Archive of Our Own

Beam Me Up

“I spy..."

“I’m warning you, Bodie.”

“...with my little eye.”

Doyle tried pressing the binoculars into his eye sockets. Maybe he could blot his partner out by sheer force of will. “Beam me up, Scotty. Someone. Anyone.”

“Something beginning with...what the?”

“Ha, ha. Very funny, mate. Just—”

A hand knocked the binoculars down, almost taking his nose off.

This was so far past the line of indulgence that Doyle wondered if the top of his head might explode. “Fucking hell, Bodie! Will you stop pissin’ about? If Lotsky is passed out and snoring up there, there is nothing we can do except take turns till the bastard comes out and... Bodie?”

Bodie’s attention wasn’t on the third floor window they’d been watching through the windscreen for a bum-numbing five hours. Wasn’t on Doyle, wasn’t even on the fucking building.

Doyle followed Bodie’s gaze and steady pointed finger to a circle of red light that was lighting up the end of the back alley they were parked in. As he looked, it got larger.

He turned his attention back to his partner, who raised an ever calm eyebrow at him. “Curiouser and curiouser,” was all Bodie said. “What do you reckon?”

“No idea, mate.” The circle seemed to be getting darker as it expanded, lighting up the bins and debris of the alley with an eerie crimson glow. And a faint hum of static was building, swirling up paper cups and torn papers.

Doyle exchanged another look with his partner and put his hand on the door handle. “Think we should check it out?”

“I will if you will.”

“What about...?” Doyle wound down the window and tipped his head towards the third floor window. He was conscious that he was raising his voice over the whine in the air. He looked over at the circle, which was continuing to deepen in colour.

Bodie squeezed the back of Doyle’s neck. “This trumps some snoring Russian, Doyle. Mind you, it’s probably nothing but a strange electrical—”

“This is for your own good, you dipshit! Stop fighting me. Christ, I swear, you hit me one more fucking time, and I will dump your ass so hard...”

Doyle could only gape as two men tumbled out of the circle, snarling and spitting and swinging punches at each other like the world was ending. With a violent crack of sudden white light, the crimson was gone and all the rubbish and debris hit the cobbles again.

“Still don’t get it, do you, you pathetic control freak? I already dumped your ass. I’m taking care of things, because you are too fucking chicken shit—”

One final chin-snapping thump to the jaw, and the pathetic control freak apparently knocked the dipshit out cold.

Gun drawn as cover, Doyle was about two seconds behind Bodie, who already had his weapon out and was pressing it against the temple of the man still conscious. Conscious, but panting heavily and leaning over the unconscious one.

Bodie leaned in. “Nice and easy, sunshine. I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but you have just bollocksed up our evening and earned yourself a night at her Majesty’s pleasure. So spread your arms wide and sit back.”

The man spat what might have been a tooth off to the side. “Yeah? Why don’t you tell Uriel to suck my dick?”

Doyle looked at Bodie. Was it code? Was this pair something to do with Lotsky after all? American accent and scruffy jeans aside, were these two part of his infamous security detail? Not that it really mattered right now, because whatever the hell was going on, they needed to get these two out of the alley and back to HQ. Let Cowley decide who they were and what to do with them. Doyle gestured with his gun towards the alley entrance. “Up. And get your friend up, too.”

The man seemed to notice Doyle’s gun for the first time. His eyes widened, almost comically, and he looked around. Doyle got his first good look at him. Jeans, boots, scuffed leather jacket, and an army-style hair cut. He had the kind of chiselled features and dirty blond hair that were all the rage in the magazines these days. But he clearly earned a harder living than that. Wary eyes, a split lip, and when he scrubbed a hand down his face, about the most scarred knuckles Doyle had ever seen outside a boxing ring. The man’s shoulders slumped as he kneeled back on his heels slowly, arms spread wide. Bodie backed off slightly.

“Fine. You got us. One question. You mind telling me where we are? And when?”

Doyle shook his head and looked down at the bruised one on the ground. Dressed in the same scuffed style as the man doing the talking, he seemed younger. Dark, untidy hair covered half his face and he had a small cut above his left eye, possibly a ring cut from the other one. His long legs sprawled ungainly across the cobbles.

“Lego Land, mate,” said Bodie. “About two in the fucking morning. Now get up.”

The man matched Bodie glare for glare, nostril flare for nostril flare, and Doyle could almost hear the antlers locking. Great, more testosterone. Just what the evening needed.

The man got to his feet, still glaring. He gestured at the bloke on the ground. “You wanna give me a hand, numbnuts, or were you just planning on dragging Sam here away by his ankles?”

“Listen, you...”

“Bodie!” Doyle brought him up short just in time from doing God knows what to the bolshy sod. “We don’t have time for a pissing contest. You can both unzip and I’ll measure them later. Right now we need to get out of this alley and back to the job at hand. Let’s just get these two to Cowley and he can—"

A crack off to the left and a ricochet of brick dust brought them all up short. The man on his knees cursed and threw himself over the one on the ground. Bodie whirled, already in perfect firing position. He let three off in quick succession.

A curse in something that might have been Russian, footsteps, and then the sound of a car door slamming and a squeal of tyres.

“Shit!” Doyle ran to the end of the alley, but the car had already turned the corner and it was too dark to see the number plate. He turned back and kicked a can in frustration before holstering his gun. Cowley was going to have their hides for getting distracted like that. He looked at Bodie, also rising, and saw a similar look of disgust on his face. “Did you see him?” asked Doyle as he caught up with his partner.

“Not clearly, but I’ll bet you a paycheck that was our sleeping Russian.”

A groan from their feet and the dipshit seemed to be coming to. The other one had levered himself off and was patting the young man’s face, none too gently. “Dude, up. We have an audience.”

With a gasp the one called Sam opened his eyes and came up swinging, his brain clearly picking up from where it had left off.

Doyle stepped forward on an instinct, but the older one seemed to anticipate just where the fist was going, and got Sam in one of the quickest half-nelsons Doyle had ever seen.

“Sam, enough!”

“Dean?” He stopped struggling. Which might have had more to do with the gun Doyle was pointing at them than anything else.

“No, the anti-Claus. Just...be quiet. We gotta get up.”

“What the...where are we? What happened to Zachariah? Did Castiel...?”

“No fucking idea.” Dean looked at Bodie, then the gun, and then at Bodie’s trousers for some strange reason. “And don’t get excited, Toto, but I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Doyle exchanged another look with Bodie, who raised an eyebrow. Castiel? Didn’t sound very Russian but it didn’t exactly sound British either.

Doyle recognised the moment Bodie ran out of patience. “Right,” said Bodie, holstering his weapon. “Fascinating though all this is to listen to, when you’ve quite finished feeling each other up in the dirt down there, there’s a man we know who’d like a word. Now up.”

“Which way did we go? Forward or back?” muttered the younger one as he hauled himself off the ground. He swayed unsteadily until Dean put a hand out and grabbed his arm.

“Look at the pants on that one,” he snorted, nodding at Bodie.

“Shit. That far back, huh?” said Sam.

“Oi,” said Doyle, waving his gun in the direction of the car. He had the feeling they were being insulted, though for the life of him he couldn’t have said how.

He did catch the dark-haired one mouthing ‘oi’ at the older one, his eyebrows dancing quizzically.

He shook his head. Fucking junkies.

****

Doyle glanced in the rearview mirror. There’d been a tense silence in the back seat since ever since they’d left Pimlico. Each man was sitting as far from the other as he could, staring with what seemed to be ‘fuck you, no fuck you’ deliberation out the Capri’s side windows. A tremor shook Sam from head to toe and the other one–Dean–turned a sharp gaze toward him. Sam, if he noticed, gave no sign, and seemed to twist himself even further away.

Doyle stopped looking. He had a bad feeling about this. To say nothing of the insane red circle that had dropped these two at their feet in the first place.

That feeling only intensified after they’d arrived at HQ, got their sullen cargo out of the car, and were met by a smug looking Murphy shaking his head.

“Dear oh dear, 4.5 and 3.7. The things you two manage to come home with.”

“Shut it, Murph,” said Bodie. He had hold of Dean, who seemed to doing his damnedest to appear both menacing and bored. “At least we’ve got a lead. Don’t see your hands full of anything vital.” He looked pointedly at the digestive Murphy was halfway through crunching.

“Au contraire, mate.” He tapped his temple. “All up here and in a camera lens.” He peered at Sam, who was listing badly. “Yours doesn’t look too bright, Doyle.”

“You should be a detective, mate. Oi!” Doyle clicked his fingers in front of Sam and got a startled blink in return. “That’s better. Look lively.” He looked across at Bodie, determined to keep things matter of fact for now. “Let’s get these two signed in so we can start making the old man happy, shall we?”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s much chance of that Doyle. But you and 3.7 go ahead. I’ll make sure and bring flowers for the caskets. If it’s a nice day.”

Doyle shook his head and pushed Sam in ahead of him. “Far too many fucking comedians in CI5,” he muttered, forced to slow down when Sam stumbled.

“Sam?” Dean twisted in Bodie’s hold, trying to see behind him.

“Eyes front, you. He’s fine,” said Bodie, yanking Dean forward again.

Doyle had hold of Sam—just—and he was pretty sure a doctor’s visit was going to be in order. But Doctor Holden was a good twenty minutes away this time of an evening, so they could at least get some of the preliminaries out the way.

“Name,” demanded Bodie when they finally had them both seated on plastic chairs inside one of the large rundown rooms they were currently using as holding cells. Bodie was looking at Dean and matching him, bored for bored.

“Bon Jovi.”

“Yeah? Why’d he call you Dean then, Bon?”

“Because he’s an idiot.”

“Dean...” Sam looked like day old crap, but Doyle rather liked the way he was glaring at the miscreant sitting next to him.

Sam cleared his throat. “I’m Sam and this is Dean. Winchester,” he added.

Doyle hadn’t been expecting that. And from the look on Bodie’s face, neither had he. “Wait. You’re...?”

“Brothers,” said Sam.

“Why don’t you tell him what color panties you’re wearing, Sammy?”

Doyle ignored him, far more interested in the fact that if these two really were tied up with Lotsky in some way, then Lotsky’s M.O had changed considerably since the last time they’d tangled with him. As far as Doyle knew, he’d never had Americans on his payroll and certainly never used mules this young, this related, and to be fair, this fucking inept.

Bodie pulled out a chair and straddled it backwards in front of the pair. He looked from one to the other. “I’m not seeing one speck of resemblance, so likely bloody story. But if you are brothers, then why were you hitting ten bells out of each other in that alley back there?”

“Because Sammy here fucking deserved it.”

“Family business.”

Each glared at the other, but something in Dean seemed to give first. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he nodded at his brother. “Yeah, family business.” He looked at Bodie. “Not yours.”

“Tough. You made it ours when you ballsed up two months of surveillance.”

“Boo fucking hoo. You think we chose that stinking alley to come into?”

“Dean...” It was whisper low, followed by a barely there shake of Sam’s head, but Dean appeared to listen and get his temper in check when he spoke next. “Look, I don’t know who you are and I don’t know who this Lotsky guy is, and believe me...”

The door opened and Betty was suddenly there. Doyle was closest so he reluctantly walked over and tilted his head. “Doctor Holden is here,” she said in a low voice. “Not happy at the hour, but he’s here.” Doyle nodded, made to pull away. “Oh, and Mr Cowley would like a word.” She smiled as Doyle groaned. “He came back, you know. Just for you and 3.7.”

“...so if you could just open the door, we’ll be out of your hair in no time, and we can all go back to catching monsters.”

“Not quite,” said Doyle. He walked over to Bodie, who tipped an enquiring look his way. “Holden’s here. And we’re wanted.”

Bodie closed his eyes briefly. Doyle knew exactly how he felt because, yeah, this was not going to be pleasant.

“Right then,” said Bodie, brisk and down to business all of a sudden. He stood and pulled Sam up with him. “Hey,” said Dean immediately. “Where are you taking him?”

“None of your business,” snapped Bodie.

Doyle took pity at the look of panic Dean was desperately trying to keep from showing. “Do not fucking touch him, you dickheads! I swear...”

“Oi! That’s enough.” Doyle kicked the ankle Dean was trying to catch Sam’s foot with. “We’re just moving him next door. A doctor will take a look at him, that’s all.”

“He doesn’t need a fucking doctor. Sam?”

“’M fine, Dean.”

“Yeah, he’s fine and I’m crying into my hankie here, Doyle.”

Doyle pinched the bridge of his nose as he walked to the door. He wondered if they were ever going to get out of here.

******

Two hours later...

Doyle didn’t actually speak until he was about a third of the way through his first pint. He turned to his partner.

“Did we...? Was that...?”

Bodie held up an imperious finger and Doyle had to wait until Bodie had basically downed his entire pint in one.

“I need,” Bodie said, a little breathless from such an accomplishment, “at least one more before we talk about any of it, mate.”

Doyle considered him, sniffed. “Fair enough.” He caught the barmaid’s attention. “Two more, love? When you’ve a moment.”

Two beers in, and Doyle felt a shade more confident about getting the words out. He looked at Bodie, who made a ‘you first’ gesture. So he took a deep breath and said the unthinkable.

“They came out of that red circle, yes? I mean, you saw that too. Like... Christ, like Doctor Who or something.”

Bodie was shaking his head very emphatically, beer foam moustache firmly in place. Doyle thought about thumping it off. “Bodie. Do not leave me hanging here, mate. You were there too. You saw—”

“Trapdoor.”

“You what?”

“Trapdoor, Ray.”

They looked at each other. Doyle wanted it to sound right, he really did. “Yeah, but...”

“Doyle. Pubs have those steel trapdoors, right? The ones that take the barrels right down into the basement.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So, there’s one in that alley. Right where they popped into view.”

Doyle eyed him. “Right, Sherlock. And how the bloody hell would you remember that?”

“Because, Watson, I knelt on it when I took my shot.”

Doyle drank a couple more swallows of beer, considered his partner. “Which you missed, by the way.”

“Oh sod off, Doyle.”

Doyle shouldered him, put his pint on the bar and thought about it some more. He turned to look at Bodie, who was studying him in return. “Trapdoor, eh?”

“Trapdoor, mate. Same again?”

Another hour and a couple more pints later, they were sitting in the darkened car park of the pub, no red circles in sight.

“Doyle? I hate to break it to you, but you actually have to put the key in and turn it to make the car go anywhere.”

“What? Yeah. Sorry.” Doyle had apparently been woolgathering.

To his left Bodie sighed. “Ray, give over. I can hear things whirring.”

Doyle glared at him. “How can you be so bloody complacent about this? It’s all very well talking about trapdoors and cellars, but what about the red light? Don’t tell me that’s part of a pub’s cellar door.”

“Freak electrical storm or something, mate. I don’t know, I’m hardly a physicist. What else do you want me to say, Ray? That we’ve got two ghosties banged up at HQ? Two beings zapped in from another planet to have a fight right in the middle of our stakeout?”

“No, of course not.” Just listening to that out loud made Doyle squirm.

“Well, then.” Bodie leaned over and took the keys from Doyle’s hand. He stuck one of them in the ignition.

“C’mon, mate. Get me out of here. I’m tired and we have to be up bright and early tomorrow so that Cowley can spit us out all over again.”

Doyle winced at the memory. It had not gone well, the saving grace being that at least Cowley had waited until the two Yanks were safely tucked away in lock-up before tearing a strip off the pair of them. The doctor had reported that all he could find wrong with the younger brother was a bad case of dehydration and a temperature – which made as much sense as anything else did. They’d both been banged up separately for the night. Bodie and Doyle were back on the following morning at 6am and Doyle had no doubt whatsoever that Cowley was going to find them each something remarkably unpleasant and time-consuming to do.

Doyle chewed his lip, looked across at his partner. Who was yawning and stretching the kinks out as if they were coming off any other stakeout on any other Thursday, and not the one where two strangely dressed Americans had shot out of a red hole in the wall of a filthy alley and turned everything pear-shaped.

But still, the alternative to what Bodie was suggesting was bloody ridiculous. So...

“Right, trapdoors and a what, power short?

“Works for me, sunshine,” said Bodie around another yawn. “Christ, let’s get back to your place, Doyle. Might catch the end of the snooker if we’re lucky.”

Doyle resisted the urge to lean across and kiss him. Solid and unimaginative maybe, but he’d do for Doyle. “Rock of Gibraltar you are, mate, “ he said instead.

“Eh?”

“Nothing.”

******

Locks on, bolt slid firmly across and Doyle suddenly had an armful of Bodie pressing him into the letter box.

“I’ve got a...fuck...perfectly good bed, y’know.”

Bodie was trying to get his shoes off and Doyle’s shirt untucked at the same time.

“You’ve also got a perfectly...good bit of...carpet right here.”

Doyle grabbed hold of Bodie’s head when his own thunked back on the door. Fuck, but Bodie knew how to get him going. Thing was, Doyle didn’t always want it like this, fast and furious up against a wall or bent over the sofa. Sometimes he wanted it...properly, was the word that came to mind.

He got his hands either side of Bodie’s head. “Come...here a sec.”

It was a struggle and not one Doyle was sure he wanted to win once Bodie got his hand inside Doyle’s jeans. But this night he just didn’t want a furtive handjob up against his front door with Bodie’s head buried on his shoulder.

He got Bodie’s head up, gratified to see his hair askew and two spots of high colour staining his cheeks.

“What?” panted Bodie, almost sounding pissed off. And this was the line Doyle walked. Because while he had no doubt that Bodie was in this heart and balls deep, Doyle was discovering that Bodie’s idea of sex with men was very much fast, furious and furtive.

The three effs, as Doyle privately thought of them.

Doyle smiled, pulled Bodie in, and kissed him. Then he let him go, smoothed a thumb over his cheekbone and kissed him again, this time a little less chastely.

Because if that was the line Bodie walked, it was also the line Doyle was determined to march him over. Bodie didn’t do that with men. Ever. Kissing, he’d snapped at Doyle the first time Doyle had tipped his head back for it, was for birds. Once Doyle had recovered from the shock, he’d growled right back that kissing was for anyone worth more than a one night shag. And Bodie may not be roses, sweet nothings, and two point four kids in the suburbs, but he was certainly more than that.

So an uphill struggle it had been. But one of the most pleasant Doyle could ever remember fighting. Like now. He held Bodie back, about an inch from his mouth. Then he rocked his hips up and darted in, a lick here and there, a quiet suck of Bodie’s bottom lip.

“Christ, Ray. What the...” Bodie’s head swayed forward then back, his eyes glazed, and Doyle rather liked the uneven hitch to his breathing. “...bloody hell are you doing to me?”

“Kissing you, you pillock,” whispered Doyle.

A heaved out laugh on his shoulder. Bodie raised his head. “Is that so?”

Doyle nodded, eyes firmly fastened back on the prize.

He made to pull Bodie in, coax him to open up and slow the fuck down. But Bodie, the bastard, had been paying attention.

“Well then bloody well get on with it,” said Bodie, before fastening his mouth on Doyle’s, tongue delving down to his tonsils.

*****

Doyle rolled over into the smooth expanse of Bodie’s skin – always so cool, whatever the weather outside, and whatever the temperature inside. He skated his fingers over Bodie’s chest, settling them palm flat over his heart. Calm and steady now and nothing like the tattoo he’d had it beating just a few hours before.

Judging from the start up of the dawn chorus outside, Doyle reckoned they had about twenty minutes before they had to get up. Contemplating whether or not to try and snooze his way to the alarm, Bodie picked that exact moment to turn onto his side to face Doyle. Then he honest to God snuffled and smacked his lips a little.

Doyle wanted to ruffle Bodie’s hair very badly, but instead he inched forward on his pillow and bit Bodie’s nose. “Mornin’,” he said.

He got the expected grunt in return. A blue eye cracked open, squinted, and closed again.

Doyle was tempted to bite more than Bodie’s nose at that, but they’d gone to bed late after the stakeout/chewing out/red light drama – and then had an even later night. So he left him alone and turned slowly onto his back. He couldn’t help a sharp intake of breath at the give of sore muscles.

“All right?”

Doyle turned his head to see Bodie looking at him properly. Bodie’s hand then arrived on his chest, more or less mirroring what he’d just done.

“Yeah. No thanks to you. I’ll be lucky if I can sit down today.”

Bodie started to pull his hand back, but Doyle caught it, gave the fingers a squeeze.

“I’m not complaining.”

“Sure?”

Doyle squeezed harder.

“Ow.”

“Yes, you idiot. I am not some delicate fucking flower, Bodie.”

He brought Bodie’s fingers to his mouth and bit down on them too.

“All right, all right, I believe you. Christ, you don’t have to put everything in your mouth, you know. And don’t,” Bodie put those same fingers over Doyle’s mouth, “say a word. I know how that sounded. And you know what I meant.”

Doyle licked Bodie’s hand.

“Ugh,” said Bodie, making a great show of wiping his hand on the sheet.

“Lick something else if you like,” said Doyle, enjoying the way Bodie suddenly swallowed. For all Bodie’s bluster and undoubted prowess in the bedroom, Doyle had found it rather endearing to realise that any kind of dirty talk between them in the bedroom was something Bodie was still getting comfortable with.

“Not if I lick you first, sunshine.”

And with that Bodie was suck-biting a long slow trail down Doyle’s sternum, telling him things all the way down.

“Love sucking you down, mate. Fucking...love the way...you taste.”

Doyle panted, fisting his hands in the sheets.

Christ, but Bodie was a fast learner.

*******

“Morning, Charlie.”

“Morning, Mr Doyle.”

Doyle liked Charlie. He’d been part of the wallpaper of CI5 for about as long as George Cowley, and if the man ever looked up from the Daily Mail, the stories he could tell to the wrong ears would probably keep him in swimming pools and underage blondes forever. Only the man was fiercely loyal, and seemingly content with the Daily Mail, a vegetable patch, and Aston Villa. Which made him a good bloke in Doyle’s book, and an occasional enemy in Bodie’s.

“Ta.” Doyle took the cup of tea Charlie poured from the flask. “Quiet night?”

Charlie looked up from his clipboard. “Eventually.”

“Yeah?”

“Can’t say I like your Yanks much, Mr Doyle.”

“Can’t say as how they’re my Yanks, Charlie.” He drank a mouthful of tea, wondering what might have gone down. Bodie was upstairs, discovering their fate for the day and he had time before Cowley was due in from the Ministry. He continued with his tea and watched Charlie scribble something on his clipboard. “Well?” he prompted.

“Well nothing, Mr Doyle. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got all this lot...” he gestured behind him at an array of nondescript boxes, “...to get sent off to the weapons depot before Mr Cowley gets here.”

Doyle couldn’t really argue with that, so he drained his mug and set off for the warren of cells leading off to the right.

“Oh, Mr Doyle?”

Doyle turned back.

“They’re in the same room now. Four-forty-two.”

“How come?”

Charlie gave him a look. “Quieter that way.”

“Right. Thanks, Charlie.”

Interesting. Doyle picked up the pace a little.

As he neared room four-forty-two, he slowed his step. Someone was speaking, but too quietly for him to make out words through the thick cement walls. He peered in through the small cracked window in the door, and whatever he expected, it wasn’t what he saw.

The younger one was stretched out on the prison style bunk on the opposite wall. He was lying on his side facing Doyle, and while his eyes were closed he looked anything but restful. His knees were drawn up tight, arms banded around his chest.

Doyle’s eyes narrowed. He knew that look and position.

It was the older one who was the true surprise, though. The arrogant foul-mouthed bastard, who’d looked like he wanted nothing more than to punch his brother’s lights out last night, was what the younger one was stretched out on. He was sitting up with his brother’s head and shoulders in his lap. As Doyle watched, a tremor shook the lad from head to toe and the older one leaned in to talk to him, hand firm on his shoulder.

Doyle recognised soothing when he saw it.

Even though Doyle had made no noise, Dean looked up, glaring. He didn’t drop his hands from his brother’s shoulders, though, which made Doyle feel a little less antagonistic towards him. Still, Doyle had a feeling he knew exactly what required those kind of palm-flat circles rubbed into a person’s shoulder blades.

Having no more need for subterfuge, Doyle opened the door and stepped in, not missing the way Sam bodily flinched at the sound of the door clanging shut behind him.

“Easy, Sammy. It’s just one of those dicks from last night.”

Sammy shuddered anew, but his lips curled as he rasped out. “The ugly one?”

“Nah. The one with the girly hair and pretty eyes.”

Doyle turned his face to hide a smile. Fucking comedians.

He picked up one of the chairs and took it over to the pair. He straddled it backwards and said nothing for a minute or two, just watching the younger one shiver. He was broad-shouldered and taller than his brother, and he was also clearly in need and struggling with something. Sam’s clothing was damp, the smell of stale sweat was strong, and his blinking was erratic and getting slower by the second. As Doyle studied him, Sam seemed to drift out of it completely, tremors finally easing.

Doyle nodded towards him, eyes on the other one. “What’s his poison?” he asked. He deliberately pitched his voice low, kept all accusation out of it.

A muscle jumped in Dean’s jaw, and Doyle flexed his fingers. But no explosion of temper came. Dean simply began carding his fingers through his brother’s dank hair. It was an oddly intimate gesture and Doyle found himself reluctant to push the matter.

So be it, then. One junkie, one junkie’s brother. Nothing to get excited about.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Dean looked up then, pinning Doyle with a look of battle weary resignation that aged him terribly. Against his CI5 training, Doyle simply nodded and took the issue no further. Inwardly though, he sighed. Great. Probably some new designer drug the Yanks had been cooking up. Maybe these two were some kind of experimental mules after all, set up to bring the stuff over and the younger one had got stupid and hooked on their own merchandise. Maybe their presence in that alley, just as the buy off was supposedly going to take place wasn’t the coincidence he and Bodie had been thinking it was.

Whatever, it was definitely worth a dig or two. “Not heroin, then?” The blood test on Sam had come back negative for anything hard, but Doyle hadn’t been on the Drug Squad all those years and not learned when someone wasn’t themselves for a chemical reason. Still, he was trying to keep his voice as neutral as he could, since Dean really did look like he’d been up most of the night. Doyle figured some sympathy might slip under weakened defences rather than anything physical and intimidating. Besides, he had a feeling this one ate threats for breakfast.

Dean let out a sound that might have been a chuckle if it had had any mirth to it. He looked down at the head in his lap again. “No. Not heroin,” was all he said. Just at that moment Sam stirred, shivered and mumbled something that sounded like a girl’s name. Then he said it again.

Doyle didn’t miss the way Dean’s entire face tightened, or the way his hand suddenly dropped from Sam’s shoulder.

“Girlfriend?” prodded Doyle.

Dean looked away a moment, clearly collecting himself. He nodded. “Fucking bitch. Feeding it to him behind my back.”

Right.

At that moment the door opened and Bodie stepped in, wrinkling his nose in obvious distaste as he took the scene in. He said nothing, merely raised a very expressive eyebrow Doyle’s way. Doyle shook his head minutely.

“Cowley wants the party moved upstairs to his office. We’re to bring our new pets with us.”

“Fuck you.”

“That one’s yours Doyle, he’s not even house-trained.”

“Listen, you dick—"

“Bodie. Just.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. Christ, but this was going to be a long morning.

Sam chose that precise moment to startle, arm flailing as he came out of whatever he’d been dreaming of. He almost pitched himself off his brother’s lap and onto the floor.

“Okay, okay. Jesus, Sasquatch. Enough with the fists. I got ya. Come on.” Dean got Sam more or less sitting upright beside him on the narrow bunk, and promptly went back to ignoring Bodie.

Bodie took a step forward, but Doyle put a hand out. “Leave it, yeah? Look, let them have something to eat and use the facilities before we take them upstairs and have to sit downwind.”

Bodie’s lip curled, and Doyle braced himself for a sarcastic 'bleeding heart' remark. But Bodie simply shook his head. “Fine, but you’re telling Cowley why we’re late.”

It took twenty minutes to organise a wash-up and some tea and toast. After that, Sam seemed to rally, making his way quietly up the stairs with his brother on one side, Doyle in front, and Bodie taking up the rear.

They got to the top of the stairs and Dean turned to glare at Bodie.

“Okay, dickwad. You wanna back up a step or two?” Dean had Sam’s arm slung across his shoulders and was breathing a little heavily from the climb. Sam had only managed one step at a time for most of it, twice stumbling back into a wall of Bodie, who’d simply sighed his disdain and pushed Sam upright.

Doyle was tempted to do some sighing of his own. Because this hoof pawing between Bodie and Dean was bound to end in tears at one point and Doyle was not in the mood for any of it. Bad enough that Lotsky was now in the wind and they’d been reamed out spectacularly by a disbelieving Cowley. But he was also clearly going to have to waste time and energy keeping Bodie from killing Dean. Or at least maiming him in some way. Doyle pinched his nose; he could feel the headache starting already. As if on cue, Dean turned and took a step right into Bodie’s personal space, dragging a rather bewildered looking Sam with him.

Doyle tensed as Bodie gave Dean his best bored smile.

Dean gave him one back. “Or are you trying to get into my ass?” he said, voice low, smile still plastered on. “Because I got news for you, Priscilla. I don’t swing that way.”

Bodie had Dean’s shirt fisted in his hands before Doyle could even take a step. Just like that, the bored smile was gone. “Listen, mate. I don’t know who you are or how you and the junkie here are mixed up with Lotsky, but I do know that you need to keep your big mouth shut and your eyes forward.”

Doyle held his breath, watched Sam wobble somewhat unsteadily, and thought that had actually gone better than he thought it would. Bodie never took aspersions on his sex life with anything other than a fist to the chin.

“Enough, you two. We’re keeping Cowley waiting,” said Doyle, glaring between Bodie and Dean. He pointed a finger at Dean. “Stop annoying him.”

Dean scowled and muttered, but he started walking again.

******

Sam was so grateful to simply be sitting that it took him a while to take in his surroundings. He was definitely over the worst of it, definitely owed Dean a long heart-to-heart, and definitely an apology. Because he could paint his denial in any color he chose, but that was fucking withdrawal he’d just gone through.

All Ruby’s lies, all her bullshit about making him stronger. She’d weakened him in the worst possible way.

And now he and Dean were trapped in some kind of principal’s office in England in 1982, thanks to Castiel and a vindictive Zachariah.

“I understand you two are the reason 3.7 and 4.5 will have no weekends off for the forseeable future.”

A sandy haired guy, older than Bobby, and wearing the biggest glasses Sam had ever seen outside of Welcome Back Kotter was sitting behind a huge desk and addressing them. Well, Sam thought he was addressing them. It was hard to tell just who he was talking to since he never looked up from any of the three thousand papers he seemed to be signing. With a fountain pen.

Jesus.

He glanced right to where Dean was in the chair next to him. It was weird. Bodie and the curly-haired one were standing behind them, and Bodie was practically ramrod straight.

So, were they soldiers then?

He looked at Dean, eyebrow raised, but Dean was busy doing the bored-out-of-his-skull impersonation he always trotted out in front of authority figures he had no time for.

“Sir. We strongly suspect these two were part of a decoy to get Lotsky out of the way before the contact arrived.”

Sam swiveled his gaze to Bodie, who was all curt, no nonsense, and not making one lick of sense.

“Indeed, 3.7. And why would they do that, other then to distract you and 4.5? Surely the whole purpose of the entire stakeout was to witness the elusive Lotsky in action, was it not, Bodie?"

“Sir.”

“Making the buy, as it were. From what you say, these two...”

Here, the man did raise his eyes. To give Sam and Dean a perfunctory look of such disdain that Sam squirmed. Fuck, it was like being ten and having John Winchester despise your target scores.

“...disrupted the event we’d all been waiting for, and allowed themselves to fall into our hands and allowed for Lotsky’s escape. Do you see any flaws in your hypothesis, Bodie?”

Sam still didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but he was rather enjoying watching Bodie getting stepped on. And from the smirk on Dean’s face, he guessed he wasn’t the only one.

“And now, I have two men of unidentified origin and purpose to contain and dispose of...”

“Hey!” said Dean, suddenly paying attention.

“...in the least disruptive manner possible. ID?”

“Fake FBI badges,” supplied 7.3, or whatever the hell his name was.

“Anything else?”

The curly-haired one stepped forward with the piece of paper Dean had been using to work out the summoning ritual.

“Some mumbo jumbo, and what could be, I dunno, a map of some kind?”

He handed it over to Cowley, and then kept his place behind him and peered over his shoulder. They both looked at it with such seriousness that Sam felt an irrational giggle building up. It hadn’t worked and had less power than a bag of oregano.

Dean beat him to it, knocking his knee against Sam’s and shaking his head. “Oh man, I wish Castiel could see this. He was about to rip that up as too amateur when this Marty McFly shit went down. Now those two are pouring over it like it’s the Holy fucking Grail.”

“Sir, I think if you—”

“Castiel? Did you say Castiel?” Dean sat up a bit straighter under that piercing gaze. “Dean, is it?” The man had taken his glasses off and was looking straight at them. Into them almost. “Well, well, well...”

Sam swallowed. The atmosphere in the room had changed, become charged with sudden interest in them.

Dean stuck his chin out. “Yeah. What’s it to you?”

“3.7, 4.5, why don’t you join the briefing in the conference room this morning? Enlighten everyone about the latest developments. You have about five minutes, I believe. Betty has the details.”

Sam could feel the tension in the room. Bodie looked like a grenade about to go off, jaw grinding and locking. But all the man did was nod and head for the door. Doyle pulled his hair, swore, and went after his partner.

Dean, of course, couldn’t resist. He waited until Bodie had opened the door and half turned to let Doyle through. “Mine’s black with two sugars, soldier boy. Sammy here’ll have a half fat vanilla decaf latte.”

Then, like the tool he was, Dean pointed his finger at Bodie and made a clicking noise with his tongue. Sam cringed, but the sandy-haired guy seemed to find it amusing.

“That will be all, 3.7, 4.5.”

They left and Sam wanted to fidget in the silence that followed. The guy behind the desk went back to signing his papers, as cool as you please, and seemingly unbothered by Sam and Dean sitting there like morons in front of him.

Dean mouthed a “what the fuck?” at Sam, who shrugged and tried not to think about how thirsty he was.

For water. Thirsty for water.

He looked down at his jeans and focused on a blotchy mark in the denim just above his right knee. A knee jiggling up and down. He took a deep breath in and concentrated on trying to still the movement. Fuck, he really was what those two had called him.

Dean’s hand covered the mark on his knee. He squeezed lightly before taking it back. It was nothing, really nothing in the catalog of Sam and Dean moments, so Sam had no idea why his vision suddenly blurred. He carried on staring down as he consciously slowed the tremor and blinked rapidly.

“So, how is Castiel these days?” asked the old guy. “Still causing dissension in the ranks, or did he finally curb that meddling habit of his?”

Sam forgot all about the mark. He looked at Dean, whose mouth was probably a a jaw-dropped reflection of his own. Then he looked back at the guy. Who had finally stopped signing his damn papers and was looking directly at them.

“Well?” the man asked.

Dean looked at Sam again, who shrugged, having no clue.

“Uh, he’s...yeah, he’s still a grade A pain-in-the-ass meddler,” said Dean leaning forward. “Wait. You know Castiel?”

“Castiel and I crossed paths a long time ago, young man.” said the old guy. Sam felt like shivering, because although the man was smiling, Sam had never seen anything quite so shark-like.

Dean was clearly feeling the same. He leaned forward. “Christo.”

The dude never even missed a beat.

“Not quite, laddie. The name is Cowley. Mr Cowley to you. Now, let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this, shall we?" The man – Mr Cowley – pressed a button on an ancient looking intercom. “Ruth, could you bring in some tea and maybe some digestives for our American visitors?”

He clicked it off. “Or perhaps you would like something stronger...?” He tailed away when he glanced at the clock. “Ah, not quite 8 o’clock. We should probably wait an hour or two.” This time when he smiled, it did something completely different to his face and Sam found himself relaxing, almost against his will. Whatever this shitstorm was, they might just have found an ally.

Dean, of course, had considerably brightened at the offer of alcohol this early in the morning. Sam felt his heart sink at the way Dean was looking at the guy. Sam may be easily swayed by pretty demons dressed in leather and offering revenge, but Dean had always been the one vulnerable to father figures.

Especially father figures offering him booze before breakfast.

Refreshments arrived, and Sam was actually grateful for the strong, sweet milky tea. He got through two chocolate covered cookies and then left the rest of the plate to Dean.

“Would I be right in assuming you are not FBI agents?”

Sam and Dean exchanged a what-the-hell shrug. If the man knew Castiel and wasn’t a demon, there was a good chance he wouldn’t freak out at a drop or two of truth.

“Only when necessary,” smirked Dean around a spray of crumbs. Sam rolled his eyes. Great, they were back to Dean being a dick in a strange land.

“Nor are you agents of any kind. And I would also venture to guess that you are,” Here he paused, flicked his gaze over them, “far from home?”

Dean opened his mouth but Sam spoke first. “That’s right.” God knows what smart remark Dean had been about to come up with. He glared at Dean, willing him to just be a little less Dean-like until they got their bearings.

Dean seemed to listen. One last look back at Sam and then he sat forward and cleared his throat. He spread his hands, all business like. “Look, if you know Castiel, then you know the juice he has. Am I right?”

“Juice?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Powers, mojo, fingers-to-the-forehead deal?”

“Dean...” Sam hissed.

“What?" hissed Dean right back, turning to glare.

Sam tugged his sleeve and made him lean back so he could whisper. “We are in a different country and a different time zone. Think about that before you open your damn mouth. Hell, I have a hard time following the crap you come out with half the time.”

“Gentlemen?” The man was peering at them over the top of his glasses, fountain pen poised in mid-air.

Sam held on, even though Dean was scowling and trying to tug his arm free. “And another thing,” Sam whispered, “just because the man says he knows Castiel, does not mean he knows Castiel.”

Dean wrenched his arm free. “I know that!” he hissed, super loud.

“Gentlemen. I believe you were telling me about Castiel and his juice?”

Dean sat forward again and scrubbed a hand down his face. “What I mean is, if Castiel,” he nodded at Sam, who was holding his breath by this point, “...sent us here,” he smiled smugly at his word choice, “and if you actually know him, even a little, then I’m thinking our being back in this particular time...” Sam kicked his chair. “...your time. Our time. In all our times. Here, I mean. Here in... well, now, yeah now. Ah, hell, Sam. Don’t just fucking sit there.”

“Right,” said Sam quickly. “What my brother is trying to say is that maybe it’s not a coincidence that Castiel arranged for us to be sent here, to London, when we were in need of...um, special protection? Not if he knew that you were here?”

“Indeed.”

The man looked thoughtful. He took those huge glasses off and let the frame dangle in his hand.

“May I ask, gentlemen, did Castiel give you anything before he arranged for you to come here? And why exactly you might be in need of--what did you call it--special protection?”

Sam could almost hear the air quotes around the word ‘arranged’, as if the old man knew exactly how they’d arrived in that filthy alley.

Dean shrugged, looked guardedly at Sam, who nodded minutely. This guy may be an unexpected ally: didn’t mean they were going to roll over and cough up their lifestory.

Besides, no matter how the man might have come across Castiel, it did not mean he was ready to hear about the Apocalypse, Sam’s demon ex-girlfriend, and Lucifer about to walk the earth.

“Nope, nothing,” said Dean, “’cept the usual fucking headache and a stomach full of gas.”

Cowley raised an eyebrow. What the hell, it was the truth. Castiel hadn’t given them a damn thing. Not even a heads up as to what he’d been about to do when he’d advanced toward them in the midst of all that angelic chaos and light.

“I see,” said Mr Cowley.

Dean and Sam exchanged another look. If he did, it was more than either of them.

“It seems, gentlemen, that I should perhaps keep you close for a while. Wait for Castiel to show himself to...how should we put it, arrange your return journey? And there is still the precise nature and place of your arrival to consider.” Again with the amused emphasis. Sam would bet money this wily old man knew exactly what Castiel’s role had been in getting them here.

“Regardless. I do not believe in concidences, gentlemen, so until Lotsky is where I want him, I will keep you where I want to.”

Sam could feel Dean bristle at the proprietorial tone. John Winchester was about the only one who had ever gotten away with talking to Dean like that.

He put a hand on Dean’s forearm, gripped hard. “Which is where exactly, Mr Cowley?”

He smiled, small and satisfied, and Sam’s throat went dry. “Why, with 3.7 and 4.5, of course.”

******

“Babysitting,” sneered Bodie.

“Surveillance, 3.7,” replied Cowley placidly, not even looking up from his papers. “Twenty-four hours. Let’s see if you can manage that long without losing anything else of possible value.”

“Sir, that’s hardly fair!”

Doyle knocked Bodie’s shoulder with his own. He didn’t like the idea of close quarters with the Americans anymore than his partner. But considering how spectacularly they’d ballsed up getting hold of Lotsky last night, it was probably best to keep quiet and take their medicine. Cowley clearly had some triple think interest in the pair he was not sharing with the class anytime soon, so best simply to get it over with.

A deep intake of breath, a small nod, and Bodie looked set to abandon his early morning insubordination.

Still, Doyle had to ask... “Is there anything specific for us, then?”

“I’m not following, 4.5.”

It was Doyle’s turn to sigh and try and keep his voice even as Cowley continued going through his papers. “I mean, sir. Is there anything you want us to do? Any place you need us to take them?”

“I hear the roses at Kew are particularly lovely this year," said Cowley. He looked up from his desk, smiling. “Oh, and I believe Crufts starts today.” He bent over his papers again, the smile gone as quickly as it had appeared. “Do I have to think of everything, gentlemen?”

“Not at all sir,” answered Bodie. He clapped Doyle on the shoulders, started steering him towards the door. “Come on, Doyle. Up and at ‘em. We’ll have you and this mop best of show in no time.”

Bodie ducked before Doyle could hit him.

******

Once the four of them were in the car and leaving HQ, any remaining good humour in the situation lasted until Bodie took a left at the very first junction. “Look,” Doyle tried, half turning to talk over his shoulder to the brothers in the back. “I think if we just—

“Down!” shouted Bodie.

Three things then happened simultaneously. Bodie slammed the car into a nauseating spin right across the junction, a black car going fast in the wrong direction narrowly missed them, and a bullet spidered the back windscreen into a thousand lines.

Bodie was out of the car a split second before Doyle, and had already taken a shot by the time Doyle took his. Each crouched on the ground using the open car doors for cover, but it was no use. Bodie swore above the racket of screeching tyres just as the back of the black car disappeared into London’s early morning melee.

“All right? Everyone all right?” Doyle knelt back into the car as he reholstered, exchanging a look with Bodie, also reholstering. “K2B-”

“-64W. I’ll call it in,” finished Bodie, reaching for the mike.

To their credit, the two in the back did not seem all that rattled. Doyle glanced over to see Dean rubbing his arm and glaring at his brother. “Almost took my head off pushing me down there, Rambo.”

“Excuse me for saving your life, asshole.”

“What life? The glass didn’t even break! Unlike my fucking shoulder here.”

Sam threw his hands in the air in apparent disgust, and Doyle couldn’t help chuckling. If nothing else, these two were entertaining.

“What are you smiling at?” This from Bodie, coming up behind him after waving back some curious onlookers with his badge.

“Nothing. What you got?”

Bodie’s nose wrinkled. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Probably not, but tell me anyway.” He was still smiling. Which was ridiculous, but there was something about Bodie sometimes.

“The car was lifted two days ago by an Albanian drug dealer...”

“...with, let me guess, connections to a certain Jakob Lotsky.”

“Big art gallery heist in Russia last year was thought to be the pair of them in cahoots. Interpol had rumours of a merger floating around for months before the trail went cold.”

Doyle studied him. “You’re right, I don’t like it.”

Bodie nodded his head at the backseat. “One of us should take the car in, and give Cowley the good news about what just happened. See if it changes his game plan.”

“So much for Crufts, eh?” said Doyle. Who’d actually been looking forward to a day of aimless time-filling.

“More like the four of us in a safehouse now,” said Bodie. He nodded to their passengers in the back seat. “And one of us also needs to stash these two pillocks out of harm’s way for half an hour or so.”

“Go on, then,” said Doyle, stepping back. “You go share the good tidings and I’ll take these two to Molly’s for a bit. Safer than the Tower in there.”

Bodie made a face, but Doyle guessed that was more to do with what he felt he might be missing out on than disagreement.

“Don’t worry,” he patted Bodie’s arm. “I’ll have tea and toast at the ready.” He bent down to speak into the back. Dean had stopped rubbing his arm and was nudging Sam to look at a chain-rattling skinhead who had stopped near the car to light up. Doyle scanned the young man and the surrounding mish-mash of onlookers, who had more or less drifted off in the absence of sirens blood or bodies of any kind. Nothing untoward for now. “Come on, you two. Up and at ’em. Skinheads aplenty where we’re going.”

‘Molly’s’ was a workman’s caff tucked around the corner from the current CI5 HQ. Molly was the larger than life proprietor, who had more or less adopted most of CI5 and who often stayed open late just to keep them all in tea and fried eggs. She vaguely knew they were some kind policemen who worked the hours nobody else would. Which, when Doyle thought about it, was not that far from the truth.

“’Ello there, my lovely, where’ve you been? Haven’t seen your pretty face for a while. Where’s Mr Bodie, then?” Bodie had done his usual and charmed the pants off her by asking for seconds the very first time she’d served them. She never failed to ask for him if Doyle went in alone.

“He’ll be along, love. Till then, how about a couple of specials for these two.”

Dean looked delighted and rubbed his hands together. “Absolutely.”

Sam less so. “Dean, do you even know what a special is?”

“Does it matter, Sammy? The lady wants to give us specials and we are going to let her.”

“Right you are then, love. Two specials. Have a seat and I’ll bring them over.”

*******

Twenty minutes later, Dean was on his second round of egg and toast and the fattiest bacon Sam had ever eaten in his life, when the door banged open to reveal a rather annoyed looking Bodie.

Bodie quickly made his way over and joined them.

He looked at Doyle, eyebrows climbing and Doyle clearly understood something because he swore quietly and rubbed his chin.

“Let me guess,” said Doyle with a sigh, “we need to split up.”

Sam’s heart sank. What now, for God’s sake? He looked at Dean, but Dean was clearly unimpressed and simply continued to mop up a revolting mix of egg yolk, ketchup and baked bean juice on his plate with his last piece of toast. He made a loud appreciative gesture and, despite everything, Sam bent his head to hide a smile. Prison, a film set, a 1980s English diner – there was really something endearingly adaptable about his brother.

“Whatever you say curly-top. Just let me finish up here, and Sam and I will be on our merry... What?”

Bodie was looking significantly between the two of them and Sam’s heart sank a little further.

“We need to split you up,” explained Bodie.

“What the hell for?” This from Dean, soppy toast suddenly forgotten.

“Because Lotsky clearly wants something from you two, and our boss seems to think we will get to the bottom of this a lot faster if you can be in two different places at once.”

Sam looked at Dean, distantly grateful to see his own anxiety at them being separated in Dean’s eyes. Sam nodded. Dean was going to speak for both of them – because Sam was going to come off like a needy, scared little junkie if he opened his mouth and told Doyle he did not trust himself away from his brother right now.

“Listen. I hear you. I do. And believe me, no one wants to clear this shit up and get out of here faster than Sam and me. But splitting us up? Really?”

“Look,” said Bodie, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. “By Cowley’s reckoning, we’ve got about four days until Lotsky’s due back in Eastern Europe. Fastest way to find out just what’s keeping him here is to divide and conquer.”

“So we’re bait, then? Wonderful,” said Dean, wiping his hands on a napkin and then his jeans. “Same old fucking same old. Right, Sam?”

“I wanna stay with Dean.” Sam’s cheeks flamed when he heard himself blurt it out anyway, and he looked down at the stained tablecloth, mortified. But he couldn’t help it. It was humiliating, but it was the truth. If he’d learned one painful lesson from any of this back to the future crap, it was that lying about his issues got him nowhere good at roughly the speed of a runaway train.

He waited for derisive laughter, but Dean’s leg pressed hard against his under the table and all he heard was a rather gruff. “Sam’s right. Me and him do better together.”

Sam clenched both hands into fists and stared hard at the ketchup stain on the menu in front of him. One day soon, there were going to be a whole series of chick flick moments as Sam got out all manner of sorries and never agains to this lunatic brother of his who never gave up on him.

“Right, Sammy?”

Sam looked up but only nodded, still a little unsure how his voice might come out.

“And it’s not just that, I’m afraid,” said Bodie, pulling a face that surely did not mean anything good. “Ray, these two herberts...” he nodded between Sam and Dean, “...are an inch away from being an Operation bloody Susie.”

Doyle swore and immediately got to his feet. “Right, come on you two. We’ll work it out in the car. Fuck!”

Sam exhaled, composure as recovered as it could be for right then. He pushed back from the table, motioning for Dean to do the same. Best to just nod and play along for now. At least until Castiel showed up and got them out of this for real.

“Okay, okay. Jesus. Who the fuck is Susie?” Dean elbowed Sam. “Is she hot? I bet she’s hot.”

Doyle held the door open. Dean went through after Bodie. “Not too bright sometimes, is he?” Doyle said to Sam, nodding at Dean’s back. Sam opened his mouth to protest, an automatic response. But Doyle was smiling and in all honesty, whatever Operation Susie was, Sam felt pretty sure it wasn’t going to be a hot woman.

So against the odds he found himself smiling back. Just a little.

******

The goodbyes out on the sidewalk by the cafe were perfunctory and Sam was actually grateful for the awkwardness of doing this in front of an early morning crowd of strangers. Otherwise he’d probably have done something stupid like grab Dean and make him run, take their chances alone together like they always did. Castiel had to have a bead on them, he just had to. Though looking at Bodie and Doyle, who seemed to have stepped tactfully aside to let him and Dean talk, he had a feeling that neither these two nor the the dude in the glasses were going to let them get far. Strangely enough, he felt more cornered by these supercops they’d stumbled into than the Russian guy everyone was pissing their pants over. He and Dean had hunted more adept assholes than that in their sleep.

Sam needed to know. “We doing the right thing here, Dean?” He swallowed, suddenly wanting very badly to opt for the ‘take your brother and run’ strategy. What the fuck was he thinking he’d be okay like this?

His agitation clearly showed, because Dean stepped closer and put a calming hand on Sam’s arm. “Hey, hey. I don’t like this any more than you, but you called it. Not only are we in a different fucking time, we’re in a whole other country. One neither of us knows squat about. Besides...” Dean scrubbed a hand down his face. “It’s four days, right? Probably won’t even be that before Cas stops being a dick and remembers where he put us. So I don’t know, maybe being stuck with one of these wannabe Bonds apiece until he shows up is the right move. Hell, at least they’re actually on our side.”

Sam nodded. “I know, I know.” And he did. If they couldn’t draw Lotsky out in four days, Doyle had made it clear the man would be Interpol’s problem again, and he and Dean would be back together for whatever the hell they’d do next.

“I just...” don’t fucking want to be here without you he couldn’t say without dying of shame and bawling like a baby.

“I know, Sammy. Me, too,” said Dean quietly, who heard it all anyway.

“Right, then. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” interrupted Bodie. “We flipped a coin and I won. So you,” he pointed at Dean, “are with Doyle.”

“Awesome,” said Dean, as deadpan as Bodie.

“Which means I get longshanks here.” He nodded his head at Sam, whose heart sank again. He’d been rather hoping for Doyle. At least the man had cracked a smile his way once. But then again, Bodie and Dean would undoubtedly kill each other in the first ten minutes, so it made a reluctant kind of sense.

Doyle and Bodie then exchanged a whole bunch of spy shit that Sam would have found as entertaining as all hell on any other occasion. Right then it did nothing for the low-level panic tying up his guts.

“Stay cool, Sammy. I’ll see you real soon.”

Sam held Dean’s gaze. “You, too,” he said, nodding tightly.

“And you, double-oh three and a half,” Sam watched, more than slightly in awe, as Dean walked up to Bodie and stuck a finger in his face. “I’ll take my brother back in one piece in four days, or this pissant Russian will be the least of your problems. You hearing me?”

“Doyle. Your pet is annoying me. Take him round the block, will you?”

“Listen, you—”

“Bodie!” That from Doyle, who stepped in to face Dean and bodily shoulder him back. “In the car, sunshine,” he said to Dean, thumbing towards yet another tiny car. “And don’t touch anything!” he called out to Dean’s retreating back

Sammy rather liked Dean’s non-verbal response, raised high in the air and totally unmistakable.

Doyle shook his head and turned to Sam. “Try not to rub this one up the wrong way, eh? He’s crotchety before his first fry-up of the day.”

“Oi!”

“And you.” Doyle spoke to Bodie, eyes on his face for a long minute. “You heard him. One piece, all right?”

Sam suddenly felt uncomfortable. He was pretty sure he was no longer the topic of that particular sentiment.

******

They’d been driving for about two hours when Sam took the bull by the horns and broke the silence that had settled in deep between him and Bodie.

“So, uh, where are we going?”

Bodie did not drive like Dean, which should have made him relax but just didn’t. Being in shotgun – however small and cramped that shotgun was – without Zeppelin trying to bleed through his ears and no empty Twinkie packets landing in his lap every five minutes, was weird. It just made him want Dean and all his stupid, annoying habits too much to even look over at the man beside him.

But the city was fading fast behind them, the landscape was getting prettier and emptier by the second, and Bodie had actually rolled down the window a little and appeared to be marginally more relaxed.

“Safehouse number nine,” said Bodie, never taking his eyes off the wheel and barely moving his lips to even speak. “Does that clear things up?”

Sam shook his head and returned his gaze to the passing sheep.

Asshole, he thought fiercely.

Not fiercely enough to say out loud, though.

Safehouse number nine turned out to be something straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. Expecting some damp and dreary bolthole of the type he and Dean regularly laid low in, the place Bodie finally stopped at was set in a garden, for crying out loud, had two storeys, wooden beams everywhere, and roses lined up at the gate.

“What’s the matter? Never seen an actual house before? Don’t they have those in America, then?”

Sam snapped his jaw shut and glared at Bodie, who seemed to be enjoying his own shitty jokes with no need for any input from Sam. Sam got out of the car and stretched and twisted until his bones felt realigned. He could never live in England, ever, if this was the best they drove in. A wave of nostalgia for the Impala hit him hard and he tightened his jaw and bent down to stroke a cat that had suddenly popped out of nowhere. “Nah, still living in teepees. Thought everybody knew that.”

Expecting a biting rejoinder, Sam squinted up from where the cat was now delightedly winding itself around his legs and caught Bodie studying him. It was most disconcerting.

“You don’t say, young Yank. Come on, I’ve got some calls to make, which you don’t need to listen to. So make yourself useful and see what there is to eat.”

Great, thought Sam sourly. From Dean’s mouth to Bodie’s ears. Houseboy and shotgun no matter the continent or time zone.

******

Dinner was a quiet affair, which suited Sam just fine. The kitchen was old-fashioned, but compared to the usual hotplate and microwave, it was the lap of luxury as far as Sam was concerned. The cupboards had a lot of cans and packets in them and the fridge had clearly been stocked with basics recently. Sam raised an eyebrow at the level of organization and coordination he was currently in the midst of.

Bodie paced around just outside the kitchen door and had his private phone conversations while Sam rustled up a cheese and mushroom omelet and a halfway decent salad.

Bodie came in after his phone calls, snorted at the salad, and polished off the omelet in about three bites. Then he got up to open the backdoor as another strangely numbered CI5 agent showed up, chain smoked at the kitchen table, talked about football and Susie – who Sam still hadn’t met – and who then proceeded to take some kind of ancient looking pistol out and start cleaning it.

“Paulson’s with us until tomorrow morning, so up the wooden stairs with you, Sam, while he and I split the watch between us. Bathroom is at the end of hall and your bedroom is the first one on the left. And no fucking wandering about. Me or Paulie here,” Bodie gestured at the other agent with his thumb, “might think you’re a burglar and shoot you in the night. Got it?”

Sam scowled. He was not a fucking kid. Christ, even Dean never talked to him like this.

“Fine,” he said, stalking out the room to the sound of Paulson laughing behind his back.

******

Hours later, Sam heard the glass break. Just the faintest tinkle of sound, but it snapped his eyes wide open. He closed his hand around the knife under his pillow. Not Ruby’s demon killing one - this one was more like something you’d gut a very small fish with. But it was the best he could swipe from the kitchen, and as John Winchester had drummed into them, a knife in a hunter’s hand, is a knife in a hunter’s hand.

He sat up, concentrating in the darkness, his mouth dry and his heart loud in his ears. He licked his lips and tried not to think of what he needed to calm it down. He had to be done with that shit, before he couldn’t just go through one night of sweats to get rid of it. Dean, goddamn him, was right and he was going to strangle Ruby as soon as they could leave this cloak and dagger world behind.

Meanwhile, there was another faint sound and he slid out of bed. He padded to the door, hand tightening on the hilt of the knife. He heard voices, muted but harsh, trying to whisper in something that sounded Enochian but couldn’t be.

Sam had slept dressed, boots at the side of his bed half laced. He put them on and made his way quietly down the darkened hall toward the room Bodie was supposed to be in. If Bodie was half as good as Bodie thought he was—

Apparently he was, because Bodie was suddenly there, fully dressed, finger on his lips, gun held high alongside his cheek. There was enough natural light so that when their eyes met, they could exchange a meaningful nod. Bodie tipped his gun toward the direction of the stairs, pointed two fingers at his eyes and then at Sam, and Sam found himself inexplicably calmed. This man wasn’t Dean, wasn’t even close, but there in this darkened hall in this weird country with fuck knew what trying to get in and gank them, Sam was pretty damn okay about being alongside him.

They reached the top of the darkened stairwell in tandem, Sam tucked just behind Bodie. The voices were getting louder. They were still whispering, but it sounded increasingly fraught. Bodie tipped his gun again, showing that he would go down first, on the left side of the carpeted staircase. It made sense. Bodie had a gun, which was always better than a knife when a distance was involved.

Besides, as far as Sam knew, nothing demonic or spirit-like was taking place downstairs. For all he knew it could be a thief attracted to the lights of a big house in a nice neighborhood. And in no way shape or form was Sam comfortable slicing the neck of a down-on-his luck English burglar.

Sam paused, foot descending carefully on the stair, and took a moment to reflect on the insanity of a life wishing for something demonic so he’d feel okay about killing it.

He shook himself, got down another step – fuck, why couldn’t the English build stairs? What was the obsession with curving them up and down in circles instead of straight lines? It meant that he and Bodie could neither go down side by side nor particularly fast.
He risked a glance out to his left and peered through the gloom. Two men were over on the other side of the room trying to pull a drawer out by the look and sound of it. Sam’s eyes were more or less accustomed to the shadows, and from what he could see the room was a mess – slashed cushions from the two sofas at odd angles, the stuffing sprayed everywhere, and contents from drawers strewn on the carpet. He checked on Bodie, who was about three steps ahead. Sam paused as Bodie slowly drew his gun level and lined up his sights. Sam held his breath, those poor bastards had no—

“Rrrr...rrrrr...rrrrr...”

Sam froze. Trapped in a bad horror movie, he slowly turned his gaze downward. To where the fucking cat had jumped out of nowhere to continue its love affair with Sam’s legs.

Sam looked, Bodie looked, and of course, the two would-be assassins/burglars looked, too.

It was a split second – less, maybe. And on reflection Sam was more than a little impressed by how fast Bodie got a shot off. But the cat, that damn fucking cat, which Sam was sure was a witch’s familiar, simply took everyone’s eye off the ball for a split second too long. Bodie got his shot off and one of them swore, dropped what looked like a crowbar and sank like a stone. But it was too good a position for dickhead number two. How could he not take advantage of two men pretzled around a winding staircase and a cat intent on tripping them down it?

So dickhead number two fired.

Bodie spun, caught high in the shoulder. Miraculously, he still got another round off, but it went wide and a table lamp disappeared as the second man ran clumsily out of the room.

“Bodie!” Sam yelled. Heedless of where his feet landed in terms of the cat – who promptly took herself nimbly out of harm’s way – Sam ran the rest of the way down the stairs to where Bodie was struggling to sit. Way too much blood was pumping out of his left shoulder, and Sam could see his face bleaching in the early morning light coming in through the window above them.

“Bodie?”

“Don’t...” Bodie levered himself away from Sam’s touch. “Fucking go, Sam!”

Sam really did not care about two English cat burglars/assassins who were clearly crap at whatever their chosen profession was. But Bodie was gritting his teeth and looking determined, and Sam had been defenseless against that particular brand of stoic idiocy his whole life.

“Stay still,” said Sam, getting a growl and a half-hearted shove in response.

Sam set off in the direction of the back door where he was pretty sure he’d heard a crash and sure enough, the door was on its hinges and the body of the other agent – Paulson? – was stretched out, half in the kitchen, half in the garden. He had a small red hole right in the center of his forehead and his two way mike lay smashed to bits in his hand.

Sam grimaced at the cool feel of the man’s skin beneath his fingers. Death was somehow harder to handle here – no supernatural things to get out of warm, human bodies so that those warm, human bodies could get up and carry on living. Just humans killing humans for stupid shit like microfiche and code words.

A shot ricocheted off the plaster about two inches above Sam’s head and stopped his musings. He scuttled back crab-style into the kitchen and swung the door shut. Just to be sure, he took the time to heave the solid looking table up against it, taking care to keep his head below the windows. Thank god for solid farmhouse furniture. He tried the light switch, got nothing, and headed back to Bodie.

Great, he was under siege in bumble fuck Idaho with no Dean, a wounded guy who could barely tolerate him, no electricity, no phone line, and some badly dressed spies out in the garden trying to kill him.

So much for the 1980s.

*******

Doyle was grateful that Dean did not feel the need for idle chitchat on their way through the Suffolk countryside. He was not in the mood for doing anything but driving, and then maybe thumping Bodie for not answering the RT and putting the wind up everyone at HQ. He took a bend much too fast and was mildly gratified to see that Dean did not even flinch. Doyle tossed him the RT.

“Try them again.”

Dean stabbed a few buttons and got nothing but static. He threw it hard onto the back seat.

“Oi,” said Doyle on instinct.

“What? Until cell phones get here, you’re screwed. Now can you get this undersized piece of crap to move any faster?”

Doyle glared at him, took a corner on two wheels, and they both went back to a tense silence. It wasn’t as if he and Dean had had much of a chance to pull any bricks down between them. Three sullen hours at HQ while Cowley listened to radio chatter, a quick meal back at Doyle’s flat followed by Dean crashing hard on the sofa while Doyle kept one eye and ear half-open all night. Come morning and a decent breakfast, Dean was just starting to do more than grunt and sneer, when the balloon had gone up. All thoughts of an Operation Susie were now abandoned, and would 4.5 and the American get down to safehouse number nine to assess the level of compromise as soon as possible? Doyle had spat some choice words back into the handset at Cowley’s talent for understatement, barked a few tense orders at Dean, and they’d been belting through the Suffolk countryside ever since.

Doyle’s worst suspicions were confirmed by the sudden appearance of a haze of black smoke on the horizon. He swore under his breath and stomped down even harder on the accelerator.

“You’re gonna tell me that’s the farmhouse we’re aiming for, right? I swear, if something’s happened to Sam, I will kick your fucking spies-r-us crew into Hell and right onto the rack. And trust me, I know the way.”

Doyle chose not to repsond to such nonsense. Besides, if the same were true of Bodie, he might just take him up on it.

He pulled the car to a halt about a mile from the farmhouse and handed the spare gun he kept taped under the dash to Dean. Then he gave him a clip and watched him expertly check the chamber and fill it. Dean made for the door and Doyle put a hand on his arm. He could feel the tension vibrating off the man and he wanted to get to Bodie as fast as Dean wanted to get to his brother, but a few things had to be made clear first.

“I’m taking that back when we’re done, so don’t get comfy with it. And for fuck’s sake don’t shoot anybody without asking me first. Dean!”

Dean had already shrugged him off and was busy climbing out and slamming the door.

Upon reflection, it was a stupid thing to say, but Doyle was not entirely sure he trusted this one’s instincts yet.

As Doyle suspected, the car Bodie and Sam had driven down in and a man in a black suit were obvious goners in the driveway. Dean tapped Doyle on the shoulder just before the gate and pointed at another man hiding in the bushes, about fifty yards in front of them. Doyle had seen him too, but he had to admit he was impressed. He pointed at his eyes and then at the ground. Dean set his jaw and shook his head, and Doyle had to bite back his temper. Stubborn idiot.

He studied the man in front of him. Ill-fitting clothes, an attitude he wanted to kick into next week, and the strangest way of talking Doyle had ever come across, but still...

In for a penny, in for a pound.

He nodded, pointed his gun at the left then the right, got a nod in return and they each set off.

Doyle was further impressed with the thump to the jaw Dean used on the poor sod in the bushes. Dean followed it with a kick to the ribs and the man doubled up on the floor, groaning.

Doyle kicked the gun away and jammed his own under the man’s chin. “Up. And if our people are not alive and well in there, I’m going to extract more than information out of you.”

He got himself and the man upright and looked at Dean, who was cursing and shaking out his hand. Doyle shook his head. “I gave you the gun for a reason, you know.”

Dean looked at him as if he’d asked what colour Dean’s underwear was. “He’s human! Jeez...you people.”

Doyle opened his mouth and closed it. Looked at the man he was holding upright, who seemed just as surprised.

He really did not know what to say to that.

He did, however, know what to say when he saw Sam standing in a pool of blood over an unconscious Bodie with a knife in his hand. He threw the handcuffed man from the garden at Dean and was across the ransacked living room in about five seconds, jamming the muzzle of his gun into Sam’s jaw. “I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re playing at, but step away from him now...”

“Dean?” Sam stopped whatever he was doing, but didn’t turn round. Unfuckingbelievable. Doyle couldn’t quite bring himself to look down yet.

“Right here, Sammy. You okay? Get that fucking gun out of his face, you neanderthal!”

“None of the blood’s mine. I’m okay.”

“Look you dick, get that gun out of my brother’s face.” And then, like a scene out of a stupid spy film, Doyle felt something cold and unyielding press hard into his left temple. Dean had dropped the handcuffed man on the floor and was right there.

Great. That would teach him to lend his gun to an American he hardly knew.

Doyle ground the muzzle of his Walther into Sam’s chin and got an answering press of steel harder into his own head. “I am not dicking around, Doyle!”

“Neither am I! Tell your brother to drop the knife and step back—"

“Look at his hand!’

Doyle was taken aback enough by the interruption that he did.

And saw a needle and thread.

“What the...?”

“He’s stitching him up, ass munch! Sam?”

“Yeah, he took a bullet in the shoulder. He was losing a lot of blood so I just got started.”

“Ray?”

Doyle looked down, licked his lips. “Bodie? Jesus Christ, mate.” Bodie looked awful. Blood everywhere and so pale underneath he’d almost gone blue with it.

Doyle holstered his gun immediately, twisted away from the one Dean had on his head and was around the makeshift pallet on the dining room table in seconds.

Bodie’s hand flailed and Doyle didn’t even hesitate. Grabbed on and squeezed, not liking how cold and clammy Bodie’s fingers felt, or how weak his partner’s grip was.

“One...dead. Other gone. Looking for...for something. Fuck knows what. Paulson?”

Doyle shook his head, tightened his grip. His voice was going to do something stupid if he used it, and he was all too aware of their audience.

Bodie licked his lips, closed his eyes and tried again. “What...what about HQ? Did they... Did they make it a Susie, or...or—”

“Fucking hell, shut up, Bodie.” Doyle was right, his voice sounded crap, but this was ridiculous. Doyle took in the blood, the ghostly pallor and the uneven hitch to Bodie’s breathing, while his mind ran frantic calculations as to how long help would realistically take to get to them. He looked up at Sam. “Can you really do something for him?”

“’Course he can fucking do something,” came the angry mutter from Doyle’s right. “He’ll stitch a hell of a lot smaller and straighter than anything you got in your Mickey Mouse hospitals.”

“Dean,” said Sam.

“What?”

“You’re not helping.”

“Yeah? Bite me.”

“Sam...”

This from Bodie. Still pale, still bleeding too much, and still holding Doyle’s hand. “Ignore these two pillocks, and get on with it, will you? There’s...there’s a good lad.”

“Quiet, Bodie.” Doyle leaned in and put a smile on his face. He felt something slide off his chest when he got a faint one back. He looked up again, decision made. “Sam, what do you need me to do?” Doyle couldn’t believe he was putting his faith in this junkie, but something about the way Sam held himself – no tremors, no uncertainty – inspired Doyle to take a leap of faith and trust this man to put his partner back together.

“Some whiskey would be good.” Doyle’s face must have shown his reaction. “No! Not for me. For him. I haven’t gotten the bullet out yet. When I do it’s going to hurt.”

Doyle’s heart sank. “Then what the bloody hell were you doing when I came in?”

“Let me show you?” Sam gestured him forward and pulled aside the remnants of Bodie’s shirt to reveal an ad hoc gauze bandage. He gently lifted it up and gestured with his finger, not touching the bloodstained skin. “See how the skin has torn here and here? I think he did that when he fell down the stairs after he was shot. I needed to stop the bleeding quickly, so I cleaned out the...what?”

“Nothing,” said Doyle. He studied the young man before him, trying to find the matter-of-fact way he was discussing Bodie’s torn skin admirable instead of disturbing. “Are you a doctor, Sam?”

The look that passed between Sam and his brother was indecipherable. “No,” Sam said quietly. “Not a doctor. He and I just get to practice a lot.”

Doyle would pursue that particular nugget later. After Bodie was patched up and annoying everyone again. Right now, he was going to do whatever this very odd and capable American asked him to.

Sam gestured down at Bodie, who was just about still conscious. “And I also need the whiskey to disinfect this better.” Sam held up the needle and a thread he’d been using. For a split second it looked horribly like dental floss.

“Right,” he made to get up and let Bodie’s hand go, but Dean surprised him with a hand on his shoulder. “Stay with him, I’ll go look. And handcuff that one to the staircase. He ain't going nowhere."

Doyle watched him leave the room, dragging the semi-conscious Russian behind him. Dean still had Doyle’s gun, but to hell with it.

“Don’t worry,” said Sam. “If anyone can find alcohol, it’s Dean.”

“Ray...”

Doyle started, ashamed that he’d almost forgotten his partner. He squeezed Bodie’s hand, hating how slimy with blood it was. “I’m here, mate. Right here. Not going anywhere.”

“Get a...get a move on, will you?”

Bodie arched up, which was clearly the wrong thing to do. Sam put a palm flat on his ribs, but Bodie twitched even more.

Sod this for a game of soldiers. Bodie could punch his lights out when he had more blood inside his body than out.

“Bodie, stop that...” Doyle leaned down, brought Bodie’s blood slippery hand to his face and kept it there a moment. Then he took himself in closer, ignoring the sharp metal-hot smell of blood on his tongue and in his nostrils. He pressed his mouth to Bodie’s cheek and then patted through his hair, mindful of Sam’s sudden rapt attention.

Bodie’s eyes tracked to his, and Doyle pulled back enough so that his partner didn’t have to cross his eyes to see him. “Sam here is going to put you back together, Humpty, but you have to let him do it. We’re on our own, mate. No cavalry, I’m afraid. So you need to—”

“Lie back and think of Cowley?”

“God no. I want you to live.”

Bodie managed a weak grimace and Doyle gave in to the urge to squeeze his fingers and kiss him one more time. He also sniffed loudly, which, par for the course, really. He raised his eyes to glare at Sam, daring him to say one fucking word about any of this. But Sam was staring at the needle again, tongue-tip out and seemingly unconcerned about the affection he’d just witnessed between Doyle and his very male partner.

“I, uh, found this.” Dean cleared his throat and stepped up to hand over a decent sized bottle of vodka. Then he fidgeted and looked at the ground.

Shit. So Dean had noticed.

“Don’t mind him,” said Sam. “He was raised on anime porn.”

“Hey!”

Sam shook his head. “Stop being a redneck and get over here and help.”

Doyle had no idea what half of that meant, but he really didn’t care as long as they fixed Bodie. He took the vodka from Dean and before he gave it to Sam he raised Bodie’s head and brought the bottle to his lips. “Just...easy. Take it easy. Another swig, Bodie. Come on.”

He got two more good sized mouthfuls into Bodie before handing the bottle to Sam. Who immediately upended it all over the needle, the thread, and his fingers. Sam exchanged a long look with Doyle, nodded once, and bent over a seemingly passed out Bodie.

******

“How did you get good at such a thing, Sam?”

They were talking in whispers. Doyle was on one of the dining room chairs next to Bodie, Sam was on the floor opposite, back against the wall. Bodie was in and out, a light fever finally breaking, and early morning dawn light was starting to make things clearer. One of those things being Dean. He’d found a blanket from somewhere and was out for the count on the sofa, snoring quietly.

Doyle had gone back out and brought the car closer in. He’d also done a quick sweep of the house and surrounding area and come up with nothing. The phone lines were cut and the one working RT they had was useless at this range. He'd moved the Russian to the cellar and bolted the door from the outside, unwilling to waste time and energy right now in trying to get past the man's broken English. He wasn’t leaving or moving Bodie just yet – Sam really did seem to know what he was doing, so Doyle felt a little less panicky about getting Bodie straight to a hospital. He’d more or less resigned himself to waiting for the cavalry to turn up when Cowley saw fit to send it. The bastards who’d done this were either well back and watching, or they were long gone and bothering Cowley and everyone else back in London. Doyle was pretty certain it was the latter. They’d clearly been thorough with the house and its occupants, and what would be the point in wasting manpower and time watching a house where absolutely nothing was happening? Vindictively, Doyle hoped that rather a lot of gunfire was currently being exchanged somewhere, because truly, fuck Cowley and his Operation Susies.

The rhythm of snoring broke for a second as Dean smacked his lips. Then he resettled, his arm flexing to where it disappeared under the cushion.

Doyle squinted. “Is he..?”

“Sleeping with the gun you gave him? Yes.”

Doyle nodded at Bodie, hitching the blanket covering him a little tighter under his chin. “And I thought this maniac was dedicated.”

Sam smiled, finally looking his age. “Nah. I think my maniac beats your maniac.”

“You may be right,” said Doyle.

“So he, uh, is your maniac, then?”

Doyle looked sharply at Sam, but there was no judgement in either his face or tone. Just idle curiosity, as if Doyle could tell him or not and it really wouldn’t make much difference to him, one way or another.

It was hard to believe. He and Bodie took ridiculous precautions to keep themselves from being tagged as queer. Both knew in an instant that their careers as active agents would probably be over if their relationship ever came to light. Though it had amused Doyle no end when absolutely no one at HQ had twigged anything as different between them.

Apparently sex was little more than the missing ingredient.

“Yeah. I suppose he is.” Remarkable easy to say out loud in the end. He looked at Sam and the corners of his lips tugged up. Sam smiled back, nodded, and then checked his watch. “We should try and give him some pills.”

With Sam’s help, Doyle got Bodie’s head up and talked him into coming round enough to say something about a pub in Basingstoke, take some paracetemol Dean had found in a kitchen drawer, and then pass out again with a murmur of Doyle’s name.

“Don’t worry,” said Sam. “His body temperature is coming down. I don’t think there’s going to be an infection to worry about.”

“Which brings us back to my previous question. How does a person get to be good at this kind of thing without being a doctor?” Maybe Sam was a nurse, or something. Heck, it was the States after all.

A muscle jumped in Sam’s jaw and Doyle realised too late he’d probably hit a nerve. “Dean and I, we don’t exactly lead a conventional life. Sometimes we get hurt, need to lay low and can’t always get to doctors and hospitals.” He shrugged.” We can reduce a dislocated shoulder, stitch better than most ER nurses, and even run an IV if we have to.”

Doyle was tempted to dig a little more into this ‘unconventional life’, because so much of what Sam and Dean did and said did not match up the initial picture he’d formed of them. It was as if they’d been brought up by some kind of criminal genius – Doyle was guessing a no good dad—and then had gone a whole other way entirely. They just didn’t fit as mules or muscle, and the way they reacted to things was disconcerting at times, like they’d never seen or heard of them before. Being American was one thing, but Doyle couldn’t help but think back to that red circle Bodie wanted to call a power surge and feel uneasy.

“Sam. How exactly did you and Dean get here? Was it--?”

“Wait,” said Sam, holding up his hand.

Dean was already awake and sliding off the couch, gun in hand, looking from Sam to the window. Doyle stood up and drew his own gun out, just as a pair of headlights dimmed. The sound of wheels crunching gravel as a vehicle stopped just outside the gate was unmistakable.

Doyle looked down at Bodie. Better though his colour was, he was in no condition to be moved.

Fingers touched his elbow. “I’ll stay with him,” whispered Sam, lifting his arm to show Bodie’s gun in his hand, and when the hell had that happened? “You go back Dean up.”

Doyle hesitated, looked down at Bodie and then nodded, once and clearly. Fuck it. They were way past trust issues with these two and guns.

Doyle caught up with Dean at the dining room window. Dean waved his gun towards the door to the hall and kitchen, gesturing in the same direction with his head, and clearly meaning the two of them should head out there. Then he pointed to his eyes with the first two fingers of his left hand and made a sharp downward chopping motion.

Doyle could only nod and feel an odd sense of vertigo and relief that the man knew and could use the same military signals as Bodie.

Moving to the door together, Doyle gritted his teeth and raised his gun arm as the handle inside the front door began to move slowly up and down. Ridiculously brazen of them. He glanced across and saw Dean also levelling out his gun arm, jaw visibly tightening.

“Doyle? Bodie? Do not shoot me, all right?”

Bloody hell.

“Murph?” He strode to the door, knocking Dean’s gun arm out of the way as he did so. “What’s the word, mate?”

“Paxton Square. With knobs on. Now be a love and open the door, would you? It’s nippy out here.”

“Wait! How do you know he’s..."

“Murph. About time, mate. Get yourself in here. Bodie’s been shot and we need to get him out of here.”

“...not got a gun to his head,” finished Dean, glaring at them both as he tucked his gun back in his waistband.

“Would have been a different word then, wouldn’t it?” supplied Murph helpfully. Doyle watched, vaguely amused at the look on Dean’s face when Murphy peered at him. "‘Ello, you must be Dean, the one Bodie wants to have stuffed and mounted on the Capri.”

“Screw you, asshole.”

“Charming.”

“Knock it off, the pair of you. Come on, Murph. Bodie’s this way. You too, Dean.”

******

Sam listened, tense and uneasy, as Dean and Doyle disappeared from view. Then after an exchange of voices and no apparent violence of any kind, they both came back in with yet another dude with a bad haircut and a gun. Sam stepped in front of Bodie.

“’S okay, Sam,” said Dean, bringing up the rear. “Oh look. Another Man from UNCLE to save the day.”

“’Lo,” said Man From UNCLE number three, nodding at Sam. The man walked around Sam to look at Bodie, who was pale and still pretty out of it. He stared at Sam, then looked at Doyle with a raised eyebrow.

“Sam here patched him up,” said Doyle, moving to Bodie’s side. He laid a hand on his forehead and Bodie mumbled something without opening his eyes. Doyle looked at the other agent. “Tell me it’s not just you, Murph. He needs a hospital. Jesus Christ. What the fuck was Cowley thinking?”

“Right. Then I won’t tell you.” The new guy held up his hands as a clearly frustrated Ray Doyle swore and pulled on his hair. “Just hold your horses, Ray. Leave it to Uncle Murph, and I’ll get the whole fucking cavalry here.”

With that, the guy took out the biggest handset Sam had ever seen and started barking a whole bunch of gobbledeygook into it. He caught their names in amongst the spy-talk, as well as ‘hospital’ ‘two shakes’ and something about ‘Lotsky’ and ‘wind’. Sam looked at Dean, who shrugged.

Yeah, Dean was right. Whatever. As long as said gobbledygook got Bodie out of there in one piece and kept Dean and him together long enough to find Castiel, Sam didn’t really care enough to listen closely and decipher it all. He breathed a little easier and looked around. Specifically at Doyle. Who was hovering over Bodie and biting his lip.

Sam cleared his throat. “He needs to stay still, or his stitches will come loose. So, uh, it would be good for you to help keep him quiet, okay? Any way you can.”

“Right,” said Doyle, still chewing his lip and looking uncertain.

The day was saved by the most unlikely of sources.

“Dude...” Dean stepped around both of them, shouldering Doyle and rolling his eyes as he did so. “The man has had a bullet taken out of his hide. Have you no clue? Take his hand, mop his brow. Hell, sing him a fucking lullaby for all we care. Just do whatever it takes and stop being so goddamn English for five minutes!” With a gentleness that always took Sam by surprise, even when it shouldn’t, Dean picked up Bodie’s bloodstained hand and tugged Doyle closer. He put Bodie’s hand in Doyle’s, and Sam rather liked how shocked Doyle looked. The Dean Effect. “There. Now, hold tight. He fucking needs you.” The last said much quieter. Then Dean was clapping Doyle on the shoulder and walking towards Sam. “Hey, Sammy. Now that the cavalry is on its way and curly-top here has his hands full. How about you washing your hands, me getting the power back on, and you making me a... What is it we had the other day, Doyle?"

“What? A fry-up,” came the distracted answer.

“Yeah. A fry up. With...”

“...knobs on,” supplied Doyle.

It was Sam’s turn to roll his eyes.

Seriously, houseboy, no matter the time or place.

“Fine,” he scowled, stomping off in the direction of the kitchen. “It’s your heart attack.”

“Atta boy, Sammy. You know it makes sense.”

******

“Bacon here is fucking awesome. And so are the fries. Vinegar, Sammy! Who knew?”

Dean had done his usual wonders with a circuit breaker, and Sam had given in and cooked up a storm for his brother. They weren’t paying for it with a stolen credit card, so what the ever living hell. He could slave for Dean in the kitchen this once. He’d asked Doyle if he was interested in anything to eat, but he’d declined, choosing instead to sit with his partner. Which Sam understood. If Dean had been the one shot, no way Sam would have had much of an appetite. But for right then, he was hungry, which he knew to be a good sign. He realized now he’d lost weight in what he was starting to think of in his head as the Time of Ruby. Never seeing it, despite Dean’s cracks, which had been good-natured at first and then less so, as time had gone on and Sam had become more secretive and more defensive. Sam remembered biting Dean’s head off pretty regularly the last couple of months.

“What?”

Caught in his melodramatic guilt trip, Sam had probably sighed or something.

“Nothing,” he said, turning to smile and reach into the fridge for the sausages. “Just...how hungry are you?”

Dean pursed his lips and seemed to genuinely consider it. “As long as there’s ketchup, don’t be shy about counting or nothin’.”

Sam turned back to the pan with a snort and added the whole packet. He tried not to get stupidly misty-eyed when Dean started humming Zeppelin behind him.

Ten minutes later, it was all ready and Sam served it up. He took a bacon sandwich out to Doyle and then came back in time to watch Dean shovel it all into his mouth. He resisted the urge to reach across the table and wipe the grease and drool off his chin. “Dude, enough with the sex noises. You’ve had bacon before. And sausages.”

“Yeah, but...” Dean groaned again. A little too loudly for Sam’s comfort level, especially when the other agent – Murphy, was it? – looked up from the sandwich Sam had also made him. He was eating leaned up against the doorframe and seemed highly amused by Dean’s level of appreciation. Sam thought about smacking Dean, just to make him stop.

Dean, of course, was oblivious. “Doyle said there’s like, twenty different kinds of bacon here. And real thick cut, you know? Not that super-thin maple syrup crap they’re always serving up when we go to eat...what?”

Sam shook his head. The longest stretch of conversation since their fight in the alley and it was about bacon. Still, Dean looked okay. Not happy, but if he was going to get this worked up about something, it was kind of endearing and old school for it to be food and not Sam and his demon ex-girlfriend.

“Doyle said, huh?” Sam had a feeling he and Doyle shared partners with the same taste for junk in their stomachs.

“Yeah. So?”

“Nothing. It’s kind of nice actually. Seeing you get this excited about something here. Even if it is a bit of dead pig.”

“Shut up.”

In truth, while Bodie getting shot was awful, Sam had a feeling stitching the man up and Dean helping Doyle come to their rescue had built a few bridges. Hopefully the playing field of grudging respect could be leveled for all four of them now. Maybe Bodie getting shot and Doyle coming out, however reluctantly, would also stop Bodie and Dean pawing the ground in front of each other. Things were tense enough without an excess of testosterone making it worse.

Now if they could just get back to averting the Apocalypse in their own damn time and country, everything would be fine and dandy.

But first they had to get through this particular time warp intact...

“Same again, Sam, please. Cheers. That was awesome frickin’ tea.”

...before Dean did his usual and went native.

******

Doyle heard voices and sounds of clattering from the kitchen and knew he should be a good agent and just get up and pay attention. Whatever cavalry Murphy had called in was bound to include one highly irritated George Cowley as well as an ambulance. There was also the inescapable fact that the two men he and Bodie had been charged with keeping under the strictest of surveillance, were currently out of sight in a room with an unlocked back door, and oh yes, armed. With his and Bodie’s guns.

Doyle looked down at his bloodstained partner and at the cold hand he was holding in his. He brought those chilled fingers to his lips, just for a second, then he pressed them to his cheek.

Sod it. If Sam and Dean were going to brain Murphy with a frying pan and escape, well Murphy would just have to take his chances.

“Ray?” Bodie’s eyes fluttered open.

“The very same,” he said, squeezing those fingers. “You waking up there, sunshine? You’ve missed all the fun.”

Bodie tried to rise, but Doyle had already anticipated that and promptly shushed him back down.

Bodie shut his eyes, worked his throat a little. “What happened?”

Doyle felt a twinge of alarm. “You don’t remember?”

Bodie opened his eyes again and licked his lips. He swallowed. “A cat...”

“A what?” Doyle put his free hand on Bodie’s forehead. Cool, so not delirium then.

“Gerrof...” Bodie twisted his head out of Doyle’s palm. Doyle felt calmed by the show of temper, however brief.

“There was a...a cat...on the fucking stairs, an’...and Sam?” Bodie said it with a note of panic, trying to sit up again.

“Bodie! Lie down before I sit on you, will you? He’s fine. He’s the one that patched you up. He started stitching you up before Dean and I even got here.”

Bodie craned his neck to cautiously to peer at the wound on his shoulder. He gave up and lay back down. “Sam did this?”

“Yeah. There’s no end to their skills, apparently.”

A minute or two passed in relative silence and Doyle wondered when Bodie would notice they were holding hands.

“I’m not dyin’, am I?”

Doyle smiled. “You don’t even have a temperature anymore.”

Bodie squinted. “Then why are we holding hands? And where the fuck is everybody?”

Right on time really.

“Well, if by everybody, you mean Sam and Dean, they’re in the kitchen with Murphy. The silence you hear is either them eating a hearty meal, or it’s Murph tied up and gagged, with the dynamic duo halfway to Dover. As for the other thing...” he held their linked hands a little higher. “Dean said I should.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just lie still, will you?” He pushed at a smear of blood on Bodie’s cheek and then kept his hand there a moment. “It’ll all get crazy soon enough, don’t you worry.”

Bodie seemed to resettle easily enough and Doyle took a deep breath. He pulled his chair in closer, held Bodie’s hand tighter. Bodie frowned, looked past Doyle at the open door to the kitchen.

“Don’t get all twitchy on me, sunshine, but uh, Sam knows about us. And so does Dean.”

Doyle kept his face perfectly composed while Bodie’s eyebrows danced up his forehead.

“You mean...?”

Doyle nodded, heart going like the clappers but determined to try and play it cool. He’d got the man past kissing, now if he could just get him past someone else knowing, they might actually be on the road to forsaking all others some day.

“Bloody hell, Doyle. What the fuck did you do, take an advert out? And why them, for God’s sake? You do know...ow...that Murphy’s in there, yeah? A CI5 agent?”

Bodie tried once again to sit up, practically growling when Doyle pushed him right back down again.

“I swear, Bodie.”

“What. Happened?” Bodie was using their clasped hands to keep himself half-upright, a sheen of sweat showing the effort it took.

“The usual, all right! You got shot, and I bawled. Now lie the fuck down until the ambulance gets here. Jesus, but you are one stubborn bastard.”

Doyle dropped Bodie’s hand to pull on his hair in frustration, taking a moment to stand up and pace away to the window. Only Bodie ever got him riled like that, good and bad. He shook his head, breathed out and walked back over again.

Bodie had shut his eyes again and was breathing rather unevenly. Doyle sat back down but didn’t take Bodie’s hand again. Instead he bit his lip and waited him out. This was important – ridiculous, because they were two Yanks they’d probably never see again once Cowley arrived – but important all the same. Six months ago, he and Bodie had been adamantly of the same mind. That no one in CI5 could ever know. He was certain they’d made the right decision. He was also privately certain that at least Murphy knew and didn’t give a monkey’s.

Bodie’s right hand lifted off the table.

Doyle started forward. “Bodie?”

Bodie’s eyes didn’t open. His hand continued to hover, though, so Doyle cautiously took hold of it again.

Only for Bodie to twist out of his grasp with a grunt and grab Doyle’s shirt front instead. “Bodie, mate? I don’t...”

Bodie’s eyes finally opened. “C’mere, you fucking cry baby,” he whispered. And tugged.

‘Here’ turned out to be the clumsiest, sweetest, kiss they’d ever shared. Bloodstains and gunshot wounds notwithstanding.

“You’re getting blood all over my best shirt collar, y’know,” said Doyle, an inch from Bodie’s mouth.

“Get blood over a lot more than that, sunshine,” replied Bodie, before he tugged Doyle back in for another kiss. “Now go,” managed Bodie, letting go his shirt front. “Check... check Pinky and Perky haven’t tied Murph up and stolen all the silver an’...and leave a man to have a kip, will you?”

Bodie closed his eyes and lay back, but his colour was good, and without the flush of fever or the strain of blood loss. Doyle stood up feeling a lot lighter as he patted the back of Bodie’s hand. “Right you are then, sunshine. Pinky and Perky it is. I’ll save you a sandwich.”

Bodie’s lips definitely turned up at the corners, so Doyle finally felt that he could leave and see what the hell was going on in the kitchen.

Right on cue came the faint sound of sirens in the distance.

******

Mercy of mercies, Murphy was alive and ungagged, and neither Sam nor Dean had made a bid for Dover. Indeed, when Cowley, an ambulance, the local constabulary and six other agents turned up, Dean had his booted feet up on the table and was listening open-mouthed to Murphy explain rugby, while Sam seemed to be making everybody cups of tea.

Once outside in what was left of the garden, Cowley clearly expected Doyle to stay and debrief him beyond the three sentences Doyle provided when Cowley had initially walked over. Especially when Dean walked up, clapped Doyle on the shoulder, and handed back the spare gun Doyle had been too preoccupied to ask for.

Doyle looked at it in his hand for a moment. Shit. He looked back at Cowley and squared his shoulders. “I’m going back in the ambulance with Bodie, sir.”

“Of course you are, 4.5.”

Doyle blinked.

“As shall I,” said Cowley, turning Doyle towards the ambulance with an all too boss-like hand on his shoulder. “I think a two hour journey with just the three of us should be more than enough time for you to explain why civilians are running around the English countryside with CI5 weaponry, don’t you, 4.5?”

“Sir,” acknowledged Doyle on an exhale, knowing full well he’d walked right into that one. “What about Sam and Dean, sir?”

They both stopped and looked to where Sam was shaking his head at the ambulance drivers and redoing Bodie’s arm position on the stretcher. Dean was next to him, looking bored and unimpressed as he leaned against the side of the ambulance and watched Murphy describe something with his hands. Probably moved onto cricket, knowing Murph.

“Oh, I think they’re in safe hands, don’t you? Safe hands that won’t be giving them any weapons at least.”

Doyle sighed and pinched his nose. He was going to pay for that.

Not fair, he decided, as he strode off after Cowley. It was Bodie’s fault for getting shot, and then being all bloodstained and romantic about it.

******

Five days later...

Dean let out an appreciative whistle and picked up something that looked very much like a sub-machine gun.

“Clip?”

The one in black they all called Mad Tommy seemed vaguely amused.

“Clip. Seventy rounds per.”

“Huh. Only seventy? And it’s this heavy? Man, you should see what Sam and I trained with. About ten pounds fucking lighter than this and with a semi-automatic filter barrel that lets....”

Sam let the conversation roll over him, tilting his face up at the watery sun trying to poke through the clouds overhead. He cast his gaze around the mess of broken wood and metal in scattered lumps as far as the eye could see across this dockland wasteground. He wondered if this was what the Apocalypse might actually look like.

He shook his head. Not the most productive line of thought.

It had been about the strangest five days ever since an ambulance, George Cowley, and local police cars Dean had laughed aloud at, had swept them all back up to the Big Smoke (as Dean would insist on calling it now). And yet here they were. Allowed actual weapons and a place in the showdown with Lotsky and his men – albeit a stay-back-and-help-guard-the-perimeter-kind-of-a-place.

Thankfully, everyone seemed to have come to the conclusion that neither Sam nor Dean were drug smuggling junkies. Cowley still seemed to be hanging onto the thread of interest he’d initially shown for them – and both he and Dean were still at a loss to know why that might be, except that the man did ask them about Castiel every morning. Over tea and digestives in his office before he sent them out of sight for a while. Lotsky was back in the shadows – laying low until he disappeared again, Cowley assured them. To this end, Cowley had given the order for the leash to be loosened as far as a ‘CI5 friendly’ bedsit in Blackheath, which Sam reckoned was probably spy speak for bugged up the whazoo. Dean had rolled his eyes and promptly exorcised the landlord’s cat loudly, twice. Nothing untoward was said the next morning over tea and digestives, so maybe not. Sam reckoned an agent or two was keeping tabs on them in their ‘free time’, which might prove awkward when Castiel finally did show up to zap them home, but then again, at that point it wouldn’t be their problem.

Sam was pretty sure Castiel was on the way. He and Dean had woken at precisely the same time on the second night in the bedsit, having had the exact same dream about the angel. Who had spoken to Dean and glared at Sam, but whatever, the message to both seemed the same. 'Stay where you are, I will reach you forthwith'. Sam relaxed after that. No way Dean knew ‘forthwith’, so Cas really was on his way. That morning he dragged Dean to the occult section of the British museum in exchange for another seedy pub crawl that night. Dean was proving adept at conning beery skinheads into parting with cash, and in not getting the crap kicked out of himself in the process, so Sam at least had no worries on how they were going to live while they were here.

But still, finances and bedsits aside, what was keeping Castiel? He looked up at the sky again as it clouded over, vaguely wishing for the heavenly host to sort itself out and just appear already. He turned his attention back to his brother.

“...the trick is in the barrel, yeah? Once you guys get to the models where this is thinner, the scope is ten times lighter than that telescope you’ve got weighing it down. And look at the balance, man...”

Sam rolled his eyes and walked away. Typical Dean. Fish out of water one minute, bonding over bacon and guns the next.

“Oi,”

Just like Dean, of course, food and firearms were like—

“Oi!”

“Oh, sorry,” Sam kept forgetting that that meant something here.

He turned in time for Bodie to walk up and give him a handgun. A very heavy handgun. God knows how he was going to get that tucked into his jeans.

Still, despite his recent injury Bodie had what looked like a sub-machine gun hoisted high in the air and resting on his hip, so he was not going to complain and look like the girl here.

Bodie gave him time to tuck it into his waistband and then nodded to where Tommy was showing Dean grenades by the looks of it. “Never seen Tommy quite so enthused. He usually doesn’t play well with others, or share his toys.”

Sam shook his head, exchanged a wry smile with Bodie and felt better about the man instantly. “Neither does, Dean. Must be love.”

That got him a full on grin. “Must be.” Bodie clapped him on the shoulder, wincing slightly as sore muscles clearly pulled.

“Should you...uh, be doing this?” Sam’s face heated instantly. Just because he’d stitched the man up did not really give him any rights to get involved any further. This wasn’t Dean, who always tried to get up and start hunting way too early after Sam had put him back together, and who totally deserved all manner of scolding and ear cuffing.

But Bodie merely glanced across to where Doyle was standing with some of the other CI5 agents. He gave Sam a ‘what can you do’ kind of shrug. “All hands on deck, mate. I have a feeling you know how that goes.”

Sam nodded, rather touched that Bodie was talking to him like a fellow operative. Whatever that meant. A sudden bark of laughter from Mad Tommy had them both glance his way.

Bodie smiled. “Come on, let’s get over there before it all ends in tears.”

As they were walking over, Doyle called out to Bodie, so Sam continued on alone. Dean turned toward him, full wattage grin widening as he waved a lethal looking machine gun high in the air. Tommy was sharpening a wicked looking blade on a whetstone from the open trunk of his car, and Sam felt a ridiculous stab of jealousy.

Dean seemed to have found the perfect partner. Truly a match made in Heaven. Or maybe not, in their case.

“See this, Sammy? It’s like the one Dad let us try that time, remember? Weighs a fucking ton but it’s pretty cool. What do you think?”

Dean was so eager for Sam’s approval that Sam found himself softening, his flare of temper fading in the face of such unbridled enthusiasm.

“I think you’ll be lucky you don’t blow your damn head off, is what I think.”

“Yeah, you. You’re just jealous. What’d Bodie give you?”

“A peashooter, was it?” That from Tommy. They both swung to look at him, but he was busy chuckling at the whetstone.

Sam felt much better when Dean made a silent twirling motion with his finger at the side of his head. Yeah, Mad Tommy just about nailed it.

Sam pulled his gun out of his waistband to check the slide and sights. He hadn’t really wanted to do that in front of anyone but Dean. He cursed as the hammer dug into the meat of his thumb. “Ow! Christ, how do people hit anything but a barn with this crap?”

“C’mere,” said Dean taking the gun from him and shaking his head. “See this? You gotta slide it back with your whole hand, not just your thumb.” Sam tried and managed to scrape off less skin the second time around. He still felt stupid and awkward, though. Dean clearly thought so, too, because he moved Sam’s fingers out even more.

“Like the Colt, yeah? Only heavier and not nearly as well made. Keep your hand flat and all your fingers out of the way, or you really will be minus some skin there.”

“You know I’m sorry, right?”

“Dude, we cannot all be instant gun experts like yours truly.”

“No, No. I mean. I’m sorry. For like, everything.”

Dean’s fingers froze on his around the gun muzzle and he didn’t say anything. Sam felt his cheeks heat. Fuck, he never knew how and when to do this. Always expressing whatever he felt the moment he felt it. And right there in this weird country with these bizarro people, his eyes stung and out it came. And all it took was Dean being a big brother again.

Dean nodded, looked away, and Sam heard some kind of bird making a terrible noise overhead. His hand was still pressed under Dean’s on the gun so yeah, awkward, thy name is forever Samuel Winchester.

He wondered how he could extricate himself – and Dean – from the idiocy he’d just performed. Maybe if he just cleared his throat and tried to scratch his neck or something...

“Are we holding hands over a gun here, Sammy?”

Dean’s eyes were crinkling. Sam swallowed. “Seems so,” he managed.

“Okay, then. As long as it’s nothing girly.”

“Nah. I think the gun makes it okay.”

Dean shook his head, extricating himself gently from Sam’s grip. Sam did clear his throat then. Dean scratched the back of his neck, opened his mouth and closed it a couple of times and like that they were back to awkward again.

An unlikely source saved them.

“’ere, Dean. You sure he’s old enough for that? Got a conker or two in the back might be more suitable.”

Mad Tommy, clearly delighted at his own joke cackled, and slapped Dean so hard on the shoulder Dean had to take a step forward.

An exchanged eye-roll, a complicit shrug, and they were instantly back to how they always were when outsiders didn’t have a clue. Dean clearly liked this nut – no doubt because of the wannabe Impala the dickhead drove and the weaponry he kept in it. Sam, on the other hand, felt absolutely no affinity whatsoever for the pale imitation of his brother, and turned around to scowl. He had no idea what a conker was, but he was pretty sure he was being made fun of.

“Dude, keep your damn conkers. I’m fine.”

That, for some reason, set off another round of cackling.

******

Sam and Dean may have had weapons, but that didn’t mean they were in the thick of it. Dean tried not to show annoyance at being asked to do little more than man a perimeter for stragglers, while Sam was secretly relieved. This wasn’t a hunt of the kind they were used to, in any way, shape, or form. And no matter the fantasy Dean thought he was in, those were real bad guys holed up with real guns and very real bullets. No rock salt, Latin and lighter fluid was going to do them any favors here.

Dean did actually manage to get a shot off when someone tried to come through a window before anything had even started. He hit brickwork and got a split lip from the recoil, which knocked him on his ass for a few bewildered seconds. Sam helped him up and then watched in awe while the guys he’d been privately mocking as rank amateurs with clunky toys transformed into slick operatives, all dick-ness smoothed out as they swarmed forward in synchronized ease, scooping up Dean’s attempted escapee on the way.

In truth, the whole thing was something of an anti-climax. In under five minutes and with barely a handful of shots fired, Bodie, Doyle, and all the other agents began making their way out. Three sorry looking guys in handcuffs were being pushed along in their midst, including one with his arm twisted up behind him and blood on his sleeve. That one stared at Dean as Bodie led him to the waiting cars, even twisting his head back to keep looking.

Sam stepped in front of his brother, more than a little creeped out.

Dean, of course, tried to step around Sam. “Hey there, sweetcheeks. Hate to break it to you, but buttfuck ugly? Not really my style.”

“Dean,” Sam hissed. Bodie had the guy in a firm grip, but still...

“What?” Dean scowled and glared, but stayed where he was until the man was in the car.

“Lotsky?” asked Sam, when Bodie walked over to them.

Bodie nodded. “Arrogant bastard. Stood there with his arms out and a fucking smile on his face when we walked in.”

Sam exchanged a glance with Dean, who raised an eyebrow. Odd, but not their problem.

Sam opened his mouth to ask more, but just then Doyle ran up, holstering his weapon. Doyle nodded back to his and Bodie’s Capri. “Come on, you two. You’ve got a visitor, back at HQ.”

Another exchanged glance with Dean and this time Sam felt his heart speed up. It had to be Cas, yes? No one else would be visiting them, for crying out loud. Not unless Bobby had also managed to get himself zapped back in time. But if it was, then what the ever loving hell was Cas doing at HQ?

******

Having afternoon tea, apparently. With Cowley.

******

“Gentlemen.”

The old man had been doling out his fair share of tea and biscuits recently – Doyle had listened to many a grump from Bodie all week about how the Yanks got a cup and saucer and a sit-down every morning, while they got chipped mugs of over brewed tar in the briefing room. But this? Bodie might actually have a point. Doyle had been told nothing by Ruth except that he and Bodie were to bring the Americans back to HQ as soon as possible, where Cowley and a guest were waiting for them.

Expecting a minister from the foreign office, or maybe an Interpol agent, what he did not expect was someone in the scruffiest mac he’d ever seen standing next to Cowley, drinking tea with his pinky raised.

“Castiel!” said Dean, shooting forward, only to stop mid-stride. He jabbed a finger in the man’s direction. “Where the fuck have you been? Do you know how long Sam and I have been stuck here?” Not sure whether this Castiel – and where the bloody hell were these stupid names coming from? – was about to get punched or hugged, Doyle looked at Bodie to his right. Who was clearly more interested in glowering at the fine bone china this apparent guest was calmly drinking from.

Doyle bit back a smile. He could definitely see a joke gift coming up; the floweriest, daintiest china cup and saucer he could get his hands on. In the squad room with Bodie’s name scrawled across the daisies, just in time for morning briefing...

A nudge and a quizzical eyebrow from Bodie. More importantly Cowley had paused, mid-sip.

Doyle cleared his throat. “Sir. Sorry, sir. Um, dust. In the air.”

“Quite. Perhaps you’d be so good as to direct 3.7’s envious gaze to the liquor cabinet, where a glass of Edinburgh’s finest might make him feel better.”

“Right, sir. Thank you, sir.” This from Bodie, his whole face transformed as he rubbed his hands together and walked – nay, bounded – over to the cabinet.

Doyle shook his head. Big kid. Then his attention was caught by Sam, who was still at the door, head down, a fine tremor running through his hands. Interesting. For whatever reason, Sam was not nearly as enthusiastic as Dean to see their visitor.

“Dean. It is good to see you. You have not been harmed, I trust?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean was hand waving some distance between himself and the visitor. “Everything’s peachy. We’re both fine. Now, c’mon. How about you za...take us home?”

Doyle watched as Castiel looked past Dean to Sam, who visibly tried to flatten himself against the door even more. Castiel stepped around Dean and right into Sam’s personal space. Only Sam had nowhere to go, and didn’t hand wave him away. He seemed to brace himself for something, but all Castiel did was stare.

“Sam,” Castiel said at last, an unmistakable note of surprise in his voice. “You are less tainted now. It seems the time here has served you well.”

Which was the oddest way Doyle had ever heard to describe a drug habit.

“Hey.” This from Dean, who’d stepped between the pair and was pushing Castiel back a step or two. “Personal space, remember? We talked about this.”

“Of course.” Castiel stepped back and then turned towards Doyle and Bodie. The man had the bluest, strangest eyes Doyle had ever seen. “Dean and I share a profound bond,” he offered.

“Cas! Jesus. Sorry, he doesn’t get out much.”

“On the contrary. My garrison has allowed me extensive forays into—"

“Cas.”

“Right. I shall be quiet for a moment or two.” He literally seemed to stand down at that point, face going blank as he put his hands behind his back. Doyle took the opportunity for a rather large swallow of the drink Bodie had pressed into his hands. He caught Bodie’s expressive eye roll and nodded. One handler who’d clearly been in the field way past his sell by date. Although it did finally explain a few things about Sam and Dean.

“So...agents, then,” said Doyle to Dean. Bodie had taken a drink over to Sam, pressed it into his hands without a word. “You could’ve said, y’know.”

“What? Yeah. No. I mean, orders,” said Dean, somewhat vaguely. “You know how it is.”

Doyle wasn’t entirely convinced, but since they had their man – and someone both sides of the pond had clearly been after for a while – he was not going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. Not when Cowley was looking this pleased with himself. Bodie and he seemed to have been forgiven for the initial fuck-up over Lotsky if the fine malt in his hands was anything to go by. And the Americans, it seemed, were finally on their way home.

“Feds?” asked Doyle, persisting.

“Hunters,” answered Dean distractedly. “Hey, Cas? You wanna come back from time out in the corner and uh, take care of things?”

“Certainly. If I may, George..?”

Doyle almost dropped his glass and Sam had to pat Bodie on the back sharply.

George?? GEORGE???

Bodie’s eyebrows were in his hairline by the time he’d straightened and cleared his throat. He looked between Castiel and their boss. “So I take it you two know each other?”

Doyle felt a rush of affection. That was his Bodie all right, never one to shirk taking a bull by the horns.

“Let’s just say we served together,” said Cowley.

“Indeed,” said Castiel.

“And bought raincoats together,” said Bodie in a low voice in Doyle’s direction.

It was Doyle’s turn to swallow the wrong way.

Cowley, of course, heard it perfectly. “3.7. Since you have so much to say. Perhaps you would be so kind as to escort Mr Castiel to room four-oh-five.”

“Sir?”

“Mr Castiel has urgent business with Mr Lotsky, and we are going to do him the courtesy of allowing him to conduct that business.”

Doyle was starting to get a headache. None of this made sense. Cowley usually fought tooth and nail to keep any and all detainees within the grasp of CI5, resenting anything that so much as smelled like interference from other agencies. Yet here he was, handing the keys to a very odd bloke he seemed to share a history and a taste in raincoats with.

Bodie looked at Doyle, heaved in a sigh. “Whatever you say, sir.”

******

“Sam, would you accompany me, please?”

Sam almost dropped his glass. He looked at Dean, mildly panicked. What the hell, Cas never asked for Sam above Dean, ever.

“Uh, yeah. I guess?” He eased off the wall, acutely aware of all the eyes suddenly turned his way. He’d been doing so well at the back of the room there.

Dean was glaring at Cas. “Wait a goddamn minute. What the hell you need him without me for? You get this is a package deal, right, both of us getting out of here? At the same damn time!”

Castiel sighed. As implacable as ever, Castiel turned a slightly quizzical gaze at Dean. “Very well, but you must remain outside the room while I question Lotsky.”

“Deal. Get on with it.”

Castiel turned at the door, effectively blocking them all from leaving. He looked at Cowley. “Thank you. I know they can be troublesome at times. But I do find the Winchesters have value.”

Cowley was already looking down at the usual sheaf of papers on his desk. He looked up at Castiel’s words, a faint Mona Lisa type smile on his lips. He nodded once. “Farewell, gentlemen. God’s speed.”

It dawned on Sam that this was it. This was goodbye. He nudged Dean.

“What?” asked Dean with a snap, clearly impatient to leave.

Sam rolled his eyes and nodded to where Bodie and Doyle were standing watching them.

“Oh, right.” Dean walked up to Doyle, clapped him on the shoulders. “Curly-top, it’s been real. And you ain’t the worst driver in the world.”

“Sam.” Bodie walked right up to him and put his hand out. “There are worse people I could have been shot with.” The expression on the man’s face was warmer than the words, and Sam shook his hand, surprised and a little touched.

“I...yes. I mean, you’re welcome.”

Bodie withdrew his hand and inhaled, face smoothing out as he turned to face Dean, who had stepped up to stand next to his brother. “Double oh seven,” said Dean, nodding once. “No tears or mushy words for me? I’m heartbroken.”

“Yank,” said Bodie, managing to get amusement, cool regard, and possibly a smidgen of respect into just that one word.

They studied each other a beat longer.

Sam cleared his throat and tugged on Dean’s sleeve.

“Zip it up, Serpico,” he said in a low voice. “I’m pretty sure his is bigger.”

“The hell you say.” Dean cuffed him across the back of the head.

Sam smiled. Goddamn it, they were going home.

“Oh and Castiel?” This from Cowley, just as they were at the door. They all turned, but Cowley only had eyes for the angel. “Our arrangement is at an end now, is it not?”

Castiel nodded. “Naturally. Though should you ever tire of that desk and those papers, my garrison is in great need of leadership. In fact, should you wish, I could transport you immediately to....”

“Aaaaand that’s our cue.” Dean grabbed Cas and pushed him along before he could do anything ridiculous. Like turn Cowley into some kind of holy commander right in front of Bodie and Doyle.

Once outside with the door safely shut, Dean scrubbed a hand down his face. “Cas. You cannot go around offering to murder people to take them to heaven!”

“I didn’t...” Cas stopped, tilted his head. “Ah yes. I do see how that might have appeared.”

Sam had to ask. “What’s the deal there anyway? Why did you send us here?”

“Because Zachariah was about to kill you, Sam. And much as I have had difficulties with the path you’ve chosen, I do not want to see you dead. Least of all, because Dean would be impossible to deal with.”

Sam looked at the floor, tongue-tied, cheeks burning. He was grateful to feel Dean’s hand curl around his upper arm. “Yeah, well. Sam ain’t on that path anymore. And what Sam is asking, Cas, is why here, to this Cowley?”

Castiel sighed, clearly put upon by the need to explain himself. “Very well. We served once long ago in a ridiculous minor skirmish my garrison sent me to as punishment. I had been inappropriately abrupt with heaven.”

“You don’t say,” said Dean wryly. “Go on.”

“I hadn’t been that close with humans on a battlefield for a long time, and he took it upon himself to mentor me in the ways of men, and how they can endure unimaginable hardships for principles they never fully understand. Of course, I was already aware of this, yet it felt right to heed him. It’s a philosophy that has always served me well on every earthly encounter.” Here he paused to look meaningfully between them. “Cowley was badly wounded in battle and I stopped the bullet from moving inside him. I still hold the bullet in place by an angelic ward to this day. I was forbidden to heal humans at the time as part of my punishment, nevertheless, my true nature was unfortunately revealed to him. So that was the ‘arrangement’ he referred to, and his debt to me for my actions is now repaid. I knew you would be safe with him, and. I also knew he and his men would capture Lotsky, who would undoubtedly show himself once he knew the two of you were here. He’s a demon, by the way. One of Lilith’s.”

Explanation over, Castiel calmly turned and started striding off down the corridor again. Sam’s head was reeling, so it took a few seconds to catch up.

“Wait, what?” asked Dean, right behind him. He looked around. “And how the hell do you know where you’re going anyway?”

Castiel stopped obediently, and Sam couldn’t help hating him a little for the way he always did that for Dean.

“He gives off a certain odor. I thought you knew that about demons, Dean. Lotsky is what you humans call ‘a key player’ in the Apocalypse. He also has a weakness for drugs and certain divine objects. He often comes to these shores looking for them.” Here, Castiel’s eyes flicked to Dean’s chest. Sam looked too but couldn’t see anything remotely divine about it. Then Castiel reached out and touched the amulet, of all things. “One day, I will tell you the real story of this and how it came to pass into the care of the Winchester family, but for now, you must trust me when I say that it must not fall into enemy hands. And Lotsky is most definitely enemy hands. This is what he was looking for. He simply assumed the wrong brother had it.”

Dean scrubbed his hand down his face again, and Sam opened and closed his mouth. Maybe they’d been zapped into yet another parallel universe.

“Can I stop talking to you now?” asked Castiel. “Because I need to take Lotsky back to my garrison as soon as possible.”

“Oh, are we keeping you, Cas? I’m so sorry. Not like we’ve been stuck here or anything with nothing to do, is it Sam? And not like you’ve used us as bait or anything. Without telling us.”

“That’s quite alright, Dean. Apology accepted”

Sam groaned.

“Listen, you winged freak! The next time he and I are having a brotherly tussle about something, fucking ask me first if we need saving. And don’t zap us off without any goddamn clue about where—"

Sam saw the raised fingers a split second before his brother.

He closed his eyes as the corridor went white.

He really was going to have to talk to Dean about his temper in front of the angel.

Right after he lost his and killed Ruby.

******

Later that night...

“Doyle. Stop.”

“What?” Doyle turned his head. Bodie was on his back and regarding him from a pillow away.

“Thinking. You woke me up.” Bodie yawned, scratched his shoulder.

“It doesn’t make sense, Bodie.”

“Mate...”

“It doesn’t! And I don’t know how you can be so bloody accepting of it all.”

“Because,” said Bodie, lacing his fingers together on the duvet over his stomach. “It doesn’t bloody matter any more! They’re gone, I’ve had a smashing night in the pub, you for afters—"

“Charming.”

“—and tomorrow you and I, lucky devils that we are, are off to the delights of Wigan to babysit the Israeli Ambassador through a rugby match.”

Doyle stared at him, not entirely sure whether to be entertained or annoyed by all that smug complacency.

He tried again, going up on his right elbow to make sure he had Bodie’s full attention. “Look. Castiel said they ‘served’ together, right?” Bodie hadn’t wanted to hear any of this earlier. Way too randy and beery from a pub session, he’d had Doyle’s jeans down around his ankles the second the door clicked, and sucked all logical argument right out of him. Literally.

Doyle had reciprocated with a rather intense handjob on the carpet, so if Bodie wanted to go back to sleep, then Bodie was going to have to listen to Doyle’s misgivings.

“It has to be Spain. I mean, that’s the only war that we know he was in, right? Cowley was barely a teenager then, so there is no way that Castiel bloke could have been there with him. He wouldn’t even have been born then!”

Bodie didn’t say anything. He was still on his back, not looking at Doyle. But he wasn’t turning away, either. Studying him in the light from the street lamp making its way through Doyle’s bedroom curtains, Doyle had to resist the urge to skate a finger down a perfectly sculpted cheek bone. Bodie always looked so Greek like this.

He put his palm flat on the mattress between them and got back to the matter at hand. “And another thing, where the fuck did Lotsky go? One minute he’s enemy number one, next minute, Cowley’s handing him over like he’s yesterday’s lunch. Charlie never saw any of them leave, by the way. I asked. And what the hell ‘arrangement’ is the old man talking about? Us and the Yanks? Not likely. Do you know what kind of agency Dean said he worked for? ‘Hunters’. What the heck kind of agency is that? I checked, y’know. Doesn’t exist. Just like that sodding red circle didn’t—”

Doyle was suddenly on his back, his arms full of Bodie. Who leaned down and kissed his nose, for God’s sake.

“Can take your mind off all this malarkey. If you like.”

Doyle regarded him, trying not to lose his train of thought to the unmistakable fondness being whispered. He touched the scar on Bodie’s left shoulder. It was pink and puckered and healing nicely, and he couldn’t help thinking of the man who’d made that happen.

“Bodie...”

“Look, you said it yourself, sunshine. Cowley is so deep in triple think half the time, you and I would hurt ourselves trying to keep up. And ‘served’ doesn’t have to mean what we think it does. Besides, they’re Yanks.”

Doyle waited. But Bodie had clearly finished.

“And?” prodded Doyle.

“And they never make any bloody sense. Just look at the shite that’s on telly.”

Against his better nature, Doyle felt a smile tugging his lips. “’S your considered opinion, is it?”

“Absolutely.”

“Still doesn’t make sense, Bodie,” he repeated quietly.

Expecting impatience, Doyle was pleasantly surprised when Bodie simply kissed him. “Half our lives don’t make sense,” was all he said.

Doyle could feel himself letting it go, feel himself caving to the warm steady heartbeat of the man in his arms. The man who had spent the last four consecutive nights at Doyle’s, who’d slung his arm around Doyle at the pub and kept it there, and who’d even brought a pair of pyjamas round and added them without a word to Doyle’s t-shirts in a drawer. Hesitant to voice any of it, Doyle was content to keep it to himself that Bodie seemed to be here to stay. Whether it was yet another brush with yet another bullet, being quietly outed to no fuss whatsoever, or just finally starting to settle into what they had with each other, who knew and who really minded?

Because when you got down to it, unexplained red circles and mouthy Americans paled in comparison to Bodie looking at him like that.

“Go on, then,” said Doyle, his hands finding Bodie’s hips. “Take me mind off things, then. If you insist.”

As Bodie’s mouth found his and a hand slid down between them, Doyle decided there and then he was going to need a lot of convincing.

All night long, in fact.

----The End----