Work Text:
The first time Q wants to say it, they are almost on opposite sides of the world.
He is waiting for James to check in after two hours of ominous silence. The pin on the map keeps moving, but there hasn’t been any contact since they agreed that James would need to go offline to better handle the next leg of the mission.
It is nearly dawn in London, hours earlier than it is in Manila, where it must be broad daylight. James was going underground when they last spoke — quite literally. Q wonders if he is still down there, in the depths of the facility he is infiltrating, or if he’s found his way closer to daylight again.
“Q,” is the first thing that follows after the line finally crackles back to life.
“007,” Q says. He releases the breath he was holding and finds a smile spreading across his face.
“Any chance you can plot me a path out of here?”
“I’ve already plotted several. Take your pick.”
As Q presents James with the options, he notices a text flash up on his phone: Still alone?
Affirmative, he texts back, while guiding James to his preferred escape route.
As soon as he’s well on his way, James says, “You sound tired. Get some rest, alright?”
“Just as soon as you’re safe,” Q promises.
“You do spoil me so,” James teases, voice as warm and bright as the sunshine that Q imagines he has just stepped out into. “Whatever would I do without you?”
“It’s a prevailing mystery.”
“And not one that needs solving, in my view.”
“Nor mine.”
“Then we’re in agreement.” James sounds like he is smiling, even more so when he says softly, “I’ll see you when I get home.”
“I’ll see you then,” Q says. “I’m glad you’re alright.”
I love you, he thinks for the first time. Those words snap like an elastic band around his heart. He could say it, he truly wants to, but it doesn’t seem like the right moment.
Instead, he simply watches the pin speed across the map as James makes his way to safety, ever so far away but blessedly homeward bound.
*
The second time, they are out to dinner together at a French bistrot that James favours, just a few blocks away from his flat. He has invited Q to dinner here before, and Q remembers it fondly: the cosy intimacy of it, the taper candles lighting each table, the alcove just outside where they stopped on their way out to hide from a downpour, huddling together and kissing while the rain slammed down around them.
Tonight, Q arrives late, harried, and starving — his day, which once seemed endless, began at 3am and has had him running on fumes. Aside from plentiful cups of tea and a steady supply of lollies, he hasn’t eaten. The merlot that James orders goes right to his head.
When those words spring into his head again and nearly bound out of his mouth, he thinks it must be the wine. That and the way their legs are rubbing together under the table. He is dizzied by it all and just barely manages to bite his tongue.
In truth, it isn’t the wine or the flirtatious touch. He wants to say it because after he finishes rambling about his day and the various puzzles and crises that needed solving, James picks at a stray detail nearly hidden in the midst of that ramble.
“That was your thesis topic, wasn’t it?” James smiles when Q asks how he knew that, and simply says, “I have my ways.”
It wouldn’t be hard to track that information down, of course — but the idea that James would bother to do that proves quite enchanting. Q certainly hasn’t mentioned it, since he has grown accustomed to people’s eyes glazing over when he talks about his research. He is so used to that, in fact, that it startles him when James asks to hear more about it.
His initial impulse is to ask whether James really wants to hear him natter on about his thesis, but Q resists that urge. The interest is written all over James’ face, plain and genuine. And so Q talks and talks, more than he has to anyone else in his life. He talks until his heart feels completely full to bursting.
It is that and the way James listens, keenly attentive through and through, which makes Q want to say it. He squashes that impulse and, on the tail end of a bashful laugh, says, “I’ve gone on long enough.”
“Is there more?”
“Yes,” Q admits, because that was ages ago and his work has progressed radically in the years since.
“Then tell me more,” James says, golden in the candlelight, gazing at Q as though the world contains only the two of them.
*
The third time Q wants to say it — quite desperately, in fact — he is across the other side of the room from James. If he weren’t, he might just blurt it out. It has never felt so pressing before and he finds himself thinking it over and over: I love you, I love you, I love you.
What once was the snap of an elastic band around his heart is now a drumbeat that reverberates all the way through him.
It is Christmas and somehow the stars have aligned. Harry hasn’t been called back to the hospital. James and Stella haven’t been ordered out into the field. Q cannot stop watching his phone to make sure that everything is as it should be at HQ, but every time he checks in, his team insist that all is well.
“Let’s go best of five,” Stella demands, resetting the chess board ever so swiftly.
“Let’s,” Q agrees, smiling while she scowls. “I’d be quite pleased to beat you twice more.”
“You don’t want to make an enemy of me, darling,” Stella warns, brandishing a rook as though it’s a weapon before setting it down on the board with a sharp click. While Q chuckles and eyes the board appraisingly, Stella smiles and encourages, “Go on, make your move.”
They began their first game relaxed and slightly tipsy, and are now into their fourth and playing for blood, so much so that they have abandoned their drinks in their competitive fervour. For the most part, Q keeps his eyes on the board, watching each of Stella’s moves with intrigue. But as the game goes on and they each start taking longer to contemplate their next move, his attention drifts occasionally, always gravitating across the room.
James and Harry are in the kitchen, working side by side and deep in conversation. Harry is preparing the goose to go into the oven while James fixes another round of cocktails. From the other side of the apartment, Q can’t be sure, but he thinks the next round might be mojitos.
He also can’t hear what they are talking about. Ordinarily he might be able to — Harry’s place isn’t all that big, after all, but today it is steeped in holiday cheer. There is a fire raging in the hearth, the flicker of the flames bouncing off the endless decorations, all of them in shades of rose gold and ruby red. Along the windowsill that Q and Stella are sat by are a long line-up of wood-wick candles which are crackling away wildly. The record player is set in the heart of the apartment and Harry has just changed it over to play one of several classic holiday albums that he loves, replacing Peggy Lee with Frank Sinatra. Though set at a low volume, it is keeping Q from catching any of what James and Harry are saying. He expects they are swapping grisly stories about the perils of espionage and surgery, as they are wont to do. Whatever the case may be, Q can’t help but look over and enjoy the sight of them happily wrapped up in their chat.
It is when Harry tips his head back and laughs that Q realises it again. He hasn’t a clue what James has said to make Harry laugh like that, but it doesn’t matter. Harry laughs with James like he laughs with Q. He doesn’t hold back like he used to around Colin, who after the fact, he confessed to never having trusted or even liked. This is so far removed from that tepid tolerance that Q hardly knows what to do with it.
He only knows that he always wants it to be like this, especially now that Harry is saying something which is making James laugh. If Q were over there with them, he might grab James and kiss him, take his face in his hands, and confess it without another thought.
Later, he thinks, eyes still on James. When James looks over, they share a smile, and Q feels lit from within.
Stella wins the fourth game, and then the fifth. Q challenges her to best out of seven and they continue their bloodthirsty battle.
Midway through their sixth match, which he is fumbling once again, Stella catches him watching James and teases, “Not distracted, are you, sweetheart?”
“Not one bit,” he lies, refocusing on the board and knocking one of her knights off it. All the while, those three words are ever present on his mind, but he wonders if he’s just swept up in this one completely perfect day, or if James will think him mad if he says it this soon.
On the one hand, he can’t think of anything better than saying it — on the other, there wouldn’t be anything worse than saying it and not hearing it said in return.
He decides against overthinking it for now. Without a doubt, he will return to that soon enough, but for the time being, Q lets it be. It is enough to feel it, to savour the words on the tip of his tongue, and to enjoy that vague ‘later’ — a certainty and a mystery all wrapped up in one.
*
The fourth time, it isn’t just that he wants to say it — he feels a real, yearning need to.
The new year has just begun and Q is in the kitchen, cleaning up the remnants of celebration from the night before. When he goes to clear the bottles off the dining table, he glances over to the lounge, where James is still asleep with the cats curled up by his side. For a moment, Q pauses to watch the rise and fall of James’ chest. Then, smiling to himself, he returns to the task at hand.
He takes care to be quiet when returning to the sink to wash up the champagne flutes. As Q dips his hands into the warm, soapy water, he hears the cats’ paws thump softly against the floor — the only tell-tale sign that James is awake. Q predicts that he has gotten up along with the cats, but unlike them, he is moving across the room in that swift and silent way of his.
Q continues smiling to himself and counts down: three, two, one. His timing is perfect. James’ arms wrap around him, safe and secure as ever.
“Good morning,” Q whispers, a shiver chasing through him as James kisses the nape of his neck.
“Morning,” James murmurs, still sounding half asleep.
He sinks against Q, arms snug around his middle, chest warm against Q’s back. It is when he sighs, softly, contentedly, his head dropping to rest against Q’s shoulder, that the impulse strikes once more.
But the morning is as quiet and sleepy as the two of them, and Q doesn’t want to break the spell. He finishes the washing up, then dries his hands off and turns around to kiss James.
If they are exceptionally lucky, they might have the rest of the day together. Q doesn’t intend to spend it talking.
*
The fifth time finds them in the depths of the archives. Q has gone hunting for an old case file in the hope it might prove helpful to James’ next mission. An enemy from days gone by has resurfaced and there seem to be links to a case that pre-dates the both of them by a long shot.
Q could have sent one of his team to go searching but he fears valuable time will be lost in the process. James is due out in the field imminently. Even with the time crunch looming large, he has taken it upon himself to follow Q into the archives and loll about unhelpfully.
While leaning against a filing cabinet ever so languidly, James waves off Q’s concerns about his soon-to-depart flight.
“I’ll call you if I find anything,” Q insists, dropping to his knees to rummage through the lower drawers. As an archival assistant passes by the aisle, he adds quickly, “007.”
“Thank you, Q.” James smiles down at him, eyes flicking up only briefly to keep track of where the assistant is headed. “One more thing.”
“Yes?”
James must be satisfied that the assistant has vanished, for he shifts closer and murmurs, “I want you to know something.”
“And what might that be?”
Q is nose-deep in the filing cabinet when he feels James’ hand on his shoulder. When he looks up, James takes him by the arm and gently pulls him to his feet.
As he draws Q close, he says, “Whatever happens in the next week, and regardless of whether you hear things or whether you don’t, just know this…”
In the brief span of that pause, James settles his hands on Q’s waist and moves in so close that there is only a sliver of distance between them. As James gazes at him thoughtfully, Q is enthralled. The entirety of MI6 could come storming into the archives and down this lonely aisle right at this very moment and Q wouldn’t dare move away, not until James has said whatever it is he wants to say.
With a slight smile, James continues, “All I ever really want is to come home to you.”
I love you, Q thinks again, but they have less than a minute until James absolutely has to leave, lest he miss his flight. He spends that minute kissing James like the world is about to end. It won’t, of course, not if James has anything to do with it — of that, Q is absolutely sure.
He is sure of the other thing, as well, but the words stay stuck on rotation in his head as they ride out that one minute with a kiss that deserves to be limitless.
*
The sixth time comes on the tail end of a row, of sorts. It is mostly one-sided: James is rather relaxed about it all, while Q is so mad that he can hardly speak. He has never been shy of words in the past but this latest incident has really taken the cake.
James has just returned from his latest mission, victorious and only mildly bruised. That ought to come as a relief but it is marred by his exceptionally laissez-faire attitude about having totalled yet another car. He was practically boasting about it after stepping out of the wreckage. He then swanned off to Medical without a care in the world, leaving Q with yet another disaster on his hands.
Now, having been cleared by Medical, he has returned to follow Q around the workshop, essentially begging to be scolded.
“You may as well let me have it,” he says, hovering while Q takes the remnants of his watch and gun, which he lays out across one of his assistants’ desks. That was another delightful discovery: James’ watch is shattered, his gun is in pieces, and several other priceless pieces of equipment have vanished entirely. While Q fumes, James goads, “Go on, darling, you know you want to.”
“Don’t you dare call me ‘darling’ right now,” Q warns. “You’ve lost your ‘darling’ privileges. In fact, consider all of your privileges revoked.”
“All of them?”
It is galling, how he utters that with both total disbelief and gleeful amusement. Q whips around and insists, “All of them. Every single one.”
“Well, that’s a pity,” James says, smirking. “You know, sometimes I think you get off on being withholding.”
“What I get off on is officially none of your business,” Q retorts. That only makes James smirk more. Well and truly riled up now, Q snaps, “Even if it were any of your business, there wouldn’t be any point to it. I’ll be tied to my desk for the next month because of you.”
Before James can say anything, Q raises a hand and steps in close to caution, “If I hear a single innuendo about being tied up or in reference to that desk, you’re going to be in an unfathomable amount of trouble.”
To his credit, James keeps quiet, but the smirking is now out of control. While wishing he had added a clause about so much as thinking such things, Q storms back to his own desk. Over his shoulder, he calls, “By the by, I’m re-assigning the DB10.”
“You are not,” James argues, hot on Q’s heels. “I was next on the list for that.”
“You stay on that side of the desk,” Q orders as he rounds it. As he sits down to boot up his laptop, he glares at James over the top of it. “I would ask you to explain why you think you deserve priority allocation of a three million pound vehicle, but there isn’t any conceivable explanation after what you’ve done — so save your breath.”
“What I did,” James says, now seeming as vexed as Q has been all day, “Is flee a scene where I otherwise might have perished. I thought you’d be pleased to see me return in one piece.”
“I am. What displeases me is that the car came back in nearly three pieces.” Q jerks his head towards the DB7 sitting across the workshop. It barely resembles the car that he entrusted James with earlier in the week, and is in such a state that if either of them were to breathe in that general direction, it may well collapse in a heap. When James shrugs, Q balks and laments, “It’s hanging together by a bloody thread! Mallory is going to throttle me when he finds out about this. And throttling aside, that’s a million pound dent in my budget, minimum.”
“I’d like to think I’m worth more than a million pounds to you.”
“Of course you are. That isn’t the point.”
“Well, it was either the damage to the car, or—”
“No it wasn’t,” Q interjects icily. “You act as though these situations are entirely unavoidable and the damage done is inconsequential, but I’ll have you know neither of those things are true on this particular occasion.” He gives James another sharp look which heads off any incoming retort. “And before you go claiming that there wasn’t any other way, just know that I’ve gone through the footage.”
“The footage,” James echoes, frowning.
“Dashcam and CCTV.” Q pulls up the recordings and turns his laptop to face James. “I can think of upwards of ten instances where you could have made a different decision, thus avoiding or, at the very least, minimising damage to an extraordinarily valuable asset.”
James glances down at the laptop, then centres back on Q with an incredible degree of interest. It is burning bright in his eyes when he asks, “Am I to understand that an appraisal on the cards?”
Q’s mouth goes dry, the way it always does when James looks at him like that. He can feel colour creeping up his face and not for anger, this time. Helplessly, his gaze dips down to James’ open collar. Two of the buttons are missing and one is coming loose. It would take nothing at all to rip it off him.
But that would be rewarding bad behaviour, and Q isn’t about to do that. He wrenches his laptop back around and scowls at James while muttering, “There are valid criticisms to be made — they’re quite plentiful, in fact.”
That last word wavers, for James plants his hands on the desk and leans in. Q’s hands drop away from his laptop. They linger on the edge of the desk, riddled with tension, as James moves even closer; close enough that Q can smell his cologne, rich and intoxicating.
“Go on, then,” James challenges, eyes glittering, voice low and throaty. “Critique me.”
“No,” Q says. It sounds wholly unconvincing. He tries again, insisting stubbornly, “I have an incident report to write and a car to assess—”
“And valid criticisms aplenty, or so you claim.” James rounds the desk and places himself right back in Q’s personal space. “How about this? You talk me through that footage and for every one of your criticisms that passes muster, I’ll find a way to make up for my alleged sins.” He pauses, then leans over the back of Q’s chair and murmurs suggestively, “Or you can tell me how to make up for it. I am entirely at your mercy… darling.”
Q forgets all about his earlier revocation of the ‘darling’ privileges. Along with that, he forgets what once was a state of the art car and the dent in his budget and the high risk of getting throttled by Mallory. His willpower is left in a similar condition to that of the car — worse, perhaps, since the car is only on the verge of collapse, while his willpower is completely done for.
He abandons all else, packs up his laptop, and grabs James by the lapel of his suit to haul him out of the workshop.
“We’ll discuss this further at home,” he advises, heart pounding in his chest, “Where I think you’ll find that every single one of my criticisms passes muster.”
“I should certainly hope so,” James says, and Q doesn’t have to look back to know that he’s smirking again.
Hours later, the laptop is lying dead on the nightstand, its battery drained after a lengthy examination of the footage. After conceding to every single one of Q’s critiques, James has devoted himself to making things right. As well as indulging Q’s every wish and command, he has concocted several creative methods for making amends.
By Q’s reckoning, amends have well and truly been made — but unlike the laptop, they have yet to lose steam.
“This is not becoming a regular occurrence,” Q insists, groaning and grabbing the headboard as James grips his hips and pounds into him. “I am not— oh, fuck— endorsing you bartering sex for— don’t stop—”
“I’m only getting started,” James says, though he does stop for a moment, much to Q’s consternation. As he grabs Q and flips him onto his back, he orders, “Put your legs up on my shoulders.”
In the heat of the critique, they slipped back and forth between issuing demands. Q doesn’t mind it reverting back to James giving orders, for the time being. He does as told and is immediately rewarded by James sinking into him again.
“Fuck, yes.”
“You are—” James is cut short momentarily when Q pulls him in for a kiss. He thinks he can predict the end to that sentence, every filthy possibility, but it takes him by surprise when James continues, spilling the words against Q’s neck, “—everything I have ever wanted.”
It almost slips from Q then, but before it can, James kisses him again. It is a blinding sort of kiss, their mouths clashing hungrily together, and that’s all there is and all there needs to be.
*
The seventh time’s the charm. They are lying in bed, James draped atop Q, the sunrise filtering through the skylight, painting the bedroom lavender.
When James’ phone rings, he barely moves, only casting an arm out to blindly reach for it. He lifts his head slightly from where it was nestled against Q’s neck and curses at the realisation it is Mallory calling.
Q stays quiet throughout the call. He doesn’t pay much mind to the conversation, focusing instead on tracing patterns up and down James’ side with soft strokes of his fingertips.
The world beyond may be demanding their return but for now, Q only wants to feel the pleasant weight of James on top of him, the warmth and comfort of it, and to map new pathways across James’ bare skin.
When the call ends, James tosses his phone aside and relaxes atop Q again. As he returns to kissing Q’s neck, he murmurs, “I have to go in soon.”
“Soon, meaning?”
“By half eight.”
Q glances over at the clock on the nightstand. Half eight isn’t far off at all. If James gets up now, he might have time for a thirty second shower and a single bite of breakfast.
But James doesn’t get up. He stays right where he is, hands coasting up Q’s thighs, nuzzling along the curve of Q’s shoulder.
“You’ll be late,” Q cautions mildly. He does precisely nothing to help the situation — his hands are caressing James’ back, gently coaxing him to stay, even though they both know Mallory won’t be in any mood for yet another recurrence of James’ punctuality issues.
“Fuck it,” James mumbles, “This is worth it.”
All at once, the elastic band releases from around Q’s heart. The drumbeat stays, all mighty now, as he tilts his head to kiss the top of James’.
“I love you,” Q says.
He could have said it any of those other times or a thousand times in between. It would have been right to say it whether they were on opposite sides of the world or just across the room from each other, in the middle of dinner or in the midst of a row, with merely a minute to spare or with an entire day or night to themselves, at work or at home or any of the other places that feel like theirs.
But it seems to belong best to this moment, this quiet morning, where it feels as though they haven’t a care in the world, even when the world is wilfully beckoning them back.
That fierce drumbeat continues to take over Q when James lifts his head and smiles radiantly. Q matches it immediately. He already wants to say it again, just to see if James’ smile will grow.
“Well, now I’m definitely going to be late,” James says, and just as Q had hoped, his smile does continue growing, so much so that it eclipses the sunrise surrounding them. “I love you, too.”