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Jul. 13th, 2009 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
titusnowlThe Fabulous Adventures of James & Bond
Part 3: You Only Die Once
Chapter 3
2500 words
Every morning, room service brought each patron of the hotel a breakfast tray containing coffee accoutrements to round out the coffeemaker setup in every room, along with a bowl of fruit which always contained a strangely high proportion of bananas, a basket of assorted small pastries, and a copy of the New York Times. Every morning, James collected this tray, took his pick of the pastries (he got the strawberry Danish; Bond got the cream cheese), and had his own coffee before setting the tray away on the end of the long teakwood bureau in the bedroom side of the room.
The morning after their meeting with Lotta and Ivan, nothing changed in this routine until Bond woke up (at 9:00, three and a half hours after he'd actually gone to sleep) to use the bathroom and, while half-sleepwalking back to the bed, hip-checked the tray and spilled all the bananas.
The ensuing string of bleary bilingual blasphemy as he picked up after himself was suddenly broken when he noticed a strange sticker on one of the bananas. That he'd managed to notice it at all with his eyes half-lidded and his brain half-napping was, he said afterward, simply further evidence that he really was the most amazing spy in the entire world. He peeled it off and peered at it. "What in the world - "
James had looked up when he heard Bond knock the tray over, of course, but Bond had seemed competent to clean up, so he'd gone back to work. Now he looked up again, then crossed the room to look at the bit of film stuck to Bond's finger.
"That's microfilm," he said.
Bond squinted at it, holding it up to the overhead lamp. "Well, what do you know. So it is."
"How long have you been a Spy and you don't recognize microfilm when you see it?" James peeled it off Bond's finger and pulled a loupe out of his pocket. "I'm gonna need a lightbox, I think..."
"Hey, I've been a Spy in a place where they actually bother using microfilm for exactly as long as you have," Bond protested defensively, rising to follow James back to his desk. The Engineer poked around for a bit until he found a piece of vellum, which he then set over the top of the desk lamp to provide backlighting. On this makeshift light table, he laid the frame of microfilm down and examined it with his magnifier. Bond crowded over his shoulder. "What's it say?"
James looked it over twice, then sat back and shook his head with a mixture of amusement and resignation. "It's from M. Apparently we're supposed to go to her office 'as soon as we're available.' And there will be tea and cake."
"Shit." Bond looked longingly back at the bed, and ran a hand over his face. "I am in no shape to go talk to M right now. Why couldn't she wait until after dinner?"
"Well, you could grab another couple hours' sleep," James suggested doubtfully. "It just says as soon as we're available, not right this minute."
"No way. She'll totally know we didn't go right away and then my career will be ruined and oh God why did it have to be M at Jesus Christ o'clock in the morning - " Bond was in the bathroom splashing cold water on his face before he was finished with the sentence. "I'm not making M wait. She'll probably have me drawn and quartered for not having found that as soon as the tray got delivered - "
"Bond, calm down. Emma wouldn't have you killed." James rolled his eyes and went to find Bond's cufflinks, which were never in the same place on two consecutive mornings, before Bond could start looking for them and freak out about the delay when he didn't see them immediately.
"You don't understand," Bond said desperately, buttoning his shirt up as fast as he could. "She's not Emma. She's M."
"Bond." James rolled his eyes again, then found the cufflinks and crossed into Bond's space, pressing the bits of silver into one of the Spy's hands and then pressing his hands down on the Spy's shoulders. "Calm down. Just because she changed her code name doesn't mean she magically changed personalities. She likes us. We helped her become M and she liked us before that. You're right, I don't understand why the hell you're constantly thinking she's gonna have our throats slit in the night."
"Not yours, just mine. And because she's M," said Bond unreasonably, slipping the links through his cuffs and sliding under James' arm to grab a tie.
James rolled his eyes for the third and last time. "Have some coffee first."
"We need to get to - "
"Ten minutes isn't gonna be the difference between life and death here, Bond." James poured the coffee himself, and added a generous dollop of whiskey from the bottle on the drafting table before forcing it firmly into Bond's hands. "Shut up and drink."
"Why did it have to be M at Jesus Christ o'clock in the morning," Bond repeated in something that was almost a wail, but he obeyed while James got his own tie and jacket on.
---
Most of the bureaucratic offices in HQ were on the second floor, behind a hidden door in the back of a nightclub which had a reputation as being one of the most exclusive in Las Vegas. M, however, kept her office and her official living quarters on the 13th floor - unmarked on the elevator, which skipped from 12 to 14 like most of the hotels in that superstitious city. One had to hit both the 12th and 14th floor buttons at the same time and hold them for five seconds, and then pass a screening from M's personal secretary in the lobby that the elevator opened into. The girl at the desk was a stranger to both of them, but she'd apparently been well-briefed; James and Bond were recognized immediately and waved straight into the office.
It was a warm but professional space, with narrow wood paneling and a wide window that looked down on the rooftop garden over the parking garage. The seating was upholstered with naugahyde in the turquoise-and-orange colour scheme that predominated throughout the hotel, and was just comfortable enough to lull visitors into a false sense of security. Three of the chairs were pulled up to a small table in front of the window, where two angular silver carafes and a set of mugs flanked a plate of tea-cakes.
M herself was seated behind the large desk centered along the far wall, reading through the contents of a manila file folder. Although she'd changed the black leather catsuit she had worn when her codename was Emma for a severe pinstripe suit more befitting the position of head of UIEEI, she still wore her hair in a long, dark flip cut, and the smile she turned on James and Bond in turn had the same slightly-condescending warmth. "I wasn't expecting you to be awake this early."
Both men remained standing while she rose and came over to shake their hands. They followed her to the table and sat down after she took her own seat. "I'm sorry we didn't come earlier - " Bond began, and she let out a sudden laugh.
"Any earlier and I doubt you would have been capable of coming," she said. "I know I invited you for tea, but the pitcher closer to you is coffee - I suspect you'll need it, won't you, Mister Montaigne?"
She poured her own tea, but Bond just sat in respectful (and somewhat terrified) silence until James poured coffee for both of them - plenty of real cream from a smaller pitcher for himself, and black with plenty of sugar for Bond. "Thank you, ma'am," James said to her.
M looked at James' mug and laughed again. "I forgot, you Americans only drink tea if it's iced, don't you? If the coffee runs out, we'll ring for more. Please, relax."
Bond knew this last was directed at him, and tried to force himself to look as careless as he ever did as he sipped the coffee - far better than anything he could brew himself, but not as soothing as the whiskey-laced one James had poured him earlier.
"I do apologize for summoning you so suddenly - you didn't have any trouble finding the invitation, I hope? I wasn't entirely certain whether either of you eat bananas, but I thought you might enjoy the novelty of the method."
"Bond found it," said James, entirely for Bond's benefit; as unreasonably nervous as he was around the woman, talking up his abilities a little to her ought to help.
"Very good." She smiled at Bond, who nodded back. "Again, I apologize for it being so sudden, but I had only just heard that you'd returned. I wanted to catch you before you went racing off again. You no doubt have plans of that sort already."
James shrugged noncommittally. "We've been speaking with people, but I wouldn't say we have actual plans right now."
M nodded. "When you do, I wish to be informed. I would like to be able to keep in contact with you."
It took quite a bit of self-control for Bond not to wince at the sudden warning tone of that injunction; James took it in stride and nodded. "Of course we'll let you know, ma'am."
"It's very difficult to run a tight ship when one of my best - pairs of operatives" - and again Bond did not wince at the slight pause, sure in his heart that she really meant James and was including him out of pity or something - "has a distressing tendency to disappear for weeks at a time. Where have you been?"
"On vacation," said James, and Bond hated everything about this situation with a deep dark loathing - James being the smooth competent Spy while he himself sat there like a well-dressed paperweight. "We weren't aware you needed to keep tabs on us."
"I am the head of this group," said M. "I need to be able to keep tabs on all of my people, Agents 007."
"Next time we'll be sure to leave a forwarding address," said James.
"Thank you," said M, and softened again. "Please, help yourself to the cakes. They're all quite fresh-baked."
"Thanks," said James, and tried one. Bond made himself reach for one as well. It was, in fact, delicious.
"For the record," M added, "I didn't have any pressing need for you while you were away, and I don't foresee any in the immediate future - but I would very much like to have you available to me, should something come up. A way of contacting you without going through a chain of international associates would be extremely welcome."
"I'll give you the frequency to our radios," James promised. "I should have that done by this afternoon."
"Am I interrupting your tinkering?" M smiled at him over her tea. "I must say, I rather envy your partner," and she turned the smile to Bond briefly. "Those gadgets you come up with seem ever so useful."
"They're usually Bond's ideas," James admitted. "I just do the practical part."
"Practicality is a highly undervalued commodity here," said M. Bond didn't want to wince now; he wanted to roll his eyes - M was practically purring at James, and he was right there, hello.
But he wasn't about to start anything with M, of all people, so he just sat back and took it, although he did make a special effort to include himself in the small talk that occupied the rest of the hour until M glanced at the brass and steel clock built into the opposite wall and stood.
"I'm afraid I've kept you from your work far too long, James. You no doubt have things to do of your own - as do I."
The two men rose and shook her hand again, with polite thanks for the hospitality; she walked them to the door and waved them out, with a last rejoinder: "Please, do keep me informed when you decide to leave again."
As the door closed behind them Bond breathed in deep. The secretary looked up and smiled at both of them, with a particularly wide one for Bond. "Did you survive, then?"
"I'm still standing, aren't I?" asked Bond, returning her smile and feeling more like himself now that M was safely out of sight. "Although I'm not sure now - I may have just died and met an angel."
James snorted, and the girl laughed - not at all mockingly. "Call me Jane," she said. Bond glanced at the tag on the desk hopefully, but the surname listed didn't make any sort of pun at all that he could see. She caught his glance, and added rather apologetically: "I've just been promoted from the Accounting department."
Well, that would explain it, Bond decided, but she still hadn't displayed much initiative in the codename department, even if she was rather cute. "Well, Jane, I'm pleased to meet you. I'm Bond, and this is James."
"Oh, I know," she said brightly. "M told me I should get used to seeing you both rather often. I look forward to that."
The smile Bond gave her in response was less flirtatious than the one she was shooting at him; he'd already written her off, and James snorted again as they left in the elevator.
"Not good enough for you?"
"With a name like that?" James rolled his eyes at him, and Bond crossed his arms. "Not that she isn't cute - "
"You think every girl is cute, especially if they throw themselves at you like that," James observed.
"Don't get jealous on me. I had to sit through 45 minutes of M throwing herself at you."
James looked genuinely confused. "She was not."
"Whatever." The elevator opened on the 14th floor, and Bond headed straight for their door. "I'm going back to sleep. Wake me up at 2, if you've got the watches done by then."
"Okay." James locked the door behind them and sat down to get back to work, with one last confused glance at Bond. He had strange issues with M, that man did.
Part 3: You Only Die Once
Chapter 3
2500 words
Every morning, room service brought each patron of the hotel a breakfast tray containing coffee accoutrements to round out the coffeemaker setup in every room, along with a bowl of fruit which always contained a strangely high proportion of bananas, a basket of assorted small pastries, and a copy of the New York Times. Every morning, James collected this tray, took his pick of the pastries (he got the strawberry Danish; Bond got the cream cheese), and had his own coffee before setting the tray away on the end of the long teakwood bureau in the bedroom side of the room.
The morning after their meeting with Lotta and Ivan, nothing changed in this routine until Bond woke up (at 9:00, three and a half hours after he'd actually gone to sleep) to use the bathroom and, while half-sleepwalking back to the bed, hip-checked the tray and spilled all the bananas.
The ensuing string of bleary bilingual blasphemy as he picked up after himself was suddenly broken when he noticed a strange sticker on one of the bananas. That he'd managed to notice it at all with his eyes half-lidded and his brain half-napping was, he said afterward, simply further evidence that he really was the most amazing spy in the entire world. He peeled it off and peered at it. "What in the world - "
James had looked up when he heard Bond knock the tray over, of course, but Bond had seemed competent to clean up, so he'd gone back to work. Now he looked up again, then crossed the room to look at the bit of film stuck to Bond's finger.
"That's microfilm," he said.
Bond squinted at it, holding it up to the overhead lamp. "Well, what do you know. So it is."
"How long have you been a Spy and you don't recognize microfilm when you see it?" James peeled it off Bond's finger and pulled a loupe out of his pocket. "I'm gonna need a lightbox, I think..."
"Hey, I've been a Spy in a place where they actually bother using microfilm for exactly as long as you have," Bond protested defensively, rising to follow James back to his desk. The Engineer poked around for a bit until he found a piece of vellum, which he then set over the top of the desk lamp to provide backlighting. On this makeshift light table, he laid the frame of microfilm down and examined it with his magnifier. Bond crowded over his shoulder. "What's it say?"
James looked it over twice, then sat back and shook his head with a mixture of amusement and resignation. "It's from M. Apparently we're supposed to go to her office 'as soon as we're available.' And there will be tea and cake."
"Shit." Bond looked longingly back at the bed, and ran a hand over his face. "I am in no shape to go talk to M right now. Why couldn't she wait until after dinner?"
"Well, you could grab another couple hours' sleep," James suggested doubtfully. "It just says as soon as we're available, not right this minute."
"No way. She'll totally know we didn't go right away and then my career will be ruined and oh God why did it have to be M at Jesus Christ o'clock in the morning - " Bond was in the bathroom splashing cold water on his face before he was finished with the sentence. "I'm not making M wait. She'll probably have me drawn and quartered for not having found that as soon as the tray got delivered - "
"Bond, calm down. Emma wouldn't have you killed." James rolled his eyes and went to find Bond's cufflinks, which were never in the same place on two consecutive mornings, before Bond could start looking for them and freak out about the delay when he didn't see them immediately.
"You don't understand," Bond said desperately, buttoning his shirt up as fast as he could. "She's not Emma. She's M."
"Bond." James rolled his eyes again, then found the cufflinks and crossed into Bond's space, pressing the bits of silver into one of the Spy's hands and then pressing his hands down on the Spy's shoulders. "Calm down. Just because she changed her code name doesn't mean she magically changed personalities. She likes us. We helped her become M and she liked us before that. You're right, I don't understand why the hell you're constantly thinking she's gonna have our throats slit in the night."
"Not yours, just mine. And because she's M," said Bond unreasonably, slipping the links through his cuffs and sliding under James' arm to grab a tie.
James rolled his eyes for the third and last time. "Have some coffee first."
"We need to get to - "
"Ten minutes isn't gonna be the difference between life and death here, Bond." James poured the coffee himself, and added a generous dollop of whiskey from the bottle on the drafting table before forcing it firmly into Bond's hands. "Shut up and drink."
"Why did it have to be M at Jesus Christ o'clock in the morning," Bond repeated in something that was almost a wail, but he obeyed while James got his own tie and jacket on.
---
Most of the bureaucratic offices in HQ were on the second floor, behind a hidden door in the back of a nightclub which had a reputation as being one of the most exclusive in Las Vegas. M, however, kept her office and her official living quarters on the 13th floor - unmarked on the elevator, which skipped from 12 to 14 like most of the hotels in that superstitious city. One had to hit both the 12th and 14th floor buttons at the same time and hold them for five seconds, and then pass a screening from M's personal secretary in the lobby that the elevator opened into. The girl at the desk was a stranger to both of them, but she'd apparently been well-briefed; James and Bond were recognized immediately and waved straight into the office.
It was a warm but professional space, with narrow wood paneling and a wide window that looked down on the rooftop garden over the parking garage. The seating was upholstered with naugahyde in the turquoise-and-orange colour scheme that predominated throughout the hotel, and was just comfortable enough to lull visitors into a false sense of security. Three of the chairs were pulled up to a small table in front of the window, where two angular silver carafes and a set of mugs flanked a plate of tea-cakes.
M herself was seated behind the large desk centered along the far wall, reading through the contents of a manila file folder. Although she'd changed the black leather catsuit she had worn when her codename was Emma for a severe pinstripe suit more befitting the position of head of UIEEI, she still wore her hair in a long, dark flip cut, and the smile she turned on James and Bond in turn had the same slightly-condescending warmth. "I wasn't expecting you to be awake this early."
Both men remained standing while she rose and came over to shake their hands. They followed her to the table and sat down after she took her own seat. "I'm sorry we didn't come earlier - " Bond began, and she let out a sudden laugh.
"Any earlier and I doubt you would have been capable of coming," she said. "I know I invited you for tea, but the pitcher closer to you is coffee - I suspect you'll need it, won't you, Mister Montaigne?"
She poured her own tea, but Bond just sat in respectful (and somewhat terrified) silence until James poured coffee for both of them - plenty of real cream from a smaller pitcher for himself, and black with plenty of sugar for Bond. "Thank you, ma'am," James said to her.
M looked at James' mug and laughed again. "I forgot, you Americans only drink tea if it's iced, don't you? If the coffee runs out, we'll ring for more. Please, relax."
Bond knew this last was directed at him, and tried to force himself to look as careless as he ever did as he sipped the coffee - far better than anything he could brew himself, but not as soothing as the whiskey-laced one James had poured him earlier.
"I do apologize for summoning you so suddenly - you didn't have any trouble finding the invitation, I hope? I wasn't entirely certain whether either of you eat bananas, but I thought you might enjoy the novelty of the method."
"Bond found it," said James, entirely for Bond's benefit; as unreasonably nervous as he was around the woman, talking up his abilities a little to her ought to help.
"Very good." She smiled at Bond, who nodded back. "Again, I apologize for it being so sudden, but I had only just heard that you'd returned. I wanted to catch you before you went racing off again. You no doubt have plans of that sort already."
James shrugged noncommittally. "We've been speaking with people, but I wouldn't say we have actual plans right now."
M nodded. "When you do, I wish to be informed. I would like to be able to keep in contact with you."
It took quite a bit of self-control for Bond not to wince at the sudden warning tone of that injunction; James took it in stride and nodded. "Of course we'll let you know, ma'am."
"It's very difficult to run a tight ship when one of my best - pairs of operatives" - and again Bond did not wince at the slight pause, sure in his heart that she really meant James and was including him out of pity or something - "has a distressing tendency to disappear for weeks at a time. Where have you been?"
"On vacation," said James, and Bond hated everything about this situation with a deep dark loathing - James being the smooth competent Spy while he himself sat there like a well-dressed paperweight. "We weren't aware you needed to keep tabs on us."
"I am the head of this group," said M. "I need to be able to keep tabs on all of my people, Agents 007."
"Next time we'll be sure to leave a forwarding address," said James.
"Thank you," said M, and softened again. "Please, help yourself to the cakes. They're all quite fresh-baked."
"Thanks," said James, and tried one. Bond made himself reach for one as well. It was, in fact, delicious.
"For the record," M added, "I didn't have any pressing need for you while you were away, and I don't foresee any in the immediate future - but I would very much like to have you available to me, should something come up. A way of contacting you without going through a chain of international associates would be extremely welcome."
"I'll give you the frequency to our radios," James promised. "I should have that done by this afternoon."
"Am I interrupting your tinkering?" M smiled at him over her tea. "I must say, I rather envy your partner," and she turned the smile to Bond briefly. "Those gadgets you come up with seem ever so useful."
"They're usually Bond's ideas," James admitted. "I just do the practical part."
"Practicality is a highly undervalued commodity here," said M. Bond didn't want to wince now; he wanted to roll his eyes - M was practically purring at James, and he was right there, hello.
But he wasn't about to start anything with M, of all people, so he just sat back and took it, although he did make a special effort to include himself in the small talk that occupied the rest of the hour until M glanced at the brass and steel clock built into the opposite wall and stood.
"I'm afraid I've kept you from your work far too long, James. You no doubt have things to do of your own - as do I."
The two men rose and shook her hand again, with polite thanks for the hospitality; she walked them to the door and waved them out, with a last rejoinder: "Please, do keep me informed when you decide to leave again."
As the door closed behind them Bond breathed in deep. The secretary looked up and smiled at both of them, with a particularly wide one for Bond. "Did you survive, then?"
"I'm still standing, aren't I?" asked Bond, returning her smile and feeling more like himself now that M was safely out of sight. "Although I'm not sure now - I may have just died and met an angel."
James snorted, and the girl laughed - not at all mockingly. "Call me Jane," she said. Bond glanced at the tag on the desk hopefully, but the surname listed didn't make any sort of pun at all that he could see. She caught his glance, and added rather apologetically: "I've just been promoted from the Accounting department."
Well, that would explain it, Bond decided, but she still hadn't displayed much initiative in the codename department, even if she was rather cute. "Well, Jane, I'm pleased to meet you. I'm Bond, and this is James."
"Oh, I know," she said brightly. "M told me I should get used to seeing you both rather often. I look forward to that."
The smile Bond gave her in response was less flirtatious than the one she was shooting at him; he'd already written her off, and James snorted again as they left in the elevator.
"Not good enough for you?"
"With a name like that?" James rolled his eyes at him, and Bond crossed his arms. "Not that she isn't cute - "
"You think every girl is cute, especially if they throw themselves at you like that," James observed.
"Don't get jealous on me. I had to sit through 45 minutes of M throwing herself at you."
James looked genuinely confused. "She was not."
"Whatever." The elevator opened on the 14th floor, and Bond headed straight for their door. "I'm going back to sleep. Wake me up at 2, if you've got the watches done by then."
"Okay." James locked the door behind them and sat down to get back to work, with one last confused glance at Bond. He had strange issues with M, that man did.
