#nothing i love more than trapping characters together during blizzards mmmm

[patrice-bergerons]

Cuddle prompt for 00Q #30

Pretty please?

send me cuddling prompts!

okay anon this got way out of hand and will be a two-parter but here it is, part 1, featuring dangerous field missions, blizzards, and some cuddling for warmth.

When he accepted the position at MI6, Q had pictured himself designing state of the art weapons, helping shape the future of intelligence and keeping his country safe, all from the safety of a nice office or a sleek workshop.  Standing on a frozen Norwegian lake in the middle of a blizzard, getting ready to dive in, on the other hand?  Not so much.

It’s just that the latest criminal megalomaniac who wants to see the world burn has fitted a dirty bomb at the bottom of this lake and it is set to go off in two hours.  The henchmen are all dead but the blizzard means they can’t get help in time and the lack of waterproof comms means he can’t guide Bond on how to disengage the bomb remotely.  Ergo, Q shedding his clothes with gay abandon in -15 °C weather.  He would have at least packed a wetsuit had he known.

“When you go in, the first thing you will need to do is to get over the cold water shock,” Bond is saying and doesn’t that sound marvellous.  “Your heart rate will jump and you will be gasping for breath but it will pass in less than a minute—just float and let the panic flow through you.”

Bond’s coat and beanie are white with snow and he has to speak up to be heard over the howling wind.  Q appreciates that his voice is all business now, any hint of concern for Q’s wellbeing relegated to a remote corner of his eyes.

He nods, taking off his jumper followed by his trousers.  The cold cuts into his bones without a moment’s mercy—bollocks, he thinks as he shivers.  

Bond does him the favour of not acknowledging it.

“You will have at most five minutes before your hands become too numb to handle tools—come up for air if you need to but you won’t have time to do it more than once.”  Q puts on his headlight as Bond turns on their torch and places it upside down on the ice.

“The surface will freeze over quickly-” 

“Yes, yes, I know,” Q cuts him off.  They have been through this already.  “Don’t panic, follow the light, and you will break the ice for me by shooting at it as if it’s a target M asked you to capture alive at all costs.”

Bond’s surprise is quickly eclipsed by a smile.  His eyes are a familiar, vibrant blue, like an act of defiance against this white hellscape they have found themselves in, and so very warm.  Sometimes you put him in his place and he looks at you like you hung the moon in the sky—like you can reach out and hang it there if it disappears one day.

“I’ve got this, James,” Q says, offering Bond a quick smile of his own.  “Now shoot.”

*

In the end, it takes him two trips to disarm the bomb.  

The device is unfamiliar enough that, combined with low underwater visibility, he has barely figured out what needs to be done before he runs out of air on his first trip.  He surfaces and stutters out a two word response to Bond through chattering teeth before diving back again.  

When the deed is done and he has chased the weak glow of Bond’s torch to safety again, he is barely feeling much of anything—not the cold, not his extremities, nor the strong hands that pull him out of the water.  

“Lift your arms,” Bond instructs and his arms rise above his head in response, having bypassed any chain of command with his brain.  Bond takes off his tee shirt in a single deft motion and replaces it with his dry jumper.  His pants come next, swapped for the pair of trousers he’d left behind.  Pity I’m a grower, Q thinks absentmindedly as he is already being swaddled in his puffy coat, then in his beanie that makes his wet hair stick to his scalp, gloves and his dear old glasses, fat use they are in a snowstorm.  

He has imagined Bond dressing him and undressing him, perhaps more times than he would care to admit, and it was never like this but all he can reach now is the cold fact of that knowledge.  The way he theoretically knows the winter cabin they commandeered is a ten minute walk away, but there is no kindness, no warmth in this place, only the sharp wind and an endless, terrible white that presses on in every direction until everything you were and you are is frozen over and buried in snow.

It’s only Bond that keeps that terrible fate at bay—he has hooked an arm under Q’s shoulder and leads them steadily onwards, through knee deep snow and the blizzard which hurls more of it in their faces at every turn with vicious glee, his will a match for the worst anyone can throw at him, including the winter.

*

When they make it to the cabin, Q is summarily deposited onto the bed.

Bond removes his coat for him and swaps his trousers, now caked with snow, for a pair of thermal tights before he lays him under the duvet and blanket they had stacked on top of one another, much like a life-sized Barbie doll.

Q tries to focus but his thoughts feel like feral kittens, mewling and scattering before he can hold them in his hands. 

There is no glory in it, Bond says quietly, shaking his head.  He is sitting across from Q at an old, stately pub that is a far cry from either of their usual haunts.  They have had too much to drink and Q has made a quip that he will regret every time he remembers it afterwards and in Bond’s eyes, hazy now with alcohol, is a glimpse of something that cannot be put to words, broken and mute and vast.

The cabin brings to mind the word ‘cottagecore’—rustic and kitschy, it is too posh and impractical to be anything other than a seldom used holiday home of a rich couple.  The henchmen lie dead on the ground, their blood staining fresh fallen snow crimson.  He is not shivering and does not feel cold which is Bad with a capital B.  

Bond turns around from where he is standing in front of the fireplace, lighting fire to the logs they built before they headed to the lake, and Concern (with a capital C, Q supposes) flashes across his face, knitting his brow in a knot.  This was supposed to be a simple assignment and one Q handled, yes, in Norway, but strictly from his computer.

“I make for a decent field agent, don’t you think?” he asks weakly, to cheer him up.

“You were brilliant.”  Bond smiles and Q hates him for it.  “You might put me out of a job if you ever decide to switch careers.”

He shifts a little despite the monumental energy cost to have a more authoritative angle and lets his voice go as haughty as he can.

“The same cannot be said for you of course.”

A warning.

Bond turns back to the fire momentarily, raking it to make sure the logs catch, but he understands.   

“I don’t know what you mean—I am excellent with a computer.  Just changed my password successfully last week.”

Different as they are, they do understand each other, most of the time—Bond more so than any other double-0.

Q snickers, letting himself fall back into the bed; the soft wonderful bed. 

The fire now lit, Bond soon sheds most of his own clothes and instructs Q to do the same with his outer layer.

“Your personal radiator reporting for duty,” he says as he peels open the covers to sneak under.

Bollocks, thinks Q as Bond takes him in his arms and arranges the two of them so that Q is mostly lying on top of him with his head pillowed on Bond’s bare chest.

This will be an afternoon.