"Say, come over here
let me smell you for one last time
Before you go out there
and ruin all of the world once mine

I'm out of the game
I've been out for a long time now
I'm looking for something
can't be found on the main drag, no"

- Rufus Wainwright, Out of the Game

Midnight in Paris

It's past three in the night when the phone call comes. James wakes up, and answers it. The message from HQ is that Jeunet is at one of the locations that the Deuxième Bureau is about to approach, that James and Q are expected to be on the first Eurostar out of Paris in the morning, and that further information might follow. James thanks for the information. Q stays asleep in his arms throughout the short conversation. James hangs up and decides that Q wouldn't make such a good field agent after all, as deep as he sleeps.

Normally, James would sneak out of the room at this point, take his things, leave his lover and move on. He has done it so many times it has become instinct. But he can't leave Q behind. Q is his colleague and his partner on this mission, more so than Vesper was, or than Eve was in Shanghai: he and Q have been given the same brief, the same orders. If anything, this is Q's operation – James is only here to keep Q safe. He can't leave him.

He should probably wake Q up and tell him the news – after all, HQ apparently saw it necessary to wake James up at this hour – but something stops him.

They never closed the blinds, and the blue moonlight from above and the yellow lights from the courtyard below hit Q's skin where he lies stretched out on the rumpled bedspread. They never got under the covers before falling asleep either, but the room is surprisingly warm for such an old building. James keeps a cold temperature in his own bedroom, so he's comfortable here without a duvet, and clearly the temperature doesn't bother Q enough to wake him up.

There's something strange about watching Q's naked body sprawled across the bed, so perfectly relaxed. Once again James is struck by how the usually austere and aloof Quartermaster is transformed by sleep – although James will claim some of the credit for stripping Q's strictness away before sleep did. He reaches out and with his fingertips he traces the ridges of Q's shoulder blades and the sweep of his spine. Q is beautiful, but his beauty is as contradictory as his behaviour. Nothing about Q, in his physical appearance or in his mannerisms, is typically masculine – at least not from James' frame of reference, which admittedly is coloured by a life in army and security circles. Q is too thin, even though he's wiry, and his movements are too soft, too graceful. But neither is there anything feminine about him, not even when set against a background like the quilted, rose-patterned bedspread. He is far too angular to be considered feminine; not a trace of a curve or a soft line, on his body or on that striking face. Q's beauty is one of a kind.

Q's behaviour and body language suggest that he is absolutely unaware of his own beauty, not in the way of a woman who does not consider herself beautiful, but in the way of someone who has never even considered his own body in those terms. In James' experience, no woman over the age of twelve falls into that category, and these days not many men do either, although they often work harder at hiding their vanities and insecurities – both to others and to themselves. James himself does not engage in that kind of self-deception: he is very aware of his looks and how to use them. It's part of his job. He's just as aware of the near perfection of his body as he is of the lines that are slowly forming around his eyes and the grey that becomes visible in his stubble if he doesn't shave often enough. But Q – Q might as well be a sprite, as little as he seems to care about his physical form. Draped over the bed he looks like the dream motif of one of the great romantic painters, with dark curls, flushed lips and skin that looks pale in moonlight; he's a vision of the young genius at rest, lost to the world around him.

James hopes he hasn't destroyed that quality by telling Q that he's beautiful. He can't imagine he has – Q didn't seem to take him seriously, and even if he had, James doesn't really believe that Q would ever let that go to his head, or that he would suddenly begin to worry about his appearance beyond the limited grip on dress codes he already shows. Admittedly, Q has surprised him before, but James thinks he has enough experience in this particular area to feel certain of his assessment.

Q shifts in his sleep so that the arm slung across James' chest slides downwards, and lets out a soft groan that makes James reconsider his earlier wish to keep Q sleeping.

"Q?"

He touches Q's face and runs a hand through the now ruffled hair. Q's eyes flutter open.

"Hm?"

James smiles at Q's bedraggled appearance and runs a hand down his exposed neck.

"Jeunet's gone. We're leaving, on the next train."

James slowly lets his hands wander. He can't stop caressing Q's skin.

"'time is it?" Q murmurs.

"A couple of hours yet."

Q is less controlled when he's just woken up, James finds, as Q gives a delicious moan when James' hands reach his arse and pulls him closer. Q gazes up at him, and in a second all sleepiness is gone from his eyes. He smiles.

"I take it you don't want to go back to sleep," he says, and his voice is clearer now too.

"Do you?" James asks, even though it's merely a rhetorical question at this point – he can feel what Q wants. Less than five minutes ago he was ready to leave the room, but James is nothing if not adaptable. He knows he might regret these indiscretions when they're back in London, but right now Q's warm body in his arms is too tempting to resist.

"I'm open to suggestions," Q admits.