Chapter Text
Dinner With Surprise
Q had devoured the novel with the same enthusiasm of his youth, he had stayed up the whole night - something James most definitely would nag him about, reminding him that he needed the rest and couldn't survive on tea and sweets alone (and Q would argue that he definitely could because that had been his recipe to survive university) - and he didn't care that his eyes started burning and turning red sometime around 3 am, nor that the book wouldn't disappear in a puff of smoke if he put it down even to catch a little catnap: he'd been waiting for those words for so long, unconsciously hadn't given up yet on Guillame Lien and those stories that managed to captivate him and didn't let him go for hours.
There were differences, of course.
As a long time fan who had obsessively re-read all of the novels since discovering him, Q easily noticed that some things in the way the other man wrote had changed: for starters, the author sounded even more disenchanted with the world of spying than he already had - once again, he wondered about whether Lien was entangled with it in some way or another; the secondary characters were surprisingly rounded - an ensemble of regulars that would appear again in following novels? Someone like Bel Rowley couldn't be restricted to just one appereance; it was a lot less straight - finally.
Q had loved every single word of it - he had laughed and tensed up and cheered and scowled, going through more emotions than he normally would in the span of one night - and if those were the results of a long hiatus, he would wait again for another of Lien's novels to grace his bookshelves with their ridiculous titles and covers that just after a glance made his mind wander and get lost into fictional missions that somehow, despite retaining a veneer of credibility to them, they still managed to uplift his spirit with their stretched happy endings.
James was going to kiss him into shutting up, once he started blabbering during dinner and Q wouldn't blame him.
Plus, James' kisses weren't exactly something one could turn their noses up at: they were slow and searing, coaxing arousal into being with a mastery that made Q's knees shake and his skin break out in goosebumps even if he felt like he was burning - if he could have gotten away with it, Q would have spent hours just getting snogged stupid by his lover.
Alas, he had a world to save, two cats that needed to be fed and a mortgage to pay: he just couldn't afford spending a considerable chunk of his time climbing James Bond like a tree, no matter that the other man was unbearably sexy and Q had quite the healthy sex drive.
He pushed open the door of James' flat, dropping his spare keys in the dish at the entrance: the thought of James purposefully purchasing it to make him stop trying to ruin the finish of the wooden table always tore a giddy smile out of him; his presence had tangibly impacted the other's home, if he needed a reassurance about his place in James' life he only had to look at the little signs scattered around the flat "Hello!"
No answer came but Q wasn't too worried: he could hear the noise of the shower running and James had warned him that he would probably be in the bathroom when he arrived. Which was why Q had opted for getting takeaway, rather than being entrusted with cooking dinner: he could feed himself decently but the ultra modern appliances James owned were mildly intimidating - was there really the need for so many different fancy knives? - and his lover had more refined tastes than he did.
Q snorted at the thought of James sipping his chardonnay while he ate clumpy mac 'n' cheese; while not a five-starred meal, the spread of thai food he had acquired from their favourite takeaway place would definitely offer a better match. It was a matter of a few moments to spread everything out on the small breakfast table James stubbornly didn't want to switch for a bigger one and like all the other times he had time to waste while he waited for the other man, Q attacked one of the storage boxes that James seemed to be making constantly appear out of thin air.
He sat down on the luxurious carpet he had unpacked just the week before - he couldn't believe James had kept such a precious object in storage for so long, just because he couldn't be assed to get his things in order - and tugged closer a box that looked even older than the ones he had already tackled: it was dusty and darkened by water stains which made Q ardently hope that there wasn't anything particularly delicate inside because it surely was ruined. Wishing he had gloves on hand after seeing spots of mould, Q flipped the box open and groaned loudly when he saw that it was filled with paper - documents that needed sorting through and that probably had some kind of value, even if James had completely forgotten about them.
Though, it wasn't a job he could do on the carpet - not after threatening James of bodily harm if he bled on it.
Q moved to a leftover uncovered spot of the floor and grabbed the first pile, wrinkling his nose at the smell of the damp paper; the ink had completely melted away, leaving behind watery blotches and echoes of words now unitelligible.
Well, headed for the trash it was then.
His fingers closed around a bound notebook next and Q hoped that the thick leather would have managed to protect the pages and whatever writing might have been in there; he opened it in the middle and was surprised to recognise James' handwriting - he had expected the journal to be a relic of a much older generation.
The sight was enough to make Q hesitate: he didn't want to intrude on his lover's privacy but James would have told him to leave the box alone if it held something he didn't want him to see, right? Q licked his lower lip and looked up in the direction of the bathroom; it didn't seem like James was any closer to being done, he must have caught him when he had just begun his shower.
They would have to reheat the food.
Trudging over the flickering of guilt that curled in his stomach, Q lowered his gaze once again and looked at the smudged handwriting that he knew so well, down to the squiggly Ts that James produced only when he was annoyed by what he was writing.
...the bullet zipped past Richard's head, buzzing like an insistent mosquito, and it hit the window behind his back.
He couldn't not approve of the satisfying way the stained glass exploded, even if he had been the target of the shot and one of the shards shredded open his jacket where it was stretched over his bicep.
Better a visit to the tailor than to the morgue, he supposed.
Richard tightened his grip on the butt of the gun and after firing a warning shot, there was no time for precision or he would have made sure to put a bullet between the other's eyes, he vaulted off of the railing of the stairs.
It wasn't a high jump.
Much.
He grunted when his feet touched the ground, the impact reverberating up his legs
"Hello, sweetheart"
Q had never found so hard tearing his eyes off of a page when there was the promise of seeing James clad only in a towel, skin still beaded with water but he had to "You"
"Me?" James arched an eyebrow and padded closer to the younger man, curious to see what had put such a bewildered expression on his face "Oh..." shit: his secret was out; he had never wasted much time brooding over how he would react if his career as a novelist was ever found out by one of his colleagues and friends, but he certainly wouldn't have predicted that his heart started trying to beat its way out of his chest "Yes, definitely me"
"You're Guillame Lien"
"Actually, is the other way around"
"Semantics" Q scrambled to his feet and pushed the notebook into the other's chest, fingers digging gauges in the ruined leather "Is this... you know, the real deal?"
"It's the first draft of An Austrian Conspiracy, yes"
"Oh. My. God"
James couldn't quite tell if Q was having a religious experience or if he was just gathering his strength to sock him in the face "Love?"
Everything was clear now: the long hiatus, the feeling that those stories were told by somebody who knew, the change of tone in the last novel... Q could retrace all of his lover's career now that he knew what to look for, that the connection had been revealed "I sent you fan mail once"
James hated the fact that he could feel himself blush "It should still be in the box then"
"I doubt it" Q shook his head "You stopped writing immediately before or after I sent it" an incredulous giggle escaped his mouth "I offered to tell you everything about technology that you clearly didn't get"
"Well.. that sounds 100% like you" James snorted "Are you angry I didn't tell you?"
Q shook his head "No, I'm not" but he couldn't understand why the other man had kept it a secret when he had only ever sung the writer's praises.
"Can I get my pants on, then?"
"If you must" he sighed dramatically "Though, I hope you know I'm going to be even more insufferable now and that you'll have to answer to all my questions"
"There's nothing I'd rather do for my number one fan"