przed | Fic: Breathe (Pros, B/D)

Title: Breathe
Fandom: Pros
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Notes: This started out as an answer to the

teaandswissroll Weekly Obbo "Blow" challenge, but didn't get finished in time. Thanks to

callistosh65 for making sure all i's were dotted and t's crossed.

The sun was setting, bathing the old Victorian pile of brick that was Charing Cross station in gentle oranges and purples. Ignoring the dwindling commotion behind him, Doyle watched the colours change until they settled, finally, into the deep indigo of twilight.

It had been one hell of a day. A fucking awful day, with gunshots and blood and screams breaking the cheerful bustle of an autumn Sunday on the South Bank. More than one innocent bystander had ended up in hospital, and one family would be forever without a mother.

Fucking bastards, mistaking terror for politics. The stupidity never got any easier to deal with, to justify. He wasn't even sure what this lot had wanted.

He drew in a deep lungful of air and blew it out, willing his body to relax, willing his fingers to release their death's grip on the railing in front of him.

"Penny for 'em." Doyle jumped as Bodie's breath tickled his ear.

"They're not worth a tenth that," Doyle said, keeping his eyes firmly across the river and resolutely away from his partner.

"C'mon. It's not as bad as all that. We saved more than we lost."

"We blew it, Bodie. That woman died. Out for a day with her family, and she died. And some of the others are barely hanging on."

"Leave the others to the NHS, can't you?" There was a touch—tentative, testing—on Doyle's elbow. "Let's go home, Ray. Even Cowley's gone. Just a few of the lab boys hanging about now."

"You can drop me off at my flat. I'm not going to be fit company for anyone tonight."

"You never are." The grip on his elbow became firmer. "It's never stopped me before."

He turned and looked at his partner, uncertain which Bodie he'd find: soldier or poet, lover or fool. Bodie's face was impassive. A bloody block of wood would show more emotion, Doyle thought bitterly.

Then, like a north Atlantic wind blowing an impenetrable fog from the ocean, Bodie's expression transformed, revealing his compassion. But only to Doyle, who after all these years was as adept at reading Bodie as young able seaman Bodie had been at reading ocean storms.

He caught at Bodie's forearm, his grip intimate for all that it would go unremarked by the lab boys behind them.

"Why do you put up with me?" He squeezed Bodie's arm, taking comfort in the feel of leather and flesh and bone in his grip.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Because you're tall, dark, and beautiful, you great berk. But why do you put up with me."

Bodie stared at him, and Doyle felt himself examined, measured, and judged. He held his breath, waiting for the verdict. It wasn't long coming. "Because you're honourable, Ray. You're the most honourable man I know." Bodie paused and his gaze flicked briefly behind Doyle's shoulder, thousands of miles away. "After what I've seen, that means a lot."

"Pillock." It wasn't what he really wanted to say, but it would do for now. Judging by the look on his face, Bodie understood what he really meant.

"Still want me to take you back to your flat?"

"Yeah, but you're coming with me." He turned away from the river and headed back to where they'd left Bodie's car, far too many hours ago. "I've got food in. You haven't."

"Have you got anything in for afters?" Bodie was trotting beside him, a ridiculous grin on his face.

"I might do, but it doesn't involve food." Doyle turned what he hoped was a suitably lascivious smile on his partner. Bodie's response was to move even faster.

As Bodie pulled away from the kerb, Doyle felt himself breathing easily for the first time since they'd received the call out this afternoon. This was how he could stay on the job, how he could keep it up day after day, knowing he was going to see the worst of humanity served up as one glorious, vulgar banquet. Because Bodie was always there, ready to knock some sense into him, ready to show him how good things could be, ready to hold him and fuck him and love him.