OpalescentGold: I do not own James Bond. This has gotten seriously out of hand. Umm, how long is this going to be?

James has...time on his hands with the Defence Intelligence Group.

This is new. This is almost alien. From his first foray with the Britannia Royal Naval College, James has been kept busy, busy, busy. With training, with exercises, with shooting this man and rescuing that woman, with blowing up this monument and saving that building, with life and death and bravery and cruelty, with everything the military has to offer him.

And, oh, for a man like him, for someone who craves action at his heels and fire in his blood and stars in his hands, they have so much to give; this life is embedded into his heart, this love for country and lust for danger. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to walk away from this, not completely.

A nice, peaceful existence has never been what James wanted. In the back of his mind, a little voice wonders if that is what his soulmate expects of him. If so, they will be disappointed.

(He wishes desperately that this one time, the universe has not messed up, that karma has not screwed him over, that his soulmate will be able to truly understand him, be what he needs even if they're not what he wants. But that's hope and fantasy, and he dwells in reality.)

It's not that work with the RNR DI Group isn't challenging. It is. He's responsible for training soldiers in intelligence, in how to handle information that might bless or curse them. He draws his own hands through waves and waves of data that could mean everything or nothing at all.

But it's a job in a way that being an intelligence officer on a boat, a submarine, high up in the sky, wasn't. There are hours here, work hours, and after they're over, he's done. Left hanging with nothing to do until the next sunrise.

After a few weeks of spending his spare time drinking in pubs, James shakes himself out of it and decides to do something worth his time. He's always been intelligent, not as intelligent as the genius he knows his soulmate is, but decently intelligent and stubborn as a mule.

He's been working with the Navy for this long, and his time with the 030 SFU was hardly unkind to his wallet. The RNR DI Group is quite amenable to educating their agents as well. Cambridge and Oxford aren't far off from Chicksands, and there are always other, less well-recommended, universities nearby.

Now that he has the time, he may as well get himself a good college education. Who knows? Might come in handy some day.

It's a bit uncomfortable, wandering around a college campus after years of combat training and fieldwork, but James forces himself to adjust to his surroundings with all of the speed and efficiency that his instructors have complimented over and over.

He's careful not to let any of his unease show. He's only twenty-four, so, with the scars on his body concealed beneath fine clothing, there's no reason for any of the students to suspect anything of him, even if it is true that he's lumped in with the undergraduates rather than people his own age.

Well, no matter. They're all in their early twenties - or late teens - and it's not like he doesn't know how to lie without a single tell. The few "friends" he makes never suspect he is anything more than what he seems.

He decides to take night and weekend courses, at times such that even his overtime hours at RNR DI are over. The universities are more than happy to accommodate someone with his recommendations and certificates, and soon, he is up to his neck in dissertations and scholarly articles.

It's not easy, and that's why James grins and digs in.

He doesn't bother trying to focus on a single subject. There's no use for that, not in his career. Instead, he spread his range far and wide and looks for what is most useful.

Mathematics and physics, because even if he can instinctively calculate the trajectory of a bullet from hard experience and cold training, it's better to be precise when the alternative is death.

Biology and geography, because he's been travelling and he will be training a hell of a lot more in the future if he has any say in his life, and knowing the climate and animals is important for survival.

Forensics and criminology, because he's dealing with terrorists and war, intelligence gathering and a global chess game, brutally violent sociopaths and psychopaths, tracking and murdering.

And, last, but not least, languages.

James focuses on oriental languages, because, really, with all of the shit going on in the Middle East, he's going to need a good handle on their dialects. And he honestly doubts it'll be long before he's out of the classroom and learning through cultural immersion once more.

He goes to the specialised courses, and he absorbs it all like a well-made sponge. Not unsurprisingly, alongside a good three-fourths of the student population, he ends up writing most of his notes on his skin during the lectures and discussions, the habit so effortless now that he knows that the majority of what he puts down is getting through to his soulmate.

His soulmate, who, to his bizarre pride and bafflement, seems to be understanding the college material that James is learning.

At twenty-five, halfway through his undergraduate degree, he thinks to himself that his soulmate must be the strangest teenager who ever existed. He doesn't know whether to pity the parents or blame them.

Because James is fairly certain they're a teenager by now. A young teenager, perhaps, but a teenager, and a none too happy one from the looks of it. The increasing list of insults against their parents, as well as 'Sherlock' and Mycroft', both of whom are evidently a bit older, are perfectly scathing and more than a tad concerning.

Sherlock almost set his apartment on fire again today. I'm afraid he's developing pyromaniac tendencies in addition to his already present necrophilia.

Mummy keeps pushing the daughters of wealthy businessmen on me. Why can't she deal with them herself? One of them had handcuffs on her person.

Papa's hair is grey enough that he should be nearing senility, but he still has enough energy to scold me for not exercising. Then, he gets angry when I steal his motorbike.

Mycroft is developing a worrying obsession with umbrellas. I am concerned.

Sherlock managed to singe his eyebrows off today. Who gave him those bloody chemicals?

Mummy says we have to go to another party on Saturday. Which corner should I hide in this time? There are no corners. It's a circular room.

Mycroft is scheming again. I just know it.

If that isn't weird enough - Christ, what sort of family is his soulmate dealing with? - little comments and observations show up over his own notes, sometimes near instantaneously and sometimes after days of silence...as if they're researching the topic before giving their opinion. There are questions and even corrections on occasion.

They, he notices, particularly like physics, mathematics, and the small amount of engineering he picks up.

James, rather painfully, recalls what his mother told him about the rules regarding soulmates and ponders over why this is getting through. Eventually, he concludes that it's because while his soulmate is unintentionally receiving their information from James, they are writing their conclusions down for themselves, not for him.

And, really, his soulmate has not stopped writing on their skin for seven years. James doubts that they even consciously think about it now, similar to how he rarely considers his soulmate in the middle of an engaging lecture unless they are cheekily writing over the words he has misspelt in his haste.

The first time it happens, James nearly laughs out loud in the middle of class.

Of course, as if that isn't enough, more than half the time, they're a useful little bugger.

A good amount of their remarks, written in precise, neat handwriting that's an amusing change from the original, shaky letters of childhood, are little more than trivia. Entertaining, but not exactly going to help James write his essay.

And then, his soulmate goes and writes a fact that he ends up basing an entire research project on. He's half-appreciative and half-exasperated with this state of affairs. Genius or not, must he get shown up by a bloody teenager?

In-between their moody comments about their family and their amusing contributions to James' education, they continue to write anything from movie reviews to book quotes. Recently, it seems like they're really getting into it.

"I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts." - Moby Dick

That's...okay, that's alright. James would prefer for that quote to not be just below his right armpit, but he likes it well enough.

"The world seems full of good men - even if there are monsters in it." - Dracula

He can't honestly say he enjoys reading about vampires, but the quote suits his work, so he'll take it. Again, a bit too far up on his upper left thigh.

"True courage is not knowing when to take a life, but to spare one." - The Hobbit

James spends a good half an hour staring at this quote before reaching for the spray-on concealer bottle he hasn't touched in two years. He shakes it violently and covers the graceful black words. For the first time, he feels a stab of insecurity because of his soulmate.

He has served his country. He continues to serve his country. Everything is for England. But...

His hands are dirty. Will they want such a tainted man? Surely they deserve someone better than James Bond.

And then, not two minutes later...

"Small though it is, the human brain can be quite effective when working at full efficiency, not unlike myself!" - Doctor Who

James bursts out laughing. "Arrogant git," he says to thin air, smile nearly fond.

James graduates Cambridge with first-class honours in Oriental Languages and promptly gets shipped off to Cyprus.

Well. It's about time.

Grinning contentedly, he leans back in his plane seat and cracks open the book he bought from the nearby bookstore right before leaving.

"Some things are more precious because they don't last long." - The Picture of Dorian Gray

He runs around in Cyprus, gathering intelligence and sending it back to England, before moving on to Indonesia. He spends his twenty-eighth birthday in a pub with some fantastic martinis and ends the night by tumbling into bed with two sultry twins.

Some people chose to be celibate, preferring to love only their soulmate. Others are happily promiscuous until they can find their soulmate and devote themselves to monogamy. James has never been particularly fond of either ideology. Besides, his soulmate is a brat.

He won't be forever, a sly little voice points out from the dark depths of his mind, but he pushes it away.

"Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed." - The Iliad

James stares at the quote on his chest through the bathroom mirror in the morning after of a spectacular shag and hopes desperately that his soulmate isn't going into teenage depression and melodrama. He doesn't think he could take it.

"Each man delights in the work that suits him best." - The Odyssey

There. Vague enough, innocent enough, but something that resonates with James. He takes a quick detour to Iran and then goes cavorting in China. A bullet misses him by a millimetre in Iraq, and then one actually hits him in North Korea.

A through and through on his shoulder. To his distaste, he's on bed rest for a week and a half. At least they bring him entertainment before he dies of boredom instead of the gunshot wound and infection.

"Ask no questions and you will be told no lies." - Great Expectations

James smirks faintly as he writes the quote down on his right arm, amused by how ironic the words are. He finds himself lying to civilians more often than not these days, his days filled with secrets and facades, but it's not really something he enjoys.

If he ever does find his soulmate, he hopes that they won't ask and he won't have to lie.

After the doctors release him at last, James finds himself on a plane to Afghanistan.

"Hey. Hey! Come on, stay with me. No, don't close your eyes. Focus!"

James smirks through the blood bubbling out of his mouth, vision wavering already. Despite that, he can still see the worried deep blue eyes of his doctor, feel the hands pressing the tattered remains of a jacket against the knife injury. A bullet thuds into the dirt beside him, and the other man curses but does not run.

John Watson is a good man. James regrets that it's more than possible Watson will die today because of him.

"I'm fine," he says. "It's a gut wound. Hurts like a bitch, but it'll take me a while to bleed out."

"Don't talk. Conserve your energy," Watson commands, pressing down harder. James chokes back a cry of pain, mindful of the gunmen trying to find them. Their shelter is thin, but it's the best they can do for now. "You're not going to die if I have anything to say about it. Come on. Here...do you have any family back at home?"

Home. England.

"No," James admits, coughing a little. Chills are settling in now, although it's summer and bloody hot outside. He almost misses his now (literally) bloody and useless jacket, the one that's currently stopping him from bleeding out.

"Soulmate?" Watson frowns in concern at the blood coating his hands, bright crimson and richly warm. It's not really done to talk of soulmates in the military, not openly at least, but it's not like anyone will care now.

James sighs. He wants to close his eyes but doesn't. He thinks of book quotes and helpful hints and grumpy insults, youth and intelligence and cheek. "...Haven't found them." A pause while he flounders and the gunshots die down slightly. "You?"

Watson laughs a little helplessly. "Me neither, but I'm not sure I want to," he says ruefully. "Christ, the things that they write..."

That sounds interesting. And distracting, which is the important part. James manages to pry his eyes fully open again, wondering when he let them close halfway. "What?"

"Reports of murders. The more gruesome the better, apparently." Watson shakes his head, leaning back to remove his own jacket. He wads it up and presses it over the soaked cloth, renewing the harsh pressure.

James hisses out a sharp breath and grits his teeth. Inwardly, he curses fluently, going from English to Chinese to Turkish to Japanese and then back, but doesn't reveal their location to the enemies. He'll be damned if he gets Watson killed because of low pain tolerance.

"Sorry. I would think that they were a serial killer or something, but there's always notes on who the culprit might be, so I'm thinking some kind of detective. They like to conduct experiments, too."

"Experiments?" James feels oddly detached, floating on cloud nine freezing cold and aching. He wants the good doctor to keep on talking, the calm, steady drone of his voice an anchor.

"Yeah." Watson smiles, a tad bemused but indulgent. "Chemistry mostly. Sometimes his results are bloody disturbing. He once wrote down that his apartment would have blown up had he let the experiment go on for fifteen more seconds."

That rings a bell somewhere in James' memory, but he's really drifting now, and it's so hard to focus. His eyes fall shut despite himself, the dull roaring in his ears drowning everything out. The darkness is comforting, and he...he...

"Oi! Christ, backup's almost here. Stick with me! Don't go to sl..ee.."

Sorry, James thinks distantly. Sorry.

James wakes up in a hospital bed, random quotes all over his body, machines beeping at him incessantly, a headache pounding in his skull and morphine dripping into his veins.

He groans.

It takes two weeks for him to escape his prison this time around. He spends the whole time reading books and writing down counter quotes. Christ, his soulmate is turning him into a bookworm, and he's never even met them yet.

And he writes

"There is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you." - A Tale of Two Expectations

for

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - The Great Gatsby

and

"Life is to be loved, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat." - Invisible Man

for

"We lived in the gaps between the stories." - The Handmaid's Tale

and

"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart." - Kafka on the Shore

for

"No one forgets the truth; they just get better at lying." - Revolutionary Road

.

When he asks, he is told that John Watson, shot in the shoulder but not before he saved Bond's life, has already been honourably discharged and is back in England. Unbeknownst to James, he will see the doctor again. But by then, they will both be completely different men altogether.

James returns to Libya, where he manages to find and secure detailed assessments of the status of the Libyan government's reputed financial ties to numerous terrorist organisations. They're not particularly happy about this, and he couldn't care less. Then, finally, finally, he is stationed back in England once more.

Five months after his twenty-ninth birthday, he wakes up to find a series of zeros and ones written all over his body, starting on his right palm and then up his right arm, over his right shoulder, across his chest and down in neat lines, skipping over his groin and onto his upper thighs, all the way down to his ankles.

James stares.

What the fuck?

Briefly, he feels a sense of deja vu before becoming distracted again by the binary code. He supposes it means something about the time he has spent working in intelligence that his second thought is: does this mean anything?

Wait, is his soulmate still a teenager?

Don't tell him they're warming up to become the next bloody cyber terrorist, because, damn it, it's too early for this. He much prefers the harmless quotes, thank you very much. He's heard more than enough cautionary tales about a soldier killing their soulmate for duty and obligation and then promptly falling to pieces afterwards.

While not utterly debilitating, losing a soulmate is, more often than not, considered a fate worse than death, especially if the two already knew one another. For complete strangers, losing their other half is devastating in an eerie way, but they can go on with life, albeit with a much higher chance of depression, anxiety, suicide, and other medical problems that tend to cause early demises.

Soulmates who have met, fallen in love, and then lost one another are a very different story.

There was a whole bloody play written on the concept, for Christ's sake. He studied Romeo and Juliet in Fettes College, and he has never managed to forget it, to his utter annoyance. It would be just his luck if his soulmate turns out to be a witty megalomaniac with a love for literature.

James makes a face and reluctantly gets out of bed. He'll ignore this for now, he decides. Maybe it's a one-time thing.

It's not a one-time thing.

Every damn morning, James wakes up with more zeros and ones on him, in increasingly more uncomfortable places. The digits are even getting smaller because there isn't enough room anymore, the ink washing away at a snail's pace...as it was designed to. Bloody hell, what is his soulmate doing?

Two weeks of this, and he's done. He's much better with action than waiting anyway.

"Miss Rachel," James purrs, sauntering over to the new intern.

The pretty blonde gulps and stares up at him with wide eyes. "M-Mr. Bond?"

"Would you do me a favour?" he questions, voice low and deep.

"W-What kind of f-favour?" Her blush is deep pink, and she licks her lips nervously. Easy.

He smiles roguishly at her and places a piece of paper down on her desk. On it are the newest series of digits that have appeared, this time on the bottoms of his feet. "Decipher this for me."

"I...oh...o-okay."

"Fantastic."

He pays her for her compliance enthusiastically and with much passion. She doesn't seem to mind at all.

Two days later, Rachel walks up to him hesitantly, her heels loud on the floor. Spectacularly unfit for field work, this one, but with a great pair of lungs. "M-Mr. Bond?"

James smiles, expertly hiding the curiosity and anticipation that's making his heart pound. Christ, his soulmate's only a teenager, he's never even met them, there's no reason for him to be this worked up about it. "Miss Rachel."

"Here." Not meeting his eyes, she hands him the paper he gave her before. "Translation's on the back. It's binary in ASCII scheme."

Before he can question her further, she flees. Odd. She wasn't that shy before.

Raising an eyebrow, James glances down at the paper and flips it over. His eye twitches. Cheeky brat.

To whomever this may concern, this message means nothing at all. Good day.

The woman who sits across from him has an austere smile and glacier eyes, head held high and back perfectly straight, beautiful but more so intimidating, knowing but more so commanding.

"James Bond," she says, "Do you know who I am?"

Leaning back in his uncomfortable chair, he smiles over the rubbish tea in his cup and doesn't glance around at the perfectly condemning office. "M," he responds evenly, "head of MI6."

She nods curtly. "Good." She opens the file on her desk. He has no doubt it is his. "You have shown commendable merit. However, more than one supervisor has noted your disregard for protocol and the hierarchy of command. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

James tilts his head five degrees to the right, but otherwise stays as still as a jaguar on the hunt. "Sometimes," he tells her, "it's best to trust one's own judgement."

She presses her lips together. "Arrogant."

"Confident," he corrects. "And rightly so. Any soldier without confidence in their own abilities is dead." He's seen that happen over and over, to friends and strangers, comrades and enemies.

He...is still alive. Sometimes, he wonders why.

M looks at him for a while more, eyes seeming to pierce right through him. James stares back calmly, refusing to give so much as a millimetre.

"Very well." She closes the file and smiles. It's terrifying. "Consider yourself hired, James Bond."

He is thirty today.

James knows how to train by now. True, he is training to be a secret spy, a field agent, not a soldier or intelligence officer, but the overlaps aren't so negligible.

He completes the orientation and training in six weeks, almost setting a new record. He refuses to gloat but pushes forward with single-minded determination. He is conditioning his body, and it has always been his weapon. He is conditioning his mind, and it's merely a new level of challenge on top of college and a genius soulmate.

Speaking of his soulmate, they have graduated from binary code to writing, what James is fairly certain, computer languages. It seems their newest interest is the world of technology, and they are advancing quickly. He is no expert on computers himself, but he can recognise HTML and then C++ and recently, Java.

Strangely enough, when he has the time to focus beyond the screaming of his muscles and countless simulations, James is proud of his little soulmate, though he does not truly know them.

(Or does he?)

He's rather more busy with his training nowadays than he ever was with RNR DI, and his instructors are quite clear on the practice of writing on skin. It's disapproved of, primarily because even the slightest hint of personality can give enemies a claw-hold in your psyche and tear and rip, but if he must, then be absolutely, positively certain it is meaningless.

James adjusts easily enough, seeing as he has been in the intelligence business for some time now. He continues to write quotes, if only to let his soulmate know he's still alive, and is fairly certain that unless his potential arch-nemesis wishes to verbally dissect his so-called favourite book, he'll be just fine.

Three months after being recruited by MI6, James is stationed in Kingston, Jamaica with the British Embassy. M is more than willing to capitalise on his multilingualism, and he finds himself translating between Haitian, French and Dutch West Indies communiqués. The glamorous life of a green secret agent isn't nearly all that it's cracked up to be.

At least, his superior, Charles DaSilva, isn't so bad. There are no attempts to coddle or baby him, much less keep an eye on him off-duty. When he isn't biting the bullet and fumbling with political speech, James is doodling absently about whatever catches his eye or taking a swim.

A long, boring year of that, and then suddenly he's interdicting with gun and drug smuggling between Kingston and London. He almost gets shot six times, ends up with a shallow knife wound to his leg, and grins, practically nonstop, for the six months it lasts.

DaSilva shakes his head and calls him an adrenaline junkie and a suicidal idiot. Considering James knows the man also wrote a letter of commendation for him, he doesn't take the insults to heart.

Four months after that, DaSilva recommends him for a Black Ops reconnaissance in Cuba. James grins, slaps the man on the back in thanks, promises him a bottle of quality scotch, and gets on the bloody boat.

By this point, he can't even recognise the coding his soulmate is inking onto his skin. That shouldn't make him grin wider, but it does.

James grabs protective gear, firearms, and his military training. He penetrates five military compounds in four days and gets drinks with the rest of the team once it's over. No one dies, and James gets drunk off his ass but still manages to trounce the rest of the suckers at poker.

He spends his thirty-third birthday on Jamaica in the company of a beautiful, buxom young lady with a come-hither smile and a wicked tongue.

All the way back in England, a twenty-year-old man with clear green eyes, messy black hair, and a cup of tea by his desk smiles at his computer screen, the skyline of Kingston on his chest and the sparks of devastation at his fingertips.

OpalescentGold: So there's that. RL is hitting me rather hard lately, so updates may be sparse. Leave a review, if you please!

Guest: Thank you so much for the lovely review! I hope you enjoy this chapter as well. ^_^