The Siren Series

The Professionals Fanfiction
Title:	The Siren Series
Author(s):	Sebastian and others
Date(s):	1980s, sequels are later
Length:
Genre:
Fandom:	The Professionals
External Links:
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The Siren Series is a series of slash stories written in the Professionals universe.

The core series consists of four stories written by Sebastian: Siren, Bound to the Mast, Going for the Shore Part 1 & Part 2 (remains unfinished).

The series has been cited as being OOC for Bodie and Doyle (they are smokers) as well as for her inclusion of drug use as a major theme. According to one fan at Virgule-L:

"Pushing the envelope can be a very uncomfortable place. I remember hearing from [M] that Sebastian had received hate mail for allowing Bodie & Doyle to smoke, and Doyle to use drugs in Going for the Shore which is one of my all time favorite Pros stories."

– Megan Kent

Years later the author wrote:

"This is a dark series, full of torment, and did not go down too well with some readers, particularly Bodie fans, who felt he had to put up with too much and was not loved enough. The first I agree with, the second, never. In my B and D universe, there is never a lack of love.. these men are bound together, forever, however much they beautifully suffer along the way. It's seldom picked out as a favourite of my stories by readers, but still, there are things I love about it - particularly the shootout with the young recruit where I tried to capture, for once, some life-or-death struggle outside the bedroom, the knife-edge danger and excitement of CI5 we see onscreen, which drew me to the series in the first place. It also contains the worst line written by any slash writer ever, in the history of fandom. I've left it in, for nostalgia. I hope you spot it, and smile..."^{[citation needed]}

The Series

first page of "Bound to the Mast"

• Siren by Sebastian
• Bound to the Mast by Sebastian (13 pages)
• Going to Shore by Sebastian
• Freezing by Helen Raven (takes place after Going for the Shore pt. 2, which was left unfinished. This story does not continue GFTS, but does assume the earlier events and emotional entanglements.)
• Siren Alternate Ending by Anne Carr

Unauthorized Sequels

Helen Raven wrote an authorized sequel "Freezing" to the series which was published in Unprofessional Conduct #3.

Anne Carr wrote an alternate ending to "Siren" called "Voyeur".

A fan, Sandy Herrold, explained some context for these sequels:

Helen Raven wrote

a fascinating Pros novel, called ______. She wrote it because she really loved 'Brother's Keeper' and was inspired by it to write a story. A story that shared a couple of plot points (Bodie having been abused by his father, finding it hard to be submissive in sex with a man, Doyle as a copper long after Bodie'd joined CI5, Bodie and Doyle first meeting far from England with Bodie clearly having the upper hand) with Brother's Keeper. With the best intentions in the world, she decided to call her story a sequel, and set it immediately after the end of BK.

It would take me 20 minutes and a word processor to change ____ so that it was not obvious that it was in the same universe. Would that she had done that.

BK is a well-loved story, with a very beautiful and distinctive style. ___ is a well-written story, with a *very* dissimilar style and tone from BK.

Which is not to say that even without the tie in___ would have been to everyone's taste, by any means. It is a little a/u (Doyle never does join CI5) way over the top emotionally (how many novels let both Bodie *and* Doyle suffer full psychotic breaks) and has a plotting problem you could run a truck through (after splitting the story almost evenly between B & D, Bodie is inexplicably missing for 80 of the last 90 pages...), but it is by no means deserving of the vituperation it received. Except... except that people expected something like BK, and didn't get it.

Doing a sequel (with, or without the original author's permission--I'll let someone else fight that one), requires something more than just continuing the plot. If you are going to do it, you need to have a feel for the original author's style and goals.

[...]

Helen Raven, proving herself a glutton for punishment, then wrote a sequel to another well-loved story series: Siren. This story is in Unprofessional Conduct 2. (Objectivity alert--this story is so thoroughly my kink that nothing I say about its quality should be believed.) This story has unleashed no storm of protest, even though Siren is at least as famous as BK. And I, at least, think she did a wonderful job on this one. The original series ends on a terrible cliffhanger (I apologize, I don't have the e-library on this machine, but it is something like. "Bodie thought for sure that they'd finally figured it out and it had to get better. Of course he soon realized he was wrong." END OF STORY), so just having any ending was a bit of a relief, but more importantly, this time she is wrote a real sequel, continuing these two characters lives, not writing her own thing while using someone else's background to construct her own story in.

Reactions and Reviews

1993

In 1993, Sandy Herrold posted the following question about the series to the Virgule-L mailing list. The exchange below is quoted with permission.

I was reading the three parts of Siren last night, and I got to this point in the last part that confused me; it has confused me every time I've read it!

I want you all to read this, and then go home tonight and reread Siren (especially part 3, Going for the Shore) and then come back tomorrow and explain!

They have painfully acquired a relationship, though definately not your standard hearts and flowers one. After a misunderstanding, Ray leaves and comes back hours later, very drunk. Laying in bed before sleep, he says to Bodie,

"You wanna fuck me? 'S all right if you do."

This thunderbolt, delivered in a sleepy slur,

startled Bodie wide awake; but funnily enough did not

shock him, nor anger im; nor did it fill him with happiness.

Next day, they are talking and Doyle admits that he has been fucked before, but that it had not gone well, that he had been hurt. Bodie 's POV

His grip on Doyle tightened. "I'd never do that to you,

Ray," he muttered fiercely into nutbrown curls. "Never

hurt you like that." He thought in his evangelism that they

had never been closer.

Then Doyle looked over at him, perfectly sincere.

"I know that. That's why, last night, I told you you could,

if that's what you wanted," he said; and then was left to

wonder why Bodie, frozen and bleak and absolutely

alone in the chasm that had suddenly split them apart,

left the bed with cold dead eyes.

Now, I'm with Doyle. I just don't get it. What pissed Bodie off so much, huh? I love this trilogy, in fact, I love most all of Sebastian's stuff, but this I just don't get. And, it occurs to me, that if Pam Rose is a Doyle-lover's writer, Sebastien must be a Bodie-lovers writer, since we normally get to watch as Bodie suffers the torments of the damned, watching Doyle flaunt his lightly tanned taunt little rear in Bodie's susceptible direction...

I need you guys, now--don't let me down!

Among the many answers to Sandy Herrold's post was the following from Megan Kent:

I read it a little differently. I always thought that what Bodie was so pissed off about was that he (Bodie) was making this up as a really important special, significant sharing, and it really meant something for Doyle to offer it. When it doesn't turn out that way, Bodie once again is convinced that he and Doyle will never have the intimacy and communication he longs for. Dunno. Has anyone asked Sebastian about it? BTW, I also LOVED them both being smokers and Doyle using drugs in this story. Neither one of these ideas had ever occurred to me, but as soon as she presented them, I bought them 100%! The mark of a good writer in my book.

1994

Sebastian packs an enormous amount of emotion into those pages, but for me it never wandered into melodrama. In Siren she made me experience Bodie's desire for Doyle rather than as most fan writers would, merely give me a framework to project my own desires for Doyle. That I could sympathize with Bodie's desire made the story that much more poignant for me as a Doyle fan.

In the process of retyping Sebastian's Siren, I have been vehemently reminded of how wonderful a writer she is and how insipid and uninspiring the majority of slash has been over the last year. Obviously this is a very personal perspective; readers with radically different tastes may completely disagree. Yet, I can't help but wonder if slash isn't slipping more and more toward that mediocre mean. Instead of inventing and reinventing the genre, we seem to merely be recycling it. Sigh. Do any of you have an opinion about what was really phenomenally good that came out in 1993 or 94?

I think that the perception of feminine characteristics is subjective. The combination of Sebastian's description, added to the title, SIREN, did it for me—pink lips, curving legs, the stripping, etc. struck nje_ as being feminine. I'm not sure I'll be able to explain this. Sebastian's description doesn't appear feminine to you and some others, and this is understandable. To me, it contained feminine elements mixed with very masculine elements i.e. "sweat and musk" and so I found the story a tremendous turn-on. Again, feminine characteristics in my mind do not necessarily mean weak characteristics.

1996

Also don't like stories where one character is irrevocably an emotional cripple. (If I had been warned, I would not have read Sebastian's "Siren", "Bound to the Mast" etc. series.)

Have you ever read a meal in fanfic that you just had to have yourself? I read "Going for the Shore" (parts I and II) for the first time about a week ago. After assimilating the text on a cellular level (I like re-reading things I like until I've all but memorized them), I found myself actually preparing the chops and potatoes roasted in a slow oven meal. It was much more fun to read about than it was to eat. But I wondered if anyone else reads Pros stories and then craves abacon roll or chicken and chips.

2008

In 2008, fan artist shooting2kill combined photo-manips with text from "Goring For The Shore". It can be read here.[1]

2010

Originally I did have problems with the Siren series and a couple of others where Doyle wasn't merely difficult and moody, he was damaged and self-destructive. And I still don't agree with that reading of him, but I'm willing to go along with it because, again, I trust her as a writer. I'm not exactly sure what I mean by that...other than the stories will be well written enough and have an internal logic that will allow me to follow the fantasy.

By all rights, I should really dislike this series, and I definitely winced more reading this time than I ever have done before, but... there's still something about it that grabs me... something to do with the poetry of the writing, perhaps, the lovely lyrical, slightly melancholic feel to it - this is writing that makes you feel every breath the characters take, deep in their hearts...

It's made up of four parts: Siren by Sebastian, Bound to the Mast by Sebastian, Going for the Shore Part I and Going for the Shore Part II, both by Sebastian, and then Freezing by Helen Raven.

Actually I'm intrigued to see that Hatstand lists GftS II as "unfinished", and it's certainly got that feel to the final sentence - and is perhaps why the final part is by Helen Raven instead - does anyone know the story behind this?

Anyway, I do rather love these stories, although I think my love was formed when I had more tolerance for ever-so-damaged-Doyle and taking-charge-Bodie, which isn't a problem in itself, but I think fanfic writers may have grabbed it and run with it a bit - or maybe that was just the ever-so prolific Jane...

In any case - Doyle has clearly had a bad childhood (now that I'd like to read about!), and Bodie is clearly head over heels for him, and being treated badly as a result of Doyle's problems - but then Bodie has his own too, and Sebastian and HR do show us these actually, although because we're generally reading from Bodie's pov, they're less obvious than Doyle's because of course we're seeing Doyle through Bodie's own issues...

Mostly though, the poetry of the writing takes over for me - just sweeps me off into the stories, so that I can absolutely buy any little stretches in character (and I can see where they've come from, too, which helps, they're not taken too far from "my" B/D).

This series was a very early favourite of mine - I managed to print out Freezing way back when I was nannying, and I took it to Alaska with me as my only Pros fix when I'd only just re-discovered the lads, and wasn't even on lj yet! I remember huddling up with it in a basement flat in Fairbanks, before I had my cabin... And it was lovely then, and I'd definitely recommend it now too! *g*

I've always loved this series, very much for the reasons you've noted. The writing just can't be beat. And I hadn't thought about it but, like you, I read these stories as the beginning of my Pros mania. I find I don't have the same tolerance for oh-so-damaged Bodie and/or Doyle. In some stories, it's hard to imagine that they can function on a day to day level, much less do the job they do. Still, for whatever reason, I can still read Sebastian's and, in the same vein, Kate Maclean's stories and still enjoy them very much. It seems to me Kate's have been toned down some, so Bodie and Doyle aren't quite so bad (or, as in her last story the craziness is being foisted on them.) Unfortunately, there aren't any new Sebastian stories.

In some stories, it's hard to imagine that they can function on a day to day level, much less do the job they do. Yes - exactly! I mean, I adore a bit of h/c, but sometimes... *g* But Sirens doesn't quite cross that boundary, and I can see how it works for both of them... I was fascinated by the idea of Doyle taking drugs voluntarily, mind (okay, made involuntary by emotional pressure?) but it wasn't made too much of, just the right amount of crises to get him to such an out-of-character thing, so...

Actually I'm intrigued to see that Hatstand lists GftS II as "unfinished", and it's certainly got that feel to the final sentence - and is perhaps why the final part is by Helen Raven instead - does anyone know the story behind this?

Sebastian had intended to write more in the sequence. She did once (long after I'd written Freezing)show me the small amount she'd written - but her handwriting was such that I could barely make out a word!

Anyway... I'd long been haunted by the way that GftS II ended and so had Kate MacLean, and I promised her that I would write an ending for her as a birthday present. I was hoping that my story would give Kate closure but I didn't expect it to work for me, but it turned out that it did. Kate was happy for the story to be published more widely, and HG asked Sebastian for permission on my behalf (I didn't know Sebastian at that time), which she granted very graciously.

I feel the same way about this series. A few years back when in a discussion on lj of our desert island fics I listed this series as one of mine. I might not today, as I've read many more stories since then, but I still like it a lot. This is Sebastian at her best with the way she paints pictures with words.

Sebastian can nearly be a bit too much for me sometimes - Doyle's face in your quote is apparently fierce and sad and desperate and absorbed and excited and evocative of a fallen angel... *g* But she doesn't quite tip over - or if perhaps she does, then she rescues herself with something gorgeous in the next line, so... *g* It's beautifully shown though, rather than "told", and that makes all the difference to me...