Reading Room Theme IV - Older Lads Fic - Devices and Desires by M. Fae Glasgow
Title: Devices and Desires
Author:M.Fae Glasgow
Link to story or zine/ProsLib info: at Oblique Publications or at the Circuit Archive.
Link to prequel - A Summer's Outing (Devices and Desires can be read on its own)
Pairing: B/D
I can't for the life of me remember who it was who said "I like this fic but I won't have a chance to rec it", but whoever it was, this post is for you! I hope it matches what you saw in the fic, at least a bit.
Devices and Desires is the sequel to A Summer's Outing, published in the same zine (...as a £3 note from Oblique Publications), and originally meant as a single, complete story. M.Fae Glasgow is not known for shying away from the harsh side of life, however, and in A Summer's Outing we see the lads on the verge of beginning a love affair, only for Cowley to blackmail them into outing themselves to ensure the security and long term future of CI5 and it's agents (including the lads). In many fics this would have hurried the lads along into bed and they would have woken starry-eyed to realise they each couldn't live without the other (perhaps with a misunderstanding or two along the way, depending on the length of the story). In Glasgow's bolder hands, however, this becomes a psychological tale of how such manipulation coupled with insecurities created by the mores of the time can tear people apart, and send them, as the editor's introduction said, "in dark directions".
But... *g*
...but Glasgow did not after all end her story there, she wrote Devices and Desires instead, which finds the lads again some ten years later. Doyle survived Mae Li without Bodie to save him, but has been sent because since then Doyle has been living as openly gay, a test-case for CI5, and proof that any good agent can live a life of discretion and security. But from the very beginning of Devices and Desires, Doyle is still trying to stop himself thinking about Bodie, because Bodie ran off and left him a long time ago.
Of course Bodie, it turns out, is on the cruise as well - something of a shock, as the reason he left was because he couldn't bear to be "outed", couldn't admit to himself that he was as gay as Doyle. In ten years though, things have changed.
Doyle: There was grey in his chest hair now... he'd never be fat... but his muscles had massed with the passing of the years, most of the fawn-like litheness disappearing beneath a layer of slender strength. Facing himself in the mirror he looked at all the lines and wrinkles that could tell his life story... Oh, there were laughter lines aplenty, but there was also the furrowing of his brow, the deeply delineated frown marks standing like soldiers between his eyebrows, the faint droop of his mouth. But most of all, there was that hollowness of his eyes he always found so depressing, for it reflected what was left when you subtracted his job."
Bodie: "There were lines on Bodie's face... Too much pain had lived on this face, with too little laughter and too much anger. Subtle changes, too, adding to the distortion caused by the wrinkling of skin that had once struck him as the most beautiful skin he'd ever seen. Jowls were beginning, minutely, faintly, but for the first time, one could see how Bodie would look as an old man... The body was still trim, but stolid now, settled down into the stubborn build of a rugby player, all solidity and power. The skin was still as white, still prone to sunburn, which was probably why Bodie was the only man on board this ship who wasn't exposing at least his legs to the sun."
The story follows them through the first awkwardness of meeting again ("...watching each other constantly, with a kind of morbid subterfuge, trying to find signs that the other had been missed, that life had been less worth living in the absence of the other"), and takes us on an even greater journey of bitter discovery: "He'd basically managed to never think about how Bodie'd felt, losing CI5 and Cowley, only going as far as comforting himself with the knowledge that if Bodie had really wanted it, he would have stayed and fought. Beside him, at his back, where they belonged together... He strangled that snakelike hope... There were too many years between them, and Bodie's marriage to consider... The one and only fact he'd ever asked Cowley for, the one and only fact that had cut him dead cold and buried any chances he thought he and Bodie might have had."
What I like about Glasgow's writing - and perhaps what some readers don't like - is that we feel every nuance of the lads' feelings as we read along. She doesn't just tell us that Doyle was angry, we share with him every stroke of movement as he tries to deal with it, every second of Doyle's breakneck rollercoaster thoughts, just as if they're our own and it's all happening to us. She doesn't write action packed stories, nor what Clemens would have scathingly called dialogue packed" stories - instead... I suppose she writes thought-packed stories - and thoughtful as well, because you can definitely have the one without the other. Her thoughts lead to our sharing the feeling of it all though, and that's what I want from stories - to feel them!
There are painful revelations about what life's been like for the lads, Bodie in particular, who had to cope with alcoholism inherited from his father on top of everything else - Glasgow doesn't forget that our families and our past influence what happens to us, as much as our choices and fears and hopes - and we feel Doyle's solid misery and painful hope all through the story too. She writes lads that exist and live and are influenced by the real world, and that's something else I love her writing for - though again I know it's not every fan's cup of tea.
In the end, though, we get to where we want to be - the lads properly together, talking to each other, understanding each other - accepting each other. And realising that of course it was Cowley yet again who's set them up, who arranged not only for Doyle to go on the cruise, but for Bodie, who'd long left CI5 and Cowley's sphere of influence, to receive not only an inheritance from a relative, but instructions to spend some of it on a holiday and coincidentally a brochure for a cruise through his letterbox... And here we are: "...Bodie was upon him, inarticulate noises coming from both of them, Doyle holding him tight while Bodie kissed the world away... There was nothing for him to be aware of, apart from Bodie; all his eyes could see, all his ears could hear, all his mouth could taste, was Bodie. It was better than it had ever been..." and all that yearning and sorrow and bittersweet hope has taken us somewhere wonderful after all. "If Cowley's devices had split them up, then their own desires would hold them together."
So... what do you want most from stories - to feel them, or to hear them, or to see them? Does Devices and Desires work for you, in that light?
What do you think of Glasgow's older lads here - physically, emotionally - do they ring true for you?
If you read the prequel as well, does Glasgow make you believe that's how the lads would have handled the situation with Cowley outing them - does it fit with what we see of them in the episodes? Might it have happened like that?
And does having our older lads together at last make up for them being torn asunder as young lads? Could they have found the same kind of love and life if Bodie had never left, or did we have to wait for things to work out?
What did you think? *g*
Author:M.Fae Glasgow
Link to story or zine/ProsLib info: at Oblique Publications or at the Circuit Archive.
Link to prequel - A Summer's Outing (Devices and Desires can be read on its own)
Pairing: B/D
I can't for the life of me remember who it was who said "I like this fic but I won't have a chance to rec it", but whoever it was, this post is for you! I hope it matches what you saw in the fic, at least a bit.
Devices and Desires is the sequel to A Summer's Outing, published in the same zine (...as a £3 note from Oblique Publications), and originally meant as a single, complete story. M.Fae Glasgow is not known for shying away from the harsh side of life, however, and in A Summer's Outing we see the lads on the verge of beginning a love affair, only for Cowley to blackmail them into outing themselves to ensure the security and long term future of CI5 and it's agents (including the lads). In many fics this would have hurried the lads along into bed and they would have woken starry-eyed to realise they each couldn't live without the other (perhaps with a misunderstanding or two along the way, depending on the length of the story). In Glasgow's bolder hands, however, this becomes a psychological tale of how such manipulation coupled with insecurities created by the mores of the time can tear people apart, and send them, as the editor's introduction said, "in dark directions".
But... *g*
...but Glasgow did not after all end her story there, she wrote Devices and Desires instead, which finds the lads again some ten years later. Doyle survived Mae Li without Bodie to save him, but has been sent because since then Doyle has been living as openly gay, a test-case for CI5, and proof that any good agent can live a life of discretion and security. But from the very beginning of Devices and Desires, Doyle is still trying to stop himself thinking about Bodie, because Bodie ran off and left him a long time ago.
Of course Bodie, it turns out, is on the cruise as well - something of a shock, as the reason he left was because he couldn't bear to be "outed", couldn't admit to himself that he was as gay as Doyle. In ten years though, things have changed.
Doyle: There was grey in his chest hair now... he'd never be fat... but his muscles had massed with the passing of the years, most of the fawn-like litheness disappearing beneath a layer of slender strength. Facing himself in the mirror he looked at all the lines and wrinkles that could tell his life story... Oh, there were laughter lines aplenty, but there was also the furrowing of his brow, the deeply delineated frown marks standing like soldiers between his eyebrows, the faint droop of his mouth. But most of all, there was that hollowness of his eyes he always found so depressing, for it reflected what was left when you subtracted his job."
Bodie: "There were lines on Bodie's face... Too much pain had lived on this face, with too little laughter and too much anger. Subtle changes, too, adding to the distortion caused by the wrinkling of skin that had once struck him as the most beautiful skin he'd ever seen. Jowls were beginning, minutely, faintly, but for the first time, one could see how Bodie would look as an old man... The body was still trim, but stolid now, settled down into the stubborn build of a rugby player, all solidity and power. The skin was still as white, still prone to sunburn, which was probably why Bodie was the only man on board this ship who wasn't exposing at least his legs to the sun."
The story follows them through the first awkwardness of meeting again ("...watching each other constantly, with a kind of morbid subterfuge, trying to find signs that the other had been missed, that life had been less worth living in the absence of the other"), and takes us on an even greater journey of bitter discovery: "He'd basically managed to never think about how Bodie'd felt, losing CI5 and Cowley, only going as far as comforting himself with the knowledge that if Bodie had really wanted it, he would have stayed and fought. Beside him, at his back, where they belonged together... He strangled that snakelike hope... There were too many years between them, and Bodie's marriage to consider... The one and only fact he'd ever asked Cowley for, the one and only fact that had cut him dead cold and buried any chances he thought he and Bodie might have had."
What I like about Glasgow's writing - and perhaps what some readers don't like - is that we feel every nuance of the lads' feelings as we read along. She doesn't just tell us that Doyle was angry, we share with him every stroke of movement as he tries to deal with it, every second of Doyle's breakneck rollercoaster thoughts, just as if they're our own and it's all happening to us. She doesn't write action packed stories, nor what Clemens would have scathingly called dialogue packed" stories - instead... I suppose she writes thought-packed stories - and thoughtful as well, because you can definitely have the one without the other. Her thoughts lead to our sharing the feeling of it all though, and that's what I want from stories - to feel them!
There are painful revelations about what life's been like for the lads, Bodie in particular, who had to cope with alcoholism inherited from his father on top of everything else - Glasgow doesn't forget that our families and our past influence what happens to us, as much as our choices and fears and hopes - and we feel Doyle's solid misery and painful hope all through the story too. She writes lads that exist and live and are influenced by the real world, and that's something else I love her writing for - though again I know it's not every fan's cup of tea.
In the end, though, we get to where we want to be - the lads properly together, talking to each other, understanding each other - accepting each other. And realising that of course it was Cowley yet again who's set them up, who arranged not only for Doyle to go on the cruise, but for Bodie, who'd long left CI5 and Cowley's sphere of influence, to receive not only an inheritance from a relative, but instructions to spend some of it on a holiday and coincidentally a brochure for a cruise through his letterbox... And here we are: "...Bodie was upon him, inarticulate noises coming from both of them, Doyle holding him tight while Bodie kissed the world away... There was nothing for him to be aware of, apart from Bodie; all his eyes could see, all his ears could hear, all his mouth could taste, was Bodie. It was better than it had ever been..." and all that yearning and sorrow and bittersweet hope has taken us somewhere wonderful after all. "If Cowley's devices had split them up, then their own desires would hold them together."
So... what do you want most from stories - to feel them, or to hear them, or to see them? Does Devices and Desires work for you, in that light?
What do you think of Glasgow's older lads here - physically, emotionally - do they ring true for you?
If you read the prequel as well, does Glasgow make you believe that's how the lads would have handled the situation with Cowley outing them - does it fit with what we see of them in the episodes? Might it have happened like that?
And does having our older lads together at last make up for them being torn asunder as young lads? Could they have found the same kind of love and life if Bodie had never left, or did we have to wait for things to work out?
What did you think? *g*