Bond sat on the end of the bed, his pounding head in his hands, his gut roiling with guilt and regret.
What in the bloody fuck had he done?
He lifted his head, staring numbly at his calloused, scarred palms as if they belonged to a stranger. Christ, his hands were trembling. Q had been right, he was pathetically drunk, his blood still buzzing with the combination of alcohol on top of post-mission adrenaline and no food, but that was no explanation. No excuse.
He had taken these killer's hands, and put them on Q. With no regard to Q's wishes. No, even worse — against Q's will. He had pawed at Q, smeared his drunken mouth on him, made him shake with fear...
Bond forced himself to take a deep breath, swallowing down the bile that was rising in his throat. He was a bastard, he knew that already. A thug and a whore for queen and country, not fit for polite company. With Q, though, he had somehow forgotten. He had started to think that maybe he was someone different. Someone better. And now that illusion had been shattered, his true nature brutally, indisputably, exposed to them both.
And Q. Beautiful, brilliant Q. Bright, intriguing, Q with his pale skin and elegant movements and his witty, sensitive mouth. Bond had grasped at that beautiful form and dazzling mind, had tainted it with his clumsy hands and slavering mouth. He doubted that Q could bear to look at him now.
The very idea of a future without Q in it — he suddenly felt the loss like a missing limb. No more smooth, posh voice in his ear on missions. No more lively discussions to ease the tedium of his time between assignments. He hadn't realized how much he had come to value Q's compelling, steady company until he had lost it.
Now Q was out somewhere with only the contents of his pockets, driven away by Bond's irrational anger and base lust. Christ, Q was not a field agent, yet he had just seen a man's head blown off in front of him and had held it together with remarkable composure. He was probably still traumatized, still vulnerable, and Bond had tried to take advantage of that vulnerability.
Q's soft voice echoed in Bond's mind in gentle rebuke. You said you would be there for me. Christ, what Bond wouldn't give to undo the last few hours, to have another chance to be the friend that Q deserved.
Bond sat on the bed for the rest of the night and into the dawn, his thoughts circling in an endless litany of self-loathing and bitter regret. He was so lost in the mire of his thoughts he hardly heard the beep of the keycard in the door.
He belatedly jerked his head up, ignoring the spike of pain that resulted from the sudden movement. Q was standing in the doorway, his face pale but composed, the dark smudges under his vivid green eyes only partially obscured by the lower edge of his glasses.
Those brilliant eyes looked Bond over, and whatever he saw seemed to soften the expression on Q's face. He stepped fully inside the room, letting the door click softly behind him.
"You look like shit," he told Bond calmly.
Bond had so many things he had planned to say when he saw Q again — explanations and apologies and sincere vows to never overstep again, and yet to his surprise what came out of his mouth was none of those things.
"Will you still work with me?" he found himself saying, his voice rusty with disuse.
Q sighed. He moved closer, sitting down carefully on the end of the bed, less than a foot away from Bond.
"Of course I'll still work with you, 007," he said, his voice quiet and pragmatic. "This was a misunderstanding, no more and no less. I am sorry that I left so suddenly. It was...unprofessional of me."
Bond barked a bitter laugh. "Unprofessional," he repeated in disbelief. "Of you?" He felt the bile rise up in his throat again. "Q, I bloody assaulted you."
To Bond's surprise Q tsked in irritation.
"Really, 007? This melodrama doesn't become you. You were, I will grant, completely drunk and woefully oblivious. But my reaction was my own, and not something you could have anticipated."
Q's grey-green eyes captured Bond's gaze, lit with a sudden, intense, consideration. He seemed to make up his mind about something, taking in a deep breath and letting it out with the slightest hitch.
"I should have told you when I realized we would be working so closely together." His dark lashes shaded the vivid brightness of his eyes for a moment. "I — I do not like to be touched."
Bond blinked for a long moment before the words made sense. He felt himself squinting at Q, as if somehow that would help him decipher his meaning through a head thick with exhaustion and hangover and regret. "What — not by anyone? Not at all?" Some part of him had been torturing himself with the thought of Q running home to be petted and comforted by his mystery woman.
Q looked away, hitching one shoulder in a half-shrug. "No. Not by anyone. Not at all," he repeated somewhat grimly.
I'll kill whoever it was, Bond thought with sudden, icy certainty. "Q, did — did someone hurt..."
Q interrupted Bond impatiently. "You can stop your rampant speculation right there, 007," he said sharply, his expression peeved. "You needn't paint me in your mind as some kind of...trauma victim. My story is no more nor less tragic than yours, or anyone else's at MI6 for that matter. Skeletons abound in everyone's closets at MI6, and I am not giving you carte blanche to look in mine. I am just communicating what you need to know for the issue at hand."
"But..." Bond ran a hand through his cropped hair, feeling befuddled even as Q's pragmatic attitude eased some of the tension and guilt that had been racking his mind and body over the last few hours.
Q looked down at his hands, the pale fingers twisting together nervously, belying his otherwise matter-of-fact demeanor.
"Consider it an...eccentricity," he said, with a vague gesture of one slim-fingered hand. "I can tolerate touch if I am expecting it, but I..." He trailed off as if uncertain how to put it into words. "I do not like to be startled," he finally settled on. "I have made some minimal adjustments in my life, and it hardly affects me at all. Almost no one notices," he said, looking back at his hands.
Bloody hell, Bond had been blind. He was a goddamned double-oh — he was supposed to be preternaturally observant, supposed to read people for a living — and he had completely overlooked every sign. Thinking back, it was glaringly obvious. Bond ran every interaction with Q through his mind, realizing that Q hadn't touched his skin since they first shook hands in that gallery. Bond shook his head as a hundred disconnected observations clicked into place. "You always use the tray for equipment, instead of handing it to me. And the way R leaves tea at the corner of your desk..."
Q looked at Bond sharply, as if wondering if he were being mocked, but then nodded. "I use my computer system to know when someone is behind me, I avoid the Tube at rush hour, little things like that. It's not hard, really, even in London. People don't really choose to get close to me." Something in Q's eyes shifted. "You have been uniquely persistent in that regard," he said, with just the faintest undertone of a question in his voice.
Bond thought about that time late at night when he had put his hand on Q's shoulder, and Q had stumbled back in startlement. And then that time when 003 was running amok...
"You really meant it, when you said I was terrorizing you with my visits," Bond said, his voice raspy with emotion. He felt his stomach flip at the thought. It wasn't just last night. He had been forcing his unwanted presence on Q all this time...
"No," Q said firmly. "It's somewhat endearing that you are so eager to cast yourself as the villain in this piece, but it's really not that simple." He huffed out a frustrated breath. "I don't talk about this, really. I feel like I don't — I don't have the vocabulary. But it's important for you to know — I enjoy your company. I like talking to you. I liked you visiting Q-Branch. But I was always very...aware...of you. And I didn't understand..."
Q broke off, looking irritated at himself for saying too much, but in Bond's mind he hadn't said enough.
"What is it, Q? Surely you can tell me now." Bond felt like he had to understand. If Q was giving him another chance then he had to be certain he didn't make any more mistakes.
Q huffed another breath, a slow flush of pink sliding up his neck, but his eyes were direct when he looked at Bond again. "What is it you want from me?" He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I understand last night, the alcohol and the post-mission stress, and I was...convenient. And I know you are an inveterate flirt, everyone at MI6 knows not to take that seriously. But there are other times that I get the sense..." The flood of words trailed away.
Bond felt ridiculously thick-headed. He could not seem to figure out what Q was asking. His blankness must have shown.
Q took another deep breath and started again. "At first I thought that you were mocking me. Just poking fun at the boffin. And then I thought that maybe you wanted something from Q-Branch. Some special concession, or...the double-ohs use sex as a weapon, everyone knows that. But you didn't ask for anything..." he broke off with another shrug.
Bond finally had a glimmer of understanding, and he didn't know whether he should be furious or amused. He decided to take Q's points more or less one by one. "I was definitely not mocking you. Last night had nothing to do with convenience. And I was not — what? — whoring myself out for exploding pens?" He couldn't help the bitter edge to his voice, knowing that Q had thought so little of them both. "Q, the only thing I wanted from Q-Branch was you."
Whatever the reaction he hoped to get, it was not the narrow-eyed look he received. "That's what I mean," Q said in frustration. "You say things like that, and...what is the purpose? If you wanted sex surely there are more than enough beautiful women falling over themselves to jump into your bed, on missions or off of them. What on earth are you seeking from me?"
Bond buried his head in his hands, half his brain still reeling from the idea that he was sitting on a bed with his quartermaster, talking about his bloody feelings.
"Q," he finally said. "Surely somebody has wanted you before. Is it so ridiculous to think that I might also?"
Q continued to regard Bond suspiciously. "Forgive me if I find it hard to believe that after a lifetime of gorgeous femmes fatales your tastes have suddenly run to pale, skinny, floppy-haired boffins."
Bond's anger was starting to win out over his exasperation. "First of all, it hasn't just been femmes fatales," he said icily. "Being a double-oh requires a certain level of...flexibility, and I have that in spades. It doesn't make the mission reports as often — most of those at higher levels are from a different time and discretion was always advisable, but it has always been well understood."
He saw the surprise and sudden understanding flash across Q's face. Christ, the pup really had been that naive about some of the office politics of the intelligence service.
"Second," Bond continued doggedly. "Although you don't seem to recognize it at all you are, Q, a beautiful man. Beautiful and brilliant and witty and infinitely desirable, and — I promise you — I will never touch you again without your permission."
The blush had been steadily rising up Q's neck at Bond's words, and by the time he finished speaking Q was noticeably pink.
Q blinked at Bond a few times, looking flustered. "Oh," he said. "Er...I appreciate you telling me that." Q looked painfully young as some of the strain in his face eased. "Really, 007. All of it. Thank you," he said almost shyly.
Awkwardness seemed to settle over them both. Q cleared his throat, pulling his mobile from his pocket. "MI6 has straightened things out with the Såkerhetspolisen, so we're cleared to travel under our original passports. There's a flight in three hours, if that works for you?"
"That's fine."
"Breakfast, then?" Q asked.
"Absolutely. Coffee by the gallon," Bond quipped, trying to lighten the tense atmosphere.
Q pulled the messenger bag strap across his body, giving his computer an affectionate pat through the leather as if reassuring himself with its presence before smiling sheepishly at Bond. "Friends, then?" he asked earnestly.
Bond nodded. "Friends," he said with certainty in his voice, smiling at the clear relief that brightened Q's beautiful eyes at his reassurance.
He followed Q out the door, keeping a careful distance between them. Yet, he couldn't help replaying his own words in his head. I will never touch you again, he had meant to say, and yet that wasn't what had come out of his mouth.
I will never touch you again without your permission. That was what he had ended up saying. It was an important distinction, and one with which Q had not taken issue. Bond mused on that a bit as he followed Q down to the hotel restaurant.
Friends, he thought to himself. And somewhere, in the back of his mind, added, For now.
[Please review! :-D]