By Slanted Light

The Advent Drabbles
by Slantedlight
25th December - Happy Christmas everyone!
There was something about the final minute of the working day, Bodie thought happily, about picking up your jacket, turning out the light, closing the door behind you. About knowing you were going home.

And tonight Doyle was going home with him, there'd be food and wine and mistletoe and bed. With Doyle. He smiled. Best Christmas ever.

Christmas... He paused, Doyle waiting impatiently, but there was just one more thing to do first. He slipped back into the rest room and flipped open the last door on the Advent Calendar.

Yeah, it'd been a good idea of his, this.

( And then it was Christmas Day... )

The Advent Drabbles
by Slantedlight
24th December

Outside a cold winter wind rattled the panes, shook the trees, whispered and whined around corners, but in Doyle's flat there was nothing but breath, nothing but whispers and kisses and murmurs and the rustle of bedclothes. They moved, tangled in each other as they had been for years, and they were alive to every touch of skin, to the flutter of an eyelash against a cheek, or a stomach, or the line of a thigh, to every unvoiced word.

They were alive and together and in love.

Inside Doyle's flat it felt as though the sun had come out.

( On the twenty-fourth of December... )

The Advent Drabbles
by Slantedlight
23rd December

They stood shoulder to shoulder, tea in hand, staring silently at what the calendar had uncovered.

He was so young he was almost unrecognisable - and that wasn't a disguise, wasn't work, that was him. His parents were spending Christmas without him, his girlfriend looking at photos and crying, his friends drank and danced around a shade.

"Life's short," Doyle said, tea steaming, forgotten, near his lips.

Bodie nodded, a strangely brittle movement. "We've only got one."

"Shouldn't waste it, then?"

A question.

Bodie shook his head, sure now. "No."

They looked at each other then, put their tea down.

( Day twenty-three... )

The Advent Drabbles
by Slantedlight
22nd December

Finally the Cow had sent them back onto the streets - in desperation, with a lack of men, because they were his best - it didn't matter why, they were back. His gun was in its holster, his RT was crackling in his hand, and any moment now they'd go in and take out the monsters who thought they could terrorise Mr and Mrs Public in the name of politics.

He wished Doyle was with him.

What good were the streets when he was on his own, when he didn't know where Doyle was, when anything could be happening?

A gunshot.

( Under the 22nd door... )

The Advent Drabbles
by Slantedlight
21st December

Doyle stared unseeingly at the advent calendar in the rest room, fingers worrying at his hair, a frown on his face. He'd been so careful, over all the years he'd been so careful, and it wasn't as if he hadn't been drunk with Bodie before, or had sex in the same room as Bodie, or...

Or looked at Bodie.

He closed his eyes, swallowed, opened them and found himself staring at Kate Ross. What would she think of all this? What d'you think's the best way to deal with repressed sexual desire slowly unrepressing itself, Katie?

The longest day indeed.

( And on the 21st of December... )

The Advent Drabbles
by Slantedlight
20th December

Bodie took another mouthful of bad coffee, watching the street idly through the windscreen, tried to bring his world to focus. There'd been tinsel, he was sure of that, and he could remember tying it to something... no, to...

No.

He couldn't have. It must have been Yvette or Caroline, it must have been... And yet he could feel the tinsel in his fingers, hear Doyle's breathless, sated laughter, could see him...

Could see him sprawled naked on the bed, Yvette and Caroline both forgotten.

And Bodie'd wanted them gone.

And he still wanted them gone.

What had they done?

( On the 20th of December... )

The Advent Drabbles
by Slantedlight
19th December

Doyle woke hungover and with strange memories of women and wine and song, tinged red and gold as if for Christmas. He opened his eyes to make sure he hadn't fallen asleep in a shop window, caught movement as two elegantly-clad blondes disappeared out the door, waving scarlet-clad fingers when they saw he was awake.

That was alright then. But what else had happened? He was naked, but for silver tinsel in a bow around his cock.

He groaned, turned carefully over.

Bodie was asleep on the other side of the bed, and he was clutching a length of tinsel.

( And on the nineteenth day... )

The Advent Drabbles
by Slantedlight
18th December

Right, Bodie thought, what they needed was a night on the tiles, a good old-fashioned evening spent completely pissed, stopping for a kebab on the way home - or maybe chicken and chips from that place on Royal Street - then a nightcap or two over the end of the late night film before falling asleep on the couch and waking up hungover.

Well, they'd go back to his and Doyle could fall asleep on his couch, and he'd be in bed of course.

And that was as far as he was going with that thought.

It absolutely, totally was.


( Day Eighteen... )

The Advent Drabbles
by Slantedlight
17th December

It was the seventeenth of December and the world was gearing up for Christmas. There was tinsel and fake snow in every shop, music he wanted to scream at from every speaker. Bodie'd switched on the car radio, taken one look at Doyle's face, and turned it off. He'd even packed in mindless humming, and that wasn't Bodie either.

But then they weren't themselves...

It was because they were stuck at HQ, Doyle thought, no bullets, no excitement, no glory and mayhem.

If only Cowley'd let them out, if only Bodie'd break free, if only...

If only that were it.

( Day Seventeen... )

The Advent Drabbles
by Slantedlight
16th December

Bodie knew he was being watched - he didn't know who and he didn't know why, but he knew he was being watched. It was there in the shift of the air when his observer vanished each time as if he'd never been, in the prickle between his shoulderblades, the pull of his eyes upward for no other reason at all. He began turning his head suddenly, wondering if he'd catch him, and he made sure his shooter was always to hand. Doyle had laughed at him, then grown just as jumpy.

Trouble was, this time he'd caught Doyle looking.

( And on the sixteenth day... )