Work Text:
The Weight of Responsibility
Ever since James had taken up residence in M's office - his office now - he had shared plenty of drinks with his Quartermaster, either while poring over reports and mission specs together or at home, unwinding on the couch in front of some mindless tv programme after a long and stressful day spent entrenched in MI6 labyrinthine bowels. He starkly remembered how the first time, the news of his promotion still shaking him to the core like the aftershocks of an earthquake, he had had to pick the lock of the liquors cabinet in order to pour them both a soothing drink.
How drastically things had changed since that day when a simple email had forever changed his future.
Firstly and most importantly, Q not only wasn't his superior anymore but the confidence that had bloomed between them in the wake of Skyfall's tragedy had slowly unfurled into a relationship; James couldn't even remember the last time he had simmered in a slow burn, there had never been the time to while out in the field with death breathing down his neck - life had truly been too short to linger instead of catching fire and exploding like gunpowder at the first glance.
Secondly, despite his first inept and stumbling steps as M, mostly when it came to anything even remotely bureaucratic, James had really grown into the role and while the office still seemed to be haunted by her presence - which felt both benevolent and annoying in an oddly comforting way - he really felt at home behind the metallic desk, the stupid bulldog proudly displayed in a corner and, to nobody's knowledge but Q's, regularly and lovingly dusted.
Lastly, his coworkers as well had gotten used to seeing him go from 007 to M and thay had definitely made his daily interactions with department heads and government liaisons a lot easier. The same went for his interactions with his former colleagues; at the beginning - unsurprisingly according to Q's disheartening opinion, delivered with a rather shiteating grin - it had been a nightmare dealing with them, even agents he knew from first hand experience to be rather obedient and docile had seemingly transformed all of a sudden in their behaviour, victims of an overnight spell. 009 turning up his pettiness to unprecedented levels haunt really been surprising, seen their shared history of antagonism and moderate dislike for one another - James had been ready for it and he had handled it with he liked to think of as grace, greased along by generous helpings of scotch or whatever liquor he had remembered to stock his cabinet with; he hadn't expected the same for example from 003, renowned for being remarkably easy to work with, thanks to her quiet and thoughtful nature, or from 005 who Q regularly waxed poetry about because of his almost immaculate tech return rate.
According to the younger man, it had happened because they had felt enabled to let go by the fact that the former infamous Double-Oh Seven was now steering the ship, evidently thinking that as M he would be just as reckless as he had been out in the field. Thankfully, the mayhem and the insubordination hadn't lasted long and, barring 009 until he luckily managed to reach retirement age and had left MI6 behind with a blazing party, his former colleagues had all fallen back into line.
James had never really fully realised how much of a headache and a pain in the ass he had been as an agent - or better, he had realised it but he hadn't really stopped to think too much about what it meant for his superiors to deal with someone like him. He wondered how many times exactly his M had wished to wrap her hands around his throat and squeeze until he turned a wheezing blue - too many to count, probably. If he hadn't already had a particular predilection and inclination towards alcohol as a coping method from any emotion, stress included, James was sure that his promotion would have driven him straight to the bottle.
There was no doubt in his mind that somewhere, Olivia Mansfield was laughing her ass off at him and toasting at whatever deity or supernatural force that had seen fit to punish him in such a deliciously appropriate manner.
Q called it karma.
James preferred to use the term bullshit.
He had never been particularly religious, nor had he ever stopped to entertain too deeply the thought of cosmic forces ruling the world - maybe it was because in his career he had seen far too clearly that what most people deemed to be sheer luck actually was the fruit of thorough manouevreing by the involved parties. Even his feats of resurrection, no matter how miraculous they might have seemed, were the result of hard and constant training that he had forced his body through and of pure casualty, making his circumstances pinker than they might have been - no, James Bond didn't believe in luck because if something such as luck existed, digesting his childhood misfortunes would only have been that much harder.
So, he preferred not believing in anything that wasn't pure case and therefore random, not the result of something or someone that had had it out specifically for him for no reason at all or some obscure one he really didn't give any shit about.
James sighed heavily as he pushed the glasses further up his nose, squinting lightly to put blurry report into focus; as always, Q was right: he really needed to go back to the optometrist and have his prescription changed, his lenses didn't help much any longer and no matter how much he loathed to admit to it, the fact that he couldn't see much didn't really change - he needed new glasses and he needed them as soon as possible if he wanted to do his job well.
Which he did - he really did. Even if it entailed dealing with far more paperwork than he had ever wanted to in his life and with the agent currently sprawled in one of the guest seats, clad in leathers and a smirk that James could have sworn she had cut from his own lips only to past it onto hers. Nomi was the latest agent who had picked up what had been his denomination once upon a time; it admittedly was strange to call someone else by the name of Double-Oh Seven, it almost felt as if an invisible hand had slithered its way through the empty gaps amidst his ribs, reaching into the darkness of his ribcage to tug at his heartstrings and produce an ache that was a mixture of melancholy and fondness - a feeling that he couldn't really take apart, nor explain.
It felt a lot like pride.
Nomi was brutal, her scores at the firing rage pushing the limit of perfection every single time; she was clever, quick to think on her feet and while on a breakneck run; she was pig headed, strong willed, a woman with a spine of a metal that would break rather than bending. James saw his younger self in her, the cockiness and confidence oozing from her pores were as familiar as the scars on his body that Q liked to rub with oil, ensuring that especially the scar tissue wrapped around his joints would stay elastic so that his mobility wouldn't be compromised. And just like him, she was reckless and disobedient - far too devoted to Queen and Country for her own good.
Not that he would ever admit to how... paternal he felt towards her: James was sure that she wouldn't appreciate it, just like he hadn't appreciated it in his time when Olivia had tried to keep him together, to anchor him in any way he would allow her to which hadn't been many, as consumed as he had been by the need to succeed, be the best, forget the dead that clung to him with talons that dug into his flesh like harpoons, dragging him down into an abyss that only Q had ever managed to drag him out of - not without effort either; James had resisted, feet glued to the ground and he had almost let Q slip away from his fingers, he had felt him drip from his fingertips like running water.
He wouldn't risk her that way.
He was tired of seeing people die: if he could do anything to keep her alive - to keep her interested in living - he would do it in a heartbeat, no word of protest passing through his lips.
James was just as concerned with the lives of his other agents, of course: he wasn't indifferent to their issues, he knew who couldn't sleep at night and who found oblivion at the bottom of a glass; he knew who beat their knuckles to a pulp against the wall whenever they failed a mission and who closed off so tightly that even the emotions they wanted to allow in were hard to feel; he knew who longed for a family and who run from theirs - he knew them and he did everything he could for them, whether that meant forcing them into Medical or sending them on the other side of the globe when a painful anniversary approached.
The particular closeness he felt to Nomi was merely due to the fact that they were way too alike and James wouldn't let the same darkness that flourished at the back of his mind - that pushed him to the bottle, to the training mat even when every single one of his bones ached, to Q.. always to Q - consume her, his best agent and a brilliant young woman who deserved to get to retirement age and enjoy it.
"If you don't know where to start from, I can come back when you have gathered your thoughts, sir"
Insolent - oh, she was so very insolent but James would have been lying if he said that he didn't like it, that the verbal sparring didn't feel as good as the one on the training mats "Was it really necessary?"
Nomi cocked her head to the side, eyebrows raised in a simulation of genuine surprise "What exactly are you referring to, sir?"
"All of it"
"That's vague"
"Do you want me to be specific? I can be specific" James brought the report closer to his face, damning all way to hell and back how that dampened a little his intimidating aura - if only he had let Q drag him to the optometrist a few weeks back "You crashed your car into a train" and his partner had ranted his throat raw about it, huffing and puffing in a way that he would have found adorable if he hadn't had to share part of the headache and explain to the upper echelons sipping tea at Whitehall why exactly such a waste of tech was to be justified and pardoned, while at the same time he tried to wiggle more money out of their pockets - all charming smiles and honeyed words, a golden façade hiding how his brain was coming up with creative ways to kill every single one of them.
"At least I didn't park it at the bottom of the Tiber? It was still salvageable"
James wondered if he would ever live that down, at least at work; he knew Q far too well to hope that his partner would forget of the car he had lost in Rome, to the wet and slick embrace of the Tiber "Then you hijacked a civilian plane" he went on, torn between exasperation and admiration for her feats.
"It's not like the Quartermaster issued me with a plane, sir. I had to make do with what was on hand at the moment"
"You could have risked all the passengers' lives"
"I assure you, I had perfect control on the plane"
"And terrorists hot on your heels" James pointed out "Don't do it again, please" courtesy never hurt, did it? Even if it didn't get through her, it wouldn't put her off at least.
Nomi pursed her lips, trying to pronounce her sprawl even more to telegraph an aura of rebellion - an unwillingness to submit and concede the point even as she subtly offered a nod of her head, so infinitely small that someone who hadn't been a trained agent wouldn't have noticed; it was the kind of clue that only someone with the experience James Bond had could read, especially when he had those winter irises focused on her. Despite the lenses that should have dulled the sharpness of those eyes, they still were cutting and incredibly bright - vivid and just as attentive as those of a predator.
Nomi could only imagine how it felt being at the wrong end of his gaze, seeing those eyes lined up with the barrel of a gun, finger ready at the trigger; despite the fact that the man hadn't put a foot in the field in years, he still looked as lethal as any agent on active duty - they might have taken away his licence to kill and his designation together with it but stuffing him in the role of M didn't hide that the man still was very much a Double-Oh.
It wasn't something one could just dismiss, not when the title was paid for in flesh and blood.
"Anything else, sir?"
"As I said, just about everything"
Nomi sighed, arms crossed over her stomach "Can I have tea and snacks if we are going to nitpick every single thing I have done?"
"This is not a tea party"
"I noticed, there isn't even a sandwich and definitely no tea to speak of"
The circle around James' temples had been there for a while, he had felt it steadily tightening around his skull throughout the afternoon but in that moment, it was as if it had shrunk even more, digging into the bones, pressing them hard against his brain - he was exhausted: he certainly didn't have the will nor the strength to bicker with Nomi that day, he had already had to do so with the higher ups. All that mattered was that she was back on British soil, alive and whole, and that she had completed her mission as well; she was an adult and a brilliant one at that, in no way she didn't realise she had pushed too far on some things but his nagging wouldn't make her less reckless out in the field - probably it would only push her towards the unwanted direction, just for the sake of pure spite. James flicked the folder closed and took his glasses off, carefully folding them "It would be an insult to your intelligence to pick on everything: I'm sure you got the message loud and clear, Double-Oh Seven"
"Crystal, M" Nomi got out of her seat quickly, not keen on wasting her chance to get out of a lecture before the other man could rethink of his choice of letting her go... not scot-free, as the man had said she had perfectly understood what kind of trouble she had put the agency in, there would be consequences - subtle ones, dampened by the efforts of the man sitting behind the desk, but consequences nonetheless.
"Double-Oh Seven?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Apologise to the Quartermaster for crashing the car"
Nomi grinned: it wasn't exactly a secret the fact that M and Q were partners in life. She could imagine that having a placated Quartermaster at home would go a long way to make Bond's evening easier "Of course, sir. Anything to make your marital life easier, sir"
"Get out"
She didn't need to be told twice.
James watched her go, scowling a little when she purposefully left the door ajar just enough to annoy him but not so much that someone would notice it was open unless they walked up to it, hand already raised to knock: Nomi really had the fine art of getting on someone's nerves down to a T, perfected by seemingly endless practice. He sighed, casting a glance towards the bulldog figurine; sometimes he felt the urge to talk to it - and to her, in a way - but James always skillfully repressed it: asking for advice to ghosts had never worked out.
Thankfully, he had someone of flesh and bones he could confide into when he went back home - someone he had literally trusted with his life a hundred times while out in the field, physically alone but never virtually so thanks to his indefatigable Quartermaster.
His Q.
"James, you should go to bed"
"What? No"
Q rolled his eyes, momentarily taking them off the screen of the laptop while he reached out to the other man, gently caressing one of his arms "You're dozing off, go to bed" after a massage and good whiskey, clad into cosy pyjamas that James would never let himself be caught in, he always got sleepy and once ascertained that Q wouldn't be ready for bed for a while, he would leave him to his work on the couch rather than waiting him out; it wasn't exactly concerning that James was doing that, sometimes the man just needed the closeness and Q was more than happy about letting him curl up by his side while he worked, but they both had had a long day: there really was no reason for James to snooze on the couch when their bed was awaiting "You're only going to make your headache worse if you fall asleep in a weird position here" Q murmured, gently coaxing "I'll join you in a while, alright?"
"That suspiciously sounded like you're calling me old"
"My dear, I never bothered with such turn of phrases to remind you that you're not a spry, young thing anymore and that sleeping on the couch will fuck up your neck and possibly your back"
"Harsh"
"Honest"
"Bullshit"
Q chuckled, the familiar scowl on the other's face as heartwarming as the easy banter that they had shared since day one as two strangers sitting on the same bench, looking at the same old painting with barbs already poised on the tip of their tongues - poisonous darts ready to be thrown with the kind of precision few people possessed within themselves: crafting the perfect riposte was an art, the necessary comedic timing to land the perfect blow was a talent "You rely too much on the word bullshit whenever you're minimally inconvenienced by something I say" he joked, fingers trailing up his arm and travelling along his neck until his knuckles brushed against the other's stubbled cheek "You really look knackered"
"I feel like it too" James admitted, taking his partner's hand to keep it flush against his face, just basking into the feeling of a harmless and loving touch; at the beginning, it had been ridiculously hard to relax whenever Q touched him - his body was far too used to flight or fight reposonses, too used to hard blows landing onto him and empty caresses during snatched encounters, as fleeting as the dawn.
Q rubbed his thumb against James' cheekbone, a small frown taking residence in a furrow between his eyebrows "Did something happen?" He inquired, mind overworking in an attempt at finding in his recent memories anything that might have happened at work; nothing particularly came to mind, all of their active missions were proceeding smoothly and while sometimes James still rankled at having to attend meetings - especially ones that involved anything remotely related to spending and how the agency was supposed to curtail it, seemingly uncaring about the fact that on some things one just couldn't save - they usually didn't put him into such a rotten mood. Had he attended to a meeting he hadn't been privy to? It was entirely possible; afterall, he was just the Quartermaster - a department head like any other and while James had found increasingly creative claims to bring him to the big table, his presence wasn't always required nor appropriate during some meetings.
Especially when it came to the kind of gatherings during which Whitehall stuck ups tried to insinuate that Q-Branch didn't need a budget as big as the one Q turned out year after year, not willing to bend one bit to their requests: he would never forgive himself if one of his agents got hurt only because he had supplied them with subpar tech because stupid assholes who had never even put a toe out in the field, always cradled in luxury as they were - their only smile sniping void of any meaning.
Of course, there were some members of the upper echelons that had some brains and supported them but they seemed to be few and far inbetween, just enough to ensure that the agency wouldn't be ruined at the end of long and tortuous meetings.
"I don't know"
"You don't?"
James shrugged, head turning a little to the side so that he could run his lips along the arches of Q's fingers; beneath the fresh and vaguely lemony scent of dish soap, they smelled faintly of the chicken curry he had picked up with pita bread at dinner, disregarding cutlery in a way that, stupidly enough, only had made James daydream of a trip around the world together, every evening spent in a different place with different traditions that he could watch Q adapt to with the curiosity and eagerness to learn that characterised him - if only either of them could afford to take so much time off. James had never really been too keen on just... being on vacation, his downtime between missions had always been infamously and unhealthily short, allowed only because Olivia Mansfield had known that forcing him to stay in London would have been far more dangerous than sending him out.
No matter all the flaws she had had, she had been a godsend for him - she had understood him in a way that had allowed her to keep him afloat until Q had arrived to finally anchor him. However, he wasn't the same kind of M she had been: while not insensitive to his agents' demons and natures, some that he even shared with them and that tormented him, James was a lot more... focused on their mental health.
He really hoped he was doing well.
"Would you tell me if I was doing a shitty job as M?"
"You will recall that I promised to do so when the job was offered to you"
James hummed, the memory seared into his mind by the strength and intensity of the emotions he had been feeling that day; it was rare that he felt small and unsure and that certainly had helped his brain to cement the recollection of his conversation with Q in a freshly vacated office, Olivia's grave still reddish brown with freshly turned earth and flowers rapidly decaying because of the typically humid climate that haunted London "I remember"
"Are you doubting yourself?"
"Nomi's insubordination makes me wonder"
"That's it?" Q said, voice strung a tad higher as he forced himself to keep a chuckle restrained to the prison of his throat: it would be insensitive to laugh into his partner's face when it was evident that he really was bothered by whatever interaction he had had with 007 that afternoon "James, darling, you used to be exactly the same - did that mean you thought that Mansfield wasn't doing a good job as M?" Q asked, trying to make the other man reason.
"No" James shook his head "No, of course not. But I also know I have a different approach from hers"
"That's not necessarily a bad thing"
"Neither is it necessarily a good thing"
Q nodded, conceding the point "True. However, I think you would have faced problems with the other agents too if you had been doing a bad job - and from the rest of the agency as well"
"I suppose you're right"
"I always am"
James snorted, the noise half-muffled in the palm of Q's hand "That's a blatant lie and you know it"
"Do I?" Q grinned, eyebrows raised in a teasing manner.
The older man shook his head and he carefully tugged his partner closer, landing an affectionate kiss on his lips; intimacy had always come to him easily but the relaxation he felt with Q was at a whole another level, one that he wasn't equipped to unravel or explain: he had a way with words when it came to charming people and talking his way out of the direst of situations but when it came to being eloquent about his feelings... it was hard. After the deaths of his parents he hadn't grown up in an environment that had nurtured openness and the same could be said of the Navy and of MI6; all he had learnt was to charm and to sway and to manipulate - but to explain what he was feeling was something he had had to learn in order to connect with the few people he considered his friends... and with Q.
He sighed, momentarily shaking away the self-introspection, and he wrapped his arms tighter around the younger man, holding Q close against his chest "I just.. want to help her, I guess"
"And that's admirable, love" he murmured, kissing James' closely cropped hair "Truly. But you can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved, you have to wait for her to give you a sign" Q pointed out, swiping a thumb over the grimace that was twisting his partner's mouth, lips thinned in an evident display of displeasure: if there was something he knew, it was that James rarely appreciated trusting into things playing out without his interferences - which he understood, Q hadn't become the Quartermaster because he didn't have a penchant for getting his nose and hands everywhere he could hack into.
"She might never give me a sign"
"True. Anything you can do is to do your best as her superior, until the moment she asks for help - if she ever does"
"I hate it when you sound so rational"
"That's kind of my speciality"
It was.
James would have been lying if he said that wasn't one of the reasons why he loved the other man; having someone to make him see the other side of things - the rational one - was of immense help when he got too caught up in himself, strangled by his own past and the tragedies that populated it. Unfortunately, it was something that happened often - a little less frequently ever since being around Q he had slowly, but steadily, begun cutting the amounts of alcohol he imbibed; it wasn't that the other man had asked it of him but it was what the other deserved, to have a partner who wouldn't be constantly lost to the bottom of a bottle, violent and bitter.
"Go to sleep, James"
"Ugh"
Q tutted "None of that, you've had a shit day and you need your rest or tomorrow will just be shittier"
"Fine - but you said you're coming soon, I'm holding you to that"
The younger man winked and kissed James' forehead before he untangled them for their embrace, gently pushing him "I authorize you to come and bodily manhandle me to bed if I don't join you in ten"
"Just ten?" Well, that changed things: that made the perspective of going to bed a lot more inviting, ten minutes was just enough time to use the bathroom and make himself comfortable amidst the sheets - maybe even enough time to persuade the cats to get off of the bed and go somewhere else "Fine" he stood up, stretching a little and ruffling the other's hair at the same time just because he adored the way he scrunched up his nose whenever he got his hands in those already messy curls - Q's hair almost was a living thing, coiling in curls here and fading out in waves there.
As predicted, the cats were snoozing at the foot of the bed, curled up into one another in a way that couldn't be comfortable except for seemingly boneless creatures as cats. James let them be for the moment, moving on to the bathroom to go through his bedtime routine - teeth, face, a brief take of the brush to his hair; instead of waking him up, going through the motions only made him feel sleepier, more than ready to put his head down on the pillow and just... be out of the count until their alarm rang or the cats woke them up for breakfast, whatever came first.
God, he really was old.
James glanced at the cats and, with a shrug, decided to leave them there: they would just follow Q back in, faithfully nipping at his heels like the little pests they were; he had grown attached to the balls of fluff and he had even managed to build some sort of relationship with them but James was still wary of them, not-so-secretly convinced that they were going to try and scratch his eyes out whenever they were presented with the possibility.
Q called it paranoia.
James called it suspiciousness.
No matter which one of them was right, he just knew that either of the feelings had kept him alive out in the field, together with his insight and experience.
The former agent shot the cats a warning glance as he burrowed deep under the comforter, exchanging with them looks that were suspicious but not as full of mistrust as they had been at the beginning, when the cats had clearly had murderous intentions towards him "Stay there" he warned them, hugging a pillow to himself in an attempt at preserving his personal space - not that a pillow ever was enough to keep them at bay: when the beasts got something on their tiny little brains, they would do anything to follow through them even if that involved scaling bodies, sinking claws into vulnerable flesh and pushing their butts into their unsuspecting faces while they slept.
How Q was unfazed by such blatant breaches of personal space, James didn't know: it was one of those things he had given up understanding after his attempts had come back empty; he just accepted some of the things Q did and endured without judgment, knowing that the cats meant everything to his lover - they were the closest thing to a family he had and James knew perfectly well how it was, clinging to everything he could to fill the void left behind by a family dissipated into the wind like ashes.
James hadn't meant to fall asleep while staring into two pairs of bright green eyes but apparently he had because when a more consistent weight dipped the mattress, he had to shake himself out of the haziness that somehow had taken a hold of his mind, filling it with hazy smoke and languid vapours; James blinked slowly, his eyes taking more time than he would have liked to put the face bent down over his into focus - not that there were any doubts about it being Q's: the dark halo of hair around a pale oval rather was a dead giveaway "'m sorry"
Q shook his head, grinning as he caressed James' cheek "I told you that you were tired" he teased sweetly, his voice low enough that it would tempt the other man to be lulled back into sleep, rather than fully waking up "Back to sleep now"
James pouted - well, he would never admit that what his mouth was doing was pouting but that was the truth "I love you" his lips felt like they were heavy, trying to move while his teeth were too busy chewing on melted marshmallows or molasses - it was almost painful.
"I love you too, James"
He didn't know how he had ever managed to fall asleep without the sensation of the other's lips upon his own - sweet, soft, slightly chapped.
Unmistakably Q's.