(no subject)
Visions of Bodie and Doyle: fight or flight?
This post was inspired by Moonlightmead's story of the same name: http://archiveofourown.org/works/679995
He looked around the hallway. It seemed older, more worn, the brass lamps tarnished. Like him. He wanted to run. Run up the corridor and through the light that promised an end to his pain, his torment and his uncertainty. To hell with the consequences. But there
was something that held him back, something that kept him in the hall....
The low repetitious murmur was back, drumming in his head. He was being pulled back into himself. He looked up the passageway. This time there was a figure in the light waiting for him. St. Peter? A silent laugh. No, this shadow was no angel. Had no wings, did it? But he knew that silhouette. He lived for it. Loved it. Bodie. No decision then. He knew the choice had already been made. He, Raymond Doyle would live.
The light grew brighter.
Choices:Merentha13
‘Okay. So I go and grovel to Cowley and get access to the computers. Cover our tracks, bollix the system so it crashes and they can’t do anything for a week or so.’
‘It means getting out completely. Setting up with new identities, the lot. You okay with that?’
‘As long as we’re together, yeah.’
‘Just checking. We might have to go abroad for a bit, but we can come back after a while.’
‘What do you want to do, after this?’ Doyle was curious. What sort of thing had his partner been considering?
‘Dunno. Never really thought much about getting out. What about you?’
‘Just the standard things. Security, bodyguard, fitness trainer. But we don’t have to stay in this business. We could do something completely different. Be normal.’
‘Normal?’ Bodie was sceptical. ‘Such as?’
‘Teacher. Artist. Landscape gardener. We could live in a little house together....
The King Must Die:murphybabe
"I miss you...."
"Oh, Jesus. Don't do this to me." He wanted to walk away, but he couldn't. He had to keep an eye on the fucking window. All he could do was turn away from Bodie, away from that soft, pleading look in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Ray. It's just that--I don't like being without you. Why can't we go back to how it was before?"
Doyle simply shook his head, too upset to talk. Christ, Bodie picked the stupidest times to go into this. And why the hell couldn't he figure out that it was over?
"Can't you even look at me?"
"I'm working," Doyle echoed Bodie's earlier words. Cold words.
A silence drew out between them. Doyle felt Bodie move away, heard him fiddling near the tea pot, then walking across the room, heard the creak as he sat in the armchair. He kept his gaze firmly on Matthews' house, where absolutely nothing interesting was happening...
Silence again... Love in a Faithless Country:Alexandra
The pub was so silent, it could have been a church or a courthouse. In the terrible quiet, over the noise of the wind, Bodie could hear his own heart beating, slow, steady, a loud drum in his ears. His mouth was dry and he noticed Doyle was licking his lips repeatedly.
"You okay?" he asked very quietly...
"Stage fright. You know, sweaty palms, itchy feet, heart going bang-bang," Doyle said drily. "I don't want to die, Bodie. Nobody does." He looked sidelong at Bodie, eyes wide, pupils dark in the dim light. "And if you're not scared, you're mad."
"I'm scared," Bodie admitted, and thought as he spoke, how strange it was to make that confession. He had never made it to another human soul. "It won't be long," he murmured...
Then they waited, and the following half hour plucked on Bodie's tight-strung nerves like a musician picking the strings of a banjo. This was the time he hated. The waiting. Erasmus Clay could not be far away now. Every minute brought him closer. Inactivity invited introspection and Bodie knew no means by which he could stop his thoughts turning inward, and backward to the past ... Nothing Left to Lose:Jane & Madelaine Ingram
He knows this is a mistake. Knows that he should turn around and walk away. But still he stands
there...
He tries to reason with himself that if he just leaves now, there will be no harm done. The whole thing will be ignored, given time, swept under the carpet so they can just carry on as before. It's not too late to avoid making things worse. Much worse.
But still he stays...
Despite the lateness of the hour, there's a light on in the bedroom and Bodie tries not to dwell on the images that conjures up… of Doyle naked in bed, restless, horny….
But then it occurs to him that perhaps Doyle isn’t alone. And that really should be the impetus he needs to leave, because the humiliation would be tenfold if he interrupted Doyle mid-shag with some bird. But instead, against all common sense, he forces his legs to take him to the front door and he presses the buzzer. Just like he has done a hundred times before. Only this time Doyle will know it's different. He'll know this isn't just Bodie dropping by because he's bored, hungry, run out of booze…
“Yeah?” Doyle's voice is unwelcoming over the speaker.
“It's me,” Bodie says, surprised he sounds quite normal.
There's silence... The End of the Path:Angelci5
"Ah, don't look like that, Ray."
"Like what?" he whispered; he had little breath to speak.
"Like you're scared of me."
"I'm not."
Bodie held his gaze, a long, dark look. "I would never hurt you, Ray. Don't you know that?"
He said it with a kind of wonder, as if there was so much more to know. Doyle lost his breath again, his heart beating heavily, with dread as much as anything. He was frightened all right, though not of Bodie; more at the depth of what he sensed in himself. But it was too late to stop now ...
First Night, Last Night:Sebastian
“By all rights we should be dead, anyway. Easier to shoot us than to dump us in here. Or shoot us and dump us in here. Or-“
“Shut up, Doyle.”
That sounded more like Bodie ... they were standing close enough to one another that he could feel the tremors in his body.
“You’re cold.” There was no water in the well, thank God, but it was damp.
Bodie said nothing to that and Doyle’s worry increased. Bodie had denied injury when they had first taken stock after being chucked down the well. His own head was aching from having been knocked out by Harrison’s men, but other than that he was okay. “Bodie.” He put a hand on Bodie’s arm. Bodie flinched ...... "Doyle. I need to get out of here.”
He had never, in all the years he’d known Bodie, heard panic in his voice before. Doyle’s heart heart rate sped up. “Okay. Hang on...”
He heard Bodie swallow. “I was in a hole before ... Congo.”
Oh, Christ. Bodie’s words from a few months ago flashed through his mind: Only some of us don't keep talking about it, right? Meredith had thought his experience as a prisoner was unique. Doyle didn’t know anything beyond the mere fact that Bodie had once been a prisoner during the Congo wars. Escape:PFL
Bodie looked at the stranger with whom he was about to be teamed and a part of him he had ruthlessly buried since he was sixteen years old stole his breath. Doyle was beautiful, cherubic even. The shock of it making him dangerously incoherent.
He tore his gaze from the luminous being suddenly standing in Cowley’s office... His fight to quell the turmoil within him absorbing him completely.
Cowley took in the brooding presence in front of him and understood. The man Bodie purported to be would have been outraged by the fay creature to whom he had just been introduced. But if Bodie was the man he purported to be Bodie wouldn’t have been in CI5.
The man Bodie actually was. masked his near panic by demanding “I’m going to be teamed with that?”
Cowley bided his tongue; these next few minutes would tell...
Bodie couldn’t look at the face which had unexpectedly made five minutes in the inner sanctum of CI5 more terrifying than any African war. Unimagined Vistas:Fiorenza-a
"Bodie." Cowley’s voice was brisk, expressionless. "You already know, of course, the Deputy Head of the Hong Kong Special Bureau."
And Bodie just had time to think, vaguely irritated, Do I? Before the realisation hit him like a blow in the gut. Hong Kong.
He felt as if he’d swallowed a bucket of ice.
His heart seemed to clench with apprehension, squeezed in a second into a tiny, suffocating pebble of shock in his chest and for a moment, two, three, he could think of nothing coherent at all.
He felt, in fact, quite sick...
He realised with a jolt that he was still staring blankly at Cowley, who was looking narrowly back; and for him, for these moments, Bodie made no attempt at all to hide his shock and fury.
Then, automatically, he controlled it all as he always controlled his emotions now...
Redemption:Kate Maclean:Gryphon Press
Fight or flight, they call it, that tide of adrenaline drenching your nerves and then receding, leaving you tingling, on edge, ready for anything. And it's just filled Doyle again. That can't have been accidental.
Doyle... doesn't do more than glance round with raised eyebrows. That was his hand on my arse again,
damn it. What is he playing at?
Bodie's eyes are crinkled at the corners, grinning conspiratorially at him. Just mates, larking about, then?
No. Doyle doesn't believe that for a minute. It's deliberate and it means something. Something more than just larking about.
But what? Is Bodie trying to wind Doyle up? Trying to put him down?... Doyle wonders seriously what Bodie will do if he reciprocates. Knock him into the middle of next week? Because it's getting pretty damned tempting, just to see Bodie's reaction. Or is it a genuine come-on? An invitation? In which case, Bodie is asking for a response, isn't he? And in that case, he might get more than he bargains for, because Doyle is no stranger to that side of life. You reckon you could take me? Cos I reckon I could take you. And what we do on the way there might be more than worth the risk.
The adrenaline courses through again, and Doyle knows what he's going to do...
Fight or Flight?:ML Mead
Bodie had clocked him as soon as he entered the pub. He was about Bodie’s age, a lean yet muscular man, curly hair, tight jeans...either very confident in his ability or he’d had too much to drink. Although he didn’t look drunk or stupid, he was encroaching on the gang’s space and staring at Tommy with an intenseness that was going to attract their attention.
And there it was.
“Got a problem, son?” shouted one of the gang. Instead of backing off like any sane person would, the curl haired man stood his ground. “Yeah I have as a matter of act... don’t like cop killers...” The gang circled the curly haired man who had now positioned himself into a fighting stance. “And what’s your name sunny, just so we know what to put on your headstone.” Quick as a flash the curly haired man jumped forward and punched the man square in the jaw knocking him out cold. The man fell back into two of his buddies pushing them over. “ They call me Doyle.”
Bodie was trying to think of a way of ending this without blowing his cover but no ideas were coming to mind. It looked like Doyle was on his own...for now.
Bodie To The rescue:Alex The Kid
"We have to talk..."
Bodie said, "Now seems as good a time as any."
He didn't say 'Let's get it over with' but the words lay implicit and heavy in the morning air. Doyle wanted to scream suddenly, 'What happened? What went wrong? What did I do?!'.... He felt the protective glacier slip and strove to shore it up. "All right. Just tell me something, Bodie. Did we or did we not...."
"We did," Bodie confirmed, not needing to hear the rest.
"And you can't tell me you didn't enjoy it. For chrissakes, you act as if I've suddenly become a leper or something. We've been tracking Green for days and the whole time you can barely look at me or talk to me or even get remotely close to me!"
Bodie looked at him, then away... "Look, it happened and I'm not sorry it happened. I told you I'd been wanting it, but...why don't we just leave it at that? You want things ... Put it down to loneliness and overactive libidos if you like."
Doyle thought he heard a faint and completely uncharacteristic tone of pleading in Bodie's voice. It shook him. "I don't accept that."
"Well, you'll have to, mate. That's it."
Doyle felt the pain, through his wall of ice, through years of a carefully built up defense system, through to his innermost self. "Damn you, Bodie," he said and got up and walked away.
Marooned:Anne Carr
It took me three days to track down Bodie...
I spoke briefly, succinctly, the words rehearsed yet as bitter as aloes on my tongue nonetheless:
"He needs you."
I looked at the closed, hard face. Bodie was always blankest when he felt the most. That was the way of it...But Bodie's granite face had grown harder, and he'd turned, and he'd walked away. To pause next to me, midnight-cold eyes measuring--and warning, I'd long reckoned. I'd faced him with all the passion and commitment and strength of purpose in me, flinging it at him, a gauntlet of power and will. He'd stared at me, his face unreadable, then nodded, once, before turning and striding from the room. Why Bodie had left that day had never been clear to me, but I'd hidden deep in my cache of secret guilts and resentments the inkling that Doyle was a trust I was being offered, not the gift I had convinced myself he was.
Dancing in the Rain:istia
The day after the sentencing was also the day after Bodie kissed Doyle in a lift. It was Wednesday, fresh and breezy. Their working partnership had crawled past its first birthday and was almost on its feet.
Everyone woke in their own beds...
Bodie drove, his shoulders tense. Doyle sat on his own tension, judging that it was not the right moment to ask those flapping questions. He knew he had at least three options. Either he shoved the whole memory into a black hole that would never again be investigated, or he kept quiet until it suddenly struck him that it was time to speak, or he waited until Bodie followed up his remarkable behaviour with something that didn't indicate chronic selective amnesia.
Alternatively, of course, he could say something right now. Except now was busy, now was repeated attempts at 50mph in a 30mph zone. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow's Life:JoJo
This post was inspired by Moonlightmead's story of the same name: http://archiveofourown.org/works/679995
He looked around the hallway. It seemed older, more worn, the brass lamps tarnished. Like him. He wanted to run. Run up the corridor and through the light that promised an end to his pain, his torment and his uncertainty. To hell with the consequences. But there
was something that held him back, something that kept him in the hall....
The low repetitious murmur was back, drumming in his head. He was being pulled back into himself. He looked up the passageway. This time there was a figure in the light waiting for him. St. Peter? A silent laugh. No, this shadow was no angel. Had no wings, did it? But he knew that silhouette. He lived for it. Loved it. Bodie. No decision then. He knew the choice had already been made. He, Raymond Doyle would live.
The light grew brighter.
Choices:Merentha13
‘Okay. So I go and grovel to Cowley and get access to the computers. Cover our tracks, bollix the system so it crashes and they can’t do anything for a week or so.’
‘It means getting out completely. Setting up with new identities, the lot. You okay with that?’
‘As long as we’re together, yeah.’
‘Just checking. We might have to go abroad for a bit, but we can come back after a while.’
‘What do you want to do, after this?’ Doyle was curious. What sort of thing had his partner been considering?
‘Dunno. Never really thought much about getting out. What about you?’
‘Just the standard things. Security, bodyguard, fitness trainer. But we don’t have to stay in this business. We could do something completely different. Be normal.’
‘Normal?’ Bodie was sceptical. ‘Such as?’
‘Teacher. Artist. Landscape gardener. We could live in a little house together....
The King Must Die:murphybabe
"I miss you...."
"Oh, Jesus. Don't do this to me." He wanted to walk away, but he couldn't. He had to keep an eye on the fucking window. All he could do was turn away from Bodie, away from that soft, pleading look in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Ray. It's just that--I don't like being without you. Why can't we go back to how it was before?"
Doyle simply shook his head, too upset to talk. Christ, Bodie picked the stupidest times to go into this. And why the hell couldn't he figure out that it was over?
"Can't you even look at me?"
"I'm working," Doyle echoed Bodie's earlier words. Cold words.
A silence drew out between them. Doyle felt Bodie move away, heard him fiddling near the tea pot, then walking across the room, heard the creak as he sat in the armchair. He kept his gaze firmly on Matthews' house, where absolutely nothing interesting was happening...
Silence again... Love in a Faithless Country:Alexandra
The pub was so silent, it could have been a church or a courthouse. In the terrible quiet, over the noise of the wind, Bodie could hear his own heart beating, slow, steady, a loud drum in his ears. His mouth was dry and he noticed Doyle was licking his lips repeatedly.
"You okay?" he asked very quietly...
"Stage fright. You know, sweaty palms, itchy feet, heart going bang-bang," Doyle said drily. "I don't want to die, Bodie. Nobody does." He looked sidelong at Bodie, eyes wide, pupils dark in the dim light. "And if you're not scared, you're mad."
"I'm scared," Bodie admitted, and thought as he spoke, how strange it was to make that confession. He had never made it to another human soul. "It won't be long," he murmured...
Then they waited, and the following half hour plucked on Bodie's tight-strung nerves like a musician picking the strings of a banjo. This was the time he hated. The waiting. Erasmus Clay could not be far away now. Every minute brought him closer. Inactivity invited introspection and Bodie knew no means by which he could stop his thoughts turning inward, and backward to the past ... Nothing Left to Lose:Jane & Madelaine Ingram
He knows this is a mistake. Knows that he should turn around and walk away. But still he stands
there...
He tries to reason with himself that if he just leaves now, there will be no harm done. The whole thing will be ignored, given time, swept under the carpet so they can just carry on as before. It's not too late to avoid making things worse. Much worse.
But still he stays...
Despite the lateness of the hour, there's a light on in the bedroom and Bodie tries not to dwell on the images that conjures up… of Doyle naked in bed, restless, horny….
But then it occurs to him that perhaps Doyle isn’t alone. And that really should be the impetus he needs to leave, because the humiliation would be tenfold if he interrupted Doyle mid-shag with some bird. But instead, against all common sense, he forces his legs to take him to the front door and he presses the buzzer. Just like he has done a hundred times before. Only this time Doyle will know it's different. He'll know this isn't just Bodie dropping by because he's bored, hungry, run out of booze…
“Yeah?” Doyle's voice is unwelcoming over the speaker.
“It's me,” Bodie says, surprised he sounds quite normal.
There's silence... The End of the Path:Angelci5
"Ah, don't look like that, Ray."
"Like what?" he whispered; he had little breath to speak.
"Like you're scared of me."
"I'm not."
Bodie held his gaze, a long, dark look. "I would never hurt you, Ray. Don't you know that?"
He said it with a kind of wonder, as if there was so much more to know. Doyle lost his breath again, his heart beating heavily, with dread as much as anything. He was frightened all right, though not of Bodie; more at the depth of what he sensed in himself. But it was too late to stop now ...
First Night, Last Night:Sebastian
“By all rights we should be dead, anyway. Easier to shoot us than to dump us in here. Or shoot us and dump us in here. Or-“
“Shut up, Doyle.”
That sounded more like Bodie ... they were standing close enough to one another that he could feel the tremors in his body.
“You’re cold.” There was no water in the well, thank God, but it was damp.
Bodie said nothing to that and Doyle’s worry increased. Bodie had denied injury when they had first taken stock after being chucked down the well. His own head was aching from having been knocked out by Harrison’s men, but other than that he was okay. “Bodie.” He put a hand on Bodie’s arm. Bodie flinched ...... "Doyle. I need to get out of here.”
He had never, in all the years he’d known Bodie, heard panic in his voice before. Doyle’s heart heart rate sped up. “Okay. Hang on...”
He heard Bodie swallow. “I was in a hole before ... Congo.”
Oh, Christ. Bodie’s words from a few months ago flashed through his mind: Only some of us don't keep talking about it, right? Meredith had thought his experience as a prisoner was unique. Doyle didn’t know anything beyond the mere fact that Bodie had once been a prisoner during the Congo wars. Escape:PFL
Bodie looked at the stranger with whom he was about to be teamed and a part of him he had ruthlessly buried since he was sixteen years old stole his breath. Doyle was beautiful, cherubic even. The shock of it making him dangerously incoherent.
He tore his gaze from the luminous being suddenly standing in Cowley’s office... His fight to quell the turmoil within him absorbing him completely.
Cowley took in the brooding presence in front of him and understood. The man Bodie purported to be would have been outraged by the fay creature to whom he had just been introduced. But if Bodie was the man he purported to be Bodie wouldn’t have been in CI5.
The man Bodie actually was. masked his near panic by demanding “I’m going to be teamed with that?”
Cowley bided his tongue; these next few minutes would tell...
Bodie couldn’t look at the face which had unexpectedly made five minutes in the inner sanctum of CI5 more terrifying than any African war. Unimagined Vistas:Fiorenza-a
"Bodie." Cowley’s voice was brisk, expressionless. "You already know, of course, the Deputy Head of the Hong Kong Special Bureau."
And Bodie just had time to think, vaguely irritated, Do I? Before the realisation hit him like a blow in the gut. Hong Kong.
He felt as if he’d swallowed a bucket of ice.
His heart seemed to clench with apprehension, squeezed in a second into a tiny, suffocating pebble of shock in his chest and for a moment, two, three, he could think of nothing coherent at all.
He felt, in fact, quite sick...
He realised with a jolt that he was still staring blankly at Cowley, who was looking narrowly back; and for him, for these moments, Bodie made no attempt at all to hide his shock and fury.
Then, automatically, he controlled it all as he always controlled his emotions now...
Redemption:Kate Maclean:Gryphon Press
Fight or flight, they call it, that tide of adrenaline drenching your nerves and then receding, leaving you tingling, on edge, ready for anything. And it's just filled Doyle again. That can't have been accidental.
Doyle... doesn't do more than glance round with raised eyebrows. That was his hand on my arse again,
damn it. What is he playing at?
Bodie's eyes are crinkled at the corners, grinning conspiratorially at him. Just mates, larking about, then?
No. Doyle doesn't believe that for a minute. It's deliberate and it means something. Something more than just larking about.
But what? Is Bodie trying to wind Doyle up? Trying to put him down?... Doyle wonders seriously what Bodie will do if he reciprocates. Knock him into the middle of next week? Because it's getting pretty damned tempting, just to see Bodie's reaction. Or is it a genuine come-on? An invitation? In which case, Bodie is asking for a response, isn't he? And in that case, he might get more than he bargains for, because Doyle is no stranger to that side of life. You reckon you could take me? Cos I reckon I could take you. And what we do on the way there might be more than worth the risk.
The adrenaline courses through again, and Doyle knows what he's going to do...
Fight or Flight?:ML Mead
Bodie had clocked him as soon as he entered the pub. He was about Bodie’s age, a lean yet muscular man, curly hair, tight jeans...either very confident in his ability or he’d had too much to drink. Although he didn’t look drunk or stupid, he was encroaching on the gang’s space and staring at Tommy with an intenseness that was going to attract their attention.
And there it was.
“Got a problem, son?” shouted one of the gang. Instead of backing off like any sane person would, the curl haired man stood his ground. “Yeah I have as a matter of act... don’t like cop killers...” The gang circled the curly haired man who had now positioned himself into a fighting stance. “And what’s your name sunny, just so we know what to put on your headstone.” Quick as a flash the curly haired man jumped forward and punched the man square in the jaw knocking him out cold. The man fell back into two of his buddies pushing them over. “ They call me Doyle.”
Bodie was trying to think of a way of ending this without blowing his cover but no ideas were coming to mind. It looked like Doyle was on his own...for now.
Bodie To The rescue:Alex The Kid
"We have to talk..."
Bodie said, "Now seems as good a time as any."
He didn't say 'Let's get it over with' but the words lay implicit and heavy in the morning air. Doyle wanted to scream suddenly, 'What happened? What went wrong? What did I do?!'.... He felt the protective glacier slip and strove to shore it up. "All right. Just tell me something, Bodie. Did we or did we not...."
"We did," Bodie confirmed, not needing to hear the rest.
"And you can't tell me you didn't enjoy it. For chrissakes, you act as if I've suddenly become a leper or something. We've been tracking Green for days and the whole time you can barely look at me or talk to me or even get remotely close to me!"
Bodie looked at him, then away... "Look, it happened and I'm not sorry it happened. I told you I'd been wanting it, but...why don't we just leave it at that? You want things ... Put it down to loneliness and overactive libidos if you like."
Doyle thought he heard a faint and completely uncharacteristic tone of pleading in Bodie's voice. It shook him. "I don't accept that."
"Well, you'll have to, mate. That's it."
Doyle felt the pain, through his wall of ice, through years of a carefully built up defense system, through to his innermost self. "Damn you, Bodie," he said and got up and walked away.
Marooned:Anne Carr
It took me three days to track down Bodie...
I spoke briefly, succinctly, the words rehearsed yet as bitter as aloes on my tongue nonetheless:
"He needs you."
I looked at the closed, hard face. Bodie was always blankest when he felt the most. That was the way of it...But Bodie's granite face had grown harder, and he'd turned, and he'd walked away. To pause next to me, midnight-cold eyes measuring--and warning, I'd long reckoned. I'd faced him with all the passion and commitment and strength of purpose in me, flinging it at him, a gauntlet of power and will. He'd stared at me, his face unreadable, then nodded, once, before turning and striding from the room. Why Bodie had left that day had never been clear to me, but I'd hidden deep in my cache of secret guilts and resentments the inkling that Doyle was a trust I was being offered, not the gift I had convinced myself he was.
Dancing in the Rain:istia
The day after the sentencing was also the day after Bodie kissed Doyle in a lift. It was Wednesday, fresh and breezy. Their working partnership had crawled past its first birthday and was almost on its feet.
Everyone woke in their own beds...
Bodie drove, his shoulders tense. Doyle sat on his own tension, judging that it was not the right moment to ask those flapping questions. He knew he had at least three options. Either he shoved the whole memory into a black hole that would never again be investigated, or he kept quiet until it suddenly struck him that it was time to speak, or he waited until Bodie followed up his remarkable behaviour with something that didn't indicate chronic selective amnesia.
Alternatively, of course, he could say something right now. Except now was busy, now was repeated attempts at 50mph in a 30mph zone. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow's Life:JoJo