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discoveredinaljMy offering for the Brandy Butter challenge - a little fic for your perusal. Happy December 8th to all!
“Doyle?”
No response. Bodie glanced thoughtfully at his partner, immersed in some profound-looking philosophical discourse. Pretentious, Bodie called it. He’d sneaked the briefest of looks at a page or two, in the interval between snatching it out of Doyle’s hand and the inevitable tussle that came as a direct consequence. Had even read out, in exaggerated declamatory tones, a tiny sequence:
Art, like light, needs distance, and anyone who attempts to render sexual experience directly must face the fact that the writhings which comprise it are ludicrous without their subjective content...
At which point he was cut off by a sharp elbow to the kidneys – meant as nothing more than a mock-threat, nevertheless the impact was enough to have Bodie’s eyes watering as he clutched his side, leaving Doyle to retrieve the hastily dropped book.
“Bloody hell, Doyle, you trying to kill me?”
“Serves you right. And don’t tempt me.”
Offering an unsympathetic wink, Doyle curled himself up once again in the only comfortable chair in the room and resumed reading, leaving Bodie to recover his breath and broodingly contemplate as many imaginative ways as possible of bringing about Doyle’s agonising demise.
Twenty minutes on, having conducted a solemn internal dialogue on the relative merits of thumbscrews and Chinese water torture, he was bored again. And uncomfortably aware that the mental images of a chained and helpless Doyle were beginning to have unexpected and potentially embarrassing side effects. Casting around for a distraction, his eye was drawn to his oblivious partner.
“Doyle?”
“Hmm?”
“You got anything to eat?”
“Nothing you’d want.” Doyle absently licked a finger, flicked over the page. Bodie took a calming breath.
“What’ve you got, then?”
A slight frown creased Doyle’s forehead. “What?”
“If you’ve got something, I might want it. Oh come on, mate, I’m wasting away here.”
His concentration finally broken, Doyle glared at Bodie with irritation. “Oh for Christ’s sake…here.”
He twisted round, reaching into his jacket pocket to extract something small and round, which he launched without warning towards Bodie’s head. Instinctively Bodie’s hand flashed up in defence, intercepting the missile within scant inches of his face, his lips curving upwards in a smug grin. Doyle returned the smile with a gleam of white teeth, acknowledging the swift reaction with approval.
Bodie looked down at his hand, the grin vanishing to be replaced by a wrinkle of the brow, a slight pout.
“What’s this?” Disapproval radiated like a living presence. Doyle rolled his eyes theatrically.
“It’s a tangerine.” Slowly and clearly, as though speaking to a particularly dim child.
“Thought you said you had food.”
“It’s seasonal, isn’t it?”
“So are mince pies. Proper food, they are.”
“Well, if you don’t want it, give it back.”
“Huh.” Unwilling to relinquish even this meagre offering, Bodie subsided into silence, grumpily picking away at the puckered orange skin until the soft insides were exposed. Carefully he separated the segments, laying them side by side on the battered Formica tabletop. Glanced towards his partner, now once again immersed in the pages of his book, thoughtfully chewing a fingernail as he mulled over whatever he was reading.
Bodie paused, his attention captured. Art, like light, needs distance…there was something in that. Undeniably, the sight of Doyle like this, head bowed in contemplation, soft dusty light from the uncleaned window catching shades of red and gold in the tousled hair and accenting the angularity of the bone structure, was aesthetically satisfying, adding an artistic quality to his partner’s appearance that was less apparent as you got closer and saw the toughness, the scars, the inevitable backlash of too much exposure to too brutal a reality. At rest, from a distance, his mind far from the grimness of the job, Doyle was…
Bodie shied automatically away from the word beautiful, blinking and giving himself a vigorous mental shake, cheeks tinged uncharacteristically red as he thanked God that his partner’s many skills didn’t extend to mind reading. Cabin fever, that’s what it was. Being cooped up on comms duty, today of all days, might be the altruistic thing to do, given that he hadn’t any family he wanted to share the joys of the season with, but it was bad for his head. God, if he was resorting to fancying Doyle, things had to be grim.
He cleared his throat.
“You want any of this?”
Something of his thoughts must have carried into his tone, because Doyle glanced at him sharply, eyebrows raised.
“You all right, mate?”
“Yeah. Bored. You want some of this?”
Doyle looked over at the precisely arranged tangerine pieces. “Yeah, that’d be good. You really are bored, aren’t you? You should get yourself a book. Improve your mind.”
The smug expression returned. “My mind doesn’t need improving, thank you. Steel trap, this.” He flipped a piece of tangerine over to Doyle, who caught it deftly.
“Thanks. Well, unfortunately us lesser mortals have to put a bit more effort in than someone of your natural brilliance.”
Bodie affected a haughty demeanour, along with a frankly shambolic upper class accent. “Oh, quite so, old boy. Quite so.”
Snorting, Doyle returned to his book, twisting the segment of tangerine absently between thumb and forefinger. Bodie worked his way methodically through the remaining pieces, taking little bites of each, ostentatiously chewing for longer than necessary, literally making a meal of it. The last morsel consumed, he turned doleful eyes on Doyle, checking to ensure that his performance had been observed. What he saw froze him into breathless, stunned immobility.
Doyle, still absorbed in his reading, was holding the segment close to his mouth, lips brushing lightly against it, gently playing it back and forth. As Bodie, entranced, followed its smooth progress along the full lower lip, Doyle suddenly pressed it further in, biting down firmly, tongue darting out to catch the golden droplets of juice that threatened to spill over onto the exposed page below. Pushing the other half in to join the first, he stroked his finger over the corner of his mouth to trap the last errant drop, sucking the tip to clean away the tart stickiness.
It was one of the most sweetly erotic and powerfully arousing sights Bodie had ever witnessed. Heart racing, he dragged his gaze away, slumping down with a stifled groan until his forehead connected, satisfyingly painfully, with the table in front of him. He closed his eyes. This was a nightmare. God, if Doyle ever found out, his life wouldn’t be worth living.
Although, come to think of it…As Bodie’s frazzled brain began to clear, it occurred to him that, throughout the entire unsettling sequence, several minutes worth, Doyle hadn’t actually turned a single page of the book he had seemingly been devouring with such gusto. Slowly, he lifted his head, knowing he’d been had, unsurprised to encounter an openly grinning Doyle, head slightly tilted, watching him with a combination of amusement and speculation.
“Problem?”
“You little bastard.” There was no sting in the words. Despite himself, Bodie couldn’t help admiring how adeptly Doyle had played him.
The grin widened. “Took you long enough.”
There was a pause. Bodie looked away, shielding himself as he frantically cast his mind back, trying to work out how much he had given away, analysing Doyle’s motives – was this a prank, or something more? Doyle was perfectly capable of setting the whole thing up just to amuse himself on a dull day.
Doyle must have sensed the shift in mood, because he uncurled himself from the chair, coming to sit across the table from Bodie, leaning towards him earnestly.
“Bodie, listen mate. Please.”
Bodie took a deep breath, forced himself to meet his partner’s eyes. Had to force himself to maintain the contact, because the solemnity, the utter naked honesty he encountered there rocked him beyond imagining. Again, the phrase from the book rolled through his mind. Art, like light, requires distance. Just minutes ago he was agreeing wholeheartedly with the sentiment. And now, with Doyle so close that it felt like he could crawl inside his soul, Bodie realised that distance did no justice to the man in front of him. The nearer you got, the better the view.
“I’m listening.”
He heard the unintentional edginess in his own voice, saw a hint of uncertainty creep in to cloud the raw beauty of the green eyes.
“Look, Bodie, you’ve got to understand. I…”
With shattering timing, the comms crackled into life for the first time that day.
“Alpha One to Control.”
For the second time, Bodie let his head thud onto the table, as Doyle went to answer the radio.
“Good afternoon, Alpha One.” Doyle’s tone was admirably enthusiastic.
“Ah, 4.5. Anything to report?”
“Not really, sir. Quiet as the grave here. All the bad guys must be visiting their mums.”
“Aye, you’re probably right. You and 3.7 can stand down. I’ll expect you in tomorrow at 10am. Happy Christmas.”
“And the compliments of the season to you too, Mr Cowley. Control out.”
A stillness descended on the room as the transmission ended, the two men gazing at each other with an air of frustration, the mood broken but neither willing to let the matter go. Characteristically, it was Doyle’s voice that penetrated the silence.
“So. Free at last. What’re you going to do then?”
“I dunno. Head back to mine, I suppose.” He paused, took the plunge. “You coming?”
Doyle’s smile was laced with a wickedness that sent a shiver through Bodie.
“Who knows, sunshine. Who knows.” He prowled toward his partner, leaning in close, his words the ghost of a breath against Bodie’s ear. “I guarantee you will be, though.”
FIN
Title: On Being Blue
Words: 1600, give or take
Gen/slash: slash. Archive: Yes please
Notes: Prompt was mandarins and tangerines. Sorry, no mandarins, but a well-placed tangerine which started life as a satsuma till I checked the prompt! The featured quote is from 'On Being Blue' by William H Gass (1976).
“Doyle?”
No response. Bodie glanced thoughtfully at his partner, immersed in some profound-looking philosophical discourse. Pretentious, Bodie called it. He’d sneaked the briefest of looks at a page or two, in the interval between snatching it out of Doyle’s hand and the inevitable tussle that came as a direct consequence. Had even read out, in exaggerated declamatory tones, a tiny sequence:
Art, like light, needs distance, and anyone who attempts to render sexual experience directly must face the fact that the writhings which comprise it are ludicrous without their subjective content...
At which point he was cut off by a sharp elbow to the kidneys – meant as nothing more than a mock-threat, nevertheless the impact was enough to have Bodie’s eyes watering as he clutched his side, leaving Doyle to retrieve the hastily dropped book.
“Bloody hell, Doyle, you trying to kill me?”
“Serves you right. And don’t tempt me.”
Offering an unsympathetic wink, Doyle curled himself up once again in the only comfortable chair in the room and resumed reading, leaving Bodie to recover his breath and broodingly contemplate as many imaginative ways as possible of bringing about Doyle’s agonising demise.
Twenty minutes on, having conducted a solemn internal dialogue on the relative merits of thumbscrews and Chinese water torture, he was bored again. And uncomfortably aware that the mental images of a chained and helpless Doyle were beginning to have unexpected and potentially embarrassing side effects. Casting around for a distraction, his eye was drawn to his oblivious partner.
“Doyle?”
“Hmm?”
“You got anything to eat?”
“Nothing you’d want.” Doyle absently licked a finger, flicked over the page. Bodie took a calming breath.
“What’ve you got, then?”
A slight frown creased Doyle’s forehead. “What?”
“If you’ve got something, I might want it. Oh come on, mate, I’m wasting away here.”
His concentration finally broken, Doyle glared at Bodie with irritation. “Oh for Christ’s sake…here.”
He twisted round, reaching into his jacket pocket to extract something small and round, which he launched without warning towards Bodie’s head. Instinctively Bodie’s hand flashed up in defence, intercepting the missile within scant inches of his face, his lips curving upwards in a smug grin. Doyle returned the smile with a gleam of white teeth, acknowledging the swift reaction with approval.
Bodie looked down at his hand, the grin vanishing to be replaced by a wrinkle of the brow, a slight pout.
“What’s this?” Disapproval radiated like a living presence. Doyle rolled his eyes theatrically.
“It’s a tangerine.” Slowly and clearly, as though speaking to a particularly dim child.
“Thought you said you had food.”
“It’s seasonal, isn’t it?”
“So are mince pies. Proper food, they are.”
“Well, if you don’t want it, give it back.”
“Huh.” Unwilling to relinquish even this meagre offering, Bodie subsided into silence, grumpily picking away at the puckered orange skin until the soft insides were exposed. Carefully he separated the segments, laying them side by side on the battered Formica tabletop. Glanced towards his partner, now once again immersed in the pages of his book, thoughtfully chewing a fingernail as he mulled over whatever he was reading.
Bodie paused, his attention captured. Art, like light, needs distance…there was something in that. Undeniably, the sight of Doyle like this, head bowed in contemplation, soft dusty light from the uncleaned window catching shades of red and gold in the tousled hair and accenting the angularity of the bone structure, was aesthetically satisfying, adding an artistic quality to his partner’s appearance that was less apparent as you got closer and saw the toughness, the scars, the inevitable backlash of too much exposure to too brutal a reality. At rest, from a distance, his mind far from the grimness of the job, Doyle was…
Bodie shied automatically away from the word beautiful, blinking and giving himself a vigorous mental shake, cheeks tinged uncharacteristically red as he thanked God that his partner’s many skills didn’t extend to mind reading. Cabin fever, that’s what it was. Being cooped up on comms duty, today of all days, might be the altruistic thing to do, given that he hadn’t any family he wanted to share the joys of the season with, but it was bad for his head. God, if he was resorting to fancying Doyle, things had to be grim.
He cleared his throat.
“You want any of this?”
Something of his thoughts must have carried into his tone, because Doyle glanced at him sharply, eyebrows raised.
“You all right, mate?”
“Yeah. Bored. You want some of this?”
Doyle looked over at the precisely arranged tangerine pieces. “Yeah, that’d be good. You really are bored, aren’t you? You should get yourself a book. Improve your mind.”
The smug expression returned. “My mind doesn’t need improving, thank you. Steel trap, this.” He flipped a piece of tangerine over to Doyle, who caught it deftly.
“Thanks. Well, unfortunately us lesser mortals have to put a bit more effort in than someone of your natural brilliance.”
Bodie affected a haughty demeanour, along with a frankly shambolic upper class accent. “Oh, quite so, old boy. Quite so.”
Snorting, Doyle returned to his book, twisting the segment of tangerine absently between thumb and forefinger. Bodie worked his way methodically through the remaining pieces, taking little bites of each, ostentatiously chewing for longer than necessary, literally making a meal of it. The last morsel consumed, he turned doleful eyes on Doyle, checking to ensure that his performance had been observed. What he saw froze him into breathless, stunned immobility.
Doyle, still absorbed in his reading, was holding the segment close to his mouth, lips brushing lightly against it, gently playing it back and forth. As Bodie, entranced, followed its smooth progress along the full lower lip, Doyle suddenly pressed it further in, biting down firmly, tongue darting out to catch the golden droplets of juice that threatened to spill over onto the exposed page below. Pushing the other half in to join the first, he stroked his finger over the corner of his mouth to trap the last errant drop, sucking the tip to clean away the tart stickiness.
It was one of the most sweetly erotic and powerfully arousing sights Bodie had ever witnessed. Heart racing, he dragged his gaze away, slumping down with a stifled groan until his forehead connected, satisfyingly painfully, with the table in front of him. He closed his eyes. This was a nightmare. God, if Doyle ever found out, his life wouldn’t be worth living.
Although, come to think of it…As Bodie’s frazzled brain began to clear, it occurred to him that, throughout the entire unsettling sequence, several minutes worth, Doyle hadn’t actually turned a single page of the book he had seemingly been devouring with such gusto. Slowly, he lifted his head, knowing he’d been had, unsurprised to encounter an openly grinning Doyle, head slightly tilted, watching him with a combination of amusement and speculation.
“Problem?”
“You little bastard.” There was no sting in the words. Despite himself, Bodie couldn’t help admiring how adeptly Doyle had played him.
The grin widened. “Took you long enough.”
There was a pause. Bodie looked away, shielding himself as he frantically cast his mind back, trying to work out how much he had given away, analysing Doyle’s motives – was this a prank, or something more? Doyle was perfectly capable of setting the whole thing up just to amuse himself on a dull day.
Doyle must have sensed the shift in mood, because he uncurled himself from the chair, coming to sit across the table from Bodie, leaning towards him earnestly.
“Bodie, listen mate. Please.”
Bodie took a deep breath, forced himself to meet his partner’s eyes. Had to force himself to maintain the contact, because the solemnity, the utter naked honesty he encountered there rocked him beyond imagining. Again, the phrase from the book rolled through his mind. Art, like light, requires distance. Just minutes ago he was agreeing wholeheartedly with the sentiment. And now, with Doyle so close that it felt like he could crawl inside his soul, Bodie realised that distance did no justice to the man in front of him. The nearer you got, the better the view.
“I’m listening.”
He heard the unintentional edginess in his own voice, saw a hint of uncertainty creep in to cloud the raw beauty of the green eyes.
“Look, Bodie, you’ve got to understand. I…”
With shattering timing, the comms crackled into life for the first time that day.
“Alpha One to Control.”
For the second time, Bodie let his head thud onto the table, as Doyle went to answer the radio.
“Good afternoon, Alpha One.” Doyle’s tone was admirably enthusiastic.
“Ah, 4.5. Anything to report?”
“Not really, sir. Quiet as the grave here. All the bad guys must be visiting their mums.”
“Aye, you’re probably right. You and 3.7 can stand down. I’ll expect you in tomorrow at 10am. Happy Christmas.”
“And the compliments of the season to you too, Mr Cowley. Control out.”
A stillness descended on the room as the transmission ended, the two men gazing at each other with an air of frustration, the mood broken but neither willing to let the matter go. Characteristically, it was Doyle’s voice that penetrated the silence.
“So. Free at last. What’re you going to do then?”
“I dunno. Head back to mine, I suppose.” He paused, took the plunge. “You coming?”
Doyle’s smile was laced with a wickedness that sent a shiver through Bodie.
“Who knows, sunshine. Who knows.” He prowled toward his partner, leaning in close, his words the ghost of a breath against Bodie’s ear. “I guarantee you will be, though.”
FIN
Title: On Being Blue
Words: 1600, give or take
Gen/slash: slash. Archive: Yes please
Notes: Prompt was mandarins and tangerines. Sorry, no mandarins, but a well-placed tangerine which started life as a satsuma till I checked the prompt! The featured quote is from 'On Being Blue' by William H Gass (1976).
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 11:04 am (UTC)That was one hot and funny piece of yummy reading. What Doyle did with that piece of tangerine sent shivers down my spine. Rotten little sod. But at least Bodie got the message *snicker* Enjoyed reading that. You really should post more often you know.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:10 am (UTC)Thanks - I have a bit of a thing for the idea of Doyle getting one over on Bodie. Probably because Bodie's usually so guarded, it's nice to think that his defences are lower where Doyle's concerned.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 11:59 am (UTC)Thank you for that line. Wow. So good!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 12:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:15 am (UTC)Thank you! :D
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 01:57 pm (UTC)(Can I add a quick mod-ish thing, which I'll edit out later please?! Could you please put your Footer at the bottom of the fic instead of the top, so that it's not a spoiler for people who don't want to be spoiled? Cheers! The format to use is on the User Info page too. Oh, and I'd say that was definitely slash, by practically any definition!)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 02:15 pm (UTC)Thanks for this.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:19 am (UTC)Ah yes. A fine point, well made! Could apply to either, too. (I think you know which camp I fall into!) Now why is it I love Pros again? XD
Thanks, glad you enjoyed.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:21 am (UTC)Oh I wish that were true!! *sigh*
Thank you, it's lovely to know the characterisation worked for you. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 03:00 pm (UTC)Ha! Love the frazzled Bodie, and your Doyle here is *just* how I like him. The quote is great, and the tangerine ... well ... hot flush material *g* Thanks for this, it was a great read.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 05:18 pm (UTC)Thank you :D
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 05:54 pm (UTC)That's some almost freakishly hot foodporn. Now I'm all shivery. Poor Bodie. He's so in over his head.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:31 am (UTC)He is, isn't he? I love that! :D
Thank you - always good to cause shivers. *glee*
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-09 12:40 am (UTC)Very nice! A delicious little moment of, ah, discovery.
Oh, I'm interested in what you'd have done with the satsuma too - how about a follow-up sometime?
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:37 am (UTC)Glad you enjoyed. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-09 06:36 pm (UTC)Very nice :)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 01:04 pm (UTC)Mmmmyeah! :D
I guess that, in the end, is the point of the distance quote - is it more effective to write the obvious sequel where they go back and shag like bunnies, or leave it in a place where the reader knows exactly what's going to happen next and their imagination fills in the gaps?
(Sorry, you've caught me in a bit of a philosophical mood! Thanks - glad you liked the story. :) )
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2007-12-09 06:48 pm (UTC)Bodie shied automatically away from the word beautiful, blinking and giving himself a vigorous mental shake, cheeks tinged uncharacteristically red as he thanked God that his partner’s many skills didn’t extend to mind reading. Cabin fever, that’s what it was.
Lovely. Very Bodie.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-09 09:00 pm (UTC)Thanks for sharing it!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 10:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 10:44 am (UTC)Ooh goody! *evil glee*
Nah, this was always going to be essentially fluffy. It's Christmas, innit?!
Glad it made you smile. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 06:16 pm (UTC)*Tries to look stern*
*Fails completely*
Fabarooney fic. Love Doyle winding up Bodie. V hot. ♥
no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 10:46 am (UTC)Ah. Er, yes. *shame* Darn it, I keep forgetting there are people in both fandoms! (Never mind, I know you'll keep my secret!)
Thanks - glad you liked it. :D
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 06:22 pm (UTC)A most delightful demise for that tangerine, and a highly entertaining answer to the prompt.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 10:49 am (UTC)Glad you liked it, especially the banter, which is always great fun to do!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 10:52 pm (UTC)Wouldn't you just love to be a fly on the wall at Bodie's place when they got back there...*g*
no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 10:52 am (UTC)YES!!! But then I could say that about most stories. Shameful really! *vbg*
Thank you. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-11 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 10:54 am (UTC)Thanks - glad you enjoyed! :D
no subject
Date: 2007-12-11 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-16 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-17 04:04 am (UTC)It will probably come to me the moment I post this, but would you drop me a note at Proslib at gmail.com please?
Exits humming theme song The Old Grey Mare
no subject
Date: 2007-12-18 11:11 am (UTC)