lastrat | ♠ | 020 | Voice + Spam

[Private to Elena]

Asked your warden for my gun back. [A beat, then he adds:] I didn't mention the rest.

[Which is his way of apologizing for being gross and trying really hard not to blame her for killing him. It's hard knowing he deserved it and still having memories of that fear.]

[Private to Cassel]

[He could play it light. Ask him to lunch, take him on a jog. But the idea of food makes him queasy, and he wouldn't last a minute jogging before falling flat on his face. He sounds - well he sounds like he's been drinking, and that at least covers the fact that he's been death tolling.]

Do you know your way around a gun?

[Good job, Bond, great topic.]

[Private to Chris]

You've been quiet. [It's unnatural. This is not James playing parent at all. Obviously.]

[Private to Selina & Natasha, separately]

If you need peace of mind, tell me. [That's it, that's the almost-apology.]

[Pub Spam]

[He really ought to be in the infirmary, but don't try to tell him that. Bond died an ugly, bloody death, and stayed that way for a day or two. It's an ugly knowledge, and it coils tight in the pit of his belly. Liquor doesn't soothe it, just eases it for a while. It sits a little looser, quieter. And the burn warms him, settles and spreads. It hurts his throat, though the burn has always been pleasant before.

He remembers Elena's teeth sinking into his skin, tearing, and fixes another martini.

He's far gone, drunker than he's ever been on the Barge, and he can't bring himself to care. He usually only gets this pissed on planes, or in the safety of his own flat at home: not when there are dangers around any given corner, not when there are vampires, werewolves, people who have every right to strip reparations for bad memories from his hide.

Not that he'd let them - not that he could do much, like this.

He sits at the bar, a martini in one hand, the other rubbing his aching eyes. Sleep would do him good, but he can't bring himself to leave yet. Not until the ache in the side of his neck fades, not until everything becomes a low buzz and nothing else.]

[Spam for Vesper]

[It's very late, and James is very drunk. He might be swaying on his feet, but for the moment, he's pressed his forehead against the smooth wood of Vesper's door. He doesn't touch his room: he went back in there to wash the blood from his neck and change his clothes once he woke up again. It doesn't help that their rooms are practically identical: he doesn't want to see the inside of the Montenegrin hotel again.

He's not even sure he wants to see Vesper, after what happened on that other Barge. He's drifting, tired and drunk and a sorry excuse for - everything. Wetting dry lips with a dry tongue, James keys into the room, pushing the door open and stepping in.

He looks a mess, between the booze and death; his mouth feels too dry, his head too packed. If he'd known where his cigarettes had disappeared to, he might have smoked half a carton by now. It's easy to fall back on old habits. He'll have an ugly hangover in the morning, with a pounding head and aching eyes, but for now he has enough clarity and courage to do this.

Closing the door quietly behind him, he walks inside, glancing down when Martin appears from whatever dark corner he was hiding in. He even pets the cat when he jumps up on the table near his hand, debating whether he should call for Vesper and risk waking her up or just - wait for her to come out. With the cat rubbing against his fingers, as if nothing happened, he exhales slowly.]

Vesper?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She doesn't. Instead, she slides her arm around his waist to help steady and reassure him, and carefully starts to lead him into the bedroom. Martin's lost interest in the two of them in favor of settling on the couch and washing his paws, apparently completely uninterested in seeing where his people are off to.]

[Martin is a punk ass freeloader. James lets her, though he doesn't entirely need the guidance: he's a very good drunk. He walks without weaving, without forcing her to keep careful track. He pulls her hand from around his waist just to hold it, more careful than usual in a combination of drink and the flood.

In the other room, he sinks down to sit on the edge of the bed, and drops both hands to her waist. He tips his head forward, resting somewhere between breasts and belly, and just closes his eyes.]

I'm sorry. I know it wasn't us, but I am. Sorry. I just want to forget.

[She brings a hand up to run her fingers through his hair, gently massaging his scalp and neck with the pads of her fingers. It's calming, and she knows this is a moment of vulnerability basically no one else would be allowed to see, and it warms her, to know that he still feels comfortable enough with her to do it.]

I know. But I don't need an apology. It wasn't us.

[She wants to forget too, though, and honestly wants to just curl up with him, or have the sort of sweet, lighthearted sex they'd had once he was well enough in the hospital and on the beaches they'd visited before going to Venice. She doesn't want to think about what happened, or talk about it, or watch him hate himself for something he couldn't have done anything about.]

Let me help you out of these. [Your clothes still smell like the bar. :v]

[He knows, logically knows that. And there aren't many he'd offer an apology to. But hearing her say it helps. He closes his eyes and cleans back, a small smile pulling at his mouth. He peers up at her before lifting his arms, pulling at his shirt.]

Thank you. [His mouth kind of smells like the bar, too.]

[She'll deal. She helps ease him out of the shirt, pulls off his shoes and socks, and makes him stand up at least a little to help get his pants out of the way. She folds up the discarded clothes neatly and puts them in the laundry bin, sticking his shoes somewhere out of the way before coming back and kissing his cheek gently.]

Lie down.

[He lets her help, even smiles a little at it. He considers telling her she doesn't have to but the words stop before his throat can contract. He's enjoying her not loathing him too much.

Without a word of complaint, he inches back to lay down - but not before returning that kiss fleetingly on the lips, or without pulling her with him.]

[She doesn't protest, although she does reach around to pull a blanket up over them both before curling close to him.]

I love you. [There's a lot more she wants to say to him, but she doesn't know how to put it. As much as he loves her, she doesn't feel like he'd change anything, or seek help, or stop trying to hide in alcohol to cope with everything. It's easier to just put her head on his chest and breathe.]

[It's a good thing she contracts it all into three words. James doesn't know how to cope any other way. Sex and drink has always been his way, and he wraps his arm around her waist, holding her against him. That she can do this - that she can say that after all this makes him sigh out a breath that's almost content and certainly relieved.

She has every right in the world to hate him, and she doesn't. She, of all people, must know how easy it might have been for him to become that - he who saw women as disposable pleasures. She knew him the moment they met. And she changed him. He's never been so grateful for it.]

I love you too. [And he tips his head down to kiss her.]

[She kisses him back, keeping it gentle and affectionate and trying not to think too hard about whether or not this is strange, if she should want more distance, or be more bothered by what happened.

But she's just... not. It wasn't them, she can't even see how it could have been them, and it's nice to have the warm, living, breathing reminder that that wasn't how things were going to turn out for them. Being alone would be so much worse, because she'd be worrying about what he was doing, what he was thinking, what this was going to mean for them, and now it's easier to set all that aside.]

[She's making it easier for him. More bearable. Even if it's just this, laying here with his arm around her. He turns, wrapping both arms around her and closing his eyes. It's something that doesn't feel nightmarish and wrong, and that is more than enough for the moment.]

[She moves a hand up to run her fingers through his hair again, wanting to do something more than just lie here. She doesn't feel tired, really, in spite of everything, and she wants to take care of him. It wasn't them. It would never be them. And it's easy, to step back and think no, think never, because she knows what it's like to be living in a nightmare, and this isn't it.]

Are you sure you don't need anything?

Just you.

[Liquor makes his mouth a little looser, and he turns, after a moment, kisses her again, down her chin, jaw, neck. He doesn't nip at her collarbone, kissing along it instead. There is caution, but it's still him, and a James Bond who's afraid of intimacy is no James Bond.

Besides, it occurs to him that she more than deserves some pleasant attention.

So he kisses her through the nightgown, inching it up as he inches down.]

[She smiles, keeps running her fingers through his hair, trying not to laugh when he ghosts over a ticklish spot, and it's hard not to feel stupidly in love with this exceptionally frustrating, wonderful man.

There's a part of her that wonders if she should be more upset, but it's more intellectually curious than anything else, and she doesn't believe it. That other life was nothing more than a terrible nightmare that they'd both finally woken up from, and it's good to know that nothing is different, that it doesn't have to break this, something she's struggled to rebuild already.]