The Professionals Circuit Archive - M'aidez	    M'aidez

 

by Asymphototropic 

 
 *Written for Discovered on May Day, on the discoveredinalj livejournal
community*


 Their's was a somewhat surreal post. 

 They were assigned to observe, from a discrete distance, the public loo
at Findon. 

 The village was only one of several bucolic places said to be favoured
for smuggled drugs drops. Grassish information was limited on the topic.
But the Old Man was hard on the heels of one particular curmudgeon with
probable terrorist connections. The villain's operatives had committed a
series of rather gruesome London executions to eliminate the competition.
The Home Secretary was particularly eager to lower a net over the entire
homicidal lot, rather briskly.

 Hence the current somewhat surreal post.

 Said discrete distance from the Findon village loo having landed them,
for want of better cover, in some tall, extremely damp meadow grass,
complete with kestrel, circling overhead.

 Bodie, liking to share the occasional passionate tumble with a wench in a
woodsy setting, had a couple of army drab tarpaulins stashed in the boot
of his vehicle.

 Doyle's contribution to the enterprise was a steaming thermos of tea only
lightly laced with Jamaican rum. 

 They lay between the tarps, the top layer drawn right up to their ears.
There they surveilled the Findon public loo, all the while inhaling the
mingled aroma of freshly bloomed violets and freshly dropped sheep dung,
listening to the soft rain chuckling gently as it caressed their cover,
feeling the warmth of being snugged comfortably close to congenial
anatomy.

 Ray clenched the field glasses. "What do you imagine you're doing?"

 Unabashed, Bodie continued to grope Doyle's nether cheeks a full ten
seconds before reluctantly withdrawing his hand. "Checking for
hypothermia. Wouldn't want it to creep up on you, silent like."

 "Getting bored are we?"

 "With you for scintillating converse? Impossible."

 Ray smiled. "Why don't you read us some more?"

 "Finished the best parts. Besides which, cost me three pounds sixty at
Poole's Second Hand. Shouldn't want to get it wet." Over the last several
hours, he'd read aloud the stories of the chief Cissbury Ring ghosts from
Iron Age through Victorian Era. The modern ghosts' chapter at the end of
the volume didn't interest Bodie. Dreary creatures those were, too close
to grim reality for his liking.

 As a backdrop to the two huddled mates, the Cissbury Rings were an
evocative setting. 

 Verdant downs against bright white chalk paths, the first of the year's
wildflowers, wide flung in lavender and yellow. Sixty five acres of
ancient hillfort, the realm of the earth mother rising high, layer upon
layer, aspiring to the heavens of the sun lord. 

 Who seemed to have ducked into his cloud palace for a bit of a kip today,
Bodie grinned to himself.

 Their current occupation seemed not at all incongruous. To his
imagination, they were neolithic warriors, guarding the precious flint
mines of their tribe against invaders. He hearkened to the call of the
sea, the glittering channel a mere few miles distant, and felt his blood
stir at the thought of fierce raiders arriving in wooden boats. 

 Armed conflict at close quarters, himself and his sturdy comrade,
wielding catapult stones, knives, bows and arrows in staunch defense of
their turf.

 Beside him, Ray sighed and stirred, crackling tendons along his back.
Bodie took over the glasses, allowing Doyle the freedom to work the kinks
out of his body.

 The resultant writhing was delectable. Bodie squirmed closer. "Nearly May
the First. What rites of Spring do you fancy?"

 Doyle yawned. "May Day? Bah. Full moon rarely falls on the First."

 "Has to be full, has it?"

 "For a bale fire, yeah."

 "Proper pagan, aren't you?"

 Doyle shrugged, feeling no call to justify himself on the topic.

 Bodie nudged him. "So you wait for the full moon, eh?"

 "Mmm."

 "And then? Come on, it's your turn to talk. Read myself hoarse already.
What's for eats at your moonlit celebration?"

 Doyle smiled at his partner's affinity for matters of a digestive turn.
"Um. Honey oatmeal bickies and baked custards. Plus a jar of last year's
fruit preserves. That's to prove your faith in the coming crop, you eat up
the last of your winter's hoard."

 Bodie offered a small slurp behind Doyle's ear in appreciation. "And for
tipple?"

 Ray's green eyes glittered with good humour. "Got to go out and gather
the ground ivy. Pick them when they're freshly blooming, all those little
purple blossoms and ruffled round leaves, you know?"

 "Oh, aye, and for why?"

 "Clarifying of the new ale, to settle it, see?"

 "Good, very good. And of course for company, carrying their gathering
baskets, there'd be maidens sweet, wearing nought but floral wreathes and
shy smiles?"

 "Virgins, highly overrated, them."

 "You don't say?"

 "Planting moon. That's about fertility, in tit? What you want, old son,
is a sure thing for the sake of spawning. Females that've come of age
already, ripe and lusty, and ah, full bodied." Doyle held his cupped hands
over his lean chest and moaned softly, pulsing his pelvis in a rhythmic
series of thrusts, cushioned by the rich loam beneath him.

 Bodie groaned and laughed. Without abandoning his lookout, he flung a
solid thigh over Ray's leg and humped it wantonly.

 "Not waiting for the full moon?" Doyle chuckled.

 "Naw. Me, I'm not a proper pagan. Leaves more lascivious latitude,
savvy?"

 "Just as you say."

 "What else for next?"

 Doyle slipped from under Bodie's weight, rubbing the tingles out of his
calf muscle, whilst pondering traditions. "Plant your veggie seeds. Circle
the well nine times to honour the deities of the water. Tie ribbons on the
blooming shrubbery, that sort of frolic."

 "Hmm. Could decorate the door to the ladies' bog at headquarters."

 "The Cow'd have a regal fit over that!"

 "Ought to do it just for laughs."

 "Or better yet, we could trawl."

 "What, you mean in a boat?"

 "No, no. Trawling. Old tradition, to nettle the Christian priests, see?
On Bealtaine, you take your copy of the Bible and open it at random, read
the tract out loud to yer kin and kith. The family elder interprets the
passage. Supposed to pertain to the season's fortune, a prediction, see?"

 "Ah ha, I get the stunt now. Come running up to Cowley, all respectful
and eager."

 "Him being the tribal elder, CI5 wise man."

 "Exactly. 'Sir, sir,' you'd call out loudly, for all the staff to hear."

 "Right, with your King James spread wide."

 "Just by chance at the Song of Solomon. Quoth you, most somberly, 'Let
him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. My spikenard sendeth forth the
smell thereof. I sit down under his shadow with great delight, and his
fruit is sweet to my taste. Oh my dove, that art in the clefts of the
rock, in the secret places! Pillar of silver, bottom of gold, covering of
purple, being paved with love.' "

 "And then, 'Prithee, Goode Sir Cowley, what meaneth these portents?'"

 They collapsed together in an excess of mirth.

 Bodie recovered first. "Want to try it on, for real?"

 "Naw. No profit to the venture. Better in the mind's eye, that."

 "Yar," Bodie agreed.

 "What for yourself, then, for Spring? Get naked and plunge into the
Mersey?"

 "All for a frostbitten fruit basket? What do you take me for?"

 "Oh, nuffink, lad. Forget I mentioned it."

 "There is one thing, though."

 "Eh?"

 "Pertaining to Mayday. You know, when a pilot calls a distress signal,
and he radios 'Mayday'."

 "Yeah?"

 "Heard that it's a mangling of the French, 'moi aidez' or some such.
Meaning, 'help me'."

 "Hmm. A bit precious, that story."

 "Well, maybe. But, you know, there were all those English-speaking
blokes, World War I flyers in France. Maybe Mayday sounded close enough to
the French parley, and it was something they could remember."

 "Meh. Maybe so."

 A comfortable silence settled on them. They listened to the sweetly
whispering rain awhile.

 Doyle flopped over onto his belly. "Got to drain the newt."

 "Remember to salute the water deities while you're at it."

 "Always. Else they might bite me goolies out of spite."

 Doyle slid from under the tarp and hiked downhill toward the Findon
public loo.

 From on high, the hovering kestrel eyed Ray, as if considering whether he
might prove an edible morsel.

 Watching his backside, Bodie had to agree with the possibility.

 Doyle disappeared into the facility.

 A minute later, a motor pulled over to park in front. Bodie's pulse rate
picked up slightly. His nostrils quivered. He fingered the haft of his
Magnum, but left it holstered. 

 Carrying a canvas covered parcel, a bluff man clad in a pea coat emerged
from the car and strode purposefully toward the WC. 

 Bodie stood abruptly. He sent three short transmissions of static over
the handheld to alert Doyle. Then he trotted quickly down the soggy slope.

 The bloke with the box slipped into the women's room. Bodie paused for a
quick ten count, to see if any outraged females emerged, then followed
him.

 "Right on time," the thug commented before realizing Bodie wasn't, one,
his buyer, or two, a female. Hastily, he made a grab for his concealed
weapon.

 "None of that," Bodie pounced on him, pinning his body to the wall,
likewise his arms to his torso.

 "What the hell?" This new voice came from behind Bodie, who froze at the
sound of a second enemy. The first thug shrugged him off, and Bodie
stepped back, glancing over his shoulder, to see if he had to deal with
any fire power there.

 Yeah, he did, it seemed. The crud held a semi-automatic. Bodie started to
raise his hands, as if surrendering.

 "'Ey up," Doyle shouted. The noise drew off the attention and aim of the
lout in the doorway. With a swift kick and a follow-through punch, Ray
disarmed and levelled the man.

 Bodie heard the action, but wasn't watching. The instant the opportunity
presented, he took out the first villain with a roundhouse to the mandible
and a knee to the groin.

 "Too easy," Bodie assessed as they cuffed the miscreants. "Where's the
joy of it, I ask you?"

 Doyle nodded wry agreement. "Could have used a bit more exercise, meself,
after lying about all day in the damp."

 Later, at post-ops report, Cowley complained. "Careless of you, 3.7,
getting caught between two enemies in that manner. Why did you pursue the
first suspect so quickly?"

 Bodie didn't reply, "Because of Ray." Instead he merely offered, "Sir,
our brief specified a drop, not a meet for a buy."

 "And 4.5, why did you wait so long to back-up your partner?"

 "In case our brief was wrong, and it was a meet for a buy rather than a
drop, sir," Doyle responded, with a wicked spark lighting his eyes.

 "You didn't call for help, 3.7?"

 "No need, sir," Bodie grinned. "Knew Doyle'd be there, and he was."

 Cowley merely nodded at that.

 They were scarcely outside the controller's office, when Doyle broke down
laughing.

 Bodie dragged his convulsively mirthful partner a safe distance before
demanding what he was about.

 "Thought I might die," Ray snuffled, ruefully shaking his head. "Every
time I looked at the Old Man, 'the smell of spikenard' sprang to mind, and
I nearly couldn't keep a straight face."

 "Damn glad I didn't realize it then, or I'd have lost it, too. Hey,
when's the full moon, anyway?"

 "Wednesday night."

 "Invite me over for oatmeal bickies? I'll bring the ale."

 "Okay. But no virgins."

 "Course not. Was thinking more in the line of silver pillars."

 "Golden bottoms?"

 "Clefts of rock. Yeah, that sort of thing."

 "Mmm," Ray agreed. And then, "You didn't call for help."

 "Knew you'd be there." Bodie draped his arm over Doyle's shoulder. "Was
right. Mayday. Bah."

 -- THE END --

 *May 2007*

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