discoveredinalj | Discovered in Temptation

I know you've all been waiting impatiently for the hubris. Say what? That wasn't it, eh? Oh well, here it is, anyway.

Contrary Virtue

Part Three.

They fled until they drooped and dropped.

Then after they'd sucked at Bodie's canteen and panted desperately awhile, they ran some more.

They scrambled through montane patches and waded past muddy wallows, bandanas shrouding their faces to avoid inhaling the insect swarms. They clambered up rocky terrain, teetered on terrifying heights, slid down crumbling slopes, sometimes on their boot soles, occasionally on their knees or rumps. When gravity took over, they tumbled and fell, tearing their sleeves and trouser legs, bloodying their extremities.

Recovering from plunges, they plucked each other out of the scrub and ran again.

They were equally hearty, both of a similar young age and very fit. But RD seemed strangely biddable, entirely open to commands. Eventually Bodie worried about the man's drugged status. If ordered to do so, would he run until he burst an artery and haemorrhaged to death?

Bodie's concern caused him to enforce a prolonged halt. The shadows were lengthening again, the sun subsiding toward their sought horizon. The escape attempt had lasted many hours that day.

"Enough!" Bodie called out. "That's it for me, I've had it. You?"

RD collapsed to his knees. Otherwise, there appeared no acknowledgment of Bodie's presence.

Testing his supremacy, Bodie decided to push commandment as far as it would go.

"Look at me." This resulted in a vague stare in his direction.

"Say something. Talk to me." Nothing. Well, maybe RD actually was incapable of speech.

"Take off your shirt." That instruction got prompt obedience. Sighing, Bodie pulled out his first aid kit. Might as well seize the opportunity to treat the other's numerous lacerations and abrasions.

"Rest your head in my lap." He did.

Inspiration struck. "Lick my crotch." Bloody hell!

"Awright, awright. Enough. Cease and desist." Bodie grabbed at the gleaming white shoulders and firmly uprighted the man. Then he shifted to ease his swelling erection.

RD's glare drew his attention. Was there really hatred in the look? Or was it the canted feline eyes, slitted against the sunset flare, which rendered the expression so wicked?

"Bodie old son," he cautioned himself, "yer trifling with death and destruction here."

He spoke up. "One thing's certain. You're not naturally subservient, not by the longest chalk. Listen, I'm sorry. I won't do it again, I swear it. Let me disinfect your cuts, would you?"

RD dropped again into ennui. Bodie eased closer to touch the translucent flesh. It was lovely stuff and seemed to go on for miles. Under his fingers, it quivered.

Bodie inched away. "Maybe you'd better do me first. Here, this one's for cleaning the damage. Then this tube's got some antibiotic stuff or other. Go easy on it. We'll need to make it last awhile." He paused to unroll his bedding, then stripped to his skivvies and dropped luxuriously down. The feel of RD's hands soothing his hurts was extreme pleasure.

"You're not stupid either, whatever Malderk said. Perhaps a tetch tapped, though. Wonder if you offed him. Did you slash Malderk's throat maybe, just for grins? But how'd you get rid of the body so fast? Found a stray leopard to feed? Ha."

RD stared down at his hands. But Bodie perceived it wasn't a display of guilt. Rather his own shift in position had rendered impractical the prior order to tend his injuries, leaving the man clueless what to do next.

Bodie shook his head. "You think I did it? Might well have done. On the short list of suspects, I am. He rated it, didn't he? Asked for it. But no, I've another pursuit just at present, can't be distracted. Or couldn't, rather. Past tense. You really cocked it all up royally. Left me holding a mess kit fulla shit."

He shifted to tend RD's back. "That Old Man wallop you? Took a strap to your hide, eh? There's another one got what was coming to him. Justice, righteous retribution. He had to have been a natural born bamstick to hand you a weapon like that."

Bodie grasped one lean shoulder firmly, steadying the reflexive cringe that came at each touch of stinging antiseptic. "You willing to drop trou? Can treat your own legs all right. But there's some nasty shredding back of your thighs you'd best let me clean."

The suggestion brought no return. Bodie groaned aloud. "Take off your trousers."

RD stood to shed them.

Efficiently, Bodie dressed the oozing sores, then handed the supplies back to RD, to finish his knees and calves.

Soliloquy was wearing extremely thin.

"I'm being punished, I swear. But for which sin, I wonder? Can probably name them all. Let's see here. Dopey, Grumpy, wait, no, that's the seven dwarves. Try over. Hanging Gardens, Colossus at Rhodes. Fuck, wrong again. Seven wonders and that lot. Hmmm, let's see, what can it be?"

He scratched his chin, rumpled his hair, contorted his face, glanced at his comrade.

For once RD was looking at him. Maybe the foolish buffoonery had torn through the fog a moment.

Bodie smirked. RD quirked. Ha, gotcha. Definitely something there.

"Awright, sins, yeah, s'all coming back to me now. Seven sins. Lemme see. Avarice? Naw, not that one. See, here, you can keep a secret, right? 'M not really a merc sodjer. Not any more, any rate. Just playing at it. So, not avarice, see? In Her Majesty's service, scanty paycheque, honour and duty and that sort of muck."

RD had his nether lip between his teeth.

"Hungry? Hang about." He rummaged in his pack. "What with your fleeing in the gloom of night, nearly nakey bum, nothing save your boot laces to eat, we're gonna have to share. Mere desiccated food bars and salt biltong between us. Shortly we'll be gnawing off limbs, I don't doubt."

He tossed a packet to a blank visaged RD, then retrieved and opened it before handing it to him with the succinct instruction, "Eat that."

He launched into his own rations. "I would say it'll put hair on your chest, but any more hirsute and it would start to weigh you down. Scrawny fuzzer. But you savvy what they say, right? The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat."

He sipped out of his canteen, then helped RD to a swallow. "So, so, so. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Not gluttony. No chance of that at all." Chuckling, he patted the tense concavity of his belly.

"Lust?" He eyed the other from curls to fingers, arse to toes, over the thighs and back up again, settling at last on the chapped but full lips. "I'm resisting. Right here, right now. Right." The mutter sank to sotto voce. "Right."

"Got it." Bodie snapped his fingers, but they were too dusty to make much noise. "Hubris. Got to be it. Let me tell you, mate. Willem Handjob Pirrip Bodie, SAS sergeant supreme, at yer service. Seconded so often it'd make your head spin. Everyone wants pretty Willem on the job. And this assignment topped the lot. Change the course of the war, single-handed. The right man for the task, yeah. The Increment was guarding me like the crown jewels, MI drooling for me favours. Arrangements were made, negotiations occurred. Deals over me, yeah, me. Valuable commodity, regular resource I am. Ha. Was gonna show them all how it was done."

He leaned toward RD, low voiced and husky. "Supposed to be an assassination attempt planned against the old fart. Generalissimo Whattsahoozit. But would that event favour Our Lot or Theirs? Was supposed to find out. Study the situation. Make my determination. Prevent the assassination. Or not, my choice. Mine, alone."

He thumped his chest, a loud thud. "Weeks, I tell you. Weeks I was at it. Wonderful cover, with my merc experience and contacts. All the info you'd ever need, at me finger tips, finally. Studying it out, hard at it, night and day. And for what? Fuck all good it did me, being perfect."

He shook his head forlornly. "Huh. Don't need to tell you. Were there for the punch line, poor little rotten feisty sod. General got what he had coming to him, no lie. Arsehole attempted buggery of a tiger. "

He glanced up then.

RD's look was somewhere around Andromeda, he reckoned. "Can see you enjoyed me tragic tale. Broke yer heart, didn't it?" He dressed, then shook out his blanket and crawled under it.

"Put on all your clothes and fasten them tight. At this altitude, night will bung over baltic, trust me."

He savoured the show, every detail of the event, all the while wondering why the man's movements were so delectable to him.

The first stars were showing now, brilliant, far scattered, precious, the glittering panoply which rewarded the lonely traveller only in the darkest places on earth.

"Come here and lie down." He turned on his side and patted the narrow mat. "Or you'll turn into an ice lolly by sunrise. And then I'll eat ya. Come here."

RD came to him then.

"All the way up against me, so I can cover us both. That's it. Toasty warm."

Bodie touched the curls for comfort. It was good, was nice. He clasped the slim body.

The universe whirled and twirled, velvet and gems, all around them, just for them.

Bodie didn't give a damn for sin.

Temptation might be another matter.

He sighed, then slept.

Title: Contrary Virtue
Author: asymphototropic [attracted toward the light but never quite arrives]
Slash or Gen: slash
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: yes
Disclaimer: No infringement intended, the author does not own "The Professionals"