Reading Room - Trip Through Your Wire by Garnet
Title: Trip Through Your Wire
Author: Garnet (http://copper-rose.livejournal.com)
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Link: http://www.thecircuitarchive.com/tca/archive/9/tripthrough.html
Other Notes: Originally published in Secret Agent Men 2, Devious Developments Press, 2003
Pleasure mirroring pleasure, his eyes were reflecting mine. The same slow smile spreading over both our faces…
I am amazed and astonished every time I read this story. I will forever fall for them falling for each other, and for the vivid depiction of how it happened. There is not much I love more than finally finding the perfect words to express something, to crystalize it into being, especially when it’s been a long search, it’s Bodie and Doyle, and the words are better than I could ever have imagined. I keep chasing the perfect words that describe the inexplicable thing that happens between them… Catching their characters, their voices, their magic. And that is what Garnet does here.
A dry synopsis of this story might be “Doyle’s brush with death spurs Bodie to reveal his feelings, which Doyle discovers he reciprocates.” But that stream of the story is bridged by another event, Doyle “swims” in it and remembers a different river, and there are waves which rise and fall - it’s a sad and beautiful world, full of bittersweet paradoxes. From “strong and together” to “of course it has to end”; from the promise of an incredible time in bed to “no, actually you need to take your pills and sleep”; from “Sweet Prince” to “ribbit”: the story and the emotions crest and fall. Or, as Doyle describes Bodie’s expression, it is “Sweet, sad, disbelieving, and overjoyed, all at once.”
Bodie and Doyle are spurred by the pressure of death’s inevitability and their unknown future, but constrained by it as well. The frame moves in a sort of adjusting of the lens from the distance where Doyle is describing his dream about his funeral and the meaninglessness of his life - from the vantage of a different close scrape with death and undecided motivations - now zooming in and facing death from this new place where everything has changed. Death hovers around them highlighting how precious and fleeting time is. It is death versus life; end versus beginning; fear versus love; Mayli, the bomb, and the accident, woven so poetically in together and contrasted with “mute love,” crazy passion, astonishing joy - how he didn’t have the will to live then, but oh how much he yearns to live now.
Throughout, Bodie and Doyle remain themselves - full technicolor characters with grit and spit and blood - their voices true to canon. Scenes which “mean” Bodie and Doyle to me - not fireworks and lightning, but nuance and normalcy: like Bodie in the kitchen in just his trousers tasting of “butter and burn and Bodie,” or Doyle before his shower, “tracing out the lines of my own mouth, the familiar hollow line of my broken cheekbone” in the mirror. There is humor, some heart-pounding action, they have incredible sex, and they figure out where they belong, and that they are their best, together. They blaze through challenges and fears to get to one another. It’s not about someone “to fuck,” it’s not about submission, it’s “good, and graceful, and right,” and about “never wanting to let him go again.” In Doyle’s words, “Both of us fools if we thought we hadn't already promised each other the world, both of us fucking insane to even consider it.”
There are a few things I query in the story - things that for the first five or so times I was too swept away to notice! Little continuity issues, a raised-eyebrow/squint during a sex description, and niggling thoughts about the frame enclosing the story - as much as I appreciate how much it makes me think, in a way it seems the story might be stronger, more concentrated without it. But while being bothered, I can truly say these things fade away in the power of the story.
The point of view - Doyle - is always a tricky one for me! I want Doyle to be a certain way, and I want him to see Bodie in a certain way, too! I am nothing if not picky... and this story is so satisfying. I wonder if we who love them all have a particular version of each that we love the most - our ideal - or if it's more like a dry cleaners where there are 250 button-down shirts that are almost identical, but differ in small ways, and we have a range that our love fits into - that Bodie, all the way down sixty-two versions to that Bodie - they are THE Bodie for me - but sixty-three, that Bodie’s right out! I can't get behind that one because it’s just too far off the mark…? Bodie and Doyle titration! It *is* chemistry…
I am overwhelmed with joy when I consider all of the versions of Bodie and Doyle that we have - that we can, if we like, curate our own world of Bodies and Doyles, and combinations of Bodies and Doyles too. Like the most delectable French pastry - endless layers, delicately fused together yet still distinct, opaque, tender, but full of flavor. Back to the point, this Doyle is one I can get behind, fully. And so is Bodie, seen through this Doyle - he is “more Bodie than Bodie.” In this story I find the words that express what I feel in my heart but couldn’t articulate.
It has been exceedingly difficult to find passages *not* to quote… but I realize I cannot quote the whole story! The words bring Bodie and Doyle to us so beautifully, so vividly. They belong. They are timeless. They spark. Okay, I give in, they trip through my wire! Here is one of my favorites:
Suddenly, despite still hurting, despite all my lingering uncertainties, I felt happy. Really happy. Unreasonably happy even. Especially when I looked into those blue eyes and saw pleasure there as well, sheer relief, wry good humor, a shockingly honest and pure desire. His eyes made me feel giddy. It made me feel like grabbing him and never letting go again.
Wicked, real, and right. This was Bodie at his best. Bodie at his worst. And, maybe, it all would work out. Maybe, it would last when nothing and no one else ever had. After all, he had been the one constant in my life for years now. The one person I could always rely on, even when we disagreed with each other. Even when we fought and feuded and I despaired of ever teaching him tolerance, and he despaired of ever teaching me the finer points of fashion.
William Andrew Phillip Bodie. My partner and my best mate. From the efficient lingering-shades-of-the-military cut of his black hair to the dark blush of yesterday's beard on his cheeks. From that wide, smiling, smirking, scornful mouth to the cool fire of those blue eyes. Broad-shouldered, big-hearted, cold as stone and furious as hell when you pushed him too far Bodie. How could I not have seen how beautiful he was before? How could I not want him as badly as he so obviously wanted me?
How could anyone ever resist the bugger?
Thank you for reading and joining in to discuss this. I apologize for the gushing - I cannot seem to reign it in. I realized fairly quickly that next time I should pick a story in which a paragraph or a sentence is excellent, and make it easier on myself (and on you!) As it is, this remains in my desert island bag, to be enjoyed in perpetuity.
Secret Agent Men 2 info and cover art:
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Secret_Agent_Men#Reactions_and_Reviews:_Issue_2
Music video: U2 - Trip Through Your Wires (Paris Live 1987)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldvTYPhvhTM
Trip Through Your Wires lyrics
In the distance, she saw me comin' round
I was callin' out, I was callin' out.
Still shakin', still in pain
You put me back together again.
I was cold and you clothed me, honey
I was down, and you lifted me, honey.
Angel, angel or devil?
I was thirsty
And you wet my lips.
You, I'm waiting for you
You, you set my desire
I trip through your wires.
I was broken, bent out of shape
I was naked in the clothes you made.
Lips were dry, throat like rust
You gave me shelter from the heat and the dust.
No more water in the well
No more water, water.
Angel, angel or devil?
I was thirsty
And you wet my lips.
You, I'm waiting for you
You, you set my desire
I trip through your wires.
Oh I need, oh I need
Oh I need, oh I need it.
Oh I need, oh I need
All I need, yeah, yeah!
Thunder, thunder on the mountain
There's a raincloud
In the desert sky.
In the distance
She saw me comin' round
I was callin' out
I was callin' out.