👀 this is not really In The Rules but can i get your favorite idea from 00q plotbunnies
“Are you all right?” he asked. Bond had finished up three days ago but hadn’t checked in; not unusual for him. Q gave him a more careful once-over than he had before, but didn’t see anything new. “Did something happen on your mission?”
“You wouldn’t know, would you?” Bond asked, pushing into Q’s space, his eyes frigid. “Been a bit busy on your vengeance spree. And even if you did know, what would you do about it? Hopefully not what you did for—.”
“I would do exactly what I did for 001,” Q interrupted. “I would do my best.” He met Bond stare for stare but could not bring himself to broaden his own stance, to bring his shoulders up, to meet Bond’s apparent anger with his own. He had none left to give. “That’s all I have to offer,” he added. “Just like anyone.” He looked away then. Although not quite a lie, it was not quite the truth either. He hadn’t realized—hadn’t even contemplated…and so he had lost 001 before he’d been aware that he had him.
But he could take steps to prevent it from happening again, he thought, looking at Bond’s flushed, angry face only inches away from his own. He could start right now. Physical closeness, that was the key.
“I read all of the mission reports, Mr. Managed-to-Only-Blow-Up-A-Single-Managuan-Dockyard,” Q said, “and if the effort of not blowing things up still has you too tired to find a hotel, then you can have half of the bed so long as you promise not to molest me. I have a king-size.”
“I see,” Bond said. His face and voice had gone the kind of suavely blank that tended to indicate total incomprehension in experienced agents.
“Well, I have the space and the salary for it, so I thought, why not? It’s important to make sure you sleep right when you get to sleep at all,” Q said. He managed a small smile. “So, if you could, er…” He inched toward an edge where Bond wasn’t boxing him in quite so closely.
Bond stepped back a few feet. “I think I can promise not to molest you,” he said with a wry twist of his mouth.
“I am amazed at this unheard-of feat of self-control,” Q informed him.
@midrashic My 00Q white whale, which I have some scenes and a vague outline for, is the one where Q is psychic in a very specific kind of way: if he touches something (or someone) often enough, then he always knows where they are. He goes through life limiting himself to handshakes, not wanting to be too invasive, and he locates his agents via their equipment, all of which he’s personally assembled so that he can track it.
Then 001 goes missing, his equipment dumped far away from his body, and they’ve done something---physically destroyed him thoroughly enough, maybe---so that Q can’t find him. Q doesn’t take this well. He resolves to figure out how to get physical with his agents without getting physical with his agents, because he’s responsible for their safety and he owes them every advantage they can get, including whatever quasi-mystical GPS bullshit he was born with.
One of the 00s gives him dance lessons. Another teaches him self-defense. Anything that involves physical contact. It’s a whole thing. And while Q is putting himself extremely out of his comfort zone in the name of what he calls ‘increased interdepartmental cohesion,’ the 00s are trying to figure out their new, apparently-mental quartermaster. At least his methods, however bizarre, seem founded in loyalty. And they haven’t failed yet, which is enough for them to get on with.
Anyway! It turns out that vague magic powers are hard to write, so.
