mentalmimosa:

Prompt: Undressing (undressing in front of someone for the first time; one character undressing another; fumbling clumsily to get undressed, striptease).

Bond has a different relationship with nudity than most people. Of this Q is quite sure.

It’s not simply that the man has no shame when it comes to his body; most of the other agents that Q’s worked with are similarly blasé when it comes to stripping off in front of strangers, be they doctors, potential informants, or startled quartermasters who don’t actually need to see them position the recording device, thanks–he can trust them to follow directions.

Some of them do it, Q knows, just to get a rise out of him, so to speak, to see if they can get him to blush. 008, for a time, seemed convinced that her bare bosoms would do the trick (they did not), nor did the broad spread of 004’s Adonis-like chest, or the ebony curve of 009’s very nice thigh. No, after eight years in the service, Q was immune to the peacocking of her Majesty’s professionals in the 00 service, and rather proud of it; it was, he’d observed in training his team, a rare skill.

So that Bond will peel off his shirt after a briefing, right there in Q’s workshop, is de rigueur, as is his unerringly collegial manner on such occasions. A prat he may be to Q on the comms–usually when his very life is on the line, natch–but in person, face to face or hands to skin, his treatment of Q is nothing short of proper.

No, the problem, Q finds, comes in when they’re out in the field, something that happens with a new and worrying frequency once they have a new M.

“It’s important,” M says the first time the order comes, the first time that Q bites back panic and marches past Eve to demand a reason why. “That should be sufficient, quartermaster.”

“But sir, I don’t–”

“And,” M says with a deadly sort of nonchalance, “I’m ordering you to go.” His eyes flick up from the envelopes in his hand, stiff and steady. “Unless you’d prefer not to be head of Q branch any longer. Is that it?”

That Q escape with his dignity is uncertain; that he gets out of there with his pension still intact is a cause for temporary relief.

The plane ride is awful, the airports even more so, and by the time he’s standing on the streets of San Francisco squinting into the sun, he feels disoriented and in desperate need of a drink.

He finds the hotel and checks in, drags his ass to the lift and down the bloody great hall, and collapses face first on the bed with a groan.

“My, my,” a voice says from behind him, a curled tail of amusement, “Travel really doesn’t agree with you, does it?”

“Ugh,” Q mumbles, his face still mashed in the covers, “really, Bond? I’ve been on a plane for eight bloody hours. Can you not give me two minutes of peace?”

Bond laughs. “I can do better than that.” He tugs at Q’s ankle, pokes at the trainers hanging over the edge of the bed. “Go drown your sorrows in the shower, eh? And then you can help me get ready.”

“For what?”

“To do my job. I’ve got dinner with our friend Mr. Kislyak in an hour, so don’t dawdle.”

“Ugh,” Q says again. He hauls himself up, feather ruffled, ready to fuss, but–

But James Bond is standing less than two feet away wearing a white, fluffy towel.

It’s pulled tight around his hips and carefully tucked; there seems to be no danger of an imminent fall. Everything even mildly obscene is covered; indeed, the thing is so long it falls practically past the man’s knees.

So he’s shirtless, essentially, a state in which Q has seen him a half dozen times, at least, and yet in none of those instances does Q remember his own mouth running dry nor his heart pounding hard. Of course it hadn’t, he tells himself, because this is Bond, 007, the barbed one, the old, and yet somehow, the sight of the man’s damp chest, of his glistening arms, of his wet hair and his ocean-blue eyes–turned on Q now, curious–makes Q feel like his insides are alight. He looks like some half-wild sea god, does Bond, some king of the deep who’s emerged in search of new world to conquer, except he doesn’t seem ill at ease; no, indeed, there’s an ease in his movements, a looseness, that Q’s never seen at HQ, and god help him, it’s fascinating .

“Q?” A step in his direction, the stretch of one slightly wet hand. “Are you all right?”

He blinks, looks down stupidly at Bond’s fingers on his arm. “I’m fine.”

“I doubt it. You’re dehydrated, probably. Here, let me get you some–”

“I’m fine,” Q says again, shaking free of Bond’s grip, sounding to his own ears like a petulant child. “I’ll just–I’ll just use the shower, shall I?”

Bond raises an eyebrow. He’s still standing too close. “Fine. But drink some water while you’re in there. I won’t have you passing out tonight at an inopportune time.”

“Fine,” Q repeats, “fine.”

It is not fine, not then, not the whole of the weekend they’re in California chasing Putin’s favorite puppets round the Bay. Nor is it fine in Taipei or Abu Dhabi or Niamey when he’s stationed at Bond’s beck and call, for Bond never stops being beautiful, much to Q’s chagrin. Nor is he inclined to cover up.

He doesn’t parade about sans vêtements all the time, as Q imagines 008 might, and he isn’t showy about it either, as no doubt 004 would’ve been. But even when they don’t share a room, when their cover story doesn’t demand it, Q sees more of Bond on those brief forays than he’s ever done in all his years in the lab.

Bond hates wearing socks, for example; will peel them off with his shoes at the first opportunity and sink his bare feet to the floor with a sigh. He’s fond, though, of leaving on his tie, of tugging the knot loose and opening his collar but letting the thing still hang from his throat. He favors sleeping without a shirt and–as Q discovers one morning when Bond gets up first–without shorts, too, when the mood strikes him.

Bond has the decency to be a bit embarrassed about that one, at least.

But in the day-to-day press of life in the field, it just happens, seeing Bond half-dressed, Bond with his fly open, Bond with his shirt open and his feet propped on the balcony rail, a sweating glass balanced on his chest his face turned up to the sun like a self-satisfied cat, and if these aren’t sights that Q gets used to, they’re ones he learns how to take in and then carry home: souvenirs of professional intimacy, small snapshots for him to reexamine at his leisure, snapshots of James Bond, the man.

He, on the other hand, never changes or even fiddles with his clothing anywhere in Bond’s sight. Why would he? There’s nothing about his knobby frame or city-pale skin that’s especially alluring, and besides, a state of undress is 007’s department, not his. The thought doesn’t even occur.

Ha. Except that it very much does.

That Q toils in a state of semi-incoherent lust, sometimes, safe at home, at the thought of Bond standing over him, those sharp eyes sliding down his bare skin, of the twitch of his hips as that hot, knowing gaze becomes a touch, well, he tells himself, well.

That he lies awake in the wee cold hours imagining Bond stretched out beside him, the heat of their bodies, of their breaths, tangled under the coverlet, Bond’s mouth on his moving in time with his fist, well, he tells himself, well.

That sometimes when he comes he wonders what his spunk would look like spread out on Bond’s chest, how it would feel to lean down and lap himself up, well.

That’s entirely his own affair.

At least it is until Bonn.

*****

It’s a last-minute trip, which is part of the problem. Bond’s in a jam and there’s no time to think; Q has to pack and go in a dash.

“Don’t worry about clothes,” M says offhandedly, careful to keep out of Q’s way. “Or any of your personal things. You’ll be back in two jiffs. Provided Bond’s not actually dead.”

Q can’t keep the snap out of his voice. “Oh, lovely, sir. What a confidence booster.”

M flicks his hand. “Tsch. There’s no need for sarcasm, Q.”

“Isn’t there?” Q slams a few drawers unnecessarily. It’s rather cathartic. “Really? I think this is the perfect bloody time for it, sir. ”

“Quartermaster,” M says in his I’m the boss voice, the one that Eve says makes even the Prime Minister quake. “I have every confidence in your success–once you finish your juvenile and frankly unbecoming tantrum, that is.”

“My–!”

“Your flight leaves in 90 minutes. Be on it. And let’s not have another word about it, hmm?”

And then he’s gone, oozing back upstairs to hide behind his leather door, and Q has only his gadgets to yell at, only his own people to startle as he bangs his case shut and stomps off towards the lift.

“Good luck, sir,” someone calls.

“Luck,” Q snarls to no one in particular. “The service’s best weapon, eh? Is that all we’ve got? Blind fucking luck?”

The lift doesn’t answer. Neither does the startled-looking analyst inside it. It’s probably for the best.