Latest Posts by aconcoctionofobsessions - Page 4
Vesper Confesses AU
They spent the day in the sunshine on the deck of the yacht, but now they’re tucked safe below, resting together in the cozy, lamp-lit bunk-space. They’ve been trading little secrets back and forth, both of them too sun-drowsed to be bothered with sex. He knows about her first kiss and her mother’s alcoholism. She knows about his parents’ deaths, that girl at Eton, and his most embarrassing moment during Six training.
It’s her turn to go, and she’s been quiet for a long while, so long he’s not sure they’re playing the game anymore. Finally she sits up, her back a tense line against the headboard, and says, “James.” Her mouth trembles. “I need to tell you something.”
James swallows. “You don’t have to,” he says carefully, hearing the fear and the dull resignation in Vesper’s voice. If only nothing could spoil their happiness; if only Vesper could pretend that all was well again.
But Vesper is brave, sensible, and ruthless. “I don’t have to say anything,” she agrees. “In fact, I planned not to. But I find that I need to. And I need you to promise that you won’t interrupt. You won’t say a word, not until I’m finished. Understood?”
“Completely,” James says, his heart sinking into his stomach. What will he hear?
Mostly, however, he’s relieved. They’ll finally have it out, this thing that’s had Vesper twitching at shadows, pasting on a smile like he can’t see that something’s wrong.
He’s played pretend in his relationships for all his life, and Vesper is the first person to make him feel like honesty could be enough.
Please, let it be enough.
***
“It was a trick,” Bond says afterward, numb. What will he do? But first, she has to know– “They didn’t really have him. Yusef. You know that, right?”
For the first time since she started speaking, Vesper turns to him. “No, I heard him!” she says, anger flashing in her eyes. “They played me his–you don’t want to know the things I heard him going through!”
How can he tell her?
But Vesper is brave, ruthless, and sensible. She needs to know.
And it’s his turn now, anyway.
“One of the first missions they send potential double-ohs on is a seduction mission,” Bond says dully. “It’s intentionally long-term; could last up to a year if you’re unlucky. Meant to be a soft introduction to undercover fieldwork. And the goal is this: to make someone in a critical position fall in love with you. To begin a strong relationship with that person. And then to convince that person that you’ve been kidnapped and will only be kept safe in exchange for valuable information, sabotage, and favors.”
Vesper’s hand comes up to her mouth. A high-pitched sound stays trapped in her throat. “You–”
“I succeeded,” Bond says, closing his eyes. “Like he did. I’m sure of it. What you said, it’s right out of the training manual. Even the necklace–we’re told to give the target a token of physical affection, something they can wear every day, so they never forget who they’re tied to.” He hesitates. “I gave mine a ring.”
***
He spends the rest of the night sitting on the cold wooden deck outside, going over all of it in his mind. What she’s done. What he’s done. What they’ve been through.
Can he love a spy?
When it’s put like that, he laughs a bitter laugh. Of course he can. To do otherwise would be hypocritical, wouldn’t it? And he does. When he puts the fury and hurt aside, he admires her all the more. If she hadn’t said anything, she would have succeeded. He’s sure of it.
A scared woman in a trap, and she would have out-maneuvered him in order to save him, and let the steel jaws close in on herself.
Poor bitch. Poor, brilliant bitch.
***
He makes scrambled eggs the next morning. It helps him think.
Vesper, silent, glances up at him in between writing in a journal.
“If you could do anything,” Bond asks, serving the plates up, “what would it be? Your ideal future.”
Vesper eyes him closely, her pen unmoving on her page, before answering. “I would want the two of us to be doing good work and to be happy. Either together, or separately. And you?”
James takes a deep breath. “It seems to me we have two concerns,” he says. “Our own safety, and our country’s. We could go to M and ask for her protection. She would be better able to justify it to her superiors if we brought along a bargaining chip–the contact who was going to meet you in Venice. Once we get him, we can begin eliminating the rest of his organization–anyone who would know enough to want to kill you. And after that…after that, we’ll be free to do anything. Go anywhere.”
Free like he thought they were yesterday, before…before everything. He’s still got the draft of his resignation letter saved in a file. Maybe someday he’ll get to pull it out again.
Vesper taps her pen against the side of her cheek, considering. “You’re never giving me a ring,” she says finally. “Or a necklace. In fact, no jewelry. And you’re to keep your hair short so I can never have a lock of it.”
James grimaces. The hair thing had been in the handbook too. His own hair has always been too short for it, thank fuck. “I can do that,” he says. “And in return, you’ll tell me whenever you’re planning something suicidal and self-sacrificing again. The only lamb that needs skewered here is me, remember?”
For the first time in hours, Vesper’s lips quirk up into a shadow of their usual smugness. “You may have a point.”
“So, we’re doing this?” James asks.
“These are dangerous people,” Vesper says. It’s not quite an objection.
James reaches for her hand across the table. “So are we,” he says, looking into her eyes.
She squeezes his hand. “All right,” she says. “That’s it, then. We’re going to capture Mr. White and take my life back.” Her mouth sets with determination. “And I know just how to do it.” She taps the journal. “Starting with this.”
Of course she’s got a plan. James smiles. She might be a bitch, but she’s James’s brilliant, brave, ruthless, sensible bitch, and he wouldn’t have her any other way.
A father holds his daughter’s hand for a short while, but he holds her heart forever.
Alphabet Fic Challenge: K for Krishna, Arjuna
For @fierarain as part of the Alphabet Fic Challenge!
They are a study in contrasts, these two cousins.
Arjuna is fair of face and forbidding, as Krishna is dark-skinned and disarming; Sabyasachi smiles only rarely, but Shyam has a mouth made for laughter. At times it is difficult to see what pleasure they could possibly find in each other’s company, but something, certainly, there must be.
Perhaps it is this: both of them know, all too well, what it is to be tucked in the middle of a trail of siblings, not responsible enough to be respected as the eldest should be, not careless enough to be coddled as the youngest should be.
Perhaps it is this: that one likes to give orders, and the other to obey. So at least Duryodhana jeers, and neither Jishnu or Janardhana offer any rebuttal. They need not; they know all too well that they are equally wise and equally wary, and there is no one else in the world who they trust as they do each other.
Perhaps it is as simple as this: that their joys are shared, as are their sorrows, and when Narayan reminds Nara that they are but one and the same, it can be nothing but the truth.
Meet the Plastics [Mahabharat version]
Duryodhana: That one there that’s Arjuna, he’s one of the dumbest guys you’ll ever meet.
Duryodhana: That big one over there, that’s Bhisma. Bhisma knows everybody’s business. He knows everything about everyone.
Dushasana: That’s why his beard is so big, it’s full of secrets.
Duryodhana: And evil takes a human form in Vasudev Krishna. Don’t be fooled, he may seem like your typical selfish backstabbing slut faced hoe bag but in reality…hes so much more than that.
Dushasana: He’s the queen-bee, the star, those two are just his little workers.
Duryodhana: Krishna. How do I even begin to explain Vasudev Krishna?
* Vidur: Vasudev Krishna is flawless!
Dhritirashtra: He has 16000 houses made of pure gold just for his 16000 wives.
Yudhisthira: I heard his peacock feather is ensured for 10,000 dollars.
Shakuni: I heard he does vimana commercials, in EGYPT.
Kunti: His favorite food is honey milk.
Dronacharya: One time I heard he met King Jarasandha on his vimana, and told him he was beautiful.
Kansa: And one time he punched me in the face…it was awesome.*
@femmefatalenet | event nine | athena in 2018 | sky
In 2018, Athena is still in Athens, trying to figure out where it went wrong, strategizing, reading, analysing, war after war after war, trying to see when she lost control of it all, when it starting going beyond her. Because she is determined, single-minded, steadfast, and she is going to change the world once more.
Alphabet Fic Challenge, C for Correspondence, Krishna/Rukmini
That first letter she writes because it is the right thing to do: because she can no longer tolerate sitting in silence at her brother’s side, hearing of him brag of the blows he has dealt a poor paltry kingdom that’s only just recovered from almost twenty-five years of tyranny. As Rukmini sees it, the Yadavas’ only crime is to have offended Jarasandha; and given what she knows of the man, she thinks she could do with offending.
Her tutor delivers the letter, after having been coaxed and cajoled and finally tricked into conceding that it is unrighteous to defy the Magadhan Emperor’s wickedness in whatever way possible; and when he returns with the answer, skeptical but gracious, Rukmini assumes that will be the end of it.
The Yadavas fight back the invasion barely, she gathers from Rukmi’s rants, and she looks down to hide her smile. What she doesn’t expect is to hear from
That night, she takes out her pen and paper again, frowning over the construction of a new code. Rukmi might have been her brother once, she knows, but now he is nothing but Jarasandha’s puppet; at times she wonders if it’s to avenge the loss of the loving, smiling, kind boy she once knew that she acts so recklessly against Magadha’s decrees. But even that excuse will mean nothing if she is caught, which she won’t be. She is cleverer than that.
She writes, and receives a rather more grateful reply: a gift, she supposes, from the low-level official her messenger had found to accept it. She dares not dream it might so received even by a high-ranking minister instead; Sunanda is a good man, and wise too, but no royal house, even one so humble as that of Mathura, welcomes strangers to its door.
Sixteen times in total the forces of Magadha attack, and sixteen times they are rebuffed. She cannot recall when she starts writing even without the excuse of imminent threat; but the replies are kind, and dryly funny, and genuinely interested in her thoughts and opinions. Rukmini cannot remember the last time anyone was interested in her thoughts and opinions, not since her brother decreed that it was unseemly for a princess to deal in wealth and confiscated her account books, but now—
Well. A low-level official might not be able to change much about his country, but he can certainly listen to her thoughts on how an economy ought to be run.
By the seventeenth time she overhears the plan for invasion, it is almost so as easy as to be child’s play: the armies will be roused months later, the formations they mean to make laid out in painstaking detail. It’s only after she sends her letter that she realizes what she should have seen before: it was too easy. A trap, then, to see how the Yadavas had always had prior warning for all Jarasandha’s advances; a trap she was careless enough to stumble into. And for the people of Mathura, a way of luring them into a false sense of security before an army presented itself at their gates, weeks early. They would have no resource but to surrender.
She watches Sunanda leave from her window, aghast, and knows it is too late.
Rukmini has no choice. She kneels before Goddess Parvati and prays desperately that her—correspondent? No, not only that; her….friend? Not quite. Oh, that whoever has been reading and receiving her correspondence is shrewd enough to realize what she has herself. She thinks he will. She hopes he will. Over the years she has fancied that while his face might be unknown, his mind is akin to hers; she cannot have that trust shattered now.
When Sunanda returns, he reports: “He instructed me to assure you the populace would be evacuated from the city by a week’s time.”
She sags with relief, and then, for the first time, is curious enough to ask: “Who says so?”
Sunanda is clearly surprised, and why should he not be? What sort of princess would write so shamelessly to a stranger without ascertaining his identity first? “Why, Vasudev’s son Krishna, of course.”
“The prince himself? Surely you can’t mean— surely he must only have heard—”
“It was he who greeted me since the first time,” Sunanda assures her. “He has always been most kind.”
Her brother might sneer that it is the cowherd in him, to investigate visitors himself, but to Rukmini it seems nothing less than the sort of rare courtesy that ought always to be respected. She smiles to herself, and blushes when she catches herself.
“Thank you,” she says hurriedly. “Please do allow yourself some rest, Teacher.”
Letters mean nothing, she knows; and certainly, the most she could hope for on his part was appreciation for her efforts. But still—when Jarasandha roars with rage to find his quarry has escaped, and when his beady eyes fall upon her; when Rukmi talks excitedly of how the Emperor means to betroth his beloved protege to his dear friend’s sister; when the noose tightens around her neck, and a lifetime as the Queen of Chedi means an end to all her freedom, there is only one place Rukmini looks to for escape.
http://iglovequotes.net/