FIC: Concatenation (Pros, B/D, PG)
Title: Concatenation
Author: Sineala
Fandom: The Professionals
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Rating: PG
Length: 6345 words / 36 K.
Contains: Uh... is "cracktastic" something that people want to be warned for?
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Cowley makes Bodie and Doyle get married.
Notes: My last post was part of an elaborate misdirection! Ahahaha! Happy Valentine's Day, lysimache! ♥ I tried to write your favorite plot! It is probably a little shorter than you would have liked, because I only had three days to pull this off from the time I got the idea. Also it is perhaps a little angstier, but they get there in the end, I promise. Also now I am certain fandom will be convinced I only write strange things, and I think I am okay with that!
[Un-beta'd because it is awfully gauche to ask people to beta their own presents. Please do not archive.]
"You're never joking, sir?"
Still unbelieving, Doyle looked across the table at Cowley, who stared firmly back at him, like this assignment was real. It couldn't be. He must be dreaming. Discreetly, he pinched the back of his hand. It hurt.
Cowley gave them -- all right, mostly him, because for some reason Bodie was smirking happily to himself -- a nod in confirmation. "This is a matter of the highest national importance, 4.5."
"But it's ridiculous!"
It didn't make any sense. It didn't. So there was a gay bloke who had some kind of vendetta best expressed by high explosives and assault weapons, the brief had said. And CI5 stood a chance of infiltrating his circle only if... only if...
Doyle flailed around for another excuse. "But why does it have to be Bodie?"
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bodie pout, an exaggerated, dramatic motion.
"I'm so hurt, Ray," Bodie warbled. "I thought I meant something to you." He then dissolved into laughter, entirely ruining the heartfelt tone he must have been trying for. "Even cleaned my teeth specially for the occasion."
"Shut up," Doyle mouthed back, and then returned to the matter at hand: this bleeding op. "Can't we just have only one of us pretend to be gay and disaffected about our current work, make contact with this Davidson, agree to hand over a grenade launcher or two, and then nick him? It doesn't have to be two of us."
Cowley shook his head. "I don't want anyone working on this operation alone. Too risky. I need both of you, lads. Besides, the fastest way to have him approach you is to have you very publicly, er--" he tripped over the slang term-- "out yourselves."
"But... a wedding?"
"They call them 'commitment ceremonies,'" Bodie said, cheerfully enough that he must be doing it now just to take the piss. "It's the eighties now. We're enlightened. Come on, Doyle. Think of the reception. Drinks, dancing--"
"Yeah, with you--"
"--and all of CI5 there to support us."
Doyle dropped his face in his hands, but when he lifted it the nightmare reality was still there. "I'll never live it down with the secretaries."
"It's only temporary!" Bodie, oddly, sounded rather sharp about that one. "That is, if you can ever go back to women after me, sunshine."
Doyle suspected that if he turned he would see Bodie leering at him, and so very pointedly didn't look.
Cowley harrumphed. "If you two are quite finished--"
"Sir." Bodie stopped instantly.
"The ceremony is in two weeks. I expect you to disseminate the news appropriately among your friends and fellow agents, as well as Davidson's contacts. The likeliest places to find them are in your briefing material." He held his hand toward the door, and Doyle stood, almost reflexively, with Bodie rising up next to him. "Dismissed."
"Wait," called Doyle, as a last, desperate gambit, as he was stepping backwards to the door. "We've been here six years, sir. Everyone knows us! They'll never believe we're gay, much less a couple!"
"Oh, yes, they will," Bodie said, very softly, in his ear, and Doyle felt a hand brush across his arse.
Well, he'd done worse things for his country. It would be over soon. At least it wouldn't be long.
***
It wasn't insulting that they believed him, Doyle decided. In fact, there had been a time of his life when they would have been exactly right. Blokes had made enough passes at him, over the years, that he reckoned there must be some sort of signal he was sending off even these days. Not that it was the sort of thing he did any more. Not since joining this mob. So it wasn't that he thought being gay was a bad thing or he was bothered they thought he was. That wasn't it at all.
And especially now that he and Bodie were acting like they were... together, he couldn't fault the other agents for believing it. Cowley'd picked him and Bodie (or so he'd said) because they were good at undercover work, after all; they ought to be able to fool the rest of CI5 or anyone else. In that sense, it was actually a good sign.
No, what was insulting was how quickly they believed him, like he was just confirming something they already knew. It rather took the impact out of the announcement.
Murphy blinked a couple of times, unmoved, and took another sip of his beer. "That's it? That's all you wanted to tell me?"
Doyle looked furtively, nervously around the pub. Shouldn't Murph be shocked? Appalled? Or at least something other than utterly blase? Apparently not.
"That's it," Doyle said and then couldn't resist putting his observations into words. "You don't seem surprised."
Murphy waved a hand. "No offence meant, Ray, but I always thought you and Bodie had something going. All those birds, clearly a front, eh?" He grinned in a way that Doyle supposed was meant to be companionable.
"Yeah, well." Doyle nodded and ducked his head.
It was better put by Murph than McCabe, who had nodded calmly and only asked if that meant he could ask Betty out now. Or Anson, who'd just said he didn't want to know what they got up to in bed. But none of them had shown the slightest bit of bleeding surprise. And they had all asked--
"So how long have you and Bodie been together?"
"You remember the Parsali op?" It was the story he and Bodie had agreed on. "Right about then." Now if only he could figure out why everyone wanted to know that...
Unexpectedly, Murphy grinned and punched his fist in the air. "Yes! I've won!"
"Tell me you didn't have a bet going." Doyle couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. There was an office pool. About the relationship he wasn't having with Bodie. The one everyone else knew about. "Who knows about this bet?"
Murphy shrugged. "Everyone."
"Except the Cow, of course."
Murphy gave him a strange look. "Course he knows. He knows about everything in CI5, don't he?"
The real reasons he and Bodie had been picked for the op were beginning, uncomfortably, to crystallise in Doyle's mind. "Suppose so."
"Well." Murphy grinned again. "This can't be the only thing you brought me out here to say. Not that I mind you buying me the drinks and all."
"Oh, right, erm," Doyle temporised. "Well, Bodie and I, you see, we're having a, er, small kind of, er, ceremony, and we'd like--"
Murphy cut him off. "Of course I'll come." He paused, brow furrowing in thought. "Free drinks?"
"Definitely," Doyle assured him.
***
He barely remembered, on his way home, to head to Bodie's flat instead of his own. They'd agreed that since Bodie's place was larger and they were no longer hiding their love for each other (a phrase Bodie had chortled with immense glee; Doyle had thrown a settee cushion at his head), that that would work the best. Even if it did mean Doyle was sleeping on said settee.
Besides, he'd been round Bodie's place before often enough that he was certain it wouldn't look like a suspicious change in behavior in case anyone was watching them. They were mates. It was what you did. Of course you'd want to visit your best mate.
Doyle knocked. No reply. Bodie must still be out trying to make those contacts. All week, and nothing so far, at least not for him. Bodie's luck might be better. He fished his keys out of his pocket and opened Bodie's door. That was another thing they hadn't had to come up with for this pretense. A week after Doyle had got out of hospital, after the shooting, another key had quietly appeared on his key ring. Bodie'd never said anything about it, and Doyle had never asked him. He wasn't really sure what Bodie would say if he did.
So he let himself in, dropped his things by the door, and started on the spag bol in the kitchen. The one good thing about this op was that now he could keep food, proper food, in Bodie's place, and not just the usual half-eaten Indian takeaway in the refrigerator.
He was almost done with the sauce when Bodie showed up. Noisily. Intent on the pasta, Doyle didn't look up.
"Look at me," Bodie said, and there was a note of triumph in his voice.
Doyle looked up, finally. Bodie looked exactly like he had this morning, when they'd left for work. It wasn't how Bodie normally looked. He'd taken to dressing a little more stylishly lately. Tighter shirts, outlining his figure. Short sleeves, baring perfectly-muscled arms. Tighter trousers. Part of his cover, no doubt. It was a good look on him, Doyle decided, allowing himself one brief moment to indulge in the thought. He could never act on it, of course. Oh, Bodie was attractive, certainly, anyone would notice that, but...
He was staring. Bodie was watching him staring. Bodie smiled a tiny, tiny smile, nodded his head ever so fractionally, and Doyle scrambled hastily for a reply.
All of a sudden his mouth was dry. He licked his lips and swallowed. "What am I meant to be looking at?"
Bodie treated him to the most inscrutable of smug grins, as if the Cheshire Cat had got the cream. "You're looking at Davidson's new contact."
"Finally!" He turned his attention back to the pasta, pouring each half onto a plate and adding the sauce. "Any idea when he wants a meet?"
Bodie stepped up beside him, snagged the empty pans, and dropped them in the sink to start washing up. "The twentieth, he said."
"I suppose that's just after the wedding." Doyle somehow felt the need to point out the obvious.
He laughed. "You're not getting out of marrying me, eh?"
"Can't," Doyle replied, as nonchalantly as possible, just to see if he could make Bodie laugh again. Certainly not because he was looking forward to this. "The marquee's already been hired. And the catering. Non-refundable."
And Bodie did laugh. The sound of it always made Doyle happy, an odd fizzy wonderfulness in his chest. "Knew you'd come around."
"Oi." He nudged Bodie, still scrubbing the dishes. "Leave that; your dinner's going cold."
"It's easier to get the tomato out now," Bodie replied and completely ignored his vastly more reasonable viewpoint, because that was the sort of thing Bodie did. "Besides, you did all the cooking. Spoiling me rotten, you are."
"I wouldn't want you to think--" Doyle started and choked back the other half of the sentence. That I didn't love you. Even a joke could only go so far. This one had truth running somewhere in it, a vein he couldn't quite tap. He loved Bodie, of course he did. Best friend he ever had. But you didn't just say that.
"What?"
"Nothing," he said, but he knew Bodie knew.
And it was strangely nice, this living-with-Bodie thing. Cosy. Domestic. He ought to have suggested it before, that they get a two-bedroom the next time there was a housing rotation, but after all of this, when they went back to being normal, it would be too strange. The rest of the agents would never believe them then, he knew, not if they kept acting like this.
It was after dinner was finished and long after the football on the telly was over that Bodie smiled lazily at him from the opposite end of the settee and Doyle decided to mention it.
"D'you know, the rest of CI5 think we're already a couple? Everyone I've talked to about... us, they've all acted like they knew."
And damn him, Bodie was just as unmoved. He raised one solitary eyebrow. "Yeah."
"Yeah?" What did that even mean? Could Bodie possibly be any more unimpressed?
"Knew that. They've been whispering about us for years, sunshine."
Doyle shook his head, momentarily stupefied. "You knew? All this time and you didn't say?"
Bodie gave an eloquent shrug. "Thought it might upset you."
What the hell was that supposed to mean? "What do you mean, upset me?"
"You're narked now." Bodie shrugged again.
He did have a point. Doyle passed him the last beer, and they sat in silence until Bodie finished his drink and then grinned at him.
"Hey, Ray?"
"Yeah?"
"Want to kiss me?"
A small part of Doyle's brain observed how interesting it was that no sound was coming out of his mouth when clearly he was trying to reply to Bodie. The rest of him was stuck in frozen... horror? Fascination? He wasn't really sure which, and that in and of itself was alarming. He ought to be certain of that.
"Wh--?"
"Practice for the wedding," Bodie said, sprawling out even further on the settee, body wide open and saying you know you want me, you can have me, and smiling and smiling with the mouth he was just offering, like a gift, uncomplicated and easy. Like something right out of Doyle's forbidden fantasies. "I'm a good kisser," he added.
It was a joke. Bodie must be joking. Otherwise nothing would be the same. They couldn't do this.
Doyle finally managed to close his own mouth, which had apparently been open. "Saving myself for the wedding," he managed, faintly, and thank God, Bodie switched right back into himself. It had been a joke after all.
Another laugh from Bodie, but more controlled, as he headed up the stairs to his bedroom. "All right. Never mind. Enjoy another night on the settee."
He couldn't think of anything to say. At least they only had another week.
***
The wedding was absolutely surreal. It was probably a good thing that he didn't remember much of it, later. His tie was too tight, and he stood up with Bodie in front of (oh Christ) everyone they worked with, and some people he didn't even know, and probably some of them were Davidson's terrorists--
He repeated his vows, empty as they were, after the officiant and nearly dropped the ring, because of course the Cow had made certain they were doing everything as much like a proper wedding as possible, even without the exact words, even though none of it was legal--
Or real--
And Bodie held his hands and smiled like he was actually, truly happy to be here--
Or maybe he was acting--
And when they were told to, they kissed, or really Bodie kissed him, quickly, formally, so clear in the way he was holding himself that it was only part of the ceremony--
But after they stepped back he was still holding Doyle's hand and smiling.
It could have been worse.
***
At the reception, Doyle got absolutely, incredibly drunk. It was probably one of the stupider things he'd done in recent memory; when you were undercover and wanted to stay that way, it helped to be in complete control of your faculties.
Still, the drinks were quite good. And having more of them seemed like an even better idea after all the toasting. One of Bodie's mates from his SAS days went on for five minutes, during which Doyle mostly wondered why Bodie had decided to invite all his old friends to his sham gay wedding if they were only going to have to explain next week that the whole thing was a hoax. Then he wondered just how it was that Bodie had so many friends who had no problem showing up at his gay wedding. He himself hadn't bothered inviting anyone outside of CI5, having decided that if anyone asked he'd tell them his family didn't approve. Which they bloody well wouldn't have, if any of this were real. It was plausible enough.
And Bodie kept an arm around him, and kept grinning like it really was his wedding day -- he was good at this cover, Doyle decided -- and thanking every one of their well-wishers graciously. He didn't even step on his feet when the dancing started, though he did insist on leading.
And after a few drinks, and a few more, as everything began to wind down for the evening, Doyle started to notice Bodie. It wasn't like how they always said it, how alcohol makes people look more attractive, because Bodie already was. God, of course he was, you'd have to be blind not to notice. He'd always noticed. He just hadn't thought he ought to do anything about it. And Bodie kept getting easier to notice. How had he ever thought it was bad?
And Bodie was his friend, and he loved him, and really, what would the problem be? Everything was so simple. He just had to let Bodie know.
This was important, this insight. He had to tell Bodie. And at this stage in the proceedings, that was easy enough.
He stepped in close, shakily, and smiled. He understood why Bodie had looked so happy before. "I love you, Bodie."
The declaration did not have the effect he was expecting. Bodie blinked a few times, startled, and then narrowed his eyes. "How much have you had to drink?"
Doyle frowned. That was completely irrelevant; couldn't Bodie see that? "No, I mean I love you," he clarified, louder.
And it wasn't as though he was shouting or anything, but Bodie grabbed his arm like he was trying to reassure him, to quiet him.
"I know. I love you too," Bodie said, but he said it so quickly it was obvious he didn't know anything at all. A conciliatory gesture. "But I think it's past your bedtime. Before one of us gives the game away," he added, voice lowered.
"Oh." Something about this reaction of Bodie's ought to make sense; he felt as though he were missing a piece to a puzzle. Was he forgetting something?
"You stay there," Bodie informed him. "I'll make our apologies, and then it's off to the honeymoon suite whilst you can still walk, as I am not carrying you across the threshold."
***
It was a very nice hotel room. And he hadn't actually fallen on the way there, so he didn't see what Bodie had been doing, complaining about his balance. It had been uncalled for.
"I do love you," Doyle insisted again, the moment they had actually got into the room.
Bodie nodded again, absently, like he wasn't really paying attention. "You said that. Come on, mate. In bed."
"You don't understand," he told Bodie, for what felt like the thousandth time, and he grabbed at Bodie's sleeve for emphasis. "You don't understand it at all."
And he pulled Bodie close, and he kissed him.
Bodie was not quite still in his arms, vibrating with tension, a coiled spring. Then Bodie's mouth opened under his and he was kissing him back and Doyle didn't even care that Bodie tasted mostly like those stupid cocktails he'd been drinking all evening because Bodie was finally, finally with him, right where he ought to be, where he always should have been.
He slid his hands down Bodie's back, plucking at his shirt until he could untuck it and reach up, warm skin against his palms, and he was so very alive--
Something was on his chest and forcing them apart, and he couldn't quite figure out what happened until his back hit the wall. Bodie had flipped him around and pushed him away.
He stared in confusion, bereft. "What--?"
"Ray. No." Bodie was smiling at him, but his eyes were sad. "We can't do this."
"Why not?" It was obvious. He liked Bodie. Bodie liked him. So simple. He wondered why it had taken him this long to figure out how to go about it.
Bodie sighed like the air was being forced out of him. "You don't want this, Ray. You're completely plastered, and you'd hate me in the morning. Or yourself."
"I wouldn't," he protested, but it didn't do him any good, because Bodie was already pushing him toward the bed, and not in the way he wanted.
"Shoes," Bodie told him, as Doyle struggled with the frustrating buttons on his own shirt. He'd get there soon enough. Once the shirt got out of his way.
He wrestled the shirt off eventually and lay back on the bed, dimly aware of Bodie standing at his feet, before drifting off to sleep. By himself. It had been a good idea, dammit. Nothing fucking wrong with it at all. He'd have to remember it.
***
Doyle opened his eyes and then promptly shut them again. Bloody awful sunlight. Worst hangover in years. What had he been thinking? For that matter, what had he been doing?
He opened his eyes again, more slowly this time, and took a suspicious inventory of his surroundings. Lying in a bed. Hotel room. Nice hotel room. No criminals in sight. Not obviously tied to anything, and -- he pulled his arms out from under the blanket to check -- he still had his hands free, even though for some reason he seemed to be without a shirt. Good enough. Wedding ring on his finger.
Wait, what?
And then he remembered exactly where he was.
"Oh God."
Bodie stuck his head out of the door to the en-suite toilet. "Glad you've rejoined the land of the living, sunshine," he said, and damn him if he didn't sound smug about it.
Doyle blinked uncertainly. "We were married yesterday." It didn't even seem like it had really happened. But he had visible proof.
Bodie frowned at him and stepped into the bedroom proper. "Just how much do you remember from yesterday?"
"We were married." He was certain of that bit, at least. "Lovely ceremony. I think. We had a reception. A nice one."
"Yeah," Bodie agreed, slowly, as if there were a hidden catch.
And then... no, that was missing. How odd. He looked up to see Bodie staring at him, and he was assailed with sudden, vivid sense memory, fragmented but undeniably real. The taste of another's mouth, at once strange and familiar. Pale hands, pushing against him. Bodie's hands. The feel of Bodie, warm in his arms.
"Christ." He shut his eyes. He couldn't look at Bodie, he couldn't. And he couldn't even work out out how to ask this. "Did we-- Did I--?" The rest of the question wouldn't come.
"Threaten my maidenly virtue, you mean?" Bodie asked, blandly enough, in the way of all his jokes. "That was gone long before you met me, Doyle."
He opened his eyes again to steal a glance at Bodie, who was grinning like it was indeed one of his jokes, but he hadn't really answered the question, had he?
Doyle tried again. "No, I mean--"
Bodie took pity on him, and the smile now transformed into something more kindly. "Nothing happened, Ray. Nothing to worry about."
He'd kissed Bodie, at least. Probably. Or Bodie had kissed him. He wished he knew. "But--"
"You'll note that you still have your trousers on."
Doyle shoved down the rest of the blankets. So he did. That made him feel a little better. He hadn't taken advantage of Bodie. "Oh."
"Yeah. Didn't think you were usually such an affectionate drunk."
"I'm not, as far as I know," he said, standing up. He'd probably kissed Bodie, then. Why the hell had he done that? Maybe he'd had to, to pretend for their cover. Bodie didn't seem to mind, though. But it was a little too close to those uncomfortable truths.
"You kept telling me you loved me. I was so moved," Bodie camped, and at least he knew how to deal with that. Maybe it would be all right. "Never knew how much you cared, ducky."
Doyle snorted at him. "Glad I could help your fragile ego."
Bodie came up behind him, holding him firmly by the shoulders. "Put your head down a little." It was the same voice Bodie used on ops, when he just wanted Doyle to do whatever he said right now, no arguing, when time was of the essence.
It must have been the tone he responded to, because Doyle did it immediately, though it only made the pounding of his head lurch and settle lower.
And Bodie kissed him, right at the join of neck and shoulder, hard enough to bruise. With teeth. It made his spine prickle and he couldn't quite decide if he liked it.
"Ow," he said, not because it actually hurt, but because it was absolutely the last thing he expected, after last night. More carefully: "What the hell are you doing?"
And he shouldn't have asked that. It was perfectly obvious what Bodie was doing, he thought, as he felt Bodie repeat the process a little higher up his neck, and Christ, he should be moving away from Bodie right now, so Bodie didn't figure anything out, why wasn't he moving away?
"Don't you want to look like you enjoyed our wedding night?" Bodie asked, like this was a completely normal question, or a completely normal thing to be doing. Then he bit Doyle's ear.
"Ow," he said again, trying to ignore the pleasant tingling, how it was all beginning to feel very nice. He couldn't feel this way about Bodie. It wouldn't do either of them any good. "Never suspected you'd be the kind of bloke inconsiderate enough to leave visible marks."
"I'm not." Bodie stepped back and turned him around, making a show of inspecting his handiwork. "But I was so overcome with passion last night," he added, voice and expression absolutely deadpan. "You know how I am around you."
Do I? Do I really?
Bodie's eyes unfocused and refocused on him again, as though he'd been looking at him but he hadn't actually been seeing him until right now, and then his face went unreadable, like stone. "Ray?"
"Yeah?"
He seemed to be holding himself perfectly motionless. "If you wanted-- if you still wanted--" Then Bodie shut his mouth and his gaze dropped away.
"If I wanted what?" Doyle asked, and something inside him twisted with a strange vertigo. He almost remembered this. He wanted this.
Bodie shook his head. "Never mind."
The meet would be soon. Doyle consoled himself with the thought of that. Then everything could go back to normal. At least it would only be a few more days.
***
He ended up back at HQ by himself on Monday, Bodie having disappeared back undercover in search of more of Davidson's contacts. Everyone he saw smiled at him and congratulated him again, and Doyle never heard a word breathed against him.
"Shame the Cow wouldn't give you a holiday. Not right, him expecting you to go straight back to work," said Anson, -- Anson! -- the bloke who'd just last month been going on about bloody queers this and that. And even he was happy for them.
Doyle forced a rueful grin. "We're putting in for the time together. Need to get the schedules coordinated."
"Oh, right."
And as Anson wandered off, Doyle put his head down on his desk and screwed his eyes shut. It was nice to know that if this were at all real, the rest of the squad would accept them. That had been one of the reasons, a little farther down the list than the obvious one, why he had never said anything to Bodie. But apparently everyone thought they had been gay and together already. Just this morning Murphy had thanked him profusely for making him rich off the bet, and he'd offered to buy him and Bodie drinks when they next had the free time. Doyle wondered bleakly if Murphy would still get to keep the money next week.
But if it were real, if they really were a couple, what would be wrong with that?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except Bodie wasn't gay, and so they couldn't be. Even if they'd been living together since the beginning of the op. Even if Bodie was discreetly sliding his hand into Doyle's -- only in public, only for the op, only where people would see. Bodie must have fought him off when he tried to kiss him. God, he couldn't believe he'd been that stupid.
It wasn't like he hadn't thought about this. He had. For bloody years. And it wasn't like Bodie didn't joke about being gay. Half the time he was more camp than a row of tents. He flirted. But that was just Bodie's sense of humour. And it made Doyle even more certain that Bodie was straight. After all, if you were secretly gay, what kind of bloody defence was it to pretend to be gay?
So he'd figured that out long ago. Him and Bodie, no chance. And at least they only had a few more days before the meet, because pretending to live the life that he'd always wanted was beginning to kill him.
***
"This can't be happening. It was all worked out. It was, I tell you."
"Quiet," Doyle said again, and he pushed the gun harder against Davidson's temple. It wasn't as though talking would get him anywhere; Bodie had got him to agree to the deserted warehouse as a location quite readily, and there wouldn't be anyone else to bother them until the rest of CI5 showed up.
And now, thankfully, it was all going as planned. Mostly. Somehow neither he nor Bodie had considered the idea that they might like to bring handcuffs for this bit, the immobilise-the-criminal part. At least he'd remembered his gun.
The only problem was that the stupid berk wouldn't stop talking; it was as though he didn't know he'd already been betrayed and was acting like if he could somehow work through it out loud it wouldn't be true.
"But I thought for certain I had the right men. You--" he appealed to Bodie, who had found a length of rope somewhere in one of the nearby crates and was winding it round him-- "you showed me your CI5 ID." As if being a CI5 agent meant he was willing to throw it all away.
Doyle sighed and tried again. "Yes, we are CI5."
"Doesn't mean we don't like our jobs," Bodie concluded with a certain amount of visible relish. "I love mine. It lets me do things like this. Hold your arms out or my partner will shoot you."
Doyle obligingly slid the safety off in aid of persuasion, and the man did as he was told.
He watched in admiration as Bodie finished tying Davidson's hands together, and then tying his body to the chair, with a series of complicated knots that were probably the envy of any sailor... or possibly S&M aficionado. He knew Bodie well enough to know that the question of how Bodie had come by that knowledge was probably not one he really needed to ask at this moment.
Wide-eyed, Davidson began to look despondent, like the reality of the situation might be impressing upon him at last. That was good, Doyle decided, because it meant he was hopefully closer to shutting up.
Bodie stood back with a thoughtful hand curled under his chin. "Perfect. I found some duct tape as well. Think we should gag him?"
"Oh, can we?" Doyle grinned at Bodie, nearly delirious with happiness. Letter-perfect takedown of a terrorist ringleader, and it meant that they would be done with this agonising pretense and could go back to their normal lives. He'd been waiting for this for weeks.
"Anything to make you happy, darling."
Bodie smiled crookedly and camped at him with his usual outrageousness as he tossed the tape over, limp-wristed. Doyle caught it with his free hand.
Davidson looked back and forth between the two of them. "I'll assume this was a very elaborate ruse," he said, slowly. He was beginning to see the shape of it, Doyle knew. "And therefore you're not a couple. Or probably even gay." He gave Bodie another bewildered stare and his words were full of confusion and hurt. "But I was so sure about you. That was why I trusted you in the first place. I was positive you were one of us. I'm not usually that wrong."
And he knew what Bodie would say to that. Of course Bodie would joke about it. He'd smirk and say that everyone made mistakes, or, no, something much wittier, some dazzling bit of repartee--
"Actually, yes," Bodie said, and his voice quavered a little, but the tone was deadly serious. "You were right. I'm bisexual. But I still like my job."
He snapped his head over to gape at Bodie, shocked, and if he had been an instant slower he wouldn't have seen it. Bodie had been looking at him -- not Davidson -- when he'd said it, and Christ, the expression on his face--
For an instant, the mask slipped. It was a mask Doyle hadn't even known Bodie had been wearing. He had been that good at it. But something cracked, slid, and Bodie's face was twisted in anguish. In his eyes was pure, unmixed longing. It was the way you looked at someone from afar, someone you thought you'd never in a million years have a chance with. And Bodie was looking at him.
It was only years of reflexes that stopped Doyle from dropping his gun, or worse, shooting this poor bastard, and he flipped the safety back on before he killed anyone. All sensible and coherent thought drained from his mind. But Bodie...? He hadn't-- he'd never said-- and all these years-- and what if-- what if they really could--?
Davidson's eyes flicked back to him, and the man's mouth opened. And Doyle knew exactly what he was going to ask.
"None of your fucking business," Doyle forced out, before Davidson could speak, and then he pulled the tape across Davidson's mouth with shaking hands so that at least one of the people in this building couldn't say something he didn't have an answer for.
Bodie turned away, hunched over and curled into himself, keeping his head down. He wasn't looking at Doyle; it was probably his idea of damage control.
It had all been real. Not just the past fortnight. All of it. All their partnership, all the jokes, all the games, all the looks that lasted a little too long. And he hadn't known. God. This op must have been killing Bodie. And he didn't know what to say about any of it. And if Bodie wanted him, and if he wanted Bodie, it should be simple.
Yeah, right. A simple step into unknown territory. What the hell could he say? He had to think of something. He had to make this right.
They stood in dead silence until the rest of the squad arrived.
***
Somehow, after it was all over, he ended up in Bodie's car, on the way back to Bodie's flat. Bodie drove at a frightening speed and with a terrifying disregard for all posted signage, didn't say a word, and still wouldn't look him in the face. And Doyle's hopes kept sinking.
"Right," said Bodie after they'd entered his flat, and the sharp, curt word was the first thing Bodie had said to him in over an hour. "I can give you a ride back to your place when you're done, but you'll probably be wanting to collect all your things from here first. Since I suppose Cowley will be wanting us to have our divorce tomorrow, won't he?"
"Probably," Doyle agreed and wanted to shudder at the ugly currents in Bodie's tone, a man trying to hurt himself with his own words.
Bodie turned away again, staring out the window at the inky London night. "And then everything will go back to normal." His voice was hoarse, forced down into a level, even phrase, like he was trying desperately to reveal nothing else. "Right?"
"Right," Doyle echoed.
And God, was this how it was all going to end? Bodie was going to close off and collapse in on himself and there'd be nothing left of him. What could he do?
Bodie swiveled round then, to look at him, and the only thing left on his face was the pain. "You should put in for another partner. I'd understand. You shouldn't have to work with me. Not after this. And I know it doesn't excuse my having... unwelcome desires... in the first place, but I want you to know I'm sorry."
It was now or never, and it couldn't ever be the same again between them, but maybe, just maybe, it could be better. Doyle took a deep breath. "I have the feeling I've told you this recently, Bodie, but let me try again now that I'm completely sober. So now you might believe me." He paused, breathed again. "I love you."
Something glimmered in Bodie's eyes that might have been hope. "Friends love friends."
"They do," Doyle agreed. "And I do love you like that. But I was thinking more of the sort of friends who also love each other... more physically. I'm thinking that sounds like a very appealing idea. Been thinking that for a while."
And he smiled, and he held out a hand.
"Oh." Bodie's mouth opened and closed a few times, but no further sound came out.
"Yeah."
"But--" Bodie tilted his head to the side, squinting, as though trying to solve some particularly vexing problem. "You're straight, Ray. You were straight."
Doyle shrugged. "Do you want to argue about this, or do you want to come over here and kiss me already? I know which one I'd rather be doing."
A beautiful, amazed smile dawned on Bodie's face, and Bodie was looking at him like it was Christmas and all of his birthdays combined and this was the best present anyone had ever got him.
And Bodie took his hand, pulled him tight, and they were kissing and kissing and it had taken them so many years to get here but at least they had the rest of their lives together.
FIN... or is it?
[Read the epilogue drabble on DW or LJ.]
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Author: Sineala
Fandom: The Professionals
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Rating: PG
Length: 6345 words / 36 K.
Contains: Uh... is "cracktastic" something that people want to be warned for?
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Cowley makes Bodie and Doyle get married.
Notes: My last post was part of an elaborate misdirection! Ahahaha! Happy Valentine's Day, lysimache! ♥ I tried to write your favorite plot! It is probably a little shorter than you would have liked, because I only had three days to pull this off from the time I got the idea. Also it is perhaps a little angstier, but they get there in the end, I promise. Also now I am certain fandom will be convinced I only write strange things, and I think I am okay with that!
[Un-beta'd because it is awfully gauche to ask people to beta their own presents. Please do not archive.]
"You're never joking, sir?"
Still unbelieving, Doyle looked across the table at Cowley, who stared firmly back at him, like this assignment was real. It couldn't be. He must be dreaming. Discreetly, he pinched the back of his hand. It hurt.
Cowley gave them -- all right, mostly him, because for some reason Bodie was smirking happily to himself -- a nod in confirmation. "This is a matter of the highest national importance, 4.5."
"But it's ridiculous!"
It didn't make any sense. It didn't. So there was a gay bloke who had some kind of vendetta best expressed by high explosives and assault weapons, the brief had said. And CI5 stood a chance of infiltrating his circle only if... only if...
Doyle flailed around for another excuse. "But why does it have to be Bodie?"
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bodie pout, an exaggerated, dramatic motion.
"I'm so hurt, Ray," Bodie warbled. "I thought I meant something to you." He then dissolved into laughter, entirely ruining the heartfelt tone he must have been trying for. "Even cleaned my teeth specially for the occasion."
"Shut up," Doyle mouthed back, and then returned to the matter at hand: this bleeding op. "Can't we just have only one of us pretend to be gay and disaffected about our current work, make contact with this Davidson, agree to hand over a grenade launcher or two, and then nick him? It doesn't have to be two of us."
Cowley shook his head. "I don't want anyone working on this operation alone. Too risky. I need both of you, lads. Besides, the fastest way to have him approach you is to have you very publicly, er--" he tripped over the slang term-- "out yourselves."
"But... a wedding?"
"They call them 'commitment ceremonies,'" Bodie said, cheerfully enough that he must be doing it now just to take the piss. "It's the eighties now. We're enlightened. Come on, Doyle. Think of the reception. Drinks, dancing--"
"Yeah, with you--"
"--and all of CI5 there to support us."
Doyle dropped his face in his hands, but when he lifted it the nightmare reality was still there. "I'll never live it down with the secretaries."
"It's only temporary!" Bodie, oddly, sounded rather sharp about that one. "That is, if you can ever go back to women after me, sunshine."
Doyle suspected that if he turned he would see Bodie leering at him, and so very pointedly didn't look.
Cowley harrumphed. "If you two are quite finished--"
"Sir." Bodie stopped instantly.
"The ceremony is in two weeks. I expect you to disseminate the news appropriately among your friends and fellow agents, as well as Davidson's contacts. The likeliest places to find them are in your briefing material." He held his hand toward the door, and Doyle stood, almost reflexively, with Bodie rising up next to him. "Dismissed."
"Wait," called Doyle, as a last, desperate gambit, as he was stepping backwards to the door. "We've been here six years, sir. Everyone knows us! They'll never believe we're gay, much less a couple!"
"Oh, yes, they will," Bodie said, very softly, in his ear, and Doyle felt a hand brush across his arse.
Well, he'd done worse things for his country. It would be over soon. At least it wouldn't be long.
***
It wasn't insulting that they believed him, Doyle decided. In fact, there had been a time of his life when they would have been exactly right. Blokes had made enough passes at him, over the years, that he reckoned there must be some sort of signal he was sending off even these days. Not that it was the sort of thing he did any more. Not since joining this mob. So it wasn't that he thought being gay was a bad thing or he was bothered they thought he was. That wasn't it at all.
And especially now that he and Bodie were acting like they were... together, he couldn't fault the other agents for believing it. Cowley'd picked him and Bodie (or so he'd said) because they were good at undercover work, after all; they ought to be able to fool the rest of CI5 or anyone else. In that sense, it was actually a good sign.
No, what was insulting was how quickly they believed him, like he was just confirming something they already knew. It rather took the impact out of the announcement.
Murphy blinked a couple of times, unmoved, and took another sip of his beer. "That's it? That's all you wanted to tell me?"
Doyle looked furtively, nervously around the pub. Shouldn't Murph be shocked? Appalled? Or at least something other than utterly blase? Apparently not.
"That's it," Doyle said and then couldn't resist putting his observations into words. "You don't seem surprised."
Murphy waved a hand. "No offence meant, Ray, but I always thought you and Bodie had something going. All those birds, clearly a front, eh?" He grinned in a way that Doyle supposed was meant to be companionable.
"Yeah, well." Doyle nodded and ducked his head.
It was better put by Murph than McCabe, who had nodded calmly and only asked if that meant he could ask Betty out now. Or Anson, who'd just said he didn't want to know what they got up to in bed. But none of them had shown the slightest bit of bleeding surprise. And they had all asked--
"So how long have you and Bodie been together?"
"You remember the Parsali op?" It was the story he and Bodie had agreed on. "Right about then." Now if only he could figure out why everyone wanted to know that...
Unexpectedly, Murphy grinned and punched his fist in the air. "Yes! I've won!"
"Tell me you didn't have a bet going." Doyle couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. There was an office pool. About the relationship he wasn't having with Bodie. The one everyone else knew about. "Who knows about this bet?"
Murphy shrugged. "Everyone."
"Except the Cow, of course."
Murphy gave him a strange look. "Course he knows. He knows about everything in CI5, don't he?"
The real reasons he and Bodie had been picked for the op were beginning, uncomfortably, to crystallise in Doyle's mind. "Suppose so."
"Well." Murphy grinned again. "This can't be the only thing you brought me out here to say. Not that I mind you buying me the drinks and all."
"Oh, right, erm," Doyle temporised. "Well, Bodie and I, you see, we're having a, er, small kind of, er, ceremony, and we'd like--"
Murphy cut him off. "Of course I'll come." He paused, brow furrowing in thought. "Free drinks?"
"Definitely," Doyle assured him.
***
He barely remembered, on his way home, to head to Bodie's flat instead of his own. They'd agreed that since Bodie's place was larger and they were no longer hiding their love for each other (a phrase Bodie had chortled with immense glee; Doyle had thrown a settee cushion at his head), that that would work the best. Even if it did mean Doyle was sleeping on said settee.
Besides, he'd been round Bodie's place before often enough that he was certain it wouldn't look like a suspicious change in behavior in case anyone was watching them. They were mates. It was what you did. Of course you'd want to visit your best mate.
Doyle knocked. No reply. Bodie must still be out trying to make those contacts. All week, and nothing so far, at least not for him. Bodie's luck might be better. He fished his keys out of his pocket and opened Bodie's door. That was another thing they hadn't had to come up with for this pretense. A week after Doyle had got out of hospital, after the shooting, another key had quietly appeared on his key ring. Bodie'd never said anything about it, and Doyle had never asked him. He wasn't really sure what Bodie would say if he did.
So he let himself in, dropped his things by the door, and started on the spag bol in the kitchen. The one good thing about this op was that now he could keep food, proper food, in Bodie's place, and not just the usual half-eaten Indian takeaway in the refrigerator.
He was almost done with the sauce when Bodie showed up. Noisily. Intent on the pasta, Doyle didn't look up.
"Look at me," Bodie said, and there was a note of triumph in his voice.
Doyle looked up, finally. Bodie looked exactly like he had this morning, when they'd left for work. It wasn't how Bodie normally looked. He'd taken to dressing a little more stylishly lately. Tighter shirts, outlining his figure. Short sleeves, baring perfectly-muscled arms. Tighter trousers. Part of his cover, no doubt. It was a good look on him, Doyle decided, allowing himself one brief moment to indulge in the thought. He could never act on it, of course. Oh, Bodie was attractive, certainly, anyone would notice that, but...
He was staring. Bodie was watching him staring. Bodie smiled a tiny, tiny smile, nodded his head ever so fractionally, and Doyle scrambled hastily for a reply.
All of a sudden his mouth was dry. He licked his lips and swallowed. "What am I meant to be looking at?"
Bodie treated him to the most inscrutable of smug grins, as if the Cheshire Cat had got the cream. "You're looking at Davidson's new contact."
"Finally!" He turned his attention back to the pasta, pouring each half onto a plate and adding the sauce. "Any idea when he wants a meet?"
Bodie stepped up beside him, snagged the empty pans, and dropped them in the sink to start washing up. "The twentieth, he said."
"I suppose that's just after the wedding." Doyle somehow felt the need to point out the obvious.
He laughed. "You're not getting out of marrying me, eh?"
"Can't," Doyle replied, as nonchalantly as possible, just to see if he could make Bodie laugh again. Certainly not because he was looking forward to this. "The marquee's already been hired. And the catering. Non-refundable."
And Bodie did laugh. The sound of it always made Doyle happy, an odd fizzy wonderfulness in his chest. "Knew you'd come around."
"Oi." He nudged Bodie, still scrubbing the dishes. "Leave that; your dinner's going cold."
"It's easier to get the tomato out now," Bodie replied and completely ignored his vastly more reasonable viewpoint, because that was the sort of thing Bodie did. "Besides, you did all the cooking. Spoiling me rotten, you are."
"I wouldn't want you to think--" Doyle started and choked back the other half of the sentence. That I didn't love you. Even a joke could only go so far. This one had truth running somewhere in it, a vein he couldn't quite tap. He loved Bodie, of course he did. Best friend he ever had. But you didn't just say that.
"What?"
"Nothing," he said, but he knew Bodie knew.
And it was strangely nice, this living-with-Bodie thing. Cosy. Domestic. He ought to have suggested it before, that they get a two-bedroom the next time there was a housing rotation, but after all of this, when they went back to being normal, it would be too strange. The rest of the agents would never believe them then, he knew, not if they kept acting like this.
It was after dinner was finished and long after the football on the telly was over that Bodie smiled lazily at him from the opposite end of the settee and Doyle decided to mention it.
"D'you know, the rest of CI5 think we're already a couple? Everyone I've talked to about... us, they've all acted like they knew."
And damn him, Bodie was just as unmoved. He raised one solitary eyebrow. "Yeah."
"Yeah?" What did that even mean? Could Bodie possibly be any more unimpressed?
"Knew that. They've been whispering about us for years, sunshine."
Doyle shook his head, momentarily stupefied. "You knew? All this time and you didn't say?"
Bodie gave an eloquent shrug. "Thought it might upset you."
What the hell was that supposed to mean? "What do you mean, upset me?"
"You're narked now." Bodie shrugged again.
He did have a point. Doyle passed him the last beer, and they sat in silence until Bodie finished his drink and then grinned at him.
"Hey, Ray?"
"Yeah?"
"Want to kiss me?"
A small part of Doyle's brain observed how interesting it was that no sound was coming out of his mouth when clearly he was trying to reply to Bodie. The rest of him was stuck in frozen... horror? Fascination? He wasn't really sure which, and that in and of itself was alarming. He ought to be certain of that.
"Wh--?"
"Practice for the wedding," Bodie said, sprawling out even further on the settee, body wide open and saying you know you want me, you can have me, and smiling and smiling with the mouth he was just offering, like a gift, uncomplicated and easy. Like something right out of Doyle's forbidden fantasies. "I'm a good kisser," he added.
It was a joke. Bodie must be joking. Otherwise nothing would be the same. They couldn't do this.
Doyle finally managed to close his own mouth, which had apparently been open. "Saving myself for the wedding," he managed, faintly, and thank God, Bodie switched right back into himself. It had been a joke after all.
Another laugh from Bodie, but more controlled, as he headed up the stairs to his bedroom. "All right. Never mind. Enjoy another night on the settee."
He couldn't think of anything to say. At least they only had another week.
***
The wedding was absolutely surreal. It was probably a good thing that he didn't remember much of it, later. His tie was too tight, and he stood up with Bodie in front of (oh Christ) everyone they worked with, and some people he didn't even know, and probably some of them were Davidson's terrorists--
He repeated his vows, empty as they were, after the officiant and nearly dropped the ring, because of course the Cow had made certain they were doing everything as much like a proper wedding as possible, even without the exact words, even though none of it was legal--
Or real--
And Bodie held his hands and smiled like he was actually, truly happy to be here--
Or maybe he was acting--
And when they were told to, they kissed, or really Bodie kissed him, quickly, formally, so clear in the way he was holding himself that it was only part of the ceremony--
But after they stepped back he was still holding Doyle's hand and smiling.
It could have been worse.
***
At the reception, Doyle got absolutely, incredibly drunk. It was probably one of the stupider things he'd done in recent memory; when you were undercover and wanted to stay that way, it helped to be in complete control of your faculties.
Still, the drinks were quite good. And having more of them seemed like an even better idea after all the toasting. One of Bodie's mates from his SAS days went on for five minutes, during which Doyle mostly wondered why Bodie had decided to invite all his old friends to his sham gay wedding if they were only going to have to explain next week that the whole thing was a hoax. Then he wondered just how it was that Bodie had so many friends who had no problem showing up at his gay wedding. He himself hadn't bothered inviting anyone outside of CI5, having decided that if anyone asked he'd tell them his family didn't approve. Which they bloody well wouldn't have, if any of this were real. It was plausible enough.
And Bodie kept an arm around him, and kept grinning like it really was his wedding day -- he was good at this cover, Doyle decided -- and thanking every one of their well-wishers graciously. He didn't even step on his feet when the dancing started, though he did insist on leading.
And after a few drinks, and a few more, as everything began to wind down for the evening, Doyle started to notice Bodie. It wasn't like how they always said it, how alcohol makes people look more attractive, because Bodie already was. God, of course he was, you'd have to be blind not to notice. He'd always noticed. He just hadn't thought he ought to do anything about it. And Bodie kept getting easier to notice. How had he ever thought it was bad?
And Bodie was his friend, and he loved him, and really, what would the problem be? Everything was so simple. He just had to let Bodie know.
This was important, this insight. He had to tell Bodie. And at this stage in the proceedings, that was easy enough.
He stepped in close, shakily, and smiled. He understood why Bodie had looked so happy before. "I love you, Bodie."
The declaration did not have the effect he was expecting. Bodie blinked a few times, startled, and then narrowed his eyes. "How much have you had to drink?"
Doyle frowned. That was completely irrelevant; couldn't Bodie see that? "No, I mean I love you," he clarified, louder.
And it wasn't as though he was shouting or anything, but Bodie grabbed his arm like he was trying to reassure him, to quiet him.
"I know. I love you too," Bodie said, but he said it so quickly it was obvious he didn't know anything at all. A conciliatory gesture. "But I think it's past your bedtime. Before one of us gives the game away," he added, voice lowered.
"Oh." Something about this reaction of Bodie's ought to make sense; he felt as though he were missing a piece to a puzzle. Was he forgetting something?
"You stay there," Bodie informed him. "I'll make our apologies, and then it's off to the honeymoon suite whilst you can still walk, as I am not carrying you across the threshold."
***
It was a very nice hotel room. And he hadn't actually fallen on the way there, so he didn't see what Bodie had been doing, complaining about his balance. It had been uncalled for.
"I do love you," Doyle insisted again, the moment they had actually got into the room.
Bodie nodded again, absently, like he wasn't really paying attention. "You said that. Come on, mate. In bed."
"You don't understand," he told Bodie, for what felt like the thousandth time, and he grabbed at Bodie's sleeve for emphasis. "You don't understand it at all."
And he pulled Bodie close, and he kissed him.
Bodie was not quite still in his arms, vibrating with tension, a coiled spring. Then Bodie's mouth opened under his and he was kissing him back and Doyle didn't even care that Bodie tasted mostly like those stupid cocktails he'd been drinking all evening because Bodie was finally, finally with him, right where he ought to be, where he always should have been.
He slid his hands down Bodie's back, plucking at his shirt until he could untuck it and reach up, warm skin against his palms, and he was so very alive--
Something was on his chest and forcing them apart, and he couldn't quite figure out what happened until his back hit the wall. Bodie had flipped him around and pushed him away.
He stared in confusion, bereft. "What--?"
"Ray. No." Bodie was smiling at him, but his eyes were sad. "We can't do this."
"Why not?" It was obvious. He liked Bodie. Bodie liked him. So simple. He wondered why it had taken him this long to figure out how to go about it.
Bodie sighed like the air was being forced out of him. "You don't want this, Ray. You're completely plastered, and you'd hate me in the morning. Or yourself."
"I wouldn't," he protested, but it didn't do him any good, because Bodie was already pushing him toward the bed, and not in the way he wanted.
"Shoes," Bodie told him, as Doyle struggled with the frustrating buttons on his own shirt. He'd get there soon enough. Once the shirt got out of his way.
He wrestled the shirt off eventually and lay back on the bed, dimly aware of Bodie standing at his feet, before drifting off to sleep. By himself. It had been a good idea, dammit. Nothing fucking wrong with it at all. He'd have to remember it.
***
Doyle opened his eyes and then promptly shut them again. Bloody awful sunlight. Worst hangover in years. What had he been thinking? For that matter, what had he been doing?
He opened his eyes again, more slowly this time, and took a suspicious inventory of his surroundings. Lying in a bed. Hotel room. Nice hotel room. No criminals in sight. Not obviously tied to anything, and -- he pulled his arms out from under the blanket to check -- he still had his hands free, even though for some reason he seemed to be without a shirt. Good enough. Wedding ring on his finger.
Wait, what?
And then he remembered exactly where he was.
"Oh God."
Bodie stuck his head out of the door to the en-suite toilet. "Glad you've rejoined the land of the living, sunshine," he said, and damn him if he didn't sound smug about it.
Doyle blinked uncertainly. "We were married yesterday." It didn't even seem like it had really happened. But he had visible proof.
Bodie frowned at him and stepped into the bedroom proper. "Just how much do you remember from yesterday?"
"We were married." He was certain of that bit, at least. "Lovely ceremony. I think. We had a reception. A nice one."
"Yeah," Bodie agreed, slowly, as if there were a hidden catch.
And then... no, that was missing. How odd. He looked up to see Bodie staring at him, and he was assailed with sudden, vivid sense memory, fragmented but undeniably real. The taste of another's mouth, at once strange and familiar. Pale hands, pushing against him. Bodie's hands. The feel of Bodie, warm in his arms.
"Christ." He shut his eyes. He couldn't look at Bodie, he couldn't. And he couldn't even work out out how to ask this. "Did we-- Did I--?" The rest of the question wouldn't come.
"Threaten my maidenly virtue, you mean?" Bodie asked, blandly enough, in the way of all his jokes. "That was gone long before you met me, Doyle."
He opened his eyes again to steal a glance at Bodie, who was grinning like it was indeed one of his jokes, but he hadn't really answered the question, had he?
Doyle tried again. "No, I mean--"
Bodie took pity on him, and the smile now transformed into something more kindly. "Nothing happened, Ray. Nothing to worry about."
He'd kissed Bodie, at least. Probably. Or Bodie had kissed him. He wished he knew. "But--"
"You'll note that you still have your trousers on."
Doyle shoved down the rest of the blankets. So he did. That made him feel a little better. He hadn't taken advantage of Bodie. "Oh."
"Yeah. Didn't think you were usually such an affectionate drunk."
"I'm not, as far as I know," he said, standing up. He'd probably kissed Bodie, then. Why the hell had he done that? Maybe he'd had to, to pretend for their cover. Bodie didn't seem to mind, though. But it was a little too close to those uncomfortable truths.
"You kept telling me you loved me. I was so moved," Bodie camped, and at least he knew how to deal with that. Maybe it would be all right. "Never knew how much you cared, ducky."
Doyle snorted at him. "Glad I could help your fragile ego."
Bodie came up behind him, holding him firmly by the shoulders. "Put your head down a little." It was the same voice Bodie used on ops, when he just wanted Doyle to do whatever he said right now, no arguing, when time was of the essence.
It must have been the tone he responded to, because Doyle did it immediately, though it only made the pounding of his head lurch and settle lower.
And Bodie kissed him, right at the join of neck and shoulder, hard enough to bruise. With teeth. It made his spine prickle and he couldn't quite decide if he liked it.
"Ow," he said, not because it actually hurt, but because it was absolutely the last thing he expected, after last night. More carefully: "What the hell are you doing?"
And he shouldn't have asked that. It was perfectly obvious what Bodie was doing, he thought, as he felt Bodie repeat the process a little higher up his neck, and Christ, he should be moving away from Bodie right now, so Bodie didn't figure anything out, why wasn't he moving away?
"Don't you want to look like you enjoyed our wedding night?" Bodie asked, like this was a completely normal question, or a completely normal thing to be doing. Then he bit Doyle's ear.
"Ow," he said again, trying to ignore the pleasant tingling, how it was all beginning to feel very nice. He couldn't feel this way about Bodie. It wouldn't do either of them any good. "Never suspected you'd be the kind of bloke inconsiderate enough to leave visible marks."
"I'm not." Bodie stepped back and turned him around, making a show of inspecting his handiwork. "But I was so overcome with passion last night," he added, voice and expression absolutely deadpan. "You know how I am around you."
Do I? Do I really?
Bodie's eyes unfocused and refocused on him again, as though he'd been looking at him but he hadn't actually been seeing him until right now, and then his face went unreadable, like stone. "Ray?"
"Yeah?"
He seemed to be holding himself perfectly motionless. "If you wanted-- if you still wanted--" Then Bodie shut his mouth and his gaze dropped away.
"If I wanted what?" Doyle asked, and something inside him twisted with a strange vertigo. He almost remembered this. He wanted this.
Bodie shook his head. "Never mind."
The meet would be soon. Doyle consoled himself with the thought of that. Then everything could go back to normal. At least it would only be a few more days.
***
He ended up back at HQ by himself on Monday, Bodie having disappeared back undercover in search of more of Davidson's contacts. Everyone he saw smiled at him and congratulated him again, and Doyle never heard a word breathed against him.
"Shame the Cow wouldn't give you a holiday. Not right, him expecting you to go straight back to work," said Anson, -- Anson! -- the bloke who'd just last month been going on about bloody queers this and that. And even he was happy for them.
Doyle forced a rueful grin. "We're putting in for the time together. Need to get the schedules coordinated."
"Oh, right."
And as Anson wandered off, Doyle put his head down on his desk and screwed his eyes shut. It was nice to know that if this were at all real, the rest of the squad would accept them. That had been one of the reasons, a little farther down the list than the obvious one, why he had never said anything to Bodie. But apparently everyone thought they had been gay and together already. Just this morning Murphy had thanked him profusely for making him rich off the bet, and he'd offered to buy him and Bodie drinks when they next had the free time. Doyle wondered bleakly if Murphy would still get to keep the money next week.
But if it were real, if they really were a couple, what would be wrong with that?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except Bodie wasn't gay, and so they couldn't be. Even if they'd been living together since the beginning of the op. Even if Bodie was discreetly sliding his hand into Doyle's -- only in public, only for the op, only where people would see. Bodie must have fought him off when he tried to kiss him. God, he couldn't believe he'd been that stupid.
It wasn't like he hadn't thought about this. He had. For bloody years. And it wasn't like Bodie didn't joke about being gay. Half the time he was more camp than a row of tents. He flirted. But that was just Bodie's sense of humour. And it made Doyle even more certain that Bodie was straight. After all, if you were secretly gay, what kind of bloody defence was it to pretend to be gay?
So he'd figured that out long ago. Him and Bodie, no chance. And at least they only had a few more days before the meet, because pretending to live the life that he'd always wanted was beginning to kill him.
***
"This can't be happening. It was all worked out. It was, I tell you."
"Quiet," Doyle said again, and he pushed the gun harder against Davidson's temple. It wasn't as though talking would get him anywhere; Bodie had got him to agree to the deserted warehouse as a location quite readily, and there wouldn't be anyone else to bother them until the rest of CI5 showed up.
And now, thankfully, it was all going as planned. Mostly. Somehow neither he nor Bodie had considered the idea that they might like to bring handcuffs for this bit, the immobilise-the-criminal part. At least he'd remembered his gun.
The only problem was that the stupid berk wouldn't stop talking; it was as though he didn't know he'd already been betrayed and was acting like if he could somehow work through it out loud it wouldn't be true.
"But I thought for certain I had the right men. You--" he appealed to Bodie, who had found a length of rope somewhere in one of the nearby crates and was winding it round him-- "you showed me your CI5 ID." As if being a CI5 agent meant he was willing to throw it all away.
Doyle sighed and tried again. "Yes, we are CI5."
"Doesn't mean we don't like our jobs," Bodie concluded with a certain amount of visible relish. "I love mine. It lets me do things like this. Hold your arms out or my partner will shoot you."
Doyle obligingly slid the safety off in aid of persuasion, and the man did as he was told.
He watched in admiration as Bodie finished tying Davidson's hands together, and then tying his body to the chair, with a series of complicated knots that were probably the envy of any sailor... or possibly S&M aficionado. He knew Bodie well enough to know that the question of how Bodie had come by that knowledge was probably not one he really needed to ask at this moment.
Wide-eyed, Davidson began to look despondent, like the reality of the situation might be impressing upon him at last. That was good, Doyle decided, because it meant he was hopefully closer to shutting up.
Bodie stood back with a thoughtful hand curled under his chin. "Perfect. I found some duct tape as well. Think we should gag him?"
"Oh, can we?" Doyle grinned at Bodie, nearly delirious with happiness. Letter-perfect takedown of a terrorist ringleader, and it meant that they would be done with this agonising pretense and could go back to their normal lives. He'd been waiting for this for weeks.
"Anything to make you happy, darling."
Bodie smiled crookedly and camped at him with his usual outrageousness as he tossed the tape over, limp-wristed. Doyle caught it with his free hand.
Davidson looked back and forth between the two of them. "I'll assume this was a very elaborate ruse," he said, slowly. He was beginning to see the shape of it, Doyle knew. "And therefore you're not a couple. Or probably even gay." He gave Bodie another bewildered stare and his words were full of confusion and hurt. "But I was so sure about you. That was why I trusted you in the first place. I was positive you were one of us. I'm not usually that wrong."
And he knew what Bodie would say to that. Of course Bodie would joke about it. He'd smirk and say that everyone made mistakes, or, no, something much wittier, some dazzling bit of repartee--
"Actually, yes," Bodie said, and his voice quavered a little, but the tone was deadly serious. "You were right. I'm bisexual. But I still like my job."
He snapped his head over to gape at Bodie, shocked, and if he had been an instant slower he wouldn't have seen it. Bodie had been looking at him -- not Davidson -- when he'd said it, and Christ, the expression on his face--
For an instant, the mask slipped. It was a mask Doyle hadn't even known Bodie had been wearing. He had been that good at it. But something cracked, slid, and Bodie's face was twisted in anguish. In his eyes was pure, unmixed longing. It was the way you looked at someone from afar, someone you thought you'd never in a million years have a chance with. And Bodie was looking at him.
It was only years of reflexes that stopped Doyle from dropping his gun, or worse, shooting this poor bastard, and he flipped the safety back on before he killed anyone. All sensible and coherent thought drained from his mind. But Bodie...? He hadn't-- he'd never said-- and all these years-- and what if-- what if they really could--?
Davidson's eyes flicked back to him, and the man's mouth opened. And Doyle knew exactly what he was going to ask.
"None of your fucking business," Doyle forced out, before Davidson could speak, and then he pulled the tape across Davidson's mouth with shaking hands so that at least one of the people in this building couldn't say something he didn't have an answer for.
Bodie turned away, hunched over and curled into himself, keeping his head down. He wasn't looking at Doyle; it was probably his idea of damage control.
It had all been real. Not just the past fortnight. All of it. All their partnership, all the jokes, all the games, all the looks that lasted a little too long. And he hadn't known. God. This op must have been killing Bodie. And he didn't know what to say about any of it. And if Bodie wanted him, and if he wanted Bodie, it should be simple.
Yeah, right. A simple step into unknown territory. What the hell could he say? He had to think of something. He had to make this right.
They stood in dead silence until the rest of the squad arrived.
***
Somehow, after it was all over, he ended up in Bodie's car, on the way back to Bodie's flat. Bodie drove at a frightening speed and with a terrifying disregard for all posted signage, didn't say a word, and still wouldn't look him in the face. And Doyle's hopes kept sinking.
"Right," said Bodie after they'd entered his flat, and the sharp, curt word was the first thing Bodie had said to him in over an hour. "I can give you a ride back to your place when you're done, but you'll probably be wanting to collect all your things from here first. Since I suppose Cowley will be wanting us to have our divorce tomorrow, won't he?"
"Probably," Doyle agreed and wanted to shudder at the ugly currents in Bodie's tone, a man trying to hurt himself with his own words.
Bodie turned away again, staring out the window at the inky London night. "And then everything will go back to normal." His voice was hoarse, forced down into a level, even phrase, like he was trying desperately to reveal nothing else. "Right?"
"Right," Doyle echoed.
And God, was this how it was all going to end? Bodie was going to close off and collapse in on himself and there'd be nothing left of him. What could he do?
Bodie swiveled round then, to look at him, and the only thing left on his face was the pain. "You should put in for another partner. I'd understand. You shouldn't have to work with me. Not after this. And I know it doesn't excuse my having... unwelcome desires... in the first place, but I want you to know I'm sorry."
It was now or never, and it couldn't ever be the same again between them, but maybe, just maybe, it could be better. Doyle took a deep breath. "I have the feeling I've told you this recently, Bodie, but let me try again now that I'm completely sober. So now you might believe me." He paused, breathed again. "I love you."
Something glimmered in Bodie's eyes that might have been hope. "Friends love friends."
"They do," Doyle agreed. "And I do love you like that. But I was thinking more of the sort of friends who also love each other... more physically. I'm thinking that sounds like a very appealing idea. Been thinking that for a while."
And he smiled, and he held out a hand.
"Oh." Bodie's mouth opened and closed a few times, but no further sound came out.
"Yeah."
"But--" Bodie tilted his head to the side, squinting, as though trying to solve some particularly vexing problem. "You're straight, Ray. You were straight."
Doyle shrugged. "Do you want to argue about this, or do you want to come over here and kiss me already? I know which one I'd rather be doing."
A beautiful, amazed smile dawned on Bodie's face, and Bodie was looking at him like it was Christmas and all of his birthdays combined and this was the best present anyone had ever got him.
And Bodie took his hand, pulled him tight, and they were kissing and kissing and it had taken them so many years to get here but at least they had the rest of their lives together.
FIN... or is it?
[Read the epilogue drabble on DW or LJ.]
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