[Sept 16] [James Bond] The Mind-Reading Game

[tortillafactory.livejournal.com]

Title: The Mind-Reading Game
Day/Theme: Sept. 16 - Older ghosts
Series: James Bond
Character/Pairing: Bond/Jessica (OFC)
Rating: PG-13

Note: This is a little runt of a plotbunny that originally came to me months ago, for my novel-length WIP that I haven't pimped quite enough yet, Blind Man's Bluff. This requires no knowlege of the story whatsoever, save for the fact that Bond's protecting Jessica because she accidentally got mixed up in his "business affairs," and that no, they're not sleeping together. Yet.

Oh - and it helps if you've seen The Sixth Sense.



Wanna play a game?

It's a mind-reading game. Here's how it works: I read your mind.

He glanced sidelong at her - she was smiling.

If what I say is right, you take one step towards the chair. If what I say is wrong, you take one step back, towards the doorway. If you reach the chair, you sit down. If you reach the door, you can go.

Wanna play?

"All right," said Bond. "Now this is just ridiculous. Why doesn't he notice that nobody except the boy is talking to him or even acknowledging him?"

"Because." Her eyes never left the screen. "They only see what they want to see."

"Who?"

"The dead."

Bond said, "well, that's convenient."

"Look. Look at the nuance! It's unbelievable."

"Much like the plot."

"Oh, shut up, you know you love it."

"I know you love that psychologist character, that's what I know."

"Dr. Malcom Crowe is a very talented man."

"He's not real. But if you're interested I believe Bruce Willis is still single."

She just shook her head as if he were a hopeless case.

When your mom and dad were first divorced, your mom went to see a doctor like me. And he didn't help her. So you think I'm not going to be able to help you.

"So who would you be?" she asked, abruptly. "The haunter, or the haunted?"

Bond looked up from his drink. "Beg pardon?"

"Are you a ghost, or a seer?" The expression on her face seemed to indicate that this was a perfectly ordinary question to ask. "Hypothetical. You can only be one. Want to know what I think?"

"All right," said Bond, settling back in his seat. "Out with it."

Smiling, she kept on looking at Dr. Crowe. "You're a ghost. Because you're dead and you don't know it."

Bond didn't ask her to elaborate. "That makes you doubly cursed, then, because you're a seer. You've got to contend with mangled corpses wandering around, yelling at you."

"Oh, yeah, ignorance is definitely bliss. But, here I am. Dead people all around. And I can't convince them, you know? 'Cause they only -"

"- see what they want to see. All right, you've made your point." Bond set his glass on the end-table. "What about your mental hang-ups as a topic of conversation, for a change?"

She turned to smile at him. "James," she said, "this is all hypothetical."

He let out a little snort. "Right. Okay. Purely hypothetical, then. I'm a hypothetical ghost psychologist and you're my hypothetical seer patient. Your time's up, get off the couch. I've got an appointment with that sleepy-eyed woman on that one programme, who's always conversing with bodies in morgues."

"'Tru Calling'? How the hell did you ever see 'Tru Calling'?"

"How the hell did anybody ever see 'Tru Calling'? But it's one of those unpleasant facts of life, like taxes and those little bacteria that live on your eyelashes."

"Dr. Poltergeist, you suck. I'm going to show up one day, years from now, when you're drunk, and shoot your sorry ass."

Bond smirked. "Dressed only in your underwear, as well?"

"Maybe. I'll be killing you, so I don't guess it matters. Something to look forward to, hey?"

"Thought I was already dead."

"Well, that complicates matters. No peepshow for you, I guess."

"But seeing as I'm dead - it's not as if I'll be blabbing about it. Dead men tell no tales, and all that."

She laughed a laugh that said he was walking dangerously close to the line. Sipping her coffee, she said, "if you only see what you want to see, does it really matter what I wear?"

Raising his eyebrows, Bond heard himself say, "If that were indeed the case, underwear is one thing you wouldn't be wearing."

She laughed again and looked away, but he could see she was blushing all the way 'round to the back of her neck. Well, she hadn't got up and slapped him yet, anyway. That was a good sign. Feeling lazy, confident, and mildly drunk, Bond rested his head on the back of the sofa and looked back at the screen.

"Why do you watch this?" he asked. "Thought you had a phobia. Dead bodies. Panic attack, and all that?"

"Yeah...I do."

"Aversion therapy? Er...what's the opposite of aversion therapy?"

"No, not that."

"Then what?" Bond pressed, suprised to realize he actually wanted to know.

"Why do you do your job?"

"Come again?"

"Ton travail. Pourquoi?"

"That's terribly lazy French."

"My grammar's all shot to hell. It's been a long time since college. Answer the question."

"How? You think I haven't asked myself a thousand times? There's no answer. It's just what I do."

"Okay." She smiled at the boy on the screen.

There was a silence.

"Go on," said Bond. "Tell me why, in your highly perceptive opinion, I do my job."

"Another hypothetical, first." She turned her eyes on him, and they were quiet and sly. "You can quit tomorrow, and become a certified public accountant with a hundred thousand a year and chateau in Switzerland. Deal?"

Bond closed his eyes. "No deal."

"Why?"

"I hate maths."

She laughed, digging around in her pocket. "That's not the reason. You're afraid."

"Of maths?"

"Of dying."

Bond looked amused. "Better lock me in a dungeon and throw away the key, then. How dare I?"

She wasn't listening. "And so you defy death. Over and over again. It makes you feel better."

"Hold on, are you comparing what I do to watching an inept artistic film about ghosts?" It irked him - it really did - her arrogance, which she mistook for insight.

"No." Her voice had gone quiet. In her hand she toyed with a penny, rolling it between her fingers, watching as it caught the light. "Sometimes I wish I could be brave like you."

The compliment caught him off gaurd. "Don't," he said. automatically. "It's not worth it."

She went on. "I wish I could know that if it came down to that, saving someone, or saving the world, I could put a bullet in another human being. I don't know. Sometimes I try to convince myself it's a moral thing, but it's not. It's a me-being-a-puss thing." This time when she smiled her smile was distant, and Bond felt she wasn't talking to him. Not really.

He touched her arm.

"People like me sell their souls so people like you don't have to be brave." Was it true? In that moment, he believed it. "It's all right - I don't mind - honestly. Just do what you can, and do as I say, and we'll be all right until this nightmare is over."

"Nightmare? For you I'd think this was a wet dream."

Bond wasn't sure whether he was meant to laugh.

"It's a nightmare for anybody," he said. "I'm just used to it."

Laughing, she tossed the penny in the air.

"And you have been awfully brave," said Bond. "Truth be told I'm rather proud of you."

"I can afford to be brave when you've got my back, I think," she said, her eyes downcast and her grin just a little shy.

Suddenly he rather wanted to hug her.

Instead, he said, "all right, your time really is up. I'll waive my normal hourly fee, as I'm a ghost and I can't use money."

"Oh - well - that's a shame, Dr. Poltergeist. Have a penny anyway." She pushed it into his hand. "To remember me by. Just in case you take care of that unfinished earthly business and get ascended into the afterlife before we meet again."

"I'll remember you," Bond said, and he meant it. "Penny or no. And I'll tell the saints to be kind, when you show up at their gates."

"Okay," she said. Her eyes darted a bit, then she looked earnestly at him. "I didn't mean it. About you being dead. Sorry, I just - I'm sure you get that all the time. 'You're a spy, therefore you have no soul and you suck and I hate you.' Et cetera, et cetera. I didn't mean it. Uh, I just totally ruined the mood, didn't I?"

Bond laughed and pocketed the penny. "You don't have to be so serious. It's not bad to be serious, I suppose. But after a while -"

"- it's like living in a soap opera. Where's the slow zoom? Sorry. Sorry, I'm a prat."

"A lovely prat. Shall we continue your Corpse Aversion Therapy?"

"It's not Aversion Therapy! Jesus, you make it sound like I'm a necrophiliac."

"Well, I once knew a pyrophobic pyromaniac."

Sighing, she turned the television's volume up.

"Dr. Poltergeist?"

Bond smiled at her. "Yes?"

"You suck."