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"James, I'm home!" Q called, unravelling the thick scarf looped haphazardly around his neck and kicking off his boots as he stepped into the flat he shared with his best mate of five years.
His voice echoed off the sunny walls, unanswered, and Q frowned. James was usually in on Thursday afternoons, slumped over his desk with half empty mugs of coffee littered all over the surface and glaring at a half finished manuscript. Despite his young age, James was a bloody brilliant writer. Q had both of his novels hidden under the weight of his mattress, tales of murder and intrigue in place of air-brushed models in skin mags. He'd never tell James he owned them though. The thought of the man's firm hands leafing through the dog-eared, well loved pages never failed to bring a flush to his pale skin.
Now, however, the living room was curiously devoid of a certain ill-tempered author. Shaking the snowflakes out of his hair and dumping his oversized duffle coat at the entrance, Q glanced at their battered coffee table, for once without its perpetual coating of espresso grounds and chewed up pens. Curiouser and curiouser. James rarely tidied, usually dismissing Q's glowers with a mess promotes creativity, kitten as he chased after the insufferable man, brandishing dirty dishes with exasperation.
"James?" He called again. He had to be here somewhere. His coat was still hanging by the entryway, after all.
A soft rustling sound around the corner caught his attention. Q padded into the quiet flat, socked feet sliding minutely across honeyed floorboards. He poked his head into James' bedroom, smiling when he finally caught sight of the wayward man.
In another universe, James could have been someone dangerous. Lethal, even. In this one, however, his sharp eyes shone more often with wit than malice and muscles—hidden under bulky sweaters, usually—used most often to rescue Q from bullies in uni. He was stretched across the length of his bed, the sun sending his skin aglow and for a minute Q couldn't breathe, terrible, beautiful avenging angel; holy, holy, holy, before the light shifted and James curled in on himself, looking for all the world like a great big tomcat.
A tomcat with a half empty bottle of vodka cradled in his arm, apparently.
"Any reason why you're pissed at four in the afternoon?" Q demanded crisply, trying not to swallow when keen eyes settled upon him, too lucid considering the amount of alcohol the man must have imbibed.
Most people, to look at them, would never have pegged James and Q to be friends. Yet they had bonded after meeting as roommates their first day at Cambridge, James trying not to grin too broadly at the pint-sized genius glaring at him from his fortress of circuits and wires. Q was fifteen, arrogant, and blessed with a wickedly sharp tongue that had spared no time in laying into James for daring to comment on his age. James was eighteen and charismatic and teased his prickly roommate mercilessly. To everyone's surprise, they got along like a house on fire. Now, five years later, the two were inseparable.
James scowled, frown lines appearing almost petulantly as he met Q's disapproving gaze. "Bloody editor," he mumbled after a long moment, vowels lazy and pounded smooth by vodka-sharp edges.
Ah. Fortunately, Q knew how to deal with a sulky James Bond. Perching himself on the edge of the bed without invitation, Q reached out to card his hand through the soft spikes of the other man's hair. He fought back a smile as James practically purred, tilting his head upwards and further into Q's touch. Really. No matter how James loved to tease him with the nickname 'kitten', he was the one who could pass for part feline.
"What'd the poor sod do this time?" he asked.
Instead of answering, James only grumbled and let flow a string of harsh syllables that Q knew from past experience to be a list of very creative swears in Russian.
Q rolled his eyes. "Goodness. Kids and their language these days."
James snickered, closing his eyes under Q's ministrations, and Q allowed himself a moment of suspended disbelief where they melted through the barrier between friends and lovers, where Q shared the wrought-iron bed James dragged home from a yard sale one evening. Where his mornings were filed with sleepy kisses that dragged against his jawline and nipped at his skin, and evenings calloused palms against his hips, pressed into the sheets until even the stars were spinning—
He cleared his throat and stood up. "I fancy a bit of tea, excuse me," he began, before strong arms looped around his midsection and yanked and suddenly Q was plastered again Bond's firm body.
"Cuddle with me," James demanded firmly, letting the vodka roll carelessly to the floor and snuffling at Q's collarbone.
"Bond!" Q yelped, struggling futilely against the octopus-grip. "What on earth are you doing?"
James' breath was sweet and smelled of ozone, and it tickled Q's ear as he repeated himself. "Cuddle."
There had been times in the past when they seemed dangerously close to defining this ever-shifting thing between them. Times when Q caught James eyeing his arse as he bent under the kitchen countertop to take a look at the leaky pipe. When the man's laugh were just a shade too warm when Q sniped at him over breakfast, or that winter evening when Q had put a jazz record on and James twirled them across their small living room, humming softly to the warbling notes. Still, cuddling on a bed together—that was unexplored territory.
"You're a cephalopod mollusc. I ought to call the London Zoo on you," Q said wryly, trying to distract from his trembling hands and rapid heartbeat. Instead of replying, James only hummed and reached down to pull the fluffy comforter around them both, cocooning them in a soft nest of warmth. And it was surprisingly easy to relax against James' strong arms and let his brain, usually whirring with numbers and codes, switch off for a while.
Then James pressed his lips against the exposed skin of Q's shoulder, and all his senses switched to rapid overdrive.
"James?" he asked carefully, dragging the 'a' out like molasses.
"Mmhmm?"
"Why is your mouth on me?"
James Bond, infuriating bastard that he is, shrugged innocently. "S'nice. You taste nice." As if to illustrate his point, he began peppering a trail of kisses across Q's nape and Q gasped, glad that James could not see the way his face was burning.
Still, James was drunk. And Q could not bring himself to take advantage of his friend's inebriated state, as innocent as the kisses were. "You're going to be awfully embarrassed when the vodka's worn off," he tried, wriggling futilely.
"My next book's dedicated to you," was the response, seemingly apropos of nothing.
Q whipped around to stare at him, eyes wide and disbelieving. "Excuse me?" Already, he could feel a warm, tingly feeling washing over him, which was ridiculous because super geniuses hardly tingled.
James sighed heavily, body sagging. "It was supposed to be released on your birthday. Except the editor's bollocks-upped the character based on you and it'll take me weeks to sort out his mess."' He continued to grumble but Q couldn't hear him anymore, overwhelmed as he was by emotion. He knew James was writing a romance novel, some sort of star-crossed lovers affair between a spy and his handler. The implications of a book like that being dedicated to him—
Before he knew it, his arms had wrapped themselves across James' shoulders and his face buried in the man's chest, breathing in the intoxicating woodsy aftershave that always clung to him. He could feel James peering down at him, bemused, but refused to look up.
"Now you're cuddling me," James commented, a trace of smugness in his tone. Q choked out a laugh.
"Yeah, I suppose so."
They would need to have a conversation about this in the morning. There would be relationship boundaries to define and they'd both be supremely awkward about it, stumbling their way through affectionate words rusty with disuse. It would be terrifying, but new things often were. And this one, especially, was years in the making. Could no longer be ignored.
And four months later, when Skyfall was released and James proudly presented the first printed copy to Q, he would curl up on his lover's lap and flip immediately to the dedication page, grinning madly at the small typed words he found there.
To Q, my favourite boffin.