Work Text:
Indigo
Q had always hated Medical: with its harsh lights, the stench of disinfectant and medicines saturating the air and the blinding whiteness of its floor and walls, it made his insides twist and knot together in pure and unadulterated terror.
He hated it even more now that he sat on the uncomfortable plastic chair by one of the beds, hands uselessly trying to fluff up and revive the withering flowers in an old, dusty glass vase. Q didn't know who had brought them nor, to be honest, what kind of flowers they were - he hadn't wasted any time learning about such things when he had ended up stranded on Earth, but an unhealthy amount of time spent watching tv series such as Grey's Anatomy and Dr House had taught him that flowers in hospital should look as pretty as possible.
In the end, Q sighed and folded his hands back on his lap, over a tablet he had brought to keep in contact with his Branch and work a little. Not that he had managed to actually focus on coding or any other projects: every time he unlocked the screen with a practised swipe of his finger, his eyes would inevitably wander up to the body laying motionless in the bed; the white blanket almost gently draped over it, it made Q think of all the cold corpses in a morgue, their modesty preserved in death only by flimsy sheets smelling of disinfectant and slow decay.
James' skin, usually tanned golden by the warmer sun of foreign countries, had a sickly pallor to it that was broken only by bruises, swollen and varying from purple to yellowish-brown in colour. As black as smudged ink, there were circles around the agent's sunken eyes; their lids had been closed for so long that to Q, the thin blond lashes seemed stuck together for forever - the thought of those bright azure eyes sealed in a never-ending sleep made the alien's inside twist and knot together in worry and pain.
James had been in a coma for 5 days, 34 minutes and 21 seconds - and Q blamed himself for every single one of them, feeling the guilt steadily gnawing at his insides until all he wanted to do was locking himself in the bathroom to throw up. Human bodies truly were weird; Q wasn't used to having the physical need to extern his emotions, not when his skin already did so.
Q looked down at himself: he didn't think he'd ever been such a deep shade of blue in his whole life, the colour was so saturated that it seemed it was almost pulsating black-ish purple. Saying that he was afraid, it would be reductive: he was downright terrified for James' life.
"You should rest, Quartermaster"
The voice of the doctor made Q jump on his seat and he immediately swivelled his head around, shoulders hunched to make himself as small as possible; he was in his full alien form - only his eyes remained the same - and with James laying motionless on the bed, Q felt unsafe "I'm fine"
The doctor sighed as he strode closer to check on his patient, moving with a care he usually wouldn't have used when visiting someone unconscious - but if there was something he knew well, it was the alien Quartermaster's fear for anything medical "While nobody knows much about your biology, I feel safe to state that every single living organism in the universe needs sleep"
"I can go long hours without getting any" Q retorted, forcing himself to stay still at his place next to James, even if he could feel every single cell of his body tremble with the need to get away from the other man and his blindingly white coat.
The awful noise of plastic gloves snapping on naked skin was chilling and Q hunched on himself while he completely focused on keeping an instinctive whimper of fear silent in on his throat: he still couldn't believe that his childhood nightmares, those evil doctors who had only existed in his bearer's tales, were surrounding him - what if James never woke up? Q knew that the unconscious man had been - and still was, sometimes - the reason why xenophobes and doctors usually left him alone; without James' security, Q would be exposed to danger.
"His situation is stable"
Q blinked up at the doctor "He's not waking up yet?"
The doctor shook his head, frowning down at his clipboard on which 007's files were pinned "He took a very hard blow to the head" he started explaining, retrieving one of the first scans so that he could show it to the Quartermaster "See this linear fracture? On any other bone in the body, it would be quite harmless but head injuries always need particular care and monitoring. What happened in Bond's case is that the trauma has forced some areas of the brain against the bony ridges inside the skull: it's called contusion, a localized area of bruising of the brain tissue; they consist of areas of swollen brain and blood that has leaked out of small arteries, veins or capillaries" the doctor briefly looked up to check that the other was still following him; some of the things he were trying to explain were difficult even for a human with a vague grasp on their own biology, but he could imagine that for an alien - no matter how genial - it would be difficult to comprehend everything.
"Why didn't you notice it sooner?" Q inquired, shivering at the sterile terms the doctor was using to describe James' injuries. The swelling of the brain seemed something that with many symptoms and easy to spot.
The doctor grimaced in answer "If agent 007 had immediately come into Medical as required by procedure, we would have been able to prevent this" he stated; maybe, if the agent ever woke up, the alien would have been able to persuade him to get properly checked instead of acting like a child terrified of getting shots "The bleeding has occurred slowly enough that the earlier symptoms went unnoticed and the pressure inside the skull grew to the point of being dangerous"
Anger bubbled inside Q and, not for the first time, he was glad that he could use his body as an outlet for his feelings, a menacing bright purple swirling together with the indigo on his skin; he wondered how it was possible that humans didn't explode, forced as they were to keep everything bottled up "Can't you do anything?"
"The swelling has naturally gone down and the fracture is healing nicely" the doctor apologised, shaking his head "We'll have to wait and see if there's any lasting damage"
When James woke up, he let out a little inquiring noise at the harsh light shining down on him and the feeling of an unfamiliar mattress under his back: unlike other times, he could remember coming home to Q and eating dumplings after bickering about lost equipment - how it was possible that he had ended up in Medical, then?
James glanced down and blinked at the lapful of indigo tentacles, starkly dark against the pristine sheets, and frowned when he noticed how limp and tired - could tentacles really seem tired? - they looked. Gently, James nudged one and his heart monitor started to beep quicker when not even one of them nudged him back or wrapped around his finger "Q?" He attempted to ask but his voice wasn't above a whisper, painfully scratching his throat "Q?"
"Agent, I'm glad to see you finally awake" the doctor greeted as he entered the room "Might I suggest you to calm down? It's not really ideal for you to be agitated right now"
"Q?" James rasped again.
The doctor put in Bond's hand a glass of water with a straw in it, easily avoiding the Quartermaster's body so that he could flash a penlight in the agent's eyes "He's been awake for almost two days and before that he had only a brief nap: I'm not surprised that he won't wake up" he said, disapproval clear in his voice.
"What happened?"
"You tell me, Bond" the doctor scowled "Why didn't you tell anyone that you sustained a head injury?"
"It was just a little blow"
"It was a contusion"
"James?" Q murmured, woken up by the bantering going on over his head "James!" When the sleepy fog cleared from his eyes, he clambered up the bed and over the other's chest, momentarily uncaring about hurting him or all the tubes connecting him to the machines surrounding them, and tucked himself under his chin "I was so worried! You're awake!"
James chuckled even if it hurt and wrapped his arms around Q, smiling when yellow started to replace the dark blue on Q's skin "I'm sorry" he whispered "I'm so sorry, love"
Under Q's shirt, a white dwarf exploded between his shoulderblades.