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Entry tags:
- [comm] lastvoyages,
- did james bond just have an emotion,
- do not ever follow this man's example,
- fight it out,
- fuck talking,
- god he needs therapy,
- he's going drinking after this,
- i hate feelings,
- lets talk about how useless i feel,
- missing her was dark gray all alone,
- mouthy little aussie,
- prepare for the healthiest coping,
- professionals
♠ | 025 | Voice
[No video, this time, because he's still fucking angry. He can control the edge in his voice just barely - he can't control the glower. And he has yet to clean up his shattered Item, the second time he's broken it against a wall of his flat.
When he clicks on the audio, he sounds angry, but you might believe that he's managing it just fine. Might.]
Ellie's vanished.
[And that's all. He's not one for elaboration.]
[Private to Natasha]
Busy?
When he clicks on the audio, he sounds angry, but you might believe that he's managing it just fine. Might.]
Ellie's vanished.
[And that's all. He's not one for elaboration.]
[Private to Natasha]
Busy?
[voice]
[She has literal crates in her guest room closet, spybro.]
Your place or mine?
[voice]
Mine. Bring the vodka.
[action]
Natasha takes a few minutes to get ready, because the workout gear and the tape on her knuckles belies the assertion that she wasn't busy, not to mention gun cleaning oil under her fingernails. Still, she's master of the quick change, and it's only about ten minutes later that she's standing in front of his door, jeans and a tee shirt with a pair of ballet flats, case of the top shelf stuff propped on her hip so she can knock, and a brown paper gift bag hanging off her crooked fingers.]
[action]
He stands aside to let her in. It's still the one bedroom flat he's had for years, not the new apartment he and Vesper picked out when she left the Barge. That flat isn't home yet, and not one he wants to bother making here, alone.
It's not small, though far from spacious, and while it looks lived in now, it's absent of pictures and personal touches. A model home, a place to hold his suits and shower between the endless parade of hotels.
On the far side of the living room there lie the broken remnants of something small and porcelain, untouched since the Item first alerted him to Ellie's disappearance.]
What's this? [He nods toward the brown bag, holding out his arms in an offer to take the case.]
[action]
[Nevermind that they're actually both Spanish. He probably knows what she means.
She bumps the case up with her hip, almost tossing it into his hands. Stronger than her size might hint at, but he already knows that.
The bag also has a jar of pickled rutabagas and a jar of pickled apples, though she doesn't expect him to try them, let alone like them. Acquired tastes.]
[action]
How many of these do you have?
[action]
[So very many. Enough that she'd pressed Raven into helping her carry and still barely made it back to the boat on time with her last load.
She's been in his place before, so she doesn't run a full mental inventory. She just marks the differences. The mess, in particular, that he seems to be aggressively ignoring.]
Am I going to get snapped at if I offer to go get the vacuum?
[She sets the bag down on the bar, and then puts herself closer to the broken figure, picking up one of the larger pieces where a paw is still discernible.]
[action]
You don't need to. The Admiral will replace it soon enough. [Meaning it was his Item, and sometimes he gets very, very angry.]
[action]
[She stands, flicks the piece off the tips of her fingers into the air, and gravity takes it home, where it breaks cleanly in half when it strikes the floor a second time. If he wants to ignore the anger, they'll ignore it. She holds out her now empty hand for her own drink.]
We both know there's nothing I can say on the current situation that would be both true and comforting, so why don't you tell me what you want to talk about? We should talk about something. Cocktails and conversation. Just like real people.
[action]
[He means to smile, but it doesn't make it from thought to lips. Instead, he finishes shaking the martini, pours with the grace of practice into two glasses, and hands her one.]
How do you stand it?
[action]
[She sips her drink, the icy refreshing warmth of the vodka, no cheap alcohol burn.]
Sometimes drinking helps. Wear my knuckles raw in the gym. Find someone to fuck. Fast car and an empty road. Just shut off for a little while.
[It doesn't make it easy, exactly. It doesn't fix anything. It just delays the inevitable. But a person can live a hell of a long time holding off the inevitable for just one more day.]
[action]
(He can't help the way his eyes flick over her, doesn't try to hide it.)]
Sometimes I wonder if this wouldn't be easier at home.
[He can deal with grief, for a relative definition of 'deal with.' He's not sure he can deal with the day in, day out of this ship.]
[action]
People look. Bond is human, of course he looks. She says the word fuck and eyes automatically flick over her hips, the shadow between her breasts, her lips. Every time. It just happens.]
You go home, you get nothing. It's why we're all here.
If you want to really talk, we can talk.
[Glass to lips, head tipped back, and then Natasha is balancing an empty martini glass on the backs of her fingers, letting the base spin between them like a silver dollar, perfectly balanced. It's a hell of a party trick. 'Dealing with it' takes many forms.]
Or we can just keep drinking.
[action]
I don't want to talk.
[He pulls out her gifts, sets them on the coffee table and smiles at the shaker.]
There's a party trick. [He holds up his shaker, full, offering the second round.]
[action]
[She accepts her refill, and sprawls comfortably on his couch. She unpacks the bag, setting her own monogrammed cocktail shaker aside. Oilves all in a row, her own jars of things to nibble on, a container of puffed up potato cakes, some of her lower end caviar. Not because Bond isn't worth the good stuff, but because she knows they're going to be at this for a while.
With the bag finally empty, she's opening the creme fraiche and fixing herself a cold blini. There's some weed in her pocket, but first she wants to see just how thick his cloud of gloom is.]
You got any? Party tricks.
[action]
[His gloom is keeping his anger at bay; anger at himself, at the Admiral, even at Ellie. He knows the latter isn't fair, but that doesn't keep him from resenting her. She was meant to be his ticket home, and Alice before her; both inmates vanished without a word.
He's not consumed by the idea that it means something, that he's not worthy as a warden, because he doesn't give a damn if he is. Bond knows the things he's good at, and he's not often concerned by anything else.
It does occur to him that the Admiral is toying with him. But there's nothing he can do about that, which is just as angering.]
You certainly came prepared. [He can tell the caviar isn't the good stuff, but it's good enough.]
[action]
[She piles a little scoop of caviar onto a potato cake and holds it out to him.]
I've had a lot of experience with men who don't talk about their feelings and instead just try to drown them in alcohol. This is the hub of my wheelhouse.
Open wide.