Birds of Ill Omen

Bodie/Doyle Fanfiction
Title:	Birds of Ill Omen
Author(s):	Kathy Keegan
Date(s):	1992
Length:	8 pages
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	The Professionals
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Birds of Ill Omen is a Bodie/Doyle story by Kathy Keegan.

It was published in Full Circle #1.

Reactions and Reviews

Bodie and Doyle wake up with terrific hangovers. Emerging to greet their girlfriends, they are appalled to realise that they each apparently proposed that night, and the girls accepted. Much angst ensues. This one isn't my thing. Part of this is because I find both the basic premise and what they do to solve it unrealistic. Yes, I know I was quite happy to accept Murphy and Bodie laying bets about Doyle. I am not terribly consistent, no.

The second of two Keegan stories in the Nut Hatch zine "Full Circle", I found this far more readable than In the Mood. I can't help but enjoy the lads hungover and wondering what went on the night before, and so it started well for me. Unfortunately there is still the odd lecture-type moment -we are told within the first page, for example, that "Alcohol loved to puddle in body fat - the fatter the drinker, the worse his hangover would be" (which is why Bodie suffers far worse hangovers than Doyle, according to Keegan). True or not, I find the tone used to explain such "facts" reads unbearably smugly to me. I don't want to know how clever an author is, and I especially don't want her to tell me, I just want to see the lads in their world!

The dialogue reads more truly to me than in her previous story ( shorter sentences, less "explain-y") although there are still many things that I personally can't imagine either character saying or thinking - not least the way they choose to resolve their dilemma. Both too dramatic and too simplistic, imnsho!

For me: readable, but not re-readable!