Arduous. Stressful. Age-inducing.

These were but a few of the choice words that fittingly described the last few days in the life of MI6's Quartermaster. Q slipped the key into the lock and punched the alarm code into the keypad before dropping his bag in a heap by the front door.

Arthur Clifton loved his work, took an inordinate amount of pride in his contribution to the safety of the nation's interests at home and abroad.

He shuffled, zombie-like, towards his kitchen for a glass of water. Pushing thirty maybe, but weeks like these made him feel more like three hundred.

He stared at the half-empty glass in his hand. Forget the shelf-life of Double-Os. He'd be lucky himself to make it to retirement age.

Assuming James Bloody Bond didn't give him a heart attack before that.

He sighed and put the glass by the sink. Q was by the book. 007 was so far off the book, the book had yet to be written. Bond wrote his own rules, lived by his own set of principles that did not conform to those established by the SIS, or the rest of the world for that matter. Q was staring into space, but he couldn't see passed the next mission. He wondered if this was a good thing or a bad thing. If, the next time 007 rolled the dice, would he be so lucky. Q was absently stroking the scruff of Charles neck and welcomed the purring vibration against his palm. Even cats only have nine lives, he thought to himself.

With a parting stroke lavished across warm fur, he fed his animals before retreating to his bedroom, stripping off clothes to leave a trail behind that followed him to his en-suite shower. He stepped beneath the warming spray, allowing the water to do its work and rinse away the evidence of the collision of bodies against the wall in his office only three hours earlier.

Not that he would ever be able to wash away the smell of James' sweat, potent like that of a wild animal thrumming with the anticipation of taking down its prey, nor the memory of his touch, warm and deadly, soft but edged with the steely sense of a man that walked a tightrope of pain and pleasure in each and every experience. To remind himself that he was alive, that he was still breathing, that he could feel…

So lost in thought as he soaped his body, tracing fingers across smooth skin that had been touched and so responsive to his agent, he didn't hear the shower door open, thought he was dreaming when two strong hands joined his own on his belly and chest… But when soft lips caressed his neck and he turned to face the intruder, he knew he was wide awake and lost. Because come hell or high water, Arthur Clifton would willingly, always and forever drown in the depths of azure blue before giving up this man.

"It is possible that I should have asked you how the blazes you gained entry to my home before I let you soap me down…" Q picked up his glasses from beside the bathroom sink and stood leaning against the doorframe watching Bond, face trained with feigned severity.

James was sitting on the edge of Q's bed, waist wrapped in a towel, drying his hair vigorously with another.

"Well?"

He peered out from beneath the white material, eyes sparkling with their usual mischievous glint. "I may have taken an imprint of your house keys on my way out the door to the Tel Aviv mission."

"I certainly hope you don't make a habit of breaking into your other superior's private spaces, Bond."

"Only you, and occasionally M," he said with a beaming grin.

Q shook his head in resignation. "I really don't want to know, James."

"Mmmmm," he murmured, a sound Q was rapidly coming to identify with a certain state of mind as far as 007 was concerned. "Have I told you how bloody fantastic my name sounds when you say it, Arthur?"

That caused a wave of goosebumps down his back, a sensation that Q was happy to attribute to the cooling temperature of the bathroom behind him, and not the sight of a mostly naked James Bond sitting perched on the end of his bed. Gorgeous bastard.

He snorted and threw his towel at the still seated man. "And have I told you that you are a fucking narcissist?"

"But I'm your narcissist." He stood then and stalked towards Q, intent clear in his eyes.

Q raised his hand to James chest and he stopped in front of him, just as James' towel dropped to the floor. Q, however, was not going to give him any more satisfaction than he had already taken.

Not yet anyway.

He removed his own towel and handed it to Bond. "Dry yourself off. James. I'll make us some coffee," as he sauntered out the bedroom door, to the feel of blue heat boring a hole in his retreating back.

"You do that, Quartermaster," called James, as he resumed towelling his bruised body, though the hormones flooding his system now were more than dulling their gentle ache.

Bond could only hope that coffee before bed was a promising scenario and that was even before Q had laid eyes on the gift James had left on the island counter.

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!"

Indeed, thought James with a sly smile, wrapping himself in one of Q's oversized robes strolling from the room to join his Quartermaster in the kitchen. Coffee. And plenty of it…

Jesus Fucking Christ indeed, was the next thought to flutter through Bond's mind as he stopped dead at the entrance to the kitchen and greedily consumed the view before him, drinking it down like an alcoholic who had fallen into a vat of Scotch.

Having foregone the idea of a towel in what James had hoped was an effort to wind him up (not that he needed much encouragement in that department), Q stood gloriously naked, bent at the waist, completely focussed on the laptop screen in front of him.

James committed the view to memory. For when the real thing wasn't immediately available.

It was, however, immediately available. Now.

He kept his distance, resisting through sheer force of will, the temptation to walk up behind him and ravish him body and soul right there. If he knew his Quartermaster the way he thought (and hoped) he did, Bond would be the one lying back and thinking of England for the rest of the night.

"Do you like it?"

Q tore his eyes almost grudgingly away from the screen, a look that quickly adapted to reflect the look to which he was currently being subjected.

"Bastard," he grumbled pushing his glasses further up his face while strolling towards the agent. He grabbed the lapels of Bond's robe and pressed his forehead to his. "You know just how to get far enough under my skin. A constant itch that trails beneath, deep enough that I can't quite reach but shallow enough to encourage me to keep trying."

Bond said nothing, allowing the full magnitude of his gift to register with the Quartermaster whom it didn't take long at all to figure out the situation.

Q pushed him away and grabbed his wrist, all but dragging him back to the bedroom, Bond willingly allowing himself to be led to his fate.

"What about coffee?" Bond enquired, framed as an almost innocent afterthought, knowing full well what the response would be.

Q wasn't even going to bother firing back a response so intent he was on his own mission but he couldn't let him away with the comment. He kicked the door shut as he wrenched Bond's robe open and pushed him onto the bed. "You know damn well those blueprints you brought back from Tel Aviv for that weaponry is better than any bloody cup of coffee or any other stimulant as far as MI6's Quartermaster is concerned, Bond."

"Clever bastard," he mumbled, shedding his glasses as he climbed over James and pinned him to the bed.

Q leaned over the agent, bodies close but not yet touching. "I am going to take you apart like my favourite weapon and reconstruct you so that you only respond to my palm print, 007."

He brushed his lips against his ear. To his credit, the only part of Bond that was moving was the one he had little control over, given the position he was currently relishing beneath his Quartermaster. "Ready for your lesson in the employment of advanced weaponry, James?"

James smiled as he leaned up to capture waiting lips. "I don't think I could be in any more capable hands, Arthur…"