Fic: Admiring Of His Qualities
Title: Admiring Of His Qualities
Author: speak_me_fair
Rating: R for language and violence
Characters/Pairings: Richard/Henry (Q/Tanner), Aumerle (Bond)
Warnings AU AU AU. Also, SMF makes weird meta. Canon for the 'Hollow Crown' AND 'Skyfall.'
Summary: See warnings. Richard and Henry, Q and Tanner, changing the world. Throughout the ages.
They stand there and hate one another. It's easier that way.
"Sir," Tanner says.
"Tanner."
It's their only exchange, in public. One the head of Communications, the other supplier of guns and radios and information to the death-dealing double-Os.
It's easier this way.
They're allowed to forget, when they hate.
They're allowed to forget
(nights days hours moments)
what they had.
Who they were.
What they had.
*
They stand in front of a screen created by the Quartermaster and brought to life by his
(captain)
head of
(captain)
communications.
There is, after all, a crowned monarch. Who else could they ever be?
(they have been here before when London was on fire, and they were other people, and they know who will save them. It was never meant to be Q.)
*
"This will work," Henry says.
"Of course it will," says Richard, and allows himself a smile.
Henry smiles back.
*
"Q, track me," he says.
"Left."
"Here," he says.
"Got it," he says.
"Yes," he says.
In any incarnation, Aumerle has belonged to them both.
Q can never save him.
Tanner always half-succeeds.
The cost is always too high.
They try again.
(and again.
and again.)
*
They bring to life a trail of breadcrumbs.
It's so very false.
"Excellent idea," Mallory says.
(of course. Of course he is Mallory. The spelling only makes it funnier.)
He is Mallory, Malory, Froissart, Pepys, he records them and forgets them and supports them.
They have come to love him.
Tanner asks what will happen if it doesn't work.
(then we all start again)
"Then we're buggered," says Mallory.
Well, Richard thinks. Yes.
*
Aumerle
(who is now a number, a cipher, a bearded nothing as he once made himself before)
Aumerle who is now James
(and always Edward)
and still bonded, bound
(Bond)
and theirs.
Always theirs.
(he will never remember them)
A man who laughs at foolish puns as he always did.
A man who has only just met them and yet understands they possess his world.
(the beard gone now and the violence back and he throws suitcases not gages from his recognisation)
A man who sets his home on fire
walks across ice on fire
sets the world on fire.
Richard and Henry fuck by its light, and love what they have made.
M was a good price to pay, this time around.
Better than one of them, anyway.
Better than Aumerle that was
(whom it could have been, so easily could have been, and wasn't.)
They think she might only ever have been herself.
There are people like that, sometimes.
*
Skyfall.
Author: speak_me_fair
Rating: R for language and violence
Characters/Pairings: Richard/Henry (Q/Tanner), Aumerle (Bond)
Warnings AU AU AU. Also, SMF makes weird meta. Canon for the 'Hollow Crown' AND 'Skyfall.'
Summary: See warnings. Richard and Henry, Q and Tanner, changing the world. Throughout the ages.
They stand there and hate one another. It's easier that way.
"Sir," Tanner says.
"Tanner."
It's their only exchange, in public. One the head of Communications, the other supplier of guns and radios and information to the death-dealing double-Os.
It's easier this way.
They're allowed to forget, when they hate.
They're allowed to forget
(nights days hours moments)
what they had.
Who they were.
What they had.
*
They stand in front of a screen created by the Quartermaster and brought to life by his
(captain)
head of
(captain)
communications.
There is, after all, a crowned monarch. Who else could they ever be?
(they have been here before when London was on fire, and they were other people, and they know who will save them. It was never meant to be Q.)
*
"This will work," Henry says.
"Of course it will," says Richard, and allows himself a smile.
Henry smiles back.
*
"Q, track me," he says.
"Left."
"Here," he says.
"Got it," he says.
"Yes," he says.
In any incarnation, Aumerle has belonged to them both.
Q can never save him.
Tanner always half-succeeds.
The cost is always too high.
They try again.
(and again.
and again.)
*
They bring to life a trail of breadcrumbs.
It's so very false.
"Excellent idea," Mallory says.
(of course. Of course he is Mallory. The spelling only makes it funnier.)
He is Mallory, Malory, Froissart, Pepys, he records them and forgets them and supports them.
They have come to love him.
Tanner asks what will happen if it doesn't work.
(then we all start again)
"Then we're buggered," says Mallory.
Well, Richard thinks. Yes.
*
Aumerle
(who is now a number, a cipher, a bearded nothing as he once made himself before)
Aumerle who is now James
(and always Edward)
and still bonded, bound
(Bond)
and theirs.
Always theirs.
(he will never remember them)
A man who laughs at foolish puns as he always did.
A man who has only just met them and yet understands they possess his world.
(the beard gone now and the violence back and he throws suitcases not gages from his recognisation)
A man who sets his home on fire
walks across ice on fire
sets the world on fire.
Richard and Henry fuck by its light, and love what they have made.
M was a good price to pay, this time around.
Better than one of them, anyway.
Better than Aumerle that was
(whom it could have been, so easily could have been, and wasn't.)
They think she might only ever have been herself.
There are people like that, sometimes.
*
Skyfall.