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He had thought jumping off the yacht was the only thing that could save them. But the ocean is vast and deep and it might have been better if they had died in the explosion.
It might have stopped Q from whining.
It might have stopped James from dying.
We can make it.
We can make it.
We can make it.
They repeated that phrase often.
I hope my cats are okay.
I hope Remy won’t hate me for missing my reservation.
I wonder if I’ll enjoy sea salt after this?
I would kill for a good steak right about now.
I think we’ll be a good steak for a shark right now.
They had laughed and joked as much as they could during their time adrift.
Q began a conversation by spitting salt-water out of his mouth. “Did you ever think-”
James laughed. “Not often, no.” He kicked, his training telling him to stay afloat and moving.
Q huffed a wet laugh out. “I’m sure you didn’t. Did you ever think of doing something else after the navy? Rather than join MI6?” He dragged his arm through the water, they had long ago stripped him of his cardigan. It had only been weighing him down. He would burn something awful when the sun came up.
James swirled his hand around in the waves. He tapped his fingers along the ring buoy that was supporting him. The only thing he had managed to snag from the boat after it had been boarded. Q had been prepared for any eventuality and the strange hip pack he constantly wore and bore the brunt of jokes about had cleverly disguised an inflatable life vest. The clever, little darling. “I suppose I hadn’t given it much thought.”
“Hmmm.” Q focused on the night sky.
“I didn’t have any time to think really. No, that’s not right. I had time to think, I just never took it.”
“Always leaping before thinking? Sounds about right.”
“In a way. I was afraid of what I might think if I actually had the time to do any thinking. Maybe I would have stayed on in the Navy. Had a career. Been the captain of all I survey.”
Q grinned, his smile bright against the dark sky. His lips would chap something awful come morning. James leaned forward, put his hand behind Q’s head, and kissed him. It was a salty, rough kiss, full of apologies, and the things that may not come. “It’s nice out here, under the stars.”
Q started in surprise. “James?”
“What would you have done had you not joined MI6?” James ignored the question in that one word.
Q frowned. A line appeared between his eyebrows. He had lost his glasses in the jump. The waves had swallowed them as if the small pair of spectacles had been an appetizer and the sea was just waiting for the main course. James smoothed his index finger across the wrinkle.
“Stop that. We’re not dead yet.”
“We soon might be.”
“What would you have done?”
Q smiled. “Probably dwelled in my parent’s attic, plotting against foreign governments and breaking into swiss bank accounts.”
James grinned. “I’d bet your parents would have been startled something awful when the police stormed the house.”
“Oh, you think I would have been caught do you?”
“Eventually.”
“Think if we’d never met.” Q traced a wet finger along James’s bottom lip.
“I shudder to think about that.” James kissed the finger and then the man who had offered it to him.
Q huffed a laugh out again. “I’m not one of your femme Fatales.”
“Mmm, no. More like a male Fatale.”
At least that got a distracting laugh out of Q.
“James!” Q tugged on his shoulder, the moment was broken by fear.
James looked down where Q’s eyes were pointed and saw some strange motion beneath them. He looked back up swiftly. “Q, Q look at me.”
Q did and his eyes were wide with the fear that had been kept simmering beneath the surface. “What is that? Are those sharks?”
James couldn’t lie to him that close. “I…”
Q’s hands tightened on him, his fingers digging into thick muscle. “Well, that’s one way to go.”
James pulled Q close. “Keep moving, easy motions. If something comes at you, push it away or go for the eyes. Avoid the teeth.”
“Avoid the teeth!” Q snorted.
They moved until they were back to back to prepare for a battle of sharks searching for a midnight snack.
Something strange continued to happen beneath them, water pushed hard at them. James wrapped his arms tight around Q and held on as the sea bellowed, rushed, rose, and parted. Q yelped and James almost did when their feet struck something. Q began kicking the moment he felt it. His eyes widened as his foot struck something hard.
“Ow! I don’t think it’s sharks,” Q whispered as they rose on a mountain that appeared out of nowhere.
“I don’t either. I think it’s a submarine.” He turned to look at Q. “How would a submarine know our exact location?”
Q shrugged daintily. “I can’t believe it took them this long. I bet R was having a real good laugh.”
“Why you-” James rolled to his feet after they were lifted up and helped Q.
The loud clang of a hatch opening caught both of their attention and they turned to see who it was that had rescued them.
“Yo, Jimbo!” The heavyset man called out cheerily as he leaned out of the hatch. He knocked on the metal beneath him. “You stiff-assed brit, how’s it goin’?”
“What are you doing here, Wade?”
“Uh, I am not here. The CIA has no knowledge, no involvement. Absolutely nothing to do with boring naval equipment so close to Cuba. If you catch my drift? Do you like the boat? A little gift from ol', eh, what's his name? T? Z?”
“Q.” James replied.
Q snickered next to him, that little shit.