Highland Comfort

Fanfiction
Title:	Highland Comfort
Author(s):	Elspeth Leigh
Date(s):	2001
Length:
Genre(s):	slash, Bodie/Doyle
Fandom(s):	The Professionals
Relationship(s):	Bodie/Doyle
External Links:	Highland Comfort
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Highland Comfort by Professionals story by Elspeth Leigh.

It was published in Priority A-3 #3.

Reactions and Reviews

An AU in which Bodie is an art dealer who inherits an old pub in Scotland and sets about having it renovated. A slow-moving story. The first six pages deal with nothing but Bodie's plans and doings with the pub. When Doyle eventually appears, the story reveals itself to be another supernatural one. Phantoms and time shifts comprise the rest of the tale. The story offers no relationship insights: lust at first sight is presented as love. Moreover, Doyle has virtually no character. He's as ghostly in depiction as he is in substance, and could be any character with the mane and curls. As well as my already acknowledged lack of patience with supernatural stories, I also found the writing style in this text awkward. A preponderance of multi-syllabic words slow the pace to a crawl at times, and some obscurity of meaning occurs as words are used in odd and not felicitous ways. That might, of course, be merely my failing as a reader.

An AU that took some careful reading. We are not 100% sure from the open paragraph that it is AU; it gradually becomes clearer as time goes on. Basically Bodie is a rich businessman who has been left a pub in Scotland. He goes to look at it with a view to selling and falls in love with the place and decides to refurbish it.

We get a good feeling for the scenery and the hard work being put in on repairing the pub, and the hardships being endured, although I did have to ask myself, why if Bodie went for his breakfast at the B&B didn't he sleep there? Again, it was essential for the story that he did stay in the pub, so that was fine.

Not much is known about Bodie's great-uncle, save he was lured away by an auburn-headed, green-eyed siren--you start to get a familiar feeling.

Bodie goes to the B&B and meets the landlady, they talk about the pub and her father and she produces an old map of the underground part of the place, which Bodie doesn't know about. Bodie is captivated by the place and still doesn't really know why. He is neglecting his business and finally gives away parts of it to two of his assistants, because he wants to stay in Scotland.

Bodie has a dream and in it is Ray Doyle, sexy, auburn haired and green eyed. He tells Bodie he is there to seduce Bodie and does so. Bodie wakes up: No Doyle. The day comes to open the basement, Bodie goes down alone... and guess who he finds? Doyle. They make love. He asks Ray who he is and Ray says, "Yours," and vanishes. Very simple language, very concise and very true.

Bodie is called back to London and finds out to his horror that the main people he has been dealing with in Scotland, are actually long since dead. Not sure what to do, he is pondering it, when Ray appears and begs Bodie to come back to him.

Bodie goes back, goes to the B&B and finds a different person, goes to the renovations and finds another different person, finally goes inside the pub and finds Ray, and suddenly everything is back to how it was, the dead people are back. Ray tells Bodie that he (Ray) can never leave the place again. Bodie vows he won't either.

I have to confess that I got somewhat lost with the story; I think I needed it to be longer, which is a way a compliment. I wanted to know more about these people, about Ray; about how Bodie was shifting back and forth in time and about how the shift happened. I guess that it is down to each reader to make of it, as she will. Definitely a story that needs reading more than once, I think to fully appreciate the subtly of it.