Archive of Our Own

  
They asked, ‘Do you love her to death?’
I said, ‘Speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life.’

At twenty-three, James falls in love with death.
He’s quite familiar with it already – orphaned as he is – but he doesn’t fall in love until his time at the SBS.
There is a counter-terrorism mission that goes entirely out of hand, James trapped in a floating submarine with no way out, and there’s something almost electrifying about forcing the submarine underwater without its airlocks engaged. As soon as the water rushes in, everyone forgets about killing James, distracted by their impending doom. There is a fear in their eyes, naked and all-consuming, that sweeps past James entirely. He just takes a deep breath, dives under, and swims as fast as he can.

Later, after James’ body has been retrieved and his heart shocked back into rhythm again, he revels in the feeling. It’s the coldest, most beautiful thing he’s ever done.

Six months pass, during which James is promoted to the RAF. When someone else’s parachute fails during a freefall exercise, James doesn’t hesitate to dive after him. He pulls his own parachute open only after he has fixed the other jumper’s broken ripcord.
It doesn’t scare him; the ground rushing closer and closer. If anything, there’s something comforting about dying – its absoluteness, its inevitable gravity. The cruelty it doesn’t hide.

Fascinated, James follows death across the world. He fights in Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia. He becomes a Lieutenant Commander, then a Commander, then a shadow that needs neither title nor name. He infiltrates governments and terrorists, and he does it without flinching.
James knows death very well, by now. Not only has he watched it happen from the outside countless times, but has also been declared dead often enough to know that there is a shape to the nothingness. A dark, silent cold. A waiting hand. He finds it thrilling and reassuring both at once. Everyone dies. The others just aren’t as good at it as he is.

At thirty, he’s approached by a woman in a strict pantsuit, piercing him with even stricter eyes, and asked if he’s capable of more. More what, James asks, even though he can imagine the answer already. If death employs heralds, surely this woman is one of them.

You would need to give yourself completely to Country and Crown, the woman says, audibly capitalizing. Your life would not be your own anymore.
James shrugs. Life escapes him, anyways, in all its dull little intricacies. He excels at other things.

You’ll go where we tell you to go, do what we tell you to do, kill who we tell you to kill, the woman continues. If you do it right, you’ll be saving thousands, protecting millions. And you’ll be paid accordingly. There is a pension fund, as well, although it rarely comes to that.

James grins. Years later, he will realize that mentioning the pension was a test. In the moment, he simply asks, is that why you’re hiring an orphan? No next of kin to demand pension money?
The woman blinks in a way that, also later, James will realize to be a hidden smile. In the moment, she extends her hand.

At thirty, James shakes the hand of a woman called M.

At thirty, James becomes a secret agent.

At thirty, James marries death. It makes sense, he thinks. She was, after all, his first and greatest love.

He finds other loves, of course, in the years that follow. James was never much of a faithful man, and he and death have soon fallen into the routine of many married couples. He’s away most times, although he does send her quite a few gifts. Every now and then, he visits, and they dance. Sometimes, he even falls asleep with her, but he’s always gone before the sunrise. He fucks a secretary, or a swimsuit model, or a pretty stranger, and all the while he thinks of her.

It’s fine, they have an understanding. And anyways, everyone leaves him except her.

A decade comes and passes, and James grows into himself. Into 007, the man that married death. He makes a name in the business, at least as much as any secret agent can. He earns experience, confidence, an alcohol problem, and countless scars. And then, his routine does what all routines, sooner or later, end up doing: it breaks.
Or, in James’ case, because his life is never not dramatic – it explodes.

With the smell of debris still in his nose, James follows his orders to an art gallery. The explosion has shaken him awake, and he’s more than ready for the weight of a weapon in his hand. Ready to take Silva down, if it’s the last thing he does. It’s personal, this time around. And if James wants someone dead, then death will follow.

The person that meets him in the art gallery is not who James expected. Confident, but frail enough that it can’t possibly be earned, and on top of that so bloody young. When he introduces himself as the newly-appointed quartermaster, James can’t help but scoff.
He knows those types of promotions, from the crises he has managed before. MI6 must have appointed not by qualification or tenure, but simply by who is left alive and standing. Apparently, the entirety of Q-Branch was wiped out in Silva’s explosion, and they had to promote the intern that was away to fetch coffee.
James sighs, and puts the new Q and all his prissy comments out of mind. The MI6 is running on panic and a skeleton crew right now. Surely, if and when he returns from his mission, someone else will have replaced this boy already.

Instead, by the time he returns, M is dead, and James is angry about much, much more than just undeserved promotions. He’d always been so sure that M, of all people, would be the one person to survive him. It turns out he was wrong. Nothing lasts, except the vows he gave when he became this. He really should’ve known.

James goes to the funeral, which is awful and stuffy and impersonal. He holds his own memorial, a few hours later, in the privacy of his own kitchen. He’s tipsy and foul-mouthed and unkind, but he can’t help thinking his M would’ve preferred it like this.
Then, he spends one night drinking himself into a coma, and returns to MI6 the next morning, begging for a mission. Any mission. Preferably one far, far away. Maybe somewhere sunny. Maybe somewhere where he’ll get to put his fist through a wall.

Because the week has already been as shitty as it could possibly be, he’s not even that surprised by the new voice in his ear. H, his previous handler, was present when the building had collapsed, and must’ve succumbed to their injuries. And apparently, there’s only one other fucking person left working in IT right now.
When he expresses the sentiment, Q hums in a way which quite clearly conveys that he thinks James is an idiot.

“You might see why, after Silva, the head office thought it best to give our field agents a stronger support system. ‘Less people, more personable,’ I think was the memo.”

James grunts, busy throwing open a door that leads to a garage. It’s always encouraging to hear his employer thinks he might turn to cyberterrorism and anarchic murder sprees unless he makes a friend at work.
“They should’ve given me Siobhán, then. Charming accent, surprisingly flexible. Or Prisha, the sarcastic one with the braids. Or-”

“I’m not here to entertain you, double-oh seven,” Q interrupts him. They’re not going to last long if he’s already this annoyed, James thinks. “I’m here because, out of the few people working at MI6 right now, I am the one who’s best equipped to bring you back home in one piece. So I don’t need you to like me, I need you to let me do my job.”

“My, is that your impression of being personable?” James quips, only briefly distracted by breaking the window of a beautiful Jaguar. “You must be the life of every party. Or at least the ones your mum lets you attend.”

“Hilariously funny, Bond. Now focus, you will be with armed company in about thirty seconds. Please tell me you can hot-wire the car before then.”

James unlocks the steering wheel and turns on the ignition. “Really, Q. It wounds me that you even have to ask.”

The mission ends up less exciting than James had hoped it to be, other than the fight he gets into with Q on his way back. Apparently, the boy thinks James doesn’t listen enough. To be fair, James didn’t listen, but that’s because he knows what he’s doing on his own. He doesn’t need an unpractised twink in his ear telling him otherwise. H respected that.
He should check if they left any family behind. Maybe send some flowers and a thank-you note.

Once he’s back at his hotel, Q still chewing him out, James removes his earpiece and throws it into a stale glass of wine. The silence is a blessed relief.

It doesn’t last long. Twenty minutes later, room service shows up at his door with a hearing aid – the kind that travel kiosks sell to scam the elderly. Apparently, it was sponsored by ‘a concerned colleague.’
James shoos the lady away with a generous tip, to make up for his murderous expression, and then flips off the camera hidden in his ceiling fan.

“You think you’re so fucking above all this, don’t you?” he asks the ceiling. “As if an intellect and a title give you the rights to the whole fucking universe. You’re nothing special. You’re just the little boy that led Silva right into the heart of MI6.”

The ceiling fan, unsurprisingly, does not respond.

After that incident, Q is silent on their comms, unless he absolutely has to speak. James is unsure if he prefers it this way, but he doesn’t linger on the thought. The death of M still burns through him, and he’s trying to lose himself in work, anyways, with or without Q’s passive-aggressive silence.
He’s undercover on a cruise ship for a month, then hunting someone down through the forests of Norway, then in Saudi Arabia for a trafficking ring. He gets shot twice, there; once in the thigh and once a graze past his shoulder. The thigh hurts more, but the shoulder is more annoying, because it happened when Q told him to turn left and he turned right instead.
Q and him are talking again, after that, but only because Q misses no opportunities to remind him of it. Apparently, he prefers being obnoxious over obnoxiously silent.

Instead of recovering, James accepts a honeypot mission in Qatar. He sleeps with a beautiful woman, the stitches in his leg coming undone during the night. In the morning, he finds fresh blood seeped through his skin. Q tuts when he finds out, as if James has done him a personal offence.

The woman turns out to be his mark, so two days later, he watches as poison turns her skin an ashy grey. James dumps her body in the harbour and drives back to his hotel room, already wiping her smile from his memories. He was never one for sentimentalities. When he asked her to run away with him, he’d lied.

Before his next mission sends him deep into the Congo, James meets Alec Trevelyan in a pretentiously shiny rooftop bar in Doha. His flight was delayed by five days, which James suspects is less because of the flight and more because of the recovery period for his thigh, whose end miraculously coincides with an extended layover for Alec. Normally, James would protest being coddled like this, but the simple fact is that he hasn’t seen Alec in years, and so he waits for him in Doha.
Their friendship is a rickety, bone-deep kind of thing. They’ve never been afforded much time with each other, given how deeply undercover Alec usually goes in Russia. And yet, James doesn’t think there’s ever been another person who understood him this fully. Of course, the reverse is true as well – when Alec greets him with a relieved expression and orders three shots for himself, James can tell immediately that the last few years have not been kind to him. He puts the observation aside for later and pulls Alec into a hug.

Later, then, they’re sharing a cigarette on the balcony of Alec’s hotel suite. James is wearing Alec’s unbuttoned shirt, who in turn has opted for a bathrobe, but the night is warm enough for both. The balcony has a nice view, palm trees and a large street below them, and the traffic is loud enough to swallow up anything that they might say.

“Where are you off to next, then?” James asks, blowing smoke through his nostrils. “Moscow again?”

Alec shakes his head and is silent for a while, the cigarette glowing in his hand. He takes a deep drag. “I’m not going back to Moscow, James. There was a code violet.”

Only decades of training mean that James doesn’t flinch at that word. It’s something that most younger agents trade ghost stories about. A code violet happens when any interference at all becomes too risky for MI6. It means the agent is cut off completely and left to their own devices, which usually range from suicide to torture. A code red, at least, comes with the gentleness of a bullet behind the agent’s forehead.

“What the fuck happened?” James asks, knowing that Alec will hear his concern.

“FSB found me. Things went sideways.”

Alec moves his jaw and looks away, not bothering to conceal the tells. James is dying to know how Alec not only knows about the code violet, but made his way back despite. As far as he knows, that has never happened before. Alec meets his curious gaze and shakes his head, changing the topic. James lets him.

“So, how is the new MI6? A lot has changed since I left.”

“You don’t say.” James rolls his eyes and gestures for the cigarette. “Still feels wrong to call Mallory M. He lacks her spine.”

“Mmh. You know, he had me sign up to three HR workshops before I was let back into the field. The therapy schtick, I can understand, but what the fuck am I supposed to do at a ‘conflict resolution in the workplace’ seminar? They let me go after an hour because I was frightening the interns.”

“Just wait until you have to hand in your first mission report. He wanted me to rewrite mine because I used the wrong font.”

“The world has gone to shit, huh?”

“We’ll just have to outlive him,” James hums.

He knows both of them would still step into the line of fire for Mallory – he has his own strengths, and they both have a job that they take seriously. But it’s nice to be outside of it, for one night, with someone else who understands how bizarre and frustrating their not-quite-lives can be.

“Even you should manage that,” Alec muses. “What is he, 82?”

“At least,” James agrees, even though he knows Mallory turns sixty in two months. They’re out here to bitch, not to fact-check each other. “He could be the great-grandfather of our new quartermaster. Maybe that’s where those cardigans come from.”

“Mmh. What do you think of him so far?”

“Q? Arrogant little shit. Is he your handler too? He gets all nasally and prissy when you ignore him, watch out for that. And he obviously has not been to a hairdresser once in –”

“James.”

Alec interrupts him, suddenly serious. James looks up at him to find all amusement wiped from his expression.

“You shouldn’t ignore him. Is that why you got shot?”

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I was unlucky.”
He shrugs and hands Alec the cigarette. Alec, instead of taking a drag, stamps it out on the balcony. His voice has gone glacially soft.

“No. No, James, I was unlucky, when a honeypot from fifteen years ago recognized me inside a meeting with the ministry. I was unlucky when I was taken to an underground torture facility and found my earpiece had been deactivated long before anyone even bothered to remove it. Don’t shrug him off just because he doesn’t do things your way.”

There’s something Alec’s not saying, somewhere in the middle. Something to explain his sudden mood swing. The last time they’d openly disagreed on something had been in 1997, when Alec had fallen in love with a brunette that James had found utterly- James furrows his brows.
Admittedly, the new Q is much more his own type than Alec’s, but maybe Alec’s times have been desperate. Maybe he had gotten hit over the head with something in Moscow.

“Did you fuck him already, Alec?”

Alec rolls his eyes. “You know that’s not the only way that things can go.”

“He fucked you?” James asks, even more surprised.

“No,” Alec replies and flicks the cigarette bud into the traffic below. “He didn’t need to. He had my loyalty before we ever met.”

Now, James does startle. ‘006’ and ‘loyalty’ have long since been antonyms at MI6. It’s common knowledge that Alec only ever accepted the job because of James, and would have readily followed him anywhere else as soon as James decided to leave. He’d only been biding his time. Until, of course, a code violet in Moscow. Until, apparently, Q.
James blinks as he puts the puzzle pieces together.

“He got you out of there? How?”

“I won’t tell you, so don’t ask,” Alec responds. “But when your arrogant little shit says jump – I’ll jump.”

He turns to leave James alone on the balcony, then in the Congo, then in a wild goose chase across Europe and North Africa. Throughout most of it, James is quite busy with the corruption of the British government and his own evil adoptive brother, but he doesn’t forget that conversation with Alec. When James needs to go against M’s orders, he takes a chance, and asks Q for help. And Q, who famously dislikes James Bond almost as much as he dislikes flying, catches the first flight to Austria for him, and helps with only mild complaining.
It’s an intriguing combination. Truthfully, James might be starting to like him a little, just for that. He’s always had a weak spot for complicated people.

The mission ends as many others do – James restores temporary balance to the world, falls in love with a blonde, steals some government supplies, and rides off into the sunset with her. He even leaves Q a bottle of champagne for the car, in thanks.

He and Madeleine settle down on a tiny island in the Mediterranean, in a lovely house overlooking nothing but mountains and sea. Maybe it’s a bit too late for kids, but James can envision what his life here will look like – great sex, lazy breakfasts, long swims in the sea. A suntan, a wine cellar. Maybe a dog. Otherwise, peace. Stability.

He makes it two months before he’s back at the head office.

M looks a bit murderous, but ultimately just hands James a new file and grumbles he ‘might as well.’ Apparently, he still has some goodwill left from the Nine Eyes debacle.

That goodwill, James finds out soon, has not made it all the way down to Q-Branch. When James jauntily strolls in and asks for a new gun, Q glares, continues typing for several minutes, and then stands up and storms off.
James looks around at the rest of Q-Branch, who have all fallen silent and are now looking at him with wide eyes, so maybe this is not a regular occurrence.

“Is this about the car?” James asks no one in particular. The general confusion only grows. Two people shrug.

“Double-oh seven.” Q sticks his head back in through the door, glaring again. He has a way of enunciating when he’s angry that James realizes he has missed. It’s very sharp and straightforward. Usually, when people are angry with him, they either try to bash his head in or devise weirdly intricate murder schemes, so the enunciating is a nice change of pace.

“If you want a gun, you can follow me to the gun range. Or have you grown senile enough in your absence that one of my minions needs to provide you with a map?”

“Yes, dear,” James quips and follows.

He’d called Madeline ‘dear,’ one time, then stopped because it had sounded too strange. There’d been no space, in his dead heart, for its meaning.
He has no idea why it slipped out now.

At the gun range, Q unlocks a panel in the wall titled ‘00’ and takes out a Walther that clicks to life in his hands. James is not surprised – if there are biometrics built into anything in MI6, Q is probably the factory setting. He is a little surprised by how practiced Q’s stance is, and then in combination, how off his aim on the training dummies. Q buries 13 bullets in one of them, but they’re all over the place – chest, kneecap, forearm, stomach, hairline, shoulder, thigh, shin, collarbone, palm, calf, hip, stomach again.
By bullet number four, James has understood what is happening. These are all the major injuries he sustained with Q as his handler. It’s not a bad quota, for the two years they’ve known each other, but he doesn’t think that’s the point Q is trying to make. Actually, he’s not sure if Q is making a point, or just enjoying the resemblance of shooting him.

If he’s saying these are mine as much as they are yours, or if that part is simply in James’ head.

Once he’s done, Q turns to him but doesn’t lower the gun. Instead, he aims right at James’ heart, looking furious. He’s a good shot, as James knows now, and they’re standing less than five feet apart. There’s no way Q would miss, if he decided to shoot.

Bond raises his hands and plays up a smile. “If I’d known the Aston Martin was this important to you, I’d have taken the –”

Q pulls the trigger.

The handgun clicks, but no bullet comes out. James’ heart, which has not gotten the memo, comes to an abrupt standstill regardless.

“New target recognition software,” Q smiles, sharp and mean. “We had some trouble with the palmprints when 003 burned her hand, so now there’s a larger margin of error. Some people might be capable of firing your gun, if their palmprint is similar to yours, or if they’re a pissed-off quartermaster with admin rights. Either way, if the gun recognizes you or your bio tracker, it won’t fire. It’s yours.” He throws the gun over to James, who catches it on reflex.

“Anything else?”

“R will bring you a bag. The ring measures your vitals, the tie pin has a microphone and camera, the pen changes colour when it touches poison. The ear piece is wine-proof, and the phone is a phone. Any debatably witty remarks?”

James swallows down several as he slides the gun into his belt. He’d never been friends with Q, but this newfound iciness is probably not the best basis for a mission. He should at least try to return them to neutral ground, wherever that is.

“It really wasn’t anything personal,” he tries, aiming for a tone of general sorriness.

“No.” Q’s mouth tightens into a thin line. “On your side, double-oh seven, it very evidently was not.”

Q is out of the gun range before James has found anything useful to say. His heart, unshot, still rabbits in his chest.

Thankfully, Q manages to be professional during the next mission. In return, James tries to be as polite as he can manage without flirting. Mentally, he’s gone over every single one of their encounters and concluded that his flirting was most likely the root of Q’s problem. Not that he’d done it consciously, but James is aware there is a certain base level, with him. If nothing else, it’s always fun to rumple the feathers of a nerd. But his file makes no secret of that fact, and Q is, supposedly, a genius. If he’d thought James meant any of it, that’s on him. James is not going to feel guilty for a broken heart.
He is, however, trying out this new thing where he’s cordial to the one coworker he’s inevitably stuck with.

They work surprisingly well together, stilted and polite. At least until day three, when Q tells him to kill someone and James thinks that he’s wrong.
“You’ll miss your window, double-oh seven,” Q’s voice comes through his earpiece. “Take the damn shot.”

“I don’t trust this. Everything has worked out too seamlessly.”

“I shudder to think of your track record, if things working out is a red flag for you.”

“Q,” James bites out, close to snapping at him. The ever-present typing noise stops.

“You’re serious? Without any reason whatsoever, besides a gut feeling?”

“Would you rather I shoot an innocent man, or loose my window for a guilty one?”

“I’d rather you not get me fired,” Q huffs. “Fine, fine, point made. But if we are changing tactics so late in the game, we’re doing it my way.”

“Okay. What do you have in mind?”

Maybe Q expected more pushback, because there is stunned silence for a second before the typing resumes. When he speaks again, Q’s voice has gone back to business; all fluid and fast and deadly.
“Take the stairs to the right. Quickly, his chauffeur will be here soon. Remove your tie pin. I’ll get a cab to stop by, brush past him as you hurry to get it. Slip him the tie pin and then get out of there.”

“On it.”

The plan works like a charm, but there’s a tense silence as Q tracks the tie pin and James disappears back to his hotel. One of them will have to apologize to the other, sooner or later.
“Any updates?” James asks when he’s back in the suite. His gut feeling is seldom wrong, but he’d hate to have let the mark go.

“The audio on the microphone needs a bit of work, the signal-to-background ratio is horrendous from his pocket. I’m running a reconstructive PID algorithm on it, but the yield –”

“Q.” James almost smiles. “Anything mission sensitive?”

“Oh. Not on your end, no. He’s on the highway.”

“Should I be, too?”

“Not yet. I’ll let you know.”

He paces in wait for the next twenty minutes, opening the minibar after ten. It’s not a nice feeling, to have the mission pulled out of his hands. James has just started chewing on an ice cube in boredom when Q finally calls him back.

“So, there’s good– what was that crunch?”

“My patience. What’s the good news?”

“You were right. That man is an actor. There was some great FX makeup involved, apparently, we should look into that. He was just hired to get shot. When he didn’t, they panicked and drove him right back to their headquarters for an interrogation.”

Bond sits up straighter. The smuggling network he’d been ordered to dismantle was frustratingly old-school, and neither he nor Q had been able to find their hideout – until now.

“Should I pay them a visit?”

“I’ve sent you the coordinates. They’re planning to wipe everything as soon as they hear back from their boss, and there’s a stack of CD’s I would like you to retrieve beforehand. Assuming there exists an external drive, somewhere in the archives of Q-Branch, that hasn’t yet succumbed to dust.”

James has to smile at the indolence. He’s pretty sure CDs are not yet ancient tech, no matter how much they irk his quartermaster.

“And their boss?”

“Well.” James thinks he can hear a similar smile, now, forming in Q’s voice. “He was in the building opposite you, trying to oversee his own assassination. When you left, he and his bodyguards followed you to, I assume, return the favour.”

“Strange. I don’t feel particularly assassinated.”

“Strange, indeed. You should find a quiet floor and open the lift that’s been marked out of order. I’ve left you a present in there. Although it might have gotten a little agitated, by now.”

“You say the sweetest things,” James purrs. It’s a little flirtatious, perhaps, but it’s out before he can stop himself. Q doesn’t rise to the bait, anyways.

“I wanted to thank you,” the quartermaster says instead, with a weight to it that makes James pause at the door. “You saved an innocent life today. Well, he’s an improv actor, so ‘innocent’ is relative, but still. I misjudge things, sometimes, from the distance of my screens. Thank you for letting me know I was wrong.”

That’s new, James thinks. New, but not unwelcome. And a brave thing, probably, for the little boy genius to admit. He swallows down the urge to gloat, for the sake of their continued teamwork.

“Thank you for listening, Q. And for the present.”

He gets Q that stack of CDs, interspersed with several erotic audiobooks he found at a second-hand electronics store, because the thought tickled him greatly. He only wishes he was there to see Q’s face when he stumbles upon the first.

Q-Branch must be quite busy, these days, because it takes over a week until Q retaliates. In the middle of a Tuesday night, James is suddenly woken by all of his devices playing a different Katy Perry song at once. It takes 19 minutes until he has managed to turn off everything, including the phone buried under his floorboards that would not stop blasting Swish Swish.
He decides to play his mood off as amused, even though he’s heard the line ‘swish swish bish’ a bit too often by now to not be genuinely annoyed. But James is a secret agent through and through. He knows well enough to not let others see him bleed.

<< Rookie attempt. You should know I greatly enjoy California girls, James texts the number Q gave him purely for emergencies. Mere seconds later, his phone dings with a reply.

>> The number you are trying to contact has blocked all outwards communications from you. If you are in need of assistance, please text ‘URGENT’ to be forwarded to 101. If you have a hearing or speech impairment, text ‘URGENT, SENIOR CITIZEN’ to make use of the textphone services provided by 18001 101.

James barks out a laugh and buries the phone back under the floorboards. Alright, so maybe he’s a little bit amused.

Things change, after that. If James had a penny for every time he’s made a friend by gifting them vintage porn CDs, he’d have exactly one penny, which he’d treasure like a good-luck charm. It turns out Q can be quite funny, when he allows himself to be. During a one-week stakeout, James makes Q watch a soap opera with him, and after day three he has to admit to himself that the soap opera is utter bullshit, and he’s only still entertained due to his back-and-forth with Q.

On day six, he turns off the television, and they just talk.

James finds out that Q has two cats, named logo and tortoise, which he insists are stupid names even after the two-hour introduction Q gives him to women in tech. He also finds out that Q works insane hours, developed carpal tunnel syndrome as a teen, and really only makes it through his 30-hour workdays because the minions of Q-Branch have a group chat dedicated to bringing him snacks.
From then on, when James is in London between missions, he makes it a point to bring Q lunch and stare him into eating it. Q’s not even a field agent; it would be so embarrassing for him to faint at work, he reasons until the stubborn bastard gives in.

They thaw to each other, like two glaciers in spring. It’s nice. James can’t remember when he last put effort into making a friend.
And Q, with his all-seeing eyes and his sharp tongue and dry wit, is a good friend to have around.

After a successful mission in Tokyo, James gives himself the morning off to figure out how to make Katsu curry. Q seemed jealous, when he’d ordered it last week. And maybe James has never cooked before, but surely it can’t be that hard.

A few hours later, Q looks at the steaming Tupperware in his office as if it might be radioactive.

“What is this?”

“Food, Q. It’s that thing humans consume to make it through the day. Think of it like electricity.”

Q rolls his eyes. “I mean whose lunch did you steal, and why are you trying to implicate me.”

Bond clutches at his chest as if gravely wounded. “Can’t an agent cook for his quartermaster out of the goodness of his heart?”

“I don’t know. Can he?” Q suspiciously eyes the curry and very, very carefully picks up the chopsticks.

James feels a vicious, bright satisfaction course through him when Q’s eyes flutter shut at the first bite.

This is, perhaps, the first harbinger of many.

The year comes to a close with no major, world-ending crisis present, which means the yearly MI6 Christmas party is surprisingly well-staffed. James shows up two hours late with a pocket flask and the goal to figure out if Maríana from R&D has finally gotten divorced.

As soon as he arrives, Tanner pulls him aside to chat with some executives, which James endures for an admirable two whole minutes before he pretends 003 waved him over. He never quite makes it to the punch bowl she’s hoarding like a dragon in the corner, though. Halfway there, James is distracted by Moneypenny’s laugh, and when he turns to locate her, she’s standing by the hors d’oeuvres with- oh. That is Q.
Q, who’s wearing a garishly fuzzy, oversized green jumper and a pair of long, brown slacks. The outfit is objectively awful, but the V of the jumper is wide enough for a glimpse of bare collarbone, and Q has his hair styled up, and he’s wearing rings, plural, on those sleek, 110-words-per-minute fingers of his, and maybe James stares for a moment.

Moneypenny, the devil, notices him and waves, so James grabs a champagne flute from a server and saunters over. When Q turns to face him, his eyes flicker briefly over the very nice suit James is wearing, which is to be expected, but then they come to rest on James’ face and he smiles, which is maybe something else entirely.

“Bond.” Moneypenny grins like a shark that smells blood.

“Moneypenny.” He clicks his glass against theirs. “Q. So you are old enough to drink.”

“No. I’m actually fifteen and breaking every law there is,” Q deadpans, mirth dancing in his eyes. He downs the champagne in one go, James following the long lines of his throat. Moneypenny has a very unsubtle coughing fit about it.

The evening continues much like that. Every now and then, Q is whisked away by M, or another of the letters, and James makes a game of standing behind him and saying nothing until whichever person cornered Q into a conversation finally leaves.
And every now and then, he stares at Q, smiling and gesturing, and thinks, fuck. Why is he suddenly so pretty.

“This is wonderful. I should have you with me at all the executive meetings,” Q hums around a bite of scallop after another branch manager has absconded. “If I have to hear the word ‘budget’ one more time this year, I’ll shoot someone.”

James’ heart stutters, unbidden, at the memory of a gun trained on it.
“Just shoot them? You’re usually more imaginative, dear.”

“Quite, but the shooting has a more personal touch. Or so I’ve been told.”

“Even more personal than Katy Perry?”

“I have no idea what you mean, Bond,” Q grins, although it fades quickly again. “Why are you following me around, actually? I thought you’d only come by for Jocelyn from finance.”

“Maríana from R&D.”

“Sure. Well, I’m stepping outside for a bit. R asked me to call her, she’s manning a mission on her own down there.”

James watches him leave until 008 and 009 sidle into his view instead. It’s probably a sign to take out his flask. They’re a pretty inseparable pair, often employed on double missions together, and also unbearable gossips.
“Soooo,” 008 starts, smirking. “He’s not your usual type of girl.”
James takes out his flask.

After they’ve caught up and 009 has educated James on all the affairs happening in Medical, regardless of whether or not James asked, Q is still not back. So, James excuses himself and goes looking.
It would be silly to worry about Q, except maybe he does, a little, when he doesn’t find him on the stairs of MI6. James paces into a few of the adjoining streets until he spots Q on a nearby bench, looking out towards the Thames. He’s no longer on the phone – he’s not doing anything, as far as James can tell, except freezing to death. At least James had the mental wherewithal to put on his coat.

With a sigh, he unbuttons it and steps next to Q, coat extended.
“I’d thought my last pneumonia experience would’ve convinced you not to try it for yourself, Q.”

Q startles, predictably.
“Fuck, someone should put a bell on you.”

“Many have tried,” James grins and wiggles the offered coat until Q takes it. “Is there a reason you’re brooding out here?”

“Not brooding anymore, Alec’s mission is going well. I was just enjoying the snow for a moment.”

James looks up at the sky to notice it is actually snowing, very lightly so. He’d missed it, in his search for Q. Not that he’s surprised – who in their right mind cares for something as pitifully mundane as London snow? It never even makes it to the ground.

Q does, apparently. The bench creaks under their joint weight as James sits down beside him.

“So he’s Alec, but I’m Bond? I’m terribly offended, dear.”

“Well, he calls me Q, and you call me… that. I have to even out the scales somehow.”

James hums, brushing their knees together. “You know, he never did tell me what you did for him, back in Moscow. Said it’s not his story to tell.”

Q is silent for a moment, shifting into James’ side.
“And if I said it’s still more his than mine?”

“Then I would die a very curious man.”

“I’d rather you not die at all, James,” Q says next to him. It’s quiet, soft. Maybe not even fully intended for him to hear. And James doesn’t know at all what to answer, because- everybody dies. And no one more than him.

Silence passes, after that. Q’s side is fully aligned with James’ now, and James has an arm on the back of the bench that is really an arm around Q. The snow has quieted the noise around them, and London is almost peaceful, for a moment. Naturally, James can’t help but disrupt it.

Standing up, he asks Q if he wants to be walked home. Frankly, with this sweater, someone might mistake him for their grandma’s Christmas present. Q laughs, and accepts.
They say their goodbyes together, James wondering what Q will think about the rumours that are certain to follow. From the way Q looks at him sometimes, he doesn’t think the quartermaster minds.

Their walk to Q’s flat is filled with snow mush and not-quite-meaningless conversations. The new laptops Q is buying his branch, early Christmas memories, Hallmark films, their lunch plans for tomorrow. Q is only half listening by then, off somewhere in his own thoughts, so James falls silent. Q stays silent with him, linking their arms together as they go.
Somehow, James finds he’d rather be here, walking quietly through London, than in the bed of a stranger. The realization is weirdly unsettling.

When he sees Q’s apartment building rising in the distance, James picks their conversation up again, willing it to move somewhere further. First, James compliments Q’s hair, although it’s almost entirely back to being plastered on his forehead. Then, he asks about the rings. They’re collectibles, Q tells him. Apparently, he has a thing for rings, he just can’t stand the feeling of typing with them. A pity, James thinks. They’re gorgeous. Or rather, Q is.

“You know, 008 called you a Bond girl earlier,” he remarks. It’s not his best opening, but as far as he knows, Q might have been in love with him for years already, so surely the best is not that necessary.

“Come on. I could never be one of them,” Q laughs.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” James rumbles. “You’re beautiful enough, if one ignores the cardigans. Intelligent enough. Deadly enough, certainly. And interested, too.” The last one is a hazarded guess, but thrillingly, Q doesn’t deny it.

Instead, he laughs again. “You know, in all your seduction attempts, I’ve never heard you insult their sense of style before.”

James flashes a grin, short-lived but bright, and bumps their shoulders together. “Maybe I want you to feel special.”

“I do,” Q says, “But not because of that.”

They arrive at the bottom of Q’s apartment, and James can’t help but notice he’s not being invited up.

“What else makes you special, then, dearest?”

“That,” Q points out the nickname. He looks tired, suddenly. Well, Q always looks tired, but more so now. “You like me, so you call me that, but I disturb you, so you never mean it. You don’t know what to do with me, I think.”

“You don’t disturb me,” James protests, unsure where this is going. “You’re my quartermaster.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You can leave anyone else behind,” Q states, matter-of-factly, neither cruel nor kind.

“But I – I’ll always be right here,” he reaches out and taps James on the bone behind his ear, where his implant sits. The snow has dusted Q’s hair white, his nose red. His fingers are cold to the touch.

“If anyone will be there for your final breath, it’s me. And so you can’t sleep with me, because you’d fall in love with me. And you can’t fall in love with me, because there’d be no end to it, and you can’t handle things that have no end.”

James breathes, stunned. His heart is beating too loudly in his chest.
Maybe he should’ve paid closer attention to how he’s been acting around Q, lately. To what crumbs he’s accidentally been laying into trails again. Q is, after all, a genius who has been watching him closely for over three years. At this point, he might see things that James simply doesn’t. And those things, James startles to find, might even contain some caricature of truth.

“You sound awfully sure for someone I’m about to ask to bed,” he tries.

“Don’t.” Q shakes his head, a sliver of hurt peeling his voice apart. “Every time you leave, I bring you back home. That’s good enough for me.”

“Is it?”

“Of course it is.”

Q raises his hand back to James’ face, this time softly grasping his jaw. He angles it away with a thumb right across James’ lips. And then, he brushes a featherlight kiss to James’ cheek.
His lips are cold, but his breath is warm. For a singular second, London is empty except the two of them.

Q steps away before James can pull him any closer.

“Happy holidays, Bond,” he adds, jangling some keys from his pockets and unlocking the front door. “And have fun with Maríana. I’ll see you at the office.”

“Happy holidays, dear,” James wishes, stupor-struck.

The door closes. Above him, the sky is falling down in bits and pieces, then melting on his face.

His lips still prickle from Q’s hand. James curbs the wish to touch them. He wants, then, in that moment, something he’s not entirely sure he’s ever had the courage to name.

Q looks different, after that snowy night in December. Nothing changes about him, outwardly – not during missions, not during their shared lunches, not in the snide text messages he sends James after hours. But he looks different now.
It’s a little, James thinks, like waking up so close to someone that your eyes can no longer focus on their face. Before, James saw an amalgamation of things; the nerd, the genius, the youngest quartermaster MI6 has ever had. The arrogance, the wit, the dedication. The cat hairs and the cardigans and the earl grey. Now, those boxes fade and vanish, melting through his fingers like sand. If someone asked him to describe Q, he’s not sure what he would say. Q simply is. All descriptors fail him.

Except, perhaps, that he’s the one who, time and time and time again, brings James back home.

It’s the same old dance as always, except it isn’t, anymore. James throws himself towards death as fearlessly as ever, but now it’s to a part because he trusts that Q will bring him back. That if he falls, Q will find a way to catch him. That Q will always care enough to try.
Now, when the thrill of death shoots through him, it has a bitter, stinging aftertaste. As if death herself knows of his betrayal.

In a dream, death pulls him close and kisses him and whispers, you are mine. My lover, and my husband, and my dog. You gave yourself to me, and you belong to me completely. We need no other version of this tale.

In a dream, Q watches from the shadows and doesn’t leave when James snarls at him to fuck off.

In a nightmare, Q says, you’re so sure that you’re the big, bad wolf, James. I’m sorry. I think you’re just a lamb with sharp teeth.

It goes like that, for a while. James grows more and more reckless to prove – actually, he’s not quite sure what he’s trying to prove. He’ll figure it out when he gets there.

James drowns in Gibraltar. Q has the coast guard drag him ashore.

James goes missing in Busan. Q locates him again in Seoul.

James is poisoned in Sicily. Q guides him through the resuscitation.

James gets stibby-stabbed in Yorkshire, and the night-shift in Medical is filled with pricks, so he climbs through Q’s window instead. Q, when he steps out of the bathroom wrapped in towels, gives a very high-pitched shriek that James is going to savour forever.

“Christ, Bond! Just text me next time. Or ring the doorbell like a normal human.”

“Don’t leave the window open, then.” James grins. “Nice getup.”

Q glares at him, then turns to rummage through some cabinets for a first aid kit.
“You should be thankful I’m not calling Medical. Stitch yourself up, I’m getting changed.”

James is about to ask if Q wouldn’t rather do it for him when he notices how much the quartermaster’s hands are trembling. Fine, so maybe he’s not great with knife wounds. Everyone has their flaws. James sighs and heaves himself into the bathroom.

When he emerges, Q is sitting cross-legged on the sofa, petting a cat. Beside him on the coffee table are two plates of sushi and two bowls of soup. For a moment, he looks at James’ stitches like he wants to say something, but then he balls his fists up and discards it.
Not a single word, so far, about throwing James back out. A smile tugs at James’ chest.

“So no scotch?”

Q tilts his head, considering. “I’ll give you one glass, if you let me pick the film.”

James groans. Q is entirely too fond of animation, for his tastes. So, he moves into the kitchen to find that damned bottle himself, ignoring the offer. He’s stopped mid-motion by Q’s crisp, enunciated handler voice.

“Double-oh seven. If you get yourself black-out drunk in my apartment, from my alcohol, whilst bleeding all over my expensive couch, I can and will make sure you never spend another hour of your life without at least two spam calls reaching you. Are we clear?”

Christ, that voice. James swallows. “Crystal.”

He mournfully stares at the scotch. It’s not even a good one, but he will need it, for that film. “What’s your biggest glass, then, darling?”

After the mortifying experience of bawling his eyes out to Puss in Boots 2 and promptly falling asleep on Q’s sofa, Bond is surprised it takes him only a week to return.
He chooses a trashy romcom, as revenge, and teaches Q how to take out his stitches, and orders them both curry. The couch really is quite comfortable, and when he wakes up the next morning, one of the cats – tortoise, he thinks – has curled up besides his drawn-in legs. Q makes himself tea without commenting on any of it, then kisses the cat’s forehead and disappears off to work. James lazes on the sofa until M calls him in for his next mission. It’s the most relaxed he has felt in a long time.

He can almost ignore the suspicion that Q, deep down, is actually quite furious with him.

Months come and pass by until suddenly, James has his own pillows on the sofa, and the coffee supplies from his own flat brought over, and the cats bonk him awake instead of Q when they want a midnight treat. Q has gotten better at stitches, even though the initial flinch is still there, and he goes grocery shopping for two, nowadays.
James would feel bad about it all, except Q never asks him to leave.

He’s aware that he’s loitering, technically. James rarely goes to his own place anymore when he’s off missions. It may be more spacious, and nice, and ten times cleaner, but there’s a silence there, somehow, that no TV or radio drowns out. He’s tried.

It’s all Q’s fault, James decides. He’s the one who started using impossible words like ‘home.’

Of course, James is aware that their unspoken deal is a little unbalanced. Q already looks out for him during missions, and now he comes home to look after James there, too. He doesn’t complain – doesn’t seem that annoyed, even – but James is still aware of the unfairness to it.
One night, when they’ve both had too much to drink, because James finally managed to entice Q with piña coladas, he asks about repayment.

Q breathes out a large breath, which might be either his way of drunken sighing or of not throwing up on the couch, and shakes his head. “I’m not going to yell at you,” he slurs.

“You could,” James magnanimously offers.

“No,” Q disagrees. “Because if I’m mad at you, you’ll just leave to find some other fucking… entertainment, or whatever. Drink yourself to death, wrestle thugs under a bridge, I don’t know your process. But I know there’s no first aid kits there. So, no, I’m not mad at you, and no, I’m not yelling.”

“Alright.”

It feels a little bit like Q is mad, but James is wise enough not to point that out.

Less than a minute later, Q bursts out, “But! You’re such a fucking idiot, James.”

“Okay. What makes me an idiot?” James asks calmly, keeping his body language open. Q squints at him with suspicion. Maybe he has figured out that James is actually not that drunk, and also very well-trained in interrogation tactics.

“I’m not telling,” Q declares, crossing his arms. James can’t help but be terribly fond at it. They should get drunk together more often, he decides. James could enjoy this more without the hidden motive of figuring out why Q is angry with him, and if he secretly wants the rent to be split.

“Okay,” James agrees, taking the refusal in stride. “By the way, how much is the rent for this place again? Alec was looking for something similar.”

“That’s a question,” Q frowns, adorably off-kilter. “You’re evil.”

“Well, evil people have to pay rent in this country too, dear. It’s all incredibly unfair.”

“Mmh.”

Q breathes out slowly again, then thumps his head against James’ shoulder and closes his eyes. For a moment, James wonders if Q has genuinely passed out, or if he’s playing dead to avoid their conversation. He winds an arm around Q to keep him upright, either way.

After a few minutes, Q blinks his eyes slightly open again to look at James.
“Y’know,” Q mumbles. “Every time I lose your vitals, my heart just… fractures. And you’ve been doing that a lot, lately. Like it’s a game to you.”

Instinctively, James holds him closer, something painful burning in his chest at Q’s admission. He pushes it down.

“That’s not –”
“But it’s not a game to me, and so now, my heart is like… Do you know those hills, in Rome, that are made from nothing but shards? Lots and lots of them. Broken vases, mostly, they had a lot of those back then. I think. I’ve never actually been to Ancient Rome.”

James won’t cry. He never does.

“Neither have I, darling. You were saying, about the rent?”

“Was I?” Q frowns. “I don’t care about the rent.”

“Not at all?” James probes.

“No, I like you here. We fit. But… But every time you’re an idiot out in the field, I want you to think about my stupid little mountain-of-shards heart for a second. I can…” Q yawns, then nods as if coming to a conclusion only he is privy to. “I’ll do the rest. But that’s your rent.”

“Okay,” James says, painfully aware that he’s not making any promises. Painfully aware he’s fixing none of this.

Q’s eyes fall closed again. “And you’re paying for takeout,” he adds.

James doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or cry. He accepts the change in topic.
“And I’m paying for takeout. Alright.”

“And if HR ever has any issues, you go handle that. Use those scary eyebrows.”

“Okay,” James smiles. “Yes, I can do that.”

“And start bringing me back my gear in one piece.”

“Now you’re just sounding delusional, dear. Maybe it’s time for bed?”

Q squints again. “You’re delusional. ‘M not sleepy.”

“Mmh. What if I just carry you to bed, and then you can decide all by yourself if you want to sleep or not?”

Q thinks the offer through as seriously as a business proposal, then nods and makes no further move to help. He’s asleep before James has even finished tucking him in.

For a while, James just stands there in the dark, listening to Q’s soft snores and thinking about the pottery mounds of ancient Rome.

He’s not exactly happy with their deal – that Q considers it fair if he takes care of James constantly, is always there for him, and in return, James… pays for takeout four times a week and maybe sometimes thinks twice about dying? It doesn’t take a psychologist to know the scales are a little uneven.
It’s just that death is sort of James’… thing. His body, his soul, do not belong to him, and so he can’t keep them safe for Q. Which Q knows, or else he would’ve asked for more than just consideration.

James wants to care for Q, truly. But he can’t give him this, and he can’t reciprocate what Q gives him, either. It’s not like he wouldn’t raise Q back from the dead and stitch all his wounds closed again without complaining. Q’s work life just doesn’t really lend itself to many opportunities to prove that.

So, James does the dreadful, mundane thing, and starts washing Q’s dishes instead. De-clutters his tables, finally fixes that hallway light. Buys him fancy teas and a new mug. Vacuums. Takes his cats to the vet. Brings him lunch and annoys him at Q-Branch, if Q is once again working too hard. Leaves him post-its in obscure places to find when he’s gone. Makes him dinner. Makes him laugh.

Calls him dearest, darling, dear. Means it.

Moneypenny starts joking about him turning into a househusband, which every time makes something uncomfortable churn in James’ stomach. Then, she jokes if James and Q are waiting until divorce with their first kiss. James doesn’t have the heart to tell her that technically, the first kiss did happen already. He has a myth to maintain, and having his entire existence rotated by a kiss to the cheek doesn’t really mash well with what is trademarked Bond, James Bond.

Besides, he doesn’t even know if things could be like that, between them. He hasn’t tried to get Q into bed again, and he’s not sure that he could. Somehow, he and Q just… are. He wants, of course, but it’s a distant thing. Like Q said; it’s good enough.

And then, James kills a child in Istanbul.

She’d been working for an arms dealer, recruited entirely too young, and wary enough of foreigners that she didn’t trust James when he sent her away on an errand. By the time he blew up the compound, she’d already snuck back inside. Her face doesn’t leave his mind once, during the four-hour flight back home.

James unlocks their door on autopilot, fully ready to just take some pills and pass out on the couch. He finds Q waiting for him in the living room, half-asleep over a book. He’s wearing his softest pyjamas and some very dark circles under his eyes, and James feels like absolute shit at the sight. Q had to watch it all happen, too, even if he wasn’t there himself.

“Sorry,” he croaks out, voice sounding not entirely like his own. “Just let me…” He falters. “I don’t want to talk.”

His hands and feet are numb, somewhere beneath him. James is nothing more than a weapon, right now, if ever. Explosions and screams are ringing through his ears, and he can’t deal with all of that and treat Q gently.

Q nods and disappears into his bedroom. Watching him leave only makes James feel worse.

An unknown time later, James is in the kitchen, downing Q’s awful white wine and debating chloroform, when music starts in the distance. He blinks to find Q standing in front of him, unpeeling his fingers from the bottle, and it takes all of James’ self-control to not shove Q away.

“Come on,” Q says, his voice neither handler nor quartermaster but something far, far quieter. “Bedroom.”

James hasn’t been in Q’s bedroom, except his first morning of snooping and that time he carried him to bed. He wanted Q to keep one place for just himself. But now, Q has intertwined their fingers and is leading him towards it. Briefly, James thinks it’s all going to be so fucked if they sleep with each other now. He’s too wrung out to care, though. All he does is follow Q.

Instead of ravishing James, disappointingly, Q moves him to the middle of the room, where a dove-blue carpet spans the distance between his bed and yet another cluttered desk. There, he turns towards James, and then he very, very slowly wraps James into a hug.
Stiffly, and on their own accord, James’ arms move to encircle Q in turn. It’s a loose hug, until Q starts swaying to the music, left-to-right like a ship at harbour, and James realizes that they’re slow dancing together.

James wants to asks why, but his tongue is too heavy, and it doesn’t really matter, in the end, does it, because Q can have anything he wants from James.

He pulls Q a little closer, breathing in the scent of his shampoo. It’s mango and vanilla, because Q doesn’t believe men have to smell like smoked wood or abstract concepts. The scent grounds James enough that he starts cataloguing his other senses, going through the exercises he’s been taught.

One thing he can taste – cheap wine, check.

Two things he can smell – mango and vanilla, check.

Three things he can hear – a slow, wistful melody. Someone honking their car in the distance. The pulse in his own ears.

Four things he can feel – the worn cotton of Q’s sleep shirt, the steady hands on James’ back. The tiredness in his feet, the stiff suit he can’t wait to take off.

Five things he can see – Q’s unruly mop of hair. Q’s bed, with an unmade, checkered blanket on top. Q’s cats, both asleep and uncaring at the foot of the bed. A picture of Q and his mother on the bedside table. Q’s eyes, studying him carefully, a slightly greenish grey. They’re lovely. That’s what he would say to describe him, James realizes. Lovely. He’s just so lovely.

“Come back to me, James,” Q murmurs, linking his hands together behind James’ back. “It’s over now, it’s okay. You can fall apart. I’ve got you.”

So, James puts his head in the curve of Q’s neck, and falls apart.

At first, it’s only one slow tear, but then Q holds him closer and shushes him like one would a small animal, and the dam breaks. Before he knows it, he’s sobbing, shivering in Q’s hold, and Q just – stays. Holds him, sways them both. As if he does this every day. As if he’d do this every day, if James asked.

It takes a long, exhausting while until the waves of James’ tears ebb away. Q’s shirt is more or less ruined, by then, and James feels wrecked and ready to collapse. If Q kissed him right now, James thinks he might shatter apart completely. But all Q does is leave for James to change into some sweatpants, then return holding a glass of water. James stares at the water derisively, but he drinks it all the same. For Q.
Somehow, they agree wordlessly to not let go of each other, tonight. Q leans into James when they brush their teeth together, and James stays right there as Q flosses, then hovers as Q gets into bed. Before he can formulate the glass shell of his heart into a question, Q has already shuffled to the side and lifted up the covers for him. So, James climbs in and drapes one arm around Q’s stomach. The possibility of lying there without touching never occurs to him at all.

Q hums and shifts a little closer, and James falls asleep to the warmth of mango and vanilla, to the trust of a turned back.

James sleeps like a stone and dreams of nothing. Both of these are rare and vast achievements, so when he wakes in the early hours of morning, he feels surprisingly well-rested.
Q, still asleep, has turned over sometime during the night and is now drooling onto James’ shoulder. It’s a fair turnabout for yesterday, James decides. Frankly, Q could have drugged and robbed him in his sleep, and James still would’ve felt grateful for him.
Leisurely, he studies Q’s features. His face twitches slightly, every now and then, but other than that there’s a relaxation to it that James hasn’t seen before. He’s made almost all the jokes there are to make about Q’s age already, but Q really does look young, like this. Delicate. Untethered. He wonders if Q, each morning, hardens the lines around his eyes into something to be taken seriously, or if the crushing weight of responsibility simply does it for him as soon as he awakes.

There’s so much that James doesn’t know about Q. He went searching once, in the beginning of their acquaintance, but even with his clearance level, Q’s file is less accessible than the library of Alexandria.
That’s not what bothers him now, though. Everyone in their line of work has secrets, shadows, pasts, and if there never comes a day where James finds out Q’s real name, he’ll be okay with it. But he wants to know the person attached to that name – wants to know if Q was a happy child, if there are memories he still carries, things he might need to hear. If he likes getting up in the morning, or if there are days when he struggles. If he’d like any help. If he’s proud of the person that meets him in mirrors, or if he ever flinches at the sight. James wants to know what drives Q, what he hopes for, what he dreams of. Why he has given James his whole heart and home and never asked for anything in return.

Yesterday, Q knew so certainly how to pull James back into his own body, how to make him feel human again. James is not naïve enough to assume these things just happen on their own. How long did it take Q to puzzle out he was exactly who James needed? And what on earth befell him, then, to be that person silently, right under James’ nose?

In another case of fair turnabout, James spends the next hours of the morning looking at Q. Studying him, soaking him in. James can feel Q’s pulse, from where his chest is smushed against one of James’ arms, and it is a rhythm of pure peace and absolution. He would ask Q to never leave this bed, if it meant they could stay like this forever. He would do anything at all, James realizes, if it kept Q safe. If it meant solving the riddle of Q’s happiness.

“You’re looking very intently,” Q mumbles into James’ shoulder, blooming and yawning awake. “Creep.”

“Is that what you say to all your gentlemen callers?” James teases, increasingly tempted to kiss Q’s forehead, and then maybe fuck him through the mattress.

“Nope, just you. You’re staring.”

“Well, you’re very pleasant to stare at, dear. Besides, I’m trying to solve a riddle.”

“A riddle?” Q asks and pushes himself up, charmingly intrigued. “What riddle?”

“I shan’t say. It’s classified.”

Q pouts, and James does give him a kiss on the forehead, then, short and sweet because what the hell, life is chaos and even death couldn’t stop him. Q blushes like sunrise.

“That’s unfair. I’m great at riddles.”

“You are,” James agrees. “That’s why I have to solve this one on my own.”

“Ah.” Q hums, scrunching up his nose in thought. “How vexing. Do you want a hint, to speed things up?”

James almost laughs at how quickly his little genius has caught on. He considers it, the hint, but ultimately shakes his head. “If you figured it out on your own, so will I. I’m actually something of a genius myself, you know.”

“Really? That’s crazy,” Q yawns, burrowing himself back into James’ chest. “I thought they only hired you for your good looks.”

“Well, I’m a very well-rounded package,” he purrs. Q coughs in response.

James lets him sleep a little more, since it’s one of Q’s rare days off. Eventually, though, he gets jittery, so he busies himself in the kitchen. An hour later, he brings a large tray of breakfast back to bed, including hand-pressed orange juice and two little glasses of champagne. They toast and eat in companiable silence, as if this is a thing they do every morning, or maybe just on the very good ones. And James leans against Q’s pillows, Q’s shoulder, Q’s smile, and recalls endlessly the sound of You can’t sleep with me, because you’d fall in love with me. And you can’t fall in love with me, because there’d be no end.

The next time Alec is in London, James invites him out for milkshakes.

They’re Alec’s guilty pleasure, and so James bears the tacky pink chairs and the inauthentic 50s soundtrack with nary but an eyeroll. He orders a cortado for himself and a pistachio monstrosity for Alec, smiling as his friend slides into the chair opposite him as soon as the drinks arrive.

“You look well,” Alec tells him after the first slurp. Warm curiosity glitters through his eyes. “Why are you bribing me with milkshakes?”

“I wanted to thank you,” James evades. “I’m told you drove Q home after the Maldives debacle.”

004 had gotten herself into trouble in the Maldives at the same time as a vicious cyber-attack on MI6. James had been away on another mission, but apparently Q had been working for three days straight before both crises could be sorted out.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Alec returns with an incline of his head. “Although I did see an awful lot of your stuff in his flat.”

“Well, someone has to lighten up the place.”

“And that someone’s you? Sleeping on the sofa, really? He must have done a number on you.”

“I thought you liked him.”

“No, I like you, James. I adore him. The two are very different.”

James swallows. For all their friendship, they are both passionate, stubborn people. They’ve always agreed that, one day, a woman would come between them in more than just the literal sense. James just didn’t consider that this woman might turn out to be their very male quartermaster. Evidently, he has his own imagination to blame. Alec had given a first indication for it years ago already, when he’d shut James down on that balcony in Doha.

“You think I’m not good enough for him?”

“If I did, I’m sure he’d tell me off for it. Do you?”

Mentally, if not physically, James recoils from the question. Alec doesn’t blink at his reaction, which is exactly why James likes him so much. They’ve never needed to be gentle with each other. In a world so full of brutality and subterfuge, they found the most precious thing they could give each other wasn’t kindness, but truth.
With the consideration Alec deserves, he mulls his answer over.

“Are we ever? In order to be good enough, certainly the first requirement is being good.”

“And the other one is being enough?” Alec scoffs. “No one is ever enough, James. And no one is ever that good, either.”

“Well, what do you think the requirements are, then?”

“Mmh, good question.” Alec spoons up several heaps of pistachios and ice cream before he shoots back a question of his own.
“If M ordered you to take out Q, what would you do?”

Automatically, James goes through all the motions of masking his discomfort – laugh, relax, charm, deflect.

“Well, I’d start with a reservation at the Ritz, to set the mood, but then a cheap bar on the way home. I’d offer to watch that Moving Castle film he’s always on about, but snog him against the front door before we can get to it. Maybe throw in a blowjob for persuasion. Move things to the shower, then the bedroom, give him a night to let go and remember. Wake him with earl grey, if it’s a workday, or breakfast in bed, if it isn’t.”

It's a nice thought, actually, he’ll have to note that down somewhere.

Alec sighs. “James. You know that’s not what I meant.”

James breathes out slowly, accepting he’s been caught out.
“I wouldn’t,” he admits carefully, just to the two of them. It’s not a thought he has grappled with, until now.

Alec raises a brow. “That’s treason, Jamie.”

“Treason to whom?” he returns.

He’s unsure how else to explain it – that it seems more treasonous, in his heart, to kill Q than to disobey a direct order. If the MI6 wanted Q dead, then that would simply mean the MI6 was wrong.
Alec seems to understand him. He nods, evidently satisfied with the answer, and goes back to his milkshake.

Finally, once his cortado is emptied, James says what he came here to say.
“You know him in ways that I don’t,” he starts. Alec glares at that, so he adds, “I’m not asking you to tell me about Moscow. Just – If there is something important that I’m missing, please tell me. You must know his file is entirely redacted. And I’d like to think I know him well, these days, but not enough to understand how he got here. What he wants.”

Alec considers him, for a moment, then looks down at his glass. For a second, there’s a tremor in his frame, missed by everyone in the café but James. And then, he does something James would’ve never expected – he gives in.

“I was left to die, that day,” Alec says, his voice forcefully even. “Q wasn’t my handler yet, but he must’ve gotten wind of it somehow. I’m guessing he was part of the cleanup crew, to handle the fallout of my death. Although the FSIB were taking their sweet time with it, and I – I’m not sure what I was thinking. Surely, a good agent would’ve taken their cyanide right away. But even after the first day of torture, knowing I’d been abandoned, I was still hesitant. Maybe I was thinking of saving my ass and defecting, who knows.

"And then, a screen in that room blinks to life and starts out typing messages. Apologizes to me, which I found baffling, and then says – well the gist of it was that someone could get me out, if I wanted. If. I asked what the bloody hell that meant, and they type out that if I’d rather defect, they’d like to know beforehand so they can minimize the damage. But if I just want to get away from all this, then they could get me out. Something about a favour being owed.

"Of course, I agree – it's not like I’ve got much left to lose, at that point – and what do I know, the next day I wake up on a cargo ship to Finland, with a new passport and a burner phone in my hand. There was one message on it; a screenshotted internal report from the MI6, announcing me dead. Before I can react to it, though, the message deletes itself and is replaced by a second one – just two words. ‘Fly free.’ I know; heartbreaking, right?”

James must have sucked in a breath. The freedom of a clean slate is something most agents barely dare to dream of. To have it handed out anonymously, just like that…
He motions for Alec to continue. Alec nods.

“So I go to Finland, start making a life for myself there, but obviously that screenshot is still gnawing at me. Those reports are only accessible for someone inside the system, as you know, but so are the computers down in the FSIB basements. If someone has their hands in both, that means trouble. So, I travel to London, sneak into MI6, and find out their new quartermaster is currently on trial for cooperation with an enemy.”

“He traded with the FSIB?” James frowns. That doesn’t sound like Q. Especially not when the humiliation from Silva must’ve still been very fresh.

Alec shakes his head. “Not trade, no. Apparently, he’d been doing some… freelance work, before MI6 found him, and not all of it was above-board. He didn’t hack into the FSIB, he re-activated an old account of his. I imagine he wouldn’t’ve gotten to me in time, otherwise, but MI6 was not thrilled. Nor were they thrilled that he went behind their back and ignored a direct order, just to lose the agent anyways. I’m pretty sure they were going to fire him and sentence him for life.”

“Oh.” James sinks into his chair, weighed down and ashamed. He missed all of that, because he’d been too busy being a prick over the comms. “Fuck.”

Alec snorts. “Yes, fuck. He gambled his whole life away just to save me, an agent he didn’t even know. And then, that little shit set me free instead of using me as leverage. Who does that? Really, no survival instincts. So, I did the only thing I could – I stormed in there and demanded they reinstate him because here I was, ta-da, ready to pledge my allegiance or whatever. I said if they fired him, I’d storm out and so would you, and they’d lose the three best people they ever hired.”

He shrugs. “It was a bluff, of course, but it worked. They agreed to sweep Q’s past under the rug, if I agreed to do the same with the code violet. It was just after Silva, so they were doing everything they could to avoid another vengeful double-oh, I think. Anyways, I agreed. Q was flabbergasted by it, I remember. I’ve always wondered if he felt that I was squandering his gift. But you understand, don’t you?”

He studies James, smile tugging at his lips even as the anger and hurt in his eyes don’t subside.
“Before anyone else, Q is loyal to his agents. And so we, before anyone else, are loyal to him. It’s very simple, in the end.”

“You love him,” James points out, only partly a question. Alec shrugs.

“Like I said, I adore him. I would die for him. If that is love, then yes. But all the other stuff – the couch thing, whatever that is, and the dinner reservations, and the persuasion blowjobs – I’ll happily leave that to you. You should see the way he looks at you, even through all those screens and cameras. I think love is a very small word for it.”

“Thank you, Alec,” James murmurs, deeply touched. “I’m very glad he saved you.”

“As am I,” Alec smiles.

James is reminded of their training days, for a moment, when he and Alec would sneak out to nightclubs or seedy bars, or every now and then a bloody Shake Shack, and it felt like nothing in the whole world could stand against them both, united. James hadn’t realized how much he’d missed those days. And they do feel united, perhaps now more so than before. They’re playing the same game, he thinks. Just in different positions.

“Maybe we should get milkshakes more often,” James offers.

Alec laughs. “We will, мой друг. As long as you don’t break that poor boy’s heart.”

James grins, and thinks he’d really rather die.

There’s something to be said, perhaps, about the risks of wishful thinking.

James is on a mission in the Karakum desert, rigging an explosion to the hideout of a slavery ring, when he is taken captive. The bomb is set up, but he loses the detonator when his retreat is discovered and a fight ensues. James doesn’t go down easy – he takes three dozen men with him, but there’s still so many of them, and he’s stranded in a desert with no place to hide. All they have to do is wait until he tires himself out.
The only successful part of this mission, he thinks as he awakes tied to a chair in one of the hideout’s yurts, bleeding sluggishly from his stomach and shoulder, is that no one seems to have figured out he came to hide a bomb.

“Awake? I can detonate it remotely, so you just focus on getting out of there,” Q says in his ear, following the same train of thought. “I’ll send someone to pick you up, but there’s no guarantee they’ll make it through the guards. And the soonest they can be here is two hours. There’s not much else I can do for you in the meantime.”

The last sentence is pretty much pressed out between worry and frustration. James waits until his jailors have left him alone in the yurt to respond. The last thing he needs is someone cutting his ear open to remove the comm implant.

“We’d have to wait for nightfall anyways. The plains are too open, I stand no chance of sneaking out during daylight, now that they’re alert,” he murmurs.

“Copy. Your wounds?”

“I’ve had worse.”

Q has no eyes on him, out here in the middle of nowhere. James can’t help but thinking that maybe it’s better this way.

After a few minutes of endless typing, Q speaks back up.
“There’s a vehicle approaching, likely one of the leaders. They’ll be with you in thirty minutes.”

“Can you figure out who?”

“I’m sure someone in there has a phone, give me a minute.”

James does, speeding through possible strategies until Q updates him. He’s been tortured before; all he has to do is convince them to leave him and come back tomorrow.

“Okay, we have some unexpected company alongside the network's ringleader. There are two guards, one of them driving, plus one of their business associates called Anton Garayev and, for some reason, his wife.”

“And what’s her name?”

“Elena Gayareva. Formerly Alfaro.”

Despite the desert heat, something cold shivers through James. The name, unfortunately, rings a bell.
“Was she, by any chance, engaged before him?”

The typing continues. “Yes, although her first fiancé died in- oh. Oh no, James.” The full extent of the situation seems to dawn on Q as well.

“Does she know?”

James grinds his teeth. “Well, I spoke to her the day I killed him. I don’t think it will be that difficult for her to connect the dots.”

“And... did she love him?”

“Undoubtably. She wouldn’t even sleep with me.”

James can still see her face; the bright, fiery spark when she’d glanced at her fiancé.
“They were happy,” he admits. Happy and in love, until he’d brought death to their doorstep.

Silence swallows up the comm. James can picture Q in his office, head buried in his hands. Desperately thinking of something he can do, and coming up empty.
They both know there is a stark difference between being tortured for information and being tortured because someone very personally wants you dead.

“Maybe she’s bad with faces,” Q says after a while, but judging by his voice, neither of them quite believe it. “From what I can tell, this wasn’t planned. They were about to make a trade deal when you were apprehended.”

“So just bad timing, then?”

“We should’ve done more thorough background checks,” Q insists, incapable of agreeing.

“If you kept track of every woman who might want me dead, dear, you’d never get anything else done,” James retorts. “We barely spoke, it was a decade ago. You couldn’t’ve known.”

More silence follows as they face the possibility that James might very well not make it out of that desert alive.

James thinks of the bomb he buried in the sand around here somewhere. It might be his one way out of this. He could set up a trigger phrase, as long as the comms line stays intact. A last and only resort.
The old James would have done that. The old James would have said I would rather die by your hand than by hers and known instinctively that Q would have no choice but to cave.
The old James would have tried to soothe him, would have said there’s no need to worry. I die, darling, that’s just what I do. We’ve always known. That’s what I’m good for. This has always been the end.

The James that he is now still wants to, but he can’t. He would rather bend reality itself than do these things to Q.

Q, and all those goddamn golden months he spent with him. Q, who made him come alive.
Even if he dies today, James does not belong to her anymore. He laughs at the realization, freely and undone.

“What’s happening now?” Q asks through the earpiece. “Are you going insane already?”

“No, no, just thinking. All those times I’ve charmed people away from their marriage, and I never once considered the same thing would be happening to me. In retrospect, how foolish.”

“Mmh. So you have lost your mind.”

“Maybe,” James admits. “It’s an inside joke. I’ll explain it to you if –” he stops, realizing there’s no kind end to that sentence.

Sobering, he requests, “I need you to do me one favour, Q. Please.”

Q has been remarkably stoic, so far. Now, though, James catches a noise that might either be a sniffle or a suppressed sob.

“That’s not fair, James,” Q whispers faintly. “You know I’ll have to do it if you ask.”

He’s also been thinking about the bomb, James realizes. And he’s preparing himself to break his own heart, if James wishes.
Oh, he can’t possibly have them both end like that.

“Q, darling,” James says, trying to sound as steadfast as he can. “I need you to give the line to R, for as long as they decide to hurt me. Focus on my getaway, distract yourself however you want, but don’t listen in. Just trust me that I’ll come back home.”

He breathes, swallows. Decides. “And then, as soon as I’m outside of its radius, I need you to detonate that bomb.”

Q laughs, although the sound carries more tears in it than joy. “No second exit strategy? No matter how bad things get?”

“No. I’m not leaving you behind.”

“You’ll despise me for it.”

“I couldn’t.”

It’s not even really a decision, at this point, James thinks. Just the truth. Just a truth he can’t run away from any longer. Alec had called it simple. He, instead, finds the whole prospect rather terrifying.
James thumps his head against the back of the chair. His internal clock is telling him their time is almost up.

“How long until they arrive?”

“The car just parked. I’d estimate four minutes, if they come directly to you. But I could be wrong.”

“Sometimes, you are.” James smiles. Maybe it's all that impending doom, but he's hit by a great wave of nostalgia.

“You were wrong about me on Christmas, do you know that?" he asks. "I’ve been wildly in love with you long before I ever slept in your bed.”

He isn’t saying goodbye. He isn’t.

“Yes, well.” Q makes a choked noise. James is pretty sure that he's crying.
“I fell in love with you the first time that you smiled at me. I was so angry at myself. Furious, really. I just thought, how terribly cliché.”

“It is a bit embarrassing,” James agrees, cinders and sparklers bursting in his chest. “When I come back, I’ll smile at you as often as you want.”

“I'll hold you to it.”

And then, that is all they’ll say to each other, because in the next moment a handful of guards step into James’ yurt, and a few minutes later James looks Elena Alfaro in the eyes, and R takes over the comm line as she reaches for a knife.

James it not without tools, here. He can manipulate, lie, turn them against each other. He can stall and bite his teeth and endure. He can frustrate and unnerve. He can do his absolute very best, and it still might not be nearly enough.

So, James puts his golden memories behind a little door, closes it tightly, and readies himself for the pain.

It arrives in a trickle, then a thunderstorm. And for the first time in his life, James is deeply, deathly afraid.

At twenty-three, James falls in love with death.

At thirty-two, he marries her.

At forty-one, and forty-two, and forty-three, he falls in love with Q.

At forty-four, James collects all his courage, and begs for a divorce.

He awakes to the beeping of an EKG machine, his consciousness trickling in slowly. People are talking, somewhere above him, but he’s too woozy and in pain to follow along. Something about injuries, retirement, a teaching position. He tunes it out.

He’d be a good mentor, a new voice says. The sound – warm and confident and altogether lovely – scratches at James’ mind. I’ll ask him about it.

“Your have a beautiful voice,” James slurs, dragging himself into wakefulness, because some things are worth the pain. “Can I take you home after all this?”