The Path Not Taken (Professionals story)
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Path Not Taken |
| Author(s): | Meridian |
| Date(s): | 2000 |
| Length: | |
| Genre(s): | slash |
| Fandom(s): | The Professionals |
| Relationship(s): | Bodie/Doyle |
| External Links: | online here |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Path Not Taken is a Bodie/Doyle Professionals story by Meridian.
It was published in Priority A-3 #2 and is online.
Reactions and Reviews
I haven’t read this before or anything by Meridian. I enjoyed it well enough, but… well, it ends a bit limply, with Christmas, and ‘Scrooge’ is my middle name. *g*It’s the classic gay undercover scenario, the lads must pose as lovers to flush out a villain, and not the usual blackmailer but one who is murdering prominent public figures in gay relationships. But Bodie and Doyle are not prominent public figures, you object. Meridian deals with that by adding 10 years or so of career success to canon. The lads are in their mid-40s, Doyle never joined CI5 when Cowley invited him and has made Detective Chief Inspector. Bodie is ‘Deputy Controller’ of CI5, but still active in the field....
Apart from a bit of Bodie/Cowley titillation, this exchange is an example of the strength of this fic – the tension between what people admit, to others and to themselves, and their true feelings. The quote at the top is the essence of it (so much that I didn’t even notice the ungrammatical ‘lay’ until just now.)
The plot about the murders is rather inconsequential, imho. The story completely focusses on the B/D relationship – as it should be. Thanks to Meridian’s AU device, the relationship begins abrasively, on a personal level, from a professional acquaintance that is mutually respectful but not warm – Bodie gets up Doyle’s nose at every turn. Added to that is some rivalry between the Met and CI5. Perhaps this is especially Doyle’s problem – he often compares CI5 with the Met, finally sometimes finding CI5 the more attractive organisation, despite his distaste on principle – ‘the ends do not always justify the means’. But then, he is being forced to reassess much about his life up to this point.
For me, the tentative developments of their feelings for each other worked well, with alternating pov – falling for each other, but not trusting the other to follow through, each hardens himself outwardly for the end that must come, when the op is over... [1]
I've not read much Meridian either, but I'm afraid this story hasn't sent me running to make up that deficiency, because it just didn't work for me at all. As you say there's not really a plot, more a series of excuses for the lads to get together in certain ways, hanging loosely around the "gay undercover" theme - and worse still, those excuses are explained to me rather than shown, just as their backstories are explained, and how they're feeling and what they're thinking. I didn't even have a sense that they were falling in love, I couldn't see it or feel it from the way this was written. I could see what I was told was happening - but there was nothing to make me believe it.I also don't believe the situation - the lads are both so high profile that they're ideal blackmail material, and yet Doyle expected to turn up in a gay club and pass as an unknown, random gay bloke? We know from the eps that he's verging on double-think, I'm sure he would have realised that just turning up would never work! And he's surprised that Bodie got into CI5 without a formal school education? That doesn't fit with the era at all - if Bodie'd been in the army, the SAS and so on, then his school qualifications wouldn't have been an issue by the time he got to CI5. Bodie, Deputy head of CI5, didn't know that Doyle had represented Scotland Yard in shooting championships, let alone won them? Etc, etc. So much just didn't ring true, either in their reactions to things or their apparent backgrounds.
Grammar and American speech patterns - blargh. "Doyle likely knew something about him..." - "Damned straight." - "I could care less"... *headdesk* This was written in 2000, not the wilds of the 1990s...
I felt rather as if the author wanted to write a story about the lads being gay undercover, came up with a reason they might go undercover, and then generally wrote around that reason to pass through various fandom/fic cliches to make a story. I do think you can repeat a plot over and again, and it can be made interesting because we see a different view of the world each time - we're seeing it through the author - but I didn't feel as if Meridian had given us anything of herself at all, there was no there there, as they say... [2]
I like to read this fic when I have nothing else to read, and I feel in the mood for some gay-men-angst-undercover-love, but other than that... I don't know. It's a good fic, I guess. <3 [3]
I liked the reluctance to admit to the attraction and the way the undercover-as-gay aspect was built up. But like byslantedlight I didn't quite believe the story. We didn't even get enough information about the villain to know what they were up against, and why it was necessary for anyone to pretend to be gay. I wasn't quite convinced about them having to have sex, fake or otherwise. I felt as if we were never given full explanations of anything. I was also irritated by the Americanisms - they really do shake the Brit reader of a story with Brit characters in London, especially when the story isn't wholly absorbing. So I enjoyed the slow development of the relationship and the slight AUness of it all but was never completely hooked. I wouldn't go out of my way to look for the writer again, but if someone recced one of her stories I might read it. [4]
.I'm always wary of AUs, particularly those where one of them is in CI5 while the other isn't. I think it's because any mis-characterization of Bodie or Doyle becomes even more glaring in such a setting. My question for such AUs is, how is the character written to be in CI5 still the same as his original TV self if he was never partnered up with the other? At least in AUs like historical ones, sci-fi and fantasy, the entire world is different so you know you're in for major differences. I think the partnership between Bodie and Doyle plays a huge role in shaping them into who they are, so if the AU is like the one in this story, the characters would have be seriously spot-on to convince me of the story's believability. [5]
Look at the title - you could read this a whole story about Doyle's decision not to accept Cowley's invitation to join CI5 back in 1975(ish). He got on well in the Met, made a career and seems to have made his work his life, which is quite plausible for Doyle. But, destiny is destiny - he still manages to get together with Bodie! [6]
I enjoyed this story.... the last scene is one of my favorites in all Pro's fics. "You're going to let me leave, aren't you?" Doyle's couldn't control the trembling in the words or the shaking in his hands. It gets me every time. I took the comment about Bodie's lack of education as a "snarky-doylism". It was meant as an insult more than an actual question. As for AU, most of Pro's fiction is a kind of AU, isn't it? Especially the slash. *g* Just a thought! [7]
When I first read this story, at least a year ago, I enjoyed it on a simple level as a love story but didn't feel it was the lads. To me it is not about the lads I know and love but about two other characters. [8]
Nice, but not quite Pros!! [9]
Why this must be read:This story explores the what if Doyle had never left the Met possibilities. How would he have met Bodie? I love the different yet the same personalities. This is in my gem pile. Give it a shot.[10]