AN This piece was actually a lot harder to write than the two before it. That's probably because the nature of the story itself is a little different. Rather than having a plot in and of itself, it's more of a passing piece. It gets James and Vesper to and from certain points, so that the over arching plot of the series can be fulfilled. It's a little different for me to write, but it's fun. It is also less of a soul crushingly sad and angsty piece. Rather than being about loss and denial, it is instead about the painful nature of recovery.
The poem"My Mind Is" is by ee cummings.
my mind is
She does not know why he is there. It is honestly a mystery to Vesper, one that sends anxiety racing around her stomach and fear shaking through her finger tips, but that hadn't stopped her from letting him walk into her home. Maybe it is just that she likes feeling his hurt, she likes having the pain of him brush against her skin, because that is all she's had for so long now, she doesn't know what to do with anything else. Either way, it sends her into her kitchen, where she braces herself against the counter, and tries to breathe.
(one two—in out—please don't—be sick)
After a moment, Vesper stitches herself back up, and carefully, carefully brings him a glass of water. It seems plain on the table, but she hasn't had time to buy tea and she feels odd giving him milk so it is water that sits before him. She isn't sure which is more consuming; his presence, or the cruel, cruel joke that is the contents of his cup.
She has missed his eyes, she thinks, cold and wicked and too lovely to be real. She hates the way they're avoiding her now (she does not let herself wonder if it is because he sees notVesper is sitting in her seat, instead of her), because it feels like a lie and he was always so honest with her.
"Why are you here, James?" she asks, because she craves the taste of his name, and she demands the release of his answer. And then there they are, his eyes flicking up to look at her, ice chips that settle through her skin and into her soul. They freeze a bit of her insides, but it is a solid cold, the kind that gives her shape and definition.
He does not say anything. They both know that means he does not know.
"Why are you here?" he asks, the words the same but meaning something so, so different. Vesper looks away, because she can feel the condemnation (why are you not dead) in his words. She does not like to think that she has failed him yet again.
"I can't leave," she admits, glaring at the window and trying not to cry. They had met each other since he had saved her, but it had never felt real, never hurt quite like this.
"M," he says, a curse and an understanding.
(you, she thinks, but that is a secret she will. not. tell.)
They are silent for a long time, their breaths ragged and grating against each other. She wants to reach out and touch his hand, but she is so, so afraid of being burned, by both his wicked cold and his unforgiving fire. Vesper doesn't know what he wants. He doesn't look like he knows himself.
The moment is heavy, and she does not know what to do with herself. She does not know what she expected when she let him ghost through her door. He had been shadows and candle smoke and then angel wings. He was not supposed to become flesh and blood and sit at her table.
A part of her wants to break the silence with the whisper of truth. That part of her wants to tell stories, of how she took long walks to outrun the water of her dreams and the woman she was supposed to be, how she had missed him, how M was the only person to ever call her by her name. How she still dreamt of that dark and wretched place he had found her. How things had been mostly alright, when she had carried a bit of him inside her.
That part thinks better of it all.
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
She no longer smells like Vesper. He had caught the slight trace of it when he had walked inside, and then again when she placed the cup before him. It is a soft, lovely smell, something making him think of berries and darkness. He is almost upset at notVesper's changes, at the way she had come and changed something she had no right to. But then, he knows well enough that things are not quite that simple.
"What were you doing, after?" he asks, not caring who answers. She glances at him, and for a moment Vesper is examining him from across the table, cool and wise and calm. Then he sees her bite her lips, swallow, look away.
"Making myself useful. M…she found me things to do."
He laughs, because he knows what M does to keep people occupied. Puts them in holes or has them start digging.
"It was…infinitely less glamorous than the work you do."
"What I do isn't glamorous," he says, voice flat. Vesper glances up at the hard edge in his tone, but he does not meet her eyes. "It's cruelty parading as something more. And it's not even my job, anymore."
"It's not?" she asks, looking confused. He gives another black laugh. She almost sounds indignant.
"No. I've been compromised."
They both sit in silence, him listening to the sound of water gushing from a pipe and being beaten toward death, her to her breathing and the steady sound of his heart monitor.
"Where do we go from here, James?" she asks, leaning her face on her hand. His smile is lazy when he turns back to her. He is not sure if he feels it.
"Anywhere."
He gets up and leaves not long after. James only pauses to write his address down for her (he refuses to be the only one to run to her, swears to himself it simply will not work that way), then his coat is over his shoulder and he is leaving. She does not stop him, does not call back. Vesper's eyes just follow him across the floor and then through her door.
He had been right. He had needed her, had needed that life giving water. But he has taken his drink, and now he is satisfied. He can go a little longer without her dripping onto his skin.
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
He left. He had come and he had gone and now Vesper is alone. She swallowed hard when the door closed behind him, smoothed down her pants, tried to ignore the squirm in her stomach. She is fine, though.
(the fact that she spends the next twenty minutes crouched in the corner of her kitchen, trying to breathe is a little more telling.)
She is strangely not disappointed that he left so abruptly. She had known that he was always charm and smoke, something to be enjoyed in the moment, but never clung to. That is her mistake, she supposes, or one of many. She had clutched him to her chest after she had seen him kill a man, after he had completed the mission, after she had returned from death. James had been clenched in her hands, because that was the last bit of Vesper she had known; the one with him. And without that…she would be just notVesper, an empty shell not remembering how to be who she was.
She had thought that she had been suffering without him, adrift in an ocean of despair and regret and loss. But now, she knows better. Now she knows that she is not dripping because the water has hovered about her skin, but because it has been trapped inside. She is waterlogged, unable to push air into her lungs because she has kept him in her head and her heart and her bones, and seeing him again, for real, speaking to him on candid, pointed terms…
It reminds her that she is nothing compared to him. She is a mistake, a little spot that had refused to be washed out of the fabric. She is not supposed to stand before his grace, and certainly not supposed to ask for something in return. Her attempts to try were just asking for more hurt.
chipping with sharp fatal tools
She lingers with him. At least, the memory of her, pale and determined and wary as she sat at the table. It is like a droplet of water that refuses to be dried, clinging to his fingers. He plays with it sometimes, turning his hand and watching it catch the light as it slowly trails down to his palm.
He had thought her used up, a vague fragment of what she used to be. Strangely enough, he had continued to yearn after her, even though he knew full well that the woman he craved was drifting somewhere beneath Venice. He had wanted her because she was the best thing he had left, the only chance at remembering what he used to feel like without wanting to vomit because of the hurt.
But, as much as he possibly resents it, he did not see the thin specter from the hospital bed or the chapel in her apartment. Vesper had seeped through the room, whispering the chance of maybe, maybe…
He tells himself it is interesting. But he is wise enough to know that it is not interest that lurches through his bones and grabs onto the possibility with slippery hands.
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
She once again starts her regimen of diligent care. Vesper had thought that maybe, she would be able to get along without it. She thought that with the continual visits to the doctors and the agents monitoring her and the effort it took to chase the shadows from her walls, she would be fine.
But several days after James' visit, Vesper finds herself in the park, walking until she can't feel her legs. She has eaten a full meal, has her warm coat on against the wind, and her hair has been washed and pulled back into something nice. The thought that she is taking good care of herself makes her almost think she can take care of everything else, as well.
She likes the burn of the wind on her face, the sturdiness of the trees around her, and the way they block the Thames from her eyes. She likes how this place helps her forget.
And then it starts to make her remember. His address. It is near here, it is within arm's reach. And she doesn't want to go. And she doesn't want to see him. And she doesn't like the way her feet betray her, and take her to his door.
She could not knock. She could keep going, leave, never look back. She could steep in her lost sort of sorrow for forever.
She knocks. He answers. He does not seem surprised. There is a steadiness in James' eyes that seems frozen in place, keeping him upright and capable.
(when, she wonders, did that get there?)
"Yes?" he asks, because it is her turn. She has come here and now she must explain herself.
"We need to do this right," she said, and suddenly Vesper is using her lips, sounding calm and authoritative and not tolerating anything but what she wants. She nearly falls to her knees in gratitude. But that is not something Vesper would do, she knows this, not all of her details have been soaked away. So she stands upright, challenging him to respond.
"And how is that?" He is no longer cold. He is not warm, but he is hot, intense and just barely checking his fire. James is toying with her, she does not need to see the self-satisfied smirk playing about his lips to know.
"We can't hide," she told him, matter of fact as his heat makes some of her water evaporate. "We need to talk, and if it turns out we truly do not care for what the other has to say, then fine. But I refuse to shy away from it out of fear."
He narrows his eyes ever so slightly at the accusation, but the smile is still there, knowing and powerful. He still has not let her inside.
"And where will we do this?"
"Anywhere," she says, throwing his own word back at him. He raises an eyebrow.
"Let me get my coat."
He steps back into his apartment, and Vesper does not miss the way some of his hot air swings out to touch her like a caress.
nevertheless i
They go to a café. It is small, quiet, pleasant enough. He searches through the security risks before he remembers that he is no longer a spy.
They order drinks, and sit outside. Their table has a small umbrella, and the street is busy with people and cars. He can still hear every word when she asks what he thinks of her. James raises an eyebrow, and wonders if that is something she really wants to know.
"Say it," she says, and again it is Vesper throwing the words into the air. He looks at her over his cup, because now he is not sure what he thinks.
"You are not the same," he tells her, and she laughs, because apparently she noticed a bit of herself dissolving away as well.
(she does not seem to notice that the same has happened to him, and then he finds it shockingly hard to breathe)
"You've turned mild," he explained. Vesper stares over at the street.
"I've been worn down," she murmurs, and it is gravel that pours from her mouth in that instant, not water. He is certain that there is more to her mill stone than he knows.
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
They make meeting a ritual. Once a week, they show up at the same café, and take an outside table, and stare each other down while they talk. It hurts, daring each other to be honest, to be totally brutally honest when the truth will only damage them both, but she likes it. Vesper no longer belongs in a world of lies or denial, and she cannot begrudge the chance to be clear. Her feelings and her actions and her past and her existence have all been ignored so much that she felt herself losing definition, something more corrosive than the water ever had been. Being frank, however briefly, however acidic it might turn out, is a relief that carves out her identity once more.
There are some things that she does not tell him, however.
She does not say how hard it was, existing after she had been hauled back. She does not speak of the tears and the sorrow and the teacups thrown at walls in candlelight. He probably guesses.
She does not tell him about how she had had his child, for a little bit. The dichotomy of the memory and the prediction of loneliness stays her tongue. Every time she recalls how difficult the loss was, she wants to share. But then the thought of him leaving her, rejecting her after something she could not control stuffs the words back, and keeps the subject mute.
She does not tell him why she continues to go to chapels and pray. He obviously finds it harshly amusing, because he can see no version of her that belongs on her knees with her hands tucked neatly and her head bowed in supplication. That is probably because he does not know that she prays mostly for the child she was not allowed to have.
Vesper imagines that there are things that he does not say about himself, and that is fine. She has learned it will all wash out in the end.
It is ridiculous, but she finds herself thinking about him, a lot. And he is not the whisper that haunted her shadows, nor the glorious, feathered creature that had watched her as she continued to drown with each day that went by. He is just James in her head, allowing himself to smile at a comment here, give a casual retort there. He is the person that she hopes to impress for halfway decent reasons.
He is the reason that she gets out of bed and makes herself good food and washes her hair and takes walks and shakes a little bit of the water from her dress whenever the dark and the cold get too close.
myself
Vesper does not show up at the café. At first, he thinks she is just late, but Vesper is not late and even notVesper would be sure to have let him know, because she understands where it is his mind will go. But he waits. He makes the decision and sits outside of the pretty store front and thinks about just how wrong things may be going. He waits all of fifteen minutes, and then he leaves.
He goes to her apartment, and he does not know what he is expecting as he turns the key.
(blood and water and death death death)
But her apartment is clean, and quiet, and without much fuss. Nothing broken, nothing tossed, nothing is a wreck. He does not ask himself if she chose to not come, but it is a question in his chest.
The shower is running. His gun is in his hand and a hard little bit of cold is in his chest as he pushes back the door. He is not ready.
Her bathroom seems strange, all of a sudden. Everything seems too pale, washed out by the inhuman sterility of the lights. The bathroom curtain is drawn, but he can still see Vesper, curled up and shaking in the bottom of her bathtub. There is water on the floor, some of it having escaped through the gap and onto the tiles. There is no color to it, but he is reluctant to step inside, for fear of being stained by it. Vesper had taught him well enough what a bit of water could do to a person.
James lowers his gun. He watches her for a moment longer, searching instinctively for blood, but the pain seeping from her skin is not the kind that can be washed away. He looks at her, shaking at the bottom of her tub, the shower streaming over her. She still is in her clothes.
Nothing has happened here. No one has broken in, he can see no evidence of a threat. But there is something tragic hanging in the air, heavy enough to drip onto his coat and shoes the moment he stepped through the front door.
He can leave. He can turn back around and step over her body and through the wreckage and out the door. He is an icy cold desert. But suddenly, overwhelmingly, it feels like he is about to drown.
James quietly sets his gun down on the counter, and pulls off his coat. He slips off his shoes, and places them neatly by the toilet. He catches sight of himself in the mirror. He turns away, carefully lowering himself into the ocean she is now swirling about in.
He steps into the bath, and adjusts the curtain to keep more water from falling onto the floor. He can feel Vesper gasp in a breath when she feels him touch her, but she does not stop hiding her face.
James brings himself to his hands and knees, and lays down beside her. She pulls back on herself at first, but then her hands are wrapped in his shirt and her head is against his neck and she is suddenly enveloping because he is an anchor and she so very sea tossed.
He does not know if there are tears or just water on her face, but he has learned to not care. He gently rests his hand on her hair, closing his eyes at the touch. His grip is not tight, but it feels for all in the world like he is the one clinging to her.
She says nothing, and he follows suit. He does not know what he is doing, only that she has a need and he an ache and they are very, very alone.
"It feels like a dream and I can't wake up," she whispers, voice breaking against his collar.
He shushes her, a sweeter sound than even the water falling around them, and presses his lips into her hair. It is not a kiss, he tells himself.
(he lets himself notice just how much he wants it to be.)
"You're fine," he whispers, a promise, a secret, an oath. "Trust me. You are fine."
The water is warm through his clothes, seeping through his skin and setting into the ice in his blood and the hard, dry earth of his bones. There is hurt in remembering who he had once been, before the blood and the death and the leagues and leagues of ice and snow that had crystalized him into something that does not feel because of Vesper.
But it is a good pain, something that allows him to breathe, and indulge in her hot, pained breath against his skin.
Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet
bellowings.