"How much longer you gonna be?" roared Bodie through the closed door, over the thunderous hiss of raging torrents of water. "I've bin 'ere hours, Doyle."

A lengthy, totally indistinct message followed this. Bodie quickly gave up trying to decipher it and wandered into the bedroom, hands stuffed into the pockets of his tracksuit. A new painting on the wall caught his attention and he came to stand in front of it. It was half a nude woman. One had to admire his partner's unconventional artistic eye, if not the art itself.

"Like it?" A low voice behind him.

Without turning, Bodie had an instant mental vision of how Doyle would be propped there in the doorway, naked arms crossed over his flat belly, bare but for a brief towel precariously knotted over one tilted hip, the sole of one foot propped on his calf.

"Oh yeah, love it, can I have the other half for Christmas? Who posed for it, for godsake?"

"Murph," Doyle revealed serenely. He pulled the towel from his hips, rubbed it over his hair, peering out from under it, a green-eyed sheik.

"Murph?" Bodie fell for it for one split second, jaw dropping open at the vivid flash of the mental contortions that must have been necessary to translate agent 6.2's solid masculine frame into half a nude female. Then -

"You - " he began, turning from his contemplation of the painting -

Doyle, bare and bouncy and full of high spirits, was waiting for him.

Before he could say anything further he was knocked down onto the carpet beside the bed, rolled over and sat upon.

"Christ, Doyle," he complained when he regained enough wind, "you're wet."

Insolent eyes looked into his; Doyle wriggled provocatively; tendrils of soaked chest hair loosed slow drops of water.

"You're making my shirt all damp," Bodie said, but he didn't move, partly because his partner's thin, strong hands were tightly gripping his upper arms, pushing him down. Doyle was clearly in a playful mood, damp-lashed eyes sparkling with faintly malicious good humour.

He released Bodie with one hand, reached out and flicked on the tapedeck. The lively strains of Handel's Queen of Sheba (Arrival of) burst loudly into the room. Doyle bounced gently on Bodie, roughly in time.

"So," he enquired, "how was your weekend? 's good this, innit?" He cocked his head, suddenly sent by the music.

Referring not to the music but to the weekend, Bodie made an expressive face. He slipped his arms up around Doyle, began to drum on the small of this back in time with the massed lilting violins and oboes of the London Philharmonic.

"Be glad to get back to work," he said with explanatory gloom.

Doyle looked briefly sympathetic. "Like that, was it? Didn't get off with the bird on the boat then?" He shifted so he was stretched out full length on his prostrate mate; resumed the gentle bouncing, eyes closed, a heavenly expression of concentrated ecstasy on his uplifted face.

Doyle liked Handel.

"Couldn't remember her phone number," confessed Bodie, rueful. His wrists being tired of playing out vigorous tintinnabulations on Doyle's rump, he tapped with fingertips instead, every fourth beat, noting a shiver that ran through Doyle from top to toe, his forefinger discovering goosebumps. "You'll catch your death, mate; get dressed, will you!"

Doyle moved sharply, his face twisting. "Your bloody belt nearly did me an injury then," he complained, settling down more comfortably a little higher up, out of the reach of Bodie's potentially vicious knotted tracksuit tie. The rhythmic rocking resumed.

Bodie could clearly feel the warmth of his genitals trapped between them, pressed against Bodie's belly. "You gonna let me up now?"

"Nope." Doyle, sharptoothed, grinned down at him, raised on down-pressed palms and tensed forearms either side of his head.

Bodie sighed. "How was your weekend?" he offered, knowing already how it would have been. "Full of Eastern Promise? You still in love, are you?"

In vigorous denial, Doyle shook his head so the damp curls flew from side to side, flicking Bodie with cool drops; then he appeared to reconsider, smiled slowly at Bodie and said, "Maybe." He pressed his stomach sharply down into Bodie's and caught his lip between white teeth, glancing covertly at Bodie from beneath downcast lashes.

"You're a little flirt," commented Bodie, resigned to Doyle in this mood. "You know that, don't you?"

"No?" Doyle marvelled, and dipped his upper torso so that Bodie's lips were just, swiftly, touched with downy damp hair: "Not me, not I." Handel was reaching a climax but Doyle was way off his. He thrust at Bodie, lifted off him, dropped again, looking at Bodie with intense green eyes.

"Take a lot from me, don't you?" he murmured, speculative, considering every changing flicker of response that crossed Bodie's face; then he dropped his head and Bodie's nose was suddenly buried in wet, fresh curls, but he scarcely noticed as Doyle whispered to him, eyes bright, gazing out over Bodie's shoulder, "How far would you let me go? How far, Bodie?"

Bodie couldn't handle it, knew it, let it pass though his heart was suddenly racing; the atmosphere between them suddenly very charged, both men's bodies whiplashed with tension.

"You never did tell me how you got on with the lovely lady," he said, and his voice sounded very loud.

Doyle raised his head and chest off Bodie, glanced down at himself. His nipples stood out erect, little brown points of flesh stirred by the chill; he dipped to brush them against Bodie's shirt, circling his upper body softly. It was the spoken conversation he answered as he said, "Leila? Nice girl. Very sweet. Too good for me, mind."

"Yeah." Bodie agreed, breathless, and Doyle was already continuing, one long-fingered hand going out to press the tapedeck buttons to replay the track. "Very sweet, very passive. Not - really - my - type - at all."

"Ah," said Bodie, "but were you hers?"

Doyle only smiled, enigmatically, and rocked to Handel. He was a little flushed, a little hyped-up, all the fine hairs on his skin raised. Handel swelled, uninterrupted. After a moment Doyle stopped rocking, looked at Bodie, right into his eyes.

"Can't keep up," he explained, with charm. "Too fast."

"Don't try. Get dressed."

But he didn't really want him to, hands closing on Doyle's firm, cool flesh in involuntary denial of his own suggestion.

"Can feel your heart," Doyle announced inconsequentially.

"Good, it's still goin' then is it?" Bodie returned, with sarky emphasis.

Doyle smiled at him, intent on his face, his voice soft, almost tender. "Goin' like the clapper, it is." There was a loaded pause. "Rub my back?" he invited, changing tack abruptly.

"Wha'for?"

"Like it," came the laconic reply: and - "gentler - " as Bodie's hands awkwardly pressed him. "Yeah, thassit - " and Doyle arched and purred against him as he stroked gently up and down the long, narrow back.

"Randy little bugger," he murmured, helpless, "aren't you?"

"Nah," Doyle denied without even trying for conviction, "just affectionate." He pushed forward, eyelids drooping lushly over slitted, bedroom eyes; Bodie could feel him, rock hard down the centre of his chest, the heat of him shocking through the aerated cotton shirt.

"Maybe you should try oysters someday, Doyle," he said, gently mocking.

"Don't - need 'em - " He threw his head back, a little sound escaped him as he gazed, anguished and ecstatic, at the ceiling.

"No, come to think of it, don't you touch 'em. Be frightening. You gonna let me up now?"

Doyle returned form his near-mystic contemplation of the inner voice of his body and its urgent, calling desires, to the more down to earth messages he was receiving from sensitive nerves as he pressed himself into warm, damp aertex. He folded his arms on Bodie's chest, rested his chin on them.

"You could throw me off any time you wanted."

And as Bodie, tempted by the challenge, twisted beneath him, Doyle moved like lightning to pinion him more securely - "but I'd fight," he said gently, smiling a tiger's smile, and his eyes fell shut as Bodie shifted once more beneath him.

"Oh yeah, move, Bodie. Fight me. Yeah..."

There was a small, sticky patch on Bodie's shirt, above his navel; he could feel it against his skin as Doyle rubbed and pressed himself against it, instinctively seeking the eased path. "Ah, Bodie," Doyle whispered, pleasure tightening his face, chin tipped back to expose the long, taut hollows of his throat, "talk to me..."

"Saying what?" Slowly, Bodie ran his thumbs down the length of him, from the silken bunched muscles by the parted shoulderblades, down over the curved back to the sudden upward thrust of this buttocks.

"Just talk," breathed Doyle; he was scarcely moving now, just a tiny near-imperceptible clench and relax of muscle. Bodie rubbed his hands, open-palmed, into the tight warm flesh of each buttock, pressing Doyle downwards into himself. He made his voice very soft, a caress of sound.

"Dunno what to say. What can I say? That you're an arrogant, wanton little bastard who thinks he can get away with anything?" Watching Doyle tensing with intense concentration, every centimetre of his naked skin pricking with excitement, he went on, "A randy little sod who'd only fuck his own fist if he didn't have anything else alive within reach? Full of it, you are, sunshine. You're bursting with it, aren't you, can't hold it in - "

He pinched Doyle's buttocks, hard; watched the mutable expressions flicker over the fey, beautiful features, unflinching as Doyle's nails dug into his shoulders; the music had changed to something no less uplifting in its way, and Doyle was rising, shivering to the joyous sound of angelic trumpets summoning the unearthly seraphim...

He gasped, and whimpered, forcing himself downwards; between their strained-close bodies, Bodie felt the leap and thump and taut-held stillness; and then the swift, moist warmth running swiftly, soaking through his shirt and onto his skin.

He held Doyle's limp, relaxed form closer, one hand at the nape of his neck, rocking him a little with careless, almost rueful affection. Doyle's face was turned into Bodie's shoulder, his eyes closed as he gradually regulated his breathing. When he lifted his head, smiled into Bodie's eyes, his own were sparkling with delight and self-satisfaction. He raised himself a little, looked at the pearly trail pointing up Bodie's chest. He looked very, very pleased with himself.

"Hey," said Bodie, flicking a naked, cooling arm. "What you looking so smug about? Not the eighth wonder of the world, you know. How d'you feel about maybe letting me up now? That's like, if it's not too much trouble or anything," he added.

"Yeah; yeah, no problem," capitulated Doyle instantly, with wide-eyed innocence. "Should've said something before. Was I cramping you?" He gazed at Bodie with devoted, spurious concern.

"Oh no, don't you worry about it, mate," said Bodie magnanimously, patting him and shifting. However could you be cross with him? Yet what he had just done, Bodie had near-killed other men for just appearing to think about. He doubted, even, that Doyle had intended to go quite so far: it had never - quite - happened before.

Doyle rolled easily off him and lay flat on his back on the carpet. The fringed counterpane hanging from the bed tickled his nose; he blew at it, grimacing. Bodie, every muscle screaming protest as it was released back to his care, was about to get up when Doyle shot out a hand, took hold of his and twined his fingers through it, without looking at him. Warmed, Bodie lay back where he was.

Doyle sniffed, rubbing his free hand over his nose. "So, what you doin' 'ere then?" he asked, as if Bodie had just that very moment walked through the door. He stroked Bodie's palm with his thumb, gentle and unhurried.

"I thought you'd never ask."

Conscious of a certain discomfort, Bodie squinted down at his stomach and, letting go of Doyle in a hurry, rolled onto his front. Oh christ.

Doyle had not missed the sudden movement, nor the probable reason for it. "Wassa matter?" he asked anyway.

"Nothing," said Bodie, flatly refusing to turn, or get up, even as Doyle pushed at him. "I wish you'd get dressed," he muttered, "makes me feel chilly just looking at you." Not that he was looking at him, was doing everything possible to avoid it, in fact.

"Bodie," said Doyle, squatting on his heels and contemplating him thoughtfully from the dark-haired nape of his neck to his Adidas-clad feet.

"Yeah?"

"What would you do if I said I loved you?"

Silence descended; shock ricocheted off the walls.

Bodie poked his head up. "Faint," he said succinctly.

Doyle wasn't to be put off. "No, I'm serious. What would you do?"

Bodie thought about it. "Why? Are you going to say it?" he tested, eyes decidedly narrowed.

Gentle green eyes met his, tender, measuring. Doyle reached out one hand to lace in Bodie's ruffled dark hair, knotting his fingers there.

"One day I'm goin' to be telling you that," he continued, voice a soft, rough promise that melted Bodie's guts to water. "Properly, at the right time, because although you might not think it, I'm not just playin' with you, not just playing, Bodie. Game's over. 's for real, this is. And you won."

"Won what?" asked Bodie, sitting up, passing one shaky hand over his damp forehead. The shock was passing, settling into something - familiar, and right. He was beginning to feel very, very happy.

Doyle grinned at him, rakish, perfectly balanced on the balls of his feet. "Me!" With one, fast spring he came upright, headed for the wardrobe.

"Oh yeah?" Bodie got to his feet, too, a vast, unhoped for euphoria seeping sentimentally through him. Doyle, still happily naked, back to him, looked briefly in the mirror on the door of the closet.

"Yeaahhh." Lazy, he stretched the word out.

Bodie, fast and silent as a cat, was on him, wrapping his arms around him and burying his lips in the tempting curve of neck and shoulder. "And what am I supposed to do with you?" he whispered against an earlobe.

Doyle surveyed himself in the mirror, seeing Bodie's arms twined around his chest, the dark head looking over his shoulder. He took in his own expression; tender satisfaction, the face of a man well-pleased with life.

"Oh, anything you want, I should think," he answered, and continued into the heady pause, looking into the mirrored dark eyes, "What did you come 'ere for this morning?"

Bodie sighed, dragging himself out of the delightful vision of the future he had been so briefly shown, stashing it away for now. One day -

"Macklin," he pronounced with heavy gloom.

"Macklin?" Doyle stared, pricking all over with alarm.

"That's right. Wants us - " Bodie checked his watch, started, collected himself. " - ten minutes ago!"

Doyle had gone, flying from Bodie's light grasp, rummaging frantically through drawers, plucking forth an assortment of clothes. Bodie watched him, grinning to himself. The grin vanished as Doyle turned, threw him something. "Catch!"

Bodie caught it, looked at it blankly. It was a folded white aertex tennis shirt. Doyle looked at him, head slightly to one side. "Clean shirt!"

"Eh?" Then he remembered. He met Doyle's eyes. Doyle winked.

"Don't let Macklin get me," he whispered, bright-eyed.


Two lads that thought there was no more behind
But such a day tomorrow as today
And to be boy eternal
-The Winter's Tale.

-- THE END --