Discovered in the Wrapping Paper - 6th January - Prosfic - A Little Warmth at Christmas
It may not surprise you to hear that for the second year in a row I have failed to finish my Story Project in time to post for my Dialj day... I kept being hopeful, but as soon as I was back to work I knew it was probably not a goer... :(
But I have, of course, cobbled together some other things to post today! The first one is something a few people will have read, but I haven't posted it online yet. You'll need to wisk yourself back in time nearly two weeks (well, plus the forty-odd years to our lads' time in CI5)...
A Little Warmth at Christmas
by Slantedlight
Two o’clock, Bodie thought as chimes rang out in the downstairs flat, and all is well. Or at least as well as it could be with not a sign of Allan and his gang, the central heating off, and more draughts in this place than he’d had girls in his bed. Or blokes, he thought, because it seemed like he was always thinking about that again these days, and the reason was lying not two foot away, fast asleep.
They’d swapped shifts barely an hour ago, Bodie’s eyes gritted with not enough sleep for the last week, and Doyle seemed to have flaked out as soon as his head hit the floor. Ray’s eyes had been black with exhaustion, that cheek standing out sharply, and Bodie’d wondered if he looked as bad himself. He was still now, anyway, and Bodie hoped he was warm enough, because he’d stripped off his jacket to sleep, and just laid it over the grey wool blankets. They should have brought the sleeping bags, but there’d been no time, not after a twelve-hour shift leaping around after Billy Smith, and no one else free to set the place up for them. Christmas was turning out to be a busy time for CI5 this year.
He tugged his own blanket more tightly around him, listening to the window frame rattle again, and started another quartering sweep of the street with the binoculars. He’d done it so many times, was so used to the routine of it at the same time as being alert to any tiny change in the landscape, that it didn’t distract him from his thoughts at all.
Unlike Doyle. Doyle distracted him from everything these days. Not the job, because Doyle was the job, but if they had a night off he wanted to spend it with Doyle too, and Doyle had been agreeable.
It’d been fine until Doyle had made that joke about Cinderella being gay in the panto, and then looked at him. As if... almost as if...
Which was stupid. This was Doyle he was talking about. Ray Doyle who not only took as many women to bed as Bodie did, but had been all set to marry one of them.
But he didn’t... Bodie’s treacherous memory pointed out. And you take women to bed too.
The wind blew a particularly loud gust at the window, and this time followed it up with a solid slap of sleet, blurring all the world outside into the golden orange glow of the streetlights, so that he couldn’t see a damned thing. Not that it mattered - Allen wasn’t going to be out in this, nor any of his hard boys, they weren’t that stupid. Even they got to be at home with their loved ones at Christmas.
With their loved ones... Drop it, Bodie, he told himself, but he could feel his heart straining against his chest with the wanting of it. He was cold, and he was tired and - alright, be honest - he was lonely. He was here in a room with his best mate asleep behind him, right there, and he was... lonely.
Funny how that could happen. Christmas eve, and he had work to do - important work to do, work he believed in, for all he brushed it aside when Ray was building himself up into one of his paddies about something. They did what they could - sometimes more than they could, like this week, and that was the point. Cared too much about it all, Ray did, past the villains to all the other people and then even the villains themselves half the time, when he needed to care just enough and then stop.
Yeah, well. Easier said than done.
There was a rustle from the floor behind him, then a shuffling, and a long sighing breath, and he pictured the mass of Doyle’s curls just visible above the blanket edge, the way he’d pulled the blanket tight around him, so that his whole body was outlined in sleep. He imagined he could feel the warmth of him, just there. Everything Bodie wanted. He pursed his lips for a moment, gripped the binoculars more tightly, even though they were still useless. The sleet was getting thicker, it was almost...
“Almost snowing.”
Bodie jumped, Doyle’s voice unexpectedly right beside his ear in a puff of warm breath.
“What you doing out here in the cold?” he asked, hearing his voice curt in the night. “Nothing to see. Allen’s long gone.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Doyle said, standing close enough that Bodie could feel the warmth of his body, just as he’d imagined. “What a way to earn a living, eh?”
He had to shake it off, couldn’t let it keep hold of him. “Still,” he managed, “maybe we’ll catch a glimpse of Saint Nick.”
“Dashing through the snow,” Doyle agreed, voice a low murmur. “Could do ‘im for speeding if you’re bored.”
“Nah, get our orders in for prezzies. Hot toddy for starters, relief shift to get here early, warm bed waiting for us at home…” Shit. Waiting for me at home, he should have said. “Could even go a bowl of that veggie muck you call soup,” he added, a quick cover.
He heard Doyle take a breath. “Do you a hot toddy tomorrow,” Doyle said. “Whenever we get home. Got a chicken to roast, better than soup. Come round mine when Mac and Jax take over, we’ll ‘ave what’s left of Christmas there. Get good and warm.” He stopped, sniffed, then added, almost awkwardly, “If you like.”
There was a pause, a minute of quiet in the world, as they stood side by side and watched the snow, both of them taking in what had been said, and not said, and Bodie suddenly realised, not said yet.
“What about that warm bed?” he asked, wanting to turn and look at Doyle, unable to do it. Too many Christmas wishes right there beside him.
And then Doyle moved closer still, was warm and solid and shoulder to shoulder beside him, like he always was. “Only got the one,” he said.
“One enough is it?” Bodie asked, brave because sometimes you had to be, and then he abandoned the street and looked at Doyle properly.
Doyle looked back for a moment, and then they were both smiling, in the cold, in the dark, while the snow fell outside.
“One’s enough,” Doyle agreed, and Bodie shifted until he could wrap the blanket around them both, and they watched the snow fall together, on the night before Christmas.
o0o
Title: A Little Warmth at Christmas
Author: Slantedlight
Slash or Gen: Always slash!
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Certainly
Disclaimer: Bodie, Doyle, and the CI5-verse do not belong to me, I'm just enjoying some time with them.
Notes: Originally written for ProsFandomcards 2018 - sorry to the people who've read it before!
But I have, of course, cobbled together some other things to post today! The first one is something a few people will have read, but I haven't posted it online yet. You'll need to wisk yourself back in time nearly two weeks (well, plus the forty-odd years to our lads' time in CI5)...
A Little Warmth at Christmas
by Slantedlight
Two o’clock, Bodie thought as chimes rang out in the downstairs flat, and all is well. Or at least as well as it could be with not a sign of Allan and his gang, the central heating off, and more draughts in this place than he’d had girls in his bed. Or blokes, he thought, because it seemed like he was always thinking about that again these days, and the reason was lying not two foot away, fast asleep.
They’d swapped shifts barely an hour ago, Bodie’s eyes gritted with not enough sleep for the last week, and Doyle seemed to have flaked out as soon as his head hit the floor. Ray’s eyes had been black with exhaustion, that cheek standing out sharply, and Bodie’d wondered if he looked as bad himself. He was still now, anyway, and Bodie hoped he was warm enough, because he’d stripped off his jacket to sleep, and just laid it over the grey wool blankets. They should have brought the sleeping bags, but there’d been no time, not after a twelve-hour shift leaping around after Billy Smith, and no one else free to set the place up for them. Christmas was turning out to be a busy time for CI5 this year.
He tugged his own blanket more tightly around him, listening to the window frame rattle again, and started another quartering sweep of the street with the binoculars. He’d done it so many times, was so used to the routine of it at the same time as being alert to any tiny change in the landscape, that it didn’t distract him from his thoughts at all.
Unlike Doyle. Doyle distracted him from everything these days. Not the job, because Doyle was the job, but if they had a night off he wanted to spend it with Doyle too, and Doyle had been agreeable.
It’d been fine until Doyle had made that joke about Cinderella being gay in the panto, and then looked at him. As if... almost as if...
Which was stupid. This was Doyle he was talking about. Ray Doyle who not only took as many women to bed as Bodie did, but had been all set to marry one of them.
But he didn’t... Bodie’s treacherous memory pointed out. And you take women to bed too.
The wind blew a particularly loud gust at the window, and this time followed it up with a solid slap of sleet, blurring all the world outside into the golden orange glow of the streetlights, so that he couldn’t see a damned thing. Not that it mattered - Allen wasn’t going to be out in this, nor any of his hard boys, they weren’t that stupid. Even they got to be at home with their loved ones at Christmas.
With their loved ones... Drop it, Bodie, he told himself, but he could feel his heart straining against his chest with the wanting of it. He was cold, and he was tired and - alright, be honest - he was lonely. He was here in a room with his best mate asleep behind him, right there, and he was... lonely.
Funny how that could happen. Christmas eve, and he had work to do - important work to do, work he believed in, for all he brushed it aside when Ray was building himself up into one of his paddies about something. They did what they could - sometimes more than they could, like this week, and that was the point. Cared too much about it all, Ray did, past the villains to all the other people and then even the villains themselves half the time, when he needed to care just enough and then stop.
Yeah, well. Easier said than done.
There was a rustle from the floor behind him, then a shuffling, and a long sighing breath, and he pictured the mass of Doyle’s curls just visible above the blanket edge, the way he’d pulled the blanket tight around him, so that his whole body was outlined in sleep. He imagined he could feel the warmth of him, just there. Everything Bodie wanted. He pursed his lips for a moment, gripped the binoculars more tightly, even though they were still useless. The sleet was getting thicker, it was almost...
“Almost snowing.”
Bodie jumped, Doyle’s voice unexpectedly right beside his ear in a puff of warm breath.
“What you doing out here in the cold?” he asked, hearing his voice curt in the night. “Nothing to see. Allen’s long gone.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Doyle said, standing close enough that Bodie could feel the warmth of his body, just as he’d imagined. “What a way to earn a living, eh?”
He had to shake it off, couldn’t let it keep hold of him. “Still,” he managed, “maybe we’ll catch a glimpse of Saint Nick.”
“Dashing through the snow,” Doyle agreed, voice a low murmur. “Could do ‘im for speeding if you’re bored.”
“Nah, get our orders in for prezzies. Hot toddy for starters, relief shift to get here early, warm bed waiting for us at home…” Shit. Waiting for me at home, he should have said. “Could even go a bowl of that veggie muck you call soup,” he added, a quick cover.
He heard Doyle take a breath. “Do you a hot toddy tomorrow,” Doyle said. “Whenever we get home. Got a chicken to roast, better than soup. Come round mine when Mac and Jax take over, we’ll ‘ave what’s left of Christmas there. Get good and warm.” He stopped, sniffed, then added, almost awkwardly, “If you like.”
There was a pause, a minute of quiet in the world, as they stood side by side and watched the snow, both of them taking in what had been said, and not said, and Bodie suddenly realised, not said yet.
“What about that warm bed?” he asked, wanting to turn and look at Doyle, unable to do it. Too many Christmas wishes right there beside him.
And then Doyle moved closer still, was warm and solid and shoulder to shoulder beside him, like he always was. “Only got the one,” he said.
“One enough is it?” Bodie asked, brave because sometimes you had to be, and then he abandoned the street and looked at Doyle properly.
Doyle looked back for a moment, and then they were both smiling, in the cold, in the dark, while the snow fell outside.
“One’s enough,” Doyle agreed, and Bodie shifted until he could wrap the blanket around them both, and they watched the snow fall together, on the night before Christmas.
o0o
Title: A Little Warmth at Christmas
Author: Slantedlight
Slash or Gen: Always slash!
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Certainly
Disclaimer: Bodie, Doyle, and the CI5-verse do not belong to me, I'm just enjoying some time with them.
Notes: Originally written for ProsFandomcards 2018 - sorry to the people who've read it before!