That Look
| Bodie/Doyle Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | That Look |
| Author(s): | Amanda Warrington |
| Date(s): | 1999 |
| Length: | |
| Genre: | slash |
| Fandom: | The Professionals |
| External Links: | online here |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
That Look is a Bodie/Doyle story written by Amamda Warrington.
It was originally published in Living Pros and is online.
Reactions and Reviews
This is a sweet, gentle story which I feel great affection for every time I read it. Through Doyle's eyes we are introduced to the enigma that is 'soldier', the man who helps save Doyle's life and who Doyle - in his vulnerable state in a foreign land - becomes in turn emotionally attached to, then fascinated by this man of mystery. This is a nice long story (in two chapters) which I really enjoyed. It has two main elements - a tense mid-air hijack, and Doyle battling with his conflicted feelings for Bodie. The first chapter deals with the build up to the action, both at the airport and on the aircraft, followed by the hijack; chapter two covers the aftermath and the resolution (in sumptuous, royal surroundings!) of Doyle's dilemma. So yes, there's exposition, there's plot, there's high drama, a smidge of h/c, and both unresolved and resolved sexual tension! Pretty much the whole package really :DThe "that look" of the title refers to something Doyle has observed about his partner: "It was a hunter's predatory look, one which he saw Bodie bestow upon women he wanted to bed."
We open with the lads driving to Heathrow in thick fog, and yay! a reference to the Chiswick flyover (which, even if I can't quite see it from my house, I can often hear it...) Doyle's thoughts with regards to Bodie seem to be a bit fogged up too, so we're hoping for some more clarity all round.
They're on their way to catch a flight to Jordan (which it turns out Bodie knows aaaaalll about, even though he hasn't told Doyle any of it). The plan is to pick up a bloke being extradited to the UK, but the bloke, and the extradition, are mere functions of the wider plot. After some fog-related problems they have to change planes and learn that the King of Jordan's son will be on their flight. Uh-oh jumbo.... But still, the lads get to sit in the cock-pit for take-off (which is a lovely scene), as it turns out the First Officer is an old SAS oppo of Bodie's.
The author seems to have plenty of knowledge of commercial aircraft and airports, their flight and safety procedures, the lingo, the construction of passenger aircraft, and even minute details of the decor inside Business Class. Coo! While on the one hand this kind of detail is clearly very useful for when the hijack goes down and is foiled, it does have the effect of making parts of the narrative a little... stodgy? However, given that built-in inevitablity I think it's handled pretty well. And on the plus side I learned quite a bit which is all to the good!
Our Bodie, of course, has done hijack training; he knows all about Jordan too and has to "educate" Doyle, who apparently finds himself "struggling to remember details from the information updates the squad members were routinely provided with about Middle Eastern politics and terrorist groups." Hmm. I realise it's a technique to provide the reader with the requisite background info via Bodie's exposition to Doyle, but I tend to think our lads would always be up to date on that kind of stuff, else they'd be out on their ear. However, I suspect this might be reflected in canon too where they're required to ask questions or get information on things you think they'd probably know about already, just so's the viewer will have the right background. Anyway, Bodie is characteristically tight-lipped about his time in Jordan, and provocatively flirtatious with a good-looking air steward, arousing both Doyle's resent (at being shut out) and jealousy. It's revealed that men are "usually" Bodie's type, but that Doyle, who mostly likes women, occasionally gets an urge for male sex. Oh, and Doyle has long fancied the pants off Bodie.
I quite enjoyed the way the lads' true feelings for one another are revealed during the rather inconvenient moment of a tristar aircraft being hijacked and forced into a crash landing in the snow. And heh, the announcement that the hijackers are the "Palestinian Freedom Movement" made me think Life of Brian... "We're the People's Front of Judea!"
Once all the shooting is over and our lads have saved the day (and the Prince!), the second knotty problem has to be solved, one which keeps Doyle awake in a long moment of introspection in the King's palace where they are afforded a free holiday.
"As far as the job was concerned, the big question was could they still work effectively as a team or would becoming lovers affect their synergy?"
Ah, there we have it. While Doyle is cogitating on this we get a fair bit of backstory on the lad which is nice as it balances out the characterisations. Like the technical stuff it's very necessary but it also slightly has the effect of weighing the narrative down right when we might be hoping to get things sorted out between them (ie into bed). Not surprisingly, given the detail-heavy plot and Doyle's midnight meanderings of the mind, the sex (when they finally get to it) is what you might call blow by blow. Not my personal favourite but perhaps quite satisfying after the long lead-in.
All in all, a very enjoyable, "love conquers all" romp of a read, one of those stories which, for our lovely lads, ends at the beginning. [1]
I'd not read this before, and I did like the story of it - the lads on the hijacked plane (yet another busman's holiday, even if they had been on another job for Cowley at the time!), and meeting up with one of Bodie's old mates. I struggled a bit with the execution of it though, mostly for the reasons you've mentioned.The author seems to have plenty of knowledge of commercial aircraft and airports, their flight and safety procedures, the lingo, the construction of passenger aircraft... Yeah, doesn't she though... and this really didn't work for me, I'm afraid! I ended up thinking more about the author than I was about the story, and wondering how she knew it, whether she'd worked in an airline or just found a good book with pictures, and why in the world she had to tell us when it didn't affect what was going on at all... There was one part, for instance, when the lads noticed that one of the flight crew was probably too big to get through the escape hatch in the event of an emergency, and I thought ooh, upcoming plot device here? - but it wasn't at all, it didn't come to anything, even though I was then waiting for something to happen. For me this was a really good example of the author trying to cram in how much she knew at the expense of the story itself.
I wasn't keen on the characterisation of our lads either - Doyle was a bit too much the ingenue to Bodie's worldly, experienced, ex-SAS hero-type. I mean, Doyle couldn't work out how to put his own seatbelt on properly? He worried about killing someone in cold blood, after he'd been with CI5 for a year? (And the implication was that Bodie's past meant he had killed in cold blood before, but is that necessarily true? I'm not sure that mercenaries, the SAS or paras are encouraged to do so any more than CI5 agents... to be worked up about danger until they can easily kill yes, but that's just as hot-blooded as CI5.) Doyle's very given to giggling and "laughing silently" at inappropriate moments too - not that the Doyle I see doesn't have a sense of humour, but I really can't see him giggling away in a hijack situation, or when he's on an op with Bodie, or supposed to be hiding from real danger... Or at the things the author had him giggling at!
Connected with Doyle's gigglishness - would he really have been concentrating so much on his relationship with Bodie during the hijack itself? And I know the idea was that they might die and never have another chance, but sex under the circumstances they'd been put under didn't seem all that likely either... I think I could have been convinced, but somehow I wasn't... Too much explanation of things perhaps, at the expense of building up true intimacy between them (rather than just saying out loud that they were in love with each other etc). Oh, and good recovery time when the deed had been done, too - "a few minutes" later they were all concentrating on the hijackers again...
...which they didn't seem to do at all whilst things were going on, on the plane. Again, I know they might have been keeping their heads down and waiting for an opportunity, but it didn't feel like that to me...
Finally (well, probably not, you know I can be picky for England *g*) - what in the world was the whole PFM thing that Doyle found so funny? I didn't get that at all! I tried googling, and the only thing that seemed to fit was Pure Fucking Magic, U.S. military slang to describe how weapon systems that are based on difficult to understand scientific principles operate because Doyle asks didn't Bodie ever come across that in the army. But...? I just can't see Doyle being so amused by that - and actually if I was a terrorist I'd probably think that was quite a good alternative acronym, considering - a good coincidence, and a good sign! Or am I missing something really obvious?
So... yeah... not on my re-read list, I'm afraid... Thanks for the review though, I wouldn't have read it once without that, and stories should be read once! *g* [2]
Yes I expected to be more irritated with all the masses of detail than I was. I read a lot of historical fiction and can't stand the ones that are drowned in clever-clever detail. Somehow I was very tolerant of all the plane-y blurb, even though I'm not at all interested in planes. I'm more interested in the security stuff so I liked that more. And I thought there was enough story going on for it to almost balance out a bit. Almost *g*Hee to Doyle's uncontrolled giggling! I agree he was rather the passive foil to Bodie's heroism, but again I found myself tolerant enough of Bodie's heroism to be quite forgiving :) Apart from Doyle not knowing about the stuff he's supposed to know about *headdesk*. And the PFM thing seemed to be something that amused the author really, more than anything else. Doyle tells Bodie what it stands for doesn't he... the Pure Fuckin' Magic thing? I thought that was in the narrative.
Anyway, I'm not sure I liked it enough for it to qualify as a keeper, but I did enjoy it. Perhaps I enjoyed it because I was reviewing it - that's a possibility! Hmmm I wonder whether anyone else has suffered from that syndrome... [3]
I like the story! It's different and as you said has all necessary ingredients.Surely it's not perfect, but I was never bored, and that means something!
And normally I'm not too much interested in details but here it was mostly interesting. For example the scene in the cockpit was nicely decoratet with Bodie's friend and some revelations of his past, so it wasn't at all just school knowledge we learned.
And why shouldn't there be an opportunity where Bodie is the expert and Doyle happily accepts it? [4]
And why shouldn't there be an opportunity where Bodie is the expert and Doyle happily accepts it?As in Blue Skies, by Maggie Hall, where it worked well. But in That Look it's not that Bodie's the expert, but that Doyle doesn't seem to know how to do his job with CI5 properly, that's the problem for me! Couple that with the whole list of things where Bodie is more clever than Doyle, right from the start:
- Bodie knows about Jordan and Doyle's vaguely read a briefing paper but doesn't remember it
- Bodie's clever enough to bring brightly coloured luggage
- Bodie's the one who knows they can get to the plane through the VIP lounge they're in, Doyle doesn't, for some reason
- Doyle apparently feels he can't "intimidate" anyone as well as Bodie can, because Bodie's so much bigger (what? We see Doyle intimidating plenty of people in canon!)
- Bodie's the one who knows all about planes etc via the SAS (fair enough, specialised knowledge)
- Bodie's the one who knows about the king of Jordan (Doyle doesn't, when they're going there? And even otherwise? Jordan's not an obscure country, especially at that time!)
- Doyle hasn't worked out the plane exits as well as Bodie has (and he's a CI5 agent - we see him do it in eps)
- Doyle needs Bodie to tell him how difficult it would be to escape from a damaged plane/in smoke etc (Really?)
- Then Bodie's friends with the captain etc, whilst Doyle "winces" at the strength of a handshake
- Doyle needs Bodie to fasten his seatbelt properly for him
...and the plane's not even taken off yet!
The plot was based on Bodie's past, so it's natural he should know some things that Doyle doesn't (just as Doyle would, based on his own background) but it's the things that Doyle didn't know or do that annoyed me - he seemed to rely on Bodie for almost everything, he wasn't nearly as observant as we see him in the episodes, and it's assumed that he knows nothing about several things that are really just general knowledge, never mind if you worked in a field where it's important you're up to date with current/foreign affairs - and again, we see that Doyle is in the eps! Whereas Bodie's shown to be very knowledgeable and proactive when they get a chance to do something, Doyle seems to woffle around, wondering whether he should do this or that, and thinking about how he can't possibly do it as well as SAS-Bodie... that's just not the confident (and often impetuous) Doyle-character I see in Pros! [5]
Bodie never appears 'clever' to me, just more experienced this time and he is never patronizing." - Bodie knows about Jordan and Doyle's vaguely read a briefing paper but doesn't remember it" Surely you know more about a country you once visited. And you're more interested in details.
" - Bodie's clever enough to bring brightly coloured luggage" If you travel a lot, you know such little tricks. " - Bodie's the one who knows they can get to the plane through the VIP lounge they're in, Doyle doesn't, for some reason" Doyle has "been out for a couple of hours", so Bodie had time to look around. (And Doyle was a bit confused about his hard-on... ;-))
" - Doyle apparently feels he can't "intimidate" anyone as well as Bodie can, because Bodie's so much bigger (what? We see Doyle intimidating plenty of people in canon!)" But that was through Doyle's eyes – and he… well ' worships' Bodie a bit. ;-)
" - Bodie's the one who knows all about planes etc via the SAS (fair enough, specialised knowledge)" Right.
" - Bodie's the one who knows about the king of Jordan (Doyle doesn't, when they're going there? And even otherwise? Jordan's not an obscure country, especially at that time!)" The job has not much to do with the king. And Bodie has once trained his bodyguards.
" - Doyle hasn't worked out the plane exits as well as Bodie has (and he's a CI5 agent - we see him do it in eps)" It's just a flight. They are not yet on the job. And what Bodie does is just his training.
" - Doyle needs Bodie to tell him how difficult it would be to escape from a damaged plane/in smoke etc (Really?)" There ARE special surrounding conditions in a plane. You can't compare it to anything Doyle is trained for. Of course he would adapt quickly, but how should he know things in advance?
" - Then Bodie's friends with the captain etc, whilst Doyle "winces" at the strength of a handshake" Well…
" - Doyle needs Bodie to fasten his seatbelt properly for him"
I think you defend a Doyle who really doesn't need it! And he himself would be quite surprised that you think he "…doesn't seem to know how to do his job with CI5 properly"!!! [6]
- grins* Wasn't that a nice opportunity to make a pass at Doyle? ;-)
The lads have been sent to Jordan to escort a prisoner back - they're working. I'd be very surprised if Doyle hadn't taken the time to find out more about the country, even if he didn't already know about it. And I think that's more my point - Jordan's not an obscure little country that's politically unimportant and that no one's heard of (as Morani is supposed to be in the eps, for instance), it was at the heart of alot of Arab politics at the time. In the eps we see that Doyle has a good working knowledge of current affairs and politics - so why wouldn't he know about Jordan? It doesn't make sense to me, so it makes him seem out of character.I also find it difficult to believe that Doyle's not been through any kind of disaster training, as a member of CI5. Even I've been through training about what to do in a plane crash, for one of my jobs! And Bodie's explanation about crawling through the plane in smoke is pretty common sense anyway - again, not something canon-Doyle seems short of.
The idea that Bodie would check exits when he's not yet on the job, but that Doyle wouldn't seems unlikely to me too. If anything, its Bodie who seems less alert in canon, more inclined to relax and enjoy himself when he can. They've both been trained by CI5, and we see in Mixed Doubles, for instance, that they're both perfectly capable of counting exits etc!
Bodie's knowledge and professionalism about things in the story can be justified - it's Doyle's apparent lack of knowledge and professionalism is what I find out of character... [7]
I agree with a fair bit of what you say, that maybe Doyle is a little more unsure of himself during this story just because of his state of mind re Bodie. And that we're seeing the 'heroic' Bodie through his eyes. But I also think the kind of competent, CI5 Doyle I know and love would be well aware of things like emergency exits and how to escape from a damaged... well, anything! He wouldn't have had that training in the Met but he surely would have had it for CI5? Never mind his own instincts and common sense. And that although Bodie has had direct experience of Jordan, Doyle wouldn't hand-wave away the details of a briefing about anywhere, because lives could depend on it, theirs and other people's. I still enjoyed the story overall though. The author set themselves quite a challenge with all that heavy action and relationship stuff going on :D I felt myself "in" the story along with B&D all the way, so kudos to her/him for that! [8]
Thanks for a great introduction to this story! I find reading long stories difficult on a computer screen, and I was fairly lukewarm about this story when I read it online in a web browser a couple of years ago. Since then I have acquired a Kindle, and I enjoyed reading it much more on that.And I enjoyed re-reading it again this week. I see some comment already about the huge amount of technical detail and description, but a lot of that did really help me. In fact, my only quibble with it is that I did still get confused initially with the layout of the plane and where the cabin and the galley and the luggage area and the hatch(es) were in relation to each other and I could have done with even more explanations on that! Failing that, a little 3D model or something. Ahem. I got the impression the author knew what she was talking about (confirmed by her authors' notes on AO3 - linky), which made some of the throwaway lines (eg, "Nah, SAS anti-hijack training. It's amazing what you remember," he said sardonically. "We used to come up here every few months and spend a few hours at the crew training centre learning how to operate the doors. Then we'd lock ourselves in one of their hangars and play on the real thing." A distant smile lit his lips as he added, "Used to bring our own ambulance …") quite intriguing, too. The conversations convinced me. I felt I now knew how flight crew interact when they're not in earshot of passengers.
I found the sheer idea that you could get from the cabin out of the plane via such routes quite amazing. I am so naïve.
I also loved the cockpit scene. And the flirting with the air steward, which foreshadows next week's story brilliantly! And "we're going to die, so I'm going to tell you how I feel", yay. I really enjoyed the action adventure elements and the plot. It's an unusual setting - we had trouble thinking of many 'flying lads' stories at all. And it's a good plot which progresses logically. I am incapable of writing such a beast, so I recognise it when someone else does it :)
What I had more trouble with was the emotional side, and Doyle's "I only do one-night stands with men" philosophy. Why can't he just have the bloody one-night stand, then? Come on, Doyle, get your act together! And his stubborn thinking it through, I suppose that's quite Doyle-ish, really, but I wanted to shake him. I personally don't really tend to imagine them using the terminology of love. I think what they will be aware of feeling for each other is sexual attraction, and that ought to be enough for them to start assessing what's going on. I imagine them as likely to thrash "what the hell are we doing and what are the consequences?" out only with extreme reluctance, doing it because they need to be sure they're on the same wavelength, and then only ever referring to it with vague 70s Man-style, "You know... what we said that time." "Yeah." "That." "Right." And there was a lot of talk (or thinking) about love in the final section, so I preferred the first parts.
But I enjoyed it, and it's staying on the Kindle. [9]
I read this story a couple of years back and I actually quite enjoyed it. I will confess I have near to no knowledge about aircraft or flight safety measures, so all that technical lingo went over my head a bit, but that's my fault for not being more well travelled. lol :D I agree with you that the story does have a small tendency to drag it's feet and the author does repeat Doyle's thoughts and feelings about male/male relationships about 3 times IIRC, which I don't really think needs to be repeated. Other than that though, I enjoyed this story as much as I did the first time I read it. :) [10]
I haven't re-read this story recently, but have read the comments which reminded me of my vaguely unsatisfied feeling. A good story with a good plot. The detail-heavy element did irritate me and I just couldn't see the boys having a quickie in those conditions. Would you really go from an apparent unrequited love to a mutual masturbation in a matter of minutes ... and then as BSL pointed out, the next moment back to professional crime fighter? Didn't anyone notice the wet patches? lol!! I enjoyed the story because of the ending - I too like luxurious living and was glad the boys were appreciated - but I won't be reading it again.[11]