Chapter Text
Arduous. Stressful. Age-inducing.
These were but a few of the choice words that fittingly described the last few days in the life of MI6’s Quartermaster. Q slipped the key into the lock and punched the alarm code into the keypad before dropping his bag in a heap by the front door.
Arthur Clifton loved his work, took an inordinate amount of pride in his contribution to the safety of the nation’s interests at home and abroad.
He shuffled, zombie-like, towards his kitchen for a glass of water. Pushing thirty maybe, but weeks like these made him feel more like three hundred.
He stared at the half-empty glass in his hand. Forget the shelf-life of Double-Os. He’d be lucky himself to make it to retirement age.
Assuming James Bloody Bond didn’t give him a heart attack before that.
He sighed and put the glass by the sink. Q was by the book. 007 was so far off the book, the book had yet to be written. Bond wrote his own rules, lived by his own set of principles that did not conform to those established by the SIS, or the rest of the world for that matter. Q was staring into space, but he couldn’t see passed the next mission. He wondered if this was a good thing or a bad thing. If, the next time 007 rolled the dice, would he be so lucky. Q was absently stroking the scruff of Charles neck and welcomed the purring vibration against his palm. Even cats only have nine lives, he thought to himself.
With a parting stroke lavished across warm fur, he fed his animals before retreating to his bedroom, stripping off clothes to leave a trail behind that followed him to his en-suite shower. He stepped beneath the warming spray, allowing the water to do its work and rinse away the evidence of the collision of bodies against the wall in his office only three hours earlier.
Not that he would ever be able to wash away the smell of James’ sweat, potent like that of a wild animal thrumming with the anticipation of taking down its prey, nor the memory of his touch, warm and deadly, soft but edged with the steely sense of a man that walked a tightrope of pain and pleasure in each and every experience. To remind himself that he was alive, that he was still breathing, that he could feel…
So lost in thought as he soaped his body, tracing fingers across smooth skin that had been touched and so responsive to his agent, he didn’t hear the shower door open, thought he was dreaming when two strong hands joined his own on his belly and chest… But when soft lips caressed his neck and he turned to face the intruder, he knew he was wide awake and lost. Because come hell or high water, Arthur Clifton would willingly, always and forever drown in the depths of azure blue before giving up this man.