In Memorium PFL Read-Along - And You Can Have This Heart to Break
Archive of Our Own
Circuit Archive
Hatstand Archive
Roses and Lavender 6, by Allamagoosa Press
ProsLib Dvd
Hello again - hopefully some people have remembered that this weekend is our second In Memorium read-a-long for msmoat, and the second part of her I Will Lay Down My Heart series. Well - mini-series, I guess, as there are two stories and a coda that fits in between.
Coda to I Will Lay Down My Heart: Alone
And You Can Have This Heart to Break begins ten months after we saw Doyle leaving Bodie's flat, and Bodie, and CI5, when he failed the fitness assessment and knew he'd be taken off the streets. He wouldn't be working with Bodie - and his personal relationship with Bodie wasn't working either, because whereas he wanted more, and wanted commitment between them, Bodie seemed to want the exact opposite.
Doyle has escaped to Manchester, and has had four jobs in those ten months. The latest one had turned out to be for someone involved in wide-scale fraud and embezzlement, and we find out that Doyle is still Doyle - he couldn't resist infiltrating it all, and taking down the man at the top. It brings him, of course, to the attentions of George Cowley and CI5 - although it turns out that he had never actually been spared those attentions.
Doyle and Bodie are eventually reunited when Cowley offers Doyle a desk job with a difference - a chance to actually contribute some control and direction to CI5 as an organisation. Doyle couldn't have sat behind a desk watching everyone else do the "real" work, but being able to have a say in that real work makes all the difference, and of course he accepts. He hopes he'll be able to avoid Bodie - but of course that's not even slightly possible.
He's pulled back into the action when he returns home to find Bodie in his new flat, searching for safety for a woman he knew in Africa who is going to testify against former colleagues, and who the CI5 safehouses apparently couldn't keep safe. They save her - of course they do - but at the same time they have to work out whether they can save themselves - save Bodie/Doyle - as well.
And of course they can. After alot of back-and-forth, both between them, and in Doyle's thoughts and ruminations, they know that they have to give it another try. Bodie is coming off the streets too, and the lads will work together alongside Cowley - who is struggling somewhat to cede his singular control over CI5, but knows that he has to do it.
All of which summary feels like I've missed out an awful lot of pages in the middle, but then there were alot of pages involved in the back-and-forth and ruminations. We hear a bit more about how Bodie was sleeping around with other men at the same time as having a relationship with Doyle - sometimes on the same night as they'd been out together - and we hear Doyle reminding himself that he'd been playing with Bodie himself, because he knew that Bodie wanted him. Bodie was insecure about wanting Doyle to fuck him, which Doyle thought explained why he was chasing other men at the same time. It all culminated in aggro between them, and in Doyle deciding that nothing was ever going to change, because he'd tried all he could to get them on the same page - ironically, just as Bodie had decided that things had changed for him, and he knew what he wanted at last.
I must admit that there seemed to be an awful lot of talking about things between them, and ruminating, and going back-and-forth as they worked it all out, and although it didn't feel at all forced - I could see where they were at each point, and they still felt like our lads doing the talking - I did find my eyes drifting ahead through the words a bit more quickly in those parts. I felt a little bit as though the story was trying to convince me, the reader, of something, as much as it was telling the story of what happened.
But as with the last part, I did believe that it was our lads, and that their actions and reactions to things rang true, and there was never a point that I wanted to stop reading. Oh, and I did like the resolution to the rather major issue of them getting older and coming to the end of their A-Squad days - of course CI5 had to restructure in order to find them a place! It couldn't lose Bodie and Doyle!
So - what did you think? *g*
Circuit Archive
Hatstand Archive
Roses and Lavender 6, by Allamagoosa Press
ProsLib Dvd
Hello again - hopefully some people have remembered that this weekend is our second In Memorium read-a-long for msmoat, and the second part of her I Will Lay Down My Heart series. Well - mini-series, I guess, as there are two stories and a coda that fits in between.
Coda to I Will Lay Down My Heart: Alone
And You Can Have This Heart to Break begins ten months after we saw Doyle leaving Bodie's flat, and Bodie, and CI5, when he failed the fitness assessment and knew he'd be taken off the streets. He wouldn't be working with Bodie - and his personal relationship with Bodie wasn't working either, because whereas he wanted more, and wanted commitment between them, Bodie seemed to want the exact opposite.
Doyle has escaped to Manchester, and has had four jobs in those ten months. The latest one had turned out to be for someone involved in wide-scale fraud and embezzlement, and we find out that Doyle is still Doyle - he couldn't resist infiltrating it all, and taking down the man at the top. It brings him, of course, to the attentions of George Cowley and CI5 - although it turns out that he had never actually been spared those attentions.
Doyle and Bodie are eventually reunited when Cowley offers Doyle a desk job with a difference - a chance to actually contribute some control and direction to CI5 as an organisation. Doyle couldn't have sat behind a desk watching everyone else do the "real" work, but being able to have a say in that real work makes all the difference, and of course he accepts. He hopes he'll be able to avoid Bodie - but of course that's not even slightly possible.
He's pulled back into the action when he returns home to find Bodie in his new flat, searching for safety for a woman he knew in Africa who is going to testify against former colleagues, and who the CI5 safehouses apparently couldn't keep safe. They save her - of course they do - but at the same time they have to work out whether they can save themselves - save Bodie/Doyle - as well.
And of course they can. After alot of back-and-forth, both between them, and in Doyle's thoughts and ruminations, they know that they have to give it another try. Bodie is coming off the streets too, and the lads will work together alongside Cowley - who is struggling somewhat to cede his singular control over CI5, but knows that he has to do it.
All of which summary feels like I've missed out an awful lot of pages in the middle, but then there were alot of pages involved in the back-and-forth and ruminations. We hear a bit more about how Bodie was sleeping around with other men at the same time as having a relationship with Doyle - sometimes on the same night as they'd been out together - and we hear Doyle reminding himself that he'd been playing with Bodie himself, because he knew that Bodie wanted him. Bodie was insecure about wanting Doyle to fuck him, which Doyle thought explained why he was chasing other men at the same time. It all culminated in aggro between them, and in Doyle deciding that nothing was ever going to change, because he'd tried all he could to get them on the same page - ironically, just as Bodie had decided that things had changed for him, and he knew what he wanted at last.
I must admit that there seemed to be an awful lot of talking about things between them, and ruminating, and going back-and-forth as they worked it all out, and although it didn't feel at all forced - I could see where they were at each point, and they still felt like our lads doing the talking - I did find my eyes drifting ahead through the words a bit more quickly in those parts. I felt a little bit as though the story was trying to convince me, the reader, of something, as much as it was telling the story of what happened.
But as with the last part, I did believe that it was our lads, and that their actions and reactions to things rang true, and there was never a point that I wanted to stop reading. Oh, and I did like the resolution to the rather major issue of them getting older and coming to the end of their A-Squad days - of course CI5 had to restructure in order to find them a place! It couldn't lose Bodie and Doyle!
So - what did you think? *g*