Blue Skies

Fanfiction
Title:	Blue Skies
Author(s):	Maggie Hall
Date(s):	1996 (zine fic), also archived online
Length:	16 pages
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	The Professionals
Relationship(s):	Bodie/Doyle
External Links:	Blue Skies
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Blue Skies is a Professionals slash story by Maggie Hall. Pairings: Bodie/Doyle.

The story first appeared in the print zine Concupiscence #4 and has been archived online.

Reactions and Reviews

1995

Possibly subtitled "The Fear of Flying"? Nice piece about skydiving and sex (not at the same time). This might sound like "damning with faint praise", but considering my high boredom with Pros lately, I think that says alot.

2006

This is a lovely story, of Bodie taking Doyle skydiving for the first time. Written from Doyle's point of view we see an un-CI5 Bodie, and are given glimpses into his past which suit his character perfectly. Hall is a beautiful writer, with a light touch and a feel for how important the lads are to each other, no matter how they express it.

2010

Their easy camaraderie showed nicely throughout. I loved the banter...

2011

What a sweet, refreshing story, one which is made all the sweeter with the knowledge that in 'real life' I think both LC and MS enjoy inhabiting this part of the universe. And the story must have been good for me to read it all online without once thinking this is a bit long.....

No guns, villains or fast cars I'm afraid, but heart-stopping excitement of a different kind......

"Where only a moment ago life had been a pinpoint thrill, a hairy moment where risk and adrenalin made a man invulnerable and elated, this serene god-like floating was liberating, religious ecstasy. He wasn't sure which he loved more. He wasn't sure that it mattered."

Even in the air, they're still a team, still there for each other:

""Lemonade?" "No alcohol before I jump," Bodie explained...... "You drink on ops, Bodie. With a gun in your hand, you drink. And you won't have anything before you do this?" "I don't have you there to watch my back at altitude, do I, sunshine?""

And their inevitable coupling? Just as sweet, and, knowing them (as I do), I'm sure this is how it would be between them:

""Yes." Vehement, this time, but Bodie still hadn't said the magic word, "no," and Bodie still hadn't removed his hand. In either sense. "If we got caught, Cowley would kill us for certain." "Yes," Doyle agreed reasonably. "If we got caught." "And we'd be bound to get caught," Bodie said. Doyle wondered if his partner realized who the words were meant to convince. Certainly not him. "Because if it was good, I'd want to do you at every verse end and you'd probably be as randy as I'll ever be." "Yes," Doyle replied, "I probably would be. If we did it." "So.....we'd best not do it," Bodie muttered...... "So I'll stop, yes?" Bodie opened his eyes, pupils wide, the thin ring of blue iris like the band of an eclipse. "Yes," Bodie said, and licked his lips. He smiled, just a bit. "Stop....""

So, if you feel you can handle a whole new experience, please go read.

I've always enjoyed this story! ...just nice and pleasant and real.

I really loved this. The way that Doyle was so focused and single minded (about the skydiving) once he'd tried it, and how Bodie was so happy and competent at the same time. And of course the first time... *happy sigh*

I enjoyed it very much - especially the dialog - it was just what I'd expect from the lads in this situation. And it's a nice change from the 'running, shooting, blowing things up' stories we usually see.

2013

Although I don't want to mix our lads and their actors too far, I quite like this idea, and so Blue Skies appealed to me from the off. I love the exhilaration it gives Bodie, and I love that Doyle also loves that, and is drawn into the sheer joy of it all...

I can picture the airfield, and the clear blue-skyed morning, all the way through to the lads curling up in the caravan together (though I'm not convinced they'd describe a caravan as "luxurious", they're really just one up from camping over here). The other characters are fun too - not obtrusive, but drawn enough to be individuals, and I like Doyle's reaction to meeting another part of Bodie's world...

There's the usual niggles about UK vs US writing - some spellings, but mostly turns of phrase. Brits don't often "go for a look-see" (take a look), the getting a leg over was close but not quite right, and I can't imagine Bodie saying No matter, Ray (Doesn't matter, Ray). They use names in sentences at every verse end, too, which you don't generally, if you're sitting talking to someone. And if Doyle was thinking about a "local" in King's Cross, then it would have meant he'd lived there, which seems unlikely from what I remember of its reputation back then, if he'd gone up in the world as we're told in Female Factor. Finally, I'm not sure how a pub with one glass wall looking out onto a lawn and a runway could even begin to remind someone of a pub in King's Cross - especially when the comparable factors sound just like any other pub in England - a long polished bar, a dartboard, simple food and drink!

But I can skate by all that, because on the other hand, there's some very ep-based (i.e. true!) characterisation too. Doyle watches Bodie skydiving, and we're there in his head with him when he's cross that Bodie's the last to open his parachute, but despite his assumed protests against it, we see that he's caught Bodie's enthusiasm when he simply says "What do I have to do to do it?" - short and to the point, just as it would be in the eps. There's a lovely echo of the lads "telepathy" too, all through the story. He had yet to hear the magic word, "no." Bodie thinks about Doyle, when he's suggested they go skydiving - and Doyle thinks exactly the same thing when he makes a pass at Bodie. Of course neither of them are disappointed, either... *g*

I can imagine Bodie getting all instructor about something he knows so well, too, and I like that Doyle seems so impetuous about things (though we know he's weighed them in his head cos we were there for his thoughts). They follow each other in the eps, and Doyle follows Bodie now - but he also goes off and does his own thing when he needs to, so there's a sense of their independence as well as their natural togetherness.

The only thing that threw me properly was actually the ending - they're chatting about Cowley disapproving of both the skydiving (if they were injured) and their new sexual relationship (if he found out), and there's been emphasis throughout on the fact that Cowley would have to find out about either thing before they were in trouble. But at the end, Doyle "paled... feeling his heart pound with the same kind of terror a weapon's stoppage afforded... Cowley was going to kill them both..." I'm not sure what this is supposed to imply - that Cowley will find out, no matter what? (I'm not keen on the idea of all-seeing, omnipotent Cowley), or...? Or what? I'm not sure, I can't quite imagine - I don't get it...

I LOVE this story!!

It's just so the Lads for me, assuming things, banter, mind reading, teasing, not talking things out....I love them!

I don't care about ignoring things from canon, if the canonly truths get twisted, that's something that might bother me a bit, but sometimes I can just see it as writers freedom. And Bodie's going rock climbing with Doyle because he wants to spent time with him, not learn sth about it, or be with the best....

And the ending - well, it's like most endings just too short, the best part, being together and enjoying it, that's missing. This way I can add my own ending, so I'm the one deciding that Cowley won't find out, the Lads don't really care if he does and they live happily ever after!

I suspect it's because I enjoy the feeling of this fic so much that for once I barely noticed the lapses in Brit-ness *g*. I just love the way Bodie constantly surprises Ray (packing for the trip, the state of the caravan, his old mates etc.) and I love the way Ray takes to skydiving. I also seem to have developed a sudden kink for one of them quite legitimately schooling the other - and the other accepting it without a murmur - when it turns out that one is an expert in some specific skill *bg* This fic is very feelgood for me; the dialogue and the physical detail and the attraction ... all click for me. I agree about the ending - it feels a bit tacked on - , but by that time I'm happy enough to skate past it *g*

I could skim past the lapses in Brit-ness for the same reason you were able to! When reviewing it for Reading Room I noticed them, but much less so as I read through (which isn't always the case in a story). It is a feelgood fic, isn't it - excellent label for it! And hee for new kinks! I quite liked the schooling thing in this one, though it felt a bit the-author-knows-how-to-skydive to me, but I have a feeling that in most stories that do that it'd grate on me, and it mostly would feel like author showing off rather than one lad teaching the other (or maybe I'm just thinking of Jane stories, cos she tends to that quite a lot - teach the wee reader, through dialogue etc from the lads) - and I find her tone quite patronising to readers. But it doesn't have to be done like that, as this story shows... *g*

Good point about the pitfall of the-author-knows-a-lot-about-X; I seem to remember not much liking Jane's stories (though I could be mixing up my Janes here) so I don't really know her particular example that well, but I agree it's a potential problem and that in many/most stories it could easily veer too much towards author-lecturing-reader instead of e.g. Bodie-teaching-Doyle as here. It helps that the setting of Doyle's first ever skydiving experience legitimises it, and perhaps it's partly because it's particularly plausible that Bodie should be an experienced sky-diver that it works here! Mind you, thinking of an old favourite The Secrets Beneath, for example, in the right circumstances Doyle can be a professor of archaeology and display all the expertise he likes ... *g* It's a bit like show don't tell, isn't it. If the expertise comes across "naturally" it won't jar; but even the greatest writers can skate close to the edge! (thinking about Prospero's pages-long exposition to Miranda at the beginning of The Tempest ...)

Good point about the setting and plot legitimising exposition in some stories, but I think perhaps it's your show don't tell that's the crucial factor in most stories. If an author shows us that the lads know what they're doing (as Sally Fell does in Secrets Beneath, which is one of my favourites too! *g*) rather than having them tell another character all about it as a way of telling us that they know what they're doing, then it works (for me, anyway! *g*). Mind you, thinking back to the Jane stories I was less keen on, it might partly be to do with how patronising I feel the "teacher-character" is being too. Jane so often seems to characterise Bodie as the experienced, worldly teacher, and Doyle as some ingenue who needs guidance in everything, and it drives me mad....

I think you've put your finger on a crucial element. Here in Blue Skies I never get the feeling that they are anything but equals; it's just a temporary, specific circumstance which puts them in the position of one schooling the other, and there's no patronising or loss of respect, or any suggestion that either one is less than competent. (Plus there's all Bodie's gorgeous almost-little-kid-like enthusiasm *g*) Maybe that's part of why it works! *g* (whatever else these blokes may be they're not ingénues really, are they! *bg)

As to the ending: yeah, I wondered about that. I think if Bodie had said, "Don't know which one he'll hate more," I'd have taken it as Bodie suggesting they were eventually going to tell him. Or that he would find out eventually. But "Don't know which one he'd hate more," that's a much more conditional thing: he'd have to find out. And yet Doyle thinks "Cowley was going to kill them both." I like to think that that thought is linked to the emotion Doyle is feeling as he considers the possibility: he's in the moment, so to speak, even if the moment is a imaginary one. I do agree that Cowley will kill them on the latter, but I don't think that he'd be upset that Bodie is keeping his parachuting up to date. He'd be upset if Bodie broke something important, but I can see Cowley rationalising that Bodie with a broken ankle is still more use to CI5 than Bodie with a broken hand - he can shoot leaning against a wall, after all! I suppose, now you have brought up the element of characteristics of the actors rather than the characters (although I think they are Bodie and Doyle characteristics, myself), you could see the "he will kill them" as reflecting not Cowley, but Brian Clemens!

I enjoyed my read of this, with my favourite bit being Doyle doing the jump. I felt the adrenaline surge and everything when he was up there, and very much liked the contrast between the initital OMG! and the peaceful floaty bit. I think that and the whole set-up and technical lingo stuff was probably the strongest part of the story, with the relationship stuff quite secondary.

The ignoring canon thing might not have occurred to me if you hadn't pointed it out :) Re the laddsiness of the lads, Bodie was really nicely drawn, although just once or twice I felt like Doyle was more the foil for his enthusiasm than being totally the Doyle I know. I was rather hoping for more tension/irritation/fear when Bodie's parachute took so long to open too :D

Didn't have a prob with the US/Brit language things. I was aware of "snicker" etc but just skated on by as I was enjoying myself! The only word choice that threw me was "blandly" for the way Doyle says he can't wait to get back up there after the jump. I'd have thought his tone and demeanour etc would have been anything but bland but I know that's me being over-picky...

Re the ending I was confused that Doyle suddenly went into a panic. The danger of Cowley finding out stuff they don't want him to find out isn't a new one, so I couldn't quite identify what about Bodie's words freaked him so much. It's not as if Bodie was threatening to tell him... Hmmm. Still not quite worked it out.

But all in all I really did like this. It's nicely paced and engaging, and left me with some memorable images.

Why this must be read: I love simple stories that share with us a slice of life. No case to solve, just time off with each other. This story delves into a weekend that Doyle elects to spend with Bodie's pastime.