} frozen hearts growing colder with time

[cockitup]

It's a normal dreary day in London when Bond arrives home, latest investigation finished. The satisfaction of a job completed is distant and vague; it's the rush of the job, not its completion, that he does this for. That it serves and protects at the same time is all that lets him sleep at night in the end.

The misty coastal fog drifts over the bleak gray sameness of streets and buildings, and when he lets himself into his flat, there's not much remission. It's bare, looking half-moved in with odds and ends and an incomplete set of furniture, a sheet draped along the back of the couch, artwork propped up on the floor against the walls. Nonetheless, Bond knows right away that it's been broken into, because they hadn't been subtle-- they'd left the door unlocked, an invitation or a taunt.

Inwardly, he snaps to attention like a spring recoiling, and eases out his handgun from beneath his boxy suit jacket. He silently clears each room but doesn't yet holster it. They could be trying to get the drop on him. Then commences the thorough, methodical searching to determine what they were after. To his frustration, he doesn't immediately find anything-- he keeps nothing important here, barely even comes here if he can help it, much preferring to spend the night in a woman's warm bed.

It's not until he's starting to grate his teeth with the tension that he wrenches the icebox open with frustration and finds the severed hand laying there, perfectly preserved, on the ice. It's a woman's hand, slender and manicured, but impossible to recognize from hand alone. There's no jewelry, nothing else, not even a note. The blood has coagulated on the gory end of the stump, jarringly clean and neat at the cut.

So it was a taunt, he decides, long exhale rushing out of him.

He slips his gun back into the holster and goes to retrieve one of his discarded boxes. Time to pack it in ice and cloth and bring it into the office and see what Q can get from it.

No rest for the wicked.

Comments

[comm]

It's not that late, all things considered; the office is still populated. Q is sitting at his desk, every inch of the surface covered with open files as he wraps up cases and starts dossiers for new ones. The information strewn about could bring down multiple corporations and governments.

Q nudges a few sheets apart so he has space to put down his mug of tea after taking a sip and goes back to work.

By the time Bond is at his door, Q is taking a break by seeing if he can fix the slide of someone's handgun he'd lifted yesterday. He raises his head, sees Bond, and looks back down. He's getting traces of confusion, annoyance, and stress—but Bond's good at keeping himself in control, and he can't pick out actual thoughts.

"What is it this time?" He fits the gun's pieces back together and sets it down, clasping his hands lightly on top of the desk. "A gift, Bond?"

[cockitup]

He's unsurprised to find Q still there. They're both workaholics in different ways; Bond just prefers to be knocking heads together to get his information, rather than collating papers.

He deposits the box on his desk with more care than he usually displays for explosives, eyes dark, expression immutable. "Yes, but not for you," he answers. "I came home to find this in my icebox." Bond folds his arms, ostensibly relaxed as he leans a hip against the desk. He's aware Q can pick up on the dregs of tension from him, but it doesn't bother him. If he couldn't trust him, he wouldn't have brought this in.

[comm]

"I'm hurt," Q responds easily, but he's already starting to reach for the box. He opens it, takes a peek inside, and closes it again so he can take a moment to adjust his glasses. That really isn't what he'd expected, even though he's seen worse.

"And you've no idea who left it?" Q starts unwrapping it from the towel, pushing the ice cubes around so he can get a better look at it without actually touching it just yet. Channeling through a dead body is weird already, but he's never used a severed limb.

[cockitup]

There's something reassuring about having their banter to fall back on. Nothing about him outwardly changes, he relaxes just a little. Bond is used to seeing much worse-- to dealing much worse and enduring worse-- but having it delivered to his flat means this is intensely personal, and that has him on edge.

"None. Didn't even lock the door behind them, cocky bastard." Bond watches him examine the hand and has an idea of where this is going. But far be it from him to express genuine concern. "You going to take a look? I'll catch you if you faint."

That's about as close as he comes.

[comm]

"No need, though I appreciate the offer." If they didn't close the door behind them, they must be confident indeed. Bond has assembled quite a list of enemies, but not many that would be so foolhardy—and if they're not being foolhardy, then there's a more dangerous threat than he's accounted for in all his files and information yet.

So this hand is an important piece of evidence. Q gives Bond one last look as he prepares himself, pushing up the sleeves of his jumper and the shirt underneath. "...have you spoken with M about this yet?"

[cockitup]

"What's he going to do except tell me to come see you?" It's a subtly rude comment that puts on display how much he isn't at ease with the new M yet, for all that 'new' is rapidly losing its validity as a term.

He gives a patently false smile and goes on, "I thought you'd be a dear and report it for me." Thus saving him a conversation with Mallory, something Bond is always keen to avoid. He gives a whole new meaning to rogue detective and he knows it's only his results and his seniority that prevent him from being kicked off the force.

But all this is a distraction. His eyes haven't strayed from watching Q push up his sleeves, noting idly to himself that of course it takes a corpse for comparison to finally see skin paler than Q's. It's not precisely an uncharitable thought.

[comm]

"I don't enjoy being your errand runner, Bond." Q sighs, but gets started. It's a little awkward to reach over the edge of the box, but he manages, choosing to touch the back of the hand rather than hold it like in a handshake or intimate gesture.

Just this much contact is enough. Q doesn't close his eyes, but his head dips down and his gaze unfocuses.

Fear. Pain. Not unusual for someone who'd been killed, or at least tortured. Q pushes further. More fear, surprise, confusion—and finally, a face, cast in shadow. He's wearing a gambler hat and clean-shaven. Dark hair. He says this is because of him, and immediately you know who the bastard's talking about. And so it's James' fault that your arm is tied down on a table to your right and the man starts to saw, and saw—

Withdrawing his hand, Q shakes off the chill and closes up the box again, quickly and neatly.

"The perpetrator knows who you are, and the victim knew you by first name. Her hand was removed with a surgical saw, I think—two days ago." Yes, at most. So the perpetrator knew when Bond would be returning. Q pushes the box across the table back towards Bond, already shuffling papers to try and forget the phantom pain.

[cockitup]

He doesn't enjoy it, but he doesn't refuse, which is why Bond keeps asking him to do it.

His gaze sharpens as Q... communes, probably, is the word to use. Bond has no idea what it's like or what he feels, and doesn't want to. It's not an ability he's envious of. His own ability to nudge others into doing things isn't something that requires him to feel them-- it's more casting out a line and tugging them somewhere than getting inside and altering anything. Being that close to someone would be immensely distasteful for him, too personal by far.

But it's undeniably damnably useful, and his whole demeanor goes cold, shut off, at the news. Now he recognizes that hand, since he'd seen it so recently. "Liane Decoteau," he says flatly. "I knew her briefly. Last week." No attempt at pretending that euphemism means anything but what it does. She was killed for sleeping with me. "He moves fast." Which frankly says a lot about his reach, and how closely he's observing him.

Bond reaches out for the box with a sense of detachment, the only way he knows how to cope. Gently, he covers the hand with the cloth again and slides the flaps on the box shut. He can tell Q is trying to move past whatever he'd felt and doesn't blame him.

[comm]

Q stores the name away to look into later. "He may be working backwards." That's assuming that Bond hasn't slept with anyone since last week, that is, which Q doubts (somewhat uncharitably).

Once Bond takes the box back, Q takes a moment to make sure that the papers underneath it haven't been damaged.

"Well, you can keep that for yourself, or pass it on to morgue." He stands up, preparing to go to the bathroom to wash his hands. "I'll get back to you with any information I find. You can take some time to rest before your next job."

[cockitup]

"I'll check if he is." He'll have to track the last one down, though this time not to sleep with her-- which is too bad, because it's how he usually deals with stress he's trying to deny. But he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he intentionally put someone in danger, just in case this is a pattern. And James does, actually, manage to live with himself as he is presently. He has lines he doesn't cross.

"Rest," he repeats in a mutter. Definitely the morgue, ta, Q. "Of course. Thank you, Q. I'll be in tomorrow." You'll have information by then, won't you? Because Bond is already feeling itchy to put a bullet in the brain of whoever did this. Very itchy.

He's going to remotely surveil his last 'date' for a few hours, then go home, pull out his bottle of scotch, and drink himself to sleep in his unfurnished apartment. Not that this is something Bond shares with anyone else. His PTSD is his own problem.

[comm]

"Off you go, then." Q doesn't wave as Bond leaves, distracted once again by a flurry of research. He doesn't have anything on Liane Decoteau, because he doesn't keep tabs that close on their operatives.

He doesn't go home that night. He does leave the office, if only to follow some tracks and talk to informants. Whenever Bond returns the next day, Q is still there, in the same clothes and looking only slightly more mussed than usual. As soon as he sees him, Q gets up from his desk with a file of collected information on Decoteau's last known movements, and a separate sheaf of people who might be behind this.

"This is tentative," he says of the latter. "But this—you can start looking into this one." Q slaps the first file into Bond's hand.

[cockitup]

He arrives in the morning, late enough not to be indecent but early enough to suggest he hasn't gotten much sleep himself. He appreciates Q being on top of this immediately, and trusts his sources. That's a big part of why Bond had brought this to him right away-- had bypassed Mallory, in fact, as a useless link in the chain. When it's personal, Bond's already low tolerance for political arse-kissing dwindles to zero.

Bond accepts the file smoothly and opens it, scanning quickly. He's silent as he reads, then opens the second file to see if anything jumps out, eyes flicking over the names. "Francisco Scaramanga," he reads out loud, seeing the associated suspected kill list from his paid hits. "I've seen him before. Not sure where. The henchmen all start to run together after a while."

He snaps both files shut, but doesn't give them back. "I'll see if I can't find Mr. Scaramanga poking around anywhere."

[comm]

Scaramanga is an odd piece of work, and far too flashy besides. "He was likely the one behind the loss of 002, seven years ago." That was ahead of Q's time—this Q, that is—but the files and work stay behind, even if the old Q doesn't.

"You're just going to go out and search for him?" Q's skepticism is obvious, and he forestalls any reply by continuing quickly; "He's not supposed in town, but I've gotten wind of an appearance by him at the bar downtown. The—let's see." He consults a scrap of paper he'd written the note on, because the name of the locale amused him and he thought it'd be nice to read again later.

(Christ, he does need a hobby. )

"The Cow At the End of Moscow. There you are." The address is also on the note that he hands to Bond.