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They had met...oh, ages ago. Bond couldn’t really remember. It was something to do with diamond smuggling in South Africa. Patrice was playing guard dog to the smugglers and Bond was trying to locate the leader of the ring. Patrice had been on a break, lounging in a bar, when Bond entered, trying to suss out information and find a lead.
“Can I help you, sailor?”
Bond turned and saw a swarthy, dark eyed, well fit man with premature grey hair smiling lopsidedly at him. Sleeves rolled up, revealing muscled forearms and a not so hidden knife. A pint already in hand. The man looked ready for a tumble, in the dirt, the streets, the sheets…
“It depends. Do I look like I need help?” Bond asked, keeping the conversation light, if necessary. He shifted in his chair, and stuck a toothpick in his mouth. His own shirt gaping a little to reveal that he too, was armed.
“So, you are a sailor.” The man said, taking a seat next to Bond. He nodded towards Bond’s sidearm, seemingly unworried, but acknowledging the danger nonetheless. He flashed his knife with a twist of his wrist, the sun coming in through the bar’s windows.
Bond waved his finger at the bartender, trying to catch their attention. “Do I look like a sailor?”
“Do you always answer with a question?”
“Do you always question my answers?”
The man smiled and stuck his hand out. “Patrice.”
“Bond. James Bond.” Bond shook Patrice’s hand. Both had firm handshakes, callouses. It was a few moments before either man let go, their palms sliding roughly against each other.
“So, what brings you to South Africa?” Patrice asked.
“I’m trying to find work.” Bond said, his own pint finally placed in front of him.
“Not a sailor, not local, looking for work and you’re armed,” Patrice rattled of the list. He openly stared as Bond took the first sips from his glass.
“Aye.” Bond wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Do you know if anyone’s looking.”
“It depends. What can you do?” Patrice asked, leaning closer.
Bond sipped from his beer and leaned a bit closer. “It depends. For the right money, almost anything.”
“Almost?” Patrice asked, his eyes dropping to Bond’s mouth, his voice lowering.
“A man has to have some sort of air of mystery around him, doesn’t he?” Bond asked, winking. He turned back to his drink and Patrice started to speak, when they were interrupted.
“Oi!”
A belligerent ex-employee of Patrice’s had found him and wanted to ‘talk’ to him about his being made redundant, with some of his closest friends that were also armed. It didn’t end well. Both Bond and Patrice found themselves in a literal gunfight in a saloon. In the end, they were the two lone survivors. Both a little bloody, a little bit trigger happy and shot through with adrenaline. Patrice looped his arm around Bond’s shoulders and sagged against him, leading him to somewhere Bond didn’t know, but he went with him. After a fight like that, he felt the need to move, take action…
Breaths mingling, clothes tearing or hastily peeled off, and hands caressing, they found themselves tangled up against the door of Patrice’s hotel room. The smell of gun oil, pork rinds and altoids filled the air.
“You fight pretty good, Patrice said, turning Bond and pressing him face first into the door, the cold surface a shock and then warming up under him. Bond gasped as Patrice began to press inside.
“Yes, I do.”
Fast forward years later, and rather than be guns for hire and off and on again lovers, they were now in a very precarious situation. Patrice had gotten hired on the absolute wrong side and had killed Ronson, a fellow double oh agent and stolen the disk that contained the identity of every single undercover British operative. Bond was assigned the arduous task of recovering the disk. He didn’t think twice, after failing to retrieve it from Patrice the first time and hesitating to kill him then, of not saving him from falling off the building in Shanghai. Old love fades and dies hard.