The Professionals Circuit Archive - Red, White and Blue	Red, White
and Blue

 

by Callisto 

 
 *Written for the Jubilee June challenge for "Discovered in 1977" on the
discoveredinalj livejournal community, to the prompt "A Jubilee Mug"*

 ******

Paper bag in hand, Bodie got back in the car and frightened Anson badly by
chortling at him. God knows what the bloody hell there was to keep 3.7
amused in the miserable op they'd just come off. Two days outside an
abandoned warehouse in Soho, knee deep in abandoned Jubilee streamers, and
not even a dirty magazine at the end of it. Or...hang about...Anson eyed
with deep suspicion the crumpled brown bag Bodie was clutching.

 "What's that, then? Debbie Does Dallas?" 

 The withering look bounced off him as always. 

 "As if. Where've you been? Debbie did Dallas a long time ago, mate."

 The silence stretched as both men watched a light summer shower start to
spit on the windscreen.

 "So, what is it then?"

 Affecting a deep sigh, Bodie then turned a sudden smile on Anson,
startling him yet again. He tapped the side of his nose.

 "This, Mr Nosy Parker is...well, we'll call it afters, shall we? So get
us home, and don't spare the horses."

 Wondering if he was the only sane one left in the Squad these days, Anson
was only too happy to oblige.

 ******

Doyle, on the other hand, was about as far from chortling as a man could
be. He'd been hand-holding some diplomat's visiting mother because of the
whisper of a hit from Israeli Intelligence. It had done no good, of
course, to point out that there was *always* the whisper of a hit from
Israeli Intelligence. And Doyle knew that because his right ear was still
ringing from the scathing manner and volume in which Cowley had replied to
his unwise stating of the obvious. The Asher Biebermann case was too
recent for the Israelis to be anything but antsy, so to keep them happy
'and out of Cowley's office, no doubt', Doyle had been duly dispatched to
watch and protect for a week.

 *"Look at it this way, sunshine, she'll shop, you'll carry her bags, and
with any luck you'll remind her of her favourite sprog and she'll pinch
your cheeks five times a day." 

 "Bloody enjoying this, aren't you?" But Doyle's scowl wouldn't hold as
Bodie pulled him closer and chuckled wickedly in his ear. 

 "'Course I am."

 Doyle bit the nearest patch of skin in reply, then settled down, rubbing
his cheek across Bodie's shoulder in an unconscious gesture of comfort. He
squinted at the clock next to the bed. 12.01. He'd be up and on his way in
four hours.

 He curled his palm around Bodie's left side.

 "I'll miss my birthday."

 "Thought you hated birthdays."

 "Yeah, but now that..." He petered off, unwilling to articulate the
sentimental thought threatening to spill out.

 It seemed he didn't have to. Bodie squeezed him and rubbed his hair.
"Sentimental sod. We'll celebrate when you get back. And who knows? Play
your cards right and you might get a proper pressie."

 Doyle snorted, having little faith in Bodie's ability to move past the
toy cars and rude T-shirts that tended to be the rule of thumb in CI5,
despite the fact that they had ended up surprisingly exclusive and almost
living together in the last couple of months.

 Some minutes of silence passed and Doyle was sliding off to sleep when a
mumble in his ear brought him back.

 "You'll miss the Jubilee too. 'S a shame."

 Incredulous, Doyle raised up, but Bodie had done his usual and fallen
instantly asleep after a last minute mutter. Doyle lay back on the pillow
and pondered both his birthday and the Jubilee. It brought out the
patriotic serviceman in his partner, yet he himself had no patience for
it, and why was no mystery either. Him and the Queen. One born, one
crowned, two days and eight years apart. He remembered the fuss and
disappointment, and all the bloody awful coronation regalia his nearest
and dearest had suddenly found suitable for an eight year old on his
birthday. "Be worth a fortune one day, lad." 

 He'd had his heart set on a fire engine, so he'd had a splendid sulk and
not been much of a royalist since.*

 ******

"Before you ask, don't. Been driving since dawn, I'm
creamfuckingcrackered, and I'm starving."

 "And hello to you'n'all, sunshine."

 The scowl he got in greeting as Doyle slumped heavily into a chair just
reaffirmed that all was well with the world. Doyle rarely came off
protection ops in a sunny state of mind, especially if nothing had
happened to warrant them. 

 "Aw, tough was it? All those nasty shopping bags." Bodie opened a can of
lager and put it in front of his rumpled partner. He ruffled his hair and
was not really surprised when his wrist was then caught. 

 "Yeah, something like that. C'mere." Hauled in for a bruising kiss,
Bodie's neck ached at the angle and he pulled back, but only far enough so
that each could look and get a slow grin out of the other.

 "Hello, mate." 

 Two words, said a million ways in his lifetime, but only Doyle made him
feel like he'd lassoed the sun to get them. He straightened and eased the
crick in his shoulders. Jesus H, he'd be quoting poetry at him soon if he
wasn't careful.

 "Hang on..." Doyle bent and rummaged in his holdall, extracting something
from the mess of crumpled clothes. "Here. Don't say I never give you
anything."

 Bodie regarded the gilded face of the Queen smiling at him from the mug
on the kitchen table. 

 "Gee, you shouldn't have." 

 "Didn't, you can thank the lovely Mrs Meyer. You would not believe the
week I have just suffered for Queen and country, mate." Doyle leant back
in the chair, laced his hands behind his head, and Bodie, realising he was
in for the long haul, got up and took their chicken suppers out of the
oven. "It turns out the lovely Mrs M is a monarchist with a capital bloody
M, and she only wants to traipse around as many crumbling bits of England
as she can, doesn't she? And buy as much Jubilee rubbish as she can lay
her hands on. And did I mention the fact that she doesn't speak English?
Not one fucking word, so muggins here not only gets to ..."

 He kept it up, around mouthfuls of chicken and chips and swallows of
lager, and Bodie responded with grunts and guffaws in all the right
places, entertained to the core by all the pomp and circumstance his
Bolshevik partner had had to endure.

 Meal disposed of, second can of lager opened, and Bodie was amazed to
feel something flutter in his stomach when he reached under the sink and
tossed a package onto the table as nonchalantly as he could.

 "Bit late, but happy birthday."

 Doyle slowly put the can down and looked from the package to Bodie, a
quizzical look on his face, and the beginnings of a *shy smile*, for
Chrissake, which only increased the butterflies.

 "Yeah?"

 "Yeah. Was going to give it to charity, but then who's..." 

 "...more deserving of charity than me. Cheers."

 But Doyle's manner lost all flippancy as he set to the wrapping, and by
the time he drew out what was inside, Bodie's palms were sweating.

 "Fucking hell, Bodie." Doyle said it quietly, and with an awe that made
Bodie's throat tighten. 

 He forced himself to say lightly. "If you don't like it, I can't change
it."

 "What's to change? It's beautiful." In his hands he held a holster. Light
brown, made to measure, and of the softest, most supple Italian leather
Bodie's nefarious contacts had been able to get hold of. 

 The idea had come to Bodie on a stakeout. He'd been half-listening to
Doyle bitch about the strap on his holster for the nth time, and ignoring
him whine about the amount of gun oil it needed. Doyle had drenched his
original holster in seawater, and Cowley had refused his requisition for a
new one on the grounds that it was Doyle's fault he'd gone overboard in
the first place. 

 *"You're as tight-fisted as he is, Doyle. No doubt the pair of you
invented copper wire fighting over a penny. Will you just buy a new one
and shut up?"*

 Unappreciated witticisms aside, the idea had been purely practical at
first, because he knew Doyle would most definitely not just buy a new one
and shut up. But it had evolved into a grand gesture, a desire to please,
to make the man *happy*, rather than merely uncomplaining. And judging
from the daft look on his face...

 "Dunno what to say."

 "Blimey, I'll wrap something up once a week if that's-" A sudden armful
of Ray Doyle knocked the end off his sentence and pushed him a step back
against the sink.

 "Thanks." Muffled and spoken into the right side of his head, Doyle
latched on like a fierce limpet, and Bodie knew he wasn't going to get to
see his face until it was under control. Stuff that. He pulled his head
away enough to force Doyle to bring his up, and then grinned at the bright
eyes he saw.

 "Not a word, Bodie. Not one bloody word." 

 "'F you say so, sunshine, only you might want to look in that bag over
there." Bodie inclined his head and loosened his hold, aware as Doyle
stepped away that Ray's groin would always fit his perfectly, that a week
with your hand was a long time, and that expensive Italian leather aside,
the best part of this day lay in a crumpled brown paper bag somewhere to
his left.

 He watched a deeply suspicious Doyle keep one eye on him, clearly gauging
his reactions while he gingerly reached a hand in. 

 Bodie shook his head. "Can see why you do bombs, mate. That's a great
technique you've got there."

 But Doyle wasn't listening, he was frowning at the label of the
Nivea-sized jar he had just pulled out. Bodie bit his lip.

 He watched Doyle read the label, muttering the words under his breath at
first, then aloud, after a cackle that almost convulsed him. "'Edible
Jubilee Body Paint. It's tasty, sexy, *and* patriotic.' Oh, Christ but
you're a nutter, Bodie." 

 Bodie let his grin out then, savouring it. He reached out and grabbed the
wrist of the hand holding the jar, pulling Doyle in close. "Red, white and
blue, sunshine. The very least we can do to make up for missing Her
Majesty's party." He flicked his nose, "so get in there, get me stripped
and get painting."

 ******

Doyle stood in the doorway of the bedroom and surveyed the organised scene
before him. Bodie assaulted happiness, he mused, much like the Eiger he
once claimed to have climbed. He planned his route, took all the right
equipment, and bore onwards and upwards with ever increasing confidence
that all would be well. Doyle had always believed his claim about the
Eiger to be so much macho bollocks, coming as it had done mere days after
being paired, when Doyle was suffering from a twisted ankle care of
Macklin, and Bodie was gloating. Now he took in the neatly hung bathrobes
behind the door, the light from the bedside lamp, the towels folded on the
chair by the bed, the old, clean sheet stretched across the mattress and
wondered. He shook his head at the corners. Military to the end was his
Bodie.

 A pair of arms slid around him from behind and the hair at the nape of
his neck was nuzzled aside. He shivered and reached back.

 "Thought I was supposed to do that," he said. Bodie was naked and
deliciously cool and clean from his shower.

 "Do what?" Bodie breathed it into his ear and Doyle couldn't remember.

 "Never mind," he turned and fastened his lips on the warm pulse of his
partner's throat, reluctant to break the contact as he let Bodie get him
out of his remaining clothes.

 "Why d'you have a shower?" Doyle managed to ask, as he was waltzed
clumsily in the direction of the bed, his erection already grinding and
rubbing into whatever part of Bodie he could get at.

 He was on the bed and flat on his back before he got the answer, hot in
his ear.

 "A clean canvas, sunshine."

 ******

"Should I blow it out then?" 

 Not really expecting an answer, Doyle was gratified to see his partner
capable of little more than a growl. Bodie clenched the old bedsheet a
little tighter and thrust his pelvis upwards, finding Doyle's chin in the
vague hope of finding his mouth.

 He blew, watched the shiver travel the length of Bodie's cock, then
swirled his tongue around the head. Just the once.

 "Always did like vanilla," he murmured.

 A moment's self-conscious pause; that was all it had taken for Doyle to
put his finger in the divider marked 'blue' and smear it on his partner,
first one nipple, then the other. He had licked it off and tasted berries.
Bodie'd expressed scepticism, so tongue to tongue he'd shown him and
they'd gone from there.

 Five minutes later and Bodie had blue balls (Doyle had been unable to
resist that one), together with a trail of red in the roughest of circles
around his cock . "See?" Doyle had explained softly, still playing his
finger through the colours. "This here red's the strawberry cake, and
this..." his slicked-up hand had then wrapped vanilla white from base to
straining tip, "...is me candle." He'd paused, fingers round the base,
mouth a breath away from the tip until Bodie'd managed the strength to
raise up and look at him, breathing wildly uneven. 

 Doyle had grinned then, loving that he could get his sartorial partner to
this state with nothing more than his hand and the promise of his mouth.

 "Should I blow it out then?"

 "I might kill you if you don't." Bodie's head went heavily back onto the
pillow. 

 "Wouldn't want that holster going to waste now, would I? Not considering
that no one else-"

 "Doyle?"

 "Yeah?"

 "Happy birthday, mate. Again. Now fucking blow."

 Doyle bent to the task, inhaling the heady smell of sweat, Bodie and the
Jubilee before he licked and stroked his vanilla-berry way from base to
tip. Three hard, deep-throated sucks later and he found the bittersweet
taste of vanilla and semen at the back of this throat, and a frozen,
softly cursing Bodie suspended beneath him.

 "Ray...Christ...went off like a fuckin-"

 Doyle swallowed the end of his sentence this time. Whole, with a swathe
of colour and tongue, as urgency drove him upwards to cover Bodie's mouth
with his own. He pulled back just enough to say his partner's name, then
moved back in to lick blue off his chin, timing every lick, every swooping
kiss with a rhythm and rub his body was pulsing for. Two hands on his face
suddenly held him still and away. He opened his eyes slowly, unwilling to
give up what he was doing, where he was going.

 "Ah, Bodie..."

 "Ssh...don't you waste it, Ray. Not on this tatty old sheet." And then
Bodie was already turning under him, onto his side, left leg drawn up, his
arse and back a wonderful array of creamy skin, dotted here and there with
blue and red smears. Doyle swallowed and looked around for the jar, too
far gone to hunt for the lube. He found it and scooped out what was left,
a riotous swirl of red, white and blue. He stretched out behind the length
of his partner, keeping it all carefully in his fingers. He let his
forehead fall forwards to rest on Bodie and kissed a shoulderblade while
he smoothed most of it on his erection. 

 "You'll drip the Union Jack for a fortnight, mate," he said huskily.

 "You always said I was the patriotic one."

 Doyle chuckled, low and dirty, then he leaned in and opened Bodie with
two fingers straight off. Bodie jolted across the bed and Doyle followed.
He found the prostate with ease, loving the cause and effect of his
fingertip touch to six tall feet of now-writhing testosterone. 

 Another stroke, another groan, and all the control was *his*.

 And that's what choked Doyle when he let it. All his life Bodie'd
shouldered his way through the world with nobody beside him. Oh, there'd
been squaddies, girlfriends, even the occasional partner dragged along,
and occasionally for great distances. But Bodie always reached his summits
alone, control and dependancy given freely to none. So to discover that
Bodie would not only give such things to him, but demand that he take them
-- and in bed, of all places - had touched Doyle profoundly over the
course of the last few months. He had got to Bodie, or maybe Bodie had got
to him. It was hardly an issue now, not when he was buried balls-deep - so
very, very *in*. 

 Wanting to prolong it, knowing he couldn't, his left hand reached round
and found Bodie hard again. Hand and body in perfect co-ordination, he
thrust and pumped, fast and deep. 

 "Fuckin'...miracle...of...engineering...you
are...*my*..fuckin'...miracle...of...engin.." 

 He stilled on the last, feeling the rush build and hold, wanting to keep
it, wanting to lose it, fearing even to end a word and forget the moment.
And then everything spasmed forwards and he had no choice but to tip over
and fall, caught as always by the strong back beneath.

 ******

Minutes passed, maybe three or four, before Doyle found the presence of
mind to unglue himself and roll aside onto his back. Bodie made a noise.

 "Eh?" 

 Bodie picked his head up off the pillow, just enough to be heard.

 "I said, I thought it was supposed to be your birthday, mate." 

 Doyle let his right hand lift and rest on Bodie's lower back.

 "Who needs a sodding fire engine? God save the Queen, I say."

 Bodie shuffled and turned his head to face Doyle, who would have kissed
him if he'd had the energy to move those few inches and explain.

 "Never mind, mate. Let's just say I'm a royalist again and have a kip,
eh?"

 Doyle waited with his eyes shut, knowing that Bodie was surveying the
colourful ruin of the bed and the pair of them in it. He wondered if his
partner's more fastidious nature would let it all be until morning.

 He got his answer when a head arrived on his right shoulder, and an arm
clamped itself across his ribcage. He stretched across to his left,
switched the lamp off and smiled in the dark.

 "Not bounding up to make use of all this careful plannin' then?"

 "Can't be arsed," came the mumbled reply. "Waste of time planning things
around you anyway."

 "So I'm like your Eiger then, am I?"

 "Climbed that, y'know."

 "Bollocks."

 "Did so. Just like I climbed you."

 Silence. 

 "Was me that planted the flag, though, mate."

 Doyle laughed so hard at his own joke that he actually found the energy
to fall out of bed.

 -- THE END --

 *June 2007*

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