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discoveredinaljThis is a wee gift rather than specifically Christmas-y, originally written for the 2025 Write Time con, but I hope you like it anyway. *g*
Looming Danger
by Slantedlight
Doyle took a last hard look around the yellowed grass of the lawn, and gave up with a long sigh. He could hear Cole now - Doyle’s always dropping his! - and he wasn’t wrong. He’d dropped himself right in it this time, an’ all.
Cowley was still talking to Bodie over by the house, and there was a solitary vehicle left in the driveway, so they were obviously expected to chauffeur their boss home. He was well and truly done.
Bodie looked up and raised an eyebrow as he sauntered over to them - or tried his best to saunter, but he could feel the nervous energy thrumming through him.
“Ah, Doyle - about time.” Cowley frowned, and started to turn away. “Come on - we’ll stop off at that pub by the crossroads. You might even deserve a pint on me.”
Bodie was already rubbing his hands together - Doyle shook his head minutely, scrunched his face in self-rebuke.
“Uh… Sorry sir - I’m not quite finished here.”
“Not finished?” Cowley looked back at him. “What do you mean, not finished? There’s not a loose end left - I made sure of that!”
“Sewn up tighter than a Scotsman on Burns Night.”
“Bodie!”
But his reprieve from Cowley’s anger was momentary. “Doyle, what the devil do you mean?”
“I might have…” He paused. Took a breath. Spit it out. “I might be missing a piece of equipment. Sir.”
Silence, all round.
“Go on.”
“I… uh… think I dropped my shooter in the woods when I jumped O’Connell.”
“You did what? Of all the incompetent…”
“Ah, c’mon, Ray…!”
“I know! Look, I know, alright - I’m sorry! I had it in me hand when I was chasing him. Must have dropped it when I tackled him.” He took another deep breath. “Look, you go on - I’ll…”
“Och man, you’ve not time to hunt for it on your own - there’s no more than an hour of daylight left.”
“It can’t be far from where I jumped him.”
“And where did you jump him?” Bodie had his hands on his hips, was looking disgusted, as well he might. They’d be lucky to get a half of shandy from Cowley after this.
“Well…” He glanced towards the woods at the edge of the estate. He knew the general area…
Bodie rolled his eyes, but he led the way back to where they’d run O’Connell and his lackeys to ground - literally, in Doyle’s case. He still felt bruised through from their final scuffle over the rock-hard ground. Had to be a down-side to a long, hot summer, he supposed. The bugger had made a break for it just as Bodie and Jax were cuffing his mates, and he’d had quite the turn of speed for someone that solidly built, but Doyle had got his man.
“Right, this is where we nabbed Davies and Fedorer,” Bodie announced, about fifteen feet into the woods, stopping suddenly enough to nearly cause a three agent pile up.
Doyle caught himself with a hand on Cowley’s back, quickly removed when Cowley turned questioningly to him, one eyebrow raised.
“Well, lad?”
“Er…” He glanced around, trying to look intelligent about it, pretty sure he wasn’t fooling anyone. Did he recognise that big tree with all the moss? “That way. I think.”
There was a kind of animal track that he vaguely thought O’Connell had taken, and he remembered vaulting over a fallen log at one point, and… “There!”
The woods opened out into a small, tinder-dry clearing, grass yellow, and littered with desiccated leaves and twigs. He remembered hearing cars passing on the nearby road, and knowing that if he didn’t get the bastard now he’d almost certainly lose him. And - yeah, there was the stirred-up patch of ground where they’d landed, only just missing braining themselves on the old tree stump jutting up in the middle of the space.
“This is it,” he said. “It’s got to be around here somewhere.”
“As long as no one’s already picked it up,” Bodie suggested darkly, squinting around.
“Bite your tongue.” Never mind missing out on a round at the pub, Cowley would kill him if this turned into a national scandal. There’d definitely been reporters skulking around until they’d been chased off with threats of a D-notice - O’Connell and his blackmail gang were big stuff. “It’s here,” he said, determined for it to be true.
Cowley was already scouting around, working ever-increasing circles around the scuffed-up ground.
Bodie gave him a resigned twist of his lips, but he looked amused now rather than pissed off, so that was something. He stepped closer to Doyle, close enough to speak low in his ear.
“Sniffer dog’ll find it,” he said, eyes flicking quickly to their boss.
Doyle snickered - he couldn’t help himself.
“What’s that, Doyle?”
“Nothing sir - Bodie was wondering if we’ll need to get the dogs out.”
Cowley shot them both a withering glare. “Perhaps if you would be so kind as to start actually looking, gentlemen, we won’t need to resort to such drastic measures!”
“Sir,” Bodie said at once, and moved to one side, began scanning the ground.
Teachers pet, Doyle thought, but began his own search. He must have let it go when he started his leap, which must have been around…
“Permission to ask a question, sir.”
“Aye, what is it?”
“You knew to look here for O’Connell when he called in the threat. You never said why.”
“The day I have to explain myself to you… Och well, I suppose you may as well know. I recognised the place straight away. You see, there was a specific sound in the background when he called.”
“A sound?”
“That’s right, Bodie,” Cowley said, dry as the crackling ground they searched. “You’ll have heard of them.”
Doyle saw Bodie wince, had to turn away before Cowley saw him laughing again.
“Ah, yes, sir, I think once…”
“It was a flying shuttle.”
Doyle blinked. “An aeroplane?”
“And you’re supposed to be my best men!”
Doyle caught Bodie’s eye, stayed quiet.
“A flying shuttle is used in the weaving process - or at least it was used, many years ago. There are very few of them left now, and this one is particularly special. I’d recognise a Hattersley loom anywhere.”
“How the hell did you recognise that?” A beat. “Sir!”
“My grandfather used one, many years ago. It must have been a hundred years old then - but he kept it in repair. Made the most beautiful tartans on it. I couldn’t forget that sound if I tried.”
“So he was a kilter then - you’re from a family of kilters!”
“Don’t be ridiculous Bodie - one man hardly makes a family!”
Oh, I don’t know, Doyle thought, glancing at Bodie, and finding him looking back. They shared a quick smile. All the more reason to find his bloody gun quickly.
“And besides - it’s kiltmaker!”
“Eh? Why isn’t it kilter? If you drive for a living you’re a driver. Play football, you’re a footballer.”
“Drape fabric you’re a draper. Cop people, you’re a copper…”
“Och, you two… Doyle are you sure you dropped the blasted thing out here?”
Fuck. “Yes sir. Sorry, sir.” And the light was starting to go. Distract him… “So… they had a Hattersley shuttle out here? What was O’Connell’s connection?”
He could feel Cowley pausing, looking at him, but he didn’t look up, instead widening his search field, moving closer to the trees again. Further away from Cowley.
“O’Connell’s grandfather was also a weaver - Irish tartans, very accomplished. They’re not a true tartan of course, but they have their own beauty.”
“And he had one of these machines?”
“Aye, he did - and there was one being used somewhere in the background when O’Connell called.”
“Alright, I can buy the shuttle noise,” Bodie said, dicing, Doyle thought, with more than just the threat of a shandy - probably his share of Cowley’s whisky bottle for years to come. “But why didn’t we just do the place over in the first pace, if it’s O’Connell’s grandad?”
“Because O’Connell’s grandfather has been dead for years, as have his parents, and we had no reason to suspect that O’Connell still had a connection. The place was sold long ago, when the mother died, far out of the family - but it was sold lock stock and barrel, and the new owners decided to make use of the equipment they’d inherited. They opened a ‘heritage’ weaving business.”
“The loom.”
“Aye, the loom.”
“And you knew that because you’d been here before.”
“Not recently - a long, long time ago. Before the war. With my grandfather.”
With his…? Doyle shook his head to himself. Hard enough to believe Cowley had a family of his own once, never mind touring the country with them as a kid.
“You knew O’Connell’s grandfather?”
“Doyle, I was ten years old when we visited. No, I did not know O’Connell’s grandfather. But I’ve always had half an eye on the place, in a… nostalgic sort of a way.”
And if Cowley didn’t have half an eye on most of the country, nostalgic or otherwise, Doyle might have called that a coincidence too far. But this was George Cowley.
He paused despairingly, looked around more widely. It wasn’t that big a clearing - why hadn’t they found it yet? Bodie was kicking desultorily at some undergrowth, and Cowley had stopped, was rubbing his knee, and grimacing. After a moment he looked up at the darkening sky, and then over at Doyle and around the area they were searching. “Well, Doyle?” He began hobbling his way over to the tree stump.
Dammit. He shook his head slowly. Cowley wanted him to be the one to call it, and much as he didn’t want to… “It should be here,” he said, still not quite admitting defeat. “I know it should!”
“Maybe someone really did take it.”
“Shut up, Bodie!”
“Shut up, Bodie…”
Cowley shook his head, half turned as if to sit on the tree trunk, and then seemed to catch himself, staring down at its uneven surface as if he’d seen a nest of spiders.
“Are you alright, sir?” Be just their luck Cowley chose to have a heart attack right here, miles from anywhere…
“Aye, Doyle. I am.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. “And it was around here you tackled O’Connell, you said?”
“Yes, sir.”
Cowley reached into the tree stump with the handkerchief, his hand vanishing to the wrist, and when he pulled it back out again, it was holding Doyle’s gun.
“Thank fuck for that!”
“Doyle!”
“Sorry, sir.” But he was grinning, and even more so when he felt Bodie step up behind him, place a hand in the small of his back.
“I think, gentlemen, that it is time to go home.” Cowley checked the safety, and then held the gun out to Doyle. “Try and look after it - I’ll be limping for a week after this extra escapade!”
Doyle met his gaze, could do nothing but nod.
In a fucking tree stump.
“Well, you know what they say, sir,” Bodie began, and god help them, he had that look in his eye.
Cowley raised an eyebrow, and Doyle held his breath.
“A wee dram is just the thing if you’re feeling off-kilter!”
There was a pause, and Doyle found himself scrunching his face, peering at Cowley through one eye.
Cowley looked at them both - and then he broke into a smile. “Aye Bodie, it is - and Doyle’s buying. Now come on - it’s past time we were away from here!”
“Yes, sir,” Doyle said, and then he tucked his gun away, and shoulder-to-shoulder with Bodie, followed Cowley back to the car.
o0o
Title: Looming Danger
Author: Slantedlight
Slash or Gen: Slash, always
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Certainly
Disclaimer: Bodie, Doyle and the CI5-verse belong to someone else, and we are but playing joyfully.
Notes: This was written for Write Time 2025, the prompts/instructions being: to include the concept of “lost”, to include the word “kilter”, and for part of the story to be speech-driven, with at least three people taking part, without it being stated who is speaking. Oh, and a word limit of 2000 words!
by Slantedlight
Doyle took a last hard look around the yellowed grass of the lawn, and gave up with a long sigh. He could hear Cole now - Doyle’s always dropping his! - and he wasn’t wrong. He’d dropped himself right in it this time, an’ all.
Cowley was still talking to Bodie over by the house, and there was a solitary vehicle left in the driveway, so they were obviously expected to chauffeur their boss home. He was well and truly done.
Bodie looked up and raised an eyebrow as he sauntered over to them - or tried his best to saunter, but he could feel the nervous energy thrumming through him.
“Ah, Doyle - about time.” Cowley frowned, and started to turn away. “Come on - we’ll stop off at that pub by the crossroads. You might even deserve a pint on me.”
Bodie was already rubbing his hands together - Doyle shook his head minutely, scrunched his face in self-rebuke.
“Uh… Sorry sir - I’m not quite finished here.”
“Not finished?” Cowley looked back at him. “What do you mean, not finished? There’s not a loose end left - I made sure of that!”
“Sewn up tighter than a Scotsman on Burns Night.”
“Bodie!”
But his reprieve from Cowley’s anger was momentary. “Doyle, what the devil do you mean?”
“I might have…” He paused. Took a breath. Spit it out. “I might be missing a piece of equipment. Sir.”
Silence, all round.
“Go on.”
“I… uh… think I dropped my shooter in the woods when I jumped O’Connell.”
“You did what? Of all the incompetent…”
“Ah, c’mon, Ray…!”
“I know! Look, I know, alright - I’m sorry! I had it in me hand when I was chasing him. Must have dropped it when I tackled him.” He took another deep breath. “Look, you go on - I’ll…”
“Och man, you’ve not time to hunt for it on your own - there’s no more than an hour of daylight left.”
“It can’t be far from where I jumped him.”
“And where did you jump him?” Bodie had his hands on his hips, was looking disgusted, as well he might. They’d be lucky to get a half of shandy from Cowley after this.
“Well…” He glanced towards the woods at the edge of the estate. He knew the general area…
Bodie rolled his eyes, but he led the way back to where they’d run O’Connell and his lackeys to ground - literally, in Doyle’s case. He still felt bruised through from their final scuffle over the rock-hard ground. Had to be a down-side to a long, hot summer, he supposed. The bugger had made a break for it just as Bodie and Jax were cuffing his mates, and he’d had quite the turn of speed for someone that solidly built, but Doyle had got his man.
“Right, this is where we nabbed Davies and Fedorer,” Bodie announced, about fifteen feet into the woods, stopping suddenly enough to nearly cause a three agent pile up.
Doyle caught himself with a hand on Cowley’s back, quickly removed when Cowley turned questioningly to him, one eyebrow raised.
“Well, lad?”
“Er…” He glanced around, trying to look intelligent about it, pretty sure he wasn’t fooling anyone. Did he recognise that big tree with all the moss? “That way. I think.”
There was a kind of animal track that he vaguely thought O’Connell had taken, and he remembered vaulting over a fallen log at one point, and… “There!”
The woods opened out into a small, tinder-dry clearing, grass yellow, and littered with desiccated leaves and twigs. He remembered hearing cars passing on the nearby road, and knowing that if he didn’t get the bastard now he’d almost certainly lose him. And - yeah, there was the stirred-up patch of ground where they’d landed, only just missing braining themselves on the old tree stump jutting up in the middle of the space.
“This is it,” he said. “It’s got to be around here somewhere.”
“As long as no one’s already picked it up,” Bodie suggested darkly, squinting around.
“Bite your tongue.” Never mind missing out on a round at the pub, Cowley would kill him if this turned into a national scandal. There’d definitely been reporters skulking around until they’d been chased off with threats of a D-notice - O’Connell and his blackmail gang were big stuff. “It’s here,” he said, determined for it to be true.
Cowley was already scouting around, working ever-increasing circles around the scuffed-up ground.
Bodie gave him a resigned twist of his lips, but he looked amused now rather than pissed off, so that was something. He stepped closer to Doyle, close enough to speak low in his ear.
“Sniffer dog’ll find it,” he said, eyes flicking quickly to their boss.
Doyle snickered - he couldn’t help himself.
“What’s that, Doyle?”
“Nothing sir - Bodie was wondering if we’ll need to get the dogs out.”
Cowley shot them both a withering glare. “Perhaps if you would be so kind as to start actually looking, gentlemen, we won’t need to resort to such drastic measures!”
“Sir,” Bodie said at once, and moved to one side, began scanning the ground.
Teachers pet, Doyle thought, but began his own search. He must have let it go when he started his leap, which must have been around…
“Permission to ask a question, sir.”
“Aye, what is it?”
“You knew to look here for O’Connell when he called in the threat. You never said why.”
“The day I have to explain myself to you… Och well, I suppose you may as well know. I recognised the place straight away. You see, there was a specific sound in the background when he called.”
“A sound?”
“That’s right, Bodie,” Cowley said, dry as the crackling ground they searched. “You’ll have heard of them.”
Doyle saw Bodie wince, had to turn away before Cowley saw him laughing again.
“Ah, yes, sir, I think once…”
“It was a flying shuttle.”
Doyle blinked. “An aeroplane?”
“And you’re supposed to be my best men!”
Doyle caught Bodie’s eye, stayed quiet.
“A flying shuttle is used in the weaving process - or at least it was used, many years ago. There are very few of them left now, and this one is particularly special. I’d recognise a Hattersley loom anywhere.”
“How the hell did you recognise that?” A beat. “Sir!”
“My grandfather used one, many years ago. It must have been a hundred years old then - but he kept it in repair. Made the most beautiful tartans on it. I couldn’t forget that sound if I tried.”
“So he was a kilter then - you’re from a family of kilters!”
“Don’t be ridiculous Bodie - one man hardly makes a family!”
Oh, I don’t know, Doyle thought, glancing at Bodie, and finding him looking back. They shared a quick smile. All the more reason to find his bloody gun quickly.
“And besides - it’s kiltmaker!”
“Eh? Why isn’t it kilter? If you drive for a living you’re a driver. Play football, you’re a footballer.”
“Drape fabric you’re a draper. Cop people, you’re a copper…”
“Och, you two… Doyle are you sure you dropped the blasted thing out here?”
Fuck. “Yes sir. Sorry, sir.” And the light was starting to go. Distract him… “So… they had a Hattersley shuttle out here? What was O’Connell’s connection?”
He could feel Cowley pausing, looking at him, but he didn’t look up, instead widening his search field, moving closer to the trees again. Further away from Cowley.
“O’Connell’s grandfather was also a weaver - Irish tartans, very accomplished. They’re not a true tartan of course, but they have their own beauty.”
“And he had one of these machines?”
“Aye, he did - and there was one being used somewhere in the background when O’Connell called.”
“Alright, I can buy the shuttle noise,” Bodie said, dicing, Doyle thought, with more than just the threat of a shandy - probably his share of Cowley’s whisky bottle for years to come. “But why didn’t we just do the place over in the first pace, if it’s O’Connell’s grandad?”
“Because O’Connell’s grandfather has been dead for years, as have his parents, and we had no reason to suspect that O’Connell still had a connection. The place was sold long ago, when the mother died, far out of the family - but it was sold lock stock and barrel, and the new owners decided to make use of the equipment they’d inherited. They opened a ‘heritage’ weaving business.”
“The loom.”
“Aye, the loom.”
“And you knew that because you’d been here before.”
“Not recently - a long, long time ago. Before the war. With my grandfather.”
With his…? Doyle shook his head to himself. Hard enough to believe Cowley had a family of his own once, never mind touring the country with them as a kid.
“You knew O’Connell’s grandfather?”
“Doyle, I was ten years old when we visited. No, I did not know O’Connell’s grandfather. But I’ve always had half an eye on the place, in a… nostalgic sort of a way.”
And if Cowley didn’t have half an eye on most of the country, nostalgic or otherwise, Doyle might have called that a coincidence too far. But this was George Cowley.
He paused despairingly, looked around more widely. It wasn’t that big a clearing - why hadn’t they found it yet? Bodie was kicking desultorily at some undergrowth, and Cowley had stopped, was rubbing his knee, and grimacing. After a moment he looked up at the darkening sky, and then over at Doyle and around the area they were searching. “Well, Doyle?” He began hobbling his way over to the tree stump.
Dammit. He shook his head slowly. Cowley wanted him to be the one to call it, and much as he didn’t want to… “It should be here,” he said, still not quite admitting defeat. “I know it should!”
“Maybe someone really did take it.”
“Shut up, Bodie!”
“Shut up, Bodie…”
Cowley shook his head, half turned as if to sit on the tree trunk, and then seemed to catch himself, staring down at its uneven surface as if he’d seen a nest of spiders.
“Are you alright, sir?” Be just their luck Cowley chose to have a heart attack right here, miles from anywhere…
“Aye, Doyle. I am.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. “And it was around here you tackled O’Connell, you said?”
“Yes, sir.”
Cowley reached into the tree stump with the handkerchief, his hand vanishing to the wrist, and when he pulled it back out again, it was holding Doyle’s gun.
“Thank fuck for that!”
“Doyle!”
“Sorry, sir.” But he was grinning, and even more so when he felt Bodie step up behind him, place a hand in the small of his back.
“I think, gentlemen, that it is time to go home.” Cowley checked the safety, and then held the gun out to Doyle. “Try and look after it - I’ll be limping for a week after this extra escapade!”
Doyle met his gaze, could do nothing but nod.
In a fucking tree stump.
“Well, you know what they say, sir,” Bodie began, and god help them, he had that look in his eye.
Cowley raised an eyebrow, and Doyle held his breath.
“A wee dram is just the thing if you’re feeling off-kilter!”
There was a pause, and Doyle found himself scrunching his face, peering at Cowley through one eye.
Cowley looked at them both - and then he broke into a smile. “Aye Bodie, it is - and Doyle’s buying. Now come on - it’s past time we were away from here!”
“Yes, sir,” Doyle said, and then he tucked his gun away, and shoulder-to-shoulder with Bodie, followed Cowley back to the car.
Title: Looming Danger
Author: Slantedlight
Slash or Gen: Slash, always
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: Certainly
Disclaimer: Bodie, Doyle and the CI5-verse belong to someone else, and we are but playing joyfully.
Notes: This was written for Write Time 2025, the prompts/instructions being: to include the concept of “lost”, to include the word “kilter”, and for part of the story to be speech-driven, with at least three people taking part, without it being stated who is speaking. Oh, and a word limit of 2000 words!
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