"Beautiful boy," James says, strong-arming a breathless Q through the doorway of his old bedroom and right up against the closest available wall. The palm cupping Q's wildly mussed hair tightens and protects his spinning noggin from taking a hard rap on the ancient plaster as he pants. James is not panting; he's perfectly composed. "My beautiful, vexing, entirely too secretive boy, come here. I've had quite enough of waiting to lay my hands on you."

He strips Q of his dinner jacket by way of planting his pursed lips smack square on Q's parted ones, impaling Q with a hot delving tongue to distract him completely and employing both hands to tug and to shove.

"Jame'th!"

When he's allow to speak again Q pays very little heed to the fact he's well on the way to being rendered bare-arsed naked, he's so caught up in the vicious glitter in those icy eyes. As Q's all too much aware he's landed in the soup, that he's sunk hip-deep in the Land of Trouble, and that with a capital 'T'!

"Jame'th, plea'th! I never wanted to, but I had to, don't you thee?"

Q gulps, flailing a little until both wrists are captured and held fast to the wall above his head.

"Jame'th! Jame'th, it was Mummy—Mummy, Jame'th!"

Q's rather piteous protest is roundly ignored.

"A fucking pox on your Mummy, Q! Should probably throttle you, rather, for hiding your bloody devious Mummy from me, but I find I'd rather fuck you silly, instead. Now shut up!"

James gnaws his way down Q's neck, deftly removing Q's skewed tie and working buttons and cuffs as he goes. His belt buckle comes undone with a tiny 'tink!' and his trousers hit the carpeted floor with a menacing little thud.

"Oh! Oh, James!" Q shivers in his socks and hand-sewn tasseled loafers, but has absolutely no urge to even think of scarpering off—an angry James is a very sexy beast indeed and Q is by no means an idiot. "Oh, fuck."

"Yes, fuck. Got it in one, Quartermaster. Might still wring your pretty little neck, after," James growls, nipping an earlobe with a careful canine. He grabs at Q's buttocks and squeezes, then delivers a passing slap. "'Liar, liar, pants on fire.'"

"Oi!" Q yelps. "Jame'th!"

"But I'll have your bad little bum first, Quartermaster, riding my cock, cheers for that. Shag some bloody common sense into you, maybe, if I'm lucky. Though I don't know if that's likely, reckless little twat."

"Oh, ah? Th-Sh-sha-shagging me? Tha'th much better. Capital idea. Mmm, ye'th, please."

Q nods his head eagerly, hardly hearing the threats, his careening brain centred all at once on the promised shag in the offing. Because, yes, obviously, a shagging delivered by an angry James was so much more promising than death via asphyxiation at the hands of an irate 007.

"Please, James. Whatever you say, James; blame me all you like, if you like, but do shag me. I want it—I want it so much!"

"Of course I shall shag you, little loon; never doubt it," James asserts, finally allowing Q the use of his wrists back, but only so he can poke a solid finger into Q's narrow breastbone. "You know what? You bloody Holmeses are all certifiable. Lunatics, every last one of you, what with your bloody mad Plan and your bloody mad Papa—and now poor old Watson and that green-eyed copper your elder brother's got his mitts on have been hooked in as well. Clever as a den of canny foxes, though, the lot of you. I'll give you that much, at least."

"But—but! Mum—"

"Shut it, I said."

One broad hand wrenches Q's lean hips forward off the wall as James divests him of his pants. Q's cock springs forth, unimpeded and very, very much interested in the rough treatment. Q moans, closing his eyes, when fingertips dance along the blunt damp knob-end of his prick.

"I was completely convinced your precious 'Mummy' was dead, Q. And if you fooled me…well!"

"Ah, that." Q raises his lids reluctantly; he'd much rather concentrate on the groping he's getting. "Yes, well…"

"Well?" James snaps. "Well, what?"

"Oh…ahhhh…" Q stares into the bright blue gaze so intent on him, warily watching as they fall to skittering across his rapidly goose-pimpling skin. "Uh,um?"

"Thought you'd like that, Q," James murmurs. He snaps to attention instantly, palming Q's bits. "Scrambles the thought processes, just a bit, doesn't it? Did you by chance use that on me, all this time? Wanker."

"No…no? 'Least—ah, James!—don't' think I did…erm, maybe? Ah, James!" Q can almost feel the heat of them, those eyes; he can certainly feel the feather-light brush of James's fingers. It's searing, and he never wants to lose it, that focus. "Ah! As to that, James? Clever's not a bad thing. Oh yes—just there! Oh! Ooooh!"

"You were saying, Q?"

"Um…was I? Oh, right, I was, wasn't I? What I meant was us Holmeses and Co being so clever saved Mummy's life when Silva was after her, and if it hadn't been him, there'd have been sure to have been others, after."

Q rushes on, speaking. He thinks he's speaking, but the oxygen's a bit scarce to the brain and the larynx, at this point. He does know he's only a got a limited span of attention, and he knows it, too—he's in James's capable hands now and that leads always to a rather ruinous state of rationality. Thus he's blathering, and it falls out of his mouth in a heap, rather.

"She was living on borrowed time and in far too many ways, James. And there was only a little collusion involved, in the end. I didn't lie to you—or, at least not too, too much. I just…I just never said, and you? You never asked, nor thought to—that was the beauty of Papa's Plan. Omission's pretty clever, too. Not a bad tactic at all."

"No, it isn't."

His trousers and pants hit the floor with a little thump and rustle. James is still irked, but he's also mellowing, just a bit, as Q sways, his sharp features gone soft with longing.

"Clever is a lovely thing to be, pet. A bald-faced liar, however, is definitely another." James pinches at his hips, nudging his own into the gap between Q's thighs. "Come on," he says, coaxingly. "Step out of your shoes, my beautiful boy. Bed, now."

"M'kay," Q nods, toeing off his tasseled loafers with alacrity. His toes twist about, attacking his socks as he does a crane-legged dance, complying as best as he can. "I—ahem! I am sorry, you know? I really am."

He's spun about as soon as they're off and thrust down summarily upon the duvet. Face first. Which doesn't suit Q, not at all.

"Are you now?"

Q wrestles himself about, coming up pink-cheeked to confront an Agent of the Crown—who happens to be his lover. 007, licensed to kill. Aka, James, licensed to fuck Q mindless. It's the lover he's babbling at, Q knows, and hopefully it's the lover who's listening.

"Yes! I'd have told you ages ago, if I could. But I couldn't, of course."

James follows, climbing over Q, straddling his very much interested groin, and promptly takes both of Q's wrists in one hand and pins them above his head. Again. It's…it's rather lovely. Q finds he quite likes James taking charge of him, so he grins. And p'raps also blushes. Just a little.

"And for the record," Q feels he must add, terribly turned on. "I admire clever. I am clever; we all are. You are, too."

"Oh, I noticed." His specs are lifted off the bridge of his nose, gently, and cast aside in the general area of Q's bedside table. "You've a kink, Q. Hard to miss, really."

"You can't say you don't like it too, James," Q points out petulantly. He's being teased and not so subtly. "You leave me puzzles, at HQ."

"Mmm," James hums, eyeing a naked Q up and down with an assessing eye, but not touching him further with that very capable free hand that hovers above Q's chest. It leaves his nipples aching tremendously, and sends all the blood in Q's brain rushing down toward his bollocks. "Clever aside, clearly you've been thinking of me, pet. You seem, ah. Enthusiastic. Did you miss me while I was making nice with your Mummy?"

"Yes, yes," Q replies, with a tiny wriggle. "Very much so." James is still completely garbed and the suit material rubs against Q's more than half erect cock, chafing it in a delicious sort of manner. "All night long, James. I missed you through dinner; you half drove me mad, all right? Touching me, whispering…Now, please? You'd said you'd shag me before throttling me. Get on with it!"

"I will do, never fear, pet," James grins. "But I think you're going to have to work for it a little. I'm not particularly pleased with you, you realize?"

"…No?"

"No. But that doesn't mean I shan't be, not if you cooperate, Q."

"When," Q swallows hard and gazes up at him, this fellow whose very molecules determine the happiness of his own, in a spinny, gravity-bound sort of manner. Like James is the sun, and Q's his own personal moon. "When you say 'cooperate', James, just what exactly do you mean by it?"

"Oh," James smiles, and it's feral and hard and yet also loving, so Q takes heart, once again. "You'll see. You'll see."

Q is fucked into the mattress—his old familiar 'smells of boyhood' mattress—by an angry secret agent, nearly fully clothed—the first time.

The second, they're both undressed, and Q loses his grip on reality for a little while after, he's just so happy. And James gathers him close, and it's oddly nostalgic—Mummy, probably, would be very pleased, if she knew.

Thank all the powers that be she doesn't.

No—cancel that. She likely does, thanks to Papa. His bloody cameras are everywhere, really. My gets it from someone and the apple falls not far from the bloody tree.

QW sighs and puts it all as far from his waking mind as he can, possibly. Holmeses will be Holmses, till the bloody cows cry 'Home!'

It's' after the third time Q considers sleeping, actually sleeping, which was not a tradition he upheld on Christmas Eve 'ere this day—erm, night. For it's well after midnight in Q's ancient childhood retreat and James makes a few dark muttering-and-highly-unflattering comments as to Mummy, for he's not through with that, nor yet through with the 'bloody mad Holmeses' in general. And then, too, regarding Papa's Grand Plan, and all the rest of that business.

The muttering goes on for hours, as they individually seek sleep—and fail. They should be exhausted, but Q knows James, similar to him, is still a bit high-strung. Events, indeed, were rather unsettling. Mummy, for one.

For another, who it is James has been shagging in the past, which is of particular interest to Q. Coming in after his own brother and his other brother's paramour is a bit of a set-down, and he's not certain how he feels about it, hours later.

Possibly—probably?—not so good.

Q takes some of the emotional shrapnel James is throwing off as well—mostly a few filthy imprecations about 'canny fucking deceivers' and the like, but he shrugs them off as nothing much. James is venting; he's allowed, as it's been a bit of a rough evening. Q only smiles, lazy as a sated boa constrictor, and wraps his limbs a little more securely about his James.

His James, undeniably. There's that, if there's nothing else. Not that there's nothing else, as of course there's plenty, and Mummy's attempt to pin James down as to a set date for a civil ceremony is a huge portion of that.

"You're very good," Q remarks, out of nowhere, abruptly hopeful, in the midst of James still muttering on blackly over little porcelain dogs and 'bloody Mummy'. "Very…good."

"Oh, am I?"

"Yes. I think so. Considered opinion: James Bond—very good. You, James Bond, pass muster."

Q would dearly like to say aloud how it is he actually feels for James, but it's late. It's so late it's early. And it's rather uncomfortable, the situation. It's Christmas Day, and love's in the air, as it were, but it's hardly sporting to go shoving exactly how much—and even Q doesn't really know, can't really gauge—it is he loves this blighter who's just fucked him silly, thrice.

"And how is it I shall strive to rate a 'brilliant' or maybe a mere 'excellent', brat?"

James abandons his lingering vexation just like that, quick as anything; he's already on and ready for the next thing. As to the next thing, or at least Q hopes it's the next thing, is more lolling about in his old bed and more 'very good' shagging, he's more than pleased with that, should it turn up. James may be Q's senior by quite a little but his redaction time is amazing.

Q grins into the dim light. There's lamps lit outside and fairy lights too, and it's a moonlit evening, but still…quite dark, as it's three in the morning. And the dark is kind to a blushing boy. Though he's not a boy, not by a long shot. Not when he feels like this.

"You should simply say, Q. What you want. So much more effective, love," James urges. "Gives me a target, right? I do like those."

"Hmm," Q muses, very much aware his eyes are flirting. Very much aware he's got his hand on James's limp cock. Very much aware, also, that there's likely others in the Holmes household going at the business of fucking, or perhaps talking, and perhaps also managing just as awkwardly as he. Clearly, he thinks, the only solution is to try harder. This is important. He will, or expire trying, he so swears!

"I think if I provide you the perquisite equipment, we could possible engage in another field test—see how it all works out, yes?"

He pulls James's wandering hand off his chest and redirects to his bum. James gives him a fond little slap, smiling. It stings no more so than the last one as they fold into one another, and there's all that lovely skin, nicely shared, just what Q's been craving. "And then I'll decide."

"Will you?"

Q yawns; they've already had three field tests: best of four is clearly valid. "In the morning. Sample of three. No—four, sorry. Validity, James, soul of."

"I see." James tucks his head against Q's, shaking it in comprehension, as always. Q so adores that, that particular aspect. "Interval testing, then. Elapsed time. Looking to quantify my longevity, then. Imagine that."

"Yes," Q grins, and sloppily as it's against the press of a firmly insistent set of lips. "Exactly that. Now, and then later and then…after Christmas presents. Five times…maybe six? Seven?"

"Oh, now you're showing that family tendency to madness, Charlemagne Holmes," James shoots back, every ready. "Take a damper, pet. All washed up, remember?"

"Oh, no," Q comes back, instantly. "Not you—never you. You? You are perfect. The parfait knight."

"Hmm. Is that so?"

"It is. Don't deny. I'm your Quartermaster."

"So you are."

"Yes. For always, now."

"Yes, always."

It's brilliant. It's so much changed up from even a moment before now. Q's his bloody confidence back, he is absolutely flirting like a mad thing with James, and is also rather amazed it comes so naturally to him. Flirting has never before been a part of Q's repertoire.

"Total time for test is twenty four hours," he reminds James, and rather pedantically. He's fairly certain James finds 'pedantically' sexy, any more. "And counting. As of now."

Hah! Must be the correct venue taken with correct subject, as he's never been successful before at it, either.

"Ah?"

"Yes, so. In the morning, as it will be Christmas Day, finally. My last gift, James. I want it."

"Presents," James smiles. Nips Q's chin. "You want…presents. More presents, more gifts. From me. And I already didn't murder your bloody Mummy, Q. That was a gift. A rare one."

"Yes, of course," Q sighs and turns to wraps his long legs about James, lovely James. "It was, much appreciated, ta. And tea. Tea is first. Tea—is paramount."

"Naturally."

"Nothing before tea. Martinis are for later, and they'll be shaken, not stirred. As you like them, precisely."

"Oh? Really now?"

"Positively," Q giggles. "I'll make them myself. I've learnt how, recently."

"See that you do." James pulls Q close and cuddles him, and it's—in its own way, in its own peculiar manner, it's even better than being buggered senseless against any surface. "As I'll be counting on it. Partner."

"Ngh-ahhh?" Q had been nearing drowsy, oh, so pleasantly so. "Ooop!"

Well, then. He had.

Now, he nearly swallows his own tongue in excitement.

Opens his mouth to say—

"No," James orders instantly. "No, Q. Not tonight. Go to sleep, my beautiful boy. We'll not be speaking to that until morning. I can only take so much excitement. Three times, Q—three! Up in years, you know? Have a bit of mercy, pet. Go to sleep. Right now."

Q would say later he'd barely slept a wink, but he'd be lying. Lying, like a bloody rug.

It's all on Mummy, finally, and then Papa, as well, and James is left eyeing the ring Gran'mere Violet had left to Q, solely to one Charlemagne Vernet Holmes, for presentation one day to his beloved. It glitters in the box and the diamond is square cut and very suited for a man who wears thousand pound suiting.

"Oh, erm," James hedges. "Must I? Hardly Christmas, is it, Q? Q?"

Q has the last word, forestalling even his bloody brother.

"Yes. You must. Please do. And please, James?"

"Yes?"

"Never return it me. I want you." He swallows, the lump in his throat huge, and it is rather hard on the knees, a man's weakest point, when one falls down upon them, prostrate. "I want you to keep it—oh! Please, Jame'th?"

"…Yes?"

"Keep it safely."

It is Christmas, it really is. Morning's finally come; there's wrapping paper everywhere and all the Holmeses, yes, all of them—Sherly and My and John and Greg, Mummy and Papa both—leaning in to listen with avid eager ears, though no one quite so obviously as Sherly. And…and there's a light in the blue eyes that melts all the ice to nothing, and sweeps Q's heart along with it.

"Oh," James nods. Stuffs the ring on his finger with no hesitation. It shan't explode, it shan't do anything at all out of the ordinary, but Q cannot but hope it keeps James safe. "I will. That I will. Baby."

Safe home.

And sound. For always.

"Oh, god," he sighs, and falls boneless into James's lap, completely unstrung. "Oh, gawd! Thank you."

Of course—and naturally? That is exactly the moment when Papa explodes the Christmas tree.

"Oh, well done, you!" Papa crows, ducking tinsel shrapnel. "Good show, I say!" The antique German glass balls explode in a positive miracle of tiny sparks; it's really quite fantastic, if terribly destructive. Mummy groans. "Brilliant!"

"Fuck's sake, John," Sherly snarls, flinging himself over his flat mate in a mad bid to fend off the smouldering ribbons. "Can we please go home? Right now?"

"Sherlock!"

"My? Mycroft Holmes, I did not sign up for this—" The silver-haired DI voices his complaint, and My drags him down in a silencing kiss, thankfully. "Domestic disturbance! Oof! You crazy wank—"

"Now, darling—"

"Boys. BOYS!" bellows Mummy, and everyone freezes. "Boys." Even Papa. "…Boys. Enough."

"Ahem," Papa ventures, after a long silent moment. "Sorry, darling. High spirits, you know."

"Yes, of course. Bloody Vernet genes, darling. I do know, sadly. Oh, how I do know," she laments. "Bugger."

"Yes, that!" Q squeals, giggling. "Bugger, James, and for always. With me? Maybe?"

"Yes, dear."

Q admits he might be a bit giddy. Just a bit. A wee little, as James might say, though he cannot imagine James ever saying anything of the sort, Scots or no.

And? And it's another Holmes Christmas, and yet it is entirely new. All of it.

"Er, Ma'am?" James asks, after the tree's been put out and the sparks stamped out by a horde of Holmeses and their plus-ones. "Ma'am, is this the usual, here? On the holidays?"

"It's Mummy, James. How many times must I? And yes—yes, it is. You'll grow accustomed, I'm sure. Or not—that's why I have my dear bees."

"Oh. Ah."

There's another long pause. Q frowns.

"Brilliant."

Q smiles. From ear to ear, and it's is brilliant, yet it is.

Yes, it is—brilliant is the word. And brand new is the term; things will never be the same again. Q shakes with laughter, his head buried stubbornly in James's lap. Clearly, Q's adventure with James has only just begun. And it may not be Christmas, or mayhap it is it, but it's certainly something wonderful.

And it's his, Baby's. All his very own.

Finally.

End