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discoveredinaljHappy solstice everyone!
I'm on the non-lads' side of the world this year, where it's summer solstice, and so I'm posting early for a change (well, the sun's going to set here soon, but it's early by my usual standards).
This was an experiment -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaospuppy4537 asked me if I knew of any Pros AU Coffee Shop fics, and I couldn’t think of/find a single one. We talked about how it could only work in a modern setting, because they didn’t have that type of coffee shop back in the lads’ time, which meant they’d definitely be modern AU lads, and of course it got me thinking I might give it a try. So I did. I had a slightly longer plot than I had writing time of course. And whether I pulled off modern-lads who are still our lads is up to you to decide… or even the whole coffee-shop trope in general! I’m not convinced, but I hope it’s close enough to be okay. And if it’s not - sorry chaospuppy4537!
Coffee in Five
by Slantedlight
Monday
A cold grey fog had settled over London in the night, shrouding the Thames and clinging to skyscrapers, so thick in the air that Doyle was sure he could taste it. It tasted of the river, and the distant sea which had crept up to her overnight, touching her with salt and mingling with her sand and ancient mud. It settled in a thousand droplets over his hair, his clothes, his face, as he walked his lonely 5.00am path to work, and he pulled his jacket closer against the chill.
When he finally reached the door, the shop was just as cold and dark, as if sulking that it had been abandoned all night, everything cast in shadows and mysterious shapes by the streetlight outside, like something from The Third Man.
That had been on the other night - who …? That’s right, Aleda Valli. He’d preferred Joseph Cotton, himself.
He snapped on the light as he let himself in, flooding the monotone morning in warm gold, and immediately felt better. It was still chilly in the shop - the radiators only just kicking in - but it would be more bearable by the time he got the machines up and running, and he had his first brew of the day in front of him. He left his coat on as he bustled about to get the place going, flicking switches to start the water heating, setting the first grind of the day, and shifting chairs and barstools back down to the floor. By the time old Betty was ready to go, he was already feeling warmer.
The trade door clattered, right on time, and he went back to open it. Benny swooped past him, arms stretched around paper-covered plastic crates, straight down the short corridor and into the shop kitchen, trailing cinnamon and nutmeg, and - was that cardamom?
“Mornin’,” Doyle said. “What you got for us today? Time for a coffee?” He filled a couple of double brew handles, and twisted them into place - Benny always had time for a coffee.
“Go on then.” Benny lifted the cover from his top crate, revealing rows of pastries, gleaming with butter and glaze, filled with custard and sprinkled with nuts, and began placing them on the white china platters waiting for them in the display cabinet. It wasn’t his job, but fair exchange and all that. By the time he was done the coffees were ready, and Doyle was surrounded by a fug of steam and the rich aroma of the shop’s own blend, deep notes of cocoa and chocolate, and a hint of nuttiness, and he was thinking about taking his jacket off at last.
“Here you go.” Doyle passed him a mug, and Benny closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
“My favourite drop-off, this,” he said, an expression of bliss settling on his pointy face. “Want a smashed-up pistachio croissant, or ‘ave you had too much muesli?”
“I’ll try one.” He had managed some fruit and muesli before he left home, but there was something about the dark foggy streets that morning that made him want to give in to temptation, to the sugar of pistachio crème and the golden flakes of pastry, even if there must be six hundred calories there - and he’d woken up late again, missed his run this morning. He’d go tomorrow, he’d definitely go tomorrow.
“You heard about Lucas and McCabe?” Benny began. Doyle leaned back against the counter, breathed in his own coffee, and then drank and listened. “Giving up their flats and buying one together out Bermondsey. They reckon it’ll be cheaper living, but you watch - there’ll be rings on fingers before the end of the year. Get your good suit ready. Susie and Ruth on the other hand…”
Doyle nodded along in the right places, and drank his coffee. Benny was a good mate, and he couldn’t have fallen into a better crowd than Benny’s circle of friends when he’d taken over managing the coffee shop, but there were days he could do without their intricate relationship dances. On the bright side, when Benny was focused on gossip he wasn’t trying to set Doyle up with blokes he was convinced were Doyle’s type, despite the evidence of previous attempts. He still shuddered over that big gymnast.
Trouble was, even Doyle wasn’t sure what his type was, not now. Maybe he didn’t have one - once an outsider always an outsider. Maybe he was destined to potter through life on his own, going through with the occasional date to placate Benny, and then going home to his lonely bed until the sun rose on yet another day. Maybe…
Then again, he thought, nearly an hour later, Benny long gone and the bread and sandwiches delivery settled on its shelf beside the pastries, there were worse ways to start the day. The place smelled of fresh yeast, sugar glaze and coffee, and there was not a drop of blood on the walls, no wraps of coke broken across the floor, and not one of his customers likely to betray him for the price of a two-hour high. It might not be the life he’d thought he wanted, eyes bright with the idea of doing something good, something that made a difference to people, but it was a life, and right now it was his life, and there was just time for another brew, a moment of proper peace before he opened the doors and the city chaos poured in on him.
He’d just set the double handle again, and begun foaming his milk when there was a sudden rapping at the front door, someone’s knuckles cracking sharply against the glass despite the Closed sign that was still carefully turned to the outside world. Doyle closed his eyes briefly in annoyance. He’d ignore it - he had fifteen minutes before it was 7.00am, there was no way he was going to…
The rapping came again.
Dammit! He finished off his milk, wiped the steam pipe, and finally half-turned towards the door. If whoever it was had any sense they’d have buggered off while he’d been ignoring them.
Doyle froze. The bloke hadn’t had any sense, he was still there, staring at Doyle through the door, hands pressed together pleadingly and a hopeful smile on his face - and he was the most beautiful man Doyle thought he’d ever seen, all smooth dark hair and pale skin, and solidly muscled from his shoulders right down his legs.
And damn, because Doyle had just looked him up and down instead of glaring at him to fuck off, and now the man’s smile was wide, and maybe just a bit smug. Far less attractive, Doyle told himself, but even as he thought it he was reaching up to slide the top bolt open, and then down to free the door completely. Cold air rushed in around the man.
“Open at seven,” Doyle said nonsensically, indicating the sign. Obviously the bloke knew that, he was standing right in front of it, could almost certainly read…
“Yeah, I know - you’re a star!” As if it had been permission, the man slid past him, the cold of his clothes brushing against Doyle’s own, and he sighed, gave in and turned the sign to open, and followed him to the counter where he was eyeing the board.
“Your largest extra-shot caramel latte with cream,” the man said. “And a caramel-chocolate cinnamon roll. Please.”
“For here or take away?” Doyle asked automatically, turning to the machine and starting to pull the grind, because what the hell was wrong with him? He was not, he was not hoping that this pushy bloke…
“Eat in,” the man said. “Definitely.”
Doyle glanced behind him and caught that smug smile again, ignored the way his heart was for some reason racing - so the bloke’s hot, lots of hot blokes out there - and got on with making his coffee.
By the time Doyle had put the order together, the man had taken off his jacket and made himself comfortable at the bar table that ran along one end of the service counter, immediately beside where Doyle worked.
He slid the mug and plate across to him, nodded down at them. “Enough sugar there to see you through the end of the week.” He owed him that for the smile.
The man just beamed at him again. “Nah - work it off on a run later.” He patted his stomach. “All muscle this.”
Doyle rescued his own abandoned coffee, and leaned back against the counter. “You run do you?”
“Don’t look so surprised!” He tore off a piece of his cinnamon roll, popped it in his mouth and chewed with obvious relish. “Besides, got to be fit for work.”
Doyle opened his mouth to ask where - his hair was short enough to be army, but he could be a gym instructor, firefighter… not the Met, surely Doyle would have noticed him - when the bell rang over the door, admitting a couple in sportswear, squash rackets still in hand from the gym down the road, and then it was all go with the morning fitness crowd, and then the office crowd, and somewhere in the rush of it all the man finally vanished.
o0o
Bodie was knackered. Dog tired, Too tired to think, too wired to sleep, and too cold back in this bloody country to stay still. His hotel room was blandly depressing, and, ironically, suffocatingly hot. None of it was a cure for either jetlag or that last job, and so he was out walking the night-time streets of London, glaring hard at anyone unwise enough to start an approach in these dreg-end early hours.
He’d crossed the Thames three times, fog roiling around him like a Victorian melodrama, his steps gradually slowing and the cold gradually starting to penetrate. What he needed now was a cuppa - brickie’s tea would hit the spot, but he’d settle for coffee if he had to, even some of that muck from a chain. If - life in a bloody word, that - anywhere was bloody open. This was London for fucksake, there must be a caff somewhere for all the night duty types, there must be somewhere willing to take his money off him at seven in the morning.
There was of course. Not the cosy greasy-spoon of his dreams, ready to set him up with bacon and eggs and fried bread, not among the fancy office blocks and flats where he found himself, but if the only thing moving with lights on was a glassy, gleaming hipster joint that was going to overcharge him for the froth on a coffee he supposed he’d have to take it before he froze to death. At least the windows weren’t covered in fake Christmas snow and fairy lights, which boded a bit better than most places he’d passed.
Trouble is, the lights were on but the place wasn’t open - Bodie could see the bloke inside, but he didn’t so much as turn around when he tried the door. Fair enough, he supposed, the sign said seven o’clock, and it wasn’t quarter to yet, but on the other hand it was cold out here. He tried willing the man to turn and see him, and someone up there was finally on his side, because there!… He clasped his hands together, smiled, and looked hopefully up under his lashes in the way that always worked for him, and… Wait - had the man just given Bodie the once over? Surely he’d… But even more importantly, the bloke advanced towards the door, and - yes! - reached for the locks. Now all Bodie had to do was convince him he should be let in.
“Open at seven,” the man said, voice deep and no nonsense, as if he hadn’t just raked Bodie top to toe with what, Bodie saw now, were the kind of eyes he liked to drown in, green and intense and full of promise. His head was an unruly mass of curls, and he’d broken his cheekbone at some point, giving him a slightly asymmetric feel, a fallen angel or a devil rising, Bodie couldn’t tell, but something went click in Bodie’s brain. It was almost enough to make him forget the idea of breakfast, but then again it was freezing…
“Yeah, I know - you’re a star!” He squeezed past, heard the man sigh heavily behind him, and quite honestly did not care even a bit. There was a man with legs that stretched all the way to a very promising denim-clad arse, an array of gleaming pastries behind the counter, and the smell of fresh coffee. Fuck builder’s tea and a fry-up, flexibility was his middle name, and the day had definitely improved. He pulled up a stool at the counter, and looked cheerfully around. Not a single piece of tinsel to be seen, no artsy chrome angels, or eco-paper chains, just the name of the place in solid steel letters behind the bar over the coffee machine, and then straight lines and semi-industrial tones. Nice. Calm.
He ordered the biggest, sweetest coffee he could manage, and a pastry of the same description, and kept his eye on the barista, deciding he was ready to begin the kind of campaign he enjoyed best, and had managed far too few of in recent months. Impress, captivate, and fuck joyfully before it was time to move on. Keep moving, that was the key. Frankie could have another job for him sooner rather than later, and he didn’t even know if he’d take it right now, but until he had to decide he needed a distraction, and he had a feeling that this bloke could definitely distract him. How was that for his first few days back in the big smoke?
Trouble was, he’d picked the wrong time of day to flirt with a barista who worked a busy coffee shop in London, all, it seemed, by himself. Where the hell were his co-workers? All off on their Christmas holidays? Bodie watched him for a while, hoping to snatch a few words in between customers, but the best he managed from the bloke was an apologetic twist of a smile.
He was paying attention though - the bloke was paying him attention, so it was almost certainly going to be worth his while. Some of the squad out in Africa hadn’t cared one way or the other how willing a partner was, but Bodie preferred some enthusiasm. What was the point if one of you came away miserable from what should be a good time?
Bodie stretched out his food as long as he could, but it was no use. When his plate was nothing but a smear of cinnamon sugar, and his mug a smudge of sad caramel, he shrugged on his jacket and left.
There was always tomorrow.
o0o
Tuesday
The bread and sandwiches were early, and Benny was late. If yesterday’s fog hadn’t changed to the kind of solid icy rain that crept down the back of your neck no matter what, and if Doyle hadn’t slept badly yet again and left home far after the last minute had passed, he might have minded less. He might not have slammed the back door of the shop hard enough that it bounced back and caught his elbow and sent the tray of sandwiches sliding into a pile of bread and tangled fillings, and he might not have had to slam it down hard on the counter and then start trying to recreate saleable combinations rather than making his own first brew of the day.
He might not have been scowling quite so hard when the front door rattled instead of the back door, and expected it to be the delayed pastries.
He might not have turned out to be frowning at the dark-haired firefighter-soldier-naval-officer-extreme-search-and-rescue-worker-astronaut (he might have been thinking a bit too hard about all that) when he turned up to rattle the door at just gone six, so that the man widened his eyes and took a dramatic step backwards, with an exaggerated who-me? gesture to his chest.
As it was, he couldn’t help it, he ended up smiling down at the mess of sandwiches, and then up at the man, and of course he ended up pulling off his bright blue food safety gloves and crossing the room to open the door.
“Open at seven,” he said, trying and failing to sound unwelcoming, and stepping to one side to let him in. Raindrops flashed in the man’s hair, and on his jacket, which he tugged off and hung on one of the chrome coat hooks by the door.
“I know,” the man said, grinning widely at him. “You’re a…”
“Star,” Doyle finished. “Yeah, yeah.”
“You make the sandwiches as well?” the man asked, raising an eyebrow at the half-tidied tray.
“Oh yeah - all the services right here,” Doyle said. “Was late today though, not got the coffee on yet - Betty’s only just up to speed. Grand extra-shot caramel latte with cream?”
“Double ristretto.”
Doyle raised his own eyebrows. “Long night?”
“Don’t ask. What time did you say it was again?”
“Right. Let’s get you sorted.” Doyle turned to get the coffee on, listening with half an ear for Benny to finally turn up, and with his whole body for the next thing this man would say to him. He didn’t know his name yet, but he felt as if they’d sat together in this coffee shop every morning of his entire life, as if he knew the man, and had known him forever.
It was comfortable.
Of course he’d gotten comfortable before, and that hadn’t been a good idea.
He set the coffee down in front of the man, tapped out grounds, and put his own brew on, with its own extra shot - at long bloody last. He was so far behind it wasn’t funny.
Behind him the man gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “That’s better.”
“You been working?” A firefighter coming off duty, the end of a long night, just wanting to relax, go home, slide into something comfortable… Like me a little voice whispered in his head. Slide into something like me…
He poured his milk, added the shots to his mug, and turned around.
The man shook his head. “Off duty just now.”
Soldier home from a long tour of duty, naval officer with his ship in dock, looking for somewhere to dock himself…
He waited for the man to continue, to explain, but he was looking down at his cup instead, eyelashes long and dark against pale skin.
“Early throw-out from St Mungos?”
That got him to look up again. “Bite your tongue! I’m at the Ritz!”
“Fair enough - those ristrettos aren’t free. Chronic insomniac then, must be.”
“Natural early bird,” the man sniffed. “Too wet to run.”
“So not in the SAS.”
“Those crazy bastards! Rather join the French Foreign Legion!”
“They still going?” Doyle pulled on a fresh pair of gloves, fortified by coffee at last, wishing he could deny even to himself that he’d been reinvigorated by the man turning up again, and began separating edam and gouda from chorizo.
The man shrugged, watching, drinking his coffee, and opened his mouth to speak again just as the back door rattled.
Fuck.
“Delivery,” he said to the man’s enquiring eyebrow. “Back in a minute.”
The back door rattled again, accompanied this time by the actual buzzer, and Doyle hurried down the corridor, pulled the bolts, and stood square in the way. The pastry trays pushed into his unmoving self, and he grabbed them underneath and took their weight.
“Cheers, Benny!”
“Morning to you too! It’s been a shocker already - bloody delivery vans everywhere they shouldn’t be. What’re you doing in the way? I’m already soaked through!”
“Rubbish isn’t it,” Doyle agreed sunnily. “Listen mate, I’m a bit behind myself today - raincheck on your coffee? I’ll make it up to you.”
Benny frowned. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going…” he began impatiently, then caught Benny’s eye and forced a smile through clenched teeth. If the bloke left again before Doyle had even got his name… “Nothing’s going on,” he said. “Just a bit behind. Come by later, yeah?”
Benny relinquished his hold on the trays, nodded slowly without looking away from Doyle’s face. “Later,” he agreed. “You can tell me all about him.”
“What him…?” Doyle began, but Benny was turning away and heading back through the stair-rods of rain to his own delivery van, and he was whistling as he went. He swore under his breath, recognising a promise when he heard one, then kicked the door shut with one foot, slid the bolt across with a corner of the tray, and headed back to the warmth of the café.
Bodie was still at the counter, and he was wearing Doyle’s safety gloves and finishing off the last of the sandwiches. He looked up when Doyle came through, a smile on his face, and pulled the gloves off.
“All for me? Ah, mate, you shouldn’t have!”
Doyle hid a smile, rolled his eyes, and leaned the pastry tray against the counter to begin sliding the contents onto their plates in the display cabinet. He glanced up to find the man watching him over the rim of what must by now be an entirely empty coffee cup. He put the next cherry bakewell danish onto a napkin instead, and passed it over. “Go on,” he said. “Benny’s not here, so you’d better try the wares for him. Cheers for doing the sandwiches.”
The man shrugged, pulled the napkin happily closer, took a bite. “You’re not so late now. Who’s Benny?” he asked, mouth full. “Boyfriend?”
“Baker,” Doyle replied. “And delivery boy. Just starting out - bit like this place. But he’s good.”
“I like him already,” the man said, taking another bite. “He need a full-time sampler?”
“Gannet,” Doyle said. “And you’re not even running today!”
“Rather be here,” the man said, a distinct twinkle in his eye. He reached out a hand. “Bodie.”
“Bodie?”
“William Bodie if you’re me mum - Bodie to my mates.”
“Ray Doyle.” Doyle clasped the man’s hand - Bodie’s hand - in his own, warm and solid, and they both held on just a second too long for politeness sake.
“Any chance of another coffee?” Bodie asked at last.
“Ristretto?”
“Extra-shot caramel latte with cream.” Bodie grinned. “And sprinkles. So this place is new then?”
Doyle turned round to Betty, glanced over his shoulder with a shrug. “New-ish. Owner’s got a couple of places up in Edinburgh, wanted to test the water down here. Opened about a year ago?” Had it really been nearly a year? Sometimes it felt that way, but he still woke yelling and shaking from sleep far too often.
“Never met a professional barista,” Bodie said thoughtfully.
“You know your coffee well enough,” Doyle said, sliding the sugary concoction across the counter. “You must have met hundreds of them.”
Bodie looked up from under his lashes. “Bought coffee before,” he said. “Never met a barista worth meeting. Until now.”
Doyle’s breath caught. He was being pulled - Bodie was flirting with him! He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved - thank fuck it wasn’t just him, he hadn’t been imagining their weirdly immediate connection - or annoyed that Bodie was using a line on him.
“You still haven’t,” he said, needing to be contrary. “I’m just filling in time until…”
The front door rattled.
“Oh fuck.”
Bodie raised an eyebrow, and turned to follow Doyle’s gaze to where Benny was standing grinning at the door, Jax and Murphy at his shoulders. “Oh fuck?”
“Oh fuck,” Doyle confirmed. Benny must have been straight on his mobile to get the other two out before it was even opening. “One of you comes, then three more in a row…”
There was a pregnant pause.
“Buses, Bodie! It’s a saying about buses!”
“I know,” Bodie protested loftily. “You going to let them in?”
Doyle glanced at his watch. Five past seven - past opening time, so he’d got no choice. “Yeah,” he said, shortly.
“Alright, Ray?” Benny said cheerfully, when he’d unlocked the door and flipped the sign around, completely ignoring what Doyle had hoped was a death-ray glare. “Bit late today, aren’t you?”
Doyle intensified the glare, but it just bounced off.
“Surprised to see you two here so early,” he said instead to Jax and Murphy. “Won’t you be late for the office?” He was pushing it - Jax and Murphy worked from home on their own tech start up company.
Sure enough, Jax looked at him, puzzled. “You know it’s Christmas, right? We’ve been off since Friday!”
“Yeah - no decs?” Murphy scrutinised the room. “Where’s your tree? Your tinsel? Your little plastic nativity scene?”
“Over my dead body,” Doyle said decidedly. He caught Bodie looking approvingly at him, gave him a half-smile back. “And I’ve got all the Christmas fairies I need.”
“Ah, brighten up a room, we do,” Benny grinned. “Go on, knock us up that coffee and we’ll talk to… sorry - I didn’t get your name?” he said pointedly to Bodie, and Doyle wondered if Bodie would fall for it.
But sure enough - “Bodie,” he said. “I’m guessing you’re mates of Doyle’s.”
“What gave it away?” Jax asked. “His welcoming demeanour and general bonhomie?”
Bodie shook his head. “He hasn’t taken any money, but he hasn’t chucked you out yet either - must have a soft spot for you.”
“Touché!” Benny held out a hand. “I’m Benny - that’s Jax, that’s Murph.”
“Benny the baker?” Bodie asked, and Benny glanced sideways at Doyle, and then back to Bodie, lighting up like the missing Christmas tree.
“You do have a soft spot for me!” He grinned widely at Doyle. “Marketing gold, that is!”
“I’ve definitely gone soft,” Doyle muttered, but on the other hand there was something strangely comforting in the jabbering voices he could just about hear over Betty’s roars and hisses. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but having the lads come round just because Benny had… Benny had what? Noticed something - and wasn’t that Benny all over. In fact all his new mates were far too observant for his own good.
Tuesdays tended to be quieter than Mondays, the gym crowd on a rest day, the work crowd settling into their midweek routine rather than their get-ready-to-survive-the-week routine, and he was able to spend a fair amount of time leaning over the counter and listening to the lads bantering back and forth. Susie and Ruth came in around nine, all smiles and holding hands, whatever ruction Benny had been describing presumably far in the past already, and then Julia appeared, all of them setting their phones on the counter and settling in for a while. Bodie was introduced to everyone as “Doyle’s mate”, which wasn’t entirely accurate, to be fair, but - maybe wasn’t inaccurate either? Bodie caught Doyle’s eye with a twinkle every time it happened, and maybe it was just - slightly in advance of reality.
The lunchtime rush came and went, quieter than ever to Doyle’s surprise and everyone else’s amusement.
“It’s Christmas eve tonight,” Susie said, in her cut-glass tones. “Were you really expecting a busy day?”
“Even the poor sods who had to work yesterday will be off now.” Murphy nodded. “How long are you even staying open?”
Doyle peered outside to the street, noted a distinct lack of passers-by, and took a deep breath, then let it out, shaking his head. “We’re not all consumed by consumerism, you know,” he said. “Some of us don’t run our lives around….”
“Leave it out,” Benny interrupted. “Be honest - you forgot. You would have been at the door waiting for me tomorrow an’ all, wouldn’t you.”
Yeah, alright, he’d definitely forgotten, but also…
Christmas was something he’d been trying to avoid for the last couple of years (a length of tinsel wrapped around a young girl’s throat, syringe in her arm shining in the harsh overhead light - Preston and his mate taking payment from her pusher, bundles of heroin from the evidence store passing between them like snow).
He shook his head. He’d taken them down, moved on.
He was here now.
“What am I going to do with all this lot, then?” he asked, disgruntled. It felt like hours he’d spent putting those bloody sandwiches back together.
“Party food!” Susie and Ruth shouted at the same time, and that was it - next thing he knew he’d agreed to turn up at their place with the leftovers, a bottle, and Bodie.
o0o
Bodie couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually had this much fun. He should have scoffed at it - would have been taking the piss if he’d been sitting with Krivas and the old mob - but he drank coffee and listened to Doyle’s mates laughing and gossiping among themselves, drawing him into the conversation when they could, and making sure that Doyle was included between the sparse customers who still needed their morning break, or lunch. He watched Doyle.
Ray Doyle, who moved like water between the huge coffee machine at the back, and from one end of the counter to the other, with a pleasant smile for every new customer, and a quick response to his mates’ banter in between. At the same time he was noticeably quieter than the others; there was something there, something…
Bodie watched.
Darker. There was something a bit darker about Ray Doyle than there was about the friends surrounding him, Bodie could feel it. He’d been out there, this glass-fronted life wasn’t the real Doyle - or at least, it hadn’t always been. He was like Bodie. Click.
By two-thirty it was obvious that no one else was going to turn up wanting to be served, and when the others took themselves off, leaving him with strict instructions to show up at Susie and Ruth’s flat with Doyle, and half a dozen new numbers in his latest burner phone, he fell naturally into helping Doyle close up, turning stools up onto tables while Doyle shut down the machines and then got to work with the mop.
“You do this on your own every day?”
Doyle shook his head. “Not usually. Stuart’s been out with Covid for the last week or so.”
“Boss too mean to get you extra cover.” Bodie rolled his eyes. “I’ve known a few like that.”
Doyle shrugged, eyes on the floor as he walked backwards with the mop to where Bodie was piling pastries and sandwiches back into a tray. “Yeah, we could do with someone else, but he’s alright. Don’t see him much, he gives us pretty free rein.” He paused, looked around the place. “He didn’t care about doing it up for Christmas, but he keeps saying he wants some kind of theme - make it stand out from the competition.”
“What are his other ones? Can’t you just do that?”
“Yeah, no. Edinburgh chic and Robbie Burns. I am not covering this place in Beefeaters and Union Jacks!”
“Definitely not,” Bodie agreed. Glass and steel, and… “Free rein, you reckon?” he followed Doyle’s gaze thoughtfully.
“Almost. Wish he’d let me change the sign,” Doyle said moodily. “That’s the one thing off-limits. Looks weird with a number there. Not very elegant. Should be the word.”
“Coffee in 5.” Bodie stared at it for a moment, bold and clear above the counter. “Nah,” he said at last. “Then you’d have CIF, wouldn’t you. Kitchen cleaner. C-I-5 is more like it.”
“CI5,” Doyle repeated. “Sounds like some secret government agency, full of spies.”
“All dust and shadows,” Bodie agreed. “Like in The Third Man.”
Doyle grinned. “That was on the other night. Aleda…”
“…Valli.” Bodie grinned back. “Yeah, I watched it.”
On the telly - he’d watched it on the telly, and Doyle had been watching it on the telly at the same time, both of them sitting there in London, eyes taking in the same story.
He wouldn’t mind doing that when they were in the same place.
Doyle snapped his fingers, just as Bodie felt the lightbulb suddenly burst above his head. “There’s your new theme!” he said, at exactly the moment Doyle said “That could be the theme!”
Click, click, click.
o0o
They both left to change, Bodie definite that he couldn’t turn up to someone’s place in the same clothes he’d worn most of the night before - “Most of the night before?” - Shrug - “Don’t sleep much just now.” - “Know the feeling.” - meeting up back at the coffee shop, Doyle sheltering outside under the building’s walkthrough from the rain that still fell, umbrella in hand. Susie and Ruth lived just a street over, in one of the soaring, brown-brick towers that housed a chemist and an aromatherapist side-by-side downstairs, and god knew how many aspiring Londoners up above.
Bodie arrived in casual black, under his own black umbrella, and they did no more than grin at each other before stepping out into the wet. They knew where the night was going - Doyle knew where the night was going - and there was a tingle of anticipation between them. This was going to happen, and it was going to be good.
Maybe, Doyle thought, it would even be something more.
The party was well under way when they got there, the mellow notes of Myles Smith where Bodie had expected a Dua Lipa or Billie Eilish playlist, and the same crowd from that morning lounging around a spacious open plan room, with a few additions. Susie was by the kitchen bar, doing something impressive with a bottle of vodka and some rosé, and she gestured them over with a tip of her head.
“Come and try this, it’s like drinking a bunch of flowers!”
Doyle grimaced, lifted the bottle of Kraken they’d bought between them, pointed to it with his other hand. “Might start with something less… bloomy,” he said, attempting diplomacy.
“Your loss!” Susie finished the glasses off with what looked like a sprig of thyme, gave them a friendly smile and vanished Ruth-wards.
“Less bloom-y?” Doyle held the bottle up to Bodie, who nodded and passed him a couple of glasses.
“Where d’you know this lot from, then?”
Doyle shrugged. “CI5, mostly. And Benny. There’s a lot of cross-over.”
“I bet.” Bodie surveyed the room, gaze pausing here and there on people he’d met earlier, raising his glass cheerfully to them. “You want to find a corner?”
“Got just the place,” Doyle said. As long as no one had beaten them to it. He liked this lot - was fond of them even - but if he’d not been bullied into a party he would have been wining and dining Bodie now, just the two of them.
He led the way to a corner of the room that turned into a corridor beside the bathroom, with a tall window at the end. The window was still closed, so the odds were… He slid it upwards and looked to either side. Yes! With an inviting look back at Bodie, he lifted a leg and slid through the opening, glass balanced carefully. It was still wet and cold out, but they’d not taken their coats off yet, and there was a roof over the small balcony, and a patio heater that he turned on with a flourish. They’d have to sit pretty close on the rattan two-seater, but he didn’t mind…
Bodie pulled himself out through the window, looked up in surprise at the roof above, and then moved forward to peer over the surrounding wall, and down ten floors of other balcony spaces to the street below. “And they didn’t put a door on this thing?”
Doyle scrunched his nose. “They did actually - that end by the kitchen. But we’d’ve had to go through…”
“…the kitchen,” Bodie chimed in. “Good thinking, Batman!” He settled himself on one side of the sofa, and Doyle claimed the other, sitting cross-legged to face him. “So…”
Their eyes met, held.
“To something other than coffee,” Doyle suggested, raising his glass.
“Oh I dunno. I could get quite fond of coffee. Cheers.” Bodie touched glasses to his, and then they both drank, gaze still locked.
Would it be now? Bodie’s lips were right there, they’d taste of rum. Just lean forward, and…
“You were going to tell me what you did before you became King of Coffee,” Bodie said, tilting his head to one side. “I’m quite disappointed, you know, I thought I’d finally met a professional barista.”
Never met a barista worth meeting. Until now.
But he’d been avoiding this all afternoon, this one thing that might end whatever this was before it began. Why had he even brought it up that morning? He liked being a barista, liked making people feel good, seeing them come in with happy anticipation, and leave with paper bags and cardboard cups that were going to make them smile, even just a little bit. He was a professional.
He shook his head. “That’s Stuart, that is, won King of South London Coffee twice in a row.”
“Never gets tired of telling you?” Bodie suggested, smirking.
“Never gets tired of telling me,” Doyle agreed, with an answering grin.
“So go on, then - what did you do before you became the second most professional barista in London?”
Fuck it all.
And yet - he didn’t consider lying, not for one second. Not to Bodie.
“I was in the police.”
“The police?” Bodie actually leaned slightly away from him. “They chuck you out?”
Doyle winced slightly, but it was a fair assumption these days. “Other way round - I chucked them.”
“To work in a coffee shop.” Bodie wasn’t stupid, He knew there was more to this than Doyle wanting a sudden change of career.
“To become a professional barista.” Turn it round, turn it round… “Go on then - what about you. Butcher, baker…?”
“Professional soldier.”
He’d been right. “Army,” he said. “Thought you looked fit.” Because that could mean - well, whatever Bodie wanted it to mean. He could claw this back. But Bodie was shaking his head.
“Private military company,” he said, eyebrows pulled slightly together, obviously waiting for Doyle’s response.
“A mercenary,” Doyle said slowly. “A mercenary where?”
Bodie shrugged. “Here and there.”
Doyle shook his head. “That’s banned by the UN.”
“That right, constable?” Bodie’s mouth twisted, his eyes had darkened into something knowing, something hating.
“Detective constable,” Doyle corrected, hearing the hard notes settle in his own mouth. Fine. He had no more fucks to give over this - he should have known it would go this way.
Bodie shook his head. “I don’t like mouthy coppers!”
“Sure,” sneered Doyle. “And you mercenaries are such decent upstanding…”
“My sister was killed by one of you lot!” Bodie was standing now, looming over him, and his hands were fists by his side. “She was sixteen - the cops might as well have fed her the ket themselves for all they did to help!”
Doyle froze. Fuck.
A length of tinsel wrapped around a young girl’s throat, syringe in her arm shining in the harsh overhead light… Bodie was around his own age - thirty-something - it wasn’t the same girl, it wasn’t the same coppers, it was far too close to being the same thing, fifteen or more years later.
“I didn’t know,” he said, which was stupid, obvious, of course he didn’t know. “And it wasn’t me,” he added, not really expecting Bodie to care. People didn’t - pigs would always be pigs if you started out on the wrong side.
“Not you,” Bodie said. “But what would you have done about it, copper?”
“I took it higher up.” He closed his eyes. Didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to think about this. Why did he always have to think about this? “Not high enough, though.” He gestured vaguely to his cheek, to the slight prominence that still shadowed his skin and ached in the cold. They said it would settle down one day. “Preston and his mates thought they’d shut me up, but when I could talk again I took it further up still. Did better research this time, found the right person. She backed me up, took it seriously. There was a trial.”
He stopped, took a breath, opened his eyes and looked off into the dark distance instead, away from the faces of his colleagues, of people he’d thought were his mates and his colleagues. People who’d known what was going on, and done nothing about it. People who’d turned their back on him afterwards, for grassing on their own.
Bodie had gone still. “True?”
“Yeah, true.” He could feel Bodie sinking back to the seat beside him, but he couldn’t look yet, kept staring into the kindly dark, the occasional silver streak of rain illuminated from the windows of the flat. “They got a couple of dozen years each, because people had died. Kids had died. I reckon they’ll be out in half that.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.” He took another breath, turned to face Bodie again. “So I am sorry about your sister. There are some shitty cops out there.”
Bodie nodded slowly. “There are,” he said. “But it just takes one good copper.”
“Your sister didn’t have one.”
Bodie shook his head. “Nope. None of the fuckers gave a damn what had happened to her. And I got the hell out as soon as I could.” He paused. “Then again, I supposed my new lot would have called her collateral damage.”
“The world’s fucked up,” Doyle said. “But…” He paused. It was over, and this wasn’t his business.
“But what?”
He shrugged. “We don’t have to keep doing it, do we? We can do something else.”
“Sell coffee.”
“Sell coffee. And I run a youth club by the river for kids who are struggling. So they’ve got somewhere to go. People to talk to who might know what they’re talking about too.”
“That right.”
“Yeah.” He sighed, leaned back against the side of the sofa and closed his eyes again - and then practically jumped out of his skin. Bodie’s hand was pressing lightly on his knee, and when he looked up, Bodie was staring back at him, eyes sharp in the dark, but not unfriendly.
“Maybe you can teach me how to make coffee,” Bodie suggested. “I reckon you’re short a barista even if the King of South London Coffee comes back.”
Was this - was this happening?
“You’d have to help me with that theme,” he said. “CI5, home of Aleda Valli and super-spies. Good coffee, excellent pastries, and complete lack of Christmas decorations guaranteed.”
There in the dark, Bodie smiled at him. “You’re on,” he said.
o0o
Christmas Day
There were bells ringing somewhere in the distance, and rain slapping down across the windows. Storm Whoever-the-Fuck continued, Doyle thought, waking fuzzily, surrounded by warmth and a dim golden light. He hadn’t slept like that for months. Years. The central heating had been on, and the duvet stretched like a cloud along his back, and…
…and someone’s hand was heavy on his hip, a thumb rubbing circles on his skin.
He opened his eyes to Bodie’s blue gaze, his body like a furnace beside Doyle’s, and to a hard throb in his cock.
“Morning.” Bodie was smiling.
Doyle took a deep breath, moved closer to being properly awake. “Mornin’. Alright?”
Bodie nodded. “Great. Best sleep in years. And the rest.” His smile widened.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah… You?”
“Yeah.” He took another deep breath, stretched hard enough that the duvet lifted around them, letting in a puff of cooler air, and turned onto his back - but he kept looking at Bodie. “What time is it?”
“Dunno.”
“Clock’s on the bedside table.”
“Yeah, but I’m looking this way, aren’t I?”
“You could…” Doyle began, just as Bodie closed the space between them, rolling them even closer together, kissed him firmly, hungrily, perfectly.
“I could…?” Bodie asked innocently when they parted, breath a little faster, a little more ragged.
“Turn over and look,” Doyle suggested, sliding his own hands, now they were so much closer, down Bodie’s flanks and over his arse.
“Nah.” Bodie tilted his hips into Doyle’s, and Doyle hissed in a breath as their cocks pressed together.
“…go for a run,” Doyle tried, breathing hard against Bodie’s neck, pausing to kiss it, to bite just hard enough, to mark him… Mine.
“Don’t think so.” Bodie pulled away slightly, reached down and lifted Doyle’s leg to rest on his shoulder. He slid his cock down, lined up, and pressed the head against Doyle, pushed in and began to rock, steady thrusts until he was all the way in, and then he paused, looked down at Doyle, who was waiting, waiting for it to begin, waiting for everything to begin.
“You know what I need?” Bodie asked, pulling almost all the way out, and then pausing again before pushing back in at a slightly different angle, so that Doyle saw stars, hissed in a breath.
“Swear to god Bodie, if you say a caramel latte I’ll bloody thump you!”
Bodie laughed and shook his head, leaned down and caught Doyle’s lips in his, pulled out again, and then in, out again and then…
“Just you,” he said, pausing their kiss, but continuing to fuck, harder and faster. “Happy Christmas, Doyle!”
“Yeah,” Doyle said. “Alright, just this once - let Christmas come, Bodie!”
And it did, in joy and laughter, the bells still ringing out across London.
Title: Coffee in Five
Author: Slantedlight
Slash or Gen: Slash - always B/D slash!
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Certainly
Disclaimer: Bodie, Doyle and the CI5- verse do not belong to me, I’m just playing.
Notes: This was an experiment -chaospuppy4537 asked me if I knew of any Pros AU Coffee Shop fics, and I couldn’t think of/find a single one. We talked about how it could only work in a modern setting, because they didn’t have that type of coffee shop back in the lads’ time, which meant they’d definitely be AU lads, and of course it got me thinking I might give it a try. So I did. I had a slightly longer plot than I had writing time of course. And whether I pulled off modern-lads who are still our lads is up to you to decide… or even the whole coffee-shop trope in general! I’m not convinced, but I hope it’s close enough to be okay. And if it’s not - sorry chaospuppy4537!
I'm on the non-lads' side of the world this year, where it's summer solstice, and so I'm posting early for a change (well, the sun's going to set here soon, but it's early by my usual standards).
This was an experiment -
chaospuppy4537 asked me if I knew of any Pros AU Coffee Shop fics, and I couldn’t think of/find a single one. We talked about how it could only work in a modern setting, because they didn’t have that type of coffee shop back in the lads’ time, which meant they’d definitely be modern AU lads, and of course it got me thinking I might give it a try. So I did. I had a slightly longer plot than I had writing time of course. And whether I pulled off modern-lads who are still our lads is up to you to decide… or even the whole coffee-shop trope in general! I’m not convinced, but I hope it’s close enough to be okay. And if it’s not - sorry chaospuppy4537!by Slantedlight
Monday
A cold grey fog had settled over London in the night, shrouding the Thames and clinging to skyscrapers, so thick in the air that Doyle was sure he could taste it. It tasted of the river, and the distant sea which had crept up to her overnight, touching her with salt and mingling with her sand and ancient mud. It settled in a thousand droplets over his hair, his clothes, his face, as he walked his lonely 5.00am path to work, and he pulled his jacket closer against the chill.
When he finally reached the door, the shop was just as cold and dark, as if sulking that it had been abandoned all night, everything cast in shadows and mysterious shapes by the streetlight outside, like something from The Third Man.
That had been on the other night - who …? That’s right, Aleda Valli. He’d preferred Joseph Cotton, himself.
He snapped on the light as he let himself in, flooding the monotone morning in warm gold, and immediately felt better. It was still chilly in the shop - the radiators only just kicking in - but it would be more bearable by the time he got the machines up and running, and he had his first brew of the day in front of him. He left his coat on as he bustled about to get the place going, flicking switches to start the water heating, setting the first grind of the day, and shifting chairs and barstools back down to the floor. By the time old Betty was ready to go, he was already feeling warmer.
The trade door clattered, right on time, and he went back to open it. Benny swooped past him, arms stretched around paper-covered plastic crates, straight down the short corridor and into the shop kitchen, trailing cinnamon and nutmeg, and - was that cardamom?
“Mornin’,” Doyle said. “What you got for us today? Time for a coffee?” He filled a couple of double brew handles, and twisted them into place - Benny always had time for a coffee.
“Go on then.” Benny lifted the cover from his top crate, revealing rows of pastries, gleaming with butter and glaze, filled with custard and sprinkled with nuts, and began placing them on the white china platters waiting for them in the display cabinet. It wasn’t his job, but fair exchange and all that. By the time he was done the coffees were ready, and Doyle was surrounded by a fug of steam and the rich aroma of the shop’s own blend, deep notes of cocoa and chocolate, and a hint of nuttiness, and he was thinking about taking his jacket off at last.
“Here you go.” Doyle passed him a mug, and Benny closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
“My favourite drop-off, this,” he said, an expression of bliss settling on his pointy face. “Want a smashed-up pistachio croissant, or ‘ave you had too much muesli?”
“I’ll try one.” He had managed some fruit and muesli before he left home, but there was something about the dark foggy streets that morning that made him want to give in to temptation, to the sugar of pistachio crème and the golden flakes of pastry, even if there must be six hundred calories there - and he’d woken up late again, missed his run this morning. He’d go tomorrow, he’d definitely go tomorrow.
“You heard about Lucas and McCabe?” Benny began. Doyle leaned back against the counter, breathed in his own coffee, and then drank and listened. “Giving up their flats and buying one together out Bermondsey. They reckon it’ll be cheaper living, but you watch - there’ll be rings on fingers before the end of the year. Get your good suit ready. Susie and Ruth on the other hand…”
Doyle nodded along in the right places, and drank his coffee. Benny was a good mate, and he couldn’t have fallen into a better crowd than Benny’s circle of friends when he’d taken over managing the coffee shop, but there were days he could do without their intricate relationship dances. On the bright side, when Benny was focused on gossip he wasn’t trying to set Doyle up with blokes he was convinced were Doyle’s type, despite the evidence of previous attempts. He still shuddered over that big gymnast.
Trouble was, even Doyle wasn’t sure what his type was, not now. Maybe he didn’t have one - once an outsider always an outsider. Maybe he was destined to potter through life on his own, going through with the occasional date to placate Benny, and then going home to his lonely bed until the sun rose on yet another day. Maybe…
Then again, he thought, nearly an hour later, Benny long gone and the bread and sandwiches delivery settled on its shelf beside the pastries, there were worse ways to start the day. The place smelled of fresh yeast, sugar glaze and coffee, and there was not a drop of blood on the walls, no wraps of coke broken across the floor, and not one of his customers likely to betray him for the price of a two-hour high. It might not be the life he’d thought he wanted, eyes bright with the idea of doing something good, something that made a difference to people, but it was a life, and right now it was his life, and there was just time for another brew, a moment of proper peace before he opened the doors and the city chaos poured in on him.
He’d just set the double handle again, and begun foaming his milk when there was a sudden rapping at the front door, someone’s knuckles cracking sharply against the glass despite the Closed sign that was still carefully turned to the outside world. Doyle closed his eyes briefly in annoyance. He’d ignore it - he had fifteen minutes before it was 7.00am, there was no way he was going to…
The rapping came again.
Dammit! He finished off his milk, wiped the steam pipe, and finally half-turned towards the door. If whoever it was had any sense they’d have buggered off while he’d been ignoring them.
Doyle froze. The bloke hadn’t had any sense, he was still there, staring at Doyle through the door, hands pressed together pleadingly and a hopeful smile on his face - and he was the most beautiful man Doyle thought he’d ever seen, all smooth dark hair and pale skin, and solidly muscled from his shoulders right down his legs.
And damn, because Doyle had just looked him up and down instead of glaring at him to fuck off, and now the man’s smile was wide, and maybe just a bit smug. Far less attractive, Doyle told himself, but even as he thought it he was reaching up to slide the top bolt open, and then down to free the door completely. Cold air rushed in around the man.
“Open at seven,” Doyle said nonsensically, indicating the sign. Obviously the bloke knew that, he was standing right in front of it, could almost certainly read…
“Yeah, I know - you’re a star!” As if it had been permission, the man slid past him, the cold of his clothes brushing against Doyle’s own, and he sighed, gave in and turned the sign to open, and followed him to the counter where he was eyeing the board.
“Your largest extra-shot caramel latte with cream,” the man said. “And a caramel-chocolate cinnamon roll. Please.”
“For here or take away?” Doyle asked automatically, turning to the machine and starting to pull the grind, because what the hell was wrong with him? He was not, he was not hoping that this pushy bloke…
“Eat in,” the man said. “Definitely.”
Doyle glanced behind him and caught that smug smile again, ignored the way his heart was for some reason racing - so the bloke’s hot, lots of hot blokes out there - and got on with making his coffee.
By the time Doyle had put the order together, the man had taken off his jacket and made himself comfortable at the bar table that ran along one end of the service counter, immediately beside where Doyle worked.
He slid the mug and plate across to him, nodded down at them. “Enough sugar there to see you through the end of the week.” He owed him that for the smile.
The man just beamed at him again. “Nah - work it off on a run later.” He patted his stomach. “All muscle this.”
Doyle rescued his own abandoned coffee, and leaned back against the counter. “You run do you?”
“Don’t look so surprised!” He tore off a piece of his cinnamon roll, popped it in his mouth and chewed with obvious relish. “Besides, got to be fit for work.”
Doyle opened his mouth to ask where - his hair was short enough to be army, but he could be a gym instructor, firefighter… not the Met, surely Doyle would have noticed him - when the bell rang over the door, admitting a couple in sportswear, squash rackets still in hand from the gym down the road, and then it was all go with the morning fitness crowd, and then the office crowd, and somewhere in the rush of it all the man finally vanished.
Bodie was knackered. Dog tired, Too tired to think, too wired to sleep, and too cold back in this bloody country to stay still. His hotel room was blandly depressing, and, ironically, suffocatingly hot. None of it was a cure for either jetlag or that last job, and so he was out walking the night-time streets of London, glaring hard at anyone unwise enough to start an approach in these dreg-end early hours.
He’d crossed the Thames three times, fog roiling around him like a Victorian melodrama, his steps gradually slowing and the cold gradually starting to penetrate. What he needed now was a cuppa - brickie’s tea would hit the spot, but he’d settle for coffee if he had to, even some of that muck from a chain. If - life in a bloody word, that - anywhere was bloody open. This was London for fucksake, there must be a caff somewhere for all the night duty types, there must be somewhere willing to take his money off him at seven in the morning.
There was of course. Not the cosy greasy-spoon of his dreams, ready to set him up with bacon and eggs and fried bread, not among the fancy office blocks and flats where he found himself, but if the only thing moving with lights on was a glassy, gleaming hipster joint that was going to overcharge him for the froth on a coffee he supposed he’d have to take it before he froze to death. At least the windows weren’t covered in fake Christmas snow and fairy lights, which boded a bit better than most places he’d passed.
Trouble is, the lights were on but the place wasn’t open - Bodie could see the bloke inside, but he didn’t so much as turn around when he tried the door. Fair enough, he supposed, the sign said seven o’clock, and it wasn’t quarter to yet, but on the other hand it was cold out here. He tried willing the man to turn and see him, and someone up there was finally on his side, because there!… He clasped his hands together, smiled, and looked hopefully up under his lashes in the way that always worked for him, and… Wait - had the man just given Bodie the once over? Surely he’d… But even more importantly, the bloke advanced towards the door, and - yes! - reached for the locks. Now all Bodie had to do was convince him he should be let in.
“Open at seven,” the man said, voice deep and no nonsense, as if he hadn’t just raked Bodie top to toe with what, Bodie saw now, were the kind of eyes he liked to drown in, green and intense and full of promise. His head was an unruly mass of curls, and he’d broken his cheekbone at some point, giving him a slightly asymmetric feel, a fallen angel or a devil rising, Bodie couldn’t tell, but something went click in Bodie’s brain. It was almost enough to make him forget the idea of breakfast, but then again it was freezing…
“Yeah, I know - you’re a star!” He squeezed past, heard the man sigh heavily behind him, and quite honestly did not care even a bit. There was a man with legs that stretched all the way to a very promising denim-clad arse, an array of gleaming pastries behind the counter, and the smell of fresh coffee. Fuck builder’s tea and a fry-up, flexibility was his middle name, and the day had definitely improved. He pulled up a stool at the counter, and looked cheerfully around. Not a single piece of tinsel to be seen, no artsy chrome angels, or eco-paper chains, just the name of the place in solid steel letters behind the bar over the coffee machine, and then straight lines and semi-industrial tones. Nice. Calm.
He ordered the biggest, sweetest coffee he could manage, and a pastry of the same description, and kept his eye on the barista, deciding he was ready to begin the kind of campaign he enjoyed best, and had managed far too few of in recent months. Impress, captivate, and fuck joyfully before it was time to move on. Keep moving, that was the key. Frankie could have another job for him sooner rather than later, and he didn’t even know if he’d take it right now, but until he had to decide he needed a distraction, and he had a feeling that this bloke could definitely distract him. How was that for his first few days back in the big smoke?
Trouble was, he’d picked the wrong time of day to flirt with a barista who worked a busy coffee shop in London, all, it seemed, by himself. Where the hell were his co-workers? All off on their Christmas holidays? Bodie watched him for a while, hoping to snatch a few words in between customers, but the best he managed from the bloke was an apologetic twist of a smile.
He was paying attention though - the bloke was paying him attention, so it was almost certainly going to be worth his while. Some of the squad out in Africa hadn’t cared one way or the other how willing a partner was, but Bodie preferred some enthusiasm. What was the point if one of you came away miserable from what should be a good time?
Bodie stretched out his food as long as he could, but it was no use. When his plate was nothing but a smear of cinnamon sugar, and his mug a smudge of sad caramel, he shrugged on his jacket and left.
There was always tomorrow.
Tuesday
The bread and sandwiches were early, and Benny was late. If yesterday’s fog hadn’t changed to the kind of solid icy rain that crept down the back of your neck no matter what, and if Doyle hadn’t slept badly yet again and left home far after the last minute had passed, he might have minded less. He might not have slammed the back door of the shop hard enough that it bounced back and caught his elbow and sent the tray of sandwiches sliding into a pile of bread and tangled fillings, and he might not have had to slam it down hard on the counter and then start trying to recreate saleable combinations rather than making his own first brew of the day.
He might not have been scowling quite so hard when the front door rattled instead of the back door, and expected it to be the delayed pastries.
He might not have turned out to be frowning at the dark-haired firefighter-soldier-naval-officer-extreme-search-and-rescue-worker-astronaut (he might have been thinking a bit too hard about all that) when he turned up to rattle the door at just gone six, so that the man widened his eyes and took a dramatic step backwards, with an exaggerated who-me? gesture to his chest.
As it was, he couldn’t help it, he ended up smiling down at the mess of sandwiches, and then up at the man, and of course he ended up pulling off his bright blue food safety gloves and crossing the room to open the door.
“Open at seven,” he said, trying and failing to sound unwelcoming, and stepping to one side to let him in. Raindrops flashed in the man’s hair, and on his jacket, which he tugged off and hung on one of the chrome coat hooks by the door.
“I know,” the man said, grinning widely at him. “You’re a…”
“Star,” Doyle finished. “Yeah, yeah.”
“You make the sandwiches as well?” the man asked, raising an eyebrow at the half-tidied tray.
“Oh yeah - all the services right here,” Doyle said. “Was late today though, not got the coffee on yet - Betty’s only just up to speed. Grand extra-shot caramel latte with cream?”
“Double ristretto.”
Doyle raised his own eyebrows. “Long night?”
“Don’t ask. What time did you say it was again?”
“Right. Let’s get you sorted.” Doyle turned to get the coffee on, listening with half an ear for Benny to finally turn up, and with his whole body for the next thing this man would say to him. He didn’t know his name yet, but he felt as if they’d sat together in this coffee shop every morning of his entire life, as if he knew the man, and had known him forever.
It was comfortable.
Of course he’d gotten comfortable before, and that hadn’t been a good idea.
He set the coffee down in front of the man, tapped out grounds, and put his own brew on, with its own extra shot - at long bloody last. He was so far behind it wasn’t funny.
Behind him the man gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “That’s better.”
“You been working?” A firefighter coming off duty, the end of a long night, just wanting to relax, go home, slide into something comfortable… Like me a little voice whispered in his head. Slide into something like me…
He poured his milk, added the shots to his mug, and turned around.
The man shook his head. “Off duty just now.”
Soldier home from a long tour of duty, naval officer with his ship in dock, looking for somewhere to dock himself…
He waited for the man to continue, to explain, but he was looking down at his cup instead, eyelashes long and dark against pale skin.
“Early throw-out from St Mungos?”
That got him to look up again. “Bite your tongue! I’m at the Ritz!”
“Fair enough - those ristrettos aren’t free. Chronic insomniac then, must be.”
“Natural early bird,” the man sniffed. “Too wet to run.”
“So not in the SAS.”
“Those crazy bastards! Rather join the French Foreign Legion!”
“They still going?” Doyle pulled on a fresh pair of gloves, fortified by coffee at last, wishing he could deny even to himself that he’d been reinvigorated by the man turning up again, and began separating edam and gouda from chorizo.
The man shrugged, watching, drinking his coffee, and opened his mouth to speak again just as the back door rattled.
Fuck.
“Delivery,” he said to the man’s enquiring eyebrow. “Back in a minute.”
The back door rattled again, accompanied this time by the actual buzzer, and Doyle hurried down the corridor, pulled the bolts, and stood square in the way. The pastry trays pushed into his unmoving self, and he grabbed them underneath and took their weight.
“Cheers, Benny!”
“Morning to you too! It’s been a shocker already - bloody delivery vans everywhere they shouldn’t be. What’re you doing in the way? I’m already soaked through!”
“Rubbish isn’t it,” Doyle agreed sunnily. “Listen mate, I’m a bit behind myself today - raincheck on your coffee? I’ll make it up to you.”
Benny frowned. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going…” he began impatiently, then caught Benny’s eye and forced a smile through clenched teeth. If the bloke left again before Doyle had even got his name… “Nothing’s going on,” he said. “Just a bit behind. Come by later, yeah?”
Benny relinquished his hold on the trays, nodded slowly without looking away from Doyle’s face. “Later,” he agreed. “You can tell me all about him.”
“What him…?” Doyle began, but Benny was turning away and heading back through the stair-rods of rain to his own delivery van, and he was whistling as he went. He swore under his breath, recognising a promise when he heard one, then kicked the door shut with one foot, slid the bolt across with a corner of the tray, and headed back to the warmth of the café.
Bodie was still at the counter, and he was wearing Doyle’s safety gloves and finishing off the last of the sandwiches. He looked up when Doyle came through, a smile on his face, and pulled the gloves off.
“All for me? Ah, mate, you shouldn’t have!”
Doyle hid a smile, rolled his eyes, and leaned the pastry tray against the counter to begin sliding the contents onto their plates in the display cabinet. He glanced up to find the man watching him over the rim of what must by now be an entirely empty coffee cup. He put the next cherry bakewell danish onto a napkin instead, and passed it over. “Go on,” he said. “Benny’s not here, so you’d better try the wares for him. Cheers for doing the sandwiches.”
The man shrugged, pulled the napkin happily closer, took a bite. “You’re not so late now. Who’s Benny?” he asked, mouth full. “Boyfriend?”
“Baker,” Doyle replied. “And delivery boy. Just starting out - bit like this place. But he’s good.”
“I like him already,” the man said, taking another bite. “He need a full-time sampler?”
“Gannet,” Doyle said. “And you’re not even running today!”
“Rather be here,” the man said, a distinct twinkle in his eye. He reached out a hand. “Bodie.”
“Bodie?”
“William Bodie if you’re me mum - Bodie to my mates.”
“Ray Doyle.” Doyle clasped the man’s hand - Bodie’s hand - in his own, warm and solid, and they both held on just a second too long for politeness sake.
“Any chance of another coffee?” Bodie asked at last.
“Ristretto?”
“Extra-shot caramel latte with cream.” Bodie grinned. “And sprinkles. So this place is new then?”
Doyle turned round to Betty, glanced over his shoulder with a shrug. “New-ish. Owner’s got a couple of places up in Edinburgh, wanted to test the water down here. Opened about a year ago?” Had it really been nearly a year? Sometimes it felt that way, but he still woke yelling and shaking from sleep far too often.
“Never met a professional barista,” Bodie said thoughtfully.
“You know your coffee well enough,” Doyle said, sliding the sugary concoction across the counter. “You must have met hundreds of them.”
Bodie looked up from under his lashes. “Bought coffee before,” he said. “Never met a barista worth meeting. Until now.”
Doyle’s breath caught. He was being pulled - Bodie was flirting with him! He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved - thank fuck it wasn’t just him, he hadn’t been imagining their weirdly immediate connection - or annoyed that Bodie was using a line on him.
“You still haven’t,” he said, needing to be contrary. “I’m just filling in time until…”
The front door rattled.
“Oh fuck.”
Bodie raised an eyebrow, and turned to follow Doyle’s gaze to where Benny was standing grinning at the door, Jax and Murphy at his shoulders. “Oh fuck?”
“Oh fuck,” Doyle confirmed. Benny must have been straight on his mobile to get the other two out before it was even opening. “One of you comes, then three more in a row…”
There was a pregnant pause.
“Buses, Bodie! It’s a saying about buses!”
“I know,” Bodie protested loftily. “You going to let them in?”
Doyle glanced at his watch. Five past seven - past opening time, so he’d got no choice. “Yeah,” he said, shortly.
“Alright, Ray?” Benny said cheerfully, when he’d unlocked the door and flipped the sign around, completely ignoring what Doyle had hoped was a death-ray glare. “Bit late today, aren’t you?”
Doyle intensified the glare, but it just bounced off.
“Surprised to see you two here so early,” he said instead to Jax and Murphy. “Won’t you be late for the office?” He was pushing it - Jax and Murphy worked from home on their own tech start up company.
Sure enough, Jax looked at him, puzzled. “You know it’s Christmas, right? We’ve been off since Friday!”
“Yeah - no decs?” Murphy scrutinised the room. “Where’s your tree? Your tinsel? Your little plastic nativity scene?”
“Over my dead body,” Doyle said decidedly. He caught Bodie looking approvingly at him, gave him a half-smile back. “And I’ve got all the Christmas fairies I need.”
“Ah, brighten up a room, we do,” Benny grinned. “Go on, knock us up that coffee and we’ll talk to… sorry - I didn’t get your name?” he said pointedly to Bodie, and Doyle wondered if Bodie would fall for it.
But sure enough - “Bodie,” he said. “I’m guessing you’re mates of Doyle’s.”
“What gave it away?” Jax asked. “His welcoming demeanour and general bonhomie?”
Bodie shook his head. “He hasn’t taken any money, but he hasn’t chucked you out yet either - must have a soft spot for you.”
“Touché!” Benny held out a hand. “I’m Benny - that’s Jax, that’s Murph.”
“Benny the baker?” Bodie asked, and Benny glanced sideways at Doyle, and then back to Bodie, lighting up like the missing Christmas tree.
“You do have a soft spot for me!” He grinned widely at Doyle. “Marketing gold, that is!”
“I’ve definitely gone soft,” Doyle muttered, but on the other hand there was something strangely comforting in the jabbering voices he could just about hear over Betty’s roars and hisses. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but having the lads come round just because Benny had… Benny had what? Noticed something - and wasn’t that Benny all over. In fact all his new mates were far too observant for his own good.
Tuesdays tended to be quieter than Mondays, the gym crowd on a rest day, the work crowd settling into their midweek routine rather than their get-ready-to-survive-the-week routine, and he was able to spend a fair amount of time leaning over the counter and listening to the lads bantering back and forth. Susie and Ruth came in around nine, all smiles and holding hands, whatever ruction Benny had been describing presumably far in the past already, and then Julia appeared, all of them setting their phones on the counter and settling in for a while. Bodie was introduced to everyone as “Doyle’s mate”, which wasn’t entirely accurate, to be fair, but - maybe wasn’t inaccurate either? Bodie caught Doyle’s eye with a twinkle every time it happened, and maybe it was just - slightly in advance of reality.
The lunchtime rush came and went, quieter than ever to Doyle’s surprise and everyone else’s amusement.
“It’s Christmas eve tonight,” Susie said, in her cut-glass tones. “Were you really expecting a busy day?”
“Even the poor sods who had to work yesterday will be off now.” Murphy nodded. “How long are you even staying open?”
Doyle peered outside to the street, noted a distinct lack of passers-by, and took a deep breath, then let it out, shaking his head. “We’re not all consumed by consumerism, you know,” he said. “Some of us don’t run our lives around….”
“Leave it out,” Benny interrupted. “Be honest - you forgot. You would have been at the door waiting for me tomorrow an’ all, wouldn’t you.”
Yeah, alright, he’d definitely forgotten, but also…
Christmas was something he’d been trying to avoid for the last couple of years (a length of tinsel wrapped around a young girl’s throat, syringe in her arm shining in the harsh overhead light - Preston and his mate taking payment from her pusher, bundles of heroin from the evidence store passing between them like snow).
He shook his head. He’d taken them down, moved on.
He was here now.
“What am I going to do with all this lot, then?” he asked, disgruntled. It felt like hours he’d spent putting those bloody sandwiches back together.
“Party food!” Susie and Ruth shouted at the same time, and that was it - next thing he knew he’d agreed to turn up at their place with the leftovers, a bottle, and Bodie.
Bodie couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually had this much fun. He should have scoffed at it - would have been taking the piss if he’d been sitting with Krivas and the old mob - but he drank coffee and listened to Doyle’s mates laughing and gossiping among themselves, drawing him into the conversation when they could, and making sure that Doyle was included between the sparse customers who still needed their morning break, or lunch. He watched Doyle.
Ray Doyle, who moved like water between the huge coffee machine at the back, and from one end of the counter to the other, with a pleasant smile for every new customer, and a quick response to his mates’ banter in between. At the same time he was noticeably quieter than the others; there was something there, something…
Bodie watched.
Darker. There was something a bit darker about Ray Doyle than there was about the friends surrounding him, Bodie could feel it. He’d been out there, this glass-fronted life wasn’t the real Doyle - or at least, it hadn’t always been. He was like Bodie. Click.
By two-thirty it was obvious that no one else was going to turn up wanting to be served, and when the others took themselves off, leaving him with strict instructions to show up at Susie and Ruth’s flat with Doyle, and half a dozen new numbers in his latest burner phone, he fell naturally into helping Doyle close up, turning stools up onto tables while Doyle shut down the machines and then got to work with the mop.
“You do this on your own every day?”
Doyle shook his head. “Not usually. Stuart’s been out with Covid for the last week or so.”
“Boss too mean to get you extra cover.” Bodie rolled his eyes. “I’ve known a few like that.”
Doyle shrugged, eyes on the floor as he walked backwards with the mop to where Bodie was piling pastries and sandwiches back into a tray. “Yeah, we could do with someone else, but he’s alright. Don’t see him much, he gives us pretty free rein.” He paused, looked around the place. “He didn’t care about doing it up for Christmas, but he keeps saying he wants some kind of theme - make it stand out from the competition.”
“What are his other ones? Can’t you just do that?”
“Yeah, no. Edinburgh chic and Robbie Burns. I am not covering this place in Beefeaters and Union Jacks!”
“Definitely not,” Bodie agreed. Glass and steel, and… “Free rein, you reckon?” he followed Doyle’s gaze thoughtfully.
“Almost. Wish he’d let me change the sign,” Doyle said moodily. “That’s the one thing off-limits. Looks weird with a number there. Not very elegant. Should be the word.”
“Coffee in 5.” Bodie stared at it for a moment, bold and clear above the counter. “Nah,” he said at last. “Then you’d have CIF, wouldn’t you. Kitchen cleaner. C-I-5 is more like it.”
“CI5,” Doyle repeated. “Sounds like some secret government agency, full of spies.”
“All dust and shadows,” Bodie agreed. “Like in The Third Man.”
Doyle grinned. “That was on the other night. Aleda…”
“…Valli.” Bodie grinned back. “Yeah, I watched it.”
On the telly - he’d watched it on the telly, and Doyle had been watching it on the telly at the same time, both of them sitting there in London, eyes taking in the same story.
He wouldn’t mind doing that when they were in the same place.
Doyle snapped his fingers, just as Bodie felt the lightbulb suddenly burst above his head. “There’s your new theme!” he said, at exactly the moment Doyle said “That could be the theme!”
Click, click, click.
They both left to change, Bodie definite that he couldn’t turn up to someone’s place in the same clothes he’d worn most of the night before - “Most of the night before?” - Shrug - “Don’t sleep much just now.” - “Know the feeling.” - meeting up back at the coffee shop, Doyle sheltering outside under the building’s walkthrough from the rain that still fell, umbrella in hand. Susie and Ruth lived just a street over, in one of the soaring, brown-brick towers that housed a chemist and an aromatherapist side-by-side downstairs, and god knew how many aspiring Londoners up above.
Bodie arrived in casual black, under his own black umbrella, and they did no more than grin at each other before stepping out into the wet. They knew where the night was going - Doyle knew where the night was going - and there was a tingle of anticipation between them. This was going to happen, and it was going to be good.
Maybe, Doyle thought, it would even be something more.
The party was well under way when they got there, the mellow notes of Myles Smith where Bodie had expected a Dua Lipa or Billie Eilish playlist, and the same crowd from that morning lounging around a spacious open plan room, with a few additions. Susie was by the kitchen bar, doing something impressive with a bottle of vodka and some rosé, and she gestured them over with a tip of her head.
“Come and try this, it’s like drinking a bunch of flowers!”
Doyle grimaced, lifted the bottle of Kraken they’d bought between them, pointed to it with his other hand. “Might start with something less… bloomy,” he said, attempting diplomacy.
“Your loss!” Susie finished the glasses off with what looked like a sprig of thyme, gave them a friendly smile and vanished Ruth-wards.
“Less bloom-y?” Doyle held the bottle up to Bodie, who nodded and passed him a couple of glasses.
“Where d’you know this lot from, then?”
Doyle shrugged. “CI5, mostly. And Benny. There’s a lot of cross-over.”
“I bet.” Bodie surveyed the room, gaze pausing here and there on people he’d met earlier, raising his glass cheerfully to them. “You want to find a corner?”
“Got just the place,” Doyle said. As long as no one had beaten them to it. He liked this lot - was fond of them even - but if he’d not been bullied into a party he would have been wining and dining Bodie now, just the two of them.
He led the way to a corner of the room that turned into a corridor beside the bathroom, with a tall window at the end. The window was still closed, so the odds were… He slid it upwards and looked to either side. Yes! With an inviting look back at Bodie, he lifted a leg and slid through the opening, glass balanced carefully. It was still wet and cold out, but they’d not taken their coats off yet, and there was a roof over the small balcony, and a patio heater that he turned on with a flourish. They’d have to sit pretty close on the rattan two-seater, but he didn’t mind…
Bodie pulled himself out through the window, looked up in surprise at the roof above, and then moved forward to peer over the surrounding wall, and down ten floors of other balcony spaces to the street below. “And they didn’t put a door on this thing?”
Doyle scrunched his nose. “They did actually - that end by the kitchen. But we’d’ve had to go through…”
“…the kitchen,” Bodie chimed in. “Good thinking, Batman!” He settled himself on one side of the sofa, and Doyle claimed the other, sitting cross-legged to face him. “So…”
Their eyes met, held.
“To something other than coffee,” Doyle suggested, raising his glass.
“Oh I dunno. I could get quite fond of coffee. Cheers.” Bodie touched glasses to his, and then they both drank, gaze still locked.
Would it be now? Bodie’s lips were right there, they’d taste of rum. Just lean forward, and…
“You were going to tell me what you did before you became King of Coffee,” Bodie said, tilting his head to one side. “I’m quite disappointed, you know, I thought I’d finally met a professional barista.”
Never met a barista worth meeting. Until now.
But he’d been avoiding this all afternoon, this one thing that might end whatever this was before it began. Why had he even brought it up that morning? He liked being a barista, liked making people feel good, seeing them come in with happy anticipation, and leave with paper bags and cardboard cups that were going to make them smile, even just a little bit. He was a professional.
He shook his head. “That’s Stuart, that is, won King of South London Coffee twice in a row.”
“Never gets tired of telling you?” Bodie suggested, smirking.
“Never gets tired of telling me,” Doyle agreed, with an answering grin.
“So go on, then - what did you do before you became the second most professional barista in London?”
Fuck it all.
And yet - he didn’t consider lying, not for one second. Not to Bodie.
“I was in the police.”
“The police?” Bodie actually leaned slightly away from him. “They chuck you out?”
Doyle winced slightly, but it was a fair assumption these days. “Other way round - I chucked them.”
“To work in a coffee shop.” Bodie wasn’t stupid, He knew there was more to this than Doyle wanting a sudden change of career.
“To become a professional barista.” Turn it round, turn it round… “Go on then - what about you. Butcher, baker…?”
“Professional soldier.”
He’d been right. “Army,” he said. “Thought you looked fit.” Because that could mean - well, whatever Bodie wanted it to mean. He could claw this back. But Bodie was shaking his head.
“Private military company,” he said, eyebrows pulled slightly together, obviously waiting for Doyle’s response.
“A mercenary,” Doyle said slowly. “A mercenary where?”
Bodie shrugged. “Here and there.”
Doyle shook his head. “That’s banned by the UN.”
“That right, constable?” Bodie’s mouth twisted, his eyes had darkened into something knowing, something hating.
“Detective constable,” Doyle corrected, hearing the hard notes settle in his own mouth. Fine. He had no more fucks to give over this - he should have known it would go this way.
Bodie shook his head. “I don’t like mouthy coppers!”
“Sure,” sneered Doyle. “And you mercenaries are such decent upstanding…”
“My sister was killed by one of you lot!” Bodie was standing now, looming over him, and his hands were fists by his side. “She was sixteen - the cops might as well have fed her the ket themselves for all they did to help!”
Doyle froze. Fuck.
A length of tinsel wrapped around a young girl’s throat, syringe in her arm shining in the harsh overhead light… Bodie was around his own age - thirty-something - it wasn’t the same girl, it wasn’t the same coppers, it was far too close to being the same thing, fifteen or more years later.
“I didn’t know,” he said, which was stupid, obvious, of course he didn’t know. “And it wasn’t me,” he added, not really expecting Bodie to care. People didn’t - pigs would always be pigs if you started out on the wrong side.
“Not you,” Bodie said. “But what would you have done about it, copper?”
“I took it higher up.” He closed his eyes. Didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to think about this. Why did he always have to think about this? “Not high enough, though.” He gestured vaguely to his cheek, to the slight prominence that still shadowed his skin and ached in the cold. They said it would settle down one day. “Preston and his mates thought they’d shut me up, but when I could talk again I took it further up still. Did better research this time, found the right person. She backed me up, took it seriously. There was a trial.”
He stopped, took a breath, opened his eyes and looked off into the dark distance instead, away from the faces of his colleagues, of people he’d thought were his mates and his colleagues. People who’d known what was going on, and done nothing about it. People who’d turned their back on him afterwards, for grassing on their own.
Bodie had gone still. “True?”
“Yeah, true.” He could feel Bodie sinking back to the seat beside him, but he couldn’t look yet, kept staring into the kindly dark, the occasional silver streak of rain illuminated from the windows of the flat. “They got a couple of dozen years each, because people had died. Kids had died. I reckon they’ll be out in half that.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.” He took another breath, turned to face Bodie again. “So I am sorry about your sister. There are some shitty cops out there.”
Bodie nodded slowly. “There are,” he said. “But it just takes one good copper.”
“Your sister didn’t have one.”
Bodie shook his head. “Nope. None of the fuckers gave a damn what had happened to her. And I got the hell out as soon as I could.” He paused. “Then again, I supposed my new lot would have called her collateral damage.”
“The world’s fucked up,” Doyle said. “But…” He paused. It was over, and this wasn’t his business.
“But what?”
He shrugged. “We don’t have to keep doing it, do we? We can do something else.”
“Sell coffee.”
“Sell coffee. And I run a youth club by the river for kids who are struggling. So they’ve got somewhere to go. People to talk to who might know what they’re talking about too.”
“That right.”
“Yeah.” He sighed, leaned back against the side of the sofa and closed his eyes again - and then practically jumped out of his skin. Bodie’s hand was pressing lightly on his knee, and when he looked up, Bodie was staring back at him, eyes sharp in the dark, but not unfriendly.
“Maybe you can teach me how to make coffee,” Bodie suggested. “I reckon you’re short a barista even if the King of South London Coffee comes back.”
Was this - was this happening?
“You’d have to help me with that theme,” he said. “CI5, home of Aleda Valli and super-spies. Good coffee, excellent pastries, and complete lack of Christmas decorations guaranteed.”
There in the dark, Bodie smiled at him. “You’re on,” he said.
Christmas Day
There were bells ringing somewhere in the distance, and rain slapping down across the windows. Storm Whoever-the-Fuck continued, Doyle thought, waking fuzzily, surrounded by warmth and a dim golden light. He hadn’t slept like that for months. Years. The central heating had been on, and the duvet stretched like a cloud along his back, and…
…and someone’s hand was heavy on his hip, a thumb rubbing circles on his skin.
He opened his eyes to Bodie’s blue gaze, his body like a furnace beside Doyle’s, and to a hard throb in his cock.
“Morning.” Bodie was smiling.
Doyle took a deep breath, moved closer to being properly awake. “Mornin’. Alright?”
Bodie nodded. “Great. Best sleep in years. And the rest.” His smile widened.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah… You?”
“Yeah.” He took another deep breath, stretched hard enough that the duvet lifted around them, letting in a puff of cooler air, and turned onto his back - but he kept looking at Bodie. “What time is it?”
“Dunno.”
“Clock’s on the bedside table.”
“Yeah, but I’m looking this way, aren’t I?”
“You could…” Doyle began, just as Bodie closed the space between them, rolling them even closer together, kissed him firmly, hungrily, perfectly.
“I could…?” Bodie asked innocently when they parted, breath a little faster, a little more ragged.
“Turn over and look,” Doyle suggested, sliding his own hands, now they were so much closer, down Bodie’s flanks and over his arse.
“Nah.” Bodie tilted his hips into Doyle’s, and Doyle hissed in a breath as their cocks pressed together.
“…go for a run,” Doyle tried, breathing hard against Bodie’s neck, pausing to kiss it, to bite just hard enough, to mark him… Mine.
“Don’t think so.” Bodie pulled away slightly, reached down and lifted Doyle’s leg to rest on his shoulder. He slid his cock down, lined up, and pressed the head against Doyle, pushed in and began to rock, steady thrusts until he was all the way in, and then he paused, looked down at Doyle, who was waiting, waiting for it to begin, waiting for everything to begin.
“You know what I need?” Bodie asked, pulling almost all the way out, and then pausing again before pushing back in at a slightly different angle, so that Doyle saw stars, hissed in a breath.
“Swear to god Bodie, if you say a caramel latte I’ll bloody thump you!”
Bodie laughed and shook his head, leaned down and caught Doyle’s lips in his, pulled out again, and then in, out again and then…
“Just you,” he said, pausing their kiss, but continuing to fuck, harder and faster. “Happy Christmas, Doyle!”
“Yeah,” Doyle said. “Alright, just this once - let Christmas come, Bodie!”
And it did, in joy and laughter, the bells still ringing out across London.
Title: Coffee in Five
Author: Slantedlight
Slash or Gen: Slash - always B/D slash!
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Certainly
Disclaimer: Bodie, Doyle and the CI5- verse do not belong to me, I’m just playing.
Notes: This was an experiment -
chaospuppy4537 asked me if I knew of any Pros AU Coffee Shop fics, and I couldn’t think of/find a single one. We talked about how it could only work in a modern setting, because they didn’t have that type of coffee shop back in the lads’ time, which meant they’d definitely be AU lads, and of course it got me thinking I might give it a try. So I did. I had a slightly longer plot than I had writing time of course. And whether I pulled off modern-lads who are still our lads is up to you to decide… or even the whole coffee-shop trope in general! I’m not convinced, but I hope it’s close enough to be okay. And if it’s not - sorry chaospuppy4537!
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