toscas_kiss | JB FIC: Motherless Child (NC-17, Bond/Villiers)

After another long dry spell, finally some more fic...

Title: Motherless Child
Author: Tosca [toscas_kiss]
Fandom: James Bond
Characters: Bond/Villiers
Warning! NC-17 for sex, language and distressing imagery of mass death.
Disclaimer: Somewhere in the multiverse they belong to me, just not in this particular dimension. Here, they belong to Danjaq LLC, United Artists Corporation & Eon Productions.
Notes: 2,224 words. Second in my set of General Cliché Fanfics for 10_cliche_fics, where I claimed James Bond/Villiers, M's Chief of Staff/Aide. And like Sexbomb, the title and inspiration comes from a Tom Jones song (but no, this is not a songfic or a sequel).
XPost: To bond_slash
Thanks: To the most excellent daegaer for the beta.

Prompt: The darkest hour is just before the dawn.

Motherless Child

"Sometimes I feel like a motherless child - a long, long way from home."

The checkpoints became increasingly stringent the closer he got to the Command Centre, until at the fourth one he'd been halted through lack of proper identification papers. It wasn't exactly as if he could drive back to London and pick them up, he'd snarked. No one had found that funny.

Eventually a military escort had taken him to the next checkpoint in, where they'd been met by Teresa Ivers from the East European division. She looked gaunt and unkempt, nothing like the slick, trendy admin of his memory. She'd verified his identity without even a flicker of her normal flirtatiousness, told the escort to take him to M and then left, a brief nod to Bond being her only concession to acquaintanceship.

Half an hour and two more checkpoints on, their jeep drove up the mall to the Command Centre. Dexter House was a beautiful example of Georgian architecture; in the bright afternoon sunshine it was a mother-of-pearl vision surrounded by manicured green lawns and flourishing gardens that displayed blooms of every colour. He felt his heart twist at the sight. It was the perfect image of an enchanted England.

Only the tank and the military vehicles parked beside the colonnades belied that impression.

Inside, the hallways were filled with a mixed crowd; military, emergency services and civilians, all speaking in quiet tones, moving with set purpose and grim faces. He was taken to the back of the house and shown into a sunlit room, the outer wall lined with large French doors which overlooked rolling grounds and an ornamental lake sparkling beyond the flowerbeds.

In contrast to the room's openness, two soldiers stood guard on either side of the door. Inside was not M, but M's Chief of Staff, one of the A Section controllers, and two men he recognized as higher-ups from MI5 and the JIC, all seated at a table covered with files, papers, and laptops. They looked up at his entrance.

"Where's M?" he asked.

Villiers stared at him blankly and said, "Bond. You're alive."

Bond strode forward to the table, "Where's M, Villiers?" he demanded impatiently, "I was told she was here."

Villiers's expression flickered and then blanked again, mouth thinning to a straight line. One of the soldiers stepped forward to Bond's shoulder. Bond checked him out. SAS, and undoubtedly a competent killer.

"Sir?" the soldier queried.

Villiers shook his head and the soldier retreated. Villiers switched his gaze back to Bond.

"I'm M now," he said in a quiet voice.

Bond was silent. There was nothing to say.

"I'm sorry, Bond."

A dozen slighting comments rose to Bond's lips. But, he had to acknowledge, M had always held true affection for her protégés, and despite her acknowledged willingness to sacrifice them for the good of Queen and Country, they had returned that affection, filtered through their various personality traits of reserve or detachment. Villiers had been just as much a protégé as Bond himself and the loss was a shared one. So he held back any words.

"So, what now?" he asked, then added, "Sir."

Something eased in Villiers' face, "Sit down and tell us what you know. This is Sir William Styles from the JIC, Andrew McClintock from MI5, and you already know Pauline Rothwell."

It was past two by the time Villiers retired. The man looked exhausted, a decade's hard decisions carved onto his face in a matter of days. He didn't even glance at the wingchair beside the window, just kicked off his shoes and fell backwards onto the bed, long legs draped over the side.

Bond rose from the chair. Villiers's head lifted, froze, then he lunged towards the bedside table that Bond knew held a loaded automatic. Recognition of Bond's backlit figure struck halfway there.

"Christ, James!" he snarled.

"Here," Bond extended his half-drunk whiskey, "You look as though you need it."

Villiers accepted the tumbler. Never a hard drinker, he nonetheless downed half the contents in a couple of gulps.

"Thanks," he muttered, slumping forward onto his elbows and rolling the glass between his hands.

Bond watched the downcast head. When it became obvious he wouldn't outwait Villiers for once, he spoke,

"So. M?"

Villiers didn't make the mistake of thinking Bond was referring to himself.

"Was at Whitehall. Meeting with the PM."

Even though he'd already known it to be true, the words made her death final and concrete. He leant forward and filched the glass back, draining the little remaining whiskey in one swallow. Villiers glanced up at him and Bond was struck by how unwell he looked. A cold thought went through his mind.

"Where were you?" he asked urgently, "You weren't anywhere near London or..."

"No, no," Villiers interjected quickly, "I was grouse-shooting with my uncle up in Perthshire."

In the past Bond had found it amusing someone so uncomfortable with fieldwork and the casualties caused therein was such an avid hunter. Now he was merely thankful for it.

"The rest of your family?"

Villiers' lips tightened and he looked away.

"I'm sorry," said Bond. Villiers glanced back at him sharply, but must have been satisfied by whatever he saw in Bond's face. He nodded silently in acknowledgement then returned to staring at the floor. When he spoke it was nothing more than a hoarse whisper,

"The emergency hospitals will be told to begin euthanising the worst cases tomor...today," he paused before continuing, the facts almost too terrible to speak, "Some of them have already started."

Bond crossed back to the chair, picked up the bottle of Black & White Scotch whiskey sitting on the sidetable and poured another large double into his glass. He held it out to Villiers. Villiers accepted the drink and sipped it more slowly this time.

"How are the T.E.M's holding up?" Bond enquired.

"Full past capacity," was the dull-voiced answer. "They're not bothering with autopsies - just taking samples for ID later and then burying them in mass graves."

Bond had seen it; the first military camp he'd come upon had been set up next to one of the temporary morgues. He had watched the soldiers digging with one of those small hobby-farm bulldozers; seven-foot wide and eight-foot deep furrows scarring into the earth and his mind's eye. The corpses had been stacked up next to the trenches like meat cordwood.

Even now, the reality of the scene was hard to reconcile. It could, and had, easily happened other places he'd been – Bosnia, Chile, The Sudan - but not England. Never England.

"And the Americans have heard nothing new?"

"Nothing more than what you heard at this afternoon's meeting," Villiers snorted in disgust. "The bloody C.I.A. are about as useful as when they're looking for WMD."

"Fuck."

"Yes. Quite."

For a couple of minutes there was silence; a weight of pain and anger and despair hanging leaden in the air between them. Bond was used to Villiers' quiet spells, but they were either silences prickling with irritation or heavy repletion, or even, upon rare occasions, a comfortable companionship. Time to leave, Bond thought. There was nothing here that could be fixed, and although he'd been hoping for a different form of comfort, sleep would at least give him a few hours respite, however transitory.

Villiers stood up abruptly, fingers moving down his shirt front.

"Bed," he directed curtly.

Bond raised an eyebrow even as he shifted to the other side, undressing as he went. Villiers was so seldom the initiator in their encounters he could count the number of times on both hands. When Bond slid under the covers, Villiers handed him an open tube of lube, then rolled over onto his front, propping himself up on his elbows to watch. Bond slicked himself quickly, already aroused.

"Open your legs," he ordered, then knelt between them as they parted. Beneath him Villiers was spread out but tense, muscles taut and unyielding. He slid his arms around Villiers' chest.

"What do you want, Theo?" he asked.

"Hard," Villiers answered quietly, "Fuck me hard, James."

That's the last thing we need, Bond thought, but he ran his hands over Villiers body, rough and demanding until muscles softened and yielded. He nuzzled into the bent neck, listening as the breaths became shorter and irregular, matched by the swell and fall of the warm body under him. When Villiers finally groaned in protest at his teasing, he pressed inside, slow and sure. Villiers pushed back, trying to urge him to greater speed and force, but Bond held him down, trapping him into an unhurried dance of body on body, inside and underneath, and accompanied by moans and the calling of his name. There was nothing left to the world but drowning pleasure and the closeness of another.

Eventually the slow pavane faltered, skipped a beat, and then flung itself into a desperate, fast tempo. He pulled Villiers to his knees and curved around him, driving into him with increasing need. One hand wrapped around Villiers' erection, but he didn't have to do anything more, as Villiers fucked himself in and out of his clasp. He pressed his face into Villiers nape again, kissing and biting and soothing and kissing him again. He was spilling words into Villiers ear – filth, swearwords, state secrets, love poetry – he didn't know what. Villiers whole body tightened, then he gave a hoarse cry and collapsed flat. Bond followed him down, orgasm pulled from him by the muscles spasming around his cock, sensation exploding in his sight like a white-hot phosphorus flare.

When the aftershocks had passed, he pulled out as gently as he could and rolled over onto his back. Both of them were gasping for air, breath returning only slowly. He should probably get up and clean them up; should probably say something; but he was beyond tired, and he was safe, so he allowed himself to slowly fall into sleep.

He woke abruptly, and out of habit kept his eyes shut and his breathing deep. For a second he couldn't remember where he was, and for several more couldn't work out what had woken him. Then there was a muted sound next to him and the bed shook. There was silence for a little while, and then the sound and movement repeated.

A tight, sick feeling clutched in his sternum, one he'd never thought he'd feel again. Villiers was crying, he realised.

Villiers was trying to be quiet about it, but men never seemed to master the art of crying delicately the way that most women did. And although he was turned away from Bond and buried in pillows, each muffled sob seemed to come from deep in Villiers' chest and expand to shake his whole body.

Did Villiers know he'd woken? Bond wondered. Even if he had, did he expect him to say anything? If it were a woman Bond would know without question what she would want; she'd want him to pull her into his arms, and murmur soothingly into her ear, until the storm passed. He didn't know what a man – what Villiers – would want. He'd lost the ability to weep tears for his dead too many years ago, on a sunny day on a canal in Venice. He couldn't even imagine any longer what, if anything, would have eased their passage.

So he lay silent in the dark, unmoving.

It was two days before Bond saw Villiers again. By that time he was practically climbing the walls with angry frustration and the need to do something, anything. Villiers looked slightly better, which was still not saying much. Bond judged the stress lines were now a permanent marking on his face.

Before he'd even sat down Villiers was already sliding a pile of half a dozen folders across the table to him.

"These are your primary targets," he said. "You'll receive details of secondary targets shortly, but these are the people we want dead yesterday."

There was a brief feeling of unreality at hearing those words from Villiers' mouth, then he shrugged it off and started to flick through the files. Three businessmen, a mercenary, a prince and an estate agent. All of them with heavy security. None of them in England.

He scanned the orders, lifted an eyebrow in faint surprise at one sentence.

"Collateral damage?" he queried Villiers.

"Is acceptable. Do whatever it takes, 007."

Bond was unsure whether to grin at the carte blanche, or grimace at the stranger with the hooded gaze and closed, cold expression. He stacked the files into a pile and stood.

"Consider it done, sir."

He was halfway to the door before Villiers spoke.

"007, I. . ." Villiers started suddenly, then halted. Bond stopped and waited. Eventually Villiers continued, "Be careful, Bond. We can't afford to lose any more of our people now."

"Don't worry," he turned to smile, a mirthless promise of death to come, "I intend on staying very much alive, and making those bastards pay in blood and pain."

Relief stripped the mask away and it was suddenly Theo sitting there, worried and tired.

"And after all, I am coming up in the world."

Villiers looked confused.

Bond smiled slyly, "From bedding the boss's secretary to bedding the boss."

"James!" came the blushing exclamation. Bond grinned and left, leaving M behind him, smiling for the first time in days.

--end--

JIC - Joint Intelligence Committee. Oversees MI5 and MI6.
Grouse shooting season - 12 August to October.
TEM - Temporary Emergency Morgue. Part of the UK Civil Defence Plan.
NBC - Nuclear/Biological/Chemical attack.