Pros fic - Ladder of Secrets by Slantedlight

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

hyael45 posted a rather inspiring pic to her lj this morning, featuring two of my favourite characters - our Doyle, and Don De Marco, from Ladder of Swords. She also started off her post by saying Our little Raymond has a secret. A brother... and my head was mulling on that all day, and finally I couldn't resist... *g* It's not quite where she was going (which means that's another story for someone to write one day! *g*) but I hope it's okay...


Ladder of Secrets
by Slantedlight
A Pros/Ladder of Swords crossover

“Northumberland.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re in Northumberland.”

“Your hearing’s got better any road.”

Doyle took a deep, patient breath. “And what do you want me to do about it?”

“You never were much good at guessin’”.

“Ah look, it’s two in the morning…”

“Countin’s still strong.”

Another, deeper, breath. It had always been like this, it would apparently always be like this. “I’ll ‘ave to ask the boss.”

“You do that, our kid.”

And that was that. Click, burrrrr.

Beside him Bodie stirred, as though he might wake, and Doyle froze. Bodie’d woken when the phone rang of course, and Doyle would have sworn blue he was awake for most of the call, but now…? A slight huff into the night, and Bodie scrunched the corner of the pillow, and then he was quiet again, lulled by Doyle’s voice, by the comfort of still being in bed, and no one pulling on holsters or confirming orders.

Bodie’d be awake in half a second, if there was something to wake for. When there wasn’t…

That made it harder to leave him, of course.

o0o

Dawn had long since broken, and the moors were bathed in a truculent light when Doyle finally pulled up in the layby. The sun shone and then vanished, shone and then vanished, but the wind cut cold. The caravan in front of him was a cheerful blue, striped with yellow and red, and a lone red phone box blared still more colour at him against the dusky tones of bracken and heather all around.

Never one to do things by halves, was Danny.

Pulling his sheepskin coat closer around him, Doyle pushed open the car door, braced for what wasn’t yet a northern summer, and emerged into the day. His eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, and Cowley before nine in the morning, being presented with a fait accompli, was never a joy.

Bloody Danny.

He didn’t want to think about what Bodie had probably said.

The moors stretched all around him, an apparently unending and unpeopled undulation of browns and purples and greens. Despite himself, he could see why Danny preferred it up here, but he didn’t want to think about that, because he was a Londoner now and he’d made his choice, so he slammed the car door hard, leaned back, stuck his hands in his pockets, and waited.

Eventually the top half of the door to the caravan opened, and there he was in all his glory.

Danny bloody Doyle.

“Alright, our kid?”

He’d changed, Doyle thought, but then that was Danny for you. He’d grown a beard, which was flashed with grey, and his hair was long and tied back. The loose grey jumper he wore had seen better days, his jeans were scuffed, and there was a glint of gold in one ear. If you knew him you’d barely recognise him, except that Doyle always would. Teddy boy one minute, prize athlete, dazzling stage conjurer, anonymous bricky, and now here he was again. Errant older brother.

“As you see,” Doyle said, treacherous heart thumping. “Could do with a coffee.”

“I’ve got tea.”

“’course you ‘ave.” And that was Danny all over too, so Doyle pushed off the motor and walked forwards, and Danny swung the lower half of the door open, and stepped down, and then Doyle was being pulled into a quick fierce hug, and then cuffed and pushed away again, so that he had to follow Danny around the back of the caravan half-dazed but strangely warmed.

Bloody Danny.

There was a fire smouldering in a circle of stones, a billy can snuggled to one side of it and a tin kettle the other. The smoke reminded him of days camping out of town, long gone days, and returning home to find their mother frantic and their da in a fury, and most of the way in his cups, and the two of them dodging the strap and laughing until it finally caught one of them a good sharp cut.

Long gone days.

“What am I doing here, Danny?” he asked, watching his brother crouch down to wrap a tea-towel around the handle of the kettle, and pour treacle-y tea into two enamel mugs. He put the kettle back in the embers, reached for a carton of milk and sloshed good amounts into both cups, then for another tin with sugar and a spoon.

“Three?”

“One,” Doyle said, and even that was a fight with himself, because he’d been off sugar for weeks now, and what he wanted was thick, sweet tea.

Danny tipped three sugars into the mug and passed it to him. “How’s mam?”

And they were away then, as if there hadn’t been seven years of emptiness between them, when he’d not known where Danny was and told himself he didn’t care. Danny’d been to see their da, apparently, had been there when the old man died, half-cut and rheumy-eyed in some anonymous bedsit. Doyle had been with their mum a fortnight later when the coffin was lowered into the hard cold December earth, and he’d not seen Danny there.

“I was around.”

“Where?”

“Back in the trees. Didn’t think she’d want to see me.”

“She always wanted to see you.”

Danny shook his head slowly. “Not then, she didn’t. Not that day.”

Doyle looked up over the rim of his mug, tried to imagine where Danny and their mam might have met after the funeral, or even before it, couldn’t. He’d been by her side the whole time, the both of them cold and clear and free as winter, and nothing had breached their wall. Danny couldn’t have been there, not and left the wall standing.

“Denise not here?” he asked, and was meanly pleased to see Danny’s eyes narrow and his gaze drop for a moment, before he recovered.

“Stayin’ with friends,” Danny said. “She’ll be up in a few weeks. You know Denise.”

He remembered Denise, hard-eyed and sharp as a tack, desperately beautiful and endlessly amusing if she was in the mood for it. She’d come into third form just before Doyle was leaving after all that business, and by the time he’d got back she’d left again, along with his big brother. There’d been a couple of awkward Christmases after that, brief letters in bad spelling now and then, and eventually a wedding photo, but Doyle had never known where to write back. Until now.

They chatted about this and that old friend, or old enemy, and then Danny scooped them stew from the billy can, thick with wild grouse and carrots and potatoes, and they ate in silence for a while, looking out over the sweep of hills and sky. Eventually Danny got up and disappeared into the caravan, came back with a bottle of dark ale and a single glass. He filled the glass, handed it to Doyle, and swigged from the bottle. “Only got the one just yet,” he said, in that apologetic way that made you know he wasn’t. “You know what it’s like when the missus is away. Got a bear comin’, an’ all.”

Doyle looked up at that. “A bear?”

“It’s the new act. The Thee Dees – Don De Marco, Denise, and Daley the Dancing Bear.”

Doyle’s mouth twisted into a smile despite himself, and he looked up to the wild, safe heavens for a moment, then back down, shaking his head. “A bear.” It was no news that Danny’d changed his name yet again, especially now, but – a bear?

“Daley the Dancing Bear,” Danny said again. “You should see him, our Ray, he’s beautiful! An’ smart…”

“So you’ve been learning how to tame bears for the last seven years then?” Doyle asked, and wasn’t surprised when Danny swigged from the bottle again and changed the subject.

“So what about you?” he asked. “Still plodding those streets?”

“Something like that,” Doyle said, and felt the queer moment of stillness that told him he’d been right to come up here.

Danny’s eyes on him. “How much like that?”

“Something like that,” Doyle said again. “Look, what’s going on? An’ don’t give me all that guff about a dancing bear.”

Danny stood then, and Doyle stood with him, waiting.

“You called me, our Ray, you tell me what it’s all about.”

Doyle was aware of the stillness of the moors around them, despite the susurration of the wind in his ears, a distant car on the road, and the scudding clouds above them. He felt age, and depth, and the way a man could vanish from the world if he wanted to.

He had been the one to call Danny, left with no choice after a chance i.d. from an agent up north, and Cowley’s eternal filing system on his own men. If he could have done it, he’d have left Eugene Sullivan safely buried far away up there, left him to his chances with the local lads in Northumberland, and closed his eyes and hoped, because of course he’d seen the poster too, because that was his job. Except that young Ed had spotted a bloke who was all but the spit of Raymond Doyle, and Cowley had heard him joking about it, and put two and two together, and then Danny had gone and returned his bloody phone call.

He never could leave a telephone ringing, could Danny, and he could never leave well enough alone.

Doyle reached into his pocket, pulled out the paper that he’d half-folded, half-crumpled there, and held it out.

Wanted. Convicted Armed Robbers. Eugene Sullivan.

Danny Doyle, his brother, hair short and dark, moustache and smooth-planed cheeks. Armed robber.

“What am I supposed to do about this?”

Danny glanced at it, made no move to take it. “I thought that was it. What do you want to do about it?”

“What do you mean?” Doyle began, indignation rising. “I don’t hear from you for seven years, and now…”

“I didn’t hear from you for seven years either,” Danny said calmly, and Doyle hated that about him all over again, the way he could just take something, or leave it, so calmly, when it mattered. Like their dad, the way he was, the way their mum put up with it all.

“I didn’t…”

“And now here you are, come to ask me about a bloke called Eugene Sullivan.”

“Armed robbery! I was in the Met, Danny - I’m in CI5 – what did you think I’d do?”

Danny took a final drink from his bottle, then drew back his arm and hurled it end over end into the bracken. He shoved his hands in his pockets, turned away. “I dunno what CI5 is, do I? Look, it was all just a big mistake – I got mixed up with the wrong crowd…”

Doyle rolled his eyes at that, took a deep breath. Cowley had sent him here to decide what to do, and Doyle knew it was every bit a test of himself as it was of Danny’s likely guilt. Doyle had put away blokes he’d thought were mates for corruption, had slept with women and then let them be convicted of terrorism and espionage, and now here was his brother.

Armed robber.

“It’s not like I’m going to make a habit of it, now, is it?”

Doyle looked at him. “How do I know you won’t”?

“I’ve got a bear!” Danny’s turn to roll his eyes. “Alright, but I’ve got a bear coming - Sergei’s bringing him up on Thursday, and Denise’ll be back the week after. I’ve got an act Ray – I’m back on the stage again!”

And that had been Danny too, never happy unless everyone was watching him. Not exactly suited to a life of crime. How the hell had he got himself caught up in something like that? Denise, his memory whispered to him, because together they’d run with a fast crowd, the late-night crowd, and just as Doyle had skated his own edges - I cut up a kid when I was no more than a kid myself…, Danny’d been no better. No worse.

“I can’t go back inside, our Ray, it’d kill me this time. I just need a – who the hell’s this?”

It was the car he’d been hearing, Doyle realised with a kind of inevitability, pulled off the road behind the caravan, the engine roaring for a moment before it cut out, and then the sound of a car door.

Above everything else, he recognised the sound of that engine, of that car door.

“Doyle!”

“Round here!” he shouted out, only half a beat behind Danny’s voice, so that they glared at each other for a moment, before turning to face the intruder, shoulder to shoulder.

He didn’t think he’d ever seen Bodie surprised before, and he’d certainly never seen him speechless, but he’d be able to dine out on Bodie’s face as he rounded the caravan for weeks. Bodie stopped in his tracks at the sight of them, and his mouth actually fell open.

“Alright?” Doyle said innocently, the devil sliding into him. “What’s happenin’?”

Bodie stared at him, then across to Danny and back again. After a moment he raised an eyebrow. “The Old Man said you had a meet, told me to follow along. Didn’t mention straight away that you were off camping. A six hour drive away.” A beat. “I thought I was going to Bedford.”

“Yeah, well, I felt like some fresh air.”

Bodie’s gaze had shifted to Danny. “This the bloke Cowley wants to talk to?”

Doyle turned to look at Danny too, and for the first time he caught a flicker of fear when their eyes met, a lurking hunted look. Doyle knew Danny, but Danny knew Doyle too, knew the pull that fairness and justice had always had on him, right from when they were tearaway lads together. Whichever side of the law they’d been on, it was justice that had kept Doyle going, egged him on every time.

He hesitated too long. Had Bodie seen the poster? What had Cowley told him? Danny was suddenly tense, and he knew Bodie could feel that too.

“Ray?” Bodie stepped forward, within striking distance if he had to, automatically loyal, automatically looking out for him.

Automatic. Doyle took a breath, shook his head. “Nah. Case of mistaken identity. This is my brother – Danny.”

Bodie raised an eyebrow at that again, looked Danny up and down, but nodded. “Alright.”

“And who’s ‘e then?” Danny asked, and he hadn’t relaxed. It had got bigger, it wasn’t just Doyle now, and Bodie was still bristling. He didn’t know that Bodie was prepared to kill for those he was loyal to, that he’d been just as loyal to his own tearaway mates in one way or another, that he’d understand.

“This is Bodie.” This was Bodie. Doyle turned so that he was facing Danny, was standing side-by-side with Bodie, and he very deliberately leaned closer, letting their shoulders press together. “My partner.”

Danny’s eyes widened slightly, and beside him Bodie froze as he realised what Doyle had just said.

They each held a secret for the other now, two halves of a conspiracy, just as they’d been two halves of their family and their family problems growing up.

“I expect he could do with a tea,” Doyle said, nodding at the fire.

“Tea’s stewed,” Danny said. “I’ve got coffee.”

And wasn’t that Danny all over.

o0o

Title: Ladder of Secrets
Author: Slantedlight
Slash or Gen: Always slash!
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Certainly
Disclaimer: Bodie, Doyle and the CI5-verse belong to someone else, and I'm just playing with them...
Notes: Pros/Ladder of Swords crossover

Comments

[jinkyo.livejournal.com]

*swoon*

LoS is available to stream on Amazon Prime in the USA so I watched it last month and it was very enjoyable. Your re-imagining of it - very, very enjoyable!
What strikes me most is the strong sense of backstory between these brothers. They seemed to have gotten on well, been thick as thieves in their youth, only Danny['s sense of wanderlust was stronger. That might be an older sibling thing, Danny had to move, disappear. Doyle was restless too but his wandering didn't take him as far afield.

I love this line: And that had been Danny too, never happy unless everyone was watching him. It makes me think Ray had to fight to get attention back then and he still falls back on those skills in present day. Also, he and Danny are more alike than Ray wants to admit.

The early morning phone call scene is lovely too and this was around a great way to cap off my day -thank you!