Chapter Text
“Take a vacation, she says,” Bond muttered to himself, thinking darkly of M while staring at the old stone of Skyfall Lodge, “Make yourself something to go home to other than alcohol and sex.” M hadn’t actually said ‘sex,’ but that’s what she’d been getting to in her cutting but professional lecture. “Why do I even listen to you?” James finished his miniature rant, and declined to verbally answer that he listened to the older woman because she was generally right, and also generally interested in keeping her best agent alive.
Of course, when he’d mentioned spending more time at Skyfall, she’d also said that he needed to update his old family home so that it kept out more than just wandering deer. “I’m all for my agents having regular lives outside of work, for the sake of balanced mental health,” M had said bluntly, “but I also have to think about the safety of governmental secrets. So for the love of God, get that place a proper security system.”
James had commented that he generally was the security system, but he had to admit that even in the flats he kept in London (plural, as he never really felt at home in any of them, nor did he do more than lease month-to-month because of work), there were more modern security systems built-in. And if he intended to make Skyfall a more permanent nest for him to return to when he needed to remember what it felt like to be a human instead of a spy, then he probably had to make sure that the place was decently secure while he was away, too. A few other updates wouldn’t hurt either.
Those other updates were fine - if anything, Bond started to see the wisdom in M’s words, as the physical labor of patching up the old place gave him something constructive to do when usually he was a bored terror when off-mission. Between that and his old groundskeeper coming calling from time to time, it left James feeling very… normal. Which was nice but also weird enough to let him know he wasn’t ready to retire yet.
But the security systems… Jesus Christ, he wasn’t cut out for dealing with so many wires. Which led to where he was now, staring at the wires and circuit boards and little packages of screws that he knew not what to do with. Hell, he wasn’t even convinced these were the parts he needed, but he didn’t want to call in a company for help, because as M had pointed out: secrecy was needed.
So he called Alec. Alec didn’t know modern-day security systems worth a damn either, but he’d been given the same advice James had, and they both knew all of each other’s secrets anyway. As luck would have it, they were both between mission, and Alec was more than happy to drive out and see James’ old-new place (and drink, of course). M’s opinion was that situations always got worse when 006 and 007 were together, but James always found that Alec made things better - a mindset that was proven as they sat in front of the fire at Skyfall lodge and drank Scotch contemplatively.
“I actually know a fellow,” Alec said out of the blue, “Someone who could help you with your-” He gestured at the wires and security gadgetry still sitting uselessly on the table, which James had spoken of at length. “-Security problems.” When James looked over at him with a raised eyebrow, Alec answered the unspoken question, “He’s discreet. Honestly, he’s so tightlipped that I’d think he was an agent, too.” That line of conversation seemed interesting, but before James could ask the other man to clarify, Trevelyan suddenly looked past James and frowned down the hall, asking, “Since when did you get a cat?”
They ended up talking more about the cat than Alec’s mysterious electrician - although 006 did say, as he left, that he’d talk to the man when he saw him in two days. “He works on referrals, so I don’t even have his phone number,” Alec said, then shrugged, “He’s a bit odd.”
“I can handle odd,” James reassured. The cat - a great, fluffy grey thing that had turned up at Skyfall Lodge just days after Bond had - rubbed against his leg while he spoke. She had no name, and James had given her no incentive to stay, but she’d managed to get right into the house anyway.
~^~
Trevelyan’s odd, secretive, referral-only boffin arrived at James’ house on a Sunday. James didn’t observe any religious days, and it seemed this fellow didn’t either, as he’d primly told Alec - who’d not-primly passed the message on to James - that Sunday was the soonest he could come rent a car and drive out. So apparently besides not owning a phone, the person currently wiring up Alec’s new flat had no car either.
And he went by only ‘Q’.
James had never been so inexplicably interested in something outside of a mission and a curvy blonde in his life.
Q was neither curvy nor blond, but instead bespectacled and with a mop of brown-black hair that the Scottish winds instantly wreaked havoc on. He looked very put out, and clearly not made for the countryside in his nice shoes and tweed. At least the Anorak coat was appropriate. “When your friend mentioned that you lived a bit of a ways from civilization, I didn’t quite expect this,” he said in a strained, polite voice that would have fit well coming from a university professor, “I couldn’t even put it into my GPS system.”
“I do like to stay off the map when I can,” James said, not a lie.
The eyes that took him in were thoughtful but cagy, and James had to respect how little they otherwise gave away. After a brief but telling pause, Q apparently decided to drop that line of discussion rather than question it. Interesting; Alec hadn’t been exaggerating that this Q fellow was naturally discreet. “Well, now that I’m here, what do you want me to look at? Mr. Trevelyan mentioned a security system.”
Able to appreciate a man that got right to business, James merely nodded, smiled one of his more friendly smiles, and turned towards the house. Q followed.
~^~
Having Q in his house was a curious thing. Honestly, Q was a curious thing. Bond had met a lot of people in his life, but the boffin was quickly topping the list as the most interesting - and inexplicable. It started with the cat, really.
Well, no, it started with the tech - which Q dove into instantly. The moment he saw it on the table, he didn’t even need to see James gesture towards it or hear him say anything, but instead ditched his coat and was immediately striding across the room with the little toolbox he’d brought with him. “No need for formalities then,” James said, mostly amused.
“No need for them,” was Q’s brief - but polite - answer, as he immediately started sorting through things with far more confidence than James had had.
With a shrug, James responded with, “Just speak up if you need anything,” and went about doing other projects instead. The lodge overall was still quite a mess, and there were a dozen other little projects to work on that were far more suited to his skills. However, 007 tried to stay nearby, if only because Q’s skills became more and more apparent and impressive. At one point James whistled, watching as Q started dismantling something as swiftly as any 00-agent would take apart their favourite gun. Only then did Q look up, and a delicate flush of colour touched his cheeks; he met James’ eyes like he’d forgotten he was there.
“Alec said you were good,” James said to explain himself, for once not wanting his actions to be misinterpreted as him coming on to someone, “He wasn’t exaggerating.”
The flush deepened, and it was far more endearing than expected as Q quickly looked down again at the delicate little screwdriver in one hand and the plastic casing of… honestly, James had no idea anymore… in the other. “We all have our skills,” he answered after an awkward beat, and James expected that to go somewhere - for Q to maybe make conversation, ask what James was good at - but no. Also as Alec had said, Q was very discreet, and so he didn’t ask a single thing.
Even when people weren’t talking, though, they were giving out information, and it was at that point that James started thinking that the reason Q respected secrets was because he had some himself.
And then there was the cat.
At this point, James wasn’t even sure how she kept getting in, but he suspected some shoddy windows on the second floor that he still had to refurbish or entirely replace. And maybe he sometimes held the door open if he was coming inside and noticed her trotting up, orange eyes expectant. Either way, he policed her about as much as he liked MI6 policing him, which was more or less not at all. Q had been working for about fifteen minutes and James was on his back under the sink prepping to install a garbage disposal when she decided to grace them with her presence, although James didn’t really notice her - he noticed Q .
Q froze. James was trained to notice sudden movements, which included even incredibly subtle cessations of movement, which this was. James himself kept working, likewise trained to not give himself away by acting obvious, but he did angle his head a bit more so that he could see how Q was now holding very, very still and watching the cat who’d taken up residence on the back of the sofa in the adjoining living room. She was acting quite aloof, but James still expected Q to try and coax her closer or maybe even walk over to her - at the least, James expected the boffin to ask about her. Even Alec, who swore up and down that he was not a cat person, had shamelessly gotten up to pet her as soon as he’d learned she was tame.
Instead, Q just held very still like he was afraid, then shifted so that he was further away from her at the table, and then went back to work. James frowned, bewildered.
“Are you allergic to cats?” he decided to ask, because it was very possible that Alec had forgotten to mention James’ unplanned pet.
Head jerking up so sharply that James started to suspect other things about Q’s nature (nobody moved that quickly except to flinch), Q blinked twice and then answered shortly but quietly, “No.” Then, frustratingly, he went right back to his work again. And for about ten more minutes he acted like the cat didn’t exist. Now James was really watching, though, even if he put his spy skills to use to ensure that his scrutiny wasn’t obvious. His own tools spread out all around him and old sinkwater occasionally dripping on his face, James managed to see when Q snuck a glimpse at the cat again. And then at James. And then at the cat a few more times when he seemed to deem James distracted enough not to notice. It didn’t seem like the actions of someone who was afraid of cats, per se, but honestly at this point Bond had no idea. He was good at reading people, but he knew next to nothing about Q, and his body language may as well have been etched in a foreign tongue.
Eventually the cat, coming to her own conclusions after her own scrutiny, leapt from the back of the couch to the coffee table, deciding to get a bit closer. When Q looked up with that flinch-fast sharpness again and once more froze in place, James decided to err on the side of caution and got up from under the sink. If Q truly had a phobia but was too polite (or embarrassed) to say so, then it would be for the best if James just removed the cat for the time being. The cat really was quite a calm thing, despite Kincade saying that he’d put up posters and no one coming forward to admit that they’d ever owned her, and she blinked up at James with demure, pumpkin-shaded eyes as he came to stand over her. He’d only picked her up a few times before, briefly, to move her out of the way, so he was at least reasonably sure that she wouldn’t mind him carrying her out the door. She gave the expected perfunctory meow as he got his hands under her fluffy mass and lifted her up.
When James glanced over at Q, though, he got a response he was not expecting: Q looked stricken. ‘ So much for my assumptions about a phobia of cats ,’ James decided, because as he took a step away, Q’s expression didn’t relax. In fact, the slender young man had stopped moving, and the look on his face was somewhere between fear and longing and pain . James hadn’t seen that look on a person’s face since he’d last gutted someone. Q wasn’t even looking at James anymore, but instead fixated on the cat, and with a certain amount of horror, James realised that he started shaking (just minutely, but James noticed small things) when 007 took another step away.
So James stopped. And after looking to the cat for a moment as if for answers (none to be found), he followed his instincts and just put her right back down again.
If he hadn’t been watching for it, he would have missed it, but Q let out a breath as if he’d been holding it. The tension left his shoulders. He calmed down.
James didn’t have a single fucking idea what had just happened. To the average onlooker, it would have all been almost unnoticeable, but to James it was like watching a bomb being activated and then disarmed, all in the space of seconds. Before he could ask any questions, though, Q quickly finished untangling two wires and then straightened suddenly from the table. “This system won’t work for your residence,” he declared, as if he hadn’t just been largely silent for nearly an hour and a half now, “I suspected as much when I saw the model number, but I wanted to be sure.” Expression composed now and as unruffled as a priest’s starched collar, Q finished, “I’ll have to go back to town and see if I can find something else.”
00-agents were rarely off-balance as a rule, but James was now, as he tried to reconcile Q’s previous reaction with the calm facade he was presenting now. He was mostly on autopilot as he responded, “The nearest town is pretty small. I had to go further just to get this.”
Q hummed but wasn’t deterred. “Two days. I’ll get you something in two days. I can do a lot with a little, and have some spare parts at home.”
“I might not be here in two days.” Like his previous answers, this was the truth, if not the complete truth; he might not be here because, as an assassin-spy of MI6, he could get called away on a mission at any moment.
In the first sign of reasonable human emotion so far, Q’s mouth quirked upwards in the faintest of smiles. “Well, then, your current security system certainly won’t keep me out. If you have no objections, I’ll just let myself in and do the job.” By now the cat was rubbing against Bond’s leg for attention (she’d rather liked being carried, brief as it had been, and seemed quite confused at being suddenly put down again), but Q was ignoring her so firmly that one would think she didn’t exist in this reality at all. “Do you - have any objections, that is?” Q backed off a bit, his dry humour fading to professionalism again. “I understand from Mr. Trevelyan that both you and he are not in the business of having people… well, in your business, so I could set up another time.”
Thoroughly bewildered by Q at this point and finally getting a bit frustrated (perhaps childishly so) at having only questions about him and no answers, James decided on a whim to answer with, “My work is very sporadic. If I had a number, I could just call you when I’m home.”
And Q’s expression immediately closed down entirely. He became as aloof as the bottom of a lake. “I’ll be working on Mr. Trevelyan’s security system in three days. If you’re home at that point, let him know, and I’ll be sure to come here straight after - with a system that will work,” he said in a tone that carefully trod the line between being professional and icy. It had apparently been the wrong thing to try and get a phone number from him.
Q packed up as efficiently as he did everything else. James struggled for something to say, his usually silver tongue failing him in the face of such a strange visitor. “What do I owe you for today?” he finally managed, hoping that would be seen as an olive branch.
But Q wasn’t having it, although his tone was a bit softer (more on the professional side than the cold side) when he said, “There’s no need to pay me anything until I’ve done a satisfactory job - and I haven’t done anything for you yet.” There was perhaps the slightest hint of concession in his eyes as he said this, glancing briefly up at James, maybe regretting his previously harsh tone. It was the closest thing to an apology James was going to get, he figured, for such an unexpected bit of whiplash.
And maybe James should have left it at that; just nodded, said that all sounded good, and watched this strange young man leave. But instead, just as Q was opening the door to leave, James followed the instincts that got him into as much trouble as they got him out of. He called after him and said quite calmly, “She doesn’t have a name, you know.” Q stopped and turned, brows beetled before his eyes followed James’ indicating gesture down to the cat. James kept his eyes on Q. “I’d appreciate any help with remedying that, if you wanted to name her.”
James wasn’t sure what he’d thought to accomplish from that, but it felt like a blow to the stomach as Q’s face went sheet white and fear lept like a cold fire back into his hazel eyes. “No,” was all he said, and then he more or less fled to his car and left.
Just standing in his quiet kitchen, James sighed, listened as the sound of the car starting and leaving faded away. Then he muttered to himself, “James, you absolute fuck-up,” and finally squatted down to give the cat the petting she’d been asking for.
~^~
An hour later and James still couldn’t untangle a single knot in that entire encounter. He’d had entire missions that were less confusing. His last impulsive comment had given him a lot of raw data to work with, true - Q’s face had been completely unguarded in that awful, painful second - but he couldn’t make heads or tails of what he’d learned. And what was worse, he felt like an utter arse for making Q feel that way, whatever it was.
Instead of breaking into the alcohol as an outlet for his frustration, James rang up Alec. As soon as the other agent picked up, James more or less growled at him, “Who the fuck did you sent to my house?”
There was a long, startled pause. “Uh… I thought I sent Q, the tech genius,” Alec eventually hazarded very carefully, “If anyone else turned up, I take absolutely no responsibility.”
“Q came,” James gave in with a tight sigh, free hand rubbing at his temples because he thought he had a headache coming on. He realised he’d have to give 006 a bit more to work with, though, unless he just wanted his friend to be as exasperated as he was, “When you said he was odd, you didn’t say he was-!” And then he lost the words to adequately describe the situation again, instead gesturing vaguely as if Alec were there to see it.
In a slightly lost sort of tone, Alec hazarded, “...Gay?”
“No,” James snorted, but filed that way for later like a good agent, then calmed down enough to actually sit. He proceeded to lay out what had happened, with Q’s quietly alarming reaction to James’ cat. “Do you know anything more about him?” James finished by asking, at this point just about desperate to understand more.
Unfortunately, he could all but hear his own companion shaking his head. “No, all I know is that he does good work and only accepts cash. I don’t even have his phone number.” James swore. He’d been about to ask about that next. “I’m lucky that my place’s tech is pretty simple to set up, he says, because after he gets done working this Friday I don’t know how I’ll ever find him again except through my friend who referred him to me. ”
James, whose residence was looking like it was not going to be simple to set up, already foresaw a nightmarish game of phone-less phone-tag in his future. He rocked his head back on the sofa with a sigh. He felt the cushion next to him depress as the cat jumped up next to him, apparently deciding that today was a ‘friendly’ day. When he lifted the fingers of his left hand from his thigh, he felt her whiskers and breath against the back of them. “Do you think that he’s in the spy business?” James had to ask.
“God, I hope not,” Alec exhaled on the other end of the line. By his tone, he’d already thought of this, though. “Or if he is, I hope he’s working for someone friendly to us, because I was hoping to keep him in retainer for the next time I needed to get my laptop working again.”
“Finally downloaded too many viruses watching porn?”
“Shut the fuck up, James, it’s not my fault that MI6 decided to stop replacing personal phones and computers two years ago - pretty sure that was your fault, by the way.”
“You wound me,” James feigned shock, smiling now at the ceiling and absently petting soft fur with his free hand, “I exclusively destroy things that I don’t own.”
“And that is exactly why I like to hang out at your place instead of mine, even if it means driving across the moors now,” Alec declared.
Still pondering Q, James was quick to return the topic to the day’s encounter, asking, “Do you think he’s afraid of cats?”
Untroubled by the persistent topic, Alec replied, “Anything’s possible, but I doubt it. He’s got a photo of a cat for the background screen on his laptop.”
Thinking that he was learning something now, Bond leaned forward unconsciously, startling his own cat as he demanded, “Is it big and grey?”
“You mean like your monstrous cloud of a cat?” Alec said knowingly, although he was quick to go on, “Not in the least. Something small and short-haired and sandy-colored, I think.”
Their phone conversation meandered from there. It did frequently detour back to Q, but ultimately it all came down to the simple fact that they had very little information to work with.
~^~
James did end up getting called away on a mission, but he was determined to be back in time for Q to work on his security system again, so he finished up the job in record time - and was just boarding a plane home when he got a call from Alec saying that Q was there, and wondering if he should see James next. “Tell him I can even pick him up on the way,” James offered brashly.
Alec left the phone for a moment; there was the muffled sound of him relaying the message. He came back a moment later to give the message, “Q says he’ll rent his own car and be there around four.”
Huffing internally at the missed opportunity to ask Q questions on a car-ride, James nonetheless let it go. Low-key interrogating someone while keeping them trapped in a moving vehicle wasn’t exactly polite anyway… “I’ll be there,” he promised, even though his plane was already delayed. Pondering the tight schedule, he quickly added, before Alec could hang up, “Tell him he can let himself in if I’m out.”
There was another pause as Alec no doubt pondered the fact that James was usually a territorial, secretive bastard - but was now inviting mysterious near-strangers into his house unchaperoned. “If you’re sure,” he finally said dubiously.
“I’m sure. Tell him I’ll pay him back for the rental car.”
“He says he doesn’t need it, and that he already told you that he’ll accept payment when he’s done.”
“Fine, tell him-”
“Yup, I’m not paid enough for this,” Alec said with a very nearly audible eye-roll and then hung up.
~^~
It turned out to be a good thing that James had given explicit permission for Q to go inside without him, because James’ plane got delayed three more times, and even though he regularly exceeded the speed limit on his drive home, he was still there a full thirty minutes after 4pm. The lone wait in the airport and the ensuing flight and drive had given him a lot of time to think, though, and reflect on that fact that he’d been acting too much like an agent around Q and too little like a normal human. Sometimes it got easy to forget how to treat people. Maybe this was part of the rehabilitation that M had planned all along, by encouraging James to make more of a life for himself on home soil.
Further cementing that idea that he’d been too damn nosy was the way Q tensed and looked at him with frosty reserve the moment 007 let himself in.
There was a moment of awkward silence after that, in which James took in the new wires and screws and casings all over his table, the pile of presumably old pieces pushed off to one side, and how Q was looking at him like he was expecting another uncomfortable conversation.
This time, instead of following his instincts that said to push harder, find a weakness, dig up those secrets, James inhaled… exhaled… and then did the human thing by saying, “If you’re off to a good start here, I’m actually going to work on a project in the garage. If you need anything, it’s just the building off to the left-” He pointed in the corresponding direction helpfully. “Otherwise, mi casa es tu casa ,” he finished in as friendly and unthreatening a tone as possible, and flashed a hopefully-matching smile before turning and leaving. It was gratifying to see, just as he closed the door, that Q looked surprised but also a bit relieved. Tension had been leaving his shoulders even as James had started to make his exit.
Q was a strange little fellow, but that didn’t give James the right to chew on him like a dog on a bone.
~^~
James was fully underneath the car he was working on when he heard the door to the side of the garage open. “It’s just me,” came Q’s voice, still as posh as usual but perhaps a bit more tentative. James could see Q’s shoes as he walked the rest of the way in, adding, “I learned from working with your coworker, Mr. Trevelyan, that startling you is a bad idea.”
Bond pushed out from under the car, the rollers under him squeaking a bit as he sought out Q’s face to ask sardonically, “Did he pull a gun on you?”
Q’s eyebrows jumped upwards just a bit - another one of those understated reactions that James was learning to read into. “No. He just swore and told me not to sneak up on him. Do you escalate faster than him?”
The mild way that Q spoke belied his words, and James couldn’t help but smile, finally sitting up. The garage wasn’t heated, and the season was cool up here in Scotland, but he was still working in just a sleeveless shirt and rough trousers - all liberally stained with grease, sweat, and dirt by now. “We’re both in a dicey sort of business that rewards shooting first and asking questions later, metaphorically speaking,” he allowed, and this time didn’t wait too long for the questions that didn’t come. He was tempted to add, ‘ Literally speaking, too ,’ in a rare moment of openness, but managed to catch his tongue. “Need something?”
“No - well, not really,” Q stumbled through his words, and James noted with amusement the way Q’s eyes danced over the blond-haired man still sitting before him. He belatedly recalled Alec’s words about Q’s preferences, and internally preened a bit - because attention was attention, and James wasn’t picky about what gender it came from. “I was just coming to tell you that I’ve made some progress but still need more parts, and was going to call it quits for today - before it got dark.”
James didn’t have his watch on, but a quick glance at the window was enough to tell him the time: getting late. “Hm. Probably best to get on the road before dark anyway,” he agreed, and then stood. Q’s eyes followed him discreetly again - although he also noticed that Q’s attention was split between James himself and the car. The agent decided to be flattered by that, because he was proud of that car, and being ogled in equal amounts to an Aston Martin felt like an achievement. His earlier plans to not be a cad went out the window a bit as he lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe off his hands and then his face, an action that did the trick of making him more interesting than the vehicle behind him. “Let me make you a sandwich before you go. Or did you eat already?”
Q’s mouth moved a moment before any sound came out, possibly because he wasn’t prepared for the question, but also possibly because he’d been staring at the skin revealed by James’ lifted shirt. “Um… No. I didn’t bring anything.”
“You can always raid what you want in the kitchen,” James informed him. He should have clarified that earlier, he admitted to himself, but he liked how his words assumed more visits in the future for potential pantry-raiding. Q was odd, true, but he certainly made for interesting company. The agent started walking to the door, leading the way back to the house, “No promises that there will always be a lot of tasty options there, but you’re welcome to anything.”
“Even the Scotch?” Q asked, following him.
James looked back over his shoulder, a smirk making its way onto his face as he took in Q anew. “So you have been checking out my kitchen,” he accused - but playfully, carefully. His last attempts at pushing Q’s buttons hadn’t gone well, and despite what M liked to say, James did do his best to learn from his mistakes.
His care paid off as Q did look away, but it was with a shy smile this time instead of with unease and pure avoidance. “Perhaps just a little,” he admitted, then looked back to defend, “I was actually just looking for a glass to drink some water. I prefer to stay hydrated.”
“Always wise.”
They walked companionably back to the house, where the electrical components on James’ table looked more organised than before, although no more sensible to him than before. Q stood by awkwardly, clearly unsure what to do with himself, as James pulled things out of the fridge and drawers to make a simple ham and cheese sandwich. This time instead of questioning Q, James just kept quiet.
And it paid off.
“I actually also wanted to apologise.” Q’s words punctuated the silence suddenly. He’d had his hands behind him, leaning against the counter, but now rocked forward and back a bit with nerves. James didn’t say anything, and that once again encouraged Q to speak more, elaborating, “For my tone. Last time I was here. I know that I acted oddly, and that wasn’t professional of me.”
The agent in James was screaming at him to take that admission and use it as leverage to find out exactly why Q had been acting so oddly, but he managed to yank that part of him back on a choke-chain and instead reply only with, “No need to worry about professionalism, Q. God knows Alec and I have precious little of it.”
“Still,” Q insisted. Then he went quiet, looking down at his shoes. The mop of hair at his brow fell down and obscured his eyes, but his voice was still audible even as he went on much more softly, “I have… a lot of things in my past that I’m dealing with. And I can understand how it makes me difficult to work with. The phone thing, I know-”
“Q.” James just said his name softly and the boffin’s head lifted, that flinch-fast motion that James had noticed earlier. That combined with the increasing note of stress in the younger man’s voice had James’ urge to dig up secrets fading into the background. Bond was able to say with sincerity, “You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“Are you sure?” Q asked warily, looking very much like James’ cat when he’d first met her: standing at the edge of his yard and looking at him like she wasn’t sure if he was an opportunity or a threat. “You seemed awfully curious last time I was around.” And now there was a fine edge in his voice, and James couldn’t blame him for that. Just because James hadn’t all-out interrogated Q didn’t mean that his intentions were hidden, it seemed - Q was clearly a canny sort who was quite capable of reading subtext.
If nothing else, this was an opportunity for James to apologise for his actions last time, so he set aside the sandwich (finished) and turned to face Q fully. He didn’t miss the way that Q drew back a bit, so Bond made an effort to not move too quickly as he raised one hand in a solemn gesture. James declared as candidly as a spy knew how, “On my word, I won’t do anything to make you uncomfortable from here on out.”
Q didn’t deny that he’d been uncomfortable, as most people would have out of pride. “That’s a pretty tall order, from a stranger to a stranger,” Q said, but his tone and posture had softened a bit. James thought he read tentative humour in the glint of Q’s eyes. In fact, Q’s lips quirked up at the edges just enough to hint at a smile, giving away the teasing behind his next sentence, “Your colleague also likes to tell stories about you - nothing in detail, but enough to hint at your word being a flexible thing at times.”
“Alec needs to learn to keep his mouth shut,” James murmured frostily but still with a smile of his own. He was rewarded by Q snorting, and the light of joviality in his eyes blossoming a bit more. Deciding that a bit of fun between them was a monumental improvement on how their last interaction had gone, James smiled more broadly and just went with it. “Pinky-promise, then?” Bond shamelessly stuck out one hand, just his smallest finger raised, enjoying the way Q’s eyebrows jumped upwards under his hair. With an air of drama now, the blond-haired man put his other hand on his chest, declaring, “If my word won’t suffice, then I’m afraid this is my only remaining option!”
Now it looked very much like Q was trying not to laugh, and James felt a little thrill of unexpected victory. He hadn’t learned anything more about the history of this secretive boffin, but he had learned what he looked like when he was happy. “Fine, if you’re going to be melodramatic about it,” Q acquiesced with an eye-roll, and both them chuckled even as Q likewise reached out a hand and briefly snagged their pinky-fingers together. James realised it was the first physical contact they’d made, since neither had initiated a handshake when they’d first met.
With that, James gave Q the sandwich to go and wished him a safe trip home - Q promised to be right back tomorrow, which suited James just fine. James went outside to watch him leave this time, something unaccountably warm nestled in his chest as he took in the calmer, lighter way that the other man moved. Q wasn’t escaping his presence this time, and that was a nice thing.
As Q’s rental car disappeared down the road, James’ cat - absent all day for her own reasons, as mysterious as a moth - reappeared to mew at him. Apparently she wanted supper, too.
