Discovered in the Wrapping Paper - Day 27 - Two Words (Ficlet)
I hope everyone had a lovey Christmas and will have a happy and safe New Year.
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Their latest assignment kept them working straight through Christmas. No time to appreciate the magical sparkle of fairy lights or listen to the sweet sound of carols wafting on the air. Blood decorated the snow and gunfire provided the background music for their festive season. Doyle’s Christmas Day feast had been a stale sandwich, and he counted himself lucky to have had the time to wolf that much down. The tiny pile of presents he had received in the weeks leading up to Christmas lay on the kitchen table in his flat, sitting forlornly amongst dirty dishes he had not yet had time to clear away, waiting patiently for him to come home.
Boxing Day was drawing to a close when he finally found the time to sit down and open them. He didn’t pay any attention to the wrapping paper, simply ripping it away in his rush to get to the gift inside. There were a few pressies from his family, mostly socks, which always came in handy, and a shirt he wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. There was the traditional bottle of scotch from the Cow and, of course, a joke gift from Bodie.
This year it was a framed picture of the two of them. They each had an arm slung around the other, drinks precariously dangling in their free hands. They were clearly shit-faced: Doyle at that faux-dignified stage where he pretended he wasn’t drunk, and looked feeble-minded in the process; Bodie with his head turned toward his partner, lips puckered up for a kiss. Doyle remembered laughing uproariously as he wiped the slobber from his cheek.
Yeah, that had been a good night. A cracker of a Christmas. It wasn’t often that the bad guys were good enough to take time off to celebrate the season, allowing CI5 the opportunity to hold the drunken revelry that passed for their Christmas party. Last year had been such a rare treat.
Doyle remembered Murphy popping up here, there and everywhere, snapping increasingly embarrassing photos of his peers. Of course, the silly sod had been just as drunk as the rest of the merrymakers. Half the pictures he showed around a week or so later were out of focus, or taken at a weird angle. Doyle remembered Bodie intercepting Murphy’s tour around the bullpen. There had been a whispered conversation, and money had changed hands. This particular picture had not been in the stack by the time it made its way to Doyle. Little wonder Bodie had nabbed it. It was the best shot Murphy had taken that evening.
Doyle smiled fondly at this reminder of Christmas past, then left presents and wrappings alike on the table, taking himself off to bed for a well-earned rest.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when he was dutifully cleaning his flat, that he noticed a gift tag on the paper Bodie had chosen. That there was a gift tag at all was unusual. They never used the things. For that matter, they rarely bothered with fancy wrapping paper. Handing over a last minute present in a plastic carrier bag was more their style.
Doyle would have missed seeing the tag at all, had the paper not been crumpled up just so. The message, carefully written in Bodie’s neatest hand, would have disappeared forever once the lid slammed shut on the dustbin.
But a Christmas miracle of sorts made Doyle glance down at the paper just before he tossed it.
Two little words leaped out at him.
Two little words that froze Doyle in his tracks.
Love Bodie.
He stared at the gift tag in disbelief, lips silently shaping the words, trying them on for size.
Love?
Bodie?
Suddenly, Doyle wasn’t sure the joke gift had been a joke at all.
Freeing the tag from the paper and clutching it in one hand, he returned to the table and picked up the picture, studying it more closely.
This was no last minute offering. Nearly a year’s foresight had gone into this gift’s selection. The frame was sterling silver, not a cheap ‘silver’ knockoff that would lose it’s lustre if you so much as breathed on it.
Love Bodie.
Was this was an admission of love, or a request to be loved?
If the latter, there was no question in his mind. Love Body? Of course he loved Bodie. Not that he’d ever expected anything to come of that love. Not the way he wished it would. Not the way it featured in his dreams.
And if the former, if Bodie loved him too...
Doyle had a sudden image of Bodie alone in his flat last night, maybe sitting by the phone, maybe anxiously pacing the floor, as he waited for Doyle’s reaction to his present.
The poor sod was still waiting, wondering, hope and the fear of rejection very likely at war in his mind.
Doyle pocketed the gift tag as he slipped into his jacket. Keys in one hand, the picture in the other, he trotted out to his car.
If this is a joke, he thought as he gunned the engine and tore off to Bodie’s flat, I’ll bloody well kill the bastard.
But if it’s real, he mused as he stepped from the car and pounded on Bodie’s door. This could be the best Christmas ever.
The door swung open and Bodie stood there silently staring at him, his normally implacable face suffused with raw emotion. Judging by the deep blush that stained his cheeks, there was no mistaking the meaning of the words he’d written. Clearly this was no joke.
Doyle grinned and manhandled his partner back inside, kicking the door shut behind them.
“Loved my pressie,” he said nonchalantly. “Happens I love my partner too.”
“Thank god,” Bodie moaned, as they tumbled into each other’s arms.
And those were the last two words that were spoken for some time.
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Title: Two Words
Author: melanieathene
Slash or Gen: slash
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: yes.
Disclaimer: Not mine. They belong to each other.
Many thanks to cali_se for betaing and brit picking.