Discovered in a Box of Baubles - Day 21 - Prosfic - The Look After Number One Credo by Slantedlight

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

The Look After Number One Credo
by Slantedlight
for tinturtle

Bodie'd said it a hundred times - more, over the years, and so many more in his head. Look after number one - I believe in me, mate - Can't afford to give a damn.

It wasn't that he didn't believe it, he still did. You care too much about the whole world, the whole world just comes crashing down on you, one betrayal at a time. Martin, Keller, Marrika, Krivas - all the way back to his best mate Johnny in Class One, trying to blame him for the smell of wee at their desk, even though it was Johnny's shorts that were soiled and dripping. You care too much about someone else, no matter how closely you think they're attached to you, and sooner or later they'd realise that their only way to survive was to throw you to the dogs instead of them.

Even Cowley, and he had more respect for George Cowley than almost anyone whose rules he was expected to follow. He'd never seen him as low as he'd been in that court case, Gerald Mather attacking him where it hurt him most. Married to CI5, he joked with Doyle, but when CI5 bled, George Cowley was in pain too. George Cowley’d thrown them to the wolves more than once, because when it came down to it, George Cowley and CI5 had to survive.

Doyle now… Bodie stared down at the hospital bed, tried to count the number of times he’d done that, watched Doyle’s injured form as he lay sleeping or unconscious. More times that Cowley’d betrayed them, more times than Keller or Krivas or any of the lot of them. Doyle had seen the sniper’s gun, had pushed Bodie aside and not been fast enough to get them both out of the way, and he had an ugly gash down the back of his head to spur him on faster the next time.

Because there’d be a next time. Doyle had chased after him that time when he had a bomb strapped to his back, for fuck’s sake, and the detonator in the hands of a madman, and Bodie could still feel Doyle’s hands on him, quick and alive, pushing him and turning him, and ripping the bag from his chest…

Don’t do as I say, do as I do, Bodie had said, all those years ago when they’d been suspended over Paul bloody Coogan, and Doyle had looked up at him then and he’d known, and Bodie had known too.

The Look after number one credo still held. Doyle wasn’t attached to him, and he wasn’t attached to Doyle. Doyle was him, was a part of him, deep inside somewhere, where it ached a physical ache even when it was Doyle who’d copped the bullet.

And so Bodie watched over Doyle’s hospital bed, waiting for the anaesthetic to wear off, waiting for Doyle’s eyes to open and his fuzzy gaze to clear. Looking after number one.


21st December, 2020

Title: The Number One Credo
Author: Slantedlight
Slash or Gen: Always slash
Archive at ProsLib: Certainly
Disclaimer: Bodie, Doyle, and the CI5 universe don't belong to me, although I do enjoying playing with them.
Notes: For tinturtle's ficlet prompt, Winter Solstice 2020. I have a feeling this wasn't the kind of unpacking you meant, but it seems to be where I'm starting from, so I hope that's okay! *g*

Comments

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Yup. Doyle is his number 1. Thank you!

[siskiou.livejournal.com]

Look after Number One! Yes! "That's" what it means!

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

I can very easily see Bodie's inner discussion with himself as he watches over Doyle. So close they're one. That's how I see them. Thanks!

[ali15son.livejournal.com]

Thankyou , i enjoyed this, infact the lads are on my tv screen right as we speak *g*

[tinturtle]

It's true that I imagined something that followed one of the elements of the quoted dialog backward in time rather than forward. I like this, too, though.

[tinturtle]

Also, that’s “Geraldine Mather.” I wish it had been “Gerald.” Maybe then the character wouldn’t have been such a caricature.

[milomaus.livejournal.com]

I love it, the essence of the Lads!
Thank you for this wonderful story!

[cloudless-9193.livejournal.com]

Beautifully written. Thanks! :-)

[queenafoster.livejournal.com]

Best thing I've read all day... maybe all week.

[cyanne]

A really interesting look inside Bodie's head. You really showed how much he changed over the years.