Work Text:
Q’s relationships were never healthy.
Freshman year of college there was Brian. He was studying to be a doctor, following in his father's footsteps. Brian secretly wanted to be a professional football player; he told Q this when they were huddled under his heavy duvet cover.
Q held onto the secret like something special. It made Q seem special.Their conversations were stimulating; Brian managed to match him in their talks, able to keep up with Q’s fast-paced thinking. He challenged Q, it was infuriating and lovely.
Brian would pull him into dark corners of rooms and gift him with delicate kisses until Q’s knees gave way. Brian also liked to clamp his hands around Q’s neck until he was seeing stars. They fucked in alleyways, on tabletops, at one point in front of Brian’s friends.
Brian’s friends liked to make bruises too.
The colorations littered Q’s pale skin for months. Trailed down his arms, legs, neck. They were especially prominent near his chest, easily concealed under a shirt.
Q put up with it for Brian. He was going to be Q's happily ever after, of course. Brian would tell him so, whisper it to him in empty classrooms, murmur it in his ear while he held Q down on the mattress.
He finally got a clue when Brian left his hands on Q’s neck for too long, smile wide and terrifying.
His second relationship was with a boy said to be made of meadows and sunshine. Later, Q found out that his meadows were carefully constructed and his sunshine only smiled on the darkest of days.
His latest relationship was with a man. Not a boy this time, he was grown, too grown-had a wife and kids. That ended swiftly when Q decided he didn’t want to be anyone’s mistress.
Q likes to choose the men that are self-destructive and lovely.
(He likes the men that make him feel like shit.)
-
The hand of death curled around Bond and everything that he touched. People say they’ve seen it, a shadow on the wall of bony hands wrapped around shoulders. Q thinks they all need to get a life because it’s true that where everywhere Bond goes death follows, but they don’t need to make up tall tales to support their statement.
Q gets to see the death that Bond brings first hand; he monitors bond’s missions. He watches as three people die when he exits the room and six people die when he enters a room. Bond could be death himself if it weren’t for the crisp suit he parades around in.
Q doesn’t flinch when Bond looks him in the eyes like many do. (Although he wants to.) Instead he stands back straight and eyes unblinking. He’s afraid if he blinks Bond will disappear, if he blinks Bond will bring death.
(If he blinks, he’ll miss the shadow lurking behind the agent.)
It’s when Bond comes to him for advice on the best way to get M off his back that Q sees the man behind the killer. The shadow lurking behind him disappears, and his eyes seem less knowing and more tired.
(That’s when Q started to fall.)
Q could’ve predicted it, really, if he’d been paying more attention. He knows the type he likes and Bond is a perfect match, Bond is better than a perfect match. Except for the part where Q has all the wrong parts that suit the agent’s taste. Maybe it’d be better if he were a woman, but then maybe this is a gift from God, or death, or whoever. Maybe this is someone’s way of telling him he can’t have this self-destructive man, so he needs to change his tastes.
Q thinks fuck you to that someone, he can mess himself up however he likes.
And if he wants a killer’s hands on his body and a calloused hand in his, then that’s nobody’s business.
-
On Bond’s next mission, he fucks a guy, and this time the envy in Q’s heart is strong enough to keep him from standing.
-
He takes a chance, he crowds Bond against a cabinet in the break room, kisses him, tells him the sheets at his flat are clean.
-
They make an arrangement.
(“Number one: always come back. I don’t care if you’re bleeding on the side of a dirt road, always come back. Number two; let me know where you are. And number three; always tell me the truth.”
“Even if it hurts?”
Q sighs. “Especially if it hurts.")
When Bond comes back from missions he stays in Q’s bed. He helps Q make dinner with soft jazz playing in the corner and two kitties at their feet. And then at night sometimes they cuddle or they fuck. Q’s there to be a warm body to come home to.
When they fuck soft and slow, Q has to bite his lip to ignore the sting in his eyes.
He hates it when it's slow and soft and he feels like something special, because he knows Bond’s hands were on some pretty girls chest only hours ago.
So after they're all tired out and Bond’s curled up with cats around his head, Q tiptoes to the desk in the living room with a book clenched tightly in his hands.
Q likes to write. Not stories or poems, but little entries about his day, his thoughts. He has a stack of leather-bound notebooks piled high on his bedside table. As a kid it was the only thing that kept him sane, being able to look back on previous days and know that he existed, even if it was only in the pages between his fingertips.
Each night he sits down at his desk, his favorite pen clenched tightly in his hand, and writes about his day. Maybe his coffee didn’t have enough sugar in it, or one of the Double-0 agents came around to bother him, or a mission he had to monitor; whatever it is, Q writes it down until his hand cramps up, and then he switches to the other hand.
Q loves computers, he really does. Loves the familiarity of the keyboard underneath his hands, how he knows what to type whenever. But one thing he doesn’t like about computers is how they never feel real enough to him. Because if you spill coffee on it, things you haven’t backed up are just gone . And if someone manages to crack open Q’s computer (which no one ever possibly could,) they’d have Q’s innermost thoughts. It’s almost impersonal; the process of typing. So he sticks to writing in notebooks.
He never brings his notebooks to work though, too used to people curiously sniffing around his things. And random bag checks that sweep through MI6 leave him cautious.
He does however, bring candy bars and a thing that is most definitely not a gun that only Q can activate that looks like a candy bar. As much as he trusts MI6, he doesn’t trust them.
Q’s main motto is never trust anybody, and so far that’s worked out wonderfully for him. He only wishes his younger self was smart enough to understand that. Then he'd have a lot less chips in his heart.
Currently his chipped heart is gaining another scar as Bond slips into bed with a European that's all legs. And it's not like he digs his fingers into the underside of his desk. (And it's not like there's permanent finger marks under there.)
He can't blame Bond really; Q's the one who came up with the idea for their arrangement.
-
“I don't think I'm ready to be loved by you,” Bond whispers into the dark. Q clenches his eyes shut, and wishes for sleep. He wants to say, sorry into the space between them, but he’s not and Bond knows that.
Bond is terrified of loving and losing. He's lost too many times before.
Q's used to this. It's why from the start he put stone blocks around his heart, hoping to guard himself. But Bond is the knight who invaded his castle of stone and sent it crashing to the ground.
He wants to find Bond's hand on the sheets, take it in his, and compare them. He wants to leave more marks on Bond's neck and murmur sweet nothings in his ear. He wants to curl his arm around Bond's body and bite at his ear.
He does none of that. Tomorrow Bond sets off to the Alps of Germany. Tomorrow Q will monitor Bond's mission. Tomorrow Bond will sleep with a girl. It’s a girl too many times, it’s a girl, a girl, a girl, a guy, a girl. Bond has preferences. Just like how Q prefers cats over dogs.
(Tomorrow Q will write in his journal and wish to wake up with longer hair, delicate hands, and softer flesh.)
-
He goes with Bond on a mission, stays in their hotel room while just a floor above, a headboard bangs against the wall, and groans spill from the cracks in the ceiling.
The handwriting in Q’s notebook is illegible that night.
-
“Please, please, please . I don’t want the truth anymore.” Q begs. His knees are shaking and the darkness of the night sky pales in comparison to Q’s wide, eyes. The gorgeous green that once matched the trees can no longer be seen.
Bond’s done this to him.
-
At work, Q sticks to his desk, snaps at his employees, wears sweaters that drown him in comfort. He watches Bond’s missions still, passes certain parts off to someone else, doesn’t want to know if he’d be numb seeing it, or his envious little heart would give out.
He has his two cats, and god fucking dammit he has his stupid notebook full of his thoughts and tally marks for the notches in Bond’s belt. That’s all he needs.
They say you get smarter with age, but at least when Q was younger there was a fine line between love and like, and he was oblivious to it. But now that he can see it, it’s blaring red color, he understands ignorance is bliss.
-
Bond goes missing on the field. Q doesn’t care, won’t care. Bond has the survival instincts of a wild tiger and Q knows that all too well. What remote island has he gone too with a leggy blonde this time?
But as much as he tries, one night, sitting at his work desk, leafing through papers, the longing is too much. Q is intelligent, but that’s only thanks to him pushing himself to know everything about everything, and he needs to know now .
He pulls up a program, types in a password, and searches for the blinking red dot on the map. This was part of their deal.
He can’t breathe when he finds the red dot, sitting still, at a little flat in London that holds two cats and a bunch of notebooks.
Q has never run faster.
-
Bond’s on their bed when Q opens the door with shaking hands, leafing through a notebook with one hand, and petting a cat with the other.
“Why are you reading that?” Hasn’t Bond taken enough from him? Does he need to look through Q’s bleeding heart so carelessly?
Bond closes the notebook slowly, standing up. He walks towards Q in a crumpled suit and bare feet.
“I needed to know.”
Q clenches his hands, staring coldly at Bond. “Know what?”
“Our arrangement-” Bond begins “- was that I tell you the truth. Put my hand on the bible and tell the truth and nothing but the truth.”
Bond steps forward, hands the notebook to Q, not letting go when Q tries to take it.
“But that was a one-way street,” Bond continues, “And I needed know. I drove the car in the wrong direction because of you and your secrets. I made it a two-way street.”
Bond finally lets go of the notebook, and Q’s hands are limp, lets it drop to the floor.
“You can’t just make a two-way street on your own,” Q spits, “you could’ve asked.”
“Would you have answered?”
Q thinks, and no, he wouldn’t have because as much as he bared his heart, his castle walls were still in place, and possibly sturdier than Bond’s. They’ve both been the problem.
“No,” Q states. “Why are you here?” He wants to get down to the point before he loses his grip and lets his angry tears become grieving tears.
Bond cradles his jaw gently, and how could anyone see just death in this man? Be afraid of his calloused hands and his and his grins. This man who knows and has lost so much. This man who Q spent Sunday mornings with, playing with the cats.
“Will you let me stay?” Bond asks and Q-
-Q wants him to stay, needs him to stay.
“Give me a good reason,” he responds, clutching at the torn ends of Bond’s suit.
“I’ve never told you anything but the truth-” Q can’t look away “-and the truth is you're the only thing I would kill myself over if I lost you.”
Q laughs a little, letting a few tears slide down his cheeks. “Don’t be so morbid, you could’ve just said you love me.”
Bond’s still cradling his jaw, other hand running through his hair now.
“I love you. I want to spend more time with you, drinking tea and spending the day in bed with our cats. I want to retire and breathe the same air as you until I can’t fit into my suits anymore. I want to be your new notebook.”
Q lets out a shaky, “Yes, please,” before the tears stream earnestly.
Bond's never broken any of the deals in their arrangement. All three conditions he honored.
And when Bond presses his lips to Q’s, holds his waist like he’s delicate, fucks him soft and slow in their bed because he is special, Q thanks whoever the fuck is out there for letting him have this.