Slipping Under, Sliding Down by Ailcia (PG)

Fandom: PROS
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Length: 28k
Author on LJ: ailcia
Author Website: Ailcia at The Circuit
Why this must be read: Because let’s end this month of Pros recs with someone so young and talented there should be a law against it. Ailcia is one such lass. She has a wonderful talent for pulling moments apart, for getting under the skin of Bodie and Doyle, and for bringing them vividly to life, nuance by nuance.

In this story it’s the lads being the lads, having the occasional uncomplicated bout between the sheets while they go about it, and feeling decidedly smug about it all until a moment at the hospital with a hurt Doyle brings them both up short. Here, I love how she takes a fairly standard fanfic scenario and spins her own brand of gold out of it.


"All these red bricks remind me of home."

"What, Africa?"

"Oh, you're a sharp one today: must have had your spinach."

"Yeah, well... Alls I had was crumbling concrete. No matter what city I got carted off to, always same bog-standard concrete and sodding pebble-dash."

"You want me to apologise for Liverpool's housing policy, Sunshine?"

"Nah, mate... Just for being a fallen snob."

"Oh, and you're such a working class hero, eh?"

"'Course."

Bodie rolls his eyes and Doyle chuckles, and they pass the flask back and forth, and they complain about the liver sausages but eat them anyway and it's just them. No pasts, no histories, and no need for it, neither. This is them, and it's not changed and it never will.

Doyle switches the radio on and Bodie switches it off just to annoy him, and predictably gets a bollocking, and they play that game for a while, all the while keeping their eyes on the half-constructed houses for some sign of movement.

The day is peeling away into the evening dusk by the time anything happens. The thin rain patters against the windscreen, turning everything outside into a dripping watercolour. The wipers make a slow rhythmic whooshing noise and Bodie is half-asleep against the window, tired eyes sweeping the piles of brick-work and sodden planks of wood when the hair on the back of his neck bristles suddenly and Doyle shoots from the car.

Bodie launches himself out into the rain after him, but slides on the wet, wheelbarrow-tracked mud as soon as he rounds the corner of the tumbled-down wall and loses his balance. He crashes to one knee, losing precious seconds as Doyle flies ahead of him, dead-set on the blurred, dark shape he's chasing through the scaffolds. There's a bang, a crash and a cry and Bodie's heart is suddenly in his throat.


Slipping Under, Sliding Down