Discovered in the Fairylights - Fic - A Study in Scarlet
Apologies to all - this is the 26th entry, but it completely slipped my mind in the festive rush. Apologies most of all to recycled media, whose day I'm encroaching on - can we all just pretend it's still the 26th for now? Pretty please?
Anyway, I bring fic - it has a 'red' theme, but not a Christmas one. Hope you enjoy. Compliments of the season!
Liverpool:
Bodie knows that Doyle thinks he comes from an abusive childhood. It’s clear in the sympathetic expression and awkward shift of topic whenever the subject comes up - God only knows, whatever else Doyle might be, he’s no bloody diplomat.
But it wasn’t like that, truthfully. His father wasn’t violent, wasn’t much of a drinker, certainly wasn’t on a par with the dads of some of the kids in his class. Kids who’d come to school with the soles of their shoes gaping open for weeks on end because Dad had boozed away the housekeeping for the nth time running. Kids dropped off at the gate by their bruised and cowed mothers, who’d scurry away before there was any danger of having to talk.
His Dad would never have harmed a hair on his Mam’s head. His Dad took pride in providing for his family - nothing fancy, mind, but all needs met.
He was strict, that was all. Didn’t stand for nonsense - came from his time in the military, that did. And Bodie was hardly the good little soldier - must have been a right handful to drag up, in all honesty. Wayward, that’s what his Dad called him, as he thrashed him - slipper or belt, whichever was closest to hand - until Bodie’s arse was mottled shades of red to match his tear-streaked face. It worked, too - every time he tried to sit down for the next week, he’d remember how wayward he was, resolve to try harder.
Nowadays, whenever the subject of corporal punishment comes up (apparently they’re banning it in schools, which is bound to be a wrench for some of the sadistic bastards that pass for teachers) he pastes on a knowing smirk, proclaims “Never did me any harm” to a reception of self-righteous nods. But he can’t help wondering how true that is - how different his life might have been if he’d been brought up with tenderness, rather than military severity. Still, doesn’t do to dwell.
Angola:
So she was a nurse. He was pretty much whatever anyone would pay him enough to be at any given time. Just your standard merc-meets-girl thing. She was a good girl, too - bloody easy on the eye, smart and sparky, and not too concerned about her virtue. He knew he wasn’t by any means the only bloke she’d spread her legs for, and at first that wasn’t a problem - they were both in it for the same thing; a bit of carefree fun in a violent, terrifying world.
As time went on, though, they got closer. Bodie stopped shagging around, thinks she did too. Started making excuses to turn up more often, stay for longer. He’s pretty sure that, at some point, he fell in love with her - knows that, in another life, he’d have settled down with her, maybe even raised a family.
He remembers seeing her that last time, during the messy aftermath of the latest massacre. Remembers how striking the red dress looked against her dark skin, how incongruously, beautifully tranquil she appeared in among all the horror.
Remembers that the dress was white when she put it on.
Northern Ireland:
Nothing about that tour was any fun. Benighted bloody country, pissed it down all the time - a right shock to the system to someone used to the searing climate of Africa, or the Middle East. Neighbours, sometimes even families, watching each other with wary distrust. Kiddies dragged away from each other, too young to understand why they could never be friends, parents knowing full well that little Billy could well be holding a gun to little Hughie’s head one fine day not too far down the road. And everyone hated the soldiers.
He knows he was lucky - by rights he shouldn’t have got away with his life, much less all his bits and pieces intact. The IRA’s coded warnings, theoretically intended to minimise civilian casualties, were as often as not more about getting as many military and police into the line of fire as possible. And they had a nasty habit of adding or taking away a few minutes from the time of detonation, just to make things really exciting. This was one such.
The warning had been given for just after eleven on a Friday night, timed to coincide with pub turning out time - perfect for maximum chaos, everyone pissed and belligerent. The bomb disposal lads having been deployed to work their wizardry on the abandoned car, it was down to the grunts like him to round everyone up and send them packing as peacefully as it’s ever possible to relocate a bunch of drunken Irishmen. Had been going quite well, actually - they’d cleared the pub completely, sent everyone on their way, maybe a dozen stragglers still milling around on the front step, when they ran out of time. Twenty minutes early.
The force of the blast picked him up off his feet and flung him hard against the pub wall, knocking the breath from him. Moments later he was literally seeing stars, pinpoints of brightness shooting through and across his vision as something hard and heavy clobbered him on the side of the head. An arm, he noted weakly as something approaching conscious thought returned, and he could see its former owner, or at least some of him, a good fifteen feet away.
He staggered to his feet, trying to take in the carnage that surrounded him. Gazed round, half-aware, at huddled broken shapes, unidentifiable lumps, pieces of colleagues he had laughed and drunk with mingled obscenely with the revellers they had been trying to protect. Stared in fascination at the rainwater trickling along the gutter, splashing into the darkness of the drains dotted along the street’s edge. Until the cacophony of sirens reached a peak of intensity, and the scene was properly illuminated by a horde of emergency vehicles, and Bodie realised that the increasing stream was caused by far more than the rain.
He’d always thought that ‘the streets running red’ was just a figure of speech, before.
London:
He knew, in all honesty, what he was going to find waiting for him, all the way through his frantic dash to Doyle’s flat. He was no psychic, but when you’d worked with someone so closely for so long, faced death together, breathed the same air as them day after day - it might sound bloody soppy, but you sort of became part of each other. Sod it, he didn’t care how daft it sounded, that connection had saved both their lives more times than he liked to think about. He just hoped it would be enough to save Doyle now.
Even so, even with the mental picture growing more vivid, more horrifying, as he climbed up the side of Doyle’s building, the accuracy of the scene when he finally burst in literally robbed him of breath for a few moments. Doyle’s face, so pale it looked like there was no way any blood remained in him at all. The red and white puddling together messily beneath and around him - Bodie hadn’t understood the white in his mind’s view, not until he saw the shattered glass of the milk bottles.
In reality, it was probably no more than a couple of frozen seconds before his training kicked in and he dashed over to his partner, the relief almost shattering as he found the signs of life he hadn’t dared to hope for. And as he made Doyle as comfortable as he could, and on through the interminable grind of the sorry excuse for a lift; on through the hours spent in the hospital waiting for any indication that his partner would make it through this; and ever afterwards, on the few occasions that he allowed his mind to play over the events of that day - his vision was flooded with that sickly, anaemic white, streaked with shocks of scarlet.
Bodie hates the colour red. No good ever comes of it.
London (again):
Bodie pulled back briefly, surveyed his handiwork with a satisfaction bordering on smugness. The flushed, damp head of Doyle’s cock, a perfect match for his sweat-soaked, scarlet face, as he writhed impatiently against him. Bodie leant in, licked gently around the crown, tonguing the slit just to savour the taste, to feel Doyle shudder.
It was something he never got tired of, something that amazed him every single time - that he could take on a man of Doyle’s strength, a man who could face down any kind of danger without so much as a flinch, and render him helpless - have him trembling, even begging, with nothing more than the right touches of hands and mouth.
“Bodie,” it may have been little more than a strangled gasp, but somehow Doyle still managed to convey a tone of censure, “Fair warning, if you don’t get on with it I’ll - God - sort myself out.”
Bodie gave himself a mental shake. If Doyle was still capable of that much speech he wasn’t doing his job properly. He took Doyle more fully into his mouth, letting his tongue flicker against the length as he hollowed his cheeks and sucked hard, relishing the answering throb as Doyle threw his head back with a moan.
He moved his left hand from where it had been gripping Doyle’s hip, taking hold instead of the base of his cock, stroking with firm pressure, up and down, between his own lips and Doyle’s balls. His other hand crept downward between his partner’s spread thighs, two well-lubed fingers teasing around his hole before pushing inwards, finding the right spot, crooking and rubbing just so. Doyle yelled hoarsely, bucking involuntarily into Bodie’s waiting mouth. Grinning as far as he was able with his lips stretched around the not insubstantial girth of his partner, Bodie did it again. And again, and again, setting up a rhythmic pressure, feeling Doyle come apart beneath him. Feeling the telltale tightening and pulsing, opening his throat to the warm salty gush as Doyle came with an inarticulate scream that may or may not have been Bodie’s own name.
The final weak pulses having been gathered and swallowed, Bodie let his partner’s spent cock fall from his mouth, licking around to clean off any stray drops. Basking in his own warm arousal, letting his mind drift for a few moments, confident that Doyle would be out of it for a little while yet.
Which is how he found himself flat on his back and slightly breathless, pinned down by the weight of the other man, whose powers of recovery were apparently more impressive than Bodie had given him credit for.
It really didn’t do to underestimate Doyle, Bodie reminded himself, as Doyle met his gaze with a predatory, dangerous gleam that sent an answering shiver through Bodie.
“Mate, you’re a bloody tease,” Doyle said softly, tone husky. “And it’s about time someone gave you a taste of your own medicine."
Bodie lay back, grinning, cock hardening enthusiastically in response to the dark promise in Doyle’s voice. “Do your worst,” he dared.
So Doyle did.
Title: A Study in Scarlet
Author: Bistokids
Slash or Gen: Slash
Archive: Yes please
Anyway, I bring fic - it has a 'red' theme, but not a Christmas one. Hope you enjoy. Compliments of the season!
Liverpool:
Bodie knows that Doyle thinks he comes from an abusive childhood. It’s clear in the sympathetic expression and awkward shift of topic whenever the subject comes up - God only knows, whatever else Doyle might be, he’s no bloody diplomat.
But it wasn’t like that, truthfully. His father wasn’t violent, wasn’t much of a drinker, certainly wasn’t on a par with the dads of some of the kids in his class. Kids who’d come to school with the soles of their shoes gaping open for weeks on end because Dad had boozed away the housekeeping for the nth time running. Kids dropped off at the gate by their bruised and cowed mothers, who’d scurry away before there was any danger of having to talk.
His Dad would never have harmed a hair on his Mam’s head. His Dad took pride in providing for his family - nothing fancy, mind, but all needs met.
He was strict, that was all. Didn’t stand for nonsense - came from his time in the military, that did. And Bodie was hardly the good little soldier - must have been a right handful to drag up, in all honesty. Wayward, that’s what his Dad called him, as he thrashed him - slipper or belt, whichever was closest to hand - until Bodie’s arse was mottled shades of red to match his tear-streaked face. It worked, too - every time he tried to sit down for the next week, he’d remember how wayward he was, resolve to try harder.
Nowadays, whenever the subject of corporal punishment comes up (apparently they’re banning it in schools, which is bound to be a wrench for some of the sadistic bastards that pass for teachers) he pastes on a knowing smirk, proclaims “Never did me any harm” to a reception of self-righteous nods. But he can’t help wondering how true that is - how different his life might have been if he’d been brought up with tenderness, rather than military severity. Still, doesn’t do to dwell.
Angola:
So she was a nurse. He was pretty much whatever anyone would pay him enough to be at any given time. Just your standard merc-meets-girl thing. She was a good girl, too - bloody easy on the eye, smart and sparky, and not too concerned about her virtue. He knew he wasn’t by any means the only bloke she’d spread her legs for, and at first that wasn’t a problem - they were both in it for the same thing; a bit of carefree fun in a violent, terrifying world.
As time went on, though, they got closer. Bodie stopped shagging around, thinks she did too. Started making excuses to turn up more often, stay for longer. He’s pretty sure that, at some point, he fell in love with her - knows that, in another life, he’d have settled down with her, maybe even raised a family.
He remembers seeing her that last time, during the messy aftermath of the latest massacre. Remembers how striking the red dress looked against her dark skin, how incongruously, beautifully tranquil she appeared in among all the horror.
Remembers that the dress was white when she put it on.
Northern Ireland:
Nothing about that tour was any fun. Benighted bloody country, pissed it down all the time - a right shock to the system to someone used to the searing climate of Africa, or the Middle East. Neighbours, sometimes even families, watching each other with wary distrust. Kiddies dragged away from each other, too young to understand why they could never be friends, parents knowing full well that little Billy could well be holding a gun to little Hughie’s head one fine day not too far down the road. And everyone hated the soldiers.
He knows he was lucky - by rights he shouldn’t have got away with his life, much less all his bits and pieces intact. The IRA’s coded warnings, theoretically intended to minimise civilian casualties, were as often as not more about getting as many military and police into the line of fire as possible. And they had a nasty habit of adding or taking away a few minutes from the time of detonation, just to make things really exciting. This was one such.
The warning had been given for just after eleven on a Friday night, timed to coincide with pub turning out time - perfect for maximum chaos, everyone pissed and belligerent. The bomb disposal lads having been deployed to work their wizardry on the abandoned car, it was down to the grunts like him to round everyone up and send them packing as peacefully as it’s ever possible to relocate a bunch of drunken Irishmen. Had been going quite well, actually - they’d cleared the pub completely, sent everyone on their way, maybe a dozen stragglers still milling around on the front step, when they ran out of time. Twenty minutes early.
The force of the blast picked him up off his feet and flung him hard against the pub wall, knocking the breath from him. Moments later he was literally seeing stars, pinpoints of brightness shooting through and across his vision as something hard and heavy clobbered him on the side of the head. An arm, he noted weakly as something approaching conscious thought returned, and he could see its former owner, or at least some of him, a good fifteen feet away.
He staggered to his feet, trying to take in the carnage that surrounded him. Gazed round, half-aware, at huddled broken shapes, unidentifiable lumps, pieces of colleagues he had laughed and drunk with mingled obscenely with the revellers they had been trying to protect. Stared in fascination at the rainwater trickling along the gutter, splashing into the darkness of the drains dotted along the street’s edge. Until the cacophony of sirens reached a peak of intensity, and the scene was properly illuminated by a horde of emergency vehicles, and Bodie realised that the increasing stream was caused by far more than the rain.
He’d always thought that ‘the streets running red’ was just a figure of speech, before.
London:
He knew, in all honesty, what he was going to find waiting for him, all the way through his frantic dash to Doyle’s flat. He was no psychic, but when you’d worked with someone so closely for so long, faced death together, breathed the same air as them day after day - it might sound bloody soppy, but you sort of became part of each other. Sod it, he didn’t care how daft it sounded, that connection had saved both their lives more times than he liked to think about. He just hoped it would be enough to save Doyle now.
Even so, even with the mental picture growing more vivid, more horrifying, as he climbed up the side of Doyle’s building, the accuracy of the scene when he finally burst in literally robbed him of breath for a few moments. Doyle’s face, so pale it looked like there was no way any blood remained in him at all. The red and white puddling together messily beneath and around him - Bodie hadn’t understood the white in his mind’s view, not until he saw the shattered glass of the milk bottles.
In reality, it was probably no more than a couple of frozen seconds before his training kicked in and he dashed over to his partner, the relief almost shattering as he found the signs of life he hadn’t dared to hope for. And as he made Doyle as comfortable as he could, and on through the interminable grind of the sorry excuse for a lift; on through the hours spent in the hospital waiting for any indication that his partner would make it through this; and ever afterwards, on the few occasions that he allowed his mind to play over the events of that day - his vision was flooded with that sickly, anaemic white, streaked with shocks of scarlet.
Bodie hates the colour red. No good ever comes of it.
London (again):
Bodie pulled back briefly, surveyed his handiwork with a satisfaction bordering on smugness. The flushed, damp head of Doyle’s cock, a perfect match for his sweat-soaked, scarlet face, as he writhed impatiently against him. Bodie leant in, licked gently around the crown, tonguing the slit just to savour the taste, to feel Doyle shudder.
It was something he never got tired of, something that amazed him every single time - that he could take on a man of Doyle’s strength, a man who could face down any kind of danger without so much as a flinch, and render him helpless - have him trembling, even begging, with nothing more than the right touches of hands and mouth.
“Bodie,” it may have been little more than a strangled gasp, but somehow Doyle still managed to convey a tone of censure, “Fair warning, if you don’t get on with it I’ll - God - sort myself out.”
Bodie gave himself a mental shake. If Doyle was still capable of that much speech he wasn’t doing his job properly. He took Doyle more fully into his mouth, letting his tongue flicker against the length as he hollowed his cheeks and sucked hard, relishing the answering throb as Doyle threw his head back with a moan.
He moved his left hand from where it had been gripping Doyle’s hip, taking hold instead of the base of his cock, stroking with firm pressure, up and down, between his own lips and Doyle’s balls. His other hand crept downward between his partner’s spread thighs, two well-lubed fingers teasing around his hole before pushing inwards, finding the right spot, crooking and rubbing just so. Doyle yelled hoarsely, bucking involuntarily into Bodie’s waiting mouth. Grinning as far as he was able with his lips stretched around the not insubstantial girth of his partner, Bodie did it again. And again, and again, setting up a rhythmic pressure, feeling Doyle come apart beneath him. Feeling the telltale tightening and pulsing, opening his throat to the warm salty gush as Doyle came with an inarticulate scream that may or may not have been Bodie’s own name.
The final weak pulses having been gathered and swallowed, Bodie let his partner’s spent cock fall from his mouth, licking around to clean off any stray drops. Basking in his own warm arousal, letting his mind drift for a few moments, confident that Doyle would be out of it for a little while yet.
Which is how he found himself flat on his back and slightly breathless, pinned down by the weight of the other man, whose powers of recovery were apparently more impressive than Bodie had given him credit for.
It really didn’t do to underestimate Doyle, Bodie reminded himself, as Doyle met his gaze with a predatory, dangerous gleam that sent an answering shiver through Bodie.
“Mate, you’re a bloody tease,” Doyle said softly, tone husky. “And it’s about time someone gave you a taste of your own medicine."
Bodie lay back, grinning, cock hardening enthusiastically in response to the dark promise in Doyle’s voice. “Do your worst,” he dared.
So Doyle did.
Title: A Study in Scarlet
Author: Bistokids
Slash or Gen: Slash
Archive: Yes please