Chapter Text
Q snored. Not horribly so, but James still jolted awake and into full agent mode at the first noise that left Q’s lips. The agent forced himself to lay still as he remembered exactly where he was and why he wasn’t alone in a bed that wasn’t his. He turned around just to be sure that Q was indeed his bed partner, barely managing to hold himself from caressing his face.
But back to the snoring. It was a sort of a cute snore, although Eve would say something ridiculous like how James was too blinded by his crush – he was too old to have a crush, damn it – and turned any possible bad habit of the younger man into something unbelievably and sickly cute.
Q was also completely unaccustomed with actually sharing his bed. And that was clear by the way he spread his arms around him, unbothered by the presence of another person - who was for once actually trying in his long and eventful life to follow the doctor’s instruction and get more than five hours of rest without the aid of liquor. Maybe James should feel a bit worried about Q not realising that someone was in bed with him.
Later in the night, Bond started to take into account the possibility of Q being a football player in a previous life if the fifth kick to his back was anything to go by. He was sure he actually heard it crack that time, but he just grunted and took it without hurting Q back.
"And they call me a menace..."
It also became clear that the Quartermaster had a habit of coding in his sleep, if the long string of zeros and ones were anything to go by. Bond strained his hearing to try and understand what the other man was mumbling, but ‘01001010 01100001 01101101 01100101 01110011’ meant absolutely nothing to him. Still, wrote it down in his phone, making a mental note to check out if it meant anything important later.
Not too long after the man stopped muttering numbers, James found out that he liked to cuddle. But he wasn’t cuddling him, all of his bad luck be cursed to hell and back. The gods could at least give him that one thing in exchange for how many times he had been to hell and back for Queen and country. No, Q seemed to have a very loving relationship with his pillow. Well, if reincarnation was real, Bond hoped to come back as the feathers of the next duck used to make a pillow which would then be bought by Q.
“You’re taking a lot of abuse with a smile on your face, Bond.” Moneypenny whispered from the door, coat on and mocking grin firmly in place. “Your kinks aside, sleeping beauty’s breakfast just needs to be popped in the oven for five minutes before being served and maybe, if you bring it to him in bed with a rose, he might be less inclined to have you killed.”
“I’m hurt. You never did anything kind for me, Moneypenny.” He tried to sound smooth, but it was kind of hard when a certain quartermaster decided that it was the perfect moment to roll over and climb on him, tickling him with his hair – which might have been a being on its own as far as James was concerned.
“I shaved that smug face of yours without drawing blood.” Dusting herself, Eve turned her attention to the other man, giving him a big smile as she took a picture of them both. ”Tanner had it sent over. Enjoy your time with your quartermaster in a manner that does not to cross whatever strange line you two have. “
James finally managed to fall asleep and actually remain like that soon after Eve left the apartment after. Being a field agent of the double oh rank, he was quick to learn things regarding his bed companions, so once he’d registered Q’s interesting behavior while asleep and what his body temperature was, he was able to remain dead to the world.
He’d succumbed to the land of slumber while admitting to himself that he was yearning for something which he had been so close to getting in the past only to have it ripped from him in the most brutal way possible.
He had hoped for a dreamless sleep or at least for a dream in which he was what some would call happy alongside the person that made him feel safe. But his mind was cruel and instead of green eyes filled with the untamed fire of youth and the innocence that accompanied the age, he was greeted by a pair of cold and lifeless blue ones.
Vesper was staring at him from beyond the fence that kept her in the first grasp of Death, his heart firmly clutched in her delicate fingers. “007…” She seemed to call, yet her blue lips remained unmoving. He got angry again and tried to pull the door open, tried to grab her head and pull her towards him so he could give her the precious air that would save her. But she remained just out of his grasp.
“Bond.” Suddenly two hands had dug into his shoulders and began to pull him up, towards the world in which he would have to admit defeat. "Come on, James. This really isn’t funny.” The death of a loved person rarely was.
When he broke to the surface, instead of Venice, he was greeted by Q’s worried frown. The young man slowly removed his hands from James and sat back, allowing the agent’s brain to drink in reality itself and take control over his body and breathing.
"Agent 007, are you suffering from dementia and because of that you confused my apartment and my bed with yours?” Q asked, almost managing to sound professional and uncaring and for even attempting to act like nothing had happened, James loved him even more.
“Tanner sent you food,” Bond replied, turning with his back to Q and pretending to go back to sleep while the other man slowly got out of bed and started to tiptoe around his house.
***
Three hours later and both of them were back in bed, although not in the regular sense. The Quartermaster had his arms crossed over his chest and a firm glare set in place while Bond was sitting on top of the headboard, dangling a remote control just above Q’s face.
“You are the rudest house guest that crossed my threshold, Bond.”
"Ah, but you see, I invited myself in your home. So not a house guest. “The agent countered, jumping out of Q’s reach and landing on the footboard.
"If you break my bed…”
“I can assure you that this is not how I want to break your bed -”
“Don’t you dare invent a new name for me, Bond!”
“–Quillan. And then we can move to mine and break it in the same way.” Q lunged after Bond again, narrowly avoiding bumping his forehead against the bed while the agent landed on the footboard.
Glaring, Q tried to attack Bond’s legs again and pull him down, dead set on stealing the remote control. But the agent only evaded the uncoordinated limbs and jumped back on the mattress, sitting down on Q, laying down on him to keep him in place.
“I do not like football, Bond. It bores me and it makes me sleepy and it is a waste of my precious time.” He argued, trying to turn around with no success whatsoever.
“Then it is just what the doctor ordered for you, Quartermaster. You need a lot of sleep.” He said chuckling and rubbing his head against the back of Q’s.
But Q decided that he wasn’t going to simply lay there and take the insult so he pinched whatever part of the other man his fingers caught as hard as he could, using Bond’s momentary shock to hit push him off and get on top of him. He gloated for only a second before Bond moved again and pulled his t-shirt over his head, using his remote free hand to push the young man against his chest and hold him there, legs wrapping around him.
“You’re detestable, Bond.” Q muttered, giving up.
“I think you meant ‘determined’, Q. But it’s okay. You are tired and both words start with ‘de’ and have ten letters.”
Eve slowly backed up out of the room and silently made her way out of the apartment, clear that she wasn’t needed. Tanner had sent her to keep an eye on the two men, admitting to being worried that Bond might angry Q to the point where the young man would start a war just to get the agent out of his hair. Or maybe Q would annoy Bond and the agent would decide to silence the man with a couple of bullets to the head.
Complete paranoia, Eve thought to herself, now sure more than ever that Bond would do anything in his power to keep the Quartermaster safe and sound. Not because he was an important asset to the Queen and country, but because he was important to him.
There isn’t a single cloud in the sky, so the umbrella wasn’t needed. You should listen to the meteorologist every now and then, T. – E.M