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“Q, this has to stop,” Bond told him. Q was in Q-branch, as he always was, and Bond was on a mission, as he always was. Their private line was still their own, their safe space, their small oasis where nobody could hack in or disturb or damage.
“What does?” Q asked distractedly, biting his lip as he exploded several large bombs in strategic locations in an undisclosed area. He winced slightly; he hated bombs, far too messy for his tastes, and far harder to accurately manage without other casualties.
He sat back, and sighed happily. “Over and out, 004. Bond, you have thirty seconds or so to extraction point, we’re covered here. And what has to stop?”
“Whatever we’re doing,” Bond replied, hissing as he ducked from what was probably gunfire. It was gunfire. It was always gunfire where Bond was concerned. “It isn’t working. You know that.”
Q froze, cup of tea midway to his lips.
“Sorry?” he asked slowly, placing the tea back on the table so he didn’t drop it. He was pretty certain he knew what Bond was saying. He watched the red dot that indicated Bond track his way quickly through labyrinthine streets.
“Q, I’m sorry. I am sorry,” Bond told him, and fired several shots, presumably at whoever was shooting him. Bond gave a hum of contentment, and audibly relaxed. “I just don’t think we should be doing this. Am at extraction point, hostiles neutralised.”
“Received. Now why the fuck not?” Q asked in a tight voice, brushing past those assembled in Q-branch to go into his office, shutting the door, hearing the comforting click of the overly heavy lock. He collapsed into his desk chair, tucking his knees to his chest, leaning his chin on his knees and staring blankly at the patterning in the wood of his desk. “And you choose right now?!”
“There would never have been a good time,” Bond said unapologetically.
“In person would have been nice!” Q yelled, tears springing into his eyes. This could not be happening, he refused to accept that this could be happening. “Jesus, Bond, please. Why?”
“Q, there’s nothing to discuss,” Bond told him flatly. “The mission is clear at this end. I’m taking leave, starting now, lasting for the next fortnight. I’ve cleared it with M. I’ve also taken everything out of the flat.”
“Not ‘our’ flat, then,” Q asked hollowly. Oh god. Oh god.
“I’m sorry, Q,” Bond repeated, with unbelievable quiet.
“James…”
--- “James,” Q whispers, and Bond’s throat closes; Q never calls him by his first name. ---
“I’ll see you in a few weeks. M agreed there’s no point in a debrief for this one, it’s an open-shut. Your equipment is pretty much gone, but the pieces I have left will be with you when I get back,” Bond told him. “Look after yourself, Q.”
There is a sudden wail of static, the scream of a microphone being disconnected.
--- “Can I take you out of my ear?” Bond asks flatly, and Q doesn’t laugh.
“If you like,” he murmurs, and Bond just knows. He knows. ---
The silence is overwhelming, all-consuming. They have been connected through earpieces for the better part of nineteen months. Four months of simply working together. Fifteen romantically involved. Fourteen living together. Eight since The Incident. Five since Q came to terms with the disconcerting realisation that he was in love with James Bond.
Unable to cope with the silence that is eating him alive, Q starts to scream.
---
It has been eleven days.
Q has no idea of anything that may or may not have happened in the past eleven days. He has been working non-stop. He has been home exactly twice, to retrieve more clothing to place in his office at Q-branch, given that he cannot abide being dirty in any way, and he doesn’t want to come back to the flat our flat.
He is home because he was told he had to go home. He was doing fine at Q-branch. They have showers, he has a camp bed in his office, he imported clothing. It was fine. Q would find out which of Q-branch told M he hadn’t been home in a week and a half, and he would destroy anything they owned technology-wise.
The flat feels too empty. Bond has taken everything he was from it. Q’s fingers linger on doorframes, eyes on patches of carpet, ears on the forgotten snatches of laughter and the sound of somebody’s voice in his ear.
He sleeps on the couch, unable to bear the sight of the bed. He takes a duvet that has been washed clean of Bond, and burrows into it, crying in absolute silence.
He hasn’t taken out his earpiece. He has to be connected to MI6. But god, every single moment reminds him of Bond, every time he picks up a snatch of the wrong wavelength, the hiss or murmur of somebody piggybacking for a fractional second before MI6 communications throw them off again… each flicker reminds him of Bond, and it hurts more acutely than he knew possible.
“Q”
Q’s gasp is audible and immediate, and ridden with so much hope. “James?” he whispers, straining for a response.
“Q,” Bond’s gravelled tone replies, with an apology and smile. “I’m here. I’m always here."
Q closes his eyes, lips slightly parted, as he feels warmth press against them. He sobs quietly, returning the kiss with so much want, tears falling down either side of his face as Bond’s tongue flicks against his teeth. He tries to lift a hand, tries to pull Bond closer; the moment he does, Bond seems to move away.
His limbs feel too heavy, motion too languorous. He wants to open his eyes, but the lids are too heavy, and his hands are weighted to the couch like lead has been poured through his veins.
“You came back,” Q breathes, his chest hitching through his attempts to calm. Warmth brushes away the tears, the pad of Bond’s thumbprint against his cheekbone. He hates being vulnerable. With Bond, he was always allowed to be, if he needed it. Nevertheless, he despises it.
He is Q, and he is so much more than this. He is so very much more than being so horribly linked to another human being, especially one with such an undisputable capacity for damaging him. Nobody has ever managed to get to him, whisper under his skin and his blood and bones, and make him need so much.
“My Q,” Bond tells him, in a soft tone that whispers apologies, and kisses him again. Q relaxes this time, leans slightly into it, allows Bond to direct. Bond is good at directing these things, he always has been.
He doesn’t dare open his eyes, regardless of whether he can or not.
“Have you missed me?” Bond asks, and Q gives a sudden, sharp, cruel laugh.
“What do you think?” he manages, head spinning, aware of warmth around his cock, long fingers tight and tempting, teasing. “Oh” he breathes, arcing for more, his body responding on instinct. “Did you… did you miss me?”
“Every moment,” Bond replies, and the intonation isn’t quite right but Q forgives him, because the voice is back in his ear and he has missed Bond so much it is a physical, pulsing agony. It sits in his chest like his heart is now marble, cold and expressionless.
Fingers trail around his body, feathery, trickling over his lips and closed eyelids, back down to his sides, eliciting a slight laugh as it tickles very slightly against his ribs, and the hand around his cock is in abrupt motion.
The movements are confident and learned, so familiar. Q’s body is finely tuned now, and Bond knows so well where to touch. “Don’t leave again,” he murmurs, as Bond makes him gasp. He whines as the consistent touches fade, and fingers trace across his perineum, the cleft of his arse, teasing brushes against his hole that send his head reeling.
“I will never,” Bond assures him, and the hand returns to his cock. Q murmurs his name to the stars in his eyelids, and when Bond twists deftly, Q cries out, and tells Bond again and again to never leave him, not again, and Bond kisses him with a taste like salt water.
Bond runs a hand through his hair, and plays with the head of his cock. “I am so sorry,” Bond tells him, and Q’s breath hitches because that is just what Bond said before, and he doesn’t want to remember that if he can avoid it. “You know I couldn’t leave you, Q.”
“Why did you leave before?” Q asks, and then waves a hand to stop any answer. “I don’t want… don’t say anything, just…"
“Q, gorgeous Q, god, seeing you like this… I don’t know how I left,” he says with a wry laugh, and Q isn’t sure what is happening, because it both is and is not Bond. The words are wrong but the voice is right.
“Bond, I don’t understand,” Q tells him in scattergun words. “I don’t know why you left or why you’re back but please don’t, just don’t…” he tells Bond, wanting to punch the man, wanting to hurt him just a fraction of how badly he has been hurt.
“I love you.” Bond says, the single phrase that will destroy them both. Bond cannot admit to love, and Q has never been loved, and this will pull them into drowning.
“What?” Q gasps, and his eyes fly open.
Bond watches him with his impossibly blue eyes and smiles in that slightly patronising way only he can ever get away with. He sets an infuriatingly gentle rhythm as Q crushes their mouths together, both arms wrapped around him, keeping their bodies pressed harshly together, merciless, cruel, the way they have always been.
“I’ve got you,” says the voice in his ear, and Q trusts it on instinct, taking apart everything that James Bond is because the bloody idiot did it to him first, deconstructed him, left him with nothing but patches of thought that seem to fade far too quickly.
“I love you too,” Q manages with absolutely, incontrovertible honesty, when he pulls himself away from Bond’s lips, sinking into the warmth and comfort and soothing lull of the voice that keeps him tethered to everything.
He moves his hips more insistently, wanting more, wanting everything, contact and the press of heat against him, the smell of musk and sweat, the feel, their currency, their only currency, the rise and fall of bodies, sex. They have always communicated through sex, the only thing left that could possibly matter. Words fucking hurt, Bond had illustrated that amply “I’m sorry Q” but this, this was their battleground, and their connection.
“You are so beautiful,” Bond tells him, cupping a hand behind his head and flicking a kiss against his forehead.
Q pushes against him, and Bond gives him everything he can. Q takes, Bond gives, and they’re both doing each but in no way equally. Q could have rejected him in a heartbeat, Bond could have never come back.
Bond’s pace becomes ever more rapid, and Q writhes in his arms, digging nails everywhere to keep him there, to please keep him there. “Q, will you have me back?” Bond asks, and Q barks out another shallow laugh as he feels the familiar spread in his stomach and legs.
“Yes, god yes, Bond, James, of course,” Q replies, with intermittent, tremulous laughs, breath coming quick and fast in his lungs, careening towards an end, and he just wants Bond, just Bond, always fucking James Bond.
Bond anticipates when he is about to come by moments, leaning down to kiss him, drawing out everything as Q cries around his mouth, calling out shapelessly as he comes across his couch.
He collapses back against the couch, exhausted and spent, and reaches towards Bond. Bond slides against him, managing to fit on the couch somehow, and pulls Q close. He fits his body behind Q’s, slipping together so easily, so simply. It makes sense, the only thing in a week and a half that has made any bloody sense.
Q’s lips tremble, fluttering faintly as he tries to keep calm, tries to not intentionally dissect Bond just so he has all the constituent parts, so Bond has to stay with him or he’ll never be whole, like Q when Bond isn’t there.
Bond’s breath is warm, tickling the back of his neck. Q wriggles closer, keeping Bond’s arms tightly around him like a blanket, the flat permeated again with the unmistakable scent that Bond carries, the scent of cologne and danger and gun oil and blood. Q never thought that particular scent would become so intrinsically linked with safety, with home.
For the first time in eleven days, wrapped in Bond’s arms, lying on his couch with his pyjama bottoms destroyed, Q is finally able to sleep.
---
Q wakes, startled.
“Bond?” he asks, throat dry. His back aches from the uncomfortable sleeping position, neck slightly out of alignment.
“Bond?” he repeated, slightly louder.
He sat up, cricking his body back into some sort of alignment. He looked around, glancing frantically, already horribly aware. He closed his eyes. His throat was entirely closed, he kept swallowing frantically to clear it, trying to stop his vision from swimming.
He had never been here.
Q pinched the bridge of his nose. He reached to the side of his glasses, and depressed the familiar code that linked him to Bond, if Bond wasn’t already connected, if Bond wasn’t already listening. The override to anything else, if Bond was doing anything else or speaking elsewhere, Q could find him, he could always find him.
“I know you don’t have your microphone any longer, Bond, but perhaps you’re wearing the earpiece. You should be, you should be ready to plug back into MI6… I…”
Q’s resolve cracked. Professionalism was entirely abandoned, just for a moment, just for this goddamn moment, and he had no idea if Bond was listening, and was in fact almost certain he wasn’t, but he had to say something because something needed to be said.
“James, I’m sorry. For whatever I did, I’m sorry. If it was just… if it was something I said, or… I don’t know, I really don’t know, but I swear, I…”
Q stopped, taking a long gasp and exhaling in a long, sustained breath.
“I need you,” he said honestly, staring at the opposite wall. “I need you back. I’m sorry. Please come back. Please, James. Just come back.”
Q swore colourfully as he started to cry, again, and he had sworn to himself he wouldn’t do this again. He wouldn’t crack with such ridiculous, pathetic style in front of James Bond, the man who could go years without betraying so much as a hiccup of sadness.
“Please come back,” he repeated again and again, curling into a ball on his couch and trembling, tension thrumming his body into a tight line.
He had become the thing he despised most. He didn’t want to be this controlled by his links with other people; he had spent an eternity in computers, not with people, not in any social contexts and certain no romantic ones. He had been told so many times as a child, so very many times, how he would never be loved or wanted or needed.
Just for a few short months, he had been. He had been.
---
“Q, Q, can you hear me?”
“Welcome back to the grid, 007,” Q replied, fingers flying over keys. “Good holiday? Never mind. I have a fix on your location, judging by the colourful sound effects behind you I’m assuming you need an extraction?”
“Q….”
“Extraction team will be with you in twelve minutes, try not to die in the interim,” Q says. Bond babbles to air, says his name occasionally, defers to M when he gets involved. Q sits back, smiles crookedly.
“Agent 007 is back online. Extraction team is on its way to him, we can assume eight hours approximately until debrief at MI6,” Q relays to higher powers, and gazes at lines of code. He lets himself sink into the infinite code, so deep he can lose himself, and fades out the voice in his ear.