Chapter 1

"Oi, Bodie!"

Bodie looked up from the notes he was writing to where his partner had the newspaper spread across the rest room table. Doyle grinned at him and shook the page he was holding. "Want to see a film tonight? The Lion in Winter's at that little cinema by King's Cross. Katherine Hepburn - you'll love it."

Bodie grinned back. "Sorry, things to do. Take yourself off to the pictures, like a good lad." He put his pen down and stretched his shoulders, knowing what would follow.

"C'mon, Bodie. It's no fun alone. It's a good film!" Doyle hated going to the cinema alone, and would rather spend hours cajoling his partner, his date, or a hapless workmate to join him. "Besides, what have you got to do? You've got to be done with those notes by now. Bastard didn't say more than a page's worth."

Bodie had to agree with that. Much of CI5's manpower had gone north, investigating four town councils with ties to drug money, and he and Doyle were stuck minding the store. Looked at one way, the assignment was a compliment; they were responsible for keeping in touch with nervous informants, watching over slow-developing cases, all the details of other agents' ops left on hold while the northern situation took priority. Bodie reminded himself of that, frequently. More often, the job was a ruddy pain. He was sick of spot-checking the surveillance op that had been a round-the-clock post last week, sick of trying to keep his temper in check while nursemaiding other peoples' grasses and the two newest agents who, with a handful of others, had also been left behind. He squared up his notes and shoved them into a folder marked "McCabe."

"Yeah. Mac can talk to him himself when he gets back. I'm fed up with the little git." He glanced at the clock; it was half past five. Cowley had told them in the morning briefing that most of the squad would be returning soon, and that he and Doyle should be prepared to spend the next day or two filling them in on what had happened during their absence. "That'll be quick," Bodie had muttered, and earned a kick from Doyle and a sour glare from his boss.

"So? We've done all our work and prepared our summaries like good lads, and I want to see a film tonight. What have you got on that's so important?"

"Shopping. Get some food in, hoover the flat..." Bodie grinned at his partner's scowl.

"Don't know why you bother, I'm always feeding you anyway. C'mon, Bodie."

"And why so insistent on my company, 4.5? None of the softer sex in view?"

Doyle's lips tightened, and he stared into his cup of lukewarm coffee. "Lisa's broken it off. And she wasn't any fun to see a film with, anyway. You are, when you're not too busy bein' sarcastic, and I think you'd like this one." He was about to go on when Bodie jerked around, listening to the babble of voices spilling down the hall.

"Hey, that's Jax! They're back!" Bodie shoved his chair back and came to his feet as a dozen agents clattered into the room, clearly fresh from Cowley's office and spilling over with adrenalin and high spirits. Jax was sporting a bandage on his right wrist which didn't keep him from slapping Doyle's back hard enough to make him spill his coffee, and the paper was knocked to the floor by McCabe and Susan Harrison in their dead heat for the last cup's worth in the pot.

"Hoi, you two! Come on and buy some real men a drink!" Murphy crowed, and the whole crowd of them swept the pair away and down the road to the nearest pub. Between the description of the final raid Murphy was trying to give them, jumbled with shouted arguments and contradictions from everyone else, and Jax's exaggerated pleas for sympathy for a wounded man, which he seemed to think should take the form only of prime single malt, it was only when he pulled out his wallet that Bodie managed to struggle free from the crowd, dragging Doyle by one arm, and give his order to the barman. Coming back with his arms, and Doyle's, laden with glasses and packets of crisps, they were besieged by grabbing hands. Doyle relieved Bodie of the last beer, hooked a foot around a chair, and settled in to join the conversation, making room for Bodie as he did so; the noisy chaos had moderated somewhat as the agents began talking, gesticulating, burning off tension, and drinking with almost equal ferocity. Bodie and Doyle listened, taking more kidding than they felt was strictly fair about 'people who spent the week lazing about,' but making all the right admiring noises. They knew what it was like.

Doyle bought the next round, to general cheers and his partner's exaggerated surprise, and Susan the third; after that, the drinking degenerated into something of a free-for-all. As Doyle began on another pint, wiping the froth of foam from his mouth, Murphy swaggered up behind them and dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. "How about a game of darts, then?"

Doyle twisted around to look up at the tall agent. "Go 'way, mate, you're much better than me."

"Ah." Murphy nodded, raised one finger with awful solemnity. "Very true. But, my son, I am also much drunker than you, which evens the odds." He dramatically finished off his own drink, much stronger than Doyle's beer, in demonstration. "Shall we?"

Doyle shrugged and got up, punching Bodie's shoulder lightly. "Guard that for me with your life," he said, indicating his beer. "I'll be back." The two headed off together, and the noise abated somewhat as several others noticed the game. Bodie slouched back in his seat, watching as Murphy took the darts and fingered them, eyeing the dartboard speculatively.

Jax pulled up a stool, straddled it, and nodded a greeting, which Bodie returned. "'Lo, mate. Hear you'll lose that arm, eh?"

Jax agreed mournfully. "Infection for sure, unless it's sterilized. Alcohol's good for that," he added. Bodie smirked at him.

Laughing cheers sounded from the group that had gathered to watch the match, and Bodie turned to see his partner shaking his head ruefully as Murphy turned away from the throwing line with a broad grin on his face. He caught Doyle's eye and mimed heartfelt commiseration, then grinned as Doyle scowled at him.

"How about a bet, then?" Jax asked. "Five quid says Murphy beats him." He reached for Doyle's beer, which Bodie automatically defended.

"Not likely," answered Bodie genially. "Put a pistol in Ray's hand and I'd put an apple on my head and bet he could take it off. But not at darts." Hoots and whistles sounded from the crowd, and he heard Doyle curse; he shook his head at Jax. "See what I mean?"

Jax affected horror. "No loyalty to your partner, that's your problem! Won't stand up for him an' all." He stretched a hand for Bodie's beer; Bodie neatly moved it out of range.

"Buy your own, lazy sod. 'Sides, it's too late anyway; here they come back." Murphy and Doyle were threading their way past the others back toward Bodie's table, and a grin of muzzy satisfaction was spread across the taller man's face. Bodie made room for his partner, passed him back his drink.

"Here y'are, mate, no thanks to Jax. Lost, did you?"

Doyle scowled, drinking deeply. "No justice. He shouldn't be able to see straight with what he's drunk, let alone throw."

"But that's my secret," Murphy confided in a stage whisper. "Relaxes the fingers, don't you know."

"Ahhh," Jax said in mocking consolation. "Want to take me on, then?" He held up his splinted wrist. "Maybe you'll be able to beat a cripple."

"An' graduate to taking sweets from children. No thanks." Doyle pushed his chair back and got to his feet. "C'mon, Bodie, let's get out of here. It's gettin' late." Murphy pulled a face in mock sympathy, and Doyle scowled at him. "Leave off, Murph. Some of us haven't got the weekend off."

The tall Irishman cuffed his head as Doyle jerked away. "Some of us were working hard all week! You're a bad loser, that's all."

Doyle swigged the last of his beer without answering and set the glass down. "You coming, Bodie?"

Bodie followed him as he pushed his way through the groups of loudly talking men toward the door. Elbowing his way past Marriot's gesticulatory explanation of his part in the final raid, he caught up to his partner and called, "What's the rush, Doyle?"

Doyle stopped and looked at him briefly, then looked down. He seemed oddly quiet for a moment in the clamor of the pub. "Got a headache coming on, that's all. It's too late for the film. Want to grab some dinner?" His voice trailed off, a little.

"Right, then." Bodie prodded him between the shoulderblades and headed him out the door. He had no aversion to leaving, himself; the frustration built up in a week's inaction was only worsened by the gleeful atmosphere of the other agents' unwinding. Let them get on with their celebration of their survival. He walked with Doyle to his partner's car, waited for the door to be unlocked and slid in. "You cooking? I've got no food in, you know - never got my shopping done."

"I don't feel like cooking. We'll pick up a Chinese or something, take it back to your place." Doyle drove well but inattentively, fingers loose on the wheel. Bodie eyed him covertly; he seemed despondent. Drink sometimes had that effect on him, though, and he'd put away a few pints. Bodie decided it was nothing he need concern himself with.

The food bought, Doyle drove them to Bodie's flat. He followed his partner inside, then dropped onto the sitting room sofa as Bodie, paper bag of takeaway Chinese in hand, headed into the kitchen. The food was quickly dished out, and Bodie put the kettle on before carrying the loaded plates out to his partner. "Your dinner, m'lud."

Doyle had sprawled on the sofa, his boots and socks pulled off and tossed aside. He was flipping through the tv pages.

"Thanks. Liverpool's playing; want to put it on?" He tossed the paper aside and sat up, taking a plate from his partner.

"Okay," Bodie assented, then coughed pointedly. "Mind the sofa cushions with that, will you?" He pulled the armchair forward a bit and sat down himself, dinner balanced neatly on his knees. Doyle switched the television on.

The teams were evenly matched, but Doyle didn't seem interested, though it had been his suggestion. When the kettle begin to whistle, he got up and fetched them both steaming mugs, then returned to his place on the sofa, his dinner set aside and forgotten on the floor. He half- heartedly acknowledged Bodie's comments on a few shots, but each time lapsed back into silence, nursing his tea. After a while, Bodie let him alone, turning his attention to the flickering screen. But that too grew boring, his partner's morose silence inhibiting his enjoyment. Bodie slouched back in his chair, half dozing.

Doyle prodded him. "Got any beer?"

"Huh? Yeah, s'pose so. Want one?"

"No," said Doyle with exaggerated patience, "I was just wonderin', that's all."

"Get it yourself, if you want it," retorted Bodie, slightly irritated. Doyle only stared at him a moment, then shrugged and returned to his seat.

The match ended at a little past nine, and Bodie got up and shut the television off. Doyle remained on the sofa, not moving, until Bodie came and stood over him. He didn't like Doyle's odd quiet; his partner had remained still for nearly an hour, hardly speaking, except for things like that crack about the beer, which hardly counted as talking, anyway. What was bothering him? He looked down at the curly head, aware that under his lashes Doyle was watching him in return.

"C'mon, then," Bodie said finally, having failed to discover any clue to Doyle's odd mood. "You campin' out here all night?" He reached a hand down to pull the other man upright; Doyle's palm was sweaty, and instead of coming to his feet he pulled back, bringing Bodie down onto the couch beside him.

"What's up, mate? You sickening for something?" Bodie touched his partner's shoulder, and Doyle met his eyes.

"Bodie..." he said, then fell silent. He leant forward, put a hand on Bodie's arm and kissed him.

Bodie jerked back, astounded. "What the hell - Christ, mate, what're you doin'?" He pulled out of Doyle's grasp. "What the hell's that?"

Doyle looked down, hands twisting in his lap. "Okay. I was just wondering. Sorry."

"Wondering? Wondering what?" Bodie was on his feet now, shock pitching through him; his breath came quick and sharp, adrenalin spiking. "You queer or something?"

Doyle let out a puff of breath, not quite a sigh. "Or something. Look, forget it, Bodie. It doesn't matter."

"Like hell!" Bodie's hands twitched. "You were making a fucking pass at me!"

"Just forget it."

"Crap!"

"Damn it, Bodie, what do you want me to say?" Doyle shouted, coming to his feet. "Yes, I made a pass at you. You've said no, now could we drop the subject?"

"But you're not gay. I know you, Doyle. You're not gay!"

"If you want a word for it, I'm bi. Look, it was a mistake. I'm sorry." He stooped and shoved his feet into his boots, then grabbed his jacket, struggling into it without looking at Bodie, who was rigid, hands jammed into his pockets, full of appalled surprise.

"Forget it, mate," Doyle said, forcing a smile. "It doesn't mean anything. I'll see you tomorrow." And he was out the door, Bodie still staring, wrestling great gasps of breath, wondering what had happened to the man he knew.

---

Bodie's car was still at headquarters, and he took the tube to work the next morning, not waiting to see if Doyle would come by to pick him up. He had avoided thinking about the previous night - had spent several hours in the dark not thinking about it - but he felt it better to see him again at work, first.

It didn't matter. If it had never mattered before, it didn't matter now. He'd answered no, and Doyle had accepted it.

Doyle had asked.

But whatever it was he'd been hoping to avoid, it made no appearance. Cowley saw them briefly and sent them off to update the returnees on what had happened to their grasses, their long-term surveillances, their slow-developing cases while they were gone; he and Doyle spent the time together, supplementing each other's reports to Harrison, Murphy, Jax, but always talking to another agent, never to each other. By the end of the day he told himself that he had forgotten about it; two weeks later it was even true. For a while.

But the memory surfaced, still, at odd moments: as Doyle turned from the shooting range to grin at him, ostentatiously blowing non-existent smoke from his gun barrel before holstering it; watching Doyle head off with a decidedly stacked blonde for a weekend of lewd enjoyment; and once in the car, going to meet some VIP at Gatwick, Bodie lost all sight of the road for a moment as his vision filled with the memory of Doyle's face, pale and close to his own. The car swerved slightly as his hands tightened on the wheel, and he grimly ignored the inquiring grunt from the passenger seat.

He could never settle with himself what it had meant. Doyle was no queer, he knew that as well as he knew himself. Ray Doyle a limp- wristed pansy? Ha.

But if Doyle had made a pass at him - and he had, he had admitted it - was it something about Bodie himself, then?

No. Absolutely not.

They were at the Rose and Thorn one evening, work having been so dull that Bodie had announced the need for some off-duty excitement and dragged his partner out. The pub was a new one, just opened and doing its best to pull in customers by hiring what Murphy had described as "the bustiest waitress this side of Page Three." Watching with a connoisseur's eye, Bodie had to agree. He pointed her out to Doyle in a stage whisper, and was surprised when Doyle only nodded and went back to his beer. Having done his best to give the woman business, Bodie was on his second double scotch, and in a mood to thoroughly enjoy the view.

"C'mon, mate, what's wrong with 'er?" He leered and prodded his partner in the ribs. Doyle flinched from the sharp jab and scowled, ineffectually.

"Not interested. Leave it alone, Bodie."

"Why not? Nice tits," Bodie eyed them appraisingly as the woman bent to hand a drink to someone further down the bar. "Wouldn't mind a grab at 'em myself."

"They are, aren't they?" Doyle nodded, smiling a little at Bodie's open admiration. "Why don't you make a move on her, then?"

"Nah." Bodie waved a hand expansively, indicating Doyle's freedom in the field. "Got Cindy, haven't I? Tits the size of footballs..." He leant back in his chair, a drunkenly muzzy expression of pleasure on his face, contemplating the memory. "Mmm, 'n' the way she likes to go at it - "

"Yeah?" Doyle prompted, grinning.

"Huh-uh, mate. Y'wanna hear the dirty stories, buy me another drink first." Bodie folded his hands and attempted to look prim, but failed to keep from snorting with laughter as Doyle eyed him and shook his head slowly.

"Sorry, Bodie. You're past the limit already, and I don't feel like springing for a taxi - and I'm damned if I'm going to buy you a drink while I sit here drinking ginger ale so I can chauffeur you home."

"Come home now, then?" Bodie suggested. "Plenty of booze at my place, and we won't get chucked out at closing time."

Doyle tilted his head, looking at him, then drained his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. "Okay," he said. His eyes remained on Bodie's face, and as Bodie pushed himself away from the table and up, a moment of queasiness roiled his stomach, as the unwelcome memory surged.

Leave it alone, damn it, he told his brain. Doyle's no queer.

Half of one? A bi -

Shut up!

But he couldn't get the thought out of his head, as Doyle took his keys and drove them, in Bodie's car, back to Bodie's flat. He undid the security locks with Doyle standing close by his shoulder, and headed for the drinks cabinet. The scotch was crisp and smooth along his throat, and he poured himself another while Doyle was still opening a bottle of beer for himself.

Ensconced in the sofa and Bodie's overstuffed armchair, they made a little small talk. Bodie tried to linger over the barmaid's ample charms, but his words fell flat, Doyle shaking his head with tolerant disinterest. Well on his way to being drunk, Bodie began to feel defensive. There was a short silence.

"You're bisexual, then?" he said abruptly.

Doyle looked over at him, startled. "Yeah." He said nothing more, only regarded Bodie with wary inquiry.

Bodie's fingers tightened on his glass. He swallowed the remains of his drink and set it down hard on the side table, looking only at it.

"You fuck men?" The image the question brought to his mind was unbearable.

Doyle's eyes narrowed. "Why do you want to know?" he asked with knife- edged humor.

Bodie jerked to his feet. "Dammit, how can you?" The neck of the bottle rattled against his glass as he poured himself another, needing the liquor's support. "You're no fairy!" Did you want to fuck me, he almost asked, and shied away from the words. The scotch was smooth and burning, and spread thickly from his stomach throughout his body. None of this made any sense...

"You're drunk, Bodie. Drop it," Doyle said evenly. He stood up. "I'm leaving. You can get pissed on your own."

"No, wait!" Blurred memories, faded by time and alcohol - a leather man in Soho who had groped at his crotch and then offered hoarsely to suck him off, a thin, smirking black guerrilla with a hip-shot pose and a wilting tropical flower behind his left ear, calling after him in a piercing soprano... He grabbed Doyle's arm, hard. "What d'you want that for? It's not you, it's - " He felt betrayed. How could Doyle be one of those?

"Christ, Bodie, leave it alone, can't you?" Doyle jerked away.

"But why men, Doyle? Dammit, why?" Bodie was persistent, fuzzily sure that if he could only understand, get some kind of reason, everything would be okay - somewhere in the back of his head was the idea that he could talk Doyle out of it, show him what an idiot he'd been and then everything would be safe again...

"Because I sometimes want to! Is that what you wanted to hear? I like men, sometimes."

"But why? Is it that - Christ, you can't - " He couldn't begin to imagine it...Doyle, racked and helpless under - no, never, not Ray... the other way, then? Doyle and - someone - face down, smothered, and Doyle looming over -

"Bodie, you're drunk." Doyle's voice was tired. "You don't know what you're saying. Get some sleep and forget about it."

"Forget? How can I forget when you - you wanted - " The memory slammed back, leaving him reeling. "You made a pass at me - you wanted - "

"Bodie, no." Doyle's voice was firm. Bodie found himself staring at Doyle's hands; he'd seen Doyle shoot, punch, kill a man with those hands... He was suddenly aware of his partner's body, close, too close, with his chest rising and falling and the pulse jumping in his throat. Bodie backed away, shaking his head. His face - muffled and choking - did Doyle want - ?

"What do you want?" he found himself asking.

"I don't want anything from you," Doyle answered, and Bodie shook his head violently.

"You're lying!" he shouted, and Doyle started in surprise. "You wanted me - you wanted to - " He didn't have words for it, for the vague images that were filling him with fear, with horror... Doyle had wanted something from him, to dominate, hold him down - he knew what those thin, wiry hands would feel like, biting into his flesh, he had felt them before. He stared at Doyle, shirt open, breathing heavily, before him, and knew just how Doyle would take him, off balance and thrown to the floor, and then - was that how Doyle saw him? Was that what he wanted, really? He couldn't have it - Bodie swore he wouldn't let him take it -

"I won't let you!" he shouted, and threw himself at Doyle, surprising both of them, bringing them tumbling to the floor with a jolt that left Doyle gasping for breath, half-stunned, and Bodie was flailing at his head, his chest, random wild blows that hurt him as much as they did Doyle, his head spinning, yelling strange jumbled threats and curses and promises - "I won't let you - I'll show you, I'm not - you'll see, you'll see - " knowing only that he had to stay on top, he had to keep Doyle from getting above him, and then his hands were ripping at Doyle's clothing, at his own. Doyle was shouting something now, beginning to fight him, and Bodie hauled at Doyle's belt, his jeans, fumbled for his own with the one thought of showing Doyle, proving that he, Bodie, wasn't like that, that Doyle couldn't do - what he'd been thinking -

Doyle's fist slammed his skull and he toppled sideways, clawing out through red-streaked vision at the other man, and then Doyle hit him in the stomach and he crumpled around the blow, sprawling half-conscious on the floor and retching helplessly.

When he could see again, Doyle was gone.

Bodie picked himself up slowly, his head exploding with pain and an acid soreness in his gut. The sour taste in his mouth echoed the smell. Oh, Christ... Moving carefully, carefully without thought, he fetched towels and a sponge, cleaned the floor. The towels went into the rubbish bin, along with his stained shirt. He turned his head too quickly getting into the shower, and for a moment thought he would pass out - the red haze at the edge of his vision turned black and surged in one great pulse until his sight was gone; he clung white-lipped to the towel bar until, grudgingly, it cleared. He was sick again, a little, but in the shower it didn't matter.

Two aspirins, with a full glass of water; if he could keep it down it would help the hangover. Pajamas - he rarely wore them, but he was cold, so cold, and he was reluctant as well to touch himself, to let flesh touch flesh...and shivering he crawled into bed, pulled the covers around himself and tried not to think some more. He woke several times during the night, from shallow half-remembered dreams in which he was pleading in anger, shouting in fear.

---

Mercifully the hangover held off, hovering sullenly over his head like the heavy air before a storm but not descending. He showered again, cleaned his teeth ferociously. It was Doyle's turn to pick him up for work.

He didn't know if he should wait, or go in on his own.

Christ, what a mess. He'd been drunk, of course, but that was hardly an excuse for trying to beat up his partner. Stupid thing to fight about, anyway; if Doyle would just stop - stop shoving it at him, he could ignore it and things would be fine. He didn't blame Doyle for walking out. Now maybe he'd drop it and they could get back to normal.

At six minutes to eight he cursed, grabbed his jacket and locked up hurriedly, then broke speed laws all the way to headquarters. He was fifteen minutes late nonetheless, and already planning what he'd do to Doyle for not picking him up.

Anson caught him on the way to the rest room in search of his delinquent partner. "Wrong direction, Bodie. The Cow wants you, first thing."

"Missed a briefing, did I? Where's Doyle?" He was reasonably sure the two questions sounded equally casual.

"No, and dunno. The Cow said right away." A shove from Anson, a wave through from Betty, and Bodie found himself in Cowley's office, quite unprepared. The Controller glanced up at him, squared the papers on his desk and set them aside. "Sit down, Bodie."

What the hell was this about? Bodie sat, and waited.

"Doyle has requested that the two of you be assigned new partners. Accordingly, from this morning you will be working with Murphy. He has your assignment."

Appalled, Bodie jerked forward. "Doyle what? Why the hell - " With stabbing suddenness he cut himself off, remembering things whose existence should never be admitted. Here, or anywhere... "What reasons did he give, sir?" The hangover loomed, and his stomach twisted uncomfortably.

"I consider his reasons sufficient, Bodie. That will be all. You'll find Murphy in the rest room, no doubt."

"Is this permanent?" Bodie demanded.

"All my decisions are permanent," Cowley said sharply, "until I decide otherwise."

"But what the hell - what did he tell you?" Bodie half-shouted in betrayal and fury, and guilt. "Did he tell you he's a fucking queer?" And, horrified, he clamped his mouth against his own outburst and froze rigid in the chair.

Cowley's eyes flicked up at him. He held the silence for a moment, while Bodie, sweating, could do nothing but curse himself, and Doyle, and wait while something clicked its way to completion behind the pale blue eyes.

"I consider his reasons sufficient," Cowley repeated, finally. "Dismissed."

Bodie fled from the room.

Murphy didn't ask the reasons for the reassignment, for which Bodie was pathetically grateful, until he thought to wonder what Murphy had been told that kept him from asking further. After that he had a hard time meeting his new partner's eyes. Murphy glanced sideways at him once or twice during that first day, perhaps wondering at Bodie's uncharacteristic silence; or perhaps it was something else.

They worked well together, as they had before on group ops or temporary reteamings. Murphy had a way of moving that seemed slow and lazy, generously lanky, but that was as deceptive as a snake's lassitude in a patch of sun; he was snake-fast, and canny in a way that complemented Bodie's straight-forward approach, if not as Byzantine as Doyle occasionally became.

Doyle had been teamed with Jax. Bodie found the fact out from the posted duty roster; everyone assumed he knew, and he couldn't bear to ask. The two of them had been sent west, to Devon, on an information- ferreting trip; a pack of Syrians that Harrison was trailing had been showing a suspicious interest in the area. They were already gone by the time Bodie and Murphy left the building that first morning. Under normal circumstances, Bodie would have expected word in a day or so; when working apart, except under deep cover, one of them would generally slope off to phone the other for a quick update or a few minutes' friendly chat. Now there was nothing, except a sickness in his stomach, partly the memory of sour alcohol, partly anger and guilt. He missed Doyle's slanted smile, his quick wit, his company. Murphy was a good bloke, but not his partner. His one invitation to lift a pint or two after work was moodily refused.

Doyle and Jax were back at the end of the week. Bodie had no warning; the first he knew of it was when he and Murphy ran into them on their way to the rest room for coffee, and the shock of seeing Doyle, for the first time since that ghastly night, mortified him. He stumbled to a halt, while Murphy shouted and went forward to pound first Doyle and then Jax on the shoulder, welcoming them back. Doyle was standing close to Jax, in his new partner's shadow, and as Murphy was asking about the connections they'd turned up he looked steadily past the taller man at Bodie, his face waiting and expressionless. Bodie forced himself to move, and walked forward woodenly, sweating inside.

"Welcome back."

"Thanks."

Bodie swallowed. "How was it?"

"Fine." Doyle glanced at the other two agents, who were discoursing on terrorist cells and paying them no attention. "How's Murph?"

"Fine." Bodie hesitated a moment, then muttered, head down, "Are you staying with Jax?"

"Yes." And that seemed to settle that, as Jax and Murphy came back to them and Murphy dragged Bodie along to walk the other pair down the corridor to Cowley's office to deliver their report.

After that they saw each other as much as any two agents, except that Bodie found himself watching Doyle at odd moments, in a briefing or over a cup of coffee in the rest room. And sometimes he saw the green eyes flick furtively away from his. It warmed him, that Doyle was watching him as well. He wanted to invite him out for a drink, a film; but the choking memory of one night for which no apology could suffice, and still more the knowledge of Doyle's desire, Doyle's unspeakable secret, closed off his throat.

Somehow he got through the next week. On the Friday, he and Murphy were cruising aimlessly through Lambeth in the late afternoon when the car radio sounded and the dispatcher demanded their location. Murphy leant forward to glance at the street signs Bodie was passing at his habitually high speed, and read a cross street off.

"Get to Frazer Street at the corner of Murpy Street. 4.5 and 1.8 need backup. Alpha will meet you there."

Bodie was already wrenching the wheel around as Murphy acknowledged the order; they were only a few blocks from the corner named. Cowley was just emerging from his car as they slewed in behind him and leapt out, keeping low in the cover of the cars. There was no sign of Doyle or Jax; Bodie scoured the area with a quick, apprehensive glance, thinking of terrorists, and Doyle struck by a Syrian slug.

"Colburn," Cowley said without introduction, expecting them, as always, to have the status of all current CI5 operations memorized, and Bodie relaxed; they had cornered a two-bit drug dealer, not a death squad. Cowley gestured at the run-down house across the street, with waste ground to one side of it and a row of boarded-up storefronts the other, and continued, "He's holed up in there, with at least one other man, maybe two. They'll have small arms only, no rifles. Jax and Doyle were onto them when they bolted for cover, and they know the game's up; but they're terrified, and Colburn at least is high on something. You'll take the front; Jax and Doyle are already round the back. Clean them out. I want them alive - I want their supplier."

"Right, sir." Murphy was pulling out his gun, checking it as he scanned the approach. "They've been in there, what, ten, fifteen minutes?" Cowley nodded, and Bodie joined Murphy in squinting across at the building. The windows were bare, no curtains or shades, but none were broken for shootholes yet. The street was empty. "Bit of a dash. Cut left, Bodie; I'll go right."

Bodie nodded and braced himself for a sprint across the road, when Cowley's radio crackled with an RT signal.

"Sir?" Doyle's voice said. "You'd better get backup here fast. I think they - "

With a harsh squeal, the sound cut off. Bodie stood frozen, staring at the receiver. It was almost the first time he'd heard Doyle's voice in days. He took a jerky step directly toward the house.

"Oi, Bodie!" Murphy grabbed his arm. "Not that way. Around the side!"

Bodie spoke without turning. "I should - "

"He's got Jax backing him up. Come on, partner, let's go." He said the word without emphasis, already moving sideways behind the row of parked cars preparatory to dashing across. Bodie wanted to kill him.

The raid was technically perfect, Murphy and he bursting in simultaneously to meet Jax and Doyle in the front hallway, and sweeping two very out-of-their-depth drug pushers from their bolthole with little trouble. Colburn was hazy-eyed and hardly able to aim the pistol he was holding, and his partner, though clear-headed, was rigid with fright. Bodie scarcely saw them. Instead his eyes were fixed on Doyle, who glanced at him as the four of them took turns up the stairs, then looked away; but Bodie knew where he was at every moment, knew with an aching awareness. It was the same ache he had had every time in the past week when he had glanced over in the car and seen a partner of ten days, instead of four years.

Doyle was uninjured. As soon as it was all over, and the two had been cuffed, Bodie turned to ask, and Doyle laughed a little. "Would you believe it? Shot the RT out of my hand. One in a million." And he flexed his fingers, wincing. Two knuckles were red and swollen, where they had been twisted by the impact.

"Need a doctor?"

"Nah. Ice'll do it." Jax and Murphy were waiting for them, trading glances as their new partners talked. Suddenly embarrassed, Bodie headed them all down the stairs and outside, back to headquarters and a quick oral report to Cowley, until the phone rang and he sent the four of them away. Bodie made sure he was near Doyle as they left the office. "Come on," he said roughly. "I'll drive you home." Doyle glanced at him, then nodded.

In the car, Bodie was still, without looking, hyperaware of his partner's - ex-partner's - presence. Every shift he made in the seat, every time he breathed, Bodie knew. He straightened a little when Bodie passed the turn to Doyle's flat and kept on toward his own, but said nothing. Bodie was fiercely glad of that; he didn't know what he wanted Doyle to say. All he knew was that he desperately wanted his partner back. Back the way they used to be, before it had all gone wrong.

Letting them in, he was glad that it was daylight and not night, not anything like the last time Doyle had been in his flat. He tossed a clean dishtowel at the other man, and while Doyle was raiding his freezer for ice, Bodie went to the sideboard and poured them both drinks, automatically. Doyle stared at him when he handed him his glass, and, suddenly self-conscious, Bodie did not, after all, drain his own, as he had meant to do. He held the glass tightly in his hand, and did not look at it.

Doyle sat down in the armchair, his wounded hand cradled in the makeshift icepack and the scotch untouched on the floor beside him. He looked up at Bodie, waiting.

Christ. He had to say something. "Been a while."

"Yeah."

Wonderful beginning. "Look," he tried, resenting the position he was in, "I'm sorry I hit you. Can we just forget about it?" Doyle said nothing, only watched him guardedly, and Bodie's ragged temper frayed still more. "For Christ's sake! You're not so fucking pure - "

"What, because I sleep with men?" Doyle snapped, and came to his feet. "Goddamn it, Bodie - "

"No, wait!" Bodie had been trying to push the sick twisting of guilt away, but stubbornly it stayed with him. "Look, I'm sorry. But I was drunk, and when you... Shit, mate!" He slammed his glass down on the sideboard. "You know I didn't mean it!"

"Do I?"

Bodie stood for a moment, breathing heavily, his nostrils flared. Then he slumped. Collapsing onto the sofa, he rested his head on his fist. "Christ. When I... I guess I did mean it. At the time. That's the hell of it."

"Yeah," Doyle said impassively.

"Look." Bodie turned his face away, toward the floor. "I just don't want to have anything to do with it, you know? I don't - I don't like it. I don't want to know about it."

"Okay."

Bodie looked up. "Okay? Is it that easy? Can we really just say 'fine, we'll never think about it again'?"

"You were the one who kept bringing it up, mate," Doyle said, in a low voice. "I wanted to drop it as soon as - as soon as I knew I'd made a mistake. Never mind that.

"Besides," and his voice was steady, "we have to. We have to put it behind us, or break the team permanently. You know that."

"Yeah," Bodie said shakily. "I know. And I don't - want that. I don't want to break the team. You're my partner." He looked up, and Doyle met his eyes, a little uncertain, a little wary, but with hope filtering around the edges.

"Me, too, mate," was all he said, but Bodie felt a great swell of relief. Safe...

"Right, then," he said, forcing the jauntiness, and stood up. "You want something to eat?"

"No, thanks. It's getting late; I ought to be going."

Once Bodie would have pressed him, tried to convince him to stay. Now he only asked, tentatively, "Pick me up tomorrow?"

Doyle grinned, and the relief was as clear on his face as Bodie felt it on his own. "Seven-thirty."

"I'll be here." Bodie walked him to the door, and the goodbyes were a little reluctant, a little awkward: "Night, mate" with their eyes half- meeting, and then Doyle was jogging down the stairs as Bodie closed the door behind him and set the locks, carefully.

The partnership was safe. Doyle was safe. Everything would be all right.

They worked together after that, after Doyle had spent twenty minutes closeted with Cowley while Bodie, abashed and sick at himself, made himself scarce and never asked what his partner had said. Fitting carefully together again, discussing cases, sleeping by turns on stakeout in a freezing warehouse, and finally able again to weave a conversation between them, each catching the thread tossed to him by the other, until Cowley rolled his eyes in annoyance at the famous double act, and the poor man under interrogation grew quite dizzy trying to follow the rapid-fire of questions, accusations, steel-cored cajoling from the men who bracketed him.

---

Chapter 2

It was then, nearly a month later when they had that old ability back, that Bodie knew, finally, that everything was as it should be. Doyle was his partner, his mate; they worked together, jogged or worked out on the odd morning off, and once or twice went for drinks of an evening. He kept to beer or lager, now, and knew that Doyle noticed.

Bodie relaxed.

He was lounging in the rest room, flipping idly through the sports pages, one afternoon when Doyle came in for a break between the reports he was writing. Bodie, smug at being for once up-to-date on his paperwork, waved the newspaper at him. "The Cow unshackled you yet?"

Doyle collected a cup of coffee and sat down on the arm of the sofa beside his partner. "Nah, but I've just about got the lock picked. Working hard, are you?"

"Oh, absolutely," Bodie averred. "Look, if you've got the evening free, how about the cinema? Cindy dumped me, and that Olivier film you went on about is still playing." He knew Doyle wanted to see it; a few days before, his partner had tried to convince any of the off-duty agents to join him. Bodie, having a previous date with a bird of his own, had grinned lasciviously and vowed he would never give up an evening with the busty and enthusiastic Cindy. He'd had little choice, however; a late-night call-in had ended both the evening and the relationship, as it did them all, eventually. Now he grinned invitingly at his partner. "C'mon, mate, now's your chance."

"Nah," responded Doyle idly, astounding him. "Anything in the paper?"

"Why not?" Bodie asked, ignoring the question. "Last week you were begging for the chance."

"Seen it." Doyle swung to his feet and turned away.

"Who with?" Of the other agents on the squad, Doyle was probably closest to Jax; they had worked together a few times, even before the brief reteaming a month before. But Jax had told Doyle firmly that he would on no account be dragged to that film; he got enough of war films in real life, thank you kindly. "You got a new bird, then?"

Doyle stood quite still, his back to Bodie. There was the smallest pause, before he spoke, without inflection.

"You said you didn't want to know."

It took a moment to sink in; and then all the air seemed to vanish from Bodie's lungs. He stared, speechless, at the tense shoulders until Doyle, without turning, threw his crumpled styrofoam cup at the wastebasket and left the room.

Bodie set the paper down slowly, without seeing it. Unable to deny what he had heard, he caught himself trying to deny its implications. It was ridiculous. He was with Doyle every minute, practically, and if his partner had - well, he'd know.

But he knew, as his fingers tightened slowly into fists, that it wasn't so. Friends and partners they were, again, off duty as well as on, but still he spent less time with Doyle than before. He no longer showed up unannounced at midnight, half-drunk and looking for a place to sleep; Doyle had ceased leaning on the bell at six-fifteen to cheerily suggest an early-morning run before work.

He shut his eyes briefly, pressed his right fist hard against his thigh as he tried to sort through his conflicting reactions. With a man - he skimmed that part quickly. It didn't bother him, not any more, and anyway it was none of his business. But he'd wanted to see the film too, dammit! Not that he'd have told Doyle so; he'd been planning to let the little sod talk him into it. But he'd have liked to see it with Doyle, liked to discuss it afterward over dinner or a drink.

Jealous? he accused himself nastily. Hardly that; he just - he'd been used to knowing where Doyle was, what he'd been doing. It made him uneasy, having this shoved between them.

He couldn't get it out of his mind, the nagging reminder that he didn't know his partner as well as he'd thought. He was still thinking about it two days later, as they cruised more-or-less aimlessly through the middle of London after checking in with a couple of Bodie's grasses, and with an hour yet to kill before they were to relieve Lucas and McCabe on surveillance. Preoccupied, he looked up in mild surprise when Doyle parked in front of a small Italian restaurant Bodie hadn't seen before. "Lunch," he said economically, and disappeared inside.

Bodie followed more slowly, sobered. Food before a stake-out or long surveillance, or at the very least a take-away brought with them, was standard practice; with the time they had, he'd been thinking vaguely of a Chinese place they'd gone to once or twice before. This place - "Bellissima", it called itself on the menus - was new, just opened. How did Doyle know about it?

The waiter had taken their orders and gone again before Bodie worked up the nerve. "Ray," he asked, and his fingers were tight in his napkin, his head stiffly bent downward, "what's his name?"

Doyle didn't waste time misunderstanding. He flicked a glance at his partner. "Nothing to do with you," he said, and his voice was cool.

"I know." Bodie was sure his neck was red. "Want to know."

"Why?"

That was a good one. He didn't like it when Doyle kept secrets from him? He didn't know him as well as he ought? He managed to get a little of it out, stumbling over the words, and was unprepared for the taut- drawn rage that met him.

"You bastard," Doyle hissed. Weight on his elbows, he leant forward across the table. "Tell me you don't want to know, fine; now you change your mind? Well, it doesn't work like that. You can't have it both ways, Bodie!"

"I know. I'm sorry." The halting apology seemed to mollify Doyle a little, and he relaxed back as the waiter arrived again, setting plates down with brisk efficiency. "I just - " Bodie fumbled for the words. "I hate not knowing about you."

"You hate knowing, too."

"Not as much."

"Yeah?"

"Yes." He caught Doyle's right wrist as the other man reached for his drink, gripped it tightly. "Yes," he said again, and felt the tendons shift under his hand. Doyle watched him, eyes narrowed.

"All right, Bodie," he said finally. "All right." He let his arm fall to the table, covered Bodie's fingers with his left hand. Carefully Bodie let go of the sharp-boned wrist, and for a moment they were holding hands across the table, before Doyle brushed his thumb across the backs of Bodie's fingers and let him go. Slowly, Bodie drew his hand back, still feeling the warmth of Doyle's grasp.

They ate without talking much, but each was still vividly aware of the other. Bodie found himself watching Doyle's mouth, his shoulders, the backs of his hands. He tried to imagine Doyle kissing another man, tried to picture him naked, with a man's broad hands on his body. It made him uncomfortable. It didn't seem right, and once his mental image flipped alarmingly and he saw himself with another man, felt in his mind the flat solidity of chest muscle against his instead of familiar softness. He jerked away from the image, and threw his napkin down. "C'mon. Time to go."

Doyle followed him wordlessly back to the car, and still said nothing as he drove them to the seedy neighborhood on the south bank where Lucas and McCabe were waiting, keeping an eye on Rudolf Schussman alias Lenz, a German arms dealer who, with any luck, still didn't know that his false passport had been spotted. Three to eight p.m. in a second- story three-room flat, with a bottle of fruit juice and two stale sandwiches cheerily donated by the other agents, a handful of 50p pieces for the electric meter courtesy of the CI5 budget, and a telescope fixed in the window, aimed down and across at the door of an equally seedy semi-detached. And Doyle.

Doyle took the first shift, sitting concealed behind the net curtains and watching, alternating between the telescope and his own eyes. He had pulled off his jacket and holster and tossed them on one of the chairs. Bodie added his own jacket to the pile but kept his gun on, settled in another chair, every bit as rickety as it looked, and watched his partner. And thought, hard.

Doyle was bisexual, okay. If he was now, then he had been since Bodie had known him, and it hadn't stopped them being friends. Doyle was the same as he had always been.

Doyle had made a pass at him, though, and that wasn't the way it had always been, at all. Bodie shifted restlessly, eyeing the other man. He was able to think about it now. Doyle had made a pass at him. And since his partner was neither a leather stud nor a mincing limp-wristed poof, what did that mean?

Bodie thought about being wanted by another man. It was uncomfortable, almost humiliating; for a moment he was nineteen again, and the black guerrilla leered and smirked. He thought about Doyle, and the way they worked together, and he felt better. Then he thought about Doyle wanting him. It felt strange.

In an odd way it was almost a compliment, though. He hadn't been able to see it that way before, had been too afraid it meant Doyle saw him as gay, one of the pansy boys Bodie had always detested, or that it meant Doyle himself was like that. But watching Doyle now, his face in the thin shadow of the curtains and his body relaxed but alert, Bodie knew that that fear, at least, was absurd.

He tried to imagine kissing Doyle, and abruptly remembered Doyle kissing him, that once in his flat, and the intent look in his eyes just before he had done it. He couldn't remember the kiss itself, how it had felt; only the shock that had hit him.

And now Doyle was going off somewhere with another man, some stranger. Was he doing the things he had wanted to do with Bodie? Did he still want Bodie?

A rush of jealousy hit him, anger at the unknown faceless man who had diverted Doyle from him. Bodie seethed. I should've seen that bloody film with him. He's my partner. How'm I supposed to watch his back if you've got him off somewhere?

Bodie got up and, without looking at the other man, walked out of the room to shut himself in the tiny, mildewed bathroom off the flat's kitchen. He put the toilet seat cover down and sat on it, shut his eyes tightly, and tried to imagine having sex with Ray Doyle.

Part of it came easily. He'd seen Doyle naked often enough, could conjure that sight. He knew that Doyle was circumcised and, though he himself wasn't, he'd seen enough blue films to know what a circumcised cock looked like erect. Pretty much like his own, anyway.

He knew what Doyle felt like in his arms, had held him many times against pain or rage. Now he took the clothes away from the memory, and imagined himself naked, holding - being touched by - a naked and aroused Doyle. Remembered what kisses felt like along his throat and jaw, added the scrape of stubble. Doyle would be strong, his fingers digging into Bodie's arms. He tried to imagine taking Doyle's cock in his hand, and could only guess that it would be much like his own. Would Doyle like the same things he did, the same tight grip and short, hard strokes?

He was becoming aroused. His cock was half-hard in his pants, and Bodie shifted, startled. He hadn't expected that. He pressed a palm flat against his thigh, waiting for the partial erection to subside.

So. If he could get off on the idea, did that mean he could do it?

That'd be the day, he thought angrily. Doyle wouldn't come near him now, not a chance in hell, after the way he'd treated him. Besides, did he really want him to? What the hell was he thinking, anyway?

Doyle's voice sounded from the next room, murmuring into the tape recorder - name, time, description of whoever had walked through the door he was watching. Bodie flushed the toilet for appearances' sake and strolled back into the other room as Doyle finished and clicked the recorder off again. The muscular back flexed as Doyle pulled his arms back and up, rolling his head to alleviate the stiffness of sitting motionless.

"Want me to take over?" Bodie moved behind him and began massaging his partner's shoulders, digging in and working along the line of muscle.

"Nah. Don't think you could stand the excitement." Doyle leant back into the pressure of Bodie's hands. Bodie could smell him, his freshly laundered shirt and the faint tang of sweat, not unpleasant. The shirt was rough against his fingers; when he moved his hands up to work the tendons of Doyle's neck the bare skin was smooth and warm, the curls crisp. Bodie straightened the collar of his shirt and moved away.

"Ray." He was back in the wooden chair, watching the side of Doyle's face as the other man kept watch. "Ray, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah?"

Do you still want me, he almost blurted, then caught himself. He didn't want to ask that, not yet. Not here. Doyle was still, waiting.

"This - bloke you're..." Bodie trailed off, then took a breath. "Do you love him?"

Doyle's eyes never left the window. "Do you love your birds?"

Bodie was mute. Of course not. A bit of fun, no harm done, and a more- or-less friendly parting after a few nights or weeks. But Doyle...

The silence hung, until Doyle grimaced and rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Look, Bodie, I know it bothers you. I'm sorry. But I'm not gonna change, and I'm not gonna lie to you. If you want to know something, ask. But be bloody sure you want to know, first." He got up from the chair, glanced at his watch. "I'm going to see if there's any tea in the kitchen. Take over, will you?"

Bodie took his place on the chair, finding it still warm from Doyle's body, and listened to the sounds of rummaging coming from the next room. He recognized Doyle's retreat for what it was, but was glad of it. Doyle was on edge too.

His partner didn't return until the tea was made, and he brought in a mug for Bodie without being asked, steaming and dark. "No milk," he said laconically, handing it over, then leant against the wall, cradling his own. Bodie blew on his; it was too hot to drink, yet.

There were three hours left to their shift, and if they kept on like this, the tension would be unbearable. "You doing anything tonight?"

"No."

"Come back to my place. We need to talk."

Doyle nodded slowly. "Okay."

Bodie reapplied himself to the telescope. It was a good thing Schussman didn't have many visitors; his attention kept wandering. He sipped absently at his tea, and after a while Doyle made some comment on the case. He answered, and soon they were wrapped in a discussion of the arms trade through Britain. Schussman appeared to provide a connection between dealers in Germany and a splinter group of the IRA, but though Cowley seemed certain there was a link, Bodie found the proposition dubious. They argued the toss amiably enough for a while, then shifted to the latest squad gossip. Bodie maneuvered the topic, having a morsel he'd been waiting to drop when the moment was right.

"Heard about Macklin and Harrison?" he asked casually. "Quite the item lately."

Doyle choked in surprise. "Macklin and Susan? You're kidding."

Bodie grinned, glancing up to savour his partner's expression. "Murphy saw 'em the other night. Don't think training schedules are often discussed at half eleven in the carpark, do you?"

"And you took Murphy's word on it?" Doyle shook his head.

"Why not? Susan's a good agent, and good-looking as well. Can see why Brian'd be interested."

Doyle snorted. "What I can't see is why Susan would be." He picked up Bodie's empty mug from the floor and took it with his own into the kitchen. "Were you, then? Interested?"

"What, in Susan?" The question took Bodie by surprise. "Nah. Not my type."

"I know. You like them blond and dumb."

The acidity in the words took Bodie aback. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Doyle came back into the room, rolling down the sleeves he had pushed back to rinse the mugs. "Nothing. Sorry. It's the sitting around. You want me to take over again?" It was almost seven.

"Yeah." Bodie got up from the chair and, as Doyle took his place, began some stretching exercises to loosen his shoulders. He grunted as a vertebra popped.

By seven-thirty even the pasty cheese sandwiches left from the noon shift had begun to look good, but Bodie held out with several more cups of stale tea and the thought of a pizza as soon as they were off. Schussman was known to keep odd hours - in his field, anyone who refused to do business at night was odd - and when they left surveillance would end until morning. They straightened away the little clutter they had made, locked the flat up and took the tape recorder back to headquarters to file a brief report before being set at liberty until the next day.

Doyle had driven them to work that day, so Bodie expected that they would go back to his own flat, from which Doyle could drive himself home. But as they headed for the carpark, Doyle asked if he had any food in. Bodie admitted his usual scanty state, and suggested the pizza. Doyle shook his head.

"Might have known. The way you eat... C'mon. I've got a steak pie at home, if you want it."

"If I want it? Nutter." Bodie fell happily in beside his partner, and only when they were halfway to Doyle's did he remember that he had asked Doyle back to his place that afternoon, so they could talk. He felt a bit uncomfortable, bringing the subject up at the other man's flat, instead of on his own ground.

The pie was good, washed down with beer and with an apple each for afters. Finished, they left the dishes piled in the sink and headed for the sitting room. Doyle's flat, somewhat smaller than Bodie's, had none of the overstuffed armchairs his partner was so fond of; they each took an end of the sofa, half-facing each other. Bodie stuffed a cushion against the arm of the couch, propping himself against it.

He knew Doyle wouldn't bring it up. Since that first time, when he'd kissed him, he'd never brought it up, except when Bodie had. Always he'd left it up to Bodie.

"I need to ask you some things," he said finally.

Doyle looked at him, a little wary, but not, Bodie thought, of him specifically. A little nervous. He said, "I told you, mate. Ask what you want to know."

Bodie looked down, watching his hands knot themselves in his lap. Doyle had one arm over the sofa's back, the other resting on his leg.

"Do you still want me?" Bodie caught his breath, waiting.

Slowly Doyle shifted, pulling his legs up and hugging one knee to his chest. He dropped his chin onto his kneecap, and closed his eyes.

"I was afraid you'd ask that." He breathed once, deeply, in and out.

He had already answered Bodie's question. "Doyle - "

"Bodie, I said I wouldn't lie to you. Not even to make it easier on you, or me. Yes." He raised his head and met his partner's eyes. "Yes, I still want you."

Bodie licked his lips. "Why?"

"Why?" Doyle laughed a little, and turned to stare out across the room, away from him. "Christ, I don't know. Because you're my best friend, and I like being with you? Because you've got a great body, and an arse that could drive me crazy?" Bodie flinched, but Doyle didn't pause. "Because you're the best partner I've ever had, and I lie awake at night thinking about you? Christ, Bodie. Why does anyone want anyone?"

Tension was shivering through Bodie's neck and arms. "Are you saying you're in love with me?"

"No. You don't want any part of it, I know that. I'm not in love with you. But I could be." He turned back to Bodie. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Not for feeling this way. For - " He hesitated, then shrugged resignedly, his mouth twisting. "For telling you, maybe."

But otherwise he never would have known, and that prospect made Bodie even more uneasy. "The thing is - " he began awkwardly, then forced himself to meet Doyle's eyes and begin again. "I can't stop thinking about it." He swallowed. "I tried to - to avoid it, and, well, you know how well that worked. I tried to ignore it, and I can't. I'm - Christ, I know it's stupid - I'm jealous of this other bloke. And if I can't stop thinking about you, and I can't ignore it, maybe we should - maybe I want to - " try it. He couldn't say it.

"Do you want us to split up? Is that what you're saying?" Doyle's voice was tight.

"No!" Bodie leant forward, grabbed his partner's arm. The muscle was strung taut. He hitched himself closer. "I can't stop thinking about you." Doyle was frozen motionless, staring at him. Dammit, do something! Bodie didn't know who he was cursing. "Doyle..." His fingers bit into Doyle's arm. He couldn't do any more.

Then, very slowly, Doyle bent toward him. Eyes open, holding his fiercely, Doyle leant forward, and carefully touched his lips to Bodie's. Bodie caught his breath. Doyle's mouth pressed against him, dry and warm, his lips not moving, his breath warm on Bodie's cheek. Bodie didn't move, feeling the pressure hold steady, then decrease as Doyle moved back. His hands had not left his lap.

Bodie let go his grip on Doyle's arm. He straightened a little. "That the best you can do?"

"For the moment." Doyle's voice was ragged. "What do you want, Bodie?"

"I want you to show me what the hell's going on. I can't stop thinking about it; I might as well - try it."

Doyle's face tightened. "Mercy fuck, is it? Forget it, Bodie."

"That's not it!" He turned to lean against the sofa back, moving in the process a little closer to his partner. Doyle's leg pressed against his. "You said I was your best friend. Well, you're mine. You're the only partner I've ever had, and I don't want another one. And if you want this so badly, maybe - maybe I want it too. I'm willing to try."

"Oh, Christ." Doyle got up from the sofa and paced across the room, then turned to face Bodie, his arms folded across his chest. "Bodie, do you have any idea what you're talking about? I'm not going to be a curiosity fuck, another notch for you to carve in your cock. I won't. God damn it, I've been hurt enough."

Bodie heard the catch in his voice with some surprise. He hadn't really thought, before, about what Doyle must have felt. He'd wondered how long Doyle had wanted him, before that sudden kiss, but not how long it had taken him to work up the nerve.

"That's not it," he said again. "I've - been thinking about it. About sleeping with you." He looked down, staring at the floor. "Didn't know I could get turned on by it, did I?" Doyle breathed in, sharply, but said nothing. "Look, Ray. I never really thought about being with another bloke. What I've seen of it, I didn't like. But all that - that wasn't you. So now - yes, maybe some of it's curiosity, but it's also that - " he reached back for the words Doyle had given him, " - you're my best friend, and I like being with you." He looked up, and saw Doyle staring almost angrily at him, the reddish mark on his cheek livid against pale skin. "Christ, it was your idea. Now I'm saying yes, and all of a sudden you run a mile!"

"And what about afterwards, Bodie? Think you'll feel as good about it after you're as much of a poufter as I am?"

The acid fury was like a slap, and Bodie flung it back. "How the hell should I know?" he shouted, and, astonishingly, Doyle laughed sharply and relaxed a little.

"Well, that was honest, anyway." He came back to the sofa and crouched beside it, his face level with Bodie's and very close. "Listen, partner. I'm not going to go through all that shit again. I want you enough to try to make this work, if you mean it. But you go off the deep end again, and that's it. Partnership, friendship, and all. Understand?"

Bodie nodded. Doyle's breath, rapid and shallow, touched his face, and his hand rested on the arm of the sofa, very close to Bodie's side. "I promise, mate. Whatever happens." He lifted one hand to touch Doyle's shoulder, but Doyle jerked away.

"There's more. You're talking about sex, Bodie, getting turned on to me and wanting to try it out. But that's not what it's about. When I said I wanted you, I didn't just mean in bed. That's part of it, but it's not all. This isn't about getting your end away. This is about caring, and a commitment."

Something in Bodie's stomach, twisting with anticipation a few moments ago, had pulled into a knot. He wasn't sure what Doyle meant. Holding hands in the rest room? Calling it a date when they went to the cinema, or for a meal together?

"You're my partner," he said, the one thing he was sure of. "Nothing's more important than that." Doyle frowned a little, and inwardly Bodie scowled, remembering. "C'mon," he said, a little more loudly. "Going to show me you can do better, then?"

Doyle sighed almost inaudibly, and drew his right hand along the curve of Bodie's jaw. Bodie kept his eyes open, watching until Doyle's features grew blurred with nearness and lips touched his own again, a little harder this time, and opening slightly. He went with the movement, noticing with one part of his mind the roughness of Doyle's upper lip, and then the warm wetness of Doyle's tongue stroked his mouth and, as he gasped, slipped inside.

His hands lifted to cradle Doyle's head as they kissed, mouths wide and fluid against each other, the slick soft probe of Doyle's tongue in his mouth, licking him and letting itself be tasted. He hardly knew that he had hitched forward to the edge of the cushion, pulled into Doyle's arms and held tightly, solidly, against his body. But when Doyle's mouth slipped from his, moving over his jaw and throat, he could feel the other man's heart beating, through his jumper and Doyle's thin shirt.

He pulled back a little, enough to take Doyle's shoulders and pull him up onto the sofa. Doyle came up willingly, and they ended half-lying along its length, Doyle's weight pressing him down. His face was full of Doyle's hair, prickly and smelling faintly of sweat and Doyle's own scent, and Doyle's hands were passing over his chest, rubbing across his nipples and then dropping to pull his shirt free of his trousers and slide under it, against his skin.

It was a new thing, lying pinned under Doyle's determined weight. Oh, he'd had women before who liked to get on top, who stripped him and teased him, and sometimes he enjoyed lying back and letting them have fun. But this was different, Doyle's breath coming in little grunts and sighs, his weight, and shape, and bones, definitely not those of a woman. Flat on his back on the narrow sofa, Bodie began to feel almost trapped. He pushed at Doyle's shoulders, and kept pushing when Doyle raised his head to look inquiringly at him.

"I can't move."

Doyle sat up beside him and ran a hand through the curls Bodie's hands had tousled. He licked his lips, and Bodie, watching, found the sight suddenly, strongly erotic. He'd sucked that tongue...

Doyle stroked one hand along his arm. "Will you come to bed?"

Bodie caught it as it slid over his wrist, laced their fingers together. "C'mon."

He felt a moment of disorientation as they walked into Doyle's bedroom, and Doyle ignored the switch by the door to turn on only the low lamp on the night table. The double bed seemed to demand attention, shoving its way up to fill his vision. Doyle sat down on it and looked up at him, waiting. Slowly, he came forward and lowered himself beside the other man. The bed was softer than his own, and gave as it took his weight.

Doyle's hands slid under his shirt again, lifting purposefully this time, and obediently he raised his arms to let it be pulled off. He supposed he ought to return the favor, so he began unbuttoning Doyle's own shirt. As usual, the top three buttons were already undone. He was a little sorry for that; this was going faster than he had expected, and he wasn't feeling quite sure of himself. And that feeling, in bed, was also something entirely new, and not a feeling he liked.

Doyle shrugged out of his shirt the moment it hung loose and pulled them together again, skin pressed to skin. It felt odd, the flat hairy chest against his, and he had a faint sensation of something missing. After a minute he broke the embrace, and bent over to start undoing his shoes. Doyle chuckled and did the same, beside him, the dim light filling his face with shadows.

Bodie finished first, and pushed his shoes and socks a little under the bed, out of the way. He put his hand on Doyle's shoulder, and when the other man turned to look at him, he leant forward and kissed him, using his weight to press Doyle back against the pillows. He didn't want to be held down, the way Doyle had pressed him into the sofa. Doyle lay back willingly enough, swinging his legs, together with Bodie's, up onto the bed.

Bodie's heart was pounding. Lying as he was, almost on top of Doyle, he could feel the other man's penis pressing into his thigh, but he couldn't tell how big he was. He hadn't ever tried to guess at such a thing before, with only the line of pressure under his leg to go by. He knew Doyle could feel him as well, and wondered if Doyle could tell he wasn't hard yet. He kissed him deeply, as a distraction, but unsure for whom it was intended.

Doyle's mouth opened wetly under his own, and Bodie drank him in, submerging himself for the second time in the kiss. Doyle's mouth was bigger than a woman's, and met his openly and eagerly. He was making the little sounds again: not moaning, exactly, but a roughened breathing, occasionally catching in a low-voiced cry.

Bodie slid off him somewhat, to lie more on his left side against Doyle, with his thigh no longer pressed so blatantly against Doyle's crotch. Doyle's left hand stroked up his chest, and fingers rolled and stroked his nipple. It felt good, if a little unexpected. He copied the motion, taking Doyle's left nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and was startled when Doyle arched under him and gasped.

"Bodie...please..."

He squeezed the little nub, feeling it harden. "What?"

Doyle's free hand pressed the back of his neck, forcing his head toward Doyle's chest. He resisted only a moment, then bent, considering the prospect. Doyle's nipples were pinkish-brown, half-hidden among the curls. Hair caught in his lips as he took one in.

Doyle tensed, and fingers dug into the muscles of his neck. "Bite it," he whispered hoarsely.

Bite it? Bodie paused, uncertain. "You sure?"

The grip on his nape eased, and Doyle stroked his shoulders. "Yeah. Doesn't hurt. Just not too hard..."

Bodie shook his head mentally and set himself. It was harder to pull the nipple into his mouth than he was used to, with only the muscular chest wall beneath it. He clamped his teeth carefully on the little protrusion, and bit down. Doyle moaned and urged him wordlessly on.

More? Bodie's skin crawled a little as he forced himself to grind his teeth on Doyle's nipple. Doyle seemed to like it, more than like it, but Bodie's stomach was tight at the thought, and he had an almost irresistible urge to cover his own nipples with his palms against such an attack.

Finally, Doyle's hand fell away from his nape, and Bodie let go, dropping his head from off Doyle's shoulder and onto the pillow. Doyle massaged his abused nipple for a moment, and then rolled on his side to face him. Kisses fell on Bodie's forehead, his cheeks and eyes, and a longer one on his mouth. "What do you want?" The words were murmured against his skin. "What can I do?"

Doyle's skin felt hot, even through his jeans where their lower bodies touched - especially through his jeans, and Bodie knew that that was ridiculous. "You're the expert, you tell me," he answered shortly, intensely aware of the hand drifting down his torso.

It didn't continue past his belt, and Bodie didn't know if he was glad or sorry. He was still soft, though his groin felt heavy and hot. Doyle's fingers traced the waistband of his trousers briefly, and then his hand was taken and Doyle pressed a kiss into his palm, and then pressed his palm against Doyle's own crotch.

Doyle was hard. There was no doubt of that. Bodie was frozen motionless for a moment, absorbing what Doyle had done, and then let his fingers fold slowly around the shape he could feel within the worn denim. Doyle held absolutely still. Bodie traced the length of his cock, trying again to guess how big he was.

After a moment, Doyle's fingers went to the button of Bodie's trousers. Bodie supposed he should have expected that, and made no protest as his partner opened his belt and fly and slipped his hand inside. If Doyle hadn't already known he wasn't hard, he showed no surprise on discovering it.

Bodie's hand was still tracing lightly along the ridge of Doyle's erection. As Doyle began pushing his trousers down off his hips, however, Bodie discovered abruptly that if he was going to be naked, he did not want to be the only one. He sat up, pushing aside Doyle's hands at his crotch, and without giving himself time to think he pulled Doyle's zip down and his jeans and pants away and off.

Christ. Bodie had never been so close to another man's erect cock in his life. It lay there, as Doyle lay there, slanting up across the dark pubic hair to brush the skin below his navel. And it looked smooth, and hard, and about the size he'd guessed, and he was by no means sure he wanted to touch it. Doyle's balls were shadowed in the lamplight, hairy and wrinkled.

Doyle smiled, his right arm still laid across the bed where it had hugged Bodie to him, before, and his left hand playing again, gently, with Bodie's gaping trousers. "C'mon, mate. You too. Let me see you..." Stiffly, Bodie let him work the last of his clothing over his hips and down, and kicked the tangle away. Doyle's hand touched his cock, cradled his balls for a moment.

"Been a rough week," Bodie muttered. Had he imagined the question in Doyle's look, as his limpness was revealed?

Doyle didn't point out that they'd had the same week, together. "Yeah. I know." He rolled aside and pulled the duvet down, then brought Bodie with him under its warmth. Naked, lying length to length in each other's arms and indubitably in bed together, Bodie was feeling more aroused, and more nervous, and the nervousness was beginning to make him angry. At himself, and at Doyle. He took Doyle's mouth again. He liked the kissing, and he was beginning to get used to the lean hard body against his. He hoped.

Then Doyle slipped away, and began nuzzling his nipples, with little licks and bites. And kept moving down, dipping a tonguetip into Bodie's navel, which made him squirm, and pulling with his lips at the line of hair that led from there to the black thatch around his cock. Bodie lay back, one hand resting on Doyle's shoulder, waiting in breathless, and somewhat surprised, anticipation. He hadn't expected this. Well, he probably should have, he knew, but he'd been so busy trying to imagine himself with Doyle, he hadn't wondered what Doyle would want to do to him.

Except fuck him, maybe; and that thought had frightened him for weeks. He shivered a little, remembering, and Doyle murmured, taking it for a tremor of excitement. The wet tongue slipped around the head of his cock, and then all his softness was sucked in.

Bodie shifted, spreading his legs a little. God, Doyle was good. He could feel himself getting hard in slow swelling pulses, and Doyle rode with them, sucking hard to pull a low moan from him, and then slipping back, until only the tip of his tongue flicked Bodie's foreskin. Bodie gasped, and Doyle took him in, all at once, strongly, and cupped his balls in his hand at the same time, rolling them.

Like this, with just his hand stroking Doyle's hair, it could almost have been a woman going down on him, except for the contours of the body lying over his legs. Bodie shut his eyes. Doyle was good at this, better than almost anyone Bodie'd been with before. Now he took Bodie's shaft in a saliva-slick palm and kept only the head in his mouth, licking teasingly at Bodie's foreskin and then slipping it back to suck the sensitive glans in. Bodie moaned, and Doyle murmured around his flesh.

Well, it made sense that Doyle would be good at giving head, didn't it? After all, he knew what it felt like. Bodie knew how to please a woman, had taken pleasure in learning the intricate, tiny folds of cunt and clitoris; but however great the sex, his skill had always seemed a little alien: something learned, not something known. Doyle knew.

And besides, he got a lot of practice.

Christ. He didn't want to think about that. Not about the men Doyle must have gone down on before, and who sucked him in return. About the men he learned how to tease a foreskin from. Because he couldn't have known that, could he?

With a sick feeling, Bodie felt the swelling pulses in his cock hesitate, felt Doyle suck harder in response. It didn't work. His erection was wilting, past the point where either of them could ignore it. He threw an arm across his face as Doyle's movements changed from sucking to gentling, easing him down. How could his cock be so limp, when the rest of his body was so tense?

Doyle moved up and lay on his side next to him. Bodie couldn't tell if he was hard or not; they weren't touching there. "It's okay, mate." He put an arm across Bodie's chest and pulled himself against his partner's side.

"It's not you," Bodie muttered.

"Bullshit." But Doyle didn't sound angry. "Who else would it be? We're going too fast. My fault."

Bodie didn't want to argue that one. He pulled away; Doyle's arm tightened, holding him back. "Where're you going?"

Bodie succeeded in sitting up, only to find Doyle following him, close and very determined. Avoiding his partner's eyes, he bent over to look for his pants. "Look, it's not working. It was a bad idea, and I'm sorry. Forget it."

"No." The answer was fierce, and a strong hand caught his shoulder, yanking him back. "Damn it, Bodie, this is what I meant. I'm not going to let you go running off and pretend none of this ever happened!"

"Yeah, well, there's the little fact that I can't get it up," Bodie spat bitterly. "Blow to your ego, is it? Or are you going to try an' fuck me anyway?" He heard his voice rising almost with shock, and forced his fists to unclench, trying to shove away the anger. They'd never survive another fight...

"Damn you, Bodie," Doyle said evenly. "I told you, this is not about sex for me. Yes, I want you like that. Been thinking about it for weeks, and if you had the nerve to ask, I'd tell you. But if you leave now, you'll never come back. Because if you walk out, you've got to do it all the way. So tonight you're staying here, and if you want to go out after work tomorrow and fuck every air hostess in Heathrow to reassure yourself you're still normal, you go ahead!" His voice had risen.

Bodie's pulse was rapid. "What about you?" He had no idea what Doyle wanted from him, and knew only that he was desperate to get out, away from his partner's nearness.

"What about me? It's hardly a turn-on to have you bloody well limp with fright, is it?" And even as Bodie flinched from the deliberate cruelty, he managed for the first time to glance down, and saw that Doyle was as soft and small as he was.

He hadn't known the rigidity of his tension, until he felt it begin to leach out of him, then. He took a deep breath.

"Okay. Yeah, I was runnin' away. But if you're not going to let me do that," and he grinned a little, shamefacedly, "what are we goin' to do, then?"

Doyle sat back. His shoulders and arms visibly relaxed, and Bodie, watching, realised that Doyle had been nearly as taut-strung as he himself. He'd taken that anger for a threat, but it was nervousness, like his own. Doyle reached out and cradled his jaw, as he had done at the beginning, before their first real kiss. Bodie allowed it, but Doyle made no move to kiss him again. He only stroked him once, and then let his hand fall. "We're going to do the dishes, lock up, and go to sleep. Tomorrow, if you like, I'll give you a ride home from work, and we'll let it go. This - " he gestured around them, at the disordered bed, " - isn't what's important. Not as much."

Bodie glanced at Doyle's face, calm and a little sad, then looked away. He could feel his partner's eyes on him, but their gaze no longer made him quite so uncomfortable. In fact, Bodie realised, he was more at ease than he had been since before they had come into the bedroom. "Yeah, okay. Sorry, Ray. I - it's too much, right now."

Doyle nodded without answering, already moving across the room to toss him a robe from the wardrobe. Bodie shrugged into it; it was a warm flannel, falling just past his knees and colored a deep red. Doyle was pulling on another, a shorter white toweling robe. Bodie pulled his belt tight and knotted it at his hip. "Dishes," said Doyle, and chivvied him out the door.

Bodie washed while Doyle dried. He protested loudly at this division of labour, claiming a tendency toward chapped hands; if the clowning was a little forced at first, it eased. Doyle told him a joke he'd heard from McCabe, and Bodie told him what he'd heard Macklin muttering after he finished a session with the probationary recruits.

"Liar," Doyle said, grinning. "Macklin doesn't know Afrikaans."

"He's a remarkable man, our Brian. Can curse in seven languages."

"Learned it from you, did he?" and Doyle flicked the dish towel at him, and got a handful of suds in the face in return. By the time the dishes were finished, and the locks set and checked, Bodie was nursing a warm pocket of reassurance in his stomach. Things were all right. He hadn't fucked it up again.

"Got a spare toothbrush?" he asked, heading for the bathroom.

"Borrow mine," was the answer, and Bodie grinned. Bit late to get squeamish, after all. He brushed his teeth and rinsed his face, and went back in the bedroom while Doyle took his turn. The bed didn't loom nearly so much, and he hung the robe up and climbed under the covers.

Doyle came back in, and paused for a moment, seeing Bodie already in bed; he glanced over to the open wardrobe and Bodie saw him see the robe there. His eyes on Bodie again, he untied his belt and let his own robe slide off his shoulders. "I've got pajamas, if you'd - "

"No." Bodie wasn't afraid any more. Hell, he'd slept with Doyle - just slept - before. It had been too much, earlier, but this was going to be all right. It had to. "C'mon, Ray."

The bed was big enough for them to lie hardly touching each other, if they'd wanted; but they didn't, and after some shifting around they managed to settle down. It took a while; Doyle was bony in all the wrong places, and just when Bodie'd got comfortable he exclaimed, "Shit!" and sat up to turn on the alarm.

"Set it a little earlier, mate," suggested Bodie, watching him. "Got to allow for two showers tomorrow, don't forget."

Doyle flicked the alarm on and turned out the light. "On the other hand, I don't have to pick you up on the way in, do I?" An awkward embrace later, and after some pointed remarks from Doyle about Bodie's elbows, they ended up curled spoon-fashion, Bodie with an arm thrown over the other man, Doyle's back against his chest. His penis was tucked against the soft curve of Doyle's buttocks, and Bodie wryly admitted to himself that if their positions had been reversed, he might have been too panicky to sleep.

No. A few weeks ago that might have been true, or even earlier that evening; but no longer. Doyle was silent, asleep or very close, and Bodie rested his head against his shoulder, thinking. He wasn't afraid. Nervous, maybe, but not afraid. And hell, anyone was entitled to be nervous, in a situation like that. But he liked the solid feel of Doyle's body in his arms. He still hadn't touched Doyle's cock. Strange; that was the main thing he'd been thinking about that afternoon - was it only that afternoon? - in the grotty surveillance flat, and after all that had happened, he still didn't know what Doyle felt like.

Well, his hand was lying on Doyle's stomach, and the man was buck naked. He could always find out. No time like the present.

Bodie chuckled a little, and went to sleep.

---

Chapter 3

He woke before the alarm went off. They had moved apart during the night, and Doyle was behind him, not touching him, his breathing still the deep, slow rhythm of sleep. Bodie eased his way gingerly out of bed and wrapped the red robe around himself on his way to the bathroom It was a few minutes before seven.

He brushed his teeth again with Doyle's toothbrush, and as he stepped into the shower he heard the buzz of the alarm, and then Doyle's hand slapping it off. He wondered what Doyle would think, finding his partner not in the bed. He hadn't wanted to stay until Doyle woke up; he didn't want to be there when he did. He didn't know what Doyle would say to him: leaning over him in the bed, body close against him; or jerking away from a touch, disgusted at Bodie's futile nakedness

The shower was hot and pleasant, the water pressure better than at his flat. The feel of his own hands on his body reminded him of the previous night, and experimentally he pinched a nipple, hard. It hurt. He couldn't imagine asking someone to bite it. Laughing a little, he shook his head ruefully, and got soap in his eyes in the process.

The bed had been straightened when he returned to the bedroom, and his clothes picked up from the floor and piled on the duvet. Doyle was in the kitchen, judging from the sounds he was hearing. With only a twinge of guilt, Bodie rummaged through his partner's bureau until he found a pair of underpants and a clean shirt. He balled yesterday's underwear up inside yesterday's shirt and failed to find a laundry basket, so he chucked the bundle on the floor by the wardrobe and headed for the kitchen.

Doyle was standing at the stove, dressed in jeans and a loose sweater, minding a frying pan that Bodie liked the smell of. He looked up as Bodie came in, and Bodie grinned a little, wanting this to be okay, wanting it to be like any other morning they had had together.

Well, mostly like.

Doyle smiled back, and tipped his spatula at Bodie's chest. "I was going to say, borrow a shirt if you like." He went back to prodding at the eggs, then turned the bacon over.

"Pants too. Is that coffee?" It was, a mug left steaming for him on the table. He took it gratefully and drank a swallow. "Look, I'll finish that. Go and have a wash, if you like."

"After breakfast; it's just done." Doyle slid the eggs and bacon onto plates, added bread, and brought the food to the small table Bodie was standing beside. "C'mon, sit down. Never known you to hesitate at food before." He pulled a chair out and sat down himself, then muttered a curse and got up again for forks and his own coffee, left sitting by the stove.

He was moving too much. Bodie could tell the difference between Doyle's usual efficient grace and this nervous activity. As Doyle put a fork down for him and perched himself on the edge of his chair, Bodie set his coffee down and put a hand on his partner's shoulder. Doyle jumped, palpably, and looked up at him.

"What's wrong?" Bodie asked. Doyle was silent for a moment, opened his mouth and then shut it again. He glanced at the hand resting on his shoulder. Stiff-armed, feeling awkward, Bodie took it away again. Doyle seemed to settle minutely as Bodie moved away and sat down; he took his fork up, but made no move to start eating. Bodie picked up his bread, then paused as Doyle took a breath.

"I dreamed about you last night," he said.

Bodie put the bread down again. Doyle was not quite meeting his eyes, staring at Bodie's breakfast as if he expected to find something crawling in it.

"This morning..." Bodie said after a minute, jerkily - "I wasn't running out on you."

Doyle, he was astonished to see, was slowly flushing. "That's not what I dreamed," he said painfully, voice low.

He was practically sweating tension, and Bodie didn't want to think about it. He sat back in his chair, pulling away; picked up his coffee again and pressed the hot rim of the mug to his lips, without saying anything. After a long moment Doyle picked up his fork and broke the yolk of his eggs, so that the yellow liquid ran across his plate. He dipped his bread in the mess and bit into it, chewing slowly.

The first swallow of coffee was a hot stone in Bodie's stomach. This was too much, too tense. He wanted a normal morning with his partner, to show them both that they could still manage it, despite what had happened the previous night - or what hadn't happened. He hadn't been impotent in years.

If he had been able to keep it up, what would have happened? He didn't know.

Bodie attacked his breakfast with grim determination, ignoring Doyle picking at his soggy bacon across the table. Finished, he stood up and bunged his plate into the sink. It was nearly seven-thirty, and they were on duty at eight; if Doyle had any ideas about doing the dishes now, he could forget them.

"Let's go, then," he said, and winced to hear the false heartiness in his own voice. "Work, Doyle, remember?"

Doyle forced a smile, trying to match the light note. "Right. Half a mo'." He got up and headed for the bathroom, evidently brushing his teeth while Bodie dumped his plate, half-full as it was, in the sink with his own. He wiped his hands and almost ran into his partner in the sitting room, where Doyle was already pulling on his jacket. "C'mon," he said, a little too quickly, heading for the door, "I'll give you a lift home tonight." Bodie caught his own jacket as it was tossed to him, shrugged into his holster and followed, his lips clamped shut against what he had almost said. Nah, he had almost said, I'll catch the tube to Heathrow. Lot of air hostesses to get through.

They piled into Doyle's car and pulled out, Doyle driving a bit faster than usual to make up for their late start. They were less than halfway to headquarters, however, when the car radio shrilled. "Control to 4.5!"

Bodie picked up the mike and flicked it on as Doyle glanced over curiously. "3.7. 4.5's here, go ahead."

The dispatcher was Elliott, one of the new men, on a breaking-in job. "Both of you, good. 3.7 to join 6.2 on the Schussman surveillance, pronto. 4.5 to Waterloo station, contact 3.4 by RT and offer backup as needed."

Doyle was already spinning the car around, heading for the nearest bridge. "3.7, 4.5 acknowledged," Bodie said. "What's up?"

"Don't ask me," Elliott said mournfully. "Marriott called in; somebody showed up to see Schussman and he tailed him and called for backup."

"Right, out." Bodie clicked the radio off in disgust. "He's not going to make it past probation. Not even knowing who we're after!"

"Know soon enough," answered Doyle with equanimity, slipping through a traffic light with half a second to spare. "Besides, you'll be havin' a nice visit with Murph, while I chase after Mr. Mysterious. In the rain," he added, looking gloomily upward. The weak morning sun had almost disappeared again behind thick grey clouds.

The first drops were hitting the windshield heavily as Doyle pulled up in the alley behind the surveillance flat. He stopped the car only long enough for Bodie to get out, then pulled away again, and as Bodie ran for the battered door he was already turning into the street and gone. Bodie shoved his way in and climbed the dank stairs to where Murphy was waiting; he rapped on the door as he opened it to let the other agent know he was there, but did not risk calling his name until he had locked it behind himself. "Murph. What's happening?"

Murphy was at the surveillance post, of course, his back to Bodie as he kept watch out the window. "Oh, good, it's the tea lady," he said thickly, and rubbed a hand across his face. "I'll have a coffee, lots of sugar. Quick."

"Berk," answered Bodie in the same even tone, and sat down across from him. "What's up?" he asked again.

Murphy was slumped in the chair, his head propped on an arm held up in turn by the window frame. Bodie could almost hear the creaking as he looked up. "Five minutes we've been here, Bodie, five bloody minutes, and who walks out that front door but John Wells Hanrahan his very self. Out the door, mind you, not in; our Herr Schussman appears to have broken every known habit and had a guest in last night under cover of proverbial darkness. Do we know how long he was there? No. Do we know where he came from? No. Do we know how many cases of plastique he may have just bought on behalf of fair Eire's fanatics? No. Damn it." Both hands covered his face this time, fingers pressing against his eyes. "Be a lifesaver, mate, there's coffee in the kitchen. Marriott was supposed to take the first shift; I had a hell of a night."

"What's Hanrahan doing in the country?" Bodie asked, on his way into the kitchen. He found a carrier bag on the table, and dumped from it a few apples, milk, and instant coffee. "Thought he was hiding out in Galway or someplace."

"So," muttered Murphy, "did I."

Bodie filled the dented kettle with water and put it on to boil; the mugs he and Doyle had used the previous night were on the draining- board by the sink and he tipped some powder into each. "How long since he left?" he called to the other room.

"About half an hour," was the muffled response. "Mike was going to tail him far enough away to call for backup without risking Schussman's radio picking up the RT. I take it you're it. Your partner's with Mike, then?"

"Yeah." Bodie hunted through the kitchen, but aside from what Murphy and Marriott had brought with them, the only things the cupboards revealed were the tin of stale teabags Doyle must have found the day before, some crackers which showed evidence of mice, and a few more dusty mugs and plates. The kettle was whistling, so he shrugged and added a healthy slug of milk to each mug before bringing them into the sitting room.

"No sugar," he said, handing one over, and was reminded of Doyle, passing him his cup the day before with an equally curt comment.

Murphy scowled. "Remind me never to let 3.4 buy supplies again." He swallowed half of it anyway, then made another awful grimace. "Christ, I hate this stuff. Why do I drink it?"

"Cheaper than bennies, that's why." Bodie sat down again and glanced out the window. It was raining steadily now, and looked to be an unusually chilly day for April. Murphy grunted and subsided, peering blearily through the telescope.

Bodie knew he ought to offer to take the shift, let Murphy get some rest, but he was reluctant to do it. If he tried, he could almost feel Doyle's mouth on his, Doyle's hand on his cock, and the memory was at once arousing and disturbing.

They'd left things hanging, the previous night, and now he didn't know where they were. He'd expected to spend the day with Doyle, working, finding his feet again; and getting used to looking at him with that strange, secret knowledge: I know what you look like.

He hadn't been able to keep it up. Did that mean he wasn't queer? That he didn't want to sleep with Ray after all?

Would Ray let it go, now?

He remembered, again, how Doyle had looked, licking the tip of his cock. He'd been smiling, a little, his eyes half-closed. He'd looked as though he liked it. Hell, Bodie had known plenty of women who liked it, or at least put on a damn good act. So what if Ray liked it too? Didn't make him a pansy.

Cocksucker... whispered something in his head. He ignored it.

Murphy shifted in the chair and stretched his arms carefully above his head, and Bodie dragged his mind back to the job. He'd spent enough time sitting around mooning. He got up and punched the other man lightly on the shoulder.

"Go sack out, mate. He could have half the KGB in for a garden party before you'd see 'em, right now."

Murphy threw him a grateful look and unfolded himself painfully from the chair. "Thanks." The third room of the flat had been the bedroom when the place was inhabited, and still boasted a bare mattress abandoned on the floor. Bodie heard him fall heavily onto it, and then there was silence.

The problem with surveillance was that it was boring. Bodie resolutely kept his attention on Schussman's front door, which meant dragging his thoughts repeatedly away from other things. The time inched by. The rain stopped after a while, but it was still cloudy and grey. Once or twice he saw movement behind the half-drawn curtains across the way, but no one else showed up to visit the arms dealer, whether IRA agent or postman.

It was over an hour later when Murphy reappeared, his hair tousled and his shirt rumpled and half untucked, but looking in much better shape otherwise. "Mmph," he said, stretching until Bodie could hear his spine crack. "Let me take a leak, mate, and then I'll take over." He disappeared into the bathroom, emerging a few minutes later with his hair combed and his face rinsed. Bodie yielded the chair gladly and began some stretching exercises of his own, until the kinks were out of his back and his buttocks no longer felt numb. "Want some coffee?" he offered.

"Yech. Mind your mouth," was the spirited response. Bodie grinned and went to make himself some; he hadn't touched his first mug and he dumped the grayish, clammy liquid into the sink with a grimace.

"Anything happening?" Murphy called.

"Red Mini went by a bit slowly, quarter of an hour ago; was probably nothing. Not worth disturbing your beauty sleep."

"Oh, ta ever so."

Bodie used the bathroom while the water was heating, then made his coffee and wandered back into the main room with the mug in one hand and an apple in the other. He hooked a chair with a toe and settled in. "Wonder how Doyle and Marriott are doing."

"With any luck they'll nab Hanrahan and a nice big arms cache with Schussman's fingerprints all over it and we can close up this bloody job." Murphy rested his head against the telescope for a moment. "I hate this sitting around."

"You and me both." Bodie washed a bite of apple down with coffee, and decided that the flavours really didn't mix. "Why were you so ragged out this morning, anyway? Looked like something the cat'd be ashamed to drag in."

Murphy laughed sourly. "Felt it, too. Remember Andrea, the barmaid at the Rose and Thorn? The one with the knockers?"

Bodie jerked, involuntarily, and almost spilled his coffee. The Rose and Thorn, and the "bustiest barmaid this side of Page Three" - and the fight they'd had that night, when he was drunk, and he'd tried... He shook his head angrily, to clear it. Luckily, Murphy didn't notice.

"Finally got her home with me last night. Take it from me, 3.7, that is not a padded bra. Those tits are the real McCoy!" He wriggled his fingers, grinning. "So we're getting down to business, and she is a real little raver, and right in the middle of it the fuckin' phone rings!" He snorted. "The red phone, of course. Wouldn't have answered it, otherwise. Headquarters patched through one of my grasses, who is offering some priceless Irish tip if I can meet him in some godforsaken waste ground right away. So I have to put on my pants and turf Andrea out, who is not at all pleased, and drive halfway across the city in the middle of the bloody night, and the bugger never showed!" Murphy slapped a palm against the wall in remembered frustration. "Almost two hours I sat there, just in case. So I wound up with no sleep, no tip, and no chance at Andy after that. If I go back to the pub she'll probably throw a drink in my face. Christ, when I think what I missed out on..." He cupped imaginary breasts in the air. Big ones. "A bird like that owes it to the male population to be friendlier."

Bodie was remembering small nipples, flat against a bony chest, surrounded by hair. He shifted uncomfortably. "Go for that sort of thing, do you?"

"Christ, doesn't every man? Second best thing about a woman. And if you ask me what the best is, 3.7," and he pursed his lips, frowning sternly, "I shall begin to wonder about you."

Bodie wished he hadn't just used the loo, so he could do it now and shut a door on this conversation. Instead, he got up and stalked into the kitchen, dumping his half-finished coffee into the sink and wrenching the tap on to rinse out the mug. "What, you think I'm a poufter or something?" he muttered fiercely, carefully not loud enough for Murphy to hear.

This was what Doyle wanted from him. This - hiding, this secret perversion. Or worse, not hiding; there'd been all that guff about commitment. Caring. What if he really did start making it obvious? He tried to imagine Murphy's expression if Doyle did something blatant - held his hand, or something - and cringed. Murph, and the rest of the squad... Bodie went quite suddenly cold. He admired George Cowley, admired his iron will and his intricate grasp of the most twisted situations; he respected him as he had never respected a commanding officer. The thought of Major Cowley looking at him and seeing a pansy - the thought of standing in front of Cowley and being a pansy - made him very nearly nauseous.

But he wasn't. He wasn't queer. He'd been leering after whatever her name was - Andrea - that night, just as much as Murphy was now. He liked breasts as much as the next bloke; he'd missed them, with Doyle.

Okay. So it wasn't what he wanted. He could - Christ - explain to Doyle. Somehow. He'd been curious, no harm in that...but now he knew. He took a deep breath and set the mug down by the sink. There was a hollow, sinking feeling below his ribcage. What would he say to Ray...?

He forced away the memory of Ray's kiss, straightened his shoulders and went back into the other room. To his relief, Murphy didn't seem to have noticed anything odd about his abrupt departure, but was peering fixedly through the telescope.

"Anything?"

Murphy sat back. "Nah. Schussman came to the door, checking the weather or something. Gone back in now." He glanced at his watch. "'S gone ten. Wish we knew what Marriott and Doyle turned up."

"Can't know 'til they tell us," Bodie answered airily, and grinned at the rude gesture Murphy flipped him. He leant back in his chair, balancing it on its rear legs. "Wish I'd brought a book." He needed something to occupy his thoughts, and he didn't want to talk to Murphy.

"Here." Murphy extracted a battered paperback from his jacket and tossed it to him. "Improve your mind." Bodie caught it and snorted; spy thrillers were good for a laugh around the squad room. It would do, though; he settled down and opened it, retaining only a peripheral awareness of the other man and the chill draft through the half-open window.

It was nearly noon, and he had long since relieved Murphy on watch, when they heard the tap at the front door. He traded glances with Murphy, who tossed his reclaimed book aside and went to answer it. Bodie, unable to turn and look, heard muffled voices at the door, and then Murphy was coming back into the main room with Jax and Filbert.

"Relief," crowed Murphy, and swatted his shoulder. "Rise, 3.7, we're free men again!"

"Spare me the fireworks," said Filbert in her broad Australian accent. "Get along with you two, back to headquarters. Cowley wants a report. We're to take over here."

Bodie gladly yielded the hard chair to Jax. "Any news?"

Jax only shook his head, but his partner answered. "Not that we know. Your partner called in just before we left; he and 3.4'll meet you there. Get along with you, now."

Murphy was already in his jacket, waiting by the door. Bodie thrust his hands into his pockets and fell in beside him. The last thing he heard as Filbert latched the door behind them was Jax's muffled plea, "Any coffee in this place?"

Murphy's car - Marriott's, actually - was parked several streets away, and Bodie was glad of the chance for a brisk few minutes' walk. The damp air cleared his head, gave him a chance to think before getting back to headquarters, seeing Ray again. Not that he could think of anything to say.

But Doyle met him at headquarters with no meaningful glance, no reference by word or look or subtlest tilt of eye to what had happened between them. It disoriented Bodie, this absolute lack of anything to react against, and he was unaccustomedly quiet as they went to report. Doyle and Marriott filled in Bodie and Murphy in Cowley's office, under the Controller's glum eye; they had followed Hanrahan most of the morning, learning nothing, and finally lost him in London traffic. "Aye, well. Can't be helped." Cowley sent Murphy and Marriott to the docks, following up another case, and packed Bodie and Doyle off to spend some time with the paperwork they were, as usual, several weeks behind on. They didn't talk much, other than confirming details of this or that with each other as they worked. Doyle gave him a ride home that evening, and was pulling away before Bodie had even gotten the front door unlocked.

All for the best, then, if Doyle wanted to let it go. They'd go back to normal, write the evening off as a bad experiment. But Bodie fell asleep with an obscure feeling that the ground had shifted under his feet, and he just hadn't realised it yet.

When he arrived at work the next morning, Murphy was waiting for him, waylaying him in the corridor as he headed for the rest room in search of coffee and the posted duty roster. "Hold up, mate. You're already assigned."

"What, to you?" For a moment Bodie felt his stomach freeze. Had Doyle gone to Cowley, broken their partnership again? But Murphy was already talking.

"Healey, my grass that never showed, night before last? Some dosser found him in an alley behind King's Cross last night; he got his throat cut about twenty minutes after he called me." Murphy grinned wryly. "The Old Man figures someone didn't want him talking. So you and Doyle get to spend the day with your - " he pursed his lips, mock-prim - "less salubrious acquaintances. Find out what was going on, Tuesday night."

Slowly, the tension in Bodie's midsection relaxed. "Where's Doyle?"

"Not in yet. And now that I've briefed you, I'm off; Healey had a few pals who might talk to me. I've left a file on him for you on my desk. Nose around your connections; he'd said he had something on the IRA." The taller man waved and sauntered away, leaving Bodie staring after him and feeling as though he'd just had a narrow escape; then he shook his head, got the file Murphy had left him and went into the tiny office he shared with Doyle, foregoing coffee to begin reading it and working up a list of potentially useful informants.

Doyle added a few names of his own to Bodie's list when he came in. They spent the day hunting down the ones with day jobs and semi- permanent addresses, but weren't surprised to learn nothing of use; the men most likely to know about something of this sort were easier to find at night. They were about to sign out for the afternoon and pick the search up again after dark, when the car radio shrilled.

"3.7, 4.5 to Highgate and move! Hostage situation, contact 2.1 by RT as soon as you're in range." Bodie was already flooring the accelerator as Doyle acknowledged the call. "Got anything more for us?" he asked, and raised an eyebrow when Cowley patched in.

"It's Harrison's Syrians, 4.5. They saw her trailing them and made a run for it, and they've snatched two children for cover."

"Christ," Bodie muttered, under his breath. If the terrorists were as vicious as Susan's reports at squad briefings had indicated, the children were probably as good as dead.

"Where?"

"They've gone into the cemetery. We've set the police to closing it off; we'll meet you at the entrance. Lucas and McCabe are covering the back. They won't get out, but that means - "

"We'll have to go in after them," finished Doyle disgustedly. He mouthed "On your bikes" silently as Cowley, predictably, said it, and snapped the radio off. "Bloody sodding gravestones for cover everywhere, and two kids... Shit."

"Och," said Bodie in a remarkably bad imitation of their boss, "it's what you're paid for, laddie." Doyle made a sour face at him; it was returned.

It was a mess. The three terrorists were holed up in a maze of leaning stones, and though the CI5 agents surrounding them could see them clearly at times, they were never far enough away from the children to risk a shot. Cowley had had gas canisters brought up, ready for firing, but in the open they wouldn't work fast enough. And the gunmen were demanding, not their own safety, but the release of political prisoners held by Israel, and seemed quite prepared to die for the cause if necessary. None of the CI5 agents would have minded if they had, except that they intended to take the children with them.

They spent hours sprawled on the grass watching distant figures through field glasses, and listening to Cowley shout through the loud hailer. Doyle was shifting restlessly behind a tree a few meters to Bodie's left; from time to time he shot Bodie a disgusted look that Bodie knew hid taut impatience matching his own. On his other side Susan Harrison's face was pale, and she chewed her lip as she kept watch. Cowley began to mutter to her, once, "How you could..." and then let it trail off.

Finally, when dusk had fallen, Cowley gave up on talking the gunmen out, and sent his agents in after them. Crawling and dodging, trying to get as close as possible before they were, inevitably, seen and the firing started; Doyle knelt on a stick and as the sharpest-eared terrorist's head snapped up, the agents abandoned cover and rushed them together. Bodie, coming up awkwardly from a crouch, slipped against a rock and wrenched his ankle; he caught himself and bit back a curse, forcing himself by sheer will not to slow or limp as he threw himself forward; his shot was lost in a roar of almost simultaneous blasts and the man he had aimed at spun and toppled, the gun he had aimed at Doyle flying from his hand. A child screamed, Lucas shouted his partner's name, and somehow he heard Susan cursing even as she fired again and the last of the villains slumped into the grass.

Breathing heavily, he reholstered his gun. Lucas was pressing both hands against his partner's bloody shoulder, and a police constable was taking charge of the screaming children. Putting as little weight as possible on his right leg he limped over to Doyle's side as he watched Harrison check the fallen men. Doyle's head came up at the sound of the uneven steps, and his gaze searched Bodie's body for damage before he met his eyes.

"Twisted it?"

"Yeah." It didn't surprise him that Doyle knew. He could have told off every tilting slab that Doyle had used for cover, without looking.

"Sprained?"

"Don't think so." Another deep breath, and the sight of Doyle unharmed. His pulse was slowing. "Should've watched those dry twigs, sunshine. Give you away every time."

"Can't all be jungle commandos, partner." And they turned, shoulder to shoulder, to face Cowley and start the interminable cleanup.

It was late before they were done. Bodie rode to hospital with McCabe, to have his ankle checked, and saw him settled before returning to headquarters for debriefing and the endless diplomatic muddle in a case like this. Doyle was waiting for him; the thin line of his lips softened slightly when Bodie came through the office door, and Bodie was glad to see it. At half past ten, finally, Cowley waved them away, and added almost as an afterthought that they might as well take the next day off. Bodie grinned exhaustedly at his partner, and gladly accepted Doyle's left arm slung around his back, taking some of his weight.

"You hungry?"

"No." He ignored Doyle's snort of mock disbelief. "Rather get home and get my feet up."

"Hurtin'?"

"Not so bad. Listen..." Though the adrenaline-fueled charge was hours past, the memory of his skin-tingling awareness of Doyle as they moved in together remained. "It's supposed to be gorgeous tomorrow, forecaster said. Want to - want to get out of the city, take our bikes, maybe?"

"Make a picnic of it? Okay." They had reached the CI5 car park; Doyle returned the keys he had appropriated when Bodie left for hospital, and hesitated a moment before turning away to his own car. "You all right to drive?"

"Yeah, it's fine." There was something else he wanted to say, but, strangely mute, he couldn't think of it; they looked at each other for a moment.

"What time tomorrow?" Doyle asked.

"Uh - ten? Gives us time to catch up on some sleep."

"I'll stop by at ten, then." He nodded once and walked away, and Bodie swung himself into his car. Doyle's back was glaringly lit by the headlamps as he switched them on, and abruptly, paralyzingly, he remembered Doyle's shoulderblades, shifting under his palms two nights before.

I don't want him. I'm not gay.

And his inner, mocking voice answered, Neither's he. And he wants you.

---

Chapter 4

Bodie was twisting in the uncomfortable twilight between sleep and waking when his alarm went. Shocked abruptly alert, he slapped at the clock to turn it off and was swinging his legs out of bed before his mind caught up to the last faint after-images still eddying through his head. He'd dreamed - something...

Oh, Jesus.

Aghast, Bodie sat slowly down again on the edge of the mattress, his back slumped. After a moment, he covered his face with his hands. Jesus.

After sixteen years, he'd dreamed about Billy Cruse.

Dressing, managing a few swallows of coffee, he was swamped in the memories. Billy's treasured six-inch knife, and the time they'd slashed old lady Hinckey's tyres with it and never got caught; the football posters in his room; and the one thing he kept circling around, kept prodding at and then shying away, even though he'd dreamed about it as if it had been yesterday... Somewhere he found a non-committal expression to plaster across his face when Doyle arrived, and his partner didn't seem to notice anything odd, only chivvied him onto his bike and led the way out of the city on the A20. Bodie stared at Doyle's back in front of him, anonymous like himself in riding gear and helmet, and tried to lose himself in the roar of the bike under him and the wind harsh in his ears. He couldn't. The bike throbbed between his legs.

They wound up in a small town somewhere; neither of them bothered to notice its name, but it was far enough from Canterbury that the tourists hadn't found it, and far enough from London that the stink of carbon fumes had been blown out of their lungs. Doyle found a pub that would put them up a couple of box lunches and they headed into the country a little ways, left the bikes by the side of the road and climbed a hill, looking out across the countryside: clouds, a few cars, a lot of other hills with placid sheep making dots of white against the green. Doyle pulled off his jacket and flopped down on the grass with a sigh of relief.

"This is more like it. Oh, yeah." His eyes were shut, soaking up the sun that shone liquid warmth above them.

Bodie lowered himself beside him, looking anywhere but at the other man. "Yeah."

Doyle opened his eyes, and Bodie realised that his carefully normal tone hadn't fooled his partner any more than his carefully normal expression apparently had. But Doyle only stared at him a moment, and then looked away as well, reaching for the food.

It was a strange day. Bodie tried to keep it normal, keep it light, tried to enjoy the time off with no work looming and no Cowley snapping out orders, the sun shining and the birds chirping placidly from time to time. But he kept sliding away, sliding into the dream. He felt as though he were tottering, swaying on the edge of a chasm that had quite suddenly opened up below him, except that it had been there all along, and he hadn't seen it - had forgotten all about it -

He jerked himself back and looked up to find Doyle watching him measuringly. Caught off-guard, he fumbled for something to say.

"Any lemonade left?"

"No." Doyle cocked his head. "You want to tell me what's on your mind?"

No. His first reaction was absolute denial, and he knew it showed on his face, knew Doyle saw it, saw his eyes going flat and hard. But then, forcing himself with painful candor to look at the question honestly, he knew he should. Christ, Doyle maybe had a right to know.

"Yeah. Okay." But, those words out, he fell mute again. After a few tense minutes, Doyle sighed.

"Shit. Never mind, Bodie. You don't wanna tell me, that's okay." He turned away and started packing up the debris of their lunch. Bodie, stricken, saw himself abandoned on the edge of the abyss.

"No! No, wait. We're mates, dammit." He laughed a little, awkwardly. "Mates're supposed to help each other with their problems."

Doyle stilled, looking down at the crumpled litter. "Some problems maybe I can't help you with."

"No," Bodie said again, and took a deep breath. Christ, sixteen years...

"I had a dream last night," he said.

"Well, not a dream, really. I mean, I remembered something..." His voice trailed off for a moment as he stared at his hands, knotting them in his lap, his head hanging. Then he took a deep breath and caught hold of the memory, planted it firmly in front of him where he could look at it. Carefully. A bit at a time...

"When I was a kid, I had this friend, Billy Cruse. His da worked with mine, when the old man wasn't soused, anyway. He was a couple years older than me, but we used to pal around all the time. Used to play pirates, secret hideout an' everything. He had this big old bowie knife that he never would let me touch. But he whittled with it, and he taught me how, after I nicked a knife for myself...

"The summer - I must have been fourteen. He was sixteen or seventeen then, and he was goin' away at the end of the summer. Don't even remember where: job, I suppose. Anyway, one night his people went away for some reason, left him behind to look after his kid sister. She was maybe seven. So I went over to his place, and after he put the kid to bed, we stayed up for hours, just talking. You know, the way kids do. We had some beers - " Bodie's voice trembled, and then he forced it steady again, " - some beers, an' we nicked some of his da's gin. We got pretty pissed...

"We started fooling around."

He risked a glance up. Doyle's expression hadn't changed.

"He sucked me off, and I - and I did him, and then we went to sleep. And in the middle of the night we woke up and did it again." Bodie swallowed. His heart felt like a knotted lump of muscle.

"What happened then?" The question's tone was even, revealing nothing.

"And in the morning I got up and went home. And we never talked about it again. Christ!" Bodie struck a fist against his leg. "We never fucking talked again. I idolized that kid, Ray. He could throw that knife up and catch it like he was juggling, and he never would let me try - " He was almost yelling, furious with an anger he was only slowly becoming aware of. "But after that we avoided each other like the fucking plague, and I didn't even think about why, I just stopped hanging about with him. He went away at the end of the summer, and I lit out the next year, and I forgot all about him. About all of it. For sixteen years!"

He stared at his partner, breathing heavily, waiting for Doyle to ask all the questions that he, fumbling awkwardly in a place shut and abandoned for years, had been trying to answer for himself: why did you do it, did you like it, why did you forget -

"Why did you remember it?" asked Doyle.

Bodie was speechless, stricken. Doyle shifted, crouching nearer and watching him intently.

"Why remember it now?"

"I think - I think..." He groped, searching...and found again the unease that had been in him for two days. The op of the day before seemed vividly bright, his awareness of Doyle throughout it easy and unstudied; but over it loomed the shadow of Tuesday night, unacknowledged and portentous.

"We haven't talked about it," he said, and saw Doyle's eyes widen. "I didn't remember for sixteen years, like I was lying to myself, and we - " he almost stammered it - "we've been ignoring what we did like it never happened, just like before, and I don't want to start lying to myself again!"

Doyle was very close now, his eyes bright and hard in the sunlight. "I thought that's what you wanted," he said, flatly. "I thought you wanted it never to have happened."

"Yeah. Maybe. But Christ, Ray, what I said about being attracted to you, that time - that was true." Bodie looked down, ripped up a handful of grass and shredded it. "I didn't handle it very well, I know, but now I - I don't want to ignore it! And I don't know how to - to - " Looking up again he saw, with astonishment, that Doyle's lifted hand was trembling.

"Oh, God, Bodie..." Briefly, Doyle touched his cheek, and Bodie found his skin supersensitized to the brush of the other man's hand, the callus on the palm and the different texture of the fingertips as Doyle trailed them along his temple.

His own voice was shaking. "What are we going to do?"

Doyle pulled his hand away, clutched it with its mate resolutely in his lap, and sat back a little. Bodie was almost sorry. Doyle took a deep breath.

"I thought you wanted to forget all about it. I was trying to make it easier for you."

"I thought I wanted to, too." Bodie clenched his fist against the ground. "But I don't."

He could hear his partner suck in breath. "What do you want?" Doyle's voice was almost steady - like his own.

A lorry went by on the road at the hill's base, clanking and roaring, and Bodie was suddenly aware of how exposed they were, sunlit on the grassy mound. He wanted to touch Doyle but he couldn't, not here. "I want to go back to town. I need to talk to you."

Doyle got to his feet slowly. "Seems like we've done a lot of talking lately, mate. Hasn't always been such a good idea."

Bodie didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. In silence they packed up their trash, disposed of it on their way back through the little village and got on the motorway again. Bodie was leading, this time, and he imagined he could feel Doyle's eyes on him, pressing against the leather of his jacket, between his shoulderblades, the way the wind pressed against his chest and arms. His ribs were squeezed between the two, and it was hard to breathe.

He led them both back to his flat, leaving Doyle to chain their bikes in the back garden while he dug for his keys and let them in. "You want something to drink?"

"No." Doyle was behind him again on the stairs, and followed him in. Bodie took his partner's jacket and hung it with his own in the wardrobe, went into the sitting room to find Doyle perched in the armchair. He didn't have his arms wrapped around his knees; he didn't look tense. Much.

He sat down on the near end of the sofa and stared back. There was a short silence.

Finally Doyle sighed. "You didn't seem to like it much," he said quietly.

For a moment, Bodie felt his face grow hot. "It wasn't that," he answered after a moment, not sure what "that" was. "We were going too fast."

"I know." Doyle shifted in his seat. "I knew then, only - I wanted you. I was afraid I'd never get another chance." He looked up then, and Bodie found his stare impossible to break away from. "What do you want, Bodie? What did you mean by tellin' me about your friend? And what are you scared of?"

Bodie's heart began to pound. Scared?

"I'm not gay," he blurted, jerkily. "I don't want - "

"People thinkin' you are?"

Bodie nodded.

"Shit. Bodie, how long've we been partners - three, four years? Did you ever have the least notion that I was bi?"

He shook his head.

"Then that ought to tell you how good I am at stayin' in the closet. You think I'm going to drag you out?"

Bodie thought of something he should have thought of before. "Does Cowley know?"

"Not officially. So long as it stays that way, I'm okay."

"But you - "

"Go out with blokes? Yeah, sometimes. I can be discreet, you know."

Bodie stole a glance at the other man. Doyle was, to all appearances, slouched comfortably in the chair. His hair glinted brown and auburn in the sunlight from the window, and one hand rested lightly on his knee. Bodie stared at that hand, could almost feel it stroking along his face, the way Doyle had touched him before kissing him. His chest ached - not arousal, not yet.

"I'm..." scared... "I never thought of myself doin' this, you know. It takes getting used to."

"I know. Did for me too."

That surprised him. "I thought you were - y'know. Sure of yourself." Doyle didn't say anything.

"What did you mean, that time - commitment?"

Doyle twisted in the chair, looking away, and ran a hand through his hair. Bodie, watching, felt a sudden urge to do the same, to feel the curls thick against his palm.

"Not asking you to marry me, or anything. And I like the job as much as you do, Bodie; I'm not gonna jeopa