discoveredinalj | Pros Community Bingo Card 2016

Doyle was standing in the middle of the room, seemingly mesmerised by the ugly pot Cowley had bestowed upon them a few days after the last briefing.

''I've stowed your clobber'' Bodie announced cheerfully.

Doyle's features made a half-hearted attempt at acknowledgement, but his eyes were still riveted to the pot.

''Look, I know it's a monstrosity'' conceded Bodie ''But we can't hurt the Old Man's feelings.''

Doyle rolled his eyes in a manner which suggested that he didn't need the bleedin' obvious pointing out to him.

Bodie did a bit of slinking himself, sidling up behind Doyle to encircle his waist with his arms and prop his chin over his partner's shoulder.

''Thinking of moving it?'' he asked into a curl cosseted ear.

Doyle leaned back into the embrace and turned his head, searching for a kiss the way a sunflower turns to the sun.

With sweet indulgence, Bodie obliged him. Then Doyle turned in Bodie's arms and they lost themselves in the joy of kissing old oaths, newly reshapen, to each other.

Bodie found himself wondering, not that Doyle struggled to find the words in which to engrave their love, but that his partner had the faith to attempt it at all. He doubted any language could capture the bliss of this simply being together.

Bodie had thought carefully about coming back to this flat, about being in it on his own. Every day walking where he had knelt, urging the life to stay in Doyle. Stopping up the holes in him.

He wasn't normally squeamish about death. He'd knelt in blood darkened earth, seen it spattered scarlet against the promise of newly green buds, scrubbed it from his clothes. Friend's blood, enemy's blood, his own blood. Too much blood. Not enough blood. In the end, it always came down to that.

But the mess had just been mess. To be cleaned and tidied away. Forgotten. The rug had just been a rug, the furniture had just been furniture, the telephone just a telephone. The only time he'd felt his stomach tighten, the adrenaline quicken his pulse, was near the window and then only when it was open.

Doyle hadn't commented that the billowing nets had gone, replaced by vertical blinds. Doyle didn't remember the shooting, only waking up in hospital. But he wasn't stupid. It was the only thing Bodie had changed. He'd rearranged things and there were additions, such as Cowley's unprepossessing pot, but Bodie had replaced nothing else.

Doyle never took him near the window. Never asked him to open or close it, to look out of it, even to hoover near it. Although he did, although he had. But it was important between them that Doyle never asked.

Bodie nuzzled into Doyle's ear ''Come to bed, let me make you happy.''

But once again it seemed Bodie was mistaken, Doyle was already happy. Taking him by the hand to make the most of their afternoon together. Another arbitrary reprieve from duty, withdrawn and granted on a whim. Bodie had no idea why he wasn't needed today, or who was watching the ugly red brick building. Or whether anyone needed to watch it at all.

People came and went, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. Sometimes they came to the park afterwards, overdressed even by Bodie's sartorially astute standards. Despite the paparazzi flash of photography, he hadn't recognised any of them. Minor embassy staff, maybe. Dignitaries who hadn't yet blotted their copy books enough for Cowley to take an interest in them. Part of that ghostly other world, barely glimpsed, full of housewives and school children and men who had never held a gun. Whatever he was there to see, he hadn't seen it yet. None of them must have, or Cowley would have hauled him back in.

Given his current partnerless limbo, and coming as it had so soon after his engagement, Bodie had been lukewarm, if not mildly resentful, about attending the briefing which had gifted him this particular assignment. Neither had he had much appetite for Cowley's suggestion that he might like to join the smattering of agents and guest speakers a briefing of this gravity usually persuaded onto their hind legs and say a few words himself.

The briefing had been inside the building itself. A solemn affair. Cowley ruminating on life, its worth and its wanton brevity. Cowley got like that sometimes, when the job got to him. Bodie usually felt compelled to undercut the Old Man's world weary philosophising with a few of the less reverent tenets of his own philosophy, but he'd been distracted by Doyle. Absent, but by no means forgotten. Almost everyone having a few words for him on the subject of his missing partner. Bodie hadn't paid much attention to any of it. Not Cowley. Not the sympathetic noises afterwards. Not the mustiness of the dingy interior. Not the outdated floral arrangements, nor the sombre backdrop of melancholy music. All of it, as anachronistically hidebound as Cowley's club.

But distracted or not, Cowley had him watching the place for a reason. It had crossed his mind that he wasn't on surveillance at all, that he was there to be seen. It wouldn't be the first time Cowley had dangled him as bait.

Still, it gave him these precious hours with Doyle. This distorted nine-to-five existence, when he came home with the milk floats and slept 'til noon. Leaving Doyle after his midday breakfast to sit in his car and stare at the ugly red bricks until it was time to come home again.

And it was Doyle, eager now, who dispelled his preoccupied reverie, kissing and undressing him. Although there would be no raging passions, it would be gentle. Doyle tired less easily than he used to, but he was still pushing himself, and being pushed, to regain his fitness. It took its toll. But soon it would return its price with interest, Doyle would be fit. He would slough off the sweat of a day's work and be ready to play as hard as he had toiled. Then Bodie would show him the full truth of what they could have together.

For now though, they would savour the sweet and allow time to bring forth the strong. Doyle brought them both down to the bed. Skin against skin, breath against breath. They caressed each other and kissed each other. Mobile hands tracing muscles that would soon sustain them through greater exertions.

Their love making was infrequent, Doyle unable to maintain even this gentle pace for days and nights at a time. Bodie didn't care. He had Doyle's kisses, his caressing warmth, his sorrowful eyes promising more as soon as his body was able. And the days and nights when Doyle couldn't renew that promise were growing shorter in number. Less of Doyle's energy sapped by CI5, more of it left over for talking and planning and this gentle renewing of vows.

Doyle barely needed to touch him, barely needed to hold him. The feel of Doyle against him, the wiry weight, was almost enough in itself. Doyle's fingers seemed to know him as surely as if they had crafted him themselves. They had from the very beginning. From that first hesitant contact. As if the same ancient act of creation that had imbued the leaping salmon with the instincts which guided them to the brooks and burns of their birth had called into being the mysteries of their union.

Doyle kindled the flames and Bodie felt the fire lick through him. The heat and desire stripping his mind as his body took over, demanding release. His muscles contracting, pulling in almost to the point of pain and then he was spilling himself. Breathlessly surrendering everything he had to the man he loved. Had always loved. Would always love. The man who loved him in return.

The unalloyed miracle of Doyle's love, found at last. Dopey eyed, Bodie gazed at the battered, beautiful features of the man who was now his partner in every sense of the word. He reached out to run a hand down Doyle's warm flank. Tracing the curve of his hip. Allowing his fingers to drift into the coarse hair sprouting in ill-disciplined tufts between Doyle's legs.

Doyle groaned softly, closing his eyes. Bodie teased the full erection, knowing Doyle needed the help to maintain it. Knowing that he'd struggle for release. Bodie's fingers held artistry as well as mayhem at their tips, and he played Doyle now. Coaxing the orgasm from his body, the way he strummed the notes from a guitar. Doyle's head arched backwards, his eyes briefly flicking open. Desperation and gratitude mingling in their depths before they snapped shut, hidden away again. Doyle catching a strangled sound in his throat as he came, a few short pulses into Bodie's hand.

Bodie stretched to lie beside his partner. Brushing damp hair from the strained features. ''You still with me, Sunshine? You okay?''

Doyle opened placidly dull eyes and smiled contentedly, reaching to stroke his knuckles against Bodie's cheek. Much as Cowley had once done, a million years ago, when this dream of Doyle had been an impossible fantasy.

Bodie smiled at the tenderness in the touch of those murderous hands ''Tired?''

Doyle nodded sleepily, closing his eyes and snuggling against Bodie proprietorially.

''Got me just where you want me, haven't you, Goldilocks?'' Bodie whispered tenderly ''But then, you always did. Never any hope for me after I met you. Lost when I found you.''

His only answer was a sinewy arm snaking to tether him to the body drifting towards slumber beside him.

''I'm not going anywhere'' Bodie offered in reassurance, adjusting his position to accommodate his partner ''So don't you go worrying that overworked noggin. You just dream as you need to, Sunshine. I'll be right here.''

But the only reply he received was the gentle roughened breathing, the almost snore, of Doyle fast asleep.

A sweet smile blossomed on Bodie's lips. How many interminable hours had been spent with his eyes glued to some tedious target and his ears full of the sound of Doyle's dreaming? How many of his own dreams had been of this? Doyle no longer dreaming without him. Without bidding, Bodie's eyes closed and his subconscious folded the sounds of Doyle's dreaming into his own.

They both slept soundly, for longer than either had intended. Bodie woke first, his stirring disturbing Doyle. He lifted Doyle's newly restless arm, still draped across him, and set it down on the warm bedsheets as he abandoned them, smiling indulgently as his partner's nose came up like a hibernating dormouse scenting spring. Bodie dragged the comforting snugness of the duvet up to cover him, cocooning Doyle in its warmth, and watched over him as the semi-conscious snuffling subsided once more into the ponderous rhythms of sleep.

''Grab it while you can, Sunshine'' Bodie breathed tenderly ''You know that.''

Doyle remained obediently asleep and Bodie slipped on a robe and headed for the kitchen. He put the kettle on while he decided what to feed them. Despite his cordon bleu pretensions, and the occasional bout of cholesterol dodging nagging at Bodie's expense, Doyle was easy to feed. Bodie decided his currently uncharacteristically docile partner would probably take to a bit of cheese on toast, especially if the bread was sawn thickly off the loaf and the cheese given the added piquancy of a dash of worcestershire sauce.

The kettle clicked off and Bodie adeptly juggled making tea and toasting bread and cheese under the grill.

He was transferring bubbling slabs of bread from grill to plate when a still sleepy Doyle chose to join him.

Bodie grinned as the towelling clad shuffling zombie seated itself at the table.

''Hungry?'' Bodie asked, setting a plate in front of Doyle without waiting for an answer.

Doyle looked up expectantly as Bodie moved away to pour two mugs of tea and bring them back to the table, the choreography of this domestic ballet familiar from a thousand evenings of solace and disillusion, a thousand shared hours of paperwork and boredom, a thousand interrupted breakfasts. A lifetime of moments shared and forgotten. The wallpaper of their lives. Bodie turned from his partner to fetch his own plate and found his eyes suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, full of tears. He stopped in his tracks, rubbing angrily at his lashes. Forcing himself to focus on the task in hand.

The moment passed, leaving him shaken and bewildered. Grateful that he'd had his back to Doyle. That Doyle had been distracted by hunger and was still too dopey to have registered the display.

Bodie returned to the table, setting down his own plate and taking a seat opposite his partner. Doyle was gnawing happily on cheese sodden bread.

''Thank you'' Bodie said quietly.

Doyle stopped chewing and looked quizzical.

''Should feed you that more often'' observed Bodie, forcing a humour he didn't feel ''Better than a muzzle.'' Then he dropped his eyes to his plate and added softly ''For not leaving me.''

A slim warm hand, greasy with dairy fat, covered his own and, when he looked up, Doyle's eye's were luminous with love and indefinable guilt.

''Sorry, mate. Touch of the maudlins'' apologised Bodie, but the guilt in Doyle's eyes settled in Bodie's bones and wouldn't be quieted.

They spent what was left of the evening, and the chill, small hours of the morning, snuggled against each other in the living room, talking amiably about the trivialities of their future together. Would they bring both cars home? Would Cowley dock their allowances if they were one household? What about their expenses? Would they still buy two toothpastes, or settle on one they both liked? What about mouthwash? Washing powder? By the time a scandalised Doyle had launched into a giggling defence of Fairy Liquid, Bodie's mood had lightened considerably.

''C'mon, Goldilocks'' he announced, shifting Doyle and rising stiffly to his feet ''It's beddy-byes for you.''

Drunk with exhaustion, Doyle also clambered to his feet and stood swaying on them, eyes fixed on Cowley's pot.

''Look, Doyle'' said Bodie, taking his partner by the shoulders and steering him at arm's length towards the bedroom ''We can move the damn thing, but we can't get shot.''

Doyle halted abruptly, falling backwards against Bodie's chest and peering up from the depths of his curls with the playful wide eyed plaintiveness of a child.

Bodie shoved his partner upright again ''No deal, Doyle. We're stuck with it and you're not persuading me otherwise.''

Doyle took a few more steps and then stopped again, this time to peer flirtatiously back over his shoulder.

Grinning happily, Bodie advised ''But don't let that stop you trying.''

Doyle's sexual bravado suddenly collapsed and his sad eyes withdrew.

Bodie hurriedly closed the gap between them and wrapped gentle arms around the despondent figure.

''You do okay, Goldilocks'' Bodie whispered into the sorrowful curls ''You're knackered half the time, and getting fit always takes more out of you than the job. You know that.''

Obviously impatient with both himself and Bodie's comforting, Doyle irritably pulled himself out of the embrace to stand alone, radiating frustrated misery.

Bodie smiled the first smile of pure, untainted joy he had smiled since Doyle had been shot.

Doyle was angry with himself and taking it out on his partner. Cutting off his nose to spite his face. Temper first, thought afterwards.

Bodie had loved the hesitant creature he had brought home from the hospital, the man whose confidence had been destroyed in a shatter of milk bottles. The NHS had patched up the wounds of the body, but had barely touched the wounds of the soul.

Doyle no longer trusted his body. Expecting it to let him down with every demand made of it. And it had, repeatedly. Until Doyle crept through the world, a shadow of the strutting gallant he had once been.

But this indignant petulance was the old Doyle, raging against the world. Defeat a prelude to victory.

''C'mon mate. It'll all look better in the morning'' Bodie said to a glorious flash of fire from unbowed eyes ''And, if it doesn't, you can beat the proverbial out of whichever poor sod Cowley's sticks you with tomorrow.''

As Bodie expected, the storm clouds suddenly parted to reveal a sheepish toothy grin. Bodie spared a pitying thought for the hapless unfortunate stuck with putting Doyle through his paces on the morrow. The sheepishness was for Bodie alone, something more feral had just finished licking its wounds and now needed to sharpen its claws.

Bodie steered them both into the bedroom and tried to settle them down for the night, but Doyle instantly sat bolt upright again, throwing the covers off and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Bodie hauled him back down ''Leave it, Doyle. They'll keep for one night. Miss it often enough when we're working and you've still got a set Jaws would be proud of.''

Bodie felt the tense body hesitate, then Doyle relaxed, wriggling himself back under the covers without any thought for the chill wafts of air he sent skimming over Bodie's skin.

Bodie took the mistreatment with placid equanimity. Doyle's thoughtlessness an unconscious herald of the return to normality. The end of Bodie's partnerless existence and the beginning of a new life, forged from the old certainties. For perhaps the first time in his life, Bodie fell asleep without a qualm for his lot. The scent of Doyle's hair in his nostrils and the man himself a solid warmth in his arms.

The following day returned them to routine, Doyle to his daily tortures at the hands of CI5's eclectic band of specialist sadists and Bodie to the park and the unremitting ugliness of the red brick building.

Bodie bought himself a cup of coffee at the small kiosk and settled himself at one of the serviceable tables surrounding it. A solid A-frame affair, the seats attached to the table legs, the type found everywhere in pubs, parks and picnic spots.

However, Bodie was not the only representative of CI5 taking advantage of the municipal greenery that day. Unseen by his preoccupied agent, and strolling through the park for reasons other than his constitution, Cowley paused to bid his walking companion a discreet farewell. Marking with sadness, but not surprise, Bodie's single minded absorption with the building visible behind the milling throng of wedding guests posing for posterity between the regimented flower beds.

Following the Controller's gaze, and noting the presence of the saturnine wraith haunting the kiosk, Cowley's anonymous companion muttered ''I know better than to ask George, but has that to do with our little problem?''

In return, a sardonic icy blue gaze levelled itself at its inquisitor.

''Don't be like that, George'' responded the man who wasn't there ''Bodie, isn't it? Looking a little bit peaky, I'd say. Off his feed, is he?''

''A little'' replied Cowley ''but not off his game. Don't underestimate him, Alex.''

''Perish the thought, dear boy'' said the invisible man with airy indifference.

''Or me'' warned Cowley in tones which would have left a frost in hades. A reminder to anyone foolish enough to forget, that this slightly built, limping bureaucrat might not be the most powerful man in the country, but he was probably the most dangerous.

The condescension which had crept into the other man's voice withered under the wintery blast ''Don't rattle your sabre at me, George. We're on the same side.''

''Are we, Alex?'' asked Cowley with mild contempt ''How very convenient.''

''Now look here, George...'' blustered the other man.

''I'll deal with our little problem'' Cowley interrupted imperiously ''but you'll plug the leak which caused it. Today, Alex. Or tomorrow, I'll see to it that Bodie has better things to do with his time.''

''You never did understand the frailties of human flesh, George'' the anonymous figure observed, before conceding unctuously ''Resignation due to the usual desire to spend more time with one's family?''

Cowley nodded in curt dismissal. One crisis resolved, his attention already on the next; the dark haired man all alone in the park.

Unobserved by the lonely sentinel, Cowley left by another of the park's exits to stand on the pavement and summon his driver as if flagging down a taxi. The car had been circling the park for reasons of security and pragmatism since the Controller had alighted from it.

Cowley climbed in with a surprising dexterity for man who couldn't always rely upon his limbs and ordered ''Drop me off at my club, then get on to control. I want Bodie at home within the hour. If they can't find him, he's in the park. Church entrance, by the kiosk.''

''Yes, sir'' the young woman acknowledged crisply and then added ''Is Bodie alright, sir? That is, we were all sorry about Mayli Kuolo. I mean, her shooting Doyle, sir. But Bodie hasn't seemed himself since. Is he on sick leave?''

''Miss Holland, I would remind you that Bodie's whereabouts are a matter of national security'' admonished Cowley testily.

''Not if he's on sick leave'' countered Miss Holland, treading where angels feared to venture ''I have clearance, sir.''

''You have more than that, Miss Holland'' observed Cowley with wry amusement at the persistent impudence.

Miss Holland suppressed a smug grin, she enjoyed the driving, but some of the excitement which had come with it had given her new ambitions.

''I've given him leave to sort out Doyle's flat'' Cowley informed the young woman, testing to see if a decision he'd made on instinct had the ring of logic in other ears.

''Ray would appreciate that'' Miss Holland confirmed ''Must've been hard on Bodie, though.''

''Aye'' Cowley agreed wearily, adding with apparent irrelevance ''I'm afraid, unlike CI5, Miss Holland, my club has not yet seen fit to extend the benefit of its hospitality to the fairer sex. A state of affairs which is proving increasingly unhelpful.''

''Sir?'' queried Miss Holland.

''Have you considered a change in status?''

''Sir?'' repeated Miss Holland.

''I'm looking for agents capable of working in mixed teams'' replied Cowley ''which, in effect, means willing to work in such teams. I've never believed in pressed men.''

''Or pressed women?'' dared Miss Holland impishly, for all her flaxen haired beauty, the faint echo of a familiar ribaldry in her words.

''It would mean working with a man like Bodie.''

''I have five brothers, sir'' replied Miss Holland confidently ''All older than me. Men like Bodie are no challenge after that.''

Cowley took a file from the briefcase on the back seat and flipped it open, proving, if any doubt remained, that there was no such thing as a casual conversation with the head of CI5 ''Four army, one navy. All have distinguished records, as does your father. And yet you chose not to follow in their footsteps?''

''They don't let the girls play with the best toys'' replied Miss Holland easily.

''Your mother was a nurse'' observed Cowley non-committally.

''Not for me'' replied Miss Holland firmly.

''Squeamish?'' tested Cowley.

''No more than the next person'' answered Miss Holland.

Cowley's mouth twitched into a smile at the unforced honesty. Miss Holland, it seemed, had nothing to prove. Not unlike the man he was considering as her partner. ''You may live to regret the decision, Miss Holland, but report to my office tomorrow. Eight, prompt.''

Miss Holland shook her head as she drew up outside Cowley's club and said ''I may fail, sir, but failure is one thing, regret is another.''

''Aye, there was probably a time when I believed that myself'' replied Cowley as he exited the car to report his success in the park to a man who could never acknowledge it.