Q had gone grocery shopping. He came back with a lot of supermarket bags containing fresh and frozen food. He stocked the kitchen while Bond was doing push-ups and sit-ups in the living room. He glanced over now and then, smiling to himself. James was topless, only in sweats and socks, and watching muscles flex and sweat shine on the smooth skin was very nice to look at.
Very nice.
Appetizing, too.
Q sometimes wondered about himself. He was still influenced a lot by his partner's looks. He refused to fall all over himself and submit to the raw sexuality the Double-Oh could project, but he did react to naked skin on display like that.
He forced himself back to his task, shoving salad and vegetables of all kinds into the fridge. The freezer was already filled. There was also toast and bread and cans of beans and other things that ended up in cupboards and drawers.
Q was finally done and allowed himself another long look at the expanse of warm, smooth skin. He found older scars he knew intimately, which was kind of reassuring. The missing ones were a bit off-setting.
"See something you like, Q?" Bond rumbled, the corners of his mouth crinkling into a tiny, mocking smile.
"All the freckles are still there." Q raised an eyebrow.
The smile grew, now with a hint of seduction. "Did you count them?"
"You should know I'm thorough."
The smile involved more teeth and he was being undressed by those glacially blue eyes alone.
Q was fully clothed from his grocery shopping, which meant, in these temperatures, layers. About three underneath his coat, which was the only article of clothing he had taken off.
Bond smiled more, all knowing, with an edge of predator, and he smoothly got up from the floor where he had finished his sit-ups. His approach was that of a large cat, all grace and muscle and intent.
"How can you tell if they are really all there? I'm still wearing my pants."
"Impossible," Q sighed and shook his head, but he couldn't resist running a hand over the warm skin.
Bond's grin was even more hungry and he kissed his quartermaster. Q understood that the instinctual side was there, driven by the resurrection, wanting its balance and taking what it needed. He liked the instinctual side and so far it had been less than he had expected. Normally their encounters after a rebirth were filled with energy-laden sex. He liked that part very much.
Not this time.
James had been very tactile, seeking physical comfort through, yes, cuddling. James Bond was currently a big teddy bear. He was playful, he was teasing, but he wasn't taking.
The phoenix placed a kiss against Q's temple, then his jaw, his neck, curling his arms around him and holding him close. It was more intimate than sex sometimes. It was very private, something ingrained in the preternatural, and Q felt a curl of warmth deep inside him. The gesture was them; it expressed them and what they were more than anything else, including very hot sex.
He raked his fingers through the sweat-damp hair, then let his fingers brush over the facial features, exploring, mapping, marveling at the small changes. Slightly smoothed out. Slightly less lines. Q could tell because he had been studying the ruggedly handsome face so often before. It was still the face of a killer, of death, of the man he loved, of someone who shouldn't fit him so perfectly.
"Like what you see." It wasn't even a question.
"I liked it before already," Q said honestly, holding the intense gaze.
No silver. Bright blue, a darker ring around the iris, fascinating, intense, but the phoenix wasn't the driving force.
He framed the ruggedly handsome face. "There was nothing wrong with what I saw either."
Bond's smile was tinged with softer emotions. "I know."
Of course he did.
"Freckles," he murmured as he stroked over the skin, smiling. "All still there."
"Where would they go?" Bond teased.
Q kept up the facial caress. James let him. It was affectionate, loving, and filled with fondness. Q brushed their lips together, then released his hold.
"I'll let you finish your exercises," he said calmly. "I have a few mails to answer."
Bond's broadened, but he didn't draw him back. The energy between them was almost palpable. It was there, it wove them together, it drew them to the other again and again. It was the definition of what James Bond was.
The Double-Oh simply went back to his training, pulling out weights. The teasing smile was there for a second longer, then he got back into his serious work-out.
Q watched him for a moment, then logged into his network to do his own exercises.
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With his anchor near-by, Q went back to talking to The Machine. He still didn't have an inkling as to where the massive server room was located, but he was getting quite familiar with the entity those servers housed.
He never pushed inside, never stepped past that shield that protected them from touching each other. Q was convinced he wouldn't survive the experience. The Machine was more than any computer core he had ever scanned or walked through. It was a growing thing. It felt more sentient than a mere machine, definitely aware, and it was responding more and more to Q's visits.
Still, there was an edge, like the technopath was only looking at the surface, and it made him cautious.
The Machine didn't talk. It didn't communicate in any way anyone who wasn't a technopath could understand. What Q got were flashes his unique mind could translate and he smiled to himself sometimes, especially when those flashes contained something regarding The Admin. The Machine loved its creator, it protected Finch to the extent it was capable of, and it accepted Reese as a very relevant part of The Admin's life.
Q liked 'hanging out' with the fascinating presence. He liked to watch, just stand there within the HUD of his mind and watch and wait and listen. The Machine would be close, curious, almost child-like, but still so very dangerous. Sometimes there would be flashes of a different kind, like it was showing him a life different from what Finch and Reese dealt with.
The relevant list. The one it had been created for.
Q was fascinated and he had followed up on it, though never too deeply. He didn't want to draw attention to himself, but he had stumbled over a few interesting reports, all of them CIA, and he had known right then and there that the source had been The Machine. It had started with a number and gone from there.
Finch had been hesitant to go deeper than he usually did. He wasn't capable of entering a HUD like Q. That was purely a technopath's ability and it was his unique way of communication and work. But he could probably use the backdoor he had created to gain access to his creation again.
The Machine wouldn't stop him. Q knew that for a fact.
But Finch, as talented as he was, didn't really want to open that particular can of worms.
"Every door goes both ways," he had once told Q. "If I get in, something might get out."
And he hadn't meant The Machine.
Too many people were using his creation and they had no idea that the irrelevant list was copied to him at midnight each day. If he gained entry, if he changed something, only touched it maybe, someone might notice. No one knew if the people in control of The Machine might not have a cipher of their own. Or someone even more talented.
Q looked at the code, at the endless data streaming past his technopathic eye. It was too fast for a mere human to truly differentiate, but he wasn't that mere human. He was a technopath and it was all very clear to him, every line, every command, ever routine and subroutine.
One push against the barrier and he would be in.
One concentrated thought and he would be able to link himself.
It was terrifying. And tempting.
So very, very tempting.
There was something like a breath of air, then giant wings spread over him. An illusion, something that wasn't real and never had been, but it was there and it was the representation of his partner's preternatural side. The phoenix's midnight black wings covered him, without cutting his connection, without holding him down or dulling his senses. It was his security blanket and it was magnificent, beautiful, amazing, majestic… so many positive things in one.
Never frightening.
Q looked up, saw nothing but the inky darkness, then piercing blue eyes seemed to capture him and draw him away. He smiled and stepped back, leaving the HUD.
He was still on the couch, laying down, and James was sitting at his head, book in one hand, the other petting Q's hair. The same blue eyes he had just seen now looked at him, a smile within their depths.
"Playing, Q?" he murmured.
"Exercising."
It got him an appreciative nod.
Q sat up, noting a tension that had nothing to do with the little exercise run. It didn't strain Bond to be his anchor. He didn't actively intervene, nor could he see what Q did. That wasn't how the psychic link worked, and Q was sure that no one but a technopath could actually survive such an experience.
"James?" he asked.
"Things keep coming back," his partner said calmly. "More and more. There's no trigger, just… leakage."
Q frowned, suddenly feeling alert. "Things?"
A shrug. "Now and then. Small fragments. They are more than dreams, but not real memories yet. I remember every part of my mission. I remember that I was captured, interrogated and killed. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Some things get through. Some are… strange… Waking up. Cold and dark. Then I'm moving, like on a train. And then there's nothing again."
The cold, easy delivery of his demise had Q bite back a shudder.
"Your killers were involved in a car accident when a gas truck went up in flames," he told his agent when James gave him a quizzical look, prompting him to fill in the blanks. "They died in their car."
Bond raised an eloquent eyebrow. "Justice."
"You were in that car, too."
"I was dead at the time, Q."
Q regarded the other man on the couch with him. He was no psychologist, but Bond appeared very stable, very matter-of-fact, mixed with emotions that peeked through now and then. Because James let him see them.
"You burned," the quartermaster stated bluntly.
"I wasn't there for it," he replied. "Well, I was; physically. But I didn't burn alive. I can't remember something I was already dead for. And I came back."
He sighed. "Yes. You walked out of the morgue. All my knowledge tells me that it should have been impossible for you to even move after rebirth. You looked like a burn victim when you arrived back home. You must have been suffering the effects back then as well."
Bond regarded him without revealing a single thought. "I'm a phoenix, Q."
"And you went through something I wouldn't have thought you, even you, would be able to survive."
"But I did."
Q worried his lower lip. "You did."
"You want an explanation for it," Bond stated.
"I'd like to have one, yes. You lost your memories of what happened after you came back. Maybe you also have memory loss you aren't even aware of. Somehow you made it back anyway, without leaving a visible trail of bodies, as far as I can tell."
It got him a smile. Almost cruel, predatory, the phoenix rising inside his partner. The monstrous thing was back to full strength, overpowering, overwhelming to those who had never met it before, and Q faced the nightmare with his routine calm. It seemed satisfied with his response.
"How did you get back to England, 007?"
"I don't know, quartermaster. I suspect I stowed away and did a lot of things by instinct. We field operatives can get in and out of almost all situations without a trace. It's what we are trained for. We're quite… inventive."
Q was happy to hear the light, teasing sarcasm. And he knew that Bond could move across the whole of Europe without ever hitting anyone's radar. It was simply the fact that he had done it while firmly locked in his instinctual side, looking like the burn victim he was, and no one had apparently reported him.
He might have to look into that more closely.
And there had probably been helpers, even if James couldn't recall them.
"Did you kill anyone?"
Bond shrugged almost casually. "If they threatened me, it's possible."
"Maybe I should hunt more deeply for reports on bodies," the technopath muttered darkly.
"Maybe you shouldn't. I'm home. It's enough, I believe."
He tilted his head. "For me it is. For M? I'm not sure."
"Screw M."
"I'd rather not."
The expression in Bond's eyes had something hot flash through Q and he fought back his irritation. At himself. For behaving like a… a hormonal teenager. Fangirlish.
"We might have to cover up a few of your exploits," he tried for normalcy.
"I doubt it. Before I came here you didn't know I was en route either." There was a spark of humor. "MI6 has a lot of hidden accounts, Q."
"And you were in no condition to use a lot of those resources, 007," came the even reply, followed by a raised eyebrow.
"I was trained to function under even the most distressing circumstances, Q."
Q watched him, saw the truth in those fascinating eyes.
"And things are trickling back. I'm just taking longer this time."
"Maybe," he murmured.
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Because of the unusual memory holes, Q had worked out a series of questions. He wasn't a behavioral scientist or a social studies analyst. He simply knew his partner and he wanted to know just how far the reset had gone.
Bond remembered him. Very intimately. No doubt about it. Q asked him a set of questions about themselves, about himself, and James answered them calmly, quietly, and with just a hint of teasing now and then. How they had met. How their first mission together had gone. How they had found together.
No memory loss there.
He then went back over past cases. All they had worked together since Q had become his handler.
Still no missing pieces.
Q went back further, to the painful time of the former M's death, to Silva, to Skyfall. He saw the darkness rise, the memories Bond might have wished had been erased. He saw the tension, the anger at his failure, his loss.
But he remembered everything clearly.
Q took a gamble and asked him about Le Chiffre, about Vesper, about Venice.
The phoenix stared at him, loathing and fury raging through him. There was a soul-deep pain there.
"I remember," he snarled and rose abruptly, leaving Q on the couch.
The younger man watched as Bond grabbed his keys and suddenly left the flat.
He let him.
"Well," Q muttered to himself, "that went… badly…"
tbc...