Discovered in Temptation

[asymphototropic.livejournal.com]

Out of Eden and a quick glimpse of Noah's ark as we slink past. Parlour games, minus the parlour.



Contrary Virtue

Part Five.

RD woke with Bodie's palm plastered over his mouth.

"Shh. Quick and quiet now. Jump up and scramble over. I'll be right there in that knot of scrub."

Sleek and silent, Bodie disappeared.

When RD arrived, Bodie shoved miniature field glasses at him. "Over there," he whispered. "About one o'clock on our circle. See them?"

RD scanned the perimeter until he fixed on the spot. He stopped and stared. Gradually a smile formed.

"How's that for a wonder? Worth being harassed from yer hammock early, eh? Look at her, and she's got a foal too. I'd say she was a Cape mountain zebra, but she's so far from home, it seems impossible. Way off course. And they're rarer than rare, nearly all gone. Farmers in the south destroyed them for spoiling the forage and crops. Such a figure on her. Shaped just like Eyore, isn't she? Like she ought to have her tail fastened on with a thumb tack. Little queeny. Well met, m' lady."

When RD offered, Bodie eagerly seized the glasses again. "Makes you wonder if maybe they're getting covered by the Hartmann stallions. Never heard whether that's possible. Any port in a storm, as they say. Where are the egghead experts when you need them? Just think of all the university desk jockeys would love to be in our boots right now."

As they packed to leave, Bodie's eyes continued a dreamy gleam, reflecting the clearest blue of the firmament, far flung to distant realms.

But then at decamping, his visage took on a harder edge. He grasped RD's shoulder firmly and about-faced him west. "We've got all that to cross on our way to the coast." He gestured at the uniform ocean of tall grass. "And once we're in it up to the crotch, it's no good turning left or right, but just carry on from puddle to muddle until it's done. Got it?"

RD's mouth scrunched, as if he were trying hard to fix his mind onto Bodie's words.

"But that's not all. I'm in charge, here on out, savvy? I say 'down' and you sink like a stone. I say 'up', you try for high as the sky. You've signed on with Pretty Willem for the duration, and from my point of view, nothing's fair in love or war. You need to tie down that temper of yours, well and snug. Let it loose, and I'll leave you alone with it."

RD bit his lip on a frown.

"You can do it, I know you can if you try. Now, if we cut the trail of whites, we drop down and hide. Just at present we're allies with no one, and you remember why as well as I do. We meet any of the blacks, you let me judge if they're friendly. If I run, you'll know to follow hard. And if I stop and smile, you goggle and drool. The locals have a way of coddling crazies. It's not good Darwinian sense, but they take care of their idiots, so do that dazed bit you're so stellar at."

Now RD favoured him with a scowl.

Bodie tapped him on the cheek. "Temper, temper. No you don't." Then he took off his belt and fastened it loosely over RD's neck. "Rest your gammy arm in this loop. Looks like Eve's apple at the end of a limb, complete with five stubby red worms." He gingerly touched RD's swollen hand. "In ambulance class, they call that dependent edema. You need to keep it up higher than your heart, whenever you can."

Bodie hauled on his own settling trousers. "I can't really spare that belt. But you're in even a worse case, flat-arsed, angular, with no spare pat of butter left on you anywhere."

They trudged toward an infinitely distant horizon.

Hours were tailed by days as they pursued their shadows, distorted by wavering forage into fractured silhouettes of their bodies. Shadows short, long, short again. Left, right, left again. Down on the grass, and up on their boots. From wallow to well spring, and often enough, a dry wash that was disappointingly dusty.

Sometimes they strode past herd animals, disturbing their grazing. Eland and wildebeest seemed well able to survive the beginnings of the local famine at least.

And much to Bodie's delight, they even encountered a few black palanca. "Giant sable antelope," he informed RD, who stood so in awe of their magnificent profiles, he could not be budged to continue marching until the swift, graceful forms were long lost visions.

They didn't travel at large, which would have been too conspicuous. Rather, they grubbed off the land in the lowest way possible. It was something Bodie knew well. Living on his skills, the two men sunk into sinew until they were nearly one with their shadows, but they endured.

After a great long while of evolution, they stopped slinking and walked upright. The assassination was a thing of the past, old news. Bodie reckoned the commandos in the latest version of the war gave a mole-rat's arse over dead and buried generals.

The whole country was being torn to bloody shreds followed by burning on the heap, and if the two of them looked enough the part of scoundrels, people knew to leave them well alone.

One day they walked along a bit of a trail, and Bodie stopped stock still.

RD was humming.

"Hey, RD?"

He paused to turn.

They stood looking at each other. They were two gaunt figures, sun bleached and tattered, desiccated to tough leather straps.

Bodie had to push his own fringe away in order to see.

RD's curls hung coppery, right down on his lean shoulders, tied away with the rag remains of bandana. His face was still, but his eyes glittered, green and bright.

"You would talk to me if you could, wouldn't you?"

RD tilted his head a moment, considering this. He swallowed repeatedly, and a clicking noise sounded deep in his throat. He nodded, then shrugged.

"But you used to be able to talk before this, right?" Bodie wondered aloud.

RD agreed.

"Did someone throttle you? No. Was it the drugs then? Huh? I thought at one point, it was scopolamine, you were so compliant to order, open to suggestion. Except when you were trying to tear people's heads off, that is. But truth serum would never last this long. Should be right out of your system by now, surely. Something else, longer lasting then? You think so? Yeah, maybe."

Later, at the sun's zenith, they found a scrap of shade and settled. Bodie laughed. He drew a line in the soil and stepped over it. "That's our door," he declared. "Now we're in the parlour and up for some games. Charades, Twenty Questions." He took a swig from the canteen before handing it to his companion. "Here, have some sherry."

"Now, the only Mid-Easters as pale as you are the North Aff-gees. But you don't have the proper mug for it, so I say no to that. I would say you're a West Europer, certainly, but neither Dutch nor Portu-gazey."

RD grinned and nodded.

"Knew that. Knew you knew I knew that. I'm just showing off. Now. The only piece of you to look Norse is the bit of red in yer curls. And you've a Celtish face, so I vote for Irish, at least in ancestry. But born there? No. And you have the roamin' Roman nose. Which narrows the home turf to merry olde England, right? Moving along. Now comes some cleverness on my part. That bastard General was a mean maggot. I've been wondering. Called you 'Royal Derby', maybe for a reason. Maybe because you're from that part of the country? Hey, score."

RD nodded but scowled horribly at the mention of his old enemy.

Hastily Bodie adjusted the topic of conversation. "English, and yet you hate Walter Scott. You intimated as much a while ago."

RD chuckled and shook his head emphatically.

"Well, it was something I said had you aggravated, back then. But what? Hmm, a mystery, is it?"

RD smirked.

" 'Rokeby', wasn't it? But which line? Can't quite recollect."

RD folded his arms across his chest, shaking his head teasingly at Bodie.

"Can recite most of it, yards and yards of spouting. Comes from bobbing afloat over long spans of me misspent youth. Nothing like sea-going stints of boredom for memorisation of literary tracts, I may tell you. Now wait, I do recall. We were on about sins. It was the topic of wrath that inspired me to burble versefully. Ah ha. Eureka. 'No pale gradations quench his ray, No twilight dews his wrath allay.' I'm right, eh?"

Eyes sparkling with mischief, RD wiped a small swatch of earth clear, then wrote in the dirt.

" 'RAY'? You dislike the sun, hate getting burned? No. Hmm. You wish you had Flash Gordon's RAY gun, so you could shoot me for an annoying git. Wrong again? Ray-what?"

RD pointed at the word written in the soil, then pointed to himself. Repeating the gesture, over and again, the ground, his chest, the ground, his chest.

Bodie wound up chanting simultaneously. "You-ray, you-ray, you-ray. Are we cheering from afar for your favourite rugger team?"

RD tumbled over, shaking with silent laughter. He had a good long giggle-fit.

Bodie had to laugh along with him, just from enjoying the appearance of great glee.

Finally RD righted himself, rubbing his aching belly. He smoothed his hand over the patch of dust and wrote again.

" 'MY NAME'. Oh, crikey, I get it. Yer name's Ray. R is for Ray. And the D?"

Tediously, RD wiped the space again and printed.

" 'DOYLE'. Got the Irish spot on, dint I? So, you're Ray Doyle." He stood up then with a great show of solemnity, and bowed so elegantly it seemed to fit him despite his ragged attire. "Honoured to make your acquaintance, sir."

Immediately and in bright contrast, he offered a rapscallion grin, grabbing RD in a bear hug, slapping him on the back, and then heartily shaking his hand. "Pleased to meetcha, Ray. My friends, and they know who they are, call me Bodie. Just-Bodie, if you please. The rest call me nothing at all, if they know what's good for them."

He still had RD's hand clutched in his. "You, mate? You can call me anything you like." And then, muttered softly to himself, "and I only wish you could, too."


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"