Work Text:
It was already too late. The desk went toppling over, and right through the paper-thin wall that separated his sitting room from his neighbor’s. The one who liked to play terrible 80s pop at full volume at three in the morning.
Which Q had begun to find soothing, really, during his late-night hacking sessions. It was weirdly comforting hearing the familiar bass line of Personal Jesus vibrating his sitting room wall.
Which was why he was moving his desk.
It wasn’t because he was curious about the handsome bloke next door - they’d met in the hall three or four times at odd hours and Q had done a thorough search (James Bond: private security, no criminal record, several speeding tickets). The plan had now backfired spectacularly, and he was standing in a cloud of plaster dust, hacking up a lung and wondering how on earth he could ever explain this.
As the dust settled, Q found that his timing was even worse than usual. Bond stood in the middle of his own sitting room, arms crossed over his chest, one eyebrow quirked, and absolutely, positively stark staring naked.
James seemed to be completely unaware that he was unclothed. He had the air of someone who owned the room, not someone who’s penis (not that Q was noticing, but Q was definitely noticing and he was at least moderately impressed - okay very impressed) was on display.
“Enjoying the view?”
“Oh--” Q forced his eyes down and away and the heat rose in his cheeks.
“Are you going to explain how the desk managed to topple into my sitting room?”
“I was moving it.” The sensation of speaking to someone while studiously avoiding looking at them was bizarre in the extreme, but Bond didn’t appear to be looking for clothing. “Could you-- er--” Q made a vague circular gesture with his hand in Bond’s direction.
“Could I what?”
“Could you please put some clothes on?” Q bit out.
“It is my flat.”
Q sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and resigned himself to looking only at the floor while he dragged his desk back through the gaping hole in the wall. He frowned at the desk, looking for a way to get a decent grip on it so he could brace his feet properly. He finally just wedged his fingers into the corner where the side panel met the top and heaved. To his mild shock, it moved. To his greater shock, it kept moving after he’d quit pulling on it.
“Well, don’t just stand there.”
Q’s head snapped up, and there was Bond on the other side of the desk, peering at him. Q frowned.
“Why are you helping me?”
“Not very neighborly of me to leave you to it. Besides, I can’t clean up with your bloody desk all over my floor.”
“And I can’t bloody think with your…” Q stopped, hand on his hip, as he searched for something, anything other than ‘impressive cock’ with which to describe what was causing his distress, “trouser snake flapping in the breeze. Oh, god.”
Bond barked a laugh and Q wanted to melt into the floor.
“Trouser snake, are you twelve?”
“Shut up.”
“Just for that I ought to put on a show.”
“Please don’t.”
Bond laughed again, and Q heard footsteps retreating from the hole in the wall and he slumped in relief against the desk.
He was just about to give it another heave when he heard Bond return. He peered through his lashes, hoping that Bond had returned fully dressed. His luck appeared to be holding at zero, because he was wearing threadbare joggers slung low on his hips. The way they clung to his thighs was sin incarnate, particularly since he was now imagining the anatomy he knew to be underneath.
“Ready?”
Q sighed and wedged his fingers into place again. “As I’ll ever be, I suppose.”
It took nearly fifteen minutes of maneuvering, but finally Q’s desk was on his side of the wall.
“Thank you,” Q said, and smiled for the first time since the disaster had begun.
“Absolutely.” Bond lifted himself onto the desk and leaned forward, forearms pressed to his thighs. “Most excitement I’ve had in months.”
“I thought you’d see a lot of action in the security business,” Q said without thinking.
Bond gave him a curious frown, and Q shifted his eyes. “I saw you come home in uniform?”
“My company doesn’t have uniforms,” Bond said.
“Oh.”
Bond grinned, the spark of something altogether more mischievous in his eyes. “Curious, were you?”
Q turned and busied himself with picking up the larger chunks of plaster. “I like to know my neighbors, and you weren’t particularly chatty on the lift.”
“So you what - googled me?”
“Only amateurs use google,” Q scoffed. Then he made the mistake of looking up. Bond was watching him carefully, not angry but impressed.
“What else did you find?”
Q chewed on his lower lip for a moment, thinking about how best to answer that. “Speeding tickets,” he said at last.
James laughed again, and Q tried very hard not to enjoy it. He got the feeling that James Bond wasn’t a man who laughed easily or often.
“I’m glad I’m so amusing,” he said peevishly.
“You are. Very much so. Cute, too, if it’s not too forward.”
Q feelt his face flame again at the compliment. “Not so bad yourself, face-wise.”
Now Bond was laughing so hard he was almost bent double and Q wanted nothing more than to sink into the floor.
“I think,” Bond said when he’d recovered, “I’d very much like to take you to dinner.”
“Least you could do for subjecting me to that view.”
“You weren’t complaining about it earlier.”
“I was a bit shocked, earlier.”
“Fair.” Bond stuck out his hand. “I suppose we should have proper introductions, then. Bond. James Bond,” he said, and the delivery made Q think it was something he said often, and usually to clients.
“Q,” and Q shook the offered hand.
“What, like the letter?”
“You’d go by a letter, too, if your name was Quigley Pendergast.”
“I hope you gave your parents hell for that.”
“Much as I could.”
“Pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Q.” The way Bond shaped the letter made gooseflesh rise on Q’s arms.
“And yours, Mr. Bond.”
“James, please.”
Q grinned. “Alright. James.”
“You’re paying for dinner,” James said as he ducked back through the hole in the wall into his own flat.
“But you invited me!”
“You put a hole through my wall, least you could do.”
Q groaned. “I knew there was going to be a catch.”
“Oh there is. Me.” And with that, James vanished into the depths of his flat.
Q stood there staring through the hole for nearly a minute before shaking his head and rummaging around for a towel to tack over the opening. James Bond was a cocky bastard, but Q couldn’t help but like him. And he might even be looking forward to that dinner. He came up with a towel, but before he hung it, he called through the hole, “Thursday, seven o’clock!”
“Perfect!” came the reply.