Pros Novel Read-Along - Painted Angels by Angelfish - Chapter Ten

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hello! *g*

Painted Angels by Angelfish.
Cover art by firlefanzine

Chapter Ten
Doyle is back in Derby, with Gabe, and as the chapter opens he's staring down his old street asking Gabe "uncertainly" which house was his. A boy on a bike shouts casual homophobia at them, and Doyle stops him sharply and tells him to watch his lip "you little shit". Gabe has already been called "the usual" racist names.

Doyle remembers his house then, but when Gabe tells him his mum still lives there, decides that he doesn't want to see her again. He's visited Gabe's mum, and his father's grave (he came across the Desiderata on someone else's grave, and decided he liked it and would have it on his wall one day), and he and Gabe have gone hiking as they did when they were much younger friends. Doyle talked endlessly about Bodie The way you talk when you're falling in love, he realised.

Doyle goes back to his B&B, and to bed - only to be woken by a knocking on the door. It's Gabe - Cowley has called his mum's house, trying to get hold of Doyle. Bodie has been involved in "an incident" and he's missing, presumed dead. Doyle doesn't believe it, says he'd know "in here", as sure as Gabe knows God. Gabe helps him hire a car and gives him money so that he can get back to London fast, and just before Doyle leaves, he kisses him "mouth, open wide in silent passion" on his lips.

So... what d'you think? *g*

Comments

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yes, I get that he's supposed to be so traumatised that he's perhaps doing things that we wouldn't expect. That's what trauma is, after all, it's something else controlling the way we behave, making us "not ourselves". And the lads do seem to reject families in general in the eps (except for Doyle's comment about Bodie's shoes - "I bet your mother's feet are cold."!) So I can go along with that set-up. I struggle with the idea that bolshy-Doyle's response is quite so passive and uncertain though, I really do. Do we ever see him uncertain like that in the eps? (I know, we don't see this happening to him in the eps, but still...)

I can see Gabe perhaps acting the way he does with Doyle, I think I struggle to see Doyle reacting the way he's shown to react...

I don't know that people necessarily "infantalise" those who need help as a general rule. Speaking carefully and sensitively is definitely a thing, but... And again, it's not so much what Gabe does and says, as the fact that the author's written Doyle as needing that... Back to the trauma-makes-us-different, perhaps...

As you say though, I think it's the mixed-up writing that's what's really making me dizzy though - one minute Doyle is tough and competent, the next minute he's facing something where it seems his competence should kick in, but the author seems to want us to believe that it doesn't for whatever reason. And I'm not sure she's convinced me enough that the trauma will beat Doyle's competence...

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

Do we ever see him uncertain like that in the eps? (I know, we don't see this happening to him in the eps, but still...)

The only time I can think of is when Barry Martin in Rogue is shot by a third party at the end of the episode. Doyle, who is about to shoot him, is very dazed/shocked/disbelieving in what's just happened when he says I never shot him. It came from the ship.