Pairing : 00Q, crossover with The Hour.

Author's Note : I wrote this a while ago, but this is a way of getting me back to publish fanfiction. I am currently reading Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell, and I realize how much I miss writing here.

Disclaimer : I own nothing.


In Your World :

Q used to smoke.

He was what, thirteen or fourteen, and his mother had just died in a car accident. He started smoking because he could and because, you know, since people die in stupid ways, smoking would not make a big difference.

At seventeen he was dating a nice girl, Juliet. His grandmother would look at them and offer them cookies and say they were the cutest couple of the neighborhood – far cuter than this stupid stupid boy, Mrs Miles's grandson, and this girl with dyed hair and too much make-up, she would add with a frown.

He didn't know his father. Freddy, his name was, and he avoided looking at pictures because he looked so much like him it physically hurt. Freddy had died a long time ago, when Q was only a little boy. His grandmother always said MI-6 could be a bitch.

The first time Q kissed a boy, he was seventeen and a half, and he was so drunk he thought he would never be sober again. Juliet didn't blame him. He thought he was in love with her, then.

Two weeks before his eighteenth birthday, he left Juliet's apartment after a lovely dinner with her parents. He was heading to his house – which was actually his grandmother's house, but he had been living there for four years – when three, no, four guys crossed his path. One of them called him a faggot and he didn't answer, lit his cigaret instead.

People knew him around here. He was Freddy's son, and Freddy was the guy who had worked at the Hour and had been killed because he had been too competent for his country.

One of the guys – one of Mrs Miles's grandsons, actually, not the one with a girlfriend, though – pushed him, and told him his father had said Freddy had always looked a bit like a faggot but people knew he was a ladies' man, but Q … Oh, Q could pretend, with his lovely girlfriend, but they all knew Q was queer as folk. They said Juliet needed a man, a real man, and Mrs Miles's grandson – he didn't remember his name – explained he would take care of her. Q lost his nerve, because his father was a bloody hero and because he loved Juliet, but the guy took his cigaret and placed it under Q's collarbone, and he let the skin burn.

The day after, Q had hacked into every police station of London and had published the recording of the previous night's conversation – his grandmother always said he was exactly like his father, and when agents in nice coats with guns on their side knocked at her door she proudly said the Lyon family had always been more efficient than the government itself.

Q was recruited by MI-6 and stopped smoking.

The scar never left.

A few years later, Bond entered his lab and took his shirt off because it was dirty and bloody and they were alone, and Q remembered how it had been to kiss that boy, and the other boys after the first one. Bond's body was full of scars and he couldn't help himself : he stared, hard.

"I didn't lose the gun, this time, Q."

"Good."

His voice was a bit uncertain but Bond, busy looking for a shirt in the bag he now always left in the lab, didn't seem to notice it. Q briefly wondered when his lab had become 007's second home. He turned around to focus on the screen of his computer and asked :

"What about the pen ?"

"You were right. Exploding pens are not that interesting. I'm afraid I lost it."

"You're a lost cause, Bond."

A moment of silence.

"Did you think hiding my shirts somewhere would be a good prank ?"

"Excuse-me ?"

"I can't find my shirts ..."

"Well, I have no idea, Bond."

He looked at the agent, who shrugged. And then he saw it. Just under the collarbone. A small scar – and he shouldn't be that turned on, really. He turned again, and heard :

"Ah, there it is !"

Bond, fully dressed now, approached and casually looked around.

"Where are all the others ?"

"Hum, I believe they went home, 007."

"Good."

Suddenly, Bond was behind him – way too close – and one of his hands had grabbed his shoulder, and his fingers – even though he didn't know it – were just on Q's scar. Bond whispered :

"They're more sensible than you are, Quartermaster. Please turn your lovely computer off, so I can take you home. M's orders, by the way."

They left the building together, and Q, boiling on the inside, thought that, maybe, he would invite Bond for a drink, tonight.

They said goodbye to Moneypenny, Q with a smile, Bond with a wink. When Bond parked the car near his apartment, Q didn't even ask how he knew his address. He remembered the scar and almost asked Bond to come with him inside, and then he remembered how he had winked at Moneypenny, how Juliet had looked happy at her wedding, how he still lived in his grandmother's apartment, and he thought these are just excuses, always excuses, but he said goodbye and left the car.

Not tonight, he thought.

Not today, not now, not tonight, he always thought.

Excuses.