"I'm going away for a little while. To get my house in order, you understand."

"Do try not to die this time."


This is how they leave each other, with deceptively soft kisses and heavy hearts, because what they have can't exist in a world where Raoul Silva is a dead man and James Bond his killer.

They don't make promises, they don't make plans.

James returns to London and MI6 and Silva uproots his operation.

Literally in many aspects, spending a small fortune to transport his garden halfway across the world.

He changes his hair color to an inconspicuous black-brown that makes him feel more inhuman, if that's even possible at this point, and sets up a new life in Monaco; where the fair weather will do wonders for his plants and the bourgeois will not question the means by which he's come to his obscene wealth.

If James happens to pass through the area with surprising frequency, well, some things are just meant to be.


It's not long at all before Silva begins to feel the oily black creep of madness. This is nothing new.

Tiago knows he's insane in the same way he knows the sun rises in the east - like how a child knows of simple truths but cannot fathom the reasoning behind.

He also knows that whatever part of him died in Guangdong was reborn at Skyfall, but he cannot trust his own thoughts.

Every day away from James is a day where he is without purpose or direction.

It's physically painful but a necessary evil. The world is no longer his to do with as he pleases; there are consequences now, for the both of them.

If James will be the death of him one day, he can only hope. Until then he will wait for those brief moments where their paths cross in obscure countries and opulent hotels.


Halfway around the world an alert notification appears on a computer screen in St. Tropez.

Silva glances at the monitor and leans back in his seat, small plate of tasteless oeufs en cocotte temporary forgotten.

"What have you gotten yourself into this time, my love?"

The answer is, unsurprisingly, a great deal of trouble.


007 goes missing on a Thursday.

Q branch turns over every North African lead they can find. There's no word, and no result after three weeks. M pulls resources and Bond's file listsMissing in Action once more.

"You were supposed to keep an eye on him."

"He's 007, 'keep an eye on him' is about as legitimate a demand as ordering me to successfully breed a mythical creature."

Silva stares at the man on the monitor, his gaze unflinching, and the other relents.

"I have his last reported coordinates, but that is all we were able to recover."

"Good boy. I won't have to kill you now."

"One can only hope."

"I have no time for your lip. I want you to find who betrayed us, and I want their skin."

"Of course, sir."

Before the connection is terminated, Silva catches a second voice muttering, "...help us all if Bond's actually dead..."


The coordinates lead to a small island off the Moroccan coast.

He nearly blacks out, his rage is so intense.

He tries to meditate, to calm himself before the coming storm, but when his eyes slip shut all he can see is red.

"Get me a team, immediately."

The orders go through and within hours he has twenty ex-military men of questionable moral standing unwaveringly loyal to Silva's Swiss accounts.

There's not much time. Not with Him.


James Bond wakes, not in a hospital bed, but in a flat overlooking the Thames and it takes him a moment to realize why the view is familiar.

He's been here before and just looking over the London skyline recalls memories of sleepless nights and broken promises.

"Not too jarring, I hope?"

He rolls to face the speaker and immediately regrets the decision, his body screaming at him.

"How...?"

"I've had a few of my worker bees keeping a close watch on you." Tiago says playfully, grabbing at James' hands to re-bandage his wrists.

"You mean MI6." James corrects, the words clumsy around the healing cuts on his lips and he tries not to cringe as his jaw pulls at the raw flesh. Something distant tells him his wounds should hurt more than this.

"MI6 and a certain double-0."

They did something to his mouth, he shouldn't be able to speak, but the thought vanishes as quickly as it had come when Tiago wraps him in an obnoxiously fluffy white robe and slowly guides him into the hallway.

"So, then, who's your mole?" He finally asks, annoyed by how unsteady his legs are.

"You really expect me to surrender my embedded operatives? James, I am no M."

Tiago laughs at his own joke and continues to lead Bond through the opulently furnished townhouse, the man's steady hand pleasantly warm on the small of James' back.

"I take care of my own. Unless they fail me, of course."

James can see the glint of stainless steel and realizes suddenly they're heading to the kitchen when Tiago stops abruptly and turns to him, his hands coming up to frame James' face, careful of the healing wounds.

"Would you like to meet one of my other darlings? Of course you do, but do not be jealous, he's not as irreplaceable as you."

Tiago leans in to press a chaste kiss to James' lips before striding into the sunlit room. Bond can do nothing but follow behind, using a weak hand to brace himself along the wall.

His curiosity has the better of him.


"No."

The denial slips out before James can stop it.

"Yes! Can you believe I found him in a boys home in Essex? Poor thing could barely string together two lines of code, but look at him now!"

Tiago pulls a chair out for James before sliding into a seat himself, throwing an arm around the young man seated at the sun nook. He spares an impartial look to the impressive spread of breakfast foods littering the large table.

"Isn't he precious?"

Silva presses a kiss to the young man's shaggy head and smiles broadly.

Bond sighs and rubs his eyes tiredly.

"Q."

"007."


Silva slides a mug toward James with a bright smile, only a sliver of pale scar tissue peeking out above the ridge of the man's false pink gums.

"Ah, I forget. You two know each other." His tone of voice implies he hasn't really forgotten anything.

"Obviously not as well as previously thought." James drawls lowly

"Do you need something stronger in your tea, 007? I've heard you can't function these days before you've ingested an unspecified amount of hard liquor." Q says affably, though his gaze remains challenging.

Silva shoos James' hand away from the champagne and shoots the Quartermaster a withering look. He sighs dramatically but doesn't remove his hand from the flute, pushing it instead across the table top, away from James.

"Breakfast first. I don't know how you've survived these past years on booze and women alone."

Q smirks victoriously and something twists in James' gut.

It might just be envy.

At lease until Tiago cuffs Q hard around the back of the head with a snarled, "Behave."

It's not envy anymore.

It's fear.


Tiago had long since left them alone together to 'take a call'. The tension is cloying.

"Aren't you worried he might kill you?"

Q looks up from where he's scribbling furiously onto a pad of paper, numbers and figures that Bond can't place at this angle. He does, however, catch a series of words written in the margin: Skyfall, awake, Quantum?

"If you're referring to the business with Sévérine, I'm not a hired gun and I'm not a whore. I believe my position is secure."

Q's lilting tone bring him back to the present.

"Unless you fail me again!" A voice sing-songs from the study and James' lips quirk into a half smile involuntarily. Q only huffs a breath and pops a raspberry from the fruit bowl into his mouth. Lifting an eyebrow at Bond as if to convey, 'see what I have to deal with?'

"He recruited you?"

"Something like that. Details aren't important."

James questions the hesitation in Q's voice, but doesn't press.

"So, MI6?"

"A long-con. Before this it was a telecom in Belize and before that a finance firm in Switzerland, all planned and executed by your dearest out there."

"Ah."

Something is wrong with the timeline, but he can't place what it is.

"Quite."

"Nonetheless, I'm a bit concerned he'll try to kill me at some point."

"You really shouldn't be. He cares for you, as much as I think he's able." Q tosses back, eyes oddly bright behind his glasses.

"Somehow I doubt that what he feels is love. Just the remnants of an obsession."

The words slip out of his mouth unchecked and James is floored by his own honesty. Q looks completely unsurprised by the confession.

"And that is what he is able to feel. Silva's spent years constructing this image of you in his mind," Q emphasizes his point by outlining James' figure in the air with his pen, "and now he finally has you. So everything is, shall we say, readjusting, to fall in line with the reality of the man you've become in his absence."

"You call him Silva, still? Even after everything?"

"That's his name. You think he lets anyone else call him Tiago?"

Q flips the leather bound notepad shut and scoots sideways off of the bench seat, the act serving no purpose but to remind James of how young MI6's Quartermaster truly is.

"Raoul Silva may have had a change of heart regarding MI6 and mindless revenge schemes, but a criminal empire is not upended in a day, even if the man in charge desires such a thing."

"And he doesn't desire it?"

"What do you think awaits that man in a world where he does not hold every card in duplicate? The answer used to be 'James Bond', now it is simply 'death'. Can you honestly see him retiring to a tropical island somewhere, like he fantasizes about so readily?"

Q shakes his head in a motion that James has come to associate with one convincing themselves of their own argument.

"A dozen nations would lock him in a cell for the rest of his life, countless more would execute him outright; that includes England."

It's a legitimate point, James is slightly ashamed he didn't realize it sooner.

"So, what, was I simply a prize to be won?"

"M was the game, and you weren't a prize, you were the prize. Nothing simple about it." Q grabs his mug from where if rests in front of Bond. "He was just as angry about what was done to him as he was about the potentiality of what MI6 might do to you."

"You have a great deal to live up to, 007." Q intones discerningly, jostling the notepad slightly trying to refill his mug. James reaches out to steady the pot, forgetting his bandaged hands, and Q looks at him with something akin to respect.

"Q?"

The younger man stares with undisguised curiosity.

"Yes, 007?"

"What is your real name?"

Q just grins, teeth bright and eyes troubling.

"That's none of your concern. Not yet, at least."

James reflexively rubs his eyes in frustration and immediately regrets the decision, muscles in his hands protesting the movement.

"Now that we have all that sorted out, maybe you will find the time to wake up and smell the regret, hmm?" Q asks and turns away, cup dripping specks of rusty brown across the tile.

"Good day, Mister Bond."

James is suddenly very tired.


He doesn't know how much time passes after Q departs before he finds himself exploring the flat with undisguised interest. The pantry is filled with his favorite foods. The drawers are filled with his clothes. The washroom with his choice toiletries.

He takes his time peeling away the soiled bandages on his chest and thigh, examining the half-healed wounds thoroughly before limping into the shower stall to wash away the sticky-stale sweat and dried blood.

He blinks and Tiago is there, watching him with undisguised interest beneath a fringe of bleached-blonde hair, but the leering is nothing sexual.

"Are you alright to be on your own, darling?"

James can only snort at the question, even as his legs tremble with the continued effort of standing, and Tiago purses his lips in displeasure and turns away, leaving him alone once more.

Something about the action feels wrong, but James ignores the nagging doubt and lets his eyes slip shut beneath the gently pulsing stream of water.

He hears sirens from the street below.

He forgets that Tiago soundproofed the walls years ago.

He hears sirens.


When James exits the bath, he finds Tiago lounging lengthwise on the couch in a pair of jeans and one of James' old MI6 sweatshirts that he had felt too obvious to ever actually wear in public.

Tiago must hear the wheels turning, because he looks up from where he's furiously typing away on a military grade laptop that has come from god-knows-where with a questioning gaze.

"You would think an intelligence agency would not be so obvious." James says lightly, limping to the kitchen and pulling on a black sweater - the loose knit catching on his damp skin.

When he looks back Tiago is tugging lightly at the fabric of his own top, distorting the print of the crest.

"How did you get my things here?"

It seems as good a question as any.

"Nevermind that," Tiago waves a dismissive hand before motioning back to his sweatshirt. "Tell me, this was a gift from...?"

"Q branch. 2008."

"Oof. What did you destroy that year?"

James puts the kettle on the stove and gestures at Tiago with a tea bag. The man nods absently and returns to his work.

"It was an Aston."

Tiago clucks his tongue at the answer, the sound mixing in with the clicking of computer keys.

"Always with the Aston Martins, James, and you are furious with me for destroying one little car. I would not be surprised to hear that MI6 singlehandedly keeps the manufacturer afloat."

James makes a face at him and Tiago just smiles.

"James, you are safe here, you can tell me the truth. How many cars did you actually ruin?"

"...three."

"You are lucky you got a jogging suit and not a bullet!" Tiago chortles, clasping his hands together joyously.

James has a difficult time reconciling this man, his Tiago, with M's killer, but the kettle begins to whistle and James can only smile softly to himself when he hears 'five sugars' called out from across the room.

"Well, it looks better on you than it ever did me."

He walks back to the couch and sets the tea on the table, falling onto the cushions with a soft groan.

His wounds don't ache as much since the shower.

Tiago sets the computer aside and lets his legs fall wide, reaching to pull James flush against him, and the former 009 runs a hand through James' hair soothingly, humming with contentment.

"I assure you, my gifts will be horribly conspicuous. You won't be able to go out in public ever again."

James remembers suddenly the overly expensive liquor he'd left in his own flat however many weeks ago.

"The Dalmore was a start. What were you thinking, giving me a bottle of scotch I could never open? It's a bloody torture."

James feels Tiago press a kiss to his hair and smiles.

"It was a gesture." The man says deftly. "Something you would not use to drink away the past or dispose of out of spite. Something that you would keep forever and would remind you of me always."

"You were always too sentimental for your own good."

"I also wanted to show you how wealthy I really am. Nothing says that better than a hundred thousand pound scotch."

"And there he is. What's next? Platinum handcuffs? A diamond studded cock-ring?"

"Interrogation techniques aside, I am not nearly so adventurous. We should open it. Together."

"You just want to taste it." James immediately balks at his his own words, but Tiago only squeezes him tighter.

"None of that. I can always just blackmail the distillery into bottling another one. Besides, I already know what it tastes like, Corazón. I want to share that experience with you."

"Christ. I don't know if you're completely mental or just being romantic."

Tiago's chest vibrates with quiet laughter.

"I think it would be best to assume both."

James presses his cheek to Tiago's chest and breathes slowly.

In and out. In.

And out.

In, and -

Out!

Get out now!

When he opens his eyes again he is not greeted by soft hands or the morning sun.


Silva cuts through a small contingent of guards and opens a door on a sight he'd hoped to never look upon again.

Bond looks up at him, tired and bloody from where he's chained to the ceiling, arms pulled taught and Silva can't breathe.

The sickly-sweet stench of burnt flesh and urine is too much and he can no longer see James, only himself strung up in the same position.

He doesn't know how much time has passed when he comes back to himself, but he can see one pale blue eye watching him tiredly, the other swollen shut.

"Darling, we must stop meeting like this," Silva says finally when he can find his voice again, and James drops his head in defeat.

"Ah, ah, none of that," he continues, moving to cut Bond down. "No death today."

"...so long?" James' voice is nonexistent, made soft by exhaustion and blood loss.

"Arrogance, I'm afraid. Not on my part, though, for once."

"T-t," Bond tries to speak again, adam's apple bobbing as he attempts to choke out a response, but Silva shushes him gently, seeing how painful the action is.

"All in good time, darling."

The chains let loose and James falls into his arms, naked and bloody. Silva lowers them both to the grimy concrete with the utmost care, cradling his lover's broken body to his chest.

"See, I came for you," Silva whispers, more for his own benefit than Bond's, as his own men rush the cell, medic in tow. Silva grips Bond's limp hand and squeezes lightly, feeling for a brief moment like the man James Bond fell in love with all those years ago.

"I'll always come for you."

A weak hand squeezes back.


"You took something that belongs to me."

"I can assure you, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Let's not play this game."

"Oh, Tiago, let's. It's quaint, how you still pretend to be above all us mere mortals, but I have found something you can't protect. Maybe next time I'll make him look like you, yes? Let us see how much you still care for your lover when he has no face."

"Blofeld." He snarls at the video feed.

"Silva." Comes the equally cold response.