He wasn't weak. He was wiry, and stubborn, and skinny, but he wasn't weak. And when Bond hit him, he felt stronger than ever.
They never described their relationship with words like "boyfriend" or "partner" or even "lover". Q loved Bond, he really did, but he'd rather die than admit it to the stony-faced agent. Q was about eighty percent certain that Bond loved him too, but when he thought about it too much, he doubted it.
Q didn't really mind the women. He knew that sometimes, on missions, Bond would have to sleep with a woman or two-and, of course, the occasional man- and it would never really get to Q. Maybe it was because Q was there. Not physically, but Bond would purposefully leave his earpiece in and on, and Q would hear every grunt and ragged breath from Bond, and every girlish moan from whatever girl he was fucking. Q listened calmly, knowing that when Bond came back, he would be Q's once again.
Nobody knew of the relationship between Q and Bond. Nobody minded that they shared a flat, as it wasn't uncommon for a handler and his agent to do so. Luckily, nobody decided to ever visit the seemingly unpleasant duo, because the two didn't exactly try to hide their…arrangement.
The first two months were basically just filled with sex, with very little talking. Bond had spotted his prey early on, and the minute he finally got the quartermaster to look up from his laptop and away from his work, he pounced and had Q bent over his desk with very little words.
It took awhile for the both of them to open up to each other. But something just clicked when Q told Bond his real name, and suddenly the two were inseparable. Q was Bond's outlet, his way of pushing through. After a mission, Bond would be in a state of cold fury, his bloodlust never satisfied with the lives he had taken. He'd skip debriefing and medical, and he would go straight to Q-branch. His gaze would be straight and unwavering, his cold, blue eyes burning straight through to an enemy that Q couldn't see. Unable to properly express himself, Bond and Q would usually just revert to a bout of rough sex, that left hand-shaped bruises on Q's hips and a sore rump for days.
Bond was also Q's sole means of survival. Q would spend days at a time at work or on his laptop, the blue glow giving his face a gaunt expression. He would turn into the machine he was working on, and Q would be absolutely lost to the world. At these times, Bond would silently pull him away from his nest of numbers and to the bedroom for some much needed rest. Q would often wake the following afternoon with a slight headache and a recently warm hollow in the mattress next to him.
The abuse started when the two men interacted with each other when they were most unstable. Q had been sent home after a four day period of nonstop hacking and inventing, and he was sitting on the hard, wooden chair at the kitchen table with his laptop open and a cup of lukewarm tea to his right. His mind was once again lost in the wide world of his genius, his head filled with codes and numbers and letters, and his hands had slowed their furious typing in favor of a calm caress to the worn keys on his keyboard.
The door opened with a slam, and Bond stalked in, eyes blackened and skin looking sickly. He had been gone for a grueling week and a half, with long vigils of no sleep. He dropped his jacket and his gun holster on the floor next to his shoes, and nearly collapsed in the wooden chair next to Q. He clasped his hands, as if in prayer, and leaned his elbows on the table. He looked old and worn, a man tethered to post and left to die. The sounds of his arrival woke Q from his trance, and he blinked, but didn't stop his typing and decoding. He smelled the expensive perfume that clung to Bond, and he presumed that it must have happened earlier that day, because the scent was still strong. A sideways glance to his wrinkled suit confirmed his observations. Q was still too deep and stiff with his nonstop work, so he didn't let the petty feelings of jealousy overwhelm him.
The only sound in the kitchen was the soft clicking and clacking of Q's lithe fingers on his laptop.
Bond's eyes flew up, and when he caught Q's gaze Q faltered in his work. Bond's icy blue eyes were seething, and this time, the furious look was directed towards him, rather than a distant foe, as Q had come to expect.
And out of nowhere a too-strong hand clamped down on his pale forearm and he was thrown to the ground in one swift motion. In his robotic state of mind, Q didn't even feel it, but he was still shocked when he was suddenly looking at the ceiling, instead of the glowing blue screen of his laptop. Still in shock, Q merely laid there as Bond haunted over his form to the bedroom, and it wasn't long until Q heard the sound of the bathroom door being shut.
Q let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding when he heard the shower start up. He didn't feel hurt, or sad, or even in pain. He sat up and lifted his hand out of the sharp puddle of tea and teacup, and methodically stood up and threw a dishcloth over the mess. His thoughts, still riddled with codes and numbers, tried to make sense of it all. Had he done something wrong? Had Bond failed his mission, had he not been able to obtain the information he was sent to retrieve? Still thinking, he walked to the bedroom and stripped himself of his clothes, leaving a pair of Bond's pajama pants on the bed.
Q slipped into the steam-filled bathroom, and made his way to the bath and shower combo, sliding open the glass shower door and stepping inside with Bond. With a few simple hand movements, he hoped to ask Bond what had happened without words, and so he slipped his bony-fingered hand across Bond's slick bicep, effectively turning the agent his way. But before he could even think, he was roughly shoved out of the shower's still-open door and onto the cold, tiled floor of the bathroom.
This time, Q felt it. His should ached where he had been grabbed, and the back if his thighs were bruising from where they had hit the edge of the bathtub. He didn't lay on the floor and think it through as he did last time, but instead scrambled up off of the floor and out of the bathroom.
His mind was still hazy from his work, and he looked frantically around the bedroom, as if the answer would just appear out of nowhere. He went to the bed and mechanically put on the sweatpants. His heart was beating in his ears, and his skin stung where he had fallen.
Bond emerged from the bathroom, wearing another pair of sweatpants and a tight-lipped frown. A vein was throbbing on his forehead. This was unlike other rages that Q had witnessed; this one was sharp and hard, and- violent.
Too quickly Bond had Q pinned against the wall with one strong hand pressed to Q's bare chest. His breathing was heavy, and Q was struggling to breathe at all. At this point he could see every detail of Bond's furious face. His glasses were sitting uselessly on the bedside table, so if Bond moved away, he would be nothing but a blur.
"James-" Q started.
"Shut up," Bond growled, his voice low. Q spluttered, as bond wrapped a hand around his throat, and at that moment Q knew that if Bond wanted to kill him, then he was already dead.
After what felt like forever, Q was released and he slid to the floor, his legs jelly and his mind a mess. Bond stood in front of him, breathing heavily and shaking uncontrollably. In a final fit of fury he kicked Q's side with a rock-hard foot. He groaned and curled in on himself, his arms instinctively going up around his head.
What was odd about this encounter was that Q felt so alive. And it was sick, it really was, but the pain in his head and his throat and the aching of his bruised ribs and arm made him actually feel something for the first time since he and Bond had fucked on the night before he left for the mission.
On the other side of the spectrum, Bond was feeling like a black hole, and for the first time since their time together before the mission, he didn't feel restricted. He felt pure, unadulterated fury. Not for Q, oh God, not for Q at all. It was all directed towards the enemies of the crown, and to the people he had fought for the last couple of missions. His head pounded with guilt, and he had never felt so much regret.
He had hurt the one thing that was precious to him.