According to rumor, Bond dines exclusively on Michelin-starred food and expensive champagne while out in the field, and subsists mostly on whiskey while on home soil. Some of the more outlandish whispers have him pegged as a mythological monster who feasts on the blood of England’s enemies and the sexual energy of very pretty people. His victims are largely interchangeable.
Legends generally keep a toe or two dipped in truth. He likes to treat himself; he buys the finest bespoke suits and bed sheets that money can buy, indulges in cars and guns and women from all over the world, and when he eats, it’s Russian caviar and Japanese beef chased with French wines. Given the amount of blood he’s had splashed, splattered, and sprayed on him, he can’t declare with absolute certainty that he’s never swallowed anyone else’s blood either. And as for the accusations that he’s an incubus, well…what can he say? He’s the type of man who finds generosity in bed its own reward.
Man cannot live - very long, that is - on luxury alone, however. Nor is passing one’s field readiness tests easy when one’s diet is laden with carbs and cholesterol. Therefore treats are just that; treats. When he’s not showing off his field facade, Bond is just as strict with himself in the kitchen as he is in the gym. Between missions, he keeps his refrigerator filled with chicken breasts, fish filets, and as wide a variety of veg as he can source online. He cooks with olive oil, flavors his meals with spices and herbs and enough garlic that there should never have been any rumors of vampirism in the first place, and avoids dairy for the most part.
And he is in fact not an alcoholic. It’s certainly his vice of choice, but it’s still a vice, not an addiction. Bond knows himself pretty well by this point. Has settled into who he is as an agent, not just a man. He allows himself to drown in alcohol because it’s a less dangerous way to silence his ghosts than ‘unauthorized pharmaceuticals’. He even keeps loose track of the calories so that he can sweat them out with extra laps or reps the next day.
He keeps his body healthy because it’s a requirement for keeping his various licenses.
His psyche, not so much.
Though he has started nurturing a new habit recently. It started innocently enough as a sort of offshoot of his fitness-conscious eating, and to his own everlasting surprise, seems to be having a positive effect on his mental and emotional wellness as well.
One side effect of constantly calculating the pros and cons of one’s meals is that the mental calculations become too ingrained to keep contained. He’ll idly note what other people are eating and sometimes go so far as to weigh it against what he knows or can deduce about their activity level, and make quick judgments about whether they should have more protein or not.
Based on his observations, his Quartermaster needs more of everything; protein, vegetables, grains, and a judicious amount of beneficial fats. So far he’s only clocked the man drinking tea and nibbling on biscuits, and now and then he’ll spot a bit of wrap and cardboard from the cafeteria in a bin. He tells himself many pretty lies about how as a double-oh it can only benefit him for the division head of Q Branch to be whole and healthy, rather than prone to dehydration or high blood pressure or low glucose levels, and appoints himself Q’s new nutritional advisor since no one else is stepping up.
Q objects. But Bond thinks the Quartermaster doth protest too much.
Taking a page from @samanthahirr’s dash and posting a bit of “Stories I’m Not Actually Writing”. I love to think of Bond plying Q with home cooked meals and sneakily substituting plain water for the odd cup of tea here and there. Q finds that he has fewer headaches and tummy twinges, and refuses to admit that Bond may have been on to something when he said that Q needed to take better care of himself.
