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“Bond.” And Q is squirming, or at least as close to squirming as he’s capable of doing on smooth lubricated sockets that emulate the wide hips and fat arse of an extremely attractive young man. He’s not—a young man, that is, because Christ, even Bond has eyes and sometimes he wonders at that old lech Boothroyd for selecting just that shade of pink for those lips—he’s not. He would be blushing if he were, but his pale skin is still and unsweated, for all he’s rolling on the sides of his feet like a nervous teenager.
“What can I do for you, Quartermaster?” Bond asks, and it takes the sharp pressure of his teeth set in the corner of his lip to keep back the grin that’s threatening to spread at the humanity writ in the tiny quirks across Q’s face.
“I require assistance, if you would,” Q tells him primly. He only breaks out that tone of voice when he knows Bond is teasing; Bond lets the grin spread a bit just to watch irritation fold over the corners of Q’s eyes. “Nevermind.” He’s already drawing back, and Bond grabs for him, marveling not for the first time at the supple heat of the skin on the back of Q’s hand. “You’re taking the piss,” Q scolds.
Bond grins, nods. “That’s what friends do. How can I help you, Q?” he asks.
Q watches him coolly, assessing, before apparently finding something that makes him thaw visibly, frame sinking subtly from tense and awkward into something sweetly shy. “It’s personal. Can we go to my office?”
“Of course.”
Q’s office is sparse, clean lines that some unkind soul would call “robotic”, though certainly not within earshot of Bond; he drops into the visitor’s chair and taps the head of the smiling daisy on the desk to set it dancing. Q casts him a baleful glance and covers the daisy like a parent covering their child’s ears before scooping it into a desk drawer. Bond raises an eyebrow—it’s a solar-powered desk toy, but Q has a habit of treating lesser technologies as simple, sensitive creatures to be coddled. When he’d said personal, apparently he’d meant private from absolutely everyone.
“Something bothering you, Q?” Bond asks, watching as Q fidgets in his seat.
“I need a reboot. I—you’re the only one I really trust to—after Geoffrey, there really hasn’t been—”
But—Bond tips his head in the direction of the charging station tucked discreetly in the corner. “Doesn’t your charging station reset you every night?”
“When I’m using it,” Q agrees, “but it’s been some time since I’ve done a full charge, and I require rebooting from time to time, anyway. Flush the system.” Bond gets the impression again that Q would be blushing if he could. Q coughs, a wholly human response to his discomfort. Bond smiles at him. “I require a hard reboot this time, Bond—you’ll depress and hold my power button until we’re sure that my batteries aren’t retaining a charge, then put me into the charger until the morning. You needn’t worry about switching me back on then; I’ll be fully charged and quite self-sufficient by then.”
“Of course.”
“Of course? You’ll do it?” Q sounds surprised.
“Should I not? Did you want help from someone else instead?”
Q’s mouth twists wryly, expression unreadable. “No. I’d prefer your help. I do appreciate this, Bond.”
“Think nothing of it. Skin off, then,” Bond tells him. Q blinks. “Go ahead and get your kit off. That’s why you’re so shy about it, right? You have to undress for it?”
“I—yes,” Q acknowledges, sucking the corner of his lip between his teeth. It’s something he’s picked up from one of the younger techs in TSS, the coy move of a girl who doesn’t understand that her sexuality doesn’t affect him mirrored by a creature who doesn’t understand that it’s sexual. “You’re sure? It won’t make things—” he searches for the word, “—weird?”
“Of course not. I do actually want to make sure you’re not run completely into the ground, Q. I’d be happy to help with your maintenance.”
Q freezes, fingers already on the buttons of his cardigan. They clench in the fabric briefly, releasing with a fluttery little twist when he notices Bond noticing. “Okay,” Q tells him, voice small. “Thank you. Okay.”
The jumper is folded neatly over the back of Q’s desk chair, waiting for the morning. Then goes the shirt, draped easily on a hanger that goes on the back of the office door, and Bond’s looking at that smooth, sleek back for a control panel before he realises Q’s still going; the plaid trousers are puddled on the floor and down come the pants and Bond is—thank god for perverts like Boothroyd, because Q is perfect and lovely, right down to the flushed and ruddy head of a cock dangling over plump and delicate—
“Goodness, the Major was thorough, wasn’t he?” Bond asks. Q shifts, wrist sliding to start to cover, and Bond feels like an ass. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t think—”
“It’s, ah,” Q tells him, still rolling on the sides of his feet uneasily. “Well. Any inevitability, really. There was some discussion about other Q-models going into the field, but I’m the only one he actually finished before...well.”
“He had a gift,” Bond tells him honestly, and Q’s mouth makes that twist that makes Bond think he’s blushing.
“Ah—rebooting. You don’t have to,” Q tells him.
“I want to.” He does. He really, really does. Q shoots him a grateful glance before folding his naked frame over the edge of the desk, centering that arse front and ready. “Er, Q?”
“You’ll need the—um, the stuff. In the jar. In my desk.”
Heat steals over Bond from head to toe in a tingling wave. Surely Boothroyd hadn’t put the poor boy’s power switch—
“It’s the nu-skin, I’m afraid. It’ll be uncomfortable for you to reset me without something to ease it.” Q sounds flustered, and for the first time, Bond considers.
“Q?” He waits until Q’s eyes meet his own, starry and shy. “Will you feel it? Being rebooted?”
“Well. Yes,” Q says with an ease that’s belied by the tense line of his shoulders. He starts to say something more and drops off, unnaturally quiet.
“Do you like feeling it?” Bond asks carefully.
Q is still but for the curled fingers searching for something to clutch on the edge of the desk. He settles on a pencil and studies it as though it were the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. “Yes.”
“Good,” Bond tells him firmly.
The clutch of Q’s arse around his fingers, slicked though they are with the unctuous oil Boothroyd left for the purpose, is heady and clinging. Q sighs into the press of Bond’s hand, wriggling beneath him. He makes a sound that feels to Bond like someone’s punched him in the stomach with a ten-tonne knot of lust, and it’s easy to forget, easy to—“Q? Where’s your switch in here?” he asks instead, because he’s not going to fingerfuck MI:6’s very delicate and expensive AI just because he looks like he’ll like it. He’s not; Mallory would have his bollocks for it, and Q’s worth more than six of James Bond, if only because between Q being built and Bond in the field they’d nearly tapped the font of TSS’s budget dry. Losing Bond for being inappropriate would be a boon; losing Q because a randy Double-oh couldn’t keep his hands to himself a tremendous loss.
Q moans. Honest-to-god moans, and Bond’s fingers curl involuntarily, nudging against what can only be the power switch. It’s nothing so blatant as a hard plastic button, more a subtle difference in texture, and Bond can’t help himself, sinks his forehead down to touch Q’s shoulder as he skirts the edge of the button, draws his fingers back, and pushes them in again to flirt with the little swell beneath the pads of his index and second fingers. He kisses it with only the barest hint of a touch and Q moans again, legs falling open and gloriously loose.
“Oh, not yet,” Q says, more gasp and breath and air than words, and Bond draws back, rubs at the twitching rim of him because he doesn’t want this to be over, either. He could happily bend Q over and touch him forever, so long as he keeps making the sounds he’s making, like Bond’s teaching him something beautiful with his hands. “I don’t want to—not yet. Just a little bit longer, please?”
Bond’s mouth is already against Q’s shoulder, to his surprise; he’s murmuring eager promises he can only barely hear into a smooth expanse that’s never felt less fake. He’s stroking, skittering over the switch over and over again until Q’s whines are desperate. Q rocks into his touch; “Now?” Bond asks.
“Now. Now, now, now, please now,” Q begs. His eyes are closed tight, body rocking enthusiastically as Bond finds the button and presses delicately, then firmer, holding as Q shudders, mouth open and silent as a sweet rigidity takes him over. It’s over in seconds, and then he’s lying languid against the desk. He starts to speak, but there’s not battery enough to support it; he just stares at Bond with starry, satisfied eyes.
It’s easy, after, to clean the synthetic skin and ease Q onto the charger, strapping him in for a good night’s rest. He’s painfully hard now, will go home and wank to this later, but for now he tidies Q’s office, tucking away the things that Q’s left out. On the calendar, a red circle marks today’s scheduled maintenance; Bond can’t stop the compulsion that has him flipping forward to the next circled date: three weeks, and a note:
Q10—
A note about maintenance: should you find yourself in need, seek out 007. His service record is legendary.
—G
Bond traces his fingers over the note and laughs. Bloody pervert.