[ Arguably, she gets paid to listen and as well-acquainted as Dr. Akker is with the dossiers of most of the men and women who walk through her door, there are few she knows better than Iain Marling's. Why that is isn't a subject of debate nor even open discussion. But it is what it is and has been for a while now.
Her smile is a little more obvious, though still far from overt. ]
Agent Marling. [ The line is secure and always is when she calls. (It has to be.) ] Afternoon where you are, isn't it?
[ There are few Dr. Akker knows better than Iain Marling and there is only one person that Iain Marling has ever let know him as well. (She's also one of the only people who knows his full name, and one of the only people who's ever seen him express anything besides a careful blankness.
There'd only been the very beginnings of grey in his hair the first time they'd met. He'd been labeled damaged goods when he'd been pulled out of the army, the only survivor of a horrific bomb detonation, a skinny slip of a man who didn't know what to do with himself and didn't know where to go.
Needless to say, things have changed a lot since then.) ]
Halfway t'rough, [ comes the response from the other end of the line. ] Daylight's burning.
[ There is a very clear line in Iain Marling's records, a line that is just as sharply delineated as in his personal past as well. After it there are expected listings — mandatory checkups and regulatory evaluations done mostly by a far of Iain in the field — granted those listings are few and far between but such is necessity with a deep-cover agent like Iain. The less there is on file, the better (the higher up the food chain you go, the more readily the bureaucrats you find there understand this sentiment). But as sparse as things marked after the line can be, before the line is even sparser.
There aren't very many people left who knew what Iain Marling was like back then. Arguably, there's nobody left &mash; nobody but Dr. Akker.
Where the government saw a wasted investment, a broken toy soldier not worth the solder to mend him back together, she'd seen a wealth of potential. Sixth months, she'd said to her superiors at the time. Sixth months and if there isn't any progress, I'll cut him loose myself. ]
Busy day? [ Small talk. Iain hates it but there's a point to Akker's small talk (and she part of her likes seeing how many hoops she can get him to jump through before he stops). ]
[ Where the government had seen nothing, she'd seen everything, and for that, he owes her his life. It's a debt he's keenly aware of, and one he works to repay day by day, on the books and off. (He's made it clear to her in the past that should she ever need him — ever — he'd only be a phone call or a note away. Even at his worst, he's an extremely dangerous man.) ]
Be busy t'morrow, [ he says, and there's the sound of a door opening and closing as he speaks. (He knows she knows he hates small talk, but there's a point, and more than that, there's very little he won't do for her. Six months after nearly being condemned to the gutter, he'd turned into one of the project's most valuable assets.) ]
[ Unfortunately for Iain (and unfortunately for Dr. Akker a well) the enemies she's made over the years are somewhat resistant to his particular brand of both danger and charm. Iain Marling might be able to kill a man just as easily as he could make a man wish he were dead, but bureaucracy isn't the sort of thing you stab and addictions — well, they're the ones that torture you and not the other way around.
Still, the offer is noted and her gratitude is given. Akker doesn't have friends, not in any traditional sense, but Iain is as close as she gets to them (on good days, at least). Maybe he'd saved her just as much as she'd saved him, only her situation had been a little more between the lines, a little less explicit but no less desperate.
Her end of the line is quiet. If Iain listens hard enough he may recognize the creak of her office chair muffled beneath her breathing. ]
Careful. Jetlag's a bitch. [ The implication: how're you sleeping? ]
[ He recognizes that sound, even now, even though it's been a long time since he's paid her office a proper visit. (That's the sort of thing that happens when you've seen someone at the bottom of the barrel and they've seen you there, too. It brings you a lot closer than almost anything else would. You don't forget something like that.)
As he listens, he treads through the apartment he's staying in, finally coming to a stop by the window as he keeps the phone by his ear. Storm clouds are rolling in. Good cover, for tonight, though the worst will have to let up by morning. He's got enough of a layover between here and Beijing that a little delay won't matter too much, but he's always been the punctual type.
Bigger. Badder. [ There's a dry sardonism to Akker's voice which means that she's amused. ] Fee-fi-fucking-fo-fum, Agent Marling.
[ There's a very good chance that this conversation is off the record, that she's calling not on the Project's dime and so the 'Agent Marling' is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Even when it's on the record, she can't bring herself to call him that seriously; even when things go south and some investment gets scrapped and it's Iain's name dangling on the hook, she never gets angry with him, never flaunts her security clearance and never pulls rank. (It'd be cheap, a slight to the understanding that they have and have had for going on nearly ten years now. Besides, you don't do that to a friend. ]
Been trying to get a hold of M. [ M. Short of Moneypenny. Now, short for Marling. ] She's giving her people the run around for the past week and a half. [ A beat. ] Not in Beijing, is she?
[ "Friend" is a word that Iain doesn't really quantify as easily as the rest of the world, but Akker falls into the category without question. (Arguably, he doesn't quantify anything the same way, but that's another story for another day.) "Friends," way back when, had meant people who could hook him up, People who could keep his name relevant and people who could keep him as jumped up as he had been, back then. "Friends," now, means extra baggage. Surplus. Unnecessary weight. Akker isn't unnecessary to him, not by a long shot, but "friend" is the closest word for what she is to him than anything else. ]
Tell you when I get there. [ Not a yes and not a no, just the polite way of saying that, married though they might be, and though they might work together now and again, they don't always report to the same offices, and it isn't the sort of thing that's in his job description, anyway. (Akker is one of the only people who actually knows who Marling is married to, partially because she's the only person Iain had bothered to tell, sending through a short email with only the barest details, as was his usual custom.) ]
[ Tell me about your friends, Staff Sergeant Marling. Those were among the first words she'd ever spoken to Iain — that and her name, her part in the Project, a perfunctory this seat taken even though it wasn't really a question (nobody in, nobody out, except for the doctors; those were the rules until he was given the all-clear). She hadn't really meant friends, of course, she'd meant his squad, but Akker had phrased it anyway just to see his reaction (if any), curious if he'd remain reticent and closed off for the duration. ]
As a favor, Iain, [ and her tone changes — not soft, not earnest, not playing any card beyond it'll make my life easier even though Akker knows he's not Marling's babysitter any more than she is.
[ He still hadn't completely mastered himself, then. He'd winced, like he'd been startled out of a reverie — not because of the word friends but because of the question itself — the line of his lips twisting as he considered the answer. (Read the file, haven't you?)
Momentarily: ] Taipei.
[ A beat. ]
'M going, day after t'morrow. [ (Leave it to me.) ]
[ (Read the file, haven't you? that's what he'd said and Dr. Akker had just shrugged with one of her shoulders, as if twelve dead men hadn't been laid out there, one after the other, page after page, like some morbid a la carte. I don't read files, Staff Sargarent, I read people. And what I read from you is, you're not finished yet.)
In the silence that follows, Akker's chair squeaks again and there's a faint whispering sound of ballpoint pen on paper. (He implies leave it to me and he will, but Akker hasn't gotten where she is and kept her position by not being ahead of the ball at all times. Eventually: ] Thanks.
[ A beat, then: ] So. What's the official tally? [ Circling back to an earlier question of how are you sleeping. ]
[ She's try to ploy her own upgrades on him, too, nagging at him as she plays the doting wife as best as she can. Work is work and work means that Marling has to stay global, Iain has to keep his head down, and so their marriage is spent more apart than together (a fact that bothers her far more than she'd ever admit to out loud). ]
MSG RECEIVED 3.42AM not for lack of cunting trying
[ (You're not finished yet. And that had been his loyalty won, right then and there, because when you have nothing, a statement like that means everything.) ]
Not too little, not too large. [ Fine. Average. Not noncommittal, because he's never that way with her, and not a lie, because he's come out of the habit of telling them a long time ago. He hasn't told a lie since going into Iraq. There's no room for lies in that kind of war, and no room for lies in the way that he chooses to live, now. ]
[ It's not the sort of thing that sits particularly well with him, either, though — for all that he's used to traveling alone — they're married, he cares, and he hasn't given up that much emotional investment for a relationship spent so far apart. So he makes time, where he can, though he never says anything about it and never complains. ]
MSG RECEIVED 3.43AM true
[ Another fact: as prehistoric (relatively speaking) as his phone is, he does take the occasional picture.
Mm, [ she hums, thoughtful and equally not noncommittal. More scritching of her pen now, no more pointed or quick than when she'd scribbled down Taipei. Just because the call's not on record in any capacity doesn't mean she's stopped looking out for him (she's pretty certain that'll never happen, ever). ] Good. [ That's the doctor in her talking. A beat, then: ] I'm glad. [ And that's the friend.
A few more notes, reminders of calls she should make afterwards. Stalling, maybe, before she tells him: ] Next time you're settled for more than a few days, drop me a line. Dr. Connors has something you might be interested in. [ Chemistry. A delicate subject when it comes to Akkers and Iain's one of the few people to know why. ]
[ It'd been something of an elephant in the room for the first week in the half — what precisely they were going to do about it. They were Mr. and Mrs. Marling now — her name changed (both official and unofficial), a ring on both of their fingers and a mess of unsanctioned apartments between the two of them across the globe. She'd though about it, truth be told, thought about quitting, about defecting again. Only this time it wouldn't have been for this cause or that, this nation or that flag. No, she'd drop everything and turn tail for him and him alone. Disappear. Live small. Be no one. Give up the dream.
She never said it, never once offered it, and Iain — he never asked. (She knew he wouldn't.) ]
MSG RECEIVED 3.44AM now u decide to be all agreable give it up then
[ (Mr. and Mrs. Marling. Funny, the way things turn out. But ultimately, the commitment that Iain has made isn't necessarily about time or location. He doesn't do anything he hasn't premeditated and he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to, least of all allowing himself to fall into any emotional attachments. But he's fallen for her, and he's put down solid proof. Proof that can be traced, proof that can be held and touched and seen and spoken. And that's much more than Iain Marling has ever given anyone else in his whole life.) ]
MSG RECEIVED 3.46AM nope.
[ But then, momentarily, a video message comes through. It's grainy, due to the shitty quality of his phone camera, but still, his features are distinguishable. There's not much light — just enough to illuminate his face and the round of one shoulder. He's squinting into the meager light the camera provides, but still, he's smiling, halfway between alert and asleep, hair tousled. In the darkness, he presses the tips of his fingers to his lips in a kiss, then bowing his hand toward the camera before the video cuts out. ]
He's a sweet one, that Mr. Marling. Funny, because 'sweet' isn't a word anyone would ever think to associate with him, and for good reason. Iain isn't particularly cruel but he's not particularly kind either. In most things he is as he has been for many years now: direct, efficient, understated but always always to the point. The missus is the exception to that rule, of course (she's the exception to every rule, truth be old), and while Iain doesn't manage to be a different person when he's around her, he does manage to be that much more human. Vulnerable, in a way; open; raw. (She's the only person who's gotten close enough to slit his throat and, once upon a time in a bathroom 12 stories up in Tokyo, he even gave her the means. He put it, handle-first, into her open hand.
Marling had decided she loved him, right then and there. She hasn't looked back since.)
When her video reply comes across the line, it shows Marling not nearly as sleep bedraggled or worn. She looks like she's just begun to unwind from a long day, her hair still half up in a loose, unravelling chignon and her fake lashes still one, her lipsticked smudged clean. Fairly PG-13 for Marling's taste until the camera pans down to show the lace of her bra and the elaborate tattoos patterned across the tops of her breasts (and further below, the bare expanse of her stomach, her navel and the blur of her hips). She winks into the camera, the tip of her tongue appearing at the corner of her mouth. ]
[ He knows, but he never brings it up on his own and he never tries to rub that knowledge in. Trust isn't the sort of thing he gives away easily and he knows her well enough by this point to know that it's not something she gives away much, either. (Maybe that's what friends means.)
Although, to be fair, he doesn't talk much in general. ]
[ He's sweet on her — sweet as hell. No one who knows him would ever believe it, of course, but he is. He smiles for her, talks for her, drives for her, and he's given her the chance to kill him to top it all off, gives it to her every single time they're together. (She's the exception to every rule. She hadn't always been, of course, but those days are long past and there's nothing that could happen that would erase what's gone between them since.)
The video brings a smile to his features, and he stares at the paused image for a long moment — at the twist to her lips and the brightness of her eyes, even on the tiny phone screen — before he types back a response. ]
MSG RECEIVED 3.54AM must really be getting old if you need to ask
MSG RECEIVED 3.56AM u wouldnt believe how old even if i told u, luv
[ Then, silence. One minute. Two minute. Ten.
When the video comes over it's still only just a clip, but considerably longer than the last. She's settled now, back leaned against what appears to be some kind of modern abstraction of a headboard, fashioned out of dark-stained wood and oddly industrial chrome accents. Marling gives the camera another little smile before she goes about the process of removing her bra, unhooking it in the back before losing one strap and then the other. Holding the cups to her breasts, she gives her chest a suggestive tilt towards the camera before finally peeling it back.
She gives the bit of cloth and lace a dangle from her fingertips before tossing it carelessly away, the camera falling away from her face as it drops down to inspect all that newly revealed skin and ink. ]
[ He shifts in bed as he watches the video, propping his head up against the wall, one arm held over his eyes as a sort of makeshift shade as the light from his cell phone screen flickers in the dark.
There's no question as to the fact that he's a lucky man. Though his eyes wander where the camera directs them, it's her smile that he focuses on, the image remaining in his head even as he watches the slow reveal of her breasts and torso. (He loves the expression on her, when it's sincere. Maudlin, probably. A weakness, most definitely. But he's past the point of being worried about that.) He plays the video through once more before typing out a response. ]
[ She smiles plenty, always has, the arcadist formerly known as Miss Moneypenny (now Mrs. M of a different kind). The first time they'd ever met she'd been all smiles too — and girlish gaul and brutish bite, burnished with champagne and silver gold, wrapped up in studded leather and technicolor trappings. Since then her mouth has been a venus fly trap, it's been a wolf's smile full of wolf's teeth and a brawler's bloody maw, but with Iain there's something else — something fleeting but which always returns in the end. Not a softness but a quietness, a ruefulness dipped in sweetness, all that saccharine giving her a kitten's claws (still capable of prickling, of breaking the skin and drawing blood, but in way that says pet me, hold me, never leave me; keep me and I'll love you forever).
A moment passes, then two. Then the phone rings. ]
[ The first time they'd ever met, he'd been nothing at all. A thin line for a mouth, a dead sort of sharpness to his gaze, nothing but economical action and efficiency. Now there's a glow to the way he looks at her, and he goes above the minimum both in action and in speech for her sake. It's a curious thing, how they've managed to meet in the middle, but not something he'd change for the world. (There's nothing — nothing — that he wouldn't do for her.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
✆
✆
Then, one, two, three beats of silence. ]
'Lo, doc.
[ (If she's listening carefully, she'll hear a smile on the other end of the line.) ]
✆
Her smile is a little more obvious, though still far from overt. ]
Agent Marling. [ The line is secure and always is when she calls. (It has to be.) ] Afternoon where you are, isn't it?
✆
There'd only been the very beginnings of grey in his hair the first time they'd met. He'd been labeled damaged goods when he'd been pulled out of the army, the only survivor of a horrific bomb detonation, a skinny slip of a man who didn't know what to do with himself and didn't know where to go.
Needless to say, things have changed a lot since then.) ]
Halfway t'rough, [ comes the response from the other end of the line. ] Daylight's burning.
✆
There aren't very many people left who knew what Iain Marling was like back then. Arguably, there's nobody left &mash; nobody but Dr. Akker.
Where the government saw a wasted investment, a broken toy soldier not worth the solder to mend him back together, she'd seen a wealth of potential. Sixth months, she'd said to her superiors at the time. Sixth months and if there isn't any progress, I'll cut him loose myself. ]
Busy day? [ Small talk. Iain hates it but there's a point to Akker's small talk (and she part of her likes seeing how many hoops she can get him to jump through before he stops). ]
✆
Be busy t'morrow, [ he says, and there's the sound of a door opening and closing as he speaks. (He knows she knows he hates small talk, but there's a point, and more than that, there's very little he won't do for her. Six months after nearly being condemned to the gutter, he'd turned into one of the project's most valuable assets.) ]
Beijing.
✆
Still, the offer is noted and her gratitude is given. Akker doesn't have friends, not in any traditional sense, but Iain is as close as she gets to them (on good days, at least). Maybe he'd saved her just as much as she'd saved him, only her situation had been a little more between the lines, a little less explicit but no less desperate.
Her end of the line is quiet. If Iain listens hard enough he may recognize the creak of her office chair muffled beneath her breathing. ]
Careful. Jetlag's a bitch. [ The implication: how're you sleeping? ]
✆
As he listens, he treads through the apartment he's staying in, finally coming to a stop by the window as he keeps the phone by his ear. Storm clouds are rolling in. Good cover, for tonight, though the worst will have to let up by morning. He's got enough of a layover between here and Beijing that a little delay won't matter too much, but he's always been the punctual type.
Mildly: ]
'Ve dealt with bigger.
✆
[ There's a very good chance that this conversation is off the record, that she's calling not on the Project's dime and so the 'Agent Marling' is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Even when it's on the record, she can't bring herself to call him that seriously; even when things go south and some investment gets scrapped and it's Iain's name dangling on the hook, she never gets angry with him, never flaunts her security clearance and never pulls rank. (It'd be cheap, a slight to the understanding that they have and have had for going on nearly ten years now. Besides, you don't do that to a friend. ]
Been trying to get a hold of M. [ M. Short of Moneypenny. Now, short for Marling. ] She's giving her people the run around for the past week and a half. [ A beat. ] Not in Beijing, is she?
✉ + ☈
xoxo.
FILE ATTACHED: missme.jpg.
✆
Tell you when I get there. [ Not a yes and not a no, just the polite way of saying that, married though they might be, and though they might work together now and again, they don't always report to the same offices, and it isn't the sort of thing that's in his job description, anyway. (Akker is one of the only people who actually knows who Marling is married to, partially because she's the only person Iain had bothered to tell, sending through a short email with only the barest details, as was his usual custom.) ]
✉
always do
XO
✆
As a favor, Iain, [ and her tone changes — not soft, not earnest, not playing any card beyond it'll make my life easier even though Akker knows he's not Marling's babysitter any more than she is.
More lightly: ] I'll owe you one.
✉
show u mine
if u show me urs
✆
Momentarily: ] Taipei.
[ A beat. ]
'M going, day after t'morrow. [ (Leave it to me.) ]
✉
you're the one with the hi-tech phone
[ (Despite offered upgrades from the office, his is still a little out-of-date.) ]
✆
In the silence that follows, Akker's chair squeaks again and there's a faint whispering sound of ballpoint pen on paper. (He implies leave it to me and he will, but Akker hasn't gotten where she is and kept her position by not being ahead of the ball at all times. Eventually: ] Thanks.
[ A beat, then: ] So. What's the official tally? [ Circling back to an earlier question of how are you sleeping. ]
✉
MSG RECEIVED 3.42AM
not for lack of cunting trying
✆
Not too little, not too large. [ Fine. Average. Not noncommittal, because he's never that way with her, and not a lie, because he's come out of the habit of telling them a long time ago. He hasn't told a lie since going into Iraq. There's no room for lies in that kind of war, and no room for lies in the way that he chooses to live, now. ]
Usual.
✉
MSG RECEIVED 3.43AM
true
[ Another fact: as prehistoric (relatively speaking) as his phone is, he does take the occasional picture.
They're all of her. ]
✆
A few more notes, reminders of calls she should make afterwards. Stalling, maybe, before she tells him: ] Next time you're settled for more than a few days, drop me a line. Dr. Connors has something you might be interested in. [ Chemistry. A delicate subject when it comes to Akkers and Iain's one of the few people to know why. ]
✉
She never said it, never once offered it, and Iain — he never asked. (She knew he wouldn't.) ]
MSG RECEIVED 3.44AM
now u decide to be all agreable
give it up then
✉
MSG RECEIVED 3.46AM
nope.
[ But then, momentarily, a video message comes through. It's grainy, due to the shitty quality of his phone camera, but still, his features are distinguishable. There's not much light — just enough to illuminate his face and the round of one shoulder. He's squinting into the meager light the camera provides, but still, he's smiling, halfway between alert and asleep, hair tousled. In the darkness, he presses the tips of his fingers to his lips in a kiss, then bowing his hand toward the camera before the video cuts out. ]
✉
He's a sweet one, that Mr. Marling. Funny, because 'sweet' isn't a word anyone would ever think to associate with him, and for good reason. Iain isn't particularly cruel but he's not particularly kind either. In most things he is as he has been for many years now: direct, efficient, understated but always always to the point. The missus is the exception to that rule, of course (she's the exception to every rule, truth be old), and while Iain doesn't manage to be a different person when he's around her, he does manage to be that much more human. Vulnerable, in a way; open; raw. (She's the only person who's gotten close enough to slit his throat and, once upon a time in a bathroom 12 stories up in Tokyo, he even gave her the means. He put it, handle-first, into her open hand.
Marling had decided she loved him, right then and there. She hasn't looked back since.)
When her video reply comes across the line, it shows Marling not nearly as sleep bedraggled or worn. She looks like she's just begun to unwind from a long day, her hair still half up in a loose, unravelling chignon and her fake lashes still one, her lipsticked smudged clean. Fairly PG-13 for Marling's taste until the camera pans down to show the lace of her bra and the elaborate tattoos patterned across the tops of her breasts (and further below, the bare expanse of her stomach, her navel and the blur of her hips). She winks into the camera, the tip of her tongue appearing at the corner of her mouth. ]
MSG RECEIVED 3.51AM
fancy a show, old man
✆
Although, to be fair, he doesn't talk much in general. ]
Connors. Got it.
✉
The video brings a smile to his features, and he stares at the paused image for a long moment — at the twist to her lips and the brightness of her eyes, even on the tiny phone screen — before he types back a response. ]
MSG RECEIVED 3.54AM
must really be getting old if you need to ask
✉
u wouldnt believe how old
even if i told u, luv
[ Then, silence. One minute. Two minute. Ten.
When the video comes over it's still only just a clip, but considerably longer than the last. She's settled now, back leaned against what appears to be some kind of modern abstraction of a headboard, fashioned out of dark-stained wood and oddly industrial chrome accents. Marling gives the camera another little smile before she goes about the process of removing her bra, unhooking it in the back before losing one strap and then the other. Holding the cups to her breasts, she gives her chest a suggestive tilt towards the camera before finally peeling it back.
She gives the bit of cloth and lace a dangle from her fingertips before tossing it carelessly away, the camera falling away from her face as it drops down to inspect all that newly revealed skin and ink. ]
MSG RECEIVED 4.07AM
see anything u like
✉
There's no question as to the fact that he's a lucky man. Though his eyes wander where the camera directs them, it's her smile that he focuses on, the image remaining in his head even as he watches the slow reveal of her breasts and torso. (He loves the expression on her, when it's sincere. Maudlin, probably. A weakness, most definitely. But he's past the point of being worried about that.) He plays the video through once more before typing out a response. ]
MSG RECEIVED 4.12AM
every bit
✆
A moment passes, then two. Then the phone rings. ]
✆
He picks up on the second ring. ]
Ta.