Chapter Text
He woke up feeling surprisingly relaxed and in a good disposition. Yes, he felt as if there was a drill going through his brain, but he didn’t feel like he wanted to be dead. And for that, he blamed the pleasant dream he had the previous night. He flexed his fingers, remembering how real Q’s hair had felt in his mind and he smiled, rolling on the other side of the bed which was still warm.
He knew he had picked up Lana as soon as he had been done with MI6 and the two proceeded to drink and enjoy themselves. But his memories kept jumping from Lana’s offended face to Q’s peaceful sleeping on and he couldn’t understand why. For that matter, he couldn’t understand why he heard Lana slowly making her way back to the bedroom and not to the door. The woman never stayed this much in the morning.
Lana worked for MI5, a field agent herself who posed as a secretary. She was, perhaps, his least favorite from his so called black book because she was so clingy although she swore up and down that she wanted nothing more than sex from him and that she wasn’t interested in pursuing any form of relationship. And while he made no attempt to hide the other women from her, she was always dead set on throwing near-fits whenever she found something feminine that didn’t belong to her in his apartment.
Maybe he was cruel for still continuing their unhealthy and nonexistent relationship, but many times it was she who came to him. Last night hadn’t been any different and he was to tense and too much in need of a good shag to care. They had come back to his apartment, she going on straight there while he stopped to listen in on Q and make sure he was safe, coming back up to be on the receiving end of her scowl only after he’d heard the man typing and moving his cup around.
He remembered starting to make out with her and then a sharp pain across his face. Then his brain simply switched to Q in his arms and his nose in his hair. Any attempts at figuring out how that dream happened and why Lana was still there only brought on a bigger headache and the pain was slowly starting to eat away at his good disposition.
“As far as I could tell, these are paracetamol pills. But I would feel better if you looked at them again before taking them.”
Hearing Q’s voice made his instantly open his eyes and when he saw how close the man was and the state of the undress he was in, he jumped back so much that he fell out of the bed. The covers went down with him and Q almost came along with them, but he had been fast enough to jump back.
“You’re not Lana,” was the first coherent sentence that left his mouth without, of course, actually consulting his brain. Q carefully put down the glass of water and pills on the bedside table and then proceeded to make his way over to where James still laid.
“I imagine that is the name of the woman who kept referring to me as a mouse.” Q sat down on the bed and caressed James’ face, scratching him lightly with the fingernails. “I applaud your eyes for still being good enough to tell the difference between a well-endowed woman and a very skinny male even at your advanced age, Bond.”
“Too skinny,” James grumbled and got up from the floor, throwing himself on the bed and crawling close to Q on whose legs he rested his head. He remembered a time when he’d been used as a pillow by that certain someone. He understood now why sitting like this was so pleasant and when Q started to run his fingers through his hair, he felt like his headache was completely gone.
“I woke up about an hour ago and thought about everything,” Q said softly. “In hindsight, I might need a new pair of glasses since I am apparently still blind as a bat.” He ducked his head and placed a light kiss on Bond’s temple. “But we still need to talk about this, whatever it is.”
Grabbing Q’s hand and bringing it to his lips, James let his thoughts take over him. He wasn’t sure himself how a relationship would work out between them both in the real life. Whenever he allowed himself to imagine things, late at night, there was a world where only he and Q existed and no one else. No MI6, no drowned ghost that clung to him and tripped him whenever he attempted to have a relationship, no over the top villains to shot the persons to whom he bestowed the pieces of his hear that he had left.
“If you want to simply shag, I have nothing against you using me over and over again.” He allowed a grin to spread on his lips, slipping back in his armor just for a moment. “I did present you with this offer, but you mistook it for me offering you access to hookers.” But even if the other man would send him away after that, he’d still hoover somewhere in Q’s shadow, watching over him, making sure no one got to him and hurt him.
The reply he got to the joke was Q’s hands over his mouth, forehead resting against his. It wasn’t his fault, or at least that was what the MI6 psychiatrist said. All double oh agents lost the ability to love in the real sense of the word because their jobs involved tricking others into falling into love with them and then betraying them. It was only natural for them to expect to be treated the same way in return sometime in the future, so to prevent that, most of them build walls around their hearts or hide behind innuendos. It was in the doctor’s opinion that regular double oh agents could, at best, form strong attachments to other people in their line of work.
“When it comes to me using you, I am quite satisfied with the quartermaster using the agent as a gun. I had a little more in mind when it came to the human side of both of us.” He ran his finger down James’ face, “007 could screw everyone on all the continents as far as I am concerned. The Quartermaster doesn’t care as long as the gun comes back safe and sound. But you, Mister Bond, you I do not want to share.”
James wrapped his arms around Q’s middle and used his force to switch their positions, pinning the younger man under him “We both have double personalities…I don’t think the psychiatrist would be too happy to hear that.” He brushed his lips against Q’s, chuckling when the man wrapped his elegant arms around his neck and pushed his face closer to him, kissing him hungrily. “Don’t worry; I don’t plan on letting you out of my sight or bed when I’m not on missions.” They kissed again, Bond slipping his hands under the man’s t-shirts.
It was clear from the start that their relationship would be a strange one, a twisted version of monogamy if they chose to ignore what and whom Bond had to do. But the older man had decided that, should Q ever become bothered by his shameless whoring while on the job, he’d either find a way to get around screwing his marks. He was sure Q wouldn’t agree for him to leave MI6 so he refused to even think of that. Q was Q he wasn’t her.
One of Q’s phones started to ring in the background, but when he breathed out that it was his personal one, James started kissing him harder. If it was his private phone, whoever it was could call back and since Q’s legs wrapped around his middle, Bond was pretty sure that he was in agreement.
His own phone started to call and he simply slapped it off the bedside table, moving on to Q’s neck. He planned on showing the other man what kind of ‘spots’ he imagined whenever he saw him, sucking on his Adam’s apple. Let everyone know that Q was taken and if any of the minions or anyone else had anything against him putting his mark where everyone could see, he’d fight them all and learn to live in a cardboard box – if Q’s loyal minions were involved in a revenge scheme, there was always a high possibility of that happening.
A noise alerted James that someone was in the apartment and he sprang into action right before the door was opened. He jumped out of the bed, pushing Q down next to his dresser and pulling a gun out from under it, opening the dresser’s door to use as a shield while completely covering Q’s body with his. His plan was to let the dresser’s door take most of the bullets – he had them modified to be bullet proof since he kept that dresser next to a window no matter what new apartment he bought – and then strategically try to shoot the intruders in the head.
“Bond, Q’s not in his…” The panic disappeared instantly off of the other man’s face, Moneypenny doubling over with laughter, holding her stomach. “007, would you mind terribly explain to me why there is a half-naked quartermaster behind you?”
Putting the gun back under the dresser, James got up, Q hiding behind him harder now, cussing under his breath. “Tanner, just how long have you been exiled to the sofa by your lovely and fearsome wife for losing at poker that you have to ask such a ridiculous question?” He didn’t flinch when Q pinched his side, just rested his hands on top of the younger man’s to stop any further attempts at that sort of punishment. “Well, when two people want to shag, they—“
“007, shut up this instant unless you want a toothpick as your only weapon in the next five missions!” Q raised his voice, sinking his teeth in James’ shoulder, Eve laughing even harder.
Tanner looked completely baffled, his mouth opening and closing with no real words forming, his arms waving around uselessly in front of him. Bond continued to shield Q from their view as he turned around and pulled a blanket down from the dresser, draping it around him before walking to fish out his phone from where he had slapped it.
“You are interrupting us, so make it quick.”
But Tanner ignored him completely, choosing instead to focus on Q. “I thought Miss Moneypenny was simply pulling my leg!” The man started, resting his hands over Q’s shoulder while Bond watched the exchange between the two with a lot of interest. Just what sort of relationship did the two men have?
“The agent told you to make it quick. This isn’t quick,” Q said, sounding beyond embarrassed and refusing to look the other man in the face. “And I’m legal, I can do whatever I want and with whomever I want,” he grumbled not unlike a teenager who had been caught with his pants down by his father and since Bond saw absolutely no physical resemblance between the two, that couldn’t be the right relationship..
“With James bloody Bond?” The other shouted, rubbing his face furiously.
“Bill, this isn’t professional,” Eve said, finally managing to get her laughter back under control.
“Professional? I don’t care about being professional right this moment, Miss Moneypenny,” the man continued to shout, Bond moving between him and the flustered Q. “Q might be in danger and Bond is busy manhandling my—“ And there was that blasted half of information curse that seemed to involve anything and everything about Q.
“No one was being manhandled,” Q spoke up in his quartermaster voice, frowning and trying to cross his hands over his chest without losing the covers. “I assume that was you on my personal phone so you are here on unofficial business anyway.”
Tanner tilted his head and tried to glare behind Bond at Q, but the agent moved again and blocked him. “M called Miss Moneypenny and I in his office and told us what 007 had revealed to him yesterday: an enemy operative knew what our quartermaster looked like.” The man sat down on the bed massaging his temples. “He said we should act like we knew nothing.”
“A plan I agree with and fully support,” Q said from behind Bond, blinking when Eve’s hand appeared with his glasses in it. “Ah, thank you. I was beginning to get a headache because I didn’t have these.” He put them on and cleared his throat, Bond blocking the woman’s attempt at ruffling Q’s hair.
“When I called you and you didn’t answer… Miss Moneypenny agreed to be my backup, should one be needed.” Tanner started talking again, leaning back a bit only to jump out of the bed when he realized where he had sat down.
“You interrupted us before we could do anything, so you can relax,” Bond offered, getting a slap over the shoulder as thanks from Q.
“You went to my apartment, saw it empty, saw my glasses and you assumed the worse. Well, as you saw, James was taking care of me.” Q finished for Tanner, sighing in frustration. “You were bloody fast.”
“I called both of your phones at least twenty minutes ago.” Tanner groaned and hid his face in his hands, muttering about how he really did not need to hear that from him out of all people and since when was 007 James for Q? “I still think you should go to a safe house, Q.” He pulled out his phone and pushed it in his direction. “Call M and tell him you want to go off the grid until everything gets settled.”
“And I think I shan’t. James had a similar idea last night, but in his defense, he was drunk.” Q was quick to raise his hand and keep Tanner from saying anything. “We need to catch the mole and in order to do that we need to act like we’re completely in the dark about his or hers existence. For once, James’ inability to take proper care of what he is given paid off and no one heard the exchange between the two.”
This was not his day, Tanner decided. He didn’t try to push the subject further, knowing full well that once Q set his mind to something, the Queen herself wouldn’t be able to change it. That had landed him in MI6 in the first place. And 007 seemed dead set on acting as the man’s shield, so he guessed that Q was in sort-of safe hands.
“Can you at least not call him ‘James’ like that?” Tanner almost begged and Bond snorted, the agent raising his eyebrow at the glare the received in return from Q’s apparent parent. He really needed to find out what the deal was with these two.
“Can you remove yourself from this room before we decide to ignore you and carry on?” Q asked, sounding bold despite the redness of his face. “I doubt James would mind if we had an audience and Moneypenny strikes me as the type of woman who knows no shame.”
“Hey, I know shame,” she defended herself quickly, arms on her hips.
“You know shame and you’ll trust M’s plan. I will have an easy sleep tonight now that I know all of that useless information. Now you can both get the hell out of my apartment.”
Tanner glared at Bond while Eve led him away, his face clearly indicating that he wasn’t done with him and that he wanted to have a private conversation sometime in the near future, preferably away from Q’s hearing range. And it looked like the type of conversation he had with certain people before they attempted to shot him.
As soon as the two were left alone, James attacked Q’s mouth, the younger man grabbing on to his neck and wrapping his legs around James’ waist. They both planed on carrying exactly where they had left off, James throwing himself down on the bed with Q on top of him. James' hands finally made their way down to Q's boxers and just as things were getting interesting, the young man's phone went off.
"Ignore it, it will stop, “James muttered against Q’s neck, grunting when he was ignored and the other man crawled out from under him. Really, all technology hated him. Every bloody phone that went off just when things were getting interesting must be getting revenge for tech he had destroyed while on mission. Q, Q with his brilliant and wonderful mind must have accidentally made every machine sentient and everything was exacting vengeance on him.
"It’s my work phone. “Q explained and frowned, clearly not pleased with the text he had received. "M called me in. It probably has something to do with the pest problem.” He pursed his lips and tried not to look disappointed and mildly annoyed at everything, but he failed. “I need to get ready for work in this case.”
"I’ll lock him in a room full of hungry rats when I get my hands on him, right after gauging his eyes out.“ James continued to grumble even as he got up from the bed and fished out a suit out of the closet, following Q down to his apartment. Of course he was going to make sure Q got to work in one piece. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe that things were magically going to turn into a fairy tale ending. He had done that in the past. He had let his guard down and he ended up burying so many of his loved ones.
Q stopped just in front of the door and pulled Bond by his shirt, giving him a quick kiss. "Don’t get so worked up, James. High blood pressure at your age definitely isn’t healthy.”
"If we had the time and if you were fully safe, I’d give you lots of reasons to never joke about how old I am.“ All he had to do was make sure that the past didn’t repeat itself again, keep Q away from the same faith the others had met. And that was, perhaps, harder than keeping England from falling to its knees.