always, a sharing, familiar, and they were working together, rapture replacing pleasure, joy bursting out of rapture. Bodie cried out as he came, a moan echoed by Doyle as the scalding liquid stung his tender inside, and they collapsed, sucking air into their lungs, loathe to separate until Doyle began to suffocate under Bodie's considerable weight. Then they rolled over into a loose, sticky embrace, and Ray yelped.

"Sore?" Bodie guessed.

"Very," Doyle said ruefully. "Not to worry, though - you oiled me up with vitamin E cream to begin with. Saved a whole step."

"Want some more on?" Bodie reached for the tube.

Ray gave a wriggle. "Gimme something to mop up with before I mess up my best quilt any more." He laughed delightedly as Bodie reached for the box of Kleenex, swiping it off the bedside table, pulling out a handful and performing the task himself.

"There's a lot of it," Bodie said sheepishly.

"Self-solving problem," Doyle said aridly. "Give us a few days and we won't be making much of a mess. Abstinence is the way to make a mess, and I don't see us abstaining." He writhed in a curious mixture of discomfort and satiated pleasure as Bodie applied a swab of cream, then yawned with gusto and punched the pillow. "Fancy a snooze?"

"Thought you'd never ask," Bodie grinned, and grabbed his lover, pulling him into his arms. "Love you, Ray. Gorgeous, sexy, randy little..." He was asleep before he managed the last word.

"Bugger," Doyle finished for him, eyes falling shut. "And for the first time there's evidence for the truth of that, sweetheart." He smiled into the hollow of Bodie's throat. "Love you too... Tell you when you wake up, sleepin' beauty."

---

If they thought they were not under surveillance, they were wrong.

The phone rang at ten to six, clamouring for attention on the table beside Doyle's bed, and as Ray was still dead asleep Bodie groped for it, dislodging the smaller man from his chest. Ray gave a mutter of protest at the disturbance and cuddled closer, and Bodie pressed the cold plastic to his ear. "Bodie." He expected it to be a call from Central, but the voice that answered was thickly accented.

German. And it said one word. "Ravenfeeder."

Numbness tingled through Bodie and he wisely put the phone back into the cradle without offering a word of response, tickling Ray's shoulder to wake him. "Ray, love, wake up."

"Unh?" Doyle lifted a drowsy face, kissing Bodie's chin. "Whaa-?"

"We're not out of the woods yet. Guess who that was on the phone."

For an instant Doyle was still, then he shot up in bed, wincing soundlessly as he sat up, at the protests of back and backside. "That bastard tried it again?" Bodie nodded mutely. "Ravenfeeder," Ray said softly. "Well? Bodie? How do you... feel about it?"

"Sick in my guts," Bodie admitted, "but it's over. I faced it and I beat it, so relax. I'm not going to got for the throat again." He planted a kiss on Doyle's nose. "Got to call Central, tell the Cow."

"And he'll wave a magic wand and put everything right," Doyle said drily, lying down again and pulling the blankets up to his chin.

Bodie was out of the bed as he spoke, leaving in search of Ray's R/T, which was on the mantle in the lounge room. "3.7 to base." He asked for Cowley, and when he heard the Scot's voice he went on, "Schwerin had a tail on us, sir. We came back home to Ray's, and he knows we're here. I just got a phonecall. Same as last time - code word, assignment to kill."

"Audacity," Cowley said acidly. "If at first you don't succeed... Sit tight, Bodie. We'll tap the phone full time now, set up a listening post. Oh, Jax and Murphy have got an Interpol feed that should pinpoint the Schwerin group within the next couple of days. Some of them are still in Frankfurt, others are right here in London. We have names and faces, since you got over your memory lapse, so we're on the last lap. It might be wise to put a guard on the flat. You'll be staying with 4.5, I assume?"

"Yes, sir," Bodie said a little awkwardly. And for a damned sight longer than you think. Sir, he added soundlessly.

"Wise to stick together at this point," Cowley conceded. "You're a prime target now, Bodie. You can identify the men who abducted you. This phonecall in just a testing of the water... They'll be watching to see if you leave 4.5's flat with blood on your hands and homicidal designs on the rest of us. When you don't, there's every chance they'll come for you."

"I know," Bodie agreed quietly. "We'll stay on our toes, sir. A bit of back up wouldn't go amiss; and we'll check in every hour."

"By the book," Cowley said tersely. "Alpha One out."

As Bodie shut down he turned to see Doyle standing a pace behind him, one of his tartan rugs wrapped around him, his hair messy, his jaw needing a shave, but his eyes bright and clear. "I heard," he said as Bodie took a breath to brief him. "And I reckon it could come to a shooting party."

"It will," Bodie nodded. "Soon. They'll be watching us right now, and my guess is they'll be waiting to take us when we put our noses out that door... So we stay inside, right?"

Ray nodded. "Fine by me. Have to phone for groceries, though, and it's too late to do that today. Have to send out for dinner. Chinese? Italian?"

"Chinese," Bodie said self indulgently. "Peking Duck, since you're payin' the bill."

"Me?" Doyle blinked. "Oi, we share the expenses, mate, as well as the perks, or I'm filing for divorce in the morning!"

"You would, wouldn't you?" Bodie grinned.

Doyle thought for a moment and shook his head. "Nah. Might thump you and hump you, but dump you? I can get my revenge in other ways."

"Oh, like what?"

Ray pantomimed the turning of a key in a lock at his groin. "Up ye olde fashoned chastity belt. Loss of your conjugals'll soon sort you out."

The look on Bodie's face was worth fifty quid, Doyle thought as he spun and sprinted away from the rugby tackle, making it to the bedroom and ending up pressed against the headboard, sitting on the pillows, losing the rug and laughing till his chest ached. Bodie grabbed him by the feet and yanked, pulling him down the bed, and he flailed around, kicking and wriggling, loving the game.

"It'd be the last roundup for you, mate," Bodie growled, "if I was my normal, virile self. You're just lucky I'm still a bit down." He had Doyle by the ankles and twitched his legs apart suggestively.

A flicker of something less humorous crossed Doyle's mobile face. "But I'm still a bit sore," he said, trying to cover the concern with a grin. "It'd hurt me, so soon. You wouldn't screw me if you knew it was going to hurt me, would you?" As he spoke the sobriety returned to his voice, and Bodie let the game go, gathering him into an embrace.

"I have no intentions of 'screwing' you at all, Raymond, and I'd be very pleased if you would unlearn that word. All I ever wanted to do was make love to you, any way you want it. 'Screwing' is fun, but there's a teeny bit of difference between that and loving." He took the round chin in his left palm and looked into the green eyes levelly. "If there's ever anything wrong - and if ever I hurt you, you yell good and loud." His voice shook; in his mind were the images he wished he could forget; Ray, writhing in fright and discomfort, stunned and slammed into the pillows with every thrust that hammered into his body. He shivered, and the fingers on Doyle's face shook.

Sensitive to Bodie's moods as never before, Doyle took his lover's hands tightly. "Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like I doubted you, just... I thought... If you're hot for it and I can't do it, I'm going to feel awful about letting you down."

Bodie gaped at him and yanked vengefully on his hair. "Twit. Hot for it? So hot I'd hurt you? You're an idiot, Ray. All you have to do is lie there looking at me with those big soulful eyes and the chances are I'll come without you layin' a finger on me. Or kiss me with your tongue, or suck me. Or stroke yourself and let me watch. Anything. The rest of it's up to you; you'll invite me into you when you're good and ready... Same as I'll invite you." He forced a smile. "After we've got the lid on the Schwerin do you can screw me into the ground, pet; wouldn't do for both of us to be raw and twitchy, would it?"

"I'll do no such thing," Ray said softly, bending his head to kiss Bodie's chest. "You can keep screwing around. Want to make love. Later, when we've had some dinner, I want to stand under the shower with you and do it slowly. S'okay?"

"Silly question," Bodie said honestly, and two hours later demonstrated how silly, by letting Doyle coax him into a sweet, endless climax, just pressed together under the warm water and rocking heat against hard heat. Ray had a natural instinct, a real talent, and the glow of the loving lasted the whole evening out, still reverberating in their nerves as they fell into bed, tired, contented and talking in whispers into the early hours. Making love again was beyond them until the flickers of dawn found their way into the room, when Bodie thrilled to the soft/hard feel of Doyle stretched out on his back, heaving like the scend[?] of the ocean, warm, clean, musky, and male.

It was the comfort of being with a man more than anything else, that time, that lulled Bodie. With a woman there was always worry: will she come? Can I hold back to make her come before I'm spent? What's she feeling? Is it okay to move her, or will it spoil what she's feeling? With another man, he just knew; he could relax, could let go and writhe around, kiss sloppily, mutter earthy curses, do it hard or just lie there and let it happen, as the fancy took him. Ray loved everything he did, everything he said, and there was never the desperate frustration of giving head without reciprocated delight. If Doyle, still new to this kind of sex, had not wanted to suck him, he would have said nothing; Ray tasted wonderful it was no imposition to go down on him and pamper him shamelessly; but, when he had got his breath back and his limbs were in working order again, Doyle would wriggle around and return the pampering with interest.

Not surprising, they slept late, and missed their check-in to CI5 Central. The R/T beside the bed shrilled Doyle's operative number and he answered groggily. "Yeah, yeah, all quiet, everything shipshape. Will call in again at eleven. 4.5 out." He dropped the R/T into the bed, letting Bodie fish it out and replace it on the table. "What day is this?"

"Friday?" Bodie guessed. "No, that can't be right. Thursday? Oh, who cares? Calendars don't count when you're on honeymoon."

"Honeymoon?" One green eye pried open in Doyle's whiskery face. "Are we? Thought you went to Niagara Falls on honeymoon."

"Not on our salary," Bodie grinned. "And speaking of finances, we have to talk, Ray. If we're quitting the squad, we need to make plans."

"Talk while we eat," Doyle yawned. "I'm starved. Need my brekkie, or I'll expire on the spot."

"Need a shave too," Bodie observed. "Shower?"

Half an hour later they were sitting at the kitchen table with a toaster working between them, and Bodie was ladling butter onto a slice of wholemeal bread, slightly scorched around the edges. "Plans, sunshine. I'm not signing on the dole at my age." He gave Ray a wink over the heat haze. "Could do a bit of pimping for you, though... You're a treat in jeans that are two sizes too small for you, and - "

"And you can always dig ditches," Doyle snorted. "Be serious; I'm not jumping into something I'll regret."

"You've got to be alive to have regrets," Bodie said, suddenly moody. "I'd sooner be alive with your complaining than both of us in the ground. Don't kid yourself Ray - I'd do it. I'm not so enamoured of life that it holds any fatal charm for me anymore. I've been kicked all my life; ran the docks as a kid, shipped out in the Merchant, got myself shagged by the First Mate at fourteen, and half the bloody crew of the Dog Rose before I could jump ship. Wasn't nice, but they didn't hurt me. Mercs, army, killing, madness, hate." He shrugged. "I've had it all, and I've paid my dues. I want to come home now. To you. What do you want?"

Doyle chewed the corner of a piece of toast thoughtfully. "I've had an easy life by comparison to yours," he admitted, "but it was tough enough. Fighting, drinking, smoking, whoring, before I was seventeen. I cut up a kid - I told you that once. I never told you why. He was trying it on with me, rough and ready, 'xcept I wasn't ready. He wouldn't take no for an answer, so I let him have it. I've been kicked from one end of London to the other, first with the Met, then with Cowley's mob. I've played the stud and the whore for him, yeah, I reckon I've paid my dues too. He doesn't owe me, I don't owe him." He seemed to focus on Bodie for the first time in a minute. "Home and hearth sound nice, Bodie. Where the heart is... That's you. Been you for a long time, I think, only we weren't ready to admit it. Never been gay before."

"Me neither," Bodie shrugged. "All it was, before, was a means to an end, if you'll forgive the pun. Keeps you sane in the bush, and it keeps your elders and betters smiling benevolently at you on the ship. They didn't do me any real harm, and by God, they gave me an education! You'd never guess the things you can do with a menthol cough drop!"

"Wouldn't I?" Doyle winked at him. "I've been around the block a few times myself, chum. And there's a packet of 'em in the medicinals cabinet in the bathroom, if you fancy taking your life in your hands... Don't change the ruddy subject. If we're quitting to stay alive, what are we going to do? Just change jobs?"

"Go into business," Bodie suggested, picking up the new toast with careful fingers. "Look, I've got a few grand left over from my wild youth, and you've been salting lettuce away for a rainy day like a chipmunk hoarding nuts. We can sell a few things, maybe take out a loan, get a lease on a place out of the city. Garage on the river, fix bikes and outboards, slipway where we can work on the odd boat, sell fishing gear, get a Suzuki franchise - there's one going, read about it in the paper. I know a couple of good lads from the old days, great mechanics, who'd be able to handle the actual work; hire a kid to look after the shop. Cottage on the premise, little farm on the river. Mucking about all day, fishing, riding bikes, breeding horses, get a few dogs, and get over to Paris and Barcelona now and again for holidays."

"Sounds thrilling," Doyle mused. "Realise we'll be mad with boredom inside of the first year, after the life we've led up to now."

A grin cracked Bodie's face. "Cliff climbing in Wales, hiking up in Snowdonia, or Eire, fly gliders or kites, buy a ketch and sail down to Morocco or Senegambia for a month. With a business set up and running, we can stop working and start living, Ray."

"And what about if it goes broke?" Doyle asked wickedly, washing his toast down with a swig of tea. "What then?"

"Like to look on the black side, don't you?"

"Like to cover all the options," Doyle corrected. "It'd be back to work for us if it fell on its face, and we'd take pretty poorly to it if we'd been our own bosses for years... Mind you, you could do worse than exploit what we know. Security. Bank, vaults, country mansions, that kind of thing. That's not dangerous work - most you come up against is the odd cat man." He frowned, thinking hard. "And we could set that up in five minutes with half a dozen phonecalls and some stationery, if the other idea didn't work out."

"Or do it as well," Bodie agreed, warming to the subject. "Yeah, do what we do now, but do it in safer circumstances for clients who'll pay through the nose. That's not a bad idea, Raymond, me love."

"And that's another thing," Doyle added, sobering. "If we're going to settle down together, you're going to have to get used to being looked askance at. Know what I'm getting at? They're going to call us fags, queens, and a lot of less polite names. That bother you?"

Bodie just shrugged. "I've been called a lot of things in my time... Pervert, deviant, murderer. I was a merc, you understand, and all mercs are perverted monstrosities, sex maniacs who like to rape and butcher. It's not true. They're not all that, but..."

"Gelbart," Doyle said softly. "He said he was going to do that to me. Take the knife off me, geld me with it, hump me as long as I could take it and sell the carcass off. Bodie, why did he say those exact things?"

He watched Bodie shiver, close his eyes. "I watched him play that game once. Got a South African kid, he was supposed to be a radio man but he was just a boy, nice looking too; good at his job till the shooting started, then scared to death. Gelbart got shot, because he fouled up one time, and he took it out on the kid. Cut him. Raped him till he bled to death. They sold the body to a butcher in Zaire." The words were spoken in a hoarse whisper and Bodie shook himself hard. "I thought I'd buried that so deep it'd never see the light of day again."

"Except I was down there," Ray murmured soothingly, "in the dark place where you hide all this away. I saw a lot of things, Bodie. A lot of things you'd never speak of in a million years... I know what's behind you as surely as if I'd been in Angola with you." He reached across the table. "Take my hand." Bodie did as he was asked, and Doyle squeezed the cold fingers. "Look at this." He gestured at their clasped hands with a nod of his head. "That says it all. That's us from now on. Shut me out, and I'll fight you; leave me and I'll scream blue murder, be unfaithful and I'll thump you where it hurts most. Listening?"

Bodie blinked in astonishment and nodded meekly. "Yeah. You're quite a tiger when you get your mad up, aren't you?"

"Damned right," Doyle affirmed huskily. "I died for you in that room. Don't you forget that either, in future, when a tight skirt wiggles by and you start itching for a bit of the other."

"Clot," Bodie said fondly. "I've had so many women I've lost count, haven't a clue what they all look like, can't even remember their names. There's one bird called Harriet sends me a Christmas card every year from Devon, and I can't even remember who the hell she is. They never meant anything. Company, kisses, sex when I needed it. A shoulder to lean on, maybe... I'd sooner have you. You love me, makes all the difference." He lifted Ray's knuckles to his lips. "We need groceries, sunshine. This bread is like cardboard and the butter's half off, and the rest's ruined. What's the number of the local place?"

Domesticity was a novelty and they enjoyed the day, quiet and uneventful as it was, checking in every hour. By five, Cowley was growing impatient, and when he arrived on the doorstep they smelled a rat, sharing a glance of mutual suspicion. "Come in, sir," Doyle said automatically, stepping aside to allow the older man over the threshold.

"You're looking well, both of you," Cowley observed. "The new life seems to suit you both."

"New life?" Bodie prompted innocently.

Cowley gave him a hard look. "Don't try to con a con man, Bodie... You've consummated it, have you? Come on, Michaels told me he caught you kissing in the hospital."

Ray flushed scarlet, partly with embarrassment and partly in real anger. "So much for the bloody ethics of the medical profession!"

"He was not aware that he was divulging your secrets," Cowley said offhandly. "No offence intended, none taken, as far as I'm concerned. But I need to know the status of my operatives. Are you or are you not sleeping together?"

It was Bodie who answered, reflecting Cowley's acid tone right back at him. "Yes, we are. Bothers you, does it?"

"As your... friend," Cowley said carefully, "no. As your employer, I am naturally less happy."

"Doesn't make much difference, sir," Bodie said slowly, "because we've decided to resign."

The Scot's brow creased in a deep frown. "Because you're concerned for my opinion of you? Because you're concerned for the department's welfare?"

"Because we're concerned for our welfare, sir," Doyle said quietly. "I'm thirty-four, sir, Bodie's a week or two off thirty-two. We'd have ten years left in the field - "

"Fifteen if you stay fit and sharp," Cowley corrected. "Men like Meredith, Macklin, Kodai, Radouk, Yeshenkov and myself function well in the field for years, you know that. They're all years older than you, and they give you a run for your money."

"Right," Doyle conceded. "But we've started to think we're pushing our luck, sir. Meredith's dead. Kodai's dead, your limping, Radouk's inside, Macklin's nerves are shot to hell. You think we're keen to go their way - the way of Mattheson, King, Cookie, Tony Miller, and all the rest?" He shook his head. "We've done our bit for Queen and country; twenty-seven year's service between us. Now we'd like to get out, get off the street before they wheel us out of action into an invalid home, or send us on a one way excursion to the nice little churchyard where we bury our loyal, anonymous civil servants. You can appreciate how we feel, sir."

In fact, Cowley could appreciate what Doyle was saying perfectly, but he was not about to let his two best men go without a struggle. "So what will you do? Have you thought about the future?"

Bodie gave Doyle a conspiratorial smile. "We have. Two businesses; a place on the river, mechanics and tourist supplies, and a security firm, wiring the houses of the megarich. We'll make it work, sir."

"I'm sure you will," Cowley nodded. "You'll be bored to distraction in six months and knocking on my door in a year."

"Would you take us back?" Ray frowned. "As we are - a couple, and all that? Because we're not going to change our minds about how we feel."

But Cowley shook his head. "If you stay, you stay, and you keep your act neat and tidy. Live together by all means, but out there you keep it professional, impersonal. If you go, for a year, two years, you'll have been pegged by one and all as what you are - a couple. That makes you a liability. You couldn't come back if you wanted to. It's a one way decision, you can see my position. Once you go, you can't come back. Not after you've been recognised, publicly, in your new guise."

It made a lot of sense. The press had never cared for CI5; many of the papers and magazines likened Cowley's department to the KGB, and the CIA, secret societies, dangerous and malignant. The chance to blacken the whole outfit would not be refused, and if it could be proved that George Cowley hired gays, questions would be asked in high places. Bodie, even at that point, was uncomfortable with the categorisation 'gay,' because it was not in its strictest sense true. Bisexuality had always come naturally to him; loving Doyle was as easy as breathing, but being gay meant panting after sundry good looking men and sleeping around with them, and that was not something he had done in years, and only then, out of necessity. As far as Doyle was concerned, it was all too new for him to be hammered into any specific category, expect to say that he had been as heterosexual as anyone until love caught up with him.

And in the end, Bodie thought as he smiled at Doyle's serious profile, it's the love that counts, not the sex, not the bed you roll out of in the morning and whether it smells of perfume or cologne... Or that clean, musky, male scent that said 'Doyle.'

"You still want to go?" Cowley asked, point blank. "Because if you do I won't stand in your way. I'll even pull strings to launch you in your new endeavour, and there might come a time when I'll subcontract work your way. But once you make the break, it's got to be a clean one. CI5 is still proving itself, as far as many people are concerned. We can't afford any mistakes, not when so much groundwork has been done. Well?"

There was silence for a long time; in it, Doyle and Bodie looked levelly and honestly at one another. Bodie lifted one brow, asking the question: 'you know what I want, what about you, sunshine?' Doyle could literally hear him say it, and he smiled. It meant changing everything, the habits of a lifetime, losing friends, his home, everything except Bodie. He studied the carpet, weighing and measuring, calculating one option against the other, and Cowley and Bodie gave him a full minute to come to a final decision.

It was the sharp twist of memory that made up his mind for him. Back there, in that awful place, the cellar where Bodie kept his horrors, he had gone to his death, given his life willingly trying to win sanity back for Bodie. And he'd do it again. Seeing Bodie hurt, distressed, was too much to be borne, a real, physical pain within him, and he'd do it again. Life was a little sacrifice to make when it was measured against the kind of love that was like an ache down under his heat... But if he gave his life, the ultimate self-sacrifice, by giving it he'd sign Bodie's death warrant. Bodie would do it, he knew. Life had pounded him until he was black and blue, and he had had it all; the hates and lusts, the grand tragedies and battles won, lost loves and broken ideals. All that was left was right here in this room. Ray felt the weight of responsibility settle on his shoulders and made a silent pledge not to shirk it. Bodie needed him, wanted him, and there was, in his own heart, a deep yearning to be needed and wanted. All his life he had waited and searched for someone to need him.

He'd be a lunatic to reject love for the sake of a job. Paperwork and the boredom of stakeouts, the cold sweat of firefights, the soul-numbing shock of killing, snuffing out another's life. The gut-twisting fear of wondering when the bullet was going to find him, or Bodie. Bruises and broken bones, regularly, when the game got rough, and the wrenching agony of watching one friend after another put into the ground.

Enough's enough, Ray thought tiredly. He looked up into Bodie's deep serious blue eyes and smiled. "We'll resign, sir." he said to Cowley, still looking at Bodie. "Before our luck runs out. No hard feelings?"

"None," Cowley said softly. As he took Doyle's verbal resignation along with Bodie's, the Scot relaxed. Business concluded, he sank into an armchair and looked pointedly at the scotch bottle. "Are you two on the wagon, or are you going to offer your old boss a drink?"

Bodie poured the amber spirit for all three of them, and Cowley raised his glass in a toast. "Your future. May you succeed in what you do." He drank and nodded in appreciation of the Johnny Walker. "I will say that we'll miss you. You'll work a month's notice, of course, but since both of you are under par after being flat on your back for days, I shall have to find you something to do at the office. No sense sending you to Brian for a tuning up when you're going to be leaving the fold."

"No hard feelings," Bodie observed, surprised. "I thought you'd give us a fight, sir."

"Did you?" Cowley smiled, all his stiff reserve relaxed now. "Och, I know when a man's had enough, Bodie, I'm not blind. You two have been running, hard and fast, for years. On borrowed time? Maybe. Maybe it's time we all got out, while we can. There's a row of gravestones with the names of my friends on them. I don't want to add your names to the list." He sat looking at the two of them with a benign smile, then got to his feet. "Give me the resignations in writing, the usual forms will have to be filled out. Tell me when you get your business arranged, I'll see what I can do to help - and I'll keep you in mind, in future when there's a security job. A house you've wired will be like home territory to you." He strode to the door, opened it and stopped to look back. "A month's notice, then, but you're on sick leave for another week. According to Doctor Michaels, Bodie, you're still too full of drugs to be of any use to me, and after the brain scans returned by Doyle, the medical staff at the hospital are still thinking of putting him under a microscope. Brain dead for five days, says Michaels... After that, a week's sick leave is the least we can do for you."

With that he was gone, and Doyle frowned at the closed door.

"He bloody knew we were going to resign. He can smell deception from a mile away, cunning old bugger."

"Deception?" Bodie asked, slipping one arm about his waist.

"Yeah. Us, talking to him the other day, at the hospital, trying to make like nothing was wrong. We must have broadcast it at him; 'leave us alone so we can cuddle in peace!'"

"That," Bodie said succinctly, "sounds like a great idea. Come here at once and pucker up." He dropped a wet kiss on Ray's mouth, bit gently at the full lower lip as if he were a ripe peach and then drew back. "Time to think about cooking," he said vaguely. "I'm hungry."

"Your turn on KP," Doyle said dreamily. "I'm washing up tonight, aren't I? What's it going to be, beans on toast or tinned spaghetti?"

"You'll get a vitamin pill and a glass of water if you don't look out," Bodie promised. "Curry. I like curry. And it's easy to make."

Doyle made a face. "Your curry's lethal - chicken and napalm recipe."

"So you cook," Bodie shrugged.

"I cooked last night!"

"Who gives a hoot, so long as it all gets done?" Bodie demanded.

"Oh, sure." Ray propped his fists on his hips and tried for a withering glare, managing a grin instead. "If I don't watch it I'm going to spend the rest of my life chained up in the kitchen."

The blue eyes darkened by shades. "Kinky like that? You can do it on the table, I suppose. Always preferred the bed, myself."

"Shower was nice too," Doyle murmured, every joint relaxing as he thought back to the cascade of hot water and the press of their bodies.

"Understatement," Bodie purred huskily. "Come on, we'll cook together. Then we'll splash about in the washing up together. What do you want to do tonight? It's only half past five."

"There's a film on telly," Doyle said, preceding Bodie into the kitchen and doubling up to rummage in a low cupboard for the large saucepan. He yelped, giving a startled leap as Bodie palmed his buttocks.

"Yeah, go on, there's a film on telly."

"Sherlock Holmes," Ray said, catching his breath as Bodie's hands squeezed. "If you don't stop that, you might just find yourself chucked on the table and ravished within an inch of your life." Bodie squeezed again and watched Ray shudder. "Bugger it. Look at the state of me now - how d'you expect me to cook like this?" He thrust his hips forward hard against Bodie's.

"I don't," Bodie admitted. "But I want you. Food can wait. There are more important things in life."

"You're right," Doyle agreed, and dumped the saucepan. "Mind you, starvation won't do your libido much good; might have to think about eating in a week or two."

"Oh, I dunno." Bodie sank his teeth into Doyle's ear. "This bit tastes pretty good. Make an interesting diet, wouldn't it? Give up food and browse on you instead."

"Bodie, don't be disgusting," Doyle groaned.

Bodie produced a hurt expression and removed his hands from Ray's body. "All right, if that's how you feel, I'll - "

"Bodie!" Doyle grabbed him, trapped him against the cupboard and wriggled against him. "At least finished what you start!"

Bailed up against the laminex woodwork, thrilling to the feel of the hard, hot body grinding against his, Bodie looked down fondly at the coppery head on his shoulder and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Damn, so this was married life; seduction amongst the pots and pans, ardour between the processed peas and the custard powders, love among the soap suds, measureless content with one's rump being assaulted by a cupboard door handle and one's spouse tossing one's discarded clothes at the washing machine like Joel Garner in full flight.

For years Bodie had wondered why marriage was so popular.

Abruptly, he stopped wondering.

---

Their week's sick leave flew by, and on the night before they were due to return to work, Schwerin and his group were still on the loose. It was no more safe for them to leave the flat now than it had been the day they got out of the hospital, and though Cowley had kept up surveillance on the building no assassin had shown his hand. It was raining that evening and Bodie was content to sit on the sofa, cradling a glass of beer and watching Doyle sit at the window, staring out into the grey mass of clouds and the distorted wash of fluorescent street lighting. Outside, Jax and Anson were on duty, and all was quiet.

"Know what I think?" Ray said suddenly. Bodie looked up from his beer and smiled at what he saw. Doyle was barefoot, clad in his oldest, most disreputable jeans, a Chinese happy coat and a towel, with which he rubbed absently at hair that was still wet. A faint film of talcum powder was trapped amongst the hair on his chest, and he was blowing at the unruly fringe curls, which were just long enough to get in his eyes when they were wet and limp.

"Go on, what do you think?" Bodie prompted, watching the damp hair puff up off his forehead as he pursed his lips and blew.

"I reckon they should just brick the door up and leave us in 'ere. We're bloody prisoners! Haven't been outside for a week!"

"I'm a target, remember." Bodie levered up to his feet, came to the window and took the towel from Ray to rub at his at his hair. "If I stick my nose out, I'll get it shot off."

"But we can't just stay in here forever."

"Getting a bit stir crazy?

"A bit," Doyle affirmed. "I'd like to go for a run. A walk would do. Yoga on the hearthrug's all very well - "

"Specially for those of us who sit and observe," Bodie chuckled, and meant it. Doyle preferred to exercise in the raw, and what that did for the timeless art of tying one's body in knots was nobody's business. Doyle was a stretchy, supple creature who went through the asanas easily, making them look simple - Bodie knew they were not, and would not be coerced into having a go himself, just happy to watch. At first Ray had been just the tiniest bit self-conscious, like an amateur musician performing in front of someone for the first time, but when he saw the flush in Bodie's cheeks, the languid droop of his eyelashes as the blue eyes grew dark, he quickly made a game of it, and Bodie knew full well that he was choosing asanas that displayed his body to its best, most seductive advantage. Once, he had gone too far; there had been a wicked glint in the green eyes, quickly disguised behind an innocent expression of self absorption before he knelt, legs spread, and put his shoulders down on the rug. It was in the bloody book of exercises - Bodie had seen the photos - but that made no damned difference, and their coupling was furious and hard, right there on the rug.

Remembering it, Bodie smiled; Doyle knew exactly what he was doing; he could wind his lover around his finger, or any other suitable portion of his anatomy, and Bodie was loving it. When this whole Schwerin business was over he would delight in making that long promised invitation... Doyle had been looking at him from beneath lowered lids for days, caressing Bodie's shapely rear with frank interest, and stroking him with an intimate knowledge of what Bodie wanted; sometimes it was hard to remember that death was as close as a bullet, three feet outside their door, and that abstinence, in this case, was less a virtue than a necessity. Bodie had him use his fingers instead, and Ray was eager to comply, learning fast. It was a long time indeed since Bodie had let himself be possessed, and he had never done it at all with love. When it happened, he guessed, it would be devastating.

He tossed away the towel and kissed the top of Doyle's damp, sweet smelling head. Ray murmured pleasurably, leaning back heavily and asking to be embraced; Bodie wrapped him up in his arms, wallowing in comfort. "You know, it might be nice if they did brick the door up and leave us alone. Could go on for a year like this."

"Mmm," Ray purred. "But I want to run, love. I like to run. Be nicer than ever running with you now, especially if it's somewhere nice and private, or too early for anyone else to be around. Could neck a bit behind a hedge before starting back to the car, couldn't we?"

"Illegal in a public place," Bodie teased.

"Bugger the law," Ray said succinctly. "I'm starting to get a bit claustrophobic, that's all."

"Okay," Bodie nodded, kissed his ear and let him go. "So what are we going to do about it? There is a way, you know. To get it all finished... Remember the time with Meredith and Radouk and the KGB hit man, Igor Kodai?"

"Cowley set himself up as the sacrificial goat," Doyle said, and then suddenly cottoned on to what Bodie meant. "No! No bloody way are you going to set yourself up to be hit!"

"Flak jacket, same as the Cow," Bodie argued. "You know as well as I do, no long shot is set up for head shooting. Couple of bruises, then we grab the bastard, and we're home free."

"I don't like it, Bodie," Doyle growled.

"Neither do I, but we can't stay cooped up under guard forever. You're not the only one who needs to stretch his legs, you know. And besides," he added with a slightly sheepish grin. "Watching you get all the fun is starting to frustrate me something wicked." He reached out to stroke the small, perfect buttocks in the faded denim, watched Doyle close his eyes with a lush little sigh. "Yeah, you know bloody well what I mean. You're asking me to do it for you all the time - "

"Complaining?" Ray pried open one eye with a mock frown.

"Yeah," Bodie said brashly, "'cause I want you to do it to me, but I don't dare, till I know I can be sore and stiff all day in peace."

"It does make you a bit uncomfortable the first couple of times," Ray agreed, then his expression became smug. "After that, it's all plain sailing. The more you get it, the easier it gets and the more you want it. Feels..." He shivered.

Bodie shivered too, just watching the sensual twitch of that beautiful mouth. He'd never seen another mouth like it on anyone, man or woman. Made to be kissed, he thought, and flicked his tongue inside while Doyle was still trying to think of words to express what it felt like when he was filled with Bodie and frantic. Bodie acknowledged that he was getting fairly frantic himself, and clutched the smaller man tightly against him.

"Right, that's settled. We're going to spin a web and wait for the hit man to walk into it."

"And you're the bait," Ray sighed, hating the idea.

"I'm the spider," Bodie corrected.

"Spiders don't get shot at."

"Oh no? What were you doing to that poor creature under the sink the other day? You sprayed half a tin on it!"

"Can't stand spiders," Doyle muttered. "Don't mind roaches and the odd silverfish, grasshoppers are okay, and flies are just a pest. Bees are sort of cute, but spiders..." A huge shiver ran through him.

"You're serious, aren't you?" Bodie chuckled. "Now I know what to threaten you with to keep you in line. If you're not a good lad I can always tie you up and let you have it with a bucket full of 'em. They don't bother me," he added airily.

"You do, and you're divorced, pretty bloody quick," Ray said, writhing out of his grasp and leaving Bodie with a handful of empty happy coat. "I'll jump off Tower Bridge for you, but I won't stand that!" He drew a hand across his chest, discovered the residue of talc and absently brushed it away. "You serious?"

"Nah, wouldn't tie you up and let the spiders have a go at you - "

"About setting yourself up as a moving target," Doyle corrected in tones of long suffering patience.

Bodie sobered. "Yeah. Can't see any other way. And I can't see any point in stringing the agony out, either. I'm going to call Cowley tonight, and we'll set it up for tomorrow. I hate hanging around at the dentist's listening to them drilling other folks' teeth. Know what I mean?"

"The waiting's worse than the event," Doyle agreed.

"Yeah." Bodie smiled. "Which is how I'm feeling about having you inside me. I'm starting to think about screamin' in frustration, and doin' it to you is no substitute. Nice as your fingers are, I want you to do it properly. Soon. Tomorrow night, maybe, all being well."

Ray managed a smile and reluctantly nodded. "Fair enough. Far be it from me to preach sense if you want to make a martyr out of yourself."

"I don't," Bodie corrected. "Want to make a free man out of myself, and you too. It could drag on for bloody weeks like this, and that's no good. We've got a life to make, Ray. We're out of a job three weeks from now, we need a new home, a business, car of our own, it won't all just happen, you know. Furniture vans, mortgage, lease, premises, employees. Buy some horses, decorating, painting, sort the garden out..." He paused and chuckled. "It's going to be hard work, but I reckon it'll be worth it. But we can't hang about, love, or we'll be spending the money we need to set it up. Can't do that - I've got a nice nestegg, but not that much."

A soft, incalculably sweet and happy smile had crept over Doyle's face, and as he spoke there was a catch in his voice. "Christ we're going to get domesticated if we're not careful."

"That bother you?" Bodie opened his arms, inviting Doyle into his warmth and wanting the feel of all that shower-warm bare skin.

"Can't say that it does." Ray sounded honestly surprised. "Oh, all right, we'll do it. This is the last time, Bodie. No more jobs like this. Be just our luck if this was the time we get unlucky."

"Couldn't happen," Bodie scoffed. "I'm in love; s'better than a force field." He paused, face in Ray's hair. "Tell me you love me or I'll scream in your ear and deafen you. Need to hear it."

"Prat," Ray accused. "I love you. And you're beautiful, and I want you, so go and jump into bed while I lock up and get the lights." He gave Bodie a stern look. "Say, yes, Ray!"

"Yes, Ray," Bodie said with patently mock meekness and a wicked twinkle in his eyes. "Don't be long, dearest, or I'll start without you."

"You do," Doyle grinned, "and I'll fly solo too this trip. Scram, and think chaste thoughts for two minutes."

"That," Bodie said with dark sobriety, "is impossible." He was watching Doyle's rear as his lover went to attend to the locks, and had to hide a grin. Chaste thoughts around Ray? About as likely as a nun at a stag night.

While Ray locked up, he sat on the foot of the bed and R/T'd Central, asking for a patch to Cowley if it was convenient. Cowley was still at the office and took the call a moment later, and Bodie outlined their plan, expecting the Scot to be less enthusiastic than Doyle had been. To his surprise, Cowley said, "aye, I've been thinking much the same thing myself, Bodie, but your life is no longer mine to play with. I would not have made the suggestion, but since you have, I'll send someone to your flat in the morning with a flak jacket, and we'll set the job up for the afternoon. We can cover you with enough firepower to make it safe after the initial shot... You realise, don't you, that you will take the first shot? There is an element of danger."

"A small one," Bodie admitted. "But only a lunatic would go for a head shot from that kind of range, and the flak jacket'll do its job."

"You don't sound concerned," Cowley observed. "What about Doyle?"

"4.5 isn't keen on the idea," Bodie told him flatly, "but there's not a lot we can do about it. It's this, or stay cooped up till we go crazy."

"So long as you're both willing to shoulder the risks," Cowley said, "I'll set it up." He paused, then closed down in terse tones.

Lounging in the bedroom doorway, Doyle had heard most of the exchange. "Shoulder the risks," he echoed, frowning at Bodie.

"All life's a risk," Bodie said blandly. "If you didn't want to take any risks at all, you'd never get out of bed in the morning." Then he had to grin. "On second thoughts, with you around, you'd never get into bed in the first place!"

"Me? What about me?" Doyle demanded, padding closer.

"You're the sexiest, randiest, horniest little sensualist this side of a Moroccan cat house," Bodie accused. "In fact, I don't think even they would believe you when you get going. I know I still don't... Ray? Ray?" He had the distinct impression that he'd bought himself a lot of trouble of the sweetest possible kind with those remarks, and as Doyle stalked toward the bed he shuffled away, an inelegant scramble to escape the inevitable.

Set on revenge, Doyle stripped with a flourish and pounced. Bodie was yelling before the cast off blue jeans had hit the carpet, and in half an hour had almost lost his voice.

---

Murphy brought the flak jacket in a suit case at 8:30. He looked for all the world like a door-to-door salesman, and when Doyle answered the bell he took one look at the newcomer and said, "not today, thank you!"

Enjoying the joke, Murphy jammed his foot in the door. "But sir, you don't know what I'm selling. Eastern delights, sir, potions for potency, gold rings hand crafted for the Sultan of Abu-Godawful's own failing appendage, aids for every occasion and fragrant oils for your - pleasure."

"You looking for a thick ear?" Doyle tried to sound stern and failed.

"And if that lot doesn't take your fancy, how about a bullet proof vest?" Murphy finished. "Where's his lordship?"

"Still in bed," Ray told him, opening the case and inspecting the flak jacket. It was heavy, kevlar panels inside black plastic.

"Likes to sleep in, does he?" Murphy sounded mildly fascinated.

"Rough night," Doyle said cryptically. Oh, what a rough night, he thought, covering his cheeks' rising colour by turning away toward the kitchen. "Want a cuppa?" Murphy wouldn't understand the love they shared, not properly. Be tolerant of it, be benevolent about it; but understanding was something that came out of experience. A lot of people could feel quite tolerant toward bisexuality on the basis of the old live-and-let-live philosophy, but the actual physical side of such an affair would probably revolt them. Doyle did not want to put it to the test. What he and Bodie felt and shared and did was beautiful, not to be sullied with others' disapproval. He shivered, remembering, as he put the kettle on the gas. His inside turned to jelly every time he remembered the feeling of Bodie moving inside of him, and he desperately wanted to let Bodie feel that. There was a little disappointment as he acknowledged that he was not Bodie's first, but the others were so far in the past that Bodie was not lying when he said he had almost forgotten what it felt like. And besides, it had never been done with love before.

His mind was far away, replaying the images that haunted him - that look of egocentric near-agony on Bodie's face as he tried not to come until there was nothing for it, come or die, then, the huge, smoky blue eyes, velvety with dilated pupils, the sheen of perspiration on his wide forehead, the taste of his mouth -

"Oi, Ray, you going to light the gas, or what?" Murphy's voice said as he followed the smaller man into the kitchen. "You seeing UFOs?" He squinted out through the window over the sink, trying to see what it was Doyle's eyes were glued to. The sky was empty.

"Was miles away, sorry," Doyle said quickly, and lit the gas. As he shook the match out he yelled, "Bodie, want any breakfast?"

The other's voice was muffled but audible. "Going to take a shower first - is that Murph?"

"Yeah," Ray shouted, "he's brought the flak jacket."

"Bet the neighbours love you two," Murphy grinned. "You always talk at that level this early in the morning?"

"Old lady above is deaf," Ray grinned back, "kids below have the hi-fi on so loud they can't hear a thing, that's a blank wall, and the family on the other side went to Brighton for a week yesterday."

"So you can yell all you want," Murphy guessed. "And I'll bet you do."

Ray looked at him from beneath suspiciously lowered lids. "And what did you mean by that last remark?"

"Nothing," Murphy shrugged. "You happy, are you, Ray? I mean, you and Bodie? Really happy?"

Christ, he knows, knows what we do, and it doesn't bother him, Ray thought, blank for a moment before he relaxed again. "Yeah, as larks," he affirmed. "Ought to thank you, you know. I was you that made me start to think about it. About what I was feeling."

"Me?" Murphy bit back his astonishment. "What did I do?"

"Let it drop that you thought we were a couple," Doyle said with a smile. "Made me start thinking, look at how I felt. We were a couple, all right. Just hadn't got around to the rest of it."

"Sex," Murphy said quietly.

Doyle nodded. "Doesn't bother you, does it?"

"No, why should it? I had a bash at seventeen, but girls were always safer. The bloke I was with was okay, but I didn't get enough out of it to go back..." He shrugged. "No love in it. I'm one of your sentimental types, Ray. I've had the same girlfriend for two years, I really like her. Really. Snap of the fingers away from love, and if we stick together much longer we'll go the same way as you and Bodie. Liking goes to fondness, and becomes love. That's what happened to you, right?"

"Right." Doyle smiled, the happiness showing through. "We're leaving you know. We're finished in three weeks."

"It's all over the department," Murphy told him. "There was a weeping and wailing among the women, but the wagging tongues just said 'told you so.' They had you pegged ages back, I'm afraid."

Once, Doyle would have felt awful, betrayed by his body language, but now he just shrugged, getting out the mugs. "What about Doc Ross?"

"She thumbed her aristocratic nose at the Cow; she's been telling him to split you two up for ages, according to the grapevine. Split you up or pension you off. She thought you'd be too emotionally involved to do your jobs properly." He paused. "Is that why you're going?"

"Partly," Doyle admitted, sloshing boiling water into the three cups. "Also, we've been in this game a long time. Comes a time when you have to start thinking about the odds. Odds are against us, Murph. We get chopped up regularly, and one of these days we'll get killed. Funnily enough, I wouldn't mind so much if we went out together, but if he was killed I'd be running about like a headless chicken. And vice versa. Don't want to make that kind of an idiot of myself, so... We told Cowley, enough's enough, and he didn't argue."

"Cowley's not stupid," Murphy observed. "Any chance you'll come back to the fold later, Ray?" He took his cup as Doyle lifted out the spoon, sipping the sweet, scalding liquid carefully.

But Doyle shook his head. He lifted Bodie's mug, padded to the bathroom and handed the cup inside; a wet, soapy hand took it and just for a moment Murphy saw Doyle yanked into the steam. There was a hiss of 'Bodie!', a moist smacking sound, and then Doyle backed out of the bathroom, mopping at his face.

"Sorry about that, he's a moron this early in the morning," he apologised, but Murphy was laughing. "No, there's no chance we'll be able to re-enlist on the Squad even if we fall flat on our faces," he said, sipping at his own tea. "Tarred with a particularly mucky brush, you see. I'm not going to pretend to anyone we're what we're not, and neither will Bodie. I'd be prepared to bet we get bricks chucked through our windows by Mary Whitehouse's mob, and spurned in the shop by the girl on the till." He frowned into his cup. "We won't flaunt it deliberately, but you can take one look at us and see the truth, so you say."

"You can," Murphy affirmed. "Look, if it's any consolation to you, I think people will leave you alone. It isn't a crime so long as you do it in the sanctity of our own home." He grinned cheekily. "You make a very handsome couple, I can tell you; you with all those curls and those big eyes, and him all big and broody and butch. Look, I've got to go. Cowley's setting you up for the run at ten, and I'm organising our sharpshooters. You're going to walk along the embankment. Out for a stroll; go slowly, and Ray, keep on his river-side. Don't want you getting in the way, because you won't be wearing kevlar. Got it?"

"Got it," Doyle agreed. "And we walk through that door at ten. How long do we keep going?"

"Till the hit is made," Murphy said, draining his cup, "or until we're sure there isn't going to be one. Interpol's dragged in the West German side of this group, and through Schwerin and his top men are still on the loose we've got two of the London operatives in custody. He might have written Bodie off as a thing of the past - no kind of threat any longer. You might not be in the hotseat, so cross your fingers."

"I will," Ray nodded, following Murphy to the door and letting him out. "See you at ten."

"No you won't," Murphy said with a wink. "Our sharpshooters won't be visible. Neither will theirs, but we'll have our ears to the ground ... See you later, Ray. And hey, be happy. Have a nice life."

"We'll chuck a housewarming party," Doyle said impetuously, "you're invited. So's the Cow, if he wants to bring his own pure malt."

"Cheapskate," Murphy accused, and was gone.

Might have to count the pennies, Ray thought happily as he returned to the bathroom, peered into the steam and said, "finished with your cup?"

"Come in and get it," Bodie sang, trying his vocal cords out on the acoustics provided by the tiling.

"I'll get wet," Doyle complained.

"Haven't got a phobia about water, have you?" Bodie demanded. "It's on the side of the basin, I can't reach it from here."

Dutifully, Doyle stepped into the steam. "Like a peasouper in 'ere."

"Yeah, nice and warm," Bodie agreed.

Doyle had picked up the cup when Bodie grabbed him, drenching his green tee shirt and jeans in an instant. "Ooh, you bastard! I've already had a shower this morning!" He yelped, wriggling in the suddenly wet clothes.

"Uncomfortable?" Bodie asked innocently. "Get 'em off, then."

"I bloody well intend to," Ray said loudly. "In the bedroom!"

"Spoilsport," Bodie grumbled.

Doyle shuffled uncomfortably into the bedroom and had undressed before he noticed his audience of one. He struck a pose. "Dost thou like what thou seest?" he lisped, with an outrageous pout.

"Apollo at the waterhole," Bodie said generously. In fact, Doyle looked breathtaking, but it wouldn't do to say it. The little demon was already starting to play on his appearance consciously, something he had never done before. He knew what turned Bodie on, what looked decorous, what looked beautiful and what looked just plain erotic. He managed all three in the search for dry clothes, and Bodie lapped it up, only drawing the line when he stood gazing into the wardrobe while 'absently' stroking his rump. "Monster," Bodie muttered. "You're evil, Raymond."

"Yeah, I know," Ray admitted, fluttering his eyelashes. "A rotten little prick tease, aren't I?" He sighed, letting the game go and slipping quickly into his clothes. "Oh, bugger it."

"What?" Bodie frowned. How quickly Doyle's moods changed. "Pet?"

"Just thinkin' about what we're going to go out and do. Stroll along the Thames, and get shot at."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Bodie shrugged, patting himself dry with the towel that had been slung about his narrow hips. "But it would be the last time. Office duties for three weeks, my love, and then - out. Free as birds. Speaking of which, we're going house hunting next weekend."

Doyle brightened as he was diverted from the immediate dangers. "What about finances? I've got about nine thousand, part of it saved up, some of it left over from a win I had on the ponies a couple of years back. What about you?"

"I've got a bit more than that," Bodie said smugly. "Been in a building society gathering interest. Should be about twenty-five by now."

Ray gaped. "Twenty-five thousand quid?"

"Interest included," Bodie nodded. "S'what's left of my last payoff. Last job I did in Africa, the one that landed me in prison. I've been sitting on it in case..."

"In case what?" Doyle prompted.

"In case I got invalided out of the Squad," Bodie admitted. "It's on the cards for us. Look at us, scars from head to foot. I know every scar on that gorgeous little body of yours, from the big one on your chest to the tiny little one beside your balls, where somebody tried to use a size twelve boot to turn you into a girl. They're all cute, if you must know, but much as I like to kiss them, I don't want to see any more on you. If we go on this way, there'll be dozens more, on both of us, and one day... Lose a limb, get a kneecap shot off, get an ankle mauled, and out you go. No good to Cowley like that. That leaves you on part time wages, doing a desk job, and scrounging for a pension." He put his hands on Ray's shoulders as Doyle studied the carpet thoughtfully. "I'm a person who liked his little comforts, love, you know me. So I saved it up, just in case. Would have shared it with you, though, if you'd been hurt."

"Would you?" The green eyes misted.

Bodie cuffed his head gently. "Of course I would! Was what it was there for! The time you were shot, I was just waiting to see how far you could push yourself. If you didn't get back to work I had plans."

"Oh? What kind?" Doyle gave a lecherous leer and earned another cuff.

"We were just pals then," Bodie said sternly. "No, I was going to ask you to go into business with me. Partners in a bike franchise. Funny, isn't it, we're going to be doing that anyway."

"Oh... Wouldn't have been bad, either," Ray admitted, "though I'd have been seeing little of you. You working for CI5, me running a bike shop. Hardly ever see each other, except at weekends, and then we'd have been sharing each other with birds."

"Maybe." Bodie kissed him soundly. "If you had been invalided out, looking like an orphan in a storm, skinny and woebegone with those big, bruised eyes, how long do you think I could have kept my hands off you?" He grabbed Doyle and hugged him fiercely. "So you'd have had to either punch me out or take me to bed; which, d'you reckon?"

Doyle gave a snort of good humour. "You'd have had to fight for your virtue sunshine. Only you wouldn't have fought."

"Damned right." Bodie released his bearhug, turned Doyle in the direction of the door and gave him a shove. "Breakfast."

Ray should have objected to being exploited so shamelessly, but at that moment couldn't find the steam. He gave Bodie a sultry look - 'you'll get yours later, mate!' - and did as he was asked.

At ten, they locked the door and took the lift down to the street. Bodie was sweating inside of the flak jacket, which he wore under an off-white trench coat, but the day was not warm, and the sweat was cold. This was the kind of job he disliked most; he felt like a sitting duck at a shooting gallery, and said so, walking slowly toward the river and making sure that there was airspace between himself and the unprotected Doyle. They strolled very slowly, unable to enjoy the fine weather or the fresh air, every nerve strung out and tension making them ache.

At eleven, Ray had begun to doubt the danger. "Murph reckons Interpol pulled in the West Germans," he said quietly as he and Bodie skirted a group of matrons at an icecream stand, "and we've got a couple put away over here. Maybe they just don't care about us anymore."

"Maybe," Bodie admitted. "But don't bet on it. Revenge is a funny thing, Ray; you can get yourself into trouble and belt someone else for it. I'm betting Schwerin'll want me just for the sake of it."

"I know I do," Ray muttered. "Want you, that is."

"Just for the sake of it?" Bodie smiled. "Promises, promises."

"A Doyle always keeps his promises," Ray said solemnly.

"Yeah, I've noticed." Bodie watched the sunlight bring up the red tones in Ray's hair, wishing that he could kiss him, knowing how silly it was to even think about it. He heaved a heavy sigh; good thing it wasn't a crime to think.

They walked as far as Whitechapel and back again, exhausted with the torment of nervous tension; and the, at 11:50, a shot they did not even hear cracked over the rooftops from the direction of Hammersmith, and Bodie let out a startled breath, going down hard as he was punched in the chest. One shot, dead on target, right over the heart. He fell heavily to the pavement and stayed down, Doyle falling to one knee beside him.

"Christ, Bodie!"

"Okay, okay," Bodie wheezed. "Can you see the chopper?"

Doyle's eyes flicked up over the rooftops, and he nodded. "Yeah, up north. Stay still, don't let 'em know... You are okay?"

The blue eyes at once castigated and comforted. "Get sentimental over my technicolour bruise later, mate, just keep your eyes peeled for now... What's going on?"

"Chopper's going in," Doyle guessed, watching the yellow Jet Ranger stoop like a hawk. "Listen - sirens. They'll seal the area."

"He might try to shoot his way out."

"He's welcome to try," Doyle said cynically. "Our sharphooters'll take a ruddy delight in skewering him." He touched Bodie's face. "Think it might be safe to move now. He'll have taken to his heels." He brought the R/T from his pocket. "4.5 to Alpha. Target is safe."

"Alpha to 4.5," Cowley's voice barked, "we've got the gunman in sight. It's over, Doyle." He transferred his attention to Murphy and the sharp shooters then, and Doyle closed down.

Bodie sat up and struggled out of the coat and kevlar. "I hate these things!"

"Saved your life, didn't it?" Ray demanded drily. He pulled Bodie to his feet and tucked the flak jacket under his arm. "Home?"

"Could do with a belt," Bodie admitted. "Doesn't do much for your day when somebody takes pot shots at you, does it?" Free of the kevlar, he stretched. "That's it. It's over." He resisted the impulse to hug the smaller man. "House hunting at the weekend... Can hardly wait."

"Sounds thrilling," Doyle agreed as they turned for home, trying to sound faintly bored with the domesticity for the sake of his reputation, when in fact the prospect was terrifyingly appealing.

---

It seemed to Bodie that he had been waiting forever, but he wait had made the moment richer. They had pushed the quilt down to the foot of Ray's bed and played, sometimes in fun, sometimes breathlessly, for a long time, arousal and tenderness commanding them in turn, until the heat switched on full and Doyle's slanted, cat's eyes began to glitter. Bodie swallowed, looking up at him from where he lay, head in Ray's lap so as to be able to lick and nibble him in comfort while Doyle sat propped against the pillows, cradling the dark head. The bed was a mess, the sheets loose, the quilt falling onto the floor, testimony to their antics.

Time, Bodie thought feverishly as he looked up into the face he loved. Ray's fingers were tightly clenched and he was breathing hard and fast. If he waited much longer sheer frustration would rob the act, and Bodie would not have it spoiled by anything. He gave the velvety, moist head of Ray's cock a parting kiss and turned over on his belly. "Ray?"

Hands fell onto his buttocks and parted them, but Doyle was still for a moment; just looking, Bodie thought, and closed his eyes. Look all you like, sweetheart - I'm all yours, every bit. The bed shifted, and Doyle lay down, his weight pillowed the length of Bodie's back, and Bodie spread his legs invitingly. A long fingered hand reached past Bodie's ear for a tube of cream that was almost empty now, and he smiled into the pillow as he listened to the cap twisted off.

Then Ray's weight and heat were gone, sadly missed but soon replaced by the cool, deft fingers, finding their way into him again. Ray had done this often, learning the feel of Bodie inside as well as outside, trying to dilate him so that the moment of joining would not hurt. It had worked, he was sure, and he was confident of what he was doing as he dropped the tube to the floor and knelt up, his palm full of vitamin E cream. He spread the cream liberally on himself, yelping at the coolness of it and biting off a moan as the stimulation made his balls ache ferociously. Hearing the soft sounds, Bodie guessed what he was going through, and got his knees under him to help. He was trembling himself, so Ray must be in agony, anticipating what he was going to do for the first time in his life, and having to touch himself that way.

Hands coaxed his knees a little wider, and Bodie sucked in a quick breath as he felt Ray's solid heat behind him, so close, sliding over him, oily, so hard, so big. He closed his eyes, aware that he was not breathing but not about to risk a breath, and made a conscious effort to relax every muscle and joint, and open himself.

Bless him, Ray was shaking, and trying so hard. Bodie had to smile, as strung out as he was, and he reached back with an encouraging hand, patting whatever portion of Doyle was in reach. "I love you; don't worry about me, just do it."

Fingers tested one last time to make sure he was oily enough, and then Ray nudged himself into position and pressed, slowly, carefully. Bodie was not a virgin, but he might have been; God, so tight, so hot! Tighter than any girl, Ray was positive. He kept going a fraction at a time, holding his breath as the friction literally demanded that he thrust hard and come. Beneath him, Bodie moaned and he froze, for a second wondering if he was really hurting him, but then Bodie gasped, "go on! Ray, please!", in the same strangled little voice he used when he had been sucked within a second of coming.

A moment later, Doyle was sheathed to the hilt and letting his weight go down onto Bodie's back. It was all he could do to hold back and stay still; he knew he should reach around, take Bodie in his hand and offer the touches he might need, but his arms were numb, his whole world revolving around the impossible sensations and the knowledge that they were one. "Bodie," he croaked.

"Move, Ray," Bodie whispered. "Move, for Christ's sake - "

A little wriggle, and the sensations doubled. Light burst behind Ray's sealed lids and he gasped in a breath. "Oh - Jesus - " Then he had to move, and keep moving, and blind instinct sent his right hand around to grasp Bodie's aching shaft tightly, trying to find a rhythm as Bodie began to writhe.

It was over too quickly; but there would be time to make it last later, and neither of them was inclined to protest the sudden surge of mind-wrenching passion that dragged climax out of them against their will. Doyle collapsed on top of Bodie, pressing him into the mattress and not moving a muscle until Bodie, recovering first, began to stir.

"Love? I'm in a bit of a puddle, and I can't breathe," he whispered.

At once Doyle scrambled off him, checking first that there was no trace of blood on either of them before reaching for the Kleenex and blotting at Bodie's leaden legs. "Okay, Bodie?" he asked, still breathless.

"No," Bodie said simply, and watched through slitted blue eyes as Doyle jumped as if he'd been tickled or prodded.

"What did I do?" Ray asked, hovering around the edges of disappointment and heartache, every emotion plain on his face in this moment of total vulnerability.

Bodie hated himself for the soft-headed joke. "It wasn't 'okay,'" he expanded. "It was... bloody wonderful, and so are you, and if you don't come here and kiss me I'll die on the spot."

Relief made Doyle sag against him. "Christ, I thought I'd hurt you. Or that you didn't come right, I - " Bodie's mouth sweetly silenced him, and when he surfaced from the kiss he said, "did it hurt much?"

"Not much. You've used your fingers a lot lately, and - I'm floatin' away on an oil slick here. Sure you used enough?"

"Didn't want to take any chances," Ray admitted. "You've got a gorgeous bum, and I'd sooner lust after it in frustration than hurt it."

"You were too careful to hurt me," Bodie scoffed. "And after what those magic fingers have been doing to me all week, it hardly hurt at all. I'm not even all that sore, just a little bit, so get that God-I -hate-myself look off your face and cuddle me." Meekly, still too overcome by what he had just done, Doyle did as he was told, unable to think of any retort except a mumbled admission of love. "Same here," Bodie whispered, looking down at the flushed, drowsy, beautiful face that lay on his left shoulder. "How much d'you love me, Ray?"

"Do anythin' for you," Doyle murmured.

"Let me sleep on your side of the bed?"

The drowsy green eyes blinked at him. "Why?"

"'Cause this side's wet."

"I'll do anything but that," Doyle told him, a little of his usual tartness returning to his voice. "I've been lying in puddles all week, mate. How's this? You lie in your puddles, I'll lie in mine."

"Sounds fair," Bodie agreed solemnly. "Put it in writing, shall we?"

Doyle gave him his hand. "Shake on it."

Bodie took the hand and kissed it. "Get you a ring for this finger. Been meaning to all along." He yawned. "Going to have to watch it, you know; sitting at desks for three weeks, we're going to get secretary spread." He reached down to pat Ray's buttocks. "Though, in your case there isn't enough to spread to be noticeable."

"Whatcha talking about?" Doyle demanded. "I've got a nice little backside. So me mum told me."

"A lady of exceptional discrimination," Bodie agreed. "Nicest rump I ever saw, and no mistake. And it's mine. All mine. Isn't it?"

"All yours." Doyle sounded almost asleep. "Look after it, won't you?"

With that he was asleep, and Bodie cradled him in the circle of his arms, protective, possessive, besotted. House hunting on Saturday; phone the agent on Monday; phone the bank and see about a loan; ring that number about the Suzuki franchise - and call Rob and Jack about working in the garage. Then get Cowley to pull strings, get them some security contracts; get some stationery made up, register the business, get into the phone book, and make some contacts. Paint and paper. Got to buy a lawn mower, too... Like a dog, Bodie thought. Little spaniel with big sad eyes - remind me of someone I know. And a cat, too - also remind me of someone I know! And a car. Wonder if we can buy a Capri? One that's been in an accident, maybe, get the panel beaters to fix it up, get it cheap... Got to watch the pennies now.

The future looked bright. Rosy, in fact. But then, any future that had Ray Doyle in it would have looked rosy. Bodie hooked his toes into the quilt and pulled it up, tucking it around them. Exhausted, his love didn't even twitch a muscle, and Bodie smiled. He'd knocked himself right out, bless his heart.

As he settled to sleep, switching off the light, it was an image from his imagination that returned to Bodie, broadening the smile on his face. Cottage by the river, garden where Ray could indulge his green fingers, a paddock with some horses, two mares, round and near their time, two with foals trotting at their heels; wake late after a lot of loving, roll out of bed and stand at the window, looking down, watching Ray, bare chested and happy in the sunshine, playing with the young horses, young and alive and free at last. Free of the dangers and the heartaches of the job and the life it brought them.

Free, Bodie thought, because we set each other free. He acknowledged the enormous weight of responsibility that had settled on his shoulders without a qualm, lecturing himself sternly. The man who lay in his arms was a tough, strong, prickly little dynamo, but as vulnerable underneath his hard exterior as a kid, and he needed a lot of love. He was offering everything he had, his body, his love, his life, and Bodie knew that when he accepted those gifts he assumed the responsibility to cherish what he had. Hurt Ray, betray him, cause those haunted, haunting eyes to light up with pain, and he knew he would never forgive himself as long as he lived. But Ray had nothing to worry about on that score, Bodie knew as he closed his eyes and tried to pull the limp, sated body even closer.

For the first time in their lives, they were going home. The 'where' and the 'how' did not matter a damn; all that mattered was in this bed. Home, Bodie thought, circumfused by a measureless content, is where the heart is.

Whoever said that was no fool.

-- THE END --

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