Discovered in Temptation
Mar. 1st, 2007 11:32 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
asymphototropic.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
discoveredinaljThink I managed to mention all seven sins, without lingering over any of them. And just a brief glimpse of Eden on the path back to the mundane.
Contrary Virtue
Part Four.
"Fire and brimstone. Just what I need to render life ducky."
Bodie awoke feeling feverish. "Vaccinated and quinined to the gills against every ill known to modern man. And then I, like a playground babby, succumb to a human bite."
RD squirmed away from his grip and staggered to the edge of their overlook. He stood on the brink a moment, like he might be about to take the plunge.
Thoroughly alarmed, Bodie heard his pulse pounding in his facial arteries. "Careful not to fall," he croaked. Oh great, that sound would certainly soothe any suicidal tendencies.
RD ignored him anyway. His stare pinioned to the horizon, he fumbled at his flies, drew forth his prick and watered the scenery far below.
"Jay-sue-us! Scared the life out of me." Shivering miserably, Bodie crawled to the cliff side, dragged himself to sitting, and dangled his feet over the edge. He glanced up.
RD had left his hammer hanging. The man seemed capable of responding instinctually to basic animal urges, but his fragmented intellect left some of his civilised behaviour rather wanting.
With his mane of curls, aquiline profile, and innocent cock, RD seemed to be attempting a surrealist impression of Michelangelo's David. The long, drooping fingers, directionless in aim, aided the image.
"Tuck yerself in again, there's a good lad. Fasten it. That's right, all tidy. Sit down here, easy does it. Don't pitch forward. Ah. Exhilarating view, innit?"
Bodie smoothed the other's frowsy hair. "I'm all over burnt toast, got a fever this morning and it's your fault. There I was trying to help you get away from the General, and you went and bit me. Pretty deep I guess." He palpated the impression RD's teeth had left in the tight bulge of his neck muscles. It felt nasty, tender and inflamed.
"Give a tinker's damn? Nah, not you. You're a hellion in a brawl, y' know that? Furious little spitfire. Hm, how's that piece go? 'No pale gradations quench his ray, no twilight dews his wrath allay.' Huh, wha'? What's wrong now?"
RD had scrambled to his feet and hastily backed away from Bodie.
"Erm, you hate Walter Scott? Revile Rokeby? Despise poetry in general, me quoting in particular? Afraid of catching the plague? Or what? Hold still, stay, come back. I promise, I'll keep me musings to meself in future, okay?"
Bodie dragged himself back to his gear and sorted through the comestibles. "Freeze dried cereal plank. Yum in the tum, and rumpity plum. Here you go, take it. I'm safe to approach. Couldn't consummate, even with the urge, trust me. 'M wasted, rubbish, latrine dregs."
RD inched forward to crouch beside him.
Bodie unwrapped the ration before handing it to him. "Eat that," he ordered. Then he yanked him down, off his haunches to settle more comfortably. "Relax. Enjoy."
RD contentedly munched.
Bodie could order the man to be happy, and succeed? Who knew?
"Forgive me."
RD glared at him. Ah, too good to be true, that last reprieve.
"Awright. So I'm incorrigible, contemptible, unforgivable, you've got the ruddy right to resent. Acknowledged. At least let me explain?"
RD resumed eating. Bodie took it for grudging permission.
"See here. You seem like the sort of bloke that understands duty. Maybe even subscribes to it? Least you strike me that way. 'Strike me', that's brilliant. Pun, hor har." He ruefully massaged his wounded neck. "Um, strayed again. Where? Oh yar. That nasty trick yesterday, where I had you lick the gemstones. See, I get into mission mode. Locked on target. You stand in the way and get blasted. I want you to be on my side, don't I? But for all I know, I'm aiding and abetting, giving comfort to the enemy. Not the ticket at all, that."
RD had finished the food and was trying to pry the dried remnants from his parched gums with his wriggling pink tongue.
Bodie cringed. "Here, wash out yer moosh. There's likely water downhill from here." He handed over the canteen.
"Quit interrupting, I'm trying to make amends. So. Was testing you. Thought you might be faking the drug drama. Sprung something filthy on you, just to see if you'd follow through on the order. And you did. Quite. Ahem."
He felt a stirring in his loins at the recollection.
"If I'd thought about it, maybe I wouldn't have. Even though, duty wise, I should have. Had to do over again, I might not. Dunno. Kyrie-iced, I feel like great heaving volumes of shite."
He dropped his face into his hands. There was a long pause while the whole mountainside felt unstable beneath him.
Then he got a nudge in his ribs.
RD was staring at him rather solemnly. He reached a slim hand into the depths of his knee pocket and brought out a grimy handkerchief. Carefully he unfolded it, revealing several grubby chunks that looked like petrified potatoes. Extracting one from the trove, he popped it into his mouth and started chewing. Then he elbowed Bodie again.
Bodie examined the stash. "Hullo. Been consorting with the natives? Got you some rabassma root there. Hear it's good for what ails you. What the hell." He shrugged, picked out a bit and started grinding it with his molars. It had a faint flavour of curry, with an underlying essence of laundry lint.
"Scrumptious. Ta."
Meanwhile, RD poured a small splash of bug repellent into his palm. Then he spat the macerated pulp of rabassma root into it and stirred the mess with his fingertip.
Before Bodie knew enough to dodge, RD slapped his mucky palm against the bite mark and massaged it.
Bodie's eyes slammed shut and he shuddered. "Eck."
RD continued to rub. And wonder of wonders, after several minutes, the wound felt better.
"Damn. Who'd have thought it? My mate the witch doctor. Dunno which is worse, the complaint or the cure."
He collapsed back on the bedroll and drifted into a strange almost-waking dream state. In it, the morning sun rose, along with a black-shouldered kite who soared an hour or more on a thermal without once stroking his widespread wings. Confused with the image of the grand raptor's flight was a view of RD, the brilliant light beams stroking his zephyr-stirred curls. And then it was the man's slender fingers, stroking softly over Bodie's face, stirring a nameless yearning in his gut that was a hurtful stinging stab.
Eventually Bodie drifted back to some version of reality. He sat up with his senses reeling. "RD? I should be sweating but I'm not. We've got to climb down, find water." All very well to say it, but his feet seemed to have taken root in the rocks.
RD picked up the canteen, and stood as if to depart.
"Nah, tha's no good. Not safe to split up. Pack the gear. We'll walk together. Together or not at all."
RD nodded his head. The whole time he was rolling the bedding and settling the gear in Bodie's pack, his head continued to nod.
The monotonous swaying rhythm became painful to Bodie, until with a grimace, he pressed RD's cheeks between his hands to stop the tedious motion.
Bodie laughed at the comical appearance of the face squished by his pressing paws. When he released the captive, he patted the features.
"Aren't the two of us a grand pair?"
They took off with a certain earnest energy. Between stumbling and sliding, they made it down the scree slopes faster than they'd intended.
At the base, they were rewarded with the sound of rushing water.
"Is that not a beautiful sight?"
The silver thread materialised out of nowhere, veiled in a thin glittering mist, danced over smooth stones with a charming gurgle and the world's smallest rainbow, only to sink back into the dank underworld a few paces away.
"Would love to sip it sweet. But safer to kill the grange grunge first." Bodie filled the canteen and treated it with a sprinkle of bitter crystals. "We can drink our fill. And then have a lovely dhoby. What do you say? Shall we get nekkid and squeaky?" And he splashed RD playfully.
The dripping face that stared back at him was suddenly afire with rage.
Before Bodie could even contemplate defence, the furious soul flung itself upon him with lunatic strength. They fell hard upon the rocks and sprawled painfully.
With a feral snarl, RD reached beyond Bodie, grabbed up a flaming branch, which with arcane possession transmogrified into a fiery, hissing serpent, writhing and coiling in the man's fist.
He stood clutching it in some sort of hypnotised fascination before rearing back and flinging it as far as his strength could carry.
So astonished was Bodie that he could only blink and stare.
RD sank down to the dirt, clutching his fists in his hair, chin cradled on his knees, rocking his knotted body in a turmoil of unspent anger.
Bodie bided his time. Then he risked a closer proximity. He touched the muscular back cautiously. "You're mad at the snake, right? Not your pretty chum, Bodie. Never, ever at your lovely, sweet Bodie?"
RD took no notice of him yet.
Bodie crept his hand up the sleek shoulders, sneaked under the curls to soothe the tender flesh on the back of his neck. Nosed nearer to mutter in his ear. "You looking out after your mate, Bodie? Didn't want the snake to bite me? Scared it might have hurt me? Well, I should have kept better watch for meself. Call myself an expert. Ha. But she was only a smallish Cape Coral snake. Not so fiercesome as facing an adder or their family and friends. Tales I could tell you, would curl your hair. But maybe by the look of you, you've heard them all already?"
RD stilled.
Bodie carefully extracted the man's fists from his hair. "Your head ache, maybe? Wonder if there's any withdrawal from the drugs going on. Lemme feel here." His fingertips settled over the pounding carotid pulse. "Not the happy camper just now, huh? Well, you come and get some cool water on you. And me too. And we'll start to feel better, soon, won't we just?"
RD flopped face down.
Bodie rolled him over, gave him a once over. Adrenaline overdose, he reckoned. He fetched both bandanas, drenched in cool water, folded one over RD's forehead. Bathed his own florid face with the other.
"Not going to stop washing til I'm soggy down to me toes."
RD's eyelashes fluttered in a ridiculously girlish expression.
"And welcome back." Bodie gave him a hand up.
Suddenly, licking his lips, RD leaned forward and nuzzled Bodie, a quick, humorous touch, just in front of his left ear lobe.
It tickled. Bodie chuckled.
RD pushed his sleeve up to his elbow and studied the pale surface of his forearm.
"Hey, did she get you?" Bodie grasped the wrist and quickly assessed the exposed limb, finding the twin puncture marks just below the area where healing needle tracks showed.
He cursed aloud, a long steady stream. "It's forgivable. I'm cursing for two, here," he explained after his mouth ran dry of spittle. "If that isn't a case of the biter, bitten. The bad news is there's no anti-venom for a Cape Coral. But that's lucky if you think about it, because we wouldn't have any out here. And the good news is, the reason there's no anti-venom for a Cape Coral is it's not generally a lethal bite. Just painful. Don't you love that phrase? Just. Ha. Well, now we can be utterly wretched together. Come on. Let's find us a site for a lie down, and then pass out."
He wrapped his arm around the slender waist and grabbed the belt there. Leaning upon each other, they made their way to the shadowed shelter of a nearby cliff. Then they lay upon the bedroll, waiting for the day to turn again into night.
The ancient hulk of mountain at their backs, a vast stretch of grassland whispering before them, the creatures, rare and striving there, were so far distant as to fade into non-entity.
Which left them alone together, taking what comfort they could in rest and company.
It sufficed.
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"
Contrary Virtue
Part Four.
"Fire and brimstone. Just what I need to render life ducky."
Bodie awoke feeling feverish. "Vaccinated and quinined to the gills against every ill known to modern man. And then I, like a playground babby, succumb to a human bite."
RD squirmed away from his grip and staggered to the edge of their overlook. He stood on the brink a moment, like he might be about to take the plunge.
Thoroughly alarmed, Bodie heard his pulse pounding in his facial arteries. "Careful not to fall," he croaked. Oh great, that sound would certainly soothe any suicidal tendencies.
RD ignored him anyway. His stare pinioned to the horizon, he fumbled at his flies, drew forth his prick and watered the scenery far below.
"Jay-sue-us! Scared the life out of me." Shivering miserably, Bodie crawled to the cliff side, dragged himself to sitting, and dangled his feet over the edge. He glanced up.
RD had left his hammer hanging. The man seemed capable of responding instinctually to basic animal urges, but his fragmented intellect left some of his civilised behaviour rather wanting.
With his mane of curls, aquiline profile, and innocent cock, RD seemed to be attempting a surrealist impression of Michelangelo's David. The long, drooping fingers, directionless in aim, aided the image.
"Tuck yerself in again, there's a good lad. Fasten it. That's right, all tidy. Sit down here, easy does it. Don't pitch forward. Ah. Exhilarating view, innit?"
Bodie smoothed the other's frowsy hair. "I'm all over burnt toast, got a fever this morning and it's your fault. There I was trying to help you get away from the General, and you went and bit me. Pretty deep I guess." He palpated the impression RD's teeth had left in the tight bulge of his neck muscles. It felt nasty, tender and inflamed.
"Give a tinker's damn? Nah, not you. You're a hellion in a brawl, y' know that? Furious little spitfire. Hm, how's that piece go? 'No pale gradations quench his ray, no twilight dews his wrath allay.' Huh, wha'? What's wrong now?"
RD had scrambled to his feet and hastily backed away from Bodie.
"Erm, you hate Walter Scott? Revile Rokeby? Despise poetry in general, me quoting in particular? Afraid of catching the plague? Or what? Hold still, stay, come back. I promise, I'll keep me musings to meself in future, okay?"
Bodie dragged himself back to his gear and sorted through the comestibles. "Freeze dried cereal plank. Yum in the tum, and rumpity plum. Here you go, take it. I'm safe to approach. Couldn't consummate, even with the urge, trust me. 'M wasted, rubbish, latrine dregs."
RD inched forward to crouch beside him.
Bodie unwrapped the ration before handing it to him. "Eat that," he ordered. Then he yanked him down, off his haunches to settle more comfortably. "Relax. Enjoy."
RD contentedly munched.
Bodie could order the man to be happy, and succeed? Who knew?
"Forgive me."
RD glared at him. Ah, too good to be true, that last reprieve.
"Awright. So I'm incorrigible, contemptible, unforgivable, you've got the ruddy right to resent. Acknowledged. At least let me explain?"
RD resumed eating. Bodie took it for grudging permission.
"See here. You seem like the sort of bloke that understands duty. Maybe even subscribes to it? Least you strike me that way. 'Strike me', that's brilliant. Pun, hor har." He ruefully massaged his wounded neck. "Um, strayed again. Where? Oh yar. That nasty trick yesterday, where I had you lick the gemstones. See, I get into mission mode. Locked on target. You stand in the way and get blasted. I want you to be on my side, don't I? But for all I know, I'm aiding and abetting, giving comfort to the enemy. Not the ticket at all, that."
RD had finished the food and was trying to pry the dried remnants from his parched gums with his wriggling pink tongue.
Bodie cringed. "Here, wash out yer moosh. There's likely water downhill from here." He handed over the canteen.
"Quit interrupting, I'm trying to make amends. So. Was testing you. Thought you might be faking the drug drama. Sprung something filthy on you, just to see if you'd follow through on the order. And you did. Quite. Ahem."
He felt a stirring in his loins at the recollection.
"If I'd thought about it, maybe I wouldn't have. Even though, duty wise, I should have. Had to do over again, I might not. Dunno. Kyrie-iced, I feel like great heaving volumes of shite."
He dropped his face into his hands. There was a long pause while the whole mountainside felt unstable beneath him.
Then he got a nudge in his ribs.
RD was staring at him rather solemnly. He reached a slim hand into the depths of his knee pocket and brought out a grimy handkerchief. Carefully he unfolded it, revealing several grubby chunks that looked like petrified potatoes. Extracting one from the trove, he popped it into his mouth and started chewing. Then he elbowed Bodie again.
Bodie examined the stash. "Hullo. Been consorting with the natives? Got you some rabassma root there. Hear it's good for what ails you. What the hell." He shrugged, picked out a bit and started grinding it with his molars. It had a faint flavour of curry, with an underlying essence of laundry lint.
"Scrumptious. Ta."
Meanwhile, RD poured a small splash of bug repellent into his palm. Then he spat the macerated pulp of rabassma root into it and stirred the mess with his fingertip.
Before Bodie knew enough to dodge, RD slapped his mucky palm against the bite mark and massaged it.
Bodie's eyes slammed shut and he shuddered. "Eck."
RD continued to rub. And wonder of wonders, after several minutes, the wound felt better.
"Damn. Who'd have thought it? My mate the witch doctor. Dunno which is worse, the complaint or the cure."
He collapsed back on the bedroll and drifted into a strange almost-waking dream state. In it, the morning sun rose, along with a black-shouldered kite who soared an hour or more on a thermal without once stroking his widespread wings. Confused with the image of the grand raptor's flight was a view of RD, the brilliant light beams stroking his zephyr-stirred curls. And then it was the man's slender fingers, stroking softly over Bodie's face, stirring a nameless yearning in his gut that was a hurtful stinging stab.
Eventually Bodie drifted back to some version of reality. He sat up with his senses reeling. "RD? I should be sweating but I'm not. We've got to climb down, find water." All very well to say it, but his feet seemed to have taken root in the rocks.
RD picked up the canteen, and stood as if to depart.
"Nah, tha's no good. Not safe to split up. Pack the gear. We'll walk together. Together or not at all."
RD nodded his head. The whole time he was rolling the bedding and settling the gear in Bodie's pack, his head continued to nod.
The monotonous swaying rhythm became painful to Bodie, until with a grimace, he pressed RD's cheeks between his hands to stop the tedious motion.
Bodie laughed at the comical appearance of the face squished by his pressing paws. When he released the captive, he patted the features.
"Aren't the two of us a grand pair?"
They took off with a certain earnest energy. Between stumbling and sliding, they made it down the scree slopes faster than they'd intended.
At the base, they were rewarded with the sound of rushing water.
"Is that not a beautiful sight?"
The silver thread materialised out of nowhere, veiled in a thin glittering mist, danced over smooth stones with a charming gurgle and the world's smallest rainbow, only to sink back into the dank underworld a few paces away.
"Would love to sip it sweet. But safer to kill the grange grunge first." Bodie filled the canteen and treated it with a sprinkle of bitter crystals. "We can drink our fill. And then have a lovely dhoby. What do you say? Shall we get nekkid and squeaky?" And he splashed RD playfully.
The dripping face that stared back at him was suddenly afire with rage.
Before Bodie could even contemplate defence, the furious soul flung itself upon him with lunatic strength. They fell hard upon the rocks and sprawled painfully.
With a feral snarl, RD reached beyond Bodie, grabbed up a flaming branch, which with arcane possession transmogrified into a fiery, hissing serpent, writhing and coiling in the man's fist.
He stood clutching it in some sort of hypnotised fascination before rearing back and flinging it as far as his strength could carry.
So astonished was Bodie that he could only blink and stare.
RD sank down to the dirt, clutching his fists in his hair, chin cradled on his knees, rocking his knotted body in a turmoil of unspent anger.
Bodie bided his time. Then he risked a closer proximity. He touched the muscular back cautiously. "You're mad at the snake, right? Not your pretty chum, Bodie. Never, ever at your lovely, sweet Bodie?"
RD took no notice of him yet.
Bodie crept his hand up the sleek shoulders, sneaked under the curls to soothe the tender flesh on the back of his neck. Nosed nearer to mutter in his ear. "You looking out after your mate, Bodie? Didn't want the snake to bite me? Scared it might have hurt me? Well, I should have kept better watch for meself. Call myself an expert. Ha. But she was only a smallish Cape Coral snake. Not so fiercesome as facing an adder or their family and friends. Tales I could tell you, would curl your hair. But maybe by the look of you, you've heard them all already?"
RD stilled.
Bodie carefully extracted the man's fists from his hair. "Your head ache, maybe? Wonder if there's any withdrawal from the drugs going on. Lemme feel here." His fingertips settled over the pounding carotid pulse. "Not the happy camper just now, huh? Well, you come and get some cool water on you. And me too. And we'll start to feel better, soon, won't we just?"
RD flopped face down.
Bodie rolled him over, gave him a once over. Adrenaline overdose, he reckoned. He fetched both bandanas, drenched in cool water, folded one over RD's forehead. Bathed his own florid face with the other.
"Not going to stop washing til I'm soggy down to me toes."
RD's eyelashes fluttered in a ridiculously girlish expression.
"And welcome back." Bodie gave him a hand up.
Suddenly, licking his lips, RD leaned forward and nuzzled Bodie, a quick, humorous touch, just in front of his left ear lobe.
It tickled. Bodie chuckled.
RD pushed his sleeve up to his elbow and studied the pale surface of his forearm.
"Hey, did she get you?" Bodie grasped the wrist and quickly assessed the exposed limb, finding the twin puncture marks just below the area where healing needle tracks showed.
He cursed aloud, a long steady stream. "It's forgivable. I'm cursing for two, here," he explained after his mouth ran dry of spittle. "If that isn't a case of the biter, bitten. The bad news is there's no anti-venom for a Cape Coral. But that's lucky if you think about it, because we wouldn't have any out here. And the good news is, the reason there's no anti-venom for a Cape Coral is it's not generally a lethal bite. Just painful. Don't you love that phrase? Just. Ha. Well, now we can be utterly wretched together. Come on. Let's find us a site for a lie down, and then pass out."
He wrapped his arm around the slender waist and grabbed the belt there. Leaning upon each other, they made their way to the shadowed shelter of a nearby cliff. Then they lay upon the bedroll, waiting for the day to turn again into night.
The ancient hulk of mountain at their backs, a vast stretch of grassland whispering before them, the creatures, rare and striving there, were so far distant as to fade into non-entity.
Which left them alone together, taking what comfort they could in rest and company.
It sufficed.
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"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-03-01 06:10 pm (UTC)And, I liked this: "Erm, you hate Walter Scott? *g*
no subject
Date: 2007-03-02 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-01 07:08 pm (UTC)The ancient hulk of mountain at their backs, a vast stretch of grassland whispering before them, the creatures, rare and striving there, were so far distant as to fade into non-entity.
Second rock to the left, okay? Won't make no noise, just keep writing...
no subject
Date: 2007-03-02 05:09 am (UTC)Or call Pretty Willem and Royal Derby. They'd be fun to have nearby.
Or, now that I've reflected, call me and them both. Dun wanna miss the guys in the wild.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-01 08:17 pm (UTC)Feverish Bodie, and snakebit Doyle - mmm... And wonderfully rich description, to boot. I like the picture of the mountain and jungle you've painted. I also like the gradual building of trust between the two of them, even with Bodie's continuing (and well founded) distrust of his companion. It also seems like RD's starting to act a little more independently, which is likely to be lucky for Bodie.
My favorite bit?
"In it, the morning sun rose, along with a black-shouldered kite who soared an hour or more on a thermal without once stroking his widespread wings. Confused with the image of the grand raptor's flight was a view of RD, the brilliant light beams stroking his zephyr-stirred curls."
I like that image!
no subject
Date: 2007-03-02 05:14 am (UTC)Its okay if I throw rocks since I don't live in a glass house, right? And eventually I'll be nice to the boys again.
I'm quite fond of raptors. We have several different species here. But my absolute favourite is a pair of harriers, marsh hawks, glorious gorgeous creatures. Absolutely spectacular in flight. I see them nearly every day, hunting over our water meadows.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-02 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-02 06:21 pm (UTC)