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Backing Away
by
Callisto
“A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life.” -Harold and Maude-
“Stop fidgeting."
Doyle looked at the man driving. "Why?"
"Eh?"
"I said, 'why'? I'm not driving, you are. What does it matter to you if I fidget? You try diving into a pile of bricks and see what that does to your bum."
Doyle held his breath . . . and then had to let it out quietly through his teeth. Shit. If a remark like that was going to sail by unexploited, then something was rotten in the state of Bodie. He looked across to where his partner’s gaze was locked on the road ahead. Sleeved arms at a steady ten to two on the steering wheel, head turning right for traffic and left for him. Somewhere along the line that handsome profile had become the cornerstone of his life. An image of the man so ingrained he had even tried to draw it once. Not that he was planning on sharing that sentimental gem anytime soon.
Caught by another sudden ache, Doyle swore and cast all sentiment aside as he flexed his left leg as much as space allowed. Fucking bricks. He’d banged and skinned himself up a treat protecting Queen and country today. Still, all fixable. A soak, a bit of savlon, a hot meal, and then he’d have a go at fucking some decent conversation back into his partner. Relieved to see they’d arrived outside his flat, Doyle winced his way out of the car and stuck two fingers up behind him at the obligatory ‘Grandad’ remark. Once on the pavement he took a few seconds to stretch and crick a few things back into place. Bodie could go do the honours with the chippy this evening. He turned—
To find the engine still running, the driver’s door closed and Bodie not on the pavement. He forgot his aches and bent down to the open passenger window.
“Bodie? What’s the-”
“Look, I’ve got things to do this evening, mate. You’ll be all right from here, yeah? Have an early night and I’ll pick you up tomorrow, usual time.”
And with a grind of gears, Bodie peeled off, leaving Doyle with his mouth open, and the brake lights of the Capri winking at him.
******
One burst of temper later and Doyle was sucking the blood out of yet another cut and glaring at a badly chipped mug in the sink. He’d had something to eat, so he should have his bath, a restorative kip and just go to fucking bed. But no, here he was, throwing things around and letting Bodie get to him. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t know what was up with Mr Washing-My-Hair-Tonight. Bodie’d heard the shot from above, seen Doyle twist, but had had to wait—what, about four minutes?—until the lads on the roof had finally taken Mitchell out and the pair of them could stick their heads up again. The second Doyle had seen that chalk-white face pound up, felt those hands haul him up and heard that yell in his ear, he should’ve twigged the road ahead, especially when the monosyllabic grunts had started and his jokes were ignored.
Doyle picked the pieces of mug out of the sink while he listened to the slow, loud tick of the kitchen wall clock and thought about those four minutes.
He grabbed his jacket and keys off the table and was out the back door before common sense could change his mind.
******
“Will you get off the doorbell? Thought you were having an early night anyw-”
And that was as far as Doyle let him get. He took a deep breath and got the pair of them into the dimly lit hall by the simple act of kissing Bodie back through it. He toe-heeled the door shut behind him, leaning in as he did so and fully prepared for the push on his shoulders when it came.
“What the . . . Doyle!” Bodie was a foot away, barefoot and shirtless in his tracksuit bottoms and breathing hard. He at least did Doyle the courtesy of not wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, but the decision to push rather than punch had clearly been a close one.
So Doyle, being Doyle, did it again.
“Will you get the fuck off me! I don’t-”
“-kiss. Yeah, I know. You said.” And he had. Two weeks previously adrenaline, alcohol, and knowledge of an experimental past each had always hinted at, had found them too close on Bodie’s settee to do anything but move closer. Which they had, in a frantic scrabbling of shirts out of waistbands and cocks out of trousers. On his way to the fastest piece of heaven in a long while, Doyle had moved in for a kiss only to have Bodie hold him off and bite his neck instead. Which had rocketed him over the edge and into the shocked need to do it all again as soon as possible. On the condition there would be no kissing, though, because Bodie simply didn’t kiss blokes. Ever. Too stunned and sated to think, Doyle had accepted that bald statement immediately, not minding in the slightest when Bodie had then used his mouth for other things.
Only here he was.
Minding.
Doyle put his hands either side of that troubled face, tightening his grip when the flinch came. Bodie stumbled back a step and Doyle went with him. He risked a thumb stroke along a cheekbone and got another small step away. Bodie’s back thunked against the wall and Doyle, bemused, tilted his head. “You gonna stop backing away from me now, mate?”
No answer, but Bodie’s breathing was evening out and his eyes seemed to have lost that hunted look. Doyle wondered if it was safe to take his hands away and still have him stay there. Bodie swallowed, once and loud, and Doyle realised he was looking at the mark high on his cheek.
Doyle shook him a little. “Bodie, Bodie, Bodie. I am going to get banged up from time to time, you prat. As are you.” He turned his face left to show Bodie the nasty scrape across his right temple in all its technicolour glory. He turned back. “All I know mate, is that if I’m going to have that, then I’m bloody well going to have this as well.” And he kissed him again, powerfully, using the wall for leverage to grind his groin against a hardness he already knew was waiting for him. A tense, enduring acceptance greeted him, then a groan, and Doyle gentled everything, ready to pull away and leave Bodie with his useless principles intact.
He stilled. Bodie’s right hand was on his neck. A weight pressed his shoulderblades from the left, and quite suddenly he was back in a kiss so deep he thought his toes might literally curl. He was hanging on, being tongue–fucked to what might be oblivion, when the bruises on his back made their presence felt under Bodie’s strong grip. The groan was his and this time it was Bodie who slowed things, soothing the way out for both of them with a kind of lip-to-lip delicacy Doyle really hadn’t known existed for men.
When he could, he opened his eyes.
“My God, Bodie.” It sounded wobbly and far too reverential so he cleared his throat. “You total and utter bastard.”
That got him a grin. Pure, unadulterated Bodie.
“What? Told you I was good at that.”
“Yeah, with birds. You also told me not with blokes. Ever.”
Bodie sighed and placed his hands on Doyle’s hips. Doyle tried to ignore the instant twitch and refill in his cock. A task made all the more difficult when Bodie slid his right hand across to cover the bulge now threatening to burst a few seams.
“See, I always knew this would work. Always knew it would be fireworks for both of us if we ever got started. Just . . . I’ve never had everything else with a bloke, Ray. Never kissed one before either.”
“You mean . . .?”
Bodie moved his hand up to Doyle’s face, careful of the scrape as he spread his fngers through curls. “Don’t make a fuss, sunshine, but yeah.”
Somehow that simple admission settled Doyle’s heart better than a dozen red roses ever could. He put his hand down where it would do some good, gratified to hear Bodie suck in a breath through his teeth.
“How about going for the second time then?” Doyle licked his lips in a deliberate tease, working his hand under the elasticated waistband of Bodie’s tracksuit with ease. “And no more backing away, Bodie.”
“Well, if you’re going to grab hold and steer me like that, then I might have to back away a bit till we hit something bed-like . . . ”
“Shut up.”
“Make m-”
Doyle couldn’t believe it had taken this long to find such a pleasurable way to keep Bodie quiet.
*****
Thanks to Ancasta for the beta.
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