If Night Falls, Use Stars for Streetlights | TWO
Title: If Night Falls, Use Stars for Streetlights
By: revenant_scribe
Chapter TWO:
Fandom: Bond | Pairing: Bond/Q
Rating: PG-13 | Word Count: 6,806
Despite reading through every piece of paper included in the packet Tretiak handed over at the airport, Bond knows very little about Doctor Quentin Russell. Mostly Tretiak had included articles and essays, which offered negligible insight into the man himself.
He ends up running a Google search for Russell on his flight back to England and quickly discovers why his briefing packet was not very useful. Outside of a few articles written by or about him, and a brief comment found on Oxford's website that mentions a grant to develop his scientific research, as well as the fact that Russell is apparently working out of Queen's College, Bond finds a suspiciously scant amount of information.
For one thing, there is not a single photograph anywhere, no Facebook account, no Twitter, nothing. Bond puts his computer skills to work and slips into Oxford's online records and while he has no trouble accessing any other student who graduated, or failed to graduate, the firewalls around Russell's student file are impossible to breach. No descriptions of the man exist anywhere outside of an accounting of his various and multiple achievements. Not even a passing reference to his date of birth.
What Bond does find is a note on Queen's College's events calendar announcing a lecture being given by Russell regarding his research. The date of the lecture is tomorrow, in the morning. Bond has very little time to figure out his angle.
Armed solely with a general opinion of electrochemists and a rough estimation based on Russell's academic achievements, combined with a need to be more thoroughly disguised should this all go tits-up, Bond arrives at the university dressed in a tweed suit jacket, beige trousers and well-worn brown shoes. He's wearing false teeth in order to alter the bottom half of his face, they are crooked and yellowing, his wig is stringy and grey, combed-over in an ill-advised and unsuccessful attempt to hide a rapidly balding head. He stoops and shuffles as he makes his way to a spot in the second row of the lab. It's a fair turnout. Mostly graduate students in white lab coats, but there are enough people of varying ages in civilian clothes that it's clear cold fusion has managed to garner some genuine interest.
Bond is late, just slightly so, but when he takes his seat there is already a man standing at the center of the room between the rows of lab tables who closely resembles Bond's own disguise: tweed jacket with elbow patches, hideous comb-over and thick glasses. He's been droning on about Pons and Fleischman since Bond crept in and if this is Quentin Russell than there is some genuine concern on Bond's part that he might simply fall asleep before he has the opportunity to steal the man's research.
Ten minutes in and Bond starts looking for any sort of distraction, which he finds when a quiet rustling in the front row attracts his attention. A young grad student is fumbling a bottle of pills from out of the pocket of his lab coat. His profile is striking, bright green eyes peering out from behind the apparently requisite glasses, a mop of tousled hair the color of dark roasted coffee and a slender nose turned up just slightly at the end.
Bond leans forward. "Are those drugs? Can I have some?" he asks, maintaining the American accent of his current disguise. "He's boring the life out of me."
"They're for my heart," the younger man explains keeping his voice soft, though there is no mistaking the humor in his tone.
Bond watches as the younger man takes his medication dry, returning the bottle to his pocket. On the floor, Russell is still droning. Sighing, Bond turns back to his distraction and shifts forward on his seat as he whispers, "You have very pretty eyes. You're a pretty young man."
The young man in question raises one dark-coffee eyebrow and seems torn between blushing and laughing; caught somewhere in the middle his lips part but no sound escapes. After a second he recovers himself enough to ask, "Who are you?"
"I'm here to do an interview with that Doctor Russell. I'm gonna expose him as a fraud." Grinning cheekily, crooked and yellowed teeth on display, Bond cocks his head sharply to the side and says, "You don't put any stock in this cold fusion mumbo-jumbo, do you?"
Both eyebrows are raised now, and a slow blossoming smile like a cat that has just finished licking a bowl of cream stretches across the younger man's face. "Actually, I do."
At the center of the room the droning geriatric rocks back on his heels, thumbs hitched in his suspenders and says, "It is my pleasure to introduce, Doctor Quentin Russell!"
Still smirking, the younger man murmurs, "Excuse me," and then stands up, to smattering of applause.
Completely forgetting his disguise and his accent, Bond says, "You must be joking."
Doctor Quentin Russell is apparently ridiculously young to be so accomplished, distressingly attractive and apparently very used to dealing with naysayers. Within moments of beginning his lecture, it is entirely clear that Russell is enthusiastic and passionate about his field. Bond learns that cold fusion is a method of creating energy: "Very simply," Quentin explains, "when positively charged deuterons are attracted to the palladium cathode of this apparatus, they cram together -- millions and millions of them inside the cathode getting closer and closer together until they fuse, and they create energy in the form of helium."
There is something charming about the doctor's enthusiasm, his naïve hope that one simple discovery could change the entire vast complexity of the world: "You could drive your car 55 million miles on a gallon of heavy water. It would be the end of pollution. Warmth for the whole world."
It's hypnotic.
Bond realizes that he is wasting time in the lecture, it's quite clear that his current disguise will have no luck wrangling the relevant data from Russell, yet he is reluctant to go. Still, he reminds himself, there is a job to be done and he should really put his time to more productive use. He goes.
___________________________________________________
Russell lives in a flat located just off of High Street. There are no security alarms or special, complicated locks of any kind. Bond takes out his picklocks and has the front door open in less than three seconds.
Inside the walls are soft, unobtrusive colors and the furniture is tasteful and coordinated. Bond suspects the entire flat came furnished. There is an impersonal, gender-neutral quality to the dove grey sofa and the antique wooden coffee table, and there’s enough mix between old and new to appeal to either a modernist or a historian.
The clutter, however, definitely belongs to Russell. Books stacked haphazardly by chairs, on countertops in the kitchen and the bathroom, teetering on the fireplace mantel and covering the queen-sized sleigh bed. Poetry and short stories rest atop books on chemistry and physics and philosophy, and popular novels lean against the stacks, no rhyme or reason apparent in the system except perhaps that Russell happened to be standing just here when he decided to put down what had only moments before engrossed him. There is also seemingly no restriction on subject matter, and no way for Bond to ascertain what the younger man's preferred reading material might be.
The artwork on the walls is personal as well. Black and white photographs of family and friends, framed replicas of Da Vinci's notebook pages featuring several of his inventions, a sepia-toned portrait of someone that strikes Bond as familiar though he never paid much attention to art. Original artwork hangs beside small collections of postcards and photographs of places from around the world.
There are post-it notes everywhere. They march across the walls and sometimes across the picture frames as well, filling up the gaps on the fridge, on the bathroom mirror, on the lampshade by the bed. The one Bond reads on the side of the fish tank reads: “FEED FISH,” in precise capital lettering. There are reminders on the fridge about food expiring and the basket sitting on the kitchen table is empty save for a note: “BUY FRUIT!”
Some notes bear reminders of upcoming appointments: 'Meet with D.C. 11:00' or 'Pub Friday - under pain of death'. Most of them, however, are filled with quotations by Samuel Johnson, Napoleon, Churchill, and other notable figures; sometimes they are filled with segments of poetry.
Despite the reminder note on the aquarium the brightly-colored, exotic-looking fish inside all look healthy and the tank is filled with plants and rocks formations. If it was possible for a fish in an aquarium to be spoiled, Bond suspects that these might be so. The plants lining the window ledge are all well-tended, which means that as much as the notes about empty fruit bowls and soon-to-be rotten milk might suggest someone particularly scatter-brained, perhaps Russell just has peculiar priorities.
One entire cupboard in the kitchen is filled with nothing but various kinds of black tea, at least twelve different tins of earl grey alone. The kettle on the kitchen counter is lime green, and in walking around the flat Bond has spotted four different teapots. The answering machine, when Bond checks it, declares that Russell has no messages.
In his exploration, Bond finds a hardcover notebook wedged beneath the cushions on the sofa. When he picks it up and gives it a cursory inspection he is confronted with Russell's rather ornate and terribly scrunched penmanship. The book falls open to a page marked with a postcard of the Shelley monument, when Bond pushes the card to side he sees a scrunched entry: 'Stopped and visited Shelley again today. How can I love a man named Percy? Isn't there someone in the world who can consume me like that?' and, further down under a different date: 'although I pass the Shelley monument every day its sadness strikes me every time. I feel a very personal loss when I look at it. So much pain and so much passion.' Carefully, Bond closes the book and returns it to its place.
There isn't much by way of technology in the flat. A charger for a mobile shares the desk with a sleek, thin-screened computer. There is a laptop half-tucked beneath a rumpled sheet in the bedroom, and a rather intimidating alarm clock on the nightstand, with so many buttons Bond hardly knows what to make of it. An old-fashioned record player takes up space on a bookshelf in the living room filled with records, but beyond that he finds no other gadgets.
Backtracking, Bond sits at the desktop computer and finds that it is not even password locked. When he consults the most recently opened file he hesitates, surprised: 'Cold Fusion Notes'. As he downloads the file Bond skims through it, finds incomprehensible equations interspersed with technical jargon and more quotations: "To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Luke 1:79"
Under a section of calculations that have been highlighted in blue and struck-through Bond reads: "the world operates through dynamic exchange. Nothing is static." Tretiak had said that Russell was cagey and difficult, but Bond has a different theory: Russell is an eccentric genius, a romantic innocent. An idealist.
At the very end of the document Russell has typed: 'These early failures had purity, don't lose that focus.'
Bond finishes perusing the computer, grabs his thumb drive and leaves. He’s walking away just as a forest green P1800 Volvo pulls into a spot in front of the flat. Russell pops out of the car, juggling a soft leather briefcase, an oversized scarf and an umbrella, his keys dangling precariously from the fingertips of his right hand. His glasses are askew. Bond watches the younger man pause at his front door, not setting anything down as he fiddles with the lock and then disappears inside.
Bond thinks, definitely an eccentric.
___________________________________________________
Q stops by the Shelley monument at the end of the day. If he gets the timing right -- and he's had plenty of time develop a system -- he has the entire room to himself. Most tourists bus into Oxford for the day and have to leave in order to return to their hotel for dinner. After one or two visits, the occupants of the campus tend to forget that Shelley is here. Nobody seems to be quite as obsessed with it as Q.
Except, it's not really an obsession. After a day spent pulling his hair out, puzzling his way through formulas and theories and, with distressing frequency, coming up with nothing, he finds Shelley's solitude soothing. It's a place where he can catch his breath before he carries on again. It's a place of quiet without the pressure of expectation.
Stepping down into the room, Q sighs. There's no solid door separating him from the bustle of campus but he stops hearing the laughter and the footsteps, the noise receding as he slowly circles the statue.
He's halfway round when he realizes that he's being watched.
There's a man: tan skin, piercing bright blue eyes, longish deep gold hair, lying on his side on the bench. There's a sketchbook open in front of him, a piece of charcoal held loosely between the man's fingers. His lips are thin but his gaze is steady.
Q feels a shuddery flutter in his chest and fumbles quickly into the pocket of his parka, retrieving his meds with a shaky hand. He feels so inelegant and clumsy and foolish standing there with a thudding heart that he starts hurrying toward the exit as he swallows his heart pill. "Sorry," he mumbles as he passes the stranger.
"Do you like it?" the man asks, and Q hesitates on the steps. He takes a cautious look sideways and finds the man looking at him calmly. "The statue, do you like it?"
"Uhm." Almost involuntarily, Q finds his gaze flickering from the man's hypnotic gaze down to the sketchbook where a detailed and beautiful image of the monument is taking shape. He glances over his shoulder at Shelley and immediately feels some of the embarrassed tension leave him. "Of course." Clearing his throat he says again, stronger, "Of course I like it."
"What do you love about it?" the man presses. Q can't place the accent, but he thinks it might be South African. Q has never traveled anywhere, certainly never as far as Africa.
Turning his attention back to Shelley, Q succumbs to the strange magic of the sculpture, feels the tension eking out of him, finds himself being pulled back into the room and closer to the monument. "I like the light," he answers, finally. "How it holds him, silent. As if it's taking care of him." Q smiles. "Yes. That's what I love about it."
The man has returned to his sketching, something in the cant of his head indicating that he is still listening even as he draws. Q takes a cautious step closer to the bench so he can get a better look at the drawing. "You're an artist." There's no way that the man is anything else, not when he has rendered the monument so perfectly onto paper, captured the shadow, the bright highlights across pale marble skin even though he only has one piece of dark charcoal worn almost to a nub.
"No," the man answers. "I'm just a traveler."
"Where are you from?"
Those bright blue eyes peak up from beneath the golden strands. "I'm from Africa."
"Africa," Q echoes. "And you're visiting Oxford?" Of course he knows that Oxford attracts tourists, but Q has been trapped here for so very long that he has long-since stopped seeing the novelty of the place. The ancient buildings, the campus life, every bit of it is simply home, familiar to the point of predictability. Given the wide expanse of the world, Q has no idea why anyone would choose to visit Oxford.
"I'm searching for something." The man shrugs inelegantly, one finger reaching out to blend the shadows of his sketch, softening the edges. "…for purity," he says, almost to himself. "How about you?"
Q half-smiles. "I'm searching for energy."
For some reason this makes the other man laugh, and the sound is light and bright; it makes Q grin sheepishly. The stranger looks up from his sketchbook, fixing him with those intensely blue eyes as he says in the smooth, alluring accent, "They say Africa is the place where all life began. My home is far away from the town, at night the wind rustles through the tall grass, the stars overhead shine bright. It's not like the city; there with the sky-arching overhead you can tell the earth is round. You hear the animals, lions, birds. It feels like the heart of the world."
Q feels transported, he can feel the warm heat of the African sun, hear the noises of the wild and the echoes of the world. He's seduced by it and even though he feels foolish standing in front of Shelley, speechless and strangely yearning, he can’t help it.
Before he can think-up an appropriate response the openness on the other man's face closes off, his gaze dropping down and then away. "I'm sorry." The embarrassment is plain in the stranger's tone. "I've been told I'm not good with people."
When he strides past Q he leaves an exotic, spicy scent in his wake. The sketchbook and the nub of charcoal are still sitting on the bench. By the time Q manages to unfreeze himself the man is nowhere in sight.
He'll come back, Q tells himself. He'll realize he left the book behind and he'll come for it. A very strong part of Q feels protective of it, of Shelley, lying open and bare on the pages, the artist awkward and alluring and beautiful and equally exposed somehow, by this image.
He closes the book carefully and tucks it under his arm. If he sees the man on his way home he'll deliver the book to its rightful owner and if not, he'll safeguard it until he has another opportunity to see it safely home.
___________________________________________________
Bond follows Quentin to the Magdalen Arms and notes, with no small amount of satisfaction, that while the man's briefcase is left in the Volvo Bond's sketchbook never leaves the younger man's side. The restaurant is populated but not overly busy and Bond is able to take a seat in the far corner, where he can observe the younger man without risking being noticed. Quentin places his order when the waiter comes by, but returns his attention almost immediately to the sketchbook.
It took Bond over two days to create the thing, filling page after page with his own art and some of his own dubious poetry, collected snippets of other people's words as well, quotes and poems. All of it designed with Quentin in mind, to appeal to him: photographs and rough pencil drawings of exotic buildings from all over the world, the narrow side-streets of Italy, rough gestures capturing the chaotic bustle of New York, darkly shaded renditions of monuments and statues, of people sitting at cafes, dipping their feet into fountains, sitting on park benches watching the birds. Bond is a thief but he is also a forger. It's surprising how often successfully stealing something involves replacing it with something else.
Creating the poetry had been a new experience; Bond isn't in the habit of writing it. Too sentimental. For the sake of appealing to a romantic such as Quentin, however, he ventured into the foreign realm: "I see my angel for the first time, know my purpose, feel my birth, hear at first faintly then distinctly, the sweet strains of our union. Our love heats up the cold universe, and gives my tired, desperate hope a reason, and a season to be revealed."
It's clear when Quentin reads the passage because the younger man flushes, looks both touched and saddened at the same time. Bond takes the opportunity to cross to the man's table. "You found it."
"Excuse me?---" Quentin looks up and blinks, startled. Immediately his demeanor shifts. "I didn't steal it! I was just … I was looking…"
"I don't mind." Bond stands by a chair, waiting patiently until Quentin's manners catch-up to him and he invites Bond to join him. Settling into the chair, Bond smiles. "I'm glad you found it, but I have to ask… are you following me?"
"Me?" Quentin asks. "I wasn't. I just … I come here sometimes. To eat, I mean. I live here. Well not here, obviously, but here as in around. In the area." His mouth clicks shut suddenly as if his brain has finally managed to send the message that he should stop rambling. Quentin clears his throat as he carefully closes the sketchbook, pushing it gently across the table. "You should have this back."
Setting the book aside, Bond requests a cup of tea from a passing waiter. When he turns back Quentin is observing him with a curious face. "What is it?" Bond asks him,
Quentin shakes his head, looking sheepish. "It's nothing. I thought you'd drink something more exotic, that's all."
"Earl grey is exotic for me. Usually I drink coffee, or wine."
"It's strange," Quentin says, looking at his teacup wistfully. "I drink it so often, somehow it doesn't ever occur to me that it might be new or exotic to anyone."
The waiter returns with the tea and while Bond pours himself a cup he notices Quentin is fiddling with several small squares of paper. His first thought is that this man seems to be single-handedly keeping the Post-It people in business. Then Bond has a chance to see the writing on the pages Quentin is fiddling with and he realizes that they are covered in fine black markings; equations. Is it really possible that Russell carries around his formula for cold fusion on several scraps of paper tucked somewhere on his person?
Bond realizes suddenly that he has no idea where on his person Quentin keeps the pages. They appeared, as if by magic, when Bond had been distracted with the waiter. Keeping his tone light and only mildly inquisitive, he leans forward over the table. "What do you have there?"
"Something I'm working on," Quentin says, distractedly. Then he realizes that the waiter has gone away and he offers Bond a sheepish smile. "Sorry." Bond watches as the square bits of paper are carefully folded. Quentin shifts in his chair and Bond becomes keenly aware that the younger man is not, as he had initially expected, depositing the formula into a trouser pocket.
Bond gets a glimpse of pale skin exposed only for a moment as Quentin tucks the folded pages safely in his pants, snug against the skin of his hip. His eyebrows jerk upward and he isn't certain whether to be impressed because he is momentarily startled by the fact that he is aroused. Clearing his throat Bond says, "Something you're working on that you keep in your underwear?"
"Uh." Quentin freezes the moment he realizes what he has just done, that Bond observed him doing it. Slowly, the younger man turns a striking shade of scarlet. "Yes. I do," he admits. "Sorry."
"No, don't be. I enjoyed watching you put it away."
The teacup Quentin had been reaching for is jostled as the younger man fumbles for it. He takes a hearty swallow and ends-up coughing. Trying to prevent an amused smile from spreading across his face, Bond attempts to ease the tension, perching his elbows on the table as he peers at his dinner companion as if trying to get a better view. "Do you keep anything else in there?"
"No, I don't," Quentin answers, absurdly prim.
Bond can't help a somewhat lascivious grin. "That's not true."
Green eyes flicker over Bond's face, assessing. It's clear that Quentin has caught the innuendo, just as it is equally clear that he isn't certain if it was intentionally made or not. It looks very much as if the younger man is wondering whether or not it is appropriate to laugh. Bond blinks guilelessly and, as a result, the corner of Quentin's mouth twitches upward cautiously, obviously still shy.
With some sleight-of-hand Bond manages to move his wallet with one hand and summon a passing wait with the other. "A bottle of the Latour '57, please."
The waiter's glance skims over Bond's casual black shirt and trousers, his scuffed shoes and inexpensive watch, before shifting to Quentin who looks rumpled and painfully young blushing in an oatmeal colored cardigan and simple white button-down. "Sir," the waiter says doubtfully. "That wine is four hundred pounds a bottle."
Quentin's expression is vaguely mortified as he looks at Bond, who takes the opportunity to stand from his chair and reach a hand into his jeans, pulling out the wallet he just placed there and offering a fold of bills. "Then we'll take two," he says, as the waiter scrunches his face in distaste but accepts the money.
"You're insane," Quentin hisses as Bond retakes his seat, but he's laughing and the embarrassed tension is gone. "I can't believe you did that."
They eat dinner and share expensive wine. Usually this is the part that Bond finds difficult or tedious: the feigned interest, manipulating someone in order to get something he needs. Quentin makes it all easy: buoyant enthusiasm that isn't made tedious by oblivious optimism, which tends to wear on Bond's nerves. He can tell that the younger man has struggled and still struggles, that he has faced impossible challenges and risen to overcome them every time. It makes for an easy rapport between them.
When Quentin begins to open up about his work, "energy research", he is hesitant, almost cautious, as if expecting at any moment to be interrupted and told to stop. Bond can imagine that there are not many people not already fluent in Quentin's field who are willing to listen to someone talk about it. To Bond it sounds almost like a different language, but he asks questions and does his best to understand, and Quentin is eager to explain and expand.
Though the younger man never speaks of it explicitly, Bond can see in the fleeting shadows that cross Quentin's face, the moments in his excited descriptions where his voice falters - there are not many people who expect his research to amount to anything. Bond wonders how it is that the young scientist can remain so positive, but when he asks all Quentin says is, "I believe in my research. I believe in something that's all around us but hidden from our sight."
They break open the second bottle of wine as the waiter clears their dinner away and in the ensuing lull in conversation it occurs to Bond that he knows exactly where the cold fusion formula is: hidden against Quentin's right hip. It would be nothing at all to convince Quentin to invite him back to the flat, and from there Bond knows the younger man would give him anything he asked for. He can read it in the cautious smile on the man's lips, the glint in his eye.
Swallowing a sip of wine, Quentin catches Bond looking at him and offers a shy smile. "I can't believe I'm telling you all of this," he says, almost to himself. "I don't know anything about you. I don't even know your name."
It's the opening Bond needs. He'd give his name accompanied by a heated look, he would reach a hand across the table for a cautious touch and incline his head just so, and that would be it. He knew the moment he saw Quentin carrying the sketchbook under his arm that he had been successfully hooked.
Bond finds himself hesitating, his words caught in his throat. He buys time by reaching for his wine glass, but somehow when he speaks he finds himself saying, "…I don't want to tell you my name." It's almost a surprise to hear his voice masked by the South African accent. It feels wrong.
He shakes his head, wondering what is happening to him. "I don't want to do that. What difference does it make?" He's shell-shocked. Never in the years that he has been working has Bond become emotionally involved with one of his targets. "What's your name?" he deflects.
"Q," Quentin answers. Then smiles and shakes his head. "It's Quentin, really, but you can just imagine… I prefer 'Q'."
With some effort Bond reminds himself that he is here, in Oxford, in this restaurant, at this table with a reason. He smiles. "Now I know everything about you."
Q scoffs. "Because I told you that I prefer to go by a single letter rather than my first name?"
"Mm." Bond sips his wine and then leans forward, taking a deep breath. "You're brilliant, and courageous and you're stubborn. You have a weak heart, and beautiful dreams, and you're not afraid of anything in this world." He remembers a photograph he saw hanging on the other man's wall, a strong family resemblance on the smiling faces, a young Q and an older man, heads tipped together over a chemistry set. He says, "I think you get that from your father."
"How do you know that?" Q breathes.
"You can't cook," Bond continues. "You can't even boil water without a kettle to do the hard part for you. You love fish, and poetry."
Q looks at him quietly for a moment, as if trying to collect himself. "I want to try that," he says, after a moment. "What's your name?"
"No, I don't want you to." Bond pours more wine into Q's glass and holds it out to him. "Drink your wine."
It seems, however, he was only too right when he called Q stubborn. "Tell me," the younger man insists.
"My name is…Thomas More."
For some reason, a serene little smile blossom on Q's face. "Thomas More," he echoes.
"I was named after a saint who … who died for his faith."
Q takes another mouthful of wine and then sets his glass aside, shifting forward in his chair to better scrutinize Bond. "Your work is dangerous, it makes you feel alive," he says. Bond finds himself pinned by the intent green gaze. Somehow it has become difficult to breathe. "I love your poems: they move me, and your art. But that's not who you really are."
Cocking his head to the side, Q's voice becomes hushed and intimate as he says, "You're running away from your past. From an old hurt, I think. But you keep it close to you." A wave of nausea crashes over Bond but Q cuts through it, his hand resting gently atop Bond's. Suddenly it is as if Bond has found the one still point in the universe. Q says, "You don't have to be afraid of who you are."
Whatever Tretiak wants he can get for himself. Bond stands jerkily from the table, grabbing the bottle of wine before he turns and walks out, leaving Q and the fake sketchbook and the job and everything else behind, tossing a handful of money on the bar that will more than cover their meal. No one has ever gotten into his head like that before. Not ever.
It feels dangerous, and Bond is only one job away from retiring, he isn't going to get stupid now. He's going to walk away before any damage is done. He can find a different job, one that doesn't involve any captivating electrochemists, or the Russian mafia for that matter. One that's safer, that doesn't make him feel like he's been cut open, laid bare for anyone to see. One job and he'll be done, and then he never has to talk to anyone like Tretiak again. No more shady business transactions, no more dubious moral decisions, no more grey area. He can live anywhere he wants, do whatever he wants. Or not do it, if that's what he feels like.
If Bond walks away now, though, that's it. He won't have Q, he won't have the formula, and he won't have the three million dollars. Is he throwing that away over a few lucky guesses? "Shit," Bond curses, breaking the wine bottle in half against the corner of a building.
"Hey!" Q's shout follows him as he turns sharply down a side road. Bond tries to pick up speed but he's too late, he's been caught. Q stops him with a gentle hand on his arm, Bond's sketchbook under his arm and a worried expression on his too-open face. "You keep running away from me. I'm sorry I upset you. I didn't mean to …"
Bond leans forward, one hand cupping the back of Q's head as the other tugs him closer. He kisses the younger man before he even realizes what he's doing. It's uncalculated and instinctive, but it has precisely the right effect. "This is completely mad," Q whispers against his lips before leaning forward and opening his mouth to Bond again. "Come back to my place with me."
___________________________________________________
Q has been practical and responsible his entire life. Unlike his peers he never had a rebellious phase, never disobeyed his parents in any significant regard. He's always been brilliant in school, and hopeless everywhere else. He's had relationships before but they were always brief. Somehow, he never failed to enter into them with rose-tinted glasses: this time it will be different, this time it's real, this time it will work.
The simple truth is that he is a lanky, awkward bespectacled nerd who, likely due to his social awkwardness and workaholic habits, has a tragic tendency of forming romantic attachments to people who appeal to him intellectually, but are always more interested in their own work than in him.
Q will admit that he does sometimes get a bit of tunnel vision when he's near to a breakthrough, but he makes time for the things that are important. At the moment, those important things include his fish and his plants, and mostly he doesn't mind.
Presently, however, he is just a little bit overwhelmed that Thomas even noticed him.
It's a fling; of course Q knows that's what it is. Thomas is a self-admitted traveler and sooner or later he'll move on to some other place undoubtedly more exciting than Oxford. For right now, though, this minute, it's the sort of whirlwind romantic spontaneity that Q has always imagined but had begun to think never happened in real life, or at least, not in his real life. He wants this even if it's only for one night. One perfect date, one fantasy realized, one moment seized, and tomorrow he'll go back to the lab, back to his routine, back to reality. But he'll always have this.
'This' being Thomas' hands on his body, pulling his cardigan off, unbuttoning his shirt, his belt, his trousers. "Wait," Q says, gasping. "I have to … my heart, I need…"
Thomas pivots smoothly, reaching into the pocket of Q's parka where it's hanging over the back of a chair and retrieves the bottle of heart pills. "Are you okay?" he asks, the pads of his thumbs skimming over Q's cheekbones.
"I just…" Q tries to catch his breath. "Just a second…" He takes his pills and smiles, planting a quick kiss on the corner of Thomas' mouth as he retreats to the washroom. His stupid heart ruins everything, but he refuses to let it ruin this. He is determined to have this.
___________________________________________________
The bathroom door closes and Bond is left, stripped down to his jeans, barefoot and breathless in Q's bedroom. The folded-up white notecards are right there on the dresser. All he has to do is reach out and take them, and then he can pull his clothes back on and leave. Job done.
Except he can't, and he has no idea why. He has only just met the man, but somehow Bond does not want to betray Q. Maybe it's the trust that he sees in those green eyes; maybe it's the determined jut of Q's chin, the stubbornness. Maybe it's the intellect, or the flat filled with poetry and reminder notes and fish. Bond has no idea. It hardly seems to matter, at any rate.
He pulls his mobile from his pocket, opening the secure message service and types a quick note to Tretiak: "to spider, must fly, have better offer." Then he flips the phone closed and tosses it aside.
The bathroom door opens and Q offers a slight smile. "I apologize... My heart…" He's still flushed but his breathing has slowed. He's left his shirt in the bathroom along with his belt, but his trousers are hanging open at his hips and he's rubbing a hand through the back of his hair, looking suddenly awkward and shy.
Bond holds out his hand. "Come here."
Stumbling forward, Q walks directly into the kiss. Bond can feel the tautness draining out of the younger man's body, feels the precise moment that Q pushes aside his embarrassment about his heart and concentrates on the moment, on them. He pushes Bond's trousers off his hips; his hands warm as they ghost along the back of Bond's thighs.
"Get them off," he breathes into Bond's mouth, pushing and guiding until they're sliding onto the unkempt bed. Bond kicks his jeans off as Q curses and moves his laptop onto the floor. "Don't mind the clutter," he says, as if he is showing a friend's parent through his flat for some tea.
"Bugger the mess." Bond strips the last of Q's clothes from him, pitching them haphazardly aside and then, carefully he removes Q's glasses, folding them neatly and setting them onto the nightstand.
"While you're over there…" Q says, and Bond smirks. He pulls open the nightstand drawer and finds lubricant and an unopened box of condoms.
It's not how Bond imagined it would be. He thought Q would be awkward and shy, blushing but eager to please. Instead, he finds himself pushed down onto the sheets, pinned in place by a suddenly mischievous and entirely knowledgeable bedmate. Q seems to catch his surprise, grinning devilishly as he slicks his palm with lubricant and fists Bond's cock. "Turns out your mind-reading trick didn't reveal everything about me."
"No," Bond agrees, almost forgetting to maintain his accent. "I wouldn't have guessed you'd be like this."
He can't stop running his own hands over Q's body, up his bent thighs, smoothing along the flat torso, his thumbs brushing across perked nipples and up to the long neck only to follow the same path this time in reverse. Everywhere he touches seems to make Q shiver, murmuring encouragement in monosyllables and low groans.
It's hasty foreplay, Bond's hands roving, his mouth suckling where it can, nipping at pale skin, and Q rocking his hips, his cock skimming along Bond's belly as he reaches back and opens himself with his fingers. "God, you're beautiful," Bond murmurs and skims his tongue along the skin just behind Q's ear.
Grinning, Q sinks down onto Bond's cock, shifting up and then down taking more of it until, at last, he is fully seated. For a moment they hold completely still, Bond gripped in tight heat, Q's head tipped back, his eyes closed. Then Bond moves, his hands reaching out to hold Q as he rolls them, pinning the younger back into the mattress, sending those long legs splaying wide as the Q laughs, open and carefree.
Bond pulls out and then thrusts in hard, and Q's laugh becomes an exultant exhalation. "Yes," he says, his mouth leaving damp trails along Bond's neck, across his lips. "Don't stop."
Bond can't stop, and he can't let go. "Jesus Chris," he gasps as Q tightens around him. It's as close to a prayer as he's come in a very long while.
Much later, when they're both spent, Q sleeping in a loose sprawl across the sheets, his soft snores like sighs filling the room, Bond pushes the dark hair away from the younger man's face and thinks about possibilities. Things he's never allowed himself to consider before.
The muted beeps indicating a waiting message on his mobile pull him out of his thoughts. Carefully, he extracts himself from Q's limbs and searches for his phone, finding it discarded in a pile of his clothes. He opens his messages to find Tretiak's response: "Fly, don't buzz off. I'll double your fee, or send my own boys to take care of the lab-rat."
___________________________________________________
|<< END PART TWO >>|
MASTERPOST
By: revenant_scribe
Chapter TWO:
Fandom: Bond | Pairing: Bond/Q
Rating: PG-13 | Word Count: 6,806
Despite reading through every piece of paper included in the packet Tretiak handed over at the airport, Bond knows very little about Doctor Quentin Russell. Mostly Tretiak had included articles and essays, which offered negligible insight into the man himself.
He ends up running a Google search for Russell on his flight back to England and quickly discovers why his briefing packet was not very useful. Outside of a few articles written by or about him, and a brief comment found on Oxford's website that mentions a grant to develop his scientific research, as well as the fact that Russell is apparently working out of Queen's College, Bond finds a suspiciously scant amount of information.
For one thing, there is not a single photograph anywhere, no Facebook account, no Twitter, nothing. Bond puts his computer skills to work and slips into Oxford's online records and while he has no trouble accessing any other student who graduated, or failed to graduate, the firewalls around Russell's student file are impossible to breach. No descriptions of the man exist anywhere outside of an accounting of his various and multiple achievements. Not even a passing reference to his date of birth.
What Bond does find is a note on Queen's College's events calendar announcing a lecture being given by Russell regarding his research. The date of the lecture is tomorrow, in the morning. Bond has very little time to figure out his angle.
Armed solely with a general opinion of electrochemists and a rough estimation based on Russell's academic achievements, combined with a need to be more thoroughly disguised should this all go tits-up, Bond arrives at the university dressed in a tweed suit jacket, beige trousers and well-worn brown shoes. He's wearing false teeth in order to alter the bottom half of his face, they are crooked and yellowing, his wig is stringy and grey, combed-over in an ill-advised and unsuccessful attempt to hide a rapidly balding head. He stoops and shuffles as he makes his way to a spot in the second row of the lab. It's a fair turnout. Mostly graduate students in white lab coats, but there are enough people of varying ages in civilian clothes that it's clear cold fusion has managed to garner some genuine interest.
Bond is late, just slightly so, but when he takes his seat there is already a man standing at the center of the room between the rows of lab tables who closely resembles Bond's own disguise: tweed jacket with elbow patches, hideous comb-over and thick glasses. He's been droning on about Pons and Fleischman since Bond crept in and if this is Quentin Russell than there is some genuine concern on Bond's part that he might simply fall asleep before he has the opportunity to steal the man's research.
Ten minutes in and Bond starts looking for any sort of distraction, which he finds when a quiet rustling in the front row attracts his attention. A young grad student is fumbling a bottle of pills from out of the pocket of his lab coat. His profile is striking, bright green eyes peering out from behind the apparently requisite glasses, a mop of tousled hair the color of dark roasted coffee and a slender nose turned up just slightly at the end.
Bond leans forward. "Are those drugs? Can I have some?" he asks, maintaining the American accent of his current disguise. "He's boring the life out of me."
"They're for my heart," the younger man explains keeping his voice soft, though there is no mistaking the humor in his tone.
Bond watches as the younger man takes his medication dry, returning the bottle to his pocket. On the floor, Russell is still droning. Sighing, Bond turns back to his distraction and shifts forward on his seat as he whispers, "You have very pretty eyes. You're a pretty young man."
The young man in question raises one dark-coffee eyebrow and seems torn between blushing and laughing; caught somewhere in the middle his lips part but no sound escapes. After a second he recovers himself enough to ask, "Who are you?"
"I'm here to do an interview with that Doctor Russell. I'm gonna expose him as a fraud." Grinning cheekily, crooked and yellowed teeth on display, Bond cocks his head sharply to the side and says, "You don't put any stock in this cold fusion mumbo-jumbo, do you?"
Both eyebrows are raised now, and a slow blossoming smile like a cat that has just finished licking a bowl of cream stretches across the younger man's face. "Actually, I do."
At the center of the room the droning geriatric rocks back on his heels, thumbs hitched in his suspenders and says, "It is my pleasure to introduce, Doctor Quentin Russell!"
Still smirking, the younger man murmurs, "Excuse me," and then stands up, to smattering of applause.
Completely forgetting his disguise and his accent, Bond says, "You must be joking."
Doctor Quentin Russell is apparently ridiculously young to be so accomplished, distressingly attractive and apparently very used to dealing with naysayers. Within moments of beginning his lecture, it is entirely clear that Russell is enthusiastic and passionate about his field. Bond learns that cold fusion is a method of creating energy: "Very simply," Quentin explains, "when positively charged deuterons are attracted to the palladium cathode of this apparatus, they cram together -- millions and millions of them inside the cathode getting closer and closer together until they fuse, and they create energy in the form of helium."
There is something charming about the doctor's enthusiasm, his naïve hope that one simple discovery could change the entire vast complexity of the world: "You could drive your car 55 million miles on a gallon of heavy water. It would be the end of pollution. Warmth for the whole world."
It's hypnotic.
Bond realizes that he is wasting time in the lecture, it's quite clear that his current disguise will have no luck wrangling the relevant data from Russell, yet he is reluctant to go. Still, he reminds himself, there is a job to be done and he should really put his time to more productive use. He goes.
___________________________________________________
Russell lives in a flat located just off of High Street. There are no security alarms or special, complicated locks of any kind. Bond takes out his picklocks and has the front door open in less than three seconds.
Inside the walls are soft, unobtrusive colors and the furniture is tasteful and coordinated. Bond suspects the entire flat came furnished. There is an impersonal, gender-neutral quality to the dove grey sofa and the antique wooden coffee table, and there’s enough mix between old and new to appeal to either a modernist or a historian.
The clutter, however, definitely belongs to Russell. Books stacked haphazardly by chairs, on countertops in the kitchen and the bathroom, teetering on the fireplace mantel and covering the queen-sized sleigh bed. Poetry and short stories rest atop books on chemistry and physics and philosophy, and popular novels lean against the stacks, no rhyme or reason apparent in the system except perhaps that Russell happened to be standing just here when he decided to put down what had only moments before engrossed him. There is also seemingly no restriction on subject matter, and no way for Bond to ascertain what the younger man's preferred reading material might be.
The artwork on the walls is personal as well. Black and white photographs of family and friends, framed replicas of Da Vinci's notebook pages featuring several of his inventions, a sepia-toned portrait of someone that strikes Bond as familiar though he never paid much attention to art. Original artwork hangs beside small collections of postcards and photographs of places from around the world.
There are post-it notes everywhere. They march across the walls and sometimes across the picture frames as well, filling up the gaps on the fridge, on the bathroom mirror, on the lampshade by the bed. The one Bond reads on the side of the fish tank reads: “FEED FISH,” in precise capital lettering. There are reminders on the fridge about food expiring and the basket sitting on the kitchen table is empty save for a note: “BUY FRUIT!”
Some notes bear reminders of upcoming appointments: 'Meet with D.C. 11:00' or 'Pub Friday - under pain of death'. Most of them, however, are filled with quotations by Samuel Johnson, Napoleon, Churchill, and other notable figures; sometimes they are filled with segments of poetry.
Despite the reminder note on the aquarium the brightly-colored, exotic-looking fish inside all look healthy and the tank is filled with plants and rocks formations. If it was possible for a fish in an aquarium to be spoiled, Bond suspects that these might be so. The plants lining the window ledge are all well-tended, which means that as much as the notes about empty fruit bowls and soon-to-be rotten milk might suggest someone particularly scatter-brained, perhaps Russell just has peculiar priorities.
One entire cupboard in the kitchen is filled with nothing but various kinds of black tea, at least twelve different tins of earl grey alone. The kettle on the kitchen counter is lime green, and in walking around the flat Bond has spotted four different teapots. The answering machine, when Bond checks it, declares that Russell has no messages.
In his exploration, Bond finds a hardcover notebook wedged beneath the cushions on the sofa. When he picks it up and gives it a cursory inspection he is confronted with Russell's rather ornate and terribly scrunched penmanship. The book falls open to a page marked with a postcard of the Shelley monument, when Bond pushes the card to side he sees a scrunched entry: 'Stopped and visited Shelley again today. How can I love a man named Percy? Isn't there someone in the world who can consume me like that?' and, further down under a different date: 'although I pass the Shelley monument every day its sadness strikes me every time. I feel a very personal loss when I look at it. So much pain and so much passion.' Carefully, Bond closes the book and returns it to its place.
There isn't much by way of technology in the flat. A charger for a mobile shares the desk with a sleek, thin-screened computer. There is a laptop half-tucked beneath a rumpled sheet in the bedroom, and a rather intimidating alarm clock on the nightstand, with so many buttons Bond hardly knows what to make of it. An old-fashioned record player takes up space on a bookshelf in the living room filled with records, but beyond that he finds no other gadgets.
Backtracking, Bond sits at the desktop computer and finds that it is not even password locked. When he consults the most recently opened file he hesitates, surprised: 'Cold Fusion Notes'. As he downloads the file Bond skims through it, finds incomprehensible equations interspersed with technical jargon and more quotations: "To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Luke 1:79"
Under a section of calculations that have been highlighted in blue and struck-through Bond reads: "the world operates through dynamic exchange. Nothing is static." Tretiak had said that Russell was cagey and difficult, but Bond has a different theory: Russell is an eccentric genius, a romantic innocent. An idealist.
At the very end of the document Russell has typed: 'These early failures had purity, don't lose that focus.'
Bond finishes perusing the computer, grabs his thumb drive and leaves. He’s walking away just as a forest green P1800 Volvo pulls into a spot in front of the flat. Russell pops out of the car, juggling a soft leather briefcase, an oversized scarf and an umbrella, his keys dangling precariously from the fingertips of his right hand. His glasses are askew. Bond watches the younger man pause at his front door, not setting anything down as he fiddles with the lock and then disappears inside.
Bond thinks, definitely an eccentric.
___________________________________________________
Q stops by the Shelley monument at the end of the day. If he gets the timing right -- and he's had plenty of time develop a system -- he has the entire room to himself. Most tourists bus into Oxford for the day and have to leave in order to return to their hotel for dinner. After one or two visits, the occupants of the campus tend to forget that Shelley is here. Nobody seems to be quite as obsessed with it as Q.
Except, it's not really an obsession. After a day spent pulling his hair out, puzzling his way through formulas and theories and, with distressing frequency, coming up with nothing, he finds Shelley's solitude soothing. It's a place where he can catch his breath before he carries on again. It's a place of quiet without the pressure of expectation.
Stepping down into the room, Q sighs. There's no solid door separating him from the bustle of campus but he stops hearing the laughter and the footsteps, the noise receding as he slowly circles the statue.
He's halfway round when he realizes that he's being watched.
There's a man: tan skin, piercing bright blue eyes, longish deep gold hair, lying on his side on the bench. There's a sketchbook open in front of him, a piece of charcoal held loosely between the man's fingers. His lips are thin but his gaze is steady.
Q feels a shuddery flutter in his chest and fumbles quickly into the pocket of his parka, retrieving his meds with a shaky hand. He feels so inelegant and clumsy and foolish standing there with a thudding heart that he starts hurrying toward the exit as he swallows his heart pill. "Sorry," he mumbles as he passes the stranger.
"Do you like it?" the man asks, and Q hesitates on the steps. He takes a cautious look sideways and finds the man looking at him calmly. "The statue, do you like it?"
"Uhm." Almost involuntarily, Q finds his gaze flickering from the man's hypnotic gaze down to the sketchbook where a detailed and beautiful image of the monument is taking shape. He glances over his shoulder at Shelley and immediately feels some of the embarrassed tension leave him. "Of course." Clearing his throat he says again, stronger, "Of course I like it."
"What do you love about it?" the man presses. Q can't place the accent, but he thinks it might be South African. Q has never traveled anywhere, certainly never as far as Africa.
Turning his attention back to Shelley, Q succumbs to the strange magic of the sculpture, feels the tension eking out of him, finds himself being pulled back into the room and closer to the monument. "I like the light," he answers, finally. "How it holds him, silent. As if it's taking care of him." Q smiles. "Yes. That's what I love about it."
The man has returned to his sketching, something in the cant of his head indicating that he is still listening even as he draws. Q takes a cautious step closer to the bench so he can get a better look at the drawing. "You're an artist." There's no way that the man is anything else, not when he has rendered the monument so perfectly onto paper, captured the shadow, the bright highlights across pale marble skin even though he only has one piece of dark charcoal worn almost to a nub.
"No," the man answers. "I'm just a traveler."
"Where are you from?"
Those bright blue eyes peak up from beneath the golden strands. "I'm from Africa."
"Africa," Q echoes. "And you're visiting Oxford?" Of course he knows that Oxford attracts tourists, but Q has been trapped here for so very long that he has long-since stopped seeing the novelty of the place. The ancient buildings, the campus life, every bit of it is simply home, familiar to the point of predictability. Given the wide expanse of the world, Q has no idea why anyone would choose to visit Oxford.
"I'm searching for something." The man shrugs inelegantly, one finger reaching out to blend the shadows of his sketch, softening the edges. "…for purity," he says, almost to himself. "How about you?"
Q half-smiles. "I'm searching for energy."
For some reason this makes the other man laugh, and the sound is light and bright; it makes Q grin sheepishly. The stranger looks up from his sketchbook, fixing him with those intensely blue eyes as he says in the smooth, alluring accent, "They say Africa is the place where all life began. My home is far away from the town, at night the wind rustles through the tall grass, the stars overhead shine bright. It's not like the city; there with the sky-arching overhead you can tell the earth is round. You hear the animals, lions, birds. It feels like the heart of the world."
Q feels transported, he can feel the warm heat of the African sun, hear the noises of the wild and the echoes of the world. He's seduced by it and even though he feels foolish standing in front of Shelley, speechless and strangely yearning, he can’t help it.
Before he can think-up an appropriate response the openness on the other man's face closes off, his gaze dropping down and then away. "I'm sorry." The embarrassment is plain in the stranger's tone. "I've been told I'm not good with people."
When he strides past Q he leaves an exotic, spicy scent in his wake. The sketchbook and the nub of charcoal are still sitting on the bench. By the time Q manages to unfreeze himself the man is nowhere in sight.
He'll come back, Q tells himself. He'll realize he left the book behind and he'll come for it. A very strong part of Q feels protective of it, of Shelley, lying open and bare on the pages, the artist awkward and alluring and beautiful and equally exposed somehow, by this image.
He closes the book carefully and tucks it under his arm. If he sees the man on his way home he'll deliver the book to its rightful owner and if not, he'll safeguard it until he has another opportunity to see it safely home.
___________________________________________________
Bond follows Quentin to the Magdalen Arms and notes, with no small amount of satisfaction, that while the man's briefcase is left in the Volvo Bond's sketchbook never leaves the younger man's side. The restaurant is populated but not overly busy and Bond is able to take a seat in the far corner, where he can observe the younger man without risking being noticed. Quentin places his order when the waiter comes by, but returns his attention almost immediately to the sketchbook.
It took Bond over two days to create the thing, filling page after page with his own art and some of his own dubious poetry, collected snippets of other people's words as well, quotes and poems. All of it designed with Quentin in mind, to appeal to him: photographs and rough pencil drawings of exotic buildings from all over the world, the narrow side-streets of Italy, rough gestures capturing the chaotic bustle of New York, darkly shaded renditions of monuments and statues, of people sitting at cafes, dipping their feet into fountains, sitting on park benches watching the birds. Bond is a thief but he is also a forger. It's surprising how often successfully stealing something involves replacing it with something else.
Creating the poetry had been a new experience; Bond isn't in the habit of writing it. Too sentimental. For the sake of appealing to a romantic such as Quentin, however, he ventured into the foreign realm: "I see my angel for the first time, know my purpose, feel my birth, hear at first faintly then distinctly, the sweet strains of our union. Our love heats up the cold universe, and gives my tired, desperate hope a reason, and a season to be revealed."
It's clear when Quentin reads the passage because the younger man flushes, looks both touched and saddened at the same time. Bond takes the opportunity to cross to the man's table. "You found it."
"Excuse me?---" Quentin looks up and blinks, startled. Immediately his demeanor shifts. "I didn't steal it! I was just … I was looking…"
"I don't mind." Bond stands by a chair, waiting patiently until Quentin's manners catch-up to him and he invites Bond to join him. Settling into the chair, Bond smiles. "I'm glad you found it, but I have to ask… are you following me?"
"Me?" Quentin asks. "I wasn't. I just … I come here sometimes. To eat, I mean. I live here. Well not here, obviously, but here as in around. In the area." His mouth clicks shut suddenly as if his brain has finally managed to send the message that he should stop rambling. Quentin clears his throat as he carefully closes the sketchbook, pushing it gently across the table. "You should have this back."
Setting the book aside, Bond requests a cup of tea from a passing waiter. When he turns back Quentin is observing him with a curious face. "What is it?" Bond asks him,
Quentin shakes his head, looking sheepish. "It's nothing. I thought you'd drink something more exotic, that's all."
"Earl grey is exotic for me. Usually I drink coffee, or wine."
"It's strange," Quentin says, looking at his teacup wistfully. "I drink it so often, somehow it doesn't ever occur to me that it might be new or exotic to anyone."
The waiter returns with the tea and while Bond pours himself a cup he notices Quentin is fiddling with several small squares of paper. His first thought is that this man seems to be single-handedly keeping the Post-It people in business. Then Bond has a chance to see the writing on the pages Quentin is fiddling with and he realizes that they are covered in fine black markings; equations. Is it really possible that Russell carries around his formula for cold fusion on several scraps of paper tucked somewhere on his person?
Bond realizes suddenly that he has no idea where on his person Quentin keeps the pages. They appeared, as if by magic, when Bond had been distracted with the waiter. Keeping his tone light and only mildly inquisitive, he leans forward over the table. "What do you have there?"
"Something I'm working on," Quentin says, distractedly. Then he realizes that the waiter has gone away and he offers Bond a sheepish smile. "Sorry." Bond watches as the square bits of paper are carefully folded. Quentin shifts in his chair and Bond becomes keenly aware that the younger man is not, as he had initially expected, depositing the formula into a trouser pocket.
Bond gets a glimpse of pale skin exposed only for a moment as Quentin tucks the folded pages safely in his pants, snug against the skin of his hip. His eyebrows jerk upward and he isn't certain whether to be impressed because he is momentarily startled by the fact that he is aroused. Clearing his throat Bond says, "Something you're working on that you keep in your underwear?"
"Uh." Quentin freezes the moment he realizes what he has just done, that Bond observed him doing it. Slowly, the younger man turns a striking shade of scarlet. "Yes. I do," he admits. "Sorry."
"No, don't be. I enjoyed watching you put it away."
The teacup Quentin had been reaching for is jostled as the younger man fumbles for it. He takes a hearty swallow and ends-up coughing. Trying to prevent an amused smile from spreading across his face, Bond attempts to ease the tension, perching his elbows on the table as he peers at his dinner companion as if trying to get a better view. "Do you keep anything else in there?"
"No, I don't," Quentin answers, absurdly prim.
Bond can't help a somewhat lascivious grin. "That's not true."
Green eyes flicker over Bond's face, assessing. It's clear that Quentin has caught the innuendo, just as it is equally clear that he isn't certain if it was intentionally made or not. It looks very much as if the younger man is wondering whether or not it is appropriate to laugh. Bond blinks guilelessly and, as a result, the corner of Quentin's mouth twitches upward cautiously, obviously still shy.
With some sleight-of-hand Bond manages to move his wallet with one hand and summon a passing wait with the other. "A bottle of the Latour '57, please."
The waiter's glance skims over Bond's casual black shirt and trousers, his scuffed shoes and inexpensive watch, before shifting to Quentin who looks rumpled and painfully young blushing in an oatmeal colored cardigan and simple white button-down. "Sir," the waiter says doubtfully. "That wine is four hundred pounds a bottle."
Quentin's expression is vaguely mortified as he looks at Bond, who takes the opportunity to stand from his chair and reach a hand into his jeans, pulling out the wallet he just placed there and offering a fold of bills. "Then we'll take two," he says, as the waiter scrunches his face in distaste but accepts the money.
"You're insane," Quentin hisses as Bond retakes his seat, but he's laughing and the embarrassed tension is gone. "I can't believe you did that."
They eat dinner and share expensive wine. Usually this is the part that Bond finds difficult or tedious: the feigned interest, manipulating someone in order to get something he needs. Quentin makes it all easy: buoyant enthusiasm that isn't made tedious by oblivious optimism, which tends to wear on Bond's nerves. He can tell that the younger man has struggled and still struggles, that he has faced impossible challenges and risen to overcome them every time. It makes for an easy rapport between them.
When Quentin begins to open up about his work, "energy research", he is hesitant, almost cautious, as if expecting at any moment to be interrupted and told to stop. Bond can imagine that there are not many people not already fluent in Quentin's field who are willing to listen to someone talk about it. To Bond it sounds almost like a different language, but he asks questions and does his best to understand, and Quentin is eager to explain and expand.
Though the younger man never speaks of it explicitly, Bond can see in the fleeting shadows that cross Quentin's face, the moments in his excited descriptions where his voice falters - there are not many people who expect his research to amount to anything. Bond wonders how it is that the young scientist can remain so positive, but when he asks all Quentin says is, "I believe in my research. I believe in something that's all around us but hidden from our sight."
They break open the second bottle of wine as the waiter clears their dinner away and in the ensuing lull in conversation it occurs to Bond that he knows exactly where the cold fusion formula is: hidden against Quentin's right hip. It would be nothing at all to convince Quentin to invite him back to the flat, and from there Bond knows the younger man would give him anything he asked for. He can read it in the cautious smile on the man's lips, the glint in his eye.
Swallowing a sip of wine, Quentin catches Bond looking at him and offers a shy smile. "I can't believe I'm telling you all of this," he says, almost to himself. "I don't know anything about you. I don't even know your name."
It's the opening Bond needs. He'd give his name accompanied by a heated look, he would reach a hand across the table for a cautious touch and incline his head just so, and that would be it. He knew the moment he saw Quentin carrying the sketchbook under his arm that he had been successfully hooked.
Bond finds himself hesitating, his words caught in his throat. He buys time by reaching for his wine glass, but somehow when he speaks he finds himself saying, "…I don't want to tell you my name." It's almost a surprise to hear his voice masked by the South African accent. It feels wrong.
He shakes his head, wondering what is happening to him. "I don't want to do that. What difference does it make?" He's shell-shocked. Never in the years that he has been working has Bond become emotionally involved with one of his targets. "What's your name?" he deflects.
"Q," Quentin answers. Then smiles and shakes his head. "It's Quentin, really, but you can just imagine… I prefer 'Q'."
With some effort Bond reminds himself that he is here, in Oxford, in this restaurant, at this table with a reason. He smiles. "Now I know everything about you."
Q scoffs. "Because I told you that I prefer to go by a single letter rather than my first name?"
"Mm." Bond sips his wine and then leans forward, taking a deep breath. "You're brilliant, and courageous and you're stubborn. You have a weak heart, and beautiful dreams, and you're not afraid of anything in this world." He remembers a photograph he saw hanging on the other man's wall, a strong family resemblance on the smiling faces, a young Q and an older man, heads tipped together over a chemistry set. He says, "I think you get that from your father."
"How do you know that?" Q breathes.
"You can't cook," Bond continues. "You can't even boil water without a kettle to do the hard part for you. You love fish, and poetry."
Q looks at him quietly for a moment, as if trying to collect himself. "I want to try that," he says, after a moment. "What's your name?"
"No, I don't want you to." Bond pours more wine into Q's glass and holds it out to him. "Drink your wine."
It seems, however, he was only too right when he called Q stubborn. "Tell me," the younger man insists.
"My name is…Thomas More."
For some reason, a serene little smile blossom on Q's face. "Thomas More," he echoes.
"I was named after a saint who … who died for his faith."
Q takes another mouthful of wine and then sets his glass aside, shifting forward in his chair to better scrutinize Bond. "Your work is dangerous, it makes you feel alive," he says. Bond finds himself pinned by the intent green gaze. Somehow it has become difficult to breathe. "I love your poems: they move me, and your art. But that's not who you really are."
Cocking his head to the side, Q's voice becomes hushed and intimate as he says, "You're running away from your past. From an old hurt, I think. But you keep it close to you." A wave of nausea crashes over Bond but Q cuts through it, his hand resting gently atop Bond's. Suddenly it is as if Bond has found the one still point in the universe. Q says, "You don't have to be afraid of who you are."
Whatever Tretiak wants he can get for himself. Bond stands jerkily from the table, grabbing the bottle of wine before he turns and walks out, leaving Q and the fake sketchbook and the job and everything else behind, tossing a handful of money on the bar that will more than cover their meal. No one has ever gotten into his head like that before. Not ever.
It feels dangerous, and Bond is only one job away from retiring, he isn't going to get stupid now. He's going to walk away before any damage is done. He can find a different job, one that doesn't involve any captivating electrochemists, or the Russian mafia for that matter. One that's safer, that doesn't make him feel like he's been cut open, laid bare for anyone to see. One job and he'll be done, and then he never has to talk to anyone like Tretiak again. No more shady business transactions, no more dubious moral decisions, no more grey area. He can live anywhere he wants, do whatever he wants. Or not do it, if that's what he feels like.
If Bond walks away now, though, that's it. He won't have Q, he won't have the formula, and he won't have the three million dollars. Is he throwing that away over a few lucky guesses? "Shit," Bond curses, breaking the wine bottle in half against the corner of a building.
"Hey!" Q's shout follows him as he turns sharply down a side road. Bond tries to pick up speed but he's too late, he's been caught. Q stops him with a gentle hand on his arm, Bond's sketchbook under his arm and a worried expression on his too-open face. "You keep running away from me. I'm sorry I upset you. I didn't mean to …"
Bond leans forward, one hand cupping the back of Q's head as the other tugs him closer. He kisses the younger man before he even realizes what he's doing. It's uncalculated and instinctive, but it has precisely the right effect. "This is completely mad," Q whispers against his lips before leaning forward and opening his mouth to Bond again. "Come back to my place with me."
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Q has been practical and responsible his entire life. Unlike his peers he never had a rebellious phase, never disobeyed his parents in any significant regard. He's always been brilliant in school, and hopeless everywhere else. He's had relationships before but they were always brief. Somehow, he never failed to enter into them with rose-tinted glasses: this time it will be different, this time it's real, this time it will work.
The simple truth is that he is a lanky, awkward bespectacled nerd who, likely due to his social awkwardness and workaholic habits, has a tragic tendency of forming romantic attachments to people who appeal to him intellectually, but are always more interested in their own work than in him.
Q will admit that he does sometimes get a bit of tunnel vision when he's near to a breakthrough, but he makes time for the things that are important. At the moment, those important things include his fish and his plants, and mostly he doesn't mind.
Presently, however, he is just a little bit overwhelmed that Thomas even noticed him.
It's a fling; of course Q knows that's what it is. Thomas is a self-admitted traveler and sooner or later he'll move on to some other place undoubtedly more exciting than Oxford. For right now, though, this minute, it's the sort of whirlwind romantic spontaneity that Q has always imagined but had begun to think never happened in real life, or at least, not in his real life. He wants this even if it's only for one night. One perfect date, one fantasy realized, one moment seized, and tomorrow he'll go back to the lab, back to his routine, back to reality. But he'll always have this.
'This' being Thomas' hands on his body, pulling his cardigan off, unbuttoning his shirt, his belt, his trousers. "Wait," Q says, gasping. "I have to … my heart, I need…"
Thomas pivots smoothly, reaching into the pocket of Q's parka where it's hanging over the back of a chair and retrieves the bottle of heart pills. "Are you okay?" he asks, the pads of his thumbs skimming over Q's cheekbones.
"I just…" Q tries to catch his breath. "Just a second…" He takes his pills and smiles, planting a quick kiss on the corner of Thomas' mouth as he retreats to the washroom. His stupid heart ruins everything, but he refuses to let it ruin this. He is determined to have this.
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The bathroom door closes and Bond is left, stripped down to his jeans, barefoot and breathless in Q's bedroom. The folded-up white notecards are right there on the dresser. All he has to do is reach out and take them, and then he can pull his clothes back on and leave. Job done.
Except he can't, and he has no idea why. He has only just met the man, but somehow Bond does not want to betray Q. Maybe it's the trust that he sees in those green eyes; maybe it's the determined jut of Q's chin, the stubbornness. Maybe it's the intellect, or the flat filled with poetry and reminder notes and fish. Bond has no idea. It hardly seems to matter, at any rate.
He pulls his mobile from his pocket, opening the secure message service and types a quick note to Tretiak: "to spider, must fly, have better offer." Then he flips the phone closed and tosses it aside.
The bathroom door opens and Q offers a slight smile. "I apologize... My heart…" He's still flushed but his breathing has slowed. He's left his shirt in the bathroom along with his belt, but his trousers are hanging open at his hips and he's rubbing a hand through the back of his hair, looking suddenly awkward and shy.
Bond holds out his hand. "Come here."
Stumbling forward, Q walks directly into the kiss. Bond can feel the tautness draining out of the younger man's body, feels the precise moment that Q pushes aside his embarrassment about his heart and concentrates on the moment, on them. He pushes Bond's trousers off his hips; his hands warm as they ghost along the back of Bond's thighs.
"Get them off," he breathes into Bond's mouth, pushing and guiding until they're sliding onto the unkempt bed. Bond kicks his jeans off as Q curses and moves his laptop onto the floor. "Don't mind the clutter," he says, as if he is showing a friend's parent through his flat for some tea.
"Bugger the mess." Bond strips the last of Q's clothes from him, pitching them haphazardly aside and then, carefully he removes Q's glasses, folding them neatly and setting them onto the nightstand.
"While you're over there…" Q says, and Bond smirks. He pulls open the nightstand drawer and finds lubricant and an unopened box of condoms.
It's not how Bond imagined it would be. He thought Q would be awkward and shy, blushing but eager to please. Instead, he finds himself pushed down onto the sheets, pinned in place by a suddenly mischievous and entirely knowledgeable bedmate. Q seems to catch his surprise, grinning devilishly as he slicks his palm with lubricant and fists Bond's cock. "Turns out your mind-reading trick didn't reveal everything about me."
"No," Bond agrees, almost forgetting to maintain his accent. "I wouldn't have guessed you'd be like this."
He can't stop running his own hands over Q's body, up his bent thighs, smoothing along the flat torso, his thumbs brushing across perked nipples and up to the long neck only to follow the same path this time in reverse. Everywhere he touches seems to make Q shiver, murmuring encouragement in monosyllables and low groans.
It's hasty foreplay, Bond's hands roving, his mouth suckling where it can, nipping at pale skin, and Q rocking his hips, his cock skimming along Bond's belly as he reaches back and opens himself with his fingers. "God, you're beautiful," Bond murmurs and skims his tongue along the skin just behind Q's ear.
Grinning, Q sinks down onto Bond's cock, shifting up and then down taking more of it until, at last, he is fully seated. For a moment they hold completely still, Bond gripped in tight heat, Q's head tipped back, his eyes closed. Then Bond moves, his hands reaching out to hold Q as he rolls them, pinning the younger back into the mattress, sending those long legs splaying wide as the Q laughs, open and carefree.
Bond pulls out and then thrusts in hard, and Q's laugh becomes an exultant exhalation. "Yes," he says, his mouth leaving damp trails along Bond's neck, across his lips. "Don't stop."
Bond can't stop, and he can't let go. "Jesus Chris," he gasps as Q tightens around him. It's as close to a prayer as he's come in a very long while.
Much later, when they're both spent, Q sleeping in a loose sprawl across the sheets, his soft snores like sighs filling the room, Bond pushes the dark hair away from the younger man's face and thinks about possibilities. Things he's never allowed himself to consider before.
The muted beeps indicating a waiting message on his mobile pull him out of his thoughts. Carefully, he extracts himself from Q's limbs and searches for his phone, finding it discarded in a pile of his clothes. He opens his messages to find Tretiak's response: "Fly, don't buzz off. I'll double your fee, or send my own boys to take care of the lab-rat."
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|<< END PART TWO >>|
MASTERPOST