Chapter Text
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MI6 was in an uproar, although it had a positive outlook now, at last, as the missing Quartermaster returned – with a recovered 007, no less. 006 grumbled and said that Q was hogging all the credit, but then realized a gift when it was handed to him by using the lack of attention to escape back to Aiden’s apartment. The report would probably be late and probably poorly written, but that wasn’t anything new for Alec Trevelyan. Besides, Aiden would probably make him write the report.
Eventually. Aiden might have had the professional logic to make 006 write a report, but Alec had more than enough skills to make 004 forget about that for quite some time, he wagered.
Q and Bond were both ushered into an interrogation room, and Q got a good dressing-down from M. In between explaining himself, he also pointed out that he’d managed to clear up any hidden commands Silva might have twisted into 007's head – thus preventing a unnecessary trip to the holding cells for 007. Instead, the man was excused to Medical while the Quartermaster’s rebuke continued full-throttle. It was only after M had made it quite clear how little she liked her Quartermaster’s racing off into the bellies of beasts unannounced that she sat back and ordered him to report. It was a long, painful process, and did a lot to ensure that Q never hared off again without going through the proper channels.
Meanwhile, 007 went through Medical, who patched him up quickly. They were secretly thankful, in a guilty sort of way, that he was so wrung out, because a tired 00-agent didn’t grow cantankerous in Medical so swiftly. As it was, Bond didn’t start getting stroppy until the last few scrapes and cuts were being tended to, and one of the nurses suggested that he might be developing an unexpected fever. Bond, never one to let something like a fever keep him down (especially one that Medical hadn’t had time to prove yet), quickly began making a thorough nuisance of himself, his wings snapping out all over the place and basically making use of their wingspan to make 007 intolerable. Medical finally threw its hands up in defeat and released Bond and his bloody great wings.
After that, he keenly avoided anything like an MI6 higher-up, knowing that there were probably people that wanted a more extensive report from him. He could always write one up, but those somehow always ended up being dismally late for some reason…
Instead, the agent let his feet turn him towards Q-branch, and once he was there, unabashedly began walking towards Q’s office. It was a surprise when one of the usually-timid Mundanes stepped forward and stopped him. When the podgy little man stepped in front of the 00-agent, Bond naturally narrowed his eyes, but it turned out that the boffin wasn’t foolish enough to think that he could deter 007. Instead, he was actually trying to be helpful. “Um…I suppose you’re looking for the Quartermaster?” the fellow stuttered, and everyone was staring in awe at the minion who had somehow found the guts to talk to James kill-anything-that-moves Bond. Mundanes and Angels mixed well enough in some settings, but ever since that time 006, 7, and 8 had crashed Q’s training session of his minions, there was a healthy level of wariness in Q-branch.
When it seemed that Bond was quite content to just stare at him with those unsettling pale eyes, the boffin nervously tapped his fingers against one another before pulling together the courage to continue anyway. “Well…um…yes, of course, yes… See, Q isn’t actually here. I think that after M was done talking to him, he was supposed to report to Medical, but he turned up here instead. M herself came in and ordered him home.” The memory made himself and fully three-fourths of Q-branch blanch, and truthfully, the Quartermaster himself had gotten a frozen, wide-eyed look as M had hunted him down in his own turf and then verbally flayed the skin off him. It was no surprise that he’d then quickly packed up his stuff and slunk out of there, in accordance with M’s orders (and with M watching the whole time like an eagle staring down a mouse from its perch). In remarkably short time, Q-branch had been staring at the retreating, wingless back of their Quartermaster. With a self-satisfied little snort, M had turned on her heel and disappeared as well, and Q-branch was still silent and rattled long after her silver wings had disappeared.
A flicker of disappointment went though Bond at having missed Q, but he accepted it philosophically. He’d hoped to catch Q and talk to him from pretty much the moment Q and Alec had rescued him, but it wasn’t like 007 had made this wishes known to anyone outside his own head. Shrugging to signal his acceptance, he thanked the round little minion in a ‘no harm done’ sort of tone, then left with all the politeness of a gentleman.
As with M, Q-branch watched the space he’d occupied long after he’d left, some parts of them unable to believe that an Angel could leave a place with so little mayhem in his or her wake.
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Bond escaped MI6 entirely with just a little bit more smooth talking and an attentiveness to his surroundings that allowed him to evade M. He actually could, despite all logic to the contrary, tell Angel energies apart. Q couldn’t, and none of the other Angels Bond knew could, but by some stroke of chance or luck, 007 could often guess with reasonable accuracy just what Angel he was sensing nearby. It was a new trick, acquired during the time he’d spent slowly getting to know Q.
Without fanfare or excitement, Bond went home. He had a fairly maintained flat for being in it so rarely, and was glad for it now, the thought of familiar surroundings pricking his interest keenly. He parked the car and entered his apartment, entering just far enough to kick off his shoes and flop down on the couch, head dropping against the back and wings stretching out to either side, feathers brushing upholstery.
Immediately, his senses told him that another Angel was in the house.
Bond didn’t actually flinch as he noticed this, nor did he stiffen in the slightest from the boneless sprawl he’d acquired on the sofa. He simply sat and waited, a faint smile playing at his mouth as he heard light footsteps shuffle out of a back room. It was the Quartermaster, hands wisely raised to show them empty, palm forward. “It’s just me.”
“I know.”
Q was slightly behind the couch, and visible only out of the corner of Bond’s eye when Bond bothered to open his eyes at all. The lowering of his arms and the puzzled glare were more than noticeable, however. “What do you mean you know?” Q shot back.
The tension that Q had brought with him into the room had already dissipated and faded when it became clear that Bond didn’t plan on shooting an intruder on instinct and then asking questions later. For just about anyone else, Bond would have, but not Q. “I recognized you.”
“You only just saw me.”
“Yes, but I sensed your energy first. I’m trained to be aware of my surroundings, remember?” came the reply with light – but playful – sarcasm.
Q didn’t chase the issue, the sigh issuing from his nose making it clear that he saw the futility in arguing with a double-o. Instead, after a half-step hesitation (one foot moving forward, whole body stopping, then whole body moving forward), the slim younger man came forward and perched, stiff-backed, on the arm of the couch to 007’s right. There were tiny bandages around some of the fingertips on his left hand, and the Quartermaster looked exhausted and worn-down around the edges. Actually…more than the edges. Especially as Q sighed and lowered his head, he looked worn out right through to the core.
“Do you want something to drink, Q?” Bond asked when the Quartermaster didn’t say anything even though the silence had stretched on for easily three minutes.
Q roused enough to blink and reply, “Yes, that would be fine,” but Bond honestly didn’t think it mattered one way or another. Still, the man got up, walking past while tucking his right wing back so as not to knock Q off the chair-arm in passing. With the way Q was acting right now – a sort of fragility to his character, as well as a bone-deep exhaustion that was somehow worse than that evening in Q’s office – Bond somehow didn’t think that unbalancing the Quartermaster physically or mentally would be appreciated.
In passing, he paused, however. In a low, neutral murmur, Bond forewarned, “When I come back, chances are high that I’ll ask why you broke into my apartment.”
Q apparently had just enough energy to be snarky, as he commented without shifting his gaze from the middle-distance, “I’d barely call it breaking in. Your security system is pathetic.”
“Usually,” Bond pointed out in more of a rumble, entirely sincere, “I’m the most dangerous part of my security system.”
The other Angel just grunted, the equivalent of conceding the point, because there really was no arguing that. Q still didn’t seem very guilty about it, but Bond had planned to disappear into the kitchen anyway, leaving the Quartermaster on the arm of the couch. Bond began going through his fridge for something to drink, then on to his cupboard for suitable glasses.
Now that he already knew that the Quartermaster was in his house, Bond dropped his guard, essentially allowing himself to lower the defenses that kept him alive during missions. Keeping constantly alert was tiring, and it had been a long time since Bond had counted Q as a stranger. This lack of paying attention to where Q was led to a slight twitch of surprise as Bond heard footsteps at the last minute followed by a forehead thunking into the middle of his back. The reflexive tensing of Bond’s wings had them brushing against Q’s shoulders, but not enough to dislodge the wingless Angel. Q sighed.
“I’m sorry for breaking into your house.”
Still facing the counter, hands on the cupboard door, Bond calmly evaluated the situation in his head, mulling it over a moment before picking his words with care. When he spoke, his tone was low but gentle, “No harm done. I assume you have a reason for being here?”
He felt the Quartermaster’s head shake back and forth against his back, accompanied by another gust of weary air. But instead of coupling the negative shake of his head with a verbal ‘no’, Q spoke suddenly and quietly, the edges of his voice like tattered cloth, “…You have no idea how hard it was to hear you like that.”
Angels were in no way empathic, but Q’s supernatural energy had been strange since Bond had met him, and it swelled with the impossible agony that was only now breaking loose. Bond slowly turned around, shifting his body so that he was soon facing the Quartermaster standing on the edge of broken in his kitchen. Head hanging, shoulders unable to decide whether to be tense or droop resignedly, Q didn’t even react, until Bond reached out strong, possessive arms and pulled him in without waiting for permission. Chances were high that the Quartermaster would protest, as his professional ego had urged him to before, but instead he just exhaled in a relieved, almost painful rush against Bond’s neck. “You really are here, aren’t you?” Q asked almost dazedly, as if this long day had been a nightmare and he was now waking up from it, “I really did save you from Silva.”
“Yes,” was all Bond said, nodding before turning his head to press his nose and mouth against Q’s wavy mop of hair. After a moment, he added, “Did you know, it was your voice saying my name – saying ‘James’, not 007 or Bond – that held me together? It was strings and cobwebs to hold off a knife, but it did hold it off for a little while.”
The chuckle Q emitted was almost more of a bitter sob, and the words it evolved into were definitely wry, “It was a hopeless game from the beginning. All I probably did was drag the torment out for you, and believe me, I know what that torment is. Silva took great delight in mucking about with my head, too.”
Untroubled, Bond nodded, but then finished candidly, “It was still nice to hear you saying my name.” And it was clear that, despite all logic that said the effort had been useless, James had appreciated the Quartermaster screaming desperately in his ear, determinedly trying to keep him safe even when the world said it was impossible.
Sometimes, the most treasured people were the ones who would be willing to deny the will of the world for you.
Q still hadn’t responded to being held, so Bond weighed the two sides of his own nature: the demanding, possessive side, which could conceivably take whatever he wanted from Q without feeling guilt, and the patient, compassionate side, who recalled quite clearly that Q had explained that a relationship between the two of them was not going to be accepted. There was no denying that there was something between them, and Bond liked to think that the heat he felt came from both of them. “If I kissed you right now, would you push me away?”
The way Bond’s voice was half a rumble, vibrating where their bodies connected, made Q shiver. Weariness compounded with strain to make him slow, and he didn’t have time to answer before Bond was steadily pushing on to another question. This time, he’d bent his head close, some of that sexual tension expressing itself in the way his body shifted and muscles flexed and tightened to pull Q a little closer. The man just seemed to move when he wanted something. He mouthed the shell of Q’s ear. “If I took off your shirt, would you ever forgive me?” Somehow, the question was completely serious, even somber, despite the way that anyone would have expected a teasing or suggestive tone. Bond was being entirely serious about this, and it unstrung something inside of Q.
Q’s breathing had hitched, and somewhere along the way his hands had lifted of their own accord, not meaning to touch Bond but brushing the hem of his shirt anyway. “You wouldn’t even kiss me on the mouth before,” he had the capacity to think up as an answer, his tone falling a little short of its usual dry self. His own body was responding, shifting slightly against the cage of muscle Bond had created of himself, and Q didn’t know if he was trying to get closer or subtly find more personal space.
One of 007’s hands came up, dragging along Q’s back heavily so that his shirt rucked up without actually lifting more than a few inches from where it had been tucked all day. The cloth lifted, wrinkled, and fell as the calloused palm and fingers slid along it. The possessive side of Bond was winning, but the fingers that found Q’s nape were considerate as they rubbed gentle circles around the protruding knobs of vertebrae. “I didn’t know you wanted me to,” Bond replied honestly.
Q had to concede that he really hadn’t known either, because he’s been so exhausted out of his brain that making decisions was totally beyond him. He said so: “I don’t think yes or no was in my vocabulary at that point.” Voice rueful and a little embarrassed, he ducked his head to speak against Bond’s shoulder, “A fact that I’m glad you didn’t take advantage of. Thank you.” The admittance that he’d been so lacking in defenses was a little embarrassing, but he felt the tension in his stomach loosening as he recalled Bond’s restraint at the time, such as it had been. “At this moment…I’m a little more capable.”
“Are you sure?”
Also a very poignant question. But Q found himself getting frustrated with beating around the bush, so he lifted his hands until they had hold of Bond’s wrists, guiding those large hands up until they cupped the sides of his head and face like some sort of shield against his own words. In fact, 007’s warm hands did a lot to muffle sound as they cupped his ears, turning Q’s words into a faded echo in his own head. “Right now, I just want to convince myself that you’re alive and well, and the only way I can think to do that is by being so bloody close that I can’t breathe without noticing you.” The words had found an opening in his control, and were all making a break for it, a wave passing his lips. “So even if it wasn’t obvious that I have feelings for you when I was yelling in your ear earlier, yes, I’m sure-!”
He didn’t get time to say more as Bond’s hands tightened of their own accord, going from passively cradling Q’s head to possessively gripping it and tilting it. His mouth caught Q’s in a heated, nearly ferocious kiss, stealing all of his air as the Quartermaster gasped. Suddenly Bond reminded Q of a Murcielago – going from zero to blindingly fast in less time than it took to think it. And Q didn’t mind.
The kiss started fast and heated slowly, but somehow 007 still managed to capture the heat as if it were a ball of fire caught between their lips, and Q found himself straining forward, wanting more contact. His hands were still mindlessly locked around Bond’s wrists, feeling the tattoo of the man’s pulse. They stopped for breath, foreheads leaned together. “Do you believe that I’m here now?” Bond asked, only joking a little.
“Do you believe…” Q wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, but he wanted to reply in kind, and had a question sizzling painfully in the back of his mind. He bit his lip, comforted and further aroused by the kiss Bond almost unconsciously placed on the outer edge of his left eyebrow. Still, the Quartermaster’s voice was a whisper as he said, “Do you believe that I’d have saved you from that if I could? From having Silva in your head like some sort of…some sort…!” Quite without meaning to, furious anger had come to the fore, until Q was shaking and he was squeezing down on Bond’s wrists with Angelic strength, and he might have flown apart at the seams had not Bond brought him in close again.
“Hey, hey…shhhhh,” 007 began to mumble in soothing, urgent repetition, folding his great wings around them right there in the kitchen, his muscled body absorbing the violent shudders going through the Quartermaster’s taut frame. Q relaxed only a fraction, and then let some of the frustration bleed off by pressing hot, open-mouth kisses to Bond’s neck (within easy reach), which Bond responded to quickly by angling in and catching Q’s mouth again. They destroyed the tension together with teeth and tongue and lips, one of Bond’s hand tangling in Q’s hair while the other slipped to the small of his back, pulling the wiry figure in until they were seamed together from hip to chest. Q growled and his energy flickered, a recalcitrant storm that finally slipped out and bit Bond with a visible spark.
“Ouch!” Q said even as Bond yelped in surprise, both of them pulling back just enough to look down at Q’s hand, the bandaged one.
“What did you do?” Bond finally asked, his hunger momentarily put on hold but his eyes still darkened with lust. He’d noted the neat little bandages before, but hadn’t thought to comment.
The skin visible around the bandages was a little enflamed, but that could have been because of how much use Q was putting them to. “A sharp edge in a control box I took apart to get to where you were,” Q explained, frowning at how his energy had slipped out. Both of them were remembering that last time Q had done that.
Bond raised an eyebrow minutely, and asked tactlessly, “Are you going to pass out?” Still, it was an obvious question. Q had been a veritable invalid after using ‘lesson two’ that Silva had inadvertently taught him.
“No,” Q said slowly, “But I can’t promise that won’t happen again.” He blinked, realizing, “I don’t even know why it happened now, to be honest. Maybe I’m coming down with something.”
“You are a little bit hot,” was Bond’s reply, and it wasn’t until Q looked up incredulously that he saw the man was grinning roguishly at him. Q gave his chest a swat of mock anger, trying and failing to clamp down on a returning smirk.
“I call you James and you become insufferable,” Q berated him, refusing to admit that his tone was ruined by how relaxed and pleased he obviously was, feeling those arms and wings around him, “See why I always call you Bond or 007?”
Bond just hummed, something between a swallowed laugh and a deeply appreciative noise, and Q gave in without complaint as Bond stroked the backs of his fingers up Q’s throat until the Quartermaster relented to tipping his head back. The surprisingly gentle nips against the bare column of his neck made his toes curl, and the energy that had been so cantankerous in his core quieted right down. Q began to wonder if maybe both of them had a fever, so he was more than amenable when Bond’s hand began to edge under his shirt, raising it away from his skin. Deciding that fairness was in order, the Quartermaster got daring, and let his dexterous fingers slowly untuck Bond’s shirt.
As the shirt slipped free, Bond moaned against the spot he was sucking on just under Q’s ear, chasing away any doubts Q might have had about whether he was doing this right. That moment also served as a catalyst, a subtle cue in which the Quartermaster pushed aside the last barriers of professionalism that he’d been putting up between them. The moment the skin of his thumb brushed the skin over Bond’s hipbone, Bond’s supernatural energy flared, and for a moment Q wondered if he was sensing pure contentment.
Bond let Q’s head drop and captured his mouth again, but it was Q who gave the first lick against 007’s mouth, which actually managed to catch Bond off-guard. In that little moment of surprise in which 007 drew fractionally back, Q opened his eyes languidly, breathing almost in reproach, “James…”
And 007 grinned. “Flattery will get you everywhere.” The name was like magic, and Bond opened his mouth to Q’s eager tongue, letting it dance across his teeth and play before he chased it right back. Bond’s wings were outstretched, usually a show of warning, but this time it was like a banner of pride, of triumph, and Q slid his hands around Bond’s back under his shirt, feeling the rippling muscles and following them up to where the feathered appendages attached to smooth, hot flesh.
Q felt a tingle of pleasant contact as Bond followed suit, likewise finding open skin beneath Q’s shirt. He only dragged his fingernails lightly, however, the teasing touch in sharp contrast to the hungry conquering of his mouth. Q nearly had to use supernatural energy to match the strength that Bond was using, the hand not tickling his spine being latched around the back of his neck to keep him close. The two of them barely had time to breathe, and Q found himself savoring the fizz of lightheadedness that followed. He bit Bond’s lip in retaliation when the dizziness began to be annoying, and was shown Bond’s chivalrous side when the larger man obediently backed off. He continued to rain lighter kisses on Q’s cheekbones, as if paying homage to the artistic bone-structure of the young Quartermaster. As 007 noticed Q’s fingers idly scratching at the connection point of wings and back, he made a growling groan of pleasure and rolled his shoulders. The play of muscles that resulted was delicious, and Q found himself laughing – a somewhat husky but open sound.
Obviously Bond liked it, because he pulled Q flush against his chest with two hands hooked on Q’s – wingless – shoulder-blades, thoroughly kissing the side of his neck again. Only when Q’s laughter subsided did Bond brush their lips together, pulling back teasingly to say, “I didn’t want to make you stop. You laugh so rarely, Quartermaster.” Q was strangely touched by the comment, and just blinked for a moment, and did nothing but watch as Bond brought their mouths together again, beginning a more patient exploration of his mouth. The hands under Q’s shirt began to ease it upwards while Q was pleasantly drifting on a wave of sensation. The last of his shirt came untucked, and Q shifted as he felt cool air on his spine, the lower edges of his shoulder-blades. Almost without thinking, Q freed up his arms so that he could raise them to be free of the article entirely.
As Bond slipped his shirt off, Q realized with a painful jolt that things were probably going to progress a little more slowly now. With James close enough and tall enough to see over Q’s shoulder, there was no way he’d miss the heavy scars that lanced in two rows down the Quartermaster’s back. Still aware of James’s body heat and close proximity, Q nonetheless looked down, breaking the kiss without warning. The heat that had nestled and grown between them went out, and Q’s expression became shuttered and unreadable except for a thin edge of defensiveness. He was perfectly aware that the knotted lines of scar-tissue down either shoulder-blade were grotesque, and the vulnerability in the knowledge that Bond could finally see them – who had scars, but nothing like the evidence of Q’s loss – made Q’s amorous feelings fade away despite his best efforts. He simply stood now, impassive, suddenly thinking of how Bond had to be taking in his thin frame (the loss of his wings had apparently made gaining muscle impossible, as well as giving him a metabolism like no Mundane could believe), his pale skin (wingless birds took better to staying inside, and so did he), and the vicious scars lacing two lines down his back.
Bond had to notice the intangible distance that had sprung up between them, as well as the invisible walls that Q was pulling up around himself protectively. A bird without wings was aware of the extent of its vulnerability, even though Q very rarely acted like a bird without wings. Far more often he acted like a Komodo dragon who breathed fire, making this shift of temperament all the more poignant to Bond, who was observant anyway.
“Give me my shirt back, 007,” Q requested, his voice too soft to be a command but too professional to be much else. Q wasn’t looking at the larger man, instead focusing somewhere down and to the left as he stood there, open and half-naked in his winglessness. He held out a hand expectantly for the pierce of clothing. His frustration was evident in the tightening around his eyes and the hardening of his frowning mouth as Bond, instead of acquiescing, paced around him a bit, a half-circle that took him (and Q’s shirt) further out of reach and more clearly in sight of Q’s scars. Q’s skin was pale but they were paler, twisted fingers of white where wings had once sprouted in all of their glory. Now there was an empty back, and Q had to clench his jaw viciously to keep from spinning around, hiding them. He had his pride, after all, even if the sensation of Bond’s eyes flickering over his scarred back made bitter claws hook in the back of his throat and pull.
“They’re not ugly,” Bond said, unexpectedly, and if Q didn’t want to believe his words, he had a hard time discounting the tone – which was low and husky, and was quickly followed by the sensation of open-mouthed kisses to his nape, down his spine, breath hot as a furnace where the chill of the open air had been. The Quartermaster shivered, feeling James’s muscular arms tighten around him in a glorious net. The sense of relief was dizzying, almost more so than Bond’s unrelenting kissing had been, and Q would have folded right to the ground if Bond weren’t holding onto him so strongly.
Bond was biting the side of his neck, his shoulder, brief forays of his skilled teeth extending right down to the scars which he then stroked with his tongue. As Q gasped – nearly sobbing, because the declaration that Bond was not disgusted with him had somehow stabbed right into his heart and let the emotions pour out – Bond leaned forward to put his head next to Q’s ear, panting a little as he ground his big body closer. “Nothing of you is ugly, Q.”
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