Desperate Measures
Summary: Q goes a little bit rouge to save his brother's life. Bondlock. Spoilers for His Last Vow.
Disclaimer: I don't own Skyfall, James Bond, Q, Sherlock, or anything else.
Author's Note: I have ventured into a new fandom! Nervous! I've been reading a lot of Bondlock recently, and this is my take on the end of Sherlock series 3. I don't think this is what Moffat and Gatiss have planned (I think they'd get lynched if they did), but I had to write it down once it popped into my head!
I have come up with my own name for Q as a Holmes; if you're interested to know, it is a pseudonym that Sherlock Holmes uses in the books (I think it's in His Last Bow actually), and is Arthur Conan Doyle's father's middle name. In this fic, I flit between it and 'Q', because I wanted to give the impression that he would think of himself as Q in a work situation, but would revert to his real name when dealing with family stuff - let me know what you think!
He knew that he would be in deep trouble if he was ever found out, because it probably looked a little bit treasonous to the higher-ups. The Quartermaster of MI6 was a very powerful man. That was a given, due to his position, but it was his skills that made him truly powerful, more so than even Mycroft. Lamentably, that didn't prevent Altamont Holmes from feeling like a petulant child whenever in the presence of either of his elder brothers. It was particularly regrettable because Altamont Holmes was the Quatermaster of MI6.
The point is, he was bloody sick of the pair of them. They treated him like a child, left him out of their ridiculous scheming when he could have helped and were seemingly constantly getting into trouble. Well, to be fair, that was mainly just Sherlock. It was a little over three years after Sherlock had faked his own suicide to deal with Moriarty, to save John Watson, and now he'd gone and murdered a newspaper tycoon, in cold blood, in front of a dozen witnesses from MI5, to save John Watson. Altamont was furious.
He was furious at Sherlock for being an idiot. Q had told Sherlock that Magnussen had no electronic records of his blackmail material. He had checked himself. He had also answered Sherlock's rather bizarre questions about the possibility of a pair of glasses that could display data about the person they were viewing. Q rather liked the idea himself, and was seriously considering building a prototype. He had assured Sherlock of their theoretical possibility, but expressed doubt that a member of the public would have the means to create them. He had no idea Sherlock had been asking both things for the same case. I mean, honestly, Sherlock was better than this! If there were no electronic records, how did he think the information was ending up on these theoretical glasses? But no, he had carried on obliviously, discovered there were no records at all, and had decided that the best course of action was therefore to shoot Magnussen in the head.
Well, all three of them had been known to go to extremes at times. For heaven's sake, Mycroft had actually gone to Serbia, undercover, in order to retrieve Sherlock. Murder didn't seem all that serious to Q, but then, he was probably rather too familiar with the concept. Nevertheless, John Watson had shot a man for Sherlock; this was Sherlock just returning the favour. Obviously, the timing was rather unfortunate. If you were going to shoot someone, doing it while MI5 were descending on you with an armed response team after you had stolen a laptop full of national secrets and tried to sell it to the newspapers, was not the best idea. Almost as bad an idea as bringing home a laptop full of national secrets for Christmas. If Altamont was furious with Sherlock for being an idiot, he was absolutely incandescent with rage at Mycroft.
Now he was just angry at everyone. Sherlock was a murderer. Fine. Somehow, in his infinite wisdom, Mycroft had decided that the best course of action was to send Sherlock on a suicide mission to Eastern Europe. M had agreed. M had offered the job to Sherlock before this whole mess! Q had been so angry he had given himself a migraine. Since when did MI6 go in for suicide missions?! There was a reason none of their agents had been sent on this job. Mycroft estimated six months. Q was a little less optimistic. They had refused to send one of their agents on this, and they were professionals. However good Sherlock was, he was not a trained MI6 agent. Altamont couldn't believe that his eldest brother and his boss would agree to send Sherlock off to his death like this. As far as he was aware, the United Kingdom had not reinstated the death sentence. He had rather embarrassingly lost his temper at both of them, which had only resulted in a broken mug and him being sent home like a child sent off to his room.
If he was honest, he was just terrified of losing his brother. Sherlock had already died (sort of); could they not have a few years of him being properly alive before he actually died? When he had jumped off that building, Altamont had not known it was a lie. Mycroft and Sherlock were bastards and had plotted the whole thing without him. So when he had heard about the suicide, Q had retreated to the roof of MI6 and did nothing but smoke 2 packets of cigarettes for the rest of the day. Seven hours after he believed his brother had died, Mycroft had finally graced him with his presence and informed him that it had all been a ruse. Altamont had punched him.
But now it was actually coming true. Sherlock was going to die if he went on this mission. Altamont had to stop it. So Q packed Sherlock off with as much kit as he could. Some of his finest work, his best prototypes and state-of-the-art equipment. That might be enough to prolong the mission, but it would not save his life.
This wasn't enough to save Sherlock's life, it wasn't enough to keep him safe. Altamont had to stop him from leaving to begin with.
It was definitely wrong. He would definitely be in a lot of trouble if he was discovered. But Sherlock would be alive. The mission in Eastern Europe had a fairly narrow window of opportunity. If Q managed to keep Sherlock in the country for another couple of weeks, then the chance would be lost, and he would not be sent to his death. He had to make Sherlock indispensable to the country for two weeks.
It was easy, really; once he'd realised that.
He made a childish and faintly disturbing animated gif of Moriarty. He hacked the emergency channel, the one that would override all broadcasts in the country for emergency messages from the Government (from Mycroft). Then he let Britain believe it needed Sherlock Holmes.
He was going to be in so much trouble.
It was worth it.
So what do you think? How do you like my Q Holmes? Too emotional? Not emotional enough? Was it too stream-of-consciousness? Did you like his name? Tell me everything and you might get more Bondlock from me! If anyone is interested, I'm considering also uploading my fics onto AO3, and I have tumblr now!