Title: Labours and Aspirations
Author: bistokidsfan
Series: The Professionals
Genre: Action/Adventure, Romance
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Type: Slash
Status: Unfinished
Date Started: October 18, 2005
Rating: Fan-rated for Adults
Summary: Triple-think & treachery, a puzzler for
the lads to solve, acts of derring-do, pure malt scotch, & examination of
the finest of fine print. Did I mention
it’s a love story?
Disclaimer: No lawyer’s gonna
make a monkey outta me. The
Professionals are owned by Brian Clemens et al, Doyle owns Bodie, & I
wouldn’t mind being owned by Tommy.
Feedback:
bistokidsfan@comcast.net
Posting: The Circuit, The
Safehouse, The Hatstand, ProsSlash, ProsLib, elsewhere just let me know &
keep my header attached, please.
***
So he with difficulty and labour hard
Moved on, with difficulty and labour he….
~John Milton (1608–1674)
You’ve got goals, you’ve got commitments,
You’ve got aspirations and inspirations….
But have you got a place to sit?
~US Legislative report, quoted NY Times 12 Nov 84
Absolute exhaustion seethed from their pores and parked
itself on the bucket seats of the silver Capri, making for crowded
conditions. Sheets of rain slid down
the windows, giving the afternoon a washed, unfocused feel. The slap of the wipers against the
windscreen was monotonous as well as oddly comforting, as if the metronomic
quality was urging them home, if ever so ploddingly.
Snatched short intervals of sleep for the past four days
made any conversation or even semi-intelligent thought an exercise in futility,
and neither men felt the need to bash their heads against the proverbial wall
of their weariness. The silence was
blearily comfortable and the last of Derbyshire grew soggier as they sped down
the motorway towards London, reports, then home. The day off Cowley had promised them held all the naughty allure
of a parish fete. Sleep was on the
agenda, that, and the mad idea of food that didn’t come out of paper wrappings,
being eaten standing up.
Focused on his driving, Bodie spared a glance over to
Doyle, who sat slumped in his seat, weary lines and a tint of grey shading his
face that was visible even in the passing lights on the roadway. Blue eyes met green and amused
commiseration was shared. Bodie quirked
an eyebrow, his message clear that Doyle should be at least attempting sleep,
then went back to his driving. A warm
content filled him as he notice that Ray finally relaxed a bit, head lolling
against the seat, eyes closed. A small
smile lighted on his lips as his partner was lulled to sleep to the
accompaniment of hissing tyres on wet pavement. He refocused his attention on his driving, forcing his drained
body to respond yet again. Doyle
trusted him enough to sleep in the car while he drove, though the two had been
through the wringer on this op. They
rightly belonged face down on the nearest available flat surface, the old man’s
demands for their reports before they knocked off notwithstanding.
Lovely thing trust.
You don’t appreciate it much ‘til you’ve truly got it. Bodie had learnt that he’d do anything to
keep Doyle’s trust in him, and he knew he’d never get on without it. Sometimes, in out of time moments like this,
he saw it was even more, some unnamed connection that defied definition, but
existed between them. They had gone
through so many changes, on the job and off, until their very essences had
become as matched as their more obvious actions. He’d long since ceased to question why they worked; they just were.
“Gone soft, old son,” he muttered to himself, but his face
still smiled and the core of warmth glowed steadily as the road slid by.
***
No parking near headquarters,
he’d finally made do with a partial space and nudged the bonnet over a bit of
broken pavement, halfway still in the roadway, but too damn tired to care. They’d be gone again soon enough; their
report would be short and to the point, unlike their assignment. What an utter waste of time and energy, chasing
down amorphous leads on a case a more kindly person would term unworthy of CI-5’s
finest. The Cow missed the turn on this
one, he mused. Hell, the old man’d run
off the road into the field and was grazing away unconcerned. He shook his head at his fanciful wanderings
and turned to rouse a comatose Doyle.
“Hey, mate. We’re here,” he nudged a shoulder. At the lack of response, he rolled his eyes,
but his touch was gentle as he ruffled his golly’s hair and said a bit louder,
“Come along, Raymond. We’ve miles to go
before we sleep. Well, two reports, at
any rate.” Still no response, unless
you counted the light snore. A glint
that Doyle would have recognized and made all attempts to escape had he but
known appeared in Bodie’s eyes.
Bodie leaned over Doyle,
placing his mouth right next to Ray’s shell-like, and bellowed in a brilliant
tone, “Wakey, wakey, Goldilocks!”
“You know, that could be
considered offensive in some circles,” Doyle responded with his eyes closed,
but snaked one hand up and grabbed Bodie by the neck and pulled him down in his
lap. “I was sleepin’,” but bit of tired
laughter burbled up.
“Yeah, well, chance’d be a fine
thing for some of us,” mumbled his partner against his chest.
Doyle looked down where Bodie
had made himself to home, looking strangely comfortable half in his lap, his
faced pressed to his wool jacket and body bent almost double, showing rather
good flexibility.
Petting the dark hair a bit, he
yawned, blinked, and said mildly, “Move, then, Sunshine.”
“Can’t,” groaned Bodie. “S’most comfortable position I’ve been in
all week.”
“Oughta get out more,” observed
Doyle helpfully as Bodie pushed up off of him and grinned as they got out of
the Capri and headed toward headquarters.
***
The lift was out again, so the partners were trudging up
the stairs on autopilot. Giddy thoughts
of sleep and food were the only things wandering through their sleep-deprived
brains. The size of the group standing
in the Restroom caused Doyle to halt suddenly in the doorway, which in turn
ensured that Bodie crashed into him.
“Hang about, Ray,” as he grabbed Doyle by the hips to
prevent him from taking a header.
“What’s this then?” muttered Doyle, not bothering to
regain his balance and remained leaned back into Bodie.
Cowley’s secretary Betty appeared in the midst of the
milling agents and crossed over to the pair.
“You’re back then. Have you ever
considered actually turning your R/T’s on?”
“Battery packs’re dead,” explained Doyle. “Local plods had different models, so we
couldn’t recharge them.”
“And your car radio?” Betty’s voice was arch and anxious
at the same time.
“You know bloody well that my unit’s been on the fritz
since the day before we went on this last op,” rejoined Bodie. “Cowley was so hot to send us that we didn’t
have time to have Maintenance take a look at it.” He paused to take a breath, then really looked at Betty. He shifted his gaze to Doyle questioningly
and decided to remain silent.
Doyle’s eyes met Bodie’s inquiry as the distress on the
normally unflappable secretary’s face finally sank in. “What’s going on?” Doyle
asked her quietly.
Betty leaned closer to the two men and said in a low
voice, “I need to talk privately with the two of you. It’s very important,” she added as she nodded toward Cowley’s
office.
“All right,” Doyle replied with a slight frown. There was a very bad vibe coming from
Cowley’s secretary. A quick glance
Bodie’s direction confirmed that the younger man had keyed in on that same
feeling and felt no happier about it than Ray did. Some things were constant in the world, and an almost unflappable
Betty was up there with gravity and the awfulness of HRH’s Derby hats.
They trooped into Betty’s outer office domain, and she
shut the door, then motioned to Cowley’s inner sanctum, which lacked a certain
Scot. When the partners just looked at
her, she shook her head ruefully and turned round and marched over to
them. “In you go, you two,” as she
tugged their sleeves. “Mr. Cowley’s
express orders.”
“Good trick, that,” Bodie observed. “Seeing’s how he’s not here now, is he?”
“That’s entirely the point,” said Betty tartly as she shut
the door behind Ray. “He’s not been
heard from in the last five hours.”
The air in the office shifted.
“Special alert’s gone out?” Doyle confirmed tautly.
“After the specified three hour window,” Betty replied.
“Current agent allocation schedules?” Bodie asked and
nodded as she picked up a sheaf of papers from the desk and handed them over.
Bodie began scanning the current ops sheets and
calculating who could be safely pulled and put on the missing Controller’s case
without jeopardizing their cases. Doyle
read over his shoulder, asking Betty, “Who’s the Minister running point on the
investigation?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Specifically, the two of you.”
“The both of us,” Doyle was a little taken aback. “What’s Ackerly-Smythe thinking?”
“That he’s following Mr. Cowley’s wishes in the
matter.”
Bodie made a sound that was remarkably like a snort,
“You’ve called in everyone.” It was
standard operating procedure in an A-1 crisis.
“We need to get McCullough and Spenser back on the Millson Ltd. obbo.
It’d due to break open any day.”
“Anson and Jax are still investigating the connection
between that M.P. and the clerk/typist at bullion exchange,” Doyle added. “We need to keep on it. It’s just too much of a coincidence that he
hit the right sell points in the last six months. Nobody’s that good in the market,” he shook his head.
“The other’s look like they can take a back seat,” Bodie
observed, shuffling through the papers a bit more. Doyle concurred with a brisk nod. They both noticed Betty standing there with an expectant look on
her face.
“Well,” she finally said tartly. “Aren’t you going to do something about finding Mr. Cowley?
End part 1
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