you are the big rocket launcher

You and I have two completely different ways of talking to one another. Graceful long fingers don't ever shake as they describe the feeling of falling as we hold hands and jump into the waves. We walk along the same beach barefoot, but I can't stand the sand between my toes like you can. I run across asphalt as if I were a fire-walker, but you stand on one side and laugh when I step on a rock. I have forgotten what shoes are, and the straps feel like chains around my ankles. My skin browns in the low California sun, and my sandals leave pale marks across the tops of my feet. I cover my breasts, leave my back to collect the heat of the day, and you shrivel away from the sun. We ride with the top up, a waste of open days.

Sometimes I wonder how we became friends. It must have been that one night when we went for ice cream and you kept taking my spoon; as it disappeared from my hand and into your mouth, I could only smile (and steal six dollars from your pocket). After, we watched a movie and we were the only two people in the entire world; suddenly I understood how fragile you were. I felt peaceful around you, and I don't I've ever felt at peace with anything in my life until that night, and I don't think I've been at peace with myself since. I can say I miss you, but I wouldn't know what the truth would be: you are not the same as you were then. Neither, perhaps, am I.

Your text messages are so concise and always kind. You don't spend time with silly platitudes and a well placed bon-mot can always make me laugh. I feel like I've known you since I've known the sky. We speak the same language when we talk. You make my heart do triple axles, you write, and I show it forever, content in the knowledge that somewhere someone thinks of me as I think of them, and the lump in their throat is happy nostalgia.

You have a glass of wine as we sit outside with our feet hanging off the ledge. We sleep in the same bed and your elbows dig into my side. It keeps me awake but I stopped caring a long time ago. We laugh when people ask us if we're dating. I would never date you; I know what you're really like. And besides, we're better off as just friends.

(I've repeated this last sentence, as I sit watching your sleeping face, wondering if it's true. How well do I know my own heart, as well as yours, and what can I see in the worried lines of your forehead?)

Daniel is always the only person in the room who could pronounce his name correctly at all times.

Daniel wears a heavy, unfashionable gold watch and strange patterns just as well as he wears a thin gold watch and his favourite Dunhill suits.

Daniel jokes through his dying, jokes throughout the battle, even jokes as they stand, after, in queue at the International Arrivals of LAX. His mouth issues forth funny little quips but his eyes are narrowed, sweeping the room.

So when Yoshida calls him six months after the war, it is no surprise when the first words out of Daniel's mouth are, "Yoshida-san, you must be as bored as I am."

"Not bored as such," Yoshida says. "How did you know it was me?"

"Zero-seven-five followed by seven digits is a Kyoto prefecture number. I don't generally have many friends in Kyoto." Daniel says easily. "To what do I owe this very distinct pleasure? Am I to be a soldier for you again?"

"Mister Hardy, really. I could just want the pleasure of your company."

Yoshida hears and feels Daniel's deep chuckle. "The pleasure of my company," Daniel repeats. "Am I coming to Japan then?"

"I will send a plane for you."

And that is exactly what Yoshida does.

//

Yoshida watches as Daniel handles each increasingly complicated entrée with all the finesse of a fine gourmand. Daniel wears his suit well, and his cufflinks are expensive. He still wears that silly heavy gold watch. He drinks his saké carefully, and answers all the silly parlour game questions with aplomb, his English accent never marring his Japanese. Daniel, Yoshida decides, would look good here.

Yoshida touches his elbow, and Daniel's eyes alight on Yoshida's face. "All this for the pleasure of my company?" Daniel demurs, taking another sip of his saké and contemplating his next entrée. "Or are you fattening me up to serve for breakfast tomorrow?"

"It would take too long to cook you," Yoshida replies, sliding his fingers up Daniel's arm and squeezing his expansive shoulder. Daniel shifts his arm, and Yoshida can feel the muscle tense and relax. "It would be...satisfying, however."

Daniel narrows his eyes and reaches out to pick up one of his bowls. The way Daniel handles his chopsticks was almost delicate, careful, and Yoshida watches Daniel's mouth.

//

"I have not been entirely truthful with you," Yoshida says as they sit in Daniel's room, legs akimbo as they play a very fraught game of backgammon. Those who do not think backgammon could be fraught have never watched two hard-wired competitors play.

Daniel contemplates the board. "Mmm?" he says softly before moving his piece. "So there is a reason I'm here as your kept man, then?"

Yoshida sits in still repose at Daniel's words. He can feel Daniel's eyes watching his face, but then he watches Yoshida's fingers on the board.

"I need you to kill someone," comes Yoshida's response, as if from very far away.

Daniel excuses himself, and walks out of Yoshida's flat. Yoshida sits in silence, looking at the board.

Daniel was winning.

//

( Read more... )

Connor sat uncomfortably in front of the commissioner's desk, hands clasped tightly in his lap.

"It says here you're studying International Affairs at Columbia," the commissioner said.

"Yes sir. It's a new field, you see, just started back in 1946." Connor cleared his throat. He felt he was offering up too much information.

"What are you going to do with that degree, son?"

Connor scratched back of his neck, and then shrugged. "Work for some intelligence agency, fight the Reds?"

The commissioner smiled. Connor did not like the man's smile one bit. "How'd you like to start fighting the Reds now, Mister Browning?"

"I'm not sure I'm qualified," Connor replied.

"Think of it as an apprenticeship. You get hands on experience, and we get some fresh thinking out in the field."

Connor shifted in his seat. "What do I have to do?" he asked finally, and the commissioner nodded.

"That's the spirit," he said, standing up. "Come with me, I've got some people I want you to meet."

( Read more... )

It sometimes took Danny fewer than five minutes to grab Arthur backstage after a show and push him against the wall, pressing his body against Arthur's and kissing him, opened-mouth and ignoring anything else going on around them. It took him fewer than ten to get them to their hotel room/van/whatever and into some reclining, half-naked state.

Danny's fingers were on Arthur instantly, his lips kissing every bit skin he could reach, and Arthur's quiet sounds of protest were lost on Danny's ears. It wasn't as if Arthur minded. Except for...

And Arthur's brain would sometimes stop when Danny sank to his knees, his mouth around Arthur's cock and his fingers digging in Arthur's hips, which was a little ticklish but a little hot, and so... so Arthur forgot.

Danny never said anything when they were finished, when they were sticky and sweaty and quiet. He never asked questions and he never gave an explanation. This was okay, Arthur thought, maybe, before he fell asleep. Maybe one day he would ask Danny.

They once did it sitting in some random hotel room, Arthur straddled on Danny's lap, holding on to him, scared and turned on and just... Danny watched him with those eyes, and Arthur didn't last very long that night. But they did it again later, Arthur's legs aching but his hands clawing at Danny's back.

"My Arthur," Danny would sometimes whisper against the back of Arthur's neck. "Mineminemine." And Arthur would turn around and kiss Danny, and it would start all over again.

Arthur would masturbate in the shower, the water scalding against his skin, and think of Danny. Always Danny. No wonder he had so much fucking trouble with girls. And he would wash it all away, and avoid his gaze in the mirror, wrapping a towel around himself.

Only Danny could see him naked, and watch him undress, and Arthur would still turn bright red, turning his body half-away from Danny's gaze, and Danny would come behind him and touch him and Arthur would stammer out something stupid, and Danny would grin and kiss him and Arthur would forget again.

They had this bond, this really weird bond. Danny would sit near Arthur, and they wouldn't even have to kiss, and Arthur would just imagine what they could be doing, and then his brain would melt out of his ear and he would stare stupidly at whoever was talking to them, which he did anyway. Conversation wasn't Arthur's bag; he was much better singing words than speaking them.

Arthur would get frustrated sometimes, because Danny was perfect, and then he would feel guilty that he thought these horrible things about Danny, and then he would go find Danny and kiss him out of the blue. And Danny would smile and say something funny or sexy or just say, "This is nice," and Arthur would forget all his frustrations, because Danny was good about that.

Arthur woke up one morning, at two, his face in Danny's hair and his arm around Danny's waist (ohgod how he loved Danny's waist), and suddenly he remembered. "You've never said 'I love you'," he whispered against Danny's hair, but Danny was asleep and he slept like the dead, anyway.

Arthur tried to remember later, to tell Danny what he said that morning at two, but Danny would kiss him, and touch him and fuck him and Arthur would forget. And it wasn't all that important anyway, just words.

Sometimes Danny would claw at Arthur, and want to be fucked, and Arthur shook so badly and held Danny so delicately and closed his eyes while he did it. But Danny loved it, but never said so, just asked every once and a while, just to see Arthur stammer out "R-r-really," and touch his face.

Danny's fingers had calluses, just like his really, but Danny's hands still felt so differently on his cock, on his hips, holding his hand. Arthur would blush when Danny's fingers slipped into his, but it was a happy 'he's holding my hand' sort of blush, so he didn't mind so much, when Danny held his hand.

Their being together every night didn't change anything. That's what surprised Arthur the most. Their being together didn't make a difference to anyone else but themselves. And it made their lives better. He felt better than he had in a long while, with Danny. Because Danny knew him, and he thought that he knew Danny.

Simple, simple, simple, and happy. Arthur didn't even think of the implications of sleeping with Danny every night. Didn't think of the implications of being fucked by Danny, because Danny was so beautiful.

Danny had stopped seeing other people after they had slept together two or three times. Arthur had asked him once, out of jest, and Danny had looked at him, his brow creased. "You think I would do that," he asked, and left the room. They didn't talk for a week afterwards, but Danny slid into Arthur's bed one night, and kissed his face over and over and over. And Arthur had wanted to apologise, but Danny shook his head. So Arthur never did.

Danny curled around Arthur, one morning at two-twenty-five, and kissed his neck. "You always look like you want to say something to me," he murmured. "Tell me, tell me now."

"Why do you never say 'I love you'," Arthur asked, because he remembered.

"Didn't ever think I had to," Danny replied. "Always thought you knew."

The deal with him...no, that wasn't right. The thing about him...the thing about him. There were many things about him. Long skinny arms, tapered fingers and flat nails. Dark pink nipples that sort of matched the flush of his neck (because he never wore a shirt). His neck, hair sticking to it—-that was another thing.

He was tricky, especially when he was drunk. Those tapered fingers reaching for her wrist and those lips...fuck, those lips. Pink like the inside of a dog's ear, pink like her new favourite shirt. Anyway, the thing about him is that she was never sure what he meant by those fingers reaching for her wrist, by those lips pressed against the soft bit of her jaw, back near her ear.

He could fit wherever he was, tucked away like a foldaway bed or hotel ironing boards. His new favourite place was between her and a wall, his knees somehow up against his sternum. He would wrap an arm around those irrational knees, his elbow pressed into her shoulder blade until she turned toward him (clever ruse). So there was no doubt as to their proximity, he would crane his neck towards her, his lips hovering near her ear. She always felt warm, heat creeping up her neck, like there was a fire deep in her belly and he was stoking the flames.

He spoke in short, declarative statements when he was plastered.

"Your voice is magic."

"You smell good."

"It's hot in here."

"Come back to my flat."

It was difficult to figure out which one he meant, so she just nodded, maybe shrugged. She was used to her awkwardness, but he threw it in sharp relief, like a fire suddenly started in a fireplace, flames licking along the bricks.

Nobody had ever asked her why she was so unhappy, and she didn't think she could articulate it even if someone did ask. All she knew is that her brain was too old for her body and her body too young to handle her brain.

She clutched at the broken watch, fingers trembling on her gun. There was her father, stood with hands loose at his side. She could hear her mother, or perhaps it was the woman who just looked like her mother would look without all the time and space hopping.

She could hear them, and the wild screaming of the panicked patrons of the club. She could see a man waving his arms. She didn't much like that man, but her father did.

She had killed a man once before, and all that was left was a broken watch, her father looking at her as if she were a curiosity, and this: the sound of screams, the bright flashing green lights of lasers tearing up the city around them, and soon enough, the club, and her heart, beating loudly in her ears.

She held the gun up, training it on each person in turn: father, mother, her mother's opposite, and her father's best friend.

Who would she miss, who would cry if she were dead?

She flung down the watch, finger tightening on the trigger.

And then the world exploded, and it didn't matter so much any more, did it?

ABNEG
25150453
EAMES
DC
PRES
RAF22-14

Eames receives both of his guns at the same time: a Sig Sauer .40 calibre P228 (with a .357 barrel extra) and a Heckler & Koch HK417 rifle. They are plain and ugly weapons, designed specifically for their purpose, and the first time Eames disassembles them, he lets the metal warm in his hand as he cleans them, and when he puts them back together, they are alive. Eames is loyal to his guns, and they in return are loyal to him.

He scores in the 99th percentile for all target based tests, and in the 98th percentile on all written examinations. He is only twenty-one.

Flight Sergeant Keats tells him, "Be careful, Eames, or you'll get more attention than you might want."

"Yes sir."

+++

For Eames, there is no beginning. His first memory is of him surrounded by too many goats at a petting zoo, and crying for his mother. If he remembers earlier than that, he doesn't know.

+++

Eames hikes up the rifle to a rest position on his shoulder and grabs his crotch as his regiment hassle the new American Marines. Afghanistan is a shit hole, and apparently the American base had been flooded by a busted sewage pipe, making it become more of a literal shit hole. The Lieutenant-Colonel had told the SAS to "not be bloody gits", but there were so many ways to take that.

"This is my rifle, this is my gun," Eames and his regiment chant as they thrust their hips forward. "This is for fighting, this is for fun!" A few of the Marines echo their gestures, one of them stepping forward to turn around and moon Eames's regiment.

"Hey oh, soldier! Didn't think poufs were allowed on your side!"

"Unlike y'all," one of the Americans call out. "Need some dick to get the job done?"

"Don't you talk to your superiors that way!" Eames calls, pulling rank, because pulling rank on American gits seems appropriate.

"Yeah, what kind of rank you got?" says a man labelled Browning, who Eames notices carries the silver bar of First Lieutenant. He doesn't know who Browning is at the time, though he would regret knowing him later.

He steps forward. "Squadron Leader Eames," he replies, raising his eyebrow at Browning. "Stand down, Looey, take your boys outta here before we can't help our British pricks."

Browning flicks him off, and gestures to his group. "Decamp, soldiers, to the bunks. And don't forget to show your appreciation for our hosts later. Just don't drop the soap."

+++

The sand is everywhere, in everything. They brush their teeth with sandy toothbrushes, they eat their Wayfarer chicken curry pouches with sandy utensils. Eames enjoys trading his pouches with the Americans; they get his curry, he gets their beef ravioli. It all tastes like sand anyway. But everyone fights over the powdered chocolate pudding. It makes the coffee taste better.

Eames brushes sand out of his hair and checks his Sig, clicking out the .40 calibre barrel and sliding in the .357 before replacing the magazine, scratching his cheek.

There's a scuffle on the American side of the camp, and Eames ambles over to watch.

"What's the scuffle?"

"Don't worry about it. None of your concern."

"Well, then, you can stop kicking all the bloody sand about, can't you?"

The two men stare at him for a long moment before Eames turns on his heel and walks away.

+++

It isn't that Eames is necessarily…obsessed with weapons. In dreams, he can handle anything, knows how this obscure Russian anti-tank gun works, or that World War Two gunner plane. In the real world, it actually takes some time and motivation to learn weaponry.

So he starts, obviously, with Bond.

He chooses a Walther PPK as his personal weapon, runs through hoops to become a Registered Firearms Dealer. The only time Eames regrets not living in America was the moment he started collecting his Bond guns.

It is even more difficult to get a permit to carry his Walther concealed. "Being in a war zone has affected your mentality," the Home Office says.

"Of course it hasn't," Eames says. It's easier to lie than to say I sleep in my bathtub, my finger waiting on the ready.

A fortnight later, he receives special permission. As a member of SRR Company 14, it is realised that it may be necessary for Captain Daniel Charles Eames to carry a Walther PPK, Issue Number 35671 in a concealed fashion. Find attached a permit and rules regarding carrying requirements.

When Eames straps the shoulder holster on, standing in front of the mirror, he most assuredly does not say, "My name is Bond. James Bond," and he most certainly does not give the mirror his most devastatingly charming smile.

He would deny it to the end of his days.

+++

On the back of Eames's helmet--where other soldiers write the names of loved ones, or the popular US Marine saying Death Before Dishonour,a Bible verse or some patriotic mess—he writes:

Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

+++

The wild berries are out, and the air is fragrant and heavy with the scent of them. I'll pick some later to fold into some yoghurt, a light lunch with tea I'll be sure to brew after this difficult chore.

I have been here twice already, after a quick pilgrimage to Nice, France. I collect a seashell there, clean it and go back to a church that blesses it. The priest has seen me twice before, and sometimes he invites me in for coffee and, if I'm late, a supper of daube and red wine. I stay for a few days with friends and leave for England, arriving in Heathrow and hiring a car for Yorkshire, and Settle.

Settle is a beautiful name for a beautiful place. I have been here many times, but now when I climb the hill to the house I can no longer truly call my own, the steps are hard.

I am greeted by two Great Danes, who forget they're not lap dogs and bowl me over with their enthusiasm. I say hello to the housekeepers and make my way into my bedroom, unpacking the few bits of luggage I have. I sit on the bed with the seashell in my hand, turning it over and over and over.

It's his birthday. Another birthday I shan't have with him. Another birthday where I go to the graves of his family and clean them all before I get to his. I will glue the shell to his tombstone, a third one, for the three birthdays we have missed together. I will clean his grave, clearing away debris and dead leaves. The grounds-keeper, Matthew, saves this job for me, and I am forever thankful that he does.

The dogs will be out, running around, ignoring this chore of mine. The cemetery is surrounded by trees, centuries old. They'll hold their secrets, as well as mine, as I sit and tell him what he's missed. I tell him about my life, what I do, and where I've been. I tell him I've spoken to his mother, and how she implored me to come back to Settle, to settle. It's a long old joke.

When there is nothing left to say I will get up and collect the berries and go inside. The house will be quiet, and I will listen to the silence. If I listen closely, I can hear our vows spoken on the sands of Nice those three years ago.

But perhaps it's just the wind. The tea is warm, and the berries are delicious.

I am tired of listlessness. Every time I sit down to tell this journal something important, my brain can't think beyond watching the numbers count down until someone, somewhere, tells me that I'm over my character limit. Thinking in 140 characters is bothersome and worrisome; I prefer ink on paper but sometimes the pen skips.

All I can think of, beyond this moment and that moment, is how we are beyond compatible. The last time we talked at any length your words were like a balm on my soul and I felt each breath like a thousand beautiful kisses. We sat and I watched you de(con)struct and now building you back together is hard because my fingers keep slipping over your skin.

I need your fingers in my hair and I need your heartbeat under my lips and I need your hips against mine. I want to be your factory girl, but somehow my heart's being broken before I can even find the last piece.

This is us: in the back-seat, thighs barely touching; in my bedroom, watching each other (or the television); on the beach, watching the last gasp of sunset. What are we hearing? I can't share my headphones, but I promise it's good.

With the windows down, it smells like dawn. Between my sheets, it smells like your (un)clean skin. If only we had known...maybe we could have tried this once before, when we were young and my wrists were still bruised.

I still talk about Singapore like it meant something, but maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Maybe it was Osaka, when I was early and scared, and you called to ask where I was. I remember your voice better than I remember the lyrics to the last song I heard. Your voice has become my last great lullaby, and I haven't heard it long enough to go to sleep.

Sometimes I wish I could curse you and your insistence on having my heart. It isn't mine to give.

I'm telling you this in the distinct hope that you'll wake up tomorrow, next to her, and see me.

I have this bitter-sweet notion of what "home" is. I've lived in this country for eight years, but I've always felt like a mismatched puzzle piece. I'm feeling nostalgic for something I've never really known.

When I was sixteen, I was a sophomore in high school and still the 'new kid' (in fact I was always the new kid, as nobody new came to my high school after me). My English still wasn't very good, and while I wasn't shy, I didn't have many friends (one or two). I was still riding the bus when everyone in my class was starting to get cars.

The music of my sophomore year is what stands out to me: I was listening to The Strokes and the White Stripes, and it's really the first time I started shaping my "musical tastes", away from all the pop music I had been feeding my musical diet with. Everybody remembers where they were when they heard that sick bass and drum line from Seven Nation Army or how familiar 12.51 from the Strokes sounded -- familiar like a favourite t-shirt or the smell of your mother's perfume.

I was a tomboy, jock (sort of, because I went to a fine arts academy and we had no sports) and had a boyfriend, sort of. I had this weird, large, unwieldy life and this crushing loneliness and inexplicable sadness. I played the drums and I played the fiddle but I wasn't nearly as talented as anyone else at the school so my music was mediocre at best.

The summer before my sophomore year was the first year I ever went to California to visit my father -- my parents had divorced three years earlier, and my father wasn't even in Los Angeles for three days until he had to fly out to Washington DC. I was left to figure out the city on my own -- a black kid in Beverly Hills, who could afford a driver every day. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and it took me a while to fall in love with the city. I'm not cool or chill enough to be a SoCal girl, but I can fake it with a smile and I have a great tan all year.

I'm not lonely any more, but I'm still nostalgic. funnily enough, I'm leaving to make my own way back home.