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Bond was drifting in that alcoholic place he sometimes managed where he could completely turn off the understanding of some things.
There was no M, there. Not anymore.
No Blofeld.
No Janus.
No women, frankly. None with faces and eyes and names attached, at any rate. Much safer to just avoid anything feminine. He wasn’t trying to get excited, here, just to find a few minutes of peace.
Women were rarely peaceful.
It was a strange thing to think about the ‘gentle’ sex and he knew it was a biased opinion, but all of the women who had made an indelible impression were harsh, sharp, cold—he didn’t want that. Not here.
Here were the good things. A two-year long argument with Jackson—the best 003—about the merits of Shakespeare played as intended or with modern adaptations to take advantage of a permanent stage and seats on risers along with curtain calls between scenes.
Drinks with Vance where even the guys 002 had been deliberately side-eying backed off before doing anything after hearing that they were speaking in several distinct languages with no apparent problems. The little snickering snort when Vance had mostly finished fucking with their heads and pretended to be a Yorkshire boy who’d never been anywhere—just to see how confused they could look.
Card and drinking games with Alec—usually before he’d become 006 because it was just easier to stay in this content, peaceful drifting place as long as he stuck to Alec. The old jokes with men long dead and buried if enough to bury was found. Listening to Alec absently singing half-remembered folk songs Bond could only suppose came from the man’s parents as they hadn’t been English or any of the languages Alec had taken in school before joining the Navy. Watching the man’s hands as he carved bird whistles or small examples of local wildlife from wherever they’d recently been in port.
Alec was a good memory. More options to drift through. Watching him clean his gun, sharpen his knives—the aichmomaniac. Sparring together for official training and less ‘properly’ for fun… which had turned out much more useful in the future. Striding shoulder-to-shoulder down foreign streets, both looking slightly to the side they were on to help cover more of the view and also to take more of it in as they went so they could share what highlights they’d noticed instead of trying to see everything on every side like their unit mates had.
Shared stories of bad instructors and tricking bullies before growing large enough to no longer be targets themselves.
Waking from the first restful sleep in weeks thanks to a solid body behind him. Bond hadn’t ever gotten that back.
Not after—
No.
“James? What should we do?”
“…Call Luke home?”
“…Yeah. Okay. …We sound like total pussies, you realize that?”
“What the hell else should we do?”
“You call him. It feels like calling Dad home because we got creeped out after watching a scary movie and that’s just no.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll… text for an ETA.”
Something was wrong with the conversation but Bond knew better than to reach for the ‘why’. Reasons meant logic and logic meant opening locked boxes and wedged drawers and sharpness and wide open gaping nothingness to stare back.
No.
That show with the dancers in Nice, everyone riveted to the stage except for Alec, who nudged him out and after a woman who later ended up repaying their intervention with a car that wouldn’t be stopped and a timely warning to take it.
Lying on the roof of that car under a billion stars beside a field of sleepily-bowed sunflowers and speculating what life would be like in another six months but honestly not much caring, as long as it was fun.
Awareness of the world began to seep in despite his best efforts. Neck aching, head protesting something internal rather than injury—dehydration, usually, which sucked as he also needed a piss.
He tried to ignore it for just a few more minutes of not dealing with the real world.
“007.”
He should have known better. He’d probably fallen asleep in Q’s office again. The chair was comfortable for about an hour before its sadistic side came out to torture the unwary.
Coffee-scented steam was wafted under his nose, the mug remaining there as his hand shot up to claim the offering.
“Identify.”
Bond didn’t bother to open his eyes. “A radio and a gun. It’s not exactly Christmas, is it?”
“Confirmed. Counter?”
“The weight disparity between the contents of bay seven before and after I left post helicopter hitting a bridge.”
“Roughly one thousand, five hundred and thirty-eight kilograms,” Q said dryly, sounding slightly exasperated. “Why ask me a question you wouldn’t know the answer to yourself as reassurance that I’m who I’m purporting to be?”
“The snark is unmistakable, Quartermaster,” Bond drawled, grinning and opening his eyes while bringing the coffee up. It froze before he could tip it to drink.
“Yeah, about that,” Q said—except it wasn’t Q.
Well. Not precisely. The bones were correct, and the eyes, but this wasn’t the scrawny too-much-fake-lighting not-enough-sun-or-nutrients skinned boffin. There were no glasses obscuring those intelligent eyes, either, and someone had actually pinned him down for a proper haircut.
He was also about ten years too young—or more—and at least a stone too muscled.
The move to pinch the bridge of his nose was incredibly familiar, though. “It sounds insane, Bond, but the last I saw you—or for all I know a different version of you—I gave you a roller bag outfitted to get a few special things through the normal airport security for a shoot-yourself-before-reading mission to somewhere in South America unless M—Mallory—was misleading me. I’d caught the cold going around and sneezed myself off a ladder and woke up in this… timeline? Alternate reality? I honestly don’t know and it makes my brain hurt so I try not to think about it. That was roughly six years ago for me.”
“Back to having spots.”
“Fuck you, old man,” Q muttered, lips twitching around a scowl. “Yes, spots and popsicle sticks for limbs and homophobic father and all. Geoffrey took me in as an ‘intern’. I’m currently R, largely because he wants to give me a bit more time before accepting M’s offer to be a sort of ‘emeritus Quartermaster’ meaning he gets to do the fun bit and I have the title and responsibility. Proper food and some training during development,” he waved a hand over his body. “Few inches taller than before and no longer being threatened with being used for bench presses.”
“How long do we have to prepare for Silva, then?” Bond asked. He was honestly not sure if he believed any of this but this… if this wasn’t Q he was doing the best impression of someone Bond had ever experienced.
“Unnecessary.”
“Q—”
“Unnecessary, Bond. Tiago made a move and was shot by three of his fellows before he could leave MI6 or actually cause any damage.”
“That’s…”
“Roughly twelve years ahead of schedule, yes,” Q agreed with a grimace. “I thought it was the torture and finding out M had essentially sold him for going a bit rogue but it turned out he was just teetering his way towards a psychotic break regardless of provocation and my interference made him topple more quickly and with loads less fallout.”
“Twelve years, then—”
“Bond. Silva was not M’s creation. Janus was. At least in this reality. Honestly, you turning up in our chair has rather thrown me for a bit of a loop here with all of the theories I was trying my best not to consider. Wanker.”
Bond quirked a brow. That was different. Name-calling aside, though, what did… no. “No.”
Q nodded minutely, held his gaze so intently Bond knew he was trying not to look elsewhere, his own head snapping around to see—
James Bond and Alec Trevelyan. Shoulder to shoulder, leaning against a half-wall separating the living room he’d been sleeping in from a kitchen. Both in their early thirties, if Bond could judge.
“Bond. Bond. 007.”
“This—”
“Insane, I know,” Q agreed, taking the coffee and a large gulp, making the same face he always made when he grabbed Bond’s coffee instead of his tea while they were half-asleep and trying to plan a mission. Or just telling themselves they were doing so while avoiding going to empty rooms and beds that wouldn’t give restful sleep if they tried.
That was all it was, though, and even if the coffee was drugged that would be a useful data point. He didn’t have many of those he could trust at the moment so he accepted the mug back and drained it.
If it was coffee?
He needed it.
Bond was rubbing at his temple with one hand, waiting for the tablets Q had given him to kick in while also trying to take stock.
After ‘waking’ in this house the fun-house mirror versions had decided to give him a bit of time to wrap his head around things and set to work on making dinner. Q had taken a cutting board to the island, angled towards the bar where he’d put the coffee pot and Bond. They’d discretely discussed things enough that, strange as it seemed to look at this ‘Q’… Bond was rather sure he really was Q. Bond’s Q, even, not some other dimension or universe or—
Not thinking about it.
Too many shared snarks to be anyone else, and half of those weren’t done while they were wearing comms, eliminating transcripts as a source of information.
Information the two tense agents trying not to obviously keep an eye and an ear on them clearly didn’t know as they weren’t following most of what he and Q had discussed.
The dynamic between the three was puzzling. It… it didn’t seem like this was a new or rare thing—making dinner together. Alec and James shifted around each other with relaxed ease, Alec swapping out what was under Q’s knife and James taking spoons to him for sampling. Alec kept Q’s mug of tea full and both were so tightly wound with leashed aggression and possessiveness that someone who didn’t know them might have mistaken it for something other than near-panic worry.
That, he supposed, he could understand. Q seemed to be quite comfortable here. And after six years Bond would be shocked if he were anything else. Bond suddenly turning up must be throwing up a big question mark over how he’d get back and if Q would go back, too.
Given the number of times James had stopped himself from touching Q—and the subsequent eyeroll Bond had caught Q doing—Bond wasn’t sure Q would return to their proper… time? World?
He still wasn’t completely convinced he was both awake and sane.
Sadly, he also couldn’t think of any way to test either concern. The ‘no pain in dreams’ thing didn’t work for him. Not when most of his dreams were twisted memories and his recollection of pain abnormally true to reality.
Six years could change a person. Six hours could change a person. The only real change in Q—beyond the obvious physical ones—was his ease. Bond was used to seeing him with slumped shoulders thanks to exhaustion or a tense back as he prepared himself for their verbal spars.
Q with James, rather than Bond? Snarked. Snark was his default.
But his shoulders were loose, back at ease. Set of every limb confidently sure of his place, here, betraying it as his home. He’d said ‘our’, and Bond and Trevelyan had cohabitated often enough that those two living together wouldn’t surprise him.
The three doing so was a bit harder to picture, in the hypothetical. In the visual reality it seemed to work out rather well.
Q insulted James on the regular with an uptick to his lips that softened when he was called a brat in return.
Q and Alec were either less at ease or had a less verbal relationship as very little was said between them as Bond observed the dinner preparation. Given the tea and occasional eye-contact that lingered into checks of wellness—Bond had received too many not to recognize this Alec doing the same—he had to presume the latter.
Watching Q was by far the safest. Alec… he hadn’t known Alec at this point. Alec had been dead during a compromised mission. James. Looking at James was just bizarre. His own mannerisms, habits. A few quirks he’d trained himself into, out of. It was a bit like watching a video of himself post-amnesia, seeing himself with no memory of the happenings save it was all live action and he was living this.
His focus on Q was not noticed by the man himself. Or, if noticed, dismissed as perfectly normal and to be expected in the situation.
James and Alec, however, hit a point at which they were done pretending Bond’s existence didn’t bother them and began nudging Q farther from Bond in a relatively subtle and coordinated effort that they hadn’t even discussed before implementing.
“Could you explain the Janus thing?” he finally asked.
Alec went still.
“You could explain it better than I could,” Q answered. “I only had your mission notes and I know quite well those are never completely true, much less fully explanatory.”
“I only know what he told me. MI6 killed his parents, orchestrated things for him to become a double-O and England was better off destroyed.”
Both James and Alec turned to look at him before turning to Q in annoyance. “Luke,” Alec growled.
Q shrugged. “It didn’t matter.”
Alec made a noise Bond remembered. James snorted his agreement with it.
“And it wasn’t England, exactly. Just the big banking systems.”
“Oh, just,” Alec muttered, turning back to the range to jab agitatedly at the pot there.
“He isn’t you,” James said firmly. When Alec didn’t react he clapped a hand to the back of Alec’s neck, which shocked Bond. That wasn’t the sort of thing one did with a double-O—
Alec’s shoulders twitched. Instead of throwing off James’ hand and shoving at his chest for good measure, however, he suddenly leaned sideways, left side supported by James’ front for a moment. James kissed his temple before Alec straightened.
“Not being on endless undercover assignments combined with several friends in the program still being alive and some ‘facts’ being turned on their heads to be outed as opinions twisted by time concluded with Alec, rather than Janus. Plus James promised to leave MI6 with him if ever needed, so,” Q shrugged.
That…
Okay, that was unexpected.
Sure, Janus had mentioned considering asking Bond to join him in his villainy, but Bond had assumed that was the typical villain-fucking-with-the-good-guy’s-head bit. Laying the blame on Bond for not being a good enough friend.
“Don’t underestimate your hand in, oh, all of that,” James shook his head with a grin, handing Q a carrot dipped in the sauce he’d been working on. When Q nodded the sauce went into Alec’s pot and was covered, leaving them nothing more to do, apparently, as they turned and eyed Bond warily from across the room.
“I’m not. I’ve told you this M is softer than the woman I first worked with. Much more reasonable in a number of ways and listened when I suggested things that have helped all of you.”
“M?” Bond asked. Somehow he hadn’t… hadn’t gotten to her.
Hadn’t allowed himself to get to her.
Q nodded, his expression softening a tad. “She has been fighting for her agents a lot more than I ever knew her to bother.”
James and Alec exchanged a quick look. James grimaced, lips pursing for a moment before opening and closing his mouth.
“The M you’ve described of your time is how we would have described our M before you turned up,” Alec said bluntly before James could get it out.
“Whoa, no,” Q said, looking horrified. “No, no, no no no. No. I refuse—I absolutely refuse to—” He made a high-pitched squeaky noise and a moment later had been picked up and sat down on the island countertop, head pushed down towards his knees.
Bond could see him trembling even as both Alec and James started trying to physically soothe him, James stroking his back as Alec kept one hand on his upper arm to ensure balance and the other curled around his neck and ventured into the short hairs at his nape and back down over and over.
He’d never seen Q have a panic attack, but these two obviously had.
“Fuck, no. She can’t be back. It wouldn’t make any sense. She’d have—have—” Q’s panted words cut off as he buried his face in Alec’s chest, hands fisted in Alec’s shirt, tugging.
“She’d have had Alec shot,” Bond said bluntly, getting two looks torn between annoyance and unease. “And Rodriguez. The R after the one that would have retired shortly after you turned up—probably. His ‘accidental death’ was a bit oddly timed.” Probably Alec’s work. Alec rarely cancelled on Bond and had been annoyed to do so—just before that death occurred. “Wouldn’t be surprised if she had a few others quietly dealt with as well.”
“Yes, exactly,” Q declared, not bothering to move from his cramped position. “She can’t be back. It has to be something else. Interest in the kid genius and seeing small changes making big differences or… something else.”
“Okay, bratling,” James gently agreed. “She’s not back. Just impressed by your awesomeness into being less…”
“Determined to be seen as ‘as cold as a man’ would be in the position.”
Q shuddered. “Mallory wasn’t as hard as she was, even years into the job and with the experience of the job. Not 6, but,” he shrugged. “More experience than she had.” He straightened a bit, high enough to breathe easily but not far enough to require the other two move or leave off rubbing his back or stroking through his hair. He shuddered. “You don’t think anyone else may have time traveled, do you? Might as well get it out of the way if so, not sure I’ve the energy for another full-fledged freak right now.”
“She was the only one we’ve discussed.”
“Fucking hell, you two,” Q sighed. He sat back, finally. “Dinner.”
“Shit,” James spun and quickly started stirring the pot’s contents.
Alec caught Q’s chin and tilted his head a bit to study his face in the light before letting go, tapping the fingers still clutching his shirt. When Q let go he left the room, returning with a bottle of tablets that Q accepted with a sigh. “Better to get ahead of it,” Alec said flatly and put an ice pack into a towel before shaping it to settle on the back of Q’s neck. Q held onto it as he dry-swallowed two of the tablets, accepting the cold tea mug pushed into his hand to wash them down.
“And we’re ready,” James announced.
The meal was fairly silent. Bond’s school years had involved silent meal times and uncomfortable situations, off-mission, tended to throw him back to that. Alec, too, and Q might talk when nervous but he wasn’t, now, not in his home with his… friends? More? As he was additionally staving off a headache Bond wouldn’t have expected much from him.
“Bond.”
He looked up from the bottom of his mug which hadn’t been terribly interesting for the last few minutes but had sufficed as something to stare at. James had motioned him to stay put as he and Alec cleared the table and split the dishes and putting things away between them.
“I think it might be easiest for everyone if we said goodnight now and sent you upstairs. Second or third floor flat, your choice.”
“Third, if it’s the top.”
“It is,” James answered, returning from the kitchen with the keys.
“We’ll see you in the morning for breakfast and maybe we can figure something out then,” Q sighed. His eyes were barely slits.
Bond smirked. “Maybe, Q? Missing a few steps in your old-young age?”
“I have gotten used to the slower pace, I admit,” Q’s answering smirk barely flicked around the edges. “And have avoided thinking about the whole thing. Frankly… I still really don’t want to. I’d rather keep the illusion that I’m alone in having traveled through time. Otherwise I really am behind.”
His eyes slipped completely closed. A slight wince tightened the corners of his eyes for a moment. Alec returned with a new icepack, but rather than offering it he wrapped his hand around the back of Q’s neck and felt along the length before pressing on different spots in succession.
Q moaned softly and dropped his head.
“Go downstairs already, Daniel,” James said softly.
Bond opened his mouth to ask but was given two lethal glares. He smirked at them but obliged, waiting until Q had taken the icepack and wandered away where Alec had gone to retrieve his pain medication.
“Bond?”
Bond leaned back to see Q hadn’t even turned, one hand pressing to the wall. “Yes, Quartermaster?”
“I’ve been living here for over four years without oversight or budget limitations. Knock, unless you’re feeling like having your crispy corpse scattered over the roses.”
Q hadn’t bothered to look back. In truth, that he thought to warn Bond at all said plenty about how little Bond wanted to try and break in just to do so. Q’s home security had always been a bit on the side of overdone paranoia, and he’d barely had time to work on it when Bond had last broken in and required patching up. “Understood, sir.”
Q snorted softly and padded down the stairs, leaving Bond to meet the glares head on.
“Q isn’t a wilting violet, you know.”
“We’ve seen him kill bare-handed and order his own shooting, we’re well aware.”
“His what?” Bond rocked forward.
James nodded approval. “Good.” He quirked a brow when Bond didn’t say anything. “We were starting to wonder if you felt anything at all for him. That you don’t know his name is frankly appalling.”
“You met him younger than I did. I met him post-explosion promotion. His records had been scrubbed. Even M’s home office didn’t have anything on him. What shooting?”
“Birth name is Daniel. Only James uses it. Everyone else uses either Lilq, Luke, or R,” Alec said shortly.
“The Rodriguez situation ended with the traitor dead from a shot that went through Luke first,” James said crisply, both of them looking very ‘double-O agent’ at the memory.
Meaning they were there and still quite disliked every part of the event in question.
Understandable.
“Could we get a few basics out of the way?”
Alec looked away, jaw clenched. “Fine.”
“I have a question, first,” James said. “He’s mostly just said my taste in women is shite.”
Bond winced.
“Ah. Not teasing, then,” James grimaced. “I know, I know,” he held his hands up when Alec swung a look at him. “But I could hope it wasn’t quite as bad—”
“As having your wife shot within an hour of the wedding? Or leaving MI6 for a traitor who, surprise, betrayed you too?”
“Or having my best friend fake his own death so he could become a villain who later tried to kill me?” Bond put in, ending the argument with a crashing silence.
“That wasn’t me,” Alec said. “You’d see it more readily if you looked at me.”
Bond didn’t. “I keep remembering your body on the ground before the satellite came down. Seeing scars on your face that you don’t have from the timers being set for a quick exit because he’d been acting a bit antsy the whole mission and that usually meant a quick exit would be required,” he smiled bitterly. “I felt like I’d killed you for almost ten years, only to kill what you’d become.”
“Bond,” Alec said, the backs of his fingers touching Bond’s forearm. Light and tentative and so wrong from any Alec Trevelyan that Bond was starting to feel a bit of a disconnect between the world and his perception of it.
Never a good sign.
He looked up, solidly into green eyes with the start of sun-weathered crows’ feet at the edges—though less than when he’d last seen his Alec. Probably because of the change in missions; Alec’s undercover assignments often involved some sort of outdoorsman work. Warehouse worker, guard, chauffer—as much time spent outside as inside. Not the case for this Alec, who had also lost a bit of his usual tan.
“I had vague ideas for Janus. The two-faced god,” he added, indicating James beside him. Close in height, in build, in coloring. “War and peace, beginnings and endings. Nothing concrete. Nothing even stockpiled outside of the usual.”
All double-Os—or all of those with any sense—had money in a dozen banks around the world with only codes and passcodes for claimant later. Most had a few properties as well, also not affiliated with any name MI6 would know.
“I was still trying to decide if it would be better for me to get out of MI6 and away from England openly and just,” Alec shrugged. “Open a garage or a bar or something somewhere MI6 doesn’t give a damn about, or if I should fake my own death. If the latter, how? When? And should I contact James afterwards or let him presume me dead and relegate me to another name for the list of toasted to on our remembrance day? I was sick of being treated as a disposable weapon, an irritating task and an eyesore.”
Bond remembered days like that. He’d gotten in the habit of playing dead instead of facing them when things got really bad. Better he fixed his own head before he dealt with that and was further screwed up. Between Mallory and Q such things had become much less… necessary. More… well, amusing. Both made such entertaining expressions when he turned up again, hale and hearty despite another death certificate with his name on it.
“James was right in saying Luke had a hand in changing it all. I woke up in Medical not to being restrained and drugged to the gills with lights stabbing through my eyelids and the smell making me ill. I woke up to a game soundtrack, unrestrained, only mildly drugged and with coffee and one single lamp behind me.”
Bond nodded. “Sounds familiar. Aside from the soundtrack. Then you were given blister-pack tablets and bottled water.”
“And given a rundown of my injuries and asked what I needed and wanted,” Alec agreed. “By a kid. One who bickered and snarked with James but clearly enjoyed his attention. Who basked in the affection of every double-O I saw him with, apart from Rodriguez. Who was credited with creating a gadget, a medical improvement, providing better intel at the last moment—and who thereby kept many of us alive. Time and time again.”
“His office became our escape from MI6 while still being within MI6,” James added. “When we needed distractions he’d have something ready and waiting. He—” James pulled out his phone and fiddled for a moment before turning it to show Bond a picture of a bit of metal art.
A field of poppies.
“It’s between Q-branch and the back hall leading up to Operations,” Alec explained. “The stems have the names of double-Os who died in the field. He’d bloodied himself to honor Eddie, broke his own heart to make sure Eddie didn’t die without even a voice on the other end of the line. He…”
“Really doesn’t understand how incredibly important he is, to all of us. He knows we use him to ground ourselves, claim him as safe harbor when we’re not ready to face the streets of London or even the acknowledgement of the wider population of 6, knows that he’s called the double-O program’s ‘pet’ or kid brother.”
“He doesn’t realize how rare it is for someone to see us. Just us. He can tell at a glance if he’s talking to James or 007 but it doesn’t make any difference to him. He’ll use the correct address and that’s all the more concern he gives the situation.”
Bond nodded his understanding of the point they were trying to make. “He was my Quartermaster,” he pointed out. “I’m well aware he and the Major did things differently.” Despite the bland words his heart was in his stomach. How quickly we forget—they hadn’t had the poppies, but Bond wasn’t remotely surprised it would have been Q’s idea. He had always gone well beyond what any of them expected of him, of Q-branch, for all of them. Even Kitlyn, 0013—the sociopath who had charmed R and Boothroyd into thinking him just a bit callous but hadn’t been able to fool Q.
“Differently,” Alec scoffed. “An invisible car for snow country. Radioactive lint.”
“A whistle-activated car,” James put in. “Our cars are much more practical.”
“You let him overhaul them?” Bond asked in amusement.
“He got my Cobra on the road at all,” Alec snorted.
Bond hid a wince. He’d found that Cobra and left it garaged for years before giving it to another agent. It had been part of Alec’s estate, and he’d left Bond executor.
“Built some hodgepodge Enfields for us largely from scrap parts. Refitted a Mini into a mobile war unit.”
“Rebuilt a GT40 for himself. Redesigned all to have multifactor identification to start them up—apart from the Mini. He figured it was unlikely anyone would want to steal it as he left it with rather distinctly battered outsides.”
“Which just means we’d have to hotwire it if in a hurry,” Alec shook his head slightly with a faint, fond smile.
“He always claims we need to be distracted, but, really? He’s worse than we are.”
Bond must have looked skeptical because they gave him looks that were a combination of pity for his foolishness and uncertainty that he knew the man they were discussing at all.
“He has this house wired better than any part of Q-branch, including the server room. There’s poison gas canisters. Somewhere. He built in cat paths while we were on mission. The garden kitsch is deadlier than half of the non-double-O agents employed in England.”
“He tinkers. And ends up with watches that explode. Or lamps that sing the national anthem on the Queen’s birthday. Or cat collars that bark.”
“’Idle hands’ has never more aptly applied than with that brat,” James muttered. He couldn’t help a grin, though.
“Which brings us back around to basics. You three live here together?”
“Yes,” Alec said. Blunt and flat and Bond felt strange, being on the ‘other’ side while Alec had a James Bond beside him.
After considering things Bond decided he should worry more about his mental health if he didn’t feel strange in this situation and dismissed the concern.
“Why do you look at him the way you do?” James asked, frowning.
“Excuse me?” Bond countered. “You’ve been petting him. Fussing, even.”
“I was legally his back-up guardian in case of need until he came of age—and watching you watch him has been… very… discomforting.”
Alec laughed around the hand he’d put his face in when James first asked. “You idiot, James,” he sighed. “You and Luke adopted each other as brothers before I met him, but Bond met him when he was around thirty and already the Quartermaster. Luke, James. Brilliant, cocky, snarky, dangerous and not bad looking, either. What about that isn’t exactly your type?”
James looked blank for a full minute before realization was quickly chased by a very skeeved out expression. He made a noise Bond had last heard from a cat right before it started sounding like an unbalanced washing machine.
“Brothers,” Alec repeated dryly.
“Please try to avoid that,” James requested, looking so disturbed Bond agreed after a moment to consider things.
This wasn’t exactly his Q—he wasn’t even Q, here. Besides, as much as he was still Q Bond felt a bit like a dirty old man every time he looked at the early twenties version of his Quartermaster. The bit of interest Q had shown in their first months of interacting had faded away as they got to know each other better and while Alec was correct that Q was absolutely Bond’s type…
He’d also seemed so young and breakable and Bond had felt so old and exhausted. Like he’d reached the limit for relationships, sour or not, and to try for more would only curse one of them. Bond’s luck had always been as bad as good and he liked Q; he preferred distance and life to a potentially fatal grasp at something more.
“I shall, but looking at you is just bizarre and—”
“I’m not him,” Alec repeated.
“Maybe not. But you do an excellent impression,” Bond smiled grimly.
“Anything you absolutely must know before we throw you out for the night?” James sighed.
Bond considered. He was very curious about a number of things but only one stuck out at the moment. “Cat paths?”
“Only in our interconnected floors, you won’t be bothered,” Alec assured.
As that was what Bond had actually been asking he nodded and let them see him out, hearing several noises one did not usually associate with the locking of a door behind him. Curious though he was time or dimension travel was apparently tiring. He trudged up the stairs to the top floor, scoped out the flat and locked it down before making up the bed and falling into it, trying not to think too much in favor of sleeping and hoping he woke up in the proper dimension, time, reality, universe…
The front door to the ground floor flat opened before Bond had finished moving down the stairs. James handed him a cup of coffee before stepping back into the entry and waiting for him to pass to relock the door.
Bond had to remind himself this was Q’s home to stop the creep of paranoia before he accepted the probable safety of the coffee. A glance around showed that while there were three occupants of the flat the mass was greatly reduced from the previous evening. A petite short-haired ginger cat was curled within the arch of a larger white-and-grey fluffball on the windowsill.
“Nix and Zed—Nix is the smaller girl,” James noticed his attention and answered what Bond hadn’t been about to ask.
He didn’t need to know. “Q’s.”
“Luke’s,” James agreed, before shrugging. “Mostly.” He headed for the kitchen and Bond followed, trying again to decide who lived on this floor—James, or Alec?
Though he wouldn’t have presumed Q would choose the basement unless— “Have his migraines become more frequent?”
“I don’t know how frequent they were, but I wouldn’t presume so. He’s only had one bad one since we’ve known him. A few bad headaches and ‘lighter’ ones, but only a few a year of those.”
“Less frequent, then.”
“Possibly because he let Medical fix his eyes—less glare and the slight ‘off’ picture of the world when they got knocked slightly out of place while he was too focused to notice.”
“Possibly,” Bond agreed. “They still asleep?” he asked dubiously.
James snorted. “No, Luke was still a bit antsy so he and Alec extended this morning’s run. I came back to have coffee on and food almost ready.” He checked his watch. “They should be inside within five minutes, unless they forgot themselves somewhere.”
Bond was about to ask when the casual good morning faded entirely as Alec and Q left a building just in sight from the kitchen, both looking half-dried from showers rather than drenched in sweat as their shirts were dry. Q grinned at something a smirking Alec said, responding in a way that made the taller man laugh, lashing out lightning quick—
To drag Q to his chest, to cover that widely happy mouth. To cup his hand along a long neck and slide it to cradle a skull as the other curled from hip to sacrum.
Q kissed him back with the sort of knowing comfort Bond knew happened only after some time as lovers.
“Four years, give or take a bit,” James said before Bond could gather himself. “Alec took himself off honeypots whenever possible before I even found out they were together,” he added, shrugging.
Bond staggered backwards into a chair. James just refilled his coffee, unsurprised and unaffected by his shock. For a double-O to request avoiding honeypots for someone else—not for their own mental health—was as good as declaring themselves married as far as they were concerned. Legalities were less a thing for them, as they bypassed and twisted them so much that most were just ink on paper. “Q knows?”
“He didn’t for some time. Alec didn’t want to scare him off. I gather Luke didn’t really expect much more than sex added to their normal relationship at first but I honestly haven’t cared to pry.”
Bond considered that. “In this reality, did you and Alec ever…”
“Tension relief and grounding?” James drawled, half-smirking. He nodded. “Sure. Until he started being undercover more often. He had to learn other coping mechanisms and pulling a random woman for a night or two worked almost as well for me. Had a bit more intrigue to help balance the loss of trust.” He shrugged. “Never more than that. Whatever Luke may have thought, they were never merely that.”
With a shake of his head and a snort, Bond looked back at the embraced couple. “Leaving Alec a lot more to lose if Janus was ever made reality.”
“Yes.”
“Idiot-genius.”
James laughed. “So we’ve said often enough,” he agreed fondly, finally knocking on the window. Alec gave them a two-fingered salute but changed the snog into gentling kisses before breaking away, pulling Q into the house by the hand—which would have been dropped on seeing Bond, but Q tightened the hold.
The three had obviously discussed Bond’s presence a bit, as the two double-Os were less hostile towards him and not as overtly possessive and protective of Q. In one sense.
In the other? Alec barely let him out of arm’s reach. It was obviously not the norm as Q scowled at Alec after the third time he was nudged back to the table while Alec grabbed something from the kitchen rather than letting Q within touching distance of Bond.
Q shook his head and left the flat for the basement, returning with what was presumably one of Alec’s button-down shirts on over his singlet and a dark green collar around his neck.
Bond glanced at James, whose brows had hiked on noting the collar.
Alec settled a bit, at least, although he dragged Q mostly into his hold on the couch when the four moved to the living room. Q got up with a sigh and nudged at Alec a bit until the larger man was reclining and Q could curl up against him rather than in his lap. Both cats got in on the act almost instantly, the ginger draping over Q’s neck like a scarf as the fluffball nudged himself under Q’s hand before sprawling out and purring thunderously. Alec relaxed after tracing over the lines of the collar a few times.
“Blofeld?” Bond asked, deciding to be blunt and generally ignore the Q-Alec situation as irrelevant. He’d already guessed Q wouldn’t want to go back if they found a way. Honestly, Bond wasn’t sure he wanted to go back either. He was getting old, and this was far better than any fake-death scenario he’d come up with for getting MI6 to leave him be.
“Dead.”
After savoring the word for a full minute he was about to ask when Q elaborated.
“Jeannette ran into him on another mission. Geoffrey got ‘capture or kill’ sanctioned and she didn’t bother trying for capture.”
“Good.”
Q nodded his agreement.
They spent the next few hours discussing past villains—the two ‘current’ agents obviously hadn’t been aware of how many strings Q had been keeping his hands on over the years but weren’t surprised he would be doing so any more than Bond was.
Q interrupted the silence that had fallen when the questions had run out. “Bond?”
“Quartermaster?” he acknowledged.
“Do you even want to go back?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted after a bit. Downsides—if he stayed here he doubted ‘here’ would be an option. Here meaning London. He didn’t want to stay around a could-have-been that never could have been, or see versions of people he’d known once who would never have known him and couldn’t know him without compromising Q. He’d be without the few friends he’d maintained and his stockpiles either didn’t exist or weren’t exactly his. Sure, he could undoubtedly get a bit of seed money from Q or James and some gambling would set him up before long, but that was tricky, too—most casino management had long memories and good cameras besides, so Bond winning could trouble James later. Staying would also mean listening to some of the most insipid music he could remember suffering through being ‘popular’ again for the next few years.
Downsides to returning? A place quite possibly without Q, an MI6 who didn’t traditionally have people retiring from the position of Double-O; Q may not realize it but several had been killed in the years after their shift to civilian life. Bond had been sent after Lakes when her husband had turned out to have connections with the IRA.
Q hummed in understanding without bothering to open his eyes. He looked perfectly content to fall asleep on Alec’s chest. Alec had, at some point, forgotten or dismissed his previous intent to downplay his attachment to Q in case Bond was a threat and looked at him with the sort of softness and peace Bond had never even thought to see.
Not on Alec.
Not on any of those who too often risked not returning from dirty work in name of Queen and Country.
James’ face was softer, too, when Bond glanced at him. He looked utterly content, watching Q nearly dozing on Alec.
Bond supposed it would be different here, in a home that was well-guarded and protected, with only people trusted implicitly, but he’d had to fake that sort of open and earnest expression for… a very long time. It was hard to reconcile these two as the double-O agents he knew they were.
He could imagine what this life would be like, with a best friend and brother around. Probably niblings, too, with Bill—should have already been Chief of Staff and a father for a few years, and Bond couldn’t see Q discouraging that move. A home with solid walls and only known sounds to come home to, support and comfort and safety—even love, though that wouldn’t often be admitted even within the confines of one’s own head.
He could imagine it. But only just. For moments at a time.
It wasn’t his life.
It had never been his life.
It could never be his life.
The capacity for softness and open affection these two poured over Q—and each other to a lesser extent—without hesitation or concern had been burned out of Bond long ago. Too many betrayals, losses, tortures. He couldn’t get it back now.
Didn’t want it back. Not now. Not ever. They were open to such devastation if they lost this—
Bond couldn’t have something like this and lose it. James, Alec and Q—whether they lost one or two of their trio the survivors would survive. Bond? If he allowed himself to learn how to love and care like this only to return to nothing, to loss?
He’d shatter.
After two days of speculating over possible reasons for their arrival in the past—and their different methods of doing so, Bond’s last memory being of going to sleep while Q’s a sneeze—Bond was getting used to seeing a ghost and funhouse mirror versions of himself and Q. He still couldn’t manage ‘Luke’, but Q answered as easily to Q as ever so he didn’t really bother trying.
The household had an interesting dynamic. Bond wouldn’t have been interested in this had it been offered to him as a hypothetical, but the three men made it work. Part of that was undoubtedly that Alec and Q were either the least romantic couple Bond had ever seen who actually cared about each other or simply the most prudish.
He had seen a few kisses, but always when he ended up somewhere he wasn’t reasonably expected. That he could sneak up on Alec was proof enough that Q had tweaked with the home security to insane levels—Alec had always been more paranoid than Bond—and that there was enough emotion involved to distract the man from the world outside of Q.
Bond could feel the judgement from James as time wore on. He understood it—James wasn’t using alcohol to forget or sleep, just as an occasional way to blur the edges when things were a bit too sharp and pressing. He was also twenty-odd years younger, fitter and with fewer old injuries to pain him. Meaning the daily workout James did had Bond a bit out of breath which James clearly disapproved of.
Apparently Q hadn’t filled in some of Bond’s past for James to explain their differences beyond Q’s presence in their lives.
They jogged around a corner and a gunshot rang out—
Both of them reached for their Walthers but even as they did the gun was lifting from the crumpled body on the ground painting the pavement red to aim at them and Bond didn’t even think.
He shifted in front of James and felt a punch to the chest. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel his hands, couldn’t—
James bolted upright in bed with a gasp, hands scrambling for his chest, covering his heart that was pounding away, not shredded and failing.
It took a few minutes of concentrated breathing to get his body under control enough for his hands to stop shaking. Once he was steady he tossed the sheet aside and moved silently down the two flights of stairs needed to be in Alec’s flat. He crossed the living room and entered the bedroom, three eyes, all different colors, opening to look at him. He ran his palm over Zed’s crown and a fingertip over Nix’s, nudging her to move down the bed as he met Alec’s eye and climbed in on the narrow strip of mattress left between Alec and the edge. Alec shifted back, Luke half-waking to curl against Alec’s side, hand flopping over his waist and breathing back to deep and even before James laid down.
“Alright?” Alec asked, eying him critically.
“Nightmare.”
Alec blinked, slowly.
“I was Bond, somehow dragged here for a few days, seeing us from his view. It was… painful. He was… as badly off as we speculated from Luke’s scant stories. He stepped in front of a gun for me. Woke up after ‘dying’.”
The eye closed and Nix relocated up to Alec’s shoulder. Alec didn’t even twitch as she circled and toppled over, claws extended before she yawned and tucked her head upside-down against his shoulder, purring faintly. Zed picked up cadence from the foot in response.
“Alright?” Alec repeated.
James thought about it. For Bond it hadn’t even been an issue, a thought—he’d felt his own life lived and felt James had much more worth sticking around for. James agreed, of course, but he’d also felt the ice encompassing most of Bond and wouldn’t have expected the gift. The extra seconds to get his gun from his waistband to incapacitate a murderer in what had looked like a drug-deal gone bad.
Still…
“Alright,” he agreed. “Just…”
“Mm,” Alec agreed, relaxing again. He shifted just enough to bring Luke’s hand with his to just beside James’ own.
James covered the offered wrists and counted the sluggish proofs of life and safety and comfort and felt his muscles unwind as his own heart began trying to match theirs, closing his eyes as Nix stuttered into sleep and Zed quieted a bit, sounding satisfied at having outlasted her in the contentment stakes.
He fell asleep with one corner of his mouth ticked slightly higher than the other.