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crack_van2005-02-09 05:34 pm
justacat.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2005-02-09 05:34 pm
Entry tags:
Join the Queue by Lizzie (PG)
Fandom: THE PROFESSIONALS
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
caffyolay
Author Website: None
Why this must be read:
Lizzie is a newer, and still active, Pros writer. She's perhaps better known for her longer (and often deliciously smutty) AUs, particularly A Birdwatcher's Guide to Cornish Ghosts and its sequels - and I'm especially fond of her AU The Temple of Venus myself.
I've decided, however, to forego those for the moment and recommend instead Join the Queue, a small, unassuming, entirely smutless CI5-universe story, because it is so utterly, disarmingly charming. The premise is simple: Bodie spends his morning waiting in the pre-Christmas lines at the post office to send a package - Ray's package, which he thrust at Bodie earlier that morning with the rather peremptory request that Bodie "pop down to the Post Office with this, will you?" Bodie patiently endures the wait, the screaming children in the line, the brusqueness and impatience of the woman behind the window; he dutifully pays for the stamps, fills out the customs form, and posts the package - without ever seeming bothered by (or even aware of) Doyle's presumptuousness, and without ever questioning his own acquiescence to the imposition, his immediate willingness to do as Ray asks. He's entirely oblivious to the implications of his actions - not to mention the rather pointed hints Doyle has apparently been dropping regarding Doyle's own feelings.
Doyle isn't oblivious, though; he's quite aware that Bodie will do anything for him, and in the staffroom later that day (in an exchange that is so wonderfully characteristic of them; the banter rings entirely true), he finally confronts Bodie with this fact - and discloses his own feelings. Bodie reacts first with confusion, then with stunned disbelief, and finally with irrepressible joy.
It's thoroughly delightful, a feel-good story of the best kind. Bodie's devotion to Ray is so apparent from his actions, his utter cluelessness so endearing, and his road-to-Damascus epiphany about the meaning of Doyle's "dopey" looks so satisfyingly heartwarming that your heart melts right along with Bodie's when Ray finally manages to get through to him. The author conveys all of this with skillful restraint, showing us everything without ever saying too much - a wonderful example of how less can sometimes be so much more.
Join the Queue
(Originally published in the letterzine Discovered in a Letterbox 20, Winter 2001)
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Author on LJ:
caffyolayAuthor Website: None
Why this must be read:
Lizzie is a newer, and still active, Pros writer. She's perhaps better known for her longer (and often deliciously smutty) AUs, particularly A Birdwatcher's Guide to Cornish Ghosts and its sequels - and I'm especially fond of her AU The Temple of Venus myself.
I've decided, however, to forego those for the moment and recommend instead Join the Queue, a small, unassuming, entirely smutless CI5-universe story, because it is so utterly, disarmingly charming. The premise is simple: Bodie spends his morning waiting in the pre-Christmas lines at the post office to send a package - Ray's package, which he thrust at Bodie earlier that morning with the rather peremptory request that Bodie "pop down to the Post Office with this, will you?" Bodie patiently endures the wait, the screaming children in the line, the brusqueness and impatience of the woman behind the window; he dutifully pays for the stamps, fills out the customs form, and posts the package - without ever seeming bothered by (or even aware of) Doyle's presumptuousness, and without ever questioning his own acquiescence to the imposition, his immediate willingness to do as Ray asks. He's entirely oblivious to the implications of his actions - not to mention the rather pointed hints Doyle has apparently been dropping regarding Doyle's own feelings.
Doyle isn't oblivious, though; he's quite aware that Bodie will do anything for him, and in the staffroom later that day (in an exchange that is so wonderfully characteristic of them; the banter rings entirely true), he finally confronts Bodie with this fact - and discloses his own feelings. Bodie reacts first with confusion, then with stunned disbelief, and finally with irrepressible joy.
It's thoroughly delightful, a feel-good story of the best kind. Bodie's devotion to Ray is so apparent from his actions, his utter cluelessness so endearing, and his road-to-Damascus epiphany about the meaning of Doyle's "dopey" looks so satisfyingly heartwarming that your heart melts right along with Bodie's when Ray finally manages to get through to him. The author conveys all of this with skillful restraint, showing us everything without ever saying too much - a wonderful example of how less can sometimes be so much more.
Join the Queue
(Originally published in the letterzine Discovered in a Letterbox 20, Winter 2001)