"Desdemona's Handkerchief Was A White Flag Too", Quantum Of Solace, Strawberry-centric
Title: Desdemona’s Handkerchief Was A White Flag Too
Fandom: Quantum Of Solace
Character: Strawberry [James/Strawberry]
Challenge/Prompt: 100_women, 076. Strawberries
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 1800
Genre: Gen/het
Summary: James Bond’s photograph falls out of an envelope on a day that is like every other.
Author’s Notes: People have been so mean about Gemma Arterton, saying she’s not pretty enough to be a Bond girl and all that. But I love her to little pieces and so I wrote this for her, because I think she’s completely fucking awesome. Obviously: spoilers. And yes, I have been even more sparing with the chronology & stuff than usual. I reallyreally freaked myself out writing this though.
To live life outside the world
To break the cross that bears her name
She’s not your queen any more.
- Bat For Lashes
-
Her gravestone is going to look a joke.
Afterthought: (If she gets a gravestone.)
-
She often amuses herself on long afternoons trying to work out if her father really just looked down at his new baby girl with her wisps of reddish hair and said: Strawberry. That will suit her.
Perhaps it was meant out of affection. She certainly hopes it was, because it seems a cruel trick to call a little girl Strawberry Fields and then leave her to deal with it. Because daddy did leave, you know, and she tires of his legacy.
-
James Bond’s photograph falls out of an envelope on a day that is like every other; the air conditioning creaking and complaining and her biro pens arranged in neat lines near the edge of her desk. She will not call it boredom.
A handwritten note too: Fields, take care of Bond. Don’t let us down.
His eyes are too blue, even in a photograph. Like pools of ice water that no one could resist diving into.
She crosses her legs beneath the desk, a pen skittering between her fingers. She does not remember this being in her contract.
Afterthought: (Maybe it’s some kind of employee bonus.)
-
She was a child, fingertips stained red. Mother laughing by the kitchen sink, silver knife flashing over fresh fruit.
Strawberries for my Strawberry, she’d say, slicing off the bitter green tops and just leaving the red-pink softness behind, and she, little girl, would eat until juice ran down her chin and dripped on her dress, mouth molten sweetness.
She can’t recall exactly when she started refusing to eat them; possibly little boys in the playground, gravel embedded in her knees, the days before celebrities started calling their children after fruit and cities and car manufacturers.
Even now, she flushes at passport control.
-
He holds a can of motor oil in his hand.
You will be sorry, Greene promises, little eyes lit up bleakly.
She swallows, and hopes James got away.
You will be sorry, he insists.
She wonders if she is supposed to reply with yes.
-
She’s wet in the back of the car; she thinks James knows, the way he won’t glance at her. She presses her mouth to a thin line, remembers that she is working for the government and that she does not fall in love lust with anyone. People have a tendency to laugh and promise that she tastes like her name.
You have no respect for me or the job I’m trying to carry out, do you? she demands, hasty and soft, while the driver swears in bored Spanish at the traffic.
James sighs, fingers tapping on his knee. His face is swarmed with injuries, exhaustion screams raw from him, but he continues. He prevails.
You know I can’t answer that, he tells her at last, turning a white smile on her.
She curls her toes in her boots, wishing it were not quite so hot, trying not to shift in her sodden knickers because all of this is so undignified.
His fingers graze her wrist, once, twice. The sudden slice of contact is almost enough to make her come and she breathes out through her nose, biting her tongue between her teeth.
James laughs.
-
Pretty hair, Greene muses, and he isn’t nearly mad enough for him to act like this. He’s hardly a paragon of sanity, but he isn’t mad enough to talk in fragments and fondle locks of her hair between his fingers.
He takes the grips out, slowly, patiently, dropping them to the hotel room floor. Her hair skims her cheeks, and she wants to scream.
Afterthought: (But she doesn’t. This is important.)
-
Bolivia is a long way away, mum said.
She shrugged, sat at the kitchen table with tea and crumbs of cake stuck against her fingers. Her mum had (has?) a teatowel with strawberries on it; she stared at it and wondered whether it was some kind of statement.
I’ll visit, she promised. Coughed. I’ll email.
Mum nodded. If this is what you want…
There was a question in her voice that she chose to acknowledge but ignore. After all, she’s never really known what she wanted; just, it was usually not what she had.
I do want it, she promised, because her mother didn’t need to be subjected to her uncertainty, I do.
-
She undoes the belt of her coat slowly, doing a desperately bad job of being angry. The water is running; she can smell whatever James has added to the bath from the hotel’s copious cosmetics collection.
Any sign of the stationary? he calls through the open bathroom door.
She drops her coat over a chair.
None yet, she replies. Her mouth curls to a smile.
Afterthought: (The desk job bores her.)
-
What Dominic Greene Doesn’t Know:
1. She knows she’s going to die either way so she’s not going to give in.
2. She ran back to the hotel, leaving the party lights behind her, losing a shoe in the street. And she left a hasty note at the desk - Run! - for James.
3. She kind of pities him, you know?
-
When her death makes the papers at home - censored of course, and with an unflattering photograph blurred by newsprint - her bastard father will recognise her name, and he will cry.
She won’t ever know this, of course, but it would be nice if she did.
Afterthought: (Maybe that was why he called her that; so he’d know her when he lost her.)
-
James is reclining in the bathtub when she walks in, holding sheets of paper decorated with the hotel logo.
Here, she says.
He smiles at her, and she drops them, the paper floating away and sticking to the black and white tiles.
Come on, he says.
For pride, she’d like to say that it would take more than that. But it doesn’t. She piles her clothes neatly, aware that James is watching her.
Aren’t I supposed to be keeping an eye on you, Mr Bond? she asks, turning back to him.
He holds a wet hand out, and she takes it, stepping into the large tub, warm water sloshing around her legs.
-
M’s head will bow over the black-stained body that’s barely recognisable as a woman.
Stupid bastard, she will mutter.
There will be no reply; the tips of Strawberry Fields’ fingers will merely drip black onto the floor.
The manager will demand compensation for the ruined floor, the ruined sheets. And M will tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he may fuck off and shove his compensation demand in a very personal place.
M’s mouth will thin, eyes flowing over the mess.
Poor thing, she will think.
-
This is a beautiful dress, Greene says.
She nods, swallowing in an attempt at bravery.
Wouldn’t want to get it dirty, he continues. May I?
Her fingers curl at her sides, eyes shutting. But there is no turning back now, and she will not be afraid. She will not.
Greene’s fingers are careful on her zip; unwrapping her like a present. The dress pools on the floor at her feet, and she steps out of it. Naked, she takes a breath, toes curling.
-
James’ mouth is against her throat, skin sliding against hers. His fingers fumble between her thighs and she makes a helpless noise when he pushes one inside her, thumb grazing her clit.
Water sloshes loudly over the sides of the tub. They shift together, sliding against the enamel. James kisses down her neck, catching a nipple between his teeth as another finger presses inside her. Her head bangs against the edge of the tub, she cries out and it echoes off the tiles.
They’re tangled, spilling water and the remnants of bubbles everywhere, laughing breathlessly against each other’s faces. She comes, gasping desperately, fingers scrabbling in the back of James’ hair.
He finally kisses her. She falls apart.
-
Any messages for your boyfriend? Greene asks.
She stares at the ceiling, mouth pressed together, shoulders back. Greene’s men are staring at her breasts, her arse, the tidy triangle of red-gold between her legs. It makes her skin crawl.
Nothing? Greene looks almost disappointed. Any last words at all?
She tries not to smile. She thinks: some imaginary sabbatical this turned out to be.
I… I don’t regret anything, she murmurs.
Greene steps too close.
That’s a lovely perfume, he breathes. Smells like… les fraises, non?
She says nothing. They both know she knows he knows, but she won’t die with Strawberry being hurled at her like a rebuke.
I suppose it doesn’t matter, Greene says. You’ll smell like this soon enough.
He’s holding the motor oil again.
It’s then that she notices there’s also a huge drum of oil behind him. Her stomach clenches.
-
They tangle the sheets against their legs, James’ hands strong around her waist as he presses deep inside her. Passionate but gentle, and she wonders who he’s lost because she’s smart enough to know that this isn’t all about her.
Afterthought: (Remember the part where she promised herself she wouldn’t do this?)
-
Greene stands before her, holding the can and smiling a smile that’s far too sane for a man about to do what he’s doing.
You’re going to be a message, he promises, you’re going to be so very important, my dear.
She says nothing, staring straight again as he tips it up, pouring a steady stream of black down her left shoulder. It flows down over her breasts, over her hips, trickling down the crease of her thigh. She refuses to move. She won’t give him the satisfaction. He repeats on the other side, another stream of oil running down her body. It’s cold and the pungent smell makes her want to cough, her eyes are streaming but she isn’t crying. There’s no point in crying.
At least he cares enough to kill me personally, she thinks.
Greene tips it up over her head, and gloopy cold oil runs in rivulets down her cheeks, dripping off her chin.
It’s a pity you won’t see how beautiful you’ll look, Greene tells her. Such a pity.
He tips her head back with gentle fingers, and she can’t struggle as he holds the can to her mouth because there’s no sense. He pours the rest of the oil straight into her mouth. The acrid taste makes her choke but he keeps pouring and she can’t breathe and darkness starts to slide across her vision.
Afterthought: (James wasn’t worth this, but she stands by her decision anyway.)
-
Maybe they’ll grow a strawberry plant over her grave, if the oil saturating her body won’t kill it.
Oh, fuck, the irony.
-
Fandom: Quantum Of Solace
Character: Strawberry [James/Strawberry]
Challenge/Prompt: 100_women, 076. Strawberries
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 1800
Genre: Gen/het
Summary: James Bond’s photograph falls out of an envelope on a day that is like every other.
Author’s Notes: People have been so mean about Gemma Arterton, saying she’s not pretty enough to be a Bond girl and all that. But I love her to little pieces and so I wrote this for her, because I think she’s completely fucking awesome. Obviously: spoilers. And yes, I have been even more sparing with the chronology & stuff than usual. I reallyreally freaked myself out writing this though.
To live life outside the world
To break the cross that bears her name
She’s not your queen any more.
- Bat For Lashes
-
Her gravestone is going to look a joke.
Afterthought: (If she gets a gravestone.)
-
She often amuses herself on long afternoons trying to work out if her father really just looked down at his new baby girl with her wisps of reddish hair and said: Strawberry. That will suit her.
Perhaps it was meant out of affection. She certainly hopes it was, because it seems a cruel trick to call a little girl Strawberry Fields and then leave her to deal with it. Because daddy did leave, you know, and she tires of his legacy.
-
James Bond’s photograph falls out of an envelope on a day that is like every other; the air conditioning creaking and complaining and her biro pens arranged in neat lines near the edge of her desk. She will not call it boredom.
A handwritten note too: Fields, take care of Bond. Don’t let us down.
His eyes are too blue, even in a photograph. Like pools of ice water that no one could resist diving into.
She crosses her legs beneath the desk, a pen skittering between her fingers. She does not remember this being in her contract.
Afterthought: (Maybe it’s some kind of employee bonus.)
-
She was a child, fingertips stained red. Mother laughing by the kitchen sink, silver knife flashing over fresh fruit.
Strawberries for my Strawberry, she’d say, slicing off the bitter green tops and just leaving the red-pink softness behind, and she, little girl, would eat until juice ran down her chin and dripped on her dress, mouth molten sweetness.
She can’t recall exactly when she started refusing to eat them; possibly little boys in the playground, gravel embedded in her knees, the days before celebrities started calling their children after fruit and cities and car manufacturers.
Even now, she flushes at passport control.
-
He holds a can of motor oil in his hand.
You will be sorry, Greene promises, little eyes lit up bleakly.
She swallows, and hopes James got away.
You will be sorry, he insists.
She wonders if she is supposed to reply with yes.
-
She’s wet in the back of the car; she thinks James knows, the way he won’t glance at her. She presses her mouth to a thin line, remembers that she is working for the government and that she does not fall in love lust with anyone. People have a tendency to laugh and promise that she tastes like her name.
You have no respect for me or the job I’m trying to carry out, do you? she demands, hasty and soft, while the driver swears in bored Spanish at the traffic.
James sighs, fingers tapping on his knee. His face is swarmed with injuries, exhaustion screams raw from him, but he continues. He prevails.
You know I can’t answer that, he tells her at last, turning a white smile on her.
She curls her toes in her boots, wishing it were not quite so hot, trying not to shift in her sodden knickers because all of this is so undignified.
His fingers graze her wrist, once, twice. The sudden slice of contact is almost enough to make her come and she breathes out through her nose, biting her tongue between her teeth.
James laughs.
-
Pretty hair, Greene muses, and he isn’t nearly mad enough for him to act like this. He’s hardly a paragon of sanity, but he isn’t mad enough to talk in fragments and fondle locks of her hair between his fingers.
He takes the grips out, slowly, patiently, dropping them to the hotel room floor. Her hair skims her cheeks, and she wants to scream.
Afterthought: (But she doesn’t. This is important.)
-
Bolivia is a long way away, mum said.
She shrugged, sat at the kitchen table with tea and crumbs of cake stuck against her fingers. Her mum had (has?) a teatowel with strawberries on it; she stared at it and wondered whether it was some kind of statement.
I’ll visit, she promised. Coughed. I’ll email.
Mum nodded. If this is what you want…
There was a question in her voice that she chose to acknowledge but ignore. After all, she’s never really known what she wanted; just, it was usually not what she had.
I do want it, she promised, because her mother didn’t need to be subjected to her uncertainty, I do.
-
She undoes the belt of her coat slowly, doing a desperately bad job of being angry. The water is running; she can smell whatever James has added to the bath from the hotel’s copious cosmetics collection.
Any sign of the stationary? he calls through the open bathroom door.
She drops her coat over a chair.
None yet, she replies. Her mouth curls to a smile.
Afterthought: (The desk job bores her.)
-
What Dominic Greene Doesn’t Know:
1. She knows she’s going to die either way so she’s not going to give in.
2. She ran back to the hotel, leaving the party lights behind her, losing a shoe in the street. And she left a hasty note at the desk - Run! - for James.
3. She kind of pities him, you know?
-
When her death makes the papers at home - censored of course, and with an unflattering photograph blurred by newsprint - her bastard father will recognise her name, and he will cry.
She won’t ever know this, of course, but it would be nice if she did.
Afterthought: (Maybe that was why he called her that; so he’d know her when he lost her.)
-
James is reclining in the bathtub when she walks in, holding sheets of paper decorated with the hotel logo.
Here, she says.
He smiles at her, and she drops them, the paper floating away and sticking to the black and white tiles.
Come on, he says.
For pride, she’d like to say that it would take more than that. But it doesn’t. She piles her clothes neatly, aware that James is watching her.
Aren’t I supposed to be keeping an eye on you, Mr Bond? she asks, turning back to him.
He holds a wet hand out, and she takes it, stepping into the large tub, warm water sloshing around her legs.
-
M’s head will bow over the black-stained body that’s barely recognisable as a woman.
Stupid bastard, she will mutter.
There will be no reply; the tips of Strawberry Fields’ fingers will merely drip black onto the floor.
The manager will demand compensation for the ruined floor, the ruined sheets. And M will tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he may fuck off and shove his compensation demand in a very personal place.
M’s mouth will thin, eyes flowing over the mess.
Poor thing, she will think.
-
This is a beautiful dress, Greene says.
She nods, swallowing in an attempt at bravery.
Wouldn’t want to get it dirty, he continues. May I?
Her fingers curl at her sides, eyes shutting. But there is no turning back now, and she will not be afraid. She will not.
Greene’s fingers are careful on her zip; unwrapping her like a present. The dress pools on the floor at her feet, and she steps out of it. Naked, she takes a breath, toes curling.
-
James’ mouth is against her throat, skin sliding against hers. His fingers fumble between her thighs and she makes a helpless noise when he pushes one inside her, thumb grazing her clit.
Water sloshes loudly over the sides of the tub. They shift together, sliding against the enamel. James kisses down her neck, catching a nipple between his teeth as another finger presses inside her. Her head bangs against the edge of the tub, she cries out and it echoes off the tiles.
They’re tangled, spilling water and the remnants of bubbles everywhere, laughing breathlessly against each other’s faces. She comes, gasping desperately, fingers scrabbling in the back of James’ hair.
He finally kisses her. She falls apart.
-
Any messages for your boyfriend? Greene asks.
She stares at the ceiling, mouth pressed together, shoulders back. Greene’s men are staring at her breasts, her arse, the tidy triangle of red-gold between her legs. It makes her skin crawl.
Nothing? Greene looks almost disappointed. Any last words at all?
She tries not to smile. She thinks: some imaginary sabbatical this turned out to be.
I… I don’t regret anything, she murmurs.
Greene steps too close.
That’s a lovely perfume, he breathes. Smells like… les fraises, non?
She says nothing. They both know she knows he knows, but she won’t die with Strawberry being hurled at her like a rebuke.
I suppose it doesn’t matter, Greene says. You’ll smell like this soon enough.
He’s holding the motor oil again.
It’s then that she notices there’s also a huge drum of oil behind him. Her stomach clenches.
-
They tangle the sheets against their legs, James’ hands strong around her waist as he presses deep inside her. Passionate but gentle, and she wonders who he’s lost because she’s smart enough to know that this isn’t all about her.
Afterthought: (Remember the part where she promised herself she wouldn’t do this?)
-
Greene stands before her, holding the can and smiling a smile that’s far too sane for a man about to do what he’s doing.
You’re going to be a message, he promises, you’re going to be so very important, my dear.
She says nothing, staring straight again as he tips it up, pouring a steady stream of black down her left shoulder. It flows down over her breasts, over her hips, trickling down the crease of her thigh. She refuses to move. She won’t give him the satisfaction. He repeats on the other side, another stream of oil running down her body. It’s cold and the pungent smell makes her want to cough, her eyes are streaming but she isn’t crying. There’s no point in crying.
At least he cares enough to kill me personally, she thinks.
Greene tips it up over her head, and gloopy cold oil runs in rivulets down her cheeks, dripping off her chin.
It’s a pity you won’t see how beautiful you’ll look, Greene tells her. Such a pity.
He tips her head back with gentle fingers, and she can’t struggle as he holds the can to her mouth because there’s no sense. He pours the rest of the oil straight into her mouth. The acrid taste makes her choke but he keeps pouring and she can’t breathe and darkness starts to slide across her vision.
Afterthought: (James wasn’t worth this, but she stands by her decision anyway.)
-
Maybe they’ll grow a strawberry plant over her grave, if the oil saturating her body won’t kill it.
Oh, fuck, the irony.
-