The third time Bond flirted with Q, he just wanted to feel something.

It had been a week since he had pulled himself out of a frigid Scottish tarn, lungs aching and head pounding, the burning remains of his childhood home a red-orange haze in the sky behind him. One week since M — his M — had bled out in his arms. On his watch, because of his plan. He had thought that nothing in the world could kill that tough old bitch, but of course that wasn't true. Now she was just another corpse in his wake, another shadow in his nightmares, and he couldn't get the taste of blood and ash out of his mouth

Despite the warming blankets of the evac team, despite showers so hot they scalded his skin and the endless shots of Scotch he had poured down his gullet in the week since he returned, Bond still felt the cold numbness of the tarn smothering him. It was dark and deep and he was sinking, drowning —

He dutifully presented himself at M's funeral — a pompous affair of endless speeches that M would have unequivocally despised — aware but uncaring of the sidelong glances directed his way. Not many people were privy to exactly how M had died, but every single one of that select group was in attendance. No one approached him, and he preferred it that way. He sat in the back, the unforgiving pew amplifying every ache in his battered body, and let the cold numbness wash over him.

"Pull yourself together, 007," he imagined M saying, her voice scathing. "Enough of this self-pitying nonsense." He could hear her voice so clearly — could hear the scrape of her heel as she stumbled to her knees in the dim chapel behind Skyfall, see the black spread of blood beneath her cooling body…

He swallowed drily, tasting ashes, his throat closing up as his blood pounded in his veins. He breathed in sharply through his nose, standing unhurriedly and making his way to the back of the church, past dusty curtains and into a warren of dim hallways, turning at random and then finally pushing a heavy oak door open, hoping it would lead to the outside.

"Pardon," he said, starting to automatically back out of the room when he saw it was occupied. The slim dark-suited figure whirled around and it took Bond a moment before recognition dawned. The Quartermaster's eyes were wide and startled behind his thick-rimmed spectacles, a blush pinkening his cheeks, his shoulders hunched defensively over the cigarette he held in his hands.

"Smoking in church, Quartermaster?" Bond stepped inside, the heavy door closing behind him with a solid thud. "How sacrilegious."

"Yes, well." Q looked sheepish for a moment as he straightened up, taking a quick drag from the cigarette and letting the smoke trickle slowly out his nose. "I'll use it to light a candle in penance on my way out." His eyes sparked with mischief. "Isn't that how it works? I never really got on board with the whole —" he waved the hand holding the cigarette in an elegant, encompassing gesture " — religious thing."

Bond watched those pink lips quirk into a slight smile before they wrapped around the cigarette again. It was downright obscene. Watching those lips, the glow of the cigarette flaring as Q dragged the smoke down into his lungs, Bond experienced the first flicker of warmth he had felt in a week. He wanted to chase that flicker, his feet moving him towards Q almost against his volition, seeking something that would penetrate this cold numb haze and make him feel again.

He stopped just a step in front of Q, breathing in the warm rich scent of the man's shaving soap mixed with the aroma of cigarette smoke. "Neither did I," he said, holding his hand out, watching Q's nimble fingers closely as he tapped a cigarette out of the pack and into Bond's waiting palm.

Bond had a lighter on him, he always did, but still he crowded closer into the heat of Q's body. He was sure Q had a lighter as well, and yet those grey-green eyes met his, calm and deliberate, as Q sucked in a deeper breath, making the cherry on his cigarette glow so that Bond could light his off it. Their faces were intimately close for a moment, long enough for Bond to see the dark length of Q's eyelashes behind the thick lenses of the spectacles, to appreciate the barest shadow of stubble on the sweet curve of his jaw, the glisten he left behind on his lips as he nervously ran his tongue over them —

Q was the first to pull back, arranging himself against a filing cabinet with a nonchalance that was a little too forced. Bond smirked but joined him, both of them smoking in silence for awhile, taking turns flicking their ashes into a styrofoam cup with a sludge of coffee residue in the bottom that Q had found somewhere.

Bond felt the smoke curl through his lungs, scouring away the smothered feeling, the racing of his pulse now the familiar and addictive pull of nicotine rather than the unsettling harbinger of panic. He let his mind wander, imagining the droning voices of diplomats and bureaucrats still carrying on in the nave, pushing their political agenda over M's cold embalmed body.

"She'd have hated it," Q said, his voice quiet but bitter, and Bond had to hide his startlement at hearing his thoughts seemingly spoken aloud.

"Yeah," he finally agreed, his voice rough. From the cigarette, of course, he thought as he cleared his throat. He had wanted the numbness to fade, but this wasn't what he had hoped for. He didn't want to feel this, this —

So he leaned in closer, letting his eyes drag appreciatively down the length of Q's neck to his starched collar, and then back up to linger on those lips, once again being wetted nervously by Q's impudent pink tongue. "Fancy a drink, Quartermaster?" he asked, letting his voice rumble with every ounce of insinuation he could manage.

Q's lips quirked again and Bond took it as confirmation. He leaned in further, anticipating the first taste, before a warm palm against his chest stopped him, Q's surprisingly wiry strength bracing Bond a hand's breadth away. Bond's eyes darted up to meet Q's and his stomach turned sour. It wasn't lust, but rather pity in those grey-green depths, Q's mouth quirked not in invitation but in apology.

Bond clenched his jaw, leaning back against the cabinet at Q's side and taking another rough drag of his cigarette, letting it burn down to his fingers. He could feel Q's gaze on him but avoided his eyes, finally dropping the stub into the cup with an angry hiss.

Q reached out slowly, telegraphing his every move, and Bond couldn't help looking as Q took Bond's right hand into both of his, coaxing Bond's fingers into uncurling from the angry fist he hadn't even realized he had made. Q hummed thoughtfully as he brushed cool fingertips over the new cigarette burn on Bond's trigger finger, the cracked and swollen knuckles from the hand-to-hand-combat in Scotland, the various scrapes and nicks from flying glass as Skyfall had exploded all around him.

Bond was just about to do something — push even closer or draw angrily away, he wasn't sure — when Q fumbled in his own pocket and then pressed the crumpled and half-empty cigarette packet into Bond's palm.

"Good evening," he said. "Commander Bond." There was no mockery in his voice, only quiet gravity, and that somehow made it worse. Bond watched in bitter silence as Q turned and left, the mop of curls and the stiff slim back silhouetted briefly in the doorway before the heavy oak door swung sedately shut behind him.

Bond cursed and lit another cigarette.