Chapter Text
He was too old to be scared and he had worked with too many effect programs to allow himself even for just a second to believe that the monster he was seeing was real. All he could see was a bunch a very well done effects and make up tricks on a very good and very elastic actress. If he flinched now and then, it was because jumps scares were involved which was cheating.
Eve, however, managed to engross herself so much in the movie that she almost ruined his sofa pillow and, at one point, she had gotten so scared that she ditched the pillow in favor of squeezing the life out of him. “This doesn’t leave these walls, Q,” she had whispered in his ear before the ghost-woman appeared on the screen again and she ducked her head in his hair.
Funnily enough, the scary movie night had been her idea. She actually insisted on it, Q finally agreeing to it only because her attempt at a pout managed to scare his minions so much that they either froze or dropped what they were carrying – which led to the delay of one optical orientated device, thank you oh so much Eve and your medusa-like stare.
“Next time we should settle for some Star Trek or Star Wars or maybe even Doctor Who,” Q said casually, rolling his eyes when he felt her nails dig in his shoulders at the horrific noise the movie creature was letting out of its crushed windpipes. “Then again, you might end up having nightmares because of how some of those aliens look.”
She should have watched it with the guy she likes, Q decided once the credits were rolling and she was nursing a glass of whiskey to relax her tense muscles. But when he asked her why she hadn’t done that, she started to laugh.
“I am sorry if I annoyed you with how easily I get scared of nonexistent, Q,” she honestly apologized after her laughing fit had passed. “I shan’t bother you with my presence and horror movies in the future.”
“Ah, no, no, you really didn’t,” Q quickly reassured her, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away embarrassed. James had been right when he had said that sometimes it was impossible for Q to talk with someone without making it sound like he was insulting them, their abilities or their plans. “It’s just that, if we take into account how close we sat one to another, it seemed like this was the perfect make-out movie.”
Eve hiding her head the pillow, trying to stop her laughter and Q groaned and hid his face into the pillow, trying to figure out a way to open his mouth without sounding like he was a teenager awkwardly hitting on her or like James Bond picking up someone at the movies. Actually, if he thought a bit about it, that sounded like the exact type of lame line he would use.
“Would you mind sharing the joke with me, Q?” Eve asked, poking his side. “And I hope James is not the one giving you advice on how to pick up women because trust me, he will give you the worse possible advice. He will do everything in his power to make sure that you do not go home with anyone.”
Shaking his head only to start laughing even more, he rolled on his side and tried to explain that he had imagined James using the line and actually getting a soda dumped on his head, but only managed to wheeze out the agent’s name over and over again.
Not a minute later and the agent was pounding at the door, demanding to be let in and asking Q if he was alright and alone and why was he crying. Eve was quick to let him in, afraid that the man would shoot the door off its hinges.
“Q, status report,” James demanded, gun pointed at Eve, eyes darting around the apartment in search for hostile forces.
Q appeared from the living room, phone in hand and looking very much surprised. Which he honestly was since had hadn’t received any sort of text informing him of the agent’s return and if Eve’s equally surprised face was any indication, neither did she. “Everything is okay, 007. You can lower the gun. It’s just me and Moneypenny.”
Sighing in relief, the older man instantly relaxed and rested against the wall, nodding when Eve softly patted his back. “I thought you were being tortured.”
“Only with a horrible horror movie and her sharp nails,” Q mumbled, pushing his glasses up his nose and taking the gun from Bond, giving it a quick check. “Good to have you back and see that my gun is still in one piece, agent. I am astonished to see that indeed, miracles do happen and not just on Christmas.”
Starting to tap her foot after putting her phone away, Eve rested her hands on her hips and started to glare at the older man. “Why haven’t you checked in yet, James?” She asked, almost grabbing his ear when he grinned – though there was something very off about his grin in Q’s opinion – and shrugged. “I am to take you over to MI6 and personally check you in.” She turned around and smiled at Q, ruffling his hair. “Thank you for being a great pillow, Quartermaster.”
He slowly shook his head as he watch them both disappear, Eve continuing to scold James for not following the proper procedure. The relationship between the two was a very peculiar one. Eve admitted sheepishly that she still had a small crush on the man, even though she knew his feelings towards her were friendship at best. But if Q was asked for his opinion, he’d say that Bond saw something a bit more than a friend in Eve since he had seen the other man threaten other MI6 employees to break their hands if they kept on insisting he do something he did not want.
Glancing at the digital clock, Q decided that he still had time to tinker with a few firewalls and traps which he wanted to add to the ones he already used for MI6’s internal servers. You could never have too much protection around the information of people who risked their lives for the good of the country.
In all honestly, Silva’s hacking him back had dealt a serious blow to his ego and served him with an extra dish of paranoia when it came to protecting the servers against hackers. It just felt right to come up with constant new ways to keep hackers out and he had various minions build their own firewalls and ‘traps’with which he littered the internal world of MI6.
The trickier part was to make sure that all the different programs, created by different people, did not cancel each other out. Harder still was his attempt to create a firewall that had a Trojan incorporated in it which activated and infected the hacker that attempted to enter their servers, giving them instant access to his identity while at the same time digitally crippling him. The first time he had tested that idea, the Trojan part malfunctioned and attacked the servers used for testing and devastated it.
When he felt his eyes actually starting to water, Q decided that he had worked enough and proceeded to shut everything off. He changed for bed and made sure everything was secured before collapsing in his bed. And that was when his treacherous mind turned against him and made every little noise sounds ominous.
But he wasn’t scared, Q insisted. It was ridiculous to be scared of a green screen effect. He was too old to believe in such things. And the movie, if you thought long and hard on it, did not really make any logic. Was there really a way to get rid of the ghost? How didn’t the police catch wind of the existence of such a maleficent being seeing that she had killed so many people in so many gruesome ways?
And then a door that he knew he had closed screeched in his apartment and Q remembered that he still had Bond’s jacket and it was very rude of him to hold on to it for so long. He had dry cleaned it and, thankfully, left it hanging on the outside of the closet. And no, he most definitely wasn’t thinking that something very undead might drag him under his clothes and twist every bone in his body. It just saved him the hassle of blindly feeling around for it because he forgot his glasses on the bedside table and he was sure he hadn’t let his blankets like that.
He also climbed two stairs at a time with the jacket tightly clutched at his chest not because he was scared out of his wits and imagined a Japanese woman crawling up on the stairs after him, but because he was chilly and because he couldn’t see too well. It hadn’t been is brightest idea to leave his apartment without his glasses and just a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. At least he had grabbed his phones.
As he knocked on the door, Q realized that he wasn’t sure if James had actually returned home from MI6 or not. He waited a bit before knocking again and then, deciding that if no one was there, he would turn around and think up of another way to avoid having to go back to his apartment.
The door was pulled open with an amount of unnecessary force and Q was quite proud of himself for not jumping. “Ah, the little mouse, who else?” A woman said and the young man narrowed his eyes, trying to see her. “Here to complain about the noise?” Oh, she must be the blow horn he had threatened a few months ago, Q’s mind supplied for him even though it was kind of hard to tell because she wasn’t grunting, moaning and screaming James’ name.
Another figure appeared behind the woman, whose outline Q immediately recognized as belonging to James. “I brought your jacket back.” He said simply and held it in front of him, letting out a small squeak when the agent’s hand shot out and pulled him into the apartment.
“I was right the call him a small rodent,” the woman said, laughing and maybe flinching at the growl that came from James. “Oh, touched a sore spot, I see. I’ll leave you with your precious little lab rat, then.” She stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door shut.
Well, that had been extremely awkward. “I’m sorry, I just remembered that I had your jacket and I was afraid that I’d forget to give it to you again if I didn’t do it now,” Q said slowly, trying to get a good look of James’ face and see if he was in any kind of immediate danger for ruining the agent’s night. It was only when he moved his head closer that he smelled the distinct ooze of alcohol and he took a step back unconsciously.
“It’s okay, thank you,” James muttered, taking the jacket from Q’s hands and throwing it somewhere behind him. “It ended before it started anyway, so all you did was save the both of us from having a very unpleasant conversation.”
Q found himself being led to the bedroom, James holding on his hand a bit too tight. This time he wasn’t lying to himself when he said that he wasn’t afraid. But he was worried, his gut telling him that something bad had happened, although he didn’t know if it happened during the mission or during his ‘date’ with the woman.
James was quick to change the sheets, guiding Q under the covers before the young man could gather his wits and protests, suddenly realizing just how ridiculous of fears had been. “Don’t think so much, Q. Close those pretty little green eyes of yours and go to sleep.”
“You’re drunk.”
“And you got scared of a silly little movie and ran to me, so I guess we’re both Captain Obvious and we both lack the ability to think straight at this hour.” He grabbed Q’s arm and kept the younger man from bolting out of the bed. “I went too far. I’m sorry, please stay. I can’t think straight right now. Let’s just sleep, okay?” He released Q and watched him carefully, relaxing when the young man got back under the covers.
Sleep was the furthest thing from Q’s mind, chewing on his lips and trying to decide if he should push and ask what had happened, wait to go into work and check the Q-branch recordings or go to sleep and pretend that nothing had happened. Of course, his curiosity got the best of him and when he was sure that James had fallen asleep, he reached for one of his phones, dead set on finding out what had happened.
The agent’s hand rested on top of his, scaring him. “The ear wig got trashed and I ended up almost beating a man to death because he asked me if I’d screwed the ‘willowy boy with the hipster glasses that whispers in my ear’ yet or not.” He retreated his hand and turned with his back to Q, sighing.
“I don’t have hipster glasses,” Q mumbled out, trying to lighten up the mood. “And the man is not dead, although I think that bothers you more than it would have if he were.”
“He’ll walk with a limp for the rest of life, or so I have been told. But you are missing the point, Q! He knew how you looked like. No one is supposed to know what the quartermaster of MI6 looks like unless they work for MI6.” James shouted, still not facing Q. “Of course I’d go straight here when I found out you weren’t at HQ and I almost shot Eve because I heard you call my name while, I assumed, crying.”
“M will assign a security detail and…”
“I’ll have you moved to a safe house and I will be your security detail until we figure out who the MI6 mole is.”
“That will only make the mole go into hiding and we learn nothing. We have to act like we know absolutely nothing. I imagine that no one but you, me and M knows this right now so we have the upper hand in all of this.” Q insisted and rested his hands against the agent’s back. “And wait, you brought a woman over after you find out I’ve been compromised?”
James sat up instantly and moved to lean over Q, stunning him. “She’s MI5, she’s clear; she doesn’t know who you are.” He started to whisper, his heart beat increasing as if just not he realized that he had put Q in more danger. “I’d never do anything to hurt you or put you in danger. I won’t watch you die in my arms and I won’t read a report or hear from a new Q that you died.”
Ever so slowly, Q wrapped his arms around James and held him close, realizing that the agent was shaking with anger. “I trust you. I believe you. If you say she’s in the green, then she is in the green and I am safe.”
They sat like that for a while, James basking in Q’s warmth and Q in his before the other man reluctantly rolled away. It was only then that a little light bulb lit above the Quartermaster’s head and he started to question just what type of relationship they had.
He had assumed that James acted the way he did because of Skyfall and because the title of Q had been one of the last things the old M had done before she died. Maybe he was reading everything wrong, but he still had to be sure. “Why was she upset with you? The woman, I mean.”
The agent waited quite a bit before answering, the man’s voice pulling Q out of the early stages of sleep. “That tends to happen when you use the wrong name, Q. Especially if your bed partner thinks and hopes that the relationship evolved from casual sex to something else.”
“I’m…sorry, James.” He patted around the top of the covers until he found his hand, moving a bit closer to him. Suddenly, the possibility of a horrible disfigured ghost peeking at him from under his covers wasn’t as terrifying as having the other man pull away. “Was it…” He trailed off, but James knew what he had wanted to ask.
“Yes. I can sleep on the sofa if you want.”
“No!” Q said quickly and pushed himself closer to the agent, eyes closed tightly. “Well, unless you want to. But I am fine like this. We need to talk when you’re fully sober, but right now is okay. We’re okay.”
Before he knew what was happening, Q found himself cocooned in James’ arms, the other man entangling their legs together. He felt completely safe, like nothing could get to him and he finally released a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
He awkwardly kissed James’ chin before he could change his mind, happy that it was too dark for the other man to notice just how red he had gone. The hug tightened and James rubbed his nose against Q’s forehead, both of them drifting to a light sleep wishing that time would come to a full stop.