discoveredinalj | Discovered in Temptation (Reply)

I must go down to the... go down on the... hmm.... must go?

Contrary Virtue

Part Six

With tectonic force, RD was slammed to the ground.

"Still as death. Don't even breathe," came the toxic hiss in his ear.

He obeyed, left off breathing for eons, until acidic asphyxiation burned in his chest. When at last he couldn't bear it further, he gasped. The weight pressing upon his back wouldn't allow sufficient intake of air. A miserable moan welled in his chest, grappling with a choking cough for supremacy. He pressed down into the earth as if seeking the oblivion of his own burial.

"Shh." The crushing weight shifted, grinding muscle mass into the marrow of his bones.

Commandos marched past, boots mangling the tender life out of the earth. Scowling faces scarcely masked their underlying death's heads. Weaponry was at the ready for instant devastation and slaughter.

Frantically RD willed his concentration away from his misery. Deeply he delved, gathering the fragments of his identity, bringing them in to shelter.

He was himself, at a distance, lying under the sun. But it was a gentle beam that broke through a mist, sequined over water. The lyrical voice of an ephemeral brook caressed his awareness, and he crept a hand out, seeking that comfort to wash away his despair. His reach fell short of desire, and gradually all perception was gone.

"RD! Hey, are you in there, mate?"

Not likely. It had been a gruelling long haul since he'd been 'in' anywhere.

"Didn't knock you over that hard, did I really?"

There was an annoying tap upon the blank surface that had once been his face. He tried to mutter before recalling the futility of the effort. Mute, he was. Dumb, speechless.

Next there came a petting sensation, but perhaps it was more a practical effort by someone to clear the dusty mess of his hair away from his eyes. They used to function, the last he recalled. But he didn't want to open them, in case this memory was inaccurate. He didn't think he could bear the disappointment at this point.

And next came the feel of a kiss, so tender he felt he might cry from the pleasure. But before he could respond in kind, returning it with deepest affection, it shifted to merely fingers pressing stale drops of water from a damp rag between his lax lips.

He groaned and sat up.

"Low profile, sport, keep close to terra firma," Bodie quietly admonished, lying in the scrub, raised only so far as his elbows, and still glaring after the armed squadron that disappeared into the distance.

"Them's me own lot," he admitted after a longish pause. "Do you mind that one wicked gent, the one with the bullet head and no neck, looked like he'd breakfasted on carpentry nails? Him in particular. He's SAS Increment. Has plenty of business here, and possibly nothing to do with Pretty Willem. But on the other hand, maybe too much pertaining to yours truly. Righteously, I should have bounded up, greeted him chummishly, stood me ground, looked him in the eyes, swatting flies and telling no lies."

RD fluttered his lashes, blinking repeatedly to clear away the lingering distortion.

"Damnation, but yer distracting when you do that. Can't remember me own name."

RD froze, his stare intent on the tongue licking at that mouth.

Bodie took a slug of water, swished it through his teeth thoroughly before swallowing it, squeezing every last benefit from the precious ration.

"When we arrive at the sea, I'm going to plunge in, lie on the bottom and wallow in the waves. Maybe after a week or so, I'll emerge."

Since Bodie was now sitting up, RD did too.

"Listen. I don't see my next step at all clearly just now. Dunno if maybe I'm wanted for treasonous offences. Or if it's merely that the higher ups wonder how long to tolerate me jaunty walkabout before hauling me arse back to home and hearth. But certainly, if they are doubtful of my intent or recent actions, they're less likely to slit me throat and dispose of the corpse back there than in this place. So I don't want to report in 'til long after I wave a merry ta-ra to this here. In plain language, I intend to play the private citizen straight back to me own domestic doorstep. Hence giving those blokes and any more of theirs' a righteous dodge."

Bodie placed his great paws firmly on RD's shoulders. "You want to go back to England?"

RD tried to sort through confusion and unsettling feelings of formless fears. He nodded.

Bodie shook his head at the other's vague expression. "Can't leave you, can I? Yer all to pot still. And maybe forever too. Kinder to shoot you in your sleep than abandon you."

At the suggestion of violence, RD started to struggle.

Bodie flung himself on top.

"Hey. No. It was a figure of speech, tha's all. Not gonna shoot you. Swear I didn't mean it. Come on, you know me. I'm yer mate, sweet, sweet Willem."

And suddenly, because he wanted to reassure, but more because it was so close and warm, he pressed his mouth into RD's tender throat, suckling at the pulse point.

It transported RD back to the banks of that ephemeral brook, to the elusive desire, the comfort just beyond his reach. He melted into the warmth of that distant summer gleam, listening to the music in his memory.

"I swear I crave you more than oxygen."

RD reached the fingers of both his hands into Bodie's hair, rubbing the scalp, tugging at the soft tangles. He pressed his hips up into the overlying strength.

"Yeah, that's grand and I want it. But can't be sure you're really lurking inside somewhere, able to make the offer, can I? And how on the great green Earth will you convince me that you know what it is I want from you?"

With a gut-twisting groan, Bodie tore himself away, and rolled off the slim body.

RD pouted.

Bodie grabbed him up and dragged him closer. Gripping him by the scruff of his neck, he shook him, then confronted him eye to eye.

"Convince me I'm not a fool. Convince me you're not a paid assassin. Assure me I haven't tumbled to the talents of a tart. What the fuck am I supposed to do next?"

RD hauled off and belted him in the jaw with his hard right fist. Then he landed on the sprawled body, pressed mouth into mouth, devouring all. He rutted, groin to groin, generating an exothermic reaction of magnificent chemistry. Hands all over, searching, claiming.

Bodie writhed under the sinuous form, clutched at it with energetic elation. Before he could appreciate the extremity of his pleasure, it blasted into explosive shrapnel, sizzling in a molten cloud of burning fallout.

He gasped, burying his face into the smothering hot form, kicked the ground, tumbling the lithe body to reverse positions, and at length pressed it hard into the soil.

He sucked at RD's round lips, before drawing back. "Scrummy." Shaking his head to clear it, he separated himself from the other, rolled over onto his back, staring up into stratospheric wisps. Then he laughed. "Surprised I had enough aitch-two-oh to offer up any spunk. Consider that a major tribute to your excellence."

He glanced aside.

RD was up on one elbow, resting his imperfect cheek on his knuckles. A satisfied smirk slightly twitched at the corners of his mouth.

"Properly proud of that performance, aren't you? Prat." He rubbed at his bruised mandible. "Mind, you may live to regret cruelty to your loyal protector."

RD nodded his head in agreement, but he was grinning by then, so it was hard to take the assent as contrition for his transgression.

When it was safe to resume walking, they left.

They crossed the tracks of many more soldiers as the two wended their way again toward the sunset horizon. But though they saw abundant evidence of enemies on the move, they were lucky enough not to encounter the actual danger of armed squads again that day or the next. Bodie knew where the violence was heating up, and had directed their steps as hastily away from it as humanly possible. It had left them slogging through the most arid stretch of pre coastal scrub, nearly perishing from desiccation on the way.

Finally, one morning, Bodie awoke twitching. With the tatters of his bandana, he wiped the dust from the tip of his nose and twitched again. He sought the face buried close to the muscular curve of his thorax, teased at the snuggled head of curls,

RD emerged from under their shared blanket, sleepily blinking.

"Hey, what about that? Wind tumbling in off the coast. Smell the salt? Taste it fresh upon your tongue? Cheer up, old son. We're close. And about to transition from never enough stinking water, to that very finest of all ponds, the Atlantic. Plenty of water. And a way home, to boot. So stir yourself and let's be onward."

They marched forward with hearty anticipation.

At last Bodie called out joyfully. "Look at that. Just feast your eyes, my fine friend. See that great flock of birds? Course you see them. And a more glorious view you may never see again."

RD stood to watch, delighted by the lovely creatures in the distance. Gliding on high, swooping, diving, rising effortlessly, they were indeed a brilliant image. Perfectly pristine icy white fronts. On their neat heads and backs, the glossiest ebony plumage spreading to reveal intricate snowflake patterns upon their arrowed wings. They seemed to have been born to dance upon polar air in elegance.

"Those are Cape petrels. Just think, they nest in Antarctica! Journey all this way northward, such a long hard migration. And arrive here, just to gladden our hearts with a welcome to the coast. Never seen Antarctica. Heard grand stories about it though. I'd like to go visit there some time. Stand on ice so thick it's older than mastodon herds. Think of the adventure."

The freshening aroma of water on wind hastened their steps, gave them new energy. And lucky it was, else the last miles of dry wasteland ultimately might have destroyed their will to continue. When finally they could hear the crash and tumble of waves upon beach, Bodie lost all caution.

He began eagerly running. He shed the tearing worry, the sense of exhausted privation, and arrived at the water's edge with an urge to fling himself into the waves, shouting jubilantly. He could not get enough of the view. It fulfilled his yearning expectation as the clean damp air filled his lungs.

He drank in oxygen, his eyes soaked up the colour of the ocean.

The soft thud of footsteps on clinging sand, the sound of desperate exertion, called his attention away from his triumphal return to the ocean.

RD dragged up beside him, then bent over, hands on knees, gasping to catch his breath.

Bodie grabbed him up and spun him around in a circle, celebrating their achievement. "We're here. We've arrived. We can rest. Drink gallons. Eat, yeah, we are going to feast. I'll spoon feed you with hourly puddings 'til you form dimples in your cheeks and elbows and knees."

He slapped RD heartily on the back and then ruffled his curls.

RD desperately held on to Bodie, staring first at the far flung glitter of cerulean sea, and then at the nearer mirrored image.

Looking into the reflection of Bodie's eyes, RD whispered, "So blue..."

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"