Weekly Obbo Challenge #14 - Challenge
Title: The Narrow Path
Author: Bistokids
Words: 1000
Archive: Is this still happening? If so, sure. :)
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle pre-slash. Mention of Bodie/OMC.
Disclaimer: These characters were not created by me. Please do not try to pay me.
Notes: The Biblical verse referred to is this - "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matt 7:13-14
Never let it be said that William Bodie doesn’t enjoy a challenge.
He has this hazy memory, from back in the day when he was a nipper, tie scratching at his throat and knees polished half-raw, being dragged to Mass religiously (heh) every single solitary Sunday by a mother and father whose piety didn’t seem to extend much beyond the lych-gate. Not that he ever went to a church with a lych-gate - Proddy abominations, that kind of place. Not where the real God lives.
He’d sit, feet swinging, risking a sharp if furtive slap whenever his heel connected with the pew, taking in pretty much nothing of the droned and impossibly lengthy homily. The Gospel, though, he had to stand up for, and that usually sharpened his attention long enough to actually listen for a minute or two.
He remembers one in particular, thinks it’s from Matthew’s gospel, can still hear the words delivered in sharp Antrim tones by Father Declan (Dec, in the pub sometimes - always Father MacRuaridh to the likes of little William Bodie, though). Exhorting - ordering, really - that, when faced with the narrow path or the wide path, they must choose the narrow, that being the fast route to the Almighty. Given that they were all doomed sinners, the chances were that they would fail on this mission, condemning themselves to eternal torture and so forth. But Bodie liked a challenge, and he liked orders. He left the church that day filled with determination to seek out and follow the narrow path, every time, no matter what.
It took him another half-dozen years to realise he hadn’t spotted too many wide paths yet.
Like when he turned fourteen. His Da wasn’t about to let him stay on at school, lad had to earn his keep. Bodie wanted to join the Army, but Da wasn’t having that either - not when the chances were so high that he’d have to spend time in Northern Ireland. Basically, it was the docks for young William. Condemned to becoming his father. Where was the wide path?
Bodie, always up for a challenge, took the narrowest path he could find. Went down to the docks one day and just kept going.
From that point, choice became a far simpler matter. Usually there wasn’t one. He'd follow whatever path he was on until it threatened to peter out altogether (usually about the time it looked like he was going to get killed one way or another) and then veer off wildly in some random direction. Which made for an interesting, if seldom easy, life.
He could probably have gone on this way indefinitely, except that something happened which was so completely unexpected that it threw him right off course. He went and fell in love.
Which was a first in many ways. He’d not been exposed much to love in his life. He despised most of the people he met - the life he led tended to attract bastards, bullies, psychotically unbalanced nutters. Not to mention the other small point - the person he fell for was a man. Never saw that coming. Da would have been so proud.
Acting on these feelings seemed, at the time, the hard choice. For Bodie, who had lived in such isolation, even finding a way to express some emotion was a struggle. Also, he was living with a gang of mercenaries in the Congo - tough fuckers to a man, they may not have been above the odd mutual handjob in the absence of some native bint, but feelings were for queers, and they didn’t much like queers.
So, of course, trying to form some sort of relationship seemed very much the narrow path. Which, naturally, made Bodie completely resolved to give it a shot. It was only a couple of weeks later, as he was coughing his guts up past shattered ribs while his fucking poof girlfriend lay bleeding to death in the dirt beside him, that he realised his actions had been self-indulgent, geared to his own happiness. He’d found the bastard wide path. And for the very first time, he was faced with the knowledge that his choices might have an impact on others.
He grew up that day. Took himself back to Blighty and joined up. And it was tough, and he did have to go to Northern Ireland and spend most of his free time in hiding because half the natives were his cousins, and he was sorely tempted sometimes to ditch the whole thing, join up with his kin and fight on the other side, but that would have been too easy. As it was, he had to admit it was a relief to be part of a proper structure, take orders and let others make the decisions for a change.
He craved challenge, still, and Army life provided little. The SAS was better, still little in the way of moral choice but physically demanding even for him, as well as offering a status, a kudos within the Forces, that Bodie couldn’t help enjoying. And then this man Cowley turned up, offering a perfect combination of challenge and the chance to actually do a bit of good for the world, and he was there.
Still too fucking easy, though, wasn’t it, Bodie thinks now, ruefully, as he wills his breath under control and tries not to stare at the man Cowley has just introduced him to. Doyle. Raymond. Lately of Her Majesty’s Constabulary, currently slouched against a wall looking for all the world like a schoolboy who’s just been copped robbing apples, rather than a man who’s being offered the greatest opportunity of his career. He’s raked his gaze, eyes sparking green, up and down Bodie before apparently deeming him unworthy of further attention. And Christ but Bodie wishes he felt the same way.
He hears Cowley’s words as if from a distance.
“Bodie. Meet your new partner.”
He’d wondered where that narrow path had been hiding. Just as well he likes a challenge.
Author: Bistokids
Words: 1000
Archive: Is this still happening? If so, sure. :)
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle pre-slash. Mention of Bodie/OMC.
Disclaimer: These characters were not created by me. Please do not try to pay me.
Notes: The Biblical verse referred to is this - "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matt 7:13-14
Never let it be said that William Bodie doesn’t enjoy a challenge.
He has this hazy memory, from back in the day when he was a nipper, tie scratching at his throat and knees polished half-raw, being dragged to Mass religiously (heh) every single solitary Sunday by a mother and father whose piety didn’t seem to extend much beyond the lych-gate. Not that he ever went to a church with a lych-gate - Proddy abominations, that kind of place. Not where the real God lives.
He’d sit, feet swinging, risking a sharp if furtive slap whenever his heel connected with the pew, taking in pretty much nothing of the droned and impossibly lengthy homily. The Gospel, though, he had to stand up for, and that usually sharpened his attention long enough to actually listen for a minute or two.
He remembers one in particular, thinks it’s from Matthew’s gospel, can still hear the words delivered in sharp Antrim tones by Father Declan (Dec, in the pub sometimes - always Father MacRuaridh to the likes of little William Bodie, though). Exhorting - ordering, really - that, when faced with the narrow path or the wide path, they must choose the narrow, that being the fast route to the Almighty. Given that they were all doomed sinners, the chances were that they would fail on this mission, condemning themselves to eternal torture and so forth. But Bodie liked a challenge, and he liked orders. He left the church that day filled with determination to seek out and follow the narrow path, every time, no matter what.
It took him another half-dozen years to realise he hadn’t spotted too many wide paths yet.
Like when he turned fourteen. His Da wasn’t about to let him stay on at school, lad had to earn his keep. Bodie wanted to join the Army, but Da wasn’t having that either - not when the chances were so high that he’d have to spend time in Northern Ireland. Basically, it was the docks for young William. Condemned to becoming his father. Where was the wide path?
Bodie, always up for a challenge, took the narrowest path he could find. Went down to the docks one day and just kept going.
From that point, choice became a far simpler matter. Usually there wasn’t one. He'd follow whatever path he was on until it threatened to peter out altogether (usually about the time it looked like he was going to get killed one way or another) and then veer off wildly in some random direction. Which made for an interesting, if seldom easy, life.
He could probably have gone on this way indefinitely, except that something happened which was so completely unexpected that it threw him right off course. He went and fell in love.
Which was a first in many ways. He’d not been exposed much to love in his life. He despised most of the people he met - the life he led tended to attract bastards, bullies, psychotically unbalanced nutters. Not to mention the other small point - the person he fell for was a man. Never saw that coming. Da would have been so proud.
Acting on these feelings seemed, at the time, the hard choice. For Bodie, who had lived in such isolation, even finding a way to express some emotion was a struggle. Also, he was living with a gang of mercenaries in the Congo - tough fuckers to a man, they may not have been above the odd mutual handjob in the absence of some native bint, but feelings were for queers, and they didn’t much like queers.
So, of course, trying to form some sort of relationship seemed very much the narrow path. Which, naturally, made Bodie completely resolved to give it a shot. It was only a couple of weeks later, as he was coughing his guts up past shattered ribs while his fucking poof girlfriend lay bleeding to death in the dirt beside him, that he realised his actions had been self-indulgent, geared to his own happiness. He’d found the bastard wide path. And for the very first time, he was faced with the knowledge that his choices might have an impact on others.
He grew up that day. Took himself back to Blighty and joined up. And it was tough, and he did have to go to Northern Ireland and spend most of his free time in hiding because half the natives were his cousins, and he was sorely tempted sometimes to ditch the whole thing, join up with his kin and fight on the other side, but that would have been too easy. As it was, he had to admit it was a relief to be part of a proper structure, take orders and let others make the decisions for a change.
He craved challenge, still, and Army life provided little. The SAS was better, still little in the way of moral choice but physically demanding even for him, as well as offering a status, a kudos within the Forces, that Bodie couldn’t help enjoying. And then this man Cowley turned up, offering a perfect combination of challenge and the chance to actually do a bit of good for the world, and he was there.
Still too fucking easy, though, wasn’t it, Bodie thinks now, ruefully, as he wills his breath under control and tries not to stare at the man Cowley has just introduced him to. Doyle. Raymond. Lately of Her Majesty’s Constabulary, currently slouched against a wall looking for all the world like a schoolboy who’s just been copped robbing apples, rather than a man who’s being offered the greatest opportunity of his career. He’s raked his gaze, eyes sparking green, up and down Bodie before apparently deeming him unworthy of further attention. And Christ but Bodie wishes he felt the same way.
He hears Cowley’s words as if from a distance.
“Bodie. Meet your new partner.”
He’d wondered where that narrow path had been hiding. Just as well he likes a challenge.