The Professionals Circuit Archive - Neither Merciful nor Just      
Neither Merciful nor Just

 

by Shoshanna

  
 *(part of Jane Carnall's "The Fox and the Wolf" Bodie/Cowley series)*


Funerals were a part of the job, but they never grew any easier. Jesse
Ilwain had been thirty-four.

The weather hadn't even had the courtesy to turn up appropriately grey. It
was late in a warm summer afternoon, and the slanting sunlight only made
it the more incongruous, how the clump of men and women in black huddled
together by the side of the open grave as the preacher read, slowly, from
the book of Job. That was the family, of course. The CI5 agents, here to
witness the passing of one of their own, stood scattered on the other side
of the grave, and Cowley to one side. The agents didn't huddle, didn't
touch, as Ilwain's parents did, holding one another's hands and wiping
tears from their eyes. Some looked uncomfortable in their suits; all were
discreetly armed, even here. But their eyes glinted, dry and fierce, as
they watched the box go into the earth, and listened stoically to the
first clods thudding on its lid.

When the droning voice had ceased, Cowley went around and spoke to the
Ilwains, a few brief words. Expressing his regrets. He hated this part of
the job. "I'm sorry for your loss. Yes. A great loss to us all. A fine
young man." His knee twinged a little, and he shifted his weight
discreetly.

"At least he didn't suffer," Ilwain's sister was saying to her parents.
They'd been told that, of course, and in this case it might even be true.
A car wreck, he'd told them. Killed instantly, but a nasty mess, I'm
afraid; a closed-coffin ceremony. It had to be closed, of course. The stab
wound, in the back, wouldn't have shown; but nothing could disguise the
look of a man who'd been under water for a week.

Ilwain dead, and with him any hope of penetrating the drugs ring that had
been operating in the Midlands. If they'd spotted him, they'd be
scrutinizing all of their contacts, far too closely to risk another agent
under cover. He'd pulled the others out even before the body had been
found. Redman, who'd been unable to back his partner up, hadn't even
argued; a bad sign, that. He stood by the grave, cold-eyed; the other
agents had ranged themselves around him in a scattering that looked random
and wasn't, at all. Two weeks' leave, and Cowley knew he'd have to think
hard about where to put him after that. Not the slap in the face of a desk
in Records, but training, perhaps, or the B-squad for a while. He couldn't
afford to lose both men, but he'd learned the hard way not to repartner a
man too quickly.

And wasn't it a fine thing, he scolded himself, to be standing at a dead
man's grave and thinking how best to use the one left alive? The Ilwains
were thanking him, pressing his hand and saying how proud they were of
their son, how proud Jesse had been of the work he'd been doing. He
returned the grip automatically, suddenly tired. He'd been burying young
men since he'd missed the chance to be buried young himself, it seemed.

The funeral group was fragmenting, now, the Ilwains saying a few words to
a few agents they'd known and turning to make their slow way back to their
cars, a clump of cousins and aunts and uncles around the couple and their
daughter. There was a thread running tighter through the agents behind
him, like a string pulled taut and then plucked. Released from the bonds
of decorum, released from the grief of relatives who would never be told
the full story, they were flexing their shoulders to settle holsters under
their unaccustomed suit jackets, converging slightly on Redman. The
minister might have meant Ilwain's family when he spoke of "the bereaved,"
but CI5 had its own unspoken understanding of such things. Cowley stood
aside, watching them. In a moment he would nod and turn away to his car,
and the rest of them would go off--together, Cowley expected. The squad
showed a tense cohesion at these times, and doubtless some of them were
only waiting for the boss to leave, along with the civilians. He supposed
they'd take Redman back to his flat, where he could be put decently to bed
at day's end. For himself, Cowley had the usual stack of paperwork to be
gone through, waiting in his car. He'd bring it home and work through it
over whatever Mrs. Adler had left him to eat.



Bodie stood at a parade rest he'd perfected by the time he was twenty
through the sermon and the lowering of the coffin, Doyle to one side of
him, Redman to the other. He hadn't known Ilwain well, but CI5 was small,
and the A-squad smaller still; smaller with every funeral. Doyle moved
toward him when the minister finally closed his book, and Bodie let
himself slump imperceptibly as his partner came up.

Funerals were hell, and they never got any easier. Worst when they were
like this, with Redman stonefaced and flat-eyed, and Doyle alive and
breathing by Bodie's side. Bodie wasn't even on active status, supposed to
be home recovering from concussion, but no CI5 agent missed a funeral if
he could get there; few enough could, between the shifts they worked.
Eight were here, besides Cowley and Redman. 

Bodie urgently wanted a drink, the more so because, in the wake of a
concussion, he couldn't have one. The squad would take Redman back to his
place and pour whatever he had down him, let him do whatever he needed and
never remind him of it, whether it was throw up, pass out, or burst into
tears. 'Til death do us join, but it was never that easy. When Rabin had
swung the length of plank into the back of Bodie's head, the last thing
he'd seen had been Doyle, two paces ahead and not even realizing yet that
Rabin had doubled back behind them. He'd woken in hospital, searching for
his partner even before he was fully conscious. Doyle had been just
outside, arguing with the nurse who wouldn't let him in. When he came
through the door, whole and angry and relieved, Bodie felt tension leave
him like a gasp.

The family were going now, and Doyle was waiting by his side like a
counterweight, as the squad pulled itself together around Redman. At every
New Year party, they toasted the names of any agents who'd died that year.
The roll call was sometimes raucous, sometimes solemn; but it was the
funeral wakes that pulled them together again around the gap in the
lineup, the space the dead man--or woman, they'd be calling Lorne this
year as well--left behind. If he couldn't have a drink, if he hadn't known
Ilwain well enough to have any stories of him to tell, he could at least
sit and listen to the others, soak in the knowledge of Doyle alive and his
own headache receding, and see his partner home if he got plastered with
the rest.

Cowley had gone over to shake Ilwain's father's hand, and, as Bodie was
about to fall in beside Doyle, he saw Cowley's eyes pass over his agents
as he turned away from the clump of mourners toward his car. His cool gaze
caught Bodie's for a moment, a pause so slight Bodie wasn't even sure he'd
meant it.

It had been over a week since he'd been home with Cowley last. He'd had a
night in hospital after the run-in with Rabin, and before that there'd
been a political flap of some kind that kept Cowley busy every evening.
And before that, he'd been out to dinner with Inger, and he'd already left
the house when Cowley called. Nine days of the precise voice calling him
by number, watching him across the battered desk, with Doyle hovering next
to him and Kirsty in the outer office. Abruptly he missed Cowley fiercely,
wanted the wiry arms around him, the eyes holding his; but not now. Not
with Doyle looking at him expectantly, and the others already beginning to
move toward their cars. Redman's walk was a little less steady, and Carter
was carefully, wordlessly pacing him.

He'd never said no to Cowley, unless they were in the middle of a fight.
It made Doyle angry, he knew that; Doyle thought he hopped when Cowley
said "frog." But it wasn't like that. They had so little time; was it
unfair of him to want all he could get?

Was it unfair of Cowley?

He stood unmoving as Cowley came up to him and stopped. "How's the head,
3.7?"

"OK, sir. Aches a little."

Cowley eyed him briefly. Bodie could feel, without looking, Doyle's
vaguely hostile stare at them both.

"Put your leave to good use, 3.7. Finish *The Nine Tailors*; you'll
appreciate it."

That meant *come over tonight*. Two weeks ago Bodie had started on
Cowley's shelf of Dorothy Sayers mysteries, while Cowley read the nightly
stack of files; he'd worked his way through the Kipling.

"Yes, sir," he answered after a moment. What else could he say?

Doyle, lips pressed together, was dragging him toward the car. He climbed
in and didn't say anything as Doyle drove off, too fast, following the
rest of the agents toward Redman's flat. But after a minute Doyle spoke,
without looking at him.

"You're not staying, I take it."

There was an ache in Bodie's chest, a hollow that made him want to touch
his partner; but that would be a mistake. And besides, Doyle was right. He
wasn't. "For a while, Ray. I wouldn't walk out on Redman." Or you.

"Yeah, right." The gearshift was wrenched with a force that was tightly
absent from Doyle's voice. He didn't say anything else, though, until the
car was parked and Bodie was reaching to unbuckle his safety belt.

"One of those days that thick skull of yours might not be so lucky."

Bodie sighed, untangled himself, and turned to look at his partner. Doyle
was watching him with an expression both angry and pleading. There was too
much that Bodie wanted to say; the words crowded his head, and most of
them he shouldn't even be thinking, let alone saying to his partner on the
day of a CI5 funeral. *Either of us could be dead tomorrow, Ray, do you
think I don't know that?* and *I don't want to go, I need to be with you*,
and *I have to go, he wants me. Cowley wants me*. He'd never quite gotten
used to believing that Cowley loved him. Wanted him, yes; Bodie knew,
objectively, that he was attractive. But that Cowley liked him, was
genuinely interested in him--that could still make Bodie's chest fill with
stunned pride. That he could make Cowley smile. The times when Cowley had
simply talked with him, had wanted Bodie's help in scrutinizing some
tangled problem, had paused to deliberate, carefully, over a suggestion
Bodie had made, gave Bodie a feeling matched only by the first time he had
come in Cowley's arms.

They stared at each other, silently, for another long moment; then Doyle
got out of the car. Bodie followed him inside.

The gathering was stiffly tense at first. There was a pattern, a shape, to
wakes like these, and Bodie had grown to know it too well over the years.
They started out silent and uncomfortable, none of them wanting to speak
first, and all of them wary of Redman's shock, not knowing what he needed.
After a while Carter said something, retold a joke Ilwain had told her
once, and they all watched Redman to see how he'd take it; if this was to
be a morbidly funny remembrance, or grimly mournful. But the bleak look on
his face slipped slightly, almost unwillingly, and someone filled his
glass again.

Hours later they had all, except Bodie, had considerably more to drink,
and Ilwain had been memorialized in accounts of everything from his black
belt in judo to improbably obscene details of his sex life. Redman had
told them, haltingly, how his partner had held his head while he vomited,
the first time he'd shot someone at close range. It never went into the
report. Tears were slipping down his face when he'd finished, and Carter
pressed his hand.

Bodie had listened, poured drinks and joined in when he could, but as the
time went by he felt himself more and more distant from the rest. They
were half-cut, Redman especially, and the web was being rewoven among
them; knitting Redman back into their midst and all of them to each other.
Except him; he sat with them, listened and refilled glasses with alcohol
he couldn't drink, but he couldn't let them pull him in. Surreptitiously
he checked his watch, and realized that it was time he left. Cowley would
be waiting.

He'd been surreptitious, but Doyle had seen. As he got up, Doyle strafed
him with a glare, and then looked angrily away. Jax was just coming out of
Redman's kitchen with a plate of bread and cheese; he put it down on the
coffee table among the clutter of glasses and looked at Bodie curiously.
"Bathroom's through there," he said, pointing.

"No. I'm-- I've got to be going," Bodie said.

That got almost everyone's attention. No one said anything; but faces
turned to him with questioning surprise. "My head," said Bodie, and
gestured vaguely. "Sorry. I wish I could stay."

Jax looked surprised, then puzzled; a couple of the others frowned. Doyle
wasn't looking at him at all. Bodie leaned over Redman, couldn't think of
anything to say, and finally punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Sorry,"
he said again, to all of them.



He wasn't sure why he had invited Bodie home that night. He hadn't been
planning to; the timing was bad to begin with, and with the funeral in the
afternoon he had more than the usual workload to get through that evening.
He supposed that Bodie had been planning to spend the evening with the
others; he understood that it was an unofficial tradition, at least among
the A-squad. But it had been a long time, and somehow he never got used to
missing Bodie. He'd been almost surprised to hear himself issue the
invitation, and more so when Bodie agreed.

Bodie turned up on his doorstep at quarter past nine, looking tense. He
hung his jacket up and sat down in the chair by the bookshelves without a
word, and Cowley didn't say anything either, except to suggest that he
make a pot of tea. Bodie pushed himself up again and went into the
kitchen. Cowley watched him move, and felt himself tighten involuntarily.
Bodie was so damned goodlooking. He looked at his own hands opening the
next folder: lined and spotted, and he laid them flat on the desk. Bodie
didn't seem to want to talk, and he didn't know what to say to him; but
sometimes they didn't need to talk.

And sometimes they did. "How is Redman?"

Bodie came back into the sitting room with two mugs, steaming slightly. He
put one down on the desk, among the papers. "Drunk," he said shortly.

No surprise, there. "The squad's with him, then?"

"Yeah. Left them there; they'll be at it all night, I should think."

But Bodie had left them, and come to him. It wasn't right, wasn't fair of
him to make Bodie choose like that; he was sorry he'd done it, but at the
same time he was poignantly glad of the choice Bodie had made. He wasn't
sure if Bodie was, though; and if Bodie was angry, well, he had the right.

Bodie was watching him, not drinking his tea. After a moment he shrugged
slightly and went over to the armchair again, grabbing a book from the
shelves. *The Nine Tailors*. Cowley went back to the file.

He worked for another half hour, until the news came on, and Bodie got up
to join him on the sofa, watching it. Halfway through the program Bodie's
arm was around his shoulder, and he began stroking the skin of Cowley's
neck, slowly and lightly. The touch sent chills along Cowley's spine and
into his groin. You're fifty-eight years old, man, he told himself, get a
grip on yourself; but he had no idea what the last few items were about.

The program was scarcely over when Bodie leaned forward and switched the
set off. He turned to Cowley with a look that was at once intense and
shuttered. "Come on. Come upstairs."

Cowley barely had time to fold his clothes and put them on the chair
before Bodie's arms came around him from behind and he was pulled back
against the other man's naked body, Bodie's erection hard against his
backside. He turned in the tight grip with some difficulty; Bodie was
wide-eyed, breathing heavily. "What is it?"

"Nothing. I just--" and Bodie broke off and kissed him, hard. Cowley
returned it, his tongue in Bodie's mouth, and the younger man shuddered in
his arms and brought them both onto the bed. He was obviously aroused,
very much so, and Cowley wondered at it even as he rubbed himself against
Bodie, waiting for his slower reactions to catch up to his lover's.

Flattering, and disconcerting, for Bodie to be this eager. He often was;
and Cowley still wasn't used to it. "What would you like?" Bodie's hands
were at his groin, urging him to stiffness; he reached down and stroked
Bodie's nipple, then his cock, feeling him gasp and shudder again. He
smiled. "Shall I suck you?" He remembered, vividly, Bodie's shout as he
came, and the taste of him in his mouth.

But Bodie shook his head against Cowley's neck and stayed where he was,
face tucked against him, hands moving roughly. Cowley groaned and pushed
into them. There was something Bodie wasn't telling him, he could tell
that without trying; but if Bodie didn't want to talk about it, he
wouldn't pry. Bodie had a right to his privacy; and, too, if Bodie was
angry at him for forcing the choice he'd made that evening, he didn't need
to hear it. He knew what he'd done, and, God help him, he couldn't regret
it.

Then Bodie pushed away and slid down the length of his body, mouth
trailing across his stomach and onto his cock. Cowley gasped with the
warm, wet shock of envelopment, and thrust helplessly. Good, so good, and
he cradled Bodie's skull lightly, Bodie's hair like feathers against his
fingers as his head moved. Arousal was pulsing through him now, Bodie's
tongue strong and soft and insistent; he spread his legs further as Bodie
pushed against them, running his fingers along the runnel of flesh at the
base of Cowley's balls, and then clutching his buttocks in a grip almost
painfully tight. Cowley squirmed and pushed up into Bodie's mouth.

Then Bodie's fingers moved again, and the heat climbing through his body
abruptly stilled.

Bodie had gone motionless, too, but he didn't look up. His head was still
bent under Cowley's palm, but his finger against Cowley's anus pushed
again, harder, and Cowley felt the first intrusion. "Bodie..."

Bodie raised his head a little, and Cowley felt himself slip from his
mouth. "Be quiet," Bodie muttered, not harshly, but with a kind of
desperation. "Please... I want to--be inside you. Please." He still hadn't
looked up.

Be inside him. Cowley had--been inside Bodie--fucked him--four times, over
the five months since Bodie had first talked him into doing it. There was
no question that Bodie liked it. Loved it, even, his breath quickening
from the first touch of a greased finger, once coming without even a hand
at his groin, only Cowley moving hard within him. But there were aspects
of the act that Cowley carefully avoided thinking about, and he always
washed, after. That Bodie liked it, he accepted. That Bodie might want to
do it to him had never occurred to him.

It should have, though. Rubbing against each other like teenagers, using
their hands--it couldn't be enough for Bodie. And he wasn't very good with
his mouth, he supposed, though he liked going down on Bodie. He liked
fucking him well enough, though not with the urgency that was in Bodie's
voice. And if Bodie wanted him--this lined face and crippled body and old
man's hands--

As Bodie pushed his legs still farther apart he flinched, abruptly and
painfully embarrassed. There was the smell; once he and Bodie had briefly
sucked each other, and with his nose between Bodie's buttocks he'd had to
hold his breath until he could shift position again. There was what he'd
seen once on himself as he stepped into the shower afterward, his gorge
rising as he looked away again. He could let Bodie fuck him, but he hated
to have Bodie touching him, seeing him there.

Bodie had already made a long arm for the Vaseline left in the bedside
cabinet from the last time, three weeks before, and opened the jar. Cowley
held himself motionless through sheer will as the clammy stuff was smeared
into him. Bodie was murmuring something, half-muffled against him, but he
couldn't hear what it was; and anyway Bodie soon took his cock into his
mouth again. The finger slid into him with that strange gut-churning
feeling he'd only had at his yearly physical, when the doctor would mutter
something about the prostate and pull on one rubber glove. The jelly was
mucous and slimy, oozing out of him as the finger twisted. He cringed,
without moving.

Bodie pulled his finger out, to Cowley's intense but short-lived relief;
he pushed two in again, and what felt like still more Vaseline. Cowley's
erection wavered, but he managed to keep it, Bodie pulling at him with
lips and tongue; that felt good, but he was queasily distracted. Then the
fingers left him again, and the mouth, and Bodie was lying by his side,
breath coming quickly. Waiting.

"I can't kneel, Bodie," he said harshly. He might have been able to; his
knee was actually not bad at all today. But he didn't know how hard this
would be, and he couldn't bear the humiliation of crumpling under Bodie's
weight. He knew exactly how damaged he was; he didn't have to rub it in
both their faces. Bodie put a hand on his chest, and Cowley tensed before
he registered that there was no jelly or--anything else--on the fingers.
It had been the other hand.

"I know," Bodie answered, and that was almost worse than the risk of
collapsing. "Lie on your side." He pushed Cowley to roll over with his
back to him, and pressed up against him from behind; one thigh pushed
Cowley's top leg, the bad one, forward and slid between. Cowley steeled
himself, and felt Bodie's hand pulling his buttocks apart, and the first
imperious shove against his anus.



The need had swamped Bodie, halfway through the book he hadn't been
reading, watching Cowley ignore him for the files. Doyle's glare, and
Jax's incomprehension--he'd practically spat in the squad's face, and now
Cowley wasn't even looking at him. Sat watching the bloody news--lies,
damned lies, and statistics, the lot of it--with his face straight ahead,
even after Bodie'd begun caressing his neck. Bodie was angry, and afraid.
Doyle and Cowley, the two people in the world he could least afford to be
angry at; but the alternative seemed to be to leave, to cut himself off
from both, and he couldn't do that. Quite simply, he couldn't; he felt too
cut off already: from his partner and the squad for Cowley and now from
Cowley because--he didn't know why. The need was physical, he couldn't
speak it, and he was drowning in it. He nearly dragged Cowley up the
stairs.

*Mine*. The word was in his mind as he went down on Cowley, felt more than
heard the other man's hissing breath as he took him in. At first he'd
thought he'd want Cowley to fuck him; the weight of the other man's body
on him, in him, a welcome reassurance. But quite suddenly he didn't want
to be reassured. He wanted to force Cowley's attention, to make him
recognize that Bodie was here. He wanted--Jesus--to stake a claim. Of all
the ridiculous, insane, impossible fantasies.

Cowley didn't say anything as Bodie got him ready; was tensely silent.
Bodie didn't want to think about that. With one part of his mind he knew
he could be risking something too valuable even to think about, but the
rest of him didn't care; the more afraid he was that he was making a bad
mistake, the more fiercely he walled the thought away. He needed this.
Needed Cowley tight around him--God, he'd be tight--in his arms and his
cock and his grasp. Oh, Jesus...

He was shaking as he pushed in, as slowly as he could, Cowley's body
almost painfully constricted around him. God. Cowley'd never done it with
Mark Barrett, he'd said so, and Bodie would bet that he hadn't done much
of anything, maybe nothing at all, since Mark had died. But with Bodie,
now. Bodie gritted his teeth, gasping, holding still and halfway in, half
buried in heat that was stripping him raw, one hand clenched on the flesh
of Cowley's hip. "George..."

"It's all right, Bodie." He couldn't see Cowley's face, but the voice that
answered him was level and calm. He half expected it to call him by
number. "Go on."

No--but he couldn't stop himself from finishing the thrust, his grip on
Cowley's hip holding him still as he pressed deep. He stayed there a
moment, shaking; then pulled out a little and went in again, and then he
couldn't stop. Cowley was silent, and he reached around, fumbling for his
cock, only to have his hand batted away; then Cowley took it again and
laced their fingers, pulled their joined hands up against his own chest.
Bodie squeezed them together, hugged Cowley hard to himself and slid,
almost sobbing, over the edge of orgasm, coming in sharp bursts that
stabbed at him as he struggled to get deeper still, fighting the harsh
solidity of his own flesh and aware, in the midst of it all, of Cowley
saying his name.



It hadn't been as bad as he'd half-expected. His erection dwindled with
the first gouging thrust, but aside from the stretching that was almost
pain it wasn't uncomfortable; certainly he was used to worse. He was less
embarrassed now, as well, with Bodie's face no longer so intrusively close
to his arse. When Bodie hesitated, he told him to go on, and was proud of
the steadiness of his voice. Bodie found a rhythm, then, of long sliding
thrusts, and Cowley braced himself and prepared to wait him out. It wasn't
pleasurable; but Bodie was panting in his ear, moaning. Wanting him. When
Bodie reached for his groin he stopped him, not wanting Bodie to know how
flaccid he was; but he held his hand tightly and felt Bodie clutching him,
crying out and then arching into him, convulsing. He looked down at
Bodie's fingers, all he could see of him, and stroked them, whispering,
"Sh, Bodie. Sh, man. There."

Bodie was pressed against his back, breathing hoarsely, trembling. Cowley
could feel the bulk of his erection shrinking, and after a moment Bodie
twisted his hips and slipped free. The sudden release of pressure was a
gasping relief, and Cowley exhaled shakily. He was messy and sticky; he
wanted a towel, and a wash. But as he was about to roll over he felt his
gut spasm suddenly in a way that portended something dire; appalled, he
clenched himself tightly together and jerked out of Bodie's arms, making
hurriedly for the bathroom.

He sat on the toilet for long minutes, naked, cold and humiliated. Nothing
had happened, but his bowels were still complaining; he didn't dare go
back to bed. That would be the final shame, if his body betrayed him that
way. Old he might be, and half-crippled, but some things were beyond
bearing. God only knew what Bodie thought of him now.

Finally the danger seemed to have passed. He wiped himself off with a
handful of tissue and flushed it away, grimacing; then turned on the
shower and got under it before it was entirely hot, reaching for the soap.
He hadn't even worked up a handful of lather when he heard a knock at the
door, and Bodie's hesitant voice. "Sir? Are you-- Can I come in?"

 He could hardly say no; and not all of him wanted to. "Aye. Come on." The
door opened and Bodie stood there, naked as himself. Cowley watched him a
moment; Bodie's face showed awkward worry, and something else. Guilt?
Cowley pulled the shower curtain back farther. "Come in, then," he said
gruffly.

Bodie's face lightened a little; he got in beside Cowley and took the soap
from him, began to wash Cowley's chest and arms. The water rushed noisily
over them both, and Bodie's next words were hard to hear. "Are you all
right?"

"Aye," Cowley said again, shortly. He'd expected the question, and wanted
it answered and dropped; he didn't expect Bodie's next words.

"I should have told you... it takes you like that sometimes. I'm sorry."

"What?"

Bodie looked up, and crouched down, all in one motion; he was soaping
Cowley's legs now, working up from the ankle. "You felt..." Bodie
hesitated, clearly trying to find words that wouldn't upset him. Cowley
almost smiled. "You thought--you were about to have an accident," Bodie
finally said, and this time Cowley did smile, at the ridiculously childish
euphemism, and Bodie, tentatively, smiled back. "You get that feeling
sometimes. After--being fucked."

Bodie too? "You, too?"

Bodie shrugged. "Not much, once you're used to it. Plus I know it's not
real; just my arse getting confused."

Oh. He wondered how long it took to get used to it.

Bodie caressed the narrow muscles of Cowley's legs, wishing he could
linger on the twisted flesh of the knee; but he could only smooth his
hands along, giving each leg, scarred and unscarred, equal attention. He'd
made a mistake, he knew that, but not a killing one; Cowley had let him
in, was here with him. The act had meant something, but a grudging gift,
or even a willing one, wasn't what he wanted, Cowley's hand holding his a
poor substitute for the pinioning of blue eyes as he was pierced. He
didn't want to see the expression he'd almost caught on Cowley's face as
he wrenched himself out of bed and bolted for the bathroom, leaving Bodie
momentarily panicked and then sickly furious at himself. No more did he
want to see the puzzled hurt on Jax's face, and Redman's, or the cold
glare he would get from his partner in the morning. But now Cowley was
looking down at him, smiling, and Bodie felt the heat of the water soaking
into his joints and his bones.

Cowley watched as Bodie washed his genitals briefly; he half-expected
Bodie to linger, but instead he sat back a little and pushed at Cowley's
hips, turning him around with his face in the spray and his back to Bodie;
and he felt the slickness of soapy hands between his buttocks. He tensed a
little, but put out a hand against the cool tile wall and let Bodie wash
him there. Bodie's touch was impersonal, but gentle; and soothing. One
finger rimmed his anus, but didn't try to push inside; the flesh of his
buttocks was massaged, and Bodie stroked soap over his balls from behind.

He stayed under the spray when Bodie was done, turning to wash the lather
off himself, and watching Bodie soaping his own genitals. He waited until
Bodie had rinsed off before taking the soap and washing him again, gently.

Bodie chuckled as they were getting out, and handed him a towel. "No
wonder we always stay here. You've got more hot water than the last three
flats I've been in. All together," he added, and dried himself briskly
with another.

"Rank has its privileges," Cowley quoted back at him, and grinned.

They got back into bed and Bodie pulled the rucked covers up around them
and hooked an arm over Cowley's waist, half on his stomach beside him.
After a moment, his hand drifted to Cowley's nipple, teasing it lightly.
"Would you like..." The heat of the shower, and the combined aftereffects
of orgasm and concussion, were beginning to fog his thoughts; but he would
have liked a memory of Cowley's eyes, watching him until they were lost to
their own pleasure in his body, to carry secret with him into the coming
day.

Cowley pressed the hand flat. "No. Go to sleep, Bodie."

"You didn't come."

"It's all right." Cowley told him. He was tired, and a little sore, and he
was long past a young man's urgency about such things.

Bodie accepted that, regret losing to his growing drowsiness. But he had
made a mistake, before. "I'm sorry," he said, eyes closed against Cowley's
shoulder. "I shouldn't have pushed you into that." With the arm that came
around him, steadying him, he knew that it was all right.

Cowley heard this second apology with less surprise than he had the first.
Well, Bodie wasn't the only one who'd forced an issue that day. And it
hadn't been that bad, except at the end. And he should have expected it,
after all. "You'll be wanting it again." It wasn't, quite, a question.

He felt Bodie yawn and snuggle into him. His answer was blurry,
half-smothered against Cowley's neck. "Rather have you do it."

Cowley raised an eyebrow. It didn't seem likely; but Bodie wouldn't lie to
him. Not knowingly. "Oh?"

"Like it better," Bodie explained sleepily. He yawned again; but Cowley
shivered, faintly, deep inside, remembering how much Bodie liked it. Maybe
he wasn't so tired after all. But Bodie's voice was fading. "Always enjoy
having someone else do all the work..." He trailed off into deep, slow
breaths, warm on Cowley's skin.

Hmph. Cowley gathered him closer, stroking his shoulder, and closed his
eyes. There was always the morning.

-- THE END --

*1997*

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