PERFORMANCES

a Casino Royale Vesper/Bond fic.

not quite canon; enjoy

When she wakes up part of the top window is still open in the far corner of the room, as they left it, setting the long curtains aloft in the air. Outside, the soft noise of footsteps and distant trains lulls along. A train horn blares, somewhere off in the mountains. She closes her eyes, breathes slow and long, waits for her heart to stop ricocheting; the dream that woke her was one of death, the African's shot fired into her shoulder, her fine elegant shoulder, nothing built for defense, nothing but a collarbone and clean white skin.

She sits up to feel the strength in her shoulder to tell herself she is unhurt, and this wakes him just as suddenly. He has dreamt of nothing. Nothing but her.

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The game won, he felt a feeling come over his body that he knew too well; the underside of the adrenaline rush, and suddenly just walking to the door was a marathon, standing in the elevator on the way up was a weightlifting contest. Suddenly the money was meaningless, it was invisible, all he wanted was a glass of water and somewhere to sit down and perhaps also a glass of something strong. Coming into their suite seeking these things he saw her broken wineglass, the door to the bathroom ajar, hears water running, immediately imagines a dead thing in the shower, killed like a child.

So when he moves towards the door, he moves towards it with the new rush of adrenaline, borne of his assumed purpose, shocked to find her there alive and well tucked into herself on the tile floor of the shower, frozen, a look on her face he could not have imagined she would ever show him.

We are not all killers, he thinks. Someone better than me would fear and hate what we had done in that stairwell. She's just the money. And not any amount of it could have prepared her for this. He sees her dress soaked through, notes that it is ruined now, and is somehow happy no one but her will ever wear it.

Well, a place to sit then. At least it is warm.

Slow, careful movements; the adrenaline is gone again, spent. He thinks of exhaustion as he unties his tie and settles down and renews the heat of the water. He puts an arm around her.

Somewhere in his memory is the thought of sitting at the back of the school bus with his childhood crush tucked under an arm just like this, the adventure of an orphan's love in the elementary grades, when love was mostly about adoration and certainly not the tiring conquest of fucking. He is unsure of what to do, and hesitates.

She reaches for his arm. This is enough encouragement, enough direction. He takes her hand and examines the tiny half-moons of blood and skin under her carefully shaped fingernails, licks them clean, folds up her hand into his own. He holds her and smoothes back the silky-wet hair at her forehead, surprised at how even the smallest of sensations is infinitely satisfying, as in childhood.

Neither of them can think two minutes ahead. For some unknown amount of time they sit under the hot water (for in this hotel the water never runs cold) and then Vesper finally moves to get up. He registers distantly that she has been here longer than him.

This movement startles him, awake though he was not asleep, perhaps coming out of a trance. He feels outside himself, his limbs moving to remove sodden clothes and dropping them on the floor outside the shower until he is standing there in just his boxer briefs with his eyes closed, face upturned toward the water.

He rubs at his face, at his eyes, exhausted, but warm through and through. Meanwhile she sees herself to the stack of towels and the pair of robes by the sink. Focus on things in small pieces, she thinks: dry off, drop the gown in the sink, get some dry underwear, wrap yourself in the robe, check the locks on the door (twice), walk back into the bathroom and wait by the door, looking at your feet. It seems as if she should wait, since he waited with her.

She has lean, beautiful pedicured feet. There is a strip of her foot where her shoe went crooked into the skin as she stumbled down the stairs getting out of the way of James and his prey (think of it that way, think yourself out of the story) still red from the abrasion. When she looks up he is exiting the shower and even in such a moment of tiredness his muscles are evidence of the kind of coiled power most women would fear. She does not fear, and does not idolize, but finds herself thinking, must he be so strong, to do these things, the kill with bare hands? Does his skin heal over like a superhero? When someone takes his heart, does he grow a new one, like an iguana's tail?

What women have had his heart?

"You saved my life," James says suddenly to her, and she almost jumps. He's found a towel and is mostly dry. Water pooled at his feet. The tiles gleam. He looks directly at here, those laser blues. "Twice." The defibrillator, and the African's gun hand. She was handy at the necessary moment.

"On the contrary, you saved mine," she replies. "To some degree I expected it." This is not quite a lie. All that secret agent bullshit.

"We should get some rest," he says, brusquely, she thinks, some kind of verbal avoidance, as if he is shutting her down. "I have a lot to do tomorrow. So do you."

"We're not being paid in cash," she snaps, "I won't have to count all day," and for a quick second a hurt look flashes across his face. She moves to amend her misstep: "though I've got to say I'm trying to think of a way to stay close to you tonight because you're armed. Maybe I should sleep in that chair in your room. I have had enough excitement to last me quite a while."

He moves towards her, puts his hand on her hip and begins ushering her towards his room, patronizing, but doing it intimately.

"My dear, I've no plans for any further excitement," he says, in a weary voice, and in this sentence he has explained approximately five things at once. Among them: forget about the chair, if they lay awake it is okay, if he reaches for her in his sleep it is not an admission of defeat. She sits on the bed facing the window, considering the surprise of this coming from him, as he sheds the towel and replaces it with a pair of black jersey pants to sleep in. He throws her one of his cashmere sweaters, aiming haphazardly without looking, and it hits the bed draped across her arm. She puts it on, thankful to have thought of underwear. She had planned to sleep in the robe. When he opens the window by the far corner of the room, she turns to express her concern, and he holds up one hand: "I'm opening this so I can hear what's going on. If I hear something, believe me, I'll be up and on my feet very quickly." He moves to check his (one of his) guns, takes it out of the nightstand and readies it, then slips it under the pillow.

She smiles at the pillow for a moment. "I thought they only did that in movies. Is it really a good idea?"

"Well, sometimes the movies get things right."

They lay down on top of the covers. James stretches his arms behind his head, yawning discreetly but massively. Vesper rolls onto her side and looks at him for a moment, then turns her eyes to the pillow, focusing in at close range. She wants to ask him how many people he has killed, how he sleeps at night, if he has any family anywhere, if…she can ask him none of these things. She remembers eating with him on the train, repartee that was half flirt and half disgust, the amicable way he handled it, as if he had long settled on expecting everyone to disappoint him in the end. Cool air emanating from the window caresses their feet. James is surreptitiously eyeing her legs, miles of pale skin, but she can't tell because she is so busy forcing herself not to stare at him.

For a moment he imagines kissing her awake, a pedestrian life somewhere in Oxford, and it makes his hair stand on end pleasantly. But he doesn't move.

"When I get home," Vesper ventures, "the men at the office will never believe me. The closest I ever got to a killer was an in-depth background check before I met you. You're a bad influence." The flirting again: it feels safer.

"Just imagine, now you're in bed with a killer," he murmurs dryly, and she can't help but smile for a moment.

"I meant the man who was after Le Chiffre." She flashes on the gun forced from his hand. She doesn't think of him as a killer. Although this is what he is.

"I know," he assures her, and rolls onto his side. They are facing one another. "You can tell your adventure well, since you had such a large part in shaping the end." The words come out of his mouth and he immediately is concerned they are too serious.

"Where's home, for you?" She asks, and tries to make it nonchalant.

"Easy enough—anywhere I end up…I can always buy what I lack with the Treasury's support of my department," he deadpans, and then, more seriously, "headquarters—it's not where you would guess. And safe-houses. The homes of friends." Perhaps the definition of safe-houses, he thinks. She must like the idea of all this, as he is treated to a glimpse of that megawatt smile. She notes the bandage on his chest, suddenly, and blinks at it—he's put another plaster on, after the shower.

"Are you alright?"

"I'll live."

She exercises iron will to keep from touching him. The lamp beside his bed is on, and he reaches to turn it off, his whole back to her for a moment, as she tries to steel herself, to no avail. Steel herself—for a kiss? No, a mistake, that ego. For a confession? For her to throw herself into his arms?

They are plunged into pitch black.

A confession. Her mind turned suddenly to Farid, her Algerian, how he'd slap her across the room if he could see her now. How she loved him. But something was different: he would imagine himself her protector, and never allow her to be complicit in her own saving (or her own downfall) no matter how much reality seemed to contradict such a view. His name meant 'exceptional' and he had never seen himself as anything else. She was annoyed with the act at home (submissive) and the act at work (aggressive) and wished only to drop both acts and fuse the performances, as she had with James. I can flirt with a razor edge, then collapse into his arms, she thinks, without him once doubting I am the same person.

She was a killer of sorts as well, having made a deal over Farid's life like that. The razor edge.

They fall asleep facing on another, after she tugs her pillow down and curls up a bit, the crown of her head level to his collarbone. He sleeps first, under the covers alone. She listens to him breathe until she is tired. He apparently does not dream, though she feels herself moving slightly in bed, the lightest sleep, the half-awake kind that leads to sleep talking and confusion upon awakening.

And her dreams turn dark, despite such light sleep: when she wakes up part of the top window is still open in the far corner of the room, as they left it, setting the long curtains aloft in the air.

Outside, the soft noise of footsteps and distant trains lulls along. A train horn blares, somewhere off in the mountains. She closes her eyes, breathes slow and long, waits for her heart to stop ricocheting; the dream that woke her was one of death, the African's shot fired into her shoulder, her fine elegant shoulder, nothing built for defense, nothing but a collarbone and clean white skin.

She sits up to feel the strength in her shoulder to tell herself she is unhurt, and this wakes him just as suddenly. He has dreamt of nothing. Nothing but her.

He sits up instantly, looks at her, his eyes unfocused.

"Vesper," he says simply, as if this is the obvious thing to say, and pulls her to him with both arms, almost roughly, kisses her throat a couple of times, her cheek once. He curls his palm around the back of her head and smoothes her hair in a repeat performance of his touch in the shower. He rustles the covers until she is under them, and goes still.

She is very awake, and held rapt by his grasp and the lack of hesitation; but he is mostly still asleep, she realizes, as she hears his breathing slow again. He will not let go of her. She shifts to find a place for her arm and kisses his ribs very softly. He doesn't wake. His breathing is meditative and deep. She wishes for such a deep sleep as a gust of wind comes in through the window and shocks her feet with the cold. She is glad he covered her in his sleep-addled moment of intimacy, to keep them warm, which she is sure he will forget the next day. She is sure he will forget all of it.

So imagine her surprise, when he wakes the next morning and manages to surprise her sleeping self with a kiss on the back of her neck, some suave line about ordering breakfast, stretching head to toe in bed like a cat after a nap. He remembers—sleep could not erase it. He had chosen to come to her like that. He says something else, that inscrutable face he makes on like a mask, though now she realizes that it is not a mask, but his calm standard setting. She also realizes suddenly how wonderful this moment is, the best weekday nine am she's had for years. The giddiness means she lets out a throaty uncensored laugh, which he responds to seamlessly with their first kiss. It goes from there. No breakfast until quarter to twelve, but neither one of them cares.

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