Biggest Bloodiest "Ship"
Two men sat in companionable silence working on their laptops in the sitting room of a high-rise luxury flat with a stunning view of the London skyline.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" the slender young man with a mop of unruly dark hair exclaimed though his voice remained soft.
"Language, Quartermaster," he was admonished by the fit older man with short blond hair and ice blue eyes that would have been frightening had they not been touched by amusement.
"You've heard worse. You've said worse yourself, 007."
"Yes, well as I recall I was being chased by a drone and the comm was breaking up. My handler was of no bloody use whatsoever. I believe my expression of displeasure with the situation was justified."
"As is mine."
"Indeed? The last time I heard you this upset, all Hell broke loose. Should I be worried?"
A direct answer was not immediately forthcoming. Instead, the young quartermaster heaved a rather theatrical sigh. "You know, the downside to being an IT genius is the amount of rubbish one encounters on a trip down the so-called information superhighway."
The agent encouraged him with a raised eyebrow but remained silent.
"How do you feel about having a fan club? Did you know you even had one, Bond?"
"A fan club? Now that is interesting, given that officially I don't even exist, or so M informs me before every mission. If things go badly, the government will deny all knowledge. They won't know me from Adam."
"These 'fans' seem to know a good deal, and when they don't know, they're more than willing to speculate, some rather wildly. They've written stories about everything from that caper with Dr. No to . . ." The young man stopped suddenly. The last mission had been painful in the extreme. "I beg your pardon, James," he said softly.
"Skyfall," Bond breathed. After a pause, he added, "It's quite all right, Q." He shrugged. "I suppose that if I didn't exist, someone would have to make me up."
"It goes a bit beyond you and the missions, 007. They seem to know about me and Q Branch as well."
"Where would a secret agent with a license to kill be without fancy gadgets - your gadgets - Q?"
"I shudder to think, but that's not the point. There are security issues here. You know how I feel about that."
"These stories you say my 'fans' have written – do they really pose a threat to national security?" The agent was trying to mollify his quartermaster. "It would be a shame if I had to shoot them all. It would be time consuming, bloody boring and no challenge in the least. I'm sure I could think of better ways of passing my time." The look he shot Q was, shall we say, speculative.
"I suppose that if Her Majesty were to come across them, she could die laughing," Q huffed. "Most of them are bloody awful. James Bond versus the zombie apocalypse? James Bond takes sides in the Twilight 'verse? Really, Bond!"
"And yet something truly did upset you, Q. What was it?"
"They know about us." This time the answer was immediate. "There's apparently a whole genre called 00Q. They 'ship' you and me. We're their OTP."
"Ship? As in put us in a box and have Moneypenny call a courier service? OTP? Sounds like an obscure government agency." Bond pretended to be deep in thought. "Why, yes it is. Office of the Terminally Perverse. I knew I'd heard of it. Isn't Mycroft Holmes their director?"
"Could you perhaps try to be serious for more than a nanosecond, 007? Ship as in 'relationship' and OTP is 'one true pair.' Some of these writers get rather vocal about it in the comments section."
"Do you have an issue with that? I know I don't."
"Perhaps you should read this, then." A file appeared on Bond's laptop which he quickly perused.
"I thought you said the stories were bloody awful. This one's rather good."
"It's porn without plot."
"So it is. And someone's getting vocal." Bond's smile was predatory.
"Bond!"
It's accurate at least. Isn't this what we did last Thursday?"
"Indeed. In the bedroom of this very flat. This flat that is routinely scanned for electronic devices by both of us. The flat for which I had just upgraded security on Wednesday. Why aren't you concerned about this, 007?"
"Quartermaster, these so-called 'fans' are nothing more than regular, boring people with far too much free time on their hands who feel the need to share their wish-fulfilling fantasies about a deadly government assassin shagging a charming, talented and brilliant geek. It's that old saw about how opposites attract. As for Thursday's activities, well, they were rather 'vanilla.' It wouldn't take much imagination to come up with them."
"Are you lodging a formal complaint, 007?"
"Not at all. I rather enjoy waking up covered by a Q amoeba with appendages everywhere." Bond's smile was rather fond. Normally, it would have warmed his quartermaster's heart, but not this time.
"Perhaps you should review these, then. They're less vanilla and more Chunky Monkey." More files were transferred to Bond's laptop.
Bond gave them a quick once over. "Rope, handcuffs, blindfolds, whips, knives," he named just a few of the things he'd come across. "Why, that's . . ." Again, he shot his quartermaster a look. "That's too bloody much like work to be something I'd likely want to pursue at leisure in the bedroom."
Q was quiet a bit too long.
"What do you think, Q? How do you see the situation? Are you filing a complaint?"
"Certainly not."
"But . . . ?"
"I wouldn't be averse to trying the foreplay in this one or some of the positions in this one. Even a blindfold might not be too bad. No handcuffs, though. I don't wish to risk damage to my hands." More files were transferred between laptops.
"Despite your protestations, Quartermaster, you seem to have developed a taste for the works of Fighting_Temeraire.
"The best of a bad lot, I suppose," Q sighed, then stretched and closed down his laptop. "I'm for bed. Are you coming?"
"In a bit. I have an after action report to finish."
"Would that be the one that M was expecting a week ago?"
Only a noncommittal noise emanated from Bond.
"Well, don't be too long." Q shuffled off in the direction of the master bath.
Bond chuckled as he logged in to his account on . Q wasn't the only one intrigued by the fic of Fighting_Temeraire. The hit counts on his stories were quite gratifying. He had even higher hopes for the one he was currently posting. Querulous wherein the Quartermaster discovers that his Double-0 has been writing fanfic about their relationship and is not best pleased – that is until said Double-0 brings him around as only he can. Explicit, M/M slash, Q/Bond, 00Q, PWP – it had it all. Just as he and his Q had it all.