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whoareurl · 6 years ago

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Causing Chaos in Pyjamas (8/9)

(final update for today but now it’s up to date with the forum version sorry for flooding ur dash love me)

Not-Q was a fast draw but Bond was faster. No sooner had Not-Q pointed his gun at M’s chest than Bond was between them with his gun staring right at Not-Q’s forehead. He could hear Q’s ragged breaths from behind him and was very aware that there the henchmen’s guns were trained on him. Good - better him than the higher ups.

M and Q were both MI6 heads and far more important than a dispensable double-oh could ever be. This was what he’d been trained to do; to be the shield when he couldn’t be the bullet.

“You can order your men to shoot me,” Bond began, steadfastly ignoring Q’s pained gasp from behind him and M’s eyes burning into his back. “But I guarantee I’m fast enough to kill you on my way out.”

Not-Q seemed to consider this and, after a moment’s hesitation, lowered his gun to his side. The other guns, however, continued to stare Bond down. Bond didn’t move.

“Good call,” he said darkly.

“Stand down, 007,” said Not-Q calmly and Bond felt his blood boil.

“Not bloody likely,” he growled through gritted teeth.

Not-Q raised his eyebrows mockingly. “Technically, I am your superior.”

Bond scowled. “You’re a traitor.”

“I’m the Quaterma-”

“You’re not,” Bond spat before quickly reining himself in. For someone well-trained to bury emotions, he was struggling to prevent his anger at hearing anyone else try to claim Q’s title from bubbling abruptly to the surface.

Unfortunately for Bond’s temper, Not-Q seemed to pick up on this. “Protective of your pet genius, aren’t we?” He smirked, looking past Bond to Q. Bond had to resist the urge to turn around, to let Q know somehow that he’d be damned if he was going to let anything happen to him.

Somehow, now knowing how Q’s body felt when it was draped tiredly against his, Bond found it difficult to remember that he was in fact a highly trained MI6 operative with undoubtedly excellent marksmanship. Today, he had seen a much more vulnerable side of his Quartermaster and, well, Bond had always enjoyed feeling useful.

“Tell you what,” Not-Q went on, looking down at his gun and, despite all his training telling him not to take his eyes off his mark, Bond couldn’t help but follow his gaze.

And that small lapse in judgement was all it took. When he looked up again, Hired Muscle #1 had his gun trained directly at Q. Bond’s blood ran cold.

“Lower your gun and I won’t shoot your little mouse.”

Bond felt his control of the situation quickly slipping through his fingers. He’d very much preferred it when all the guns had been pointed at him.

“007, don’t you dare,” Q croaked out, voice a pitiful imitation of his usual clipped professionalism.

“I won’t wait all day, agent,” Not-Q said and his voice turned to steel while fire flashed in his dark eyes. “You have five seconds to lower your weapon.”

“007, that’s an order!” Snapped Q hoarsely.

“Four.”

Bond took a deep breath and analysed his options. He could shoot Not-Q right now but those bodyguards were likely as trigger-happy as he was. He’d barely have squeezed the trigger and they’d shoot Q. Out of the question.

“Three.”

“Shoot him, damn it!” Q’s voice was giving out on him. Bond could hear the telltale whisper of another one of those awful coughs on the horizon.

Bond was quick on his feet - two steps to the right and he’d be directly in front of Q. He could make it. In the confusion, M might be able to grab his gun and shoot someone. Maybe Q could grab Bond’s gun and-

“Two.”

There’s no way they’d survive. It was a lost cause. There was only one thing to do.

“One.”

Bond lowered his gun. Q swore.

“Good boy,” Not-Q cooed, making Bond’s upper lip curl. “Now, drop it.”

His tone resembled one used to speak to a dog but Bond didn’t rise to the bait. Slowly, he let the gun slip out of his hands and clatter to the floor, making sure to click the safety back in place first. He cursed internally (Q cursed externally again). He should have been able to figure out another way.

Bond took a step back as Q practically doubled over against his knees, coughing up a storm. Bond never took his eyes off the gun trained on his Quartermaster.

“Your turn,” he bit out.

Following a nod from Not-Q, both bodyguards lowered their guns. Bond dropped down to Q’s side and one hand automatically found his back, rubbing rhythmic circles as Q hacked up his lungs.

“Now, isn’t this better,” Not-Q said with a smile. “Space for a civil conversation.”

Q spat and raised his head, glaring up at his counterpart with anger blazing in his gaze. “I would point out that you’re the one who pulled a gun in the first place.”

Bond wished, just this once, that Q would hold his tongue.

Not-Q smirked at Bond, nodding his head towards Q as he said, “He’s got a quick tongue. I can see why you like him.”

Bond didn’t miss the innuendo but nor did he let his somewhat embarrassed response show on his face. Q, apparently having heard Bond’s silent wish, said nothing. Or perhaps it was because he was too busy panting, leaning heavily to one side in his seat and apparently fighting just to keep himself conscious. His glassy eyes blinked rapidly behind his glasses and for a moment Bond was afraid that Q would faint and, consequently, that his sudden movement might trigger gunfire he had no hope of stopping.

But Q caught Bond’s eye and the strained smile he sent in Bond’s direction was at least somewhat reassuring.

Don’t break down yet, he heard himself saying in his head; the same words he’d said to Q earlier. His brain was speeding through possible next moves faster than he could even contemplate them but he hadn’t yet managed to settle on anything concrete.

“What, precisely, are you hoping to achieve by keeping us trapped here, Mr Driver?” asked M’s voice from behind Bond. “Surely you must be aware of our extensive security. Killing us here would be a death sentence for you.”

Bond had to hand it to Mallory; he wasn’t her, but he was a damn good M.

Not-Q (Bond pointedly refused to call him anything else) simply smiled. “You’re quite the fool, Mallory, if you truly believe me to be the same Marcus Driver who gained Olivia Mansfield’s trust. Or do you really think so little of your predecessor that you imagine she’d be fooled into trusting a traitor?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” M retorted harshly.

Bond scowled. Alec’s - Trevelyan's, his brain corrected him - betrayal had cut deep for M almost as much as it had Bond. They’d trained together, drank together, laughed together, entertained the thought of sleeping together; he pushed down the spark of anger that flared up against Mallory.

Q’s body suddenly convulsed in on itself as he stifled a sneeze, apparently putting all his energy into keeping quiet. Bond saw Hired Muscle #1’s gun twitch in his hand at the movement and felt a leap of anxiety in his throat but he pushed it down.

Later, he reprimanded himself.

“Mr Driver,” M continued patiently. “Is there really any need to have those two guarding the door like that? I hardly think any of us are planning to make a run for it.”

Not-Q smiled indulgently. “Perhaps not but I wouldn’t want anyone interrupting our time together.”

Bond raised an eyebrow. What the hell was Mallory doing?

“What do you want from MI6, Mr Driver?” M asked calmly. “It must be something quite important if you’re willing to kill all three of us.”

Not-Q’s smile widened. “I already have what I want.”

Bond caught Q’s almighty eye-roll out of the corner of his eye and felt his lips twitch in amusement. In the field, he’d often heard Q’s snarky commentary in his ear on the inexplicable tendency of targets to play mind games with his agents.

Yeah, whatever, Doctor Doom, get to the point, said Q’s voice in his head and Bond disguised an amused huff as a cough. Not-Q looked at him sharply.

“Something amusing, agent?”

Bond smirked. “Oh, no. Just marvelling at your complete lack of finesse.”

A vein in Not-Q’s temple began pulsing and Bond could see his anger in the set of his jaw. He tried to imagine what Q would say in his ear right now. Probably something exasperated. Q’s tone was frequently exasperated when it came to Bond.

A movement by the desk had one of the guards aiming his gun at Mallory who put his hands up, knees bent comically as though he was in the middle of standing up. The other guard, apparently spooked by this, had his gun trained on Q again.

“Just taking a seat,” Mallory said, sitting down slowly and putting his hands flat on the desk in front of him. Bond was starting to get quite sick of having guns pointed at everybody but him. “You don’t mind do you?”

Not-Q frowned but said nothing. Slowly, the guards lowered their guns once more and Bond breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

“After all, both my agents are seated. I was starting to feel left out. I’d join them by the filing cabinet but I think I’d rather be at my desk.”

For the first time since he’d surrendered his weapon, Bond felt a surge of hope that they might get out of there alive. From where he was, he couldn’t see any indication that M’s intercom was active but if he were a betting man - and he was - he’d put everything he had on that being the case. M was broadcasting the layout of the room and the people in it straight to Eve Moneypenny’s earpiece.

Bond glanced at his watch, being careful to move only his eyes. By his estimate, it had been about three minutes since they’d been interrupted and Bond was sure M had activated the intercom as soon as the situation turned sour. Eve should have assembled a team in about-

The door flew open with a bang followed by a flurry of gunfire and Bond moved to yank Q down to the ground but found himself unexpectedly stopped in his tracks and he jolted backwards and overbalanced.

Blood blossomed across the shoulder of Bond’s shirt and he barely had time to grunt in pain before all three of the traitors were on the ground. The two hired muscles were dead, bleeding out all over Mallory’s carpet. But Not-Q had been shot in the back of his knees and was hissing in pain in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Bond glanced up at Eve who was lowering her gun and grimaced. “I hope you’re not planning to make a habit of shooting me,” he grumbled, pressing his hand into his bleeding shoulder.

Eve pulled off her light-brown jacket and balled it up, pressing it to Bond’s shoulder to stem the bleeding. “I’m sure you’ll do something to deserve it,” she muttered as she pushed harder, making Bond grunt again.

“Once is bad luck. Twice is just careless,” he sniped.

“Well, one in each shoulder. Should balance you out,” Eve quipped back, glancing over her shoulder at where Q was starting to stand on shaky legs. “Q, so help me god, if you don’t get your arse back in that seat I’ll shoot you too.”

Q had the good sense not to doubt her and collapsed back into his chair, looking more like a ragdoll than a man.

“How do you still have a licence to carry that thing?” Bond grouched, repositioning himself so his back was leaning against the filing cabinet and taking over applying pressure to his wound. The pain was thudding through his entire body but he suspected the residual adrenaline was doing something to keep him sensible.

“Medical are on their way for both of you,” said M, looking between Bond and Q with an expression as close to concern as it ever seemed to get. “I’ll get your reports on this whole business tomorrow. I expect you’ll be spending the night.”

Bond had never in his entire career spent a night in Medical. He’d been cajoled into several hospital stays but never a prolonged stint in Vauxhall Cross’s medical wing. Q though. Bond shot his Quartermaster an anxious glance and saw him looking more pallid than ever. He shut his eyes, focusing on breathing. Fuck. This was almost definitely his least favourite part of this job. Getting shot, no matter how many times it happened, never hurt any less.

“One minute,” said M and Bond opened his eyes to find M’s gaze fixed on him. He must look really bad.

Something scraped over to Bond’s right and he turned, at the same time thinking that Not-Q had fallen awfully quiet. By the time Bond saw Not-Q’s hand deactivating the safety on his bodyguard’s discarded gun, it was too late to do anything. There was an almighty bang and Bond’s heart leapt into his mouth.

Q...

#chaosinpjs #sickfic #q sickfic #acefic #acefic 007 #acefic 00q

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bullymagnet · 8 years ago

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DAY SEVEN: Hallways

WELL... i’m a little late on this one. but whatever!

FINAL DAY! EXCEPT NOT REALLY! a story about a world where soulmates are connected through their dreams by hallways. soulmates can pass through these hallways, but to their mates, they’ll always appear invisible in this dreaming world unless they’ve met once in the waking world. max and johnny are in this one.

This idiot’s found a hallway into your dreams again.

That’s the only commentary your mind makes as a mid-sized sedan goes floating lazily past your head, slow enough for you to pick out the graffiti written on its side: “EAT QUARTERS DAILY.”

… You’re sure that said something meaningful at one point, like “EAT A BUTT,” or “xxx-xxxx CALL ME,” but you’ve “known” them for years and your… friend doesn’t seem to get that writing in dreams changes like the wind and you’ve almost never been able to read one of their messages as they intended.

Over what sounds like an intercom across the city streets you’ve found yourself in, a bootleg MIDI rendition of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up begins to play.

… Then again. That’s probably not very important to them.

“Son of a mother,” you whisper, rubbing your temples in attempt not to completely lose it. “You have rick rolled me for the last time.”

Kicking and punching your way through a spontaneously manifested pile of packing-peanut filled boxes blocking the sidewalk, you take a moment to give a scoff of fatigued laughter about your situation.

Hallways into each other’s dreams, they all say.

If you have a soulmate, then you’ll have these hallways. The appear through doors, windows, mirrors, swimming pools, Looney Tunes-esque holes- just about any classical or non-classical means of going through could potentially lead to a hallway into the sleeping mind of your soulmate.

Even though there’s a hallway in every dream you have, they can be hard to find, so it’s pretty rare that you bother seeking them out and slipping in to visit your soulmate. Not nearly as often as they come through your side.

You’ve never seen or heard them- that’s just how the connection works. If you meet them in the real world at least once, you’ll be able to. But if that doesn’t happen, the only dream traces of your soulmate when they come through the hallway are the colored footprints they leave…

And the stupid things they do.

You bust through into an unpopulated storefront after being up to your ankles in ball-pit balls outside. It’s dim inside and mostly empty, but this is the place you’ve decided houses the controls for the intercom system. You briskly walk across the music-room-esque carpet and hop the counter to the computer, shutting off the grating music echoing through the streets as quickly as possible.

Now… Well, they can’t hear your voice, so yelling over the intercom would do nothing. Sighing, you just type out a message for them on the keyboard. It follows:

HEY IDIOT. WHY DON’T YOU MAKE LIKE A TREE AND FIND THE NEAREST DOOR, GET YOUR BUTT BACK THROUGH THAT HALLWAY AND GET OUT OF MY DREAMS. I’M IN A NEW TOWN, TOMORROW IS MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, AND I HAVE A LOT ON MY PLATE AS IT IS. HUGS AND KISSES, YOUR SOULMATE. PS STOP RICK ROLLING ME AND FIND A NEW MEME.

You press enter, and you can hear the echoing voice of Microsoft Sam reading your message back to you out in the streets.

You cross your arms and lean back. But the moment you relax, you hear a door swing open behind you. You turn to face it, and see a quick-fading trail of red footprints come through. The prankster themself.

They stop for a moment, probably disoriented by the storefront you made up about three seconds ago, and probably by you. They take a step toward you, pause, and then a CD case materializes in front of where you imagine their face would be. It clatters to the floor, and they dash, leaving a hand print on the front desk as they book it toward the front doors.

The doors swing open, and then close, and about five seconds later, a massive pile of snow comes down from the heavens, effectively snowing you in.

God you hate them.

You begrudgingly note, with a strange feeling in your heart, that you know you won’t, eventually, because that’s… also how this works. But for now. Yes.

You turn around, shaking your head, and go to check out the CD case they left for you. You can’t make it out in the dark, so you scoop it up and squint down on it.

On it is a terribly drawn spiky-haired smiling character that you sometimes see them draw, and an incomprehensible jumble of words that now says, “∞ SONGS?!???? ASTLEY.? beeb” and must have at one point said something along the lines of, “RICK ASTLEY’S GREATEST HIT, BUT A LOT” because all else that’s on the CD case is a photo of Astley himself, winking sagely up at you.

You wearily look up, studying the wall.

You Cannot Imagine What Is On This CD.

Your next morning is terrible.

Apart from landing on a jerk’s face on your way to your first day of school, you woke up super late, you fell down the stairs a little, and you’re pretty sure all you managed to grab for breakfast was a can of soup and a bag of Pomegranate Thangs.

But hey let’s get back to that landing on a jerk’s face thing right that part sounds interesting.

The aforementioned jerk stands in front of you on the cracked sidewalk, miraculously alive and with a face covered in what you would assume was a tire track if you didn’t know it was the distinct imprint of your very own scooter, having indented his face not a minute ago. … Listen, you were texting while scooting, there’s a lot of ledges in this town… it’s actually a lot easier to accomplish than you’d think. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Well, you’re not, you feel pretty alright, but—

“Okay kid,” the strange boy begins. “Listen up.” And you mutter under your breath that your name isn’t kid, it’s Max, but he doesn’t seem like the listening type.

“You just landed on a very important face. Johnny’s face,” he goes on, and your brain takes special note of his name like it’s marking it off a grocery list. “My face.”

He just keeps right on talking after that, but you kind of zone out to take him in. You’re probably not missing much. You’re pretty sure he fits right into the Bully character archetype.

His hair is red. Bright red, and you’d say that it seemed kind of familiar, but you’re not psychic apart from the fact that your subconscious mind is forever linked to another human being’s. Your gay little brain says he’s handsome and you figure that’s true but would be more true if he wasn’t being so immediately intolerable in this moment. But it’s not that he’s drop-dead gorgeous or that he’s the most interesting man in the world, it’s something that you don’t quite knowingly notice but the narrative does. That you’re experiencing a kind of déjà vu that isn’t dizzying or vexing like it typically should be.

That the moment you saw Johnny, you felt something unlock in your subconscious.

… You think he just said he’s going to beat you up if you don’t give him 50 cents.

It’s a strange two days that follows. You don’t get to sleep in the night that connects them.

This school, this town- it’s like their culture, their social nuance, their infrastructure is just a few pixels askew from the lineart layer of reality. And in your first two round days here, you feel yourself sinking into the swamp of madness that is Mayview.

Just about everyone you meet fits right into that madness, even the few “friends” that you make. But none of them seem to take quite as much utter glee out of being an agent of chaos as that Johnny.

He does end up beating you up. Well, after an entire day of running away from him, you rise to his challenge… and then quickly un-rise. He beats you into the ground, essentially. That Bully archetype came with some pretty brute strength.

He does give you a “life lesson” afterward, though.

“Why take the maze,” he energetically asks, with shining eyes, as you wonder how many bruises you’ll be left with. “When you can bust on through the walls?”

And it’s that lesson, his praise of your deciding to roll up your sleeves and accept his challenge to get beat up by him, and the special language of game-breaking logic that he seems to write and live by… that all seem intimately familiar to you. You’re not sure why.

You think that’s probably because you’re already resigning yourself to a very long and very tiring fight-avoiding school year.

He also breaks your scooter.

The bulk of your second day goes off with about the level of interesting content you would expect in and that would likely be discussed at length had this story been a different medium and genre and universe.

Though extracurriculars don’t hold you up until twilight like they did the first day, and housekeeping doesn’t hold you up indefinitely like the first night, you’re a pretty popular dude, and it’s not until about 3 AM that you manage to get the opportunity to sleep.

But once you do, you’re out like a light.

The vineyard you find yourself on is surrounded on all sides by thick, coniferous forest that seems to go on forever, but you can still taste the salt water in the air, and you can hear the waves and the seagulls of a beach that doesn’t seem to exist. You’re quick to realize it’s a dream.

You get to your feet and brush the sand off your clothes, ducking under a low-hanging grape vine. You can see a beach house up ahead, and without much else to do but wander the acre of grape trellises sticking up out of the sand, you head toward it.

The front door is unlocked when you reach the porch, so you walk into the house. Inside, the lights are off but it’s illuminated just fine by the daylight streaming in.

You meander through the nautical-themed building. Nobody’s home. It’s not typical for you to be swarmed with dream characters in lucid dreams anyways. For now, you see what kind of interesting stuff is around here.

After several rooms of treasure chests and seashell-covered guest beds alike, you walk by a rose-colored open door with a gaping wardrobe in the room inside. The wardrobe wouldn’t be so remarkable, though, without the homage that lies inside its open maw. There’s a hallway in there that breaks the laws of space. Your soulmate’s hallway. And so obvious, too.

You cautiously walk into the room. Apart from the wardrobe and a screen door leading out onto the beach house’s back deck, it seems to be pretty empty. You approach the hallway wardrobe and peer inside. The wood floor is waxed and the tacky wallpaper is the same the whole way to the end. And there, down about twenty or thirty feet, is the open door of your soulmate’s mind. Green sky and yellow clouds.

You can’t help but smile a bit and snort. Oh boy. They’ve been through here. Prepare for trouble.

Turning around, you breathe to nobody in particular, “Guess I have…”

You trail off. Turns out you failed a perception check and the room isn’t quite as empty as you thought it was. In the other half of the room, standing awkwardly in the middle of the dusty floor holding a boombox, is Johnny.

“… Guests,” you lamely finish.

He’s dressed in boxers and a Superman shirt, and he’s staring unblinkingly at you. He drops the boombox in his arms and it fizzles out of existence. He is very still.

“Oh, great,” you mutter, bemused. Make it double. “Like I needed a Johnny on top of this.”

He furrows his brows and breathes something, a one word question that you can’t make out from across the room. Wow, you’ve never seen the real him think this hard. The way he looks at you… it’s strange.

Whatever. Dream characters are always weird. Johnny is extra weird.

Deciding to clear the area before things kick off, you make a casual beeline for the screen door and the deck beyond it. From the corner of your eye, the dream Johnny tenses up the moment you begin taking steps again.

“H-Hey. Hey!” You glance back. He steps toward you hesitantly. His eyes are locked on you and the ground behind you like homing missiles or something. “Max… Who’s dreamin’ about you?!”

“No one’s dreaming about me,” you sigh, almost automatically. “I’m dreaming.”

And you keep walking.

And you stop walking.

That question. That’s a really specific question. You pause in front of the door for a moment, just thinking, before looking over at him. He’s still gaping at you. His eyes are as wide as saucers and intense. You turn to face him fully, and squint.

There on the floor, where he’d just taken a few steps toward you, are several fading red footprints.

Nope. No way.

Your thoughts are racing, but your words come out almost calm, however firm. “Johnny… are you a dream character?”

His eye twitches. He sort of absentmindedly grabs the sides of his boxers in his fists. “Wh-what’s that mean?”

You inhale and exhale.

“Johnny,” you begin again, very slowly and very carefully. You take a few steps toward him. “Where did you come from.”

Bit by bit, like his body is lagging behind his mind, he raises his arm and gestures over your shoulder with his finger, pointing toward the rose-motif wardrobe and the plain, stretching hallway within.

And he says, confused and mystified like he’s unraveling a riddle and as his wide eyes seem to take the whole of you in like this, right here, is the first time he’s actually seeing you, “The hallway.”

The hallway.

Johnny, the boy you met by nearly concussing with a metal scooter. Johnny, who chased you three blocks down Mayview trying to beat the snot out of you, one as a member of a human totem pole. Who later beat the snot out of you (not as a member of a human totem pole). Who not only gave you change for the money he extorted and advice after he beat the snot out of you, but advice that you employed. Who is vexingly somehow the most irritating being you think you’ve met to date, but whose powers of frustration never stopped you from considering him handsome. Johnny, the energetic boy with the loud gang and the loud red hair and the fictionally golden eyes and the devious smile who may as well be the human equivalent of a far-too-hyper inferno.

Johnny came through the hallway.

Johnny’s your soulmate.

You’ve gotta be kidding you.

#my fics #bullymagnet #SORRY I'M LATE #I BOTH HAD WRITER'S BLOCK AND ALSO FELL ASLEEP AT MY DESK LAST NIGHT #I REALLY WANTED TO BE ON TIME...#anyway this isn't my WITTIEST writing ever #it's sort of a little... ''people sitting in chairs'' if you know what i mean #but hey all these fics have sort of been first drafts without editing #next time i'll be way more prepared!#fics

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