discoveredinalj | Pros fic: Betwixt and Between by JoJo - Pros Bingo Challenge 2016

Doyle had doubted once, what he felt.

Not quite friendship, not quite love. A halfway emotion without definition. Neither here nor there.

Being very drunk and encircled in strong arms had made him say foolish things back then.

“Bloody love you, mate.”

That one he remembered, faintly. The words had been thick with boozy comradeship, the world spinning furiously as they stumbled about outside The Red Lion, trying to keep upright.

And Bodie had clutched him tight and laughed so hard Doyle had thought he might throw up.

“Yes, and I bloody love Liverpool Football Club, sunshine,” had been the response, light as air, accompanying a fond pat to the back of his neck. “Wouldn’t want to go to bed with it though.”

Doyle had no idea either then or now why Bodie had mentioned bed. He feared he’d said something else foolish at some point on that same long and sozzled evening. Some daft proposition that had popped out in that unremembered country between inebriation and sobriety, never to be recalled.

And here Bodie was, between Here and There himself. ‘Hovering’, as the headlines often said. Between life and death. Showing every inclination, if the doctors’ increasingly coded statements were to be believed, of being a right plonker at any moment and snatching disaster from the jaws of hope.

Doyle had no doubts anymore. To be honest, he hadn’t had any for months, although he cursed himself for not saying sober what he’d garbled drunk. For not returning the favour and encircling Bodie in the strongest of strong arms.

There could be no encircling here, though. Much as he burned to, Bodie was imprisoned by a fearsome enclosure of lines and tubes instead. He looked fragile, as if any touch would tip him over. His hair was slick with fever, black against the pillows. The long, downswept lashes were damp too, as if somewhere, far away, he’d wept in fury and hopelessness.

Needing to hear foolish things.

“Mate,” Doyle said. It was the only part he could get out.

Title: Betwixt and Between
Author: JoJo
Slash/Gen: Slash
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Yes please
Disclaimer: No money made, no infringement intended

A/n: for the top horizontal line of my Pros Bingo card, for the square 'betwixt and between', and the second of three short parts/fills!