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James sat in the men’s locker room at MI-6, water still beaded to his skin and wept down in silky trails. He was hunched over on the bench in the middle, fresh from the shower and feeling the twinging and aching of angered muscles and old wounds. A surge of painful anxiety and stress rushed up his spine, and tears of frustration with himself and every bloody complication to ever ruin his day crept into the agent’s eyes.
His world was crumbling around him, his position had been pulled out from under his feet, and everything of his own was arranged in a storage facility like a curious game of Tetris. James cringed at others going through his things, the small and few memories of himself, without his suits and Walther, young and simpler, without the scars and nightmares. He’s still as reckless as ever. He built himself a new being in order to work for MI-6, or perhaps MI-6 built him a new being. James wasn’t sure he was who he thought he was anymore. Was he his own design or some product of too many unsteady years of bullets, blood, beds, and secrets?
James really had no constant anymore. His flat, not particularly his, nor used as much as others would want, was a form of constant that brought much comfort. That was gone.
He’d tried a constant in Vesper, another person. He regretted that, is caused more pain than the pleasure that he’d leapt in with, and they weren’t even soulmates. It was always going to end when one of them –likely Vesper- stumbled upon the person who fit like a gory puzzle piece to the other side of her heart.
The single remaining constant in James’ life was his unknown soulmate.
Since the age of eleven, and even now, James could see his hearts wish’s fingerprints where they touched their own skin and then appeared on James’. A pale blue coloured the lines of the fingerprints, they had been gripping their wrist, collaring James’ in a mass of lines, but now they were pressing firmly into their right thigh, which James could not feel but marvel at. Faint with less pressure in the palm, the bright blue of the fingertips would suggest his dearest was stressed, or as frustrated as himself. Subconsciously, James hoped his love wasn’t hurting themselves enough to bruise.
Q hated names. He really did. Damn the colouring fingerprints, but the moment a soulmate said their half’s name for the first time, it was all over and done and the two became close to inseparable and insufferable.
Minion #29 whom Q idly called Mirabelle, though that might not be her name, had just introduced herself to a lowly intern from the Public Liaison Office, when just like that, they were dreamy eyed and watching as their fingerprints appeared on each other’s faces as they touched their own. Q was not impressed.
He’d never been fixated at any point on the prints that occasionally ran over his body. In any case, they were quite light in colour and Q couldn’t see them very well on his pale skin anyway –most people thought he didn’t have any because of this.
But then there was Q’s hair. Apparently Q’s soulmate frequently ran their hand through their hair, because often, pale streaks blurred through the dark strands before fading quickly never to be seen again. Q though he was going grey the first time it happened.
Stupid bloody soulmates, with their happiness and love.
When he met 007 in that gallery, Q was rather impressed with how well the rumours and tales held up to the actual specimen next to him. Bond was indeed handsome enough that he could probably model muddy wellingtons and life jackets while standing in the middle of the A4 at rush hour.
A tad nervous, Q approached from behind, in a calm manner, and rubbed the back of his neck. Peaking out from the collar of the large dark coat 007 wore, Q saw blue fingerprints dust the pale skin. His blood ran cold for a moment, before rational thought came back and had him sitting down and engaging in a conversation, carefully watching that as he pressed a finger to his cheek for just a moment, Bond’s face mirrored with a blue print.
Walking away was the easiest option.
James never noticed, not after Skyfall, and then in the months after that. SPECTRE reared its ugly head, and just as James was ready to walk across the bridge, away from that life that had built him, or he had built for it, his eyes noticed Q, mildly panicked looking, and pressing at the back of his neck with the palm of one hand, scarlet coating his fingers. Moneypenny was holding the laptop, though Q seemed unwilling to get in any ambulance and snapped at approaching paramedics.
James couldn’t just leave Q for some reason. He felt overwhelmed with the need to speak to the man, just once more. Madeline needn’t read into his actions like Shakespeare, he was just going to apologise for the car. Perhaps two bottles of Bollinger would have been a better replacement.
“Double-Oh-Seven,” Q primly greeted, despite the large bullet scrape on the back of his neck. James noted others moving away, just slightly. He swallowed.
“James, please. I can’t be Double-Oh-Anything anymore,” he said, voice hollow. Q eyed him.
“Why not?”
“I need something constant, I’ve been thrown around too much,” James explained. His turtleneck suddenly seemed far too tight and hot under the gaze of Q.
“Well then, James Bond, nice run,” Q muttered, eyes averted suddenly. In that moment, James felt all the hair on his body stand on end and he shivered, his heart racing wildly and an all-encompassing need to clutch Q to his chest overcame his senses.
“Q-,” he breathed, and then spluttered, grabbing and tucking the man into his chest, holding tightly to the constant. Madeline be damned and forgotten, he had Q.
“Double-Oh-… James, I think I might need medical attention-“ that lilting voice vibrated into James’ chest, and oh how he held him closer.
“Sir… he needs to be seen by a doctor,” a rather brave paramedic insisted. James gave her a filthy glare, to which M barked,
“For god’s sake James you can go with him and hold his hand but I want my Quartermaster seen to by a professional!” There was a pause as James practically carried Q into the ambulance, heart thrumming in a delightful purr.
“I also don’t accept your resignation, Double-Oh-Seven.”
Q, in a hospital bed and gown, was having childish fun holding his hands to his face and chest and watching James marvel at the prints appearing on his own skin. He’d been stitched, medicated, and was awaiting an x-ray result and discharge papers.
“Q-“
“Aston Roma,” he said quietly, tone joyful. James froze, and muttered.
“Aston Roma.” Q tensed and launched himself off the bed to curl in James’s arms, in the dim light of a hospital room at night, Q could finally see white-gold hand prints on his hand where James’ hands moved over them, ghosting all over his body.
Soulmates be damned.