Prosfic - He Kindly Stopped For Me
Is this really my first finished and posted Prosfic this year? I think it might be... And for all that it's just a piece of fluff, with perhaps a touch of romance... But that's what summer holidays are for, right? *g*
He Kindly Stopped For Me
by Slantedlight
The sun burned down on them, brilliantly yellow in the azure sky, soaking into the dry earth, and into stones that had stood in place for century upon century. Here and there were scratchings of dried grass, and the odd tenacious flower, but it had been a long hot summer. Even the air was sun-soaked, every breath a breath of warmth.
Bodie paused to stretch, turning his own face to the sun, scrunching his eyes against the brightness even as he reached towards it. A dream. It was all, surely a dream... But when he looked again there still was Vesuvius to his right, touched by the only clouds in the sky, and Doyle was still there beside him, gazing at the other side of the road, where a dozen or so shorts-clad workers were crouched. A woman with the most amazing legs was sitting on an upturned bucket, drawing carefully on a huge board, and a couple of bare-chested blokes were lazily surveying something or other in the background.
"I could be an archaeologist."
"Oh yeah?" Bodie stuck his hands in his pockets, watching his partner watch the diggers down in their trenches.
"Why not?" Doyle sounded defensive, "They're doing what we do - looking for clues, trying to find out what happened - only they're doing it in the sunshine, and no one's shooting at them."
"The secrets beneath, eh?" Bodie grinned, trying to imagine it, Raymond Doyle grubbing around in the dirt, looking for buried treasure. Trouble was, Doyle was far too good at what he already did - he figured people out, he arrested the villains, he dodged bullets and he shot and killed the bad guys. "Maybe in a different universe..."
"When we retire," Doyle said stubbornly. "We'll come out 'ere, buy a chateau in the hills, and..."
"Villa."
Doyle turned and looked at him.
"We're in Italy - they're villas."
"That's what I said..."
"You... Oi! What you doing?"
Doyle waved an arm at him, ducked under the rope separating the excavations from the rest of ancient Pompei, and strode over to the nearest trench where he squatted down on his haunches, greeted the young man scraping happily away with his trowel, and pointed at something Bodie couldn't see. The young man in turn pointed back towards his colleagues, who'd managed to be digging at a safer distance from the public than he was, and looked agitated.
Bodie took a step away from the excavations.
Doyle held his hands out, placating, and pointed again.
From the corner of his eye, Bodie watched an old grey-haired man walk over to them, saw Doyle smile up at him, and saw the man open his mouth. He took another step backwards, cringed a little at the sudden stream of Italian, loud in what had been the peace of the late afternoon.
Pillar of salt, he told himself, turning resolutely, pillar of salt....
"Coward!"
He carried on walking firmly down the dusty path, let Doyle catch up with him. He could feel dozens of pairs of eyes wishing them further and further away. He glanced sideways. "I think they might have a different way of dealing with dead bodies, mate..."
Doyle scuffed the path beneath their feet, leaving a pale-puffed trail behind them before it settled again. "Wondered why they'd left the bone where it was instead of digging it up, that's all." He sounded disgruntled, and Bodie loved him for it. Why shouldn't he have gone to ask them a perfectly reasonable question that he wanted the answer to then, not later?
"Could've shouted from the other side of the rope?"
"Forgot..." Doyle kicked up eddies of dust again, then looked sheepishly over at Bodie. "Too used to going where ever we want."
"Can't take you anywhere..." Bodie grinned at him then, even more widely when he saw Doyle's wry smile. "Tell you what," he said, veering slightly so that they bumped shoulders, "When we retire to our villa you can dig up the whole garden if you want!"
That made Doyle smile properly. "Berk," he said, bumping shoulders back, and they walked like that, t-shirted arm against t-shirted arm until they reached the next crossroads.
"Well, Pitt Rivers? Where next?"
Doyle looked up and down the streets, shrugged, and chose one apparently at random. It took them deeper into the city, away from the excavations and the only other group of tourists in sight. Bodie followed, idly watching the play of muscles in Doyle's shoulders and back as he walked, dropping his eyes lower and watching the curve of his arse, dark-denimed against the sandy path.
Doyle looked back to see where he'd got to, catching him, and Bodie grinned unrepentently. "We are on holiday, you know," he said, with lazy defence.
"You do the same thing on the job... I could 'ave you for sexual harrassment!"
"Yeah. Good, innit?"
"Berk," Doyle said again, but he was trying not to smile. "Come on, we've only got about an hour before it closes..."
Bodie could take or leave the mysteries of archaeology, but wandering aimlessly in the sun beside Doyle was something he could manage on his worst days, so he shrugged and followed once more.
When they retired... It'd never happen, the job would get one or the other of them long before that. There were maybe a handful of agents he could think of who'd been in as long as he and Doyle, even now. Unless they took a step sideways, went into training maybe, or the armouries... He tried to imagine life inside, couldn't. Doyle might manage it... Doyle might think he could manage it, but...
He stopped suddenly, looked up and around. Now where'd he got to?
"Oi!"
"You bellowed?"
Where...? There... Framed in the window of the building just behind him, shoulder leaning against crumbling stone - Bodie rolled his eyes - his other arm by his side, emphasising the curve of his hip away from the wall, disappearing into darkness. Poser, he thought, drawn despite himself.
"You'll get yourself in trouble one of these days," he said, ducking under a low lintel into the shadowed entranceway, turning left down another short corridor and only then into Doyle's room. Part of the roof was missing, and seemed to have been patched together long ago with some sort of wire mesh and plaster combination, so that the holes cast dapples of light across the dusty floor. "You know what they say about little boys who cry wolf..."
"What do they say?" Doyle turned from the window, hooked his thumbs into the back pockets of his jeans, defiant even in temptation.
Bodie shook his head. Nah, Doyle would never retire. There'd be no villa in the hills for them, no choosing hobbies and eking out their pensions. There was just this, right now.
"They get what's coming to them..."
It would come to them both, sooner or later. To one or another of them first.
"You know if you don't hurry up, we'll end up sleeping in the car again," he said. Dodging handbrakes and gear sticks to get at each other, to pull down zips and trousers and to press together, not wanting to break the kiss, not wanting to pause long enough to climb into the back seat. Wanting it then and more, always more, Doyle's flesh hot on his, hearing him gasp, hearing him moan and then that moment, that one perfect moment as Doyle stilled and came and was his, so that Bodie came too, held them even closer together, breathing hard, for just those few seconds longer...
He still had the bruise on his hip from the bloody handbrake.
Doyle shook his head. "We can't have that," he said, sounding almost serious, so that Bodie stared hard at him. Then Doyle moved, stepping back into the brown warmth of the corner behind him, away from the window, away from where anyone could see them, and he smiled.
Bodie lifted his own hands to his hips, as if he really might be disapproving, as if he really might say no, looked up at Doyle through his lashes. Advanced.
This moment. Now.
Stone flaked under his hands as he laid them either side of Doyle's shoulders, leaning in to kiss him. Kissing Doyle was good, those lips on his, moving against his, soft, determined - a promise of what they could do elsewhere on his body - and his tongue... Doyle knew just what to do with his tongue to chase all thought from his head, so that every breath, every move was made on instinct, on perfect, thoughtless, instinct...
He knew what not to do too, did Doyle, he always did, standing perfectly still, bare inches from Bodie, not touching him yet, not reaching for him, but letting the tension build, holding the moments away from them both, that first moment when their bodies came together, when he could feel the warmth and life of Doyle against him, and then his prick, hard and wanting against Bodie's, and then hands, hands moving on him...
Not enough, not this time... Bodie moved first, not wanting the space between them, his eyes closed so that he could feel everything more perfectly, every move, even the brush and press of Doyle's nipples, hard against his own so that electricity shot straight down to his groin, and he knew that Doyle felt it too, because Doyle moaned into his mouth, another moment of Doyle, his forever...
Doyle's hands moved to his head then, fingers spread against his neck, holding them together, holding Bodie in place, and Bodie could feel Doyle's thumbs against his throat as they kissed, he must be able to feel everything that Bodie did, everything Bodie wanted...
Doyle's hands slid over his shoulders, firm, assured, down his flanks, his hips - he winced slightly as they found the bruise, didn't care as they travelled around his body, found his arse, squeezed him hard, held him as he thrust against Doyle, little movements for now, but oh so good... He needed to breathe, pulled his mouth from Doyle's and gasped against his cheek, still wanting to feel Doyle against him, even if he did need the oxygen more, just for now...
"Wait..."
He thought Doyle said something, but... Christ but Doyle's arse felt good in his hands. Covered in denim it was smooth, but hard, muscles so strong underneath, so...
"Bodie, wait!"
What? "No..."
"Mmmn..." Doyle went under again, easily distracted.
He smelled good as well, his Doyle, of fresh air and sunshine, and just a little sweat, and... Bodie breathed him in. Just a minute, just a minute more and he'd come in his jeans, but it would be worth it, because look what he had now. He pushed against him again, harder.
"Bodie!"
Hands on his, dragging them away from Doyle's behind, sliding fingers to link them together, although Doyle thrust against him even as he did it. That was alright then, he'd hold him any way he could...
"Bodie..." That voice again, and then as a whisper in his ear. "What's the rush?"
You, you're the rush...
"Hmmn?"
"Bodie..." A siren-whisper that, slow and stretched as time, and it could call him back from anything. He quieted, waited to see what it said next, still breathing against Doyle's cheek, because he could feel Doyle's skin on his lips, could press his lips into a kiss there if he wanted, and he did want to. Then he listened.
"There's all the time in the world..."
Doyle's hands were warm in his, his cheek was warm, through their t-shirts he was life and and the world eternal.
"...I promise..."
Doyle always did that, always looked as if he heard nothing but what he wanted to hear, but...
"When we're retired, we'll come back here, and you can fuck me against a Pompei wall then," Doyle said in a more normal voice, and Bodie felt his prick throb again, but un-urgent, content to wait for what would come.
To claim Doyle against a Pompeian wall when they were both old and grey, when Doyle's body had slowed and thickened, when they'd got up that morning and dressed together, and had breakfast together, and...
"You promise?"he asked, mocking them both, knowing their lives as well as Doyle did.
He watched, wanting to believe, as Doyle nodded.
"And if you're very good, and buy me an ice cream on the way to the hotel, I'll let you practice tonight..."
"Practice like that's what'll finish me off before retirement, you know," Bodie said, but he pushed Doyle away just the same, looked him up and down. He was covered in ancient dust - they probably both were - dishevelled and without doubt, debauched.
He grinned. He'd have to see if he could do as well in twenty years time. And for now he had this, for minutes, days, months longer. He reached out to dust Doyle down, smacking his hands hard against denim and cotton and skin alike, so that Doyle yelped, retaliated. For a moment they scuffled together through the shadowed rooms and stone-dim walls, and then they stepped back out into the sunshine.
July 2008
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’t is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
- Emily Dickinson
Title: He Kindly Stopped For Me
Author: Slantedlight
Slash or Gen: Slash always!
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Yes please
Disclaimer: The lads and the CI5 universe belong ultimately to other people, I'm just writing for the love and the happy
Notes: ailcia prompted me with "Italy and ice cream"! And for anyone who's not read it yet, there really is another universe where Doyle is an archaeologist... *g*
He Kindly Stopped For Me
by Slantedlight
The sun burned down on them, brilliantly yellow in the azure sky, soaking into the dry earth, and into stones that had stood in place for century upon century. Here and there were scratchings of dried grass, and the odd tenacious flower, but it had been a long hot summer. Even the air was sun-soaked, every breath a breath of warmth.
Bodie paused to stretch, turning his own face to the sun, scrunching his eyes against the brightness even as he reached towards it. A dream. It was all, surely a dream... But when he looked again there still was Vesuvius to his right, touched by the only clouds in the sky, and Doyle was still there beside him, gazing at the other side of the road, where a dozen or so shorts-clad workers were crouched. A woman with the most amazing legs was sitting on an upturned bucket, drawing carefully on a huge board, and a couple of bare-chested blokes were lazily surveying something or other in the background.
"I could be an archaeologist."
"Oh yeah?" Bodie stuck his hands in his pockets, watching his partner watch the diggers down in their trenches.
"Why not?" Doyle sounded defensive, "They're doing what we do - looking for clues, trying to find out what happened - only they're doing it in the sunshine, and no one's shooting at them."
"The secrets beneath, eh?" Bodie grinned, trying to imagine it, Raymond Doyle grubbing around in the dirt, looking for buried treasure. Trouble was, Doyle was far too good at what he already did - he figured people out, he arrested the villains, he dodged bullets and he shot and killed the bad guys. "Maybe in a different universe..."
"When we retire," Doyle said stubbornly. "We'll come out 'ere, buy a chateau in the hills, and..."
"Villa."
Doyle turned and looked at him.
"We're in Italy - they're villas."
"That's what I said..."
"You... Oi! What you doing?"
Doyle waved an arm at him, ducked under the rope separating the excavations from the rest of ancient Pompei, and strode over to the nearest trench where he squatted down on his haunches, greeted the young man scraping happily away with his trowel, and pointed at something Bodie couldn't see. The young man in turn pointed back towards his colleagues, who'd managed to be digging at a safer distance from the public than he was, and looked agitated.
Bodie took a step away from the excavations.
Doyle held his hands out, placating, and pointed again.
From the corner of his eye, Bodie watched an old grey-haired man walk over to them, saw Doyle smile up at him, and saw the man open his mouth. He took another step backwards, cringed a little at the sudden stream of Italian, loud in what had been the peace of the late afternoon.
Pillar of salt, he told himself, turning resolutely, pillar of salt....
"Coward!"
He carried on walking firmly down the dusty path, let Doyle catch up with him. He could feel dozens of pairs of eyes wishing them further and further away. He glanced sideways. "I think they might have a different way of dealing with dead bodies, mate..."
Doyle scuffed the path beneath their feet, leaving a pale-puffed trail behind them before it settled again. "Wondered why they'd left the bone where it was instead of digging it up, that's all." He sounded disgruntled, and Bodie loved him for it. Why shouldn't he have gone to ask them a perfectly reasonable question that he wanted the answer to then, not later?
"Could've shouted from the other side of the rope?"
"Forgot..." Doyle kicked up eddies of dust again, then looked sheepishly over at Bodie. "Too used to going where ever we want."
"Can't take you anywhere..." Bodie grinned at him then, even more widely when he saw Doyle's wry smile. "Tell you what," he said, veering slightly so that they bumped shoulders, "When we retire to our villa you can dig up the whole garden if you want!"
That made Doyle smile properly. "Berk," he said, bumping shoulders back, and they walked like that, t-shirted arm against t-shirted arm until they reached the next crossroads.
"Well, Pitt Rivers? Where next?"
Doyle looked up and down the streets, shrugged, and chose one apparently at random. It took them deeper into the city, away from the excavations and the only other group of tourists in sight. Bodie followed, idly watching the play of muscles in Doyle's shoulders and back as he walked, dropping his eyes lower and watching the curve of his arse, dark-denimed against the sandy path.
Doyle looked back to see where he'd got to, catching him, and Bodie grinned unrepentently. "We are on holiday, you know," he said, with lazy defence.
"You do the same thing on the job... I could 'ave you for sexual harrassment!"
"Yeah. Good, innit?"
"Berk," Doyle said again, but he was trying not to smile. "Come on, we've only got about an hour before it closes..."
Bodie could take or leave the mysteries of archaeology, but wandering aimlessly in the sun beside Doyle was something he could manage on his worst days, so he shrugged and followed once more.
When they retired... It'd never happen, the job would get one or the other of them long before that. There were maybe a handful of agents he could think of who'd been in as long as he and Doyle, even now. Unless they took a step sideways, went into training maybe, or the armouries... He tried to imagine life inside, couldn't. Doyle might manage it... Doyle might think he could manage it, but...
He stopped suddenly, looked up and around. Now where'd he got to?
"Oi!"
"You bellowed?"
Where...? There... Framed in the window of the building just behind him, shoulder leaning against crumbling stone - Bodie rolled his eyes - his other arm by his side, emphasising the curve of his hip away from the wall, disappearing into darkness. Poser, he thought, drawn despite himself.
"You'll get yourself in trouble one of these days," he said, ducking under a low lintel into the shadowed entranceway, turning left down another short corridor and only then into Doyle's room. Part of the roof was missing, and seemed to have been patched together long ago with some sort of wire mesh and plaster combination, so that the holes cast dapples of light across the dusty floor. "You know what they say about little boys who cry wolf..."
"What do they say?" Doyle turned from the window, hooked his thumbs into the back pockets of his jeans, defiant even in temptation.
Bodie shook his head. Nah, Doyle would never retire. There'd be no villa in the hills for them, no choosing hobbies and eking out their pensions. There was just this, right now.
"They get what's coming to them..."
It would come to them both, sooner or later. To one or another of them first.
"You know if you don't hurry up, we'll end up sleeping in the car again," he said. Dodging handbrakes and gear sticks to get at each other, to pull down zips and trousers and to press together, not wanting to break the kiss, not wanting to pause long enough to climb into the back seat. Wanting it then and more, always more, Doyle's flesh hot on his, hearing him gasp, hearing him moan and then that moment, that one perfect moment as Doyle stilled and came and was his, so that Bodie came too, held them even closer together, breathing hard, for just those few seconds longer...
He still had the bruise on his hip from the bloody handbrake.
Doyle shook his head. "We can't have that," he said, sounding almost serious, so that Bodie stared hard at him. Then Doyle moved, stepping back into the brown warmth of the corner behind him, away from the window, away from where anyone could see them, and he smiled.
Bodie lifted his own hands to his hips, as if he really might be disapproving, as if he really might say no, looked up at Doyle through his lashes. Advanced.
This moment. Now.
Stone flaked under his hands as he laid them either side of Doyle's shoulders, leaning in to kiss him. Kissing Doyle was good, those lips on his, moving against his, soft, determined - a promise of what they could do elsewhere on his body - and his tongue... Doyle knew just what to do with his tongue to chase all thought from his head, so that every breath, every move was made on instinct, on perfect, thoughtless, instinct...
He knew what not to do too, did Doyle, he always did, standing perfectly still, bare inches from Bodie, not touching him yet, not reaching for him, but letting the tension build, holding the moments away from them both, that first moment when their bodies came together, when he could feel the warmth and life of Doyle against him, and then his prick, hard and wanting against Bodie's, and then hands, hands moving on him...
Not enough, not this time... Bodie moved first, not wanting the space between them, his eyes closed so that he could feel everything more perfectly, every move, even the brush and press of Doyle's nipples, hard against his own so that electricity shot straight down to his groin, and he knew that Doyle felt it too, because Doyle moaned into his mouth, another moment of Doyle, his forever...
Doyle's hands moved to his head then, fingers spread against his neck, holding them together, holding Bodie in place, and Bodie could feel Doyle's thumbs against his throat as they kissed, he must be able to feel everything that Bodie did, everything Bodie wanted...
Doyle's hands slid over his shoulders, firm, assured, down his flanks, his hips - he winced slightly as they found the bruise, didn't care as they travelled around his body, found his arse, squeezed him hard, held him as he thrust against Doyle, little movements for now, but oh so good... He needed to breathe, pulled his mouth from Doyle's and gasped against his cheek, still wanting to feel Doyle against him, even if he did need the oxygen more, just for now...
"Wait..."
He thought Doyle said something, but... Christ but Doyle's arse felt good in his hands. Covered in denim it was smooth, but hard, muscles so strong underneath, so...
"Bodie, wait!"
What? "No..."
"Mmmn..." Doyle went under again, easily distracted.
He smelled good as well, his Doyle, of fresh air and sunshine, and just a little sweat, and... Bodie breathed him in. Just a minute, just a minute more and he'd come in his jeans, but it would be worth it, because look what he had now. He pushed against him again, harder.
"Bodie!"
Hands on his, dragging them away from Doyle's behind, sliding fingers to link them together, although Doyle thrust against him even as he did it. That was alright then, he'd hold him any way he could...
"Bodie..." That voice again, and then as a whisper in his ear. "What's the rush?"
You, you're the rush...
"Hmmn?"
"Bodie..." A siren-whisper that, slow and stretched as time, and it could call him back from anything. He quieted, waited to see what it said next, still breathing against Doyle's cheek, because he could feel Doyle's skin on his lips, could press his lips into a kiss there if he wanted, and he did want to. Then he listened.
"There's all the time in the world..."
Doyle's hands were warm in his, his cheek was warm, through their t-shirts he was life and and the world eternal.
"...I promise..."
Doyle always did that, always looked as if he heard nothing but what he wanted to hear, but...
"When we're retired, we'll come back here, and you can fuck me against a Pompei wall then," Doyle said in a more normal voice, and Bodie felt his prick throb again, but un-urgent, content to wait for what would come.
To claim Doyle against a Pompeian wall when they were both old and grey, when Doyle's body had slowed and thickened, when they'd got up that morning and dressed together, and had breakfast together, and...
"You promise?"he asked, mocking them both, knowing their lives as well as Doyle did.
He watched, wanting to believe, as Doyle nodded.
"And if you're very good, and buy me an ice cream on the way to the hotel, I'll let you practice tonight..."
"Practice like that's what'll finish me off before retirement, you know," Bodie said, but he pushed Doyle away just the same, looked him up and down. He was covered in ancient dust - they probably both were - dishevelled and without doubt, debauched.
He grinned. He'd have to see if he could do as well in twenty years time. And for now he had this, for minutes, days, months longer. He reached out to dust Doyle down, smacking his hands hard against denim and cotton and skin alike, so that Doyle yelped, retaliated. For a moment they scuffled together through the shadowed rooms and stone-dim walls, and then they stepped back out into the sunshine.
July 2008
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’t is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
- Emily Dickinson
Title: He Kindly Stopped For Me
Author: Slantedlight
Slash or Gen: Slash always!
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Yes please
Disclaimer: The lads and the CI5 universe belong ultimately to other people, I'm just writing for the love and the happy
Notes: ailcia prompted me with "Italy and ice cream"! And for anyone who's not read it yet, there really is another universe where Doyle is an archaeologist... *g*