Archive of Our Own

James is not a considerate person by nature. But when Q lends a hand, so to speak, and then pushes off him to head to the lavatory not forty minutes into Wrath of Khan , it occurs to him that maybe, if he wants to keep going whatever weird, intimate, mostly-platonic thing they’re doing, he had better start becoming one.

*

“You are going to blow this completely,” Moneypenny had told him by way of greeting when news of his relationship-thing with Q had become common knowledge around MI6.

“Hello to you too,” he replied. “And incidentally, I am not.” He elected to ignore the stirring of interest elicited by the dangerous cut of her eyeliner. One nebulous relationship with a coworker is probably enough. Even if Q already said he wasn’t the jealous type. And anyway, flirting with Moneypenny would only prove her right.

“What, so all of the sudden, you’re capable of maintaining a healthy relationship?” Moneypenny asked over her filing.

“Why not?” James replied.

She rolled her eyes. “Just do me a favor, 007 – when this goes pear-shaped, try to keep the fallout from landing on M’s desk?”

“I can think of much more exciting favors,” James said.

“You’re making my case for me, Bond,” Eve said, and turned back to her filing.

*

The thing is –

The thing is that everyone at work assumes that James needs sex like other people need oxygen. Why else would 007 fuck everything that moves, the thinking went, if he didn’t have a deep, insatiable desire to fuck everything that moves?

James tries to avoid introspection as a rule, but he knows himself well enough to know that he doesn’t sleep around the way a wine connoisseur tours vineyards in the south of France. He’s more like a tennis player with a back injury taking black-market pain pills in hopes of staying in form for one more year. The sex is a coping mechanism, a way to escape his demons even for the briefest of intervals. He doesn’t screw around so much because he loves sex. He certainly doesn’t do it because it makes him happy.

But yet. It’s what everyone at work thinks.

*

The half-dozen times that James has taken Q up on his offer to ‘lend a hand’, so to speak, it’s always followed the same pattern. It starts like any other night, with Q bringing over a pizza or a curry to James’ apartment, Q picking out a sci-fi classic or some hopelessly pretentious film festival critics’ darling, and the two of them proceeding to ignore the film in favor of kissing on the sofa. Sometimes they’ll go out for dinner or go to a pub or take a walk through the city or go to car shows or visit a museum, but those occasions never seem to end with Q unbuckling James’ belt. That seemed to be reserved for quiet nights in.

And it was only when Q offered, by the way. James had decided early on that he wasn’t going to ask, or even imply, that he wanted Q to touch him. Q had said ‘occasionally,’ and he tended to choose his words with care, so how often the occasion presented itself was for Q to decide, not James. He didn’t want to scare Q away by asking for too much, and anyway, it wasn’t like Q was asking James for fidelity. Q had been emphatic on that point. So there really wasn’t much of an opportunity cost in being a gentleman about it.

(But that wasn’t quite true, was it? Because in the six months since they’d been dating in earnest – if ‘dating’ was what you wanted to call it, and if James was being honest, it was – James had noticed that his interest in casual one-night stands had waned significantly. What was a bit of a dry spell for him still involved more hook-ups than most Playboy editors and disgraced MPs, but he couldn’t help but notice that something had changed, even if he couldn’t quite pin it down.)

All that aside, the routine was always the same when the occasion did arise. They would spend a while making out, their bodies becoming more and more entwined and their breathing growing ragged while their leftovers went cold. This was standard procedure for movie-and-takeout night. More often than not, after a half-hour or so of this, they’d settle back down, tangled up in one another’s arms, and watch the rest of the film before starting the lazy and frequently-interrupted process of tidying up and parting ways. But every now and again, Q would whisper something in James’ ear about helping him out, and James would lean back against the sofa with his head tilted back and his eyes closed while Q sat beside him and stroked him off. The first couple of times Q had made inquiries as to how James liked it done, and it occurred to James that he didn’t know when the last time a lover had asked him anything of the sort had been. It never took very long, as the kissing got him good and riled every time, and as it turned out, Q was both perceptive and good with his hands.

Once James had finished, after a minute or two of post-coital stillness, Q always managed to find a tissue or a handkerchief to hand to James to clean himself with, and then Q was off to the lavatory. He’d reappear after a minute or two and start gathering his things. Sometimes he might stay to help with a bit of the clearing up, but – and James had never wondered why until this exact moment – once they were done, Q always left.

*

It was barely half-past nine. That fact suddenly seemed absolutely critical as James hurriedly pulled his trousers back on and threw away the kleenex Q had so thoughtfully provided for him in the wastepaper basket before tailing Q to the bathroom. Before this moment, James had never once wondered what Q did in the lavatory after getting James off – did he take a shower? Touch himself? Throw up? As it turned out, it seemed as though Q just wanted the chance to wash his hands. The sleeves of his ridiculous jumper were pushed up to his elbows.

“Do you knit those yourself?” James asks. It’s the first thing that pops into this head, and it’s out of his mouth before he can think better of it.

“What?” Q responds, taken aback. “No. Of course not.”

“You don’t have to leave, you know,” James says. This is not going well, he thinks, but plows onward. “It’s terribly early. And we’re not even halfway through the film.” He moves to stand behind Q. James can see Q’s face reflected in the mirror.

“Mhm,” Q says, which was not a reply.

“Why do you always go home after?” James asks, feeling impatient with his poor attempts at diplomacy. “Is it the sex? Does it make you feel, I don’t know-”

“It’s not that,” Q says.

“So it doesn’t make you uncomfortable,” James says. “Getting me off.”

Q shrugs. “No, not really. It’s fine. Not bad.”

‘ It’s fine, not bad’ is not typically the evaluation James hopes for from his sexual partners. “Because we needn’t keep on doing that if you don’t care to,” James says. “Especially not if you’re going to go home early and run up my water bill every time we do.”

Q rolls his eyes at James in the mirror and switches off the water. He starts meticulously drying his hands. “I don’t mind doing this,” Q says. “I wouldn’t offer if I did. I just don’t want to create any false expectations about what will happen if I stay.”

“You won’t,” James says immediately. “I haven’t any.” James isn’t even sure what Q thinks James expects if he stays. Privately James thinks nothing would make him happier than Q falling asleep on his shoulder while the end credits roll, but saying so out loud sounds unbelievably saccharine, even in the confines of his own mind. “Is that all?” He can tell by the look on Q’s face that it isn’t. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Q stops drying his hands but doesn’t move to take them off the towel. “I suppose it makes me feel a bit inadequate,” he says quietly. “What I can offer. In comparison to your other options.”

“Inadequate?” James repeats. “Are you having me on? This is the longest real relationship of my adult life. You are the only person who has ever come to my flat for dinner on more than two occasions.” Q turns around and looks at him with an expression James can’t quite place. “The rest ought to feel inadequate compared to you .”

“Really?” Q asks. He looks like he wants to sound skeptical but can’t quite bring himself to manage it. James takes that as a good sign. He steps forward and pulls Q into a loose embrace. Q sinks into it. James breathes a sigh of relief and kisses Q’s mop of curly hair.

“So does this mean you’re not leaving?” James asks.

“Yes,” Q says. “As long as we don’t have to spend the rest of the night in the bathroom.”

*

Back on the couch, a new concern is gnawing at James. This is the problem with being considerate. There are always more considerations to be made.

They’ve done this a handful of times now. True, this is the first time Q hasn’t gone home when they were done, but each time it’s been Q doing a favor for James. This is not a ratio that reflects particularly well on James’ character. And yes, Q is asexual, which means the traditional route to evening the score might be out of the question. But there must be something Q likes. Right?

“Q?” James asks, as Khan locks Kirk and friends in a dungeon.

“Yes?” Q replies, looking up at him from what looks to be a very comfortable position napping on James’ midsection.

“Is there anything I ought to be helping you with?” James asks. “I know you don’t want to shag, and that’s quite all right by me, but when we kiss, I can’t help but notice-”

“I don’t want you to do anything about it,” Q said. “I’ve tried it with other people. Never liked it.”

James is aware that he is absolutely the last person on earth to be asking about someone else’s sexual history, but he can’t help himself. “Oh?” he manages.

“It’s all right getting you off,” he says. James has to employ a great deal of self-control to not find the casualness with Q talks about this to be achingly sexy. “To be honest, I quite enjoy getting you worked up. And you make the most tremendous faces.” James isn’t sure if he’s embarrassed, turned on, or a bit of both. “But for now, I’m not interested in trying it the other way around.”

“For now?” James asks.

“I might be open to trying it out someday,” Q says. “But not yet.”

James has never had to work so hard to give a man a blowjob, and he says as much. Q just laughs and nestles deeper into James’ chest.

“Outside of those kinds of things, though?” James asks, because he never knows when to quit. “Is there anything at all you might like?” He recognizes that this may be a biased assumption, but he’s assuming that there must be some kind of wild kink that gets Q going, and if there is, well, never let it be said that James Bond isn’t a man of the world. He just hopes it’s not anime-related.

“Oh,” Q says in an altogether different tone. He sits up. “Outside of sex, you mean?”

Definitely anime-related, then. James braces for the worst. “Just say the word, Q. It’s only fair.”

Out of nowhere, Q is taking off his jumper. Under it, he’s wearing a t-shirt that looks about as soft and inviting as Q’s brown eyes. Despite having been in a relationship with the man for the better part of the year, James has never seen Q without an enormous, knobbly sweater consuming the top half of his body. James can barely process the information being received by his visual cortex.

“Would you scratch my back while we watch the rest of the movie?”

“Would I-”

“You don’t have to,” Q says, toying with his sweater in his hands, “but since you said you wanted to-”

James doesn’t know which is more preposterous, the fact that he’s never wanted to do anything to anyone more badly than he wants to get his hands on Q’s t-shirt, or the fact that Q now seems to think that James is turning him down. When his brain comes back online, he manages to splutter out, “yes, yes, of course I will – how do you want to do this? Lying down, sitting up-?”

“I wouldn’t mind lying down,” Q says. “In your lap, maybe? If you don’t mind.”

James couldn’t think of anything he himself could mind less, but if that shirt felt as good as it looked, it’s possible that Q might mind an inconvenient hard-on poking at his face. James casts about the room and grabs a throw pillow from the loveseat, then settles it across his lap. “There,” he says. “That ought to be good.”

If Q suspects his reasoning for the pillow, he mercifully doesn’t draw attention to it. He lies down without further ado. The angle is a little awkward, but James puts his hand between Q’s shoulder blades and gives an experimental scratch. “Like this?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Q hums. “Maybe a little lower? And you can use your fingertips, instead of your nails.”

Trying to pretend like that didn’t do anything for him, James runs his hand over Q’s trapezius. For a lab rat, the man has a very nice set of shoulders on him. Must be lifting some heavy boxes or something.

Q lets out a deep sign and for a second James thinks he might have done something wrong, but then Q closes his eyes and fairly melts into James’ touch, and James realizes it’s quite the opposite.

James continues to run his hands over Q’s back and shoulders for the remainder of the film, experimenting with different speeds, applications of pressure, and parts of his hands and fingers, measuring the efficacy of his efforts by the contented little sounds they produce in Q.

The proximity and intimacy of this act is doing something to James, no denying it, but the longer it goes on, the easier it feels to let the heat wash over him without building up into a need for release. What started as a sharp crackle of electricity below the belt slowly metamorphizes into a warm glow that suffuses his entire body. He couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted to go to bed with someone and refrained from acting on it. If this was the end result, it wasn’t so bad.

The film ends, but Q doesn’t move. James leans forward to get a look at Q’s face. He looks transcendentally blissed out, and also, quite possibly, asleep.

“You all right?” James asks.

“Huh?” Q mumbles.

“Did you fall asleep on me?” James asks.

“No,” Q says unconvincingly. “Of course not.” He makes no effort to get up.

“Enjoying yourself there, are you?”

“Immensely,” Q says drowsily. A surge of fondness for him overwhelms James.

“Would you like to stay the night?” James asks. “I can lend you a set of pajamas. And this couch is a rollaway.” He fervently hopes that Q is the only one at MI6 with a penchant for eavesdropping on him when he’s off the clock. His offering a pair of pajamas to a lover will not be good at all for his reputation if word got out.

“I will consider on one condition,” Q says with enormous dignity (unearned, in James’ opinion, as he still hasn’t bothered to sit up. Not that James is complaining.)

“What would that be?”

“I want to be the big spoon.”

“Like hell!”

“Take it or leave it.”

James takes it. Good thing too. Best night’s sleep he’s had in years.

*

Q catches an earful from the lads at Q Branch the next day for coming into work in yesterday’s clothes. “We just cuddled,” he protests futilely. “Fully dressed, I might add.” No one is convinced.

“You might as well leave a few things here if you plan on staying over again,” James says over Thai food the following weekend. “Word got around all the way through the 00 division about your outfit repetition. 004 wrote me about it, and she’s deep undercover in Cambodia.”

“I’m so pleased to hear that water-cooler gossip is being transmitted to our agents in the field. What an excellent use of Her Majesty’s resources,” Q deadpans.

James toasts him with his gin and tonic. “Long live the Queen,” he smirks.

Q brings over a duffle bag to James’s flat the next day. For God and country, of course.

*

“I’m happy for the two of you,” Moneypenny says the next time James waltzes by her desk and makes himself at home. “Never been so pleased to be wrong before.”

“Really?” James says. “I didn’t think you liked me all that much.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Moneypenny says with a grin. “But the Quartermaster deserves to have nice things. And I suppose that includes you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Between you and me,” Moneypenny asks, lowering her voice, “is it true what Q told the blokes at the lab when he came into work wearing yesterday’s clothes?”

“What about it?” James asks. “I come to work wearing the same clothes frequently.”

“He said nothing had happened.”

James considers for a moment telling her that his love life was none of her business, but it would be so wildly out-of-character for him that it would just make her more suspicious. “That depends on your definition of nothing.”

“He told them all you’d done was share a bed.”

Of course a bunch of professional spies and disinformation peddlers would be incurable snoops. It was probably karma or something.

“Nothing wrong with taking it slow,” James says evenhandedly.

Moneypenny whistles softly. “I can’t believe it,” she says. “Our little agent is growing up at last. You must really like this one, eh?”

“Are you done?”

“Not remotely,” Moneypenny says.

“Listen, it’s one thing coming from you,” James says. “I can make an allowance for you taking the mickey. I know your heart’s in the right place. But let it be known that I have eyes and ears all over MI6, and that I am a very dangerous and possibly volatile operative, and that I don’t take kindly to gossip about my personal life and taste in men.”

“Yes, yes, you’re very mean and scary,” Moneypenny says. “I’m especially intimidated by your newfound personal growth.” James makes a face and she adds, “Don’t worry, 007, your secret’s safe with me. Highly classified.”

“I appreciate your discretion.”

“Like I said, I’m happy for you. Entirely surprised, and twenty quid poorer for losing the betting pool, but happy.”

“You had a betting pool going?” James asks.

“I took the under on five months,” Moneypenny says. “I underestimated Q’s appetite for chaos, but I suppose he does design exploding versions of everyday office supplies in his free time.”

“Interesting,” James says. “Anybody still stand to lose out?”

Moneypenny grins like a shark. “I’ll send you a list.”

*

The next time James has a long assignment overseas (which, incidentally, is much longer in coming than it ought to have been, and James suspects foul play on M’s part), he makes up his mind to sleep around as much as possible. Hitting the pubs just doesn’t seem as appealing as it once did back in London, bringing a one-night stand back to a flat where Q’s toothbrush was sitting next to his. Worthwhile every now and then, granted, but the desire to crawl out of his skin and be someone else for a night doesn’t feel so pressing anymore lately. But on the occasions when he did bring someone home from the bar, he was starting to feel that he was losing his touch, and he couldn’t have that.

The first few weeks were good fun, no two ways about it. It felt good to do something he was so good at, and had done so often for so long. He imagined that this must be the way that basketball stars felt when they came out of retirement to play in the Olympics. After a month, though, he found himself starting to miss home.

“Are you there?” he asks into his earpiece one night.

“Where else would I be?” Q’s voice replies, tinny through the tinny microphone.

“What time is it in Vauxhall?”

“Three in the afternoon,” Q says. “How do you like Suriname?”

“The weather’s nice,” James says. “Ready for this to be over with, I’m afraid. Rather homesick.”

“You’re nearly there,” Q says companionably. “You can do this.”

That reminded him that he was running out of time to pick up a souvenir. “Q?”

“Yes?”

“What’s your favorite?” James asks. “Type of tea, that is.”

“Oolong,” Q says. “Earl Grey if I need more caffeine. You?”

“English breakfast.”

“God, you’re boring,” Q complains. “I’ll bet your favorite meal is steak and potatoes.”

“Lamb biryani,” James says, offended. “What kind of Tory-voting relic do you take me for?”

There is silence on the line for a moment before Q says, “You’re telling me they let 00 agents vote?”

For the first time in a fortnight, James smiles.

*

James makes it back home in possession of all his limbs, though it’s a near miss. Q never does say a word about James’ playboy escapades in South America. As it’s vanishingly improbable that Q doesn’t know how James spent his free time in Suriname, James is forced to conclude that Q really isn’t jealous after all. Not that he had been doing it for the attention.

All right, maybe a little.

*

After James’ next overseas mission, he brings back a wristwatch/laser cutter back in one piece, and it becomes immediately clear that doing so is the quickest way to Q’s heart. He mentions it so often that James eventually has to place a curfew on work talk.

Later that week, James suggests they grab a drink after work, and Q suggests a place not far from headquarters. When he arrives, James is surprised to realize it’s a gay bar.

“Nice place,” he comments to Q when he finds him at a booth and sits down next to him.

“I like it,” Q replies. “Not too loud.”

“You come here often?”

“I don’t go out all that much,” Q says. “Lots of long nights at the office. But I’ve been here a few times. On a first-name basis with a few of the regulars.”

James, who himself is not yet on a first-name basis with Q, has a minor epiphany. “Are you gay?” Q looks at him like he was thick. “Well, how was I to know?”

“The dating-a-man thing might have been a bit of a clue,” Q says.

“I’m dating a man, but I’m not gay,” James points out.

“That’s true. How would you identify your orientation?” Q asks, and adds when James looks confused, “what would you call yourself? Bisexual? Queer? Pan? I can keep listing words.”

James shrugs. “I guess I never really thought about it.” ‘Fucked up’ is really the only label he’s ever applied to his personal life, and James isn’t well-versed on these matters, but he’s pretty sure that ‘fucked up’ was not broadly considered a sexual orientation. And Q tends to bristle and get defensive on James’s behalf when he makes self-deprecating comments, although Q also would hate it if James pointed out his protective streak. James has noticed that Q does not like being seen as nurturing, even though clearly of the two of them, he’s much better-adjusted than James, and his job is literally to play nanny to agents who get themselves into scrapes they can’t get themselves out of.

Q takes a sip of his drink. “Can’t relate to that,” he says. “I’ve thought about it a lot.”

“You think about me that much?” James asks with a grin.

“I meant for myself,” Q says.

“How does that work?” James asks. “Being gay, with what you told me before? Can you explain it to me? Assume I don’t know anything.”

“That won’t be a stretch,” Q says, but he’s laughing. “Well, I’m not interested in sex with men or women, or anyone else, for that matter. So I’m asexual. But I’m interested in romantic relationships with men, hence identifying as gay.”

“Is that what we have?” James asks, mostly to flirt, but realizing slightly too late that he was more invested in the answer than he cared to admit. “A romantic relationship?”

Q drains his glass and catches the bartender’s eye for another. “I’m far too sober for this conversation,” he says. James would feel stung by that, but he shared the sentiment. He also orders a drink, feeling that some difficult conversations are best had with lubrication.

“I’m not sure I’m cut out for romantic relationships,” James says. “In all honesty.”

“There’s a term for that too,” Q says. “Aromantic. Feel free to Google it sometime, if you decide at some point you’d like to join in the twenty-first century with regards to gender and sexuality.”

“I was raised in a different era, I freely admit it. It’s not my fault that you have a taste for older men,” James teases. It never fails to make Q blush and get on his nerves, so it is, in James’s mind, the perfect joke. “I’m not saying it’s daddy issues, but...”

Q does go a little pink, but he keeps his cool as the bartender hands him another one of those weird sour beers that James refuses to acknowledge as a proper drink. “I suppose it was different for your generation,” Q says. “I can’t expect you to catch up all at once.”

“You know, I was surprised when you had me meet you here,” James says.

“Because it’s a gay bar?”

“No,” James says. “Because I hadn’t realized you were old enough to drink.”

Q leans over and kisses him briefly, which is unexpected enough to shock James into silence, at least for a moment. When he got his wits back around him, he says, “you know, you’re only encouraging me to call you a baby more often if you’re going to kiss me like that when I do.”

“It’s pretty effective at changing the subject,” Q says. “From my research.”

James has made his livelihood from observing others more closely than they observe him. It’s a little unsettling, although slightly flattering, when the tables are turned.

“All right, you’ve had your second pint,” he says. He feels an odd, warm feeling in his stomach, and he’s barely had a sip of his cocktail yet, so it’s definitely not the alcohol. “Back to my question. We’re definitely dating, but we’re not shagging, and we’re not exclusive. So is this a romantic relationship or not?”

“I’m not sure we have to decide all at once one way or the other. I think we get to decide what we want to call it, and what we want it to be. And if we don’t want to give it a label at all, we don’t have to do that, even,” Q says. “I’ve thought about this a lot – who I am, who I want to be with, what kind of relationships I want in my life. That’s what it’s always come back to – making it into what we want, what suits our needs, what works for us. I don’t think we have to follow the script just because it’s there, so we as you’re honest with ourselves, and with each other.”

James mulls it over for a bit, nursing his drink. “That sounds great in theory,” James says. “But how does it work, the whole deciding for ourselves thing?” Outside of the fact that communication seemed to be a big part of it, and the obvious hurdle of his being a pathological liar. (Which, in fairness, he was working on.)

“Well, I think instead of just assuming we’d do something because it’s normal, or because everybody does it, we’ll talk about it and decide if we want to do that or not,” Q says. “The same way we talked about sex and exclusivity.”

“Well, all right, what the hell, let’s give this a shot,” James says. “So you know I’ve been sleeping with other people, and usually it’s just a one-off thing, but let’s say I meet somebody I’d like to see more often. Is that allowed?”

“I will preface this by saying I don’t think it’s ideal to frame this conversation as me telling you what you are and aren’t allowed to do, but yes, that would be fine with me.”

“What if things went really well with that person?”

“Well, if he or she was important to you, I suppose I’d like to meet them at some point,” Q says. “Get dinner together, or at least coffee. It’d be nice to know the people in your life. And vet him or her for potential ties to foreign agencies and crime syndicates.”

“Let’s say ‘her’ for the sake of convenience. What if I find out that MI6 is compromised and she and I have to run away together at the end of a dangerous mission and we have to change our identities?” James asks. “What would that mean for you and me?”

“Glossing over the fact that extraction under extreme duress is your idea of a serious commitment and major relationship milestone,” Q says, “In this scenario, you’re gone and never coming back, right?”

“I can’t come back without compromising my new identity,” James says. “Obviously.”

“Right,” Q says. “Well, I suppose if you ended up leaving me for someone else, I’d be very sad for a few months, watch a lot of naff TV, and eventually get over it and move on. Pretty standard after a breakup, as I understand it.”

“You wouldn’t be angry with me?”

“I might be a bit pissed off at first,” Q says. “But I wouldn’t resent you for having a new relationship. Life is complicated, and these things happen sometimes. Although in that scenario, I would rather resent that you know MI6 is compromised and didn’t give me so much as a wink and a nudge before riding off into the sunset. Maybe I should like to make my escape and start over in Grenada as well.”

“Hmm,” James says. He hadn’t really expected that answer and isn’t quite sure what to do with it now that he has it. It hadn’t really occurred to him that a) if he wasn’t happy in a given relationship, he reserved the right to simply say so and end things, and b) failing his death or extraction to an exotic location, if he decided he didn’t want to continue this thing with Q, he would likely have to say so with words. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had to break up with somebody he had feelings for before, and it did not sound like a very pleasant prospect. “Maybe we could tip you off and meet you in Minsk or something.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Q deadpans. “Maybe if I’m the one to discover corruption in MI6, my new flame and I will tip you off and meet up with you in Minsk.”

“Hey now,” James says.

“Turnabout’s fair play,” Q says.

“I suppose you’re right,” James says. It felt a bit uncomfortable to imagine Q seeing other people. And it felt uncomfortable to admit that he cared enough to be jealous. “Are you seeing anybody else?”

“I’m not currently,” Q says. “I could let you know if that changes. But the non-exclusivity thing is a two-way street.”

James thought about it for a little while longer, and realized it didn’t actually bother him that much to imagine Q spending time with some other man when he was out of town on a long assignment. The initial possessiveness he had felt was a reflexive response, but after the knee-jerk reaction, it didn’t seem so bad for Q to have other people in his life who were important to him. So long as James was the most important. Well. Maybe that was a bit presumptuous, not to mention premature. So long as James was at least in the top three.

“Are you planning to run away one day to Minsk with somebody other than me?” James asks.

“This Minsk metaphor is getting too complicated for me to follow,” Q says. “What are you getting at? Are you asking if I’d have a committed relationship with someone else while we’re still together?”

“No, not exactly,” James says. “I suppose what I want to know is – am I the person you’d take with you to Minsk, if given the option?”

“I don’t think we’ve been dating long enough for me to know if I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I certainly don’t think of what we’ve been doing as purely casual.”

“I don’t either,” James says. It’s oddly thrilling to own up to it. He meets Q’s eyes for a moment, and then looks away.

“Jolly good, then,” Q says. “It sounds like we’re on the same page there.”

“Well, what about all the other romantic stuff?” James asks. “What’s your stance on that?”

“You’ll have to be more specific, I’m afraid,” Q says.

“You know. Flowers, chocolate, dinners at fancy restaurants, moving in together, meeting the family, getting married. All that bollocks. What do you think about that?”

“You make it sound so appealing,” Q deadpans. “To be quite honest, none of those things have particular appeal for me. I’m not averse to them, but I’m not particularly drawn to that stuff. Although I do like flowers.”

“Really?” Nothing about what James knew of Q, since they’d started dating or as friends and colleagues, had ever intimated to James that Q might be the kind of person who liked flowers.

“Specifically flowering carnivorous plants,” Q says.

“That makes more sense.”

“I’m not all that interested in moving in together,” Q says. “Not anytime soon, at least. I like having my own space at the moment. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I’m thirty-five-”

“Ouch.”

“-but frankly, I don’t much like your flat. Everything smells of store-brand cleaning products.”

“That would be the store-brand cleaning products I buy,” James says. “I can buy new ones.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Q says.

“At your service.”

Q knocks his ankle against James’s in a tag-you’re-it sort of gesture. “Well, how about you? How do you feel about the trappings of romance?”

“Well, just off the cuff – I think I kind of hate those things, mostly,” James says. “I don’t want kids, I don’t think I ever want to get married, and I know I’d never be able to be monogamous. But when I think about what I do want… I know it sounds very unlike me, but I do like the idea of spending the rest of my life with someone. I need companionship – not much, but some. I think I need more freedom and time to myself than most people. But I hate coming home after missions to an empty house.” These days, Q typically came over when he got back from abroad. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to go home alone. It must have been months. “Used to hate it, at least.”

“And what we’re doing now?” Q asks. “Is it working for you? Or would you want something different long-term?”

James gives it some thought. “I like what we have now,” he says. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind living together one day. Definitely by the time I retire. And I don’t want to retire in London. I always pictured myself on a beach somewhere.” He looks up at Q, who he can tell is slightly spooked, but trying to hide it. “That’s a long ways from now, though. If we’re still doing this thing in fifteen years-”

“Then we’ll have plenty of time to talk about it,” Q says. James pulls him close for a kiss and is pleasantly surprised when Q slips an arm around his waist, and doesn’t pull back.

*

Sometimes agents die. It’s an occupational hazard.

But sometimes, even more rarely, they live.

*

As it turned out, Q is rather demanding, in his own way. The back rub was just the beginning. He wants James to run his fingers through Q’s hair, massage his scalp, knead his shoulders, caress his arms, rest his hand on Q’s chest. He wants to cuddle standing, sitting, and lying down, in every conceivable configuration. He wants to kiss, for what seems like hours, and with considerable attention to detail.

If someone had described all this carrying on to James a year ago, he might have viewed it with a kind of polite disdain, regarding their mostly-platonic affections as a kind of junior-varsity version of real sex. But to his surprise, James find himself increasingly drawn in by these newfound intimacies. Though the tempo is slower, it seems like an hour spent in a lazy tangle with Q is often just as soothing as an hour spent in more conventional styles of making love, and many of the prerequisite skills were precisely the same. James sometimes felt that surrender to the pleasure of sensuality without the choreography of sex to speed things along made for a deeper, fuller kind of high. It was like the difference between smoking a havano and knocking back a double shot of vodka. He liked both, depending on the kind of night he was having. But he could see how one might prefer one over, or even to the exclusion, of the other.

(It wasn’t a matter of preference for Q. James knew it was more than that. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t cultivate a taste for what Q liked.)

Q asks about it once in the middle of a particularly relaxed moment. They had just finished taking turns giving one another massages, and were now curled up together in bed spooning while James traced languid motions over Q’s forearms.

“Do you even do this with other…?” his voice trails off.

“With my other what?” James asks drowsily. He figures that this must be how cats felt while napping in a sunbeam.

“You know. Your other dates.”

James’s head is mostly filled with a kind of warm pink static that was making it difficult to parse the question. “What other dates?”

“I suppose you don’t call them that, then,” Q says. “Forget I asked.”

The pleasant buzz that James had been enjoying started to dissipate. “What, you mean the people I shag?” he asks. He could feel Q’s shoulders tense behind him, though James suspects Q is trying not to react.

“Yes,” Q says.

“Do I ever do what with them?”

“This,” Q says, gesturing vaguely to their entwined limbs. He seems at a loss for words. James could sympathize. He never feels like he can find the right word for their kind of intimacy. A word like ‘cuddling’ or ‘snuggling’ didn’t seem like enough to describe the way that even a few moments of skin-to-skin contact with Q felt like the neurochemical equivalent of sinking into a warm bath, how it quiets him and soothes him in the corners of his heart that he hadn’t even realized were hurting.

“Hold them?” James asks. “Or have them hold me?”

“Either,” Q says.

“No, not really,” James says. “Usually it’s a bit more transactional than that. Not much to recommend it by way of warmth.”

“Hmm,” Q says.

“This,” James says, emphasizing his point by interlacing their fingers, “whatever you call it, has its charms.”

“James,” Q asks with a note of hesitation, “are you happy with this? Whatever it’s called.”

“The cuddling?”

“No. Yes. Everything, I suppose.”

James pulls Q’s arms a little tighter around him. “I’d be lying if I said I was ever really happy.”

“I see.”

“Let me explain.”

“Go on, then.”

James considers it for a moment. “I know everyone at the office thinks I’m a libido attached to an agent,” James says. “But as often as not, I don’t much enjoy a one-night stand.”

“Poor you.” James couldn’t see Q’s face, but he can practically hear him rolling his eyes. “I’m sure taking enough lovers to populate the home counties has been just terrible for you. Especially for your reputation around MI6.”

“Oh, I certainly don’t mind the notoriety, I won’t deny that,” James says. “But it’s not as glamorous as it looks from the outside.”

“Naturally,” Q says, sounding skeptical.

“According to Dr Hall, I’m the only person in SIS to have been treated for crabs on two separate occurrences,” James says. “He wrote it up in my last evaluation. Something about compulsive behavior, I’m sure I don’t know. What I’m saying is, it doesn’t do me much good, the sleeping around. And it doesn’t always make me feel good. But it does sometimes make me feel less bad.”

Q pulls his hand away from James’s and begins to riffle his fingers through James’s short hair. It’s astonishingly soothing. Neither of them speak.

“This, I can say without qualification, I enjoy.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Q says quietly. He leans forward to plant a kiss on James’s ear. “Now, if only you enjoyed my company enough to return my equipment to my lab every once and a while.”

“I’m appalled,” James says, “that you would jeopardize everything we have together to admonish me about equipment right now. I thought we had an understanding when it came to talking about work after eight o’clock.”

“It’s two in the afternoon!”

“On a weekend!” James says. “Even worse.”

“All right, all right,” Q relents. “You’re right. I’m sorry, dear.”

Q has never called James by a term of endearment before, and while James normally loathes pet names, he’s surprised to realize it doesn’t seem to chafe the way it usually does. “You’re forgiven,” James says. “Just don’t let it happen again.”

“Thank goodness,” Q says, and pulls him closer.

*

James is six hours into a twelve-hour stakeout in Mumbai. It’s hot, he’s bored, and he misses home so much it hurts a little to breathe. He never used to get sentimental like this on missions. It’s not fun. It makes him feel old.

He turns on his comms. “Do you have a moment?” he asks. “Can we talk?”

“Of course,” Q’s voice says in his ear. “Doesn’t look like the Russians are going to show tonight anyway.”

“No, it doesn’t,” James says. “Do you think there’s any chance they could be persuaded to make their rendezvous somewhere with lower humidity?”

“If the humidity was lower, you’d just complain about something else,” Q points out.

“True,” James says. “Do you know what day it is?”

“March thirteenth,” Q says.

“That’s no good,” James says. “I’m not sure I’m going to be back in time for our anniversary.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. “I hadn’t even thought about it, to be honest,” Q says. There’s a long pause. “Do you like anniversaries?”

“They come around every year if you like them or not,” James says.

“I mean, do you want to celebrate ours?” Q asks. “Is that something we should do?”

“It never occurred to me that we wouldn’t,” James says.

“Thinking you ought to is not the same as wanting to,” Q says.

James considers it for a moment. “I think I want to.” He can’t really explain why this matters to him, especially when he can tell it’s not particularly important to Q one way or the other. It’s partly because it would be nice to have a date on the calendar associated with something good in his life, rather than a tragedy. But more than that, it’s that he feels that this is some kind of accomplishment that is worth noting.

“All right then, it’s settled,” Q says with an air of finality. “We can go to a nice restaurant and you won’t even have to get shot first.” His tone is businesslike, which it generally always is when James is on missions, because Q is at the office surrounded by his coworkers, and also because Q is in no small part responsible for making sure that James doesn’t die when he’s in the field, which tends to make Q slightly stressed.

“Trading up,” James comments. “And just think, if we make it until then, M loses his bet and has to buy drinks for everybody at MI6.”

“I knew you and I had something worth fighting for,” Q says. His tone is light, but James knows he means it.

“I hope this betting pool was a one-off,” James says. “I don’t think I could stand it if our coworkers started going on about how you taught me how to love, or how all you needed was a good shag, or anything like that.”

“There may have already been some comments made by certain individuals to that effect around headquarters,” Q says, a note of distaste in his voice. “And, unrelatedly, there may also have been some untraceable ransomware attacks on certain individuals. And certain cryptocurrency payouts may have been collected.”

“Oh really?” James asks, grinning.

“Extortion is a very effective strategy to teach people good manners,” Q says.

“Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

Q laughs. “Well, let’s just say dinner is on me. So long as wherever we’re going accepts Bitcoin.”

“What’s a Bitcoin?” James asks.

There’s silence on the line for several moments. “You are a wonder, 007,” Q says. “Never change.”

“Cheers,” James says.