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The harsh light of the room stung his eyes, stabbing painfully as he tried to find a dull surface to look at. The space reminded him entirely too much of an interrogation room, the type you saw on late night telly with too much blood and too little plot.
“Quartermaster?”
His head shot up, pulling him back to the present and allowing the lights another prime opportunity to blind him.
“Are you ready to begin?”
“Begin what?” He smiled thinly fingers tapping out a terse rhythm on the table, "I've been here all day doing different..." He glanced at the mirror subtly flipping M off, "paperwork."
The man frowned at him from behind his clip board, bland eyes following Q from beneath wire frames. “Word associations, Quartermaster. I will say a word and you will answer with a word as quickly as you can.”
“Alright.”
He shuffled around again before pulling his clipboard up to start, “Flag?”
“Cloth.”
“Country?”
“Construct.”
“England?”
“Here.”
“Underground”
“Necessity.”
He gave only a slight pause, but then continued on, “Residence?”
“London.”
“London?”
That gave Q pause. What could possibly be the point of throwing back London at him that quickly? Could he say a word more than once or would that somehow cause him to fail?
What did failing at this sort of task, stuck underground in this sort of room mean anyway?
“Quartermaster?”
“Uhh.....apartment?”
“You're not sure?”
“I had just bloody said London.”
The man moved his clipboard back, eyes flashing down to the list again.
“Tea?”
“Fuel.”
“Work?”
“MI6.”
“Passion?”
“Technology.”
“Government?"
He looked right at the two-way mirror for that one, “Corrupt.”
“MI6?”
“Government.”
"Hacking?"
He tried to think of a word that encompassed how encompassing it was to break into something so intangible. To fray wires from the inside, attack people in a way they often never expected.
"Bliss."
“James?”
“Safe.”
Q could already tell he was going to regret this when he was done. If he'd known that his change in paperwork to officially include James in his life would be so tedious he would have forgone the whole damn process.
“Gun?”
“Violence.”
“Death?”
“Inevitable.”
“Alcoholism?”
He thought of James passed out on the bed, or vodka on his breath temper flaring at every little thing. He could remember—the details too vivid too painful—the way James' fingers had shaken as he looked at the bottle of cooking wine Q had in his cabinet.
"Overstimulation.”
“Paperwork?”
“Tedious.”
“Sleepwalking?”
James creeping into his apartment when this whole thing had started, blue eyes open and unseeing. The shuffle of unknowing feet on his carpet, his heart stuttered painfully in his chest.
“Nighttime.”
“Sky?”
“Cloud.”
“Abuse?”
“Others.”
“Marriage?”
“Parents.”
“Relationship?”
Q thought of James, thought of how nice it was to wake up with the older man in his bed, how warm his hands were pushing their bodies free of the tangled-up sheets holding them snugly together.
“Possibility.”
“Skyfall?”
“.....” he frowned, “Over.”
The scratch of pencil for the first time, “Alright, what about Vesper?”
His frowned deepened, corners of his mouth pulling gently. Everyone knew who Vesper was, it was the 00's worst kept secret.
“Lemons.”
The man gave Q a displeased look, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he looked down at Q.
He felt like an unruly child sent to sit in a corner in the headmaster's office for having too much energy.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Alright then, comfort?”
Again, he thought of James, the clothes he left on Q's floor when he inevitably snuck in, the new coffee machine he’d insisted stay where Q was, even though Q never drank coffee. The brush of James' fingers across his shoulders pulling him from a work binge, the press of James' palm against the low of his back-guiding Q into bed when he was too tired to see.
These questions let him know—there was really was no other possibility—that James was watching this whole thing.
“Safe.”
James was smart enough to figure it out.
When the whole process was finally over, he was more than a little tired and would be happy if he never saw the inside of that MI6 again, nevermind that he had work tomorrow.
James was waiting for him in the parking lot, leaning casually against a sleek car, sunglasses shielding his eyes from Q's gaze. It looked like he’d been outside for hours, Q knew he’d been in the building the whole time.
“Came to pick me up?”
“You could say that.” Calloused fingers rasped across his cheek slowly, James' body hiding the movement from the building behind them, “Safe? Comfort? Really Avery?”
A sigh escaped him, pulling his cheek away from James' fingers, “What do you want from me James?”
“Are you sure?”
The stillness in his posture told Q to think carefully about whatever he told him.
“Yes.”
James' fingers found his face again, lips brushing Q's temple as he guided Q into the car carefully. The tension in James' had fled with Q's words, and even without saying anything he understood what he’d accepted.
They should have asked him about home, he thought, he would have told them James.