I Torture Hate
Jan. 25th, 2009 05:59 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
rochvelleth.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
discoveredinaljWell, I got a prompt from BSL for this one, and the prompt was a poem called 'I Murder Hate' by Burns (text below the cut). I should say something about the poem, in case you don't know who Zimri and Cozbi are - basically they are figures from the book of Numbers who were lovers, and they were killed together by a single spear thrust. That could have taken me down so many routes (!), but I can't account for my imagination running away with the prompt and the result was a bit on the dark side - but read on and you might find some other Burns mentions too!
---
I murder hate by flood or field,
Tho' glory's name may screen us;
In wars at home I'll spend my blood-
Life-giving wars of Venus.
The deities that I adore
Are social Peace and Plenty;
I'm better pleas'd to make one more,
Than be the death of twenty.
I would not die like Socrates,
For all the fuss of Plato;
Nor would I with Leonidas,
Nor yet would I with Cato:
The zealots of the Church and State
Shall ne'er my mortal foes be;
But let me have bold Zimri's fate,
Within the arms of Cozbi!
I Torture Hate
Bodie didn’t know whether Doyle was alive. For the last two days, all he had known was pain and darkness. The tiny glint of sunlight forcing its way through a crack in the boarded windows was not the glimmer of hope but an agonising reminder that there was something beyond this dismal room – a mission to finish, and a partner to save if he could be saved.
The ropes cut into his wrists and ankles. His face felt caked with dried blood. His shirt was hanging off. If Doyle could see him now, he’d untie his ropes and tell him what a state he looked.
Just then, the door creaked open, and the glare of electric light flooded in, making Bodie blink. A tall man stood in the door, a giant and threatening silhouette, and beside him the interrogator.
Bodie gritted his teeth, tried to relax his muscles, and stared at a yellowish patch on the wall.
---
Cowley was doing all he could. He had men out there looking for Bodie and Doyle, he had men checking through local police statements for even the tiniest clue about strangers with Russian accents or the unexpectedly flamboyant red Capri that had been seen in the area, and he was hassling forensics for every detail about Bodie’s burnt-out car, discovered hidden in undergrowth a few miles west.
He was doing all he could. It wasn’t his fault that the intelligence hadn’t come through in time, or that Bodie and Doyle had managed to find the location of the Russian number two, or that they had gone in without calling for back-up. If that was what had happened. The events were far from clear, and until they were, the situation could not be resolved. And by then it might be too late.
---
Bodie thought he must have lost consciousness for a while, because what was happening seemed oddly disjointed. But was there any sense to be made of torture anyway? For the torturer there was – a complex plan to wear down the prisoner, to give hope of freedom, to persist with questions, to withhold any respite. For the prisoner there was only pain, and no end to it unless he gave up his honour and talked.
He didn’t talk. Perhaps it was the worst moment to have professional pride, but when everything but your pride has been stripped from you and beaten, there is nothing else left. He was prepared for death, and always had been, as long as he remembered.
Nevertheless, this was not how Bodie would have chosen to die. But is there ever a better way to die than the one that comes to you? He might have died at sea, slipped overboard in a drunken stupor and never known what happened to him – completely painless. He might have died in a jungle somewhere, and at least he would have had the chance to fight back. A bomb might have taken him, sudden and unawares. His heart might have given way while he was making love to some beauty, in the height of pleasure. There was always suicide, but he was trussed up so tight that it would be very difficult to effect that end. Anyway, he would never have chosen of those.
If he could choose to die, right there and then, he would only have had one last request: that Doyle was with him. Someone who understood why he was there, why he took the punishment and didn’t talk, why he spent his life in danger. Maybe that was why men like him had a partner – someone to die with, if death cannot be prevented. But here was the end, and Doyle was not there.
---
Old ladies can always be relied on. People forget that old ladies were once young ladies, and they are no less observant or sympathetic than other civilians. A certain old lady had come into a certain police station, and told a certain policeman of something she had seen. This policeman, being of the astute and helpful variety, had immediately passed the information on to his superiors, who had in turn got in touch with CI5. And Cowley was now hurrying to piece the evidence together, to locate the rogue KGB agents who were upsetting the status quo with their covert operations, and to save Bodie and Doyle. If he could. But he was George Cowley – and by God they were his men, and he was going to save them.
---
Bodie had never been tortured so well before. He’d had short spells of incarceration, and he had been questioned violently several times. Occasions of being tied up and knocked about were scattered through his life. Ve have vays of making you talk. Don’t ve all?
Apparently his torturers didn’t like his sudden snort of laughter, and he was rewarded by a sharp slap across the face. Sharp slaps, when compared to high levels of intense nagging pain in several areas of the body, are strangely appealing – like a kind of relief, but not the sort you would choose if you could.
He laughed again.
---
It had to be the farmhouse. Had to be. All the forensics and public statements pointed that way, and there were no other suitable buildings for miles. The farm had been repossessed and was currently empty and boarded up. Had to be.
Cowley drummed his fingers on the back of the seat as Murphy drove out through the suburbs. Every moment could be crucial, could mean life or death for Doyle and Bodie.
When finally they were on the secluded road that led to the farmhouse, they came across a car abandoned by the side of the road. Murphy pulled up, and they both got out and went to examine it. Did it belong to the Russians? Did it have anything to do with the case?
Cowley looked around the front, noticing that the front wheels were splashed with mud, probably from the ford up ahead that they would have to cross to get to the famrhouse. Meanwhile, Murphy walked around to the back, and opened the boot.
“Oh God,” Murphy said, as he looked down at the dead body inside.
---
Bodie had given up making quips in reply to the questions his interrogators were asking. It wasn’t that he had run out of amusing things to say, more that it was too painful to say them. His lips were cracked and bleeding, his gums sore, his tongue too dry to feel his teeth and see if any were coming loose yet.
His hands, however, were having more luck. On several occasions his torturers had become so enthusiastic that they had knocked him sideways onto the floor, chair and all. Last time, the rope tied around his wrists had snagged on something sharp, the corner of a tile maybe, and it was beginning to fray. So all Bodie needed to do was to keep pulling at the rope, and maybe get them to knock him to the floor again and see if he could pick up the sharp thing.
That chink of light was starting to look like hope after all.
---
Cowley was not often sickened by things he saw. Disgusted, yes. Shocked, sometimes. But he had seen so much that few sights made his stomach wrench. Yet the Russians had surpassed themselves this time, because that poor boy in the boot of the car was filleted and flayed – no human being should die in such horror. Practically all that remained of him were his bones and a few locks of curled, golden hair.
---
Bodie tried laughing again, and set himself slightly to the left so that when he was hit he would fall where he wanted to. And it was successful. As the big man hauled his chair upright again, he scrabbled desperately in the dusty floor for the sharp object – where was it? But just in time he felt something, and held onto it tight.
It felt like a piece of broken tile, he thought. Whatever it was, it was jagged enough to work at his bonds until they were severed. Then, just as the interrogator was beginning his next question, the rope snapped, and Bodie was ready.
---
Cowley and Murphy continued towards the house, followed by two other CI5 cars that had arrived. They did not try to hide their approach. Perhaps they should have done – if the Russians saw them coming, they might kill Bodie and Doyle and make their escape. But then it was probably in their best interests to keep the men alive, and use them as a passport to freedom. Police and special forces back-up was on its way, and they must realise that if they had been found then they would be surrounded in no time. That’s what he had to hope.
---
The next time the big man took a swing at him, Bodie quickly jolted forward, and thrust the bit of broken tile upwards and straight into the man’s throat. The shard was lost to him now, but he was betting on being able to take the interrogator, who was much smaller and never violent himself, without a weapon.
The big man’s eyes widened as he gaped at Bodie, not understanding what had happened. He reeled backwards, clutching at his throat. In the same moment, Bodie stood and delivered a well-aimed judo blow at the interrogator’s neck.
But the interrogator was armed with a gun. Of course he was. Just Bodie’s luck. Although the small man was winded by the attack, he was holding the weapon steadily enough, straight at Bodie’s forehead.
Then they both heard it: the roar of engines and the screech of tyres. Someone was outside. The interrogator looked taken aback at this, so clearly it was not an expected visit.
Bodie took advantage of that moment of uncertainty to strike out with his elbow, catching the small man squarely in the stomach and causing him to fall to his knees with the force of the blow. Bodie kicked the gun from his hand, and bent down to pick it up.
Now that the adrenaline had finished its rushing, he realised that every single part of his body was exploding in agony from the extra exertion. Part of him wanted to shoot the interrogator there and then. But the Russian knew he was beaten, with the big man out of action, choking on his own blood in a heap in the corner of the room. He raised his hands, and Bodie let him stand.
Just then, the door opened, and Murphy stood at the door with his gun poised, ready to face the enemy. “Blimey, Bodie,” he said, both in admiration that he was clearly in the process of escaping and in disgust at the state of him, bloody and battered. It had taken a few moments even to recognise who it was standing there.
“Have you seen Doyle?” Bodie croaked, his voice hoarse and dry.
But Murphy didn’t, couldn’t answer.
---
Cowley was in the other part of the farmhouse, with other CI5 agents kicking open doors around him, shouting warnings and pointing guns. He followed in their wake, looking sadly around at the abandoned place.
Then, one of them beckoned to him. “Here, sir.”
He followed the man quickly, and went into a little room with boarded windows. “Get a torch, man!” he barked, his eyes taking longer to adjust to the low light that they used to. Then he realised that there was a figure sat in a chair in the room’s centre. He went closer, and one of the agents brought a torch, and he was shocked to see that it was Doyle in the chair. So the man in the boot of the car wasn’t him! But Doyle wasn’t looking back at him.
---
Bodie walked slowly along the corridor that ran through the centre of the farmhouse, heading towards the wing where Cowley was. Every step introduced him to a new level of pain, but he pressed on anyway, gritting his teeth just as he had while he was being tortured.
One of the young CI5 agents pulled his gun at the sight of Bodie, bloodied and shambling like a zombie from a Night of the Living Dead. But Bodie waved a hand. “Put it away, Lang, you idiot. Where’s Cowley?”
The lad just pointed, shocked when he realised that the creature was a man he knew well, who must have undergone terrible things to be in that state.
Bodie shambled past, and into the room where Cowley was. That’s when he saw Doyle, tied to the chair, gagged, his head flopped backwards at an unnatural angle, his hair matted with blood. Cowley crouched by him, a tender hand extending towards Doyle’s neck to look for a pulse.
“Sir,” Bodie said quietly from the doorway. The single word said everything it needed to: is he alive?
Cowley looked up for a moment, in which the merest twinge of his mouth showed that he had registered Bodie’s presence and what must have happened to him, but then he returned to Doyle and felt his throat. For a few moments his hand groped about, looking for the right spot, feeling for the weakest of traces. Bodie gulped, and felt the tears pricking at the back of his eyes.
Suddenly Cowley gasped. “He’s alive! Someone get an ambulance, now!”
---
The next few hours, and days, were much the same: one kind of pain followed by another, with bouts of what must have been sleep in between. When Bodie was awake, he got updates about Doyle: he had been operated on, he was recovering physically, but he was still unconscious. If he didn’t regain consciousness soon, they would officially call it a coma.
But one day, Cowley came in to see Bodie, and he had the most wonderful news: Doyle was awake, and complaining about his partner having paid more attention to his packed lunch that surveillance, because if he had been watching that ridge he would have spotted the Russians and they would never have been captured.
“Tell him to tell me himself,” Bodie said with a smile.
Before long, Doyle was moved to the ward, and given the privilege of occupying the bed next to Bodie’s. They talked about many things, and argued a lot, but playfully. In one sense they were glad to be alive. But what they never talked about was what they had been through at the farmhouse: the torture, the pain, the inner thoughts that can only occur when you are that desperate. Best not to speak about that. Maybe one day they would both be ready to face it, and when that day came at least they would have each other for solace, at least they would have someone who understood what it had been like. Perhaps that was what partners were for after all – someone to share everything with, not just death.
Cowley became quite a regular visitor – because he felt guilty about letting them get hurt, Bodie and Doyle surmised when he wasn’t there. One particular day, Cowley came in rather late, clutching a brown paper bag. “Well then lads,” he said, smiling. “How are you today?”
“You’re looking very jocular today, sir,” Doyle said, before looking over at Bodie and bursting into laughter at his own joke. “Jock-ular!”
Bodie rolled his eyes. “Don’t mind him sir, they had to remove his brain while they were operating.”
Cowley laughed and sat down on a chair that was positioned between their beds. “Now then, I suppose you know what night it is tonight?”
Bodie and Doyle looked at each other, frowning and wondering if they had forgotten something. Not that it was easy to keep track of time in a hospital ward – well, not in any other sense than knowing which nurse was going to be on duty.
Cowley shook his head, pretending shock at their ignorance. “Why, it’s Burns Night of course! And I have a decent pure malt scotch here to prove it.”
Author: Rochvelleth
Title: I Torture Hate
Pairing: B/D (but not much action, sorry!)
Notes: I was given a prompt by BSL that was a poem by Burns, included at the top of the story. Further notes are up there. Erm, I may sort of accidentally have written something very dark and not very celebratory at all... but I tried to make up for it at the end!
Disclaimer: I own the farmhouse and the interrogator and his strong man, and the red Capri because I made those up!
---
I murder hate by flood or field,
Tho' glory's name may screen us;
In wars at home I'll spend my blood-
Life-giving wars of Venus.
The deities that I adore
Are social Peace and Plenty;
I'm better pleas'd to make one more,
Than be the death of twenty.
I would not die like Socrates,
For all the fuss of Plato;
Nor would I with Leonidas,
Nor yet would I with Cato:
The zealots of the Church and State
Shall ne'er my mortal foes be;
But let me have bold Zimri's fate,
Within the arms of Cozbi!
I Torture Hate
Bodie didn’t know whether Doyle was alive. For the last two days, all he had known was pain and darkness. The tiny glint of sunlight forcing its way through a crack in the boarded windows was not the glimmer of hope but an agonising reminder that there was something beyond this dismal room – a mission to finish, and a partner to save if he could be saved.
The ropes cut into his wrists and ankles. His face felt caked with dried blood. His shirt was hanging off. If Doyle could see him now, he’d untie his ropes and tell him what a state he looked.
Just then, the door creaked open, and the glare of electric light flooded in, making Bodie blink. A tall man stood in the door, a giant and threatening silhouette, and beside him the interrogator.
Bodie gritted his teeth, tried to relax his muscles, and stared at a yellowish patch on the wall.
---
Cowley was doing all he could. He had men out there looking for Bodie and Doyle, he had men checking through local police statements for even the tiniest clue about strangers with Russian accents or the unexpectedly flamboyant red Capri that had been seen in the area, and he was hassling forensics for every detail about Bodie’s burnt-out car, discovered hidden in undergrowth a few miles west.
He was doing all he could. It wasn’t his fault that the intelligence hadn’t come through in time, or that Bodie and Doyle had managed to find the location of the Russian number two, or that they had gone in without calling for back-up. If that was what had happened. The events were far from clear, and until they were, the situation could not be resolved. And by then it might be too late.
---
Bodie thought he must have lost consciousness for a while, because what was happening seemed oddly disjointed. But was there any sense to be made of torture anyway? For the torturer there was – a complex plan to wear down the prisoner, to give hope of freedom, to persist with questions, to withhold any respite. For the prisoner there was only pain, and no end to it unless he gave up his honour and talked.
He didn’t talk. Perhaps it was the worst moment to have professional pride, but when everything but your pride has been stripped from you and beaten, there is nothing else left. He was prepared for death, and always had been, as long as he remembered.
Nevertheless, this was not how Bodie would have chosen to die. But is there ever a better way to die than the one that comes to you? He might have died at sea, slipped overboard in a drunken stupor and never known what happened to him – completely painless. He might have died in a jungle somewhere, and at least he would have had the chance to fight back. A bomb might have taken him, sudden and unawares. His heart might have given way while he was making love to some beauty, in the height of pleasure. There was always suicide, but he was trussed up so tight that it would be very difficult to effect that end. Anyway, he would never have chosen of those.
If he could choose to die, right there and then, he would only have had one last request: that Doyle was with him. Someone who understood why he was there, why he took the punishment and didn’t talk, why he spent his life in danger. Maybe that was why men like him had a partner – someone to die with, if death cannot be prevented. But here was the end, and Doyle was not there.
---
Old ladies can always be relied on. People forget that old ladies were once young ladies, and they are no less observant or sympathetic than other civilians. A certain old lady had come into a certain police station, and told a certain policeman of something she had seen. This policeman, being of the astute and helpful variety, had immediately passed the information on to his superiors, who had in turn got in touch with CI5. And Cowley was now hurrying to piece the evidence together, to locate the rogue KGB agents who were upsetting the status quo with their covert operations, and to save Bodie and Doyle. If he could. But he was George Cowley – and by God they were his men, and he was going to save them.
---
Bodie had never been tortured so well before. He’d had short spells of incarceration, and he had been questioned violently several times. Occasions of being tied up and knocked about were scattered through his life. Ve have vays of making you talk. Don’t ve all?
Apparently his torturers didn’t like his sudden snort of laughter, and he was rewarded by a sharp slap across the face. Sharp slaps, when compared to high levels of intense nagging pain in several areas of the body, are strangely appealing – like a kind of relief, but not the sort you would choose if you could.
He laughed again.
---
It had to be the farmhouse. Had to be. All the forensics and public statements pointed that way, and there were no other suitable buildings for miles. The farm had been repossessed and was currently empty and boarded up. Had to be.
Cowley drummed his fingers on the back of the seat as Murphy drove out through the suburbs. Every moment could be crucial, could mean life or death for Doyle and Bodie.
When finally they were on the secluded road that led to the farmhouse, they came across a car abandoned by the side of the road. Murphy pulled up, and they both got out and went to examine it. Did it belong to the Russians? Did it have anything to do with the case?
Cowley looked around the front, noticing that the front wheels were splashed with mud, probably from the ford up ahead that they would have to cross to get to the famrhouse. Meanwhile, Murphy walked around to the back, and opened the boot.
“Oh God,” Murphy said, as he looked down at the dead body inside.
---
Bodie had given up making quips in reply to the questions his interrogators were asking. It wasn’t that he had run out of amusing things to say, more that it was too painful to say them. His lips were cracked and bleeding, his gums sore, his tongue too dry to feel his teeth and see if any were coming loose yet.
His hands, however, were having more luck. On several occasions his torturers had become so enthusiastic that they had knocked him sideways onto the floor, chair and all. Last time, the rope tied around his wrists had snagged on something sharp, the corner of a tile maybe, and it was beginning to fray. So all Bodie needed to do was to keep pulling at the rope, and maybe get them to knock him to the floor again and see if he could pick up the sharp thing.
That chink of light was starting to look like hope after all.
---
Cowley was not often sickened by things he saw. Disgusted, yes. Shocked, sometimes. But he had seen so much that few sights made his stomach wrench. Yet the Russians had surpassed themselves this time, because that poor boy in the boot of the car was filleted and flayed – no human being should die in such horror. Practically all that remained of him were his bones and a few locks of curled, golden hair.
---
Bodie tried laughing again, and set himself slightly to the left so that when he was hit he would fall where he wanted to. And it was successful. As the big man hauled his chair upright again, he scrabbled desperately in the dusty floor for the sharp object – where was it? But just in time he felt something, and held onto it tight.
It felt like a piece of broken tile, he thought. Whatever it was, it was jagged enough to work at his bonds until they were severed. Then, just as the interrogator was beginning his next question, the rope snapped, and Bodie was ready.
---
Cowley and Murphy continued towards the house, followed by two other CI5 cars that had arrived. They did not try to hide their approach. Perhaps they should have done – if the Russians saw them coming, they might kill Bodie and Doyle and make their escape. But then it was probably in their best interests to keep the men alive, and use them as a passport to freedom. Police and special forces back-up was on its way, and they must realise that if they had been found then they would be surrounded in no time. That’s what he had to hope.
---
The next time the big man took a swing at him, Bodie quickly jolted forward, and thrust the bit of broken tile upwards and straight into the man’s throat. The shard was lost to him now, but he was betting on being able to take the interrogator, who was much smaller and never violent himself, without a weapon.
The big man’s eyes widened as he gaped at Bodie, not understanding what had happened. He reeled backwards, clutching at his throat. In the same moment, Bodie stood and delivered a well-aimed judo blow at the interrogator’s neck.
But the interrogator was armed with a gun. Of course he was. Just Bodie’s luck. Although the small man was winded by the attack, he was holding the weapon steadily enough, straight at Bodie’s forehead.
Then they both heard it: the roar of engines and the screech of tyres. Someone was outside. The interrogator looked taken aback at this, so clearly it was not an expected visit.
Bodie took advantage of that moment of uncertainty to strike out with his elbow, catching the small man squarely in the stomach and causing him to fall to his knees with the force of the blow. Bodie kicked the gun from his hand, and bent down to pick it up.
Now that the adrenaline had finished its rushing, he realised that every single part of his body was exploding in agony from the extra exertion. Part of him wanted to shoot the interrogator there and then. But the Russian knew he was beaten, with the big man out of action, choking on his own blood in a heap in the corner of the room. He raised his hands, and Bodie let him stand.
Just then, the door opened, and Murphy stood at the door with his gun poised, ready to face the enemy. “Blimey, Bodie,” he said, both in admiration that he was clearly in the process of escaping and in disgust at the state of him, bloody and battered. It had taken a few moments even to recognise who it was standing there.
“Have you seen Doyle?” Bodie croaked, his voice hoarse and dry.
But Murphy didn’t, couldn’t answer.
---
Cowley was in the other part of the farmhouse, with other CI5 agents kicking open doors around him, shouting warnings and pointing guns. He followed in their wake, looking sadly around at the abandoned place.
Then, one of them beckoned to him. “Here, sir.”
He followed the man quickly, and went into a little room with boarded windows. “Get a torch, man!” he barked, his eyes taking longer to adjust to the low light that they used to. Then he realised that there was a figure sat in a chair in the room’s centre. He went closer, and one of the agents brought a torch, and he was shocked to see that it was Doyle in the chair. So the man in the boot of the car wasn’t him! But Doyle wasn’t looking back at him.
---
Bodie walked slowly along the corridor that ran through the centre of the farmhouse, heading towards the wing where Cowley was. Every step introduced him to a new level of pain, but he pressed on anyway, gritting his teeth just as he had while he was being tortured.
One of the young CI5 agents pulled his gun at the sight of Bodie, bloodied and shambling like a zombie from a Night of the Living Dead. But Bodie waved a hand. “Put it away, Lang, you idiot. Where’s Cowley?”
The lad just pointed, shocked when he realised that the creature was a man he knew well, who must have undergone terrible things to be in that state.
Bodie shambled past, and into the room where Cowley was. That’s when he saw Doyle, tied to the chair, gagged, his head flopped backwards at an unnatural angle, his hair matted with blood. Cowley crouched by him, a tender hand extending towards Doyle’s neck to look for a pulse.
“Sir,” Bodie said quietly from the doorway. The single word said everything it needed to: is he alive?
Cowley looked up for a moment, in which the merest twinge of his mouth showed that he had registered Bodie’s presence and what must have happened to him, but then he returned to Doyle and felt his throat. For a few moments his hand groped about, looking for the right spot, feeling for the weakest of traces. Bodie gulped, and felt the tears pricking at the back of his eyes.
Suddenly Cowley gasped. “He’s alive! Someone get an ambulance, now!”
---
The next few hours, and days, were much the same: one kind of pain followed by another, with bouts of what must have been sleep in between. When Bodie was awake, he got updates about Doyle: he had been operated on, he was recovering physically, but he was still unconscious. If he didn’t regain consciousness soon, they would officially call it a coma.
But one day, Cowley came in to see Bodie, and he had the most wonderful news: Doyle was awake, and complaining about his partner having paid more attention to his packed lunch that surveillance, because if he had been watching that ridge he would have spotted the Russians and they would never have been captured.
“Tell him to tell me himself,” Bodie said with a smile.
Before long, Doyle was moved to the ward, and given the privilege of occupying the bed next to Bodie’s. They talked about many things, and argued a lot, but playfully. In one sense they were glad to be alive. But what they never talked about was what they had been through at the farmhouse: the torture, the pain, the inner thoughts that can only occur when you are that desperate. Best not to speak about that. Maybe one day they would both be ready to face it, and when that day came at least they would have each other for solace, at least they would have someone who understood what it had been like. Perhaps that was what partners were for after all – someone to share everything with, not just death.
Cowley became quite a regular visitor – because he felt guilty about letting them get hurt, Bodie and Doyle surmised when he wasn’t there. One particular day, Cowley came in rather late, clutching a brown paper bag. “Well then lads,” he said, smiling. “How are you today?”
“You’re looking very jocular today, sir,” Doyle said, before looking over at Bodie and bursting into laughter at his own joke. “Jock-ular!”
Bodie rolled his eyes. “Don’t mind him sir, they had to remove his brain while they were operating.”
Cowley laughed and sat down on a chair that was positioned between their beds. “Now then, I suppose you know what night it is tonight?”
Bodie and Doyle looked at each other, frowning and wondering if they had forgotten something. Not that it was easy to keep track of time in a hospital ward – well, not in any other sense than knowing which nurse was going to be on duty.
Cowley shook his head, pretending shock at their ignorance. “Why, it’s Burns Night of course! And I have a decent pure malt scotch here to prove it.”
Author: Rochvelleth
Title: I Torture Hate
Pairing: B/D (but not much action, sorry!)
Notes: I was given a prompt by BSL that was a poem by Burns, included at the top of the story. Further notes are up there. Erm, I may sort of accidentally have written something very dark and not very celebratory at all... but I tried to make up for it at the end!
Disclaimer: I own the farmhouse and the interrogator and his strong man, and the red Capri because I made those up!
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-25 07:05 pm (UTC)Good job with the imagery and the pacing.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-25 08:08 pm (UTC)Thanks. It was nice having them end up sharing a drop with Cowley.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-25 09:00 pm (UTC)Thank you for an excellent if uncomfortable ride!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-25 10:02 pm (UTC)Yeah. A pretty harrowing way for them to realize that, but...yeah.*g*
Thank you! Nicely done.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-25 10:50 pm (UTC)Thanks for posting!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 09:44 am (UTC)Thank you for this!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 03:23 pm (UTC)He had men checking......he had men looking....... and a certain old lady........a certain police station.......a certain policeman – I liked that – it made everything more pressing, more urgent. (I loved your observations of old ladies).
And Bodie’s homespun philosophy and reflections on torture and death – I can just *see* him accepting death like that at the end - almost with a shrug - pragmatic and philosophical about everything.....except Doyle.
Very nice. Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 02:32 pm (UTC)