#mcd cw

I.

“Q’s dead.”

Two words, two syllables. Bond blinks, hesitates on his next step. He hears Moneypenny shift her weight behind him.

“And?” Bond asks.

“And?” Moneypenny echoes. She grips her arms tightly, manicured nails digging into her skin.

Bond turns away. There really isn’t much to be said.

II.

Bond reads the report because he’s a masochist. He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t know the full details, because he’s just gotten back after his disastrous romance with Swann, because he might be sent out to neutralize this new threat--they’re all excuses when it gets right down to it. The reason, if he needs one, is something primal--something about the way the air catches in his throat as he breathes.

He reads the report. Hostage situation. 008 deployed. Extraction failure. The words jump out at him like headlines on a daily, but they don’t mean anything.

There’s no picture. Maybe it’s for the better.

III.

Bond’s in Shanghai. He’s not on an operation--in fact, he’s been grounded. It’s all bureaucracy, of course, and Bond’s meant to keep his eyes open and his mobile charged. He has a feeling M’s going to call him in the next hour or so with a new target, but that’s just his gut.

He’s tempted to call in, just to see if he’s right--he probably is--when he hesitates over the number. He’s about to call Q, but Q won’t be answering. It’s the other boy now, someone Bond doesn’t like very much. Certainly not someone who’d be inclined to chat over the phone regardless of the time difference. Q could match Bond word for word, barb for barb, but his replacement...

No matter. Bond will get adjust. He always does.

There’s something in his throat that water and wine won’t wash away.

(He’s right about Mallory. It’s all very hush-hush, even by MI6 standards. There’s a voice in Bond’s ear but it isn’t Q’s.)

IV.

Bond doesn’t do well with legitimate downtime. He had his vices in years past--drinking and gambling and fucking. He can still drink, though he doesn’t hold his liquor nearly so well, not that he’ll admit it. He can gamble with the best, but when all’s said and done? His bed is cold. Bond is cold.

It’s not that he can’t get a partner, though truly, he doesn’t have nearly the same effect on women as he did when he was younger. There are lines on his face and grey streaks in his hair. There’s no disguising how hard he’s lived. His skin’s rough, leathery and thin. He looks in the mirror and doesn’t recognize himself.

He has a lot of downtime lately. M hasn’t begun to phase him out properly, but Bond knows it’s getting to be time. He was never meant to live this long, and he’s fraying at the seams. His hands shake. He’s slower, both physically and mentally. The job has taken it’s toll.

A cold man in a cold bed, alone, Bond thinks of Q.

In his mind, Q’s still young. Now that he’s dead--been dead for years, now--Bond can admit that he was beautiful. Bond remembers seeing him that first time in the National Gallery and thinking fuck that’s a lovely face.

Fuck, he’s so young.

But he’s dead, and there’s no shame left in Bond as he conjures the face to mind. He only ever saw Q without cardigan and shirt once, but Bond knows better than to trust his memory. What he sees behind his eyelids is undoubtedly idealized. He wonders what would have happened if he’d simply reached out then, if he hadn’t spurned Q’s obvious advances. He’d had ever reason not to--everyone he slept with tended to end up dead, or worse, and that was a waste of a spectacular Quartermaster--but Q had died anyway, hadn’t he?

Bond tries not to go down that rabbit hole of what-if’s and could-have-been’s, but invariably that’s where he ends up. He can start stone-cold sober or at the bottom of a bottle, but at the end of the day, there’s Q with his hopeful smile and his untamable curls, watching him.

Bond sleeps. He sleeps a lot, these days.

V.

Bond knows he’s going to die as soon as he’s hit. There’s no one to tell except his killer, the person who’s currently making off with a suitcase that Bond was meant to be delivering to his Moroccan liaison, but he knows. It’s not a shock. He’s been waiting for this for a while now.

It’s not fast, or not fast enough. He’s bleeding out from his chest. He remembers Ronson from all of those years ago. Bond still regrets leaving him in that hotel room with nothing and no one. Now that he’s here, alone and dying, he realizes how horrible it must have been. Ronson had seen him, had been this close to survival--and Bond had left. Orders.

He coughs. So much for that.

Bond’s getting lightheaded. It feels as though it’s taking an eternity. Bond’s wants to scream get on with it but he can only cough. Alone in a hotel room--what a way to go. It’s better than how Q went, surrounded by enemies intent on making him suffer. Bond’s done worse to his own targets without remorse. He doesn’t deserve this soft death.

His vision blurs. Maybe it’s punishment. Maybe this will last forever, or however long’s comparable to the damage he’s done. He thinks, ridiculously, of Q. He wasn’t responsible for that, isn’t, but still. Q was his. He wanted Q, cared for him. He would have died for him, if given the chance.