themugsaysq

[themugsaysq]

horriblyefficient:

The agent blinked, but otherwise didn’t skip a beat as he sorted through Q’s odd insistence.  Obviously, he was talking about the cats, and obviously he had mentally imbued said felines with human-like intelligence and social expectations; really, he should be proud of Q for considering a concept such as rudeness at all.

“Okay, sure.  I haven’t seen Furball and the Dictator in awhile.”

He knew the cat’s names, but he preferred to come up with a different set of epithets every time he referred to them.  

Q’s cats, an Abyssinian and a ragdoll respectively, didn’t really approve of him.  Well, that was Q’s assessment, which needed to be taken with a grain of salt.  From what Bond could ascertain, the haughty Abyssinian legitimately disliked him while the ragdoll was lukewarm.  Mostly the ragdoll liked to rub up against him or any clothing item he might set down, with no discernible objective beyond utterly coating it in fur.

Q rolled his eyes so hard it was a wonder there was no one around to snidely remind him that his face could get stuck that way. 

“You know, with a little bit of applied effort, I imagine you’d not only be able to learn their names, but also foster some sort of relationship with them. Cleo has dealt with a lot in her short life.” He glanced over at Bond as they walked. “I work rather awful hours, and she has needs.” 

He took a deep breath and walked a little faster, outpacing the agent with no need to do so. They were going to the same destination. And really, Bond was the one with the keys.

Kings Are But Men

#kings are but men rp #horriblyefficient

[themugsaysq]

horriblyefficient:

James didn’t have an Instagram; he was specifically prohibited from posting things publicly that in any way identified where he might be.  He did have a Snapchat, but his list of friends and contacts was monitored and approved by Q Branch, which took a great deal of the fun out of it.  He didn’t use his mobile for that sort of thing for the most part anyway, though; he didn’t actually see the point.

So he just sighed wearily through his nose and trailed after Q for several steps.  

Once he was in the hallway, he took two longer steps that caught him up to the straight-backed tech.  He slipped his hands into his jacket pockets as they walked, studying Q and trying to determine his mood.  He seemed pleased by all of this.  Anyone else would have probably missed it, but he could see the relief in his colleague’s expression and the set of his shoulders.

“Do we need to stop at your place on the way?”

With his leather messenger bag over his shoulder, laptop safely stowed within, Q honestly couldn’t think of anything he needed to stop at his place for...

“Wait!” he said, as though thinking of this by himself over Bond’s insistence that they go straight to his flat. “I do need to stop by my house. I mean, they do have enough food, but it’s quite rude not to tell them where I’m going.” 

The head of Q Branch nodded awkwardly to some other techs they passed on the way down. While he was technically the supervisor of everything that happened in the branch, that didn’t somehow magically make him more of a people person. Overseeing projects was one thing. Talking to people in anything more personal than email was something else entirely. MI6 had offered to enroll him in management classes to enrich his experience as head of the department. He’d deleted the email, not just from his inbox, not just from his machine, but from the entire server.

Kings Are But Men

#kings are but men rp #horriblyefficient

[themugsaysq]

horriblyefficient:

Bond just watched him patiently, much more patiently than most people would have.  He wasn’t in a rush, it wasn’t as though he had anywhere specific to be at any particular time.  The only thing he had going tonight was a “celebratory” dinner with Q in honor of his not-resignation; if Q wanted to take effing forever to leave Q Branch, that was his business.

“All right.  Any day now.”

He pulled out his phone to check for messages.  One from one of his lady friends uptown, one from Madeleine.  He glanced at both, then dismissed them.  He was fairly certain that Madeleine’s was either going to lead to a breakup or an “I thought you said you were done with MI6″ conversation (which was really a breakup in disguise).  He figured that he should just rip off the plaster and have done with it, but he wasn’t really in the mood.  

Really, he just wanted takeaway and an easy night.

He hoped Madeleine wasn’t hoping to pop by the flat.  Fortunately, he’d never given her a key.  Thank heaven for small favors; he couldn’t imagine how the Q-Madeleine conversation would go.  Even the best case scenario was nightmarish.

“Really, 007,” Q murmured, not really talking to the agent at all, but the idea of him and his judgements and misadventures. He found that sometimes when he was alone at home, and one of the cats had done something ridiculous like wedged herself into a partially opened window or had trapped her head in a toy, saying it aloud as though the cat was embodying the double oh in that moment. 

He glanced over at Bond as he took his labcoat up and hung it on a peg by his main work station. He tugged the sleeves down to make sure they were hanging correctly and turned the lapels so they weren’t facing. There was no real reason to do this, it was just something that needed to be done. He grabbed his coat from where it had, unlike the labcoat, been unceremoniously stuffed in one of the stacked cubes he used for project shelves, then pushed one of his laptops into the backpack that had been in the cube, hidden behind the coat. 

“Alright, stop looking at that, come on. You can check your Instagram later.” Q pulled his coat on haphazardly as he walked towards the door, not looking behind him to see if his ride was actually following him. “We don’t really have all day for you to dawdle, 007.”

Kings Are But Men

#kings are but men rp #horriblyefficient

[themugsaysq]

Cats Who Immediately Regretted Their Poor Life Choices.

#bytes

[themugsaysq]

horriblyefficient:

“It’s where you left it, on the refrigerator,” Bond said, shrugging.  It wasn’t like a note on his refrigerator was going to throw itself away; things tended to stay where he put them originally. Even after all this time, the flat was still half-unpacked and half of his things were in boxes.

He was starting to think he might just throw those boxes away.  If he hadn’t even thought about the contents in - what, two years? - then it couldn’t be very important to him.  What was he ever going to do with his old naval uniform anyway?  The assortment of objects salvaged from his office in the old MI6 building? Any clothes that were still packed were likely out of fashion by now. Yet for some reason he kept the stacks of boxes, as though they were furniture or decor.

“When do you get off? Should I wait about or do you want to meet me there?” Bond asked, briefly raising a hand to rub at his temple. Anti-inflammatory, hydrocodone, and a shot of scotch when he got home. Wasn’t like Q would care.

Q made a thoughtful noise, walking away from Bond to check the readouts on a pair of monitors. It was the same data being mined, but with two different programs. Such fascinating little differences! Last night he’d been up past three pouring over the log. It was, he’d remembered, his parents’ anniversary. Now the numbers were largely holding steady, with only one anomaly. Totally dull. 

“As I think about it, 007, I may as well come with you now. That way we’ll beat the worst of the traffic, you won’t have time to move or hide things in your flat, and when we order takeaway, it’ll come in an acceptable time range rather than us waiting into the wee hours of the night.” He opened up the code prompt and added a few commands, then switched the difference log preferences to go directly to his laptop. 

He didn’t look over at the agent as he continued to close up programs and send a few brief email responses. He didn’t give thought to Bond’s facial expression or the inconvenience he was providing or anything else. He just didn’t want to take the train to Bond’s flat, plain and simple.

Kings Are But Men

#kings are but men rp #horriblyefficient

[themugsaysq]

horriblyefficient:

James made a face.  It was a start, at least.  At least there was likely some kind of re-equiping in the forseeable future.

“I just want my ruddy gun back. Personal safety and all of that,” he grumbled, making a vague hand gesture in the general direction, in London, of where his flat was.

The blond shook his head, then slipped his hands into his pockets. He rolled back onto his heels, then forward again onto his toes.  It was a restless, thinking movement.  He was relieved to have completed his interview with Mallory, but he still felt slightly unmoored.  

That headache was dully throbbing at his right temple.  No problems, they told him, it would heal.  The headaches wouldn’t be permanent once everything drained.  No, you’re not likely going to have a stroke, but if you find you’re slurring your words or your vision is crossed, do let us know right away.

“Like I said, we can order in from your list.  Anything you want, my treat.”

That was an odd admission that a year later Bond hadn’t taken it down.  It was one of the only things on the refrigerator, actually.  On, in, around, or near it. Madeleine had commented on that, actually.  She had been very curious about the kind of person who would leave a  list of preferred restaurants on a coworker’s refrigerator.  She’d asked what the rationale behind it was, and Bond had been surprised to find that he could give a one-line summary of each venue and why Q found it acceptable.

When she’d laughed a little and commented that Q was a bit neurotic, James didn’t say anything but went quiet for a little while.  Strangely, her judgment on Q made him a bit angry.  Yes, Q was neurotic, but she had no right to say so.

It had made him realize how much he knew about Q, and how little he knew about her.  And oddly, he was more interested in knowing about the tech than his new lover; he chalked it up to the fact that now that the situation was no longer new and they no longer had a common enemy, Madeleine was no longer interesting.  

She’d wanted to order off the list.  He said no and they’d gone out.

“Mm.” It was an answer and a question, and Q felt like it covered the topic properly. Long enough to cover everything but short enough to still be interesting: his father’s advice on essay writing. Or women’s skirts. Oh, he remembered, both. That was the whole point of the advice. Right.

He looked at Bond with his head cocked to the side. The agent looked as though he had a headache, and he assumed it had to do with that inept man drilling into his head. The speed and size had kept Bond alive, obviously, but Q had already looked over the medical branch’s records. Professional interest, of course. It disturbed him for half a second that he’d immediately thought of how to improve Blofeld’s methods so they would have been successful, but what was even more disturbing was that he had felt such intense relief that the madman’s scientists had been inept. British relief, he’d told himself. Professional relief. 

“Well, I haven’t looked at the list in awhile.” Of course he knew it by heart; it was his own list. “I suppose I’ll just decide when I get there. So I know...where is that list now?”

Kings Are But Men

#kings are but men rp #horriblyefficient

[themugsaysq]

#bond #face #skyfall #bytes

[themugsaysq]

you saved my life. not forever, not for good. probably just temporarily. but you saved my life and now i’m yours. 

#bond #q #spectre #bytes

[themugsaysq]

horriblyefficient:

Bond reached over and patted, then rubbed his shoulder.  It was hard to tell if the bracing contact was for him or the Quartermaster.  It didn’t particularly matter; it was brief, just the right amount of time, and then it was over.

“Yeah, will do.”

Without anything further, he slipped out of Q branch and down to the elevators that would take him to the higher security floors and M.

—

It was quite awhile before Bond headed back down to Q branch. When he did walk in, he was as cool and collected as ever, but there was a faint, fading flush of pink on his neck.

As soon as he’d walked in, he known that he was in no danger of losing his position. That didn’t prevent Mallory from giving him a hard time and reminding him that he had already been on suspension at the time he’d walked out and that there would still be a handful of medical tests and certifications to pass before they considered his perforated grey matter to be in fully working condition for field assignments. He and M knew exactly how far they could push each other, and his commanding officer had taken care not to miss any points that might be used to prompt better behavior from the double-oh in the future. Bond’s pettish “well, I was right” remained unspoken in favor of a “Yes, sir.”

When they stood and shook hands, they were friends again and the messy conversation was behind them entirely. Even so, the angry color hadn’t completely faded by the time he waved to Q in greeting.

“Check your email, Q, and tell me what I get.”

The Quartermaster looked up sharply from the program he’d been coding for an improved tracker. At any other time, his head would have remained tilted down, fingers moving over the keys in their precise rhythm. But Bond walking into Q Branch meant one thing: he was back,truly back. Or something terrible had happened, and he was here to fight it away from the rule books. He pushed his glasses up with one finger, tilting his head. He supposed that he wouldn’t get an email if Bond was going at it all alone.

“Nothing’s come through yet,” he commented finally, looking away from the screen in front of him to one of the monitors on his left. Coding computer and email computer were two different beasts. Coding computer was precious and coddled. Email computer had had one and one half cups of tea spilt into it and also hosted several game system emulators, most recently so Q could play Sonic the Hedgehog whilst he was frustrated with the code he was writing over on code computer. As he was looking back to Bond, a sound chimed on the email computer, a noise that the agent would likely not recognize as coming from Final Fantasy. “Ah, there it is...” He wheeled his chair over to the other desk with a brisk push off, then tapped the screen. “Well, it looks like the answer to that is nothing today, 007. As a matter of fact, you get a ticket to the testing arena, then I get numbers, and the numbers correspond to what you get back on a scale of self-tying shoelaces to gun to submarine.” He looked back to the agent. He was relieved, so relieved, but there were blocks in his mind that prevented him from saying it. 

“So what are you feeding me tonight?”

Kings Are But Men

#kings are but men rp #horriblyefficient

[themugsaysq]

Falling in love starts with “who the fuck is this?” - Louis CK

insp

#((this is the most accurate gifset for my ship here)) #bond #q #bytes #00q

[themugsaysq]

#tea #bytes

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#tea #bytes

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#retro #bytes

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#retro #bytes

[themugsaysq]

Alouette (by nehpetsca)

#cats #bytes

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#face #q

[themugsaysq]

is this not how this scene goes

#00q #bytes #bond