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Do not wait for that silver lining… It’s not coming.
It’s too late.
“R.” Q hissed as he struggled against the electrical tape wrapped too tightly around his wrists. “R!” The Quartermaster nudged his second with his bound feet. But the pale haired man remained silent, staring blankly at his lap. He didn’t struggle when they captured him, and he wasn’t struggling now.
From the moment both Q and R were snatched into the van - literally right under MI6 - Q had been fighting tooth and nail. They were right there! In the basement of MI6. Their best chance for escape was before their captors had a chance to leave the building. Yet out they drove unhindered, as though security all simultaneously decided to go for a tea break.
“R!?” He was worried. Raoul hadn’t uttered a word since their capture. Q had a beefy hand slapped against his mouth when he started to shout. And R? With his grey-green eyes downcast. He had went along obligingly almost. Even now when they were dumped in this steel enforced cell. He remained still.
The door slammed open suddenly and Q’s eyes widened as he took in the figure that had entered.
It was R.
Q's head jerked, looking between the two 'R's with wide-eyed bewilderment.
The man that stood at the threshold of the room was the split image of his second that sat bound in front of him. The only difference was their clothing - R in dark slacks with a grey cardigan over a white shirt. While the man was wearing a cream coloured tailored suit.
“There you are!” The man exclaimed pleasantly, a wide warm smile stretching his lips as he sauntered over to R who looked up at the approaching figure. Recognition, horror then despair flashing across his face. The man’s hand curled lovingly around R’s neck.
“Raoul, my love.” The man crooned, his voice dropping to a husky rumble. He hoisted R up by his collar, kissing him roughly.
“No!” R shouted as he tore his face away. Identical faces with expressions at such polar opposites. Q stared, unable to wrap his mind around the madness, as the two Raoul’s stared at each other.
“We’ll have plenty of time love,” the man smiled serenely. “I’ll be sure to give you all of my special treatments.”
“No,” R gasped, turning deathly pale as he finally began to struggle. “No!”
The man frowned, his warm smile tipping several degrees lower as R kept struggling. Q watched helplessly as those long fingers gripping at R’s neck and arm clenched tighter. Still disconcerted by the likeness of the man and R’s face - one smoothed into a mask of controlled anger, the other pale and splotchy. His repeated pleas dissolved to pained whimpers as cruel fingers digged in.
“Now now my love.” The man fumed softly. “You know this would be so much more easier if you cooperated.” He waited, looking expectantly at R, whose face twisted suddenly in disgust.
“Never!” R spat, fueled by whatever the man’s words had triggered in him. R began struggling again, heedless of the grip the man still had on his arm and neck.
“Fine.” The man said simply, dropping R who fell to the floor on his back. R breathed hard through his nose, rolling to his side, eyes sharp and wary as he watched the man who gave his crisp suit a few tugs. Then strode over to Q.
“No no no no! Tiago, wait!” R’s chants increasing in trepidation as the man, Tiago, grabbed Q and hauled him to the door. R’s struggles to get up and persistent yells were ignored.
“In the meantime,” Tiago said to R as he easily tossed Q out of the room, where several muscled guards stood waiting, “you’ll keep my men entertained.”
Tiago stalked off down the long hallway, one of the guards dragging Q along, as the rest of them entered the cell R remained in.
-
Raoul Silva made for an exceptional second for Q Branch. Stepping into the last Quartermaster’s shoes wasn’t something the young Q was worried about. Gaining the respect and recognition from the branch he now commanded, yes, that worried him. Q thought he’d have a power struggle issue with R - the most senior staff - and the most charismatic one to boot. But Raoul had instead became Q’s most reliable colleague, and his first friend in MI6.
They hit it off exceptionally well. With Q’s own adept take over of the branch, transforming it into the technological heart of MI6. Together with R’s rapport with the rest of the staff, the both of them made quite the team. Head and main lead of the minions of Q branch.
Q would have never imagined Raoul to be anything but what he was.
On hindsight, Q realised he should have done a background check on him. If he had digged far enough, Q would have found records of a twin, separated, a few decades back.
-
Q was tossed back in the cell, just as one of the burly guards was stepping out. A glimpse of the guard’s blood streaked penis before he tucked it in, to the sight of R curled up on the floor, pants around his ankles. Horror and realisation brought a strangled cry out of Q as he made to move over to R.
“Oh my love,” Tiago sighed as he shoved Q away before he reached R’s body. The man gently lifting his twin from the floor onto his lap. Q tried to focus as his vision spun, his eyes fixed on how the blood from between Raoul’s legs smeared Tiago’s white pants. How R remained still as his brother caressed his face lovingly, before redressing him with a tenderness Q simply couldn’t believe.
This same man, who only minutes earlier was beating Q to a bloody pulp, carefully tugging R’s clothes back on. The blood oozing from the cut on his eyebrow trickled down his eye just as a hacking cough seized him. When Q opened his eyes again, Raoul and Tiago were gone.
-
“Raoul and I, we’re soulmates. He was meant to be with me.”
The words flew past Q the moment they hauled him into that room. All he saw was R.
R with his eyes open and vacant, head moving sluggishly. Drugged. His breathing so shallow Q was only sure after staring for seconds. Last he saw R, Tiago had taken him away, three days ago by Q’s count.
“I knew we would have a special bond. I felt it, very early on.”
Tiago didn’t stop there, he went on and on and on. The more he spoke, and waxed poetry on his belief that his twin Raoul belonged to him. How it turned and twisted into an obsession. A possessiveness that took a morbid turn when the twins turned twelve.
By the time they were thirteen, Tiago had coerced Raoul into many things, sick perverted things. Q’s head was spinning with the stereotypical villain monologue, he held his breath, waiting for 007 or anyone from MI6 to burst through the wall right then and there. Instead, Tiago kept on his sharing his ecstatic experience of wanting his twin brother - mind, body and soul.
He recalls an article on Gilles de Rais - stumbled on while he hunted down a child sex-trafficking ring - and he imagines Tiago as Gilles. And Raoul as a child. The bile in his empty stomach came burning up in his throat. Q’s mind blanked out for several minutes as the words ‘first time we made love’ sent him into shock, body temperature plummeting as his eyes stared ahead, unseeing.
A harsh slap whipped his neck and rocked his whole torso, Q gasping as he blinked and saw cruel eyes set in a face Q knew well.
“Did you miss the glorious details dear quartermaster?” Tiago chided, sniffing at Q before he strode over to Raoul. “Not to worry, I’m sure I can coax a reenactment out of my love.” Raoul remained motionless where he was strapped to a metal bench.
One of Tiago’s guards had stepped up behind Q, an arm across his chest, locking Q to face the two at the bench. Q turned his head away.
“Now now quartermaster, this show is specially for you.” Tiago’s tone chastising as he brought the taser down to tap at Raoul’s bare thigh.
A startled shout echoing off the walls as the naked body jolted against the restraints. His earlier vacant eyes alight with panic as they darted towards Tiago, then Q, and back to Tiago. The sound that escaped Raoul’s lips would haunt Q. As would the sight of R, straining against the straps that held him down with all the intensity of a desperate struggle. The man looming before him undoing his belt, shifting forward, triggering a sudden bout of shouted pleas.
Even with his ears ringing, he could still hear the sound of the belt falling against the metal bench. The rustle of clothing. Grunts, pants, screams and more screams. Q had turned his head away till his neck ached. But with his hands bound behind his back, he couldn’t block out the awful sounds. Auditory feedback painted its own picture in his mind’s eye.
A rough hand grabbed at Q’s jaw in a bruising grip, ensuring he couldn’t turn his face away. Q’s own breaths heaving out of him, as he forced himself to breath faster. Seeing faint white sparks behind his eyelids with how tightly he squeezed them shut.
Dorsal recumbent. Lithotomy. Dorsal recumbent. Supine. Dorsal- Supine. Supine. Supine.
Q forced his brain to words. Forced the words to binary. Binary to morse.
Inhale at every dash. Chasing an exhale at every dot. Looped, over and over again.
The hand at his jaw shifted to cover his mouth, he hadn’t realised he was whispering rapidly to himself. The sound of a sharp slap startled Q to open his eyes. Immediately squeezing them shut again. Too late however as the image burned from behind his retinas into his brain.
Between his frantic run through of morse and binary, and his forced pants stinging his nostrils. It was the guard’s unforgiving hand over his mouth, slipping up to block his nose, that did it.
Q welcomed the darkness as it came to save him.
-
Hacking coughs laced pain across Q’s chest and up his throat as he continued to gag and dry heave. They had thrown him back in the cell, where he promptly leapt to the bucket in the corner and vomited.
Raoul’s face - twisted in pain, despair - the anguish in his fever bright eyes. How when his gaze, fixed on the ceiling, drifted and caught sight of his quartermaster. Being made to watch.
Q squeezed his eyes shut, breaths heaving his chest and moving his head along it’s rapid rhythm. Q tucked his chin in harder, wrapped his arms around himself tighter, fought to keep the vision out. Like it was a physical force raining blows on him. If only it was something as easy to block out as Tiago’s cronies bashing him up. If only he could un-see, delete all traces of the video playback from his brain.
Shifting his arms as he rocked himself, Q felt them brush off his glasses that were on his head, heard them clatter to the floor. Focusing on the sound of plastic and metal frames connecting the cold hard concrete. Directing his thoughts to physics - sound waves - and chemistry - components: calcium oxide, silica.
He recalls R staring at the grey slush in R&D. A soft encouragement on his lips, bringing a hesitant smile to their newest minion.
R behind his desk at Q branch. Reddened-eyes squinting as he sent Q resources during a 47 hour mission.
R leaning back in his chair with a laugh. Kate had called him dashing in his Slytherin-green pinstripe shirt.
R with his head bent close to his two screens. Quiet and unassuming as Q scanned the list of his own completed reports, all he had to do was sign.
R and his brilliance saving the minion’s hack against Q. Paying for the five dozen celebratory doughnuts before Q even reached for his wallet.
R. Raoul. His second in command. Adored by all, minions, Q, and even most of the 00’s.
Q grasped on to that, with clenching fingers. Desperately holding onto the memory he has of R. The R of Q branch, where he should be. Q allowed himself to reminisce, lulling his tensed muscles. His curled body slumped against the wall as he fell into a fitful sleep.
-
Through a twist of morbid luck, the tiny button had popped out of his shoulder through a large gash during a punching bag session. Q prayed to whatever deities above and the micro-GPS button remained intact in the corner it had rolled in.
Between that time and now, Q had managed to activate the distress signal, sharing his location to Q branch. Before he swallowed the button, dirt, blood and all. All Q had to do now, was find out where they took R, and wait for retrieval.
Hours later, or the next day, Q wasn’t sure anymore. Tiago came by his cell again. Q didn’t have much time to formulate a plan, and with his head swimming in and out of consciousness, he hadn’t really thought of how he was going to find R.
“Ah, my beloved Raoul.” Tiago crooned. He must have said something about R to Tiago, Q couldn’t remember what. “We were separated for so long, but he is mine again now.”
His captor always spoke about Raoul, sharing updates Q would rather have not known. It reminded Q of the last time he had seen Raoul, strapped naked on that table. Q sucked in a shaky breath, willing his brain to get rid of that memory. Every visit from Tiago reinforced Q’s belief that Raoul’s twin was a sadistic psychopath with a sick sense of morality.
“He knew I was coming for him you know.” Raoul’s twin said, as Q’s breathing slowed down. He always waited for Q to stop screaming and catch his breath before he spoke. He wanted his words to achieve their full effect. Torturing the quartermaster, his body, and his mind.
-
Q was often left alone in the cell. Tiago would visit him to mentally torture him. When the guards sent Q his bottle of water - sometimes a stale piece of bread - they’d leave him be. When they had to empty the bucket, they’d beat him up some, then leave him be.
But alone, Q’s mind was his only weapon. He kept a check on his body, and he kept a tight check on his mind. He’d count his binary set’s in ten, clenching each finger to keep count. He’d keep track of days passing, with the schedule of water bottles, and emptied buckets. But he knew his count wasn’t for sure.
So when day 5 came, he thought it was 7. When day 6 came, he thought it was 9.
Since swallowing the button, Q knew for sure it hadn’t exited his body. But the micro-GPS had not been tested against the digestive tract’s acidity. It could be sizzling away in Q’s stomach for all he knew. Signal lost, and Q branch scampering.
When day 7 came, he thought it was 12. Q was losing hope. He hadn’t seen R since — Q shuddered, going through the numbers of pi. When he could breathe again, he picked up his train of thought, and realised that he hadn’t seen R for more than a week. With the horror of knowing what had unfolded in just the first three days, Q shuddered, thinking of R undergoing all that. For more than a week. Q cried, then tried to plan. Q screamed his frustrations then was knocked out when a guard came to shut him up with a blow to his head.
Q woke up with a gasp, blood rushing to his fingertips, of his unbound hands.
“Q! Q!” A voice was shouting, as Q struggled to keep his eyes open. The sharp scent of ammonia hit his senses and Q found himself breathing in too quickly and for too long, choking on his breath. The sight of 007 and 006 greeted him. 006 gently straightened his legs as 007 wrapped his warm hands around Q’s bare feet. The pins and needles fading from his hands, but still numb across his ankles. They heard gunshots and shouting and 007 was hoisting Q up. 006 watching the hallway from the door, gun at ready. At his signal they left the cell.
“Here, in here!” Q gasped, waving his hand at one of the doors down a turn, opposite from the one they just took. Q recognised it as the one Tiago brought him in, where R was. 006 kicked it in, brandishing his gun, took one sweeping look before he spun around. Alec exchanged a look with Bond, Q didn’t hear them speak, but the next moment 007 had a firmer grip around him. Leading him hurriedly away from R’s room.
“Is R in there?” He craned his neck to ask 006 who stood still as 007 led them away. “Get him out!” Q shouted, struggling weakly in Bond’s firm grip. “Alec! Get R!”
Something flickered in 006’s eyes, but Q wasn’t sure, 007 and him were too far for Q to see Alec’s face before the agent went back in the room.
“Bond, we must get R. He’s - he-” Q kept trying to look back, hoping to see 006 behind them, with R.
“Let’s get you out of here first.” Bond grunted, half lifting Q along faster as a door unlocked for them. Bringing them to some type of service balcony. An agent Q didn’t recognised signaled at them and Bond rushed over, nodded at the agent, wrapped his arms tight around Q. And jumped.
The free fall was very brief - they were probably on the second floor - but the landing was jarring despite the bags of rubbish and Bond’s body cushioning him. Disorientated, Q felt himself being hauled up and bodily carried into a vehicle. They were speeding away by the time he blinked his vision back to focus.
“Wait.” He called out breathlessly. “Wait! 007!”
“Alec has his car.” Bond replied distractedly as he drove like a madman, eyes darting from the front to the side mirrors, to the rear view, before peeking at his blind spot.
“R! What about R?! If he’s not in that room, then the other rooms?” Q shouted, turning in his seat to look out the rear window. Tiago definitely still had him. “Bond! Tiago, the man, he- he looks like R! Did you get him? He has R!”
“Not now Q.” Bond swerved, bullets ricocheting off the side and back of the car. Bond cursed a streak and swerved again. The momentum had Q sliding off his seat onto the floor, his head slamming sideways against the door. Q blacked out again.
-
“You- No! You didn’t find him!” Q shouted, as Eve calmly held onto Q’s arm as she unhooked the IV fluids bag and placed it on the bed. Q ignored her, glaring hell at Alec.
“He’s dead Q.” Alec repeated, his eyes met Q’s briefly, but looked back down as Q accused him.
“If you blew up that building, before finding him, of- bloody- course he’s dead!” He seethed, heedless of the spittle, or the pain in his hand. He made a move to yank the IV needle out, but Eve’s hand was in the way.
“I saw him Q. I-” Alec hesitated, looking back up imploringly at his quartermaster. Alec’s gaze pleaded, but Q didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to believe this.
“NO! Where is he?! I ordered you to get R!” He shouted still, even when he felt his voice wavering. He glared still, even when moisture pooled in his eyes.
“I checked his pulse. I couldn’t- the straps, there were, and-” Alec, smooth talker Alec, struggled with his words. The image of limbs and skin so swollen, the straps had cut into skin. The bulging skin on either side of the straps all stained red, while the rest of the skin - a pasty grey. "They were closing in on us-“ Q branch in Alec’s ear had been near frantic, ordering Alec to leave the building. To leave the body. "I checked his pulse again.”
Q sucked in a deep breath, ready to yell at the agent and his stupid sad face. A horrible sound escaped him when he opened his mouth. Forcing it close as his bit down on his lip, Q buried his face in his hands, his hands fisting the material of the hospital gown.
He doesn’t remember heaving out sobs as his face grew wetter. He doesn’t remember coughing into his lap as his body curled up on itself. He doesn’t remember Eve’s arms around him, nor does he see Alec step out, horror and anguish in his eyes.
Q is quiet the next day. He looks up when Bond and Alec visit him, Alec shuffling on his feet uncomfortably, as Q responded to whatever Bond said with silence.
Q doesn’t speak again until he’s discharged, a week later. Then only to M, to report.
Q goes back to Q branch proper five days after that, a week early, considering his mandated leave. Q thought he would feel better, in his domain, his branch. But his eyes couldn’t help but glance at R’s empty desk every so often.
R’s desk remained empty, for six long months, before M reluctantly mandated Q to promote someone. The third in command filled up R’s post. But it didn’t help Q forget.
Little did Q know, his nightmares would live anew. When one Tiago Rodriguez, would take on the name of Raoul Silva. And destroy MI6 from within.
End