Handy Pandy, Out Goes the Rat

The Professionals Fanfiction
Title:	Handy Pandy, Out Goes the Rat
Author(s):	Rimy
Date(s):	2001, 2004
Length:	7,600 words
Genre:	slash, outside POV
Fandom:	The Professionals
External Links:	*Story Link on The Hatstand *Rimy on The Circuit Archive *Story Link on The Circuit Archive *Rimy on The Hatstand
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

first page of the story as it was printed in A Third Priority A-3

"Handy Pandy, Out Goes the Rat" is a The Professionals story by Rimy.

This is a slash story with the pairings of Bodie/Doyle and Bodie/Murphy.

It was originally published in A Third Priority A-3 by IDP Press in 2001, and it was posted to The Circuit Archive on October 8, 2004.

Reactions and Reviews

Unknown Date

This is a terrific third person POV story. A new agent watches Bodie and Doyle with fascination and envy. He is attracted to Ray, but falls into a relationship with Bodie, and ultimately becomes friends with both men. Rimy's lads are smart, tough, have tongues like razors, and are nobody you want to mess with. They're also achingly in love with each other. This story's narrator bears witness to everything.

Bodie and Doyle seen from somebody else's perspective – the original character of the prompt - which makes for a fresh feel to this fic. Collier himself is likable, possibly because he fancies the lads as much as I do, and can't possibly get in their way. A bit of angst, a lot of great dialogue, and great writing, as ever, from Rimy.

I have to say that I didn't understand that title at all, and in fact reading the title really made me wonder about the story, I was actually put off the story before I read it. However, I was pleasantly surprised and immediately forgot about it, as I began to read.

Sharon has briefly mentioned this story. It's told in first person by an OC. I think that Rimy does a good job with the OC, and I certainly got a feeling for him as a person rather than just words on the page.

It's a simple enough tale, but cleverly done. A new man to CI5 watches the famous Doyle/Bodie partnership, at first (on the shooting range) not knowing who was who, whereas we the reader did from the very first description of the first shooter. I think this is very clever and I think it adds something to the story, that we the reader know something that the narrator does not. We get to see the boys through someone else's eyes, whilst at the same time this other person is carrying on a conversation with another new recruit, cleverly done. There are some interesting insights into Bodie and Doyle, a comment that, "The skinny on doesn't look like he'd survive a bullet. Or anything rough." Interesting and very perceptive, because the Doyle of the series is more than capable of giving this impression. The partners meet the storyteller and he is immediately attracted to Doyle, but warned off by Bodie. We don't know at this stage exactly what the relationship between 4.5 and 3.7 is. I rather liked this not knowing at this point.

Later OC gets warned my Murphy about crossing either Doyle or Bodie, and warns that actually Doyle is the more dangerous as far as anyone hurting his partner is concerned. Murphy also makes an allusion to rumour and them not being true, but still we obviously don't know.

Finally OC sums it up: Bodie loves Doyle; Doyle is only turned on by women. OC fancies Doyle. We see a lot of Doyle and Bodie through OC's eyes, talk about Doyle's temperament, his considerate nature etc. and we see how Bodie's suffers and how he is really besotted, might be a good word.

The three of them end up on an op. together, the OC is shot and then turns out Doyle is badly wounded. Bodie has to go for help because the OC can't. Doyle comes to during this time and is surprised and almost disbelieving that Bodie has gone.

Bodie and OC end up working together and end up in bed, but there is no emotion in it. And Bodie ends up pushing Ray to one side almost and spending time with his new bedmate. Ray goes away on a solo case and... the inevitable happens, he comes back catches Bodie and OC together and seems to be deeply hurt. OC sends Bodie after Doyle and it's happily ever after.

It was a well-crafted story and I thought captured Bodie and Doyle rather well, but somehow it failed to move me as much as it might. I think this was mainly because I didn't quite buy Bodie pulling away from Doyle, thus hurting him, and spending time with Collier, (sorry Rimy), and yet I was prepared to suspend disbelief because it was necessary for the story, and to have the lovely couple of lines: 'We never meant to hurt Ray. It just happened. We damn well never meant him to find out about us. That just happened too.' The fact that Ray turns up at Bodie's flat expecting Bodie to be there for him, was a sign of how close the partners are, how much they regard each other as the others.

I did feel sorry for Collier by the end, he was the loser in the whole sorry affair and yet he'd gone into it with his eyes wide open, and had been warned by Murphy. The one really jolting thing for me was near the very end when Collier says that he is still in love with Bodie! He was apparently in love Doyle earlier on. He admits he may be a bit in love with Doyle now as well. I think for that to have worked for me, I needed more with Collier and Bodie or Collier on Bodie. I needed to see when Collier moved from loving Ray to Bodie.

Nonetheless a nice read, and a very fine insight of Bodie and Doyle. I like first person stories from another person (I like them from Bodie or Doyle too), but I think it's good to see them from an outsider so to speak and Rimy captured them very well.

2004

Here's another story of a sort I never thought I'd recommend. This one's written from the viewpoint of a third party, someone observing Bodie and Doyle from the outside. One of the main joys of fanfic for me is the voyeuristic peek into the most intimate details of a relationship; because an outside observer can never really know what's going on between Bodie and Doyle, I seldom find stories written in this manner to be among my favorites.

But Handy Pandy, Out Goes the Rat (and I have absolutely no clue whatsoever what that title means!) is the exception, because it's utterly brilliant. Every time I read it I'm blown away by the author's sheer talent - by her unbelievably effective and skillful use of language, by the way she manages to convey so much about Bodie and Doyle simply by showing us what the narrator sees and feels (and in fact, I suppose a third-party viewpoint story that works is in some ways the ultimate in "showing not telling").

And while it might be natural to assume that a third-party viewpoint story couldn't pack much of an emotional punch, at least with respect to the Bodie/Doyle relationship, in this case it'd be totally wrong. This is a story that without any fuss or bother, without any emotional excess, pulls on your heartstrings as hard as just about anything I've read. Plus the narrator has a wry, self-deprecating, slightly wacky humor - entirely consistent with the general insanity that must characterize CI5 agents - and a quirkily engaging way of phrasing his observations and insights. He's an appealing and sympathetic character in his own right (but make no mistake, this is ultimate a Bodie/Doyle love story).

All in all, it's a beautifully, skillfully crafted story, the pace and structure and voice are masterful, it's an absolute pleasure to read and emotionally satisfying besides, with an utterly delightful ending (though I must admit I long to know what really happened between Bodie and Doyle behind closed doors!).

Rimy has written a few other stories, one within the last year - Pros fandom needs writers like this, and I fervently hope that she has more in store for us.

I've always liked third party POVs and this is one of my favorites.

Recommended without reservations! Rimy is one of our brightest stars.

A weird story and not a very satisfying one

2010

Rimy is a writer with a distinctly charming style. She writes with such verve that I just plain like spending time with her narratives. Since this story also uses one of my fave tropes, third-party views of Bodie and Doyle, it works a treat for me on several levels, satisfying my various desires for style, wit, emotional depth, and characterisation.

Collier is the third-person narrator who is new to CI5 and through whose irreverent but lustful eyes we get to watch Bodie and Doyle. The title is a children's counting-off phrase, used to choose who'll be It or who should play on this team or that, along the lines of "eeny meeny minie moe." Collier, of course, is the Rat, who, charming though he is, is destined to be squeezed out of any possibility of intimacy with one or t'other of the dynamic duo. He has, instead, the dubious honour of being a facilitator, thus fulfilling his narrative function.

A fun read from start to finish, and if the story goes over-the-top in a spot or two, it fits right in with Collier's own on-the-edge-of-madness persona that makes him a shoe-in for CI5. also at The Hatstand

Handy Pandy out goes the Rat by Rimy is another agent's take on the Bodie/Doyle partnership and how his desire initially for one and then both men eventually changes the dynamics of it. What the title means only Rimy knows. I thought it was a line from a Nursery Rhyme. During a long discussion on the story at ci5 someone said "Handy Pandy, Out Goes the Rat" is similar to "Eenie Meenie Mynie Moe...etc." Children sit in a circle and the leader says "handy pandy out goes the rat" while pointing to each person, one body per syllable. The person being pointed to when the leader says "rat" is out. The phrase is repeated until only one kid remains, and that person is "It" for whatever game is being played. Perhaps this explanation helps understanding the title, though I may be wrong. The narrator is the rat, and is out by the end of the story." It seems a likely explanation for a thoroughly fascinating title and story.

Just as it took me a while to warm to AU stories, it took me a little time to appreciate third party POV fics. It didn’t help that some of the first I read were het stories from the viewpoint of diabetic-coma-inducing Mary Sues. But at last I stumbled on Rimy’s Handy Pandy, Out Goes the Rat, and I realized just how delectable these morsels could be.

I really enjoyed this fic, too. I love seeing the lads from outside, and the way Rimy describes them--you're right, we don't need a description of hair/eyes to know who's who. We can tell it from their interactions, and from the shape of Doyle's arm. That is pretty cool. I also love that CI5 is rife with rumors about Bodie and Doyle--are they, aren't they, is it serious, etc. And the way Doyle finds out about Bodie and Collier fooling around...I almost wish we could see inside his head there, but again, I don't think we have to.

Yes, if there's a weakness here -- and it's not Rimy's, it's the limitations of the third party storytelling -- it's that we aren't privy to the final, climactic scene between Bodie and Doyle. But, realistically, we can't and shouldn't be. It's just that she does such a great job of drawing us in that I want to keep following that off-stage drama.

In the spirit of International Women’s Day on Monday:

If the 'he' would be a 'she' in this story, everybody would cry 'Mary Sue' and nobody would read it! - just a thought. ;-) *sighing* ...

Collier is nearly 'too perfect', isn’t he? So understanding, knowing when to back off. All he wants is to see Bodie with Doyle happy in the end. :-)

That's a good point about the Mary-Sue thing - it would be more of an sticking point. Although I think Collier is not too nice-and-perfect; he's flawed and rounded enough a character imo to work as something much more than a "Gary-Stu" or whatever the name is *g*

In the spirit of International Women’s Day on Monday:

If the 'he' would be a 'she' in this story, everybody would cry 'Mary Sue' and nobody would read it! - just a thought. ;-)

• sighing*

Really? Because I think that's the opposite view you should be taking away. *g*

Collier is the rat. He's brash, cocky, he's full of himself, he's a show off, he blows the op where Doyle ends up getting shot, he's trying to seduce a man he believes to be heterosexual -- knowing that the man's partner is in love with him. He's fickle -- in the end he's in love with Bodie, demonstrating that his obsession with Doyle was merely that.

He's well-drawn, he's vivid, but no, there's nothing nice or noble about Collier. Which makes him all the more entertaining a storyteller. At no point do we want Collier to succeed. At no point do we believe Collier would be the right guy for Doyle or Bodie. At no point do I believe Rimy wishes she were Collier. *g*

I don't know if it's the most effective way to tell a lengthy romance. It can work in novels -- mystery novels, for example. Sherlock Holmes is basically narrated by the observer Watson. We don't get to see into Holmes's mind, but that's okay. We still get a pretty clear idea of what's up with him. It's an old technique, and it used to be much more popular for storytelling. I'm trying to remember a famous novel-length romance where it was successfully used. There's an obvious one I can't put my finger on.

There's a similarly themed story by Sebastian too - part of her Siren series, though it's not done from young Tony's perspective... the one always reminds me of the other, though!

I was actually in America when I was first reading Pros, whereas now I'm back home in the UK and I don't even watch tv as much as I used to, so I'm not surrounded by American even via the media - so Americanisms stand out more to me.

It might be. But I think time does change our recollections and alter our perceptions. I know you've pointed various things out as non-British -- cream in coffee perhaps? Something like that -- and these were tropes that were popular in Mills & Boon novels of the same era as Pros, so obviously different Brits were doing different things at different times. And we frequently see this in debates on language with equal "experts" arguing word usage. It's much like it is here in the States. People in Texas versus California versus New Jersey have surprisingly different views on what is common usage and what is popular culture. Some things will, of course, be universal to a nation, but some things will be surprisingly regional.

Now, it could be that words you consider Americanisms but which early writers like Sebastian, etc. also used were Americanisms, but then the show itself has the occasional Americanism thrown in whether to attract a US audience or because it just seems cool or hip (to use the phraseology of the time) to sling the slang of another country. Kind of like Americans running around saying "grotty" and "gear" after the advent of the Beatles. So it seems reasonable -- though perhaps debatable -- that as worldly young men of their era, the lads would have picked up some American slang. It seems within the scope of canon.

And -- on another tangent here -- one of the things about really strong writing -- be it fan fiction or original fiction -- is the author's unique style and approach. Authorial voice surely plays as strong a role in fan fiction as anywhere else? And this voice or style may not be of any identifiable or particular nationality or era. These writers will often make up their own lingo (as real people do -- as you point out, language is mutable and living, not static and preserved in amber). This is what I think we get in Rimy and in some of the other newer and genuinely fresh voices in Pros. The best fan fiction will transcend genre -- genre being canon, in this case.

In fact, I don't think Rimy actually was American, was she? Wasn't she Canadian? I know that we Americans do not lay claim to the conversational use of the word "Hell."

... the best writers bring their own voice, their own turn of phrase, their own style to the work. In fact, it's almost impossible for them to keep it out of the work.

This is why you could take new and previously unread excerpts from a selection of your favorite writers and chances are you'd be able to identify them merely by authorial voice.

And part of that voice is word choice and usage -- so a writer is going to have to balance the needs of genre (in this case historical canon) with That Thing She Does. Meaning her own voice, style, flair.

Fiction is not real life, after all. I always think of fiction as the depiction of reality through the medium of painting versus photography. The painter's own style is every bit as unique and important as the subject. (Admittedly, there are photographers who bring their own particular and distinct angle to the pictures they take.)

In fan fiction I think the challenge is to capture the essence of canon. But inventive writers are going to want -- need -- to push further. But how far is too far? How far before you lose what makes a story or characters feel right, feel canon?

Anyway, it's something I think about -- but probably a bit off topic! My point is that Rimy may get the occasional word wrong, but her work seems to capture (for me) the spirit of canon and the essence of what makes Bodie and Doyle Bodie and Doyle.

The story was well done for it's genre, which I admit up front isn't a favourite of mine. I didn't have a problem knowing which character was which as well, although I don't see this much "conniving" from a guy, plotting his path to get Doyle, etc. Is that just me? It seems rather feminine... I'm not a guy, so what do I know!

I admit I was very surprised when he and Bodie shagged. All the devotion from Bodie and then he does this bloke, with whom he works. Again, I'm not a guy and I'm guessing they can go at it without any emotional attachment, merely physical release.

Overall an enjoyable read even if he was a bit of a maytyr. *g* In a true sense of the world, it is a "gary-sue" but it was still written nicely. I don't have a problem with that when it's done well enough and not just fangirl squeeing. LOL!

Everybody is digging for proofs for a Mary Sue, when a story has a (leading) strong female character. But a man can get away with everything...

LOL! In fact I'm glad someone invented the term 'Mary Sue'! Because there ARE terrible het stories around where the author dreams herself into the story with her beloved hero. But I think that this 'Mary Sue' classification is also like the 'sword of Damocles' above each author who thinks about a bigger part for a women in their story. And this Collier acts not very differently from a woman - but the story is accepted anyway. I just would like a little more acceptance for good female characters in Pros!

Ahem... sorry! That doesn't has much to to with this story. It just came to my mind when I read about the devotion Collier shows for Doyle.

I love Rimy’s writing but I didn’t read this for a while because the title put me off. I didn’t like or understand it and I still don’t understand it, but anyway, I finally read it and loved it. I think she writes exceptionally well and has a great way of describing what we’ve read many times before but in a new way so it makes me think I haven’t read it before....

...you have to consider the boy's personalities and the stage of their relationship and whether or not either or both of them had been involved in a same sex situations before. Sexual freedom was still fairly *new* and experimental in the mid to late 70's and other than being in a committed relationship it was pretty much a cultural thing that single people played the field, hard - especially in swinging London! So it would depend on how the writer played out the infidelity. If it was deeper into the relationship I think it would be unforgiveable - they depend on each other too much and one of them letting the other down would have lots of ramifications. During the early stages it could be acceptable or reasonable, especially if they were still unsure of their own feelings. But of course it all depends on how such infidelity was written:) I don't have too much of a problem with Bodie jumping into bed with Collier for a casual fling, it seems like the sort of thing he would do to relieve his own sexual frustration. However the fact that the affair wasn't just casual but carried on over some time and consumed much of Bodie's off time at the expense of Doyle makes me wonder just how manipulative Bodie was being. He was hurting Doyle and he seemed to know that. That was the only aspect of the fic that I had a problem with, it showed a side of Bodie that I'm not sure I liked.

Even after you've quoted some of the rhyme, I still don't get the title. Where does the rat come in (or go out)? You said before the Collier is the rat, so maybe it is important to know the verse.

I think this fic must be the one I've seen recced almost more than any other. Maybe it's the classic example of the third party pov. So of course I read it a while ago, and didn't like it much, mostly because of the toe-curling embarrassment of Doyle walking in on Bodie and Collier, and Bodie futilely struggling to get his pants on. ugh, it's so sordid (well written, though!). It's such a ghastly scene, that was what stayed with me, the discomfort of it.

But re-reading it just now, I was pleasantly impressed. Mainly, the first couple of pages are like a manifesto of Bodie and Doyle's characters and relationship, what we (slash fanfic readers) see in them, what we love and admire about them.

Third party pov is great, love it, and especially here where the narrator is a real insider, training and working with the lads. I like about Collier that he is competent and enjoys CI5. It would be easy to write an OC like this who was weak and struggling, especially if he is fairly unsympathetic (I think you're right, btw, that he is brash, cocky, he's full of himself, he's a show off..., but it took you to point that out to me).

The good thing about Collier getting on well in CI5 is that his work performance becomes irrelevant, he has no problems with being there, so we don't have to think about that, just focus entirely on the interaction between Collier and the lads, knowing he is their equal apart from experience.

And finally, one of my squicks is first-time fic set well after Doyle's shooting. He didn't even have fluffy hair by then... Seriously, I find it difficult to accept that such an intense relationship would take so many years to trip over into the sexual relationship (and if Bodie nursing him after the shooting didn't do it...). The trigger here seems to be Doyle finding Bodie with another man - but if he just needed to know that Bodie might fancy other men, I can't believe he hadn't found that out before.