Welcome to the Jungle

Bodie/Doyle Fanfiction
Title:	Welcome to the Jungle
Author(s):	Jennifer Lyon
Date(s):	1997 zine fic, 2004 (archived online)
Length:	69K
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	The Professionals
External Links:	online here
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Welcome to the Jungle is a Professionals slash story by Jennifer Lyon. Pairings: Bodie/Doyle.

The story first appeared in the print zine Virtual Pros in 1997. Because the stories in Virtual Pros had been also released on the CI5 mailing list, the story won a Huggy Award for Best Drama Pros Circuit story at Zebra Con, 1997.

Summaries

In 2000, two fans Cassie Ingaben and Dagger compiled an index of many of the circuit stories. They also wrote brief summaries:

"Cassie: G. Mathers is narrator. B&D have to save and protect her from German terrorists. She goes weak, meek, and adoring."

Reactions and Reviews

"...is a story you're not soon going to forget. I know I didn't. It's Bodie and Doyle seen through the eyes of a third party."

"This story can be found at The Circuit Archive and on the CD, is written as a sequel to the episode The Rack and is narrated from the point of view of our old friend, Geraldine Mather. Apart from the fact that the story is so well written – exciting, well-paced and fast moving - I’ve admired it for a very long time because I love her charactisation of Bodie - 'The Panther' - and the following quote is one of the best examples of what I mean:

"The panther. William Andrew Phillip Bodie. Here were masks beneath masks, a changeability that far overreached his partner's mercurial shifts of temperament. Layers upon layers of personality, all wielded together with fire and brimstone, tested in the molten steel of the African jungle, tried by the most demanding sections of the British military. A capability to kill? Yes and yes again, with the dispassionate ruthlessness of the professional soldier. A machine built and trained to move at the snap of finger or the shout of an order. But where, then, was the man beneath the mercenary? I'd felt the heat of his body against mine, tasted his sweat, fell asleep to the steady beat of his heart. But that didn't tell me about the man beneath the surface - the human being who thought and questioned, felt and loved, hurt and wondered. The gentle protectiveness shown to me earlier suggested that he existed...but how much of that was real? How much of any of this was real? I didn't know anymore."

I really think this is one of the very best summings-up of Bad, Beautiful, Bodie - *my* Bodie - that I’ve come across and it’s how I like to see him portrayed. The writer draws upon his mercenary side: that’s he’s ‘dark’, threatening, ruthless and (almost) totally committed to his job. (Doyle is the one exception to this rule). And yet at the same time she also manages to describe perfectly the aspects of his character which I find the most compelling: that he’s a complicated, multilayered character and, arguably, the complications are much more subtle and therefore more interesting than those of his more *obviously* complicated and ‘mercurial’ partner, Doyle. And even if you don’t share my opinion of the deeper side to Bodie’s character, the excellent writing in this story might convince you!"

"I never thought I'd have a non-slash story as a favourite, but this one proves me utterly (and happily) wrong! g

I completely agree about the author's Bodie: he is exactly as I see him, and completely magnificent!

The wonderful irony of GM now needing CI5 to protect her life, is complete genius.

The story blows me away and leaves me quite breathless (Oh, what I wouldn't give to be a terrorist target and rescued by Bodie!*g*), fantastically written, so you feel every moment as it happens."

In the principle, I wanted to rec authors as various as possible and preferably some who have not be already mentioned but I realised that the genuine action stories are not so many in the, yet, huge treasure of "The Professionals" fictions. Or maybe I couldn't find them in the two main archives. So, there is another story from Jennifer Lyon, who was my first choice for this month but you won't be disappointed for this story, which won a, well deserved, award is one of the most original and elegantly written work on my list of favourites for this category.

The story is a sequel to the episode "The Rack," though it is meant to take place a couple years after the events of that episode. And its originality is its point of view: this first person narrative is told by the implacable prosecutor who confronts Georges Cowley in the above mentioned episode and strives with such passion to destroy CI5 and its controller.

Here, Mrs Mathers, who has been obliged, quite against her will, to accept the protection of CI5, has lost nothing of her hostility, stubbornness or prejudices. At least at the beginning. But, as the situation developed, more and more dramatically, and while she is held in tight custody in a safe house, watched day and night for her own good by the very men she had so much despised and opposed two years ago, sharing somehow their intimacy, her previous vision slowly changes, broadens, gets eventually almost turned upside down, thus threatening her psychological balance and her very position in a, suddenly, unfamiliar and frightening world.

And through her eyes, we see what is maybe the most shocking for her: the inner, living reality of a true partnership.

This is one of my favorite fics ever, any fandom. Which surprises even myself, because of the outside narrator voice. But it's just absolutely lovely writing, a slow but inexorable character change/realization, and a spot on view of Bodie and Doyle, and what they are to each other. Which is everything. Looking forward to reading it again.

Geraldine Mather's life is at risk, and ironically enough it is CI5 that are set to guarding it. The story is told from her point of view, so that we see our lads from a whole different perspective.