Archive of Our Own

The pale promise of dawn that had washed across the city nearly two hours before, softening the usually harsh London skyline and bringing birdsong and wafts of fresh, promising breeze through Doyle's window, brightened even as he stood and gazed across it all, so that he breathed it all in, feeling like a kid again, waiting impatiently for Bodie's rat-a-tat buzz on his entryphone. His bags were packed, breakfast eaten, cup of tea drunk - all they had to do was tie their gear onto their bikes and they were away, free of everything for an entire week. A holiday, a proper holiday away from home: sea air and sunshine, birds and booze, sex and sleep - there was nothing like it and it had been way too long.

He caught himself jiggling one knee, tapping his fingers against his thigh, and forced stillness, impatient to be on the road, to be off, the smell of warm tarmac racing beneath them, the thrum of the engine solid between his legs... If only Bodie would get a move on.

On the dot of five past seven - awkward bugger - the air finally vibrated in loud tattoo, and Doyle slammed down the window sash, flicked the catch, and picked up his bag. He was fumbling for the keys in his pocket with one hand, the other precariously balancing the weight of a week's worth of gear and still resting on the door release - wondering whether he could get Bodie all the way up three flights of stairs before setting off on his way down - when the phone rang.

The red phone.

He closed his eyes.

"Come on Ray - never on time to anything, you..."

Doyle's bag caught him full in the chest, so that he had to take a step backwards against the weight of it.

"Bloody 'ell, what've you got in here, a dead body? And if you think I'm carrying it down to the car..."

"Be your dead body in a minute," Doyle growled, turning to tear a strip of paper from the notepad by his phone. "You had to be late, didn't you - couldn't be on time just this fucking once?"

Bodie dropped the duffel, glanced at his watch. "It's barely past seven - and it's Saturday, there's no traffic at this..." He paused, looked more carefully at Doyle, at the Yellow Pages open on the table, at his bike jacket strewn over the sofa. "Don't tell me she's not running even before we've left!"

Doyle disappeared into the bedroom without a word, came out in his holster, Browning tucked under his arm. "I've been called in."

"What?"

"Five minutes! Five bloody minutes, Bodie, and we'd have been gone - unreachable!"

"Well why'd you answer it?" Not that he needed to ask. Diligent, dutiful Doyle on the case again.

Doyle said nothing, barely glared at him, pulling on his regular brown jacket.

Bodie sighed. "Alright, where we going?"

"We're not, mate - I am."

"On your own?"

Doyle looked at him, raised eyebrows. "I 'ave been out by myself, you know, just once or twice..."

"Yeah, but..." But not on a case, not like this, not since before they'd been teamed. They should be called in together or not at all. "Without your nappy and your dummy tied to your bib?"

"You'll have to chat up those Cornish maidens all by yourself - think you can cope?"

"With the swarms not frightened away by your ugly mug? Hard to say... What?" Doyle was looking at him as if he was simple.

"You gonna get out of my way and let me get this over with?"

"Get what over with? What's he got you on? Doyle?" Bodie let him sidle past in the doorway, grazed by the heat of him for a precious moment, and then abandoned.

"Doyle!"

Doyle paused at the top of the stairs, let his head drop and the breath leave him - Bodie saw his shoulders relax, could almost feel his muscles loosening. He looked back over his shoulder. "Sorry. It's just..." He shrugged awkwardly.

Bodie blinked it away. "How long d'you think you'll be?"

"Dunno - he wants me to meet Arthur Young, apparently he's been phoning in with something big and won't talk to anyone else."

"Arty? He's never had anything good."

Doyle shook his head. "The Cow's convinced it's different this time - don't ask me, mate. Look, I probably won't be more than a few hours..."

"I'll come with you - we can get straight off..."

"Nah," Doyle wrinkled his nose, "It's alone or not at all, so the old man says. Tell you what - I'll meet you down the Lion for lunch, and we'll head off then."

"You know what he's like once gets a grip on you..." Never let go - they'd never get away now, and Bodie felt his insides start to crumple up, the way they had years ago, before he'd realised that the world was an unfair place. Stupid to get his hopes up, now, over Doyle. Bloody Cowley...

"Only when we let him, mate, only when we let him..."

Bodie listened to Doyle's footsteps fading down the stairway, tried to decide if he'd really seen that... that fierceness on Doyle's face as he turned away. Maybe Doyle would fight for this as much as Bodie wanted him to. Maybe...

Doyle'd had to look up the exact address of "Foyle's Domestic Storage and Shipping - All Freight Taken Care Of" and now that he was here he was no more impressed with Cowley's intelligence. If the empty and echoing spaces of Foyle's warehouse were anything to go by, the bloke certainly wasn't bothering to plough any ill-gotten gains back into his business. We think it's guns - an arsenal, Cowley had said, Arty has said he'll let you know the time and place, all you've got to do is make sure he does. He trusts you. God knew why, Doyle thought, peering through the dim gloom for any sign of movement. Bodie was right, Arty had never had anything useful for them before, and was so small time that he had no real reason to think it would be worth his while if he had.

Which meant, of course, that this had to be something big, just as Cowley had said. Something that scared Arty far more than they ever had, far more than the threat of a few months inside scared him.

And that was why Doyle was here, rather than on the motorway, watching Bodie's back - and his shoulders, and his legs wrapped around the bike, and... He frowned at himself. Not now, concentrate on the job.

It felt wrong, being there on his own, knowing that Bodie hadn't been told to join him, didn't even know what the case was about. Not that he knew what the case was about - as though Cowley had told him any more this time than he ever did. Bits and pieces of the jigsaws, that's all they were ever given. Just once he'd like to know...

Concentrate.

Dim light filtered down from high windows, where there might once have been a second and third floor to the old building. What was it, Victorian even? Grit-paned in any case, and full of dust and cobwebs - he didn't fancy renting space in this place while he was off abroad somewhere.

Come on Arty, where are you?

He started skirting the sides of the building, keeping behind the pallets and piles of boxes and containers, listening for movement, for a door opening, a voice calling his name. Nothing - and he was getting jumpy. Something not right, something...

Outside a car zhooshed past, a soft roar that faded to a purr, paused, and then grew louder once more. Arty, checking the place out before he came in? Last Doyle knew Arty hadn't even had a driver's licence - he'd had epilepsy as a kid, he'd said, but he'd looked away as he said it. Not the brightest of sparks, Arty, not...

A car door slammed, then another. Doyle loosened his gun in its holster, let his hand wrap around it, waited.

Voices - neither of them Arty.

Foyle and company? Someone who actually worked here, or...

They'd stopped outside, whoever they were, but there was another car approaching, and then another - what the hell was going on? He reached for his R/T, was just about to press the button when the door nearest him opened, letting in a beam of clear sunlight, nearly blinding now that his eyes were used to the dim interior.

"...delivery on time or not?"

"Any day now, it'll be any day now. Not tomorrow, but maybe the next day."

"You think we can do business with the Arabs any day now do you? We've either got all the merchandise or we haven't, and if we haven't they'll go elsewhere!"

"There's someone new on the customs runs, we weren't expecting it..."

The voices passed him, were followed by the scuffling feet of three, maybe four more men. Doyle couldn't see them all, not without peering around his boxes. Wait, wait until they were all in...

Somewhere wood rasped against wood, fell to the floor with a clatter, and then there was the unmistakable sound of a magazine being loaded, of slides being pulled back. Why the hell were they arming themselves? He eased his own Browning into the open, frowned as yet another car drew up outside, as talk stopped inside the warehouse, as more men entered, as the voices resumed once more.

"We've only got half a shipment..."

He'd just decided it was time to risk a decent look when he felt something hard prod his back - something hard, something familiar, something that froze his breath and his heart.

Whoever it was behind him moved, stepped closer perhaps, and the gun stayed firmly, solidly in place.

"Drop it, eh? Then I won't need to shoot you where you stand."

Doyle lowered his gun hand to the side, half-hoping for some opportunity to move, knowing at the same time that it wouldn't come, not here, not now. Finally he threw the Browning to the ground, within snatching distance, if he was able to get that far in the first place, heard the voices break off as it hit the ground, metal on concrete, echoing loudly.

He was prodded forwards, into the midst of the men - eight of them, he counted joylessly, nine including the man at his back, not one of them he recognised.

"Who's this then?"

"Found him over by the crates. He 'ad a gun."

"Copper!"

"Likely..." one of the men, thick-set, red-headed, shoved at his shoulder, so that the gun dug more cruelly into his back before pushing him forwards again. "Someone search him."

Rough hands patted him down, pulled out his R/T and displayed it to the others, threw it violently into the shadows where Doyle heard the plastic splinter and smash. They found his I.D., his Swiss Army, his lighter - it all went the same way, a curving flight through the air and into the darkness. Nothing to find on him, when...

"Who sent you?" another of them asked, and Doyle noted who said what, who stood still or looked away, or glared at him with hatred in their eyes.

Nine against one.

"Who fucking sent you?" The red-head hit him this time, a sudden punch to his guts, so that he was winded, staggered - and there was the barrel of the gun again, right there in the small of his back, where a bullet might not kill him, might set him writhing on the ground.

"No one sent me," he tried, "I was in the area, thought I'd take a look around..."

"Try again, smart man." Red-head glanced around his companions, smiled, and hit him again, hard. It nearly sent him to his knees, but someone grabbed his arm, kept him upright.

"C-I-fucking-5 the card said - who tipped you off? What..."

Simultaneously, doors all around the building burst open, figures rushed inside - figures, Doyle saw in the moment before he dropped to the ground and rolled, figures that were armed, and competent, and might not be CI5 but were close enough to make him think of the cavalry. In seconds they'd secured the area, barely half a dozen shots exchanged, and the two men hit only wounded, and Foyle's men - if that's who he even was - had surrendered their weapons.

He stayed on the floor as it happened, not wanting to worry anyone, knowing that it was all over, that he'd got away with it again, just as he always had. Knowing that maybe he'd make it to the pub after all, that this time tomorrow he'd be in some cosy corner of the West Country, laughing about it with Bodie. He waited for that still moment where everyone had accepted what had just happened, where adrenalin was tempered with knowledge, with understanding, and then he started to get up.

A booted foot pressed itself against his shoulder, first pushed him back to the floor, then held him there.

"I don't think so, matey. You just wait until we're ready for you..." He turned his head, opened his mouth to explain, but his right arm was dragged behind his back with a suddenness that made him yelp, and then his left, and he felt the cold bite of handcuffs closing on his skin.

Bodie lasted at the pub until two o'clock, idling away the first hour without any problem, becoming more and more fidgety over the second hour until Maureen threatened to send him off for worrying the other customers.

"'e's probably met some nice girl, got chatting to her, forgotten the time," she said, trying to be reassuring. How could Bodie tell her that where Doyle was likely to be there were no nice girls - that they were far more likely to try and blow his kneecaps away than chat him up over a martini somewhere.

"Yeah, you're probably right," he said, draining his pint, "I'll be off then - see you love."

He left without looking back, barely hearing Maureen's relieved goodbye, ignoring the low protests of the two men he pushed past at the doorway. He needed to get outside, to...

There was no sign of Doyle's Capri outside The Lion, no sign of it outside his flat, and no sign, when Bodie arrived at CI5 and paused to take a look around the car park, of it outside HQ either. Whatever Cowley had Doyle on was taking a damn sight longer than they'd been promised, and since they'd also been promised a week off - after nearly a year of six and seven day weeks, barely a weekend to spare between them - he was going to find Cowley and demand to know what the hell was going on.

Blasphemy, Bodie, the Cow would say, all solicitous concern for his soul, Is that all you have for me? Well the old scrote was going to have to tell him more than that, this time, because it was his business to know where Doyle was at all times - they were partners, and it was Cowley who'd matched them in the first place, who'd... who'd started it all. He could damn well make what he could of the consequences.

The CI5 corridors were quiet, and what few agents there were not off on Stuart's op, or one of the ongoing surveillance jobs, gave Bodie's single-minded storming a wide berth. Miranda was at her post outside Cowley's office though, her typewriter clacking away, her desk a sweep of files and papers.

"Old man in, love?" Bodie asked, making an effort to temper his voice, to sound friendly, one hand already reaching to push Cowley's door open.

"I'm afraid he's not, 3.7," she said, looking up with a smile, with her curious mixture of close-mouthed business and promise of pleasure.

"Well when are you expecting him back?" Why couldn't she just tell him what he obviously needed to know?

"I really couldn't say, I'm afraid, he's in meetings for most of the day..."

"Only I need to get in touch with Doyle, and..."

"I'm afraid he's on a case just now."

"Yeah, he was expecting to be back by now," Bodie managed, with great patience, perching himself on the edge of her desk. "You don't know when he's due in?"

"I'm afraid not..."

"Right then." A name caught his eye amongst her papers, and he managed not to blink at it, to move his gaze casually past. "I suppose I could wait for a while... here, with you. D'you fancy a cuppa?"

"I don't suppose you're offering to make it, are you?" Miranda asked, sounding pleased, coquettish, even. "No," she pushed back from her desk with another smile, "I didn't think so... Milk and no sugar, is that right?"

"Magic, love..." Go away, go away, go away...

The moment the door closed behind her, Bodie swivelled Doyle's file to face him, flipped open the cover. On the one side was a picture of Doyle, one of those they'd had taken just last week for the new ID cards, on the other... On the other was a copy of Doyle's arrest record, updated by Cheavely Branch at 8.45 that morning.

By the time Miranda returned with two mugs of tea and a plate of eccles cakes, the file was long closed, the door still once more, and Bodie was gone.

If anything, the Scrubs was older, dirtier and damper than the warehouse had been. Doyle paced the floor of his cell, one eye on the man lying on the bottom bunk, now to all intents and purposes asleep, but annoyingly verbal when they'd been brought in - Doyle's best mate then, apparently, as had been everyone else in Foyle's gang. Of course they knew him, of course he was one of them, and he wasn't getting out of it by turning colour now... And there was a glint in every single eye that glared back at him. The Cavalry hadn't even bothered searching the place for his lost ID, and of course Cowley was in some meeting when he called, and all switchboard could say was that they'd pass the message on.

And now his Best Mate slept, all the better, Doyle presumed, to stay awake later, when his other mates might be around.

They were being held pending questioning, according to the arresting officer, who was young, and keen, and not someone Doyle thought he would have got on with if they'd been in the Met together, and had been paired off in the cells due only to a lack of space. There'd been neither sight nor sound of a prison official for over three hours now, just the low, pervasive hum of the other prisoners going about their business - shouts, rattles of gates, and not long ago the distant roars and whistles of some game being played somewhere, football perhaps, a ten minute reminder of the people they'd once been.

Doyle kicked at the wall of the cell as he reached the end of another circuit, and spun around again. Where the hell was Cowley? And what had happened to Arty? Had Arty expected to grass up the men Doyle'd come across, or had it all been some elaborate hoax? But why? What would be the point? He paused, and leaned back against the cold wall, pulling his jacket around him. At least they'd not taken that away, though they'd been charged and shifted on fast enough. Cheavley was having a busy week, apparently.

Somewhere a gate clanged, and Doyle tried not to hope as he heard footsteps getting closer. Surely this time, surely by now... He'd told Miranda where he was, he'd told her it was urgent...

"Doyle!"

The door to the cell rattled slightly, the cover flicked open on the observation grille, and he pushed himself away from the wall. "About bloody time!"

"Stay where you are, Doyle!"

Doyle sighed. "Look, I don't want any trouble, I just want this cleared up. Cowley's not going to like..."

"Your man from CI5's here to ID you. Stand away from the door."

Bodie - somehow Bodie'd got wind of what had happened, and... He forced himself to stay the regulation three feet from the door, to breathe deeply and evenly. Not long now.

But the face that appeared behind the grille was neither Bodie nor Cowley, nor anyone he knew.

"I don't know that man."

"You're sure, sir? He claims to be one Raymond Doyle, an agent with CI5 for several years now."

The face shook from side to side. "We do have a Raymond Doyle, but I can't say that's him."

Doyle frowned. Anyone from CI5 should be able to ID him, even if they'd never met, from his file alone. He moved forward, pressed his hands flat against the door, trying to peer out from gloom into greater gloom. "Who is that? Where's George Cowley? Tell him I need to see him now, not... " Call Bodie...

"That's enough, Doyle. Wasting police time will add you a nice little bit if you're not careful." The voice faded back for a moment, and Doyle opened his mouth, ready to speak again, ready to argue, but he couldn't find the words quickly enough, because he was on the wrong side of the bars, he was... "Dinner in forty-five minutes, gentlemen," the warden said, and then the grille cover slammed shut in his face.

"Well now," came a soft voice from behind him, "What a shame we know differently, eh?"

Bodie parked neatly over the double yellow lines in front of Cheavely Station, and looked up at the business-like modern building, a low-slung symphony of concrete and glass. How the hell had Doyle got himself arrested? What for? And why hadn't the Cow had him sprung by now? Either he had no idea that Doyle was there - unlikely, considering it was printed in black and white and neatly filed away already - or it was part of some set up with Ray neatly in the middle. Either way, Bodie didn't like it.

He swung out of the Capri and took the steps up to the revolving door in three bounds, pushing past a constable with a sobbing woman in tow, and two men who looked like they'd had better mornings. He snapped open his ID and waved it in front of the Duty Officer. "Raymond Doyle."

The Duty Officer, a blond who was busy scribbling his signature on forms, looked up briefly at the ID, then at Bodie, then back down to his papers. "No you're not."

Bodie sighed. Doyle was right, he should have got there earlier this morning. "I need to speak urgently with Raymond Doyle. You're holding him."

"No."

Very gently, Bodie reached across and wrapped his own fingers around the man's biro. The writing stopped, very suddenly, and the blond looked up. Bodie raised an eyebrow.

"No, we're not holding him any more. It's chaos here this week - you have heard of Griggson's bloody Army, haven't you? He's been charged and moved on, cut and dried case like that - we need the space."

"I'm not interested in the firms, Constable, where's he been moved on to?"

"Buckingham Palace," the man said, finally snatching his pen back, "Where'd you think?"

Bodie stared at him.

"The Scrubs - that's our local. Go give them the pleasure of your scintillating company."

It wasn't worth it, Bodie knew it wasn't worth it, and the Cow'd kick him nine ways to Sunday if he punched the lad's lights out. "What's the matter, son? They turn you down for the bantam weight? Look," he continued, "Show me his arrest record and I'll be out of your hair."

There was a scuffling at the door as yet another distraught woman was brought in, protesting loudly at her treatment, pausing to punch the PC's chest with both fists.

The Duty Officer practically threw the leather-bound book at Bodie, and reached across the desk to help his colleague subdue and placate the woman. A WPC appeared from behind the scenes, and lifted her voice to try and make herself heard over the cries for My Johnny, my Johnny ain't a bad boy....

Bodie rolled his eyes - let the firms fight it out with each other, by the time they were all maimed and dead the terraces would be safe again, without having taken up any police budget at all. Doyle would have told him it didn't work like that, survival of the fittest, but Doyle wasn't here.

"Doyle, Raymond - arrested 0748 on charges of..." Bodie blinked. Smuggling firearms... possession with intent? What the hell was going on? Doyle hadn't had preparation for that sort of case, not for the depth he'd need to be undercover, dealing with that level of conspiracy.

He swung through the doors fast enough that the recently released drunk and disorderly outside sat down suddenly on the pavement as he passed. One of the locals was in the process of ticketing his car, and he didn't even bother to push him aside, slamming into the driver's seat, revving the engine, and spinning the tyres without care. Let them send the summons to Cowley, the way Bodie was feeling right now he'd fight the Old Man and all.

Streets blurred past him - Doyle was in the Scrubs - he turned onto the Uxbridge Road automatically, then left - lights - then right - lights... come on. The schools had just got out, and there were kids everywhere on the smaller roads. Come on.

They'd have the sense to lock him away, he told his solidly beating heart, making himself breathe slowly, deeply, they'd put him in isolation, away from anyone who might know him, anyone he might have sent down. Cowley would have sent instructions.

He braked sharply to avoid another teenager dashing across the road, honked his horn and revved the engine at the two fingers that waved back at him.

They'd lock him away.

The R/T sounded just as he slid into a parking space, and he'd snatched the receiver from its cradle before he'd even turned the engine off. "3.7."

"Transferring you to Alpha One, 3.7, please wait," came the voice of Control - Julia he thought, or perhaps Sarah. He sat in the car and breathed deeply and slowly still, listening to the faint crackle of static.

Eventually the static clicked once, then became the stilted burr of George Cowley. "3.7 - I believe you've been trying to get in touch with me? You're supposed to be on leave. Over."

"Yes sir. So's Doyle. Over."

"Aye, Doyle is doing a small job for me, and then he will indeed be on leave."

Bodie took a breath. "Are you aware of Doyle's current whereabouts, sir?"

"Doyle is on operation, and as such his whereabouts are of no concern to you, Bodie."

"He's..."

"You'll obey orders, 3.7!" Cowley snapped, "Is that clear?"

"Yes sir," Bodie said, and threw down the R/T before he could be given any.

He climbed out of the car, late afternoon sun still shining down, incongruous now, not right. Something wasn't right.

Perhaps if you didn't know there was a prison behind the red brick, through the Victorian façade, perhaps the place wouldn't seem to darken the day, but Bodie did know, and he knew what happened to cops in prison.

He showed his ID to the man at the gate, hoping against hope that Cowley hadn't already called in his name, ordered them to keep him out.

His luck held, the guard waved him through to a second layer of security, and he again held up his card.

"CI5, is it?" the receptionist asked, "Busy day for you lot."

"Oh yeah?" Bodie tried to keep his voice bland, uninterested.

"Second visit we've had, isn't it - we are honoured. Or is it the third, eh?" He winked.

"I need to see Doyle. Urgently."

"That's what he said as well - your colleague. Mouthy bastard mind, that Doyle, not surprised the other bloke threw him back. Right, he should be with the other remand prisoners, but we're a bit pressed for space so..." He ran a finger down a list, tapped it when he came to the bottom, and frowned. "Well he was in "A" block, but there was some trouble there earlier and some of them were moved... I'll just check, if you don't mind." He picked up a telephone, and Bodie waited impatiently.

"Ah yes, it was him," the guard said, putting the phone down. "We 'ad some trouble involving your man Doyle, and they moved him up to the hospital wing. Only thing is, we're having a spot of bother there as well - damp you see, getting everywhere it is, and it affects the electrics in a place this old, and..."

Garrulous old bugger, they're more likely up on the roof again, get on with it. Bodie nodded encouragingly, squeezed a smile through his lips.

"...so we're having him moved down to the Hammersmith - under lock and key, obviously..."

"The Hammersmith?"

"That's right. Just next door. Might be there already, Pape signed out with him about ten minutes ago."

Hammersmith Hospital.

There were five of them, he thought, turning slowly, constantly, trying to keep them all in sight at once, knowing he couldn't, not when he was on his own like this... no, six... seven... someone else... and who was that watching? There was someone watching him... there should be someone watching him, but...

He felt the first blow rather than saw it, a dull blue-black thumpff of pain to his side, so that he felt his kidneys start to bleed somewhere deep within... Then another blow, one to his head, one to his back... or was that the gun? Another blow, and that one felt like the gun in his back again... And all the time, who was that watching him...?

They hit him again, and again with that soft sound - he could hear it because there was no other noise suddenly, and for a minute he wondered if he'd been knocked deaf, but then he could hear the breath of the men, pant-in, pant-out, pant-in... or was that him? He should be breathing, he needed to breathe... and... yet... he couldn't breathe... couldn't... He was on his own...

Thumpff...

Why was Bodie just watching like that? Why didn't he come? But maybe there was too much blood, the blood that was soft through his skin now, from where his kidneys had bled, so that he could feel it in the back of his throat, and that was why he couldn't breathe, he...

Doyle awoke, gasping, to a dim brown light, to the strange nearly-quiet of a hospital at night, and to someone holding his hand. His heart was pounding, and his mouth was dry, but it was Bodie holding his hand, and gradually his breathing slowed, and he managed to turn his head and look at him.

Bodie, all dark hair and pale face in the gloom.

"Look like you've seen a ghost..." he managed, his voice croaking. There was jug of water on the table beside his bed, he looked at it, looked back at Bodie, licked his lips.

"Thought I might do when I heard you'd gone off on holiday without me." Bodie's hand slipped from his, leaving him suddenly a little more chilled, as he reached for the jug, poured into the plastic glass beside it.

Doyle pushed himself up on an elbow so that he could drink, heard himself groan, a harsh, dry sound, and then Bodie was holding the glass to his mouth, his other hand pressed gently against the back of Doyle's head to steady him, as if he might fall, as if he might...

His face felt stiff, he realised - in fact everything felt stiff, as if he'd been worked over... and then he remembered, and he pushed the glass away, let himself collapse back to the pillow, closed his eyes.

After a moment he felt Bodie take his hand again, and he managed to squeeze back, just gently, because he was awake, and it felt good, and it was the only thing that did.

"Arty didn't show," he said at last, when he thought he could. "Nine for the price of one instead..."

"Who was it?"

Doyle shook his head, regretted it immediately in waves of dizziness, and pursed his lips against a rising bile.

A hand reached up, stroked gently across his forehead and over his head, and stayed there, a solid warmth that he could lean into.

"Who was it, Ray?"

"I dunno," he managed at last, "Never seen 'em before. The Met came charging in just before things turned ugly - trouble was, they'd never seen me before either..."

"Bloody coppers."

Doyle nearly laughed at that, but it made his head ache, and his lips split again, and if he started he wasn't sure he'd stop, so he settled for the half-grin that escaped instead. "Not their fault - I seemed to have lost me ID."

"Careless of you." The hand holding his tightened for just a moment.

"Yeah..." He stopped again, needing to catch his breath, to let the spin of it all die away. What had happened then? Handcuffed in the van with the rest - but at least there'd been a couple of coppers in the back with them. Charged down the nick, and then... the Scrubs.

"Cowley sent someone - or that's what he said..."

"Eh?"

"Left a message for him, didn't I, when I first got in. Well I 'ad no proof, did I, and all Foley's mob could say was that I was one of them..."

"Foley's mob?"

"Dunno - that was the name of the warehouse. Cowley sent someone to ID me, only he didn't, did he."

"Who was it?"

"Couldn't see. Not a friend." He opened his eyes, met Bodie's worried gaze. "What the hell's going on?"

Bodie shook his head. "No idea mate - the old man wasn't talking to me. Doesn't know I'm here, actually..."

The Cow knew everything. Doyle did his best to look cynical.

"Eh well, he probably does now, but... I'm not really supposed to be here now." He grinned suddenly at Doyle's raised eyebrows, "Snuck in, didn't I? Couldn't leave you here all alone, like, defenceless against those nurses..."

Doyle felt his own face soften at the traces of Bodie's own, old accent. All him, that was, from long ago, and never quite forgotten... "What time is it?"

"Er..." Bodie looked slightly shamefaced, "Just after three in the morning? I should probably..." He tipped his head towards the door. "Just wanted to make sure you hadn't done anything too stupid - we're still booked into that B&B you know."

"Losing money every minute," Doyle agreed. "What's the damage, anyway?"

"Too much hair for anything too serious - bit of concussion, a touch of the paisleys..."

What? "Ian?"

"Purple and green, you wally."

"Ah..."

"Look, you'd better get some kip."

"Yeah..." He needed to, he knew he needed to, but... they were all standing just behind Bodie, waiting for him in the dark... Not really, he knew that, wasn't that far gone, but... How did you ask...? "Lemme just see if I can remember who that bloke was..." he finally managed, letting his eyes close, letting his face rest slightly more heavily on Bodie's hand, Bodie's hand that he'd not yet withdrawn, not yet taken away from him. It felt... right.

He slipped slowly back into the dark, but it was a warmer dark, and he wasn't on his own any more.

Bodie left the hospital with a nod to Doyle's guard, who'd been happy enough to be relieved for a few hours by the Big A, his mind racing. Doyle was alright - no thanks to Cowley, who'd been remarkably absent for nearly twenty four hours now. Not like him at all, especially where his top agents were concerned. He stopped just outside the front gates, leaned back against them, and breathed in the chill dawn air. The world was pale blue around him, fresh, alive, even here. It was going to be another bright day - too late for their holiday, he thought bitterly. Bloody Cowley.

He'd half a mind to go around to Cowley's flat now, knock him up and make him pay attention, demand to know what was going on. When would he learn that they got better results when they knew what they were doing and why? Wouldn't do any good though, he knew that. Cowley would no doubt have some excuse ready and waiting even at this hour of the morning. Bodie breathed out slowly, letting it all disperse as best he could, and set off to find his car again. Better to go home and get his head down for a couple of hours, be as awake as he could be for the confrontation. Because there would be a confrontation, he was determined about that.

Bad timing, he thought, finding the Capri, setting off for home on autopilot. Just when they'd finally decided - well no, not decided, that wasn't right either - when they'd finally got around to doing something about... everything. It should have been just them, just the bikes... getting on with it.

He'd held Doyle's hand. Well, lots of people did that - you did that when someone was unconscious in hospital, didn't you? Although you didn't stroke their brow, not unless you were a nurse, you didn't rest your hand in their hair, and want to lie down beside them. Not even if you were a nurse.

Had they been going on holiday for that?

His flat appeared, looking quiet, subdued, and he glided the Capri into a parking space. He needed to sleep.

Answer the question.

The milko had been, and he picked up his bottle of silver top before the birds could get at it - twice last week they'd broken through the foil, he should give Dredge's a call about that, get them to leave it up on the ledge, see if that made a difference.

The question...

He'd been going on holiday for that. More than anything else, he'd been going on holiday for that. Of course whether Doyle had been too was another matter. Always half on the boil, was Ray - maybe he'd just seen the chance of a quick, congenial fuck, and that was all he was looking for. Maybe.

Doyle had leaned his face into Bodie's hand, had held on to Bodie's hand. Doyle hadn't wanted him to leave. Admittedly he'd been out of his head on whatever medicaiton they'd given him, but... He hadn't wanted Bodie to leave.

Key - lock - milk in the fridge - a piss and set the alarm. Sleep.

They faced Cowley together, as they always did, at eleven the next morning. Seven o'clock had brought a slough of medical students to his bed, poking and prodding and one by one pronouncing his concussion minor, his bruising extensive, and his presence a waste of a good hospital bed. Nine o'clock brought Bodie, heavy-eyed and sullen for lack of sleep, so that Doyle wanted nothing more than to rage at Cowley on his behalf. What had he had Bodie on that he looked like that? What had happened to their time off?

They stood together, shoulder to shoulder, and Doyle dared him to do his worst.

"Gentlemen, I owe you an apology." Cowley pushed his chair back and stood, looked down at his fingers playing idly with a silver fountain pen, flipping it over, and over. "I'm afraid what should have been a simple, admittedly last minute job, Doyle, turned into a shambles of miscommunication."

"Miscommunication?" Bodie leaned forwards, hands on Cowley's desk, before Doyle could say anything. "Your miscommunication nearly got Doyle killed! What the hell did you think would happen if you sent him into the Scrubs?"

"Aye, that was unfortunate-" Cowley held up a hand, forestalling Bodie's bark of protest, "- more than unfortunate..."

"Well why did it take so long to get him out?"

"As I said..."

"Miscommunication..." Bodie turned away in disgust, glanced at Doyle and then away.

"Aye, Bodie, that's just what it was. And if anyone should be complaining, it's Doyle here!"

"I wouldn't mind knowing who it was refused to identify me," Doyle interrupted, seeing Bodie frown and open his mouth again. "It didn't exactly make things any easier."

"Napier," Cowley said, "Bill Napier. Seconded from CR and the only person who could be spared at the time. I know you've never met, but the man had your file..."

"No wonder we never get any bloody intelligence from that lot!"

"That will do, Bodie. To compound a series of errors, the pictures had not yet been changed in our records - simply an issue of time management among the typing pool - and there was apparently a power outage in the cells when Napier arrived. More like some damned farce than effective police work, I agree."

Cowley agreed. Well he couldn't very well not, could he? Doyle remembered the dull, thumping ache again, of Foyle and his mates laying into him.

"What's our next move, sir?" Doyle asked, feeling every one of his years and then a few more. In its way CI5 was every bit as bad as the Scrubs, for all they didn't have to slop out here. It was eternal, four-walled...

"Your next move?"

"Yessir. Arty..."

"Arthur Young was picked up by Paul and Smythe an hour after he should have met you - he eventually let us know that Foyle's meet had been pulled forward, which was one reason he didn't turn up as expected. Unfortunately he had also, the evening before, been detained on a charge of drunk and disorderly, and had in fact only just been released when our men found him. By then it was too late."

"Then why are we here?" Bodie asked, clearly at the end of his tether.

"I've been wondering that very thing myself, 3.7. Shouldn't you be off on your wee jaunt? A week in the West Country, I believe it was?"

"After Doyle's been..."

"Aye, I see your point." Cowley raised his chin, looked them both up and down. Doyle fought not to try and straighten up, almost wished he'd been leaning against the wall instead of standing freely in the middle of the room, for all it would have played hell on his bruises. "You'd best extend your leave to account for the additional recovery time - and one of you's no use to me without the other. Monday the 23rd, gentlemen, bright and early." He sat down again finally, pulled a file to the centre of his desk, opened the cover.

"You mean...?"

"You have something else for me, 3.7?"

"No sir, not at all," Doyle interrupted hurrriedly, feeling his eyes wide in surprise, his heart beat faster. They were free again, they were actually free again. He took Bodie's sleeve, tugged him towards the door. "Have a good fortnight, sir!"

"Did I just hear him right?" Bodie asked, following in Doyle's footsteps, though Doyle had let him go by now, "The old man just gave us extra time off? He didn't recall us? Didn't tell us we'd been imagining it all in the first place?"

"Doesn't want me taking paid time off because I'm not fit," Doyle guessed, although that wasn't right either, because a few bruises and a headache had never bothered Cowley before.

Bodie glanced at him, reached out and pulled him to a stop by the rest room. "How're you feeling, anyway?" He didn't give Doyle time to answer. "Cuppa before we get off?"

"Yeah." A cup of tea would mean sitting down, would mean that the world had a chance to stop spinning. He pushed open the door, was surprised to find the room empty, but for Mac standing by the open window, smoking.

"Something on?" Doyle asked, as Bodie went to fill the kettle. He lowered himself carefully to the old sofa, looked up at Mac, but closed his eyes against the light.

"Yeah, cleaning up after Stuart's little do yesterday," Mac took a final drag on his cigarette, reached past Doyle to an overflowing ashtray on the coffee table, and stubbed it out. "Hear you two were making a name for yourselves with the locals while we were out doing a day's honest toil."

"Bloody incompetent..." Bodie started, his back to them as he rummaged for teabags.

"Well, must be off! Give 'em one for me down Cornwall!"

Doyle heard footsteps padding away, then the click of the door, the kettle coming to a boil, and Bodie's voice.

"What's up his nose? You on sugar this week?"

"Three." Doyle didn't bother opening his eyes. "What about Cornwall then, you still fancy it?"

"Not up to me, is it?" Bodie said softly, "You're the one who took a pasting yesterday."

"That lot? Couldn't paste flour to water..."

"You still want to go then?"

Doyle thought about it for a minute. Did he? Sun, sea, pubs and... "Yeah, why not?"

There was no answer for a moment, then the tap of tea mugs being set down on the table in front of him, the squeak of plastic he recognised from the chair opposite. When he opened his eyes, Bodie was staring at him, an unrecognisable look in his eyes, a half-smile on his face.

"Maybe not the bikes," he added, to try and distract that look, that... What was wrong with Bodie, anyway? "D'you mind not taking 'em?"

"Nah, we can ride any time. It's being away, isn't it?"

"Out of range," Doyle agreed, taking a mouthful of tea, "Well out of range."

"Right then - you, me, a B and B... "

"And a sodding Capri," Doyle added, and he wasn't sure whether his heart was lifting, or if it was pounding ever harder, even more confusingly, than before.

Bodie paused at the front door, thought for a moment, and then turned side-on, the better to squeeze through with two sets of bags. He kicked the gate open, heard it creak and then crash against the stone wall, and paused again on the pavement. He'd manoeuvred his car in tightly between a Fiesta and Doyle's vehicle, and the two Capris sat there in the afternoon summer sunshine, bonnet to bonnet, bumpers actually touching. Kissing, Bodie thought fancifully, letting the day get to him, grinning to himself.

It was still only Tuesday, their leave had been extended, Doyle was safely locking up behind him, and at long long last they were off.

"Want me to drive?" he asked, turning awkwardly to see Doyle leap down the steps out of habit and wince when he hit the ground.

"Yeah, go on. Not sure my feet'd reach the pedals right now."

"There's nothing wrong with you, old son..." he said because it was expected, taking the bags over to the boot and dropping them so that he could open it.

"...that some sun, sea and sex won't fix," Doyle joined in, sing-song. "Is there anything you think sex won't fix?"

"Didn't do much for that flat tyre we had the other day..."

Doyle looked across the car roof at him, and Bodie grinned unrepentantly. It was all over, and despite Doyle's bruises they were back on track. "Did you call the B and B?"

"Yeah, she cancelled us when we didn't turn up - gave the room away to someone else for the week. Wouldn't refund our deposit either."

"Get it off Cowley whilst he still feels guilty..."

Doyle grinned back. "Filled in the form and posted it to Mandy whilst you were in the shower. Come on - are we off or what?"

If they were lucky they might beat rush hour...

It felt different, Bodie thought, driving through town when you knew you were leaving it. The buildings seemed less shabby, the people they passed less miserable. Maybe they were, maybe two days of sunshine on the trot had turned their heads.

Doyle leaned forward and turned on the radio-cassette, and some group Bodie didn't know started crooning away at them. Doyle tapped his fingers along for a while, as the businesses faded to houses and then to longer stretches of green, gradually slower and more slowly, until Bodie glanced away from the road to see him fast asleep, one elbow crooked as a pillow against the headrest and the window.

Bodie look a deep, quiet breath, and relaxed into his seat. He didn't mind driving like this, it was like a dance: fifty, sixty, seventy, pass, sixty, pass, sixty; seventy, pass... and a round-about... The tape came to an end, clicked itself off, and Bodie listened to the hum of the road instead, and to Doyle's steady breathing. It was enough. It was a start.

Doyle awoke with a stiff neck - and shoulders, back and legs. The car was suddenly still, the world quiet around him, and Bodie was sitting in the driver's seat looking at him expectantly.

"What's up?" he asked with a sniff, blinking and trying to work out what was going on. "Why've we stopped?" God he was sore, and his left arm had gone to sleep where he'd been lying on it, and was a flood of pins and needles.

"Fancied a walk," Bodie said, glancing out the windscreen, "And an ice cream."

He rubbed his eyes and focussed more carefully on their surroundings. They were parked by half a dozen other cars in a clearing in a wood somewhere, surrounded by pine trees and slanting sunlight. Bodie's window was open, and when he took a deep breath he could smell the tang of needles and warm bark and sunshine. There was the dull roar too of an ice cream van from the other side of the car park, and a strawberry ice didn't sound such a bad idea. He was hungry.

"Come on then, stomach," he said, enjoying the look of outrage that grew on Bodie's face, "You'll 'ave to work for it, mind."

"No need to work for it - my natural athleticism burns it all off in no time..."

Doyle didn't deign to answer that one, swinging himself out of the car instead, scrunching his face against the protest of every joint and muscle in his body. It was still warm out - nearly too warm - so he took off his jacket, dropped it on the car seat, and stretched languorously, then followed Bodie over to the white van with its garish stickers and rumbling engine.

"Where are we then?" he asked, digging in his pocket for change.

"The New Forest. Well," Bodie added defensively, when Doyle looked at him, "I've never been, have I? And we're on holiday..."

They were on holiday, Doyle thought with surprise. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to have no plan for the day, no vital destination, no desperate rush to be somewhere. He looked at Bodie, standing, hands in jacket pockets in front of the van, and smiled suddenly. If Bodie wanted to go to the New Forest and eat ice cream, then that's where they should be.

"Two strawberry ices, please," he said to the man leaning over the window. "Big ones." He turned back to see Bodie grinning happily in response, and felt a little more tension draining away. This was just what they needed. "Too late to see much tonight, find somewhere to stop over if you like, have a proper walk tomorrow."

"Could do," Bodie reached for the ice cream handed through the hatch, and Doyle found himself watching as he stuck his tongue out to catch a drip, licked his lips afterwards. "See what it looks like. Quite fancy waking up at the seaside though."

They strolled away, chose a path at random, and immersed themselves in the woods. The trees pulled their gaze upwards, soaring tall and straight into the sky, the evening sun touching them golden, spreading back down to the forest floor, almighty Midas. They trod softly on pine needles, listened to the receding sounds of civilisation and their own breathing, found themselves, finally, alone.

Eventually they reached the edge of the stretch of forest, stood gazing out across heathland patched shadow green and bright gorse yellow. It smelled of coconut, and vanilla, Doyle thought, warm. After a moment Bodie lifted an arm and pointed, so that their shoulders brushed together, and that was warm too. Doyle followed his line of vision, waited patiently for his eyes to untangle the colours and shades and movements that weren't the wind at all, but a distant herd of ponies, grazing peacefully on the other side of the heath.

Doyle watched them, his aches forgotten in the calm evening air, in the feel of Bodie beside him. It was good to have him there, even on holiday, looking out for what Doyle didn't see, expecting to hear about what Doyle did, his other half. Bodie had taken his jacket off as they walked, and where their skin touched, Doyle was aware, suddenly, of the faintest of tingles, radiating outwards, downwards... His breath caught, he became aware of that too, his chest rising and falling in time with Bodie's, their hearts surely pounding in time, both knowing...

"Getting late," he said abruptly, pulling away. "If you want to find somewhere further on we'd better make a move." Bodie looked at him, he knew Bodie was looking at him, but he turned his gaze back to the woods, to their glorious shadowed depths. "Hope you remember the way, mate."

"Second star to the left, and straight on to morning," Bodie suggested, and Doyle finally hazarded a glance as they began to retrace their steps.

"What's Mary Poppins got to do with it?"

"Mary Poppins?"

"Used an umbrella to fly, didn't she?"

"Not down chimneys she didn't..." Bodie jostled him and pushed ahead into dimmer places as the sun sank lower on the day. "Chim-chiminey, chim-chiminey, chim-chim..."

"-cheroo..." Doyle joined in, and the clearing receded behind them.

To Bodie's surprise, they did indeed find a bed and breakfast by the seaside, a tall white building that glowed softly in the late evening light as they drew up beside it, proudly displaying its "Vacancies" sign in the window, and with plenty of parking around the back. Dorrage was a quiet, apparently unassuming town, but a quick drive down its high street and then the seafront had revealed the promise of life; half a dozen pubs, a couple of wine bars, and a scattering of restaurants. Best of all, they were finally a long way from George Cowley and his CI5.

"Two singles?" the man at the desk asked, "Or a twin?" Bodie turned to Doyle, eyebrow raised, but Doyle was already reaching for the guest book, signing his name in his usual scrawl.

"Two doubles if you've got them," he said, passing the pen to Bodie. "What time's breakfast?"

"Half-seven till nine. Two doubles. How many nights?"

Doyle did look at Bodie then. "See how we get on?" he asked, and Bodie nodded. "One to start with, then we'll let you know tomorrow."

"Fine," the man nodded, handed them each a set of keys with enormous pink plastic tags. "So you don't accidentally take 'em with you," he said to Bodie's amused look. "You'd be surprised. Second floor, turn right."

"Right." Bodie picked up his bag and waited for Doyle to finish rifling through a shelf of leaflets. Two doubles...

The rooms were plain but clean, and Bodie's had, by dint of giving up and leaving Doyle downstairs, a view over the promenade and across the entire sweep of sea to the horizon. He stood and watched the sky as it faded from blue to peach and through all the pinks to a thin line of red stretching either side of where the sun had been. The sea was all but becalmed, tiny ripples of waves meandering up the sand and turning to a shadowed froth, before being pulled lethargically back again. When he opened the sash window, seagulls called gently across the sunset, fought over the odd chip lost on the pavement in front of the sea wall, and scattered when a car drove slowly past. He breathed it in, seaweed, salt tang, car fumes and all, let himself think of nothing. Not the job, not his next lay, not Doyle...

"You fancy something to eat?"

He jumped, turned around. Had he left the door open? Must have - he was going soft already, letting everything hard drain away... That was alright, they were on holiday. "Wouldn't mind. See if the local Italian's still open?"

"Why not?" Doyle wandered over to the window while Bodie pulled his jacket on. "How come you get the view?"

"Speed and innate intelligence."

"Oh, is that where you keep it?"

Bodie pulled a good natured face at him. They'd be sharing before the week was out anyway. Tonight? He shoved Doyle in front of him and followed him downstairs, watching the bounce of his legs, the slight twist of his waist. He was wearing an old grandad shirt, soft and white, sleeves rolled up to his elbows but no higher, and his green moleskins. Not like him at this time of year; by May he was living in t-shirts and jeans from one day to the next, and Bodie'd seen him jogging in shorts.

Of course the bruising was out.

They reached the foyer, and he waved his hand absently at the bloke on reception, still following Doyle's every move, the way he swung himself through the door, paused at the top of the steps with his hands on his hips, stretched a little... He was moving easily enough, as smoothly as he ever did, for all he'd seemed a little stiff earlier. Walk must have done him good.

Maybe tonight...

His cock twitched at the thought of it - speaking of stiff - though Doyle had been quiet today, though there'd been no spark there between them, in the bewilderment of everything that had happened - was Cowley finally losing his grip? - in the relief of getting away. And yet there'd still been... them.

He felt a bit odd himself, come to that. He wanted Doyle, of course he still wanted him, had done for years, he thought - his hands, his mouth, his arse, everything. But... No need to rush, maybe. It'd been a long couple of days. He could do with a very long, hard, fuck, but he could wait until Doyle's bruising went down if he had to. They had all week after all... Odd.

"Well?" he asked, nudging Doyle with his shoulder, "Which way, Batman?"

Doyle shrugged. "I dunno. At a wild guess I'd say into town..."

"Yeah, alright..." He rolled his eyes. "Come on then, get a move on and we might catch last orders after."

The local Italian was called Guisseppe's and it did a good line in pasta, Chianti, and waitresses. Bodie toyed with the idea of taking a couple back to their rooms, but the thought of having Doyle turned on beside him, the thought of Doyle's hands all over some woman, and of having to watch him take her away to his own room where Bodie couldn't touch, where he couldn't taste, or feel Doyle's heat for himself, stopped him in his tracks. He eyed the dessert menu, chose the Zabaglione, and shook his head. Was this his life now? Lusting after Doyle in restaurants? There were worse things...

"What's that for?" Doyle asked, catching the movement of his head, "Because if it's the idea of the bill that's worrying you..."

"Nah, let you get this one..." And they were off again, back and forth across the table, sprawled lazily in their seats now, enjoying the end of the second bottle they'd bought. Their legs stretched out beneath the long red and white tablecloth, brushing against each other now and then, sending a frisson straight to Bodie's groin, his stomach. Higher still, maybe, all the way to his heart. It made him forget his earlier uncertainty, the idea of waiting. Doyle's voice was low, his smile wide.

The waiter brought complimentary Sambuca after the desserts, and by the time they finally left the place it was nearly midnight, and they were pleasantly hazed and just drunk enough to bump into each other trying to squeeze out the door together. Bodie clapped a hand on Doyle's shoulder and pushed him through, steered him in the direction of the seashore. It was too early to go home, to face the lights of the foyer and the rooms; they could walk along the beach, listen to the sea, linger in the shadows...

"What we down here for?" Doyle asked, slurring a little, but kicking at the bright green tinsel of a beer can on the sand, spotlit by the streetlights on the edge of the prom. It clanked away into the night, was lost to a tangled clump of seaweed.

Still too bright, Bodie thought, steering him with one hand on his back further towards the sound of the ocean. They jostled for a minute, Doyle pretending reluctance, Bodie giggling when Doyle's fingers swept across his stomach. Little sod knew he was sensitive there... And then they calmed, and walked side by side, shoulders and hands brushing now and then.

There were ships out to sea, twinkling lights bobbing up and down, and stars in the sky. The night air was cooler now, so that Bodie was glad he'd brought his jacket, wondered how Doyle was faring in just his shirt.

He could pull him close, for the warmth of their bodies together, for his arms around Doyle and Doyle's mouth on his, for a moment of warmth on the seashore...

"Look, you can make out France over there. All those lights..."

"Where?" Doyle turned obediently in the direction of Bodie's pointing finger. "You're imagining things."

"No, straight up." He moved in closer behind him, pressed himself against Doyle's back, so that he could feel the life of him against his chest, turned his face to Doyle's ear. "Second star to the left..." He breathed out slowly, a hush of breath across Doyle's skin, so close that...

He closed his eyes as Doyle swayed slightly and leaned back into him, so that their warmth became a heat, and Bodie's breath deepened. He was hard already, and god but he wanted this. He let his other hand fall casually to Doyle's thigh, started to move it slowly upwards, fingers spreading, pressing, to Doyle's crotch. There... Doyle was hard too, Doyle...

Doyle pulled away suddenly. "You're having me on!"

Cool air flooded the space between them.

"We're too far away!"

And getting further away all the time, Bodie thought, senses spinning, protesting, staring through the dark in disbelief. What the fuck was going on? Doyle wanted this, he knew Doyle wanted this...

"Ray..."

"France is bloody miles away, we're as likely to see Chelsea from here... Bodie don't, I... It's late. 'm tired." He turned his back on the shore, took a step towards the promenade, to the lighter world of other people and holidaymakers, and bed and breakfasts.

Doyle didn't want... Had he made a mistake? He couldn't move.

Doyle stopped when he seemed to realise that Bodie wasn't following him, came back and stood in front of him, and they gazed at each other for a moment, barely more than two dark figures in the night. Could have been anyone.

"You're pissed," Doyle said, affectionate as a mate. After a moment he slung his arm around Bodie's shoulders, urged him towards the bright lights of Dorrage, and they stepped solidly across the sand together, trudge one - trudge two - trudge...

Just before they reached the gap with its steps back up to the prom, under the thin shadow of the sea wall, Doyle paused them both, arm still holding them together, put a hand on Bodie's chest to stop him for a moment. "I'm not sure..." he started, voice low, and then faded to silence again. The sea shusshed behind them. "I can't... tonight..." he said at last, "Bodie..." And then so quickly that Bodie thought he'd imagined it, Doyle brought them even closer together, and there was a whisper of a kiss against his ear, and he was released with a shove to get him moving up the steps, and then their feet were on the flat pavement once more.

Doyle woke grit-eyed from uncertain dreams, of Cowley and the Scrubs, and of kissing his partner. His muscles ached desperately from the tension of it all, and though he knew it hadn't been Bodie holding him down, knew it hadn't been Bodie spearing into him, over and over, his assailant had been dark and shadowed, always in a blur of motion, of speed and strength that defeated Doyle in every moment of the dream. Through the twists and turns of it all tonight it had been Cowley who watched, Cowley who stood by dispassionately and let it all go on - and if it wasn't Bodie watching then where...

His head pounded with it all, and with too much wine, and when he kicked over one of his trainers, getting out of bed, it sprayed sand across the carpet.

And he'd kissed Bodie.

He paused on the edge of the bed, covered his face with his hands. He wanted to lie down again, to pull the blankets up over his head and pretend that none of it had ever happened, but the world didn't work like that.

Fuck.

He'd get up properly, go for a run, clear his head that way.

It'd been the briefest of kisses, Bodie probably hadn't even noticed, had probably thought he'd stumbled, and...

I can't... tonight... Bodie....

But maybe another night?

Run.

He rummaged for his tracksuit, pulled it on and then made his way to the bathroom next door, pissing, cleaning his teeth, splashing water over his face. Get it all out of his system - a new day.

There were one or two other joggers out on the prom, the occasional dog-walker, and a slow but steady stream of vans full of milk and bread and all the other things needed daily by a bustling little seaside town, so he took himself down to the beach, to the sand and the shore and the shushing of the waves. He'd erase drunken night-memories of the place with bright, healthy morning ones.

He waited for the rhythm of the run to kick in, for his breath to fall in time with his steps, with the way his arms moved, with the way his head strobed at him. Never again, and this time he meant it.

The sand felt strangely buoyant under his feet, giving way with a slight splat at each step, letting him go with a just-registered reluctance. A trickle of a wave raced to meet him and he dodged, taking himself onto what should have been slightly firmer footing, ended up sliding on a strand of seaweed. He managed to right himself without falling, and cursed, jogged on.

The trouble with Bodie... The trouble with Bodie was that Doyle had wanted him since the day they met, had spent years pretending that he never had and never would, and when he'd found out that he could it was as if every Christmas had come at once. Every single promising, exciting, despairing, hateful one of them.

He overtook a pony plodding solidly down the beach with a child at the reins, and an energetic looking woman by its side. The child was gabbling away in a bright, piercing voice, and he winced, even as he pounded himself onwards. Bloody people.

So why, now when he could have him, was he getting cold feet? Cold, wet, aching feet...

He turned when he reached a stretch of rocks that couldn't be circumnavigated, pushing himself a little more, a little harder because he didn't want to get back to the bed and breakfast, flew past the oncoming pony, past early morning tourists now, bounding up the stone steps in two long strides, across the road, between the cars and...

Home?

Home for now, anyway, he thought, pausing to let an elderly couple emerge into the morning light. The foyer seemed gloomy after the bright sunshine, over-warm with the fug of bacon and sausages and other things probably fried. A low hum came from the breakfast room to the right of the stairs, and a chinking of plates and tinkling of cutlery, and he glanced inside as he went past, caught sight of Bodie being led to a table on the other side of the room, beside the windows.

Momentum kept him moving upstairs, into his room, into the shower and clean clothes, and then took him back down and through the small maze of tables and chairs to where Bodie was sitting, drinking tea from a cup covered in bright pink roses. He winced when Doyle sat down, closed his eyes.

"Don't tell me you've been out already? You have, haven't you?"

"'course I 'ave - why, what's wrong with you?"

"Oh," Bodie opened his eyes again, "Nothing mate, nothing at all. You're inhuman, you know that?"

"Clean living," Doyle said virtuously and automatically, and turned to the waitress who appeared at their table. "Just toast please, love, and tea."

Bodie raised an eyebrow at him.

"No point going out for a run and then clogging up my arteries with that muck, is there?" He waited until Bodie'd topped up his coffee from the silver pot on the table and was busy angling it back into the space between the sugar bowl and the milk jug, then reached over and pinched his cup. Be ages until the girl brought his. He took a first, blissful mouthful, closed his own eyes and swallowed. Better.

"You're telling me you're not the slightest bit delicate this morning, Raymond?"

Doyle looked at him over the rim of the be-rosed cup, let his lips twitch in acknowledgement, and Bodie smiled broadly back at him. "Yeah, thought so. All that fresh air didn't help much either, did it?"

Actually the fresh air had helped no end.

"Look," he said, surrendering the cup to Bodie's demanding hand, "I've been thinking..."

"Oh bloody 'ell..."

"No, listen... About..."

"Doyle, if you say last night..."

Christ, what did Bodie take him for? "Listen... That phone call that Control took, sending me off to Arty..."

Bodie did groan this time, dramatically enough to surprise the girl bringing his bacon and eggs, who eyed him warily as she set the plate down on the table, and backed away even before Bodie could smooth her ruffles with a wide, flirtatious grin.

Never mind the bird, Doyle thought, it practically worked on him, that one did. Bodie looked slightly ruffled with his hangover, and he was wearing jeans for a change, and a faded blue t-shirt that pulled in just the right places. Odd to see him without sleeves, Doyle thought, without the bands of webbing and leather that usually stretched around his shoulders, across his back. Felt odd not to put his own holster on that morning, to know that he didn't even have it with him.

They were all but naked already.

"Listen..." he said again, before he ended up so far off track that he was lost once more, "There's something not right about that whole set up, something that just..." He clenched his fist in the air for emphasis, grabbing at something that wasn't quite there yet.

"Doyle..."

"If I could just figure out what went wrong, why Foyle's gang turned up in the warehouse instead of Arty..."

"If you could do that," Bodie said reasonably, apparently trying another tack, "Then Cowley wouldn't have any reason to send us on holiday, would he?"

"He didn't send us..."

"Ah - but if we hadn't already been going he would have, right? Out of righteous guilt and his wee Scottish conscience?"

"Yeah, but there's something wrong with..."

"There's something wrong with you, old son. We," Bodie said, and gestured at Doyle with his knife, "Are on holiday, and you are going to enjoy yourself if I have to tie you to a ferris wheel."

Despite himself Doyle smiled again. "A ferris wheel? Around here?"

"Alright, maybe not a ferris wheel, but I've got just the place for you today - get you in a real holiday mood, it will."

Bodie'd been making plans while he was down the beach agonising, had he? The dreams weren't going to go away, his strange restlessness wasn't going to go away until he'd worked out what was wrong with their - his - last case, and why the Cow had rushed them off so quickly, but in the meantime... Bodie was right. It was summertime, they were on holiday, and maybe whatever Bodie had in mind would help with it all - would help him relax enough that he'd be able to work out what was niggling at him, would sweep it all from his mind, would let him concentrate on what he really wanted.

Bodie.

"You brought us to a donkey farm!"

"Sanctuary, Doyle, a donkey sanctuary. Yeah," Bodie looked up at him through his lashes, enjoying the expression on Doyle's face, half outraged, half delighted like a little kid, "Thought you'd enjoy being amongst your own kind, making an ass of yourself again..."

As he'd expected, Doyle shot him a look, wincing at the pun, though it was no worse than his ever were. But then his eyes were drawn back to the field and its occupants, and to the scatter of buildings on the other side of the track. "Hey, look, that one's on it's own..."

They were off then, from one animal to the next, Doyle stopping to chat with half the staff it seemed, and to pet every single donkey. Bodie didn't mind, ambling along in the sunshine beside him, teasing him when he needed it, agreeing with him about this or that jenny if he looked like being too self-conscious. He'd always been a bit soft about waifs and strays, had Doyle, petting cats and dogs in the street, playing football with kids...

They stopped for sandwiches eventually, bought from a ragged kiosk surrounded by bark shavings, whose gaggle of umbrellad tables had been completely taken over by a family of nine. Bodie smiled at them pleasantly, waved away their offer to clear some space, and steered Doyle up a small rise to the shade of a single oak tree.

"Cheese and tomato or ham?" he asked, knowing the answer well enough that he was already tearing into the cling film around the ham sandwich.

Doyle pulled the ring pull from his can of Sprite, flicked it at him. "And the worcester sauce crisps, cheers very much!"

"Your wish is my command..." Bodie took a mouthful of his own Coke, the bubbles hot and sharp as they went down, and lay back against the tree trunk, wriggling to find the most comfortable spot. "Although since this was my brilliant idea..." He preferred prawn cocktail anyway.

They munched quietly, contentedly, peering up at the blue sky, and across the fields with their rises and dales, patched yellow and green. It reminded Bodie of a counterpane he'd had when he was a kid, and of the stories his older sister had told him when he was sick, about soldiers marching up and down the endless summer hills, on their way to glorious battle and eternal victory.

She hadn't told him about the way a mine would tear off a man's arms and legs, send him scattered to his death, or that sometimes battle was about taking pain-wracked days to die, alone and abandoned, or that some armies ended up in Congo jails, where there was nowhere to piss except in some other bastards bed, and the night was alive with cries and moans and, sometimes, distant screams. There was no blood on a sunshine yellow and green counterpane...

He woke with a start, to find Doyle asleep beside him, close enough that they were almost touching, that Bodie could feel the warmth from him, could remember that things were different now, could breathe easily. Except that there were two women standing above them, apparently debating whether they should be roused or not. He reached out the inch or so necessary to shake Doyle awake, keeping his hand reassuringly on his arm until Doyle's eyes were open, and had taken in their surroundings.

"Well I suppose they're decorative in some ways," the tall red-head was saying, "But they're making the tree look rather untidy."

"They'd blend in with time - wouldn't take long for the moss to grow over them at that rate of movement."

Bodie blinked lazily up at them, turned to Doyle. "They don't like our movements," he said glumly.

Doyle sniffed. "Which movements? Keep my best movements for special occasions, I do."

"Dunno, they haven't specified... They're into blending by the sounds."

"We blend very well..." Doyle began, trailed off and sprang to his feet. We could... Bodie thought. "Ray Doyle - that's Bodie."

"Sally," said the red-head, "This is Dinah."

"And do you come here often?" Bodie asked, standing up and dusting himself down. Now, piss off.

"Why yes, we often hang around with... donkeys..."

"Sally means that we work here," Dinah said, and Bodie nearly rolled his eyes. Too serious, too serious...

"Actually Nana owns the place," Sally interrupted, "And we help out now and then."

"You work with the donkeys?" Doyle asked, "We didn't see you earlier?"

"No, we're off today. We were thinking about taking a drive into town, but it's too hot for anything. Maybe you'd like to come back to ours for a drinkie instead?"

A drinkie? But Doyle was already looking at him questioningly, and his mind was blank of any excuse, overtaken suddenly by a glomp of grey, so he shrugged slightly, and found himself strolling beside Sally as Doyle moved ahead with Dinah.

Reality strained at his new resolution, that he'd give Doyle whatever he wanted until he gave in, but he kept himself walking. Doyle had kissed him last night. For all the drunken disaster of it, Doyle had kissed him. And now he had ten days clear to conduct his campaign, and no matter what happened in between it was the outcome that was important. If Doyle suddenly needed to work up to it, then they would work up to it, but it was going to happen.

"You look like a man who can shoot," Sally was saying, eyeing him up and down again as they walked.

"Oh?" What was she talking about?

"Callouses," she declared, rather smugly, "On your hands. Can spot them a mile orf. Daddy shoots, and he taught me..."

"What do you use?" he asked, as casually as he could.

"A Lloyd..."

"Two forty-four?"

"Two sixty-four."

Bodie glanced sideways, raised an eyebrow.

"Well it is Daddy's..." she said, raising an eyebrow back at him and smiling. "Tell you what, we could have a go now, if you like?"

"What, at the donkeys?"

Sally's smile grew broader, and she slipped an arm through his. "You're a very wicked man, aren't you?"

Too wicked for you, Bodie thought, glancing ahead to Doyle, still chatting amiably with the dread Dinah. He put a hand in the small of her back to guide her around a pothole in the path, and she pressed closer to him after that, as they crossed the main road and made their way along a poplar-lined track towards what looked like the back of a rather impressive mansion. Bodie felt himself glowering, despite his best efforts - it didn't seem to put Sally off at all.

He managed to make polite noises to her, as she wittered on about her father's deer stalking and famed clay pigeon shoots, and mummy's terribly important job in Whitehall. She was pleasant enough, pretty enough, even smart enough, but she wasn't... She wasn't Doyle enough. Maybe they could get away with the shooting, a quick G and T, and he could think of some reason they had to be back in town by seven...

"Daddy's away tonight," Sally said, squeezing his arm slightly, and Bodie blinked. Observant and a mind reader? Well if she was so bloody good...

"We could have our own little party..."

Not very good at all... "We might have to get back..." he started, broke off as Dinah took Doyle's hand and started to lead him towards the main house.

"No, let's go up to Cheevers, have a go with the guns!" Sally called out to her, pulling him to a stop when he would have followed, "Bodie here shoots!"

"Oh that's wonderful!" Dinah turned to Doyle, "What about you? I don't suppose you have much chance in the library?"

Bodie caught Doyle's eye, suppressed a grin.

Doyle looked away again to Dinah, shook his head. "Guns? Don't know if I approve of guns..."

"Oh it's fun!" Sally squawked, "You haven't done anything until you've been shooting..."

They went clay pigeon shooting in the end, the birds dark against the bright afternoon sky, so that Doyle squinted upwards to follow their flight, wished he'd brought his sunglasses. Bodie's eyes were slitted against the glare too, crinkling into a dozen radiating lines, like the sunshine itself. Doyle found himself staring, fascinated, watching Bodie's face rather than his aim, as Bodie called, followed and shot at just the right moment to send a shatter of clay across the field every time.

"He's awfully good, isn't he?" said Dinah at his side, and he nodded absently. Bodie was good, he was very good - and he was Doyle's whenever he wanted him... The thought sent a rush of warmth through him, along his veins, all around his heart, made him smile.

"Go on, you have a go," Dinah suggested, pushing him towards Bodie who held out the shotgun with a smirk.

Right - now how would a librarian hold a gun?

He tried to take it from Bodie tentatively, nearly dropping it, surprising him with a spark straight to his groin when their hands met in rescue. He played it oversensitively, gormlessly, wondering if Bodie would put his blush down to good acting. He'd always enjoyed being undercover, working out what made other people tick, and copying them so well that sometimes they were almost a part of himself at the end of an op.

"Here, hold it like this." Dinah was there again, smiling at him, and he put on a show for Bodie, let her nuzzle up behind him, on tiptoe, trying to look over his shoulder.

"And you look along that thing?" he asked, practically crossing his eyes down the sighting plane.

"That's right," Dinah said, pressing herself against him. Wrong way around, he wanted to tell her, you're supposed to be in the front for it to do any good, but it wasn't unpleasant to feel the softness of her breasts at his back, her breath on his neck.

"It's tricky at first, but..."

"Here you go, love." There was a jostling behind him, and then Dinah was gone, the softness gone, and Bodie's arms were reaching around Doyle instead. "Helps to be taller sometimes. Right mate, lift your arms a bit more..." Bodie shifted, moving so that even their legs were plastered together, Bodie's knees behind his, thighs firm against his.

"...you're not aiming, all you've got to do is keep pointing the gun at the target..."

Doyle let himself rest backwards slightly, felt Bodie's muscles adjust, Bodie's chest rising and falling with his breath, felt that breath warm across his ear... God... Bodie's arms were bare along his own, skin to skin in the afternoon sunshine.

"You're gonna lean your weight forward on one leg..."

Bodie's leg pushed his, nudging it forward, and he compensated for the change in balance automatically. And god yes, Bodie was hard against him, he could feel it through two layers of denim. His own breath deepened. This was the right way around, Bodie behind him, turned on, prodding hard against Doyle's arse...

Bodie's voice low in his ear, almost a rough whisper now, "Keep your eye on the target..."

Doyle swallowed, nearly closed his eyes, but the girls, the girls were watching... He vaguely noticed Sally pulling the trap, and then he and Bodie were moving together, following ahead of the bird, barely even a second of their lives before he remembered to pull the trigger, sending the clay, shattered, across the field.

"You did it, you did it!" Dinah clapped her hands together, and he smiled at her even as Bodie left him, separated them back into the real world, to other people. Bodie was smiling at him too, close mouthed and eyes dark, and he looked... happy, Doyle thought, he looked happy. He smiled back, let Dinah load another cartridge for him.

Maybe he'd forgive Bodie for wanting to tag along with the girls after all. A foursome wasn't a bad idea, he wouldn't mind seeing Bodie naked up against Sally, thrusting deep inside her, but... But even better to have Bodie on his own, all that heat, all that skill and attention for himself. Bodie could have his foursome another night, with some other girls. And in the meantime...

He stood close beside Bodie as the girls took their turns with the gun, tucked his shoulder a little behind Bodie's, so that his arm stretched the length of his back, brushed against Bodie's arse, the best he could do for now. Bodie'd brought him out here to cheer him up, had probably been bored stiff with the animals, so the least Doyle could do was let him have his own fun in return, before they managed to escape as politely as they could.

They shot for maybe an hour, a riot of noise and destruction against the clear blue sky, before the girls got bored and decided to pack it all away for the day, to take them back to the house for Cinzano and lemonade. They were nice enough kids, and Dinah genuinely cared about her grandmother's determination to rescue the donkeys, so it was hard to say no outright. He glanced at Bodie, but Bodie seemed to feel the same, because there were no excuses forthcoming there. Who'd have thought he'd miss having his R/T tucked in one pocket, convenient for some emergency or other at a single static-filled press of a button?

There was nothing to do but amble back to the house with them, settle into it all for an hour or so, waiting for an opportunity to make their excuses, and try to enjoy himself. Except that he was enjoying himself, his mind more at peace than it had been for days. It was the case that was preying on him, and Bodie was right, there was nothing he could do about it down here, except let it stew away until something came clear.

He let his vow of just that morning slip, sipped a series of drinks that seemed to start out strong and get stronger still, and nibbled on the snacks that Dinah found them - sticks of carrot and cucumber, celery and red pepper. Just as well they'd have a good walk back down to the car. In between running in and out of the kitchen, and to the drinks cabinet in the room next door, the girls jabbered on about Ascot, and their friends, and were happily oblivious when Bodie poked gentle fun at their social set. They were nice girls. It was a nice afternoon.

"Alright, mate?" Bodie smirked at him as Sally left his side at last, to see what Dinah was doing about food, and whether she'd fed the dogs for the night, and wandered across to stand beside him. "Not a bad little spread, this, is it?"

"Spread's about right," Doyle gestured out the window, "That's theirs nearly as far as the eye can see."

Bodie turned to follow his gaze, and Doyle pulled him to stand in front of the view, in front of him, so that they were half hidden in the alcove by swathes of Laura Ashley and an enormous vase of chrysanthemums.

"Out that way," Doyle said, lifting an arm past Bodie to point, "All through that valley..." He let his other hand brush lightly against Bodie's thigh, felt Bodie jump a little, and smiled to himself.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." He moved a little closer, and Bodie tensed. Serve him right, the rotten bugger, after his games at the pigeon shoot. Doyle leaned in so that he was breathing across his ear, and when he spoke it was in a low voice, for just the two of them. "And there's a lake behind those trees over there, totally secluded." He slid his hand around Bodie's leg, ran it slowly - so slowly - upwards. "Could do anything you wanted there." Bodie's breath caught as he stilled his hand, just short of where the denim was already stretched taut, and began to slide it back down again. "Apparently."

"Anything, you reckon?" Bodie asked, his voice rough, reaching a hand back to Doyle. Doyle intercepted it, stopped what he was doing to position Bodie's hands in front of them, to clasp them together with his own, restrained. Then he resumed his stroking, slowly down Bodie's thigh, and then up, and then...

Bodie stood obediently as still as he could, while Doyle pressed more solidly against his back, let him feel his erection hard and hot and demanding, stroked ever more firmly up the length of Bodie's thigh... back down again...

"Doyle..."

"Where ever have you got to?"

Doyle stepped back from Bodie as if burned, knocking into the window and setting the panes rattling. Bodie looked at him, closed his mouth from his own intake of breath and smiled broadly at him. Doyle felt his own frown vanish, grinning back. They must be mad, standing at the window, all but wanking. Good job mummy and daddy were away for the week. Christ...

"Whatever are you doing back there?" Dinah asked, waving a glass through the air. "Come on, I thought we'd give you a tour of the place, downstairs - and upstairs..."

"Well we..."

"We'd be delighted," Bodie interupted him, flicking sharply at his fingers as he passed, so that Doyle snatched his hand back in surprise, had to cover up his gasp of pain with an exclamation of agreement. Now what was the mad bastard up to?

Revenge, Doyle decided, as Bodie crowded close behind him at the door to the library, and then goosed him so that he gasped for the second time in fifteen minutes.

"Ray?" Dinah asked, her brow furrowed quizzically.

"All those books," he said weakly, "Just... waiting to be catalogued..."

Bodie coughed suddenly, and the girls turned their attention to him, so that Doyle had a moment to plan tactics. He needed the girls to go upstairs ahead of them, and then Bodie...

Nah, Bodie'd never fall for that. Some double-think, that's what he needed...

The house seemed never-ending, almost all the rooms open, with some fabulous architecture or nick-nack or painting to be admired.

"That's Gibbons, isn't it?" he asked in one room, as they stood in front of a massively carved mirror, impressing the girls, and causing Bodie to frown.

"Look more like a pineapple to me, mate..."

The girls tutted at him, each taking one of Bodie's arms and explaining very nicely to him, with smiles and much attention, and Doyle caught the twinkle in Bodie's eye as he looked over their heads at him. In his own brief revenge he caught Bodie's gaze, held it for a moment, and then let his eyes wander, slowly, down Bodie's body, pausing to stare at his crotch while the girls were distracted by the mirror, licking his lips carefully and with deliberation. When he looked back up, Bodie's smug smile had vanished, and he was looking somewhat hunted.

God, Doyle wanted him and he wanted him now. They had to leave.

"Well, good lord, is that the time?" he tried, "We should..."

"Oh but you must see upstairs!" Dinah exclaimed, looking so dismayed that he put out a reassuring hand, smiled at her. "The bedrooms..."

Bloody 'ell - and how many bedrooms was this place likely to... Ah. Probably just the one - or more likely two - he realised abruptly. One for each pretty girl, surrounded by luxury, and he didn't want any part of it.

But Sally had already taken Bodie's arm again, and was leading them through another room, and up a tiny polished staircase to the second floor, emerging triumphantly at the end of a long corridor, right beside the main sweep of stairs.

"For the servants," she said with a giggle, "Back in the days of yore. Although they still use it now of course, especially if we have a party on. It's rather like a maze, I'm afraid. You get used to it."

Of course you would, Doyle thought, in the same way you got used to champagne and caviare... He peered into rooms as they went past, along one corridor and through the next, up and down a tiny set of stairs, and past yet more stunning views of the paling evening, Dinah close at his side. Four-poster beds - some huge, some tiny and dark and ancient - vast sweeps of wooden floors, ceilings twice the height of any he'd ever lived under, and even the old Victorian places that Bodie often chose. He wondered how much this place would be worth if you auctioned it all off at once, contents included. Wondered what it would be like to fuck Bodie in a Grinling Gibbons bed, if there was such a thing, or to make him come over William Morris wallpaper...

"...do you think, Ray?"

Bollocks.

"Erm... yes?" he suggested, with his most librarian-like look of bafflement, earning himself a giggle from Sally and a squeeze of his arm from Dinah. "No?"

"Sal wondered, Doyle, if we'd be offended by her father's collection of erotica," Bodie said helpfully, punching him matily with one hand, squeezing his arse quickly but effectively with the other.

"Oh..." Looking at erotica with Bodie in this mood? When he was in this mood? "Actually I was just trying to remember if we'd passed a loo..." He looked desperately at Bodie, who immediately swallowed the last of his drink and put the glass irreverently down on what was probably a priceless antique table.

"Initiative test," he said, "I think I can remember where it is - let's see if I can find it again!"

"And the way back," Sally reminded him. "It's just..."

Bodie smiled at her, "Go on, let me do it. Be back before you know it!"

"Go on, then, I'll time you," Dinah said, getting into spirit of things, and Doyle felt another pang at deceiving them. They were decent people, and... Bodie grabbed his arm, tugged him in the direction they'd come from, Doyle looking back at the girls who'd bent their heads to talk quietly together. Plotting...

"Look, maybe we should..."

"Nope. We shouldn't. We should definitely not."

"But..."

"And spend the entire night hearing about Bertie and Regina?"

"What d'you think was in daddy's collection, then?"

Bodie paused at a junction of corridors, sniffed. "Probably a couple of wood carvings and a naked cupid. I don't remember that statue..."

"Shouldn't we have been over those stairs by now?" Doyle stopped behind him, realised he finally had his chance, and clamped both hands very fimly over Bodie's buttocks.

"You..." Instead of jumping a mile, Bodie reached down and grabbed his wrist again, pulled him through a doorway to their left, and turned him around against the door, leaning his whole body against Doyle's, taking his other wrist and pinning them both above him, holding him in place. Doyle swallowed as Bodie thrust gently against him, Bodie as hard as he was hard again, wanting him...

"We can't do this here..."

"No?" Bodie tilted his head towards Doyle's, as if he might kiss him, as if their lips would meet, but at the last moment he turned to whisper in his ear instead. "Why not?" He thrust again, and Doyle heard himself moan, deep in his throat.

He thrust back, protests dying, nothing important now but that incredible wanting, every nerve in him alive to Bodie, to the pressure and heat of Bodie...

There were voices in the corridor.

Bodie heard them at the same time as he did, and they both stilled, breath jagged from having to stop. It was the girls, but they'd go past, there was no reason why they should enter this room out of all the dozens on this floor. Except... This wasn't a bedroom, this was some kind of sitting room, and the furniture here was neither grand nor priceless, and there was a very large television in one corner.

The voices were getting louder.

"...got lost, they've gone off and left us!"

"Do you think they've got girlfriends?" Dinah.

"Those two? Did you think they wouldn't? Look," Sally paused, almost opposite their door, and Doyle pushed Bodie away, "Forget about them, we can have our own fun here..."

They looked desperately around, but there were no long curtains in this room, the sofa was solidly in the middle of the floor in front of the television, and there was no space under the desk... There! There was a door in the corner of the room, almost beside them - if they were lucky it would lead into the room next door, and they could still make their getaway, if they weren't then it might at least be a loo. He could plead a dodgy tummy... Of course the real question was whether they would make it into the room before the girls came in.

He shoved Bodie again to get him going, saw the moment he noticed the door, the relief that washed over him. Quickly, silently, they crossed the half dozen feet, pulled the door open, and...

It was a boxroom, and it was almost full of boxes.

Bodie shot him a look, but it was too late - French farce it may be, but they'd hide in the box room until the girls went downstairs again, and then they'd make their escape. Doyle didn't know if it was four Cinzanos or hysteria thinking for him, but either way...

"...daddy's blue movies." The door to the room was opening slowly as Dinah spoke, and Doyle stepped into the boxroom, pulled Bodie after him, and froze, praying that none of the boxes would come down on them. A dodgy tummy wouldn't explain this away...

There was just enough room for the two of them to stand upright, though Doyle had to clutch at a sweeping brush to keep it from knocking against cardboard and giving them away. He grabbed Bodie too, to keep his balance, one hand against his side, still alive to the warmth of him through his thin cotton t-shirt. Bodie held him in turn, hands pressing either side of him, and they stood there, hardly daring to breathe.

"...better than Debbie Does Dallas..."

"Oh good Lord yes, this is daddy we're talking about. Go and rummage in the cupboard."

Shit! Doyle's eyes closed, his face scrunched against the agony of discovery, hiding in a cupboard, hugging Bodie and a sweeping brush. At least his hard on had faded with the panic, and as far as he could tell so had Bodie's.

"What about this one?"

A different cupboard, then. There was the electric click and whistle of a television being turned on, then a rush of static. Doyle opened his eyes, realised that in fact there was light filtering into their box room, and looked up to see where it was coming from - an ornate metal vent near the ceiling, higher even than the stacks of boxes, so that a yellow glow was filtering in from the corridor.

"Come and sit by me here," Sally was saying, "Get comfy. Oh yes, that's better..."

"With one hand down my bra?"

"Mmmn..." Music blared at them suddenly, a saxaphone, something bluesy, and then... "Darling it's starting..."

Doyle looked at Bodie, his face barely inches away, and mimed confusion.

Bodie rolled his eyes, and Doyle rolled them back. Of course he knew what a bloody porn film sounded like, what did Bodie think he was? But... the girls?

Luxurious moaning rose over the music, a panting and slapping of skin, and they both listened for a while, breathing shallowly.

Finally Bodie leaned in to whisper in his ear. "I think I've seen this one..."

Doyle found himself grinning bizarrely near to giggling. "Who'd have thought those two, eh?"

"Could have been us, mate..."

And with that thought, he was hard all over again. Fuck... He didn't dare start anything now, centred so carefully amidst piles of boxes, but he wanted Bodie... He imagined them getting carried away, imagined the topmost boxes teetering, collapsing down on them, the door forced open to reveal them with their trousers open and come all over...

He tried to think of other things, colder things, dull things, but now he was full of visions of Bodie half undressed, skin slick with Doyle's come, cock straining against Doyle's own body... And the sounds from the other room weren't helping, the predictable grunts and groans of the video, the slow, steamy music, and under it all, now and then, tiny whimpers of sound, so that he imagined the girls on the couch together...

"Doyle..." Bodie whispered in his ear again, and pressed them close together.

"We can't..."

"We have to!"

And suddenly he did, suddenly it was too much, and he didn't give a shit about any of it. Bodie was here, and hard, and his cock wanted Bodie's hands on it, wanted anyone's hands on it, but god, Bodie was here...

"Yes..." Bodie slid his hands further around, down to Doyle's arse, pulled them together, once, twice... It wasn't enough...

Christ there was no room to manoevre, and he was still holding that bloody broom with one hand. He let it go, hoping he wouldn't step on it and give one of them a black eye or worse, and reached for Bodie's jeans, still full of the idea of Bodie's coming for him, on him... Bodie fumbled at his waistband too, and he turned his head into Bodie's neck, felt Bodie do the same to him, muffling their breathing against skin, their moans at - god - being taken in firm hands, warm hands, being squeezed, and pumped, and Bodie's skin tasted of salt and sweat and Bodie against his lips, and...

His own hands stilled as he came, hard, so hard, in Bodie's hand, but that was okay, because Bodie thrust one more time, and then it was happening just as he'd imagined it, a silent cry of joy and life and them together, holding each other up again...

They stood there for long minutes, perfectly balanced in the space between the boxes, hearts slowing to normal, breath to normal... Except that it wasn't, Doyle thought, dazed, still tasting Bodie, still breathing the smell of him, of them together. And he didn't want to let go, didn't want to make some joke about it all, or hear Bodie turn all to something funny. He used, instead, the excuse of being quiet, of keeping still, to hold them in place, tried to pretend that his arms didn't tighten just slightly around Bodie, as they stood there.

All he wanted was to kiss Bodie, and to go home with him, and sleep with him in the same bed, and have more sex yes, but... But he wanted to wake up with him in the morning, and he wanted to kiss him, and surely that wasn't how it should be, wasn't how they were... Was it?

Outside their cupboard there was movement in the room, then the noise from the television clicked off, and there were soft murmurs and a sudden blare of electric light around the edges of their door. Doyle closed his eyes, not wanting to see more yet, not wanting to wake up from this madness. Then the light went off, and a door closed, and all was quiet.

They stood for a while longer, then moved, separated as far as they safely could, straightened their clothes, and then stilled again, listened. Finally, Doyle looked up. In the dim light, Bodie was staring at him, eyes wide. He hazarded a half-smile, and Bodie blinked, breathed out a long breath, and turned to put his hand on the doorknob. They emerged together from the cupboard, into the dark of the room.

The yellow light of the B and B lobby shining through the windows seemed bright after the evening's soft glow, after the intermittent and somehow dimmed flash of headlights against dusk-blue skies, the first stars and the quarter moon that hung above them on the journey back.

Bodie felt lazy in his seat, not sleepy, not yet, but full of the warmth of a day spent sunning himself in Doyle's attention, maybe a little high, he thought whimsically, from finally having touched him, held him, breathed him in. From having Ray Doyle at last.

"Taken root?" Doyle asked, sounding amused, affectionate even, pausing with one hand on the door, one leg out of the car.

Bodie stretched, knowing he'd have to move, not wanting to break the spell just yet. "Just comfortable," he said, smiling cheerfully at this Doyle, who smiled back. "Fancy a stroll?"

"What, now? I fancy my bed, mate."

He felt his smile widen. Even better. Get an early night in one of those nice big beds...

The air was still warm he found, as he emerged from his happy cocoon, full of some strange coastal zephyr that wafted gently around them, full of the sound of the waves, and the smell of candy floss and doughnuts. They weren't even in England any more, but some other place, exotic and very far from their normal lives. It followed them into the B and B, and there it stilled, cloyed a little, too sweet for the world indoors. It didn't matter.

There was a softness here, too. The breakfast room had become a bar, and cigarette smoke drifted bluely at the door; there was a jukebox playing gently, a tinkle of glasses and laughter. Bodie paused, caught at Doyle's sleeve before he had a chance to start his bound upstairs. "Quick one?"

Doyle grinned, shook his head, and carried on, and Bodie followed with a bare tinge of regret. He wanted to show off, he thought, that Doyle was his, wanted to crowd close to him under the eyes of everyone and have them know that Doyle was his. Going straight to bed was probably a much better idea.

Doyle turned left at the top of the stairs, pulling his key from his pocket, and unlocking his door quickly, efficiently. Didn't really matter which room, Bodie thought, though his was better. They'd wake up to seagulls and shorelines and... He took a step after Doyle, towards the promise of his open door, was brought up short when it closed in his face.

His nose inches from the white-painted wood, he looked down and saw his foot, which had just missed preventing the door from snicking shut, booted and covered in dust.

Good idea - clean up first. Now that he thought about it, he did feel dusty, and slightly sticky, and Doyle must be feeling it even more so, since he'd... Since Bodie'd come all over him.

Christ.

He felt it start to wash over him, the reality of what they'd done, of the day spent flirting and touching and then... Then what they'd done. In a cupboard.

He turned determinedly to his own room, switched the light on, strode to the window and pulled the curtains shut on the twilight, with its lights bobbing up and down in the bay, its moon and its stars. Then he grabbed his towel and his toilet bag, and a change of clothes, and went back out, down to the bathroom on the floor below, vaguely registering the light under the door of their own bathroom, the burr of the extractor fan.

He'd stood with Doyle in a cupboard in a strange house, and if he'd had room he would have fallen to his knees for him, taken his cock in his mouth and made him come so hard that he screamed. Instead he'd brought him off, one hand pumping his cock, the other down his trousers, splayed over Doyle's arse, and then he'd let Doyle do the same to him, had come all over him, had been completely owned by him, under his control for those few desperate seconds.

He closed his eyes. Under the soft downpour of the shower he was hard again, he wanted Doyle again.

It had been good.

And if the squalid reality of a cupboard had been that good, imagine what it would be like when they did it properly, when he had Doyle naked and helpless underneath him, when he had Doyle fierce and urgent behind him.

Now.

He turned the water to cold, let it sluice down his body, refreshing, invigorating, then he stepped from the shower to the sink, shaved, dressed, and headed back upstairs.

Now.

There was no Doyle waiting for him in his room, as he'd half expected, so he rummaged in his bag for the KY - just in case - slipped it in his pocket and took a deep breath. Every inch of him tingled, the way it did on an op just before they pulled their guns and went in, but now it was all centred on the warmth inside him, on the throb in his cock and the smile that he felt even when he wasn't smiling.

Right.

He didn't bother locking his door. If he managed to persuade Doyle to leave the safety of his own room then he'd be pulling them both through it in just a minute, and if he didn't - well, there was nothing to steal and there was nothing of value that he wouldn't already be holding.

Oh Christ. Definitely off his trolley.

Doyle's door was still closed, so he knocked smartly on it, um-tiddly-um-pum, and tried to wait patiently as he heard first bed springs creaking, then the solid thump of feet hitting the floor, and then Doyle's light step and two quickly groaning loose floorboards. There was a whoosh of air, and then there was Doyle.

"Oh, it's you. What d'you want, then?" He turned from the doorway and wandered back inside, rubbing at both eyes with the heels of his hands.

"You were expecting someone else?" Bodie asked, following him in. Doyle looked rough - still wearing the clothes he'd had on at the donkey farm, shirt undone and untucked, heavy-eyed.

"Nah, fell asleep, didn't I?" He stretched carefully, and Bodie followed the movement of his muscles from his stomach, his chest, shoulders, right through to the brief tensing of his fingers, and their relaxing again, back across shoulders, chest, stomach... He caught himself staring at the line where flesh met denim, thinking about breaking that line with a quick tug of button and zip, looked up again self-consciously.

Doyle was watching him.

"Get you a cup of cocoa from downstairs will I?" Bodie said, trying to look amused, "Rich tea biscuit?"

And the bruises were still there, fading already as Doyle healed quickly as ever, dull purple shadows now across his skin.

"Sorry. It's been a rough few days, must be catching up with me." He rubbed at his eyes again.

"Headache?"

Doyle looked up, twisted his lips in a half smile. "Something like that. D'you mind?"

Come and sleep with me, Bodie wanted to say, We'll go to bed, and you can sleep with me. "Mind what?" He forced a grin. "Realised we'd missed dinner in all..." Christ no, not all that "...all the rushing around. Want me to bring you something back?"

"No, thanks. Think I'll hit the hay, see if I'm awake again tomorrow."

Bodie nodded, ignoring his disappointment, thinking of those bruises. And Doyle always took longer to think things through, what Bodie'd realised in the shower could take him half the night. Let him get it over and done with, move on with the campaign tomorrow, that was it.

"Alright. See you bright and early then Raymond, ready for another exciting day at the seaside." But it had been exciting, he'd fizzed with it, and so had Doyle.

"Yeah, cheers mate. See you."

Bodie pulled the door shut behind him, stood staring at his own. Move on with the campaign tomorrow.

Just as well he'd had that cold shower.

He paused, hesitating in his own doorway, the rest of the evening stretching in front of him. It was still early, and he was hungry now that he'd said it, so he grabbed his jacket, locked his door, and headed back downstairs and onto the promenade.

It was quiet, still a weekday and not any kind of holiday, so there were no crowds of tourists, just the odd couple wandering up arm in arm, a few gangs of teenagers huddled together under various streetlights, music blaring from one radio or another, dog walkers and elderly gentlemen out taking the air. Its own kind of peaceful.

He stopped for a pie and chips, ate them leaning over the stone wall, looking down at the dark sea. The tide was out, though not so far that he couldn't see the white of the waves as they foamed on the beach. He'd seen a leaflet for parasailing somewhere close by - not exactly the thrill of skydiving, but Doyle'd probably like it. There was water skiing too, and he'd not done that for years. Yeah, a day in the water, be great if the weather held out like this.

He swallowed the last chip, screwed up his paper and lobbed it at a bin on the other side of the pavement. It bounced perfectly off the lampost and landed on top of the other rubbish, effectively silencing the derisive whine of one of the teenagers watching. Bodie grinned at him, stuck his hands in his pockets, and wandered off up the prom. The seaside shops and chippies and arcades faded into ordinary houses after a while, the pavement petered out and became a path that led upwards, through a gentle forest of pine trees and park benches, and then along the cliff edge.

The moon was still up, a perfect crescent that appeared and disappeared between the trees, then sat boldly watching him as he ambled his way along, and the sky was clear if not sharp with stars. They seemed soft as everything else did tonight, not shining so much as glowing with well-being. Bodie reached a tall stone monument, didn't bother trying to read its plaque, turned around and headed back. He breath came evenly, calmly, his mind quiet, ready for his own early night now, and a new day tomorrow.

The teenagers had vanished from the prom, though the lights were not yet out, and the door to the bed and breakfast was still unlocked. There was still quiet music from the bar too, and he turned towards it. He'd take a nightcap up with him, clean his gun, maybe read for a while.

He stopped in the doorway.

Doyle was sitting on a barstool, his back to the door, talking to a blonde woman in a tight white dress and stilettos. As Bodie watched, she flicked her hair back over her shoulders, and Doyle put a hand on her waist and turned to order more drinks from the barman. The girl laughed, leaned in to him, and whispered something in his ear so that he turned back to her, laughed with her.

Everything in Bodie froze, solidified, became heavy.

A thousand thoughts rushed his mind, stormed his brain all at once, and he picked them off, one at a time, until there was just one thing left.

He strode into the bar.

"Are you going to introduce me?"

Doyle turned, smile fading on his lips as he took in Bodie's stillness, his gaze sharp as knives, hard as bullets.

"Alright, mate?" he said instead, knowing to be wary. Something had happened, something was up.

"You buying?" Bodie asked, nodding at Doyle's wallet, still in his hand, not even folded yet from putting away the last fiver.

"Aren't I always?" he retorted bitingly, puzzled, tipping his glass to the barman. If Bodie was drinking then it wasn't Cowley, they'd not been tracked down and called in, it wasn't anything deadly. Or at least not work deadly.

But he didn't have all Bodie's attention, Bodie's focus had shifted to his right, and he was smiling.

"Never did have any manners, did Ray. I'm Bodie."

"Erica," she said, holding out her hand. Bodie, in a move Doyle had seen a hundred times, took it as if to shake, then turned her fingers elegantly, raised them to his lips and kissed them instead.

Doyle rolled his eyes automatically, passed him his whisky. It'd worked often enough in the past too, so that all the effort Doyle might have put in over an evening went to waste, the girl swanning off with Bodie, Bodie giving him that look over his shoulder so that all Doyle could do was imagine the two of them together, picture them as he lay in bed on his own, Bodie's body covering the girl's, wank furiously over it. And at the time, before, that had held its own attraction, especially on the rare occasions he'd reversed it all, had wandered off with one of Bodie's birds, had imagined Bodie lying in bed on his own, even as he sank deeply into which ever girl it was, over and over...

He blinked. Erica was talking to Bodie, telling him about her holiday, about the way her boyfriend had jilted her at the altar and she'd decided to come here on honeymoon anyway, to make the best of things. Good for her, he thought again, as her voice wobbled just a little bit, not many girls would be that brave, for all she'd been nearly in tears when he'd come down for his drink.

"...come to the right place," Bodie was saying, and Doyle nearly laughed out loud at that. Dorrage for a honeymoon... This was what he needed, Bodie knocking the nightmares out of him. If only he hadn't made the mistake of lying down on the bed when he came in, if only he'd gone straight to the shower as he'd meant to, been with it when Bodie came to fetch him for food... The thought of eating turned his stomach a little even now, he could still see it, red flashes of beaten flesh, blood starting to pool beneath, and someone watching, someone...

Stop it.

"...water skiing up the road a bit, if you fancy?"

"I've never been water skiing, is it hard?"

"Ah, it's great fun, you'll love it - won't she, Doyle?"

"Yeah," he said, not entirely sure what he was agreeing to, "You'll get the hang of it in no time."

"You can show me, Ray? I have seen two people doing it together."

"'course I can. 's not that hard..."

"...to get the basics down," Bodie interupted smoothly, "After that the world's your oyster, we'll have you dancing on the water, kid!"

Erica laughed her tinkling laugh, shifted on her bar stool to uncross and cross her legs again, and Doyle watched Bodie watching her, no sign, now, of the danger in his eyes when he'd come in.

...the girl swanning off with Bodie...

"...another drink?" Bodie turned to the barman, "A spritzer and a large scotch please. Oh, and whatever the boy's having."

He'd barely started his second, but he lifted his glass, necked it in one, and handed it to the barman. Three was two more than he'd wanted when he came down, but...

Bodie was making a move on Erica? After... After today?

"...found a beautiful spot to watch the sunset, you'll have to come with me tomorrow..."

But then Doyle had turned him down, hadn't he? Had stood in his room and turned Bodie down because he couldn't get that bloody dream out of his head, even after... today.

So Bodie was looking for something else to shag instead.

Doyle watched as Bodie edged a little nearer Erica, as he leaned in to say something, as he glanced down her cleavage, full and promising in that dress she was wearing.

No.

Erica was a nice girl, she'd had a bad time, the last thing she needed was Bodie smarming his way into her bed and then dumping her the first night she wouldn't come across.

"...he's more of a donkey man, is Doyle," Bodie was saying, smiling at her conspiratorially. What had he missed? Still, Bodie'd made a mistake there, birds tended to go for that sort of thing.

"Yeah, the sanctuary down the road," he said, even as hated that Bodie'd brought it up, that he'd brought their day into this. "I'll take you to see them if you like - you wouldn't believe the way some of them have been treated. Old seaside donkeys, most of them..." He rambled on, holding her gaze, moved slightly closer to her himself. After all, he'd seen her first.

"They sound adorable, I'd love you to take me..."

Doyle looked up, let himself grin at Bodie.

Bodie grinned back, shark-like. "Water skiing tomorrow then," he said, "Doyle's donkeys - " he managed to make it sound daft, slightly condescending, "-the day after, how about that?" He moved in all the way, finally, put an arm around Erica's shoulders. "By the time you go home, you'll have forgotten what that bloke looks like, okay?"

Erica smiled up at him, and inside Doyle winced. Bodie'd smiled like that at him, back at the mansion, had...

Bastard.

"You'll have to excuse my friend, he was reincarnated from a bulldozer. What did you have planned, love?"

Erica turned back to him, smiled her same, soft smile. "I didn't really have anything planned, I was just going to swim and lie in the sun, and try to forget... everything."

"He didn't deserve you," Doyle said, taking her hand, and meant it. She was a sweet kid. "You do whatever you want, alright?" He carefully didn't look up, carefully didn't glare at Bodie. "Don't let him bully you..."

"Ah come on, sometimes we need a bit of bullying, don't we Erica? Can't all be soft and indecisive." And this time Doyle did look up, caught Bodie's derisive glance. "Why not let me bully you into a midnight swim tonight? It's beautiful out - under the moon, the stars shining down on us..."

"Well, I..." Erica began, just as the barman called "Time gentlemen, please!" She put her spritzer, barely touched, down on the bar. "Maybe tomorrow night? I think I need to rest tonight, I haven't been sleeping well, and..."

"I'll see you upstairs," Doyle said quickly, "What room are you in?"

"Two-twenty-nine, isn't it?" Bodie interupted, "Saw you before..."

When had he seen Erica? He couldn't have... But there was her key on the bar beside her, big and pink and plastic.

"That's the next flight from us, you don't like stairs, Bodie," he said, knowing he was being vicious. "Bet you had a pie tonight, too."

Bodie's eyes hardened again, though his tone was still light. "Someone with my energy needs it. Can't all be sparrows, like you."

"Boys," Erica was laughing at them, placed a hand on them both, placating. "It's fun that you fight over me, but I think I can find my own way to bed." She stood up, pulling her dress down slightly, so that they both looked to her legs, to the pale shadowing between them. "Perhaps I will see you at breakfast?"

Doyle smiled brightly at her and nodded, saw Bodie doing the same, and they watched her leave, a sway in her step, an elegance in the straightness of her back, her shoulders, until she disappeared around the corner, off upstairs.

Right then. Find out what the hell Bodie was playing at.

But Bodie was swallowing the last of his drink, was standing and moving away from him.

"Hey, hang on!" Doyle grabbed at his sleeve, tugged him around. "Where do you think you're going?" If he was planning to follow Erica up, catch her before she reached the safety of her room...

"Bed, Doyle. I'm going to bed." He ran his eyes from Doyle's face, down his body, and back up again, didn't quite sneer. "Remember bed? You look like you could use some beauty sleep. But I suppose I can always entertain Erica if you want to catch up on some kip tomorrow. Goodnight."

Doyle watched him go, shook his head. He wasn't going to let it happen, Bodie could get his kicks with someone else. Erica'd had enough, he'd had enough.

He swallowed the last of his whisky, feeling it burn his throat, descend in a hot path through his chest, to his stomach, then he got to his feet and headed out to the seafront, knowing he couldn't sleep again, not wanting to try.

Bodie woke to the stale taste of whisky in his mouth, the glare of sun in his eyes because he'd not closed the curtains, and a foul temper. He tried to remember, through the pounding of his head, why he should be in a bad mood, tried to relax his jaw, his face, his fists, breathing slowly the warm air.

Doyle. Erica.

And just like that it all slotted back into place, the games, the hopes, the smashing of it all to pieces in a tiny bar room in a third-rate seaside town.

So much for his campaign - what happened when your... when the opposite side snuck around your flanks on some unseen, unthought of path? What did you do then? He wanted to go back to sleep. He needed to go back to sleep. Why the hell had be woken up?

Doyle. Erica.

Waterskiing.

He sat up in a rush, looked frantically towards the digital clock on the bedside table, waited through his spinning head for the numbers to focus. Eight-oh-five. What time... Breakfast. Breakfast was from half-seven until nine, and if he knew Doyle he was already down there.

Fuck.

He had to get down there and... and what? Didn't matter, better to be in place, to be waiting for the next move from a position you knew, than to be caught on the hop. He was not going to be outflanked by Doyle.

He got out of bed determinedly, clenched his teeth harder, and looked in the mirror above the dressing table to assess the damage. Not bad, eyes a bit red, needed a shave, and Christ if only his head would stop pounding, but give him ten minutes and a cold blast in the shower, and he'd be a new man. Plan tactics, that's what he had to do...

There was no sound from Doyle's room when he went past, and still none when he came back, which meant that he was probably already downstairs, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Unless he was still in bed - he'd looked knackered last night in the pub, and it was only, what? Three days since he'd been treated to a Scrubs Special? He glanced at his watch again - only Thursday. Felt like a lifetime ago - how had it all happened so fast? What exactly had happened so fast?

The cold water had helped at least, so much so that he was disconcerted to find neither Doyle nor Erica in the breakfast room when he came in. The waiter showed him to the same table they'd had yesterday, and he tried not to squint at the brilliance of the day, and ordered a full English again, with fried bread. Shame he couldn't get them to do fried potato as well, he'd not had that since he was a kid...

Where the hell was Doyle then? And Erica? They wouldn't leave without him, would they? Doyle wouldn't.

His breakfast was in front of him, and he was tucking into a fried tomato when Doyle walked in. He was freshly showered and shaved, but there was a furrow between his brow, bags under his eyes. He looked, Bodie thought, cheered, worse than he did himself.

"Morning," he said, as Doyle sat down, "Thought you'd decided to give it a miss."

Doyle just grunted, looked around to find the waiter and signal tea please.

Going to be like that, was he? "You look like something the cat dragged in. Find something to keep you awake last night after all?"

That brought Doyle's gaze, black as it was. "Not everyone's as rampant as you, you know."

"Rampant?" he said, in the tone of voice he knew always got Doyle going, "What, like the lion on the royal arms?"

"What lion... oh, fuck off, Bodie."

My pleasure Bodie wanted to say, but then he caught sight of Erica at the door, looking searchingly into the room, and he stood up instead, put a smile on his face and waved her over. He hadn't quite settled on his tactics yet, but if chatting up Erica was going to piss Doyle off as much as it had last night, then she'd better be a good part of them. If Doyle was going to sleep with anyone on this holiday, it was not going to be some bimbo with a tale of woe who'd con him out of his last tuppence and then decide he wasn't good enough for her.

"Good morning!"

"Good morning," Erica said, sitting elegantly in the chair that Bodie held out for her. "Another beautiful morning!" She looked through the net curtains, pulling their gaze with her to the endless blue sky, the glimpse of sparkling sea and bobbing boats through a gap in the seawall.

"Last day of it," the waiter said, putting a pot of tea and jug of milk in front of Doyle, taking out his pad and pen. "What would you like, miss?"

"Coffee and toast," Erica said, smiling up at him, "Why do you say that?"

"There'll be rain tomorrow, if not before - that's a storm brewing out there."

A storm? Bodie looked out the window again. Hard to tell through the thin gauze, but it didn't look any different to yesterday. Was there a darker line along the horizon? A deeper blue to the sky?

"We'd better make the most of today then," Doyle said, flicking a smile at Erica, pouring a cup of tea, and offering her one.

"Oh, it won't last long," the waiter said, as if realising he was scaring away his custom, "They're fierce but flighty down here. What would you like, sir?"

Bodie speared a mushroom thoughtfully, waiting until the man left their table. "What about you, what do you fancy, then, Erica? Day in the sun?"

"Would you still like to show me how to waterski? It always looks like so much fun." She paused and smiled. "Robert would have hated it."

"That's the spirit," Doyle said, smiling back at her. "Waterskiing it is, then. Where did you say the place was?" He didn't look at Bodie.

"Reservoir a few miles away, should be easy enough to find."

"And we can just turn up, and they'll give us a boat?" Erica asked.

"If it's quiet enough, and it should be, it's still mid-week." He tried to remember if Doyle had ever been waterskiing. He probably had. "They usually hire out everything you need - except a swimsuit..." He raised an eyebrow at her, looked at her conspiratorially because that would piss Doyle off as well. "Got your own swimsuit? They don't usually let you do it naked..."

"Naked waterskiing, now there's a thought!" Erica flirted back with him, "But of course we would all have to go naked."

"Coffee and toast?" the waiter announced disapprovingly behind them. "This is a family establishment, sir."

"Sorry," Doyle said quickly, "Didn't realise we were being so loud."

Bodie looked around at the complete absence of children and parents, rolled his eyes at Erica behind the waiter's back. She giggled, and across the table Doyle frowned. Perfect.

In the back of his mind, hidden and quiet, the battleplan came perfectly together. Pull Erica himself, show Doyle that she wasn't the right person for him - clearly hadn't taken her long to get over Robert after all, Doyle needed someone loyal, someone who'd stand by him, thick and thin, and hadn't he already done that? - then leave her at her bedroom door and show Doyle who was right for him. Who Doyle was right for.

Couldn't go wrong.

The water of Lakemead Reservoir shone deeply blue in the sunshine, bluer still through the dark filter of Doyle's glasses. It was almost completely still, the only chop that created by the single speedboat out on the water, its wake sending sparkles of tiny waves towards the shore. They were waiting for it to come in, early enough that the only punters were actually employees, so they could have it all day if they wanted to. Not, at these prices, that they'd want to, though Doyle could tell that Bodie was gearing up to show off his skills, asking about slalom, and jumps. Arrogant bastard. He was not going to walk off with Erica at the end of the day, Doyle'd make sure of that if he had to take her to bed himself...

Erica emerged from the clubhouse, clad in nothing but a white bikini that showed off her tan, and a pair of white flip flops. She was definitely tasty, and just Bodie's type, all legs and tits.

"You're waiting for me?"

"Bodie's still inside, picking out his wetsuit." A wetsuit was a wetsuit, and even Erica had chosen hers in under five minutes. He'd put his own on straight away, zipped it up, not wanting her to see what remained of his beating. His arms and legs weren't as bad, mostly faded to yellow now, but they'd got in a couple of good punches to his stomach, his back and sides, and he was still tender.

"Talking to the owner about the water," Bodie said himself, appearing from behind them. "Can't be too careful about safety, you know."

Smug, arrogant bastard. How had he ever thought..? Considered..?

Yesterday.

How had it all gone so wrong?

"Come on, Erica, there's a practice rope over there, let's have a go on dry land first. Be easier if you've got an idea before we go out. Bodie can watch for them to come in."

Bodie made a face at him, "Ah, we can see from over there, I'll come with you."

Doyle bared his teeth, a smile in name at least, and made sure that he was the one with his arm around Erica's waist as they walked over, that it was him who showed her how to hold the handle, how to pretend she was sitting in a chair, ski tips pointing up, how to lean back just so. "Everyone falls down the first few times," he said with a wink, "The trick is to enjoy it and try again."

"Okay. Show me one more time?"

Bodie watched from a few feet away, inserting the odd piece of advice, and Doyle made sure to make it all look effortless, knowing that his muscles were flexing in the sun, that both Erica and Bodie were admiring him. He was looking forward to getting in the water, mind, being submerged in the chill, feeling the rush of it across his skin when he got his turn on the rope. Might wake him up a bit, his few hours of sleep had been as disturbed as his earlier nap.

"So..." Erica took his place behind the rope again, but pulled him back behind her, so that his arms stretched either side of hers, and then leaned back. "...I start off sitting down, like this..." She leaned back into him, pressing herself hard against him, wriggling a little as she found the right position, and despite his tiredness he felt himself react, even through the wetsuit. She wriggled again. "So my weight should be on..."

Christ... He looked over her shoulder to her feet, found himself staring past the firm, golden skin of her breasts, her already impressive cleavage exaggerated as she held the tow handle, and he imagined sliding his hand beneath the thin nylon of her bikini, feeling the weight of her, the way she'd sound if he squeezed her nipple and...

"Boat's here," Bodie said loudly, stepping up to them, "Keep your feet as evenly balanced as you can, love."

Doyle fell back from the tow handle, his breath coming too fast. It was an automatic reaction, he reminded himself, following them down to the water's edge, not even caring that Bodie had slung one arm around Erica's shoulders. Of course it was, a woman like her. Thank god for the wetsuit, hopefully she hadn't noticed anything...

He drove the boat out to the centre of the water, quieting the engine in time to hear Bodie suggest that he have a go first to give her a better idea of what it would be like. Erica nodded eagerly, listened carefully to Bodie's instructions for her job as spotter, and then they were off.

He kept an eye on Bodie too, not fully trusting Erica to catch his signals, to see the signs that something might be wrong, but of course he didn't need to worry, Bodie was more than competent, as he was at anything physical. Erica stood close beside him, one hand on the rail for balance, conscientiously watching Bodie even when she half turned to lean into him and shout a question in his ear. He answered abstractedly, swinging the boat carefully around, catching Bodie's signal to head for the jumps. Show off he thought, admiring his black-clad figure, his easy, strong movements at the same time. Bodie was good , and he was enjoying himself, face one great smile. Bodie didn't smile like that often enough, he'd have to do something about that...

Erica shouted another question at him, and he nodded, slowed the boat as he did so, and Bodie let go of the rope, slid on, arms outstretched for a few moments, and then slipped smoothly, majestically into the water.

Tonight, he'd do something tonight.

If he could keep Bodie's hands off Erica long enough to work out exactly what it was he was going to do.

He let Bodie help Erica into the water, pretended not to see the way Bodie slid a reassuring hand down her arm, the way he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek - "For luck," he said, a dark and sleekly muscled Princess Leia - and he tried especially hard not to watch as Bodie lifted himself effortlessly onto the boat, arms and legs barely straining. He smiled back at Erica instead, gave her a thumbs up.

"Okay!" she shouted, returning the signal, and he patted Bodie on the arm, pushing him in the direction of the wheel. Maybe the cool spray of water would get rid of the dull ache that had spread down his neck, into his shoulders, would clear his head and let him think more clearly.

He concentrated on Erica's lesson, glad that she laughed when she tilted nose-first into the water on her first attempt, when the rope slid from her hands on her second try, and finally when she stood, triumphantly, an ecstatic blonde Venus on the water.

"That was wonderful!" she said as she let Doyle help her back into the boat, "It was so much... Oh, thank you!" She gave him a wet hug, closing her eyes in joy and burying her face in his neck, looking up again with her eyes shining, her face glowing. "I want to do it forever - except that my legs are trembling so much that I might never be able to walk again!"

Doyle laughed at her excitement, sat her down on the seat to get her breath back, to let the strength back into her legs.

"Twenty minutes left?" Bodie said, handing Erica a can of Sprite, and Doyle nodded, more than ready to take his turn. He stretched, legs, back, arms, aching neck, and slipped into the water, letting himself spear downwards for a moment, through the cool depths, then he surfaced, reached up for his skis, fastening them quickly, efficiently, knowing that Bodie was watching in his turn. He tested their fit again, gave the thumbs up, and felt the boat pull away from him, felt the rope tighten, let it pull him to his feet, and then he was flying, everything as he remembered, air cool against his body, enjoying the challenge of keeping his balance just so, of moving just so, so that it felt as if the water was obeying him rather than the other way around...

Yes.

The shore flew past in a blur, all that existed was himself, and the boat and the sky, stretched blue and never-ending above him. He enjoyed it for long minutes, then gestured Bodie to the jumps, wanting more than just the speed, wanting that moment, that brief moment, when he wasn't simply in the world, when he defied it, thrust himself from of its gravity, let it reclaim him, only because he wanted it...

And then it was over, done with yet again, as if it had never been.

He felt himself grinning as broadly as Bodie had, couldn't help it, and for a moment, just a moment, as he planed ropeless through the water, Bodie was grinning back as the boat drew away.

"You're so good!" Erica shouted at him, as the boat came back to pick him up, "You're both so good!" Doyle gave her a one-armed hug as he stepped up onto the craft, laying his skis carefully to one side of the deck with the others, then lifted her up and spun her around, because they were good. "When can we come again?"

"Whenever you like," he said generously, grabbing at a handrail as Bodie gunned the engine, sent them roaring back across the water.

Bodie sat on the concrete wall of the reservoir, feeling the sun soak into his every fibre, feeling his muscles relax with it all. Against all odds he'd enjoyed himself this morning, had loved proving himself in front of Erica and Doyle, had loved... Yeah, he'd loved watching Doyle out there too, he could admit it. Doyle not only knew how to waterski but, as Erica had said, he was good, just as he was good at almost everything he put his hand to. And that smile, Doyle's smile at the end of it, just between the two of them...

His plan was working then, it must be working.

"Fancy a spot of lunch?" he asked Erica as she emerged again from the clubhouse. "There's a cafe or something up the other end." He nodded up the tree-lined shores, to what looked like a dull white building with tables and umbrellas outside, carpark gleaming in the sun a little distance away.

"Yes, I could eat a horse! I'm never this hungry! Is it always like this..." She babbled on, and Bodie found himself tuning her out, not even seeing her full figure in its tight white jeans and off the shoulder top. She was nice enough, but she'd never be Doyle and he wasn't sure he could be bothered pretending now. Maybe there was some other way he could show Doyle...

"...Ray, Bodie says there's somewhere we can eat!"

"Oh yeah?" Doyle's wariness was back, away from the water, as if the energy had somehow slumped out of him now that he was tied to solid ground again.

"Looks like a cafe or something - what d'you think?" He wanted Doyle to meet his gaze, wanted to look at him properly, but Doyle just nodded, smiled tiredly at Erica and then looked upwards.

"Yeah, why not? Catch the last of the sun anyway - our friend in the hotel was right, wasn't he?"

Bodie lifted his eyes, was surprised to see a bank of grey cloud to the west. It hadn't reached them yet, but it wasn't likely to miss them either. "Ah well, better get a move on then, hadn't we!" He herded them towards the car, made sure that Erica was ensconced in the back seat, so that Doyle was in his usual place, safely beside him.

"Alright, mate?" he asked in a low voice, as Erica rummaged around for a seat belt, surprising a look from Doyle.

"Yeah." He seemed to realise Bodie was waiting for something more from him. "Didn't sleep much last night."

"You..."

"I'm fine!" It was almost a snarl, and Bodie backed off, pursing his lips. How could he apologise if the narky little sod wouldn't let him?

They drove the short stretch to the other end of the reservoir, where there turned out to be an old fashioned pleasure gardens and pavillion, quaint if slightly tatty, and found themselves an umbrellad table near the water's edge. It was much busier than the sports' club had been, slightly crowded with older couples out enjoying their summer before the school holidays ruined it, scattered through with the odd group of foreigners. Bodie recognised German, Italian and what he thought was Hungarian, though it could have been almost anything from that side of the Curtain, some minor embassy official no doubt, enjoying the high life.

"I insist," Erica said, "It's the least I can do after you've shown me such a lovely time today. What kind of sandwiches would you like? What kind of drinks?"

"Thanks love," Doyle said, as she waved away his attempt to press money on her, and that was wrong too. Doyle might claim to be happy about this feminism bollocks, but Bodie'd never seen him let a woman pay yet.

Erica slid away between the tables and the tourists, and Bodie frowned at Doyle, who'd closed his eyes, was saying nothing.

"Look, I'm sorry about last night."

That got his attention, Doyle looked up, stared hard at him. "Which part of last night?"

"The... in the bar, last night." Why did he have to make it so hard? He made himself go on. "Was a bit of a shock, that's all."

"A shock?" Doyle raised his eyebrows. "What d'you mean, a shock?"

"I mean..." He broke off as Doyle yawned, grasped at the distraction. "Look, if I'm keeping you up..."

"I'll go and see if Erica needs a hand..."

"No." Bodie was on his feet before Doyle had sat up straight. "I'll go. But I am sorry."

What did Doyle want, blood? He took a deep breath, tried to remember that a tired Doyle was a stroppy Doyle at the best of times, and peered through the plate glass window of the cafe to see if he could spot Erica. The sooner they ate, the sooner they could get out of there.

There was no queue, and she wasn't by the tills, but when an elderly couple moved out of the way he could see her. She'd set the drinks down at a table, and as he watched she reached into her handbag, shook a couple of white tablets into her hand, and then stirred them into her orange juice.

He pushed through the cascade of coloured plastic strips in lieu of the door, reached down and picked up his own juice, felt it cold and tart on his throat as he took a mouthful. "Headache?"

"Yes, from the sun I think. But it's been a lovely day - I don't want it to end. I've not done anything like this before, Robert was never... Here - if you take your drink and the plates and sandwiches, then we can leave the tray here?"

Bodie took them obediently, followed her back out to the tables. Doyle made an effort and took the glasses from Erica so that she could parcel sandwiches out between them, and for a few moments they ate without speaking.

"Such a shame, the rain," Erica said at last, gazing at the sky. "It won't be the same by the seaside if it rains."

"Rain's all part of the fun," Bodie said automatically, "That's when you go and play Space Invaders in the arcades, don't you know?"

Erica wrinkled her nose. "Not really my cup of coffee..."

Coffee? "Cup of tea, you mean?"

"Ah, but I don't like tea either!"

Bodie smiled at her. Maybe she'd bugger off then, leave them alone, and he could finally get Doyle on his own again, in bed where he clearly needed to be. He could do with a nap himself, and he bet he could get through the Yale on the door, slide into Doyle's bed even if he wasn't invited, have a wee sleep, and wake him up nicely enough that everything would be back to normal afterwards.

That was it. No need for more campaigning, a quick attack under cover... under bed covers. His smile broadened, and Erica smiled back, thinking it was for her.

"You'll head off then, if the weather changes?" he asked, "I've heard Bath's good for wet weather..." It sounded unsubtle, even to his own ears.

"Yes, I've always wanted to see Bath! Imagine all those elegant ladies and gentlemen..." And she was off again, chatting away for England about the apparent glories of the Romans and the Regency and of holidays instead of honeymoons.

Doyle nodded occasionally, made the odd comment to keep her going, but he seemed content to sit back in the sun, sipping his juice, and then his tea.

"One last walk!" Erica said when they were all finished, "The clouds are not here yet, we should take advantage still and see the gardens!"

"Yeah, why not?" Doyle said again, pushing his chair back. He swayed slightly as he stood, reaching down to the white plastic for balance, and Bodie found himself frowning again, though Doyle flashed Erica a smile. "Let's go and see the donkeys!"

"Donkeys?"

"Did I say donkeys? I meant deer. They've got deer, according to that." Doyle nodded towards the side of the cafe pavillion, on which was painted an ancient looking map of the gardens.

"Oh, and a train!" Erica took Doyle's hand, then held out her other hand for Bodie. He breathed a deep breath. Okay, they'd go and see the gardens, and then they'd go home. He could wait.

The gardens were, at least, pretty enough. A maze of paths took them past endless bushes of blooming roses, through a Chinese pagoda, and to a lily pond where brilliant orange fish flitted between sunshine and shadows. Bodie stood at one edge, watching vaguely as Erica tucked her arm into Doyle's, led him to a tiny humpback bridge that crossed the stream feeding the pond, and he thought of what he'd do to Doyle when they woke up together, to convince him that they'd just...

He looked up at Erica's little cry of surprise just in time to see Doyle fall inelegantly into the lily pond from the bridge, one foot stepping a little too close to the edge, twisting on his ankle, and then...

Bodie's face lit up in delight, he'd get months of fun out of this. Now if only Doyle would come up covered in lily pads, or with a goldfish tail sticking out of his mouth it would be perfect.

Doyle came up slowly and with a scowl on his face, shaking the water from his hair and spluttering. Priceless. If only he had a camera... Bodie watched him as he sat there, knowing it was better to wait until he'd seen the joke himself before trying to help him up, liking the way the water had plastered Doyle's t-shirt to his body, so that it was almost see-through, emphasised his nipples against the wet cotton. He wondered if Doyle liked his nipples played with...

"Ray, are you alright?" Erica was trying to reach down to him, holding out a hand that wouldn't help Doyle at all even if he did take it, but before Bodie could come to the rescue, he'd levered himself out of the water, and climbed back onto the bridge, water streaming from his body, staggering slightly, letting Erica steady him. She started pulling at his t-shirt, squeezing the water out of it, and Bodie could see Doyle keeping himself in tight rein, wanting to pull away from her and sort himself out. Stroppy bugger, his Doyle. Bodie caught Doyle's eye as Erica slid to her knees, running her hands up down Doyle's legs, trying to bunch the tight denim of his jeans somehow, squeeze the water out. He smiled warmly at him, willing Doyle to get the joke. Bloody women.

Finally Doyle's eyes softened, and he twisted his lips wryly at Bodie, then he reached down to pull Erica to her feet.

It was going to be alright.

It was going to be alright. Doyle didn't know how he knew, standing there dripping with pondwater, letting some young girl squeeze and fondle him while he stared into Bodie's eyes, but somehow it was going to be alright.

He pulled Erica gently to her feet, smiled at her as well, and tried to reassure her that he was fine. In fact he felt off-balance, so tired that the world seemed slurred, and his body didn't seem to be obeying him. Just as well the Cow had sent them off on holiday, he must have been even more knackered than he thought - sleeping badly shouldn't affect him like this... Maybe it'd been the waterskiing, maybe he'd enjoyed that too much on top of a sleepless night, on top of the case that had gone wrong, and this was the come down, everything catching up with him. He just wanted to sleep...

Erica was fussing too much, he thought again, and glanced almost desperately at Bodie. "Look, I'll just go back and sit in the sun, dry off - you two go on and see the donkeys. Deer." Even his tongue didn't want to obey.

"Are you sure?" Erica gave him one last stroke, looking concerned, and he clenched his teeth.

"It's just a bit of water, he'll be fine," Bodie interrupted, and Doyle could have kissed him. Wanted to kiss him.

He wanted to kiss Bodie. He almost took a step towards him, wanting desperately to pull him closer, to let Bodie take his weight. He felt so heavy...

"If you're sure..." Erica was saying, and he blinked, nodded at her.

"'course I'm sure. I'll go and sit in the sun." Hadn't he just said that? "It's a tough old life."

Bodie pulled her away, winking at Doyle before leading her more deeply along the path towards the deer in their far corner enclosure, and Doyle found himself surrounded by blissful silence. He'd go and sit down, have a bit of a sleep, maybe... No, not a sleep, but a rest anyway. Now, which way out?

He turned around once, then again, the paths all looking the same, blurred green with hedges and bushes and... There, reds and pinks - they'd come past roses, hadn't they? He set off, the water in his trainers squelching warmly, unpleasantly, as he walked, finding himself staggering now and then, reaching out to the trees and occasional signposts to steady himself. Once he reached out to a bush, nearly fell straight through, and came up giggling, glad there was no one to see him. Bodie would have loved it.

There - there was the way out, thank god for that, and there was the cafe, with more empty tables outside now that the wind had got up a little, so that the umbrellas flapped and one spun around gently in its table, not properly secured. He realised he was staring at it, made himself look away, found a seat nowhere near the water this time, at a table with no umbrella at all. He tried untying his shoe laces, couldn't seem to make his fingers work properly, and heeled them off instead, then took off his wet socks and dropped them on the warm concrete beside him to dry. Finally he peeled off his t-shirt, arranged it spread over another chair, and lay back, wishing he could take off his jeans as well. The fronts would dry well enough in the sun, but not the backs, not what he was sitting on.

He closed his eyes, though it seemed to send his head spinning, tried taking deep breaths. He mustn't fall asleep, not here in the cafe, he'd just... The sun was warm on his chest, and the breeze too, for all it presaged the coming rain. Was alright this, he didn't mind lying here in the sun, his feet up on the chair opposite, thinking of Bodie...

Was he thinking of Bodie? Yeah... He liked thinking of Bodie, liked thinking of the way he looked when he moved, all hard muscle, of the way he'd felt yesterday - just yesterday? - pressed against him amongst the boxes, his breath against Doyle's neck, his cock in Doyle's hand... He wished he'd kissed him, he'd wanted to kiss him, but for some reason... Would have been too much, he thought, arching up slightly to feel the press of his jeans against his own cock, imagining it was Bodie's hand rather than the warm denim, that they were...

Fuck! He opened his eyes, sat up abruptly. He was sitting outside in broad daylight, surrounded by other people and he was fantasizing about sex with Bodie.

Maybe he should get himself a drink, something to cool him down. More juice, he was thirsty... He reached into his soggy front pocket, trying to ignore the fact that he was still hard, that if he moved his hand just so he'd be able to touch his cock with no one knowing, would be able to imagine again that it was Bodie...

Orange juice. Or maybe a Coke.

Ignoring his bare feet, ignoring the looks and frowns that his meandering path into the cafe earned him, though he apologised when he bumped into what turned out to be an empty table, he got himself a cup of tea, made it back outside and poured the spillage in the saucer back into his cup. Hot, sweet tea, that's what he needed.

And to go to bed. To go to bed with Bodie. No... Where the hell were they, anyway? How long did it take to look at a couple of deer?

He drank his tea, forcing himself to stay sitting upright, to keep awake. He checked his t-shirt, turned it over, turned over his socks.

"Like washday around here." Bodie's voice, from behind him after all, and he jumped, put his empty cup back on the saucer, hearing it crash and jangle. "You quite comfy?"

"Yeah... You ready to go? Where's Erica?"

"Powdering her nose," Bodie said delicately, with that smile of his that you could get lost in. Had a nice smile did Bodie. Bodie'd smiled at him on the boat. "We might just beat the rain back, if we leave now."

"Won't make much difference to me," Doyle grumbled, though hopefully his t-shirt was dry at least. He left his socks off, tried tucking them in his back pocket, though he had to give up because one kept falling out, and started to squeeze his feet into his trainers. "Think they've shrunk," he said, discovering that it was impossible to get his toes and heels in.

"Why don't you undo the laces?" Bodie was looking at him, an odd expression on his face.

"They shrunk too." Nevertheless he gave it another go, feeling his fingers fumble again, all thumbs as his mum used to say, and he'd not seen her for years and years. "I learned how to do it though."

"What?"

What? What had he said? He sat up, let Bodie pull the shoe from his hands, start to unpick the knots quickly, efficiently. "I dunno. Think I must be coming down with something..."

Bodie frowned again, and Doyle watched as his hand came nearer and nearer his face, and... It pushed his hair out of the way, covered his forehead for a moment, and he wanted to lean into it.

"You don't feel hot. Cold, if anything." Bodie took his hand away.

Doyle shook his head. "Not cold. Feel like I could sleep for a week..."

"You look it, mate." Bodie waited for Doyle to get his trainers on, tucking the laces under the tongues rather than doing them up, picked up his t-shirt and threw it at him. "Come on, let's get back."

"Yeah..."

"Ray! You're covered in bruises! Was that from falling? Oh my..."

Doyle winced inside, forced himself not to react, to pull his t-shirt on slowly, unhurriedly. How could he have forgotten? "Kid on a bike ran into me the other day," he said, casually as he could, "Not my week, apparently..."

"Oh, Ray..."

And they were back to the fussing again. Why couldn't they just leave him alone? He clenched his jaw. "I'm alright. You ready, love?"

"Yes," Erica tucked her arm in his again, and that was better, walking quietly to the car. He tried to get into the back, but Bodie beat him to it, holding the seat forward for Erica to climb in, so he slumped in his normal place, listening to Bodie jolly Erica through the journey, trying to pretend that his eyes weren't drooping, that the road whizzing by wasn't making him feel slightly sick. Now and then he felt Bodie's eyes on him, relaxed a little...

"Doyle - wake up!"

"I'm not asleep," he said automatically, opening his eyes. But he must have been, right there in the car with Erica a guest in the back. They'd stopped, were parked behind the B and B, and Erica was standing out on the tarmac, a pale figure against dark grey clouds, hair whipping around her head. He caught Bodie's eye. "Yeah, alright."

It seemed a long way from car park to front door, the steps were like mountains. Erica took his arm again, and Bodie's hand, and pulled them all up and inside, full of energy, directing them into the bar. He was too tired to protest, couldn't be bothered making any decisions. If she wanted to prop him up in a corner of the room and let him sleep, then he didn't care any more.

"You must let me buy you one more drink," she said, "To say thank you for today."

"Yeah, alright..." he said again, though Bodie was looking at him, head tilted to one side, though he said nothing.

"Go and sit down," Erica instructed them, "Just fifteen minutes more, and then I'll go out of your way..."

"What makes you think we want you out of the way?" Bodie asked, but Doyle could see that his eyes weren't smiling. Maybe Bodie was tired too. Bodie had been to see the deer, after all... The donkeys. Deer.

"Quick one and then we'll get you to bed," Bodie was saying to him, and Doyle managed to focus, to nod hazily. Why was he so tired?

Bodie leaned in close. "Come and make sure you're tucked in properly, shall I?"

That made him want to smile, so he did, though close-mouthed because his teeth didn't seem to want to work properly. No, that was wrong. "Don't need your teeth to make your smile work, do you?"

That look from Bodie again, with the frown in between his eyes, that made Doyle want to touch it away, to stroke it away. He started to reach up a hand, remembered that Bodie didn't like to frown, and stopped what he was doing.

"Did you knock your head when you fell?" Bodie asked, and he shook his head, once, twice... Because he hadn't, had he?

Had he said that out loud? Because he'd meant to... He knew he'd said something out loud, but...

"Here you are." Erica was back, setting mugs on the table in front of them, steaming and strong with the smell of brandy. "I thought we could have hot toddies to celebrate beating the rain!" She sat down, picked up her own mug. "To waterskiing!"

"Waterskiing," Doyle echoed, taking a mouthful. It was hot, sweet, just right, and he put it down with a sigh.

"And to you," Erica added, offering her mug to be clinked again, "Thank you!"

He smiled at her, touched their mugs together obediently, and drank again. She was very pretty, though not as pretty as Bodie. No, Bodie wasn't pretty, Bodie was... Would Bodie be pretty if he was a woman? Doyle put his head to one side, stared at him, considering. He had nice eyelashes, and a nice nose, and... But his lips didn't look like a woman's lips, they looked... Better.

If I said you had a beautiful body would you...

Bodie was getting up from the table. Had he said that out loud? Shouldn't say things like that out loud...

Bodie did have a beautiful body...

"Where's Bodie goin'?" he asked Erica, who was still there. They hadn't all left him, then.

"To the gents', he said. You look tired."

"I'm tired," he agreed. She had nice lips too, but not as nice as Bodie's. Diff'rent shape.

"Why don't you finish your drink and I'll take you up to bed?"

Now that was a good idea. Best idea anyone'd had all day. Except the one he'd had about sex with Bodie. He tipped his toddy back again, feeling it warm in his stomach. Outside the storm had finally arrived, rain starting to spat against the windows in blusters and blows.

"D'you think Bodie's pretty?"

Erica smiled at him, took his arm again, and leaned against him as they left the bar. Or was he leaning against her? Helped his legs walk, anyway. Work.

He started to turn at the floor to their rooms, felt Erica pull at him.

"This way, silly! You are tired!"

He didn't want to go up any more stairs, it was getting harder and harder to move his legs, but he followed her, because it wasn't polite to shout at a lady, especially not a pretty lady like Erica. Though really he didn't like pretty ladies any more, he thought, what he liked was Bodie, and...

Why did they need to go up a ladder? He paused, looked at Erica. Where had the ladder come from, anyway?

"This is the way," Erica said, "Upstairs to bed. Come on Ray..." She tried to turn him towards it, but he was too tired for ladders. He'd sleep in the bath instead, Bodie wouldn't mind. Only maybe he'd said that out loud as well, because Erica shook his shoulder. "Bodie's waiting for you, we don't want to be late!"

Bodie was...?

"You fell asleep, remember? Bodie said he'd meet us up the steps. Come on, Ray." She was starting to look worried, and he didn't want her to look worried, so he turned heavily to the ladder, started to pull himself up. He nearly fell at one point, swaying backwards away from the rungs, but she was right behind him, urging him up, and finally he pulled himself over the edge and collapsed on bare floorboards. He'd sit up in a minute, but just now he felt too, too heavy, his legs shaking from it all, his eyes unable to stay open.

He'd just rest for a minute.

He could have sworn he'd been less than five minutes in the bog, but by the time he got back to the bar room, Doyle and Erica were both gone. Their mugs were empty, and he ignored his own barely touched toddy, turned instead and took the stairs two at a time up to their floor. There was no answer at Doyle's door, and he took a moment to scowl - conniving cow - before pulling out his wallet and a credit card, and forcing his way in.

The room was empty.

Well of course it was, she'd taken him upstairs, hadn't she.

His feet thudded on the carpetted steps, two-four-six-eight, and he pounded an echo on her door, paused to listen for footsteps, for giggling. To think Doyle had convinced him that...

No answer.

Back downstairs again. Grim-faced, he paused at the front door, staring out at the darkness of the day, at the rain slapping hard against glass and concrete, at the thick white spray flying above the promenade wall. Apart from the wildness of the weather, nothing moved.

"'scuse me." He turned around and the receptionist looked up, the same man that had checked them in two days ago. "Did my mate go past just now with Erica?"

The man shook his head. "No one's been in or out since that started. Would you?"

Bodie half grinned wryly, tried to remember to be friendly. "Did they come out here at all? Curly-haired bloke, girl with long blonde hair?"

"You mean Aarika, who came in with you? No, they must have gone upstairs."

Aarika? "Erica," he tried again, "That's her."

"That's right, German girl."

German... "I need to take a look at your register."

"I'm sorry sir," the man's friendliness vanished, he shook his head. "That's private information."

Bodie took a deep breath, pulled out his wallet, and held up his I.D. "I need to take a look at your register."

The man's eyes widened, but he said nothing, just pushed the register forward, turned back a page. "Aarika Foerster."

Fuck. He tapped his finger at the name, trying to ignore the thoughts rushing through his head. It didn't make sense - had to be a coincidence. Plenty of German tourists about, and she could have a good reason for introducing herself as something else. Maybe he'd misheard, maybe she'd said Aarika all along...

"Look, if they come in, will you get them to wait for me? Is there any other way out of the building?"

"Of course there is - through the kitchens, and then there's the fire escapes. We do comply with regulations, you know."

"So anyone can get in and out of the fire doors?"

"Well, no, we keep them locked, there's too much crime about these days, and..."

"Yes, yes - what about the kitchen entrance?"

He was being ridiculous, they were curled up together in Erica's - Aarika's room - hiding, thinking they were clever...

"Cook went home after lunch, he locks it behind him."

Bodie closed his eyes, took another deep breath. "Right. Don't forget - I need to talk to them."

He left the man nodding, forced himself to walk more calmly up the stairs, to knock again at Doyle's room and break in, then up the next flight to Aarika's. He lifted his credit card again, ready to slide it between lock and jamb, paused.

Behind the door a floorboard creaked.

No voices. After a quiet moment, he knocked on the door.

"Bodie! I thought you'd abandoned us!" Aarika looked pleased to see him, a smile on her pleasant face.

"Where's Doyle?"

"He's not with you?" She looked puzzled, slightly tousled, as if she'd been lying down. "He said he would wait for you."

The door was half open, Doyle didn't appear.

"You've got a nice room here," he said, sidled past her, pushing the door further. "Posher than ours - mind if I have a look?"

"Well, of course not, but..."

"En suite!"

"Yes, it's very nice..."

Doyle wasn't there.

"Yeah, lovely. Look, if you see Ray, tell him I need him, will you?"

"I should check his room," she suggested, brushing her hair back from her face. "Perhaps we can all go out to dinner tonight?"

Not if I've got anything to do with it. He managed to make polite noises and escape back into the passageway, stood frowning for a minute. Something wasn't right...

Ignoring the payphone in the corner, ignoring the thumping of his heart, Bodie requisitioned a direct line from the receptionist, dialled through to CI5.

"Yeah, this is 3.7. I need you to get me a run-down on..."

"Bodie, where the bloody hell have you been?" Anson, his voice loud, harsh, where Bodie had been expecting one of the girls.

"On holiday, remember those?"

"Vaguely. Look, Cowley's been going mad trying to find you - you didn't leave a contact."

"We're on holiday," Bodie emphasised, "Listen, I need..."

"You listen - keep your eyes open, both of you, you're in deeper than you think."

"We're not in anything Anson, we're on holiday. Get..."

"No you're right in the middle." Anson's agitation was obvious, even over the phone. "Doyle's arrest was a set up - Cowley set it up, to get the two of you out of the way."

"We were already out of the way, we were off duty!" Bodie didn't care that he was the centre of the receptionist's attention, or that his voice could probably be heard across the seafront. "I need you to check Aarika Foerster for me and..."

"That's her!"

Bodie froze.

"Aarika Foerster - she's missing, probably looking for the two of you. And MI5 want you too."

"MI5?" With every word Anson spoke, Bodie thought, things were getting harder to understand. "Doyle's gone missing."

Anson paused, and Bodie closed his eyes, swallowed.

"Right - I'll get a chopper out to you with back-up. Keep your head down, don't do anything stupid. Passing you over to Alpha One."

Bodie waited impatiently. The Cow had set them up. Again.

"Three-seven? I hear you've managed to lose four-five."

"Yes sir," Bodie replied, through gritted teeth. "Maybe if we'd known there was a threat..."

"Aye - we didn't know ourselves until you'd left London. Why the devil didn't you phone in with your whereabouts?"

"We were on holiday-" he started again.

"You're never on holiday!" Cowley barked, and Bodie could hear a door opening in the background, scrapes and crackles as the phone was passed from hand to hand. "Aarika Foerster, alias Petrine Holm, alias Emily Strassel - she thinks you and Doyle were responsible for the death of her family - several of whom were members of the Radner-Ahman group.

"Never heard of it."

"You wouldn't - it was an MI5 case. Suffice it to say, they took it upon themselves to make a play for power that involved eliminating my top men. Luckily I found out in time and was able to get you safely out of the way. The only person now who believes you were responsible is Aarika."

But Aarika was alone in her room, he'd seen her.

"She escaped from Willis' man sometime Monday evening, she's not been seen since."

"She's been seen. Careless of her to use her real name."

"She may not be in her right mind," Cowley said, "Approach her with maximum caution, she's not as harmless as she looks."

Right.

""We'll be there as soon as we can, three-seven - don't do anything hasty." There was silence. "That's an order, Bodie."

"Yes, sir."

He put the receiver down calmly, stood staring at it for a moment, then turned to the receptionist. "I need a master key."

He woke to a numbness in his arms and legs, to a sharp burning pain across his stomach, and to Erica crouched above him, holding a knife that dripped blood.

It shone in her hands as she twisted it round, and round, and she seemed mesmerised by it, by the way it caught the light from the naked yellow bulb above them. But she looked away from it when she realised he was conscious, watched him blinking and trying to move, flexing his muscles. There was no give in the ropes that tied him at wrist and ankle, that wound around and around his legs and his arms and his torso.

He licked his lips, tried to speak, but it came out a dry rasp, and he coughed, tried to clear his throat.

"Erica..."

"Aarika, you pig," she said, sounding calm, a slight smile on her face. "You will know my name before you die."

He felt a jolt of fear, strained again against the rope, and her smile widened.

"Not nice, is it, to be helpless? To know that there is nothing you can do to save yourself? Mikkel and Gerda can have known that for bare seconds before you gunned them down, but I will make you know it, ten times - a hundred times as they did!"

Mikkel and... "Don't know any Mikkel and Gerda-" he started, and she slapped him, hard across one cheek, so that his head snapped to the side, so that he felt the dust and grit of the floor pressing into this face. It left him dizzy, and he closed his eyes, swallowed again.

When he opened them, managed to look, she had moved her attention, was staring down at his stomach. Then she lifted a hand and pressed it down against his skin, and the pain shot through him again.

"I need enough blood to write my message," she said conversationally, "And it dries so quickly. Look." She gestured at the wall beside her, and he focussed on the scratches of writing, rust-dark against the white plaster. It was a list of names.

"Just two more to go..." and he felt the knife scrape over him, felt it cold against the heat of his flesh. Then she turned, used the tip to write another letter on the wall, and another, reaching back now and then to refresh her ink, her living ink. "There." She settled back on her heels again, at last, sat gazing at her handiwork. "All those people, all those beautiful people..."

He got his breath under control, swallowed. "Who were they?"

"Don't pretend you don't know!"

"Look, you've got the wrong bloke..."

"You are Raymond Doyle, CI5." She picked something up from a small pile beside her, his ID, and opened it. "See?" She wiped her knife along the plastic, left it smeared with his blood, then closed it, threw it across the room. He'd only just had it new on Tuesday morning, the Cow'd go spare if he had to approve another one...

Fragments chased across his mind, things half-remembered. Wet, being wet, and... animals that he hadn't seen? Something in the bushes...

"Bodie! Where's Bodie?"

"It's not his turn yet, he didn't want to sleep with you..."

Didn't want to... Bodie didn't... "What do you mean? Where is he?"

She shrugged, stood up and wandered away, letting the knife fall from her fingers. "I don't know, downstairs I suppose." She turned back, smiled. "Do you think he is looking for you? He was, but I sent him away... Perhaps I will have dinner with him tonight, and we will wonder together where you are."

He clutched at the straw that was Bodie looking for him, tried to remember how Erica had done this, how he'd ended up lying on a hard floor in a strange, cold room, but his thoughts kept slipping away, and sleep beckoned on the edges of his consciousness. He deliberately flexed his stomach muscles, let the stabbing pain shoot through him, take his breath and keep him awake, tried to concentrate on one thing at a time.

It was an attic, he realised, the roof sloping above them, two dormer windows jutting out into a darkly grey sky. The wind was loud, whipping around with a whine and a roar, and he could hear waves crashing - were they still in the B and B then? The floor had once been polished he thought, the walls plastered and painted, as if this could have been another bedroom, but they were surrounded by odd pieces of furniture, crowded and stacked together, boxes piled higgledy-piggledy. None of it was much more than a couple of feet from where he lay. Could he knock them down, alert whoever was on the floor below?

Who was on the floor below, where was Bodie? He was always wondering where Bodie was...

Aarika turned away from the window, wandered back and stood above him, kicked him in his side. He winced as it hit an old bruise and she smiled again. "Oh don't worry, I'm not as good at torturing people as you are, I don't have the heart for it really. For your sake I will try, but I don't enjoy cutting through meat, even of pigs."

The knife! She'd dropped the knife somewhere... If she would walk away again, ignore him again...

Instead she kicked him once more.

He gasped this time, tried to look harmless, innocent. "What do you want from me?"

"I don't want anything more than I've said. You weren't listening? I want you to die, in pain, as they did, from the many gunshot wounds in their poor bodies. Look." She turned, rummaged in a khaki green rucksack by the wall, and pulled out a Walther PPK, showed him both sides, pulled out the loaded clip, displayed it, and slid it back. "It's nice, isn't it? And rest assured, I do know how to use it."

She leaned in to him, ran the gun across his forehead, down his cheek. "I will use up every bullet in this gun, I will shoot them all into you, and there will be nothing that you can do about it. You will have to lie there, waiting for the next... and the next... and the next. Just like they did."

"It wasn't me!"

"You were there! You stood with a gun and you shot them all! They boasted about you and your friend, oh, they did not condone you, but they found it solved a convenient problem!"

"I don't..."

"You don't know! Or do you just forget, do you kill so many people every day that we were just half a dozen more, other faceless victims? Well you forgot one thing, this time!" She dug the barrel harder into his face, her own eyes flashing with some cold, wild fury, and he waited for her to do it, to pull the trigger and end it all. "You forgot me! You missed me, but I will not miss you!"

The bullet didn't come, through her harsh breathing, through the press of the hard metal, the moments when every atom of the world shouted out at him. The gun moved away.

"You will not die easily like that," she said. "Listen to the storm - what luck for me! Soon there will be thunder, there will be lightening, and then who will know what is gunshot and what is the sky above? Shall we wait together for it to come? Where will I start? With a kneecap? The stomach? Maybe-" She slapped the gun carelessly against his groin, so that he half-curled away. "Yes, men make such a fuss about that, they worry so much about that - perhaps we will start there..."

Where the fuck was Bodie?

"So how did you find us?" he asked, trying another tack, hating, as she wanted him to, how helpless he felt.

"You were careless," she said, shrugged, settling with her back against the wall, her gaze long, directed out the window. "I thought for sure that you would see me, I'm no professional. But you were careless, you looked through me time after time. I was with you at the forest, I was with you yesterday at the donkey sactuary. I had lunch right there with everyone else, you brushed past me, and still you didn't recognise me when we met!"

He pursed his lips. He'd been so furious with Cowley, so wound up about Bodie, so tired, that...

Had he been that tired? "What did you give me?"

"Rohypnol. Your friend should have drunk his share, then I would have had you both, no need to hide, but he interrupted me. He made up for it though, when he left you alone with me..."

Rohypnol. He grasped at the word, tried to understand it. A drug... He didn't remember it, was after his time, maybe. Keep her talking, for gods' sake, keep her talking.

"But how did you know where we'd be?"

"CI5 is not so hard to find, no matter how often your offices move. We always know where you are. I watched, I saw you, I followed. You think we're fools, we're not."

"You're mad..." he forgot himself long enough to say, winced again when she turned her gaze upon him once more, as the gun wavered before him.

But she only smiled at him, looking tired, for a moment. "Maybe I am. Maybe you would be too. Mikkel and I were engaged, you know. Oh, I know you don't care, but it matters. Do you have someone you care about, Ray, someone who is your whole life?"

Bodie...

"Maybe if you did, then none of this would have happened. Maybe you would know what's important in life. To be free, to love."

I love...

"Ah! Do you hear that?"

Doyle strained his ears above the wind, felt another shiver of apprehension.

Thunder, in the distance.

Bodie was coldly polite, darkly apologetic to the people he disturbed in their rooms, but he didn't stop moving, didn't pause, until he'd been through the entire building, every inch checked himself, the doors watched by the rather excited receptionist and his eldest son under dire threat of what would happen if anybody at all was permitted to leave.

Nothing.

Aarika had abandoned her room by the time he let himself in and searched it, though her luggage was still there, a couple of changes of clothes hanging in the wardrobe, all, he saw now, newly bought, probably right there in Dorrage.

Damn.

There was still an hour at least before Cowley was likely to arrive, with whatever back-up he might be bringing. And Doyle was in the hands of a deranged woman who thought he'd killed her family. Bodie stared through the receptionist, still at his desk, until the man turned away, fiddled with papers and keys. If she'd wanted Doyle dead then she could have done it days ago, with all the attention they'd been paying, so... He made himself go on. So she wanted to punish him, wanted Doyle to suffer the way her family had suffered. He carefully didn't think that perhaps it was him Aarika wanted to see suffer, that she knew losing Doyle was what would hurt the most. How could she know?

But he was scared, she had him there.

You scared?

The Parsali op...

Yeah, you?

Something...

All the time...

"The roof!"

"Eh?" The receptionist looked up warily.

"Is there any way into the roof?"

"Yeah, we use it for storage. Was gonna use it for more bedrooms, but we didn't get the custom and..."

"What's the access like?"

"We were gonna put stairs in, but..." He trailed off at the look on Bodie's face, swallowed. "There's a hatch at either end, ladders that pull down."

"Either end?"

"It's two houses knocked through, see, that's how we made up enough rooms. Two houses, two rooves, two hatches."

"Show me."

They traipsed up the three flights of stairs, and the receptionist showed him the main entrance to the roof, and then the second, much smaller one at the other end of the corridor, separated from the first by a connecting door. Bodie paused underneath it, listened, could hear nothing but the sound of rain on the roof, at the windows, a whistling of wind.

"Go downstairs and watch the door," he said, though everything in him screamed that this was where they were. He could feel Doyle close by, not with him, but close by.

Quiet as anything, he slipped through the connecting door, padded along the carpetted hallway past empty rooms to the second hatch, and then stopped, waited, listened. There was rain, and there was wind, and... there. A floorboard creaking? Someone moving around? Had to be...

Question was, did she know about the second entrance? No reason why she should, the place was literally piled to the rafters with old furniture, boxes of curtains and bedding and ancient towels, all manner of spare oddments for the hotel, according to the receptionist - though the entrances opened upwards, and so were both kept clear as far as possible, and there was no wall between them.

Another movement upstairs, another creaking board, and then something banged, rattled and banged again.

Time was ticking away... How long since Doyle had vanished? An hour and a half? Two hours? Too long.

Loosening his holster, back in its familiar, comfortable place, he made his decision, turned around, and stepped back into the other half of the corridor. Nothing moved above, so he took a wooden chair from one of the guest rooms, positioned it under the hatch, and climbed up. Pulling the bolt smoothly across, taking the weight of the door with one hand, he pushed it open just far enough that he could peer through, held his breath.

Nothing.

He couldn't see much, the light dark from the storm, but there was a dim glow of electricity pricking and leaching its way towards him from the other end of the attic, through cracks and tilts of bedheads and bookcases and wardrobes. She was over there then.

There was nothing to do but come in or out, as his dad used to say, so he pushed the door up further, ready to pause at the first creak and groan of unoiled hinges, but it moved smoothly, without noise. And maybe Aarika wouldn't hear it over the racket the storm was making anyway. He took a chance, leaned the door back all the way open, and pulled himself in, muscles straining, then closed it again, paused to let his eyes adjust to the gloom.

There was a wall of furniture and boxes between himself and the light, taller than he was in most places, a couple of wardrobes thick for the most part. Two dormer windows let in dim light, half a dozen mattresses piled beneath them, and stacks of tables and chairs pushed against the actual sloping ceiling on the other side, the side furthest from Aarika.

He turned his attention back to the centre of the long attic. There was no apparent wall - probably had never been one, but the question was - had the hoarders left any kind of man-sized gap for movement between the two sides?

Something crunched under his feet, he looked down and made a face - carcass of mouse. At least he'd only felt it, not heard it, so that was alright. The storm seemed to be getting wilder, there was the occasional flash at the window, thunder in the distance. It was cold up here too, not just the normal chill of an unused attic, but as if the wind was blowing through...

He stepped closer to the wardrobes, carefully, slowly, not wanting to draw attention with a quick movement. Who hoarded this much furniture, anyway? Unless they were planning another B and B, a whole chain of them maybe, up and down the British Isles, fully stocked with... There - a gap between two sets of cupboards, looking over some casually tilted wooden bedheads.

Bodie eased forward, inch by painfully slow inch. Aarika was standing beside the open window, all but laughing into the storm, and Doyle... He couldn't see him. Where the hell... No, he'd recognise those bony knees anywhere - Doyle was lying on the floor, tied up by someone with a love of rope, and he was drawing his knees up under him.

Aarika snarled suddenly, her face twisting as she saw what Doyle was doing. Bodie tensed, released the safety on his gun, prepared to shove his way through by force if he had to. But Aarika strode over, hit Doyle casually across the face, then grabbed him by his feet and dragged him towards the window. Rain swept in, a shining curtain that drenched Doyle as it had already soaked Aarika, along with wind and the sound of thunder. Aarika pulled Doyle to a sitting position, forcing his chin up, holding him tightly by his hair with her other hand, so that he could watch with her out the window.

"You see the storm?" she shouted, "It's close - so close! Soon..."

Soon what? She'd throw him out the window? She'd...?

And then Bodie saw that from somewhere Doyle had got hold of a knife, and was frantically but clumsily trying to cut through his bonds.

Like his legs, his hands, his fingers wouldn't obey him properly, not quickly, not surely, not as they should do. He could feel the knife slipping, made slicker where he'd cut his wrist rather than the rope, and he leaned back in his desperation to keep hold of it. Aarika jerked him forwards again, impatient, her eyes focussed wildly on the rain and the wind-wracked sea outside, and the sky - on the lightning in the sky. It was still off shore, rolls of thunder dull, too long after the sheets of light to satisfy her yet. She'd started to count them off, a harsh, low sing-song near his ear, and his heart seemed to pound in time with it.

If he could just get his hands free before she got the gun out, before she...

There was a flicker of movement to his left, and his head turned towards it, though he cursed himself. Aarika didn't seem to notice, beyond clutching her fingers harder to his jaw, bringing his head back around. A mouse? Rat? Or... He couldn't see far enough with his head held nearly immobile like this, her fingers clawing into his scalp, and the knife was slipping again, though he could have sworn he was nearly through in one place...

His mind felt like treacle, sludged up with the drug, so that he couldn't think quickly enough, not clearly enough. He could try kicking her through the window when she stood up to get her gun, but he didn't want to kill her if he didn't have to, wasn't even sure he had the strength for it. She was sick, someone had pushed her to this. But how much further had she had to go? Who had killed her mates, her lover - and why? People weren't gunned down for no reason. His brain wouldn't think...

Concentrate on the ropes.

The knife was sharp against his back as he manoevred it to and fro, it twisted and cut and it would be a wonder if he had blood enough to reach his own heart at this rate. But then... just as he thought he was losing his grip on it, it surged forward through the last strand of fibre, and he felt the ropes loosen, felt them yield, felt his freedom. He was still wound around with the stuff, but if he could get his wrists clear...

"One-two!" Aarika shouted, as if she was timing a dance, and she reached down and picked up the gun.

"No!" There was a roar behind him, a crashing of wood on wood, and there was Bodie, his own weapon held solidly in two hands, face thunderous as anything Aarika could have hoped for. "Drop it!"

Aarika smiled. "No."

"Drop the gun."

Was good to see Bodie, Doyle thought, despite the fact that Aarika's Walther scraped the side of his face, his hands were slick with blood and rain, and he could feel that the cut on his stomach had opened again.

"Why should I? Better I should shoot him and then you shoot me - that way I'll take at least one of you with me, I'll stop you doing it again..."

"You've got the wrong man, Aarika," Bodie said, gun not wavering, "It's MI5 who shot your mates, not CI5!"

"MI5, CI5 - what does it matter? You're all the same, you all kill for your living!"

"And you don't? You and your group? Radner and Ahman... Emily?"

"We fight for justice! You kill because you are paid for it!"

She was a terrorist then, a freedom fighter. And she was right, they did kill because they were paid for it, no getting around that one, but... it was different, it wasn't the way she said it was. "We kill to keep people safe - to keep them alive!" he managed, "Your friends kill to make a political point." His gaze flicked to the list on the wall, he saw Bodie's eyes follow, widen as he realised, perhaps, what it was. "Whatever happened to them..."

His voice was drowned by a sudden rumble of thunder, perhaps directly above them, as lightning flashed at the same time, once, twice...

He had no warning but a slight tightening of her grip, a moment in a moment where he heard only her intake of breath, and then the world erupted into a roaring chaos of noise and blinding white electricity, tiny splinters of heat and pain on his face, and he was falling, released, finally released, and then everything was dark.

"Doyle!"

No, not dark, not properly dark, but lit only by the grim storm outside. The bulb had gone, what a time for it to blow, you'd think...

"Doyle?"

Hands on him, pulling him over so that he felt the knife take another stab at his back, and remembered to let it fall. He didn't need it now.

"Took your time..." he managed, wriggling to loosen the ropes further, "What the hell happened to you?"

"Me? You need a bloody leash..."

One final tug, and his limbs were his own again, although they stayed heavily where they were for a moment, disobedient, still partly in thrall to the drug - what had she called it? - partly numb from being bound for so long. But he was lying half over Bodie's lap now, and Bodie was warm, and Bodie's hands were heavy and solid on him, holding tight at first, then relaxing, stroking up and down his arms, over his chest. Be alright to lie like this for a while, he thought, though he was starting to shiver, to...

The entrance to the attic slammed open, and he found himself unceremoniously dumped on the floor again as Bodie knelt up in a heartbeat, gun trained, ready.

"Put that thing down, 3.7!"

Bloody Cowley. Doyle found strength from somewhere, pushed himself up so that he could see properly. Agents were pouring in - no, only three of them, he realised, it just seemed like half the squad. Another cavalry, just a little too late this time. At least he recognised this lot, and they knew him.

"Good holiday, 4.5?" Anson asked, wandering casually over to their little menage a trois. "Taking it easy, I see." Doyle forced himself to watch as he lifted Aarika's head, surveyed her bloody face for a moment. "It's her, sir."

"Of course it's bloody her - I told you it was her!" Bodie exploded. "And if you'd..."

"That's enough, 3.7." Cowley interupted, "I think your partner could use some attention."

I'm fine, sir he tried to say, but it was difficult to talk through his suddenly chattering teeth, and it was funny how the light was fading in and out like that, and...

Bodie sat with him in the ambulance of course, leaning back against the wall, out of the way in the corner, while the attendant cleaned the cut on Doyle's stomach - shallow - and on his wrists and back, and his face from the shatters of glass when Aarika's bullet hit the lightbulb - barely worth putting bandaids on - and kept an eye on his respiration and his pulse. His shivering had slowed, had almost stopped by now, in the warmer, trapped, antiseptic-scented air of the vehicle.

"He'll be fine - nothing a bit of rest won't cure," was the final pronouncement, even before they'd reached the hospital. "You should take a holiday."

Bodie had smiled at that, as the man had meant him to, and then Doyle had roused as they went over a bump and around a corner, had managed his own weak smile at Bodie, and Bodie'd been less worried after that.

He hovered outside the cubicle they put Doyle in, curtains drawn, close enough to hear him complaining as the doctor took blood samples, checked his wounds again, pronounced his injuries superficial. "And you say the Rohypnol was most probably imbibed three, four hours ago?"

"The second lot, yeah. I think the first was nearer noon. Dunno how much, just felt a bit..."

"Shattered? Yes, it's a hypnotic, prescribed for sleep disorders. Affects the memory, relaxes the muscles. The worst effects start to wear off in a couple of hours, and it sounds as if the dose was probably fairly low, although if you've been kept awake by other things..."

Other things thought Bodie - that just about summed it up.

"Any reason I need to take up one of your hospital beds?"

"None that I can see," the doctor said, "Though I'd be happier knowing you'll have someone with you."

"Bodie..." Doyle said, without pause, and there was nothing out of order about that.

"Is that the gentleman..?"

"Gentleman? Don't go giving him ideas..."

Bodie pulled at the curtain, stuck his head inside. Doyle was sitting up on the side of the bed, wearing paper pyjamas and looking perky. Half of it would be an act to get him out of a strange hospital, the other half... Yeah, he looked alright. "I'll make sure he does as he's told, Doctor," he said, meaning it. She smiled up at him, and he grinned back automatically. "course I could do with someone to make sure I do as I'm told..."

She held a hand up in front of her face, waggling it ostentatiously so that he couldn't fail to see the glittering diamond ring on her fourth finger.

"That will be me, I believe 3.7."

He sent a glare Doyle's way, who'd been looking over his shoulder and clearly seen Cowley coming, and turned around. "Sir."

Cowley ignored him. "How is he, doctor?"

"I was just about to send him home with his friend."

"Good, good. I wonder if you have somewhere private where I could speak to my men for a moment? I'm afraid it's rather urgent or I wouldn't put you out..."

Lying old goat, Bodie thought, he'd put his grandmother out if she interfered with whatever plans his nefarious little mind had drawn up.

"I've got a ward round in five minutes, I won't be using my office..."

"Wonderful, thank you. Where on earth are your clothes, 4.5?"

"They were a little damp, sir," Doyle said defensively, "You don't want me catching pneumonia on top of everything else, do you?"

"Heaven forbid. This way, Doctor..?"

Bodie watched as Doyle slid from the hospital bed, ready to catch his arm if he staggered, if he swayed, but he managed it easily enough, though he winced and caught at his stomach. His paper slippers made an odd shuffling sound as they proceeded down the corridor, surrounded by visitors with flowers and balloons on strings, and Bodie wanted to hit Cowley for insisting on debriefing them now.

"Get it over with, eh?" Doyle said in a low voice, once Cowley had vanished ahead of them into the room, and Bodie took a breath, nodded, and followed him in.

"Anson said you arranged for Doyle to be taken into the Scrubs."

Cowley's eyebrows raised at that, as he settled himself behind the doctor's desk. "Did he indeed? Anson is skirting very close to finding himself in the Outer Hebrides."

"He's a good bloke."

Cowley looked at him over his glasses. "Aye, a very good man. But I'll not have agents sharing information between themselves without my express authorisation."

"With respect, that's a fast way of getting us all killed. Sir."

"Well if you can't use your discretion, 3.7..."

"So who was she, sir?" Doyle interrupted, "I gather she had a bad start to her week."

Cowley's glare transferred, softened as it took in Doyle's paper pyjamas. "She did indeed. Och, sit down the pair of you. Since I don't know where the good lady keeps her scotch you'll have to make do. Aarika Foerster was a minor member of the Radner-Ahman Group, based in Dortmund. For some reason they decided to relocate to Britain, to lie low for a while, from what we were able to gather. MI5 were keeping an eye on them, but unfortunately one of their agents was killed last year by Leah Ahman."

"Unfortunately?"

"Always unfortunately, Bodie!" Cowley snapped, though he knew full well that was not what Bodie'd meant. Awkward bugger. "But especially unfortunate in this case because the agent was a nephew of the Director, and because at around the same time as the Group arrived at Dover, MI5 had been offered - shall we say an incentive from a certain political power abroad - if they were able to discredit CI5 to the extent that we would be closed down as a department."

"What?"

"Aye - there aren't many who would have taken them up on so audacious an offer, but unfortunately - again - Willis is one of them."

"And this... power?"

"No one you need to concern yourself with, 4.5. Yes, I know," he held up his hands, "But it's safer for all concerned if you don't know too many specifics. Suffice it to say that MI5's plan consisted of implicating my top men in a massacre that would have put Al Capone to shame. That may have been where they took their inspiration. What they don't know is that I have... certain sources of information within MI5, and I managed to find out just in time to set up an unassailable alibi for your both."

"I was in prison, and Bodie was..?"

"Bodie was making a very loud nuisance of himself with various police, prison and hospital officials."

"Why not just set me up for the Scrubs too?" He might be curious, but he wasn't going to pretend it was anything other than what it was.

"Too obvious - these are devious men, Bodie, and powerful. They'd have cried set up themselves, as you so elegantly put it, had you both appeared in the same alibi."

"And Erika? Where does she fit into all this?"

"The operation went ahead in any case - some miscommunication, perhaps, perhaps the thought of revenge was too appealing. Oh, it will be explained in the official report that Radner-Ahman Group mounted their own attack, and it's certainly something they've done before... They're not total innocents in this, 4.5., no one is. What Willis' men didn't realise at the time was that Erika witnessed and escaped the shooting. She was picked up later, when they found out that CI5 had slipped through their fingers, and then it looks like she was primed with other misinformation and then allowed to escape once more."

"Such as our names and the address of HQ."

"Just so, Doyle." He paused, took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "But I'm afraid nothing happened here, 4.5, nothing but a poor mad girl shooting herself."

"But..."

"It goes too high! It's too far-reaching." Cowley said harshly, and there was something in his voice, some helplessness that Bodie knew they weren't supposed to recognise. "It's wrong, and you know it and I know it, but..."

"But they're going to get away with it."

"I'm afraid so, lad. If it's any consolation, that's all they've got away with. CI5 is still here, and you're still here. And they'll think twice before they try that again."

Bodie stayed quiet as Cowley wound down - what was there to say, after all? It had happened, it would happen again, what was the point in railing against human nature?

They sat still, for a while, the three of them, and then Cowley glanced out the window. "I see the rain's letting up, in any case." He put his glasses back on, stood up. "I'll see you on the 23rd, gentlemen."

And then they were alone.

They stood waiting for the taxi in silence, Bodie turned quiet and grim after their interview with Cowley, Doyle feeling distant, very aware of the fact that he'd refused to get back into his clammy-wet clothes, and would cut quite a dash between vehicle and the privacy of his own B and B room.

Privacy... He felt like he'd been on his own all day, and though he was tired, so tired - and he'd been that all day too - he'd give alot to spend the evening with Bodie. Didn't need to drink, or be entertained, just... yeah, just be with Bodie.

But Bodie didn't look like he wanted company. His face was averted, theoretically watching the road, and he'd been avoiding Doyle's eyes since they'd been left alone. He'd offered to fetch him some clothes, a cup of tea for while they were waiting, and Doyle had refused the first and accepted the second. He drained the styrofoam cup now, lukewarm but sweet at the bottom, and decided against throwing it showily at the plastic bin attached to the No Parking sign. He still didn't feel quite right, not clumsy as he had done earlier, but... wonky. A bit off. And somehow he didn't think that his missing the easy toss would make Bodie laugh today.

A car pulled up in front of them - Country Cabs - and Doyle slid onto the back seat, left the front for Bodie, though he was still the one who leant forward, gave the driver the name of the B and B.

"Heard they had some trouble there earlier," the driver said, all smiles and joviality, "Some poor cow killed herself - that's gonna put business off."

Doyle glared at him through the rear-view mirror, Bodie grunted, and the man left off.

Aarika... He didn't want to think about Aarika. She'd seemed so... normal. But then they were, weren't they - even that lot. They'd all worn nappies and been loved by their mums. Well, probably. And if he hadn't and he still went around killing people, well at least he knew he was on the right side of it all.

Of course, that's probably what they thought as well.

Oh, bollocks to it.

They pulled up in front of the bed and breakfast, and he left Bodie to pay without a twinge of conscience, not wanting to go rummaging in his carrier bag for his wallet. He paused on the steps though, turned around long enough to see Bodie's face as he looked up, up the building, to the attic windows that all looked the same from here, closed and safe, and hiding nothing more than too many wardrobes and a collection of moths. And the blood, of course, that had sprayed from Aarika's head when Bodie made his shot, probably still the writing on the wall in his own painfully-gotten gore, the damaged furniture that Bodie had forced his way through when Aarika raised the gun.

Don't look back, Doyle wanted to tell him, It'll turn you into...

No, he wouldn't let it.

"Drink?" he asked, as they pushed through the front door, casting a quick glance at the policeman over in the corner. On guard duty, or just waiting for some colleague still caught in the clean up? He didn't move though, didn't approach them, although the receptionist shot them a dark look from behind his desk. Great.

Bodie just shook his head, carried on upstairs, and shut the door to his room before Doyle had set foot on the landing.

Bollocks. Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks.

Now he had to rummage in the carrier bag, in the damp and grime of his clothes - shirt ruined where Aarika had pulled it from his waistband, tearing off buttons and ripping the thin cotton. Didn't know why he'd brought it away with him, actually. His room key was still safely in his back pocket, he remembered it digging into him as he lay on the floor. No reason why he should - funny the way the mind worked...

He let himself in, nearly tore off his paper outfit then and there, stopped himself just in time. Before anything else, he wanted a proper shower, not just a wash, but something to start getting rid of the whole day, to scald it off him. It wasn't cold, but he pulled out his moleskins anyway, a soft t-shirt and his big white cardigan, grabbed his washbag and key and headed back out. Showers were good for thinking too.

Steam filled the room before he stepped under the water, having peeled off the various wraps and bandages they'd plastered to him. He'd heal better open to the air, anyway, nothing was that bad, not even his stomach. She really hadn't had the will of a soldier, hadn't been able to cut him very deeply, must have squeezed and squeezed to get what she had from him.

He leaned back against the wall, let the water run over him, head, shoulders, chest and all the way down, hot enough to sting, to scourge. He watched it, for a while, running down his body and bouncing off the shower tray, then swirling away down the plug hole. All the day, off down the drain, except that people were a little bit safer, he was a little bit older, and Bodie...

Bodie. What he really wanted, he thought, was to take Bodie to bed, and fuck the day out of him, take them both so high that they couldn't remember their names for those few precious seconds when the world was made new again. Start all over again. But his cock was as tired and limp as the rest of him felt, the sort of tired where he knew nothing would help other than a good night's sleep.

If he could manage it, feeling Bodie's dark mood all the way across the corridor, seeing Aarika's face everywhere he looked, though now there was a bullet hole in her smooth forehead, more darkness.

They should get out of here.

Christ yes, why hadn't he thought of it before? He wanted to get out of here, to leave it all behind them. He'd pull Bodie out, play on his sympathy a bit probably, because even Bodie had that, and Doyle knew just where to find it when no one else could, and get them both somewhere they could start it all afresh. And he would not call in their whereabouts to Cowley.

There was no movement from Bodie's room when he went past, properly, dryly clad once more, though he paused to listen at the door. Flaked out already? Well if he was it was still barely seven o'clock, he'd be awake again with a good kick.

It took him nearly half an hour to find a bed and breakfast far away on the other side of the M5, landlocked, bound by hills and forests, and importantly - I'm ever so sorry, but it's all I've got - with a single double-bedded room available.

He hung up the phone, scribbled down the rest of the directions, and then he went back upstairs.

Bodie roused to a knocking at the door, to the sure knowledge of who it would be, and if it weren't for the fact that Doyle could give the Bruce's spider lessons in persistence, he would have let it go unanswered. He gave up his contemplation of the ceiling, scrubbed his hands over his face, and took a breath. He had no idea what to say to Doyle - so was it her you wanted to shag, before she drugged you and threatened to kill you, or me? Since she's gone, shall we just carry on? Do you want to go home?

He nearly did. It would be easier to go home, to forget they'd ever tried to come away, ever decided that this, this would be their week, for themselves. But then... he'd remember Doyle kissing him on the beach, the brush of his lips, and he'd remember Doyle held close in his arms, breathing against him, breathing with him as he came. How much had he made up in his optimism, how much was just confusion and sex and pity? And Cowley, playing with their lives again...

The door rattled once more, and he stomped heavily across the floor, pulling it open with all the force he could manage. "What?"

Doyle looked exhausted still, much as he had that morning in fact, just that morning. But he also had that determined look on his face, which inevitably meant Bodie was about to be exhausted with him. "C'n I 'ave a word?"

Bodie left the door open, turned around and stuck his hands in his pockets, caught sight of the sea and the sky through the window, calmer now after their earlier lashing fury, and turned back to Doyle.

"Look, I know it's getting on a bit, but are you desperate to stay on here tonight?"

"Eh?" Not what he'd been expecting.

"I mean would you mind if we moved on tonight? Was just thinking that I've seen enough of that view for a while."

He'd been reading Bodie's mind again. "Your room doesn't face the seafront."

"Yeah I know but... Look I know it sounds a bit daft but I'd just as soon find somewhere else to stay." Getting stroppy now, belligerent. "Tonight. Might actually get some sleep for a change, then."

"Thought you liked the beach?"

"Yeah, I do, but..."

Doyle had never run away from anything in his life - what was he up to?

"Thought it might be more restful if we were somewhere else. Somewhere a bit further away from work. You know Cowley's got our number here now."

"He's probably bugged everything we own anyway," Bodie said perversely, though he'd felt relief flood through him at the idea of leaving. And maybe it did make sense, Doyle always hashed things over and over after a case, maybe he needed to be somewhere with no ties, no connections to Aarika and it all, as much as Bodie did. "Yeah, alright then."

"There's no point making it easier for him... Yeah?"

"Yeah, why not?" Bodie said, liking the way that Doyle's face seemed to relax with just that much concession. He tried a smile, knowing that even if it wasn't quite right Doyle would appreciate the gesture. "Let's get out of this lousy city."

"Great." He reached behind him and down, disappearing from view for a moment, and then reappearing with his bag slung over his shoulder. "Right, get a move on!"

Bodie did smile at that, ruefully, at being pre-empted again. Bugger knew they always ended up doing what he wanted. Well, unless Bodie wanted something. He pulled his bag out and began throwing in his dirty clothes, his washbag, his book and his Walkman. After a moment's hesitation he took off his jacket, tucked his gun safely way amidst his pants and socks, took off his holster and put that in as well. Then he did up the zip, put his jacket back on, and took one last look around the room.

Less than three minutes, not bad. He looked at Doyle quizzically, and Doyle twisted his lips in a half smile and nodded him towards the door.

Five minutes later they were on the road again, and Doyle was explaining exactly how far he was expected to drive that night.

"Somerset? Why the hell d'you choose Somerset?" And when did you choose Somerset? They'd not even been back an hour.

"Dunno," Doyle shrugged, looked out the window where the hedges and fields were rushing past them in a blur of green and yellow. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. And there was a leaflet. Looked pretty. First one I picked up."

"Oh yeah? Let's see it then."

"Didn't bring it with," Doyle said, sounding shocked, "Someone else might have wanted it."

Bodie shot him a dubious glance, which went completely unnoticed. "Be packed then, this place - best B and B in the south west, eh?"

"It's only got one room."

"Sharing?"

"Unless you fancy sleeping in the bath, yeah!" Doyle growled, "Give it a rest, Bodie, I didn't fancy ringing around a dozen places, and this one was there, alright?"

"Alright, alright, keep your hair on. I've shared with worse..."

Doyle's turn to look at him and then away again, and Bodie concentrated on the road. Sharing a room? Yeah, maybe... Maybe that'd be okay. Be late when they got there, Doyle'd probably go straight to bed, no need to talk, no need to do anything, but... he'd be there. And maybe by morning he'd have figured it out.

Bodie's mood lightened on the road, as it seemed to when he was behind the wheel. He felt better for moving, for speeding from road to road, for taking chances on the corners, and overtaking the odd tractor. They drove into clearer skies, grey cloud slashed through to a rich blue underneath, then to giant thunderheads anvilling above them, and finally to smaller, scudding clouds that passed quickly from horizon to horizon. There'd been no storm inland, Bodie guessed, just a slight wildness of weather, wind-touched at the edges.

The landscape changed too, though he hadn't thought it would, became smaller, the world more compact. Suddenly there were hills in every distance, and as they followed Doyle's instructions they were surrounded by trees, crossed a stone bridge over sunset-touched water, passed the village church, and finally wound their way down a farm lane to Brockhold Cottage.

"Doyle, there are roses by the front door."

Doyle looked up from his scribbled notes, where he'd been trying to remember the name of their new landlady.

"And if I'm not very much mistaken, that's..."

"Lavender!" Doyle's smile was like seeing the sun come out again.

"Where have you brought us? Cowley's mum's?"

"God, can you imagine what it would take to produce the Cow?"

Bodie thought about it. "He probably just turned up one morning, on the doorstep with the milk."

"Switched at birth, like Damien. Probably curdled the milk," Doyle added, with a vicious twist to his voice, so that Bodie punched his thigh lightly, then left his hand there and turned it into a light shake.

"Come on then, let's go see if we need to get the garlic and silver bullets out."

It was late - Doyle had warned her it might be - but their hostess had left a light on for them, shining brightly in the dusk, and she was at the door moments after they'd rung the bell, which hung on a gleaming brass chain beside the roses.

"Miss Bennett?"

"Mr Doyle! And you must be Mr Bodie. It's so nice to see you! Do come in out of the cold. I know it's not really cold, but you do feel it more when you get older, and..."

Bodie exchanged an amused look with Doyle, whose lips were quirking dangerously, and followed the chattering woman down the corridor.

"...no Mr Bennett, but at my age that's rather a blessing. I have my cats, of course, and you know they're quite protective of me, and then there's Mr Windus over in The Gables who pops in now and then, and of course the guests, so I'm never on my own. Now, would you like a cup of tea and perhaps some cake to see you off to bed?" She turned around suddenly inside a big, rather old-fashioned kitchen, and clasped her hands together, looking at them beseechingly.

It wasn't in him to say no.

But she put two cups of tea on a tray, elegant in their saucers with the gilt edging and the young Queen, and four thick slices of fruitcake on matching plates, a sugar bowl and a milk jug, and then preceded them with it upstairs.

"...will try to be up in time to cook you a good breakfast, though I'm usually in bed by now, so perhaps you won't mind if it's a bit later? I'm ever so sorry about the room, though I'm glad you called because I know most of the rooms in the village are gone, maybe all of them now, and you'd probably have to go as far as... There now." With a practiced elbow she pushed down on a dark doorlatch, set in creamy white paint, and led them in. "Will this do you?"

Bodie peered in at the room with its wooden floors and rugs, its flowered curtains and bedspread, the tiny sink in the corner, and clenched his teeth.

"Lovely, Mrs B," Doyle was saying, taking the tray from her and placing it on a table by the window. "Would you like us to bring the tray down...?"

"Oh, not tonight, tomorrow morning will be just fine. Now - what time would you like breakfast?"

"Would you mind if we were a bit late ourselves tomorrow?" Doyle asked, "Maybe - not until nine?"

"Bless you no, you're on holiday, you be as lazy as you like! Now, there's a cock lives over at The Gables, but don't let him bother you, and if I draw the curtains for you," she suited actions to words, "Then the room will stay quite dark. The bathroom is just down the hallway, and it's your own, I'm all on the bottom floor now. I won't come up while you're here, and I'll keep the cats down with me, otherwise they like to visit. Goodnight!"

And she was gone, a whirlwind of Lily of the Valley and silver hair stuck through with what looked like knitting needles.

Doyle was avoiding his eyes.

A double bed? Doyle had booked them into a room with a double bed?

He didn't even have to say it, Doyle finally turned and confronted him, in an aggressive hiss. "I didn't know it was a double! She said she had a room for two!"

"And did you happen to mention that we were two fellas?"

He shrugged. "Didn't think of it. Just said two of us."

Fuck. Well, it was a decent sized double, high and old and soft looking, piled with blankets and pillows.

"You snore, I push you out."

"Mate, you push me out I probably won't even notice."

Bodie let out a breath and they smiled reluctantly at each other. He looked at his watch. Quarter to eleven. God the bed looked good, no matter that Doyle would be in it with him. He made himself eat a piece of cake, drink his tea, and then he gave in. It had been another long day.

Doyle vanished down the corridor with his cuppa to the bathroom, so Bodie brushed his teeth, got undressed, and slid under the bedcovers. By the time Doyle got back, he was asleep.

He woke to the feel of Bodie pressed all along his back, to their legs tangled together and to Bodie's breath on his shoulder. Bodie's hand lay on his hip, half on skin, half on the cloth of his pyjama bottoms, warm and heavy, and sending gentle sparks straight to his groin. Could be anyone he thought, he was comfortable and relaxed and he always woke up hard, always woke up wanting it... And he was half asleep still, and Bodie was breathing deeply beside him, so if he wanted to imagine that Bodie's hand was pressing him in place, wanted to imagine Bodie's other hand was holding his wrists together, keeping him from moving away, restraining him while Bodie leaned up over him... If he wanted to imagine Bodie lowering himself, his whole body, over Doyle, the way his cock would feel against his own, slick and gently thrusting, the way Bodie's lips would feel on his mouth, his tongue and...

And then he was thrusting up against the blankets involuntarily, wanting for one delirious second, to push his cock against Bodie's hand, so that Bodie might grasp him without knowing, and damn the reality of it, damn the consequences...

No. He pressed his lips together against the strange whimper in his throat, rolled up to a sitting position, out of bed, to the window.

Fuck.

Behind him Bodie shifted in the bed, obviously disturbed by the movement, maybe even by his breathing, which was loud in his own ears, his heartbeat, his pulse a din that must surely be heard all around the room.

"Alright, mate?"

Bodie sounded slurred, sleepy still, and Doyle checked his watch. Just gone half eight. Breathe normally he told himself, nothing happened. Bodie didn't know what he'd been thinking, he didn't know how close Doyle had been to rolling over and coming all over him...

"Yeah," he pulled at the curtains, "Nice day out there." He was still hard. He'd turn around and Bodie'd see that he was still hard. "You sleep alright?"

"Christ, yeah."

He did turn at that, at the lush sound of Bodie's voice, and caught him stretching, chest and stomach above the blankets, arms reaching out to either corner of the bed, head back, body arching upwards, legs splayed and clearly outlined under the covers, and there... Oh, there. Bodie was clearly hard too, pushing upwards against the blankets just as Doyle had imagined doing against Bodie...

His breath caught, and he swallowed. His washkit was in his bag somewhere, he needed to find it, he'd go down to the bathroom and...

Too late. Bodie'd opened his eyes, relaxed back onto the mattress, and was eyeing him frankly.

"How's your..?" Bodie nodded at him, and Doyle swallowed again, looked down involuntarily.

"I..." He looked back up, feeling heat on his cheeks, and he hadn't blushed since he was a kid, this was ridiculous.

A quizzical look from Bodie, and then a widening smile. "Your wound, Ray, the great gash that bitch took from your stomach. What did you think I meant?"

His... Relief rushed through him, through every part of him, and he could feel himself relax at last, feel tension leave him that he'd barely known was there. He looked down again and caught the thin slash of red across his skin, the odd patch of bruising, some new, mostly yellow and faded now.

"Never like to think, with you," he managed, and then he laughed, at himself, at the glee on Bodie's face. "My wound is fine ta - forgot it was there." And he had, it was just another scratch now, just another day at work. Sleep that knits the ravelled sleeve of care - what was that, Shakespeare? Bodie'd know.

And he could walk now, over to the sink, rummage for his toothbrush and turn the water on. So he still wanted Bodie - he'd known that, that's why they were here. He was just going to take it slow, take it easy, talk Bodie back into the bed together in a way that meant he'd never want to leave.

Never want to leave?

He paused, toothbrush stilled, and eyed himself in the mirror. Half-caught in the reflection behind him, Bodie moved in and out of view, getting out of bed himself, looking out the window, taking his watch off and picking up his towel and toiletbag.

Well why not? It wasn't as if he'd been imagining the team ever separating, a new partner at work. Why wouldn't they stick together in this as well?

He brushed again at his teeth, spat, rinsed, watched Bodie shuffle towards the door and off to the bathroom.

First things first - breakfast, decide what they wanted to do today. Take it easy.

He managed to be dressed and back at the window by the time Bodie reappeared, half an eye on the time, and they were five minutes early going downstairs.

"There you are!" Miss Bennett exclaimed, as if she'd been looking forward to their arrival, as if they were long lost friends. "Now, the kettle's just boiled, so let me get you some tea, and would you like a full English breakfast? I've got sausages, bacons, mushrooms and tomatoes, eggs of course and you can have them any way you please, I'll fry some bread, and there's beans if you like them..."

Doyle left Bodie to nod happily for both of them, and sat down at the table. A ginger cat wandered over and eyed him thoughtfully, before leaping up to his lap and butting her head against his chest.

"...Oh, and don't mind Sam, he's a bit of a tramp really, wants to be the centre of attention. Throw him off if you like, he's used to it. The other two are around somewhere, I feed them first thing, so they were a bit cross with me this morning for being late, but..."

Doyle ignored Bodie's amused look, ran a hand along Sam's back so that he purred, presented his arse and flicked his tail, and then sat carefully and precisely down, settling in to be stroked. Doyle obliged, liking his warmth and weight and the vibrations of pure contentment that seemed to run through them both. Miss Bennett put a cup of tea in front of him with a grandmotherly smile, then went back to the range in the corner, with its sputtering frying pan.

Bodie leaned over while her back was turned. "You reckon her sister's making room down in the cellar?"

Doyle choked on his tea, spluttering and leaning forward to put his cup down so that he could wipe his mouth. Sam stood up on his lap, wobbled precariously, gave him an unimpressed look, and jumped down again, vanished through the door outside.

Bodie grinned at him unrepentantly, and Doyle shook his head. Arsenic and Old Lace. "I know what I'd do with the brother's bugle," he said threateningly, making Bodie's grin even broader.

He sniffed, took another mouthful of tea, and leaned back again in his chair. The room was flooded with sunshine, and it smelled of bacon and sausage and every now and then of the flowers that were in the middle of the table. How did he know immediately what Bodie was talking about, but had no idea what he was thinking about them?

"Are there any good walks around here, Miss B?" he asked, and tried to focus on her chatter, her directions, and descriptions. Several, by the sounds, and Bodie hadn't looked too taken aback by the idea. He could do with some gentle exercise, the kind where the biggest cropper they were likely to come involved tripping over his own feet, and there was maybe a pub and a long lazy lunch in the middle.

"...so even if you do get lost anyone in the valley will know where I am." She divided the contents of her frying pan evenly between two plates, used a tea towel to pick them up, and brought them carefully to the table. "Be careful, they're hot from the stove. Now, are you planning to stay another night? I wouldn't normally ask until later, but I'm planning to pop over to my sister's, and if I do that I'll probably stay and come back tomorrow morning with Dai the Milk. He's from Wales, is Dai, lovely lad, and he never minds giving me a lift if I ask him in enough time. I could do you breakfast at the same time tomorrow then. But if you're going to stay tonight I'll give you a key to lock up, that way I won't need to worry about things..."

He caught Bodie's eye, shrugged, and Bodie nodded back at him before taking his mouthful of fried bread, egg and bacon and chewing happily.

"If you're sure you don't mind having two strangers here on their own..." Doyle began. Did she make a habit of doing that? He was surprised she hadn't been cleaned out half a dozen times, if she did.

"Oh, I don't think I need to worry with you two, do I? she said cheerily. "You've got that look about you. Now, there's a funfair in the village tonight, if you fancy popping down to see that, and Richard down at The Star runs a quiz night on Fridays too. Other than that it's fairly quiet here, but The Star and The Old Forge both do a good meal. I'd avoid The Duke for food, to be honest. Would you like some more toast?"

Doyle shook his head at the same time Bodie nodded and winked at him, and he set into his own breakfast with a will. A funfair, a pub close by, and the place to themselves all night. Last chance. Surely there wasn't anything else that could go wrong?

"We are not lost." How many times did he have to tell him? "I know exactly where we are."

"Where are we then?"

"About five miles from Exmoor that way," he flung an arm extravagantly to the right, "And if you kept walking straight back behind us you'd hit the sea."

"And the village is?"

"The village, my son," Bodie began, playing for time as they tramped up the final feet to the brow of the hill. And there it was, spread out before them in the valley below. "The village is..."

"Straight on 'til morning?" Doyle shot him a look that Bodie couldn't quite interpret, then let it dissolve into a grin. "Jammy sod."

Yeah, well... He tipped his head and grinned back in silent acknowledgement, which was all Doyle would ever get out of him if it killed him, and paused to survey the countryside in front of them. Doyle stopped just behind him, standing close, and they looked quietly for a moment.

This was better. They'd walked miles, they'd eaten well, and now the afternoon sun shone golden rays upon them, he could feel it soaking into his bare arms, and through the cotton of his t-shirt. They hadn't even brought jackets, and he'd half expected to end up soaking wet in some bizarre flash flood, but it hadn't happened, Somerset had lived up to its name. It was green though, everywhere he looked, so he supposed rain did some good.

The sky stretched, glorious blue, above them, and he imagined flying on a day like today, the fields laid out below, patched around with their hedges and their roads and fences, basking in the summer sun. Be good that, take Doyle up, just the two of them with all of the air to play in. He'd love it. Should get him out skydiving one day too.

He was about to open his mouth to suggest it, when he felt Doyle's arms slide slyly around his waist, first one, then the other. For a moment he stopped breathing, half-wondering if he was imagining it, dreaming it so that if he moved, if he blinked, the loose clasp of them would vanish, would never have been. He closed his eyes for a moment instead, remembered to let his breath out as slowly as he could, and then he lifted his own arms, crossing them so that he could hold onto Doyle's, could press them more firmly in place. He heard Doyle exhale, felt the soft gust on his neck, and gripped his arms still more tightly.

In the distance a tiny red tractor set off across a field, sound blown in some other direction, straight and true and steady. Miniature cars rushed along a road, silver flashes that vanished behind hedges and trees, winding their way east, the long road towards London, perhaps. It seemed, suddenly, finally, a long way away.

"Not bad, is it?" Doyle said at last, still looking over his shoulder at the hills and dales and spires of the land. His voice was low, and very serious.

"Worse places I can think of," Bodie agreed, and he didn't move except to tighten his arms again. "Stay put for a while, if you like. Probably all kinds of things we could do."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah. People get up to all sorts in these places, you know."

"That right?" He could hear a smile now, in Doyle's voice. "Out here in the country?"

"It's visitors," he said, and shook his head sadly, "Bringing their depravities from the big smoke." Right, chance it. "Show you tonight, if you like."

Doyle was quiet, and he wondered if he'd taken it too far, too fast, he'd forgotten his campaign...

Fuck the campaign. Lightning attack? No... Suddenly he knew it, the one thing that would guarantee victory.

"Nearly had a heart attack when I saw you bleeding everywhere yesterday. Maybe we should stop mucking around."

He felt Doyle still behind him, as if he'd stopped breathing now too. Maybe it was too much, maybe they'd taken it further than they should... No. Do it.

"You sure? Nearly got us killed. Not paying attention."

"That was the mucking around."

"Yeah..." Doyle's voice was still low. Unsure?

"Look, let's..." Do it. "...I think we should give it a proper go. See where it takes us, eh?"

He closed his eyes and waited.

Surrender.

Then he felt himself squeezed, and Doyle's arms slid away, his sleeve was tugged to get him moving down the hill.

"Doyle..."

"Show me this afternoon," Doyle said, casting a look back over his shoulder, "If you're up to it after all that grub for lunch..."

Yes. And there it was, surrender and victory both. He'd done it. He felt himself smile, felt his whole body become a smile, light and free and - say it, why not? - in love.

"That, Raymundo, was protein for energy..."

Doyle grinned back, the same kind of smile, stretching all around them both. "You're going to need that..."

Yes.

They jostled their way down the hill and along the road, arrived at the driveway just in time for a smart red Cavalier to pull up beside them, Miss Bennett frantically winding down her window.

"Now, I've left you milk in the fridge for tea, and there's more of that fruit cake in the tin on the table. Oh, and Abby and Ginger and Sam have been fed, so you don't need to worry about them. Is there anything else you need? I'll be back with the milk tomorrow morning..."

"Got everything we need," Doyle said, leaning against the car with one arm, smiling blindingly at Miss Bennett and her companion, and Bodie smiled again himself. His bloody face would crack at this rate, but then again, who cared?

“Everything,” he nodded, wanting to say it. “Have a good time, and don’t worry about a thing.”

“Oh I won’t – goodnight!”

They stepped back onto the grass of the verge, brilliant with yellow daisies and fluffed with dandelions, waved at the car as it turned left at the end of the track.

“Did you tell her we were coppers?”

“She already knew,” Doyle admitted. “You heard her this morning.”

“Ah, it shines out of you mate, that streak of justice.”

Doyle looked at him, waiting, Bodie knew, for the punchline.

“And you always know what time it is…” He was off even before he’d said it, pounding down the driveway with Doyle hard on his heels, and he only realised his mistake when he crashed into the front door, closed, locked, solid. Doyle slid to a stop on the path behind him as he fumbled for their key, attacked with prodding, poking fingers, so that he retaliated in kind, and they scuffled beside the roses, nearly fell into the lavender. Doyle caught him just before he overbalanced, righted them both, paused with his hands on Bodie’s arms, their faces close. Their breath came quickly, their eyes met, and then Doyle let him go, conscious perhaps of the sun on their backs, the eyes of the countryside all around.

“Inside,” he said, and Doyle gave a quick nod, led them back to the door, waited patiently for Bodie to find the key again, to turn it in the lock, to let them indoors.

But not too fast, they'd get it right this time, for once and for all. Patience, anticipation...

“Cup of tea?” he asked. “Could do with a bath too.”

“Why not?” Doyle said lightly, “I’ll shower while you make the tea…”

“Oi!”

“…come scrub your back later?”

That was better. He grinned again, couldn’t help it. “You’re on.”

Doyle took the stairs up, two, three at a time, and Bodie watched him disappear around the corner, then wandered through the kitchen to the back garden. He stood basking in the sunshine for a while, thinking of all the ways that life was about to improve, and when he heard the electric hum of the shower switch off, he stretched and went back in to put the kettle on, to rummage for milk and sugar and decent sized mugs. When the tea had steeped, when Doyle still didn't appear, he put the lot on a tray and went to find him.

The door to the downstairs sitting room was open - now you must come and watch the television whenever you like - and Doyle was lying in a stripe of sunshine, asleep on his side on the couch. Abby had curled herself up against his stomach, and Ginger had worked his way into the crook behind his knees. All three looked comfortable, content. Happy.

Damn. That'd teach him to have patience. To anticipate.

He left the tray on a coffee table beside the couch, picked up his own mug, and took it upstairs to run his bath.

Doyle woke from deep sleep, knowing that someone was watching him, and for the first time in days everything felt right with his world. It was Bodie sitting in the armchair opposite, flicking through a magazine, Bodie who'd thrown a scratchy, home-crocheted blanket over him as he slept on, Bodie who was exactly where he should be. He was warm, and he was comfortable, and there had been a pleasant haze of anticipation to his dreams, of everything still to come. He breathed in, yawned, and Bodie's eyes flicked up.

"Sleeping beauty awakes."

He rubbed hands across his face, feeling the slight start of stubble already, feeling sleep-ruffled, anything but a beauty. Sarcastic bastard. A gently smiling sarcastic bastard, mind.

"Yeah... Time is it?" The light outside the windows had dimmed and softened, though it was still there, he hadn't slept the night away.

"Dinnertime. Shift yourself and we might make it to the pub before they stop serving, eh?"

He swung himself to sit, then to stand, reaching up and out with a groan to stretch away the kinks. When he opened his eyes again Bodie was still watching him, and the gentle smile was still there, but there was something else, something in his eyes that spoke of lust and danger and those moments in an op when he didn't know for sure which way things would fall. Anticipation, exultation and the world tipped sideways.

He smiled.

They walked together under dusky skies, along the farm road, and then through tree-hung paths past the church and the dark-windowed post office to The Old Forge. It was quiet inside, the youth of the village already away at the funfair, making the most of their Friday night, and they ordered chicken chasseur and beef bourguignon, and a bottle of deep red wine.

Time twined around them, became something private, something between the two of them, so that a second staring into Bodie's eyes before he blinked seemed like eternity, the hour they spent eating, drinking and chatting to the barmaids, was gone in a flash, and then they were wandering down the road towards the glare and whirl of the funfair themselves.

The sky had darkened still further, though the night stayed velvet warm - there'll be rain later, promised this local, that farmer - and the stars were bright but somehow muted, golden. Eventually they were eclipsed entirely by the lights of the Merry-go-rounds and the Ferris wheel, the hot dog vans and Dodgems. It was cheap, and tawdry and made to be enjoyed, and so they did. Together they flew through the grassy funfair paths, past stalls, from ride to sideshow to ride, revolving around each other, an exclusive Waltzer that danced to its own music.

Bodie talked him into volunteering for the kissing booth - It's for charity! - then tossed the girls in charge a ten pound note and followed him into its darkness to their gasping shock and roaring laughter. Doyle made a show of shouting, of bouncing them from wall to wall in laughing struggle, in the tiny, dark booth, and all the time he reached for Bodie's mouth, pressed himself against his body, listened to the whispered promises in his ear. Tonight, they said, tonight... When they finally emerged, clothes dishevelled and breath ragged, he made sure to kiss each one of the girls who'd lined up for their giggling turn, then watched Bodie do the same, the way his lips smiled before he kissed, the way his hands stroked and held. He imagined the girls watching him kiss Bodie, watching him undress Bodie and fall to his knees and take him into his mouth, right there in the fairground.

The hurdy-gurdy played on, they bought candy floss and won coconuts, and eventually they slowed, and laughed more quietly, and rode the Ferris Wheel. At the very top, paused for a family of six to stagger back to the ground on shaky legs, Doyle kissed him again, where no one and everyone could see them, and he felt Bodie's heart beating through the pulse in his wrists, held him stilled, captured against him.

Ray Bodie whispered again by his ear, Let's go home...

Time stretched again, and rushed, and toyed with them. The road back was longer and shorter than it had been, trees convenient for lazy pauses, shadowed deeply enough for Bodie's hands to untuck Doyle's shirt, for Doyle's arms to wind around and press them hard together, for his fingers to find their way into Bodie's waistband, his palms across Bodie's arse, no cloth between them there. Bodie moaned and kissed him again, and then pushed him back, and they meandered their way, shoulder brushing shoulder, to the next set of shadows, the next illicit touch and tormenting embrace.

Until finally they reached the house, with its light on in the kitchen window, its cats winding sinuously around each other in welcome as they stumbled through the door, and its single, private, guest bedroom with its own lock, and its beckoning double bed.

The door closed with a snick behind them, the world quieted, time righted itself.

Now.

Strangely nervous, Doyle swallowed, watched as Bodie walked to the side of the bed and then turned back to face him, was still. For a moment they breathed softly into the room, eyes locked, though Doyle knew he could see everything around them, could feel every atom of air that brushed his skin.

Now.

He made himself move, made himself approach, made himself reach up a hand to Bodie's cheek, pull him forward and into another kiss, Bodie's lips real and firm against his. Bodie kissed him back, slid arms around his waist, then up and down his back, then lower... He pressed them together, so that he could feel Bodie's cock hard against him, just as he had in the cupboard, in the stupid, ridiculous, wonderful cupboard.

"Doyle this is nice, but..."

But...?

But he couldn't move back after all, because Bodie's hands were tugging at his jacket, were struggling to lift his t-shirt over arms that were struggling now to undo Bodie's own clothes, his shirt, his trousers...

...but they would be better off naked, standing together. Naked.

Hands and arms and cloth and zips and buttons tangled, and they giggled, kissed at the same time, and laughed at that too. Finally he slapped Bodie's hands away, and pulled off his own t-shirt, heeled off his trainers and socks, peeled away his jeans, and when he looked up, skin alive in the warmth of the room, there was Bodie before him, equally unclothed.

At last.

This time it was Bodie who stepped forward, all long muscles and pale skin and hard, solid cock. He buried his face in Doyle's hair, ran his hands over Doyle's arse again and again, palming his buttocks, letting his fingers slide between them until Doyle thought he'd be driven mad. He gasped, pulled back, amazed that he hadn't come already, a hundred times, this night. Bodie murmured a protest, then let himself be pushed down to the bed, Doyle straddling him for a moment, looking down at their cocks reaching side by side together, a matched pair, straining and wanting and...

They gave in at the same moment, Bodie pulling them tightly together just as Doyle let his weight down to lie full length on top of him, their legs twining together for leverage, their mouths meeting again. Doyle wanted to fuck him, wanted to be fucked by Bodie, but it was impossible to stop this movement, this gasping and moaning and dance of skin against skin, slick together with sweat and need, sliding perfectly in time, thrusting once more, surely just once more, and...

It gathered, took his breath, opened him to all the light and music there ever was in time and space, that one primal, perfect moment, and he shared it with Bodie, with Bodie watching him, with Bodie groaning his name and then coming under him, a pounding of hearts and muscles and oxygen as they collapsed, together, on the candlewick bedspread, on the double bed, in a house in Somerset.

And when his breathing had slowed, when his skin and his heart and his senses were his own again, Doyle opened his eyes, and there was Bodie watching him. He reached back, pulled the covers across so that they were cocooned together, and then he smiled, and he leaned in and kissed him, and then he let them drift away, in the darkness, to their dreams.

The pale promise of dawn found them still on top of the bedclothes, too content to move. It washed across them, slid cool golden fingers along their skin, over shoulders and thighs and feet, set them pulling at blankets and pressing close together. Arms wrapped around backs, legs tangled together with legs, lying cock to hard cock it set them moving again in a warm half-dream before waking, where every press of skin on skin sent shocks of want and need and yes rushing through them. It was more than just lust, and it was more than just being hard in the morning; it was breathing together, and hearts beating together, blood pounding together, and it was knowing that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow were waiting for them, summer without end.

May 2009