Summary: James Bond / Q, Unresolved Sexual Tension. This was the ficlet that resulted from my prompt request, with the prompt "Fake Married Trope." Sorry it turned out a bit more angsty than fluffy!
Chapter Text"...and then the mayor stood up in the town square and said, 'Don't be alarmed citizens. It's just Bach — decomposing!"
Everyone around the table laughed at the atrocious joke, to an extent directly proportional to the amount of wine they had imbibed. It was the tail end of a long and amiable dinner, and everyone was a little loose, replete from the truly excellent meal and wine chosen from their host's expansive cellars.
"Mark! You tell that joke every time," Angela said, swiping affectionately and somewhat drunkenly at her husband's shoulder.
"It's funny every time!" Mark protested weakly. A nice man, on the whole. Just a pencil-pusher really, an accountant who happened to be creative and amoral enough to be the lynchpin of a money laundering operation that used digital crypto currencies to keep a particularly nefarious Vietnamese crime consortium in business.
"Every time," the husband of the other couple affirmed congenially. What was his name again? Something with a P. Peter? Paul?
"See, Pat's got my back," Mark said. Ah, that's right. Patrick and...Lakshmi. A nice couple as well. Boring, but nice. He was a stereotypical self-absorbed City type, finance or mergers or something like that, but she seemed a little sharper. She did something with children...pediatric oncologist, was it? Even bright with wine her eyes seemed to dwell on James and Q with an unsettling degree of insight, and Bond sat back, resting his left arm carelessly over the back of Q's chair.
He leaned in, his nose just nuzzling into the sweep of hair behind Q's ear. "More wine, darling?" he murmured, smiling as Q seemed to shiver a little.
"That would be lovely, James," Q answered back, reaching up to give Bond's left hand a squeeze as Bond poured.
Bond stifled his reaction before his smile could turn into a grin. When he had first received the mission brief he had been utterly incredulous. The very idea that the stiff, prim Quartermaster would be able to pull off an undercover mission — posing as Bond's husband, no less.
It was ridiculous. And yet Q was playing the part remarkably well. All the thinly-veiled hostility and barbed words that typically surrounded him like a porcupine's quills had disappeared, leaving this unexpectedly unguarded and pliable young man behind, now leaning into Bond's body heat, his cheeks gently flushed from the wine.
Bond let his fingertips brush up Q's shoulder. Pretending to be engrossed in the conversation, he skimmed his palm over the nape of Q's neck, a long warm sweep up the velvety skin until he could delve his fingers into the soft tumble of hair at the back of Q's head. After all the time Bond had spent under the chill of Q's dismissive gaze and the lash of his sharp tongue he was taking great pleasure in getting a little of his own back, being as handsy with his formerly-staid Quartermaster as the mission parameters could reasonably allow.
Q's eyes flicked in Bond's direction, the mossy green depths unreadable in the flickering candlelight. The absence of the usual barrier of thick-rimmed frames had the effect of making Q look unusually wide-eyed and vulnerable, intensifying for Bond the somewhat surreal experience of having his Quartermaster nestled soft and languorous against the curve of his body.
"Brandy, James?" Mark asked.
"That would be lovely. And, if it's not too presumptuous, I'm eager to see this library I've heard so much about." Now that they were all a little fuzzy with alcohol, Bond just had to get them out of sight of the entry to the home office for long enough for Q to work his magic on Mark's router.
"Excellent idea! We'll take brandy in the library," Mark said amicably, handing out snifters before snagging the bottle and leading the way.
They all trooped down the corridor. Bond used the opportunity to wind an arm around Q's slender waist as they walked, smothering another smile as the man stiffened instinctively for a moment before remembering his role and leaning into Bond in return.
The fire was already flickering warmly in the library as they all settled comfortably onto club chairs and sofas, Bond pulling Q with him to curl up on one side of a leather chaise as they broke into more intimate conversational groups.
Lakshmi sat at the other end of the chaise, her attention turning again to Bond and Q. Her hazel eyes were keen and perceptive in a way that reminded Bond almost uncomfortably of how M used to look at him — as if weighing his value and finding him just barely worthy — but her voice when she spoke was warm.
"So, tell me. How did you two meet?"
Bond jumped in before Q could respond, still somewhat dubious of Q's ability to lie fluently. "We met at the National Gallery," Bond said easily, twining his fingers with Q's, feeling Q's hand twitch as Bond drew a slow, lazy circle in the center of Q's palm with his thumb. "Quentin sat beside me and commented on the painting I was looking at." He let his voice grow soft, confidential. "I knew from that moment...there would never be anyone else for me."
"How sweet," Lakshmi cooed.
Bond looked at Q with a smirk, expecting him to share his amusement. Instead, Bond's pulse suddenly sped, ice seeming to bloom in his chest at the look on Q's face. Q looked...stricken. Bewildered, almost wounded, the grey-green eyes sheened in the firelight, limpid and vulnerable. Bond's hand tightened instinctively on Q's and Q blinked, the expression falling off his face instantly. He looked completely composed now, and Bond would have thought that he had imagined it if not for the lingering thrum of his pulse and the prickling up his spine. Bond could read people, and he knew better than to doubt his intincts. What the hell had just happened?
Q cleared his throat. "He was a charmer even then," he said, just the slightest roughness to his voice as he leaned forward and took a hearty sip of his brandy. "If you'll excuse me," he said, nodding to Lakshmi, extricating himself gracefully from Bond's grip and moving toward the door.
Bond watched the slender back disappear through the doorway, suddenly uncertain.
"You haven't been married long," Lakshmi said.
"Pardon?" Bond focused back on her, resettling the easy smile on his face with an effort, trying to shove his uneasiness to the back of his mind.
"You're hard to read, but he's not." She smiled into her brandy, her deep brown eyes regarding Bond warmly. "His heart's in his eyes every time he looks at you."
"That's — " Bond felt his stomach churn sickeningly. "That's — flattering to hear."
He drained his glass quickly, letting the fine liquor burn down his throat, trying to settle his nerves. "So...do you enjoy the symphony as well?"
The Aston Martin's engine purred as Bond guided the car down the long drive.
"Infiltration malware is installed," Q said crisply into his mobile. "Initiate archive searches now, start tracing the accounts. With any luck, the financials will lead us to Vuu Quang Dat. I'm on my way in to HQ, be prepared to update me when when I arrive. ETA twenty minutes."
Q ended the call and slid his mobile into his jacket pocket, but remained facing the window, streetlights alternately casting the austere lines of his face in light and shadow. Bond saw the adam's apple bob in that slender, vulnerable stretch of throat, and his hands tightened on the steering wheel.
"Q," he began, before the words stopped up his throat. What in the hell had he planned to say anyway?
Q's body twitched, the slightest hunch to his shoulders now as if he were fighting the urge to curl in around himself protectively. "It — it doesn't have to change anything, you know," he finally said softly. "It was a momentary lapse. We can both erase this abominable evening from our memories and you can just...go back to not knowing."
Bond rolled his shoulders as lines of tension crawled up his neck. "It doesn't work that way, Q."
"What do you suggest then, 007?" Q's voice could cut glass. "A pity fuck?" He glanced at Bond, his eyes shockingly vivid even in the dim and changeable light, and whatever he saw in Bond's expression seemed to unnerve him. He looked out the window once more, shaking his head and then huffing out a soft sigh. His voice became hushed again, the anger passing as quickly as it had flared. "Just leave it be, Bond. Please."
"How — " How can I leave it be? How can you possibly feel that for me? How did I not see it before now?
"How long?" Bond found himself saying.
"Does it matter?" Q answered, sharp and immediate. Bond returned his stare, implacable, until Q's eyes dropped.
Q's slender fingers began fidgeting with the crease of his trousers over his knee, smoothing the fabric and then plucking at it again, his eyes intent on the useless task. "Since the beginning."
Christ. Bond's reeling mind replayed through the events of the last year since he had first met Q in that gallery. Every sharp word Q spoke into his earpiece, his voice crackling with intensity — focusing Bond during his missions, saving his skin again and again despite — or perhaps because of — the cutting, sarcastic tones. Every gadget pushed at Bond with stern admonishments against carelessness, Q's eyes smudged dark underneath with exhaustion. Everything that had irked Bond about the young Quartermaster — that Bond had interpreted as hostility and condescension and dismissal. Now it felt as if the ground was shifting under Bond's feet, a seismic shift as the world tilted and then resettled into an entirely new landscape. Bond replayed those events through the filter of his newfound knowledge and saw them for what they really were. Ever-vigilant caretaking, fierce concern, and technological tokens of affection — all wrapped in a prickly, self-protective facade, and Bond hadn't noticed in the slightest.
"I am —" Q swallowed audibly, interrupting the mad tumble of Bond's thoughts. "I am, first and foremost, your Quartermaster, Bond. Nothing need change about that. This will — " His hand fluttered expressively. " — resolve."
"Will it?" Bond didn't know if he was speaking to Q or to himself.
Q twitched his shoulder, the ghost of a shrug, and turned to the window again, leaning his forehead against the cool glass tiredly.
Bond drove the rest of the way in heavy silence. Only as they passed the security checkpoint and entered the carpark at HQ did Q seem to rouse, straightening up and fiddling with his cuffs.
"If our investigations bear fruit I expect you'll be off to Da Lat in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Best get some rest, 007. I'll get started on your kit."
"Thank you, Q," Bond said, sincere for once, and Q flinched, the skin around his eyes tightening and his mouth pressing into an unhappy line. Bugger.
The car was still rolling to a stop as Q opened the passenger door. Bond hurriedly threw the gear into park. Q turned, one foot on the ground outside the car, and without forethought Bond found his hand flashing out, grasping Q's wrist.
Q's arm tensed as if to pull away for a moment, but then he paused, settling back into his seat, his gaze lifting to Bond's.
Bond could only look back for painfully long seconds, paralyzed in a welter of confusion and uncertainty. He felt a flush rise up his neck as Q's eyebrows lifted in inquiry.
"I — " Bond began, ending in a frustrated growl as it became apparent that the words to fix this would not magically appear.
Bond squeezed his eyes shut hard, and then opened them again. His grip on Q's wrist slackened, the shackle of his hand softening, gentling. Bond felt the slow pull of inevitability welling up inside him as he let his fingers trail down until Q's hand was held loosely in his own. He circled his thumb, deep and slow in the palm of Q's hand — an echo of the gesture made earlier that night as a taunt, now nothing at all like a taunt. An affirmation. Perhaps — just perhaps — even the unformed beginning of a promise.
Q's expression softened, and Bond read the progression of emotion in those vivid grey-green eyes. Wariness, affection, and just the barest flicker of hope. Q gave Bond's hand a squeeze and opened the door again, sliding fluidly from the car.
He closed the door behind himself softly and unhesitatingly, leaving Bond to his confusion as Q walked straight-backed to the lift, returning to work.