consultingwriters:

God, I love your writing! Honestly, I always look forward to your posts and I was wondering if you could do a 00Q prompt for me? I was coming home from class and heard “Traveling Soldier” by the Dixie Chicks on the radio and it reminded me of Q and Bond, like what if Bond had met an eighteen year old Q just before he was called away and spent the next couple of months/years (?) writing him because he didn’t have anyone else to write to? – anon

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Thank you darling! I hope you enjoy this one. Jen.

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Q heard the post coming through the door, and was up like a shot. He always was, these days; it had become habitual, his only reprieve the three days after sending a letter of his own. Those three days, he knew nothing would come, because Bond couldn’t have responded in time.

Today, though. Today, he could have done.

Q padded through his room, his roommate shooting him an amused look – they had shared all year, both studying computer science – as Q let out a soft hiss of delight, the rest of the post discarded in a heap on the side while he ripped into the latest letter.

Bond and Q had met eight months ago, before the former went to Afghanistan. Flirting in a bar, Q on one of his first nights out ever now he was legal in the place, Bond just enjoying an evening to himself.

They spent most of the evening talking, Q abandoning those he’d gone out with to spend the time with Bond, James Bond, instead. It had felt like an old-fashioned date, in a sense; Q, as the younger party, was treated to Bond at the full height of gentlemanly behaviour.

It being the nineties, it was difficult keeping in touch; Q scribbled the address of his university and college, and his home address too, in the hope of keeping in touch. When they parted, Bond pressed a soft kiss to Q’s lips in a way that was entirely innocent and entirely not, and disappeared.

Q had spent days, sitting by the door, waiting for a letter.

The letter had arrived. Q gave a whoop of triumph, scanning it through, Bond’s handwriting the businesslike cursive he’d expected, everything so right. He had no reason to want to write – there was no cause for wanting to keep in contact with a skinny, bespectacled kid from a bar, especially when there was no sex or promises or anything involved – but he had written anyway, keeping them linked.

And thus, Q spent a long while exchanging letters. Bond moved into a new area of the army, stopping him from taking leave for a while, stopping a lot of the details over what he was doing. Q left university halfway through after hacking MI6, leaving his name and forwarding address, and waiting to see what they’d do.

As expected, he was given a job on the spot. Q waved goodbye to Cambridge, and began in Q-branch, writing to Bond that he was working for the civil service now and where are you, anyway, I haven’t heard from you in a while.

The death of 007 occurred while Q was still relatively low down in Q-branch. He didn’t really bother to look at the file, didn’t actually correlate the disappearance of 007 with the sudden, complete cessation of letters that had been mostly regular for near enough three and a half years.

He mourned for his James, of course. Q could only assume he’d been killed in action, or just got bored of writing to some dull computer geek with floppy fringe and glasses. Q didn’t know which to hope for; neither option appealed.

He prepared to meet 007, read through his entire file, glanced at his photograph.

And glanced again.

“James,” he whispered.

Q deposited all his equipment about his person, shrugged on his parka, left Q-branch quickly, without a further word, heading to the gallery.

His James Bond was waiting.