Chapter Text
He ran up the stairs as fast as he could, his heart beating fast, too fast, not the steady, controlled beat it usually was. He felt like screaming, and like crying, like laughing in hysteria and the pure feeling of something shattering inside him.
Maybe there was no reason to panic.
Maybe he was worrying without a reason and his mind was playing sick, twisted games on him, but he hadn't been there this morning, and it couldn't be a coinsidence, it simply wasn't possible.
He nearly slipped as he tried to get up faster, so many possibilities, endings and dramas going through his head, a constant singing of 'I'm going to be too late, he will be death, I cannot save him, this cannot be real' in his head.
Panic was a strange, new feeling. One he wasn't quite familiar with.
It was an all-consuming, all-prepossessing burning urge in his veins, boiling, hot, destroying like a demon, with its claws scratching and tearing at his mind, and with its teeth ripping his sanity apart.
It reminded him of love, only in a cruel, less human way.
Perhaps this was the price of what they did, of what they dared to do.
Maybe they all had been right, after all, and what they had was a sin worth punishment, but maybe they all were wrong and it was just destiny, a fixed point in time - how was he supposed to know? He had never wanted to be dragged into something like this, had never wanted him to leave and disappear, to go somewhere where he couldn't be protected, and where cruelty was worse than it was in his home town.
Those blasted letters. This terrible life, this terrible burden, too heavy for a single shoulder alone, too heavy for a human being, too heavy for him, and it would be his end, he knew it.
There was no way that this could end in a positive way, he was certain, yet part of his brain didn't want to accept it, embraced the sparkle of a flame called hope in his mind, hot and painful but it was there, so there had to be a way.
They could run. They could run and never come back, and they could just turn their backs to this life, and go away.
Sweet, oh you bittersweet hope, so tempting, so beautiful, so wrong, nothing but a lie and yet more realistic to him at this moment in a moment of despair and desperation than the cold truth.
Someone would die, someone very dear to him would die and he would be too late.
He nearly slipped as he ran around the corner, breath coming out in pants, panic rushing through him and giving him a speed he had never possessed before. Only a few more steps, only a bit more, hold on please.
There was hope.
Some hope, something to hold onto, and if it was the possibility of hiding until their deaths must have been in this somewhere, a tiny help, something. They could hide. They could be caught, and killed, or sentenced to a life in prison, but they would have each other and it would be fine.
There might have been a better world waiting, but so what?
They would never be there. They would be torn apart and without a chance of reunion. Why hoping for a better life when you were living now, he thought, trying to run faster, heart beating in his chest, threatening to break out through his chest, so loud and strong it must have been audible in the staircase.
It was just as he had nearly reached the room he was staying in - it was just as he felt a sting of hope, and a sting of determination that he would be able to make it - as there was a shot.
The 'No' he wanted to say never came out, and neither did the scream stuck in his throat.
His chest felt like someone put some weight on him, one of his pianos perhaps, and the thought was so bitter he was paralyed for several painful seconds, only being able to stare at the limp, moveless form of the other.
There was blood.
So much blood. It was red and sticky and there was no water, only fabric being soaked with red and red and it was so much red.
Taking a deep breath, he rushed to the other's side, wrapping his arms around the slender frame, trying to feel a pulse or a heartbeat, or something, but he couldn't.
As he closed his eyes, tears running down his cheeks and sobs he wanted to let out never doing so, James opened his eyes, gasping.
The room was dark around him, a consuming blackness his eyes quickly got used to, and the air cold. For a moment James had no idea where he was, or why he was in a room, all alone, and not in a king-sized bed with an exotic beauty in his arm, body sore, muscles aching and head thrumping from a hungover killing his cells and his being, and his very soul.
He was all alone, and somehow this felt wrong. He expected to see someone at his side as he turned, sunlight slowly breaking through the thick clouds at the sky, some raindrops still falling down. Britain, in all its glory, London's dirty sky and the dirtier streets, with too many people not having a bloody idea about how their lives were in danger every day, and that people sacrificed their own to safe them.
James threw his legs over the bed, bare feet cold against the rug and body swaying a bit as he forced himself into a standing position, shoulders rolling and eyes fluttering to close again.
He just wanted to sleep, but there was this danger, this laying threat of dreaming the same dream again, of seeing this man resembling Q so much shooting himself and of finding him.
James' usual dreams were much the same: Death.
The death of his parents, the death of Vesper, M, every single person James cared for, they all died underneath his hands, died as soon as they came into contact with the curse and his blue eyes.
He had green-ish, slightly blue eyes in his dream, James remembered, slowly walking into his kitchen with little enthusiasm. Maybe he had some coffee left. Or vodka, perhaps even some of the old scotch he had tried to down in one sip yesterday night, coming home from a mission.
Another death, another wound and scar, life went on.
James made himself coffee, added the little alcohol left in his bottle and downed it as it still was hot, burning his tongue, leaving a numbness behind.
He had the day off, but would go into the HQ anyway, if only to annoy Q.
Q.
The little Quartermaster with the messy hair, and the glasses, his cardigan and this sassy personality, his green eyes, and the way his fingers move over the keys with such a grace that he could only watch him with a smile, admiring the birth mark he could see, dark against pale flesh.
James blinked once or twice, stared into his cup and made a mental note to either buy some more, or simply steal it out of Q-branch.
They would have his head for this, certainly, but he hardly minded that. As if some geeky, little nerds with their computers could do much damage when taking off caffeine for longer than five hours. How they even managed to live under circumstances like these, it was a miracle.
Looking out of the window, James' attention drifted from the mission he had last to his dream, and back to Q without him wanting to, without any indicator of why or how, but it was there, the picture of Q in the tub.
Something in James cramped, a dark feeling of fury and desperation clawing at him, and the cup fell down on the ground as James crushed it in his hand, not even noticing that his skin was cut open, and that there was blood.
Red. Red. Blood. Red. Redredredredredredred.
"For fuck's sake", James breathed out and ran a hand through his hair, stepping over the shards and heading to his bathroom, getting rid of his shirt and his trousers on the way, passing his corridor and half of the flat naked.
This had been going on for ages. Those dreams, those random conversations in his head which he had clearly never witnessed before, yet they felt familiar, this strange feeling of being broken and whole at the same time - it was confusing, annoying and it could bloody well stop now, thank you.
Dreams were idiotic, a trick of the mind, and of the less important part of all things. Sub-consciousness. What was his trying to tell him?
Shoot Q in the head when he wants to take a bath with clothes on and without any water?
Unlikely.
Very much so.
James didn't bother wrapping a bandage around his hand and simply got into the shower cabin, turning the water on and closing his eyes.
"This tune sounded wrong."
"I beg your pardon? I didn't know you were the pianist of us two."
"Well, I am full of surprises, my love.
"My dear Sixsmith-"
"Yes?"
"Just get into the tub? The water is getting cold."
Warm hands on his, colder than his skin and yet beautifully mild and the right temperature. Lips on his, soft, loving, with a gentleness yet firmness he felt himself aching for.
There was a melody playing in his mind, a silent, easy tune, beautiful, pure, just like him and there was water, surrounding him and giving him back the warmth he had lost by walking around naked in the tiny room he had lent for both of them.
Lifting his hand, he ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the soft, short curls, and the other hand ran over the light stubble at the younger's jaw, a gentle brush, nothing more and as he leant down to kiss the dark-haired man he nearly slipped and fell, but managed to hold himself up, eyes open widely, shock and disbelief.
James stared at the shower wall opposite to him, trying to figure out what just had happened.
Again? It was getting worse, and worse each day, those voices in his head, the pictures, the feeling of skin and lips and blood, and as James stared down he saw water mixed with blood, dropping down his arm, coming from his headhand, onto the tiles, white.
The agent took a deep, shaky breath, and tried to remember what he had drunken last night, if there had been any pills in it, or if it could have been poisoned.
But he had been alone, so there was nothing wrong with the alcohol. But with James.
He shook his head, put some clothes on and went to work, and something inside him stopped being tense and full of dark, ugly fear, and the tucking in his mind got weaker the closer he got to Q-branch.
"Everyone will know my name, one day, Sixsmith, I promise you that."
"What do you need a name for, love? I know it and that's enough. Even a letter would be enough for me."