#queue branch

When Alec looks at Q, he does something Bond has never seen him do. 

He flinches. 

It’s minute, but Bond notices, and Q does too. He puts down the tablet he’s holding and looks at Alec. 

“What are you?” 

Alec’s voice comes quietly, not at all like his boisterous self. It’s something only the three of them can hear. What’s surprising is that there’s a tremble to it. Bond has never known him to be afraid. 

“What are you?” Alec asks, a little louder this time. 

So it’s not fear, it’s anger. His eyes are blazing, like heated copper. He points at Q. 

“You…you’re an abomination..."

“Alec–"

“James. How can you stand next to…that thing?”

It's Q's turn to flinch. The amount of vitriol in Alec's voice is sharp enough to cut.

“Alec,” Bond says, and it comes out hard, warning.

But Alec doesn’t seem to hear. His eyes are blazing. Behind him, Bond sees that the room is clearing out, the techs looking concerned that there might be blood if they don’t get out of the way. 

“I don’t know exactly what you are, but you’re not natural, are you? Not a real vampire,” Alec says, and sniffs the air. “Some kind of mutation? Something that should have never been made. Something that should have been destroyed long ago.” 

Alec unsheathes the knife at his belt. It’s edged in silver. Enough to hurt a werewolf, and a vampire too, but Q doesn’t move away. 

Bond sees it now, why they’re called moth orchids. They have the shape of a Polyphemus moth, but they’re even showier in a rich, luscious purple. Bond reaches out a hand, but stops before he touches.

“You can touch them,” Q says, and, perhaps sensing Bond's hesitation, goes on encouragingly: “it won’t hurt them.”

Q lifts a hand and delicately strokes one of the petals with his fingertips. They’re beautiful, Bond realises. He’s always watched Q’s hands—at his workstation frenetically typing, meticulously fixing equipment, confidently checking the chamber of a gun—and always admired his efficiency, his quickness; the skills needed to go quickly without fumbling or causing error. But now he sees them in another way, the way he’s pretended not to notice for a while now; like how soft they can be, like they are when he applies antiseptic and plasters, the grace of his wrist when he unwinds gauze bandages, and it’s here now in the elegant sweep of his finger across this orchid’s silken petal. What would it be like? To have Q touch him like that? So purely, so purposefully? Is he even deserving of it? That gentleness?

“Go on,” Q says softly.

Bond hesitates again. For the first time in weeks, he thinks about the bomb dogs abandoned in the Middle East. Just like them, he’s been trained to do one thing. These hands are made for killing. And he’s good at it: with a gun, with a knife, with his bare hands round someone’s throat. He’s been doing this for so long that he’s not sure he’s capable of anything else. Gentleness? He’s not sure how to be, not anymore. 

But Q’s watching him, and it’s almost imploring, and Bond can’t deny him. He’ll try.

The back of his finger brushes the soft, purple petal. It’s smooth, and tender; fragile, almost. Like touching the inside of someone’s wrist. He could easily rip it, crush it in his palm. There would be no effort on his part to destroy it entirely. 

Instead, he touches it again, with the utmost care, just to prove he can. And he’s filled with awe and wonder at this, that he can be gentle, maybe even kind. 

It makes him wonder if one of those dogs left to die in the sand dunes of Afghanistan wandered into a village and met the kind hand of a stranger. Someone who put a bowl of water out for him, who shared their fire with him at night. Maybe someone who threw a stick, taught him to play, so that his dreams were not only ones of blood and smoke and IEDs. Maybe, just maybe, one of them got a second chance; a second chance to be something other than what they were made to be.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Q smile. He allows himself to smile, too.