discoveredinalj | Fanon/Canon Fic

A little story, rather brief in fact, almost just a scenario, but there tis.

Tribulation

"What's wrong?"

"Got a splinter."

"Let me see."

Bodie took Doyle's hand into his own, drawing him insistently nearer the cone of bright light from the naked bulb. It illuminated the fragmented old motorcycle they'd been laboring to restore. "Yeah, you do," he agreed. "I'll go get me knife."

Doyle hastily withdrew his fingers from his mate's grasp. "Don't you think amputation's a bit extreme?"

"My Swiss army knife, twit. It has a set of tweezers in it."

"Oh," Doyle shrugged, following his partner into the flat.

With a look of determination that proclaimed, "I am a soldier experienced in field medicine, don't even think about doubting my competence," Bodie gathered the knife from his sock drawer, the magnifying glass from in front of his copy of the Oxford Unabridged English Dictionary, and a clean flannel from the linen cupboard. As a final touch, he brought forth his cheapest bottle of scotch.

Doyle snatched away the spirits bottle, uncorked it and swallowed a raw mouthful.

"That was meant to be applied to the wound, to disinfect it," Bodie remonstrated.

"Pain killer," Doyle retorted, grinning unrepentantly. "And I'm warning you now, if you start tearing up an old petticoat for bandages, I shall run away shrieking."

Bodie shook his head, saying, "Come hither me lad, don't be timid." Then he sank into the comfy chair, turned on the reading lamp, spread his thighs and patted the seat cushion. "Sit here," he beckoned Ray toward him.

Grinning wider still, Doyle sat with his back pressed against his mate's muscular chest. Bodie reached his arms around Ray's waist, and held the injured extremity in an unyielding grip, exposing it to the bright light. He rested his chin upon his partner's shoulder, feeling the smooth flesh on Ray's neck and the soft strands of curls against his cheek. "Hmm," he commented upon the depth of the offending sliver. "Difficult angle."

He squeezed the palmar skin taut and dug at the entry wound with the sharp point of his knife's gouge blade. A small trickle of blood started weeping there under the instrument's cruel probing point.

Bodie felt Doyle silently flinch and shudder against his ribs.

With persistence, Bodie teased at the wound, working his blade deeper into the sensitive tissue, feeling the hot radial pulse quicken in the captive hand. He ran his thumb nail against the buried splinter, forcing the ragged dark end toward the oozing opening. Before setting aside the pocket knife, he extracted from it the delicate tweezers.

There came a small sigh of transitory relief from Ray. Bodie studied the injured skin under his magnifying glass before nudging the splinter with the tweezers.

A plunge, a squeeze, an insistent tug, a single protesting squeak from Ray, and there it was.

"Got it, wicked looking frag." Bodie held up the jagged sliver of metal for Doyle's inspection, before sloshing a modicum of single malt onto the flannel and swabbing the injury. Then he pulled his partner right up onto his lap.

"Thank you," Bodie told Doyle.

Another person would have been puzzled at this strange, reversed expression of gratitude, but not Doyle. He understood Bodie's appreciation of trust, of the mundane intimacy of small pains, shared.

And so Ray just chuckled, as his mate grasped him tightly and growled into his curls.

Title: Tribulation
Author: asymphototropic
Genre: Slash
Archive at The Circuit: Yes, if you like
Notes: "Found in Fanon/ Discovered in Canon". The canon is from the episode "The Rack"; we know Bodie had been "a mercenary soldier in Angola, Biafra," and then "came back to join the army... became a sergeant with the Paras, and seconded to the SAS." The fanon point is that, because Bodie is a soldier, he's good at first aid. [okay, by virtue of "Discovered in a Graveyard" that point could be considered canon. But based upon the end of "Female Factor", maybe not...]