Work Text:
Q knocked on the door to suite 706, the Sarriette, London, having no idea he’d be functionally trapped there for the next fortnight and change.
"I would like it on the record," he whisper-shouted, shoving past Bond into the suite, "That I am not a delivery boy, and that it is in my employment contract that I am entitled to one night off a week. One night. A week."
Bond shut the door behind him, looking ill-tempered. "…I thought you might’ve been my dinner."
"So sorry to disappoint." Q stopped just past the foyer, taking in the furnishings with one disparaging glance. The Sarriette had all the excessive luxury of… well, of the Sarriette. Bond’s suite was massive and predictable—coffee-dark wood accents, cream and gold furniture, that very specific sort of tasteful ugliness people called Edwardian when they didn’t know what they were talking about. Orchestral music curled faintly from some other room like a trickle of smoke, making the place feel more vast than it could possibly be. Like you might wander for hours through parlours and corridors following the elusive sound of Tchaikovsky.
Q tossed his attaché unceremoniously onto the nearest creampuff ottoman and unzipped his laptop bag. "Outlets. I need outlets."
"Why’d they send you, if it’s your night off?" Bond’s gaze warily followed him as he darted about, scouring the walls in search of a precious power source. "Thought this was meant to be standard issue."
"M wants me putting the new equipment and software through its paces, now we’ve got an opportunity." Q stopped at the writing desk. It was parked in front of a mammoth picture window overlooking the Thames, which swirled and winked under London’s impassive gaze like The Starry Night. Ducking below, he was greeted by a far more picturesque view: a quartet of outlets. A quartet! Now here was luxury. "I’m the only one who knows how to operate it all, since we’re still in the early stages of—don’t touch it, god’s sake."
Bond’s fingers stilled where they’d been hovering over the case. "Why not? Seems harmless enough."
"Does something have to be ticking for you to be cautious of it?"
"Alright, alright," the man muttered, withdrawing his hand. "No use being testy with me, I didn't summon you. Save it for M. Or better yet—"
"Not another word," Q warned, pointing accusingly at him. "Until I've got that running. Open it up for me."
"…You told me not to touch it."
"Going forward, assume all instructions override previous ones."
There was a whole lot of unnecessary grumbling and sighing, but finally the attaché sprang open on the ottoman. Q, who'd been in the midst of yanking cords from their outlets, stopped to plug his ears. Through his fingers he heard the start of a buzzsaw whine, which quickly pitched up into a dog-whistle shriek accompanied by a few muffled expletives. It ended, and he unstoppered his ears.
"—of a bitch."
"Is the light blinking?" Q asked.
"Is the—you might’ve warned me. Yes, the damned thing’s blinking, what the hell is it?"
"An all-purpose signal and AV damper. It detects and disarms listening and camera surveillance devices." Q peered out from under the desk; the monitor light was indeed blinking, and it was orange. "Seems the room was clean, but we expected as much. It should prevent anyone listening in on you while it’s active."
"A bug zapper."
"Please don’t call it that."
"You come up with the neatest little things," Bond said under his breath. His tone was begrudgingly impressed; from him, high praise. Q was pleased in spite of himself.
"Yes, well. It was nothing. You can speak freely now."
"I was going to say, if you’ve got to be cross with someone it may as well be TG. They’re the reason I’m here in the first place."
The criminal outfit TG, initials for a moniker as yet unknown, had been a thorn in MI6’s side for going on two years. They were that rarest and most maddening of things: a ghost syndicate. Base of operations, unknown. Organizational structure, unknown. Number and identity of operatives, unknown. Modus operandi, for the most part, unknown. They were a black box that fed out disasters, one right after the other; stolen weapons schematics, officials blackmailed into acts of counterintelligence and treason, destruction of vast swathes of data that could send whole governments into a tailspin. Some of the schemes seemed to be for monetary gain or influence; others were pure, pointless sabotage. TG was a contradiction, theatrical and yet invisible. Not a single one of their operatives had ever been identified.
Q found them very impressive. And very annoying.
He emptied the many tangled wires from his bag and began to plug them in, muttering to himself. "It was supposed to be double-oh nine on this assignment, he’s the one who’s had all the TG briefing and knows how to use all the kit—"
Bond’s voice soured. "Always double-oh nine this, double-oh nine that. If double-oh nine had caught his damned quarry we wouldn’t be here right now."
"At least he didn’t shoot first and ask questions later. Which is what you would’ve done and don’t deny it, mister look at me, I’ve got a license to kill."
Bond dropped into a crouch to peer under the desk, putting them at eye level. He was wearing what passed for casual in the double-oh set; dress shirt, no jacket. Oilslick satin tie, no clip. Leather shoulder holster, which Q had always thought looked obscene, though he’d never say so out loud. Unlike the other double-ohs—all of them unfailingly taciturn—Bond accessorized the look with an upward twist of his mouth, often lopsided and always disarming.
"But the weapons you make me are so nice and deadly," he murmured. "I’d hate to waste all your hard work."
Q straightened, retort at the ready, only to bash his head on the underside of the desk. He swore colorfully, clutching his skull. There was a faint twitch in Bond’s jaw, and he angled his head away, a practiced mannerism Q had learned to read as suppressing laughter. Being able to read Bond at all was something he was immoderately proud of; the man had, to put it mildly, a bit of a learning curve.
"The point is," Q said, recovering his composure, if not his dignity. "You have a very different… modus operandi from the other double-oh’s."
"Thank you."
"Not a compliment. This—" Q gestured all around him at the thisness of it all. "Is not really your area. Delicate, long-term sort of work. I told M to put one of the other double-oh’s on it, but everyone else was busy."
"Well god forbid you should have to resort to me."
Q shuffled out sideways and rose to his feet, trying to appear the consummate professional rather than someone who’d just been stuffed under a desk like a corpse in a crawlspace. Bond stood as well, folding his arms; the movement made his shoulder holster tighten. Lord but the thing was hard to ignore once you’d noticed it. Q cleared his throat. "If double-oh nine were here—"
"Well, double-oh nine got his cover blown," Bond interrupted snappishly. "So you’re stuck with me and my indelicate tactics. And what did his delicate ones get him? Not a damn thing."
"He procured the evidence leading us to the Sarriette."
"He didn’t procure it, he was stabbed with it."
The evidence in question was a Sarriette-branded nail file, and double-oh nine had indeed been stabbed with it. He’d actually shown up to Q Branch with the thing still sticking out of him, causing one of Q’s best technicians to pass out cold on the spot. Not ideal, maybe, but it was their first and only lead on the syndicate. Questioning double-oh nine had been an ordeal. Had he seen the operative’s face? No, it’d been dark as pitch. Could he describe their height, weight, build? Anything about them at all? No, like he said, it’d been dark as pitch—and could this possibly wait until someone pulled the nail file out?
Unfortunately, while he may not have seen the operative’s face, it was highly likely they had seen his. Thus, being compromised, he couldn’t follow up the Sarriette lead. And so here was James Bond, MI6 agent (provocateur) double-oh seven—or rather, James Bryce, executive, Universal Export. Oh, just visiting on business, you know how it is this time of year. Always wanted to try the renowned Sarriette. So British, you know? Well now that you mention it, yes, I would be remiss not giving the Royal Suite a go. Only live once, as they say, think Churchill said that. Charge it to the company card, would you? Good man.
Q slid into the desk chair and began attaching the various and sundry wires to his laptop. "Well, now you’ve taken his job, you ought to send him a card or something."
"No. He owes me money."
"He’s in hospital."
"Doesn’t mean he owes me any less money. Why’s he in hospital? Just for getting stabbed with a nail file? Bet he’s being all dramatic about it too."
Deciding he’d been suffering long enough to earn it, Q allowed himself a long-suffering sigh. Then he opened his laptop and got to work.
For the shiny new software Q Branch had developed—software which Bond was decidedly not trained on—the Sarriette’s system was child’s play. It took much longer to cloak his tampering than it did to actually tamper, as he’d already done most of the heavy lifting in development. From there the process was all drudge work. Masking and double-masking his connection, making the system think it was being accessed from within its own network. Point-and-click stuff.
Bond had disappeared for a time to change from one suit into another, and was now fussing with the trimmings in a full-length mirror. Fixing his collar, fastening silver cufflinks at his wrists, straightening his tie and smoothing it down the length of his sternum. Q couldn’t help but find this sartorial exactitude fascinating. Most of what Bond did had a mechanical efficiency to it, the clickings of a well-oiled machine. But the way he dressed—while meticulous—felt instrumental, almost. Like he was finely tuning his strings to make a more beautiful sound.
"Am I distracting you?" He asked, gaze never straying from his own reflection.
"Your tie’s crooked," Q lied, feeling a slightly perverse twinge of satisfaction when the man immediately went to straighten it again.
"So what does all this fancy kit actually do?"
Q ground his molars. He’d already explained this. Not only to double-oh nine—who actually listened when you spoke to him—but to Bond, who didn’t. "…Undetectable network access. It allows you to hook in to a computer system and see all their files, spy on any screen that’s in use, record keystrokes… really anything you’d like."
"If you like that sort of thing."
"The important bit for you is the Sarriette’s CCTV access. You can monitor it twenty-four seven, and the software can run facial recognition. Among other things."
Bond approached and leaned over the desk, resting one hand on the leather blotter and the other, lazily, on the back of Q’s chair. Q felt his hackles rise. He didn’t like to be hovered over, especially not by double-ohs; their nearness always carried a whiff of menace. He never got the sense it was intentional, more inherent, a unique threat-signature etched into each like a rifling mark. On Bond there was something else, too—he had a scent, subtle but undeniable. Not cologne, not synthetic enough. Oddly, he smelled a bit like a violin. Maple wood, hide glue, resin. Clean and expensive.
"Seems complicated," he said.
"It is," Q gritted out, hunching closer to the computer in an attempt to escape the man’s sphere of influence. "It requires a lot of training to use properly, and double-oh nine—"
"Will they be able to tell they’ve got another pair of eyes on?"
"…Not so long as you’re directly connected to their system. That means so long as you’re here, in the hotel. On this device." Q lovingly stroked the laptop’s bezel. "It’s a sandbox environment. Totally isolated from MI6’s system, so even if it’s somehow traced—"
"It won’t be traced back to us." Bond drummed his fingers on the leather blotter. "Which is why Q Branch can’t do this for me. Did M really send me here just to sit on the computer all day like a desk jockey?"
"I told him you’re not suited for it," Q reiterated. "But he said after what happened last time you could use a cool down."
"So I’m grounded, am I."
"I wish you would take this seriously. The TG assignment is going to be a test case for my software, and believe me, if I could have picked any other double-oh to—don’t touch that."
Bond drew his hand back. "I’m going to have to touch it eventually, Q."
"Don’t remind me. I haven’t gone though all the stages of grief yet, so—"
He was interrupted by an insistent buzzing in his pocket. Swatting Bond’s hand away, he fished his phone out and checked the caller ID, which simply read ALWAYS ANSWER. "…It’s M."
"Tell him I’m not here."
Q laid the phone out on the blotter and swiped to answer, putting it on speaker. "Reporting in, sir. Double-oh seven’s with me."
M’s clipped, no-nonsense voice came over the line. He was in his office; the acoustics of it were so particular that you could practically hear the furniture if you listened. "The room?"
"Clean," Bond said simply. "Place takes privacy seriously, it’s pretty damn well soundproofed. And I’ve got Q’s bug zapper on."
Q pressed a thumb into the spot between his brows. "Please don't call it that."
"Has Q got the rest of the kit up and running?"
"Unfortunately. And just for the record, sir, I think the skillset of a double-oh is wasted on this sort of thing. If you ask me—"
"I didn’t. But as it happens, we have some new intelligence for you. This assignment may require a more hands-on approach than originally anticipated."
Bond’s demeanor brightened—as much as it ever did, at least, which wasn’t much. "Is that so."
"We’ve identified a person of interest. Charles Lelievre. Heard of him?"
"No," Bond said, at the same moment Q said, "French mob."
"That’s right. He’s a member of Le Milieu. Or was, if he’s to be believed. Meant to be in retirement now."
Q leaned forward. "And he’s staying at the Sarriette?"
"Living there, it seems. He’s taken up permanent residence in the eighth floor corner suite."
In tandem, Bond and Q tipped their heads back to look at the ceiling. M said—with something pretty damn near clairvoyance— "Yes, right above you. Him and his wife. Apparently he uses the place to throw parties for his old business associates. A real who’s-who of the criminal underworld."
"And you think… what, that he’s our TG agent?" Q asked, eyes flitting warily between the phone and the ceiling.
"He certainly sets off the most alarms of everyone on the guest list. Fits the profile. But we’ll have to get it confirmed before we do anything about it, of course."
"Which means I’ll get to do my actual job," Bond said, rather smugly.
"Right." M sounded rote and weary, like he was reading off a shopping list he couldn’t afford to pay for. "Consider yourself deep undercover, as of now. You can reach MI6 through your secure line, but no physical contact with agents and no visits to headquarters. Your directive is, essentially, to get in good with the mobsters. Lelievre is a decent target, but even if he is TG, he’s only an operative. With any luck he’ll lead us to the top brass. Until that happens, you’ll have to keep living it up in the royal suite. Condolences."
"I’m hardly living it up," Bond protested.
"Would you like me to read off some of the room service invoices from your last job, double-oh seven? They’re itemized."
Bond seemed to weigh a few possible replies, then wisely decided on chastened silence. M went on, voice turning businesslike once more. "Obviously, we’ll have to keep eyes on the CCTV, too. Lelievre’s our likeliest operative, but he’s not the only one. Now we’ve got the kit set up, you can keep track of anyone who comes in and out of the Sarriette. Facial recognition, license plate identification… any suspicious activity. Raw data."
"Right," Bond muttered. "I’ll just chase mobsters all day and watch camera footage all night, shall I?"
"I wasn’t talking to you."
There was a long beat of silence.
"…No," Q said.
"I don’t see why not."
"Sir—"
"You were the one who issued a formal complaint listing all the reasons double-oh seven shouldn’t be trusted with your software."
Bond slowly turned to look at him. "Did you, now."
"Well, you shouldn’t be," Q said defensively. "You’re not trained. And you don’t have the temperament for it."
"Exactly," M said. "Who could be better trained on it than its creator? You’ve got a better handle on that software than anyone at MI6, and it has to be operated from the hotel. Makes perfect sense to have you as our in-house monitor."
Q squeezed his eyes shut. Damn his hypercompetence. "Surely you can’t be suggesting I stay here? At the Sarriette?"
"Should we have you coming and going at all hours like a courier? Think about it from an outside perspective, for a moment." M’s voice was circumspect; Q could imagine him reclined at his desk, fingers steepled, wheels turning behind his eyes. "Someone who isn’t a guest making frequent visits to one hotel room—wouldn’t that make you pretty damned suspicious?"
Bond took a breath to speak. M talked over him. "During the day. God’s sake."
"We could come up with an explanation—"
"Whether we could or couldn’t is beside the point. We don’t want it to come to that in the first place. As soon as TG’s attention is on us, as soon as they’ve got even an inkling something’s up, Bond’s cover is as good as shot. That hotel’s a shoal of piranhas and we’d be throwing him in bloody."
There was another long silence while they let that sink in.
Q felt numb. This could absolutely not be happening. He wasn’t a field agent, chrissakes; he was MI6’s brain, not one of its limbs. He hadn’t roomed with anyone since university, and for good reason. Cohabitating was repellent enough without the risk of death and dismemberment. And cohabitating with a double-oh, of all people. And—and Bond, of all double-ohs.
Not him. The thought came to Q unbidden, panicked and inexplicable. Anyone but him.
"But," Q started weakly, scrambling for any excuse that could save him. "We have no idea how long this will take. I can’t be away from Q Branch for an extended period—"
"Do you trust your staff?"
Q fell silent, worrying his bottom lip. "…I do, but—"
"Then there’s no problem."
"But, if I’m needed for something—"
"You’re needed for this," M said, in a tone that didn’t brook further argument. "And you’ll still have contact through your secure line, we just don’t want either of you physically linked to MI6 for the time being. Get in touch with Moneypenny to get your cover set up. Understand?"
"I…" Q’s mind shrieked at him to refuse, but you didn’t refuse the chief, not without good reason. And no matter how he scrambled, he couldn’t think of a good reason other than I really don’t want to. "…Yes, sir."
"Double-oh seven?"
Bond, to his credit, looked about as unwilling as Q felt. There was something coiled in the way he stood, like a dog straining against its leash. But after a beat he said, resignedly, "Yes, sir."
"Good. I’ll debrief the rest of the team on the situation and get back to you, so—"
"Wait," Q interrupted hastily. "Do you have Tanner there?"
Some shuffling, then a far-off, faintly bemused, "Yes?"
Q sat up to lean over the phone. "Tanner, listen to me. This is very important."
There was a sound of chair wheels on wood, then Tanner’s voice was closer. "Listening."
"I need you to feed my cats."
Bond let out a surprised sound that might very well have been a laugh. Q ignored him.
"Your…" Tanner echoed slowly, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard right. "Cats."
"Yes, my cats," Q confirmed with some urgency. "Have you got pen and paper? Write this down. Twice a day, dry food in the top shelf of the pantry, there’s a measuring cup in the bag. Their water fountain has to be refilled daily and cleaned twice a week. And I know the radio’s on, just leave it, they get lonely if it’s too quiet. Did you get all that?"
"I don’t—"
"I have it." M sounded amused. "It’ll be taken care of."
"I’m not sure I should be the one to—" Tanner spluttered. "Your cats really don’t like me, Q."
"They don’t like anyone! Doesn’t mean they should starve!"
Bond now had the back of his hand pressed to his mouth, face turned away and shoulders trembling. Q wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the man properly laugh before.
"Is there anything else?" M asked.
Recovering himself, Bond leaned back over the phone. "How long do you expect me to keep Q in pocket for?"
"Depends on how long it takes you to pin down TG, doesn’t it? And don’t be smart, the man’s saved your skin a dozen times over. Least you can do is show him a little hospitality."
"A bloody hostess now, am I?" Bond said under his breath.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, sir. Double-oh seven signing off."
He hung up, and for a moment they both just stared down at the blank phone screen. Then Bond sighed through his nose, flexing his right arm in its socket the way he always did when readying to fire. The leather straps dug in, gripping his shoulders in a way that was—it bore repeating—objectively obscene.
"Well, that’s my evening sunk," he said. "Sofa folds out. Anything you need can be ordered up to the room, and it’s on M’s dime, so be expensive."
And just like that, Q found himself—essentially—a hostage. With room service.
+++
Q had never spent more than twenty minutes at once in the company of MI6’s gunmetal golden boy.
He’d always known that Bond was more… difficult than the other double-ohs. Slicker. Craftier. More enamored of testing limits and pushing his luck. This was fine when you only had to deal with him in short bursts, which was why Q took great pains to do so. Their relationship, such that it was, was one built around distances; Q was in the same physical location as Bond maybe once a month, and yet every day he was in his ear, his hands, his pocket. The products of Q’s work—his life’s work, really—were the tools of Bond’s trade and thus always under his care.
Not that he treated them very carefully.
Q did genuinely enjoy whipping up his double-oh seven line of gadgets, despite the understanding that—should he ever see them again—it would likely be as charred remains. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d had some poor contraption, victim of a car chase or shootout, laid before him for identification like he was its next of kin. Working with Bond had very quickly taught him not to get attached to machines.
It was frustrating, but there was also something addictive about it. This always striving, wanting to have what the man needed before he even knew he needed it, wanting to be sure that when Bond made it through a close shave, survived by the skin of his teeth, there would be a muttered thank you, Q, on his ragged breath.
This, Q had decided, was a normal thing to want. Then he’d stopped thinking about it.
"What’s your cover story?" Bond asked without preamble, settling in quite snug beside Q on the sofa and helping himself to a strip of bacon. Q’s bacon. From Q’s breakfast. "Someone’s going to realize you’re here eventually, if they haven’t already."
"Ah." Q stared at him blankly, wondering at the level of audacity it must take to eat casually off someone else’s plate. "You’re… an executive manager, is that right? Universal Export?"
"That’s right, and richer than a lord."
"Personal assistant?"
Bond selected a second slice of bacon, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. "Secretary."
"I think the term’s been retired," Q said drily.
"I’m old fashioned. Have you got coffee?"
"It’s tea, and there’s only one cup, so—"
"I don’t drink tea, it’s mud." Turning slightly where he sat, Bond tossed an arm over the back of the sofa behind Q’s head and angled in. He was already dressed and clean-shaven—was that where the violin scent came from? Aftershave? "Picked a name yet?"
Q shrugged. "Might leave it to Q Branch. We’ve got heaps of off-the-rack identities lying about, and if I have to come up with my own alias it’ll be absolutely ridiculous. Never grew out of my Austen phase. I’ll end up as something-something esquire the fourth."
"What’s someone the fourth doing typing my memos?"
"Being the fourth doesn’t pay much these days. Would you stop?" Holding his fork like an icepick, Q stabbed the piece of toast Bond had surreptitiously started to reach for. "If you wanted breakfast, I could’ve ordered it for you."
"Perfect. You’re already in character." Bond plucked the second, unstabbed piece of toast from Q’s plate and took a generous bite, standing to make off with it. "But try adding a sir next time. And remember—coffee."
Q was struck speechless. Bond had always—for the most part, at least—behaved professionally in a professional setting. He rarely stopped himself from sliding a comment in sidelong if he had one, but other than that, all business. Like Q, he maintained a code of conduct and kept to it.
Or he had, at least.
Q had a very bad feeling. It was this damned… situation. Circumstance. Environment. This damned hotel. To deal with Bond he needed the bunker; damp, austere brick. Sallow lighting that made everyone look vaguely ill. Arches you had to duck under. Gloom.
Instead they had this. Cream and gold and champagne gratis and thick-crust toast with whipped butter under a cloche and high-pile, high-threadcount everything. Gratuitous bank windows just bursting with daylight (London daylight, granted, but sun’s the sun). Tchaikovsky playing wistfully from somewhere like ambient luxury. Ceilings so high you could—actually, hang on.
"Where’s that music coming from?" Q asked.
Bond, who had risen from the sofa, looked down at him. "Hm? Oh. Gramophone in the bedroom. Is it bothering you?"
"A gramophone?" Q sat up, intrigued. "Like an actual one? With records and things?"
"Can’t say about things, but it’s got records."
Q was already up and circling the coffee table, but recalled himself and stopped. "Could I…have a look?"
"Be my guest." Bond looked faintly amused. "Since you are, apparently."
The suite’s master bedroom was about what Q had imagined, decadent as a wedding cake and gilded to its twenty-four karat teeth. Four-poster with a damask curtain, dedicated lounging area for smoking your cigars and what have you. Hideous, really. Since they were on the corner of the building it had its own balcony, in case you got tired of the other balcony and wanted to gaze picturesquely at a slightly different cityscape. The gramophone sat on spindly wooden legs beside the daybed; unlike the rest of the room, it was lovely, a real antique with its knotty wood grain and tarnished brass horn, murmuring out The Sleeping Beauty in dusty, melancholy strings. Q flitted toward it like a moth.
"It’s playing vinyl!" He said, delighted. "They’ve modified a turntable with a real gramophone horn. Even the wood looks original. How charming."
Bond leaned against the door jamb, watching him. "And here I thought you only liked new and shiny gadgets."
"For work." Dreamily, Q ran a finger over the scalloped edge of the horn. "For myself I like, you know. Old books and museums and things. Things with history."
"Modern for business, classic for pleasure," Bond said, smiling. "Well, if you like that racket, you can drag it out into the sitting room. There are more records downstairs, though it’s slim pickings at the moment."
"I’d be afraid to move it, honestly, it’s a real antique. Probably cost heaps of money." He glanced at Bond through narrowed eyes. "…Though it’s probably in more danger here with you."
Bond ignored the slight. "Is it really that valuable? Figured there must be one in every room."
"I’d be shocked. More of a Royal Suite type amenity." Q had already begun flicking through the records, which hung off the side in a wooden pocket. There were only six, and all what most people would categorize as classical. Chopin, Beethoven… all relatively subdued pieces, nothing grand or bracing, which he supposed made sense. No one wanted their downstairs neighbors playing Ride of the Valkyries in the small hours.
"…You know a lot about music?"
Q jolted at the sound of Bond’s voice and recoiled from the gramophone like it’d bit him. He realized, with some alarm, that he’d been mumbling to himself. Schooling his expression, he stuffed the record he’d pulled out back into its inner sleeve. "No more than anybody."
Bond didn’t persist, only studied him unnervingly. Q had the urge to shake himself off, like he’d picked up a chill on a rainy day and didn’t want it tailing him indoors. "What?"
"…Nothing. Are you busy this morning?"
"Not really, just combing camera footage. Did you need me for something?"
"Thought I might take a look around the hotel. Since you’re already hooked up to the CCTV…" Bond smiled thinly. "How about introducing me to the neighbors?"
+++
Q was an architect of gadgetry, of things strange and intricate almost to the point of absurdity. He particularly excelled at hiding things; lockpicks folded away in eyeglasses, tranquilizer darts shot by winding your watch to a specific hour, stacks of business cards that could record and transmit fingerprints. Naturally, he could make an earpiece imperceptible to the naked eye. But when it came right down to it, he’d found that the simplest solutions were often the best.
"I look like a prick," Bond grumbled, voice crackling over the line.
"It’d be stranger if you looked like you were talking to yourself." Q reclined in his chair, flicking between CCTV cameras. "Now you could be any other smarmy executive working through his holiday."
"So you admit I look like a prick."
"One moment, locating you now." Q stopped on LOBBY 2, where Bond was loitering at the elevator bank. Even from the high angle and in black and white, his chunky bluetooth earpiece was visible. "Yes, I’m afraid you do look rather insufferable."
"Kind of you to check."
Q much preferred having this layer of remove. Interacting directly with the double-ohs put his back up; here was where he was most at ease, a disembodied voice in an earpiece. Naturally he would have liked the windowless stone damp of the bunker, the metal shelves and dissected machinery and bank of monitors, the chatter of five different agents in his ear calling him headquarters like it was his christian name. He would have liked a more comfortable distance between himself and double-oh seven, perhaps the Atlantic Ocean. But for now, this was the best he was going to get.
"Any familiar faces?" Bond asked. Q could just barely see his mouth move on the screen, a second out-of-sync.
"Having a look now. And take out your phone or something, it’s sketchy of you just standing there."
Bond didn’t complain, but there was a certain surliness to the way he took his phone out, like a teenager being made to put theirs away. Q lingered for one more moment—watching Bond tilt his head, nod, furrow his brow, like he was listening to someone read him figures. At least he was taking this seriously.
Tap right. LOBBY 3.
The main lobby of the Sarriette was spacious and far more tasteful than its rooms. Q had only caught a glimpse of it the previous day, hurried as he was, but it had left the impression of a mermaid’s lagoon. Velvet loungers in deep aquamarine, with an oily shimmer like peacock feathers; low, vast tables of light blue, cut in irregular shapes and brushed matte like sea glass; scattered rugs in startling magenta, also cut in organic rather than geometric forms, so they looked like creeping phlox growing on the white marble.
Of course, on the CCTV it was all in decidedly uninspired grayscale. All the better, Q supposed, to focus on the inhabitants. There were plenty of people milling about, and through the mic he could pick up the muted sound of background chatter.
"Dramatis personae, coming right up," he muttered to himself, pulling up dossiers in another window. "God, my kingdom for a dual monitor... him doing the crossword, you see there? By the window?"
Bond leaned against a marble pillar, pretending to be absorbed in his phone. "I see him."
"Mikhail Svechkov. Russian… enforcer, I believe is the term. A sort of bodyguard for the criminal set."
"He looks it. One of Lelievre’s men?"
"Not confirmed, but it wouldn’t surprise me any. Over on the far loveseat, white suit—I think it’s white—business interest from Hyderabad, Kairavi Mahajan. Relatively new outfit in sand mining. She definitely knows Lelievre, apparently a frequent guest at his parties. No criminal record, though. She’s involved in his charity work."
"Charity work…?" Bond echoed, incredulous.
"Yes, charity work. Criminals do it too, you know. Lelievre donates massive amounts to the arts, music in particular. He’s got a box at the Royal Ballet and Opera."
"Christ. If I have to go to the damn ballet for this—"
"Yes, I know, you’ll surely die. Don’t worry, no one would willingly make you poison yourself with culture unless it was absolutely necessary. We’re all very conscious of your limits."
"…Q," Bond said slowly, amusement lilting his tone. "Are you this mean to everybody?"
Q decided it would be best to evade that question. "Over to your right, at the window. Woman on the phone. Constance Webb, corporate attorney. Profitable line of work, seems like."
"Must be, her watch is worth five figures."
"Her watch?" Q said, aghast. "You’re joking."
"Afraid not. And I’ll bet it doesn’t even have a geiger counter in it."
"You make fun, but I’ll have you know double-oh nine found a perfectly good use for that geiger counter while he was in Greece. Not everyone complains that their gear isn’t flashy enough and then loses it in a gas explosion or drops it from a helicopter. You know, a good quarter of our research funding—" Q paused for breath and squinted at the CCTV; Bond, he noticed, was eyeing the attractive check-in clerk, who kept bashfully glancing up at him from her computer. "Are you listening?"
"Double-oh nine’s your favorite and I can go to the devil, copy that."
"I don’t have a favorite double-oh," Q lied. "But he does break far less equipment than you do. And can you flirt on your own time, please? Don’t—chrissakes—"
Bond was already sauntering up to the front desk, speaking under his breath. "If you need information, Q, always ask the staff first. They’re a gold mine."
"I’ve got the most advanced data network in MI6 history at my fingertips, but go on," Q said, slightly wounded.
"Don’t be jealous. You could hack the Sarriette’s mainframe and learn less than this girl’s got in her back pocket."
"Firstly, the Sarriette doesn’t have a mainframe, do you even know what that is? Secondly—"
"Pardon me," Bond said as he reached the desk, his voice descending into its after-hours purr. He rested an arm on the counter and the clerk leaned toward him dreamily, like he was reeling her in by the collar.
"Can I help you with anything?" She asked, literally twirling her hair round her finger.
"Tell her to empty the till, she’d probably do it," Q sniped. He was understandably ignored.
"I certainly hope you can, miss—" Bond made a show of peering at her name tag. "Lise. Is that short for something?"
"Ingelise."
"Well now, that’s a new one to me, what a charming name. Swedish?"
Q, by clinging white-knuckled to his professionalism, just barely managed to resist muting them. "Double-oh seven, I think this would be an excellent time to establish some ground rules for cohabitation. Rule one, if you start bringing women into our suite I will file a complaint so comprehensive—"
Bond talked over him. "Lise, there is the most wonderful little record player in my suite. Modified, I think, never seen anything like it. My secretary was absolutely starry-eyed over the thing, he’s mad for antiques."
Q raised an eyebrow. "Made sure to slip in there that I’m a man, didn’t you?"
Lise, who could of course not hear Q’s heckling, beamed. "The gramophones are darling, aren’t they? The horns are genuine RCA Victor."
"I don’t doubt it. Listen—" Bond lowered his voice yet further, leaning in. "I don’t suppose it’s a trade secret where you get them? Holidays on the horizon and all. My secretary would just die if I snagged him one, and he’s been so good to me this year. Devoted like you wouldn’t believe."
"This is harassment," Q said.
Lise looked genuinely aggrieved that she couldn’t give Bond precisely what he wanted on a silver platter. "I’m afraid they’re a special set. The Sarriette got them at auction nearly a decade ago with the smoking lounge furniture."
Bond sighed as though he’d expected as much. "Yes, I was afraid that might be it. Only ten in existence, that sort of thing?"
"Just eight. You’re actually lucky you got one, only the corner suites have them."
"Is that right?" Bond murmured, and Q switched to the desk CCTV just in time to see his brow furrow slightly. He didn’t say anything, but looked off to the side a bit with a troubled expression that just screamed ask me what’s the matter. Lord almighty, he was laying it on thick.
Lise picked up the scent like a bloodhound. "Is there some issue, sir? With the gramophone?"
"Oh," Bond said, as though surprised to be asked. His face smoothed into an apologetic smile. "No, no, it’s nothing. I don’t want to be a pain."
Like hell he didn’t. Q rolled his eyes with so much panache it was a shame no one was around to appreciate it. "Has anyone ever told you you’d make an excellent grifter? This is a masterclass."
"It’s no trouble," Lise assured him. "No trouble at all, really."
Bond hesitated for effect. "…It’s just, my secretary—"
"Not me again."
"—he went down to the parlour—the green one, you know, where you keep the records?—and apparently a good portion of them are missing. I told him it was probably because most of the rooms have gramophones, so of course there would be high demand, but if it’s only the corner suites…"
He didn’t finish the sentence, only fixed her with his sad dog eyes. Q had to admit they were very effective, even with the camera graying their arctic blue.
Lise winced, and her voice lowered to a confiding whisper. "Ah, yes… that’ll be Mister—um, our Imperial suite lodger. We’ve had a bit of an issue with him sort of… hoarding the records, you know. He’s lovely," she added hurriedly, as though realizing she was gossiping about a paying guest. "Really lovely man, never any trouble at all, and he absolutely adores music. I think he just forgets to return the records when he’s done with them."
"Of course, I understand." Bond managed to look like he was trying very hard not to be crestfallen. "I’d never dream of bothering another guest about it."
Biting her lip and glancing furtively around, Lise slid back over to her computer. "…Look, don’t tell anyone I told you, but I can have housekeeping give him a reminder. We’ve had to do it once before, anyway."
Bond’s expression melted into one of genuine pleasure, like she’d just accepted his marriage proposal. Q’s index finger jabbed the arrow key, switching to another camera at random. No escaping the man’s voice, though. "You’re an angel, Lise. Really."
Lise giggled. "It’s really nothing, and no promises. Good luck ever getting the Rachmaninoff from him, I swear he must’ve listened to it a thousand times."
An interminable amount of flirting later—maybe I’ll see you later, maybe you will, I’ve got weekends off, and so on ad infinitum—Bond strolled away from the check-in desk, looking pleased with himself. Q waited for him to explain, though of course he didn’t, as being impossible was his factory setting. Instead he silently made a beeline for the Sarriette’s breakfast room. Bit hard to picture agent double-oh seven plating scrambled eggs from a chafing dish, but the image was amusing enough to keep Q occupied while he waited for the man to get on. He switched to BANQUET 1 as Bond pushed through the double doors; it was an impressive place, bathed in sunlight from massive bay windows, and unsurprisingly popular this time of day.
Bond glanced around once, then feigned complete disinterest in his fellow guests and made his way toward the coffee bar. Q finally broke. "Are you going to tell me what that was all about?"
"I’m going to have breakfast."
"Oh, naturally. Get your full English, you must be famished after only stealing half of mine."
Bond didn’t acknowledge that. "Question about your bug zapper."
"Please don’t call it that."
"Can it be modified? Made more sort of… portable?"
Q arched an eyebrow. "You want to go round disrupting everyone’s AV equipment?"
"Just detecting it." Bond seemed to be having a stare-down with the coffee machine; it was, Q was sadistically pleased to note, the sort of high-tech model people disparagingly called newfangled. "It’d be handy for searching rooms, especially if it can detect things other than bugs."
"I’d like to know how you intend to go about breaking into people’s suites without being caught on camera."
"Who said anything about breaking in?" Bond had begun experimentally pressing buttons, causing the machine to brew him a cup of scalding water. "Fieldwork isn’t all… how did you put it? Blowing up gas mains and falling from helicopters?"
"By the amount of gear you mangle it may as well be. Do you need help with that?"
Bond ignored him, pouring his americano-sans-coffee back into the machine and starting again. "I never break in somewhere I can get myself invited. Can you modify the thing or not?"
Q felt a pang of heartache at the thought of disassembling his bug zapper—damnit, his AV signal detector—but he had to admit Bond’s point was a good one. Field agent intuition was nothing to sneeze at. Besides, if Q could take something apart, he could put it back together—and often in better shape than he’d found it. He sighed, glancing sidelong at the attaché. Would’ve been nice to box it off to Q Branch, where he had all his tools and meters and such like. Have a proper tinker with the thing, make a day of it. Not just take it apart with whatever was on hand.
"Q," Bond said, drawing the letter out into three syllables the way he did sometimes. Usually when he wanted something. "Don’t get all melancholy on me because you feel sorry for the damn thing."
Bloody mind reader. "Who said anything about feeling sorry?"
"I know that sigh. That’s your one of my toys has been smashed to bits sigh."
"Hear it a lot, do you?" Q said witheringly.
"Much more than double-oh nine, apparently." There was a clunk as he pulled the carafe from the coffee machine. "Maybe he gets to hear other types, though."
Q blinked. He parted his lips to respond, then couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. A part of his brain he usually kept off at work—because it got him into enough trouble in his free time—stirred awake and whispered, slyly, that man is flirting with you.
No, no, no, ridiculous. Ridiculous. It was, once again, this damned mise en scène playing tricks on him. Lord, how he missed the bunker.
"I can modify it," Q said, forcibly recovering himself. "But I want to know what this gramophone business is all about. And god’s sake, that’s the grinder, not the brewer. Watching you is giving me a headache."
Bond paused, then emptied the grounds and started over again. "Have another look at the dossier on Lelievre."
"…Are you trying to get rid of me so I won’t see you fail to make coffee a third time?"
Bond’s voice turned surly. Bullseye. "If you don’t want an explanation—"
"Alright, alright, I’m going. But just so you know, you’ve been pressing the espresso buttons. Regular coffee’s on the other panel." Q stretched and began to frisk through his files, opening the aforementioned dossier. "What am I looking for, exactly?"
"You’re the genius. Figure it out."
Q skimmed. He was an expert skimmer—to a fault, sometimes, as he often had to force himself to slow down when reading novels rather than consuming whole pages like a paper shredder. Dossiers were ideal skimming material, as they were both very long and intensely boring.
A few paragraphs in, something clicked. He stopped. "…Oh."
"Got it?" Bond asked, sounding pleased. "You’re quick."
"He’s a recluse," Q began slowly. "Sort of. He throws parties, but he doesn’t like to leave his suite."
"Exactly. So—how am I meant to ingratiate myself with him? First off, find a way to get him downstairs."
Q mentally rewound the conversation with Lise. "…How did you know he was the one hoarding the records?"
"I didn’t. I’d assumed there was a gramophone in every room until you mentioned the rarity of the things. Combine that with Lelievre being the sort to have his own opera box… well, it’s not a leap, is it?"
Sitting back in his chair, Q switched from the dossier to the CCTV just in time to see Bond—miraculously—brewing an actual cup of coffee. The man took a sip and made a face. "…All that for dishwater."
"Better than mud."
"Anything would be." Bond sighed. "Suppose I’ll be camped out in the green parlour for the foreseeable future."
Q drummed his fingertips on the desk. "Don’t you think the man’s just as likely to send the records down with housekeeping? No reason he has to return them himself."
"Well, it’s as good an idea as I’ve got. So unless you have a better one—"
"And what are you going to say if he does show up?" Q interrupted. "Hello, so sorry I made you return your records, it’s just I heard you were keen on ballet and wanted to tell you how much I hate it."
"…Thought I might try talking like a human being, actually. Are you going to needle me about everything?"
"Someone ought to."
"Someone ought to do his job and let me do mine."
"You seem to think my job is doing whatever you tell me," Q muttered.
On the CCTV feed, Bond’s eyes flicked to the camera for just a fraction of a second. There was a smile in his voice not visible on his face. "…Usually I have to do whatever you tell me. Double-oh seven, put this on, put that down, memorize this, don’t press that button. Not keen on the roles being reversed?"
Q bit his tongue, hard. He would not take the bait, no matter how tempting it may be. He was at work, damn it. He was working. He would not, would not, would not—
"It’s just that obedience doesn’t come naturally to me like it does to you," he said, sweetly. "Sir."
Bond angled away from the camera, hand going to his mouth, and there was a huff of breath—a laugh, just maybe—very soft in Q’s ear. He felt a hot, sharp jolt down his spine. Don’t hide, damn you. Switching rapidly between cameras, he caught sight of Bond’s face just as the man dragged the smile off his lips with a hard swipe of his thumb.
"…Oh, don’t be discouraged, Q," he murmured, expression once more inscrutable. "Practice makes perfect."
+++
"Do you ever get the sense he’s…" Q scrubbed at his hair, pressing the phone harder between his shoulder and ear. He glanced warily at the foyer. Still alone, for now.
"He’s…?" Eve prompted.
"I don’t know. Circling you?"
"…Circling how?"
He took a moment to consider this. "Like a vulture—no. Maybe more like a shark?"
"Q, as usual, I’ve no idea what you’re on about. And what in god’s name is that noise?"
The suite had been… modified, for the moment. Furniture shoved unceremoniously to the edges of the sitting area. Pristine white carpet rolled up (high-pile was hell for small parts). A sheet—taken off Bond’s bed, which he had not been happy about—laid out on the wood, because Q needed a light surface to see. On the floor in front of his pretzeled legs was the attaché case, prized apart and autopsied. Its detector continued to beep shrilly, like a ghost accusing him of murder in cold blood. He’d have to change the beep to a buzz somehow.
"It’s the signal detector and damper," he said.
"The bug zapper?"
"Please don’t call it that."
"Bond mentioned you were making something for him. How are you managing without your workshop?"
"Badly," Q said, sulking. "Speaking of Bond, though—"
"Right. His shark behavior. Elaborate?"
"It’s like he’s taking my measure. I’m not sure how else to put it. I feel as though we’re playing baccarat only I haven’t got any cards."
"Gambling metaphor, look at you. We’ll make a field agent of you yet."
"Eve."
Her laughter sparkled down the line. "He really is bored, isn’t he? You poor thing."
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
"You said he was circling you. In a threatening way? Or does it feel more playful?" When Q didn’t answer, she went on in a gently patronizing tone. "You haven’t worked closely with him before, so you wouldn’t know, but he does like to keep himself entertained with whoever’s on hand. You’re on hand, and you’re entertaining. I’d reckon in a way he’s not used to."
Q rubbed the spot where his glasses rested on his nose, feeling the indentations. "So I’m a novelty. Wonderful."
"That or he’s looking for weaknesses to manipulate you. Keep you in his own pocket instead of M’s."
"Wonderful."
"I wouldn’t dwell the way you do. It’s just…" There was a pause, and he could almost see her wheeling her hand in the air, the way she did when hunting for the right word. "Bond. You know?"
"I think I’m starting to," Q said wryly. "Don’t suppose there’s any way you could get me out of this? Bring me back home to my girls?"
"Not a chance. And your girls, by the way, are driving Tanner to the brink. Apparently the gray one is out to get him." There was a shuffling of papers on the other end. "This ought to cheer you up. I’ve got your cover ready. Bond let me know you wanted to be someone the fourth."
"Did he indeed."
"He said quote, Q wants to play some posh bastard. Fourth earl of sandwich or some such nonsense. Interested in being a peer, Q?"
"Not in the slightest," Q said with real feeling.
"Too late, just so happens we have a fourth in the identity vault. Mr. Frederick Valentine-Fitzroy, Cardiff estate. Not actually a peer, but probably attends the same club as a few."
"You’re joking."
"Nope, all yours." There was a brief pause. "M said you’d probably know the mannerisms pretty well."
She was fishing. Casually, but he’d worked with enough field agents to know when they were field-agenting him. He didn’t bite. "You can send me what I need when you like, I’m disconnected from the Sarriette’s network and everything."
"Will do. So now you’ve just got to deal with everyone around you being a possible criminal."
"And Bond."
"And Bond. I’ve got to run now, but Q?"
"Yes?"
"…Don’t let him cat-and-mouse you. He likes to play with his food."
Without explaining what on god’s green earth that meant, she rung off.
+++
The following night—after Q had enjoyed a mostly peaceful day combing CCTV footage—Bond strolled through the door bleeding profusely.
It wasn’t obvious at first glance. The man’s expression was so stoic that Q might’ve been none the wiser, might’ve gone about his evening cheerfully oblivious, had he not spotted the first drops of blood on the white carpet.
"You’re—" Q croaked, fingers frozen over his keyboard. "What do I do?"
"Nothing. Keep back." The man waved him off, one hand tucked under his jacket to clutch his side. Not the worst place to be bleeding from, but certainly not the best. Q dismissed the command and scrambled up to trail after him, hovering in the doorway to the bathroom, opening and closing his hands.
"I feel like I ought to do something."
Bond was already moving, efficient as ever, pulling things from the medicine cabinet. "Control the urge. You’ll only be in the way."
"What happened? Was it—were you shot?"
"Got caught tailing Lelievre. Don’t give me that look, he didn’t see my face. I had a motorcycle helmet on."
"Why, exactly, were you tailing him? On a motorcycle? And don’t say a hunch, I’m in no mood."
"Well god forbid I sour your mood. Is there vodka? Bring it here." Bond located a reel of gauze and started unwinding it. "The bastard almost never leaves his room, does he? So I figured if he was going out it had to be important. He got onto me tailing him and decided to shake the tail with a bullet. I’d better lay low for awhile, if he sees me injured he might suspect."
"So you were shot."
"Not me, my front tire. I went through a window. Vodka, Q, please and thank you."
Q went reluctantly to the minibar. "Should you really clean a wound with that?"
"It’s to drink."
"You’re going to drink straight vodka while you play doctor?"
"Unless you can fix a martini."
Q—the glorified bartender—watched from the doorway to the en suite. Bond shed his jacket like a snakeskin, untucking his shirt and peeling back the blood-slicked bit from his side. He barely winced, like he’d no more than nudged a bruise. Taking a swig of vodka from the bottle, he returned it to Q with a bloody handprint around the neck. "Can you get my belt for me?"
Q blinked—down at his belt, up at his face. "You need me to…?"
"Not really." Bond smirked as he pressed a square of folded gauze to his side. Blood soaked through, welling up between his fingers. "But my hands are a little full and it needs doing. Buckle gave me a nasty bruise. So if you really want to help…"
Q edged into the bathroom, setting the bottle carefully down on the sink. The tile was cold beneath his bare feet. He fought the urge to hesitate; the more time he took, the more details he’d allow to filter in. Right now it was only the tang of blood at the back of his throat, the harsh glare of the overhead light, external things. Leather, stiff yet soft under his fingertips. The click of a buckle, the maneuvering of a prong. He didn’t fumble. Practice makes perfect.
"You’re good at this," Bond murmured. Q’s fingers twitched.
"Taking off a belt…? It’s not a skill."
"It is if you don’t wear them." Quieter, now. Bond’s capacity to speak quieter was infinite. "And you don’t."
Q slithered the belt free and let it drop heavy to the floor, straightening to meet the man’s eye. He didn’t mean for his voice to come out as sharp as it did. "Did you have a question?"
Bond’s expression remained placid, immobile. "Would you answer it?"
You might try asking and find out, Q almost snapped, but held his tongue. This, at least, he was used to. People circling an assumption about him that it wasn’t quite polite to confirm. Eve’s words shifted through the back of his mind; that or he’s looking for weaknesses to manipulate you. Keep you in his own pocket instead of M’s.
Don’t let him cat-and-mouse you.
Bond maintained eye contact for one more long second, then picked up the vodka from beside the sink and took another swig. "…Needs stitches."
Q let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. "And not at hospital, I’d imagine."
"Got a steady hand, Q?"
"Not that steady."
"Then you’ll have to be my lovely assistant." Bond angled his head back toward the bedroom. "Gray case under my garment bag. You should recognize it. Courtesy of Q Branch."
"Good to know you don’t destroy all of what I send you," Q said under his breath, heading off to fetch what he hoped was an intact wound stapler.
It was intact, though almost completely empty.
"This model holds up to thirty-five staples," Q accused, twitching it out of Bond’s reach when he made a grab for it. "How on earth have you been using it? Recreationally?"
"How exactly would I—no, don’t answer that. Can the lecture wait? I am still bleeding."
Q finally handed the thing over. He leaned against the sink, rubbing his bare forearms; the air conditioning was always just a smidge too high in nice hotels. "You might try getting injured less."
"Could you jot that down for me? Glue, please."
"You’re reckless." Q dug around in the case and pulled out the surgical adhesive, critically watching the man apply it. "Suppose that’s why they keep you on, though."
The smirk knifed back onto Bond’s face. "Tell you the truth, Q, I think it’d just be too big a pain to get rid of me at this point."
With that, he picked up the wound stapler, hiked up his shirt, and mechanically punched four staples into his side. Q’s shoulders flinched up with each one, reaching almost to his ears. Tossing the stapler onto the sink, Bond replaced it with the vodka bottle, pouring it over the sealed wound until the blood ran pink.
Q watched. It wasn’t easy. Bond’s technique was careless almost the the point of negligence; if the cut were any less superficial Q might’ve dragged him to hospital and cover be damned. But watching the way he tended himself—detached, as though his body weren’t his own—was, in its own way, enlightening.
When he’d finished with the wound Bond moved to his waistband, unhurried now, undoing the clasp and tugging down the zipper. It was almost all the way lowered when he paused, looking up.
"…Stay, if you like." One corner of his mouth pressed inward on a stifled smile. "Is this Q Branch business? Something you need to fit me for?"
Q turned and strode from the room, cheeks burning, Bond’s single soft chuckle echoing in his ears.
+++
It wasn’t that he’d never wanted to get closer. That wasn’t it.
There had always been too much to bridge, between them, for a real sort of conversation to feel possible. Too many distances. Bond was an enigma, an unscratchable surface, the closest thing Q had ever encountered to human cryptography.
Yet enigmatic as he was, he remained, undeniably, a man. This was a reality Q was now facing daily and at close quarters.
Bond moved silently, fluidly, like heat. He didn’t leave the room without emptying his gun’s magazine out on the bedspread and counting the bullets. He was a light sleeper, light enough that the sound of typing from the next room kept him up. He took pills for pain sometimes, but never openly, never where Q could see him do it; the only clue was the soft rattle of the bottle. He shaved with a straight razor, something Q had caught a glimpse of through a cracked door and that had stopped him in his tracks, following the path of one long, even stroke.
There were things the man adored, discreetly—high-proof liquor, smoked salmon, caviar on toast—and things he couldn’t abide. Earl grey, it turned out, was an especial adversary. If Bond happened to be around when a pot was ordered up to the room, Q would find it set before him with the bland declaration most people wear perfume, not drink it.
Bond didn’t mind perfume, though. On women. He could name the expensive varieties, the same way he could tell the price of a watch just by looking at it. One morning the scent of one was still lingering on his clothes, the kiss of some nightflower or other, feathering the air when he strolled in with the top button on his collar undone. It was almost a reprieve, the wash of a woman’s perfume when he leaned over Q’s desk asking for updates. It masked what was underneath, that elusive smell of antique and handcrafted things, light sawdust from the sanding of dark wood, almost but never quite sweet.
Q was learning not to breathe him in too deeply.
It wasn’t that he’d never wanted to get closer. But now that he was—bit by bit, day by day—he understood that he’d been avoiding it, and he understood why.
There was a reason this was dangerous.
+++
Cohabitation, day the eighth. Q awoke to the sound of shouting.
He had acclimatized himself to a great deal of nonsense for the sake of this arrangement. No choice, really, as he was essentially trapped here, having ventured out only twice—once to stock up on clothes and other necessities, and once because housekeeping could only be put off so long. He could deal with that. He could deal with Bond’s comings and goings, even the ones where he returned bleeding or smelling of primrose. He could deal with staring at CCTV feeds until he forgot that he was, functionally, a human being.
But shouting at seven in the morning was a bridge too far.
Q stirred groggily on the fold-out, plucking his glasses off the table to bring the room into focus. Yes, he was still here, camped up in a room that had probably hosted one of the lesser royals. There was a soft, repetitive beeping—the ironing board was folded out, iron blinking and steaming slightly beside one of Bond’s shirts. Those were the only details he was able to note before he was forced to acknowledge, again, that someone was shouting from the foyer. In French.
Shouting was low on the threat scale. It might preempt a scuffle, but it didn’t indicate one. Still, not something you wanted to hear on a covert mission. Bond’s voice cut through occasionally—low, flat, in brit-flavored French with many of the accents ignored—so Q could deduce he was the one being shouted at. The fog of sleep started to clear and he sat up, senses clicking to alertness.
The voice was a man’s, unfamiliar. Q’s French was rusty—good enough for a CV mention and not much else—but he picked up that the man was calling Bond a briseur de ménage, a homewrecker. Among other things. Q barely resisted groaning out loud, his stomach sinking. Oh, good, this was exactly what they needed. Someone drawing attention to them, spreading Bond’s name throughout the Sarriette as a feckless womanizer, just when he most needed to stay off the radar and ingratiate himself. I’d better lay low for awhile, oh, had you better? Had you?
Q had to put a stop to this. Fast. He shut his eyes and thought. He was a quick thinker, but speed didn’t always amount to quality; the first idea that struck him was so ridiculous he almost laughed aloud. But was there something to it? No. But was there, though?
No. Absolutely not.
…But was there?
The volume of the shouting had increased. As had the number of profanities. Time to stop thinking and act.
Hastily, Q removed his glasses and mussed his hair. Then—in a moment of divine inspiration—he pulled his shirt over his head, snatched Bond’s off the ironing board, and threw it on. Pinching his cheeks to flush them, he padded into the foyer, buttoning up as he went.
There was a man opposite Bond in the doorway. He had dark hair with just a fleck of silver at the temples and wore a suit that was somehow loudly pinstriped; something about the way he held himself was reminiscent of an old mafia film, the kind with low-slung hats and tommy guns in cello cases. When he saw Q his shouting cut off abruptly, and he stared, mouth hanging slightly ajar. Bond turned. His gaze took Q in—bare legs, rumpled hair, his own shirt—and the tense look on his face dissolved into baffled amusement.
Q feigned a yawn and tried to look languid. "Bit early for shouting, darling, don’t you think? What’s going on?"
Bond schooled his expression in an instant. His voice went silken and after-hours, which Q had not been prepared for. Was this what it’d been like for that poor desk clerk? No wonder she’d gone all hypnotized. "Go back to bed, pet, nothing to worry about. It’s only there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding with the neighbors. Yes?" He turned his raptor’s stare on the man, whose open mouth snapped shut.
"No one should misunderstand anything before noon," Q complained, laying the sulkiness on thick. "There shouldn’t be anything to understand before noon."
"Of course not. Wait for me, won’t you? I’ll only be a moment."
Q gave him a pout for good measure. And, if he was being honest, for fun. Then he turned and sauntered back into the suite, dropping down onto one of the sofas where he could listen without being seen. He snapped his glasses up and reseated them on his face.
"Now." Bond’s voice went cold. "If you have something to accuse me of, monsieur—"
There was some quiet, frantic mumbling in French. Bond sighed, and answered in kind; Q caught the words invitation à dîner and secrétaire, the latter stressed suggestively. He had invited the man’s wife to dinner, certainly, but the invitation had been meant for the both of them. To dine with him and his secretary, bien entendu. Had there perhaps been l’erreur in his French? The man mumbled that no, no, of course not, the mistake was his. A thousand pardons. Q wondered if he was going to have to eat with these people. He briefly fantasized about actually leaving the hotel room, eating something that hadn’t come from a room service cart.
The words partie de poker amicale, from their guest, pricked up Q’s ears. Demain soir, tomorrow evening, dans ma suite. Would they consider gratifying him and his wife with their attendance? Bond answered that it was a very kind offer, but he would have to consult his—he started one word, stumbled over it, before landing again on secrétaire. Q suppressed a smile. The man was really a fine actor.
More apologies, please, I behaved unforgivably, no, I beg you’ll think nothing of it, and then the door shut.
There was a moment of total stillness. It stretched out into two moments, then three, and then Bond came slowly into the suite proper. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared Q down, utterly poker-faced—Q was reminded of M just before he delivered a reprimand.
"First of all," Bond started, then stopped. Seemed to reconsider what he wanted to say. There was that twitch in his jaw, the angling away of his face; no doubt about it, the man was trying very hard not to laugh.
Encouraged, Q threw his bare legs up on the ottoman, crossing them at the ankles. Bond’s hand went to his mouth and he turned away, but not fast enough that Q missed the grinning lift of his cheeks. When he spoke, his voice was cinched tight to keep the laughter out. "Come up with a new cover story, have you?"
"Did you really sleep with that man’s wife?" Q returned mildly.
Bond turned back; he had at least halfway composed himself, though there was no keeping the twinkle from his eyes. "I didn’t know you spoke French."
"Some. I went on study abroad, so of course I know the dirty stuff. Don’t dodge the question."
"No, I didn’t sleep with her. Not for lack of trying."
"Chrissakes." Q pinched the bridge of his nose. "You’re supposed to be getting in with the neighbors, not—"
"Getting off with them?"
"I was going to say getting on the outs with them. And don’t say it’s part of the job, I’m not stupid. There is no universe where homewrecking is a viable spy tactic."
"Isn’t it, though?" Bond strolled over and tossed himself down on the sofa opposite, crossing one leg over the other in a devil-may-care sort of way. "It just landed us a very exclusive invite."
Q stared. His mind finally reached full processing speed. Putting his face in his hands, he said—in a low, horrified murmur— "…Tell me that wasn’t who I think it was."
Bond smirked. "Our upstairs neighbor. Monsieur Lelievre."
Q’s murmur got lower and more horrified. "…You’ve been chatting up a mobster’s wife."
"Former mobster. And I’ve chatted up worse."
"You know, I don’t remotely doubt it. How on earth did you even meet her?"
"She’s the one who brought Lelievre’s records downstairs." Bond got up from the sofa, coming forward to loom over Q with a hand outstretched. "Seems my homewrecking got us somewhere after all. Now give me my shirt back, you’re wrinkling it."
"I got us somewhere. Your homewrecking almost got you shot. If I hadn’t jumped in and pretended to be…" Q wheeled his hand in the air. "To be—you know."
Bond hiked an eyebrow. "Kept?"
Q valiantly resisted kicking him. "Double-oh seven, can you please—please try not to make a pass at any more known mafia wives while I’m in your blast radius? I know you’re bored—"
"How could I be bored, shacked up at London’s finest with mon chaton?"
"Stop it now, this is serious. Keep your gun holstered, for once, just for the novelty. I’m begging."
"Fine. She’s not even really my type."
Q rolled his eyes. "Your type is whatever’s in front of you."
A faint smile passed over Bond’s face, there and gone. "…Maybe so. Shirt."
"Alright, alright." Q slid his legs off the ottoman and stood, making for the bathroom, but Bond blocked his path. It was a quick, casual movement, technically nonthreatening, but only technically.
"Going somewhere?"
Q’s fingers hovered at the hem of the shirt self-consciously, wanting to tug it down, hide himself a little more. "Well, I’m not taking it off here."
"No?" Bond tipped his head. "Shy all of a sudden? After that little display?"
"Don’t make fun."
"I’m not, I thought it was brilliant." Almost absentmindedly, Bond reached out and fiddled with one of the mother-of-pearl buttons on Q’s—his—shirt. "Sure you wouldn’t like to be a field agent?"
"What gave me away?" Q tried not to look down at the man’s fingers; they were low, just under his ribcage. "Dream of mine, driving cars off cliffs and getting shot at and so on. They won’t let me, though."
"Gun-shy?"
"Can’t do a pull-up. Or, you know." Q tapped the arm of his glasses. "See."
For a moment Bond said nothing. He was so close now that the tip of his shiny black shoe was between Q’s bare feet, and there was a whiff of that pleasant violin smell. Not aftershave, couldn’t be, he hadn’t shaved yet that morning and his stubble looked like it’d leave a burn.
Bond’s fingers slid under the placket of the shirt. The button he’d been toying with came undone, smooth as butter; Q might not even have noticed if he hadn’t been looking. Something started to click in his chest, over and over, a lighter trying to catch.
"Don’t," he said.
Eyes snapped to his, blue as the pith of a flame. The corner of Bond’s mouth ticked up. Crafty satisfaction. Like he’d seen Q’s losing hand reflected in his glasses. "…I’m not."
"I mean it."
"I know you do. I’m not."
It was a stalemate, but it didn’t feel like one. It never did, with Bond; a tie was always in his favor.
"Double-oh seven," Q said, a warning—against what, he had no idea. What in the hell was happening? What was the man doing?
A long beat of silence. Bond cocked his head. There was a careful, studious look in his eye, and something else, something that was just starting to become familiar. Q’s forte was in the impenetrable; he easily detangled the sort of encryption that could bring a nation to its knees. For fun, sometimes. But Bond’s was different, somehow; it wasn’t a thing he used, but a place he lived. Q got the sense that any attempt to decipher him would be like trying to stem the tide while you were drowning in it.
"What’s your name?" Bond asked, abruptly. "Your real one."
Q blinked, taken aback. He answered before he could think. "I don’t know that you’ve got high enough security clearance for that information."
Bond laughed, a quiet, dry huff. Then he stepped back, and Q could suddenly taste the air again, his lungs expanding fully. He hadn’t even realized how shallow he’d been breathing. Bond turned and went briskly to the mirror, beside which his tie was rolled and his cufflinks set out. "Suppose we ought to get as much as we can on our new Le Milieu friends before I have to play cards with them."
"…Right." Numbly, Q moved to the desk and reached for his laptop like an asthmatic for an inhaler. "Right. Yes. Um—are you actually capable of playing an amicable game of poker?"
"…I am." Bond slid on his tie, gazing coolly into his own reflection. "But I think this might require a more assertive approach."
+++
Q was not at all looking forward to calling Eve. He hoped maybe she wouldn’t answer, so of course she picked up on the first ring.
"I hear felicitations are in order," she said, voice brimming with barely-suppressed glee. "Does Q Branch have your ring size?"
"Are you quite finished?"
"Not even close, I’ve got a whole list here to get through. Should I skip to the sexy ones? They’re rather good."
Q squinted at himself in the mirror. He’d never had much of a knack for ties, and was seriously considering giving up while he was ahead. Maybe he should try for the frivolous, carefree look. It’d fit the cover, at least; someone who didn’t think twice about parading half-dressed in front of strangers wouldn’t spend time deliberating between a Windsor knot and a four-in-hand. "…Is M cross with me?"
"He certainly doesn’t like the idea of you in the field. Says it’s like using an enigma machine for target practice."
Q wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or offended by that. "But he’s not cross?"
"Pretty sure you gave his headache a headache, but he’ll be fine. Tanner thinks it’s a topping idea."
Q paused. "Did—did he use the word topping?"
"He did, not on purpose, I don’t think. Poor thing was very confused when I started just about crying laughing. Speaking of topping—"
"Eve."
"Is your lesser half there? I have intel for him."
Bond—who had seemed equal parts entertained with and resigned to the idea of having Q as his plus one—had gone out to fetch him, quote, an acceptable dinner jacket. Not to mention the shoes, which he’d got from lord only knew where and were a half size too small. Q shifted back and forth on his feet and winced, saying sourly, "He’s shopping."
"Let him have the pocketbook, did you?"
The door clicked open and shut again, Bond appearing with a garment bag as though in answer to the summons. He thrust the bag at Q in a vaguely threatening way, then perched his hip on the desk to glance down at the phone. "Evening, Penny."
"Bond. We’ve looked into the number plate you mentioned."
Q, who was in the process of wrestling the garment bag from his dinner jacket, piped up. "Oh, he doesn’t get any raillery?"
Eve snorted. "You tell me."
Q tipped his head back and shut his eyes. Walked into that one like an open sewer grate.
"The plate?" Bond prompted.
"Fake. Good one, but the license number’s not registered with the DVLA."
At Q’s questioning look, Bond said, "Lelievre. Got his license number when I was tailing him."
"Why didn’t you have me look for it on the CCTV?"
"I checked it against your list." Bond nodded down at Q’s yellow legal pad; it was on the blank front sheet now, but a few pages in he had indeed been jotting down every license number parked by the Sarriette’s valets. He’d been making a project of matching cars to drivers and keeping meticulous timestamps. "No luck. Handy little thing, though, very thorough. And you’ve got nice penmanship."
"Oh." Q blinked, pleasantly disconcerted. "Thank you."
"He wants something from you," Eve said. Bond looked daggers at the phone.
Q sighed. Typical. "Alright, let’s have it."
"…Your bug zapper—"
"Please don’t call it that."
"Is it finished?"
Tossing his dinner jacket over the back of the desk chair, Q wandered over to the attaché case. The detector—miniature version—was sat beside it, about the size of a mobile phone. "For the most part. It’s very DIY, though, not really up to MI6 standards. And the range is much smaller. Why?"
Bond pushed off the desk. "Thought it might be useful to have on hand tonight. On the off chance this party is an excuse for our host to spy on his guests, it’d be nice to have a heads up. Does it make noise?"
"No, just buzzes."
"Perfect." Bond turned back to the phone. "Penny. Anything new on the Lelievre’s?"
"Bit on the husband, apparently his original racket was in drugs. Reputable chemist until he wasn’t. Then he dealt more in the business side of things, but he was a hatchet man alright. Got a temper. His suspected despatches have all been careful enough, though. Professional." A shuffling of papers. "At the very least I doubt you have to worry about him trying to off you in the middle of a card game. Far as we can find he’s never killed for anything but business, and then he did it quiet like. Not much on the wife. Independently wealthy, clean record. Seems to have been a love match."
"How sweet," Bond said with distaste. "No wonder he was here throwing his weight around. Anything else?"
"Nothing useful. M wanted to know if we could extend surveillance to the Sarriette’s phone system. Doubtful that TG would use a hotel phone for any dirty work, but it’s a data point. Possible?"
"Easy," Q said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Bond looked vaguely mystified. "You can hack a landline…?"
"Don’t be stupid, it’s not a landline. Everyone with a private branch exchange uses VoIP nowadays."
"Oh, naturally. Don’t know what I was thinking."
"Question is," Q muttered to himself, "If they switched from EPABX to IP-PBX did they do it internally through broadband? Or are they using an external integrated UCaaS platform?"
"You’re making these acronyms up now."
"The point," Q said, whittling the point down in his mind to something Bond could understand, "Is that the phone system uses the internet. So, yes, we can hack it. Or I can, at least."
"Good," Eve said. "That’s it then, I think."
Bond pushed off the desk. "Got it. We’ll update you tomorrow."
"You’d better." Eve switched from her professional tenor back to one of mockery. "Have him home by eleven and not a minute later, you hear? No funny business."
"No promises," Bond said, and hung up. He turned to Q. "Got you a tie as well."
"What’s wrong with this one?"
"How much time have you got?"
"I really don’t want to hear it, do you know that? These shoes you got me are too small. I’ll be staggering out of this party like a shot soldier."
"They look alright," Bond said, unsympathetically.
Q sighed, swiping his phone and laptop bag off the desk and holding his hand out. "Phone."
"…Why?"
"Are you taking it with you?"
"Wasn’t going to, no."
"Then I’m locking it up." Q nodded toward the room’s little safe. "Security on the tech itself should be enough, but you can never be too careful."
Bond slapped his phone into Q’s hand, voice taking on a teasing lilt not unlike Eve’s. "What are you setting as the combination? Double-oh seven?"
Q returned the smile beatifically. "Double-oh nine."
He turned without waiting to see the man’s expression, hearing only the aggressive click of his tongue.
+++
"Listen carefully," Bond said under his breath, "And don’t argue."
They’d only just stepped out of the stairwell onto the eighth floor; it was quiet up here, eerily so, though part of that might’ve been Q’s nerves. Thank god he’d abandoned the tie after five attempts; even just his shirt collar felt like it was strangling him. "What d’you mean, don’t argue? I’m not—"
"Arguing already. Hush and listen." Bond spoke under his breath and without glancing in Q’s direction. "I wouldn’t be bringing you to this if I didn’t have to."
"Oh, thanks."
"Just listen for a second." Bond’s eyes were frigid; he was in work mode, no doubt about that. "You’re not trained to be in the field. After your little performance it’d be odd if I didn’t bring you, but don’t go playing secret agent. This isn’t a game."
Q bristled. What the man was saying wasn’t unreasonable, but he didn’t need to say it like that. It wasn’t as though Q had gotten into this situation for his own entertainment. "Do you think I’m stupid?"
"No, but I think if you screw up it’ll be my head, not yours."
Q gritted his teeth. He knew he ought to hold his tongue, count backwards from fifty until he didn’t want to wring the man’s neck. Maybe he could’ve managed it, under better circumstances. But damn it, his feet hurt. "You know, I’m pretty damn well nervous enough playing this role without being reminded of my total unsuitability for it. You ought to try thinking before you speak."
Bond finally glanced at him, one flinty spark of emotion catching in his eyes. Defensiveness, Q thought, and the assumption was confirmed by his tone. "I’m only talking to you the way I’d talk to any field agent."
"Which you have just reminded me I am not," Q replied, caustically. "Don’t worry, sir. I’ll try not to be too much of a burden."
With that, he stalked off toward suite 806.
When the door swung open to his knock the first thing Q processed was the sound, like he’d popped out a pair of noise-cancelling earbuds. It wasn’t that the party was especially loud, just that the rooms were especially soundproof; the moment the seal was broken, laughter and chatter and the windchime clink of jostling glasses frothed out into the hall. The second thing he processed was the person in the doorway, and she required a great deal more processing power, leaving him stunned in place staring like a squirrel in traffic. Fortunately, she seemed perfectly accustomed to having this effect on people.
The woman was tall—she had a good inch on Q, even in flats—and sheathed in a black dress that reminded him a bit of Morticia Addams. Rather than gothic, the rest of her look was almost punk; dark pixie-cut hair, ears pierced in every spot piercing was possible, the smokiest eyeshadow he’d ever seen. Within the silver-black cloud her eyes—though very dark—had some sourceless, unearthly glitter, something that vanished when he tried to focus on it. If this was who he thought it was, she was younger than her husband by a good ten years and too beautiful for any man Q had ever met. Well, almost.
Bond appeared at his side, stepping past him over the threshold. "Sidonie. A pleasure as always."
"James. Pleasure’s all mine," the woman said, her gaze still fixed inquiringly on Q. Her accent wasn’t, as Q had expected, French; rather it was some flavor of American, a long-voweled drawl. Southern, maybe? He’d never been much good at distinguishing. The woman stepped closer, and Q got a whiff of her amber-vanilla perfume; he'd encountered it once before, he was sure, mingled with the scent of wood and resin. She extended a velvet-gloved hand. "Sidonie Lelievre."
Q accepted it and shook. "Frederick Valentine-Fitzroy."
"The fourth," Bond deadpanned.
Sidonie’s smoky gaze flicked between them with evident curiosity. "Yes, you must be, uh… my husband mentioned you. You’re James’s…"
Q leaned in a bit, and—surprising even himself—winked. He slid into his poshest accent, the one he’d spent years trying to unlearn. "Guilty as charged, but you mustn’t say so, darling. You’ll embarrass the poor man to death." He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial murmur. "You’d think someone who blushes just to be seen with a fellow would pick a subtler love nest than the Sarriette, but that’s men for you."
Sidonie’s impassive face broke into a surprisingly toothy grin. Bond looked irritated; Q wondered if he hadn’t managed to get a smile out of her yet himself. Served him right.
They were ushered inside, past the foyer, and Q tried his best not to limp too badly. He had only a moment to take in his surroundings, though he didn’t need much more than that; the suite was nearly identical to their own, with the exception of a baize card table that’d come from lord only knew where. The overhead lights had been appropriately dimmed, complementing the patronage, who had all gotten the memo and cleaned up nice. There was a cocktail party atmosphere, the cigars-after-dinner sort. Relaxed luxury. Q estimated they were about forty altogether; murderers row in caviar and Cartier.
Sidonie took Q by the arm, steering him toward what looked to be a very well-stocked bar cart. "Freddy—alright if I call you Freddy, darlin’?"
"Perfectly."
"Freddy, I have got to apologize for my husband. He can get up in arms about the littlest damn thing. I told him James has been nothin’ but a perfect gentleman, but does he listen? Never. Has to go off and raise hell at the crack of dawn. Why they do it I’ll never understand."
"He was very passionate," Q said with a meaningful smile. "I’d have enjoyed watching it play out if not for the loss of beauty sleep. On a weekend, no less."
"It was Thursday, darling," Bond said blandly.
"And? Can I be expected to keep track of all that?"
"Of course not. Fix you a drink?"
Q didn’t drink much, being a lightweight, but his nerves were playing double-time and he needed the edge off. "Oh, just champagne for me, angel."
He caught Bond’s reaction to the endearment—disbelief, a smothered laugh, then smooth blankness, all in the span of a split second. Probably not the best idea to poke at him this much, but lord, was it tempting. Besides, he needed paying back with interest.
"Get him the Moët et Chandon," Sidonie instructed with a lazy flick of her hand. "It’s in the little drink freezer—over there. Can’t miss it once you get near it, rattletrap’s noisy as hell. Sounds like a jackhammer the second you plug it in, but keeps my champagne cold enough." To Q she added, "Charles only drinks Veuve Clicquot and only at damn near room temperature, I swear the man’s predictable as twelve o’clock striking at noon."
Q sighed and shook his head. "The blessing and curse of dating an older man, don’t you think? Predictability."
Sidonie gave him a knowing look, patting his arm in commiseration. Out of the corner of his eye, Q could very clearly see that Bond was biting the inside of his cheek.
Ever the consummate hostess, Sidonie waited until they both had fifty quid of champagne in hand before she reluctantly left them to greet the stragglers. She winked at Q as she went, lifting an elegant hand to her mouth to whisper, "Come chat with me during the game, alright? Gotta be the most tiresome thing on earth, these boys playing cards. Like watching tomcats hiss at each other in the alley."
"I’d be delighted," Q said, raising his glass. "Though by then I might have enough champagne in me to enjoy a little catfight."
Sidonie snickered, and then she was gone in a flutter of velvet and perfume. Q found himself hoping she wasn’t too mixed up in her husband’s business; all things considered, he rather liked her.
"You," Bond grumbled the moment they were alone, "are a menace."
"I’m a delight," Q said sniffily. "And I’m playing my bit to perfection, thank you very much."
"Can’t deny that." Bond was scanning the crowd without appearing to scan it, one of those field agent tricks Q could recognize but not replicate. "Anyone would take you for a titled brat. I wonder where you picked that up."
Q fidgeted, staring determinedly into his glass. "I can put on a show when necessary."
"You know, it’s funny," Bond said, taking a sip of champagne. "Feels less like you put it on and more like you dredged it up. Tell me something, Freddy—" He leaned sideways until their shoulders bumped, turning to speak in a lowered voice. "Under all that, are you actually a little bit posh?"
Q threw back his drink in one go and thrust the empty glass into Bond’s hand. "Think I’ll go socialize."
"…Don’t do anything intrepid."
"Wouldn’t dare," Q muttered. "I’ll leave playing secret agent to you, shall I?"
+++
An hour later, Q was three glasses deep and starting to recall why he wasn’t much of a drinker.
Parties, it had to be said, did not come naturally to him. He could never quite figure out how people managed to so easily merge into little cliques, pull away, and then merge into other little cliques like they were on a speed-dating timer. From a bird’s-eye view a cocktail party must look like a swirling school of mackerel. Bond—who he had imagined would knife through the crowd like a shark scenting blood—was instead nearly invisible, moving with the current and ingratiating himself wherever he went. Q, on the other hand, could not quite get the hang of it. He felt like an ill-prepared socialite at his first gala; even if he learned to do the partner-switch, he didn’t know how to waltz.
So, he fell back on his desperate-times social tactics—nodding along silently and drinking.
Which brought him to his fourth flute of champagne and having a little argument with himself at the drink freezer. The thing really was noisy as all hell, humming like an industrial; he’d have to try using the one in 706 as a white noise machine. It was so loud up close that it almost-but-not-quite drowned out his internal monologue. Drinking on the job, honestly, could you break intelligence-level encryption in this state? Well… yes, probably. But it’d take an extra ten minutes. Alcohol slows your processing speed, it’s like bloatware for the human body. On the other hand, right now your job is to socialize, and alcohol is also a social lubricant. Stop laughing. You know who wouldn’t be deliberating over this? Frederick Valentine-Fitzroy The Fourth. He’d be six shots in and dialing his exes. He’d be pouring a seventh and saying bottoms up.
Q let out a sound that could only be described as a champagne giggle. Bottoms up, indeed. He refilled his glass.
There was a light touch on the small of his back, and he jumped, relaxing when he heard the low, mumbly voice. "Having fun?"
Setting the bottle back down with a pantomime of sobriety, he turned to find Bond, who looked cool and diamond-sharp as usual despite the fact that he’d probably drunk Q under the table already. "Oh, sure. Learned a great deal about sand mining. I’m very into sand now. And I got advice on my stock portfolio from a man who I think is wanted in three separate countries. Anything on the—you know. The detector?"
"Nothing. Room’s clean." Bond continued to scan the crowd in an overtly spylike way. Q elbowed him, earning himself a sidelong look of irritation and a grumbled, "What?"
"Stop looking like a spy."
To Q’s amazement, Bond immediately stopped looking like a spy. It was such a subtle transformation that, gun to his head, Q couldn’t have pointed out exactly what the difference was or how in the hell it’d been managed. He squinted up at the man’s face. "How’d you do that?"
"Impressed?"
Q had to admit that he was, but he didn’t have to admit it out loud. "If you know how to not look like a spy you ought to do it all the time."
"I’ll make a note. And while we’re on the subject of being unassuming, you should try it yourself. Limping about like you’ve got a rifle up your trouser leg."
"It’s these damned shoes, you bastard. Feel free to take sole credit." That abhorrent bubbly sound escaped Q’s lips again, and he clapped a hand over his mouth—but not before Bond gave him a look so withering it could kill a plastic plant. Q said, meekly, "Do you get it? Sole credit?"
"I get it," Bond said, sounding as though he wished he didn’t.
Q decided he would profit by changing the subject. "Don’t look now, but Lelievre has his eye on you. He’s been glaring at you all night."
Bond shrugged one shoulder. "Jealousy. Think he’s still suspicious of me hanging round his wife."
Q was possessed by a sudden thrill of daring. Or maybe that was the champagne. It was intoxicating enough to be either, and it had him speaking before he could think. "Well, give him a reason not to be."
He felt more than saw Bond look at him sharply, but he didn’t look back. Just gazed out into the crowd, casually lifting his glass to take a sip. Eyes ahead. Steady on.
"…Alright," Bond murmured after a beat. "Don’t flinch."
Q felt the man draw closer. The champagne fizz tickled the back of his throat, his sinuses, and he tried not to sneeze. There was a flutter of breath against his ear. Then Bond’s voice—closer than Q had ever heard it—sank into his body, settling low and dark like syrup into spirits. "…Is he watching?"
"Yes."
"Act like I’ve said something funny."
Q lowered his voice to a whisper. "Why don’t you try actually saying something funny?"
"…Q." One syllable, but drawn out and warmed with amusement. "Are you drunk?"
"Tipsy. I’m allowed. Drowning my upper-class sorrows, all that. It’s not easy being a Valentine-Fitzroy."
"Especially not the fourth one," Bond said gravely. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown."
Q let out a snort of laughter, trying to wrestle down his grin and failing miserably.
"There you are, perfect." Bond spoke the last word in a purr of breath, soft as a powderpuff. "Now act like I’ve said something indecent, and you’re scolding me."
"Now that I know you can manage without making me act."
"Do you indeed. Fine." Bond hummed thoughtfully, and Q could practically feel the vibration. A bit of gravel came into his voice, a bit of texture, like the grit of a tinderbox. "…You’ve been making the rounds, haven’t you, Freddy darling? The way you flirt and carry on I’d think you were trying to provoke me. If you want rough handling, all you have to do is ask."
…Well, that was quite good. Only half-pretending to be scandalized, Q whacked the back of his hand against Bond’s chest, mouthing stop it. Bond caught him by the wrist and held him there, so Q could feel the heat of his body and the steady thump of his heartbeat. He heard the man inhale, felt it, anticipating a gush of hot breath against his ear.
He felt it, instead, on his neck. And not just breath. The nuzzle of Bond's nose, the brush of his lips.
Q’s reaction was violent. His vision spotted, pleasure making his whole body crackle like a channel gone static. He let out a little gasp, badly fumbling the champagne flute and soaking his cuff.
"...Thought I told you not to flinch?" Bond mumbled against him. Q felt every word—a graze of teeth, a light brush of tongue on the word flinch. He opened his mouth to answer, but all that came out at first was a hiccup.
"You—" He hiccuped again. "You might’ve warned me."
"But then it wouldn’t have been so convincing. Relax. I’m not going to bite you."
Q wasn’t sure he believed it. He wasn't sure he wanted to believe it. The feeling of Bond's mouth on his skin was impossible to parse, untranslatable and overwhelming, like watching opera when you didn’t speak a word of Italian. Q wanted to let his eyes drop shut, the way he did when he took a sip of particularly fine tea or bit into particularly rich chocolate. He wanted Bond's pulse to pick up, wanted his body temperature to rise, wanted to feel the heat and the movement of his blood.
"You’re going to snap that in two." Bond’s fingers closed around the champagne flute, gently extricating it from Q’s grip. Q was hit by his first tilt of nausea, an old friend; that feeling when you lie down drunk and shut your eyes and you’re suddenly alone with it. Firmly but tactfully, he pushed against Bond's chest, ducking away from him. The warmth on his neck vanished. The dizziness worsened. He needed out or he was going to be sick. The room was at once vast and suffocating, air choked with cologne and liquor and raised voices.
Bond withdrew, but his gaze swept Q’s face, seeing… what? More than he damn well ought to, knowing him. He frowned—started to speak—but Q cut him off.
"I have to—" he started, voice all breath. "—need a minute. ‘Scuse me."
Bond murmured something with an undertone of alarm, but the ringing in Q’s ears drowned it out.
He didn’t know where he was going; he moved against the current of bodies yet slipped through easily, finding every gap and opening, a fish darting around a coral reef. He thought get me out of here and somehow the room listened. He was surrounded by people, and then suddenly, he wasn’t.
Q was in a short, unlit passage. He fumbled with the closed door at the end, and then he was in—
Bond’s bedroom—
No, it was the bedroom of 806. It just looked like Bond’s bedroom, down to the trumpet-flower silhouette of the gramophone in the dark. The lights of London through the glass balcony door seemed to burst from the horn like a nocturne. Balcony. Air. I need air. No sooner had he thought it than he was outside, the night chill washing over him, and he staggered slightly to the side and leaned against the wall of the hotel.
It was going to hit him, now. He could feel it coming on, dreamy and narcotic, heavying his blood.
He let it.
Images stole through him, innocent things on their own, but his mind pieced them together into an obscene collage. The stiff leather of a belt, coming undone in his hands. The slick texture of a sharkskin suit. The sink of high-pile carpeting. Words played back, the calm stripped off: you’re good at this. Weight and heat on his tongue, fingers working into his hair. The sound of breath quickening and stalling just how he wanted, just how he engineered it to. Q knew what Bond would sound like. He’d heard, many times now, the man’s groans of frustration and annoyance; he’d filed them away like that was a normal thing to do, archiving the exact way someone’s throat strangled sound. If he tenderized them a little, added grit and heat and friction and music—
How long had he been doing this?
Soaking up the details like a cloth napkin in red wine, a thousand-quid vintage made undrinkable. The violin scent. The sound of a palm scraping hard over close stubble. The squeeze of holster straps. Veins in the back of a hand. Hearing that three-syllable Q, knowing it meant Bond wanted something from him, wishing he’d want something else and want it badly enough to take it.
How long had he been assembling this fantasy, fitting it together piece by piece, knowing he’d never have the guts to throw the switch and play it through to the end?
Q took a shuddering breath. The wind chilled the sweat on his forehead and neck, slipped like cold fingers under his collar, but it wasn’t enough to cool him down. He blinked hard, and the watercolor of lights along the Thames came into focus, London glittering before him like a circuit board. From somewhere below, there was music. One of the gramophones playing through an open balcony door. The song drifted up to him in a lazy curl; Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu. He almost laughed.
The worst had faded, leaving him to shiver through the aftershocks. It was alright; he was alright. It’d only been the physical stuff this time. As long as it was just that, he could deal with it. He’d dealt with it before. With effort, his too-quick breaths began, finally, to slow. The cold managed to seep into him, cool his cheeks, soften his flush from red to pink. It’d never been like… that. The feeling had only ever bruised, never bled.
Just as he was regaining his bearings—just as the notes of Fantaisie Impromptu were beginning to fade—the bedroom light came on, cutting a yellow square into the balcony millimeters from his feet.
Q froze like a prey animal.
"—what I can or cannot afford? You call me espèce d’escroc, you insult me, you—you defame me in front of my guests. I tell you it is defamation! You should know this, non? The lawsuit, it is a national pastime in your country."
"Darlin’, only lawyers you’re consulting are the firm of Jack & Daniels. Take it easy, would you?"
Q realized two things in quick succession. Firstly, that he was eavesdropping on Charles and Sidonie Lelievre. And secondly, that he hadn’t shut the blasted sliding door all the way. Christ, he was hiding on their balcony like a prowler. If one of them noticed the draft—hell’s teeth. He shut his eyes tight and cursed himself, his ancestors, and his descendants for good measure. Should he announce his presence? How could he, without looking massively suspicious? Sorry, got lost on my way to the bathroom, unforgivably silly of me when the suite is identical to mine. Just so trollied, you know. Champagne never treats me like a gentleman, but that’s the fun of it, don’t you think?
Insensible to Q’s predicament, Sidonie went on in her lazy drawl. "Wasn’t ever my intention to insult you or call you any damn thing. Definitely not any damn thing in French. What I wanted to ask, honey, is whether the money’s laundered. Figured maybe I shouldn’t just toss that out in mixed company."
Lelievre’s voice lowered to a growl. "But of course it is clean. You think I use Milieu money at cards? That I am some… what is it, parvenu?"
"Upstart. And no, I don’t." Sidonie sugared her tone by a teaspoon. "But you know how I get when it comes to you, honey. One little misstep and they'll cart you and I'll only get to see that pretty face of yours through bulletproof glass. Can't live like that. Every day it's a bigger pain in the ass but you are the love of my sorry life, genuine article. So when those boys out there trounce you at hold ‘em—now don't give me that look, they will and that's that—"
"Très sûr de soi," Lelievre muttered, though now he sounded slightly mollified.
"Been told it’s one of my charms." Sidonie’s shadow appeared in the frame of light across the balcony, a slinky, defined silhouette, like a goddess on a Greek urn. "Ain’t misplaced, either, but you know that. Can't fathom why you insist on playing when you get beat by a country mile every time."
"In this country and in my own we use the metric. Not your nonsense manières américaines."
"Sorry ‘bout my backwards American ways. Need that converted into kilometers before it’ll go through your skull?"
Lelievre spat something in French that Q couldn’t quite decipher but was clearly profane. Sidonie went on, unruffled. "Aw, now don’t be like that. You know I love you to pieces, babydoll, but you can’t bluff to save your life. If you’re gonna lose all your money, better at least make sure it’s clean and you’ve got it on hand to lose. 'Specially since you keep it in here where anyone could waltz in and pocket it."
Lelievre barked out a laugh. "No one here is so foolish as to steal from me. They see the bedroom is off limits and still they come inside, that would be—what is your English saying? They attend their own funeral."
"Close enough."
Q’s hands had begun to tremble. Bright spots appeared in his vision and wouldn’t fade. He tried to control his breathing, but each inhale, each exhale, sounded impossibly loud to his ears. If he was caught now he wouldn't just be assumed a thief, but a witness; even odds that hearing the words Milieu money uttered aloud was enough to get his passport stamped for the bottom of the Thames. For the love of god, don’t you dare hyperventilate. Don’t you dare.
"If it will make you feel better, mon trésor," Lelievre grumbled, apparently relenting, "I count the bills. Ça me casse les pieds, you young people. No propriety."
"Bless your heart. Mind if I smoke?"
Lelievre clicked his tongue in disgust. "Not here. Housekeeping complains, say they smell cigarettes, you may as well be an arsonist."
"Mm. Wouldn’t want to get us up the creek with housekeeping." Q watched as Sidonie’s shadow-puppet silhouette gracefully drew a cigarette from its box and put it to her lips. "If you don’t mind the chill, I’ll use the balcony."
The bottom dropped out of Q’s stomach.
For a moment he couldn’t breathe, could only watch in horror as Sidonie’s shadow advanced. The cool breeze turned to ice on his skin; his vision shrank to pinpricks. He was going to be exposed. His cover was going to be blown, all because he’d gotten blackout horny and gone stumbling around looking for a window to stick his head out. And if his cover was blown—
The curtain was pulled aside; the door opened, almost silent on its track. Sidonie appeared, softly backlit like an angel of death, cigarette dangling from her lips and hands raised to cradle the flame of a lighter. She angled herself away from the wind.
Toward Q.
Her gaze snapped up, and their eyes met.
Q’s vision blurred. He could only imagine how he must appear in the woman’s eyes, standing there on trembling legs, wild-eyed with fear, like a common thief caught with his hand in the till.
Sidonie blinked, once. The dancing flame of her lighter guttered and went out.
Lelievre’s voice drifted from the suite. "Quoi?"
With a sharp flick of her thumb, Sidonie reignited the flame and lit up, inhaling deeply. Her gaze ghosted away. Turning back toward the room, she plucked the cigarette from her lips and blew a pillar of smoke into the air. "Nothin’. Just one of those damn pigeons London’s got everywhere."
Q stared. His mind turned and turned but wouldn’t catch, wouldn’t connect the dots fixed on him like rifle sights.
Why?
Taking a step back, Sidonie leaned against the railing and crossed one ankle over the other. "So, who else is ponying up this evening? Anyone interesting?"
"Your personal favorite," Lelievre said darkly. His shadow appeared on the balcony, advancing up to his shoulders, and Q went rigid.
Casually—without a glance in his direction—Sidonie pushed off the railing and moved back toward the room, incidentally forcing her husband to retreat. She blew smoke out of the side of his mouth. "Don’t frown like that, it’ll give you wrinkles. Mr. Bryce is a favorite of mine, but only because he's funny. Fella's here with his… what would you call it? Petit ami. His sweetheart." She smiled, a slow, catlike smile. "...Though I'm starting to think Freddy dear's a little more spice than sugar."
"This Bryce, he has a look about him… his face, I do not like it. There is treachery there." Lelievre’s voice curdled. "The devil’s money is worth taking, but I would like to know what his business is."
"Universal Export, I understand."
"This name means nothing to me. What does the man actually do?"
"I imagine he exports things. You know how I feel about details, honey. I never ask a man what he does if I don't want to be bored to tears."
"You asked me about my occupation," Lelievre pointed out, and Sidonie flashed her teeth, a wolf's smile.
"Sure did, 'cause I already knew what it was and thought it was drop-dead sexy. What in the hell would motivate me to ask a fella—even a damn handsome one—about the export business? I've only got one precious life, y'know."
Lelievre sighed, somehow managing to imbue the sound with a depth of exasperated affection. "So you have heard nothing? You have not noticed about him anything that is… questionable?"
Sidonie didn’t answer for a moment, just thoughtfully tapped some ash off her cigarette. Q felt like someone was pinching his windpipe shut. All he could do was stand there, completely still, and pray.
"…You mean questionable in business, or in pleasure?" Sidonie smiled at whatever look Lelievre gave her. "I really wouldn’t worry on that score, darlin’. James does seem like the anything-that-moves type, and he flirts like he'll die if he doesn't, but I doubt he’d chase a skirt very far. Got a leash on and he’s testing the range, if you get me."
To his horror, Q felt laughter lurch up in his throat like a hiccup. He forcibly choked it back.
"…I believe I get you, yes. But you do not happen to know why he is here? At the Sarriette?"
"Why is any suit anywhere? Business, I’d think. Eating fifty buck lobster and playing grab-ass with his secretary on the company dime."
Lelievre hummed skeptically. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am only—ha!" He let out a sudden bellow of triumph, and his shadow reappeared, waving something overhead. "Here is your damned stake, accounted for."
"Fine, fine. Make sure to kiss every bill goodbye before you lose ‘em." Sidonie stubbed out her cigarette and stepped forward into the room. As she crossed the threshold, something black slipped from her hand and fluttered, silently, to the ground. Distracted by the movement, Q just barely caught her final words before the door clicked shut. "This time tomorrow that cash’ll be in some pretty boy’s pocket. Hope he buys himself somethin’ nice."
+++
Q waited on the balcony for… he didn’t know how long.
The light in the bedroom had gone out; the muffled voices had faded. Had it been fifteen minutes? Twenty? It might’ve been half that or twice. The card game must’ve been well underway by now. He couldn’t just stand here forever, but neither could he move; his body was stuck in a dazed, near-miss state of paralysis, like he’d been clipped by a speeding car and was still trying to decide if he’d survived or not.
What finally brought him out of his stupor was the music. Still Chopin, but now it was one of the nocturnes. The blur of notes made his fingers twitch on their own, and his body remembered how to move. Cautiously, he eased the sliding door open, only to stop before entering the room.
Bending down, he retrieved the item Sidonie had dropped. It was a business card—an expensive one—made of thick black cardstock, embossed in silver with a phone number and nothing else.
He shoved it into his pocket.
By the time he crept back to the suite proper the card game was in full swing, allowing him to slip in unnoticed amongst the spectators. He made the inadvisable decision to grab another drink—liquor this time—but damn it, he needed this one. He was due a shot of fainting brandy. If it was good enough for swooning Victorian ladies, it was good enough for him.
Gradually, he was drawn deeper into the murmuring crowd, closer to the card table. His mind strayed, inevitably, to Sidonie. Gratitude and suspicion warred in his chest. No denying the woman had rescued him, saved him from being accused of theft or worse, but why? And now what? How was he supposed to explain himself?
Q’s glass was empty. He couldn’t recall it happening. What was that old saying? First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink…
He had finally reached the inner circle of spectators and could see the table. Bond was directly opposite, with the dealer’s chip. In the low light his deep-set eyes were nearly a mask, fingers riffling the cards with the deftness of a lifelong gambler. Judging by his chips he wasn’t ahead or behind, but somewhere in the middle of the pack. Q watched him play, and for a while his mind was empty, nothing but the Fantaisie Impromptu and the lullaby lap of alcohol like waves against the side of a boat.
Bond rapped his knuckles on the backs of his cards, then his eyes flicked up and met Q’s across the table. Q was too mired down to startle, but he felt the contact zip through his defenseless body like a shockwave. Bond frowned. His hand turned palm-up on the baize, and he subtly crooked a finger. Come here.
Q moved stupidly forward as though he might walk straight through the card table, bumping the people in front of him like a light-drunk moth. Recalling himself, he mumbled an apology and shuffled back, catching for a brief moment the uptick of Bond’s frown almost into a smile.
Slowly but surely, he made his way through the crowd in a wide half-circle. As he neared the man’s chair, Q’s stomach began to flutter. Heat unspooled in the crook of his neck, tracing the shape of words into his skin. I’m not going to bite you. An ache of temptation rocked him on his feet, the urge to play while he had the chance. Bond wasn’t going to like what Q had to tell him when the night was over. It would be nice, wouldn’t it, to pretend a little longer? To be Frederick Valentine-Fitzroy, who wore this man’s shirts and smelled like his cologne in the morning, who got summoned to his side with a crooked finger. Someone who called him angel and darling and maybe even James. Someone who knew him.
Someone who’s fucked him, taunted a voice in the back of his mind. That’s what you mean.
Bond glanced up at Q’s arrival, turning slightly and parting his lips to speak. He didn’t need to beckon this time; Q dipped toward him instinctively, like a hummingbird chasing a sip of nectar. Bond’s voice was a soft rumble, curious more than accusing. "Where’ve you been?"
Q didn’t know how to begin to answer that question. His stomach sank; so much for playing pretend. He hesitated, then turned his head, his lips almost, almost grazing Bond’s cheek as they went to his ear. "…Bedroom."
He drew back; if Bond’s poker-blank expression had flickered at all, he’d missed it. Yet there was a change. It was in his eyes, a sudden coldness that felt like being dunked in ice water and held there.
"…We’re leaving," Bond murmured, simply. He turned back to the game, smiled without any humor, and casually shoved his pile of chips into the middle of the table. "All in."
+++
Bond was livid.
He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t have to. That double-oh menace—that thing Q couldn’t stay in range of too long without feeling ill with fear—was turned up to eleven, radiating off him like heat off a red-coiled stovetop. Q had never felt this from anyone without the number; he wondered if it’d been trained into them, their fury refined like liquid steel injected with oxygen.
They'd returned to the suite. Bond was pacing his slow, caged-tiger pace across from the sofa—to and fro, to and fro, endlessly—while Q sat with his hands clasped between his knees. He wanted to snap at the man to stop moving, for god’s sake sit down, but didn’t quite dare.
"Run me through it again," Bond ordered, quietly.
Q did not want to run him through it again. He really hadn’t wanted to run him through it the first time. To start with, he was plastered. Still. He was a bumped fishbowl, mind and stomach sloshing queasily in opposite directions, and his body yearned to be horizontal. He hesitated, tugging at his jacket sleeves. "…You’re not going to tell me off?"
"There’s no point." Bond’s voice was so cold it could strip off a layer of skin. "You don’t listen to me. Run me through it again."
"I’m exhausted," Q almost snapped, his voice fraying. It was nearing one in the morning. He felt like he was in police interrogation. He didn’t know exactly what occurred in the human body to transition it from drunk to hungover, but he was pretty damned sure you were supposed to sleep through it. "If I could just rest for a bit—"
"Do you actually not understand the position you’re in?" Bond stopped pacing and stared down at him with incredulous condescension. "Christ, Q, you’re not that stupid. Or if you are, you’ve been fooling us for years."
Q bristled. He might’ve leapt to his feet if he thought he could stay upright. "I understand, alright? I screwed up. It was an honest mistake."
And it was your fault, he didn’t add. He knew it was petty, unbelievably so. It wasn’t Bond’s mouth on his neck that’d caused this; it was Q’s reaction to it, his weakness to it, stoked to an inferno by the drinks he shouldn’t have thrown back. It was his own fault and he knew it. Yet still the thought persisted, clutching his heart like barbed wire, a line of defense just as likely to make him bleed as it was to protect him. Your fault. Being around you like this makes me stupid.
"An honest mistake," Bond echoed. "I can think of at least five times when a mistake like that would’ve gotten me killed."
"Well, I survived. So if we’re going by results—"
"This isn’t a game."
"I know it’s not a game!" This time, Q did snap. Properly. "Stop treating me like a civilian!"
Bond’s voice got colder, somehow. "I haven’t been treating you like a civilian. I’ve been treating you like an MI6 agent. Someone capable of calculating risk and understanding consequences. My mistake."
"For the love of god, don’t playact M with me. You’re no good at it. You honestly think I’ll be able to take a lecture on risk-taking seriously? From you?"
"It’s my job to take risks." Bond had yet to raise his voice; Q almost wished he would, just so this could feel like an actual argument. So he could stop feeling so pathetic. "If I get my skull bashed in that’s that, and they send in the next double-oh hoping he takes his risks better. It’s no one’s doing but mine." He leaned forward slightly, snapping his fingers once in front of Q’s face like he was waking him from hypnosis. "You get yourself killed, that’s on me. On my conscience."
"Oh, have you got one of those?" Q’s voice was thick with venom. "Thought the point of you was that you didn’t."
It was a low blow. He knew it was. He’d wanted a reaction, a flash of temper that wasn’t honed and machined, something. Bond didn’t give it to him. There was—just maybe—a flicker in his eyes, a moment of stillness in his face, things that might easily have been imagined. Then he straightened back up to his full height and said, quietly, "…The point of me is to carry a gun and a license to kill with it. That license will eventually go to someone else, and someone else after that. But you’ll be there every time, Q. Handing them my gun and telling them not to break it."
There was a long silence as that sank in. Q’s mouth was paper-dry, his stomach roiling; Bond didn’t say the rest, because he didn't have to. It hung in the air between them, heavier every second, thickening like noxious smoke.
Double-oh numbers didn’t pass on with an agent’s retirement. Only with their death.
I can takes risks that you can’t. Only one of us is expendable.
"I’m going to be sick," Q mumbled, and then he was up and stumbling to the en suite.
It was horrible, having nothing in his stomach but champagne. The taste was vile. Acid and bitterness and sugar gone rancid, like he’d eaten rotting fruit. It all came up at once, what was left of it, and then it was just dry heaving with all bile and pain and no relief. Q’s vision swam, his body lurching wretchedly. Thank god he’d locked the door after him, because Bond tried the handle.
"Don’t," Q croaked. "Just—give me a moment—" He pitched forward, retching, stomach trying to get something out of him that wasn’t there anymore. "Swear I’m—I’m not doing this to get out of arguing—"
"Open it," Bond said, tone muffled and inscrutable through the wood. The handle kept jostling, making its little switch, switch sound. "God’s sake, Q, open the door."
Q rested his forehead against the cool porcelain of the bath, desperate for any comfort, anything that could make his stomach settle. Bond’s incessant struggle with the handle reminded him, oddly, of home; of being sick with a bug and locking himself in the bathroom, only to have the girls outside yowling and caterwauling and jamming their paws under the door like the flat was on fire.
"Stop," he groaned. "Stop it, please. The noise. Not helping."
The handle went still. There was a haggard sigh, and then silence. The dry heaving, too, had stopped; the nausea was at just the point of bearable, right at the threshold where he could still control his body. He took a shaky breath and mumbled, without thinking, "I won’t give anyone else your gun."
A pause. "…What?"
"Your gun. You… you’re the only one who can fire it, remember?" His voice sounded sulkier than he meant it to. "I don’t make things for you thinking they’ll go to someone else someday. They were made for you. They’re yours."
There was another pause, much longer this time. Q’s breath started to even out; bit by bit, the need to be sick ebbed from his body.
Bond said, finally and softly, "That’s a waste."
Q’s eyes fluttered closed. The bathroom lights dimmed behind his eyelids like filaments in an old edison bulb, glass burnt brown with heat. Exhaustion crowded in on him, and something else, something that hurt. A dull, blunt ache. He sank down into it, fading fast, unable to say what he really wanted to. No, it’s not a waste. It’s not.
Because after all maybe it was. Maybe this was all just a big fucking waste.
+++
It’d always been there, he knew.
Q wasn’t stupid; sometimes he almost wished he was, about this, at least. But he knew. It had been there like an endless, sustained sound, just barely within his register of hearing, playing long enough and low enough that he’d grown accustomed to it without ever having to acknowledge it was there.
The fact of the matter was this: one overcast afternoon, Q had walked into the National Gallery, London, and walked out again tuned.
He hadn’t even known his strings had lost their tension, his pitch corroded from disuse, environment, time. It was near impossible to be aware of these things when they happened so slowly, impossible to recognize a done thing until it was undone. Q had met James Bond, spoken to him for a few short minutes, then descended the worn gallery steps like a scale—down into Trafalgar Square—waiting for the struck tuning fork in his chest to stop humming.
It hadn’t. It still hadn’t. He’d just gotten used to it.
+++
Q awoke to the sound of Rachmaninoff.
Everyone, he thought, should know intuitively that the last thing a hangover needed was Rachmaninoff. The pound of piano keys, even muffled, felt like they were being played against the inside of his skull. His mouth tasted poisonous, like dish soap. The brandy and champagne, an evil mixture, had vamped every last drop of moisture from his body; his brain was stewed and canned in the stuff.
He realized gradually that he was lying on the bathroom floor, looking at the white underbelly of the sink; there was a pillow under his head and a throw blanket appropriately thrown over him. He sat up—regretting it immediately but committing nonetheless—and stared at the bathroom door.
It was no longer in the bathroom doorway. It had been neatly removed from its hinges, turned sideways, and propped up against the sofa.
Q raked his hands into his hair and rubbed his scalp all over, trying to ease his headache, but only managing to smear the pain around like a child with finger paints. He recalled the entire night, unfortunately, right up to passing out against the side of the tub. It was actually quite a relief that Bond hadn’t moved him; the idea of being scooped up and carried was too humiliating for words.
He stood, with effort, and flicked on the sink to rinse out his mouth. He tried not to gag on the strong mineral taste of the tap water. Everything was going to taste and smell and sound wrong for a little while—ah, the humble hangover, that which makes everything in the world your enemy.
Starting with that accursed Rachmaninoff. Well, at least it wasn’t Mozart.
Bond didn’t look up when Q limped into the bedroom. He was sitting cross-legged in the armchair, buttery sunlight—such a rarity in London this time of year—beaming in around him just to spite Q and his hangover. The man was in shirtsleeves, dinner jacket and tie tossed with abandon over the back of the daybed, apparently listening to the record spinning its lazy circles on the turntable. He looked like a goddamned Leyendecker.
Q cleared his throat. Bond glanced up at him, eyebrows lifting in mild surprise. Oh, didn’t see you there. Bastard.
"Feeling better?" The man asked evenly.
Q shrugged a wary affirmative. He considered whether he ought to continue their conversation from the night before. Bond’s fury, if any remained, was undetectable; this felt like a peace offering, I won’t talk about it if you won’t. Maybe they could gloss right over it. Smooth it down like dirt on a grave plot. He wondered who was more of a coward: Bond for offering the out, or him for taking it.
"Um," Q started, voice wrecked and raspy. He cleared his throat again. "This is the record that Lelievre’s always monopolizing? The Rachmaninoff?"
"Mm." Bond’s eyes flicked over him, assessing. "…Does it mean anything to you?"
Just as he said it, the song ended and another began. A sudden, violent pummeling of notes; even played so quietly, it was jarring. And familiar.
"No," Q said, too quickly. "I mean—not in any way that’s relevant. I just…"
"Know music," Bond finished for him. Not a question. "Or classical music, at least."
Rachmaninoff isn’t Classical, Q almost said. He’s late Romantic. "…Not really."
Bond tipped his head back and sighed through his nose, in a way that telegraphed Q was being very trying and he’d not got the time. "Fine. This sonata—"
"Prelude," Q corrected, then cursed inwardly when Bond’s lips curved into a smirk.
"This prelude, which you of course know nothing about—"
"I didn’t say I know nothing, just nothing relevant."
Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G Minor was a piece he knew very well. Even now his fingers itched listening to it, wanting to uncouple the keys until sound escaped like trapped steam, hit the notes like he was trying to leave a bruise. He could recall the first time he’d heard it, thundering in between frothy, insipidly pleasant pieces like a summer storm. The way it had made him flinch back, then lean forward; made his pulse jackhammer and his palms sweat. For years after, he hadn’t known its name. He’d asked, of course. The second it was over, he’d asked. What was that? What was this thing that had shaken him apart, that had resonated with him so deeply that he’d felt he was the only one hearing it?
The answer was even more vivid in his memory than the piece itself. Polite and contemptuous—it was always polite, her contempt.
It’s ugly music.
Q’s head throbbed, and he winced. Bond studied him closely for a moment, frowning, before he finally spoke. "…What do you mean by that, relevant? Relevant to what?"
Q squinted, not quite parsing the question. "To… well, to the assignment, I suppose? The mission?"
Bond huffed out a surprised laugh, reaching up to rub his forehead as he muttered under his breath. "Christ. Why the hell would I be asking about it for work?"
"Well, what for, then?"
"Not for anything, damn it, I’m just asking. Can’t I ask an ordinary question? I’m not—"
Bond cut himself off, gaze frisking the air for a word that wasn’t there waiting for him. Exhaling sharply, he fell into a silence one might describe as sullen or moody if one wanted their head bitten off.
"…No need to be so tetchy about it," Q mumbled, perplexed.
"I’m not being tetchy."
Words only ever spoken by the inarguably tetchy. Q didn’t point this out, because he was feeling charitable, and also because he’d come to the absurd realization that Bond was trying to have a conversation with him. About Rachmaninoff, of all things under heaven. He had the urge to ask why, but there was no way to phrase the question that made any sense. Why are you asking me about this? What do you stand to gain from it? What do you want?
Because there was always something. James Bond was a creature of ulterior motive.
"Do you…" Q began haltingly. "Do you like music?"
This seemed to irritate the man even more than being called tetchy. "…I am a human, you know. Q branch didn’t assemble me."
"Alright, well, do you like classical music?"
"Not at all. Music for elevators."
Q was nearly overborne by a wave of outrage. He was seconds from launching into a practical dissertation when he saw Bond’s lip just barely twitch. Ah. The bastard was having him on.
"...You’re having me on."
"Just a bit. Don’t let me stop you, though, you looked fighting mad." Bond gave him a go on, then gesture. "Tell me what I ought to be hearing in this noise."
"I don’t want to bore you."
"I’m already bored."
Q shifted uneasily. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken about music in anything but a perfunctory way, and if he was on precarious footing with Bond he didn’t like Rachmaninoff being his tightrope. Still, he let his feet carry him forward, let the gramophone reel him in. "…Well, it’s a prelude, obviously. Used to be that a prelude came before a larger piece, but then composers just started calling anything a prelude if it was short enough. This one…" He hesitated. It’s special, he wanted to say, but that was silly. "It… feels like the original type. An introduction. Like it’s supposed to come before something else, lead up to something bigger, but it doesn’t. It just ends."
Q’s fingers began to drum against his leg. The longing to match tempo, long disused, gave a horrible rusty squeal in his chest. "This part, the first part, is played staccato. Which—it just means the notes are played sharply and don’t run together. That can sound playful, or it can sound…"
Bond leaned forward, resting his chin in his hand. Watching too closely. "Like this."
"…Like this," Q confirmed. Like a racing pulse or a striking hammer. Like raised voices in another room. He was close enough to the gramophone, now, to lift the needle if he wanted. "When you keep the notes apart long enough, it makes the eventual legato dreamier. Well—no. Not dreamier, exactly, more… unnatural. Inevitable. It’s…"
Ugly music.
"…Contradictory." Q’s fingers stopped drumming as the notes began to smudge, scrape together, wearing each other’s rough surfaces smooth. Staccato played with one hand and legato with the other, notes at once tangled together and forced apart. Menacing and yet sort of… forlorn, desperate, a steady military march toward something you didn’t want to reach. "The whole piece is a paradox. That’s why it won’t let you alone, it’s... irreconcilable. You want it to finish what it starts, but it never will, no matter how many times you listen."
There was a long beat that was only music. Then Bond spoke, and his voice was almost teasing. An attempt at levity. "Maybe you’re overthinking it."
Q’s head snapped around to look at him. There must have been something in his expression, because he saw—for one fleeting second—a flash of surprise in Bond’s.
"…I’m not thinking about it at all," Q mumbled, averting his eyes. He suddenly couldn’t stand to hear the end of the song—that unsatisfactory little riffle of notes, that prologue to nothing. He flicked the needle off the record, and the music cut out like the pianist had been wrenched away from the keys.
Bond was watching him. He felt the man’s gaze like an anchor round his neck. The question—what do you want—now seemed almost an imperative. Q couldn’t stand it, the not knowing. He wanted to be reassured that this was in service of something, that Bond had asked him for a reason, not just…
"To hear you talk, you’d think the man wronged you personally," Bond said, tone mild. "Do you like the piece or hate it?"
"It’s one of my favorites." Q watched the record slow, watched the striated texture appear from the blur. "I like ambiguity. Things that don’t… can’t be solved, I suppose. In music."
"In music," Bond echoed.
"Why do you ask?"
The man didn’t answer, not directly. "…You only ever come in here when I’m playing a record, did you know that? It’s uncanny."
Taken aback, Q turned to look at him. "That’s—not why I came in here."
"No?"
"No." Q stepped back from the gramophone. He pointed toward the suite proper. "You took the bathroom door off its hinges."
"Yes?"
"Could you put it back?"
Bond studied him for one more long second, then sighed as though this were some terrible burden he’d been saddled with and not, in fact, the consequences of his own actions. "I’ll get around to it. And for the record, I did it to check you hadn’t died in there."
"Thank you very much. Champagne hasn’t killed me yet, though it does seem to be trying rather hard at the moment. Do you have something I could take for my head?"
"No," Bond said bluntly, even though he bloody well did.
"Fine. Maybe we should discuss… you know." Q hesitated, loathe to bring it up. "The assignment? I mean, what the plan is. Going forward."
"You mean now that you’ve been compromised?"
"I haven’t been—I’m not definitely compromised, we don’t know that."
Bond uncrossed his legs and stood, rubbing a palm over his jaw; he hadn’t shaved yet, and the gritty rasp of callus over stubble sent a not unpleasant shiver down Q’s spine. He’d managed to forget the previous night’s mental indiscretion, thank you very much, and now—with his rational mind firmly back in hand—he was able to box the feeling up before it really got him. The one good thing about a hangover was that it made anathema any thought of vice.
"You’re on desk for the rest of it," Bond said. "And you’re lucky it’s only that, after what you pulled."
The words you’re not the boss of me rose to Q’s lips, but he wisely rephrased. "Despite what you seem to believe, I don’t actually report to you."
"You honestly think M will tell you any different?"
"Maybe. I’m the one that got us a lead, after all." Q—rather smugly, if he was being honest—drew Sidonie’s business card from his pocket. "Courtesy of Madame Lelievre."
Bond’s expression shuttered. "Hand that over. Now."
"Shan’t."
The man’s brows pressed inward slightly—he had one furrow that was always there, a permanently etched line, deepening with even the smallest trace of emotion. Q quite liked it on the whole; it was like a scar but gentler, something that’d been worried into his face through time rather than violence.
"Q, if you think I can’t take that off you by force you’re sorely mistaken," Bond said, more rote fact than warning. "But I’m sure we’d both rather you just give it here."
Q whisked the card behind his back. "Just come and take it, then. I’ll file a complaint."
"They’ll put it on the stack with the rest of my complaints."
"I’ll escalate it. I can do that, you know. Don’t—" Q scampered back as Bond took a menacing step toward him. "Ambiguous threats of physical violence in the workplace—"
"Better escalate that to explicit threats. Go on and keep your arms behind your back, much easier to pin them that way."
Q’s mind went in a direction that didn’t need elaborating on. He retreated another step. "Just so you’re aware, the penalty for a threat is much less severe if you don’t carry it out. Once you do, it’s disciplinary action."
"I’ll show you bloody disciplinary action. Give it here."
"You have to admit," Q reasoned, continuing to evade as Bond pursued him, "That I’ve got an in where you don’t. She gave me her card, not you."
"Only because she wants to know why you were skulking about on her damn balcony—hold still—"
"Exactly, I’m an unknown quantity. I’m intriguing. Besides, I’ll have to speak with her eventually, you know. Otherwise she might rat me out to Lelievre, and then what? You thought we were compromised before—"
"We were. Are."
"Then what’s the harm in letting me have a friendly chat with her? Are you jealous?" Still stumbling backward, Q misjudged the distance to the dresser and banged his tailbone. Hard. He winced, but before he could dodge either left or right Bond caged him in on both sides.
"I told you, she’s not my type."
"I meant jealous of her," Q said with theatrical mock offense. "Did our beautiful night together mean nothing to you? And here I was thinking you’d make an honest man out of ow ow ow stop it—"
Bond had got hold of his wrist, twisting his arm behind his back. He drew in close, voice lowering to a murmur. "How are you already short of breath? They don’t train you HQ people at all, do they?"
"I’m hungover," Q said defensively, squirming in the man’s grip. "My cardiorespiratory endurance is actually quite respectable, thank you very much."
"Really?" Bond gave him an amused once-over. "You’re so scrawny, though."
"There’s not a significant correlation." Q’s heart was racing, though he suspected it had little to do with his size, stamina, or hangover. "Are you going to let me go?"
"Give me the card."
"Never." Q had crushed the thing in his fist; he prayed it was still legible. "I am going to compile an official complaint about you that is so utterly damning they’ll make you take a seminar."
Bond looked him solemnly in the eye. "After our beautiful night together?"
Q, through an incredible feat of will, did not laugh. "…Listen. This is an opportunity, not a setback. The directive was to get in good with the mobsters, right? If I can make Sidonie believe I’m harmless—"
"Damn it, Q, you’re not a field agent."
"Take it up with M. It’s him I’ve got to convince, not you." Q took advantage of the slight loosening of Bond’s grip and twisted free. "And unlike some people, I know how to talk to authority figures without setting them off. Fifty quid says I’ll have authorization by lunchtime and a meeting with Sidonie by dinner."
Bond took a step back, scowling. "…And what part have I got in this scheme of yours? I suppose you intend for me to sit here and do nothing?"
"If you’re so desperate for something to do," Q said, "You can put the bathroom door back on its hinges."
+++
Convincing M was not at all difficult. The trick was to catch him when he was just a little bit sleep deprived (not a rare occurrence these days) and to mention casually that Bond was against the idea. Oh, you know how he is, sir, but of course I understand if you want to defer to him on this. Worked a charm.
"Public meeting places only," M instructed wearily. "The more public the better."
Q wanted to say I wasn’t planning on meeting her in a dark alley, but instead said, "Yes, sir."
"We’ll have you tracked, of course."
You always have me tracked anyway. "Yes, sir."
"No second locations if you can help it. Give away absolutely no true information about yourself whatsoever. If she’s onto you at all she may try to trade intel; absolutely do not do it. Have your cover so memorized you can recite it backwards, and don’t stray from it. No weapons, wires, or earpieces, you haven’t been trained on how to use or conceal them in the field. And for the love of god, do not try to improvise."
Christ, are you my babysitter? "Yes, sir."
"Repeat it back to me."
"Public meeting places, I’ll be tracked, no second locations, reveal no information, memorize my cover and keep to it, no weapons, wires, or earpieces. No improvisation, for the love of god."
M let out the sort of death-rattle sigh that all other sighs aspire to be, as though he’d been hoping Q would screw up and give him a reason to tank the whole operation. "I don’t like this overmuch."
Q glanced toward Bond’s closed bedroom door; the man had been feigning disinterest in the scheme, but there was one creaky floorboard in his room and every twenty seconds he paced over it. "...You’re not the only one."
"Your only objective is to convince the woman you’re not a threat to her. Even better if you can make her believe you blacked out drunk and don’t remember anything."
Tanner came over the line; his low, genial voice always had a palliative effect in comparison to M’s. "Try to check in every two hours, would you? If you think you can do it without raising suspicion, that is. We won’t send in the cavalry if you don’t, but it’d be a weight off."
"Of course it would. If I die you’ll have to adopt my cats."
"Q," M said warningly.
"…Little joke, sir. Just a little joke."
Tanner cleared his throat. "Right. Report back once you make contact."
"Yes, sir," Q said, teasing this time. Despite being Chief of Staff, Tanner got embarrassed when you called him sir. With another of M’s expansive sighs, the line went dead.
Q called the number on the card (with a burner, obviously, not his secure line). No answer, no voicemail, but exactly five minutes later his phone buzzed with a text message.
Tomorrow, 8PM. Royal Ballet and Opera, Box 12. Just give them your name at the ticket counter.
After that, Q did some digging.
It wasn’t that MI6 didn’t have very good people doing very good work, but there was digging and then there was digging, and they couldn’t do the latter without him. To put it in the humblest terms possible, Q was fairly damn good at his job, particularly when it involved finding things out he wasn’t meant to know. He didn’t have the horsepower of MI6’s computer system, but that was only a minor setback. It'd been awhile since he'd done some good old fashioned hacking; it reminded him fondly of his university years, when he used to crack databases to unwind after exams.
He decided, now, to put that effort into getting acquainted with Sidonie Lelievre. The results of his deep dive were enlightening, if not precisely what he’d been expecting. As Q typed and skimmed—halting occasionally at something that twisted his gut and stilled his fingers—it occurred to him that he could not show any of this to Bond. Or M, for that matter, at least not until he’d met with Sidonie. He’d get his approval revoked so fast and with so little oversight you’d think red tape was a campfire tale invented to scare bureaucrats.
No. Until he had some reason to believe it was relevant, he’d keep it to himself.
Exactly thirty-two hours later Q was in a box seat at the Royal Ballet and Opera, waiting for a woman he was now more than a little afraid of.
He checked his watch nervously. Despite the potential peril of the situation, he couldn’t help a feeling of awe at just being here. He hadn’t been to the symphony in ages, and then never in a box seat; even from this high vantage point, the Royal was a sight to behold. It was like being in a gold-encrusted, slightly tilted bowl; every line and curve of eye-watering opulence cascaded inward toward the proscenium arch, that colossal swathe of carmine curtain. It was so massive that it barely seemed to fit in the room, always just about to crack its head on the ceiling. Q didn't think he'd seen anything so screamingly red in his life.
Just as he was battling the urge to check his watch again, the door to the box clicked open. He leapt from his seat and spun around, already chastising himself for being so jumpy.
"No need to stand on ceremony." Sidonie’s honeyed drawl filled the small space, swirling in the air and clinging to the velvet. She was looking very sharp, in a tailored three-piece suit with the same loud pinstripes as her husband’s—black and silver, like her business card. Several strands of fine chain hung in tiers about her neck, tiny rubies winking here and there like blood drops on spidersilk.
Q felt woefully underdressed and overwhelmed. He was used to spending time around covert agents—people who, by the very nature of their profession, erased themselves as they went like foxes sweeping their tails through their own footprints. He wasn’t accustomed to someone's presence being so… well, present, a physical thing that clouded the air like cologne. Meeting Sidonie’s gaze, from behind her smoke of blue-black eyeshadow, he felt oddly like he ought to bow.
"Thank you for the invitation," he began, fiddling with his cuff and feeling very much like a nervous schoolboy. "I haven’t been to the symphony since university."
Really it had been longer, but he damn well wasn’t going to get into that. Sidonie gazed at him fixedly for a moment, neither smiling nor frowning, but absorbed as a seer in a scrying pool. Then she shrugged off her overcoat (which was also pinstriped) and hung it over the back of her chair. "Do you like Schumann?"
"Which one?"
At that she smiled, just barely. "…Robert. They’re playing Rheinische, if I’ve got my facts straight."
"I haven’t listened to him much," Q said honestly. He lowered himself back into his chair as Sidonie did the same; the plush seats were turned slightly inward, angling them half toward the theater and half toward each other. "Certainly not his symphonies."
"Not a fan myself." Sidonie crossed one elegant leg over the other and looked out into the audience. She sat in much the same way Bond did, with gentlemanly unconcern, drawing Q forward as she leaned back like he was snagged in her magnetic field. "…But I’ll go to anything. Records are nice and all, but nothing beats sitting in the belly of the beast. Some types of music ought to chart the Richter scale, don’t you think?"
Q studied her profile for a moment. There was something he’d been wanting to ask—an intuition of his, both irrelevant and unfounded, but nonetheless clingy as catchweed. He wet his lips. "…You’re the one monopolizing the Sarriette’s gramophone records, right? Not your husband?"
She smiled faintly without looking at him. "Until you pair came along, sure. Not that I mind much, since y’all only swiped the solo piano. More of an orchestral gal myself. Sorry to lose the Rachmaninoff, though."
"He’s an especial favorite."
"Of mine, too." Her gaze slid to his, narrowing slightly. "You really haven’t been to the symphony since college? James doesn’t take you? That’s dereliction of duty, far as I’m concerned."
James. Q got a spiny feeling in the pit of his stomach that he refused to believe was proprietary. The man had barely spoken two words to him since M’s approval had been granted, and though Q didn’t like being on bad terms with anyone, Bond in particular knew how to make the snub sting. He didn’t glare or seethe or act as though Q didn’t exist, but instead maintained an air of perfect, ice-cold cordiality, like they were strangers forced to share a train compartment.
Realizing Sidonie was still awaiting a reply, he hurriedly cleared his throat. "Um, no. He calls it elevator music."
She finally cracked a real smile, and it was like cracking the window in a stuffy room. "Oh, lord. Charles is just the same."
Q blinked rapidly behind his glasses. "But—this is his box, isn’t it?"
"Oh, he likes the opera and ballet alright. Says there’s no point of a theater if you’ve got nothin’ to look at." Her voice dropped in register, taking on a thick French accent. "Mon trésor, you may watch a man wave a stick for three hours if you wish. Myself, I would rather die."
"Oh, charming."
"I’m the charmer, of the two of us." Sidonie had begun to work her gloves off, a finger at a time; they weren’t velvet like before, but short leather ones, the sort people wore on motorcycles. "Charles doesn’t like greasing the wheels, he’d rather slash ‘em. Got a spidey-sense for human weakness like you’ve never seen. Man can sniff out double-dealing at ten paces."
Q didn’t quite know what to say to that, but he didn’t have to; Sidonie went on, still meticulously peeling out of her gloves.
"Which is why it struck me so strange that you flew right under his radar." Her tone was mild, conversational. "Do you know, Freddy, if he’d caught your little balcony sneakaround act he'd have sent you right over. Eight floors’d do it, if you went head first. Cracked your skull open so bad they’d be fishin’ the eggshells out of the batter, if you’ll forgive my being colorful."
She got the left glove off, tossing it over the arm of her chair, and started on the right. Q fixed his gaze on her wedding ring, a slim, unadorned gold band that clashed with all the silver. He felt the first stirring of nausea in his gut, like a ripple on still water.
"These things happen," Sidonie continued. "Sure your folks’d raise a little hell, maybe even file suit, but damn near everyone at that party would’ve seen you stumblin’ around hammered. Real sad, accident waiting to happen. And your blood alcohol levels, of course. Then the Sarriete makes a big show of throwing around a little money, raising the guardrails too high to fall over." She lifted her eyes to his, calmly. "And that’d be your legacy, darlin’. Two inches of railing on a hotel balcony. Maybe a bloodstain, too, if the cobblestone that broke your head open was too historic to replace."
Q realized he’d clasped his hands, knuckles gone white. He worked hard to relax his throat before speaking, to iron out the creases and not let his voice waver. "You paint a vivid picture."
"Well isn’t that sweet of you to say. I’m not real imaginative, so I’ve got to speak from experience, you understand?"
"Perfectly."
"Good, I knew you were quick. Always nice to skip the fritterin’ around." She finished with the second glove and laid it atop the other. "Now you might be tempted to play all coy and tremble like a little dog, Freddy, but let’s skip that too. Some crook’s been riflin’ around in my husband’s business—digitally, you understand—thinking they’ve been real sly about it. But I set up the safeguards myself and I can see the pawprints in the flour. How’d you hurt your leg?"
Q had been so absorbed in her words, and in his own steadily rising panic, that the sudden question made him start. "What?"
"Your leg," she repeated. "I noticed at our little soirée that you were limping. How’d you get banged up?"
For a moment, Q was entirely flummoxed. He blinked at her stupidly. His leg? He’d been wincing about in a too-small pair of shoes and she’d mistaken it for a leg injury? What the hell did that have to do with anything? And why—
It hit him, then. Like a sledgehammer. If he hadn’t been so terrified, he might’ve laughed out loud.
She thought he was the one who’d chased Lelievre. Him. On a bloody motorcycle. It was Bond who’d had the fool idea to go after the man, and MI6 were the ones who had hacked him. But she thought it was Q. All of it.
There was no time to marvel at the absurdity. Q leaned back slowly in his seat, lacing his hands, buying himself a single moment to think. The woman thought he was some sort of mastermind. She’d said nothing about Bond, or MI6, or spying in general; in matter of fact, the term she’d used was crook. Christ, he was going to have to improvise, wasn’t he? If he was lucky enough to survive this, M would kill him. But for now he was the only one Sidonie was suspicious of, and if he played his cards right, maybe he could keep it that way.
So Q braced himself and took his life in his hands.
"…Sidonie Lelievre, née Cartwright, born Sydney Case in Baton Rouge, Louisiana," he began, watching as the tranquil smile began to fade from her face. Good. If he could get her a little off balance, at least they’d be on equal footing. "Birth mother was Eleanor Case, who died in a fire likely set for the insurance money. Adopted by Leigh and Dashiell Cartwright at the age of four, though all records of the adoption, both physical and digital, were destroyed. Juvenile criminal record would remain under the name Sydney Cartwright—"
Here Sidonie cut in, voice chilly. "I don’t have a criminal record."
"Not anymore, certainly. I’m sure you thought it was a very clean job." Q shrugged, somewhat apologetic. "It was, to a point. Anyone else never would’ve found it. Just bad luck I was the one looking."
She was very still; if not for the glitter of light off her rubies, she could’ve been mistaken for a photograph. When a moment passed and she said nothing, Q went on.
"No record of public school attendance. Boarding school inmate from ages nine to thirteen at Saint Marina of Antioch, or so it was called at the time. Expelled and eventually charged for assault and battery against several older girls, entered a plea of self-defense. Sentenced to three years in juvenile detention." Up to now he’d been rattling off the words like text-to-speech, but here he stopped. There had been more than this; he’d whittled it down to rote facts, a simple sequence of events, but there had been much more. Court transcripts. Testimony. Photographs that had made him recoil from the screen. The sort of brutality that was physically painful to read. Assault and battery hardly seemed to cover it.
As though reading his mind, Sidonie smiled. It was a mechanical thing, without warmth or humor. Without any emotion at all that he could detect. "…You think a thirteen year old girl couldn’t have done those sorts of things."
Q considered his response for a long moment. "…I think people will do just about anything to survive."
Her smile remained frozen, but her voice blunted, turned cynical. "So you wouldn’t have convicted? You would’ve been the one holdout of the twelve angry men, darlin’?"
He held her gaze. "I like to think I’m better than taking bribes."
This time the glint of shock wasn’t subtle; for a split second she looked like a flashbulb had gone off in her face. He wondered if she’d known. She would’ve at least suspected. The girls she’d attacked had family names, had old money, the kind that came bloodsoaked and stayed that way. They were girls with parents who could buy them out of trouble and buy others into it.
"…They would’ve locked me up no matter what," she said, finally. "Bribed jury or no. I was careless. Left marks you could see and photograph. Those girls were just smarter than me, that’s how they got away with it."
"They didn’t though, did they?" Q asked quietly. "Not in the end."
"That’ll do, I think." Sidonie’s voice was easy again, but her smile was a razorblade. "You’ve got me at a disadvantage, Freddy dear. Do this much homework on all your new friends, or should I consider myself special?"
"I wasn’t aware we were friends," Q said, trying to match her relaxed posture, her mildness. "Actually I was under the impression you were threatening me."
"And now you’re threatening me. Ain’t that the foundation of a good friendship? Common ground?"
Q shook his head, slowly. Throughout the whole of his recitation his mind had been working, churning away in the background. "I wasn’t threatening you."
"No?"
"No. That was more of a…" He tossed one leg over the other and lounged back in his chair, lazily wheeling his hand as though trying to summon a waiter; a posture, he thought, to which Frederick Valentine-Fitzroy would be accustomed. "Call it a free sample. Or an audition, if you like."
Sidonie seemed not to follow for a moment, then her eyes snapped wide and she let out a bark of laughter that threw her back in her seat. "Oh, now you are screwing with me, honey."
"Not in the least." Q lidded his eyes and smiled. "How else should I go about it, in my line of work? Can’t exactly advertise."
"You’re after a job?" Her tone was incredulous. "With Charles? Informed as you are, you oughta’ve heard he’s in retirement."
"Oh, I think we both know that’s not true." This was a bluff; as far as MI6 had been able to find, Lelievre was completely retired. Q wondered if he was about to gain more information with a single lie than the whole of the secret service could with their massive data network. Lord. Was this how Bond felt all the time?
Sidonie didn’t answer him directly, but the calculations going on behind her eyes told him he’d been right. Lelievre might no longer be connected to Le Milieu, but he wasn’t off the sauce, either.
"…Even if there were something available, I’ll be damned if I hand it over to some nosy little upstart. Characters like you are a dime a dozen. There’re plenty could’ve dug up my history like that."
"There absolutely are not," Q said, offended. He knew his own talents, and he knew their rarity. "I think you’re perfectly aware of that. If you constructed the safeguards on your husband’s business, you know already how challenging they would be to breach. Not to mention uncovering the records you so thoroughly scrubbed. You know, I have to say—" The admiration in Q’s tone was not at all faked. "—your work is remarkable. Gave me an out-and-out run for my money."
Sidonie studied him for a beat, cool and speculative. "…Considerin’ my work couldn’t stop you meddling, that’s a compliment I’ll have to return for repairs."
"I’ll workshop it."
"You do realize," she said, very quiet now, "How this could play out? Charles decides you’ve got value, brings you onboard—you’ve got a cushy little tenure, sure. But he decides you don’t—" she hit the word hard, "—there’s no handshake and no better luck next time. That is the end of your job search with a bullet, Freddy dear. Why take that risk?"
"No reward without it, so I’ve heard." Q kept his expression unconcerned, not without effort. Every warning bell in his head was going off at once, shrieking like a chorus of fire alarms. "And if Monsieur Lelievre decides I’ve got no value, he’s a fool. I’m counting on that not being the case."
"He’s no fool, but he has got a temper. And he doesn’t like being outflanked."
"Then I’ll have to depend on your discretion. I certainly know you’re intelligent enough to appraise me accurately." Q smiled, broadly this time, hoping it looked charming and boyish and not like a terror-rictus. "Besides, I think you actually quite like me."
As though cued by his words, the theater bulbs dimmed and went out. All the light rushed inward toward the curtain like veins toward a heart, turning the rich velvet bright as stage blood. Sidonie became a silhouette, an outline; Q could see nothing of her, now, but her stillness. Then there was a glint off her eyes, off her teeth, as she made some expression he couldn’t discern in the dark.
"…Put a pin in that," she whispered. "It’s startin’."
Q angled toward the stage and slid his hands between his knees, allowing them finally to start trembling. He felt like a defendant waiting for the jury to file in. Rheinische, he thought grimly, was going to be etched into the animal recesses of his brain from this day forward, nestled in cozy with his fear response so each would wake the other up.
Well. At least it wasn’t Mozart.
+++
Sidonie was on her feet even before the lights came up, while the applause was still thundering. There was a cigarette between her teeth.
"Up. Walk with me," she said, and Q mindlessly obeyed.
Maybe he ought’ve considered alternative action, and maybe he would’ve, if his brain hadn’t been stewing at a low simmer of terror and regret and self-recrimination for two and a half hours. Q was a rapid thinker, and this was not always a blessing. Left to mull he’d mull himself into a craze. Maybe Sidonie was aware of this, somehow; maybe it was a tactic. Or maybe she just really needed a smoke. Either way, he trailed after her out of the theater, out into the night, like a handmaiden.
It had rained while they’d been inside, and the pavement glittered with puddles, the blurred reflections looking like scattered oil paintings. Above them the coliseum pillars of the Royal were lit softly from behind, and the glass facade beside beamed out into the street, a massive lightbulb screwed in between buildings. A wave of nostalgia briefly quieted Q’s mind, a feeling of security he knew was false.
Sidonie—rather than a lighter—pulled a pack of matches from her pocket and lit up. In spite of himself, Q found the quaintness of it almost charming. She took a first long drag, blew the smoke politely away from him, then turned to look him in the eye.
"…You’re right," she said, voice thoughtful. "I do like you, Freddy."
Q felt a dizzying surge of relief that nearly knocked him sideways, a cocktail of feel-good chemicals inundating his system like he’d been kissed. He blushed, probably, and Sidonie smiled—her girlish smile, the one he’d seen when they first met. She went on before he could get a word in edgewise.
"I’m not gonna promise anything, you understand. But you’ve got nerve on top of talent, and that’s a vanishin’ rare thing in this business nowadays." She took a short drag, smile fading. The orange glow off the cigarette made her eyeshadow briefly shimmer, like a breeze over black water. "That said, you share any of what you’ve found—any of it, with anyone—and I can’t guarantee it’ll end quick. My husband is not what you’d call a nice man. He can make falling eight stories head-first seem like the Lord’s own mercy. Understand?"
Q did understand. Better than she knew. He’d spoken with agents who had undergone torture; he’d designed what Q Branch euphemistically called implements of last resort. Items that administered a lethal dose of poison, fashioned to work quickly and painlessly. A mercy. Despite knowing they were a necessity, just part of how the service operated, sending them out into the field always made him sick to his stomach. He could only imagine how he’d feel if one were ever used. Like a hypocrite. Like a killer. Like he’d snuffed out an agent’s life with his own hands, when all he ever wanted to do was protect them from that very eventuality.
"I understand," he said.
"Good, good," Sidonie said mildly, like they were discussing the chances it might rain. On a sighing breath, she added, "I’ll tell you what, we could use a little new blood around. All a’ Charles little footsoldiers are dull as Mass on a Tuesday."
"I have found the company a bit dry in our line of work. Always pleased to entertain, if it’s called for."
"Music to my ears." Sidonie grinned, toothy and rakish. "Well then, you’re the Londoner, Freddy dear. Night’s young. Show me some of the city I haven’t seen yet."
Q plastered on an expression of mock horror. "Watch it, call me a Londoner in the wrong company and you’ll end up summoned to pistols at dawn."
"Y’all still do that?"
"Oh, naturally. Six to nine Hyde Park’s lousy with duelists. They’ve had to shorten twenty paces to ten just to fit them all."
Sidonie snorted smoke out of her nose and began to cough raucously into her sleeve. Q hovered, but she waved him off, finally managing to wheeze, "Where ya from—if not London—?"
"We have got other cities, you know. I live in London now, but the family seat’s in Cardiff."
That set her off again. "Christ almighty—family seat—that’s just about the most British thing I’ve heard since touching down at Heathrow."
Q grinned. "Oh, we can do much worse than that."
"Somehow I’ve got no doubt." Recovering herself, Sidonie wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, her makeup remaining meticulously unsmudged. "Well then, Freddy Prince of Wales. Maybe you’re not a local, but you know the place better ‘an I do. Take me somewhere."
M’s forbidding voice echoed in the back of Q’s mind: no second locations if you can help it. Could he help it? Probably. He had any young man’s aptitude for weaseling out of things. But he got the feeling Sidonie was testing him, giving him a try-on for size, and considering she’d only just been describing his inevitable death-by-cobblestone he didn’t think it was in his best interest to measure up short.
Then there was the simple fact that he didn’t want to leave. He was positively wired with excess adrenaline. After spending so much time cooped up in the hotel room, he was primed to do something, anything; it was such a rare sensation for him, leaning into peril, that he couldn’t help wanting to chase it.
Besides. Did it really count as a second location if he was the one picking it?
"Your wish is my command." Q offered his arm with a somewhat camp flourish. Apparently amused by his attempt at gallantry, Sidonie humored him and took it.
"Where we off to, darlin'?"
"Somewhere you’ll have to keep an eye on me." Q winked. "Let's walk, if you don't mind. I'd love to hear your arguments for orchestra over solo piano, though I must warn you, you are absolutely dead wrong and we may get into a screaming match."
"Knew there was a reason I liked you. Lead the way, Freddy."
+++
"Darlin’, I am not the least bit dressed for this."
Q had to lean in close to hear over the music. It’d been awhile—ages, really—since he’d gone somewhere you could feel the bass in your teeth. Sidonie’s drink was vibrating in its tumbler. She’d ditched her trench and jacket somewhere and unbuttoned her blouse into a deep V, glittering with sweat and rubies and silver piercings, lights flashing in colored shards across her face so she looked like a debauched saint in stained glass.
"Could’ve fooled me," Q said, raising his voice to be heard. "Of course you’re one of those people who’s even hotter disheveled. Making me look tragic in comparison, can’t take you anywhere."
Sidonie laughed and threw back the rest of her drink, sliding the empty glass across the bar. The bartender—tattooed liked a sailor but dressed for a speakeasy—neatly caught it and grinned at her, raising an eyebrow. Another? She nodded and turned back to Q. "Would you believe I haven’t been to a gay club in my whole sorry life? Shamed to say I thought there’d be less clothes and more leather."
"Still early for that," Q said, with much more confidence than he really felt. Frederick Valentine-Fitzroy, he decided, had regularly done lines off a fake ID in the bathroom of this very club. He, on the other hand, had only been here once, and had spent the entire evening clinging to the wall like a cat to the inside of its carrier.
Sidonie had taken to the setting with ease. Within minutes of entering the place she’d vanished onto the seething dancefloor, stumbling out three songs later grinning and hollering for a G&T. Q had worked up a sweat just sitting round. He wasn’t much of a dancer—all elbows, you know—but he had at least managed to flirt with the bartender, who’d gone into hysterics upon finding out that he’d come directly from the Royal Ballet and Opera without changing clothes.
"Mind if I ask you somethin’?" Sidonie collected her second drink, resting her arm on the bar.
"Not at all, if this is a job interview. Ask whatever you’d like."
"That man of yours. Was he part of this little project?" Fortunately, she seemed to mistake Q’s look of blank panic for one of confusion and went on. "What I mean is, you came to the Sarriette on purpose after Charles, right? So did you have poor Mr. Bryce on the hook before and soft-soap him into makin’ a reservation, or did you go looking for someone who had a reservation already and fleece him?"
"The former," Q said, determining this to be the less complicated option.
"Thought so." Sidonie nodded, then kept nodding, now along to the music. "Never met a soul who can play smitten that convincingly."
"I’m not—" Q spluttered for a second, which did not help his case much. "I am not smitten. He’s good company, that’s all."
"Good company, huh. You mean he’s a good lay?"
Q wished he had a drink to nurse, something to distract his hands. Unfortunately for him, he could probably answer that question based purely on secondhand intel. His profession was in snooping as much as Bond’s was, and he spent a great deal more time puttering about the office than he did being shot at. MI6, despite its reputation for the cloak-and-dagger, was as gossipy as any workplace; matters that were Top Secret remained so, but everything else was fair game. Including James Bond and his prolific sex life.
When he said nothing, Sidonie grinned. "No shame in fessin’ up if you like your boy toy, darlin’. Your secret’s safe with me. Cross my heart."
"We don’t have that kind of relationship," Q answered stiffly. And truthfully, as it happened.
Sidonie swirled her drink and studied him, a look in her eyes several degrees too knowing. "…How would he feel about you being here tonight?"
Apoplectic, Q thought. He attempted an indifferent shrug. "I’m not his property."
"Is he trouble when he gets jealous?"
Q considered this. He had seen Bond jealous, on occasion; usually when he spotted some state-of-the-art equipment that was set aside for another double-oh. "…I’d say he’s trouble all the time. Why do you ask?"
Sidonie’s gaze shifted to just over his shoulder and she said, casually, "Just wonderin’ how worried I should be. He looks fit to be tied."
Q whipped around so fast he almost toppled out of his seat. It took him under a second to spot Bond, mostly because no one had ever—ever—looked so much like an undercover cop about to bust you for ecstasy possession. Christ, he was in a shirt without buttons! The sort you pulled over your head! It was a midnight blue, long-sleeved jumper type thing, very fitted and soft looking, very touchable, and oh good lord he was looking this way.
Q jerked back around, hunching his shoulders and throwing his hand up to shield his face like he was on the lam. Sidonie, less concerned, slowly sipped her drink with an arched brow. "Fraid he’s seen you, darlin’."
"What in the hell is he doing here?" Q hissed, mostly to himself.
"Better question is, how’d he find you?" Her gaze was steady, watching him closely. "This a regular haunt of yours?"
Q’s blood pressure spiked. Oh, perfect. This was just perfect. He’d barely managed to keep Sidonie’s suspicions focused on himself and away from Bond, and now here the man was showing up out of nowhere and without explanation. Not only was it massively suspicious that he’d been able to find them so easily, but if he said anything that contradicted Q’s story before he could be briefed on the change in situation—
"Headed this way," Sidonie informed him. "Should we make a run for it?"
Q came to a split-second decision. He’d been doing an awful lot of that lately.
Hopping down from the chair, he spun around and drew himself up to his full height. Bond had managed to shoulder his way through the crowd, and Sidonie was right—he did not look happy. Well, perfect. If he had the good sense to shut up and play along maybe Q could actually pull this off. The moment he was within range, Q reached out and shoved him, hard, in the chest.
Bond’s reflexes were unreal. Q had barely connected with him before his wrist was in a vice grip, and he was fairly certain he would’ve been facedown on the bar with his arm twisted behind his back if he hadn’t managed to shout, with all the outraged histrionics he could manage, "You bastard! Did you track my phone again?!"
He saw the moment Bond switched gears, so fast and so beautifully subtle that he doubted anyone else would’ve caught it. But Q was a student of machine functionality. It was his job to design things for speed, to shave off microseconds of latency and get every transition down to its most efficient variant. Sometimes those microseconds meant nothing; sometimes they meant the difference between a bullet through the heart and a nick on the arm. With Bond, that functionality came built-in.
My god, he thought, for one dreamy breath. I could work my whole life and never devise something like you.
Bond’s cold-blooded intent was suddenly nothing more than bluster; his hold on Q’s wrist was possessive rather than pitiless. He appeared for a moment guilty, then set his jaw into a look of stubborn defiance. It was incredible. Positively incredible. The man had gone along so damned well that now Q felt he was the one playing catch-up, put on the back foot in his own one-act play.
"Don’t shout," Bond said, voice lowered, the very picture of a man trying to stop his lover making a scene in public. "Can you blame me, after what happened last time? You promised me you weren’t clubbing anymore—"
"Oh, so this is my fault? One little incident and now I can’t go out without being stalked?" Q ripped his arm from Bond’s grip and gave him another shove; this time the man was ready for it and capitulated, taking a stumbling step back. "Why not just chip me, you lunatic?"
Bond reached for him again. "Frederick, darling—"
Q slapped his hand away dramatically. Alright, so he was having just a bit of fun now. "Don’t you dare call me Frederick, we’re not on those terms anymore. Mr. Bryce, sir."
"Don’t be like that, pet. Please." Bond’s words were honeyed now, like he was trying to calm a spooked animal. "Let’s just talk, alright? Five minutes. Give me five minutes."
"No," Q said, in the sulkiest tone he could manage.
Bond stepped slightly to the side, looking over Q’s shoulder with an apologetic expression. "I’m so sorry, could I borrow him for just a moment?"
"No use askin’ me." Sidonie said, giving Q a sidelong look. "What’s the verdict, Freddy? You want to have this conversation in private, or do you want him to get lost? Y’know, long walk, short pier?"
It occurred to Q that it might not actually be in his best interest to put Bond on this woman’s hit list. He gave the man a long, scathing glare, then clicked his tongue. "Five minutes. Then you’re gone. I mean it."
With that he strode off, not checking to see if Bond was following. He skirted the edge of the dancefloor, zeroing in on an out-of-the-way area they could be seen but were unlikely to be overheard; just the sort of spot he naturally gravitated toward in places like this. Bond caught up with him—garnering at least a dozen admiring glances on the way—and the second they were out of earshot Q turned on him and said, in a rush, "Sidonie thinks I’m a cybercriminal who’s been hacking Lelievre because I want him to give me a job."
Bond’s lips parted just a fraction, but he said nothing, looking for all the world like his disc had skipped. It occurred to Q that he’d actually rendered the man speechless. He took advantage and went on, quickly, "If you’re about to give me the third degree, I don’t want to hear it."
"But how on earth—"
"It’s a bit hard to explain!" Q hissed. "And you’re the one being told off here, so look chastised!"
Bond obediently arranged his face to look like a kicked dog, which made it very jarring to hear him say, "What’ve you done, you damn bloody fool?"
"The best I could under the circumstances. Sidonie knew I’d been gathering intel on her husband—I mean, MI6 was the one doing that, but she’s caught on and she thinks it was me—"
"So you told her you were a cybercriminal?"
"Better that than have her thinking I’m a spy. I’m going to pretend to storm off now, so grab me before I get too far." Q tossed up his hands in the universal gesture for through with your nonsense, spinning on his heel. Bond was a good sport and caught him by the arm, turning him back around. The man drew a little closer, expression pleading, hand trailing absently up and down Q’s arm. It was such a convincing display of affection that Q himself was nearly convinced.
Bond said, in a bone-dry voice that clashed with literally everything else he was doing, "Aren’t you having a little too much fun with this?"
"You’re a marvelous actor, has anyone ever told you that?"
"Q. Please don’t get distracted."
"Is this how you persuade people to do what you want all the time? By looking all persuasive like that?"
"No, I persuade people by persuading them. Q—"
"I think your face is contributing more than you give it credit for, persuasively speaking."
Bond briefly closed his eyes, jaw working with the grind of his teeth; Q couldn’t tell if he was holding himself back from shouting or laughing. "I would like to know," he said finally, enunciating every word, "how I might persuade you to tell me what the hell is going on."
"You bloody first! How did you even find me? You shouldn't have access to MI6's system. Are you actually tracking my phone? Wait—" Q’s eyes widened, and he jabbed Bond sharply in the chest with his index finger. "Did you follow me from the theater?"
"Of course not," Bond said patiently. "I followed you from the hotel."
"Oh, wonderful. No, that’s perfect. Are you daft?"
"Do you think I want to spend my evening tailing you? You think this is fun for me? M told me to keep an eye on you if I thought you might go rogue."
"I have not gone rogue."
Bond raised his eyebrows, making a sweeping gesture at the general everything around them.
"Yes, alright," Q hissed. "I went to a second location. That’s hardly rogue agent behavior. And I had it under control until you showed up all dramatic like a—a—"
"Jealous boyfriend?"
"Don’t help me."
"Q, I’m less concerned about the second location and more about you inventing a criminal backstory wholesale," Bond said through gritted teeth. "Not to mention trying to get a job with the mafia."
Q squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose and forcing himself to focus. No easy task. Even at a remove he was hyperaware of the bass vibrating in his teeth, the kaleidoscopic strobe of light and color, Sidonie’s watchful gaze and Bond’s fingertips still running from his elbow to his shoulder and back again. His mind kept clocking things it didn’t need to, picking at details like loose threads in a tapestry. This was why he liked his monitors; even with all of them going at once they were manageable, curated, selected for importance. If any one thing grabbed his attention he knew his attention ought to be there. Not so with the world at large.
"Are you alright?" Bond asked, peering closely at him. "Are you on something?"
"No I’m not on something, good lord. I’m trying to think."
"Well while you’re thinking, do me a favor and act like you’re coming round."
Q squinted at him. "Why should I?"
"Because I’m taking you with me when I leave and I don’t want to look like a kidnapper."
Reluctantly, Q relaxed his shoulders and shuffled in a little closer, tilting his head like he was listening. "Is she still watching us?"
"Yes," Bond replied without looking.
"You didn’t look."
"I don’t have to look, Q, it’s called peripheral vision."
It was unnerving having Bond stare at him so intently, and with such a coaxing expression. Q got the feeling he might be convinced of anything under the influence of that stare; it was just lucky Bond mostly elected to argue with him rather than laying on the charm. Unable to meet the man’s eye, Q cleared his throat. "The important bit is that she doesn’t suspect you’re part of it. At least I don’t think she does. I figured it would be best to convince her I was the sole party behind the surveillance, just a lone hacker rather than, you know…"
"The British government?" Bond’s voice was controlled and professional, even as his fingers skated down past Q’s elbow, past where his shirt sleeves were rolled up, meeting skin. The graze was very light, following the line of a vein down his inner arm to his wrist.
"Right," Q confirmed faintly.
"So what does she think I am, if not part of the racket?" Bond’s fingertips hooked under Q’s loosened watchband, pressing in tight against his wrist as though feeling for a pulse. "Another of your marks?"
"Um. She seems to believe I’m quite stupid over you, actually."
"…Well," Bond said, "You’re not such a bad actor yourself."
That hitched Q’s breath, and he clenched his teeth. "Oh, screw you."
"Now now. I’m sweet talking you, remember? Don’t look so cross."
"Then why don’t you try actually—you know what, no, scratch that. Scratch that entirely. But if you don’t want me pissed off at least give lip service to not pissing me off."
Bond brought out the sad dog eyes again. Bastard. It worked, too. "Q, you know I respect you terribly, don’t you? Your technical brilliance is staggering. You’re like a wonderful little supercomputer."
"I sense a qualifying statement—"
"However, your ability to make a damned mess of things is unparalleled and I have got to get you out of here before you do any more damage."
Q didn’t think that was entirely fair on balance, but he was rather exhausted and wouldn’t mind escaping for that reason alone. He had the urge to get his hands on pen and paper and write down every lie he’d told tonight so he could keep them straight. Also, his feet hurt. Still—
"I can’t just leave," he said. "What am I supposed to tell Sidonie, that something suddenly came up? At eleven at night? That’s extraordinarily suspicious."
"Oh chrissakes, Q, you’re not this naive. You can’t think of one single reason we might have to get back to the hotel right this second?"
Q felt heat rising under his collar and wished desperately that he could stick his head out a window or dunk it in a sink of cold water. "What, after I just told you off for tracking my phone? That’s a bit of a fast turnaround."
Bond’s eyebrows rose. "You’ve never fucked mid-row?"
Q physically jolted. His heart rate spiked, and there was no way Bond hadn’t felt it, not with his fingers still jammed under the watchband and pressed hard to Q’s pulse. Confirming his fears, the man smiled slowly. "…What, never?"
Q wanted to dodge Bond’s stare, but the man wouldn’t let him, holding his gaze like a hypnotist. He dodged the question instead. "What’s my motivation?"
"Let’s say… teaching me a lesson." Bond lowered his voice to a stage whisper, a woolen rasp, so Q could hear clearly the click of his tongue off the hard vowels. "Shouldn’t be too hard for you to sell that, should it?"
It wasn’t said as a challenge; it was meant to be a checkmate. Bond’s smug expression said I know you won’t, and that more than anything made Q’s usually mild temper flare. He tilted in close—closer—near enough to see the flicker in the man’s eyes. The moment his arrogance slipped.
"I’ll sell it," Q murmured. "Don’t flinch."
Curling his hand around the back of Bond’s neck, he dug in his fingertips, tilting the man’s head to the side and leaning in like an old-movie vampire. He didn’t bite, but pressed his tongue down hard—right where the soft underside of Bond’s jaw met his throat—and sucked.
Everything hit him at once, all blazing, avalanching sensation.
The sandpaper grit of an unclean shave. The salty, animal taste of sweat. The violin scent, turned earthy and tannic like wet sawdust, like soft leather. Bond mumbled something, and he felt the vibration under his tongue, felt the man’s heartbeat kick and accelerate like a jumped car.
Q found Bond’s jawline with his fingertips—followed it to his mouth—drew the pad of his thumb, slow, across the man’s lips. He let just the tips of his canines press down. Imagined how this would feel if it were only an overture, how sweet this one taste would be if he knew he could have it all and lick the plate.
There was a reason this was dangerous.
Bond’s arm wrapped tight around the small of his back, and want coursed through Q’s body, fever-hot, nearly taking him out at the knees. It wasn’t the smudged, soft-focus lens of desire; it was greasy, pulpy, obscene. It had the pulse of the nightclub, that rhythmic thump, thump that could edge glasses off a bar counter. It was fingers slicked with saliva, too-small car backseats and fogged windows, pinned wrists and pulled hair and the lush, bruised bonelessness of being utterly—
With a shudder he jerked away, gulping down a lungful of air. He might’ve toppled backward if not for Bond’s arm, still clamped like a steel bar around his waist, holding him so close their stomachs brushed when they inhaled at the same moment. The man met his gaze and held it.
"Sorry," Q managed, dizzy and breathless. "Did you—say something?"
There was a garish red mark on Bond’s neck that was surely going to bruise. With his free hand he reached up to touch it, gingerly, and some dark emotion flashed across his face that Q could’ve sworn was anger. In a blink it was gone, and the corner of his mouth ticked up. "…Paid back in my own coin. Though I don’t think I played you quite so rough."
"Sorry," Q repeated, biting his tongue to stop himself from repeating it again, like a stuck record.
"It’s alright. New experience for me. Never gotten a hickey from someone I wasn’t actively getting off."
"Oh." Q’s voice wobbled slightly. His palm was resting flat against Bond’s chest, and he left it there, because he’d apparently lost his mind. "Really?"
"Really." Bond’s eyes crinkled at the corners with a rueful smile. "Sorry about the taste, haven’t showered since last night."
Don’t be sorry, it was lovely, Q wanted to say. Of course he didn’t, because that would be just… deeply unhinged. It occurred to him that he’d made a very bad mistake indeed—catastrophically bad—but, on the bright side, it damn well would’ve fooled Sidonie. No one getting an eyeful of that could’ve mistaken it for anything but desperate, sweltering lust. He just had to pray Bond thought him a very good actor.
"I’ve got to…" He leaned back into the pressure of the man’s staying grip. Christ, his hands. "…Got to go talk to her, so…"
"So?"
"Could you… let go of me?"
Bond’s arm dropped abruptly, and Q took a stumbling step back. He became uncomfortably aware of how rumpled and sweaty he was, and how closely he resembled a bespectacled wet cat, and that he was half hard. Not noticeably, thank god, but he’d escaped detection by the skin of his teeth. Without another word he turned on his heel, swerving like a drunkard in what he hoped was the right direction.
He found Sidonie lounging at the bar like she owned the place and the land it sat on, deep in conversation with a pack of slightly feral looking goths. She looked up as he approached and snickered, cutting him off before he could even draw breath to speak. "That fella of yours must have a silver tongue. Quicksilver."
"...Turns out I’m very easy," Q said with a shrug, not entirely sure it wasn’t true.
"Well, I don’t need a ride, darlin’. Enjoy your night and spare me the details."
"Oh. Um—"
"Speak for yourself." This from one of the goths, all of whom were staring across the dancefloor at Bond like half-starved coyotes. "You can give me the details, princess. Not sure you’re in the right weight class to be handling all that, though. Fancy tagging me in?"
Q had forgotten that club clientele tended to be very… friendly, perhaps, was not the right word. He could be game, though. Frederick Valentine-Fitzroy certainly could. Looking down his nose, he cocked one eyebrow and said, cattily, "I’m sorry, isn’t it past your curfew? It’s a school night, you know."
Another of the goths—a girl in what appeared to be literal chainmail—cackled. "He’s got ya’ dead to rights there, Van. An’ where d’you get off calling people princess when you unlock your chastity belt for any bellend in Tom Ford?"
Van glared at his companion, then downed his drink and turned back to Q with a decidedly unkind smile. "Just having a little boys talk. How’d you land the dish? He looks a slippery sort."
Oh, you have no idea, Q thought. He blithely returned the smile. "You think so? Can’t get him to leave me well enough alone, actually. I’ll give him your number if you like, you’re free to try your luck. Might buy me a night’s rest for once. Then again…" He gave the young man his most devastating once-over. "…I don’t think so."
There was a chorus of ooohs, and one of Van’s friends began to punch him repeatedly in the arm. He rolled his eyes with the well-choreographed apathy of a true London goth, grumbled "His loss," and swiveled around to wave down the bartender.
Q turned back to Sidonie. "Sure you wouldn’t like a ride?"
"Sure I’m sure, night’s still young as a third wife. Hitchin’ my car to this lot for a midnight double feature, some of those, y’know… oh, I forget what they’re called. Those Italian films with all the blood and guts."
Q side-eyed the goths. "You’re not worried they’ll drag you to some murder dungeon?"
"I can take care of myself well enough in a pinch, Freddy dear." Sidonie grinned wolfishly, the dancing lights slicing her face into sharp angles and deep, savage shadows. She looked, for a moment, like someone you’d flee from in a dark alley. "But you know that already, don’t you?"
+++
Q couldn’t remember the last time he’d ridden in such a nice car. The inside was small, like a capsule, and almost completely silent; the leather was deep blue and buttery soft. It'd been parked on the street beside the long line into the club, and on opening the door he’d felt the weight of a hundred envious looks. Hard to say if it was the car or the driver that’d inspired them.
London blurred past in streaks of light and color, and he pretended to watch, though his eyes remained on the reflection of Bond’s hands in the glass. His easy maneuvering of the wheel. The thoughtful tap of his index finger on the leather. Q resisted the urge to roll down the window and cool his cheeks; his body was still several degrees too hot. He felt more than saw the the frequent shift of Bond’s gaze in his direction.
After several minutes of this, the man finally spoke. "…Charming place. Have you been there before?"
"Have you?" Q fired back. "Watch the road."
Bond sighed through his nose. "Just making conversation."
Fishing was more like it. Q wished the man would just bloody ask, not tiptoe around it like this all tactful. It was getting to the point of being exhausting. Part of him yearned to just throw down his hand here and now, say yes I have and yes I am. What’s it to you?
Nothing. That was the depressing bit. Absolutely nothing. Q knew he didn’t have the right to sulk like this, not when he was the one who kept playing along. Bond hadn’t taken it too far this time; he had. He’d let himself have a bite and now he didn’t know if he’d ever wash the taste out. No one to blame for that but himself.
He saw the Sarriette approach—
—And pass.
"…What are you doing?" He sat up. "That was the hotel."
"I’m aware."
"Is this a kidnapping? Are you kidnapping me?"
"I do think MI6 would pay a decent ransom, but no." Bond hesitated, shifting in his seat. Q got the odd sense that the man was trying not to look over, fixing his eyes determinedly on the road. "…Would you like to go for a drive?"
Q stared at him. When no further information was forthcoming, he echoed, "Would I like to go for a drive?"
"That’s what I said."
"Why?"
Bond drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "…Feeling a bit restless, I suppose."
"What’s that got to do with me?"
"Oh, for the—nothing. Nevermind." Bond snapped up his turn signal with more aggression than necessary. "I’ll take you back."
"No," Q said quickly. "No, you don’t have to, I was just… sorry."
He turned back to the window, a bit dazed; in his head Prelude in G Minor played, felted and softened, like he was holding down the una corda. He wanted to ask why, and again why, and what for, but Bond’s frustrated voice echoed in his mind just beneath the notes.
Not for anything, damn it, I’m just asking. Can’t I ask an ordinary question? I’m not—
Q reminded himself that James Bond was a creature of ulterior motive. He was machinelike in a way, decisive in what needed to be done and efficient in doing it, always. He was not the sort of man to drive without a destination or act without a concrete goal. Were he an actual machine, the way he was behaving now would appear like a malfunction; something for Q to pick at until he found the problem.
I am a human, you know. Q branch didn’t assemble me.
For a man, though, the way he was behaving now looked an awful lot like uncertainty.
"Shoreditch," Q murmured.
"…What?"
"Drive out to the Ten Bells," he said, a bit louder, and with authority. "You know, in Shoreditch?"
Bond shot him a curious look. "Why there?"
Because Q knew the route well. Because it would take them past his flat, and he could catch a glimpse through the window—even if there was nothing to see but the consoling dark of home, that dark that was softer than any other.
He shrugged. "Better than driving in circles."
Apparently unable to argue with such infallible logic, Bond flicked the turn signal off. The drumming of his fingers had stopped; the stiff line of his jaw had relaxed. Maybe it was enough, having a destination to reach. The whole wide world narrowing down to a string of left and right turns.
Made fidgety by the silence, Q tapped on the radio. He half expected it to be set to blasting, but it was so quiet he had to turn it up a few notches to hear. The Drifters, Save the Last Dance for Me. He let out a soft snort. "Of course you’ve got it tuned to old-timey radio."
"This is not old-timey," Bond said, offended.
"Anything before color TV is old-timey."
"Color TV came out in the fifties, Q. This song is from the sixties."
"Well you’d remember."
Bond gave him a dirty look. "Old-timey is 1940's or earlier."
"Have this argument a lot, do you?"
The corners of Bond’s lips pressed inward, clearly wanting to smile. He managed to suppress it, but couldn’t quite keep it out of his voice. "…Think you can stop heckling me long enough to explain what happened tonight?"
Q went very still for a moment, then his head caught up to his racing heart. With Sidonie, he means what happened with Sidonie. "…I gave you the abridged version."
"Let’s have it unabridged. You’re going to have to write up a report anyhow."
…Well, the man had him there. Resignedly, Q lowered the radio a few notches, reclined his seat a few degrees, and got started. Bond listened without interrupting, face impassive as marble, which was at least a marked upgrade from the last time Q had been made to run through his night in detail. When he’d finished, the man remained in silence for a few long seconds.
"…A ridiculous solution," he said, finally. "But not necessarily a bad one."
Q rested his arm on the console and leaned closer, making a show of squinting at Bond’s profile. "Thought my ability to make a damn mess of things was unparalleled."
"So’s mine. Don’t think I’ve ever solved a problem cleanly."
Recoiling with a groan, Q pushed up his glasses to rub at his eyes. "Lord, please don’t compare my problem-solving methods to yours. That’s not the compliment you think it is."
"M's going to have a fit." Bond sounded a little too pleased at the prospect. "MI6’s precious quartermaster going into his rebellious phase. How many of his rules did you break?"
Q counted on his fingers. "No second locations, keep to my cover, no improvisation. Three."
"Think we can score you double on that last," Bond said smilingly. Then his expression sobered. "You should've told me what you dug up on Sidonie."
"What for?" Q shrugged. "You would’ve only stopped me going."
"I’m starting to wonder if I can stop you doing anything."
Though tempered by weariness, there was something not unlike admiration in Bond’s voice. The atmosphere, too, had altered; once cramped, the car’s interior now felt almost cozy. It was incredible what a subtle shift in tenor could do. While Q didn’t precisely mind quarreling with Bond—had to be done sometimes, as the man was emphatically impossible—he’d much rather they be on the same side, regardless of whose side it was.
He did prefer when it was his side, though. Something about Bond relinquishing his point, giving in, bending to a will other than his own. Something about surrender.
Hmm. Q decided that was not something that needed further examination at present.
They drove on, skirting central London altogether, steering clear of the more congested areas. Q could predict each turn Bond would make before he made it—every choice was the whittling down of city into route, transforming the spiderweb sprawl into one clean red line. It was oddly intimate, knowing they were anticipating the same turns. That their minds were harmonized in just this one way.
More than that, it was oddly intimate knowing that Bond was—though unawares—currently driving him home. Hard not to wonder if he was the sort of man to walk you to your doorstep, to brave the horrors of street parking for a few extra minutes and a kiss goodnight. If he’d accept the flimsy pretense of a cup of tea. If he’d willingly stomach earl grey for an invitation inside.
Q was overwhelmed by a sudden swell of longing, pressing on the inside of his ribs until he couldn’t breathe, making his skin too tight and his body too small for the enormity of it. As long as it was only the physical stuff, he could deal with it. But it wasn’t, and it never had been, not really. It couldn’t be flicked off like a light switch, couldn’t be kicked under the bed. A comfortable silence—an imagined smile—Bond in his kitchen with a mug to his lips, trying not to make a face. Things so inconsequential it was idiotic to want them this badly.
They were on a street Q knew very well. He felt the left turn coming and leaned his shoulder into the door, looking up desperately, like one glimpse could somehow save him.
The third story windows were dark. In one—on the inner ledge, pressed against the glass—was bundle of white-flecked ginger fur, rising and falling gently. Q’s gaze followed it as the car passed, craning his neck around until they turned the corner. He ached now with a different sort of longing, one he recognized as homesickness. Most people experienced the feeling first as children, but he’d never felt it until he had a place to himself. Handling it was still a struggle, like trying to learn a new language after you’d grown.
"See someone you know?"
Bond’s voice jolted him out of his rumination, and he turned guiltily from the window, settling back into his seat. "No. I mean, yes, I thought I did, but—no."
He saw Bond’s gaze flick briefly up at the building before returning to the road. There was a hitch in the air, like that moment after someone clears their throat and you’re sure they’re going to say something. Q had no clue what had caused it. Sometimes it just felt like that, with Bond; an extended anticipation of nothing, a piano key pressed too slowly to make a sound and then held down in its silence.
He wasn’t sure he liked it. Then again, he wasn’t sure he didn’t.
+++
Q was grounded.
Well, technically he was chained to that goddamned desk and you’re lucky I don’t put you in front of a goddamned committee, according to M. The bulk of their call so far had been an itemized list of every way he was out of his godforsaken mind, and what had he been thinking, and by god we expect these idiotic stunts of double-oh seven—budget for them, even—
"You have his nonsense in the budget?" Q interrupted, aghast. "Under what? Pyrotechnics?"
He caught Bond’s faint smile in the full-length mirror. "Unforeseen expenses, I believe."
It had just gone breakfast and Q was huddled between the room service cart and the phone, trying to eat as quietly as possible, as he didn’t think M would appreciate the crunch of artisanal toast with artisanal jam while he was delivering his fire-and-brimstone. Bond was, as usual, taking his sweet time at the morning mirror procedure. He always did this—came out of the bedroom in his trousers and shirtsleeves, jacket and holster over one arm, tie and belt over one shoulder, pin and cufflinks in hand. Ostensibly it was to use the full-length, but Q had a working theory that he did it to show off. The hypothesis was in early testing.
"Is that clear?" M asked sharply.
Q nearly choked on his toast in his hurry to get it down, gasping out a "Yes, sir."
"And for the remainder of the assignment, you’ll be leaving that hotel room…?"
"Never for any reason, sir," Q guessed, because that seemed to be the general thrust of the conversation. He hesitated, then added in a slightly smaller voice, "Although, in all fairness—"
"This ought to be good."
"—I really don’t think I screwed up so catastrophically as all that. Sir."
"You have singlehandedly," M began, enunciating his words half to death, "Improvised an entire new criminal persona, from scratch, unapproved, making yourself now a known entity in the London criminal underworld."
Bond added, unhelpfully, "And it didn’t cost MI6 a pound sterling."
"Technically I made Frederick Valentine-Fitzroy a known entity in the London criminal underworld," Q pointed out. "And maybe not even that. Outfits don’t make a show of their tech people, do they? If Sidonie is really considering hiring me, I’d be a proprietary asset."
"Stop talking as though we’re somehow following this up. We’d be extracting you immediately if it wouldn’t look suspicious as hell. As it stands you’ll be meeting with the Lelievre’s again over my dead body."
"But I’ve got an in," Q insisted. "You have to admit that’s valuable under the circumstances—"
"I have to admit no such thing!" M finally snapped, his voice bursting out of the phone in a crackle of static. "You’re not a damned field agent!"
There was a moment of ringing silence, and Q sank down in his chair, thoroughly rebuked. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand M’s position. He had neither the training nor to the desire to work in the field, and anyway he wasn’t suited to it; his wheelhouse was in the lab, at the workshop, behind the monitor bank. It was only that he hated to waste an opportunity, especially one he’d finagled through his own resourcefulness.
"You can’t see this, but he’s sulking," Bond said.
"I am not sulking. Whose side are you on?"
"Side that pays my salary. He’s got a point, though, sir." Bond was sliding into his shoulder holster, distractedly and distractingly. "Questionable improvisation aside, the girl seems to like him."
"Of course she does," M said darkly. "He’s kept her secrets, hasn’t he? From the entire damn secret service."
"I wasn’t keeping secrets," Q protested. "I had every intention of sharing her history with MI6 if and when it became relevant. It hadn’t at the time, though, and as far as I’m concerned it still hasn’t."
"You don’t find it relevant that the woman you’re trying to wine and dine bashed three girls’ teeth in with a hand trowel?"
Q flinched, but only inwardly; he was careful not to let it show anymore. No matter how long he’d worked at MI6, no matter how much he witnessed or how cool a head he kept about it, people still expected him to shrink from violence. From the gore and gristle of it, savagery in technicolor. He might’ve, once. But he’d switched that part of himself off a long time ago.
Q lifted his shoulders in an unconcerned shrug. "We all did things at thirteen."
"Did we?" Bond said under his breath.
"And besides, it’s got nothing to do with TG. Her having a history of violence—and violence in self-defense, I might add—"
M cut him off. "You’re defending her now?"
"I’m saying there’s context. That’s all. And we’re getting off topic."
"The topic being that you’re not following this up and that’s the end of it. Understood?"
Q gritted his teeth. The man was looking for an unequivocal yes, sir, and by all accounts he had no choice but to provide it. Yet everything in him rebelled. This wasn’t throwing good money after bad; this was an opportunity, and as close to a golden one as they were likely to get. If Lelievre really worked for TG, they couldn't afford to let him slip through their grasp. Yes, Q had been impelled to step out from behind the monitor bank—and no, he didn’t much like it on this side—but he’d done it. And now M wanted him to give it up as a bad job.
"Sir," Bond said, smoothing over Q’s reluctance before M could pounce on it. "I wouldn’t mind following up myself while Q’s on desk. Need to do a proper search of 806."
"A search? Why?"
"The Lelievre’s have left for housekeeping twice since we’ve been here. Both times they’ve taken almost nothing with them. Which means they’re doing the same squirrel thing Q does and hiding caches about the room someplace."
Q couldn’t let that one slide. "Squirrel thing?"
Bond ignored him. "We know for a fact Lelievre keeps cash on hand for his poker games. I’m willing to bet there are documents or the like around too. The girl’s got a head for tech but her husband is old fashioned, type to keep paper copies of everything."
M made a grunt of acknowledgment. "And how do you intend to do a search if the pair of them are never gone at the same time?"
"They’re gone during housekeeping."
"Problem with doing it during housekeeping," M said dryly, "Is that housekeeping is there."
"Q’s got a solution for that," Bond replied, wrongly, foisting the problem onto Q with all the unfeeling serenity of a waiter clocking out during the lunch rush.
"…Does he. I’m listening."
Bond met Q’s panicked gaze in the mirror, raising a dispassionate eyebrow as though to say, well? Q wondered—not for the first time—if the man worked alone by choice, or if MI6 had cloistered him because they got tired of shelling out worker’s comp for psychological distress.
"Yes. Right. One moment, let me just—" Q flailed inwardly, ransacking the drawers of his mind like a burglar hunting for valuables. He seized on the first thing that looked shiny. "We can manipulate the hotel’s scheduling system. The Lelievre’s are doing the same thing we are, requesting housekeeping on certain days at certain times, yes? If we intercept their calls—wait for them to put in a request—we can go into the Sarriette’s housekeeping schedule and change the time of the appointment."
M was unimpressed. "Which will accomplish what? Unless you plan on doing the washing up while you’re there, they’ll come back expecting a clean room and find it just as they left it. Not to mention housekeeping showing up at a different time altogether. You don’t think that’ll rouse suspicion?"
"Not if we only change the appointment by a little," Q explained, warming to his theme. "If we push it forward a half hour—say they make the appointment for noon. We switch it to twelve-thirty and mark it a rush job, which just means a shorter and less thorough cleaning. So housekeeping would still be out by the time the Lelievre's got back, but we’d have thirty minutes to give the place a going over."
M was silent for a moment, which was promising. The chief was a rapid-fire thinker who was always shaving milliseconds off his response time, heat-seeking flaws and inconsistencies, ready with a criticism the second one came to mind. When he was quiet, it was because he couldn’t immediately think of an objection to an idea he didn’t like, and so simply sat there radiating severity across his desk until his victim either gave up or died.
Unfortunately for him, the same effect could not be achieved via telephony.
"It’ll work," Q insisted, with more confidence than he really felt. "If I’m going to be stuck listening to calls all day—"
"And watching CCTV," Bond added.
"And watching CCTV, thank you, I may as well—"
"Hang on," M jumped in. "What about the CCTV? There’s still the possibility our TG agent has eyes on it. And even if they don’t, hotel security will. What if someone clocks double-oh seven breaking in?"
"I wouldn’t be breaking in, Q can get me a keycard," Bond said cavalierly, once again exhibiting profound overconfidence in Q’s powers. It might’ve been flattering, really, if he wasn’t being such a dick about it.
"Keycard or no, you’re not supposed to be there. The Lelievre’s are residents, not guests. Security will notice if someone goes into their room who isn’t them."
Bond appeared to consider this deeply for a moment. He took a breath, clearly for dramatic effect. "Q will—"
Q slammed his palm down on the desk. "Q will do no such bloody thing, can you solve your own problems, please? Q will get this, Q will fix that, am I just a damned deus ex machina to you? I haven’t the first clue how to—actually hang on. No, wait, I’ve got an idea, actually."
"God in the machine," Bond mumbled, smiling. He really had to be such a dick about it, didn’t he.
Q flipped his laptop open and pulled up the CCTV. "Come here."
Bond, who had just finished with his cufflinks, strolled over. He took up his usual position—one hand resting on the desk, the other on the back of Q’s chair, boxing him in. He’s not doing it on purpose, Q reminded himself forcibly. He could not get flustered over a hand near the nape of his neck, not when it had so recently been on the small of his back. Not when he had lay awake the night before, running his tongue along the roof of his mouth, trying to retrieve the taste of Bond’s sweat. Stashing the sense memory away and then guiltily coming back for it again, and again and again, like licking honey off a spoon.
"What am I looking at?" Bond asked, in a voice that was probably completely normal and only sounded the way it did to Q because he was insane.
"The hallways. Look." Q had the screen split into fourths—the two hallway cameras for floor seven, and the two for floor eight. "Notice anything?"
"No. All look the same to me."
"Precisely. They’re identical. The room numbers aren’t visible." Pulling up the module, Q began to type rapidly. "So we switch them. You leave 706, go into the stairway—no cameras—and I’ll swap the floors on the CCTV. So when you come out on the eighth floor and go into 806, it’ll appear to anyone watching as though you’re just returning to your own room. Then we reverse the process when you leave."
"Brilliant," Bond said, a simple fact without flattery, like he’d expected no different.
M was warier. "And what if something happens in the hallway during that time? Something that draws attention to the switch?"
Q considered this. "…Calculated risk?"
A sigh came over the line, the classic I am the only thing holding this godforsaken agency together M sigh. "Double-oh seven?"
"I think it’s the best idea we’ve got, sir."
"Fine. I’ll leave that to your discretion and on your head be it. Report back when you’ve got a date and time. And Q, I want you attached to that desk like it’s life support, understand?"
Q gave a toy-soldier salute, sarcastic enough that he was glad M couldn’t see it. "Yes, sir."
+++
"You’ve got a nice little KGB command center here. Very twenty-third floor."
Q jolted awake—well, not awake, exactly, as he hadn’t been sleeping, but he jolted from a half-conscious doze back into his miserable reality. An attempted what guttered out of him, somewhere between noise and language.
"Your setup," Bond said patiently, helping himself to the carafe of coffee Q had ordered to keep himself conscious. Fat lot of good that’d done. "Hotel Viru? Cold war spy operation? Nothing?"
Q rubbed his face. There was a perfect right angle stamped into his cheek from the corner of the desk blotter, and his glasses had slid all the way down the slope of his nose. He took a second crack at English. "What?"
Bond rolled his eyes. Possibly. He was a little too blurry to tell for certain, but when he spoke it had a very rolling-his-eyes type quality to it. "They don’t teach you new lot anything, do they."
"Sorry I’m not up on my old-timey espionage." Oh good, he was speaking in full sentences now. Catty ones, too, so everything was in working order. Q stretched, wincing as his spine cracked. "What’s the Hotel Viru?"
"Soviet spy hotel in the eighties. Wiretaps, hidden cameras, bugs in the ashtrays. The works. KGB had a control room on the twenty-third floor where they spied on the guests all day."
"Bet they had more than one agent, too," Q grumbled. "Lucky bastards."
"How’s the surveillance?"
"Oh, wonderful." Q massaged the bridge of his nose. The indents from his glasses were liable to turn into bruises at this rate. "I adore listening to inane phone calls for two days straight. I’m having tech support flashbacks."
Bond leaned elegantly against the desk, crossing one ankle over the other. Lord, but the devil looked refreshed, didn’t he? Q wanted to sponge up his energy full-contact, somehow, like a phone on a charging mat. He dismissed the thought as bizarre, but it kept at him, the way bizarre thoughts always did when he hadn’t the battery to fend them off.
The man had said something. Q blinked at him groggily. "…What?"
"…I asked if you really used to work tech support," Bond said.
Shit. He’d said that out loud, hadn’t he? He deflected. "Did you ask all nice like that, or was it more snide?"
"Oh, much more snide," Bond said, with a faint smile that made him—in Q’s bleary eyes—seem to give off visible warmth, like a toaster oven.
"…I had a stint in a call center," Q admitted. "During university."
"At Oxford."
"Nice try."
"A call center for what?"
"Now that wasn’t even a nice try. Honestly. If I won’t tell you where I went to school, what makes you think I’d tell you who I worked for?"
Bond sighed through his nose, a quick, irritated sound. "Then what am I meant to talk to you about?"
Q squinted up at him. The man was in that oddest of tempers again, the one that wouldn’t hold still for dissection and analysis. The one that’d compelled him to ask Q about Rachmaninoff, to ask if he wanted to go for a drive. To ask for his name. It wasn’t that Q disliked this mood; on the contrary, the more he encountered it the more painfully charming he found it. Idiosyncrasies fascinated him. Particularly in Bond’s case, for reasons he refused to examine too closely.
"…Anything at all," Q said. "Tell me about soviet… spy things."
Bond looked at him with far deeper suspicion than was necessary. "…You want to hear about cold war espionage?"
"If it’s interesting, why not? Bored out of my skull listening to room service orders."
"I don’t think you'd find it interesting."
Q recognized this little bit of resistance. The whiff of self-consciousness, like the creak of a rusty gate, making him feel as though if he pushed just a little he might see a side of Bond he hadn’t before. He was beginning to find it addictive. Resting an elbow on the table, he leaned his cheek against his hand. "Make it interesting, then."
He saw the challenge register. Bond lifted his coffee to take a sip, throat bobbing once as he held Q’s eye over the rim; the motion felt practiced, worn smooth and dark with repetition, like the patina tip of a leather shoe. Q wasn’t sure of its intended purpose, only that its effect on him was a sort of warm, lazy paralysis, a feeling that he’d very much like to stay exactly where he was.
"…Alright," Bond said slowly. "Have you ever heard of rib records?"
The phrase didn’t fire any synapses. "Never."
Bond nodded; though he didn’t smile, Q could tell the answer had pleased him. "Might be your sort of thing. Not espionage, precisely, but it’s… in our neighborhood, so to speak."
Q got himself comfortable, determined not to interrupt if he could help it. It wasn’t often he heard Bond speak at length, and from what he knew of the man, it wasn’t often he did so. He wasn’t the type to enjoy explaining things to people; when he did there was always a marked impatience to it, a sense that you should damn well know this already, and it’s a waste of time I haven’t got, and what am I, a bloody schoolteacher now?
Which was why it was a pleasant surprise to hear his voice settle, sonorous and unhurried, like a needle into a record groove.
"During the cold war—this would’ve been in the fifties and sixties—"
"Christ, how old are you?"
"I wasn’t there, Q, I did learn history at school. Do kindly shut up for a minute." Bond took another sip of his coffee before going on. "At that time a good lot of music was banned in the USSR. Soviet émigré artists, the Beatles, all that American bandstand lot, you know. The usual suspects. Vinyl was damned expensive to bootleg and even harder to get hands on at the time, but contraband music is a hot commodity, so you’re a smuggler—what do you do?"
"Improvise?" Q guessed.
"Exactly. Music’s just a line scratched in plastic, whether it’s Rachmaninoff or…" Bond wheeled his hand in the air. "Or whoever."
"…Did you really just fail to come up with the name of one single band? You mentioned the Beatles not ten seconds ago."
Bond gave him a look. Q remembered that he had resolved not to interrupt. He made a somewhat apologetic please continue gesture.
"…So they start improvising. Trying to find some cheap material they can scratch songs into. Eventually someone stumbles across a solution." Here Bond stopped, fixing Q with a prompting look.
"…You’re going to make me guess? Alright, sure." Q sat back in his chair, twirling his pen. "You called them rib records? Can I have another hint?"
"Roentgenizdat."
"I don’t speak Russian. Say it again?"
"How will that help if you don’t speak Russian?"
"It won’t, but your accent is nice. You’ll have to teach me a little sometime." Q tossed his pen back onto his notepad. "I give up. Records made of what?"
"One more hint. It was also called jazz on the bones or bone music."
It took a second, but then something clicked. Q jumped in his chair like he’d been given a static shock. "X-rays! Radiographic film! Oh, but—no, but that’s genius! It'd hold up to carving if you had a lathe, and—oh, what does Roentgenizdat mean…?"
"X-ray publishing. Sort of."
"Fascinating. Fascinating." Growing suddenly suspicious, Q tempered his excitement and leaned back. "You’re not having me on, are you?"
"I’m not, look it up if you don’t believe me. Interesting stuff for the morbid. Music etched into people’s skulls and ribs and things. It's just possible MI6 has a couple stashed away somewhere, we’ve got all sorts of bric a brac in storage."
Q damn near swooned with excitement. Oh, he was absolutely doing an archival holiday when this was over. They’d have to send in search and rescue to smoke him out of the archives. "Thank you very much," he said with real feeling. "You’re right, it’s exactly my sort of thing. Can’t believe I’ve never heard of it before. You really ought to talk more, you know, I'll bet you've got loads of interesting tidbits stashed away."
Bond was studying him, expression illegible. He tilted his head just a little, a painstaking amount, like he was minutely adjusting a camera—trying to bring something blurry into focus, or to move something from background to foreground.
"…Sincerity," he murmured after a beat. "That’s what it is, I think."
Q stared at him blankly. "What… what is?"
"The problem." Bond pushed off the desk, nodding toward Q’s laptop. "Incoming."
Something pinged and Q jumped, nearly knocking the carafe over in his haste to get to the headset. He snatched it off the table and pressed one side to his ear.
"Got it got it got it," he whispered frantically, jabbing his finger at the screen. "It’s Lelievre! Calling the desk!"
"Why are you whispering?" Bond whispered back.
"Because—" Q started the word strong but lost steam, hissing out the end like a stubbed cigarette. Because? Fair point, actually. The people on the phone couldn’t hear him. He cleared his throat and held up one finger in a command to be quiet, which was kindly obeyed.
The whole process was a walkover. Housekeeping, room 806, seven-thirty tomorrow night s’il vous plaît. Q finessed his way—well, alright, more like bullied his way—past the Sarriette’s security protocols and into their scheduling system. Eight o’clock sharp please, and make it a rush job, thanks terribly.
He sat back in his chair, realizing with a violent start that Bond was watching him. Had been watching him, silently, from start to finish. The man had even pulled a chair up, like Q was a television program he’d been meaning to get around to. Trying to hide his discomposure, Q looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "You’re keen. Thinking of taking a desk job?"
"Oh, yes," Bond said smilingly. "Dream of having my own in-and-out basket to manage."
"You do have an in-and-out basket to manage, you just never manage it. Eve makes one of the junior aides do it for you. You’ve even got a desk, if you can believe it, though if anyone’s ever seen you at it—"
"You always call Penny by her christian name," Bond interrupted. "Does she know yours?"
Q blinked, taken aback by the abrupt change in topic. "What? No. No one at MI6 does save for M."
"Tanner knows where you live but he doesn’t know your name? Wait—" Bond tilted his head back, eyes moving back and forth like he was flicking through microfiche. "…Flat’s under an alias, I’ll bet."
Q neither confirmed nor denied this. The first lesson in espionage he’d ever learned was how to neither confirm nor deny things, and he used it constantly. "If it makes you feel any better, M knows my name but doesn’t know where I live."
"So it’s either-or? Christ, that’s stingy. You might be a better spy than me." There was a glimmer of humor in Bond’s eyes, now. "When do I get the privilege?"
"First you’ll have to choose which you want." Q could feel himself approaching danger, but it was so tempting, damn it. Right there in front of him on a silver platter. "Tanner only knows my address in case of emergencies. What do you need it for?"
At this Bond was silent a moment. The smile continued to play on his lips, a little bit treacherous now, and Q found himself caught in his own trap. Picturing, again, how the man would look standing in his flat. Shrugging off his coat, unlacing his shoes, taking the one step up from the foyer into the flat proper. Moving with the ease of someone who’s been in a place a hundred times, someone the cats recognize, someone with their own designated mug to refuse to drink tea out of.
Bond didn’t answer the question. Instead he murmured, "Nobody knows both?"
"Only double-oh nine," Q said innocently.
That earned him a laugh, a startled whipcrack of a thing that tossed the man’s head back. He stood from his chair, apparently ending the interrogation, and gestured at Q’s laptop. "All set up?"
"Should be. Seven-thirty tomorrow night."
"Perfect. I’m going out then."
"Out where?" Q asked, attempting a tone both casual and incurious and failing at both. "Got another date?"
"Another?" Bond stepped up to the full-length, giving himself a brief once-over. "How many do you think I’ve had already?"
"Four."
"That’s very specific."
Q cursed himself inwardly, but outwardly feigned nonchalance. "It’s my job to be specific. Are you charging your dates to MI6 and calling it spycraft?"
"I do actually take a stab at my job sometimes, Q," Bond said. "And may I remind you that even if we’ve got a time to break in to 806, we still need a way to break in?"
"And you’re going to handle that, are you?"
"One of us has to, and you’re stuck here. M would’ve had me handcuff you to that desk if he didn’t think you’d file an HR injunction. Think it might’ve been worth it, myself."
"How are you going to manage?" Q asked, craning his neck around to watch the way Bond pulled his suit jacket closed. Always in one smooth motion, like the folding in of a bird’s wings. He always did the reverse when he sat down, a single flick across his midsection, a button unfastened so deftly it was nearly sleight of hand. Sleek and economical. A stupid thing to call beautiful, but some things just were.
"I have my ways," Bond said.
"Your wiles, you mean? Are you going to use your wiles?"
"Not even my wiles could get the desk to hand over someone else’s room key. But don’t worry." Bond crossed to the door, plucking his overcoat off its hook. "I can be a real spy when needs must."
+++
"I’m in the stairs."
"Right. Switching cameras now."
Q was calm. Something about having the earpiece in did that to him, or maybe it was the high angle of the security cameras. The rooms and halls of the Sarriette were at his beck and call, to be switched and examined and moved about like sections in an open-topped maze; strange, he thought, that children’s dollhouses swung open from the front and not the roof. If you were going to play at divinity anyway, this way was so much more satisfying.
With a prefabricated bit of code, he swapped the CCTV feeds from the seventh and eighth floor halls. Seamless. The screens didn't even blink. "Switched. I’d wait a moment for plausibility’s sake."
Bond only hummed down the line, a pleasant, staticky sound. For this bit of the scheme he was pretending to be on the phone, ducking into the stairwell for a moment’s privacy. His idea. What he called a good old-fashioned subterfuge. He’d also followed through on his promise to get the keycard to 806, though he refused to reveal his methods, opting instead to be smug and enigmatic in Q’s general direction.
After exactly one minute, Bond said, "Hallway’s clear?"
Q studied the feed for the "seventh" floor. "Affirmative."
"Going in, then. Keep eyes on."
"Naturally."
He watched Bond exit the stairwell and stroll to the door, looking slightly harassed, like he’d just had an unpleasant phone call. He whipped out the key card and unlocked the door. Not even a surreptitious glance left and right. This was his room, after all, so why should he care who saw him go inside?
He entered and closed the door.
There was a whine in Q’s ear, quiet but piercing. Then, silence.
Perfect silence. He could no longer hear the static rustle of Bond’s breath in his ear. Blinking, he tapped the headset. Tapped it again. His pulse started to thump. "Hello? Double-oh seven? Have I lost you?"
There was movement on the CCTV, and he leaned in closer—only for his heart to nearly stop in his chest.
Sidonie and Charles Lelievre. Exiting the elevator. Approaching their door. Q’s throat closed, breath not making it into his lungs. On the off chance Bond could still hear him, he said in a rush, "Shit—hide—they’re coming back, they’re at the door, shit shit shit—"
He watched in horror as Sidonie slid her keycard into the reader.
And heard the door behind him click.
Q froze. He knew he had to move. He had to look. He had to do something, but he couldn't do anything, could only sit there paralyzed as the door to suite 706 opened and closed again.
Then he turned, and saw exactly who he’d been expecting.
"Hello, darlin’," Sidonie said, flashing her brilliant smile as she strode into the room. She shed her coat, tossing it over the arm of the sofa. "Hope we’re not being awful rude droppin’ in like this. Thought it was about time for that job interview. The present, right? They say there’s no time like it."
Q jerked to his feet, almost knocking his chair over in the process. He had the sense to reach out and snap his laptop shut, but could do little else, staring at them in blank shock. Lelievre approached him without any sense of malice or even hurry, glancing back to raise a questioning brow at his wife. "Pas le visage?"
"Nah, leave him tidy," she replied breezily, starting on the fingers of her gloves. "Better that gentleman a’ his can identify him when we’re through. More of an impact when it seems like they might just be sleeping, don’t you think? Hope’s a hell of a drug."
Fingers closed in a vice around Q’s elbow. He prepared himself to struggle—to thrash and flail and throw a punch if he had to—but in that split second of indecision Lelievre pressed something to his upper arm. It was silver, unmarked, and about the size and shape of a tube of lipstick.
"Pardonne-moi," the man said, and clicked the thing like a pen. "Small pinch."
A jolt of pain. A feeling like dipping frostbitten fingers in hot water.
Then, nothing at all.
+++
Q awoke to the sound of Chopin.
He was back in the desk chair. It had been dragged over to face the sofa, where Sidonie lounged with a cigarette between her fingers; they’d disabled the smoke alarms, he supposed. The gramophone, too, had been moved, poised now in the suite proper a little ways away from the sitting room set. It played at a nice, polite volume, easy enough to talk over, what his mother would have called dinner party volume.
Q noticed—probably much later than he should’ve—that his hands were tied behind the back of the chair.
"Oh, good, you’ve come to," Sidonie said, tapping her ash into a teacup on the side table. It already held two stubbed cigarettes. "Thought Charles might’ve given you a dose of somethin’ nasty before I got a word. He can’t be told a damn thing when he’s got a guinea pig."
Q tried to wet the insides of his lips, but his tongue stuck; the inside of his mouth felt tacky, like nearly-dry blood. He was dizzy, just this side of sick, his head throbbing to the tune of the music. Instinctively he glanced toward the desk, where his laptop still sat exactly how he’d left it.
"Oh, I won’t pry," Sidonie said, following his gaze. "Not sure I could get past your protocols anyway. You’ve really got a gift in a million, know that? Such a waste."
"Thank you," Q said, voice a rasp. His throat felt scabbed over, but his brain was just starting to grind into action; subtly, he twisted his wrists in their bindings. Twine, probably, and not at all sloppy work. He’d not be getting out of them easy. His only possible weapon, now, was information. "How—how long was I out?"
Sidonie put her cigarette to her lips, and he watched the tip smolder as she took a drag. "Why not ask what you mean, darlin’? No, your knight in shining armor isn’t on his way, and you should really be glad of it. I certainly am. Got no interest in introducing every little toy soldier to his maker, if I had to do that I’d be swamped. It’s big fish for me only."
"…Like me," Q said cautiously. What did she know? Who he was? Who he worked for? Why he was here?
Sidonie didn’t answer, but picked up a manila folder from where it lay on the sofa. She flipped it open, tapped out a bit of ash, and took a breath.
Then she said a name Q hadn’t heard in many, many years.
He must’ve paled, because she smiled, a bit sadly. "You’re not the only one who can do their homework, Freddy dear. I’ll stick with Freddy, if you don’t mind, though Mr. Valentine-Fitzroy only exists on paper. Got a ring to it."
Even outside of work, Q didn’t go by that name anymore. He’d left it behind when he went to university, the way he’d left everything behind. His parents had wanted to keep their son, that young man who acquiesced to their every instruction without complaint, who didn’t think the things Q thought or want the things he wanted. So he’d let them. He’d left that boy behind like a molted cicada shell.
He’d never tried to erase his old life, because he didn’t think anyone would ever try to find it.
"Frederick Valentine-Fitzroy’s a real impressive scam, I’ll give you that," Sidonie said, carelessly turning the page like someone skimming an uninteresting novel. "Birth certificate, class enrollments, bank accounts… hell, he’s even got an award or two. Did you know you got silver in a sixth-form debate championship, Freddy? Of course you do. Got the cover memorized like a cribsheet, I’ll bet."
Q didn’t bother denying it, but he wouldn’t give her anything more to work with, either. He kept his tongue behind gritted teeth, and she went on into his silence.
"You lied to me." There was no accusation in her voice, no malice. She said it exactly the way she’d said his name. "Which is just a shame, really. Not often these days I meet someone I’d like to trust."
Q swallowed. He could hear the sickly, too-loud thump of his heart in his ears; no matter how much he slowed his breath, he couldn’t seem to slow his pulse. He felt it in his wrists, in his hands, beneath the growing numbness. Focus. Think. You have to think. "…Where is he?"
"Hmm? Oh. Downstairs, I expect. We just tipped off security there was someone sniffin’ around the suite. Cute little trick you two pulled, not that it wasn’t easy to reverse-engineer. I’d guess they’re giving him the third degree, might even bring the police in, but they won’t come looking in here, darlin’. No way he’ll give ‘em permission." She smiled vaguely. "You’ve got rights, y’know?"
Q felt the screw in his chest loosen by one turn. Bond was safe; the Lelievre’s just wanted him out of the way. But that also meant there was no cavalry coming. For the time being, Q was on his own. He’d always been good under pressure—had to be, in this line of work—but that was in a controlled environment, where the biggest challenge was typing as fast as he could think. Now he was tied to a chair and shot up with some chemical cocktail of lord only knew what. His hamster-wheel mind wasn’t much use under these conditions, tunneling hysterically through hypotheticals and contingencies and eventualities like a termite gnawing its way through rotted wood.
He closed his eyes; he needed to calm down. One thought at a time. This would be routine stuff for a field agent, no? They probably got tied to a chair first day of basic training. What would he direct an operative to do in this situation? If he was in Bond’s ear, what would he suggest?
Find out what she knows.
"I had a perfectly good reason for lying," he began cautiously. "Surely you understand that."
"Oh, sure. Everyone’s always got a good enough reason. In my racket people lie like they’re getting paid by the word. Yours too, I bet." She was still scanning the contents of the folder, holding her cigarette completely still, smoke trailing upward in a perfect column. "Because we’re not actually in the same line, are we? Mr. Valentine-Fitzroy wasn’t whipped up ham-radio style outta your basement, I know that much. Bleachy clean job like this reeks of a task force with bad suits and a blank check. So who got lucky and scouted you, darlin’? Law or government?"
The screw loosened another degree. She didn’t know he was MI6. She'd been able to dig up his former life, somehow, but not his present one. If he could get himself out of this, there was a very good chance she wouldn’t be able to track him down.
That was the good news. The b-side was not so pleasant. Q was currently in a field agent’s position, and he knew very well what happened to field agents when their captors wanted information. It was the reason Q Branch had been made to design their implements of last resort. M had told him once—the one time he’d been brave enough to voice his misgivings—that field agents are trained to withstand pain and die when they can’t anymore. You don’t know how lucky you are to never have gone through what some of them have. If you’d felt it firsthand, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
A tremor went through Q’s body. Real fear, raw and annihilating. He said nothing.
Sidonie sighed. "S’pose it doesn’t matter so much who signs your checks. I know what y’all were after. Small condolence, maybe, but you found it. You familiar with this piece, Freddy?"
The abrupt topic change stuck in Q’s gears for a second, and he blinked, uncomprehending. This piece. She was talking about the music. In his fear he could see it more than hear it, less a song than a series of notes, caged in bars and skewered on a staff. That was the way it had always been, when he was afraid. When he’d got it wrong one too many times and his fingers went numb and his vision tunneled in, just do it right, it’s easy, it’s just notes on paper. Don’t listen to it. Don’t feel it. Just do it right.
At some point, the track on the gramophone had changed. Still Chopin, he thought, but… what was it? Valse. One of the waltzes, though he wasn’t sure which.
Q had never especially cared for waltzes. Not like he hated the things, but there was a uniformity to them that he chafed at, a strait-laced center under all the fancy fingerwork. Unlike a nocturne, defined by its mood, or an étude by its function, a waltz lived and breathed by its timing. It had to be precisely measured—triple meter, 3/4 time—and god help you if you’d never been able to keep rhythm exactly right.
How can you stand to listen to yourself? Why can’t you hear that it’s wrong?
Q took a steadying breath. Forced his mind to stop tick tick ticking, to stop keeping time. "Chopin’s Waltz in… C-sharp minor?"
Sidonie whistled. "You’re real good, that’s it exactly. This just happens to be a favorite of mine. Y’know what’s special about it?"
"…If this is some sort of test, I’m understandably not in the best frame of mind to be taking it."
She snorted. "Fair enough. It’s the tempo. This is one of those few classical pieces that isn’t in tempo allegro or largo or anything like that, it’s in correct time. Some people translate it as strict time, but others—myself included—think of it as at the right time. Pace is left up to the performer, right? I always thought it meant play this how you feel it ought to be played."
"In correct time," Q murmured, listening to the tide of notes, luminous and dusty. "En tempo giusto…?"
Sidonie smiled, slowly. "…That’s what you’re after, right? Well, here I am."
It took a moment to click. A much longer moment than Q would’ve liked to admit.
"…It’s you," he breathed. "Of course it’s you. You belong to TG."
"Technically, TG belongs to me," she corrected, giving her hand a little wave and making the cigarette smoke ripple. "Named it and everything. You didn’t know that, huh? Thought I was just… what, a footsoldier?"
Q was speechless. They’d come to the Sarriette on a nail file and a prayer, hoping against hope to snag just one extremity of the TG outfit. Now here he sat with its beating heart. The ghost organization made flesh and blood. The urge he’d had at the symphony, to bow at the sight of her, suddenly made a whole lot more sense.
"It’s an honor," he said, weakly but honestly. "I really hate your work."
This stunned a laugh out of her, that addictive, sparkling cackle he’d become familiar with by now. A sound you couldn’t help but chase. It faded as quickly as it’d come, the smile remaining fixed to her lips but going out in her eyes.
Suddenly and horribly, it occurred to Q to wonder why she would tell him this.
"…Why am I here?" He asked. A thousand questions boiled over in his mind, but this one took precedence over all others. "What is it you want from me?"
Now, even the false smile vanished from her face.
"Nothing," she said simply, and stubbed her cigarette out in the teacup. "Whoever it is you work for, they’d be happy to see me with a hole through the skull or in maximum security. That’s the endgame, right? And no doubt in my mind you’ve got the skills to get me there. You’re a big fish, Freddy. It’s too bad, but there’s only one service you can do me now, and I’ll leave that to Charles."
Understanding settled down over Q’s body, quiet but consuming, like a misting rain. It seeped into his clothes, under his skin, down to the marrow of his bones, a chill that found no barrier. This was neither negotiation nor interrogation. He needn’t worry about keeping his mouth shut under duress. Sidonie—consummate hostess that she was—was simply giving him a proper farewell.
This was a courtesy.
She got to her feet, scooping up the folder and tucking it under her arm. Terror punctured Q’s chest like an icepick, and words spilled out of him before he could think them through. "Wait—wait, wait, wait, please. If you know what I can do, what I’m capable of, then—then I can help you. I’m far more use to you alive than dead. I can tell you whatever you want to know. Please, you’re making a mistake."
Sidonie sighed, not even glancing his way. "I’m not gonna debate you on what I should or shouldn’t do here, Freddy. Spent an awful long time keeping myself alive and kickin’ and I’ve just about got the hang of it now. Pretty confident I don’t need your advice. Besides, once someone’s shown themselves willing to lie to me I don’t trust a word out of their mouth."
"I’m not—I wouldn’t lie." Q hated how weak his voice sounded. How desperate. "I wouldn’t. Not about this."
"Yes, darlin’, you would," she said, unflinchingly meeting his gaze. "People will do just about anything to survive."
Having his own words thrown back at him felt like a slap in the face, but nonetheless Q clutched at them. At that moment he might’ve clutched at anything. "You know. You know what this is like, not wanting to die, being terrified for your life—you’ve felt this before, so how can you—"
She laughed. Actually laughed. It wasn’t a cruel sound; it wrenched out of her like a chest cough, gritty and pained. Having started to move away, she switched directions to approach him. "…I’m sorry. No, I shouldn’t laugh, I just—Freddy, I have not lived one day unafraid since I was nine years old. Scared someone’d dig my past up, scared the authorities’d find me, scared they’d lock me back up." Reaching him, she extended and hand and gently tapped the center of his chest. "How you’re feelin’ now, I wake up feelin’ that every morning."
He stared up at her, searching her face, finding nothing. "If you don’t want to go back to prison, why do all this? Why be TG? You have the resources to do whatever you like now, you could—why be this person?"
Her gaze turned almost pitying. "Oh, darlin’. Doesn’t matter a bit what kinda person you are. I still had braces on my teeth when they put me in that hellhole, and for what crime? How’d I earn it? By waking up one morning and deciding, y’know what, today I’m not gonna let anyone smack me around or hold my head underwater or use me to put out a cigarette. That’s all."
Q had nothing to say to that. All the words had dried up in his mouth. There was a sound from somewhere behind him; an opening door, then a soft, concerned voice. "Trésor. Ça va?"
"I’m alright, honey," she said, not glancing up as the footsteps approached, clicking on the wood and then silent on the carpeting. "Just keep ‘im from hollering when I leave, alright?"
"Of course." Something cold pressed into the top of Q’s spine. "Notre ami has a very good head on his shoulders. I’m sure he would like to keep it there as long as possible."
Sidonie sighed through her nose and finally looked up with a sad half-smile. "Looks like it’s my fault we’ll have to pack up shop again. Sorry, honey. Know you were takin’ a real shine to this place."
"Compared to mon trésor I care for nothing and nowhere. Go now. Vas-y. I will catch up."
Q was starting to find it difficult to breathe, let alone speak. Sidonie glanced down at him. "…Don’t draw it out, alright?"
"You are tenderhearted. Very well. For you, anything."
Sidonie turned away. She was retreating. Stepping around the sofa, moving toward the door. Q felt himself straining after her, like if he could just break free, make contact—if he could only reach her somehow—
"Wait," he managed, voice strangled. "Please, wait. Please. I want to live just as badly as you do."
She stopped and looked back. Stared at him for a long moment. He could read nothing in her face but fatigue, a fatigue so deep he wondered how she could breathe.
"…Yeah, you could be right," she conceded, finally. "Sorry about this, Freddy. I really do like you."
He could do nothing, then, but watch her go.
+++
Charles Lelievre sat on the sofa facing him.
Q realized now that he’d never taken a really good look at the man. He did so now. About Bond’s age, sharp-featured, good enough looking for a second glance but not enough to draw the eye. It was his manner of dress and comportment that demanded attention, that would have you asking who he was if you didn’t already know. Q wondered if the aura of a killer—the presence—had to be attained through the act, or if some people just came by it natural.
Maybe killer wasn’t precisely right. An executioner. The sort of man on whom begging would have no effect.
Lelievre set his gun on his leg and held up a small object, the same little silver contraption he’d stuck in Q’s arm to knock him out. "This is my own invention. I fashion it for a dear friend, a sort of, ah… a designer epipen, comprends? The poor man, he is allergic to everything."
Q was distantly aware that he was panicking. The sensation was quiet, muffled by helplessness, like rushing water under a thick layer of ice.
"The device administers epinephrine at an accelerated rate," Lelievre continued. His English became suddenly polished when speaking in clinical terms, as though he’d picked up the language in an operating theater. "Me, I am not so interested in how a thing is administered. I care about the thing itself. I am a chemist. You know this, yes? Sidonie, she tells me you have been snooping." He drew something from his pocket and held it out between his thumb and forefinger; a vial the size of a large pill, containing a perfectly clear liquid.
"This," he said, with a grin of real pride, "Is also is my invention. Sadly only a hobby now, chemistry, only a hobby. I tinker with these things and have no one to try them out on. No subject. A tragic affair."
Q watched him fit the vial into the device, feeling as though he were gazing out through someone else’s eyes. He could see the next few minutes unfolding, step by step, like a training manual. Lelievre would press the metal end to his arm. Click the button once. He’d feel a jab, and then… what? His mind thumbed through all the poisons he was aware of, pages and pages of them, everything he’d skimmed with half his attention elsewhere. It was only for reference, after all. The databases were all searchable and at his fingertips at all times. He needn’t remember which toxin only made you go pleasantly numb, which gave you seizures, which constricted all your blood vessels and stopped your heart or ate slowly away at your insides or made your lungs forget how to breathe.
He wondered if it would be prolonged, or the work of a single moment. If that little silver contraption would take the rest of his life—sixty years, give or take—as quickly as it’d taken his consciousness.
"Don’t," he whispered. A plea, a prayer, it hardly mattered. "Don’t."
"It will not be so very bad." Lelievre’s tone was chiding, as though he were speaking to a child who didn’t want to see the doctor. "There are others much worse. Much worse. Mon trésor, she asks me to not draw it out so much, and I do not like to lie to her." He finished fitting the vial and winked. "You see what happens when you do that, non? The woman is not very nice. But she is… ah, your English phrases, I cannot like them. They do not do it justice. L’amour de ma vie. Here we are, now—small pinch."
It was so sudden that Q didn’t even have time to react. In his other arm this time; the press, the pain, and it was done.
Lelievre casually withdrew the device, tucked it into his pocket, and checked his watch. "It will be very kind of you, mon ami, to tell me how you feel as we go. For as long as you can."
Q’s shoulders slumped and he began to tremble. Tears stung his eyes. He felt nothing but a surge of despair—there was really no other way to describe it. All-consuming despair.
He was going to die.
That mattered far more than how long it would take. How it would happen. Whether or not it would hurt. There was death moving inexorably through his bloodstream, reaching its cold fingers toward his heart. He was going to die. All those years, all of them, all of them, gone.
Better that gentleman a’ his can identify him when we’re through.
It would be Bond who found him. He would slip his keycard in the door, irritated, ready to report that they’d been had. He would look for Q first at the desk, only to find him… where? Would his corpse be left tied here, or would Lelievre move it? Lay it out on the sofa?
More of an impact when it seems like they might just be sleeping, don’t you think? Hope’s a hell of a drug.
Bond would find him, and… well, nothing sentimental. This was double-oh seven, after all. He’d unholster his gun, do the rounds, make sure the room was clear. Were you meant to check for a pulse or check the room first? Q couldn’t recall.
"I feel cold," he said in a hollow monotone.
Lelievre hummed in acknowledgement. "Yes, your core temperature, it will be going down now. Next, I think—but no, I will not skew the results. You are good to cooperate."
Q stared at the gun resting atop Lelievre’s leg. He held it loosely, but his finger was crooked around the trigger, ready to fire should Q start shouting. The sight gave him no jolt of fear as it might’ve before. Why should it? He was already dead. For all he knew, a bullet through the skull would be a mercy.
It was just as he was thinking this that there came a knock at the door.
Q jerked upright—eyes rounding—but Lelievre barely moved, only turning his head at a slight angle. His relaxed fingers tightened around the gun, and fresh terror plunged into Q’s stomach like a bucket into a fetid well.
No. No no no. Get away. Run. Run!
Another knock. Q tried to control his breathing, gathering his strength to scream RUN at the top of his lungs. He didn’t know if it would be enough, not with the room as soundproof as it was, not when his breaths felt so wispy and shallow. Not moments ago he’d been praying, desperately, for Bond to show up and save him; but it was too late now. He was dead. Nothing would change that. The only thing Bond could do by showing up now was get himself killed.
Please go away. Please. I’m not here. Give up, go back downstairs, have a martini and flirt with the bartender. Please. I can’t be the reason you die.
This, for Q, was not a novel thought.
He felt it in his chest, like phantom pain from an old wound, every late night at the bunker. Every time he filed off another quarter millimeter of metal, made another adjustment so miniscule not even the other Q Branch technicians could spot it. Every time his vision blurred and his hands tremored from lack of sleep. But it’s not ready yet. It’s not perfect yet.
I can’t be the reason he doesn't come home.
He was going to get Bond killed. All the equipment he’d come up with to keep the man safe, and Q was the one who was going to kill him.
"He forgets his card, does he? The devil is very lucky." Lelievre’s brow furrowed, and he frowned. "Ah, but maybe he goes to the desk, and that is no good. I do not care for interruptions."
He stood. Panic lanced through Q’s body, splitting the miasma of despair, and for a moment he could see with perfect clarity. He opened his mouth, but Lelievre cut him off before he could get the words out.
"You may shout and give him warning, if you wish," he said, drawing a silencer from his pocket and screwing it onto the gun. "But use your head first—what will this accomplish, hm? This lover of yours, this old-fashioned gentleman, will he listen and run off? Or will he play chevalier, come to your rescue? What do you think?"
Q’s stomach sank. The man was right. Regardless of his opinion on heroics, Bond habitually ran toward trouble, not away. Telling him to flee would not have the desired effect.
"I only want to keep him out of our way, mon ami. You shout and he comes in guns blazing, I sadly must kill him. Stay quiet and he lives. Reasonable?" Without waiting for an answer, Lelievre clicked off the safety and approached the foyer, disappearing from Q’s line of sight. He heard the latch unhooked, the door clicking open. Lelievre’s voice turned jovial, like he was greeting an old friend. "Ah, you have made it! Always a pleasure, come in, come in. No, I think not, monsieur. I think not. Shut the door—very good. Allow me to divest you of your jacket and accoutrement. I will take that, thank you. For my safety and yours."
Q watched, heart in his throat, as Bond was led into the suite proper. His hands were raised, suit jacket gone, holster empty. Lelievre's silencer was pressed to the base of his spine.
Q’s voice came out raw and hoarse, barely more than a creak. "I’m so sorry."
Bond’s expression didn’t change; it was perfectly detached, impossible to read. That uncrackable cryptograph. But as he got closer—as he was led to Q’s side, and their gazes locked—he very slightly, but visibly, recoiled.
Ah, Q thought. There must be something wrong with my eyes.
"What’ve you done to him," Bond said, voice low and even, barely a question.
Keeping the gun firmly in place, Lelievre hooked one foot under the ottoman leg and dragged it over. "I have killed him. Well, I am in the process, at least. To do things in a tidy way, it takes time. But sit down, my friend, I beg, do make yourself comfortable. We have I think—ten minutes, yet, before the toxin finishes what it has started. It is an imprecise science. You may lower your hands, only keep them where I can see them—there you are. I assure you, you are in no danger from me, though I may need to knock you out when I go. You understand."
Bond’s gaze crawled over Q throughout this little speech, trying to glean something, Q supposed, about the nature of what he’d been given. Ten minutes. There was no clock visible from where he sat; nothing to count down the remainder of his life. Maybe it was better that way.
"Where is your wife?" Bond asked, mildly.
"My Sidonie has gone on ahead. She does not like this part. My hobbies bore her, I think." Lelievre offered a self-deprecating smile. "They are a bit… eccentric."
"So she’s left you holding the bag. Sorry—do you know that phrase? What would you call it in French?"
Lelievre, who had been readying himself to sit down, stopped. His eyes narrowed a fraction. "Payer les pots cassés. Left to pay for the broken pots. But I would be careful, monsieur, what you say about my wife. You are in not so good a position to be talking in this way."
Bond lifted his brows. "Why, are you going to shoot me just for that? Thought I’d at least have to say that I’ve slept with her."
Lelievre smiled, slow and pleasant. Then he turned, raised his gun, and pistol-whipped Q across the face.
The gunmetal cracked right into the curve of his cheekbone, a fractal burst of agony, like a nail sledgehammered through his skull. He gasped. The chair rocked beneath him from the velocity of the strike. He was dimly aware of Bond surging to his feet before being immediately forced back down, the silencer jabbed into his chest just over his heart.
"…It is better you do not test me," Lelievre said, smooth and cordial. This was an altogether different man than the one that had shown up at their door, red in the face, hollering at Bond in French and calling him a homewrecker. The bluster had all been for show. His true temper was muzzled, restrained; he was an attack dog that could make himself heel.
Q’s face throbbed, pain digging in like shrapnel with every breath. The world had gone shaky-cam, black and red at the edges; he was terrified he’d lose consciousness, that even these last few minutes of his life would be lost to him.
Bond lifted his hands, slowly, in surrender. His expression had returned to its careful blankness.
"Better," Lelievre said with a slight incline of his chin, lowering himself onto the sofa. "Much better. Sidonie, she tells me not to damage the boy’s face. That is for your benefit, monsieur, only so long as you behave."
"Very kind of her," Bond said without emotion. "Though I wonder what good she thinks his face will do me if he’s dead."
Lelievre did not acknowledge this. He half turned to Q and clicked his tongue, his silencer still pressed to Bond’s chest hard enough to leave a bruise. A perfect blue-black ring. "Ah, I have done a little damage there. I do not like to interfere in this way. Let me see."
The man reached out and dug two fingers into Q’s neck, right below his jaw, against his carotid. Q tried to recoil, but he had nowhere to recoil to. He felt his pulse thump against the man’s fingertips; he saw Bond stiffen, so slightly it was almost imperceptible. Lelievre hummed. "Not yet, not yet. But that is expected in someone this size. The temperature drop, too, is significant. Your petit ami, he feels very much like a corpse already." The man gave Bond a broad grin and a nudge with the gun. "Have you ever had the pleasure of watching a man die, Monsieur Bryce?"
"As a matter of fact, I have," Bond replied conversationally. "Though it doesn’t usually take me this long."
It all happened in a split second.
Bond’s hand struck like a cobra—seized Lelievre’s wrist—slammed his elbow down on the man’s extended arm, hard, so hard that Q almost thought the crack that followed was snapping bone.
No—too loud. Even with the silencer, gunfire was gunfire.
The first shot went into the ceiling. Lelievre’s whole body threw left. Another shot—a clang like a hammer striking a gong—and the music hiccuped and warped. The bullet had missed Bond and pierced straight through the gramophone horn.
Lelievre hit the floor, clipping the coffee table and nearly knocking it on its side. The gun was thrown from his hand, skittering across the wood, and then Bond was on top of him, winding his arm back and smashing his fist into the man’s face. A crunch. A burst of blood. A hideous wet choking sound. Lelievre’s legs thrashed. Bond grabbed him by the face—digging in his fingers—and in the midst of a horrible, wailing scream, he raised the man’s head from the floor and bashed it back down.
The scream cut out like a yanked cord.
Q sat frozen, unable to make a sound. Bond’s expression as he stared down at Lelievre’s limp body was blank, vacant, like a sleepwalker’s; his shoulders rose and fell with the even breaths of deep slumber. His grip on the man’s face unclenched. His fingers uncurled. He distractedly palmed his white shirt, living a grisly streak of blood.
Then he was on his feet, coming towards Q, quick and intent.
Q couldn’t help it; he jerked back. It was instinctive, like an injured rabbit fleeing a snake. Bond stilled with one hand outstretched. His expression did something complicated—something indecipherable—but at least it did something.
"…I’m going to untie your hands," he said, stoic. "Alright?"
Q opened his mouth to answer, but there was a stopper jammed in his throat. He nodded instead. Bond crouched beside the chair, working his bloodied fingers into the knots until they started to come free. Q weakly flexed his hands; they felt numb and swollen, to the point that he was afraid to look at them.
"I’m sorry," he rasped. "I’m—"
"Don’t talk." Bond’s voice was cinched tight, controlled to the point of pain. "Breathe, and do it slowly. I don’t know what—"
For just a fraction of a second, he faltered. His throat bobbed. That one slip of the mask—that single hairline fracture—made the bottom drop out of Q’s stomach.
"…I don’t know exactly what he’s given you," Bond continued, enunciating each word as though he had no desire to hear the sentence whole. "But I don’t think he was lying. We haven’t got time to get you anywhere."
Q’s breath started to pick up, and Bond pressed a quelling palm to the center of his chest. It wasn’t the bloody one, at least, but at this point Q wasn’t sure it would’ve made a difference.
"Breathe," Bond repeated. "Slow. Q? I will fix this."
Then he was on his feet again, the comforting pressure of his hand gone, drawing all the heat with it. He’d taken the twine as well, and now he knelt beside Lelievre and began to tie his legs—first at the knees, then the ankles. He forced one limp arm behind the man’s back and secured it tight to his midsection, looping the twine from several angles so it couldn’t be wrestled free. Strangely, he left the other arm completely unbound. Q had no idea what he was doing, only that it had some purpose, and that he’d clearly done it before.
Just as he was tying the final knot, Lelievre began to stir, which quickly turned to thrashing. A sound of gnarled, guttural pain escaped him, and there was a gurgle of blood as he tried to breathe through his nose, followed by a panicked wheezing as he inhaled it into his sinuses. Bond rose to his feet, staring down dispassionately as the man turned his face toward the carpet and snorted the blood from his nose before it choked him.
"Antidote," Bond said, a flat command.
Lelievre made a sickening, wet sound, just barely recognizable as a laugh. Unamused, Bond nudged the man’s broken nose with the toe of his shoe. Not hard, but it didn’t have to be. Lelievre let out a scream that curled into a snarl, and then he was spitting words in rapid-fire French, too fast for Q to understand.
Bond’s expression didn’t change, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. "I don’t care what it does. Give me the antidote or I’ll break your fingers."
"Antidote." Lelievre barked out another laugh. "What antidote? There is no such thing. C’est un homme condamné."
The man’s free hand had started to move, and Bond pinned his wrist under the sole of his shoe. "No chemist carries poison around without the antidote handy. Especially not a coward like yourself. Where is it?"
Lelievre spat out a mouthful of watery blood; he grinned, teeth glossed pink with it. He looked not at Bond, but at Q, speaking as though they were in on some secret joke. "Should I let him think this, ami? It is like my Sidonie says. To watch a man’s hope fail him, it is a beautiful thing."
Q was beginning to truly feel the symptoms—the chill, the tremors, the dizzying fatigue. He tried to stand from the chair but stumbled, limbs giving out, forcing him to sink to the floor. The texture of the carpet beneath his fingers felt distant, unreal, like he was hearing it described rather than feeling it himself. There was just the slightest hitch drawing breath into his lungs. That’s what it would be, he thought; the lack of oxygen. It would take a little while, suffocating in a room full of air.
Q met Lelievre’s eye and said, soft and hoarse, "Please."
Bond’s shoulders tensed for a split second, but he didn't look in Q's direction, only addressing Lelievre in an almost casual tone. "When this was done to me it was done very slowly, by bending the finger back." He crouched to lift the leg of the coffee table, placing it—almost gently—atop the middle joint of Lelievre’s pinkie. "But I get no enjoyment out of torture and I've not got the time, so I’ll skip the theatrics."
Lelievre tried to jerk away, but Bond stepped down harder on his wrist, gripping the edges of the table. There was an automaton tranquility in his expression that made Q’s blood run cold. His eyes were windows, bricked up; he must have been behind them somewhere, in some compartment of himself, but it was a place Q couldn’t see into. A place, maybe, Bond couldn’t see out of.
"First chance," he said. "You’ll get ten."
Lelievre spoke, seething with disdain and slow enough that Q could understand every word. "Tu devrais profiter de ce temps pour dire au revoir à ton jouet."
You should be using this time to say goodbye to your toy.
Bond slammed the table down with the full weight of his body.
A hideous sound clawed from Lelievre’s throat, trying to be a scream but coming out all air and blood. His body thrashed and jerked like a fish thrown to land. Q snapped his eyes shut, then immediately regretted it; without sight he was unanchored in space, the world turning around him like a washing machine drum. When he opened them again he was on his back without knowing how he’d got there, staring at the ceiling, everything dim and warped like he was looking at it through bottle glass. He gripped himself and couldn’t feel the touch of his own fingers. He had to think each breath into his lungs. Breathe in. You have to breathe in. His chest wouldn’t expand.
There was laughter, without humor, torn to shreds and drunk with pain. There was music, still playing, the sound muffled like someone had thrown a blanket over the gramophone. Mozart’s Piano Sonata No.16 in C Major.
It had to be Mozart, didn’t it.
Q could hear his mother’s voice; never raised, always soft and reasonable, always appropriate for guests. She was telling him there was a correct way to do things, an ideal way to live life. You'll grow out of this. You can't be selfish forever. Correctness took work, practice, resilience. Just like playing scales. Just like playing the Sonatas. The things that felt right to him from the start—the things that felt natural—weren’t.
Don’t give up, she’d said, always so gently. We haven’t given up on you. The right you is in there somewhere, under the wrong one.
Q did not want to die like this. Not listening to Mozart.
Another crack. Another airless scream. Was that the second? The third? It’s not going to do anything, Q wanted to say. To sob, maybe. But the small amount of air he was still able to get would be wasted on a sob; if he cried he’d only be dead that much faster. This wasn’t fair. Something about the polite, bridled Sonata as soundtrack made it all twice as horrible, and there was no reason for it, so why, why—
Why?
The thought went from a knife in his gut to an itch at the back of his mind. Why leave the thing on? For what reason? The Lelievre’s had been systematic about everything else, almost militaristically so; even the strike to Q’s face had been for a reason. The gramophone had no purpose now, yet it was still here.
Why?
Q might’ve laughed if he could’ve, folded under the hysterical panic. His vision was starting to vignette; his chest was starting to hurt, badly, warning him that he wasn’t getting enough air, as though he could do anything about it. But at least he was going to die teasing apart a puzzle, right?
Why?
Bond’s voice. He couldn’t make out the words, but the clean finish of impartiality was gone, varnish roughed off with sandpaper. The man was trying to mask desperation with ruthlessness, but Q could hear it, that whisper of panic, low and constant as a refrigerator hum.
Oh. The puzzle piece clicked. That’s why.
The burst of hope was violent, like he’d been kicked in the solar plexus. Hell of a drug. He tried to drag in enough air to speak, but his throat was shut tight. He had to get up, but his nerves had long since stopped taking orders. He struggled wildly without moving, writhing and clawing inside his own body like it was a coffin being lowered into the ground, screaming within himself, howling with frustration. It was no use; he couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t take a breath. The antidote was a few strides away, and he was too late. He was too late.
A run of notes that sounded like cruel laughter. His mother’s soft, patronizing sigh. What's the point of living if you refuse to live correctly? Are you even trying?
Rage slammed through him, raw and cleansing, so intense it forced a single breath into his lungs.
Shut up. Shut up! This fucking sonata won’t be the last thing I hear! You don’t get to be with me when I die!
He pulled in more air than his body would allow. It felt like his throat was being torn open, his ribs broken in. His voice was steel wool across an open wound. If these would be his last words, he’d make them count.
"James," he gasped. "Freezer."
And that was all the consciousness he had left.
+++
Q woke up.
Merciful quiet. The needle had been taken off the record.
When he was a child, he’d had an older cousin who played the upright bass. It was a beautiful thing, a hollow cavern wrapped in wood that made sounds like the inside of a mountain. He’d hidden inside the case once—hard to imagine now, being so small—and he could remember it vividly. The warm dark, and the black furry lining that kept the instrument safe, and the wood and rosin smell he’d always thought of as the smell of music.
Dark, warm, safe. That’s where he was now, a feeling so embracing it felt like a place. Even the scent—only lighter, fresher, like the case had been opened and the night air had washed in.
"No, stay down. Don’t move." A gently strummed low note; not so low as a bass, but a baritone, maybe. "No, no no no. Don’t. It’s alright. You’re alright."
There was something cool and dry on his forehead, now on his cheek. At his lips, feeling for breath. On his neck, feeling for a pulse. He wanted to say I’m alive, promise, but only managed a wordless mumble.
At the sound of his voice there was a long exhale that quaked all the way through. He felt something rest, heavy, over his heart.
+++
Q opened his eyes on darkness. His vision was a little cloudy, like the milky way.
Gradually, the room came into focus. There was movement to his right; slow and even, back and forth, back and forth. It was Bond, pacing in the semi-darkness. Q knew his restless, caged-tiger gait. There was something arresting about it, something wrenchingly beautiful, that black silhouette swimming through navy blue darkness. Then again, maybe anything he saw at that moment would’ve been that beautiful. Anything at all.
Oh, god, Q thought. I’m alive.
"Bond," he tried to say; it came out raw, barely a whisper, his windpipe scrubbed raw. In a flash the man was kneeling beside him, helping him sit up. The clouds began to clear from Q's vision; he hadn’t even realized his ears were ringing until the sound faded. Bond reached out to touch the back of his hand to Q’s cheek, and it was so warm, so lovely and warm. He leaned helplessly into the touch like a stroked cat.
"Christ, you’re freezing," Bond said under his breath. Q couldn’t stop looking at him, mesmerized by his hooded eyes, the permanent furrow in his brow, the grim set of a mouth that seemed like it would never smile until it did. A moment passed before he could bring himself to speak.
"…You saved my life."
"You saved your own life," Bond murmured. His knuckle skated along Q’s cheekbone, where Lelievre had struck him. "I didn’t do a damned thing. Not one damned thing."
Q wet the inside of his lips, continuing to drink in the man’s face. "Well I… I can’t speak to that, really, since I was unconscious, but I don’t think I could’ve given myself the antidote."
Bond barely seemed to hear him. He gripped Q's wrist, tight, not just feeling for his pulse but clinging to it. There was strain in his voice, like a watch wound too tight. "I’ve dealt with poisons before. Antidotes that need to be kept on ice. I should've remembered. I should’ve realized he was using that fucking gramophone to drown out that fucking freezer. I should've... christ, why are you so cold?"
Q didn’t know what to say. Double-oh agents, by their very nature, worked alone; when blame fell on them it fell swift and final, like an executioner’s axe. A sentiment like it wasn’t your fault would hold no meaning to a man like this. He wished he could catch Bond’s hand and press it just below his throat, where his heartbeat fluttered weakly and his body held a trace of warmth, where his chest rose and fell when he breathed and reverberated when he spoke. I’m alive, you idiot. I might’ve suffocated to death on a hotel room floor and never had another cup of that tea you hate, or ordered takeaway and watched a bad film, or seen the Regent Street lights at Christmas or gone to a symphony or kissed a handsome man goodnight, ever again. But because of you, I’m alive.
"I didn’t even consider they might go after you," Bond said, so quiet it was almost inaudible. He was staring at a fixed point in space; his hand was still gripping Q's wrist, like he’d forgotten it was there. "I was just… sitting downstairs. Waiting out hotel security. While you were—"
He fell silent again.
Q couldn’t help it; meaningless or not, it had to be said. "It wasn’t your fault."
"They tricked me."
"They tricked both of us." Q attempted a smile. "Team effort, getting duped like that."
Bond looked like he wanted to say something; there was a desperate sort of frustration in his eyes, for just a moment, a desire to communicate. Nothing came of it, in the end. He swallowed and said, "Can you stand?"
Gingerly, Q turned to toss his legs off the sofa and wobble to his feet. When he was upright, he caught his reflection in the full-length mirror and startled. He looked… well, he supposed he looked like someone who’d just been poisoned and smacked around. His hair was tousled, cheek already starting to bruise, eyes glazed with residual fright. His hands were visibly shaking, whether from excess adrenaline or the aftershocks of the poison, he had no idea. There was a freckling of blood on his shirt—whose? He wasn’t bleeding. It looked like spatter.
Bond angled him away from the mirror before he could get a closer look. Gently, the man laced his fingers into Q’s hair and combed it back from his face, rough fingertips scraping from scalp to nape in one unhurried motion. Hot pleasure rushed down through Q’s body, blending with the pain into some kind of magnificent alloy. He might've never been touched again. Never felt someone else's heat, someone else's hands, ever again. It felt so good he wanted to cry, wanted to let his knees fail him and pool into Bond's arms like a cat into a corner. He managed to stay upright, only taking a shuddering breath.
"…Look at you." Bond frowned, reaching up to smooth one of Q's eyebrows with his thumb. "Poor little beast."
The turn of phrase was so odd, and so unexpected, that Q couldn’t help a surprised bark of laughter. Pain immediately throbbed through his face, cutting the pleasure off at the knees. He cringed. "Ow, ow, ow."
"Easy, now. Sit back down. Here."
Q sat where he was guided, realizing too late that it was the same chair he’d been tied in. His body reacted, twisting up inside, but he swallowed down the nausea and forced himself not to recoil. Bond pulled the ottoman over and sat down across from him, elbows on his knees, fingers laced. For a moment, he was silent. He seemed to be hesitating. Then—
"…You used my first name," he said, softly. "When you called out to me."
Q winced. "I’m sorry, I just—"
"Hush." Bond spoke firmly, and Q fell silent. "It’s alright. I just wanted to know why. You’ve never called me that before."
Q blinked, taken aback. Feeling his neck heat, he looked down at his hands. He knew why, sort of. It had been an impulse, frantic and delirious, the impulse of a dying man. He shrugged and said, "Maybe I thought it might be my last chance."
Bond’s expression didn’t change, but his laced hands went briefly white at the knuckles. He took a slow, almost silent breath through his nose—let it out—before speaking again. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"
"Um. The wrists. They laced me up too tight. Just a little bruising, though. Thank you for—" Q hesitated, not sure where to begin. "Keeping an eye on me, I suppose. How long was I out?"
"Not long, the antidote was fairly fast acting. Half hour, maybe. You talk in your sleep, you know."
Q looked at him uneasily. "About what?"
The pinched look on Bond’s face melted into something like bemusement. "…Mozart?"
"Oh."
"Just nonsense far as I could tell, but you must really hate the bastard." Bond got to his feet, and Q’s eyes followed him. "Stand back up when you can. We’re leaving."
"Leave—leaving? Sorry?"
"Put this on." Bond pressed something into his arms—a jacket, maybe? It was soft, but it wasn’t his. "Soon as the cleanup crew gets here we’re gone. Now, Q, put it on. There’ll be a car waiting. Hopefully with a medic to look you over."
"The cleanup crew?" Q’s mouth was working faster than his brain, filling in the lag with mindless repetition. "What are—did you call MI6? Are they coming here? But—Lelievre—"
"Lelievre’s dead."
Q froze. In spite of himself his gaze skittered about the darkened room, like there might be a corpse he’d somehow missed on first glance. No corpse—but—
There. Just beside the coffee table. The table itself had been hauled; its legs had left deep, curved tracks in the thick carpet, like fingers dragged through white frosting. Beside one of the legs, no doubt the one that had broken Lelievre’s fingers, there was a dense, wet patch of black. In the dark it had an almost vulgar sheen, somehow worse without the context of the body, like someone had punctured a blood bag and let it glug out into the carpeting. Q knew that if he had stumbled in the dark—stepped on it—it would’ve been like sinking his socked foot into a sodden, lukewarm sponge.
Right. No. People didn’t bleed that much and survive.
Q swallowed. "How…?"
"How do you think?" Bond had turned away and was shoving things into a bag. His voice was like barbed wire as he jerked his chin in the direction of the bedroom. "Go take a look if you’re curious. Never seen my work in person before, have you?"
"I wasn’t—" Q still couldn’t quite bring himself to move, but he evened out his voice with effort. "I just want to know what happened."
"I shot him. That’s what happened. That’s what always happens. Now will you shut up and put that on?"
Bond sounded angry, but he wasn't. He was agitated. It was a subtle difference, but Q could recognize his agitation by now. Its jagged texture, the way it cut his sentences off clean where they would usually weave together. A response was balanced on the tip of Q’s tongue, but he didn’t know how to say it. Not without it sounding like an accusation.
He was tied up. Unarmed. And you shot him? That’s what happened?
What came out—soft and uncertain—was, "Did he say something to you?"
Bond stiffened and swung around. The look he gave Q was hard to read in the dark. "Is that what you—"
He stopped. Turned away. It was a second before he spoke again. "...I don’t kill men for talking. He got free. Got to his gun. Should’ve broken the trigger finger first, I suppose."
Q felt a nauseous swirl of guilt in his stomach. "He tried to shoot you?"
"Not me," Bond bit out. "Chrissakes, Q, put the damn thing on."
+++
The safe house was nicer than Q’s flat. Many places were, mind, but it was still a distinction.
Of course, by nicer he really just meant larger. Compromised agents spending the night in a safe house was protocol—MI6 had to make certain they couldn't be tracked back to headquarters—but safe as the houses may be, they weren't what you'd call homey. This one had clearly been shut up for awhile; the air was stagnant and stale and the bulbs were coated in dust, making it somehow even gloomier with the lights on. There was very little furniture, none of it comfortable, and the bed didn’t even have bedding on it. Just a stripped mattress.
But the exterior, at least, was lovely. It was a fourth-story walkup, with ivy growing all along the outside and a roof of corrugated scrubbed-copper shingles, greening charmingly in the divots where the rain gathered. It was much more pleasant to be out on the little terrace than inside the actual flat, and the terrace was where Q—after giving a full report and passing out cold for an hour’s restless sleep—eventually found Bond.
"I didn’t know you smoked," Q said.
The man, who was leaning against the railing, half turned in his direction. It had rained on their drive over but had since tapered off, leaving the night fresh and cool, with a haze over the bits of London they could see. Not the view they’d had at the Sarriette, but a view nonetheless. A jumbled quilt of rooftops and chimney points.
"…I quit. As far as the service is concerned." Bond gave him a wry smile. "Keep it to yourself, would you? It’s only a bit."
Q shrugged and approached the railing. It was made of poured concrete in fanciful, fluted columns, the surface cold to the touch and just slightly darkened by rain. He caught a whiff of the cigarette smoke before it was snatched away by the breeze and a pang went through his chest. Just a ghost of a thing, made faint with time.
"You’re still here," he said. "I thought you’d have gone."
Bond glanced at him but made no reply. Q wondered if he was being a pest, if the man had just wanted to have a smoke in peace and was irritated at being interrupted. He could usually sense Bond’s irritation, though, feel it prickle like a scratchy sweater. Just as Q was waffling on whether or not to go back inside, Bond spoke. "...I relayed your report to MI6. They'll be looking for her."
They won't find her, Q almost said. I don't think even I could find her. He was fairly certain Sidonie would be out of the country by now, some new identity shrugged on like an overcoat, waiting to hear from someone whose voice she’d never hear again.
Q said nothing, and Bond went on. "She knew your former identity, you said. Not your current one."
"...Right."
"And not who you work for." Bond let out a breath when Q nodded. "Lucky. If she decides she still wants you dead, at the very least you’ll be safe at home and at headquarters. You'll need to keep a distress signal on you, though."
"For how long?"
"Forever."
On that depressing note, they were both silent for awhile. Bond took a deep drag, and Q watched his chest expand and collapse, watched the smoke filter between his teeth and mingle with the mist until it dispersed. It was really a shame that some people looked so good smoking. Hunting for something to say, Q gestured to the cigarette. "How’d you pick up the habit?"
Bond stared out into the night as though he hadn’t heard the question, tapping a finger absently against the railing. Q wondered what he was looking at; the shimmering, chandelier glitter of London. The velvet black sky, still blue-green at its rim, like an overturned glazed bowl. Or some interior vista, projected onto the back of his skull, an image in a camera obscura.
"My mother smoked," Bond said.
Q stilled. The man must have seen it, or felt it, because his lips thinned into a not-quite smile. "…Don’t panic. Promise not to tell you anything."
Running his tongue along the inside of his teeth, Q grappled with how to respond. One of the first things he’d learned upon his advancement to Quartermaster—certainly the first thing he’d been told, directly, as it wasn’t written in any document—was that double-oh agents had no history. Their pasts were scrubbed as clean as their futures; they had no previous lives to speak of. No homes, no families.
Q found, guiltily, that the question he most wanted to ask was: how many living people know that?
"…Do you not want to tell me?" He asked instead. "Or are you really not supposed to?"
Bond seemed to mull the question over, but didn’t answer it. "How much do you know about my background?"
"Practically nothing."
"You know they died when I was a child," he said, affect flat, like he was reading a page in someone else’s dossier. "My parents."
"I actually… I didn’t know that," Q said, haltingly but honestly. He rubbed at his arms just for something to do with his hands. "I’m so sorry."
Bond looked at him, searching his face as though trying to determine if he was lying. Then he smiled, cool and faintly incredulous. "You surprise me. I know it’s in my file, and you of all people should be able to get into any file in MI6 if you want it badly enough."
Q met his gaze and held it. There was a shift; he felt it, tectonic, like movement deep underwater. Something that didn’t register on the surface, but would, eventually and catastrophically.
The hairs at his nape stood on end. He looked away. "Guess I don’t want it that badly."
Bond was quiet for a moment after that. When he finally spoke it was without intonation or temperature. Entirely stripped of anything Q could extrapolate on.
"…No, of course not," he said, almost to himself. "Why would you?"
Q felt, deep in the pit of his stomach, that he’d said the wrong thing. Said exactly what he hadn’t meant. And that he’d done it for no reason, no reason other than to protect himself from something that had already happened. He did want to know James Bond’s history—all of it—but it never would have occurred to him to safecrack MI6’s records in order to do so. It would have been sickening, to find out about the man’s family from a file. From the bolded, bludgeoning word DECEASED. To learn what had happened to him and not even be able to say I’m so sorry.
"I wasn’t—" he started, unsure how to continue, how to mend what he’d torn. That’s not how I meant it. I’d like to know you. I’d like to get to know you the way people do normally. I’d like to have met you under different circumstances. But no—saying any of that would only make it worse. If the man closed off even more—put a safer distance between them—Q didn’t think he’d be able to bear it.
He swallowed and said, "Does it make you feel… better? Smoking, I mean."
Bond’s gaze flicked to him, coldness thawing into cautious amusement. "Better…? Not exactly, no. Suppose I do it when I’m especially stressed."
Q couldn’t help a surprised huff of laughter at that. "Sorry—no, I’m sorry. But… really? This is more stressful than usual? Haven’t you… I don’t know, driven a motorcycle off a bridge? Crashed a helicopter into the sea?"
"Several."
"Several of which?"
Bond only smiled faintly, taking another quick, deep drag. "…It’s more stressful than usual because I don’t like worrying about other people. Someone told me once… humans are easier to fight for than principles. That I’d always struggle harder for a person than I would for Queen and Country, say. It’s true, but humans are also a damned strain on my nerves."
"More trouble than we’re worth?" Q said dryly.
Bond eyed him for a second, then held out the cigarette between his forefinger and thumb. "Would you like one? You’re probably allowed, being on a desk job."
"No, thank you."
"Suit yourself." Bond’s stare remained fixed on him, unwavering. "…Bad memories?"
Too perceptive. Too perceptive by half.
"…My mother also smoked," Q said finally, the words lodging sideways in his throat. Bond nodded and asked nothing else. Instead, he took one more drag and stubbed the cigarette out on the railing. Q’s eyebrows lifted. He considered teasing, asking was that for my benefit, but somehow couldn’t bring himself to follow through. The way Bond had done it—casually, like he’d meant to anyway—was oddly touching.
"Another thing we’ve got in common," Bond said.
"…What’s the first?"
"Both went to Cambridge. Don’t," he interjected when Q started to protest. "You did and that’s a fact."
"What makes you think I went to Cambridge?"
"You made a face when I suggested you went to Oxford."
Q made a face again, automatically. Damn it. He huffed and didn’t respond, which brought the trace of a smile back to Bond’s face.
"Fine," Q said, with more bitterness than he really felt. "You got me."
"Like pulling teeth with you. What’s so classified about that?"
"It’s not classified, it’s just not interesting."
"Eye of the beholder." Bond began tapping his cigarette filter against the railing again, slow and thoughtful, tap tap tap. "What else do I know already? You’ve got two cats. You’re terrified of planes."
"I am not terrified, it’s completely reasonable to not want to be strapped into a tinderbox and hurtled into earth’s atmosphere—"
"You hate cigarettes because of your mother," Bond interrupted, gaze suddenly keen and searching. "…Is that the same reason you hate Mozart?"
Q froze.
This was the point where he would usually deflect. Say something meaningless, a throwaway lie, an excuse; say nothing at all. But for a moment he was back on the floor of the hotel room, the sonata like a knife in his gut, bleeding him out. And then he was there in the merciful silence, Bond’s hand feeling for his pulse, his breath. Knowing the man must have taken the needle off the record, and briefly being more grateful for that than even his own life.
Q took a breath.
"…I used to play," he said. "Piano."
Bond said nothing. Just watched and waited.
"Not very well, mind." Speaking the words aloud felt like pulling a rotten tooth, but Q went on. "My parents, they… picked out the most expensive one they could find. Bought it to corner me. Mozart was my mother’s favorite. Something she could have me play at parties to impress her old-money friends. And something to... to keep me distracted."
"I knew it," Bond said under his breath. "You are posh."
"…Was, maybe. We’re not in touch anymore. Nothing’s coming to me when they die or anything like that."
"Why not?"
He said it like he already knew the answer. At this point, maybe he did. But at least he’d asked.
"The usual sort of thing." Q gave him a brittle smile. "A difference of opinion."
"About what?"
"Me."
Bond said nothing, only continued to look at him steadily, until it got to be too much and Q averted his eyes. The silence was deep, but surprisingly easy; he got the feeling the man would wait there, patiently, as long as it took for him to continue.
"…My parents told me they’d support me financially when I…" Q trailed off. His mother’s exact words had been when you get better, but he refused to repeat something so hideous. "Doesn’t matter. Haven’t spoken to them since. Ran off to Cambridge, got scholarships to pay for everything."
A faint, ironic smile appeared on Bond’s face. "What, you? Wonder how you ever managed that."
Q felt his chest ease, just a little. He smiled back. "Turns out I’m not bad with computers."
"Indispensable skill," Bond said, "For the secretarial pool."
A soft laugh escaped Q’s lips; it was rusty, but real. "Yes, well. Got a government secretarial job right out of school, and from there…"
"Universal Export came calling."
"Guess my typing speed was just that impressive."
Again, it was quiet. Q wanted to look at Bond’s face, admire his profile. Lean into the comforting heat of his arm.
"Did you like it?" The man asked abruptly. "Piano, I mean."
The question caught Q off guard. It was one he’d never been asked before; certainly not by his parents, nor by anyone who’d listened to him play. It was always just a given—why would he put all that time and effort in if he didn’t like it?
"No," he said. "Not playing. Listening, yes, but never playing."
He’d wanted to play. To keep playing, the same notes over and over, until he nailed the timing perfectly the way he was supposed to. But he’d never once liked it. His playing wasn’t allowed to sound like the type he loved to listen to—strange and idiosyncratic and powerful, unwieldy, uncomfortable, irreconcilable. Ugly.
His mother used to tell him that how he felt about music wouldn’t make a difference to the people hearing it. All that mattered was that he did it correctly. So he had; he’d stopped worrying about what he liked or didn’t. He’d stopped listening to music and started listening to timing. And even then, his timing had never been right. It had always been just a little bit off.
"Good you did a runner, then," Bond murmured. "And I’m not just saying that because we got hold of you."
"Got hold of is right, I think M keeps trying to get me tenured somehow."
"Are you after a lifetime position? In the service?"
Q shrugged, gazing vaguely into the soft blue of the night. "Why not? It’s only the rest of my life."
"You’ve got to be careful promising the rest of your life to anyone," Bond said, casting him an amused sidelong look. "There’s the better part of it left."
"I don’t know why you insist on trying to bestow wisdom like you’re a pensioner. You’re not even old enough to retire."
Bond huffed out a laugh. "Nor will I. If MI6 wants the rest of my life they’ve got it. It’s not much, though."
Q glanced at him before lowering his eyes, mumbling, "…That’d better be an old age joke."
"We both know I’m not dying of old age."
For awhile there was nothing but the soft tap, tap of gathered rain down the corrugates of copper shingle, the shush of the breeze, the city noise so indistinct it was like pressing your ear to the wall of London, eavesdropping.
"I wish you wouldn’t—" Q began, then bit his tongue.
"Wouldn’t what?"
"Nothing."
"Q," Bond said, drawn out in that unbearable way. He was smiling, and that was worse somehow, the fact that he could say these things and smile right through them. "You’ve never hesitated to scold me before. Why not now?"
Why not, indeed.
"…Because I don’t have any right," Q said, quietly. He didn’t want to say it; it bled through his fingers like a clutched wound. "Not when I’m the one who makes the gear and packs the bags and buys the plane tickets. I can’t keep shuttling you off to your death and then tell you not to talk like you’re a dead man walking. I’m not that much of a hypocrite."
That left Bond silent for a moment. Not speechless; there was a difference, one that could be felt. He had something to say. It reverberated on the air, a low, anticipatory note, like an orchestra warming its strings. His knuckles were white where he gripped the railing.
Finally he sighed, an exhale of such deep resignation it took the square out of his shoulders. "…Damn it, Q. Damn you right to hell. You’re really going to make me say something sappy, aren’t you?"
Q wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it certainly hadn’t been that. "I’m sorry?"
"Doesn’t have the right," Bond muttered, clearly incensed. "Do you have any idea—no, but you wouldn’t, would you. My own fault. Do you know what devotion is, Q? What it feels like, really?"
The directness in Bond’s tone was sudden and jarring; not an inquiry, but an accusation. Q got the feeling this was either a rhetorical question or a trick one, so he didn’t answer. With another sigh, Bond straightened and reached for his side; there was the soft snap of a clasp undone, his gun drawn from its holster, held out by the barrel. Instinctively Q lifted his hand, and the gun was pressed into his palm. It was warm from being cradled against Bond’s body.
"…It’s seeing someone grab my gun," Bond said, "and knowing they won’t be able to kill me with it. Because you didn’t want that to happen, and made sure that it wouldn’t. You did that."
"It’s not—it wasn’t just me," Q protested, unable to look him in the eye.
Bond went on like he hadn’t spoken. "It’s knowing someone thought through all the ways I might get hurt and tried to stop them happening. Everyone always tells me to take care before I go on a mission. Not many people actually try to take care of me."
"Well, I know you won’t do it yourself," Q said defensively. He could feel heat radiating up from his collar.
"Everyone knows that. That’s why they leave me to my own devices, in general. But you’d never leave me to my own devices when you could leave me to yours, right?"
"If you know that, then stop breaking them."
"I’ll try," Bond said, with what sounded like sincerity. "Really."
Q handed the gun back, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Bond had articulated something he’d never been able to; the fact that he couldn’t put into a kiss the tenderness he put into a gun, or a medical kit, or a radio transceiver. Every second of work, every bit of design and assembly and fine-tuning, was a prayer. Let this be enough. Let this make the difference. Let this be his ticket home.
"That’s not devotion," he mumbled. "It’s my job."
"Oh, for the love of—" Bond cut himself off sharply, shoving his gun back into its holster. "I wasn’t talking about you."
Q stared at him. He opened his mouth only to shut it again. Swallowed before he could bring himself to speak. "…I don’t understand."
"Fine," Bond said, exasperated but not unkind. "Don’t then."
There it was again. That held note. That desire to communicate something he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—put into words. Q was drawn to it, wanted to huddle near it like a cat to a space heater, this one solitary point that James Bond seemed so uncertain of. This hold-your-tongue-and-drive-in-circles something.
"Could you just speak plainly for once?" Q demanded, frustrated.
Bond didn’t look at him. "Speak plainly about what?"
"About—about what you mean."
"What I mean about what?"
"Double-oh seven," Q said, filling his voice to the brim with feigned concern. "Would it actually kill you to not be a pain in the ass? I mean would it genuinely cause you to drop dead? You can tell me if it would, I won’t take advantage."
Bond laughed, sharp and surprised, and suddenly he was turned and taking a step nearer. Closing in. Q’s breath hitched so quick it was almost a hiccup. The wind changed direction, then, and he was caught briefly in a whorl of scent. Cigarette smoke that had soaked deep into Bond’s clothes, now teased free; the clean, metallic tang of rain on brick and scrubbed copper; and beneath it all, that vibrato whiff of music. Always varying but always there.
"Do you know," Bond murmured, a faint smile on his lips, gaze roaming over Q’s face in a manner both mesmerizing and mesmerized. "You are wonderful. It’s a pity you won’t tell me your name. You make me quite mad to know who you are."
Q couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that. It was so—infuriating, the way something spoken so casually could stick in his heart like a splinter. He knew then that until the day he died he’d catch a whiff of tobacco on a rainy night and hear Bond’s voice, those exact words in that exact cadence, played through a layer of satiny noise like a melody pressed in shellac.
He felt, suddenly, exhausted. When the man reached for him, he didn’t even try to retreat.
The backs of Bond’s fingers—very, very gently—coasted along Q’s injured cheek. He could see this now for what it was. An excuse. Only touching him where he was hurt. The man could run his fingertips along a bruise or a broken bone, feel for breath or for a fever or for a pulse, comb Q’s hair back from his face to assess the damage. He could do all of this in perfect artlessness, but Q refused to play along with the pretense. He was too tired. So when Bond touched him he let his eyes drift shut, didn’t feign a wince or fight a sigh, made no attempt to hide that it felt like heaven.
"Doesn’t hurt?" Bond asked softly.
You know it doesn’t.
"Do you mean it to?" Q murmured. "You’ll have to press a little harder than that."
Bond’s fingers stilled, but didn’t withdraw. "…I didn’t mean it to, no."
Q turned, helpless, into the touch. His upper lip just barely grazed Bond’s knuckle. He allowed his voice to go where it wanted, down sweet and hushed almost to a whisper. "Then what are you doing?"
Bond’s hand recoiled like he’d been stung. Q’s eyes snapped open, blinking, surfacing from a dream.
"Nothing," the man said hoarsely, and then he was away from the railing—at the door—and gone.
+++
Better this way, Q had decided. He’d just about managed to convince himself, too.
He was perfectly aware that something had almost happened. It hadn’t been his imagination. Something had almost happened and he’d screwed it up somehow, botched the tempo and gone in too quick and frightened Bond off. His timing, as always, had failed him. Better this way, of course. A mercy, really. He’d known men like James Bond; to a lesser extent, always to a lesser extent, photocopies of an original he’d yet to meet. But he had known them. He knew how things went with them, how they started and ended; only it would be worse this time. It was worse already.
And for a moment, he hadn’t cared.
One night? He’d have taken it. Less than that, even. One kiss, even just to sate the man’s curiosity, even though Q knew it would’ve rendered his heart irretrievable. He’d have buckled at the knees, given in to a craving that would ruin his life and that Bond would’ve forgotten by month’s end.
Better this way, he reminded himself.
He had slept like the dead on the stripped mattress of the safe house. Woken to another torrential downpour and a scribbled note with nothing but instructions, impersonal and unsigned. Bond had gone. And that, Q understood, was the decided end of this little experiment in cohabitation. He wouldn’t see the man again for… months, probably. Not until his next assignment, and even then, he didn’t always have gear that needed explaining.
Q spent the day lying in the dark. Listening to the rain. When his consciousness started to drift—when exhaustion nuzzled up to his side and he dipped into a shallow sleep—he dreamed he was warm under heavy blankets, the lazy tones of a gramophone and the low crackle of an untended fireplace, his legs bracketing Bond’s waist and Bond’s fingers in his hair and an endless, silky murmur in his ear. Words he couldn’t quite make out. More a haunting than a dream.
Better this way.
That evening a car arrived. He was taken for a battery of medical tests, all of which he shuffled through like a sleepwalker. He was asked a hundred questions that someone else seemed to answer in his voice.
Then—finally—he went home.
+++
The girls were not happy with him, but then, they never were.
"I know, my little angel, I’ve been horrible. I can’t ever be forgiven," Q fretted, cradling Lady in his arms like a baby while she pressed her forepaws into his bruised cheek and smacked him repeatedly with her gray feather-duster tail. She was crying, loudly, oh how terribly I’ve been mistreated, abandoned, tossed aside like so much garbage. And now you come crawling back? Now you want my forgiveness, you worthless good-for-nothing?
"You’re so right," Q said, kissing her on her little head, much to her consternation. "Where’s your sister?"
Dodger did not care that he had returned. She was on the sofa listening to BBC Radio 4.
Q would’ve gone to headquarters if he’d been allowed, but the order had come straight from M—he was on temporary leave for at least a week, having almost been killed and so on. He’d darken MI6’s door at his own peril. At any other time he might’ve appreciated the sentiment, but just at present the idea of a whole week without the distraction of work sounded like a nightmare.
He didn’t have anyone to talk to about this sort of thing. Confiding in a coworker would get him ground up in the double-oh seven rumor mill, a fate not quite worse than death but certainly a near thing. While he did have friends outside MI6—not a total lost cause, thank you very much—discussing work with them, even in a figurative way, was out of the question. And none of this could be got into without the context of his work, without the context of Bond’s. His feelings for the man (curses, was that how he was thinking of it now, feelings? Like he was in secondary school?) couldn’t be disentangled from either Q Branch or the double-oh section. Explaining that he lived for his work was easy. But how could he go about explaining that his work—when you got right down to the marrow of it—was the protection and maintenance of one man? That in every ounce of care, every line of code, every sketch of some mechanism brought to life before his eyes, there was a heartbeat that wasn’t his own?
Oh, blast it, he knew damn well it was an excuse. He made gear and arranged travel and fixed up identities for how many agents? He could think of any one of them, couldn’t he, or some anonymous anyone. It was Bond because Bond had struck him like lightning and the electric charge was still there, zapping him every time their eyes met. He imagined Bond’s hands around the grip of every gun because he was imagining them anyway, so might as well put the fixation to use.
"Lord," Q muttered to himself, staring at the ceiling as the radio droned in the background. "I am beyond help, aren’t I? I’m toast."
Dodger—who was curled up on his chest, possibly in a benevolent attempt to crush a lung and put him out of his misery—purred loudly in commiseration.
Just when Q thought he was going to go utterly spare and start pacing the rooms like an animal, he got a call from MI6.
"Tanner," he said immediately upon answering, having recognized the extension. "I’ve had enough holiday. You know, I don’t think human beings are actually supposed to sleep nine hours on the regular. You’ll be shocked to see me, I’m so rested it’s disgusting. I’m glowing. Really horrible."
"Happy to hear it," Tanner replied without sympathy. "Near death experience buys you a week’s leave, sorry. I’m not qualified to reduce that sentence."
"I’m pretty sure there’s something in my employment contract—"
"There isn’t."
"Well, there should be. I know I stipulated one night off a week, but I can’t do them all in a row like this. I’m not built for it."
"For what?" Tanner asked. "Recovering from trauma?"
Q sighed and scratched Dodger under the chin. "I need you to stop being reasonable, can you do that for me? Can MI6 go into some kind of code-red-get-Q-here-on-the-double disaster? Crisis is good for my constitution. It’s healthy."
"I really don’t think that’s true," said Tanner, who unlike Bond or M could always be trusted to engage with Q’s nonsense. "Do you remember when you hooked yourself up to your own quantitative stress level monitor?"
Yes. "No."
"It recommended starting you on tranquilizers."
"You always bring that up. It was one time."
"I called to update you on our progress," Tanner said, ignoring him. "M thought you’d be less likely to try to break into headquarters if we kept you informed."
Q sat up quickly; Dodger, still huddled on his chest like a sleep paralysis demon, rolled unwillingly into his lap with a noise of bitter complaint. "Have you found something out? Tracked Sidonie?"
"No such luck, she really does seem to have vanished. But then I suppose that’s a TG speciality." Tanner sighed. His sighs still didn’t have quite the impact of M’s, though Q suspected he got plenty of practice in. "Cleanup crew got the Sarriette all scrubbed up. Mr. Bryce and his secretary may as well have never existed. Really had to steamroll the place, I understand some of the furniture didn’t quite survive. It’ll have to be got rid off once Q Branch is satisfied there’s no surveillance equipment embedded."
Q, who had started to lay down again, immediately sat back up. This was the last straw for Dodger, who leapt off in disgust and sauntered from the room. "The furniture? What, the Sarriette just let you take it?"
"No one lets us do anything, you know that. No choice but to haul some of it away, the pair of you really did a number on the place. It’s evidence."
Q ran a thumb thoughtfully along his bottom lip. A really awful idea had just sprung to mind—truly inadvisable stuff—but at the end of the day, he was as much a creature of sentiment as logic. "Tanner. Do you think I could ask a favor?"
"…Does it have to do with your cats again?"
"You should be so lucky, but no." Q tossed his legs over the side of the sofa, stepping into his house slippers. "I wonder if you might help me acquire a souvenir of my first mission in the field. You know, a keepsake."
"Your life ought to be keepsake enough," Tanner muttered, though Q could already tell he was going to fold. The man was a people pleaser at heart. "What did you have in mind?"
That very night, a large package arrived at the flat. Q signed for it and dragged it into the sitting room, where he spent the rest of the evening in a process of unboxing and reassembling. It was divine having a proper distraction, even one that only lasted a few hours. The girls—who loved any sort of new furniture they could rub themselves all over—kept him company throughout.
"This," he informed them when he’d finished, running a loving finger over his handiwork, "Was an objectively terrible idea."
In response, they cheerfully took turns trying to trip him.
+++
Q was well aware that, having nearly lost his life, he should really be out there living it—especially now he wasn’t allowed to work and thus had the hours to spare. It was just that every time he talked himself into it—going somewhere different or doing something exciting or, god forbid, meeting someone new—he inevitably talked himself back out again.
Because it always came back to that last bit, didn’t it. Meeting someone.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like people. He’d even been in relationships, and serious ones at that. But they never lasted, because he had what he’d long ago discovered was a critical deficiency.
Q didn’t get lonely.
He had read a lot about loneliness. It was one of the Great Themes of film and literature, loneliness and isolation and the way they ate people up from the inside. Some of the most beautiful passages he’d ever read had been about this gutting sensation, the brutal poetry of emptiness. But for Q, the idea of living alone forever inspired contentment, not despair. He’d found that prospective romantic partners didn’t like that he had no intention of ever getting married, cohabitating, or prioritizing romance over work; that he didn’t want his life absorbed into someone else’s, or to absorb their life into his. I love you, I want us to be special to each other, I want to be with you when I can—these things weren’t ever enough. There was always some next step he was selfish for not wanting to take. This, in the end, was what had terminated all of Q’s serious relationships.
But he still liked dating. He liked feeling someone nudge up close to his heart like that, take hold of his thoughts until he was reminded of them in everything. It was only when he had a lover that he felt something akin to loneliness—a bittersweet, longing feeling. Missing someone. Wondering what they were doing. Wanting to see them again. The feeling wasn’t unpleasant, though; it didn’t hurt. He rather liked it, in fact.
It was probably a very bad sign that he was feeling it now.
"This is getting ridiculous," he said aloud to himself, in his kitchen, washing the same dish for the fiftieth time. "You can’t keep this up forever."
He’d once again caught himself submerged in a memory loop, recalling the smell of rain and copper and cigarettes, lingering over every word Bond had spoken to him. Oh, yes, he remembered them all. Not that he wasn’t questioning the recollection. The man couldn’t possibly have said all that, could he? There was no way in hell he’d used the word devotion, that he’d called Q wonderful in that soft, mesmeric voice. You make me quite mad to know who you are. That had to be fantasy breaching containment.
A warm tickle of fur weaved around his ankles, followed by a plaintive meow. He looked down into Lady’s wide, deceptively innocent eyes. "And what do you know about it? Nothing. Don’t give me those eyes, oh, I’ll always be on your side, I’ll never betray you, one look at double-oh seven and you’d probably snuggle right up to him like a furry little backstabber. Bet he’d man up and give you a kiss."
She meowed beatifically.
"Well, fair point. Wonder if he’s a cat person? He seems like he’d have dogs if he had anything. I don’t think—"
A loud knock at the door cut him off mid-sentence. Q craned his neck around to squint out the kitchen doorway, even though he couldn’t remotely see the foyer from here. Christ, at this hour? It was—hell, what time was it? Had to be gone nine. Package delivery sometimes came this late, but he hadn’t ordered anything. Well, if it was delivery, they’d go away.
No sooner had he turned back to his washing than the knocks came again. Three, brisk but polite. The words official business came to mind, and he momentarily perked up. MI6? No, they’d have called. Warily, he set aside the dish, dried his hands on a washcloth, and padded out of the kitchen. When he reached the door, he hesitated, fingers hovering over the knob. It hadn’t occurred to him until precisely that moment to wonder if he was in any sort of danger. He had, quite recently, dodged an honest-to-god assassination attempt. Could Sidonie have found out who he actually was? Sent someone after him? It should’ve been impossible, but he’d underestimated her once and look where that had got him.
He didn’t have a peephole. Whoever was on the other side of the door would have heard him approaching it and would know that he was hesitating. Surely an assassin wouldn’t knock and wait to be let in?
Q closed his eyes. He could not, and would not, live like this. With a bracing breath, he unlatched and opened the door.
His first thought was, oh. Is it raining a little? His shoulders are wet.
The thought stuck like a jammed printer as James Bond advanced, wordlessly, into his entryway.
The man pushed the door shut after him and turned the bolt, in one smooth motion, like he did it all the time. Q was frozen to the spot, blinking stupidly. Bond was in his flat. His flat. Q was barefoot, in plaid pajama bottoms and a Cambridge t-shirt, Lady curling her tail round his ankles, and Bond was in his flat.
"How did you…" he started, faltering. An image flashed through his mind; Bond, in the driver’s seat of that egregiously expensive car, his gaze flicking up to the Q’s building as they passed. He’d known. He’d known. Q wondered dazedly if reading people was a double-oh skill, or a natural talent, or if he was really just that transparent.
Not important right now. Not remotely important. The man was in his bloody flat.
Bond stood silent. His stare hadn’t softened or wandered; it was fixed on Q with utter tranquility of purpose. He took another step, and Q finally came unstuck, stumbling back; he almost tripped over Lady, who hissed, but Bond caught him easily by the arm.
"Hold still," the man muttered, loosening his grip until it was gentle. "For just… just for a moment."
Q opened his mouth to say lord only knew what, but before he could utter a single syllable, Bond ducked in and pressed a kiss to his parted lips.
Q’s eyes fluttered shut. The kiss lasted no more than a split second; it broke and he chased it, breathing in sharp and deep and desperate, drawing Bond’s lips back to his. No, that can't be all, please. That can't be all. The man’s fingers grazed his bruised cheek, a surprised, fumbling motion that probably would’ve hurt if Q could’ve felt pain just then. For one pristine second all the distances collapsed, all the knots untangled, and they kissed soft, like lovers.
With obvious reluctance, Bond pulled away. His breath feathered Q’s lips, and Q nuzzled after it, stealing one more kiss. Just one more. He couldn’t remember ever wanting something so badly after he’d already gotten it.
"…Damn it," Bond breathed. His voice held something bittersweet, like resignation. "That’s what I was afraid of."
Q was an utter cliche—heart stammering, hands trembling, dizzy with the swoon of a kiss stolen and stolen back. Maybe he should’ve been afraid of this, too. Maybe he should’ve been terrified from the start, standing in a quiet gallery arch, watching a man on a bench gazing at a painting.
"…How are you here right now?" Q murmured, still not opening his eyes, afraid Bond might be gone if he did. "What are you doing here?"
"Took a taxi." Hearing the man’s smile, close enough to kiss, was sublime. "And I hardly know."
Q released him; they hadn’t been holding each other, not exactly, but it still felt like leaving a full-body embrace. He opened his eyes and studied Bond’s features, hunting for some explanation, a whisper of a clue, anything. There was nothing to find. Maddening, marvelous cryptograph of a man. Did people do this? Ever? Show up at each other’s flats all blue eyes and rain-damp hair and just—not even try to explain?
He could kick the man out. On principle. He wouldn’t, not for a million pounds, but he could and that was what mattered.
"Um. Would you like to…" Q floundered. God, this was strange. What was the etiquette in this situation? "…Come inside?"
Bond glanced over Q’s shoulder into the flat. He paused before replying, "I wouldn’t want to impose."
Q almost laughed at that. He felt hysterical. Bit late in the day to worry about imposing, wasn’t it? "Nothing to impose on, I was only washing dishes with Lady."
Lady meowed at the sound of her name, and Bond looked down, possibly noticing for the first time that they weren’t alone. "Hello," he said, inclining his head politely, as though she were an old acquaintance he’d run into at the shops. It was without a doubt the strangest reaction Q had ever seen to a cat, and he was privately delighted.
"Come on then, come in," he insisted, taking the step up from the foyer into the flat proper. He felt weightless, all the thoughts flown from his mind. You’re here. You’re really here. "Would you like some tea?"
Bond eyed him skeptically. "I don’t—"
"Yes, I know, it’s mud. Just take a cup to be polite, I won’t make you drink it. It’ll warm your hands up."
"…Is it normal?"
"It’s not earl grey, if that’s what you mean."
In the kitchen, the kettle was still warm to the touch and didn’t take long to whistle. Q had left the overheads off—he always did—the room lit only by the dusty antique lamp with its dusty antique glow. It made the cheap wood cabinets and the warped floorboards seem caramel-varnished and charming. Dodger was folded neatly onto one of the chairs, a massive loaf of ginger fur. At Bond's entrance, she glanced up with complete and utter disinterest. He seemed interested in her, though, reaching out to scratch her behind one ear. Lady—dancing figure-eights around his ankles—complained vocally.
"Lady, and…" Bond prompted.
"Dodger."
Amusement trickled into his tone. "Like a jammie dodger?"
"Like the artful dodger." Q pulled down the tea and filled two cups; his go-to scrabble mug, and another with various ducks on it. "I think. I kept the shelter names, since they suited."
"Not very ladylike," Bond commented as Lady headbutted his calf, whacking him with her tail.
"I don’t know. Ladies do have a tendency to hang all over you, don’t they? Honey?"
Bond looked up, blinking; suppressing a smile, Q indicated the kettle.
"Oh. No, thank you."
They took their mugs, Bond raising his to his lips before the tea even had a chance to steep. He didn’t sit, but remained stationed in the doorway like he might bolt at any second.
In my flat, Q marveled to himself. Drinking out of my Ducks of the British Isles mug.
It became clear that Bond was waiting for him to say something. Q stubbornly did not. He took a slow draft of still-weak tea, eyeing the man expectantly over the rim of his mug.
"…I feel like I ought to apologize," Bond said, finally.
"For what?"
"I don’t know, but you have this look like I ought to."
"Hm. You can apologize for wearing your shoes into the flat, I suppose. I was always told leaving them on telegraphs that you’re in a rush to leave."
"I hadn’t intended to stay long."
"What had you intended?" Q asked mildly. He was getting the sense that Bond was well out of his comfort zone, and that it might be advantageous to keep him there. "Barge in, kiss me, and flee? A hit and run, as it were?"
In an evident attempt to buy himself some time, Bond took a proper sip of tea, and—to Q’s inner raptures—made a face. "…As it were."
"Why are you standing like that? Are you going to make a run for it? At ease, for heaven’s sake. I’m not going to pounce on you. How did you know which flat was mine?"
Bond winced. "…I didn’t. Bothered a few of your neighbors, I’m afraid."
"My god." Q set his mug down hard on the counter, staring at the man in frank disbelief. "What absolutely shoddy work. You didn’t think this scheme through at all, did you?"
Bond held his gaze, steady and unwavering. His voice softened—gentled—until it echoed the earlier press of his lips. "I wasn’t scheming, Q. I just wanted to see you."
Q’s heartbeat stuttered. Lord, but that sounded sincere. Either he truly meant it or he was really polishing up the counterfeit coin. Maybe that didn’t have to matter. Maybe none of it did. For Q’s part, all he could bring himself to care about was the simple fact of the man, the relief of his presence, a held breath finally let out.
He knew now, for certain, that a kiss would never have cut it. A night wouldn’t, either; whatever he got from Bond would never be enough. It was that sensation again, the feeling of being expertly tuned, his heart setting the temperament and the rest of him pulled into alignment one key, one string, at a time. It’d be a melancholy tune played, in the end, but the harmony would be perfect.
"…Well, you’ve seen me," Q said softly. "Are you satisfied?"
Bond set his mug carefully down. His shoes clicked on the wood as he came forward. Such a familiar sound now, his approach.
Q settled back until his tailbone met the counter; not retreating, but giving way, inviting Bond into the remaining space between them. Aching proximity, shared heat, fabric brushing fabric. Q rested his index finger just under Bond’s ear and scraped it firmly down the line of his jaw. The bristle of stubble prickled, hot, rolling from his fingertip straight down into his hips.
"I like this," he said. "You usually have such a clean shave."
Bond placed a hand on his waist, firm but oddly polite, like Q was a date he was steering around a cocktail party. "Wouldn’t have taken you for keen on the rugged type."
"Oh, the more rugged the better. You’re much too tame for me, in general."
A faint smile traced the man’s lips; it was different, watching it up close like this. Like scaling a high wall and finally seeing what lay on the other side.
"Close your eyes," Bond directed, and he did.
A light touch at the nape of his neck. Pressure building as it slid upward, fingers carding, rough, into his hair. Q swallowed and gripped the edge of the counter. Bond curled his hand into a loose fist, giving Q’s hair a cursory tug and making him bite his tongue.
The man hummed, contemplative. Slowly, Q’s head was eased back. Breath velveted over his neck; gooseflesh pricked up along his arms. There was wet heat in the well of his throat. He didn’t process that it was Bond’s tongue until the man licked a stripe clean up the center of his neck.
Q gasped. His hips bucked. Bond absorbed the jolt, running the hand on Q’s waist soothingly up and down. "Sensitive," he mumbled. "Thought so."
"You surprised me," Q managed, betrayed by his own breathlessness.
Bond blew lightly along the wet streak, the chill like a breeze cooling sweat. Q shivered. Longing soaked him to the skin, longing to touch, but some masochistic urge kept him clinging tight to the counter. He felt Bond nuzzle into the side of his neck and flinched at the jolt of stubble, a hundred pinpricks. The furnace blast of hot breath. It was different than the first time, at the party, what now felt like ages ago; there was no champagne to blunt it or pretense to keep it leashed. Bond wasn’t teasing him, but tasting him, adding a layer of pressure with every tiny reaction, pursuing every twitch like he wanted them caught and pinned down.
"You’re really white-knuckling it, aren’t you, Q?" He mumbled, thumb drawing agitated little circles into Q’s waist. "You don’t have to be so well behaved."
"I’m not being well behaved, I’m just…" Q didn’t have the first idea how to explain; as far as he knew, there wasn’t a word in English for what he was feeling. He searched for something else, something comparable. "…I’m nervous. You’re making me very nervous."
"Hmm. Is that what’s got your pulse going? Nerves?"
"What else?" Q asked, just to be difficult.
Bond pulled back and kissed him, hard and fast. There was something wonderfully brutal about it, like was trying to shoulder in a door, turn the solid to splinters. Something came unstuck in Q’s chest and he released the counter, snaking one hand around the man’s neck and gripping his bicep with the other. He didn’t think to get air, didn’t want to, holding his breath and drawing as close as he could to that gentle, humming ache. Their legs laced together. The press of a firm thigh between his made the world blur away like melting film. There was the briefest swipe of Bond’s tongue, retreating when Q chased it; once more, a tease of hot, wet breath, gone when he leaned in. Bending to frustration, he caught the man’s bottom lip between his teeth and nipped him.
"Ow," Bond mumbled, and Q could feel his smile, feel how he leaned into the bite instead of retreating. "Play fair."
"Thought I didn’t have to be well behaved."
"You can bite and scratch all you want later, but it’s not sporting to do it while I’m treating you so nicely."
"Later," Q echoed. "Why later? Don’t tease. Did you really just come here to kiss me?"
As though in retort, Bond did kiss him. Properly. Q let his jaw go slack, opened his mouth on a soft, hungry murmur that would’ve been please if it was anything. Bond slid into him, deep and devouring and slow. Their noses bumped, bodies nestling impatiently toward an impossible nearness. Q could’ve wept from relief at the instinctive rock of Bond’s hips against him. The promise of it.
Then Bond tugged back hard on his hair, and they separated on a shared gasp.
"Q. Maybe not here."
"What? why not?"
As if on cue, Lady leapt up onto the counter and knocked her forehead into Q’s arm, yowling in disapproval. Q’s head fell forward on a little wheeze of laughter. "Not an exhibitionist?"
"Funny." Bond’s voice warmed and he took a step back. His leg slid out from between Q’s thighs, and Q had to catch himself on the counter; he'd gone loose-limbed and hot all over. He watched as Bond’s grip traced down his arm, caught him by the fingers, lifted their hands into the space between them. Then—to Q’s astonishment—the man inclined forward and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. Another to the back of his hand. The back of his wrist. He was just starting up his arm when Q finally laughed, embarrassingly close to a giggle, breaking free to swat at him.
"Stop it, now—are you from the 1800’s? Does that ever work for you?"
"Every single time," Bond said seriously.
"You’re lying."
"Go on then, send me packing. You’d be the first."
Q took a breath and recovered himself, suppressing the giddiness that wanted to tip him helplessly forward into the man’s arms. There was something very much the matter with him. "I’m going to ask if you’d like to—to come to my room, but I need you to know it is not because of that. Ridiculous behavior."
"One hundred percent turnover rate."
"Alright, go home. I mean it."
Bond ignored this, glancing down the hall off the kitchen. "Is it through there? Your bedroom."
"Who can say?"
Bond took a step nearer; he was all slyness now, all finesse, like he was picking a lock. It occurred to Q that the man had very much returned to his comfort zone. "Q. Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder."
"Go ahead and try it, I’d love to see you pull something. It’d make for a great call to headquarters. Help, help, Tanner, double-oh seven’s thrown his back out showing off." Q pushed off the counter and strolled toward the hall, grazing his index finger along Bond’s belt as he passed. When the man leaned into his touch, started to follow, Q halted him with the palm of his hand. "Forgetting something?"
Bond raised his eyebrows.
"Shoes off," Q said. "If you’re staying awhile."
+++
Bond stared down at Q’s bed. Specifically at the quilt, which was shabbily fringed and patched with the sort of floral odds-and-ends you saw at the pound shop.
"I know it’s ugly," Q said defensively.
"Oh, good."
"One of my neighbors gave it to me as a housewarming gift."
The expression on Bond’s face softened by a degree, and he reached out to gently knock Q’s chin with a knuckle. "Too sweet for your own good, aren’t you?"
Q’s bedroom was a simple affair, small and homey like the rest of his flat. There was a brass lamp with an embroidered shade—a set with the one in the kitchen—though this one was dented and sat at an angle. There was a miniature secretary desk, the kind that folded out, mostly used to stack books he would definitely get around to reading someday. There was a bookshelf for the ones he’d already read, and an oak wardrobe a little too big and posh for the room, which he’d bought on a whim and then had to take apart to fit through the door.
There was a double bed. One he’d never shared with another person. And now there was a man, examining everything in minute detail like he might be tested on it later.
"No computer," Bond said, almost accusingly, like Q was playing a trick on him.
"No electronics. Bedrooms are for sleeping."
"Only?"
Q shifted back and forth on his feet. He’d shut the door to keep Lady and Dodger out, and it was only occurring to him now how small the room felt with two people in it. "I don’t usually…" he began, then stopped, not really sure how to go on. He was caught between warring emotions—the too-tight screw of nervousness that came with having someone in his space, and another feeling, silky and unfamiliar. Covetousness, he thought. Like Bond was a ring he’d tucked into the velvet of a jewelry box.
Bond didn’t prompt him to finish the sentence. He ran a finger along the spines of Q’s books, a smile stealing over his face. "…You read spy novels."
Q felt himself blush. Somehow that was more embarrassing than the romances. "They’re not very… accurate."
"Is this why you went for MI6?" Bond teased, drawing a book out by its top corner to reveal a triangle of red dust jacket. "Wanted to be the dashing hero of a spy story?"
Q reached out to push the book neatly back in. "Maybe I wanted to sleep with one."
Bond’s eyebrows hitched up. "My god, was that a line, Q? Did you just use a line on me?"
"Did it work?"
"Perfectly, I’m all aflutter." He got in close, slipping an arm around Q’s waist. "Haven’t got your heart’s desire yet? Not with… oh, I don’t know, double-oh nine, for instance?"
Q wanted to say I’ve only ever had eyes for you. As far as MI6 was concerned, at least, it was the truth. But he was wary of frightening the man off with unnecessary sentimentality, so instead he replied, "Jealous?"
"Should I be?"
"Rest easy. Double-oh nine has never seen my ugly floral quilt."
"Almost envy him that."
Q fiddled with one of the man’s shirt buttons, glancing at him in what he hoped was a becoming sort of way. "Could I… um…"
Bond did not make things any easier for him, only lifting his brows and waiting. His patience was exemplary; even as the silence stretched on, he didn’t crack. Finally, Q said—a bit too quickly— "Could I have a look at you?"
"Of course," Bond answered. He curled his fingers around Q’s wrist, guiding his hand downward. "You take this, since you’re the expert. I’ll get the shirt."
Q took his time unbuckling the man’s belt, letting himself savor it the way he hadn’t been able to the first time. His gaze flicked between his own hands and Bond’s, watching the pearly buttons come undone, the shirttails pulled from the waistband. He slid the belt free and set it aside. Then there was the single tortoiseshell button, and the zipper; he pulled it slowly, enjoying the sound and resistance. Bond worked his shirt off and tossed it over a stack of books. His trousers slipped down and he stepped out of them. He had on dark boxer briefs underneath—gunmetal gray, had to be, didn’t it—and Q absently ran a finger over the elastic, once, before stepping back to take in the whole picture.
And by god what a picture it was.
Though he was instrumental in designing the double-oh’s gear, it wasn’t Q’s job to measure them for it. As a result, he’d never actually seen the whole of Bond’s body before. The closest he had ever come was numbers on a screen; chest, hips, waist, inseam. He was glad, now, that his first time laying eyes on Bond in the flesh wouldn’t be under the pretext of a tailor’s tape.
The man was—not to put too fine a point on it—a revelation. Q put his face in his hands, letting out a sound of honest-to-god distress.
"Problem?" Bond asked. Smug bastard.
"You’re very… hot," Q said weakly.
"Thank you."
"Really," Q went on, as though Bond might somehow not believe him. "Your body is… it’s stunning."
Fingers closed around his wrists; his hands were tugged gently down, and he felt the heat of Bond’s chest beneath his palms. The man leaned in close, their noses brushing, and murmured against the corner of Q’s mouth. "It’s functional, too."
Q let out a breath of nervous laughter. "Oh, really."
"Mhmm. Not only for show, believe it or not."
"Let’s just take it for a spin, then."
Bond’s lips moved down to his neck; there was a languid single-mindedness to him now, unhurried but intent. His fingers hooked into the waistband of Q’s pajama bottoms and easily slid them down. Q felt a sudden spike of self consciousness, climbing ever higher as Bond’s fingers slipped under the hem of his shirt. The man had called him scrawny before, and he wasn’t wrong; side-by-side comparison with a Renaissance sculpture wouldn’t do him any favors. He caught the man’s wrists, keeping the shirt in place.
"Alright, come on then," Bond said, just a hint of complaint in his tone. "I’ve already had a pretty good look at the legs, now let’s see the rest."
"That was for work," Q said, doing halfhearted battle with Bond’s hands. The man momentarily backed off, returning to his gentle assault on Q’s neck. Each kiss was cajoling, please, please, please. Q’s voice came out weak. "I don’t much like to—I mean, I don’t think I should—"
"Why not?"
"…Have you seen yourself? Like, looked in a mirror? Ever?"
"Q. Darling," Bond muttered with a somehow dangerous patience. "If you spoil my view with that horrible Cambridge shirt I’m going to be very cross."
Q was certain that shouldn’t turn him on as much as it did, but que sera. "You don’t like it? I quite like it."
"I’ll make you a deal," Bond coaxed, in that slow, cream-coffee voice that made Q want to do whatever he asked. "Take that off—"
"I’m not—"
"—and put this on." Snapping up his own shirt from where it had fallen, he dangled it from a hooked finger. There was a devilish gleam in his eyes.
Q scrutinized him warily. "…Why?"
"You can’t imagine?"
"Is this because of the stunt I pulled at the Sarriette? If you want to tease me—"
"I do, very much," Bond said, far too earnestly. "But it’s more that I liked how it looked on you."
"Now you are teasing."
"I’m not. D’you know what I thought when I saw you? Standing there pretending we’d just been in bed together?" Bond leaned in, dodging a kiss by a millimeter. His lips grazed Q’s cheek, moving up to his ear. "I thought, that’s not how he’d look if I’d really been at him."
Q was quickly losing resolve. He felt like a sandcastle dissolving under the advancing lap of the tide. This was not remotely fair, but then he wasn’t sure why he’d expected Bond to play fair in the first place. "…Did you really?"
"Yes, Q. My French is usually better than what you heard." Bond nipped him lightly on the ear. "I couldn’t focus because I was thinking about treating you very badly indeed."
Q let his eyes flutter shut as Bond’s fingers trailed along the hem of his shirt. "Um. Just for future reference, then… in case I have to play a similar role someday…"
"In your promising career as a field agent?"
"Right. Could you give me some pointers?"
"…On how you ought to look the morning after?" Bond’s amusement took on a slightly hungry edge. Oh, Q thought. He likes this game. "Well, first of all, you shouldn’t have been walking so steadily."
Q let out a little snort of laughter. "Starting strong."
"Hush." Bond backed him toward the bed, snaking an arm around his waist to pull him in snug. The man’s body was warm and firm and—christ, just wonderful all round. "Secondly, you didn’t have a single mark on you, which is insulting. Your neck at least should’ve been obscene to look at."
"Is that a threat? Would you have mauled me? Maybe you decided to be decent."
"I wouldn’t have. Bite marks and stubble burn everywhere." Bond’s free hand wandered low, scraping callused fingertips along Q’s inner thigh. "Everywhere."
They took another entangled step, the backs of Q’s knees hitting the end of the bed. He locked them so they wouldn’t buckle. "You’re usually clean-shaven, though."
"Q," Bond said, sounding mildly affronted. "We’re sleeping together in this scenario. You think I’d shave after finding out you like the stubble?"
"Sorry, right, of course. My mistake."
"Come to think of it," Bond mused, "You’d have left the glasses on, too."
Q was alarmed to find himself stifling a giggle. "You like glasses?"
"I like yours. They suit you."
There was something so sweet in the matter-of-fact way he said it; not a compliment, but an observation. Q felt punch-drunk. He slid his arms around the man’s neck, leaning in to kiss his jaw. "You know, this all seems like an awful lot of work to fake."
"An awful lot," Bond agreed solemnly.
"Maybe you ought to bite the bullet and just fuck me?"
"I think for efficiency’s sake I’d better."
The laughter swelling in Q’s chest finally burst free like a popped cork, and then Bond was shaking with it too. A shove and they went down, springs squeaking as they tangled together, half-naked and in hysterics on the hideous ratty quilt. Bond’s laughter was wonderful; it was music, the way it washed over you, a joyful tumble of notes. The man propped himself up, and the loss of his weight made something rebel in Q’s brain—that faulty synapse, the one that craved wrong notes and off timing and bad form. Anything idiosyncratic. Anything to remind him that the music was powered by the fallible thump of a human heart, not the tick of a metronome.
He grinned foolishly. "I’ve never heard you laugh like that."
Bond’s own smile faded; not into a frown, but into a soft, considering look. "You haven’t known me very long."
Q wondered at that for a moment, the overwhelming, surreal truth of it. Carefully, he maneuvered his legs so Bond’s body was between them. Then he pushed himself up on one elbow, making eye contact; signaling, hesitantly, what he wanted to try. Bond smiled and capitulated willingly, letting Q roll him onto his back and straddle him in one smooth motion.
Lord, that was good. There was something deeply satisfying about sitting astride him like this. The solidity of it. Like holding something made of dense, heavy metal in your palm. Bond’s eyes briefly closed as Q’s weight settled down onto him, a sip of breath drawn quick between his lips; Q let his eyes drift shut, reveling for a moment, until there was once again a tug at the hem of his shirt.
He cracked one eye open. "Alright, hands where I can see them."
"…Bossy." Bond laced his fingers behind his head and reclined back against the pillows. The lines of his body in repose—sprawled out like this, provocative and inviting—were almost inexcusably beautiful. Q laid his hands against the man’s abdomen and ran them slowly upward, marveling at the way the flesh gave beneath his fingers, like seeing a marble statue breathe. He continued up, over the subtle ridge of Bond’s ribcage, his pecs, brushing his nipples—which, to Q’s satisfaction, caused a twitch of interest where they were pressed together. Bond’s gaze had gone soft and hot, blinks slowing almost drowsily. Q’s left hand slid higher, until it reached the jagged scar just below the collarbone. He traced it with his fingertip.
"What is it about that," Bond mumbled, "That people find so fascinating?"
Q didn’t answer for a moment, considering. Part of the scar was almost perfectly round, like a shallow crater on the surface of the moon. It’s a reason to ask, he wanted to say. A wound, even healed over, was a way in; an access point to someone else’s history.
He shrugged. "It’s sexy."
Bond huffed out a laugh. "Can I use my hands now?"
"No," Q said, mostly to see if Bond would listen to him. Surprisingly, he did, only narrowing his eyes by a fraction. Interesting. Q ran his fingers lightly back down the man’s torso, coming to a stop at the elastic waistband. Bond was watching him steadily, and he felt his face heat. It was all well and good to be domineering, to forbid the man the use of his hands, but that meant Q would have to do this all himself. And the thought of doing it with an audience was beyond mortifying.
He cleared his throat. "Um. If I leave you in here for a bit, can you promise not to touch anything?"
"Why?" Bond asked innocently. "Going to go powder your nose?"
Q gave him a jab in the stomach, which he barely reacted to because he probably did one thousand sit-ups a day. "Funny. You’re just lucky I happen to have…"
Q trailed off, thoughts scrolling through his mind at speed, adding and subtracting and dividing. His eyes narrowed, then widened in dawning realization. Practically leaping off the bed, he dove for Bond’s trousers and snatched them up off the floor.
Bond jerked upright. "What’re you—"
"Hush." Q fished around in the right pocket; empty. He switched to the left, and—finding what he was looking for—ripped it out and thrust his arm in the air with chivalric triumph, like he’d just pulled the sword from the stone. "I knew it!"
"No need to shout," Bond muttered. Was that embarrassment on his face? Honest-to-god embarrassment?
Q aimed the foil package at him accusingly. "You were absolutely not going to kiss and run, you liar. You came here to debauch me. One, two… four times!"
"I always carry those."
"You always carry condoms and nothing else?"
Bond went silent, donning a very military-intelligence, you’ll never take me alive sort of expression.
"Don’t do that. Don’t pull that secret agent stuff. Admit you came here with malice aforethought. Mister total confidence, oh, I’ll just show up all hot and Q will buckle like London Bridge."
"And I was right," Bond said complacently. And correctly, the bastard. "Bring those here."
"Shan’t." Q crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his nose. "You can come and get them. Just come here and get them."
"Q…" Bond drew the letter out extra long this time, lilting it up and back down again pettishly. God, even his whining was sexy. "I was only being so optimistic."
"What would you have done if I’d sent you home?"
"Trudged around in the dark sighing wistfully. Bring those here, damn it."
"Take them." Q flung the pack at him. He tried to look superior, but his cheeks had gone all flushed again. "And just so you know, that’s not all you need for… with a man, I mean."
Bond met his eye and smirked. "Back pocket."
+++
Q opened and closed his hands, feeling incredibly out of his element standing in his own bedroom. Bond was sprawled across his bed, one arm tossed over his stomach, the other over his eyes. His chest rose and fell gently, like he was dozing. He looked like a damned baroque painting, christ, he was beautiful. All… angles, but just a bit soft, more touchable than something you’d see in a museum. Lamplit and marvelous.
"Q," Bond muttered, making him jump. "How long are you going to stand there?"
"I thought you might’ve been sleeping."
"Well I hope you would’ve woken me up if I was." Bond lowered his arm from his face. "You took awhile. Come here."
Q went there. He was still wearing his shirt, which Bond clearly noticed but didn’t comment on, only watching him steadily as he climbed back onto the bed. Q didn’t ask where the man wanted him; he returned immediately to where he’d been before, where it felt natural to be, straddling Bond’s lap. It made something in his body settle. The man reached up and traced the back of his index finger, softly, over Q’s upper lip.
"Cupid’s bow," he murmured.
Q leaned into the touch, pressing a slow kiss to the man’s knuckles. He let his eyes fall shut, let Bond’s other hand slide around his leg, callused fingers stroking into the soft underside of his knee. He jolted, lips parting; Bond’s middle finger dipped briefly into his mouth, just grazing the tip of his tongue. Q nipped him, wandering his fingers to and fro over the man’s waistband, sliding them under the elastic.
"Tease," Bond whispered.
"Oh, my apologies." Q gripped him through the cotton and squeezed, gently. Bond pulled in a sharp hiss of air, twitching in his hand, body going taut before relaxing again. Q let go and dragged one fingertip downward, slowly, from tip to base.
Bond’s groan crackled into a strained laugh. "Trying to bloody kill me."
"Excuse you, I’m the one in imminent peril here. Do they let you through airport security with this?"
"I’ve got to declare it."
Q let out a snort of laughter that was decidedly unattractive, and the look Bond gave him in return brought him up short. He’d seen it before, this particular smile; it had always registered to him as amused or entertained, but looking at it now the word that sprung to mind was fond.
Double-oh seven, he wanted to say, marveling at the gentle expression, I could be tricked into thinking you really quite like me.
Hooking his fingers under the man’s waistband, he carefully worked the boxer briefs down until they could be kicked off. Turning back, he got an eyeful and blinked rapidly. Bond watched him, expression tilting very definitely back into amusement.
"Told you," he said. "Functional."
Q flushed, snapping up one of the condoms from where they’d been tossed and waving it in Bond’s face. "You could’ve put one on while you were waiting."
"Wouldn’t deny you that."
"Smug bastard." Q tore the foil, then hooked a finger and beckoned. "Sit up."
Bond smirked, but acquiesced. "Trying to spoil my view again? I’ve got limits, you know. If I can’t look or touch I’m going to have complaints."
"Do kindly shut up."
Q was actually not bad at this bit, but he knew if Bond just lay there staring at him he’d lose his nerve, or his hands would shake, and then the teasing would be merciless. Besides, he wanted to kiss while he touched; he got the feeling Bond wouldn’t disappoint him on that score, and he was right. The man’s lips parted for him on contact, obliging and docile, and when Q reached down—stroked once, lightly—he felt more than heard the soft growl from the back of Bond’s throat. With painstaking attention Q rolled the condom down, getting acquainted, mapping dimensions. As his fingers worked their way to the base he imagined his body doing the same, Bond’s heat and rigidity inside him, hips snapping up into him and sealing them together.
"…Oh, that’s going to smart," Q breathed hungrily, scraping his lips hard across the man’s stubble until they stung. "That… is going to be a tight fit indeed."
"Q," Bond dragged the letter out, and Q could picture the exact way his tongue curved around it. "Stop teasing and get on."
"Magic word?"
Bond muttered a string of words, none of which were remotely close. His voice took on a hard, controlled edge. "Darling, I don’t beg."
You will with me. Q had no idea where the confidence had come from, the certainty, but he leaned into it. Rising onto his knees, he tilted Bond’s head back and began to press light, fleeting kisses to his lips. With his free hand he reached down behind him. He felt the man’s breath change, felt it get ragged, shallow, hot. Heard the hitch deep in his throat, the quick gulp of air when they connected. Gradually Q sank down, grinding his way past the initial resistance. God, it felt phenomenal, the heat and the blunt, blazing ache of it, thinking he couldn’t take anymore and taking it anyway. Bond groaned softly, a pained sound, like he was the one being broken in. Q slid into an open-mouthed kiss, sparks flickering behind his closed eyes, hips twisting down until finally—finally—their bodies notched together. Bond broke from the kiss with a gasp.
"Fuck," he breathed, the word drawn out and dreamy. "Made for me."
Q felt a dizzy little thrill at the words. It was the same one he got when Bond’s eyes lit up upon seeing a new piece of gear, when Q handed him something deadly and he lovingly ran his fingers over it. Come to think of it, he never felt that way with the other double-ohs. His propensity for denial was almost impressive.
"I’m going to take my time with you a little," he mumbled against Bond’s mouth. "But if you want me quick and rough after there’s plenty of night for it. Think you’ve got two rounds loaded?"
"You’ve got a filthy mouth on you," Bond said admiringly. "And I have a full chamber, just try me."
"Are you sure? It’s a sackable offense, taking a double-oh out of circulation. Don’t hurt yourself."
Bond lifted Q’s hips and brought them back down, fucking out of him a needy little groan. "Do you do anything but talk?"
"Alright, hands," Q snapped.
Bond’s hands dropped to the bed like his strings had been cut. He looked taken aback. Had he not meant to obey so easily? Now that was interesting. Q’s mouth twitched into a smirk, and he flattened his palm to the man’s chest to push him down onto his back, against the pillows. Bond looked up at him as though seeing him for the first time, gaze narrowed, surveying in a manner that was nearly strategic. He murmured, finally, "…Very bossy."
"Do you like being told what to do?" Q asked, half provoking and half curious.
Bond’s fingers drummed on the bedspread; he was clearly choosing his words carefully, like they were in a chess match. "…I might put up with it for awhile."
"And after awhile?"
"Well, you know what they say about idle hands."
Q adjusted his glasses. He would usually have taken them off by now, but Bond apparently liked them, and anyway it seemed a shame to waste such a nice view. Rocking his hips a little, he watched Bond wince minutely and grip fistfuls of the quilt. Yes, high definition was beyond necessary. The man’s tongue ran along the tips of his upper teeth, and he murmured, "Is this what you meant by taking me for a spin?"
"Don’t like it?"
"I like it fine." Bond smiled slowly. "But if you’re not going to let me help, you’d better put your back into it."
Q could feel the flush creeping from his neck into his cheeks. He could talk big as he liked, but the actual act itself, the process of it, was mortifying. Yes, he had a damned good view, but that meant Bond also had a view of him; there was no hiding his face, not in this position and not at this angle. Maybe if he got the man to close his eyes—
"Q, I can hear your brain frying," Bond said reproachfully. "If you get all shy and tell me I’ve got to shut my eyes or something you’re going to be in for it."
"Bloody mind reader!" Q blurted. "Fine, leave them open, I’ll turn the light off."
"You will not." Bond looked offended. "You’re the one that climbed on and started bossing me around, you little vixen. Come on, give us a show."
"Did you just call me a vixen? Hands!"
Bond didn’t listen this time, sliding his palms up Q’s legs. There were calluses on his trigger and middle fingers and he knew how to use them, stroking rough across the sensitive flesh of Q’s inner thighs, making his body go shivery and liquid. Bond’s breath hitched, and he let out a quick, shaky laugh. "…You like that? Gripped me like a vice."
Q was suddenly dizzy with impatience. Instinctively his hips started to move, shallow, unsteady little thrusts that only served as a reminder of how deep Bond was actually seated inside him. It felt so goddamned good. Hot and sturdy and achingly satisfying, like they’d been crafted to fit. A half-size off, so it hurt just a little, that exact right amount. Q couldn’t get enough of it.
"There you are," Bond breathed, his grip loosening even as his voice went tight. "Just like that, darling."
"Hands," Q managed. "Be good."
Bond put his hands up in reluctant surrender, and Q took a breath. Slowly, now. He’d meant it about taking his time; he loved the infrasonic hum of Bond’s impatience, deeper than a bass note. It was thrilling, knowing he was just on the verge of giving the man what he wanted, scratching an itch too lightly to really satisfy. Q didn’t usually have the confidence to tease, but he could feel how badly Bond wanted him, wanted to touch him. He could see it in the way his hands flexed and his jaw tightened, the way he fought to restrain himself when Q gave his hips a little grinding twist. Bond’s breathing was getting heavier. Q had heard it like this before, but always through an earpiece—when the man was in the midst of a chase, when he needed directions, instructions. It was hard not to wonder, now, if Bond liked receiving those instructions as much as Q liked giving them.
Q felt a disturbance in the air in front of his face, and his eyes—which had fallen shut—snapped open. Bond was reaching for him. The man’s index finger caught Q’s glasses where they’d slid down the bridge of his nose, and slowly, he pushed them back up. Q felt his face getting hot; it just figured that even under these conditions, the man could find a way to fluster him. "I—thank you."
"Least I can do," Bond said breathlessly, his arm falling back to the bedspread. "When you’re working so hard."
Q had started to hunch forward; now he sat back a little, the adjustment making Bond’s jaw clench. The man’s legs weren’t flat on the bed, but propped up, so Q could lean back against them.
Bond let out a strained little hiss of laughter. "By all means, make yourself comfortable."
"Just getting a little leverage," Q said. "Hold still, now."
He braced both palms against the man’s hipbones, raising himself up, up—enjoying the sight of Bond’s eyes fluttering closed—and sank back down with a hot, electric burst of friction. Bond instinctively bucked against him, into him; Q’s vision fogged, and he eagerly repeated the action, angling a little better this time. Slower on the lift, quicker on the plunge.
He had the pleasure of watching Bond’s head snap back on a gasp, seeing the curved arch of his throat; the man tried to sit up but Q grabbed his arms to pin him down. He expected to be thrown off, easy, but Bond immediately relented to the pressure and fell back against the pillows. He lowered his chin, panting softly and gazing up through lidded eyes. A shiver of ecstatic delight shook the length of Q’s body, and he held perfectly still, taking in the picture before him. Memorizing it, in case he never saw it again.
"Move," Bond said, gravelly, right on the razor’s edge between demand and plea.
"In a minute, I’m looking right now. You’re very pretty."
"Move, Q, damn you. God—damn you, you spiteful little bastard."
"Alright, get it out of your system. Anything else?"
Bond let his head fall back again and closed his eyes, breathing heavily and shiny with sweat. When he spoke it was almost to himself, voice controlled, a mutter through gritted teeth. "Oh, darling, when I’m through with you…"
"I don’t know, you seem just about through already," Q goaded silkily. He wasn’t so familiar with this side of himself, but he rather liked it.
Bond looked ready to retort, but Q started moving again and that shut him up fast. All bark, for now. Q’s self-consciousness had melted under the heat of Bond’s blatant need. His… docility, almost, the fact that he was still keeping his hands pinned to the bed. Like Q’s simple command had been enough to tie him down, a spell he couldn’t break.
Q fell into rhythm of a sort, the way he liked it. Inconstant and unpredictable. He loved the sound when Bond’s steady breathing fractured. The soft, hissed expletives. The way he’d buck up unexpectedly, so riding him felt like driving with bad shocks over a bumpy patch of road. Just… perfect.
But not enough.
Q’s legs were shaking. He was working his muscles hard, muscles he rarely used, or at least rarely used to exhaustion. He couldn’t get enough leverage; he couldn’t get the traction he wanted, the friction, couldn’t bring himself down with enough force. He was running on fumes and almost in tears from wanting so badly.
"Can’t," he breathed, a groan creeping in along the edges.
Bond’s eyes blinked open and something caught in his molten gaze, turning it suddenly bright and sharp. His smile was wolflike, filed to a point, softening as his hips rolled and his teeth parted on a sigh. "Tapping out, darling?"
Q bit his lip, obstinance warring with the desire to cave. He shook his head.
Bond sat up, slowly, the change in angle making them both shudder. He still didn’t touch, digging his fingers into the quilt—but his mouth got whisper-close to Q’s neck and his voice lowered to the dregs, sweet and rough like raw sugar. "Don’t be stubborn, Q, damn you. Aren’t you lonely up here? You’ve shown me pretty well how to fuck you, now let me have a go at it."
Q released a breath of dazed laughter. "Magic word?"
Bond’s mouth moved up his neck, along his jaw, and finally to his lips, punctuating his words with soft kisses. "Please. Let me. Please, Q, I’m going mad."
Q scraped his fingers into Bond’s hair, which was too short to get a real grip on but felt wonderful in his hands. He held the man in place and kissed him, deep and filthy, gently rocking his hips. Bond made a sound low in his throat, the quilt pulling taut as he grabbed fistfuls of it and held on for dear life. Q wondered how it was possible he’d ever lived without this. Seeing James Bond, agent double-oh seven, disheveled and blissed out and begging.
"…Alright," Q whispered as he pulled away, their lips brushing. "All yours, then. Impress me."
Bond’s hands were immediately on him, dragging up his legs, under his shirt, stroking. The man let out a quiet but frankly animal sound, leaning into Q’s neck as though for support.
"Are your hands an erogenous zone?" Q teased. Bond pinched his nipple, hard, and he yelped.
"All due respect, shut up. And this damn thing is coming off." He tugged at Q’s sweat-soaked shirt. "Now."
Relenting, Q raised his arms so the shirt could be worked off over his head and tossed aside. The second it hit the floor, Bond’s hand was at his throat like a collar. In one easy, languorous motion, the man flipped him onto his back and pinned him down by the neck, digging in a short thrust for good measure.
Q gasped, vision crackling with static. He grabbed for Bond’s wrist; the grip was gentle but implacable, squeezing just barely when Q pushed experimentally against it. Bond drew back until his arm was fully extended. Slowly—christ, so damn slowly—he ran his gaze up and down Q’s exposed body, expression amused. "…I thought you might’ve been hiding something. A tattoo, maybe. But you’re actually just shy."
Q felt his face get hot. "If you’re going to make fun—"
"I’m not, I think you’re about the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen," Bond said, voice level even as his eyes sparkled with mischief. Again he rolled his hips in a shallow, angled thrust, making Q’s back arch. "Mind you, that might be my cock talking."
"Fucking hell," Q groaned, twisting slightly against the grip at his throat and feeling a perverse jolt of pleasure when it tightened. Still holding him at arm’s length, Bond began to fuck into him, unhurried and deliberate. Each thrust was like a thumbed bruise, right on the razor’s edge of unbearable, right where too much tipped back over into not enough. Hot tears stung Q’s eyes; soft, stunned noises escaped his lips no matter how he tried to bite them back.
"That’s more like it," Bond murmured, almost a croon. "Feels a bit better when I do it, yes? How’s my aim?"
Q—who apparently had no sense of self-preservation, even now—panted, "Marksmanship’s—forty—if I recall."
Bond’s elbow bent, and he leaned in until they were kissing distance apart. He said, voice dangerously benign, "That’ll cost you."
Promises, promises.
Q took advantage of the nearness and wrapped his arms around Bond’s back, digging in his fingernails. He felt dizzy and slightly feral, letting out a starved, growly sound as Bond sank into him to the hilt. As much as he hated to admit it, it did feel better like this; the man’s weight bearing down on him, the way he gripped Q by the waist and throat with bruising, coiled intent. The way he twisted his hips like he was tightening a screw.
"Christ almighty," Bond bit out, breathing hot into Q’s neck. "How’ve you ever been fucked properly? Swear to god you were built for me custom. Perfect."
Q felt like he was losing his mind. There was nothing, anatomically speaking, that should be making this as good as it was. It was just Bond—the fact of him, the thrill of him, this designer drug of man created in a bloody lab to overwhelm pleasure receptors.
"Well aren’t you—full of yourself," Q managed.
"Mhmm." Bond softly peppered him with kisses, on his cheeks, lips, the tip of his nose. They felt like preemptive apologies. "I’m going to stop playing nice with you now. Alright?"
Q couldn’t help an almost hysterical little wheeze of laughter. "Oh, good—I was just—starting to get bored."
"Can’t have that." Bond pulled back again, giving Q’s throat a light squeeze. "Sorry about this. I’d tell you to stay down, but you don’t listen to me."
"We can’t all get off on being bossed arAHH FUCK—" Q’s retort splintered as Bond drew back and slammed into him. Just once, but hard, so hard it made his teeth click together. He gasped, stunned silent, not sure he could’ve spoken even if he wanted to. Dazedly he stared up into Bond’s eyes, blinking until his vision cleared and a tear streaked down the side of his face.
"…Your turn, darling," Bond murmured, reaching out to swipe away the tear with his knuckle. "Beg."
Q managed to rally his voice, just barely. It scraped dry in his throat. "…Make me."
"My pleasure."
Q braced himself, but there was no sudden onslaught, no ferocity; Bond’s fingers eased off his throat and trailed lightly down his chest, his stomach, feeling the rise and fall of breath. They dipped lower—lower—
"Wait," Q said, the word a panicked little hiccup. He reached down to seize the man’s wrist, embarrassment flooding his cheeks with heat. "I’ll—I’m too—it’ll be too quick."
Bond’s gaze flicked down, lingering just a second too long before meeting Q’s again. He smirked. "Tempting."
"Don’t." Q let himself plead just a little, because fair was fair and it was his turn. "Mercy."
Bond’s touch vanished, but Q could still feel the ghost of it, too excruciatingly good to be real. Christ, the man hadn’t even properly touched him and he was already this far gone. He tried to bring himself back under control, drag himself back from the precipice; he needed this to last so much longer. He didn’t know where he’d be when it was over, if he’d ever have it again. If he could live without it anymore.
"…Don’t worry." Bond bent in close to kiss him—a soft, chaste thing, like they were standing on the street and not tangled up together in a sweat-dampened quilt. "Wouldn’t let you off that easy for the world."
Q coiled his arms around the man’s back, feeling the wings of his shoulder blades, drawing delirious little circles in his skin. Pleading wordlessly. He wanted more than the feeling of Bond inside him. He wanted the weight of him, restraining and reassuring, pinning him down. He wanted to feel every plane of the man’s body. The wanting was porous, bottomless, something he doubted he could ever satisfy but couldn’t help trying. Bond was still being gentle—rocking his hips silkily, kissing in a way that felt lazy and decadent, the sort of kissing Q had always associated with the afterglow of sex rather than sex itself. The man seemed to especially enjoy scraping his stubble across the sensitive skin of Q’s neck, making his body spasm and his nails dig in.
"Now who’s teasing," Q mumbled, betrayed by the thickness of his voice, the little hitches of pleasure.
"Mm." Bond nipped his ear and said, firmly, "Put your legs ‘round me."
Without thinking Q obeyed, wrapping his slightly numb legs around Bond’s waist. He was rewarded with several deep, achingly slow thrusts, Bond’s eyelids dragging shut and his exhales going ragged. The man was so shamelessly savoring the feel of him that it gave Q goosebumps. He was well and truly never going to recover from this.
"There you are." Bond let Q guide him into rhythm, responding to the press of his heels, the squeeze of his thighs, the rake of his nails. "Lord, you’re good and desperate, aren’t you? Wanted this a long time?"
"Yes," Q rasped, too raw to play coy.
"How long?"
When there was no reply Bond gave an especially sharp snap of his hips, and Q yelped, truth jarred loose from where it had stuck in his chest. "Fuck—forever—christ, forever. Since I—since I met you."
Bond hummed deep in his chest, a rumble of catlike satisfaction. His pace picked up, voice incongruously sweet between rough breaths. "That is awhile. You’ve been so nice and patient for me."
"Bastard," Q groaned.
"I’m sorry, darling. I’ll make it up to you."
The way Bond moved was… it took Q a moment to pin it down. His mind was moving slow as syrup, losing focus, luxuriating in the obscene, rhythmic sound of their bodies sliding together. He moved like—like—
Like me, Q realized. Bond was fucking him the way he’d fucked himself; uneven and unpredictable, yet with such focused, clear intent it felt like being disassembled. One moment there was a sweet jolt of pain and the next he was taking the edge off, a shot and a chaser, his fingers coasting all over Q’s body to find and exploit every bundle of nerves. The man handled him like it came easily. Like it was intuitive.
"God, you’re a dream," Bond mumbled, tracing soft whorls into Q’s skin. His fingertips had a burr almost like sandpaper, delicious and excruciating. He drew back and plunged in fast—and again—deep, gutting thrusts that Q had to gasp his way through. The man let out a soft chuckle into his neck. "Does it feel as good as you make it sound?"
"Better," Q breathed. His mind was a blur; he’d lost all ability to tease.
Bond sighed with pleasure, rolling his hips, making Q’s breaths go shallow and frantic. "Wondered if I could get you like this. Gone to pieces for me."
Q tilted his chin up and parted his lips, a supplicating, kiss me motion, so easy to read it was embarrassing. Bond obliged, settling down against him like they were animals nestling together for warmth. For a moment it was only that—a kiss, and a pulse, and a familiarity that felt somehow already lived in. Melancholy welled up in Q’s chest, bittersweet and inexplicable, like he was kissing the man goodbye.
"…James," he murmured.
Bond’s whole body jolted and stilled. Q felt the effect of it, intoxicating, like he’d suddenly snatched back control. He repeated, softer and much sweeter, "James."
"Stop," Bond whispered, and his voice wasn’t playful now. Wasn’t even carnal. He sounded… hurt, almost, as though Q had said something unbearably cruel to him. "That’s not fair. I don’t even know your name."
Q caught his breath. His heart stuttered in his chest. He brought Bond’s face close again and kissed him, gingerly, like his lips were bruised. With some effort, he said, "…Q’s more my name than anything else. And it’s…" He hesitated, but what was the point? What was there to protect himself from anymore? It was too late. He’d already forfeit. "…I like that it belongs to you a bit, too. That I could introduce myself as…"
I’m your new Quartermaster.
"…Mine," Bond finished softly.
Q hadn’t expected him to say it. He hadn’t anticipated how it would feel to hear it, spoken so simply, stripped entirely of pretense. One of Bond’s hands clamped down hard on his waist, thumb sliding to fit along the jut of his hipbone, sparking a sensation low in Q’s body like the ruthless click of a cylinder. The other hand trailed down his stomach—down—and one of Bond’s fingers grazed him, so narrowly it might’ve been an accident.
Q let out a soft whimper that the man leaned down to steal off his lips. Another touch, no accident this time. Just one fingertip, textured with a radial pattern Q had seen a hundred times, that he’d had etched into countless pieces of equipment. His body reacted like a sensor, like it’d been programmed to unlock under Bond’s fingerprint.
Made for me.
"Fuck, wait," he whispered, voice catching helplessly in his throat. His eyes fluttered shut, body arching into the touch, so light it was torture. "Oh, christ—"
Bond’s hand curled around him—his palmprint, something Q had seen long before he’d ever met the man. Lines he’d painstakingly mapped. Q’s mind was short-circuiting, splintering into shards. Fingers ardently tracing the barrel of a gun—lips forming the letter Q—the smell of a violin and the taste of sweat—darling, damn bloody fool, pet, poor little beast—
A slow, deliberate stroke, both inside and out, and he was done for.
Pleasure slammed through Q’s body like a power surge. He let out a small, choked sob and Bond smothered it with a kiss, fucking him rough through the spasms, rubbing his hypersensitive nerves raw until he was nothing but twitching limbs and soft, pleading kitten sounds. Q clawed Bond’s back so hard he’d probably have skin under his nails, mumbling deliriously against his lips—James, darling James—and it was this, finally, that finished the man off.
Bond made a low sound deep in his chest. His rhythm lost its measure, turning sloppy before shattering completely. He pressed in and stayed there, hips jolting, breath heavy and hot against Q’s neck, shoulder blades flexing wonderfully under his hands. When his body finally relaxed it was in a lithe, almost feline way, like a lion settling down on its haunches, still licking blood off its teeth.
Q’s thumping pulse began to slow. They lay there together in a slick heap, panting and bruised, Bond softly pressing kisses to Q’s lips that he did his best to return. He thought he could probably fall asleep like this, slip down into the dark between breaths, between kisses, and wake up—
alone
A chill darted through his body, coasting off the sweat, nudging him back from the brink of unconsciousness. Q wasn’t sure if he’d nodded off for a moment, or just been lost in some liminal space where time went sideways.
He blinked and the room came into hazy focus, all warm colors and low light. Bond was propped up on one elbow and looking down at him, smiling, his expression both sleepy and unbearably smug.
Q narrowed his eyes, his voice coming out hoarse. "…What?"
"Darling James," the man sing-songed.
"Don’t be a bastard."
Bond brushed some damp strands of hair from Q’s forehead. "Are you going to call me by my christian name from now on?"
"No. In fact I’m never doing it again if you’re going to be insufferable about it." Q hesitated, feeling a pinch of anxiety in his chest. But, well, in for a penny. "Would you like to… stay? The night?"
Bond raised an eyebrow. "Did you think I’d run off on you?"
"You can if you like."
A brief look of irritation crossed the man’s face, muddled with something else. It immediately smoothed over. "If you want rid of me you’ll have to put more effort in than that."
"I don’t—" Q hesitated again. Two avenues were open to him; one of levity and one of sincerity. He chose the latter. "I’d like you to stay. If it’s all the same to you."
"It isn’t." Bond leaned in, brushing his lips over the swell of Q’s cheek. "Weren’t you heckling me about my stamina earlier? Ready to give up already?"
Q turned his face into the pillow, attempting a groan of distress that came out… wrong. "You really have got another round loaded, haven’t you?"
"Full chamber," Bond corrected, sounding extremely pleased with himself. "Think I’ll have a look at you from a few more angles while I’m in the neighborhood. Plenty of night for it, right?"
+++
Just after daybreak Q awoke, almost toppled to the floor from the jump-scare of a naked slumbering Adonis in his bed, then came to his senses and lay there for awhile comprehensively overthinking the past twelve hours.
Was this a one-night stand? Had to be, didn’t it? He’d never had one before, so he wasn’t sure what the etiquette was. Oh, god, what was he going to say when Bond woke up? What on earth was he going to say? He could make a run for it. No, damn it, this was his flat. The girls would never forgive him if he left them in the care of a stranger they couldn’t bully.
He turned his head and studied Bond’s profile, relaxed and immobile in sleep. People were supposed to look more innocent when they slept, but he looked about the same, like he might open his eyes and pull a gun on you at any moment. Q wouldn’t be surprised if he kept one under his pillow. His eyes scanned down, widening as they did; what he could see of the man was mottled with hickeys, scratches, and almost comically distinct bite marks.
"And you said I’d be the one looking obscene," he muttered under his breath. Reaching out, he traced one of the curves left by his teeth.
Bond stirred. His eyes blinked open, and he stretched his arms over his head, spine arching with a crack. Without a word, he rolled in Q’s direction, reaching over him to pluck his glasses off the bedside table. Q lay there, spellbound, as the man slid the glasses gently onto his nose and—less gently—kissed him full on the mouth. Q let out a smothered noise of surprise, snaking his arms around the man’s back and running his fingers over the raised lattice of scratch marks. He had really done a number.
By the time Bond released him, he was dazed and nearly panting. He let out a breathless little laugh. "You really do like the glasses."
"Of course. Did you think I was lying?"
"You, um…" Q’s gaze flicked over him once again. "You look a bit worse-for-wear."
"Feels like I wrestled a bloody tiger," Bond grumbled, voice gravelly with sleep. He rolled onto his back and grimaced. "Tell you what, I’m just lucky you’ve got a man’s teeth and not a cat’s. I’d have been in for it."
"Lucky I haven’t got claws, either."
"My back says otherwise."
Q started to sit up, then winced and collapsed back down with a groan. "…We’ll just have to compare whose back got it worst. Christ, you’re a machine. Swear you run on pistons."
Bond laughed, and Q soaked it up. His laugh—his untempered one—was big and sunny and wonderful, filling up the room, clearing the dust and the cobwebs and scrubbing the gray off the light. Alerted by the sound, a chorus of muffled, plaintive meowing started up from the hall. It was followed by a noise not unlike knocking, which was really Lady butting her head repeatedly against the door.
"We’re well under siege now," Bond whispered, and Q thought, damn it all, I’m in love.
+++
Q made breakfast.
It wasn’t out of some morning-after impulse or anything ridiculous like that. He’d resolved to cook his own meals when he first started living alone, after realizing he was a slipshod composite of a person barely held together by takeaway and spite. Learning how to poach an egg or bake a lasagna shouldn’t have been life-changing stuff—he wasn’t even especially good at it—but in those first few years, eating food he’d made with his own two hands reminded him that he’d decided to survive. To look after himself. Stubbornly, and occasionally against his own will, but he had.
Now it was a habit, and something of a hobby.
"Put a shirt on," he said reproachfully.
Bond—distractingly shirtless—peered over his shoulder. "Is that for me?"
"If I say it’s all for me will you only steal half of it?" Q nudged a strip of bacon. "Shirt. You’ll get burnt."
"You’ll protect me." Shifting to stand behind him, Bond slipped his arms around Q’s waist and kissed his neck. Q snatched his mug off the counter and waved it under the man’s nose, trying to ward him off; Bond took a whiff but remained unmoved.
Q narrowed his eyes and set the mug down. "Thought you hated earl grey?"
"The taste of it," Bond mumbled into his hair. "I could get used to the scent."
For a moment, an almost delirious joy swelled in Q’s chest. He tried to snap himself out of it; what in god’s name was the matter with him, acting like a bloody newlywed? This entire situation was beyond absurd. But the sunniness simply would not be shaken off and that was that. It was a lovely morning, he’d woken up sore from several rounds of honestly terrific sex, he was in love with a man who nearly died biquarterly and to hell with it.
"I haven’t got any coffee," he said, a little meanly. Bond made an adorable sort of wounded noise. Q almost said I’ll pick some up for next time, but the words caught in his throat. The sun went behind a cloud, diffusing and graying the spackle of light through the windows. Q felt a flash of inexplicable panic; a don’t let me go feeling. As though sensing it, Bond squeezed a little tighter and held on, quietly breathing him in.
This—all of this—was temporary. Q knew that. He knew how bad an idea it was to fall ass-over-kettle for someone like James Bond, but he was in it now, so he might as well squeeze out every last drop down to the rind.
He turned in Bond’s arms and ran his hands greedily up the man’s chest, over his collarbones, along his neck and through his hair. Dragged him into a kiss, open-mouthed and indecent. Bond’s murmur of surprise melted into a soft growl, arms tightening around him, one hand dipping under Q’s waistband to squeeze his ass. Q broke free with a gasping laugh, running his tongue along his upper teeth. "…Seems you might have to get used to the taste, too."
"Poor me," Bond murmured, leaning in for another kiss that Q skillfully dodged.
"You’re going to mess me up hovering like that," he said, turning to flip the bacon before it burned. "Go bother the cats or something."
Bond sighed through his nose before obediently seeing himself out, Lady trailing after him with a swish-swish of her tail. Of course she liked him, the little traitor. Q got one full minute of peace, but of course, it couldn’t last.
"…Q," Bond called from somewhere in the flat, tone aghast. "What in god’s name?"
Q turned the heat down and wandered out of the kitchen, following Bond’s voice into the sitting room. It was immediately apparent what had the man so dismayed.
"…Ah," Q said, scrubbing at the back of his neck. "Yes. Well. Seemed a waste to just destroy it?"
The gramophone—if he did say so himself—was much better suited to his flat than it had been to the Sarriette, especially now that it had undergone the routine wear and tear of a gunfight. It had the same orphaned feel as the rest of his furniture, nothing quite matching anything else, but each article settled in its rightful place with a creak and a shrug. The gramophone was tucked in beside the loveseat, already looking like it’d been there for years.
"What do you want this busted old thing for?" Bond wore an expression of almost affronted disbelief, like he’d been personally wronged by the thing. Which Q thought was a little unfair, since it had technically taken a bullet for him.
"It isn’t busted," Q said, feeling defensive. "It works. It’s functional."
"So’s a trash fire, doesn’t mean I want one in my flat."
"Well it’s a good thing it’s not in your flat, isn’t it." Q came forward to lay a protective hand on the horn, tracing the spot where the bullet had gone through. "I like it. It’s got character."
"It’s got a hole in it."
Q didn’t dignify that with a response, instead padding back into the kitchen. "Food’s up."
They ate together, knees bumping under the too-small table, Dodger making do with Bond’s lap as he’d stolen her chair. They chatted about where it was acceptable to get breakfast in London, then about Cambridge, then about detective novels, because Bond didn’t read spy novels and Q read everything. They went a round of heckling about the marks they’d left on each other’s bodies, and Bond drank an entire cup of tea while clearly hating every sip.
Q couldn’t remember the last time his home had felt so much like his.
+++
Eventually, of course, Bond left. And as anticipated, he stayed gone.
Q could handle this in theory. He knew it would get better when he could return to work—when his every hour wouldn’t be occupied circling his flat, recalling, recalling, recalling. Bond’s unbearably lovely figure under his hands, the echo of his marvelous laugh, the tangle of his legs under the kitchen table. The ache he’d left lingering low in Q’s hips. The way he’d slipped on his shoes in the foyer, looking ruefully down at the cat hair dusting his pant legs. Q—in a moment of unbelievable self-possession—had stood several paces back from the door, like someone who was very much not longing for a kiss goodbye and, in fact, hadn’t even considered it.
So Bond hadn’t given him a kiss. Just a last, affectionate look that was somehow worse. And then he was gone, and there was nothing left for Q to do but return to his regular life. Carry on like nothing at all had happened. In theory, entirely possible.
T-minus three days until he could return to headquarters, and he was counting down the hours. He needed to work. He needed to make something. He needed to fix something that someone else had broken.
+++
"How would you go about getting over someone quickly?"
"Sleep with someone else," Eve answered, without hesitation and without looking up from her phone. "Or go on holiday. But you did that and it didn’t help, right?"
"This isn’t about me," Q said, and yes, he was aware how that sounded. "It’s a hypothetical."
"Mm. We’ve got—" She glanced up at the monitor bank, raising her voice to be heard by the rest of the control room. "Five minutes, everybody! Look alive!"
Lord, Q had missed this. Being here, under the harsh white-blue hospital lighting of headquarters. Modules and maps and overhead cameras at his fingertips. The world at a safe remove. On the screen directly in front of him, three blinking dots moved slowly through a shattered honeycomb of branching streets and narrow alleys; three agents on site and one target, not yet located.
He stared at the dot on the far left, moving at a lazy stroll. Blink, blink, blink. The other two had surnames attached, but this one read only 007.
It had been almost exactly twenty-eight days since Bond had left his flat. As expected, the return to work—to distraction—had been a balm, a channel for all his pointless, pent-up energy. There was a reason nearly every song in the world was about love; it greased the creative wheels like nothing else. Especially when it was unrequited.
He hadn’t got in touch with Bond once, though in theory he was able to. There were myriad excuses one could utilize when one was head of Q Branch. He wouldn’t, though. He could only hope that, eventually, the lack of contact would make the wound heal over, that recollections of Bond in his flat, in his bed, would cease to haunt him.
No luck so far.
"You’ve never come to me with love troubles before," Eve said, sidling up beside him at the standing desk in front of the monitors. "Didn’t think you had any. Q Branch has a pool going on whether or not you’re secretly married."
"If I were married, why would I need Tanner to catsit?"
"That’s what I figured, I put down fifty quid in the no husband bracket. Guess I’m due for a payout. Got your heart broken, Q?"
"Nevermind," Q muttered. He already regretted bringing it up.
Eve side-eyed him for a moment, then shrugged, apparently deciding she either didn’t want to get involved or didn’t care. "You take the lead on Bond. Target’s most likely to be in his vicinity."
Oh, god. Oh, fuck. Right, no, this was his job. This was where he needed to lock in. Rip off the bandaid. He’d resolved himself to treat Bond normally, with total professional civility, the way the man would no doubt treat him. How he was going to manage that, precisely, he’d yet to work out. He hadn’t expected to be thrown in the deep end quite so abruptly.
This is your job, he reminded himself forcefully. This is what’s permanent. Bond’s fingerprints mapped onto your monitor, not on your lips or the spines of your books or your Ducks of the British Isles mug.
"No problem," he said. "I’ll have him on speaker, are we live?"
Eve made a whisking motion with her index finger. "Linking up."
There was a scroll of text on the center screen, pinging between private networks, covertly connecting to all three agents. Q tried not to white-knuckle the edge of his desk. Eve began to count down from ten; when she reached five she went silent, holding a hand up and lowering her fingers one by one. Q watched as everything went live; it was a beautiful thing, darkened modules flickering to life, the crawl of electric blue on black, the world suddenly and precariously at his fingertips. The sight always braced him up—quickened his pulse—but today there was an edge to it, an unnerving undertone, like he was sat in a roller coaster and it’d just made a noise it shouldn’t.
Eve’s hand closed into a fist. There was a dial tone, then a click. Q felt his breath stall as Bond’s voice came over the speaker, raspy, irritated, and just stupidly lovely. "About damned time, been standing here going on two hours now. Did all of MI6 go for dinner at once?"
Q wavered, then took a breath. Here went nothing. "…Double-oh seven?"
There was a pause. A long one. When the voice came through again, it had changed. Warmed. The hackles were stroked down, the prickle gone plush. "…Oh, hello."
Eve’s eyebrows shot up. Q was for a brief moment stunned completely out of countenance, his restless heart fumbling its pulse. If it weren’t for the sudden hundredweight of silence laid thick over the control room, he might’ve mistrusted his own hearing; but no, that was how Bond’s voice had sounded. It had very much sounded like that. And Bond was rarely—if ever—careless with his words or the tone that carried them. He never let anything slip without design.
After a faltering second Q managed to reply, "Yes, hello."
"Will you be in my ear this evening?"
Christ, the way he said it. With that… that melting quality, that indefinable sweltering something that always put Q’s knees to the test. Bond was smiling now; Q could hear it plain as day, could feel it like the squeeze of arms around his waist, the gentle inhale of the man breathing him in. It was a struggle to clip his voice and keep it professional. "If you’ll have me."
"Anytime, Q," Bond said, soft and pleased. "Say the word."
Q felt every gaze in the room pinned to his back. There was a soundless but hair-raising buzz of curiosity, a hundred question marks rising like a cloud of flies. Eve looked briefly heavenward, perhaps appealing to some higher power for the strength to not burst into laughter. He could already see her lips beginning to tremble.
"How’s the connection?" Bond asked. "Can you hear me alright?"
"Yes, I can hear you fine, you’re on speaker," Q said pointedly.
"Oh, not just us? That’s too bad."
It took the whole of Q’s not insignificant will to remain composed, to stay fixed at his station and not immediately flee the room and MI6 and possibly the United Kingdom. His face could’ve cooked an egg. "Double-oh seven. Is now the time?"
"Target’s not expected to show for another quarter hour."
"That’s not what I—look, we can talk later—"
"We can’t, I don’t have your private number. Tanner wouldn’t give it to me. This is the only way I can reach you without showing up at your flat, and I figured that wouldn’t go over a second time. Not to mention I’m practically in bloody exile, been out of the country for weeks. You might’ve phoned."
"I didn’t—how could I have—" Flustered, Q was horrified to find himself stammering. He felt dizzy, the world tilting underfoot, something bubbling up in his chest like a shaken champagne bottle. "Look, I can’t just give you my private number—"
"Shall I stop by, then? Get me a ticket back to London. Red eye."
Eve was proper shaking now. And texting, rapidly.
"No—" Q pinched the bridge of his nose, "Bond. There is an appropriate time and place—"
"Your flat, yes, it’s the time I’m waiting on. When’s your day off?"
The whispering had started up, now. Q heard laughter, smothered by some very unconvincing coughing. He said, helplessly, "Can we discuss this later, maybe?"
"Certainly, I’ll just ring you at the phone number I haven’t got."
"I’ll call you, so if you could just—"
"Will you indeed, four weeks on? Charitable. You know, playing hard to get is one thing, but this is taking it a bit far."
Oh my god. No, damn it, that was the last straw. He was going to kill the man. "You are aware that I’m in full control of your equipment? All of it? Do you think I won’t turn off your tracker and revoke your visa and leave you stranded in Istanbul?"
There was a brief pause, in which Bond apparently weighed this possibility against his desire to be an irredeemable bastard. Finally, he said—in a soft, rusty voice that Q was certain gave the whole room chills— "…Bossy."
Eve was practically choking on suppressed laughter. "Do—do you two—need the room?"
"Can you please do something about him?" Q pleaded.
"Can you? Sounds to me like you’ve got the leverage here." Eve tapped her headset. "Bond, it’s me."
"Evening, Penny, how are you?"
"Swell. Can I give you Q’s number, or is part of the fun trying to win him over?"
Bond made a thoughtful noise. "Thought I’d won him over already, tell you the truth. But going on a month now and no call, so shows what I know."
"A month? That’s a proper ghosting."
Q, who had full control of all contact points, smashed the button to mute her mic. Unawares, Bond went on. "Isn’t it just. Always took our quartermaster for the sort to give you the cut direct, not mess about like this. You know, Q, you can reject me outright. Sorry, James, it was fun the other night, but—"
"Double-oh seven." Q was now leaning both elbows on the table, face buried in his hands. "We are on call with half of Q Branch."
"I don’t mind, I’ve had worse publicly."
"I’m not rejecting you, I—" This was humiliating. This was humiliating. This was perhaps the most humiliating moment of his life to this point, but god, he was ecstatic. That was the most humiliating part. "I’m not rejecting you."
"There’s a start." Bond lowered his voice to a coaxing murmur. "I can help with the next bit, if you’re not sure how to go about it. Start off with darling James—"
"One more word out of your mouth and I’m hanging up."
"Don’t hang up. I’ve just seen our target." Bond’s switch flipped, like the safety off a gun. "Thirty meters ahead on foot, tan blazer. See him?"
Q was immediately at his keyboard and flipping between cameras. "…Affirmative. Got him, locking on. Are you pursuing?"
"In pursuit," Bond confirmed. There was a beat, then that trace of a smile returned to his voice. "…And have been. For what it’s worth."
Eve—who had persevered to this point—was finally overcome by a howl of laughter.
+++
Q had been summoned to M’s office.
M sat behind his desk, hands folded over his stomach, staring pensively into the middle distance. This had been going on for so long now that Q wondered if the man had forgotten he was there. Just as he was about to cough into his hand and make his presence known—for the second time—M sighed heavily. It was one for the books, the sort of sigh that made the entire office seem to sigh along with him.
"I don’t think I need to tell you," he began, then stopped. Another long silence followed. Q listened to the nerve-wracking tick of the grandfather clock, which he suspected had been established in M’s office for exactly this purpose.
Finally, Q could take it no longer. "…Well, that’s a relief. Can I go, then?"
"If you’re going to sleep with double-oh seven I need you to fill out a form," M said, bluntly.
For a moment Q stared at him, open-mouthed. "…Sorry?"
"A form. For human resources. You have to disclose a romantic or sexual relationship—"
"Stop. Stop right there. First of all—no, actually, has everyone at MI6 who’s slept with Bond had to fill a form out? Does he have a file?"
"No, but everyone else didn’t have their private affairs broadcast to the entire bloody service."
"That wasn’t my fault! Bond was the one who—"
"I don’t care. I need your signature." M slid a slip of paper across the desk. "No details, for the love of god. Just put a check next to whatever applies."
Q reluctantly accepted the form. "Did Bond have to do this?"
"Yes, and he did it without me asking. Got Moneypenny to fax the form to Istanbul. Suspect he thinks it’s hilarious."
To Bond’s credit, there was something vaguely hysterical about the form. The only bit Q had to fill out read, in its entirety, I heretofore disclose that, as of the given date, I am in a relationship of a [ ] Sexual [ ] Romantic nature with the party listed above. Name (print): __________ Signature: __________
Q stared at the words for a long moment, flummoxed.
"You can just put Q," M offered, as though that were the issue.
"Um." Q shifted in his seat, glancing up uncertainly. "I’m not sure it’s appropriate to ask, but—"
M heaved another harassed sigh. "Both. He checked both. Now sign the damn thing and get out of my office."
+++
About a week later, Q got a package in the mail.
By the shape and size—a flat, perfectly square box—one could guess the contents almost immediately. He signed for it and brought it into the sitting room to open, pushing aside his tea and shooing Dodger off the sofa.
As expected, inside was a 45 record. The outer sleeve was white, unlabeled, but on the back someone had composed several lines of neat script.
To my most devoted secretary—
I’ve just been to an unforgivably tedious piano concert in Moscow (for Universal Export business, not pleasure, as you might expect), and really, these damned things go on forever. You’d think there were only so many ways you could bang on eighty-eight keys, yet they keep at it for hours and hours. Don’t know how you ever stood it. Elevator music of the first order.
Anyway, this piece in particular was carrying on, and somehow it got me thinking how it’d just gone breakfast in London and you’d be in your Cambridge colors drinking your horrible tea and cozying up to that busted old thing with the bullet through it. Suppose the tune reminded me of you.
Apparently you can still get these made here if you know the right people. Sorry if the quality’s no good.
It was unsigned.
Q wandered over to the gramophone, sliding the record from its sleeve as he went. When it was just halfway out he halted, staring down at it in disbelief.
What he was holding was not a vinyl record. It was the right shape but much slimmer, pressed to a piece of cardboard to keep it flat and undamaged. He gingerly drew it out and held it up to the light, gazing into the milky, spectral image of an x-rayed ribcage.
"…Well isn’t that romantic," he muttered, appalled.
The title was printed on a strip of foil along the inner rim, in the same handwriting as the note. Franz Liszt — Liebestraum. Running a fingertip over the words, Q bit his lip against a smile.
God, I’m easy.
He laid the record on the turntable and set the needle down.