Hello again, friend of a friend
I knew you when
Our common goal was waiting for the world to end
Now that the truth is just a rule that you can bend
You crack the whip
Shape-shift and trick
The past again

- Metric, "Black Sheep"

Ten. Gets worse before it gets better.

This time they didn't bother stringing him from the ceiling. Dwyer yanked him out of the chair with the chain, yanked so hard that his throat closed and darkness swarmed over him, and when it retreated only seconds later Q half-wished it would come back.

This time he was on the floor so there were no punches, but there were kicks and more strokes from the riding crop, and if he ever crawled too far away Dwyer pulled him up short with the chain like an animal tamer reining in an unruly creature.

This time Q didn't bother trying to read the clock, because he knew that if he saw how slowly the minutes were moving he might feel despair.

"That's enough."

Colin stood over him, detached, as if Q interested him no more than a bit of paperwork, an unpleasant but necessary part of the day, quickly dispensed with. But deep down, a flicker of some long-caged emotion, a curiosity – and a minute fear of himself, of what would happen if he loosed all his restraints, and this frightened Q more than any amount of anger.

"Go watch the street and signal me if our guests arrive," Colin said to Dwyer, his eyes on Q. He waited for several interminable seconds after Dwyer's steps faded from the stairs, and then he said, "Get up."

Q tried. His legs had been mostly untouched, but his back burned and his brain seemed incapable of coordinating his muscles. And he didn't want to get up, not really – he had worked so hard to disobey every order Colin had given him, but a craven part of him hated this pain and pled with his better nature to do anything, anything to make it stop.

Colin got tired of waiting and pulled out his chair. Q made one last attempt to gain a footing, but his ankle turned beneath him and he fell sideways, against Colin's legs, jarring the chair backward an inch or two. Colin sighed, as though Q were a small child who had disappointed him in some minor way.

"Now you've got blood on my slacks. At least they're not the expensive ones."

Touching him was repulsive. Q scooted away, but Colin grabbed the chain, right at the back of his neck. Roughly he seized a fistful of hair – and then, with a gentleness that Q didn't even try to comprehend, he tipped Q's head back to rest on his lap. For a minute they simply looked at each other. The tip of Colin's tongue dabbed at the corners of his mouth.

"Give me your hand."

Q didn't understand, at first; then a hungry, toying smirk bloomed over Colin's face and everything inside him howled, get away, get away –

Colin said, "I'll be nice and let you choose which one."

Nothing would move. Not his legs, not his arms, not his beaten back, just his heart pounding in his exposed neck, and he felt so betrayed by his own body, not even losing Colin's friendship years ago had stung this badly –

Colin sighed, again, in the same way. He picked up the knife from the table and poised it directly above Q's face.

"You really only need one eye for programming, don't you?"

He moved the blade back and forth, mouth puckered and brow furrowed like a child choosing between two equally appealing candies in a bowl of treats.

Q shut his eyes and hated himself and raised his left hand.

Colin took it by the wrist. "Good boy." He propped Q's arm against the edge of the table and scooted forward in the chair, knees jabbing against the sensitive spots on Q's shoulders, sending fireworks scattering across Q's vision. Q felt smooth fingers undo his cuff and roll his sleeve up past the elbow.

Faintly he heard Colin say, "Felony destruction of government property, hmm?" and then the blade entered him just below the joint and pain came fresh and thoughts deserted.

Time was meaningless. Time was precious. It had no measure but every brief experience of it was another instant that he was still alive. Q breathed and burned and bled, each fragile pulse washing the wounds with more blood. It soaked into his rolled sleeve, ran down his arm and dripped from the point of his elbow to the floor. His fingers had gone numb.

A pattern. Colin was marking some kind of pattern into his arm. Words.

Then Colin let out a deep breath and leaned back; perhaps he had taken the knife away, but the pain was so great that it didn't matter. He took hold of Q's hair and pulled his head up, shoved his glasses back onto his face so he could see his damaged arm, still supported by the table edge.

"Well? What do you think?"

The smeared blood and his fading focus made it difficult to identify most of the letters. The back of his hand, the newest, brightest cuts, read MI6. For another indeterminate interval Q stared at this with fascination and horror. So much of his life had been lived in anonymity – the Cambridge kid discussing the prosecution of cybercrime with instructors unaware that he was the unknown in the headline MASTERMIND OF SIS HACKING REMAINS UNIDENTIFIED; the young London tech geek commuting with dozens of people who never suspected they were sharing a Tube car with one of the most dangerous men in Britain; the single-letter embodiment of an MI6 department, surrounded by colleagues who could never call him what his grandmother had called him because that name was now a state secret. In another time he and Colin had carried this secret together, and laughed about it. A news report on telly in a pub – "Server outages strike Department of Justice website" – and Colin would lean against his shoulder and whisper, "Was that you?" The person at the next booth would spread out the paper, run a finger along MILLIONS LOSE MILLIONS IN SECURITIES FRAUD, and Colin would kick him under the table and they would smile into their drinks.

Now any feelings of empathy between them were gone, but there was one power Colin still held, a simple knowledge.

The letters told the truth:

Property of MI6.

"The Romans used to brand thieves and slaves on a visible part of the body so everyone would know exactly who and what they were dealing with," Colin was saying from far away. "They liked the hand and forearm, but they also liked the face – you should consider yourself lucky I didn't choose that."

Q felt his spine curling towards the floor. His arm slipped off the table and his knuckles knocked against concrete with a spike of pain that almost made him vomit. His head pounded and he saw, between blinks, like a series of stills, Colin setting down the knife, Colin kneeling beside him, Colin reaching for his throat. Something clicked and Colin pulled the chain away, and this was probably the end, because he wasn't enough of a threat to require restraint anymore –

Then from outside there came a tremendous bang, and Colin leapt to his feet as though he had never heard a gunshot before – which, upon reflection, maybe he hadn't. Q closed his eyes as far as he dared and channeled all his energy into listening. A car door slamming, male voices – two, three? – shouting indistinguishable words.

"That shit Dwyer –" Colin snapped, but Q could hear the tremor in his throat.

Through the slits of his eyes Q saw Colin step towards him with the knife, but then a crash from above made the door latch rattle, and Colin froze deerlike for only a second before springing to the table and snatching up his briefcase. The heel of his shoe slipped in the blood on the floor, and he stumbled, cursing – and then the hinges squealed and he was gone, just as another crash opened the room upstairs and let the voices in.

"No one here –"

"Check the basement."

"Oy! Outside!"

The voices retreated. Q tasted rust and metal, throat stuck like the lock of an ancient gate. With one foot he groped for the closest chair and kicked it over.

"Hands in the air!" Tires squealing, pelting the front of the building with gravel; another gunshot.

The other chair was too far to reach. Q braced his foot against the table leg and shoved, scraping it across the concrete with a shuddering sound that had to be audible above – and his reward was a door opening and almost-imperceptible footsteps on the stairs.

Only when the footsteps paused right outside his room did Q consider that it might not be a reward after all.

He rolled over, got his knees and his good arm beneath him. His limbs shook and his neck protested at the weight of his head, and pain was only the firing of certain neurons in the brain, why should it be so cloaked in emotions, such a strong competitor to willpower?

The door opened, and his focus found purchase on the barrel of a gun.

Double-oh-seven in his earpiece, saying, "I've got him."

Got who?

"Q."

The man with the gun came a few steps closer, and relief gave Q's limbs permission to collapse.

"Double-oh-seven."

Bond felt his pulse, turned his chin to examine his face. With effort Q raised his head to look towards the far wall, and Bond automatically pointed his gun – but there was nothing there, just a blank stretch of concrete and a clock.

"Thirty-seven minutes," Q said with a sigh, and let his head rest. "You're late."