discoveredinalj | Discovered in the Bleak Midwinter

heliophile-oxon.livejournal.com posting in

Happy Nearly-Midwinter to you! (and if you're in the Southern Hemisphere enjoying Nearly-Midsummer, not a peep please we're bloody freezing up here).
Here, prefaced by my apologies for blatantly half-inching inspiration from a well-known, much-loved and infinitely better fic (Boxing Day by The Hag, which I cannot recommend highly enough) is a tiny little cold-weather snippet.

In the Bleak Mid Sodding, Bloody, Bastarding Winter

It was the worst month, the shittiest, the coldest, darkest, wettest – it was the absolute bloody fag-end of the year. It was the end of January. The bitterest weather, and nothing – not one single solitary thing – to look forward to: no breaks, no biking and, it seemed increasingly likely, no Bodie.

It'd been nothing short of weird, the way he'd changed since Cowley had sent him to Berlin for a week – a whole bloody week, and right over New Year, too – to talk to some disaffected East German military type who was supposedly on the brink of dropping everything and defecting to the West; the West Germans had first dibs on him, obviously, but Cowley had apparently pulled some obscure strings and got a crack at getting a couple of details out of him that might shed light on some military problems of our own. So off Bodie had dutifully gone, outwardly all stony-faced obedience and privately spitting tacks over the New Year's piss-up he was going to miss. Never mind, Doyle had told him, isn't it Berlin that's supposed to be full of gorgeous fräuleins in stockings and suspenders? Bodie had rolled his eyes, slagged off Michael York and stopped glowering for two minutes; Doyle counted it a win.

But since he'd got back, everything had gone downhill fast and just kept right on getting worse. Bodie kept staring at him when he thought Doyle wasn't looking, and then looking away whenever Doyle turned round. He was moody, stroppy, tetchy – completely unlike himself, in other words, until Doyle found himself half wanting to tell the great lummox that stroppy was his gig, and to get his own.

Fucking January. Doyle shivered and hunched his shoulders, tugging his jacket collar tighter and rubbing his hands together before stuffing them back into his pockets. They'd drawn the short straw on this one – disused office space did not a comfortable listening post make; they couldn't have any lights on in the office itself since the windows were imperfectly blacked out – but being imperfectly blacked out also meant that the room was too dark to read even at midday in this weather, let alone during the night watch hours. Bodie, of course, had brought along his old dubiously-stained army-green sleeping bag and was lying like a knight on a tombstone on the bare floor in the far corner. Doyle was pretty sure he wasn't sleeping, though – sleeping bag or no sleeping bag, it was probably too cold and definitely too hard for any normal person. Bodie might have managed forty winks in proper SAS fashion if he'd been on his usual form, but as things were Doyle reckoned he was just pretending to sleep while actually watching Doyle watch the factory yard below. It was beyond getting on his nerves, now, and was actually starting to worry him. What the fuck was Bodie thinking about? He knew Ray was capable of doing the job, so why watch him all the bloody time? It wasn't that he wanted to chat – every overture he could come up with, Bodie would shut down within half a sentence. And he knew he hadn't done anything – well, anything particularly egregious – to get on his wick; he, Doyle, had just gone right on being his usual sunny self both before Berlin and after. So what the fuck was going on?

And the shifts were interminable. Hour after hour of cold and damp, with his majesty glaring at him and refusing to admit it. Doyle didn't know how much more of this he could take; he was starting to seriously consider asking Cowley to swap one of them out for a couple of days at least.

Damn. He had an itch. Not one he felt like scratching, either, with Bodie's eyes glued to him all the time like that. He shifted irritably in his chair, but of course it didn't help; he stood up – he couldn't walk away from the window, of course – but shifting his weight and clenching his buttocks didn't help either. Made it worse, if anything. Breathe. Just breathe, relax the shoulders – not like hunching them actually makes you feel any warmer – it doesn't itch, there is no itch, nothing's itching … oh, bugger it to hell.

“Got to go for a slash, mate. C'n you take over for a minute?”

There was a quiet groan from the corner and after a moment Bodie stumbled over, shivering and yawning. Doyle felt contrite and pissed off all at once; if Bodie really had been asleep, not only had he woken the poor bastard and forced him to get out of a (relatively) warm sleeping bag before it was his turn to take the watch but he could have scratched any itches without Bodie watching him anyway. Shit.

Doyle made his way quickly from the room, avoiding Bodie's eye, and headed down the dingy corridor to the stygian darkness of the loos. Even here, they had decided, it would be better to stick to using torches and avoid turning on any lights; the last thing they needed after two days in this dump was for anyone to notice a light on in the building and wonder at it … he had a piss, scratched the itch, washed his hands perfunctorily under water from the tap so freezing cold his fingertips felt numb. And now, of course, Bodie would be back to watching him all the time. Jesus H. Christ on a bike. Doyle walked back towards their “office” and took a few deep breaths before stepping back into the spotlight of Bodie's gaze.

An endless hour later he handed off to Bodie with a sense of relief; he could relax now – in the freezing cold, mind you – while Bodie watched the factory yard until their replacement team arrived, still well before any hint of dawn at this time of year. He wrapped Bodie's sleeping-bag around his shoulders and sat against the wall, in the dark, resting his eyes and feeling his arse gradually lose all sensation to the creeping cold of the unforgiving floor. He could make out Bodie's silhouette even in this poor light – his back straight, his feet unnaturally still … and yet there was something dejected about the set of his shoulders, the slightly bowed head. Bodie, Doyle decided, looked bloody miserable and clearly wasn't getting any satisfaction out of winding him up – definitely out of character, then. Can't let this drag on indefinitely; one or both of us is going to do his nut or do himself an injury at this rate. Something happened in Berlin … Doyle found himself rubbing his chest where Bodie had once shoved a rifle into his hands so hard he'd had bruises for a week. Bodie'd worn the same look of furious despair then too … and Doyle was going to find out why. Before either of them fucked up so badly that maybe, just maybe the partnership would take a knock it couldn't come back from. Because losing Bodie even on the sole level on which he had him was – well it was well beyond unthinkable, is what it was.

Doyle made sure that he was the one driving when they left, feeling simultaneously much calmer and more keyed up now that he had decided to stop ignoring all this staring lark and do something about it. A tiny part of him was childishly triumphant that Bodie was so busy sulking about whatever-the-hell-this-was that he didn't notice where they were going until Ray pulled up outside his own flat.

“What the fuck, Doyle, what the fuck happened to dropping me off? It'll take me half an hour to get back to mine from here, and – ”

“Shut up, Bodie, 'n don't be so bloody ungrateful. I'm making you breakfast, mate, and my heating's on a timer. I'll even drive you back after, if you like, but for christ's sake come in and get thawed out; I've had about enough of you trailing around looking like a wet weekend in Cleethorpes so just do us all a favour and say yes, ta, will you?”

Bodie's lip twitched in the face of Ray's belligerence, and the pall of gloom that had been hanging over him for the last three weeks lightened a fraction.

~~~~O~~~~

Not a great deal was said until after the serious business of breakfast, with the oven on full and wide open to warm the kitchen faster. Ray even kept every ring on the hob lit for the extra warmth, for as long as it took to make and engulf bacon doorsteps and mugs of builders’ tea and for both of them to lose at least some of the grey, pinched look of too many sleepless hours in the cold.

“C’mon, put your shoes under the radiator to dry out. No point going straight back out into it, is there – it’s pissing down now, and I’m only just starting to feel my toes again.”

Bodie hesitated, and Ray began to feel a prickle of annoyance all over again. He turned away to dump their plates in the sink and hide a fleeting scowl of renewed determination, and when he turned back it was with an air of guileless good-fellowship that should by rights have roused every last suspicion Bodie possessed. That it apparently didn’t was warning-light enough in itself.

“Thank god for bacon butties, eh. Bloody weather … haven’t been warm since – hey, pity you weren’t here for the New Year's knees-up, you know. Well it was a good laugh.” He grinned, mentally urging Bodie to lighten up a fraction and let himself be interrogated. “ – kissed everybody in sight, well not the Old Man, I'm not that suicidal – ”

Bodie snorted a laugh, but then his mouth twisted into a bitter little smile.

“S’pose you shagged your way through half of ‘em as well, didn’t you. Always did fancy yourself the – ”

Ray could feel the barb coming, and cut Bodie off before he could turn it all sour, continuing smoothly as if he hadn’t noticed.

“Nah, went home on me tod in the end – it's like, if I was going to shag someone from work I'd want to make bloody sure I was sticking my neck out for something that meant a bit more than a one-night stand, you know? No point getting a bollocking from the Cow for something I c'n get anywhere. It'd mean something. Somebody you still fancy even when you're seein' 'em all bleary-eyed over breakfast after pulling an all-nighter …”

This time he let the words hang in the air, and poured them both another mug of tea to cover the silence. He hadn’t quite intended to say that, but now that he had … Ray reckoned he was still well within the bounds of plausible deniability, anyway. After a pause that probably felt longer than it was, Bodie drew the mug towards him and took a sip, wincing at the heat and setting it back down on the table to cool. And finally, finally he bent down and in a few swift movements unlaced his shoes and shoved them under the radiator by the kitchen door. He took another sip with the air of a man working out what he wanted to say, and Ray for once had the wisdom to let him get on with it without interruption.

“… I really wanted to be here,” he said at last, after another mouthful. “Had plans, y’know – was right pissed off to be over in Berlin, I mean it's a great place, but … well, was feeling a bit sorry for meself. Got chatted up by this bird from the Italian embassy, though, right little raver – took me to this club she knew that was running a big bash, fancy costumes, live band, the works – didn't even notice at first that it was mixed, like … I mean, not everybody was straight … well she ditched me after a bit to go and dance with these other birds and I hardly even saw her go I was so busy getting an eyeful … Got a bit pissed, actually. Got shagged an' all. Wish I hadn't. Oh, he was all right. But it wasn't …”

Bodie gave a twisted semblance of a smile that looked more like a grimace, then went on:

“… wasn’t what I was looking for.” There was a pause, before Bodie went on with a grim determination that might not have looked out of place in front of a firing squad. “He looked a bit like you – not much, just a bit. Genie’s out the bottle for me now, ‘s my trouble. Managed all right before, but – it’s – I’m not doing too well at putting it out of my mind, not any more.”

He looked up at Ray’s face now, but clearly didn’t see what he wanted in Ray’s expression; the fact that Ray was floored rather than indifferent either didn’t occur to him or was itself enough to make him angry for some reason.

“Well for fuck’s sake, Ray, we didn’t exactly meet yesterday - you must have some idea how I feel about you! ‘Spose you’re just goin’ to pretend you never even noticed, ‘course you’d never dream of lookin’ at another bloke – ” His voice was a nasty imitation of camp, now, full of sneering self-mockery, and his eyes were filling with cold fury once more; it was this that snapped Ray out of his bemusement at last.

“Wait – wait a minute – ” He raised his hands. “Just give me a sec here. So are you saying that all this fucking horrible attitude you’ve been inflicting on everyone – on me – is basically because you thought it wasn’t mutual?”

“What?”

Bodie actually paled slightly. There was a not inconsiderable pause while Ray finished mentally reassembling if not his entire worldview, then at least that compartment of it where Bodie-the-indefatigable-ladies’-man was filed away.

“I think I like you better gobsmacked than livid or miserable, mate,” he said at last. And he reached out a hand, letting it rest on the table between them.

“If you’re taking the piss – ”

“Straight up. Or, well, you know, not entirely straight up. Just bent enough, you might say.”

“You – you utter bastard. You couldn’t have, I dunno, said something? Given me half a bloody clue?”

“Oh come on, to you? The bird-man of CI5?”

Bodie’s lips twitched again, and this time – this time the smile didn’t vanish or turn bitter. He looked down, let his eyes rest on Ray’s hand that was still just waiting there. With Bodie’s head slightly bowed Ray couldn’t quite make out his expression as he slowly reached out in turn and let just the tips of his fingers meet and curl around Ray’s, but even as his own heart started to race Ray noticed that the tips of Bodie’s ears had flushed pink. He wondered suddenly if they would feel warmer to the touch. If he could tell the difference with his lips, say.

So much to find out. Ray grinned, and forgot there had ever been any such thing as sleet and gloom and winter; right now the kitchen, the flat, the city and the whole bloody world were glowing warm and welcoming.

Title: In the Bleak Mid Sodding, Bloody, Bastarding Winter

Author: Heliophile

Slash or Gen: Slash

Archive at Proslib: I’d be honoured :-)

Disclaimer: I think it’s fairly clear at this juncture that I don’t own a thing

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From:

milomaus.livejournal.com

Oh, the warmth spread out and heated up y world, too!
Thank you so much, such a wonderful story, so much love! Perfect for a cold winters morning in december.

From:

Discovered in the Bleak Midwinter - 3rd of December

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