Nice Boys

Fanfiction
Title:	Nice Boys
Author(s):	Lizzie
Date(s):	2003, 2010
Length:	44 pages
Genre(s):	slash, Bodie/Doyle
Fandom(s):	The Professionals
Relationship(s):	Bodie/Doyle
External Links:	*Author on The Circuit Archive *Author on The Hatstand *Download Link for PDF File
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

"Nice Boys" is a The Professionals story by Lizzie. It is a slash story with the pairing of Bodie/Doyle. It was published in the zine Unprofessional Conduct 12 by Gryphon Press in May, 2003. It was posted to Discovered in an LJ as a gift to readers on December 24, 2010, and is currently available as a PDF file for download.

Reactions and Reviews

NICE BOYS by Lizzie. 44 pages. The longest and final story in the zine is a competently written and engrossing tale. I've read a number of Lizzie's other stories and none of them have worked for me, so I didn't have high expectations. This one, however, is a different matter. I was pleased to see it eschews some of the elements that have put me off in her other stories, while her writing strengths are front and centre.

It's a rare CI5-based story from her, though as they're on holiday in the Cotswolds, there's not actually much CI5 in it. It's set a few years in the future, when Doyle is approaching forty, but it is, nevertheless, a first-time story. The entire story depends on Doyle's being really rather thick about the whole matter of what he feels for Bodie and what Bodie feels, and Bodie goes through a period of abysmal thickness himself, but that's a familiar enough pattern in slash stories and Lizzie handles it well, making the characters appealing.

Marge Harper (from Backtrack) plays a major role in a plot coincidence I was happy to accept since I was enjoying the story. The characterisation of Marge is one of the story's main strengths: it's a lovely portrait, dead on, catching not only her voice and mannerisms, but also projecting a view of a future Marge in a changed environment that I bought completely. I enjoyed every scene in which she appears. She's also a rounded character, evidencing change as the story progresses.

The story loses some impetus for me after an incident incapacitates Bodie and the pace slows. Nevertheless, it's a fun read in which the lads talk and act like themselves and there are some highly amusing incidents. An entertaining depiction of a drunken Doyle is a highlight. The author skilfully evokes a range of emotions in a way that sets this story apart from several others in the zine.

To sum up, while some of the stories might have benefited from stronger editing, Unprofessional Conduct 12 is a pretty good read other than the two I consider to be duds. It's not a zine for anyone looking for complex or challenging stories, but it provides easily digested fare that pleasantly passes a few hours.

Review written October 2003.

I do like a good Lizzie story, and Nice Boys is rather a good Lizzie story... *g*

The slightly older lads go away for two weeks in the Cotswolds, and they're high enough now in CI5 to know that they really will get their full holiday without being called back in the middle of it all. There's a lovely sense of relaxation about it all - for us as well as them - from being wound up on the drive there (drivers in hats!) to Bodie's collapse on the hotel bed and lazy "Wake me up in a fortnight, Doyle" when they arrive.

Of course being the lads it's not all plain sailing - they're both battling alone with realisations of how important the other is to them, and Bodie's obviously got something he wants to tell Doyle - well, it's obvious to everyone except Doyle, who's quietly plotting to drag Bodie to Ireland, where they can stay in a cottage miles from nowhere, with a good pub on the doorstep...

And then Marge turns up. *g* Margery Harper is one of my favourite Pros characters, and Lizzie's got her spot-on in this fic... ... *vbg* It's a lovely daft sense of humour, just what I imagine from the lads, and it cheers me up every time I read it.

So, what do you think - are they your lads? Is it your Marge? How much do you adore it too? *g*

I love Lizzie’s style - the story flows well and the information the reader needs is given so subtly. A newcomer to the fandom, or a reader who hadn’t seen an episode with Marge, would know exactly what was going on. It all seems effortless to the reader which means the writer has done a lot of hard work! The characterisation is beautifully done. Ray and Bodie come across as three dimensional and real, and Marge and Alf are great, too (better than in the show). The banter is delightful, throughout.

Somehow, I remembered this story as being longer and having more detail about the antiques problem and its resolution - I must have dreamt it!! Or is there another version/a sequel?

A couple of niggles - just nit-picking really. Firstly, location details: Chipping Campden thinks it’s a town, not a village. It is certainly town-sized (I’ve stayed there) with a market, a mayor, etc. Broadway and Stow on the Wold are both quite separate places. The Swan is in a nearby village, not just up the High Street... Secondly, if they were watching old films then the Lawrence Olivier Wuthering Heights had Merle Oberon co-starring and the idea of Kate Bush singing her way through was much later than the lads at forty and much much later than anything with Olivier. Maybe she meant to show their lack of knowledge of the films etc? If so, I don’t think she gave us quite enough information. Whatever, I still had this with maximum stars in my list of Pros-fic-I’ve-read-and-rated so I’ll assume I didn’t notice on first reading!

A good rec, combining holiday, older lads and hurt/comfort themes!

It's an effortless flowing. Still it doesn't mean everything stays on the surface. On the contrary - it's really hard to write a story which seems so light and fluffy, but simultaneously showing intense emotions without being sappy. It was a joy for me to read it.

I think that's one of Lizzie's strengths too - she doesn't make everything into a huge drama, but she still manages to show depths of emotion. I tend to think that's quite a "Brit" thing too, the whole stiff-upper-lip cliche, where people will underplay something rather than dramatise it... well, it was in the past anyway, in the lads' generation - don't think you could say the same now at all!

Oh, very definitely, the writing is (almost) more like the lads and Marge than the actual script itself, if you see what I mean..... In fact whatever scenario they occupy in Lizzie’s writing – whether it be contemporary or Victorian times, as gardeners, artists, ghost hunters or ci5 agents, you name it, they’re always totally the ‘lads’. And, as already mentioned, the author’s writing style totally flows - it’s just so easy to read, seemingly without effort and I’m sure that’s a million miles from the reality of Lizzie’work, but she speaks to me on a level I’m very comfortable with. In fact it’s almost like spending an evening with an old friend, someone I'm completely at ease with - I have complete faith in her writing and know it won't let me down. And so by the time I get to the end of a Lizzie story, like this one, I'm left feeling happy and satisfied, at one with the world.

I adore it to pieces, really!

There are our lads, and they´re older and more settled, kinda, but still so much fun. Or maybe because. And I love her Marge, though I´m usually not very fond of her. But here - Great!

I was afraid she´d drift into a case with the story, though it started out like not. And stayed that way!! I was very pleased!

Then the story makes a fast turn, that was hard. I think it´s a bit exaggerated with Bodie´s injuries. But then that´s something that happens in so many stories: It´s needed to conclude the whole thing. And I just love her conclusion!

All in all I enjoyed this read A LOT!!

She goes from zero to twohundred in less then a heartbeat.

Everythings so nice and quiet and they are almost retired and already share so much, and suddenly all that´s gone, Bodie´s running, and I think that´s what bothers me most. That he´s leaving totally. With everything he´s got. That´s just so unlike him in this story, and really, even Doyle going to help Marge at this evening, Bodie´s so transfixed with him, I just can´t picture him running off like that. And then he get´s beaten up just exactly soooo badly, that Doyle has to help him in all the humiliating ways there are. But then they already helped each other around their different and many injuries which most probably made things like the bum wiping and stuff already necessary. If even because of exhaustion or even broken ribs, which they most certainly suffered from time to time, and where hey needed such help before?!?

And I really like these parts, her talking about the real thing very much.

I just can´t picture him running off like that

Ah, okay - yeah, that's a device that's been used soooo many times that it drives me a bit batty too. I can forgive it if the rest of the story's completely right for me though, which this is, so I do... *g* I can see it in this case too, mind - we do see Bodie sort of hedging around what he wants, and we see the build up to his big hope of finally getting it all out in the open, and we see Marge encroaching more and more on his time with Doyle, so I can see him thinking "that's the final straw, fuck it" and going off in frustration. But going off in frustration, not running away...

I do know what you mean though - so many stories seem to use one of them running away as an excuse for them separating and then being all angsty and desperate to find each other/get into trouble etc, that you can't believe them all. (I was saying somewhere else that when people copy things like that, it seems very harsh on the first person to have written it - they get lumped in with the bored-with-that-scenario-now stories!) And it gets tangled with bad characterisation often too - which I don't think Lizzie's story has at all - so that the whole thing just falls apart... Like you, I can't see many real occasions for either of them to run away, and we don't see that in the eps at all. They go off doing their own thing now and then, but they don't run away...

I really enjoyed this story, and it's one of my 'return to for comfort' favourites. I like the effortless balancing of the banter with the deeper lack of understanding between the lads, and the eventual resolution. I loved the drunken Doyle - I particularly like how she describes it from a third-person standpoint, which - by the time you get to that stage - rings true for me, it's as though these odd things are happening to someone else.

I was a bit worried about Marge's inclusion. I could take her for the one episode, but she has turned up a few times in fic recently and I could probably do without her, if the truth be told. However, she has matured a bit here and shows a surprising empathy and understanding.

The ending was a bit too easy for me, but I can forgive that. I absolutely loved the hurt/comfort bits, and I appreciated the um... more basic problem that was encountered, and how it was dealt with. As Marge says, true love!

I love Marge, so I was disposed to like this from the start...and then it lived up to expectations. I loved how she chose to deal with the very unglamorous reality of Bodie's injuries - it really showed up the depth of B & D's relationship.

This is one of my favourite Marge story and one that I re-read often. I loved the way that Lizzie has written Marge so that she is an intricate part of the story, and that even though the main plot is about the development of the relationship between Bodie and Doyle, she doesn't become a forgotten character but instead remains a true friend to Doyle.

Yes! She's not just thrown into the story for the lads to react to, she's actually a real person whose life is going on at the same time as the lads' lives! I think lots of writers sort of use their minor characters, rather than making them real people, and one of Lizzie's skills is that her characters are all real people... *g*