Work Text:
FIVE CARDIGANS AND ONE SUIT:
1.
Q always wears his favourite cardigan on a Friday, so consequently it is what he is wearing the first time James asks him out. “Q?” he heard as 007 stuck his head around the door, “Are you busy tonight?” he asks, and oh my gosh is James… nervous… THE 007, is nervous! “No, he can’t be nervous,” Q thinks, “James bond doesn’t get nervous. Stuttering. Shaky hands. Sweating profusely. He is, he’s nervous…” he is pulled from his thoughts when James coughs and waves a hand in front of Q’s face, “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Q asks shaking his head swiftly to clear his errant thoughts.
“I asked if you wanted to go for a drink later.” Upon seeing the disbelieving look cross Q’s face he quickly backtracks, “I mean… err… you don’t have to. Just if you wanted to. It doesn’t even have to mean anything, we can just go as friends?” he doesn’t mean to make his statement into a question, but that’s how it sounds to Q, who just smiles, nods and then says, “Are you asking me on a date, Mister Bond?” he smiles slyly when James eyes widen, but before he can say anything, Q speaks again, “Sure,” he says, “I’m done now anyway. Despite what the minions might have you think, I don’t really work until the small hours of the morning.” He turns back to face his computer, saves the coding he was working on and then walks back out of the door to his office, he pushes James out of the doorway so that he can close the door and set the alarms (well, you can never be too careful) and they walk together towards Q’s car (James’s is at the bottom of the Thames somehow, and is yet to be recovered) and make their way towards a small pub and a spectacular date.
2.
Q is wearing his cardigan the day he is asked to supervise one of James’s worst missions. “No James, wrong door!” he shouts down his comm-link. He sees James’s tracker turn around quickly and move through the door that he should have gone through originally, the vitals monitor picks up an increased heart rate that suddenly spikes at the exact same time that a gunshot is heard through the speakers. “James! James! Are you hit?!” Q shouts into the microphone, quickly becoming hysterical. He begins to sob. “James, please don’t joke about this.” He says, the pain evident in his voice, “James! Bloody answer me!” he barks, but there is no answer. The vitals monitor and tracker have shorted out and there is only static.
3.
The next time Q dons his cardigan again is seven weeks later, when he decides that he can’t mope anymore , and he needs to get back to work. “How unprofessional of me” he murmurs when he is safely situated in his office again, “I can’t let it destroy me, James wouldn’t want that. I mean it’s not like we were serious or anything, we were only dating for six months,” it suddenly dawns on him that six months is a long time by anyone’s standards let alone by James’s, “He still wouldn’t want me to be sad, he’d tell me to-” “-Keep soldiering on? Or move on?” a voice interrupt him from the doorway, Q looks up ready to tell the person, whoever the hell it is, to piss off and leave him to wallow in grief alone, but the words stick in his throat because stood in the illuminated doorway is James. Q leaps over his desk and James opens his arms to hug him and so, as he is expecting a hug, he is a little bit shocked when a fist collides solidly with his jaw. “How dare you?!” Q spits at him as he watches James rub his quite possibly broken jaw, “You utter bastard, I was heartbroken. I thought you were dead,” He pulls James face towards his and crushes their lips together roughly, only pulling back when he needs to breathe, but even then he doesn’t move very far. He leans his forehead against James’ and looks him dead in the eyes. He places one hand on each cheek and whispers, “I thought you were dead… you utter, adorable, handsome, bastard.” He kisses him again but softly this time, mindful of his jaw, “I love you, but if you ever do that to me again, I will resurrect you and kill you again myself.” James just nods, knowing that it’s no use trying to explain now, he will tell Q the whole story later. He promises that it won’t happen again, but deep in their hearts they both know he’s lying, but if they choose to forget that then that’s fine.
4.
“I refuse to dress smart just to go and see my family.” Q stands in front of their wardrobe in his comfiest cardigan with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. James knows that it’s totally pointless to argue, Q is stubborn and when he sets his mind to do something (or not do it in this case) there is no changing his mind, so James meets Q’s family and Q is still wearing that bloody cardigan.
Q pulls the car up the drive and parks in front of the huge house, as they step out of the car they hear a shriek of, “Quillan Nathaniel Holmes, what on earth are you wearing?!” a short woman with greying hair came down the steps, James vaguely recognised her, and then it hit him, “Q?” he hissed, “Why the bloody hell did you not tell me that your mother is M?!” Q just smiled as if to say, it wasn’t important until now, and began walking towards his mother. She pulled him into her arms, “Both of your brothers are already here, Sherlock has brought his friend John with him and Mycroft and Gregory got here yesterday, which means darling, that you are the last one and you know what that means…” She looked over his shoulder as she released him and shouted to James, “Well, come along then Bond, we can’t leave you and poor Quillan out here in the cold can we now? Hurry up,” And with that she set off at a brisk walk and was soon back inside.
Q walked up the steps and pushed open the huge oak doors, with James trailing reluctantly behind him. When they stepped into the main room they were greeted by a group of men all stood in a huddle as if planning something, that could quite possibly lead to either embarrassment or injury (dependant on who was involved), a tall man with thinning red hair stepped forward first and hugged Q before turning to James and shaking his hand, “Hello, I’m Mycroft Holmes, Quillan’s eldest brother and this is my husband Gregory Lestrade-Holmes.” James shook Greg’s hand and said hello. A younger looking man stepped forward next but before he could say anything Q spoke up, “I should warn you James, Sherlock is a bit weird, he doesn’t know when to stop either.” It was then that Sherlock started talking, “Ex-Navy, boring, has been shot a considerable amount of times, slightly more interesting but still dull, already knows mother, he’s met Lestrade before but he doesn’t realise it at the moment, and he obviously knows John too, maybe an assignment together at some point,” he took a deep breath and was about to continue when John interrupted him, “Sherlock.” He said sternly, “Bit not good?” Sherlock replied, John chuckled and said, “Bit not good, you’ve only just met the poor guy, don’t scare him off yet,” He chuckled and then addressed James directly, “Hey mate, long time no see,” he turned back to his friend, “and no Sherlock, it wasn’t an assignment, James and I trained together at military academy.” Sherlock looked slightly disgruntled that he was wrong.
“Sorry,” James broke in, “Is that… that… thing he just did normal then? No-one seems to think this out of the ordinary.” The look that the assembled group shared seem to say that this really wasn’t anything unordinary. At that point M walked back in, “Dinner is ready everyone, Mycroft, where is Anthea?” at this point a small five year old girl ran in through the door, “I’m here Nana,” She giggled before running towards her father and then turning to her daddy, “I was hiding from Nana in the dining room,” she whispered very loudly, “I was under the table. But don’t tell Nana, she told me I wasn’t allowed to hide under there anymore.” She giggled loudly again before she noticed Q, Sherlock and John, “Uncle Q!” she squealed as she jumped from her father’s arms and ran towards her favourite uncle, her long Black hair flying behind her, and crashed into his legs sending him to the floor, James saw this and chuckled as he helped Q up again, “So, you can withstand an explosion at HQ yet you can’t handle your five year old niece?” Q just punched him lightly on the arm as Anthea greeted her ‘Uncle Sherley’ and ‘Uncle John’ and then turned to the stranger in the room, she stuck out her hand and said, “Hello, I’m Anthea. Who are you?” She asked in that blunt way that only children can get away with, James crouched down to her level and shook her hand as he said, “My name is James I’m your Uncle Q’s… friend?...” he turned to Q who nodded and said, “He’s my boyfriend Anthea,” James stood again and a look of comprehension crossed Anthea’s face, “Oh, like daddy and father then.” She said, nodded once sharply and then ran over to M again, “Come on Nana, Mrs Hudson and Auntie A are waiting in the dining room for everyone.” She walked back to James, grabbed his hand and pulled him along babbling constantly to him, James shot a scared look at Q who just looked on amused as James is dragged away by a five year old, he knows that James is letting her otherwise there would be no way that she would be able to move James. And that is the fourth time that Q wears his cardigan for something significant in his and James’s relationship.
5.
The fifth significant event is by far the most important and yet Q still wears his cardigan. They are sat in the main room of Holmes Manor after Christmas dinner. John and Sherlock are sat on one sofa, Sherlock leaning back against one arm with Johns feet in his lap and each with a glass of wine in hand. Mycroft is sat in the armchair facing the fire with Anthea sleeping on his lap and Greg sat on the arm of the chair. M is sat in an armchair on her own, talking to Mrs Hudson who is on the sofa next to her. Q and James are sat on the sofa next to Mrs Hudson, both in their own little world that consists of just the two of them, chatting about absolutely nothing and everything, suddenly James stands, “Can I have everyone’s attention please?” everyone stops talking and turns to him, he pulls Q to his feet, takes a step back and then gets down onto one knee. He pulls a non-descript small box from his trouser pocket and says, “Q, I couldn’t live without you, believe me, I can’t even count the amount of times that you’ve saved my life on missions. I love you and I want to let you know that every day. So what I’m saying is, Quillan Nathaniel Holmes. Will you marry me?” He opens the box as Q nods and whispers “yes.” And that’s all the response that James needs, in seconds he has slipped the ring onto Q’s finger and pulled him into a tight embrace, their lips lock and move together. They stand like this for a while, oblivious to their surroundings, until M clears her throat loudly behind them, they at least have the decency to look sheepish at being caught snogging, before she says, “Well, let’s see the ring then.”
+1
The first time that Q wears a suit for something significant is for his wedding. “I am pleased to introduce for the first time, Mr and Mr Bond-Holmes” Q and James walk into the reception hall and are faced with a veritable who’s who of top MI6 agents and top scientists and they sit at the head table with M (James has been told to call her Mummy or Mother) and Sherlock, John, their newly adopted 6 month old baby Hamish, Mycroft, Gregory, Anthea and R on Q’s side and Eve, Alec and Mallory on James’s side. Eve was James Bridesmaid and Alec was his Best man and R was Q’s Bridesmaid and John was his Best man. They all made their speeches and then it was time for their first dance. Q let James lead the dance and they danced together, in their own little world, until they became aware of the guests clinking their knifes against the glasses. Knowing what they were trying to signal, Q brought both of his hands up to cup James’s face and brought their mouths together, Q started the kiss but James was leading it. They broke away when they both needed to draw a breath, “I love you,” James whispered, “ And we need to leave soon otherwise we’ll miss our flight,” he saw the fear that flitted through Q’s eyes at the mention of flying and quickly consoled him, do you honestly think that I would let anything bad happen to you, we’ll be fine flying, it’s not for long anyway.” Q nodded, proud that Q trusted him entirely to go through one of his biggest fears trusting that James wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him. “Ok, I trust you. Oh I almost forgot,” he brushed his lips against James’s cheek, “I love you too.”