Whose Lives he Saved by Slantedlight
Sunday, 23 July 2017 07:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
byslantedlightI wrote this a week ago, as a kind of breath taken in between the madness of Job 1 and Job 2, in a comment to a post of pictures by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
macklingirl, and now I'm on proper holiday, I am finally getting around to posting it here! Thank you, macklingirl!
Before I do, I have a question... *g* I post my stories here, and I eventually post them to A03. I used to post them first to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
the_safehouse, but I got out of the habit of doing that at one point, and have somehow never started again. It would make sense to do it, to help keep the comm alive a bit, but... is that too much? It might then pop up in some people's flists three times, and...? But - maybe it would be nice to make an effort to revive the comm a bit...?
What do you think?
And now the main show - a tiny wee Pros story, that's unusually a bit of a Murphy story, cos that was howmacklingirl wrote it to start with... *g**
Whose Lives He Saved
by Slantedlight
He found them bound and gagged, in the furthest back corner of an ancient coal cellar whose door was almost obscured by the wreck of the rooms above. They'd been thrown together, so that they lay close and tangled, Bodie on his back and Doyle's head somehow tucked into Bodie's armpit, the rest of him pressed along Bodie's side, like children curled together at night.
"Like being stuck inside 'is laundry bag," Doyle said later, "Only more fragrant." Bodie raised a disdainful eyebrow at him, and they ambled out of the break room shoulder to shoulder, deliberately casual in the face of a bellow from Cowley's office. Murphy watched them leave, his own eyebrows set carefully low.
He watched them.
Collinson had been paid an arm and a leg for them, and it was only because the men he'd picked to do the dirty work turned out to be no more than amateurs with pretensions that Bodie and Doyle were still alive. Greedy amateurs with pretensions, who'd somehow had the idea that Cowley might pay as much again as Collinson had in ransom money to get his agents back.
Cowley did not pay ransom money.
Murphy could not get it out of his head that Bodie and Doyle knew this.
He saw again and again, in the dark of the night, the clatter of the men ahead of him down the cellar stairs, their last desperate dash, and then the blood that had spattered from the men's bodies, the way their guns had fallen, the photographs of Bodie and Doyle, Cowley's top men, both taken unaware, unknowing, that had fluttered, bloodstained, from the men's fingers.
And Murphy could not get it out of his head that in the silence of the moments after, in the split-second held-breath instant when the shots were still echoing around the cellar walls, bound and gagged as they were on the cellar floor, Bodie and Doyle had turned only to each other, and all they had done was look.
It seared the air between them, that look, and caught in the blaze of it, all Murphy could think was What if I'd missed? What if he'd missed one of the men, if his shot hadn't been clean, had been too late, if his Walther had misfired the second bullet?
What if one of them had closed their eyes then, and never opened them again?
In the dark of the night, his own eyes open wide, Murphy thought about the lives he'd saved, thought about ransom money. He thought about working solo, and playing darts with the lads, and whether he'd ask Janine out on a second date, a pretty, pleasant sort of girl, whose looks held nothing more fiery than warmth.
He thought he would, and the thought lulled him, at last, to sleep.
macklingirl, and now I'm on proper holiday, I am finally getting around to posting it here! Thank you, macklingirl!Before I do, I have a question... *g* I post my stories here, and I eventually post them to A03. I used to post them first to
the_safehouse, but I got out of the habit of doing that at one point, and have somehow never started again. It would make sense to do it, to help keep the comm alive a bit, but... is that too much? It might then pop up in some people's flists three times, and...? But - maybe it would be nice to make an effort to revive the comm a bit...?What do you think?
And now the main show - a tiny wee Pros story, that's unusually a bit of a Murphy story, cos that was how
macklingirl wrote it to start with... *g**Whose Lives He Saved
by Slantedlight
He found them bound and gagged, in the furthest back corner of an ancient coal cellar whose door was almost obscured by the wreck of the rooms above. They'd been thrown together, so that they lay close and tangled, Bodie on his back and Doyle's head somehow tucked into Bodie's armpit, the rest of him pressed along Bodie's side, like children curled together at night.
"Like being stuck inside 'is laundry bag," Doyle said later, "Only more fragrant." Bodie raised a disdainful eyebrow at him, and they ambled out of the break room shoulder to shoulder, deliberately casual in the face of a bellow from Cowley's office. Murphy watched them leave, his own eyebrows set carefully low.
He watched them.
Collinson had been paid an arm and a leg for them, and it was only because the men he'd picked to do the dirty work turned out to be no more than amateurs with pretensions that Bodie and Doyle were still alive. Greedy amateurs with pretensions, who'd somehow had the idea that Cowley might pay as much again as Collinson had in ransom money to get his agents back.
Cowley did not pay ransom money.
Murphy could not get it out of his head that Bodie and Doyle knew this.
He saw again and again, in the dark of the night, the clatter of the men ahead of him down the cellar stairs, their last desperate dash, and then the blood that had spattered from the men's bodies, the way their guns had fallen, the photographs of Bodie and Doyle, Cowley's top men, both taken unaware, unknowing, that had fluttered, bloodstained, from the men's fingers.
And Murphy could not get it out of his head that in the silence of the moments after, in the split-second held-breath instant when the shots were still echoing around the cellar walls, bound and gagged as they were on the cellar floor, Bodie and Doyle had turned only to each other, and all they had done was look.
It seared the air between them, that look, and caught in the blaze of it, all Murphy could think was What if I'd missed? What if he'd missed one of the men, if his shot hadn't been clean, had been too late, if his Walther had misfired the second bullet?
What if one of them had closed their eyes then, and never opened them again?
In the dark of the night, his own eyes open wide, Murphy thought about the lives he'd saved, thought about ransom money. He thought about working solo, and playing darts with the lads, and whether he'd ask Janine out on a second date, a pretty, pleasant sort of girl, whose looks held nothing more fiery than warmth.
He thought he would, and the thought lulled him, at last, to sleep.
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Date: Sunday, 23 July 2017 11:13 am (UTC)And, yes, I think you should post it to
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Date: Sunday, 23 July 2017 07:44 pm (UTC)And I guess I probably won't post this one immediately to A03 anyway, cos I'm also still catching up with posting my old stories, so maybe it'll just come up twice in lj... Thanks for the feedback!
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Date: Sunday, 23 July 2017 11:20 am (UTC)Oh, delicious! Thank you!
And whoop *\o/* for being on proper holiday too!
I don't mind how many times I see something pop up - the more the better - so it'd be great if you've got the time and energy to post in more than one place/to more than one comm... there are bound to be folk who only hang out in one place too.
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Date: Sunday, 23 July 2017 07:46 pm (UTC)And definitely hooray for being on proper holiday!
Thanks for the feedback too - I am going to try and make the effort to post more, so I will add to that post more at the comms too. I will!
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Date: Sunday, 23 July 2017 12:40 pm (UTC)I'd post to AO3, and link to it from various places, so you get one true location for it.
(I was going to point out why that was a good thing, but it's Sunday am and I should have slept more. So off I go...)
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Date: Sunday, 23 July 2017 07:51 pm (UTC)I guess the one thing I do want to do if I post stories to lj, is to actually post them to lj itself rather than posting elsewhere and then giving a link. I know you get one true location, which is good, but it also means that people are going away from lj to read and give feedback (if they do), and it feels like it's one of the things that have helped take the community out of lj...
Hope you managed a good sleep, at least!
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Date: Sunday, 23 July 2017 04:39 pm (UTC)And whee for holidays that encourage you with the time and headspace to write!
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Date: Sunday, 23 July 2017 07:52 pm (UTC)I am so enjoying being on holiday right now... there will be posting, and writing, and relaxing, and then when I get home I hope I can hang onto it all!
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Date: Monday, 24 July 2017 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, 26 July 2017 08:00 am (UTC)And hmmn, I tried it, but I think the only people who reacted were people who would have reacted here anyway... We'll see...
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Date: Monday, 24 July 2017 08:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, 26 July 2017 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 24 July 2017 10:31 am (UTC)And a thousand hoorays for holidays, especially when they feel like time to write! Thank you so much!
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Date: Wednesday, 26 July 2017 08:06 am (UTC)Third party pov stories are fun now and then, but I must admit that I mostly like my lads up close and personal... *g*
Hurrah for holidays! But I can't believe it's Wednesday already - waaah! I could definitely stand for alot more of this! *g*