Work Text:
Doyle grimaced.
"Not the way I expected to end the year. You picking wire out of my arm."
"Said you should go to Casualty, didn't I? It was you who refused."
"Yeah, well. Hospital's bad enough without the misery of Christmas queues. Ow." There was a visible tensing as he tried not to flinch.
"Hold still, Ray." Bodie eased his finger under the offending wire, and looked up from his task. "This'll hurt."
Doyle clenched his fist. "Go on." He hissed through his teeth as Bodie increased the pressure, and the wire slid free. "That it?"
"Yup." Bodie dangled the steel sliver with the red smears in front of him. "Want to see?"
Doyle pulled a face and made to bat Bodie's arm away.
"Careful."
"Nah, s'alright." Doyle sounded surprised. He twisted his arm, flexed it experimentally, and considered. "Actually, it is. Well, except-"
"Except you're still bloody bleeding. Pack it in. Come here."
Doyle submitted to Bodie's ministrations. He lifted his gaze away from Bodie's efforts with towel, water, TCP and dressings, to return to his original thought.
"Didn't expect to end the year like this. Should have known, mind. Got the complete set now. Other end of the country at Christmas. Recalled from a week off in August. Missed me mum moving house. On call the night me mate turned thirty. Being patched up on your birthday..."
He broke off to brood on the previous twelve months as Bodie cut gauze neatly to size.
"My birthday?" Bodie raised an eyebrow. "Didn't think you knew it."
"Course I do. I've had to give your details in enough hospitals by now. Name. Date of birth. Address. Allergies." He paused. "Mind, have to think about the address sometimes. I swear, we've only been in this outfit a year, and we've been through half a dozen addresses between us."
"Mmmm." Strips of tape dangled from Bodie's fingers, each one miraculously untangled.
Doyle heaved a sign. "All that moving. And then there was-"
Bodie rolled his eyes. Changing his actions, he took a strip of elastoplast and laid it firmly across Doyle's lips, before applying tape.
Doyle's eyes flew wider. "B-mmf!"
Bodie smoothed the tape and placed his hand over Doyle's mouth.
"Give it a rest, eh?"
He felt the tape stretch as Doyle tried to open his mouth. He tightened his grasp, feeling Doyle's lips part and the skin around them move, rippling under his fingers. He held Doyle's gaze as he leaned forward.
"Don't go rolling around with strange men when I'm not there, and perhaps I won't be pulling wire out of your arm again next time. Hmm?"
Doyle pursed his lips – or tried to, beneath the tape. Bodie relented and released him. Doyle tugged the tape off cautiously before speaking.
"Rolling around with strange men? Could be misconstrued, that, mate." His normally innuendo-laden laugh fell flat in a room suddenly charged with tension as Bodie blanched, failing to provide a quick retort.
Doyle's eyes widened. "What?"
Bodie held his breath.
"Oh." Doyle drew the word out. "Like that, is it?"
Bodie knew better than to say anything, but cursed inwardly. He'd lost a place in the Regiment over this; he'd left a ship in Dakar over it. He didn't want the moment of moving on again to approach any faster this time.
Doyle grinned, his mouth wide, his gaze fixed on Bodie.
"I think it is."
Bodie didn't flinch. Waited for the blow to fall. Felt himself, a solid presence, in air suddenly thinner.
Doyle ignored the sudden leaching of oxygen from the room, and continued on.
"Thank god. Might make this year a bit easier than last year."
He leaned forward, and his lips met Bodie's, and the future opened out.