Prosfic: Love in the Guise of Friendship
And just screeching in at the dot of nearly-midnight... Happy Rabbie Burns Night!
Love in the Guise of Friendship
Love in the Guise of Friendship
Your friendship much can make me blest,
O why that bliss destroy!
Why urge the only, one request
You know I will deny!
Your thought, if Love must harbour there,
Conceal it in that thought;
Nor cause me from my bosom tear
The very friend I sought.
- Robert Burns
They met in front of the wrought iron gates, black bars against the dark green of the shadow-crossed lawn making a tartan of the late evening. Distantly the stable clock struck five, a half moon hung above them, and everything was quiet.
"Enjoy it while you can," Doyle said, as Bodie gazed around, took a deep, peaceful breath, "We'll be up to our eyeballs in nobs and Hooray Henries in half an hour."
"Not even the scrapings of a haggis between us," Bodie agreed glumly, "While they stuff their faces..."
"While Cowley stuffs his face..."
"Still, once Khumbar's away we're home free." He rubbed his hands together. "Plate or two of the finest left-overs, some dregs of puir malt scotch to finish off, a room in the shack to ourselves..." He looked sideways, willing his partner to understand, knowing that Doyle understood. It's time, he was saying. Tonight.
But Doyle was looking up at the forty-eight roomed, three hundred year old "shack", and shaking his head. "Be all I can do after this lot to find our room," he said and grinned off into the distance. "Moira..."
Bodie felt it like a blow to his stomach, hard and low, stealing his wind, his hopes. Doyle hadn't been with Moira last night, they both knew that. Doyle knew that he knew that.
"You telling me your stamina's gone, old man?" Bodie asked, instead of crying, which wasn't how he felt. "Tut-tut."
Doyle just glanced at him, then back down the drive towards Pennington, standing solitary watch in the second gatehouse, and finally turned towards the Hall. "Suppose we'd better go in."
"Yeah..." Bodie took a deep breath, tucked his hands in his coat pockets, and followed. What else was there to do?
But it was the perfect chance for them - one final, decadent evening at work, then an entire night together in a luxurious manor hotel room, and a long weekend off afterwards to... build on what it was they created that night.
"Suppose we should be grateful Khumbar sprang for this place," Doyle said conversationally, "Who'd have thought the old fascist would spring a leak in his pockets?"
"Ah, it's how they do things over there," Bodie said absently, half an eye on the dark stillness of the fountain as they passed it, half an eye on the sway of Doyle's walk just in front of him. "Probably reckons he's keeping us on side."
"He'd 'ave to change his side a hell of a long way before I was anywhere near it."
Bodie rolled his eyes. "Yeah well, what the Queen pays us for..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know - is to do what George Cowley tells us."
"...and it's not Cowley's fault his Minister's an idiot," Bodie finished. "Then again - if he wasn't an idiot, and hadn't invited Khumbar in the first place, we wouldn't be here, would we?"
"Exactly..."
"Look, Ray-" How to say it? Just a prod, just a little push to bring it all out in the open? "-I'm not going to be sorry about tonight."
"Well you wouldn't be, would you?" Doyle said through clenched teeth, wrenching a side door open and stalking through.
Now what did that mean? Bodie nodded to Phillips, who was checking the alarm system one more time, glanced at the doormen, and followed Doyle through to the entrance hall.
To one side the silver service staff were being spoken to in hushed tones, on the other were rows of gleaming crystal, turned rainbow hued in the lights and reflections from all around. Bodie didn't like the mirrors - they were too big, too closely placed so that the hall and the people in it seemed to go on and on. He'd have covered them, given his own way, but that had been voted down by Cowley's Minister, their host for the evening, the idiot who had invited one of the most controversial African would-bes since Idi Amin to a Burns Supper.
What did Doyle mean, Bodie wouldn't be sorry?
There was a disturbance on the staircase, the Minister and his wife coming down ready to greet their guests, and as if summoned Bodie heard the first crunching of gravel on the driveway as some couple, nearly too early for fashion, were driven to the entrance.
Places, please.
What did Doyle mean? Bodie wouldn't be sorry? That Doyle would be sorry? He wanted it though, Bodie knew Doyle wanted it at least as much as he did; it was there in a thousand moments, a hundred hundred looks, in the way they touched, and the way he moved, sometimes just for Bodie.
Doyle wanted it.
Bodie monitored the entrance, watching the guests as they came in, noting faces known and unknown, secrets whispered, slights given - where Doyle was, the way he looked tonight.
There was the sound of a helicopter above the house, then louder, landing, and he stiffened a little, until he saw Jenkins and Mainwaring appear in the doorway, beginning the choreography that brought Khumbar all the way into their aegis. A second's pause, then Lucas and McCabe appeared, done up to the nines and apparently unruffled despite their flight, and then Khumbar himself, with Cowley at his side. He was much as Bodie had expected: tall but stockily built, full of himself but smiling at everyone to whom he turned, another bloody politician from a country where even the children were armed.
Still, he was less their problem tonight, he and Doyle on back-up for a change, a sop to the month-long undercover op they'd not long finished. Let the others keep a tortuous eye on the bloody man, Bodie would watch the crowd, and the show, and wait impatiently for hour after hour to be over.
The crowd sipped at their drinks, chatted gaily, exclaimed at this kilt, at that tartan. The Minister was gracious, his wife beautiful. Bodie glowered at them all, starkly suited and solitary as he walked among them. They ignored him, for their part, recognising who he was - what he was - letting him slide past the corner of their eye, there and gone.
As long as their world spun, he didn't exist.
Doyle existed though, and at the same time as Bodie tracked this man, that woman, he tracked Doyle as well. Keeping to his own small role this night, he made sure that his feet trod the same path that his partner's did, that they were always in the same room, that whenever Doyle looked his way, Bodie was looking back at him.
Tonight.
The clock struck seven, and the gentle chiming of silver spoon against crystal turned heads towards the banquet hall, began an elegant streaming of dignitaries and politicians towards the centre of the building. Both more and less secure, then - easily guarded, easily warded, and yet a single well aimed missile could take out the lot of them, Bodie thought, not really believing it would ever happen. There were agents crawling through the Scottish night for a five mile radius - more likely the Queen and her corgis would be assassinated tonight, since Khumbar probably had half her security seconded.
Bodie waited until the guests had all paraded through the tall double doors, until Doyle had approached behind them. They gazed around the empty hallway together, down to where Sandiss and Collins gave them a thumbs up that everything there was quiet, unmoving, and then he stepped just inside the banquet hall, turned to Doyle.
"Give me a good reason why not," he said, trying to keep his voice light as they each pulled a door closed and then stood there for a moment, gazing across their field of operation, a bubbling, seething mass of be-plaided frocks and bow ties.
"Bodie..."
"You see - you can't." Bodie caught his eye, let himself grin then, just a little, just the two of them in the room. Doyle didn't grin back. He looked serious, looked worried, but he wasn't saying no, and Bodie wasn't going to let him.
There was another delicate chiming of glasses, and the genteel din in front of them hushed, died to silence and expectation as heads turned towards the Minister at the end of the table. Bloody speeches, end to end they'd be tonight... Bodie started to step sideways into an unobtrusive circuit of the room, felt Doyle's hand reach out and brush against his jacket, but it was too late, he was gone. No reasons.
"My Lords, Ladies and gentlemen..." the Minister began, and Bodie listened with half an ear, "I welcome you all, who have come so far tonight to celebrate..."
Doyle needed to loosen up, they'd be good together, Bodie knew they would be. They'd double dated often enough that he'd seen the way Doyle lit up to a mere glance from a girl, that if that girl touched him, or kissed him in the right places there was no holding Doyle back. And Bodie - well, Bodie knew all Doyle's right places, had known them for years now. The way Doyle moved, every inch of him alive, as if he felt the very air caressing him, the sun licking over him.
Bodie nodded, straight-faced, to Cowley as he walked past on the opposite side of the long table. Of course Cowley was probably part of the problem, or more to the point CI5 was part of the problem. Doyle enjoyed his job - thought it was worth it - and for that matter, Bodie did too. No fraternisation, and almost certainly no queers in Her Majesty's Service - well, not officially, anyway. But no one needed to know, except the two of them. They were already closer, together more often than most of the other teams, and no one thought anything of it. Nah, that wasn't enough to stop them.
He reached the other end of the table, and paused for Doyle to catch up and stand beside him again. The Minister was finally dragging to an end with what Cowley had told them was The Selkirk Grace.
"Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thankit."
"Well I'm bloody thankit," Bodie whispered in Doyle's ear, feeling curls brushing the side of his face, smelling Doyle's aftershave, maybe standing just a little bit too close, back there in the shadows against the wall. "The faster they get on with feeding their faces..."
A side door opened, and a long row of waiters and waitresses entered, settling to work in pairs with silver tureens of soup for the guests. Cock-a-leekie it was; Bodie'd asked in the kitchen, made sure that Khumbar had arranged for some to be set aside for the CI5 agents who were staying over. Themselves then, Pennington and Michaels who had been shagging for the last six months and were well on the way to wedding bells, and possibly one or two of the others who were hoping to cop off with some hapless waitress or musician. No one who'd be interested enough to care that 3.7 and 4.5 had retired ridiculously early on a Friday night.
Doyle just glared at him, resumed his stalk around the room.
A good stalk, Doyle had, even done up like a dog's dinner in his best evening kit, with a jacket too long and trousers too loose to reveal his best assets. It was the way he moved, Bodie thought happily, continuing his own circuit, something about the way he moved.
The guests had started to talk again, a low hum around the room accompanied by the chinking of spoons on fine china, this time. Khumbar sat to the left of the Minister's wife, and was happily chatting away to her - she had what Bodie decided was a tactful look about her. Probably got in a lot of practice with that husband of hers.
It wasn't Moira, either, Bodie knew, wandering slowly up the hall and back again. Doyle was no more serious about her than he'd been about anyone since that Ann Holly woman - and Bodie wasn't convinced he'd been serious about her. He maybe thought he was, in that first glory of finding she was a decent goer in the sack, but... And Moira was nowhere near that class, though she was fair enough, Bodie knew - he wouldn't have passed her on, otherwise. So not the job, not a woman...
"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, would you please be upstanding..." the Minister began, and a doleful wail began somewhere in the corridor outside. Bodie took his place at the end of the hall nearest Khumbar, where he had a good view of the haggis being piped in and Khumbar both, saw Doyle in position near the door. The guests began a slow handclap and first the piper, garish tartan and screaming bagpipes, appeared, followed by the chef, a woman in the traditional tall white hat, her apron spotless, an enormous haggis arranged festively amongst what looked like piles of heather on a silver tray. Must be bloody heavy, Bodie thought, strong arms the girl must have...
Doyle had strong arms. They could both balance on his arms, upstairs in one of those huge double beds... For a moment Bodie imagined Doyle above him, imagined them pressed close together, naked, Doyle's lips on him...
Or maybe Doyle's lips on him, Doyle kneeling in front of him, so that Bodie could watch as his cock slid in and out of Doyle's mouth, so that he could see Doyle swallow him...
Not the best time to be thinking about things like that, no matter how unlikely it was there'd be trouble. Bodie took a breath, rearranged himself surreptitiously. Alright, distraction on the job was a fair argument, but then they'd both been distracted by a pretty face before, a good pair of tits, a long pair of legs... You just snapped back to it. No, that was no reason.
Finally the haggis was placed in front of Khumbar, and there was a whoosh as he unsheathed the knife from a strangely elegant butcher's block before his place setting. All part of the act, Bodie thought, keeping an eye on it in any case. But Khumbar merely waved it in front of him, gesticulating with it in time to his oddly-accented Scottish, plunging it deeply and dramatically through the casing as if he had done it many times before.
Bodie watched the innards spill out as the casing split - god alone knew what they put in there, but he'd had it before and it was tasty enough - and caught a whiff of something rich and spicy. Khumbar finished the poem with more grace than Bodie would have expected from the man, and the guests applauded him, raised their glasses to the haggis.
Get on with it, he thought, sniffing appreciatively as the staff paraded back in, and began dishing out the main course. Bodie's stomach rumbled. Haggis, neeps and tatties - not what he'd choose, maybe, but it would do well enough later on. He should have had that extra sandwich earlier though...
He forced himself not to relax, to stay alert. The room was peaceful, warm, the guests in a convivial mood. Cowley was chatting amiably to a straight-backed gentlemen beside him, who was eighty if he was a day. Ex-soldier? Or maybe even ex-Intelligence, one of the lads whose bike Cowley'd nicked when he came rushing through with his own brand of cunning and contrivance.
Think about how to coax Doyle... Bodie looked around, saw him peering out the heavy red curtains at the windows, turn and speak to McCabe who was standing right behind him. McCabe grinned, shook his head, and then tilted it in the direction of Lucas. Doyle laughed then, perhaps the first time he had tonight, Bodie thought.
It wasn't the job, and it wasn't a girl, and it wasn't that Doyle didn't want it...
He waited until McCabe and Lucas were on the move again, focussed on Khumbar, and strode down to catch up with Doyle.
"One good reason," he said again, standing close enough that their shoulders pressed together, that he could feel every movement Doyle made. They looked away across the room, focussed on each other.
"The job."
Bodie shook his head. "We can do the job with our hands tied - we have done the job with our hands tied.."
"It's distraction."
"We're better than that."
"Bodie!"
"Give me a good reason."
Doyle rolled his eyes, but he didn't move away. "I don't believe we're having this conversation."
"Scared?" Bodie made sure his voice was low, serious, un-mocking.
"Not of you," Doyle said quickly, but he paused, and Bodie waited. He felt like a kid at Christmas amidst the magic of candlelight and grown ups in a good mood, the possibility of wonderful things weaving in the air around them.
Tonight.
"It might be alright this time..."
Yes! thought Bodie, yes...
"...but what about next month? Next year? Five years' time?"
Five years' time? Bodie left his pretence of watching the lords and their ladies at supper, of caring what happened to Khumbar, and turned to stare at him. A far better sight anyway, from the copper glints in his hair, to the slight frown on his face, to his lips, to his neck, to the skin above his collar... to his lips. "Look Doyle, in our job who worries about five years time? Could be hit by a bullet tomorrow..."
And then, shockingly, he was, retort from the weapon loud in his ears, time slowed for one moment to nothing.
The bullet skidded across his shoulder, leaving a trail of torn fibres and skin, having missed its target, which had arisen from his seat and strolled across to speak to someone at the other end of the table, at their end, at Bodie's end. He felt scorched, then burned, his nerves shrieking in protest.
He dropped, amidst screams and more gunfire, pulling his own gun from its holster, ignoring the wound, trying to see what was happening. Most of the guests were scrambling to safety under the tables, McCabe and Cowley had both thrown themselves over Khumbar, and Doyle was hunched low beside him, Browning in one hand, the other resting on Bodie's good shoulder as he looked frantically around for the gunman.
"There!" Bodie spotted him first, the only figure in the room still standing tall, though he was half-hidden by the door frame. What the hell had happened to Sandiss and Collins? And where was Lucas? Even as he watched, the gunman - no, gunwoman, it was that bloody chef - had turned and was away, and as one he rose with Doyle and they raced after her.
He took the direct route, leaping across the table to more screams, and out the door behind her. Doyle had gone the other way, would try to cut her off at the far end of the corridor. She had a good headstart on them, but they were trained, they knew the building, and they weren't the ones panicking, needing to escape. With luck and a fair wind...
He reached the entrance hall at the same time as Doyle did, skidding to a stop behind the doorway, peering out gun first, seeing nothing but Doyle's gun edging around his own jamb. She'd gone, he thought at first, vanished somewhere in or out of the house before they could get there, but then he caught movement in one of the mirrors, followed its trajectory to the staircase. Doyle had seen it too, and they raced to the foot of the stairs, began the familiar turn and turn again that would get them safely up to the same level as their little assassin.
She'd climbed higher than the first floor, perhaps because the second was dim, lights mostly switched off, doors from the hall both open and closed, so that they had to ease their way up carefully lest she burst from one and take them both out. They took a side of the corridor each, turning on lights as they went, revealing their progress but staying alive.
What if she had a partner?
Surely she must, after all - how could she have got in on her own? Another room, another light, another moment of wondering whether his fingers would be blown off as he reached inside, backlit as he was by the hallway. Doyle was still behind him, checking the room directly opposite, keeping up. Now and then they let their shoulders brush, their hands touch as they moved together to the next room.
Nothing.
There was one more room left, at the very end of the long corridor, a junk room, high-ceilinged, tall-windowed, contents shrouded in sheets. It was the one Bodie would have chosen for his final confrontation - lots of cover, good escape route down to the kitchens jutting out below.
He looked at Doyle, as they stood outside the door, knowing Doyle's brain was ticking as fast as his own, his heart beating as hard. They both knew the procedure, both knew the possible outcomes.
Now or never.
They stepped back for momentum, then threw themselves against the door so that it slammed open, so that they entered in motion, low to the ground and rolling to cover on either side.
Nothing, no movement, but an open window through which a breeze blew the curtains, ruffled the dustsheets. They paused, waited - listened and watched.
Still nothing.
She'd gone then. The bitch was away into the night, having cocked up all Bodie's plans, all Bodie's hopes. He took a breath. He'd not let her get away with that.
He rose slowly, knowing that Doyle was watching him, waiting for any indication that it might not be alright. The cow was long gone though, and Bodie strode across to the window, leaned out to peer, started to clamber over the windowsill although he could see nothing moving again, the world hushed and still and star-pricked.
Another shot rang out, a roar in the quiet night, at nearly the same time as he heard Doyle's voice raised in warning.
"Bo-die!"
A body struck him from behind, and he fell, overbalanced out the window, to slam onto the bitumen roofing of the floor below. He rolled automatically but clumsily, feeling the tiles graze his cheek, pull at his already torn jacket and shirt, hunched himself in to the side of the second floor, trying to catch his breath, make a smaller target, and see what had happened all at once.
"Bodie!"
A flurry above him, and then Doyle was leaning out the window, gazing frantically around.
"Here..." he managed to wheeze, started getting to his feet. He staggered slightly, and then Doyle was beside him, holding him up.
"Wha' happened?" he asked, bringing a hand up to his shoulder, trying to clench away the heat of it.
"She came up behind you, mate - waited until I was getting up to show herself."
"You shot her?"
Doyle shook his head. He seemed as dazed as Bodie felt, and he still had an arm around Bodie's waist, a hand on Bodie's chest. He felt warm, solid, alive. "Wasn't me. Was Cowley. He was right behind us."
Now that he thought about it, he could hear Cowley's voice from somewhere behind and above, now and then a bark of an order, mostly a continuous commentary, presumably into an R/T. Even as they stood there, the soft chooka-chooka of a helicopter grew louder in the dark, dropping onto the helipad on the other side of the house presumably, and then rose again almost immediately. It spun on its rotor, dipped, and then lights passed over them and it vanished again, into the night.
"When you two are quite finished down there, perhaps you would care to join us?"
Cowley. Bloody Cowley, in a lousy mood because he'd missed the sherry trifle and whisky, no doubt.
But Doyle was still there, and Khumbar was safe and gone.
They clambered back through the window, one after the other, Doyle offering a helping hand that stayed warm on his back even when they were safely inside, giving their reports to Cowley, listening to his explanation of events, bearing the brunt of his temper.
The woman's accomplice was downstairs, furious and handcuffed, and the woman herself was dead on the floor beside them, still clutching her gun, somehow, a neat hole in her chest. She was facing the door.
It had been Doyle she'd been aiming for.
"Twins?" he echoed, catching the meaning of what Cowley was telling them, "Twins?"
"Aye. If it was on the television they'd think it far-fetched." Cowley grimaced as he looked down at the body. "One of them is Silvi Biella - or possibly both of them. We don't have their real names on file, or the fact that there were two of them."
"Professionals?"
"Hired out of Naples, probably funded by the current Bawanian regime."
Bodie nodded, took a deep breath, and winced.
"Wounded, 3.7?"
"Shoulder, sir."
"Get it seen to," Cowley said, turning away, finished with them already. "The Supper has been curtailed of course - and I believe you're both on leave, so I shall see you at seven in my office, on Tuesday." He turned back once, at the doorway, glared at them. "Seven ay-em."
"Come on," Doyle said, tugging at his sleeve, "There's an ambulance downstairs apparently, seeing to all the upset nobs and nobbesses."
Bodie shook his head. "Nah, it's just a scratch. Ruined me good jacket though." There was more pain, really, in his stomach than his shoulder, a solid stone of disappointment for lost opportunities, for Doyle being proved right. If he hadn't been mooning about, maybe he'd have spotted Biella before she did any damage.
Or maybe not. Either way it was the end of tonight.
He followed Doyle down the stairs to what would have been his room for the night, pulling off his dinner jacket and shirt once the door was safely shut. He pulled his toilet bag from his case, took it to the bathroom, frowned when he saw blood down the side of his face as well as across his shoulder. He felt strangely raw all over, a little bit shaky. The tap water was cold, another sharp shock against his skin, and it trickled a slow soapy path from the flannel down his back.
Doyle had vanished again, no doubt to make sure everything was in order, to ensure the security - the other security - knew that the building would be empty once more for the night, ready for hotel management to reclaim tomorrow, for their scrapes and deaths to become part of someone else's gossip. Did you know some woman died here last night...
There was TCP in his kit, and cottonwool, and he made a fair job of cleaning himself up, nothing too deep to be dangerous, though it stung like the dickens. No Bandaid was long enough to cover the crease, but the blood had clotted enough by now, and he had a clean, soft t-shirt in his bag that wouldn't irritate it too much. The skin on his cheek was broken in a dot-dot-dash pattern which meant that he wouldn't be shaving again until he had to, but right now he didn't feel like anything more than tucking up in bed and letting the night take him, anyway.
He was pulling a jumper on over his t-shirt - the room was warm, but not that warm - and packing things back into his case ready for the drive back when Doyle returned, kicking at the door to be let in, rattling a tray ostentatiously at him as he came in.
"Hungry?" he asked, then answered himself, "Of course you're hungry. You're always hungry..."
And he was, Bodie realised, his stomach growling so that Doyle grinned, not needing further response. He'd forgotten about the food waiting for them downstairs, fresher than it would have been in - he checked his watch - Christ, two hours' time, when they'd been due off shift. He supposed they could thank the Biellas for that, anyway. He eyed his ruined jacket, decided he couldn't be bothered with it for now, and left it where it lay on the bed, snapped his case shut, and went to sit beside Doyle at the small table by the window.
He lifted the silver cover from one of the plates, found a bowl of soup instead, and breathed in appreciatively. Cock-a-leekie.
"You'd think nothing'd happened down there," Doyle said, then saluted him with his spoon and tucked in, so that neither of them needed to talk at all.
Slowly, listening to Doyle's slurps, the scraping of spoons and knives and forks, and finally spoons again in huge bowls of sherry trifle - wonder if the Cow had any in the end? - Bodie felt the tension easing in his shoulders, felt his stomach lighten and his breathing deepen.
If not tonight there was always tomorrow, there'd be other days, other nights, other chances. Doyle was still there, beside him, and he could be talked around. It wasn't as if he'd been a sure thing tonight, when it came down to it. Bodie took a last mouthful of trifle, eyed the bowl regretfully, and stretched out for a moment in the chair, sliding down so his back was straight, and he was reasonably comfortably balanced against the wooden back. He closed his eyes.
After a moment there was a nudge of glass at his fingers, and he looked up to find Doyle holding a decanter and two glasses, looking questioningly at him.
No harm in one or two before they left, he supposed. He'd probably wake up enough to drive in half an hour or so. He took a glass, let Doyle fill it with golden-dark whisky, sniffed it appreciatively. It wasn't Famous Grouse.
He took a mouthful, too much for decorum, just enough for this night, swallowed and took another, then he closed his eyes again and let the warmth soak through.
"You're not going to sleep on me?"
Bloody Doyle. "Nope. When d'you want to leave?" He eased himself upwards again, opened his eyes, blinked at the light.
"Leave?"
"Back to town."
"You want to go back to town?"
"Well I thought... "
Doyle was looking at him strangely, an odd smile on his face, his eyes... Something about his eyes...
"I thought you wanted to stay," he said softly. "I thought that's what you had planned?"
"Well yeah, but..."
"But you were right."
"I was?" He was?
"I thought you'd had it when you took a dive through that window."
"Me? Takes more than that, mate."
Doyle stood up, and Bodie watched him warily. Now what?
"I thought," Doyle said, crouching down in front of him, reaching out with both hands to balance himself against Bodie's knees, "about what you said. About five years, and a year, and tomorrow. You were right."
Doyle's hands slid up Bodie's legs, firmly, strongly, slowly.
"If we've only got tonight, then..."
He leaned forwards, stretching upwards to whisper in Bodie's ear, sliding his hands still further until... oh god, until he was caressing Bodie through his trousers, feeling Bodie's cock fill and lengthen, "...then we should make the most of it. Five years'll take care of itself..."
Doyle kissed him then, at last, and it was better than he'd imagined downstairs, better than he'd ever thought it could be. Doyle was warmth, and motion, and that glow of possibility back in his stomach, growing, suffusing him, so that his heart beat with it, his veins sang with Christmas and New Year and tomorrow all at once.
And at the centre of everything, his cock, hard, drawing on hope and promise as it pushed into Doyle's hand, as it was freed from its confines, as it was taken, so that Bodie gasped and threw back his head, into the heat of Doyle's mouth, caressed by Doyle's tongue, sucked down...
It stopped too soon, just too soon, so that Bodie heard himself whimper, looked down to see an amused smile on Doyle's face, and - oh god - his lips swollen, wet...
"Bed, Bodie," Doyle said, and Bodie didn't say anything, just unhobbled himself from his trousers, watched as Doyle stripped off his own clothes, led them to the softness of the feather mattress, the warmth of the blankets, the thick eiderdown. Yes...
They moved together, at just the right times, at just the right moments, and it was exactly as good as Bodie had known it would be. It was better than being mates, it was better than being Cowley's top team, it was...
...it was good is what it was, Bodie thought, as Doyle pressed down against him again, their cocks slick together, as he squeezed Doyle's arse, slid his fingers deeper between his buttocks, felt with the pad of one finger... just... there...
"Bodie wait..." Another whisper.
He didn't want to wait. He wanted to imagine, he wanted to have... everything that was Doyle. He wanted to have everything that was Doyle.
"Bodie..." Doyle wriggled against him, pressing down on his stomach so suddenly that it was almost painful, moving sideways - away from him. Then he was back. "Here."
A tube. KY.
Bodie opened his eyes, blinked.
Doyle shrugged, looked down. "If you want..."
Oh he wanted. Bodie felt the smile before he thought about it, spreading across his face, so that he couldn't kiss Doyle, had to hug him instead, and then he took the tube, reached around to use both hands to open it, and oh, it was even better to feel Doyle covered in the jelly, to feel him slick, ready, waiting for Bodie to...
They kissed, dancing their bodies around each other, until Doyle was beneath him, until Bodie's cock was there, prodding the entrance to his body, and then... and then inside, so slowly, so smoothly, and Doyle was pressing back, pushing to his knees, and...
... he knew he wouldn't last long, no matter how much he wanted to, but the thought that this was Doyle, that they were finally here together, fucking, that he had Doyle against him, and around him and moaning as Bodie squeezed and pulled at his cock until... until... yes...
...and then darkness, and sleep, and just the echo of his own voice whispering into the night...
"Love you, Doyle..."
o0o
He woke to a grey light eking its way through the curtains, to Doyle's soft breathing, to warmth and to a fear that he thought he'd never known before.
For a moment, in the soft haze of sleep, with the weight of Doyle against his side, he couldn't remember why, and then his breath caught, and his eyes closed again, and he knew what he'd done. He wanted to wish it away, wanted it undone. Unsaid.
Too late.
They'd not sung Auld Lang Syne at the Burns Supper last night, Bodie thought dully as he eased himself out of bed, pulled on his trousers and his shirt, they hadn't got that far, and wasn't that just fitting? Because auld acquaintance had to be forgot if he was going to survive this, had to be left far behind him where it couldn't reach and grasp and strangle the life out of him. He laced his shoes.
Cowley'd said it once. You'll never be married, he'd said in all but words, a tease, but they'd both known it for truth. Doyle might want that slow suffocation, that slow death of everything that existed between a couple, that stultification that was marriage to the exclusion of all else, but Bodie'd seen that, had been running away from it since he was fourteen, and he wouldn't settle for it now. He rose carefully from the bed, reached for the holster he'd slung on the bedpost, pulled its elastic across his back, settled its leather under his arm, checked the fastenings were safe and secure.
Five years...
It was supposed to have been fun, just a bit of fun.
Damn, his jacket was somewhere on the other side of the bed. He took a breath, turned around, and of course Doyle was awake and watching him.
"You off then?"
Bodie met his eyes, nodded once, curtly.
"Long trip is it?"
Bodie shrugged. Doyle lay on his side, one arm bent beneath his head, his other hand smoothing at a patch of blanket, over and over. Always moving, was Doyle. But he had to say something. "Who knows?" Life was like that. You shouldn't know, shouldn't stay still.
"What you looking for?"
"Jacket."
"Right." Doyle frowned briefly, then sniffed and rolled away to the other side of the bed, stretching to reach down to the floor. The blankets pulled away, so that Bodie was gazing at the naked length of him, shoulders and back and arse and legs.
He'd had that arse, been deep inside it, deep inside Doyle, feeling the breath of him, the pulse of him, the heartbeat of him.
It had meant more than he'd wanted it to.
"Here y'go." Doyle rolled back onto the bed, half-vanished beneath sheets and blankets and eiderdown again with a final flex of muscles, reclining on one elbow, tossing Bodie's jacket across to him. Bodie caught it one handed, found that he couldn't move away.
"Thanks."
Doyle's turn to nod, his fingers back to smoothing that place on the blanket again.
"I can't stay," Bodie said, not wanting to explain, needing to explain. "Never can."
Doyle nodded again, looked down for a moment, so that they were both watching his fingers move, firmly, rhythmically, unsubdued. Then he looked up again. "Yeah, okay."
Bodie took a breath. Doyle wasn't going to make a fuss. Doyle was letting him go. It was going to be alright.
He sat down abruptly on the side of the bed, having meant to walk straight out the door, because he could. But...
"Five years, one year" he said, reaching to still Doyle's fingers with his own, finding, strangely, that he couldn't. He felt every flex of Doyle's balance, every pulse of his breath through those fingers. He looked up too, met Doyle's eyes. "It's too far away."
Doyle nodded slowly. "Okay," he said again, voice even. "'s alright." He pulled his hand away, gently, in to himself and under the covers, and Bodie stood up, released, clutching his jacket, feeling the weight of his keys and wallet in his pocket.
And then he leaned back down again, balancing himself on one hand, and he kissed Doyle slowly, lips firm beneath his, tongues moving slowly together, with his eyes closed so that he could feel him and hear him and taste him. There now. Then he stood back up, walked across the room, to the door.
It was the weekend, and there was always Tuesday.
But... "I'll see you tonight, sunshine," he said as he stepped out, and pulled the door closed behind him.
January 2009
Title: Love in the Guise of Friendship
Author: Slantedlight
Circuit Archive, Pros-Lib: Certainly, if anyone's still archiving!
Disclaimer: They're still not mine, but they're still fabulous enough to play with...
Notes: Thank you empty_mirrors for splendid betaing and for letting me rabbit on again! *vbg*
Love in the Guise of Friendship
Love in the Guise of Friendship
Your friendship much can make me blest,
O why that bliss destroy!
Why urge the only, one request
You know I will deny!
Your thought, if Love must harbour there,
Conceal it in that thought;
Nor cause me from my bosom tear
The very friend I sought.
- Robert Burns
They met in front of the wrought iron gates, black bars against the dark green of the shadow-crossed lawn making a tartan of the late evening. Distantly the stable clock struck five, a half moon hung above them, and everything was quiet.
"Enjoy it while you can," Doyle said, as Bodie gazed around, took a deep, peaceful breath, "We'll be up to our eyeballs in nobs and Hooray Henries in half an hour."
"Not even the scrapings of a haggis between us," Bodie agreed glumly, "While they stuff their faces..."
"While Cowley stuffs his face..."
"Still, once Khumbar's away we're home free." He rubbed his hands together. "Plate or two of the finest left-overs, some dregs of puir malt scotch to finish off, a room in the shack to ourselves..." He looked sideways, willing his partner to understand, knowing that Doyle understood. It's time, he was saying. Tonight.
But Doyle was looking up at the forty-eight roomed, three hundred year old "shack", and shaking his head. "Be all I can do after this lot to find our room," he said and grinned off into the distance. "Moira..."
Bodie felt it like a blow to his stomach, hard and low, stealing his wind, his hopes. Doyle hadn't been with Moira last night, they both knew that. Doyle knew that he knew that.
"You telling me your stamina's gone, old man?" Bodie asked, instead of crying, which wasn't how he felt. "Tut-tut."
Doyle just glanced at him, then back down the drive towards Pennington, standing solitary watch in the second gatehouse, and finally turned towards the Hall. "Suppose we'd better go in."
"Yeah..." Bodie took a deep breath, tucked his hands in his coat pockets, and followed. What else was there to do?
But it was the perfect chance for them - one final, decadent evening at work, then an entire night together in a luxurious manor hotel room, and a long weekend off afterwards to... build on what it was they created that night.
"Suppose we should be grateful Khumbar sprang for this place," Doyle said conversationally, "Who'd have thought the old fascist would spring a leak in his pockets?"
"Ah, it's how they do things over there," Bodie said absently, half an eye on the dark stillness of the fountain as they passed it, half an eye on the sway of Doyle's walk just in front of him. "Probably reckons he's keeping us on side."
"He'd 'ave to change his side a hell of a long way before I was anywhere near it."
Bodie rolled his eyes. "Yeah well, what the Queen pays us for..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know - is to do what George Cowley tells us."
"...and it's not Cowley's fault his Minister's an idiot," Bodie finished. "Then again - if he wasn't an idiot, and hadn't invited Khumbar in the first place, we wouldn't be here, would we?"
"Exactly..."
"Look, Ray-" How to say it? Just a prod, just a little push to bring it all out in the open? "-I'm not going to be sorry about tonight."
"Well you wouldn't be, would you?" Doyle said through clenched teeth, wrenching a side door open and stalking through.
Now what did that mean? Bodie nodded to Phillips, who was checking the alarm system one more time, glanced at the doormen, and followed Doyle through to the entrance hall.
To one side the silver service staff were being spoken to in hushed tones, on the other were rows of gleaming crystal, turned rainbow hued in the lights and reflections from all around. Bodie didn't like the mirrors - they were too big, too closely placed so that the hall and the people in it seemed to go on and on. He'd have covered them, given his own way, but that had been voted down by Cowley's Minister, their host for the evening, the idiot who had invited one of the most controversial African would-bes since Idi Amin to a Burns Supper.
What did Doyle mean, Bodie wouldn't be sorry?
There was a disturbance on the staircase, the Minister and his wife coming down ready to greet their guests, and as if summoned Bodie heard the first crunching of gravel on the driveway as some couple, nearly too early for fashion, were driven to the entrance.
Places, please.
What did Doyle mean? Bodie wouldn't be sorry? That Doyle would be sorry? He wanted it though, Bodie knew Doyle wanted it at least as much as he did; it was there in a thousand moments, a hundred hundred looks, in the way they touched, and the way he moved, sometimes just for Bodie.
Doyle wanted it.
Bodie monitored the entrance, watching the guests as they came in, noting faces known and unknown, secrets whispered, slights given - where Doyle was, the way he looked tonight.
There was the sound of a helicopter above the house, then louder, landing, and he stiffened a little, until he saw Jenkins and Mainwaring appear in the doorway, beginning the choreography that brought Khumbar all the way into their aegis. A second's pause, then Lucas and McCabe appeared, done up to the nines and apparently unruffled despite their flight, and then Khumbar himself, with Cowley at his side. He was much as Bodie had expected: tall but stockily built, full of himself but smiling at everyone to whom he turned, another bloody politician from a country where even the children were armed.
Still, he was less their problem tonight, he and Doyle on back-up for a change, a sop to the month-long undercover op they'd not long finished. Let the others keep a tortuous eye on the bloody man, Bodie would watch the crowd, and the show, and wait impatiently for hour after hour to be over.
The crowd sipped at their drinks, chatted gaily, exclaimed at this kilt, at that tartan. The Minister was gracious, his wife beautiful. Bodie glowered at them all, starkly suited and solitary as he walked among them. They ignored him, for their part, recognising who he was - what he was - letting him slide past the corner of their eye, there and gone.
As long as their world spun, he didn't exist.
Doyle existed though, and at the same time as Bodie tracked this man, that woman, he tracked Doyle as well. Keeping to his own small role this night, he made sure that his feet trod the same path that his partner's did, that they were always in the same room, that whenever Doyle looked his way, Bodie was looking back at him.
Tonight.
The clock struck seven, and the gentle chiming of silver spoon against crystal turned heads towards the banquet hall, began an elegant streaming of dignitaries and politicians towards the centre of the building. Both more and less secure, then - easily guarded, easily warded, and yet a single well aimed missile could take out the lot of them, Bodie thought, not really believing it would ever happen. There were agents crawling through the Scottish night for a five mile radius - more likely the Queen and her corgis would be assassinated tonight, since Khumbar probably had half her security seconded.
Bodie waited until the guests had all paraded through the tall double doors, until Doyle had approached behind them. They gazed around the empty hallway together, down to where Sandiss and Collins gave them a thumbs up that everything there was quiet, unmoving, and then he stepped just inside the banquet hall, turned to Doyle.
"Give me a good reason why not," he said, trying to keep his voice light as they each pulled a door closed and then stood there for a moment, gazing across their field of operation, a bubbling, seething mass of be-plaided frocks and bow ties.
"Bodie..."
"You see - you can't." Bodie caught his eye, let himself grin then, just a little, just the two of them in the room. Doyle didn't grin back. He looked serious, looked worried, but he wasn't saying no, and Bodie wasn't going to let him.
There was another delicate chiming of glasses, and the genteel din in front of them hushed, died to silence and expectation as heads turned towards the Minister at the end of the table. Bloody speeches, end to end they'd be tonight... Bodie started to step sideways into an unobtrusive circuit of the room, felt Doyle's hand reach out and brush against his jacket, but it was too late, he was gone. No reasons.
"My Lords, Ladies and gentlemen..." the Minister began, and Bodie listened with half an ear, "I welcome you all, who have come so far tonight to celebrate..."
Doyle needed to loosen up, they'd be good together, Bodie knew they would be. They'd double dated often enough that he'd seen the way Doyle lit up to a mere glance from a girl, that if that girl touched him, or kissed him in the right places there was no holding Doyle back. And Bodie - well, Bodie knew all Doyle's right places, had known them for years now. The way Doyle moved, every inch of him alive, as if he felt the very air caressing him, the sun licking over him.
Bodie nodded, straight-faced, to Cowley as he walked past on the opposite side of the long table. Of course Cowley was probably part of the problem, or more to the point CI5 was part of the problem. Doyle enjoyed his job - thought it was worth it - and for that matter, Bodie did too. No fraternisation, and almost certainly no queers in Her Majesty's Service - well, not officially, anyway. But no one needed to know, except the two of them. They were already closer, together more often than most of the other teams, and no one thought anything of it. Nah, that wasn't enough to stop them.
He reached the other end of the table, and paused for Doyle to catch up and stand beside him again. The Minister was finally dragging to an end with what Cowley had told them was The Selkirk Grace.
"Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thankit."
"Well I'm bloody thankit," Bodie whispered in Doyle's ear, feeling curls brushing the side of his face, smelling Doyle's aftershave, maybe standing just a little bit too close, back there in the shadows against the wall. "The faster they get on with feeding their faces..."
A side door opened, and a long row of waiters and waitresses entered, settling to work in pairs with silver tureens of soup for the guests. Cock-a-leekie it was; Bodie'd asked in the kitchen, made sure that Khumbar had arranged for some to be set aside for the CI5 agents who were staying over. Themselves then, Pennington and Michaels who had been shagging for the last six months and were well on the way to wedding bells, and possibly one or two of the others who were hoping to cop off with some hapless waitress or musician. No one who'd be interested enough to care that 3.7 and 4.5 had retired ridiculously early on a Friday night.
Doyle just glared at him, resumed his stalk around the room.
A good stalk, Doyle had, even done up like a dog's dinner in his best evening kit, with a jacket too long and trousers too loose to reveal his best assets. It was the way he moved, Bodie thought happily, continuing his own circuit, something about the way he moved.
The guests had started to talk again, a low hum around the room accompanied by the chinking of spoons on fine china, this time. Khumbar sat to the left of the Minister's wife, and was happily chatting away to her - she had what Bodie decided was a tactful look about her. Probably got in a lot of practice with that husband of hers.
It wasn't Moira, either, Bodie knew, wandering slowly up the hall and back again. Doyle was no more serious about her than he'd been about anyone since that Ann Holly woman - and Bodie wasn't convinced he'd been serious about her. He maybe thought he was, in that first glory of finding she was a decent goer in the sack, but... And Moira was nowhere near that class, though she was fair enough, Bodie knew - he wouldn't have passed her on, otherwise. So not the job, not a woman...
"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, would you please be upstanding..." the Minister began, and a doleful wail began somewhere in the corridor outside. Bodie took his place at the end of the hall nearest Khumbar, where he had a good view of the haggis being piped in and Khumbar both, saw Doyle in position near the door. The guests began a slow handclap and first the piper, garish tartan and screaming bagpipes, appeared, followed by the chef, a woman in the traditional tall white hat, her apron spotless, an enormous haggis arranged festively amongst what looked like piles of heather on a silver tray. Must be bloody heavy, Bodie thought, strong arms the girl must have...
Doyle had strong arms. They could both balance on his arms, upstairs in one of those huge double beds... For a moment Bodie imagined Doyle above him, imagined them pressed close together, naked, Doyle's lips on him...
Or maybe Doyle's lips on him, Doyle kneeling in front of him, so that Bodie could watch as his cock slid in and out of Doyle's mouth, so that he could see Doyle swallow him...
Not the best time to be thinking about things like that, no matter how unlikely it was there'd be trouble. Bodie took a breath, rearranged himself surreptitiously. Alright, distraction on the job was a fair argument, but then they'd both been distracted by a pretty face before, a good pair of tits, a long pair of legs... You just snapped back to it. No, that was no reason.
Finally the haggis was placed in front of Khumbar, and there was a whoosh as he unsheathed the knife from a strangely elegant butcher's block before his place setting. All part of the act, Bodie thought, keeping an eye on it in any case. But Khumbar merely waved it in front of him, gesticulating with it in time to his oddly-accented Scottish, plunging it deeply and dramatically through the casing as if he had done it many times before.
Bodie watched the innards spill out as the casing split - god alone knew what they put in there, but he'd had it before and it was tasty enough - and caught a whiff of something rich and spicy. Khumbar finished the poem with more grace than Bodie would have expected from the man, and the guests applauded him, raised their glasses to the haggis.
Get on with it, he thought, sniffing appreciatively as the staff paraded back in, and began dishing out the main course. Bodie's stomach rumbled. Haggis, neeps and tatties - not what he'd choose, maybe, but it would do well enough later on. He should have had that extra sandwich earlier though...
He forced himself not to relax, to stay alert. The room was peaceful, warm, the guests in a convivial mood. Cowley was chatting amiably to a straight-backed gentlemen beside him, who was eighty if he was a day. Ex-soldier? Or maybe even ex-Intelligence, one of the lads whose bike Cowley'd nicked when he came rushing through with his own brand of cunning and contrivance.
Think about how to coax Doyle... Bodie looked around, saw him peering out the heavy red curtains at the windows, turn and speak to McCabe who was standing right behind him. McCabe grinned, shook his head, and then tilted it in the direction of Lucas. Doyle laughed then, perhaps the first time he had tonight, Bodie thought.
It wasn't the job, and it wasn't a girl, and it wasn't that Doyle didn't want it...
He waited until McCabe and Lucas were on the move again, focussed on Khumbar, and strode down to catch up with Doyle.
"One good reason," he said again, standing close enough that their shoulders pressed together, that he could feel every movement Doyle made. They looked away across the room, focussed on each other.
"The job."
Bodie shook his head. "We can do the job with our hands tied - we have done the job with our hands tied.."
"It's distraction."
"We're better than that."
"Bodie!"
"Give me a good reason."
Doyle rolled his eyes, but he didn't move away. "I don't believe we're having this conversation."
"Scared?" Bodie made sure his voice was low, serious, un-mocking.
"Not of you," Doyle said quickly, but he paused, and Bodie waited. He felt like a kid at Christmas amidst the magic of candlelight and grown ups in a good mood, the possibility of wonderful things weaving in the air around them.
Tonight.
"It might be alright this time..."
Yes! thought Bodie, yes...
"...but what about next month? Next year? Five years' time?"
Five years' time? Bodie left his pretence of watching the lords and their ladies at supper, of caring what happened to Khumbar, and turned to stare at him. A far better sight anyway, from the copper glints in his hair, to the slight frown on his face, to his lips, to his neck, to the skin above his collar... to his lips. "Look Doyle, in our job who worries about five years time? Could be hit by a bullet tomorrow..."
And then, shockingly, he was, retort from the weapon loud in his ears, time slowed for one moment to nothing.
The bullet skidded across his shoulder, leaving a trail of torn fibres and skin, having missed its target, which had arisen from his seat and strolled across to speak to someone at the other end of the table, at their end, at Bodie's end. He felt scorched, then burned, his nerves shrieking in protest.
He dropped, amidst screams and more gunfire, pulling his own gun from its holster, ignoring the wound, trying to see what was happening. Most of the guests were scrambling to safety under the tables, McCabe and Cowley had both thrown themselves over Khumbar, and Doyle was hunched low beside him, Browning in one hand, the other resting on Bodie's good shoulder as he looked frantically around for the gunman.
"There!" Bodie spotted him first, the only figure in the room still standing tall, though he was half-hidden by the door frame. What the hell had happened to Sandiss and Collins? And where was Lucas? Even as he watched, the gunman - no, gunwoman, it was that bloody chef - had turned and was away, and as one he rose with Doyle and they raced after her.
He took the direct route, leaping across the table to more screams, and out the door behind her. Doyle had gone the other way, would try to cut her off at the far end of the corridor. She had a good headstart on them, but they were trained, they knew the building, and they weren't the ones panicking, needing to escape. With luck and a fair wind...
He reached the entrance hall at the same time as Doyle did, skidding to a stop behind the doorway, peering out gun first, seeing nothing but Doyle's gun edging around his own jamb. She'd gone, he thought at first, vanished somewhere in or out of the house before they could get there, but then he caught movement in one of the mirrors, followed its trajectory to the staircase. Doyle had seen it too, and they raced to the foot of the stairs, began the familiar turn and turn again that would get them safely up to the same level as their little assassin.
She'd climbed higher than the first floor, perhaps because the second was dim, lights mostly switched off, doors from the hall both open and closed, so that they had to ease their way up carefully lest she burst from one and take them both out. They took a side of the corridor each, turning on lights as they went, revealing their progress but staying alive.
What if she had a partner?
Surely she must, after all - how could she have got in on her own? Another room, another light, another moment of wondering whether his fingers would be blown off as he reached inside, backlit as he was by the hallway. Doyle was still behind him, checking the room directly opposite, keeping up. Now and then they let their shoulders brush, their hands touch as they moved together to the next room.
Nothing.
There was one more room left, at the very end of the long corridor, a junk room, high-ceilinged, tall-windowed, contents shrouded in sheets. It was the one Bodie would have chosen for his final confrontation - lots of cover, good escape route down to the kitchens jutting out below.
He looked at Doyle, as they stood outside the door, knowing Doyle's brain was ticking as fast as his own, his heart beating as hard. They both knew the procedure, both knew the possible outcomes.
Now or never.
They stepped back for momentum, then threw themselves against the door so that it slammed open, so that they entered in motion, low to the ground and rolling to cover on either side.
Nothing, no movement, but an open window through which a breeze blew the curtains, ruffled the dustsheets. They paused, waited - listened and watched.
Still nothing.
She'd gone then. The bitch was away into the night, having cocked up all Bodie's plans, all Bodie's hopes. He took a breath. He'd not let her get away with that.
He rose slowly, knowing that Doyle was watching him, waiting for any indication that it might not be alright. The cow was long gone though, and Bodie strode across to the window, leaned out to peer, started to clamber over the windowsill although he could see nothing moving again, the world hushed and still and star-pricked.
Another shot rang out, a roar in the quiet night, at nearly the same time as he heard Doyle's voice raised in warning.
"Bo-die!"
A body struck him from behind, and he fell, overbalanced out the window, to slam onto the bitumen roofing of the floor below. He rolled automatically but clumsily, feeling the tiles graze his cheek, pull at his already torn jacket and shirt, hunched himself in to the side of the second floor, trying to catch his breath, make a smaller target, and see what had happened all at once.
"Bodie!"
A flurry above him, and then Doyle was leaning out the window, gazing frantically around.
"Here..." he managed to wheeze, started getting to his feet. He staggered slightly, and then Doyle was beside him, holding him up.
"Wha' happened?" he asked, bringing a hand up to his shoulder, trying to clench away the heat of it.
"She came up behind you, mate - waited until I was getting up to show herself."
"You shot her?"
Doyle shook his head. He seemed as dazed as Bodie felt, and he still had an arm around Bodie's waist, a hand on Bodie's chest. He felt warm, solid, alive. "Wasn't me. Was Cowley. He was right behind us."
Now that he thought about it, he could hear Cowley's voice from somewhere behind and above, now and then a bark of an order, mostly a continuous commentary, presumably into an R/T. Even as they stood there, the soft chooka-chooka of a helicopter grew louder in the dark, dropping onto the helipad on the other side of the house presumably, and then rose again almost immediately. It spun on its rotor, dipped, and then lights passed over them and it vanished again, into the night.
"When you two are quite finished down there, perhaps you would care to join us?"
Cowley. Bloody Cowley, in a lousy mood because he'd missed the sherry trifle and whisky, no doubt.
But Doyle was still there, and Khumbar was safe and gone.
They clambered back through the window, one after the other, Doyle offering a helping hand that stayed warm on his back even when they were safely inside, giving their reports to Cowley, listening to his explanation of events, bearing the brunt of his temper.
The woman's accomplice was downstairs, furious and handcuffed, and the woman herself was dead on the floor beside them, still clutching her gun, somehow, a neat hole in her chest. She was facing the door.
It had been Doyle she'd been aiming for.
"Twins?" he echoed, catching the meaning of what Cowley was telling them, "Twins?"
"Aye. If it was on the television they'd think it far-fetched." Cowley grimaced as he looked down at the body. "One of them is Silvi Biella - or possibly both of them. We don't have their real names on file, or the fact that there were two of them."
"Professionals?"
"Hired out of Naples, probably funded by the current Bawanian regime."
Bodie nodded, took a deep breath, and winced.
"Wounded, 3.7?"
"Shoulder, sir."
"Get it seen to," Cowley said, turning away, finished with them already. "The Supper has been curtailed of course - and I believe you're both on leave, so I shall see you at seven in my office, on Tuesday." He turned back once, at the doorway, glared at them. "Seven ay-em."
"Come on," Doyle said, tugging at his sleeve, "There's an ambulance downstairs apparently, seeing to all the upset nobs and nobbesses."
Bodie shook his head. "Nah, it's just a scratch. Ruined me good jacket though." There was more pain, really, in his stomach than his shoulder, a solid stone of disappointment for lost opportunities, for Doyle being proved right. If he hadn't been mooning about, maybe he'd have spotted Biella before she did any damage.
Or maybe not. Either way it was the end of tonight.
He followed Doyle down the stairs to what would have been his room for the night, pulling off his dinner jacket and shirt once the door was safely shut. He pulled his toilet bag from his case, took it to the bathroom, frowned when he saw blood down the side of his face as well as across his shoulder. He felt strangely raw all over, a little bit shaky. The tap water was cold, another sharp shock against his skin, and it trickled a slow soapy path from the flannel down his back.
Doyle had vanished again, no doubt to make sure everything was in order, to ensure the security - the other security - knew that the building would be empty once more for the night, ready for hotel management to reclaim tomorrow, for their scrapes and deaths to become part of someone else's gossip. Did you know some woman died here last night...
There was TCP in his kit, and cottonwool, and he made a fair job of cleaning himself up, nothing too deep to be dangerous, though it stung like the dickens. No Bandaid was long enough to cover the crease, but the blood had clotted enough by now, and he had a clean, soft t-shirt in his bag that wouldn't irritate it too much. The skin on his cheek was broken in a dot-dot-dash pattern which meant that he wouldn't be shaving again until he had to, but right now he didn't feel like anything more than tucking up in bed and letting the night take him, anyway.
He was pulling a jumper on over his t-shirt - the room was warm, but not that warm - and packing things back into his case ready for the drive back when Doyle returned, kicking at the door to be let in, rattling a tray ostentatiously at him as he came in.
"Hungry?" he asked, then answered himself, "Of course you're hungry. You're always hungry..."
And he was, Bodie realised, his stomach growling so that Doyle grinned, not needing further response. He'd forgotten about the food waiting for them downstairs, fresher than it would have been in - he checked his watch - Christ, two hours' time, when they'd been due off shift. He supposed they could thank the Biellas for that, anyway. He eyed his ruined jacket, decided he couldn't be bothered with it for now, and left it where it lay on the bed, snapped his case shut, and went to sit beside Doyle at the small table by the window.
He lifted the silver cover from one of the plates, found a bowl of soup instead, and breathed in appreciatively. Cock-a-leekie.
"You'd think nothing'd happened down there," Doyle said, then saluted him with his spoon and tucked in, so that neither of them needed to talk at all.
Slowly, listening to Doyle's slurps, the scraping of spoons and knives and forks, and finally spoons again in huge bowls of sherry trifle - wonder if the Cow had any in the end? - Bodie felt the tension easing in his shoulders, felt his stomach lighten and his breathing deepen.
If not tonight there was always tomorrow, there'd be other days, other nights, other chances. Doyle was still there, beside him, and he could be talked around. It wasn't as if he'd been a sure thing tonight, when it came down to it. Bodie took a last mouthful of trifle, eyed the bowl regretfully, and stretched out for a moment in the chair, sliding down so his back was straight, and he was reasonably comfortably balanced against the wooden back. He closed his eyes.
After a moment there was a nudge of glass at his fingers, and he looked up to find Doyle holding a decanter and two glasses, looking questioningly at him.
No harm in one or two before they left, he supposed. He'd probably wake up enough to drive in half an hour or so. He took a glass, let Doyle fill it with golden-dark whisky, sniffed it appreciatively. It wasn't Famous Grouse.
He took a mouthful, too much for decorum, just enough for this night, swallowed and took another, then he closed his eyes again and let the warmth soak through.
"You're not going to sleep on me?"
Bloody Doyle. "Nope. When d'you want to leave?" He eased himself upwards again, opened his eyes, blinked at the light.
"Leave?"
"Back to town."
"You want to go back to town?"
"Well I thought... "
Doyle was looking at him strangely, an odd smile on his face, his eyes... Something about his eyes...
"I thought you wanted to stay," he said softly. "I thought that's what you had planned?"
"Well yeah, but..."
"But you were right."
"I was?" He was?
"I thought you'd had it when you took a dive through that window."
"Me? Takes more than that, mate."
Doyle stood up, and Bodie watched him warily. Now what?
"I thought," Doyle said, crouching down in front of him, reaching out with both hands to balance himself against Bodie's knees, "about what you said. About five years, and a year, and tomorrow. You were right."
Doyle's hands slid up Bodie's legs, firmly, strongly, slowly.
"If we've only got tonight, then..."
He leaned forwards, stretching upwards to whisper in Bodie's ear, sliding his hands still further until... oh god, until he was caressing Bodie through his trousers, feeling Bodie's cock fill and lengthen, "...then we should make the most of it. Five years'll take care of itself..."
Doyle kissed him then, at last, and it was better than he'd imagined downstairs, better than he'd ever thought it could be. Doyle was warmth, and motion, and that glow of possibility back in his stomach, growing, suffusing him, so that his heart beat with it, his veins sang with Christmas and New Year and tomorrow all at once.
And at the centre of everything, his cock, hard, drawing on hope and promise as it pushed into Doyle's hand, as it was freed from its confines, as it was taken, so that Bodie gasped and threw back his head, into the heat of Doyle's mouth, caressed by Doyle's tongue, sucked down...
It stopped too soon, just too soon, so that Bodie heard himself whimper, looked down to see an amused smile on Doyle's face, and - oh god - his lips swollen, wet...
"Bed, Bodie," Doyle said, and Bodie didn't say anything, just unhobbled himself from his trousers, watched as Doyle stripped off his own clothes, led them to the softness of the feather mattress, the warmth of the blankets, the thick eiderdown. Yes...
They moved together, at just the right times, at just the right moments, and it was exactly as good as Bodie had known it would be. It was better than being mates, it was better than being Cowley's top team, it was...
...it was good is what it was, Bodie thought, as Doyle pressed down against him again, their cocks slick together, as he squeezed Doyle's arse, slid his fingers deeper between his buttocks, felt with the pad of one finger... just... there...
"Bodie wait..." Another whisper.
He didn't want to wait. He wanted to imagine, he wanted to have... everything that was Doyle. He wanted to have everything that was Doyle.
"Bodie..." Doyle wriggled against him, pressing down on his stomach so suddenly that it was almost painful, moving sideways - away from him. Then he was back. "Here."
A tube. KY.
Bodie opened his eyes, blinked.
Doyle shrugged, looked down. "If you want..."
Oh he wanted. Bodie felt the smile before he thought about it, spreading across his face, so that he couldn't kiss Doyle, had to hug him instead, and then he took the tube, reached around to use both hands to open it, and oh, it was even better to feel Doyle covered in the jelly, to feel him slick, ready, waiting for Bodie to...
They kissed, dancing their bodies around each other, until Doyle was beneath him, until Bodie's cock was there, prodding the entrance to his body, and then... and then inside, so slowly, so smoothly, and Doyle was pressing back, pushing to his knees, and...
... he knew he wouldn't last long, no matter how much he wanted to, but the thought that this was Doyle, that they were finally here together, fucking, that he had Doyle against him, and around him and moaning as Bodie squeezed and pulled at his cock until... until... yes...
...and then darkness, and sleep, and just the echo of his own voice whispering into the night...
"Love you, Doyle..."
o0o
He woke to a grey light eking its way through the curtains, to Doyle's soft breathing, to warmth and to a fear that he thought he'd never known before.
For a moment, in the soft haze of sleep, with the weight of Doyle against his side, he couldn't remember why, and then his breath caught, and his eyes closed again, and he knew what he'd done. He wanted to wish it away, wanted it undone. Unsaid.
Too late.
They'd not sung Auld Lang Syne at the Burns Supper last night, Bodie thought dully as he eased himself out of bed, pulled on his trousers and his shirt, they hadn't got that far, and wasn't that just fitting? Because auld acquaintance had to be forgot if he was going to survive this, had to be left far behind him where it couldn't reach and grasp and strangle the life out of him. He laced his shoes.
Cowley'd said it once. You'll never be married, he'd said in all but words, a tease, but they'd both known it for truth. Doyle might want that slow suffocation, that slow death of everything that existed between a couple, that stultification that was marriage to the exclusion of all else, but Bodie'd seen that, had been running away from it since he was fourteen, and he wouldn't settle for it now. He rose carefully from the bed, reached for the holster he'd slung on the bedpost, pulled its elastic across his back, settled its leather under his arm, checked the fastenings were safe and secure.
Five years...
It was supposed to have been fun, just a bit of fun.
Damn, his jacket was somewhere on the other side of the bed. He took a breath, turned around, and of course Doyle was awake and watching him.
"You off then?"
Bodie met his eyes, nodded once, curtly.
"Long trip is it?"
Bodie shrugged. Doyle lay on his side, one arm bent beneath his head, his other hand smoothing at a patch of blanket, over and over. Always moving, was Doyle. But he had to say something. "Who knows?" Life was like that. You shouldn't know, shouldn't stay still.
"What you looking for?"
"Jacket."
"Right." Doyle frowned briefly, then sniffed and rolled away to the other side of the bed, stretching to reach down to the floor. The blankets pulled away, so that Bodie was gazing at the naked length of him, shoulders and back and arse and legs.
He'd had that arse, been deep inside it, deep inside Doyle, feeling the breath of him, the pulse of him, the heartbeat of him.
It had meant more than he'd wanted it to.
"Here y'go." Doyle rolled back onto the bed, half-vanished beneath sheets and blankets and eiderdown again with a final flex of muscles, reclining on one elbow, tossing Bodie's jacket across to him. Bodie caught it one handed, found that he couldn't move away.
"Thanks."
Doyle's turn to nod, his fingers back to smoothing that place on the blanket again.
"I can't stay," Bodie said, not wanting to explain, needing to explain. "Never can."
Doyle nodded again, looked down for a moment, so that they were both watching his fingers move, firmly, rhythmically, unsubdued. Then he looked up again. "Yeah, okay."
Bodie took a breath. Doyle wasn't going to make a fuss. Doyle was letting him go. It was going to be alright.
He sat down abruptly on the side of the bed, having meant to walk straight out the door, because he could. But...
"Five years, one year" he said, reaching to still Doyle's fingers with his own, finding, strangely, that he couldn't. He felt every flex of Doyle's balance, every pulse of his breath through those fingers. He looked up too, met Doyle's eyes. "It's too far away."
Doyle nodded slowly. "Okay," he said again, voice even. "'s alright." He pulled his hand away, gently, in to himself and under the covers, and Bodie stood up, released, clutching his jacket, feeling the weight of his keys and wallet in his pocket.
And then he leaned back down again, balancing himself on one hand, and he kissed Doyle slowly, lips firm beneath his, tongues moving slowly together, with his eyes closed so that he could feel him and hear him and taste him. There now. Then he stood back up, walked across the room, to the door.
It was the weekend, and there was always Tuesday.
But... "I'll see you tonight, sunshine," he said as he stepped out, and pulled the door closed behind him.
January 2009
Title: Love in the Guise of Friendship
Author: Slantedlight
Circuit Archive, Pros-Lib: Certainly, if anyone's still archiving!
Disclaimer: They're still not mine, but they're still fabulous enough to play with...
Notes: Thank you empty_mirrors for splendid betaing and for letting me rabbit on again! *vbg*