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The week of final exams was, to put it delicately, hell. Q was in a lot of classes far above and beyond most students his age, but he’d honestly never wished to be in class with his less genius peers until now, as he found himself studying advanced mechanical engineering at 4 AM. Suddenly, being stuck in intro level trigonometry sounded like heaven.
James and Alec were similarly swamped with studies, although all of them took different classes. To be honest, whenever Q came over (usually for nothing but a change in study-scenery, because he didn’t have time for socializing), he kind of wanted to strangle Trevelyan a bit, because the young man had an atrociously easy class roster even by non-brainiac standards. However, when one factored in the spy-training that both blond-haired young men were undergoing, Q didn’t feel so jealous anymore. The stress was mutual.
“Q. Q. You have to eat,” was becoming something of a regular phrase. It was perhaps a survival instinct to come over and study in James and Alec’s dorm, because Q would forget necessary things like eating or sleeping otherwise, and his own roommate wasn’t determined enough to get past Q’s total focus on his studies. James and Alec, however, would tag-team, taking turns nudging sandwiches or tea under Q’s nose and forcing him into human interactions.
At one point, probably at one of those 4 AM moments halfway through the week, James got fed-up with Q’s self-destructive study habits and presumptively closed the boffin’s computer with a steady press of one hand. Startled and abruptly wrathful, Q actually looked up at him through his wild mess of bangs and hissed - as a human, at another human. Q was so shocked by his own actions that he just sat and blinked for a moment, cheeks flushing red as James stared back at him with raised eyebrows. One of those eyebrows had a stitch in it from his last ‘test’ by his spy handlers, although he’d otherwise come home unscathed since his first brutal exam.
“That,” the more muscular young man had said, “proves exactly my point.”
“Which was what?” Q said a bit meekly.
“That you’re so sleep-deprived that you’re starting to short-circuit. Now shape-shift so that we can share the bed. I’m not staying up any later either.”
It had become a habit, actually, to do this: Bond and Alec had both accepted that human-Q could be quite shy and prudish, so he was often easier to handle as a cat with fewer qualms. Q immediately pushed away from the desk he’d commandeered for his own, obediently stumbling the short distance after James to the left-most bed. Alec was already snoring in the other, dressed in only sweats and sprawled across his bed exactly where he’d fallen some hours ago - he looked to be sleeping on a file-folder. James spared a moment to rescue a pen from his roommate’s fingers, where it was lying trapped between his lax hand and his toned stomach. “He’s going to bloody write on himself in his sleep,” James muttered. Alec shifted, almost waking but not quite. Ever since James had come back bruised and beaten, both blonds had become lighter and lighter sleepers, Q noticed, so it said something that Alec was passed out beyond noticing. Dressed in sweatpants like Alec but also in a soft white tee, James turned off the remaining lights in the room, finding things easily by touch even as Q transformed, knowing that his eyes would peel away the darkness to reveal every detail perfectly.
Q still lost time when he changed shape, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been, and it wasn’t too frightening when he was in this room and knew where he’d end up. It was hardly embarrassing to come back to his thoughts and realize that he was stepping up nimbly onto James’s chest right now, where he’d slept (or at least napped) innumerable times before. As a human… Q considered the idea of this much physical contact too mortifying to think about, but as a cat, he barely hesitated to settle his paws delicately on James’s sternum. All three of them were used to cat-shaped-Q, so it was as natural to hear James gruffly commanding Q to change as it was natural for the blue-eyed man to buff the backs of his fingertips lightly against Q’s soft flank, checking where he was exactly in the dark. A little purr stuttered in Q’s chest, the noise still catching him by surprise even after he’d gotten used to most other peculiarities of being a cat. He was still abysmal at getting his tail to behave.
“Go to sleep,” Bond griped, but Q could see in the dark, so he knew that the young man was doing a poor job of hiding a smirk.
~^~
“Come on, you fuzzy little sod, time to move you before James wakes up and realizes he’s wearing a feline neck-tie.”
Q twitched, coming awake, but by then Alec’s hands were already scooping him up with even more care than usual. Q was more accustomed to James picking him up than Alec, mostly because the latter seemed perpetually afraid that he’d drop Q and break him - a fear that had been quite sensible in the first few days after Q came into his Gift, but since then, Q had nearly mastered the art of landing on his feet. Since nearly the first day, James had been quite unashamed and unhesitant about handling him, although he also never dropped Q, which was something to be thankful for.
Now, though, the reason Trevelyan was being so careful was because Q had moved in his sleep and was now tucked up under James’s chin, a position that would be sure to startle the hell out of the blue-eyed young spy when he finally got over his exhaustion enough to wake up.
Or perhaps it wouldn’t. “I’m already awake,” Bond grumbled, frowning but not opening his eyes yet, “What time is it?”
Holding Q awkwardly but carefully, cradled near his chest with black and white paws sticking out past his hands, Alec’s grin would have set off warning bells if James had been looking to see it. “Oh, I’d say it’s about half an hour before your next exam.”
As if on cue, an alarm went off on James’s phone, announcing the impending nature of said exam. James was out of bed like a shot, swearing. While Alec laughed and offered unhelpful encouragement (simultaneously keeping both himself and Q out of the way), James raced through an abrogated, speedy morning routine. Q had been so focused on studying and schoolwork of late that he’d probably missed the number of times both Alec and James had dressed while he was in the room, but now his feline eyes rounded at the sight of James stripping out of his night-clothes unabashedly and efficiently, having to skip an actual shower in favor of just jerking on new jeans and a clean shirt. The moments in between where there was a lot of bare, muscled flesh showing left Q a bit dazed. The young boffin’s infatuation with Bond’s pectorals hadn’t let up in the slightest since he’d first met him, clearly. Alec chuckled and poked a finger against one splash of white fur on Q’s side as if he noticed.
Before James could bolt out the door for his exam, Q squirmed loose of Alec’s grip, thumping to the floor on splayed paws even as Trevelyan swore and tried to catch him. A moment later, and to honestly everyone’s surprise, Q stood up on two legs again, his cardigan and slacks wrinkled and his glasses crooked. Aware that James had stopped rushing around, hand still outstretched to grab his car-keys off the dresser, Q blushed a little, sweeping fingers back through his hair but knowing that it was a hopeless mess. “I… er… good luck,” he said, flashing a shy smile.
There was no time to properly celebrate the fact that Q had just managed to change back into a human on purpose - something that he still struggled with, especially since he didn’t trust Mrs. Morris anymore during tutoring - but somehow, the warming and softening of James’s expression was worth a whole party thrown in celebration. Eyes the color of winter skies but as warm as a perfect mug of tea fixed on Q, showing Bond’s smile before his mouth did.
“Thanks,” was all James had time to respond, and then he was dashing out the door.
Alec, for his part, merely looked over and grumbled, “Damn, he took both sets of keys. Does he seriously think that that will make me stay in and study?”
Taking Alec’s complaints in stride, still feeling flushed with pride and happiness both from his accomplishment and from the look on Bond’s face - a look all for him, for Q - the boffin strode back over to his laptop. He still had a lot of studying to do.
~^~
Q had just taken his last exam. He felt exhausted, drained, and as if someone had put an egg-beater into his skull and whisked thoroughly - he’d be quite happy to never think again, or at least not until he’d had a shower, three days of sleep, and maybe something very alcoholic. He wasn’t entirely sure about that last one, but he’d heard James and Alec talking quite positively about going out for a beer later that night… Q himself hadn’t tried much drinking, besides out of idle curiosity, but his brain was past the capacity to think about much else, so idle thoughts of asking the two other young men out for drinks occupied Q well enough all the way back home. At that point, he lost the will to think of anything but stumbling in the direction of the shower, stripping as he went because a glance told him that his own roommate was out. The number of thoughts presently in Q’s head could have been counted on one hand, the most prominent being, ‘I wonder what the chances are of falling asleep in the shower?’ and another, less important one being, ‘Where has Trevor been this past month?’
The eventual influx of hot water on bare skin wiped out the rest of Q’s thought processes, however, and he just pressed his hands up against the side of the shower stall, leaning into the water and groaning. Instead of thinking about passing his classes, getting to exams on time, or where the devil his roommate was (probably - hopefully - the library, studying like the rest of them), Q simply soaked in the sensations of water plastering his hair down to his scalp, running in soothing trickles down his torso until all of him was pleasantly soaked. He’d get around to actually washing later - at the moment, all that mattered was that this felt heavenly, and started the process of slowly decompressing after the pressure of final exams.
He’d survived. He’d studied his arse off and done the best he could.
As Q roused himself enough to lift his head and look for the shampoo, he heard the door to the dorm-room slam. ‘Trevor,’ he automatically identified in his head, moving on autopilot. He nearly dropped the shampoo bottle, however, when suddenly he heard raised voices, plural, shouting loud enough that he could hear it over the shower. One of those voices was Q’s roommate, Trevor Vince, but the other sounded deeper, older, and far more violent.
“Where is it you shifty little bastard?” the stranger snarled. Q, suddenly starting to feel chilled despite the warm water, froze in place and strained to hear.
“I… I don’t have it!” Trevor stammered back, voice sounding high-pitched with panic that wasn’t faked, “Look, Henrickson, I don’t have your money.”
‘Money?’ Confusion swept through Q’s brain, and he tried to make logical sense of what he was hearing. He was still too sleep-deprived, however, and the most he could come up with were a few occasions when Trevor had definitely come back to the room high on something. It had never been any of Q’s business, and he and Trevor didn’t talk much anyway.
Something crashed and broke. Q flinched so hard that he nearly slipped, and suddenly realized that it wouldn’t be long before someone took note of the sound of the shower running - proof that they weren’t alone in the room, although honestly, they were yelling loudly enough that anyone else in their complex was liable to hear something. While Trevor whined something back that Q couldn’t hear, the dark-haired young man slipped out of the shower…
To realize that he’d left all of his clothes on the floor on his way here. He literally had nothing but a button-down shirt in the bathroom with him, and his glasses. Q’s brain had been so fried that he’d barely given a conscious thought to the act of denuding himself, probably with the hazy thought that he could just cover up in a towel when he was done. Any thoughts of dressing quickly and making a dash for the door and away from whatever was going down in the dorm room flew out the window at the same time that a cold lump of fear formed in Q’s stomach.
There was also a foreboding silence suddenly from the other room.
“Who’s in there?” the deeper voice - Henrickson - barked.
The question might have been directed at either the occupied bathroom or at Trevor, but Q was already moving quickly and slipping on the two articles at hand while his roommate stammered out an answer, “I… er… my roommate, probably. Boothroyd.”
Knowing that something unpleasant was going to happen to him if he was caught, Q spared a glance for the lock on the door… Then changed his plans. His brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders by any means, but adrenaline was making up for that, getting his neurons firing double-time. Quickly opening the drawer under the sink just a crack, then reaching forward to unlock the bathroom door, Q transformed himself into a cat before scurrying out of sight under the sink. It was a shock that he didn’t black out like he usually did, but he was grateful, because he suspected that he didn’t have time for running around without thinking. The drawer, as he’d hoped, provided an opening deeper into the sink, and he crawled as deeply as he could into the darkness until his wet self was huddled behind cleaning supplies. Barely daring to breathe, he waited, and before long heard the sound of the bathroom door being opened with the excessive force of someone expecting to surprise someone.
The shower was still running, but Q had left no other signs of his presence in the bathroom. His clothing on the floor between here and the dorm-room door would blend in with the general messiness of university student living space. “What the hell?” he heard Henrickson mutter, but he sounded less suspicious than before. He bellowed back, “You leave this on, you idiot?”
“Uh - maybe?”
For once, Q was glad that Trevor was a forgetful person. He had actually left things on like this, although usually it was the tap to the sink. Q was distracted from reflections on his roommate by the terrifying sound of glass breaking somewhere above him - it had to be the mirror, because then came the softer chiming of shards falling against the sink. It was all Q could do to keep quiet, huddling in on himself, wet fur doing its best to stand on end even as he condensed himself from the size of an American football to something closer in diameter to a large softball. Even his flexible feline frame protested the tight curl, but Q didn’t care whether he had room to inflate his lungs properly, because he could barely breathe for fear anyway.
One thought rang in his head, louder than the voices of Henrickson and Vince shouting at one another in a crescendo of violence: ‘I wish James and Alec were here.’
“Threatening me isn’t going to make your money appear!” Trevor was trying to stand up for himself, but his voice had gone squeaky and shaking - a shrill noise that hurt Q’s ears even after he plastered them back against his skull.
There was the scrape of something against the counter above Q, vicious and rasping, as rough and ugly as Henrickson’s voice as he growled, “Well, maybe if you realized that they aren’t empty threats, you’d change your mind about that.” Q realized with a start that the fact that Henrickson had lowered his voice was in itself a bad sign: shouts, everyone could hear and attest to, but soft words were personal and wrapped within the confines of this room.
The next words to enter the conversation were so sudden and utterly unexpected that Q didn’t even recognize the new, third voice. It was steady and calm, a jarring counterpoint to everything else: “Attacking someone with a shard of glass just makes you look desperate, you know. I take it that you’re hired muscle, but honestly, I could do better.”
‘So the scraping sound was a piece of the mirror…’ Q’s frantic brain labeled, because he’d been labeling and analyzing things all week, and it felt like his entire thought process was stuck in a rut - where it wasn’t burnt up by anxiety now. He still wasn’t breathing right, but huddled further into his hiding place nonetheless, until it hurt his spine.
“Who the hell are you?” Henrickson spat.
Trevor got his mouth open to stutter, “Hey, aren’t you-?”
“Bond. James Bond,” the third voice interrupted serenely. “Am I correct in guessing that you’re only here for him?” Bond sounded merely curious in a way that struck Q as so singularly dangerous that he shivered, his heart giving a hard hammer in his chest that was different from the choking fear he’d felt so far. He’d never heard James use this tone before.
The reference of ‘him’ must have meant Trevor, because Q’s roommate sputtered even as Henrickson’s replied like a dog growling, “Who else would I be here for?”
“No one else. Just asking.”
“Look, mister, you walked in on-” Henrickson started to retort warningly, but James just cut him off with more of that bone-dry, sniper-rifle steady voice.
“I don’t actually care. What I do care is that you take your business elsewhere.”
Q could practically feel Henrickson bristling, and imagined that shard of glass in his fist like a blade. The growing storm of violence finally made it impossible for Q to hold back a small mewl, but fortunately, it was swallowed up by Trevor’s antagonist snapping, “I’m not leaving yet - I still have business with this one!”
“So take him with you.”
Maybe if this were a television show and not real life happening around Q, it would have been amusing to hear Trevor stutter and sputter like a carp trying to talk. It seemed that Trevor had really gotten himself into trouble this time, and it was almost comical how much James Bond did not care. Q, for that matter, found it hard to sympathize when he was stuck in the middle of a fight that he’d had no part in starting and no interest in being exposed to - ‘exposed’ being the operative word, since all he’d wanted was to take a nice shower to come down from the chaos and stress of exams.
Q wasn’t sure what triggered it, but suddenly James’s voice went from deceptively mild to out-right deadly. “Get. Out.”
“You can’t-”
Apparently Hendrickson’s arguments, no matter how pompous they sounded, didn’t make any difference to James, because he switched back to his previous tone while leaving a certain xyresic edge that made one think of razorblades held next to exposed flesh. “If either of you are still in this room in the count of three, I’m going to probably do something stupid. Since you’ve both been bellowing so loudly, I imagine that it won’t be long before someone calls the police, but I know I’m faster with a switchblade than you’re going to be with that broken piece of mirror, and what’s more, I know how to hide that I was ever here to do the damage.”
While Q was mostly just stunned by this, even with his illicit knowledge regarding James and Alec’s espionage training, Trevor was clearly just about out of his head with fear - in fact, he sounded more afraid now than he had when facing off against Henrickson. “Look, man, Quincy won’t want you hurting his roommate, and I-”
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” James sighed.
Q actually heard Trevor’s shoes catching on the floor as he made a hasty break for it. Following that was Henrickson shouting, then footsteps pounding after Trevor, both rapidly growing fainter. Relief finally trickled into Q’s mind, severely hampered by the crushing wave of adrenaline he was still drowning in, but it was enough for him to finally draw in a stuttered, shallow breath.
“Q? Q, I heard you…” James was moving and speaking at the same time, and as if a switch had been thrown, he suddenly sounded nothing like the chilling threat he’d been seconds ago. Q heard shoes go from carpet to cheap tile, and flinched as he heard the other man begin rifling around hurriedly. “Come on, Q.” James sounded worried. “You’ve got to tell me where you are. It’s a miracle that I narrowed down the location of your thoughts to here.” The blond-haired young man paused, silence descending as he turned off the shower belatedly. His voice took on a deeply perplexed note, “I haven’t the faintest idea how I could hear you from this far away to begin with. I was a block over.”
Finally gathering enough sense to realize that he was very likely in the middle of a panic-attack - his inability to draw breath had nothing to do with how tightly he curled his little cat body - and needed help, Q nudged out a broken, fractured, shaky thought, ‘Under the sink. Can… can you hear me, James?’
Bond’s breath of relief came at the same time that Q heard the door to under the sink being wrenched open, sending in a blast of light. “Of course I can hear you. I heard you say my name before I even got in the building,” James breathed, something painful to listen to in his voice, because it felt so good on Q’s ears to hear a sympathetic tone. “Where the hell-?” Finally James’s hands moved aside enough cleaning products to notice a splash of white on black fur, or else a glint of an eye. “There you are.”
Of course, Q had never been known to handle stress well while in cat-form, and when he got wound up he always reacted with unreasonable defensiveness that involved hissing, spitting, and the excessive use of claws. James flinched, swore, jumped hard enough to hit his head on the underside of the sink, but nonetheless persevered to grab Q rather roughly and drag him out. For being in possession of a demonic little ball of fur, Bond handled it rather well. In fact, he didn’t even berate Q or try to reason with him, merely let go as soon as he had Q out in the open. It turned out that the bathroom door was now shut, and with the drawers all pushed closed as well, that left Q to scurry off basically nowhere. He still found himself hiding behind the toilet, hyperventilating now and getting no more oxygen than before, and uncaring of how ridiculous he looked with all of his fur plastered to his body and his back uselessly hunched. His attempts to fluff himself up and look bigger were probably about as successful as they would be if he were a daddy-long-legs spider. James knelt on the floor not far away, grimacing and flexing one hand, where blood was already beading across his hand and wrist.
“Well, that’s one thing Alec didn’t lie about,” the young man muttered, not sounding so much disgruntled as grudgingly amused, “You’re a right terror when you’re cornered.” Expression growing wary, James glanced back over his shoulder at the closed door, before looking back and meeting Q’s eyes earnestly, as if they were both human and in full possession of their mental capacities, “I don’t know what the fuck was going on here, Q, but you’ll be safer with Alec and me, so do you think we could put the claws away? I don’t think you’ll want to meet up with the police when someone inevitably calls them.”
Perhaps it was because Bond looked and sounded so worried about him that Q settled just a little, frame still tense but starting to sag with tiredness. His small chest rising and falling in puffing pants, he just stared at Bond from behind the toilet as the words sank in. No, he definitely didn’t want to be handled by the police… as a cat or a human.
“Good, then will you let me pick you up?” James replied with exasperation, picking up the words telepathically with shocking ease for a fellow who claimed to have a second-rate Gift. “Without trying to rip my hand off with those little daggers of yours?”
Recalling Bond’s threat with the switchblade, Q skittered around the other side of the toilet when James reached for him, but no sooner had Q gone one way than James’s other hand darted out - fast as a snake - and snagged Q’s scruff. That set off a whole new round of wriggling and hissing, to the point where it probably sounded more like James had picked up a baby crocodile than a scrawny cat. “Jesus, Q,” Bond grumbled under his breath, but nonetheless firmed up his grip and stood, taking his non-compliant companion along with him. Something about the hand on the loose skin of his nape was settling Q, however - or else the feeling of dangling there, his safety completely in Bond’s hands, was enough of a shock to Q’s systems that everything just sort of… rebooted. He still felt that he had steel bands around his chest, trying to crush his lungs, but the panic seemed to have faded enough that he lost his will to lash out and merely hung there. Upset, green feline eyes met Bond’s troubled but determined blue ones, and Q closed his mouth, tucking away his vicious hissing and milky-white kitten-teeth.
For a moment, Bond’s blue eyes were like a soft touch, and then they skated over Q in his entirety - the same way he’d looked at Q after the incident on the road, and after the dog, a swift and clinical scan. No doubt he took in Q’s sopping wet state, but he didn’t comment, instead looking for more important things like blood or misshapen bones. Q tried to think at him, ‘I’m not hurt,’ but had no idea if the thought came out coherently, or if James’s fickle Gift was responding. Finally, Bond looked him in the eyes again, gaze as dependable as a winter-blue sky. One pale brow arched. “I’m ready to leave now if you are.”
Q glanced down, feeling chastised, but then he saw Bond’s other hand come up to hesitantly stroke Q’s back-paw. It was an unexpected sign of trust, considering the fresh slashes even now standing out red and angry on Bond’s skin, now so close to Q’s claws again. Feeling very badly for acting so harshly, Q mewled pathetically, and kicked slowly - no claws, just the soft pads of his back left paw brushing Bond’s knuckles.
A glance up showed relief flooding across Bond’s face before he tucked it all behind a competent mask again.
“Good. I’m going to wrap you up in a towel so you don’t get me as wet as you. Then it’s straight back to mine until you can explain this mess.”
~^~
The last of Q’s panic attack faded as he was smuggled out of his own dorm-room, tucked snugly into a fluffy blue towel and then tucked into Bond’s jacket. Whatever persuasive skills James had, they apparently worked nonverbally, because Q didn’t hear him talk to anyone all the way out of the building and to the car - where Q was freed. He was still very wet, and therefore glad when he was left in the towel, just his head poking out as James arranged him in the car. The Aston Martin was just as Q remembered, immaculately cared for and somehow smelling like James - or perhaps it was vice versa. Instead of putting Q in the passenger seat, Bond let Q take up the space right next to his hip. As Bond shifted gears, his body moved next to and around Q, the nearness somehow feeling comforting more than anything else, and allowing Q’s aching ribs to expand more normally. He had a feeling that he’d be absolutely aching later, from how tense he’d been holding himself until now. As the car moved smoothly into drive, Q sighed exhaustedly, butting his head against Bond’s thigh.
“It’s all right, Q,” James murmured quietly from above him, eyes on the road but one hand traveling down to just rub a fingertip between Q’s quivering ears, “Whatever happened, it’s over. It’ll be all right.”
Q put up with Bond finger-petting his head for the rest of the drive, eventually graduating to stroking Q’s ears lightly. It was possible that this was actually working to calm both of them down, because not only did Q feel a bit more normal by the time he got annoyed enough to flick one ear (an accomplishment for someone who spent most of his natural life not being able to even wiggle his ears), but James chuckled when he did. “All right, you fuzzy little genius,” James murmured, parking and once again scooping Q up. Q was far beyond complaining about what Bond was calling him, and missed the worried, troubled look James shot him as the cat merely tipped his head against James’s chest as soon as he was cradled on a strong arm. Q’s whiskers barely twitched as he heard someone coming towards them, the voice soon identifiable as Alec.
“Hey, James, I was just about to leave to- What the hell happened?”
“Not a bloody clue,” James replied to the sudden flint in Alec’s tone. It was truly shocking how both of these young men could switch temperaments – with James, it flipped from gentlemanly and cool to lethal and flat as a blade, with Alec, from careless and jovial to stone-hard and immovable. “I think there was someone sent to shake down Q’s roommate, and things were on the verge of getting ugly.”
Part of Q considered opening his eyes, if only to monitor the conversation being had over his head, and in which he figured rather prominently. His eyes felt heavy, though, and Bond was a solid warmth against one side of his head, and his whiskers were sending comforting signals confirming the nearness. A stray breeze caught the other side of Q’s head, however, reminding him that he was still very wet as a chill cut into him. Unable to stop the unhappy meow that exited his throat, he tried to disappear deeper into the towel still wrapped around him.
Bond sighed, “He’s soaked to the bone, and I have no idea how he got that way. I figure he’ll tell me eventually.” James started moving again.
Despite all of his previous intentions of heading out somewhere, Alec fell in step. His voice dropped so that there was no chance of being overheard as he queried, “Eventually? You mean you can’t hear him now?”
After an unexpected pause, James replied quietly and with uncharacteristic hesitance, “I heard him a block off, thinking something with my name in it, panicked all to hell. After that, I’ve just gotten snatches.”
“A block off…” Alec echoed, then whistled, and proceeded to get the door for them and lead the way back like a broad-shouldered prow of a ship cutting the waters.
Q must have dozed off or blacked out in some way, because the next thing he knew, he was being unwrapped – he could tell because the air beyond the towel was unpleasantly cold. He vocalized his disapproval, and tried to snag his claws in the fabric. Alec, who turned out to be the one untangling him, swore and began the delicate process of unhooking Q’s little feet while also preventing Q from burrowing back under the towel. “Fuck, come on, Q! Cooperate, will you?”
“He’s cold,” James called out from not far away.
“Well, yeah, I could have told you that, you telepathically-challenged sod,” Alec shot back, the name-calling sounding surprisingly relaxed and fond instead of biting, “He looks like a drowned rat.”
Q glared at him.
Alec blinked back and flashed a wincing smile, amending, “A very handsome little drowned-rat.”
It turned out that Q was on the counter by the sink in the little kitchen area, and Bond returned then with an amused snort – he was just wrapping the last of the light bandaging around his hands, covering up Q’s claw-marks neatly. “Want me to take over?”
“He’s thinking death-threats at me, isn’t he?”
“Haven’t a clue, actually. But you said you had go somewhere.”
While Alec did step away and let James face Q – giving the feline-shaped boffin a stern look before reaching down and fearlessly grabbing both front paws, his calloused hands surprisingly deft at unhooking little, sickle claws despite Q’s sharp caterwaul of protest – he didn’t leave. “Nowhere important. Besides, I want to hear what happened, and find out whose fault it is.”
He folded his arms as James started dragging Q away from the towel by his forelimbs, a tactic that worked surprisingly well. Bereft and shivering, Q gave up, stumbling away from his little pocket of warmth while shooting Bond a baleful, bedraggled look. ‘Sorry,’ James mouthed, looking like he meant it. Then he made up for it by producing an entirely new, dry towel, and promptly starting to rub Q down with it. The whole procedure was terribly unbecoming a teenaged genius, regardless of what shape he was wearing right now, but James was relentless in his efforts to dry Q off a bit. As if he weren’t presently struggling to keep Q trapped in the towel now (tired as he was, Q was considering the chances of making a flying leap off the counter and racing under the bed), Bond calmly reported what he’d seen, starting with a telepathic shout in his head that he honestly shouldn’t have been able to hear over that distance.
“Drugs, gotta be,” Alec immediately opined, sounding disgusted and resigned at the same time.
James finally let the towel drop. “That was my thought. Not a professional job, though, and I don’t think that either Vince or the brute he was with even knew that Q was there. Small miracles,” he grunted, but as soon as Q met his eyes, the man flashed a sudden smile that lit up his blue eyes. Behind him, Alec looked startled, then started laughing. It took Q a long moment to realize that he was the object of their hilarity, because Bond’s rough attempts at drying him off had had much the same effects as a trip through the dryer: Q’s fur was fluffed up beyond redemption. ‘One word about this later, and I will kill you,’ Q promised while growling in his throat, sitting down and feeling the little muscles under his skin twitch.
For a second, James’s face got that blank look, so Q knew that the blue-eyed young man had heard him even as James cracked up, too.
Rolling his eyes at the two sources of laughter in front of him, Q got up and finally tried that leap off the counter. This still wasn’t his strong suit, but he was emotionally, mentally, and physically drained, so logic was a beat behind his actions – luckily, he landed on his feet without hurting anything, although he wavered alarmingly. Bond’s laughter immediately stopped. “Q?” came his name, thick was wariness.
Q made it two more steps, not sure where he was going, but feeling unaccountably like he just wanted to go somewhere alone, and quiet, and dark. He wasn’t angry at being laughed at… because that took energy he didn’t have. Some part of him realized that, beneath all of the exhaustion, he was near to tears and in no state to take a bit of good-natured teasing. He’d only just turned his nose in the direction of the dresser (knowing that there was a gap under it that he could fit under but would be very hard to get him out of), however, when he felt a shudder go through his body, and suddenly he was transforming back to his usual self.
The change came suddenly, and Q found himself swaying on two feet into Alec’s dresser, just catching himself. For one second, he was detachedly glad to be back in his own body, but then…
Then Q realized that he was still dressed in nothing but his glasses and a damp button-down shirt.
Alec pretty much summed it up as he said in a stunned voice, “Wow, Q.”
It was all too much – way too much. Q had been beyond done with his day before he’d even headed home, and then he’d ended up naked and threatened, then fur-covered and threatened, and throughout all of that he’d never had a chance to rest. It felt like something in him just snapped right then, and Q found that he had the energy to turn around, put his back to the dresser, and slide to the floor. Hands on either side of his head as if to keep his skull from coming apart, he curled his bare legs in, unaware that he was crying until he felt heat streak down his cheeks and hit his knees. The tiny part of his reflexes that cared about modesty urged him to tuck his feet in, but since it was just one more thing on top of everything else…!
Bond actually skidded on the floor a bit as he hurriedly dropped down next to him, and it was rare to see the athletic young man so uncoordinated. Q flinched as he felt warm hands firmly grasp his shoulders, and he tried to huddle away from James because he was sure that he was about to immolate from humiliation at any second. “Hey, shhhh, shh. It’s all right, Q. It’s really all right – I mean it,” the man was murmuring, barely breathing in between sentences and so close that there was really no escaping him. At least Alec had kept his distance – or so Q thought, until he heard a rough caw and something black prodded his elbow. Q drew back with a teary gasp, involuntarily uncurling a bit, at which time James’s left hand transferred itself from Q’s shoulder to his chin. Raven-Alec continued to hop agitatedly at Q’s right while James turned Q’s head to face him, blue eyes so earnest they burned. “Q, you’ve got to tell me what happened. All right? Are you hurt?”
‘Too many questions…!’ Q’s mind protested, as he squeezed his eyes shut and succeeded in making more tears flow. His brain was a scrambled mess, images of the last hour flashing through it along with the shame of being practically naked in the apartment of two handsome blokes he’d become friends with – pretty much the only blokes, handsome or otherwise, he’d become friends with...
James’s face had that taut, blank look again. He was listening. His hand released Q’s chin to gently stroke his cheek and jaw, hushing him more softly than before, “Today was just a bit much, yeah? But you’re all right, Q. Shhh…”
It was surprising that James could be so soothing when he’d been so blatantly lethal under an hour ago. The dichotomy was shocking, but right now Q wanted to take this part of Bond and hide in it somewhere, preferably until all of this went away. He didn’t know how hard he’d thought that until he was being pulled into a sudden and uncompromising hug, scrambling a little until he gave in to the warm arms tucked around his upper back.
Barely dressed, up on his knees, and smearing tears all over Bond’s shirt, Q relaxed into James with a sigh like he’d just remembered how to breathe. He clutched back. He felt feathers brush his foot in a ticklish sensation, then heard flapping wings somewhere in the room, and he didn’t care. All he cared was that he was telling James everything – from the brain-searing test to this moment now – and trusting that the on-again, off-again Telepath would hear him, because Q never opened his mouth, just thought. From the hums in his ear and nods against the side of his head, that was exactly what was happening, and all the while James quietly held him and petted down his hair, which was exactly as ruffled as his fur had been after the drying process.
Something thumped nearby – Alec, landing sloppily. Q didn’t open his eyes until he felt Bond nudge at his head with his cheek, murmuring, “Alec’s got some trousers for you, Q. Try not to turn into a cat for a bit, all right? I don’t think you’ve got the energy to spare.”
Turning his head, Q found gleaming black eyes peering up at him from the raven presently standing on the pair of grey sweatpants he’d just dragged over here. He couldn’t have flown much with them, which explained the awkward descent to the floor, but Alec had put in the effort without hesitating, it seemed. Now he croaked in the fashion of ravens, and cocked his head, looking about as worried as a bird could get. Feeling exposed, rubbed raw in just about every psychological way possible, and so tired it physically hurt, Q nonetheless reached out and gripped the material in shaking, slender fingers. Black feathers rustling, Alec hopped off the article of clothing, but stubbornly stayed nearby as James stood and dragged Q up with him. When Q flushed and scrambled to keep his shirt (one with long tails on it, thankfully) tugged down, James merely pushed his mouth near Q’s ear, keeping the two of them close so that he could whisper assurances against his temple. They had to change positions more than a bit to get Q into the new trousers, but Bond stayed nearby, offering something steady to lean on as Q hopped and tugged his way into the borrowed sweatpants. They bagged on him something awful, so even after tying off the drawstrings tightly, they hung low on his hips and covered his feet. When James started gently coaxing him out of his shirt, Q felt more and more self-conscious about his slim build and prominent hipbones, but Bond was in a rare, logical mood.
“It’s still wet, Q. You were still pretty damp as a cat, and it’s no different now that you’re bipedal again,” Bond said patiently but sternly. Alec, still trundling along on the floor like an ambulatory mass of ink, clacked his beak in agreement. For a moment, Q looked between the two of them, feeling rather lost – but Bond’s blue eyes were surprisingly grounding, and eventually Q just nodded, to which he was rewarded with a warm and pleased smile. Q’s fingers kept slipping, but every button he struggled on was unexpectedly loosened by more tanned fingers. A burst of flapping wings at his feet made Q jump, but it was just Alec flying across the room again. His wings looked impressively large in the relatively small space he and James lived in, and Q found himself transfixed as Alec flew to his side of the room, caught a shirt in his beak, and beat his jetty wings hard to return with the item. It crossed Q’s mind that Alec was in his avian shape for his benefit, because it seemed illogically nicer to have only human James looking at him, while Alec seemed somehow removed from the embarrassment of everything by being a raven. Q knew perfectly well that shape-changers were human-minded no matter what their shape, but Alec still seemed far less judgmental when he was covered in nothing but feathers.
While Q was busy staring over his shoulder, James got his shirt the rest of the way off, sliding it from Q’s shoulders with the faintest brush of skin-on-skin that made the smaller student shiver at the warmth. Before he could turn back and think too hard on that, however, Alec was dropping a soft grey shirt at Q’s feet, cawing.
Bond chuckled, hearing words behind the corvine noise. “Alec apologizes that the shirt’s a bit used, but he only wore it for an hour or so before changing his mind and grabbing another,” James translated, then added, “He might turn into a raven, but he’s vain as a peacock.” Apparently this last part was entirely James talking, because Alec cawed again, more loudly, and Bond had to sidestep quickly to avoid the tapered beak that lunged at his ankle.
After that, Q was more or less herded across the room and tucked into bed – James’s bed, dressed in Alec’s clothes – with another reminder, “No transforming, all right?” Q could feel the temptation to turn into his other shape, for no other reason than because hiding was easier when he was smaller, but what little logic he had left in his brain realized that he really didn’t have the energy to spare for shape-shifting. Curling up on his side, wrapped up in the masculine smell of the warm blankets, Q nodded and closed his eyes. He barely twitched as James remembered to take his glasses off for him.
For awhile after that, the room’s two natural occupants moved a bit away, but Q heard snatches of conversation. Alec had changed back, and James was relaying what he’d learned from Q’s thoughts, which actually turned out to be an eerily accurate recounting of events – even Alec seemed impressed, but James brushed aside any pride in his Gift, focusing instead of the matter of what had happened to Q. “I suppose I’ll go check things out,” Alec eventually sighed, and there was the sound of keys being picked up with a chiming rattle, “His good-for-nothing roommate probably needs saving, at the very least.” The door opened and closed, and Q sighed, burrowing deeper into the blankets and barely noticing James’s soft footsteps coming back to him.
“Mind if I sit?” came the quiet, gentle request. Q didn’t think he answered out loud, but he didn’t have any arguments in his head, and James’s telepathy was working shockingly well today – especially considering that his last bit of mind-reading had been done with Q as a human, and usually it was easier for James to get a read off his two companions in animal form. The bed depressed at Q’s back as another weight was added, making him blearily consider that this was the first time the two of them had occupied the bed, on purpose, with Q in his human form. It was a bit crowded, with Bond’s hip and thigh pressed up against Q’s back, but Q found himself drawn into the closeness after the terror the day had brought. He felt safe here, watched over.
“You’ll always be safe here,” James replied to the thoughts naturally, almost speaking too softly to hear. Q did notice the hand that reached over to squeeze his shoulder, then stroke once down his arm – a reminder of nearness, a promise of camaraderie. “You’ll always be safe with us.”
Somehow, Q managed to rouse himself enough for actual, verbal words, wriggling a bit and admitting that the new clothes he was wearing felt nice. “But you’re training to be a spy,” he mumbled, or at least made a close approximation of speaking past the heavy veil of sleep descending on him.
At Q’s back, James shifted a little, jeans rubbing against Q’s spine with the pressure of warm body-heat and hard muscle. Q didn’t doubt that both James and Alec would become very dangerous people some day, if they weren’t already. However, when Bond reached over again, it was an endearingly hesitant gesture – the motion of just another young man trying to make it through university, still young, still inexperienced in many things. However, his fingers (some wrapped in bandages thanks to Q) found Q’s and gave the boffin’s hand a firm squeeze.
“You’ll always be safe with us,” he repeated with naïve stubbornness. And Q believed him.
~^~
When Q woke up, he'd find himself still flush with James Bond, although the other young man would have a file-folder open on his lap - spy-stuff, although James won't seem particularly interested in hiding it from the boffin next to him. Alec will be home, and the noise of him coming through the door will actually be what rouses Q, as will the sound of the other shape-shifter saying that Q's roommate, Trevor Vince, is alive if a little bit scared. Alec will sound rather regretful about this, as if he actually wished that worse had happened to Vince, and Q will be just a bit too tired still to care. Bond will notice this either via telepathy or simple observational skills, and his hand will fall, warm and familiar, on Q's head, pushing it back down towards the pillows that smell like both of them now. Therefore, Q will miss the significant look that Alec shoots James's way, complete with a raised eyebrow.
James will pretend to miss it, too, instead settling down more comfortably at Q's back, his own shoulder-blades propped against the headboard. He'll ask about Henrickson, and whether Alec has any interest in joining him in testing any of their new skills, off the books.