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The summons from on high had come halfway through Bond’s second cup of dark roast Columbian.  The young, fresh-faced staffer who delivered the message stood awkwardly to the side, dancing with nerves.  Interrupting the highest-ranking Double O - simply by means of having held his position the longest - was not something one did lightly.  Cutting short his breakfast of strong black coffee was possibly the most dangerous mission this skinny, little waif would ever undertake.

“M said immediately, um… Sir?”

Glacial blue eyes cast a dismissive glance over the young man.  “I heard you. And I will comply. Immediately I have finished. Now run along, there’s a good lad, and tell the dragon I’ll grace her with my presence when I’m bloody ready.”

“Um… yessir!”  He scurried off, and Bond allowed himself a smirk before draining his cup and sighing long and loud.  Of course, he wouldn’t push his luck. Not with the report from Dubai still fresh in M’s mind. But the kid didn’t know that.

He was distracted from his usual welcome banter with Moneypenny by the exit of a tall, thin, red-haired man from M’s office.  With his sharp pointed nose and smarmy smile, he always reminded Bond of a fox. He imagined bared canines when the smile was turned on him.

“Bond,” the man greeted, seeming equally displeased with the encounter.  The atmosphere between them grew frosty as he retrieved his coat and trademark umbrella from the stand.

“Holmes.”  Bond disliked the man intensely, and his having been with M, obviously discussing something of significance to Bond, did not bode well.

“Don’t let us down.”  With a final glare, Mycroft Holmes swept from the room, and Bond turned to face his doom.

Bond stood silently in front of M’s massive, mahogany desk, but he didn’t attempt to hide his slight smirk.  The desk always made him think it was the petite woman’s version of a tomcat pissing on his territory. M waved a distracted hand at him to take a seat as she perused a huge file folder in front of her.

“I have an assignment for you, 007.”  She looked up from the folder, revealing nothing in her expression to him.  “I’m sure you’ve heard rumours of the organisation called Janus. Crime syndicate with its fingers in far too many pies.  Their most recent move, however, makes it impossible for us to ignore them anymore. They’ve got too big for their britches and have become an annoyance.”

M slid another folder on her desk across to him.  “Here is all the intel we have at the moment. Your mission is to search out the head of Janus and eliminate him.  His identity is unknown but the information inside should lead you to him eventually.”

“Your flight leaves at 1700 hours tomorrow, 007,”  Tanner interjected from his place at M’s side. “Report at 0900 for your final briefing and your kit.”

“Study the file, 007.  Any questions should be directed to me and me alone.” M gave him that cold ‘don’t disobey me’ look agents knew all too well.

“Ma’am.” Bond stood, taking the file from her.

“Dismissed, 007.”  M turned back to the file she had been studying when he entered, ignoring his presence once more as he turned to leave.

“Is this wise, M?  Sending

Bond

?”  Tanner questioned when they were alone in her office once more.  “Shouldn’t he know, going into it?”

“Wise... not in the least.  Sending him... he is our only option.  And don’t question my judgement, Tanner.   I’m M, you are not. Out!” waving a dismissive hand at him, also. “And Tanner, he’s

not

to know.  Am I understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tanner said.  His sigh of frustration was entirely internal.

Rather than return to his windowless postage stamp of an office, Bond headed for Legoland’s roof and the rarely used escarpment-like patios that afforded some of the best views this side of the Thames.  Though chilly, it was the first decent day London had seen since late summer, and he rather fancied studying the details of his new mission whilst breathing air he hadn’t shared with Mycroft Holmes.

He opened the folder, and his eyes caught at the location scrawled at the top of the mission brief.

Bloody fuck.  Siberia.

Alec.

He’d not thought of Siberia--

Cold enough to freeze your bollocks off on a sunny day, but plenty of ways to keep warm with the right partner.  I’m going to show you how Cossacks heat things up, Jameska.

And Christ, Alec had definitely shown--

No. Those thoughts and their emotions had been buried a decade ago, and James shoved them back to their grave in the shadowy recesses of his mind where he never dared look too closely.

A sharp inhalation of autumn crisp air brought him back to focus and to the brief in his hand.  There was work to do.

Severnaya, Siberia.  Top secret weapons facility attacked.  One weapon was stolen: the control disks for two Soviet-era satellites that controlled a pair of electromagnetic pulse weapons from the Cold War.

Code Name:  Goldeneye.

"Fancy," Bond murmured and flicked past the technical details.  He would only need that detail if and when things got out of hand.  Instead, he turned to the data on Janus and its elusive head.

Plenty of reading to be had here.  The rise of an organisation that was starting to worry all global superpowers.  As a matter of course, Bond scanned the data for specifics relating to Britain and her interests.  He frowned when he came up blank. There were no pages missing in the file -- page numbers running as they should, nothing redacted -- but definitely no actions that would have had the British Government, aka: Mycroft Holmes, demanding that Bond should not let them down.

Of Janus himself, there was very little.  Believed to be a man in his early forties of Russian extraction.  Dangerous. Wealthy. And with considerable influence over a criminal organisation that excelled at both cyber and traditional enterprises.  Known bases of operation included Barcelona, Gdansk and Hong Kong, but currently believed to be ensconced in the arse end of Siberia.

Which was where the lone survivor of the Severnaya attack -- which Janus was suspected of carrying out -- had gone missing after giving her report to authorities in Yakutsk.

Natalya Simonova: age 26; Information Technology technician and software programmer officially attached to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and its Federal Water Resources Agency at a field site outside Yekaterinburg.

Not

Siberia.

Only one reason for her to be at Severnaya.

Hacker.  Weapons Programmer.

“A boffin.  Just lovely,” Bond muttered. He loathed her kind.  Heads completely buried in computers and code, they had no idea how to interact with people or the real world impact of their ‘inventions.’  This one was probably just like the ones downstairs. The oblivious techies Boothroyd brought in to try to modernise the SIS and the way it gathered intelligence: with as few human agents as possible, apparently.  And if the cockup in Dubai was anything to go by, what a bloody disaster

that

was turning out to be.

He turned his attention to the grainy but reasonably detailed photo of the woman on the opposite page.  Pretty enough. A determined set to her jaw. Spirited. And the only one with the complete story of what happened at Severnaya.  The path to finding Janus and Goldeneye began with Ms Simonova. Assuming, of course, she was still alive and had not been tortured to death for information.  Her chopped up remains buried in a shallow grave deep in a Siberian forest.

Bond sat at one of the tables on the empty patio, stretched out his legs, and looked across the Thames to the other side of London.  He tapped the edge of the closed file against the tabletop, considering what it held.

Or rather, what it

didn’t

hold.

If you want a potential spoiler, here's the art Springbok 7 created that inspired this story and it's writers:   "Quilinus is a Terrible Name for a Villain."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Aleksandr Kostya Trevelyan poured himself a glass of chilled vodka and settled in on the sofa, one arm draped across the back and took a healthy swallow.  Over the rim of the glass, he tracked his partner who stood across the room in front of a wall covered with monitors, each displaying a different scenario.

“I thought we’d agreed you wouldn’t poke at M anymore.” The calm, clipped words, tinged with only a tad of annoyance, cut through the silence in the room.  “You taunted her this time. She’ll only tolerate being made a fool of for so long.”

Before they’d come to Russia, Alec had visited his old ‘therapist’.  A bald, scholarly man of middle years who’d gained a certain degree of trust in assisting high-stakes international criminals in dealing with their demons.

What few they had.

Alec, who never had and never would trust a shrink -- and who was quite frankly baffled at the stupidity of some of their rivals who believed such a man would

not

be a paid informant for one of the many global intelligence services -- saw an opportunity to test the waters, and sure enough, Dr Ruisheng turned out to be a direct pipeline to MI6 and Olivia Mansfield’s ears.

Little wonder so many of their competitors found their operations compromised or themselves in prison.

Or dead.

Alec, however, had fed the doctor nothing but misinformation over the years in his ‘sessions.’  Enough to be plausible, but never anything to remotely compromise their enterprise. Ruisheng was hardly the first avenue he’d taken to rile his old master, after all.  He’d pulled M’s pigtails in many ways over the years.

And she had always responded

beautifully

.

But Dr Ruisheng had outlived his usefulness, so Alec ended their final recorded session with a direct message for M in the form of a bullet to the brain for the dear doctor.

“The opportunity was too good to pass up,

malyutka

.  Just one last time.  Promise ... maybe.” Alec chuckled at the thought of just how pissed off she must have been.  How she would have cursed him. The feeling was mutual.

Alec rose and moved to stand directly behind his partner, resting his free hand on the younger man’s hip.  “Given the circumstances, had it been your brother, you couldn’t have resisted, either, and would have done the same thing.”

“I probably would have done worse.”  He smirked and leaned back into Alec’s larger frame, reaching to take the glass of vodka and nodding at one of the monitors to their right.  “It appears our latest acquisition has arrived.” He finished Alec’s drink. “Shall we go take a look and see what we paid such an exorbitant price for?”

"Usual play?" Alec asked as they descended in the lift.

The other man settled his tablet more comfortably on his forearm and pushed his glasses up his nose with one finger, nodding.  "No reason to veer from the path just yet."

Alec smirked and pulled him in for a rough, brief kiss, breaking apart milliseconds before the lift doors slid open.  He stalked out leaving his slightly dishevelled companion to follow.

"Ms Simonova! How lovely of you to join us.  I do hope your journey here was comfortable?"

"It was not!  I was bundled into the back of a vehicle, blindfolded and forced to conceal myself for much of the ride.  This is

not

the way I expected to be treated when bringing you such a prize."  Her unkempt appearance only lent credence to her words: the woman’s auburn hair was tousled and knotted; her slim skirt, stained; her blouse and tights, torn.

"Indeed, but as you will appreciate, we must be cautious.  And I believe it was

you

who insisted we make your disappearance convincing.  Perhaps a drink to make amends? Polugar, yes?" Alec gestured to a lackey who hurried to comply with Alec's request.  "May I introduce my technical expert, Q? He will be examining what you have brought me to ensure I got what I paid most handsomely for."

"I don't think so."  The woman tilted her chin defiantly.  "These keys do not leave my sight. Not until I am sure you will uphold your end of the deal in its entirety."

Alec loomed over the woman, eyes growing hard, though his tone remained courteous.  "You will get everything you asked for

when

I am assured I have the same.  We are reasonable people, you and I.  Hand over the case so my man can run whatever tests he requires.  You can rest here. Eat. Drink. Refresh yourself. There is even a television in the room.  The only acceptable answer is 'of course, you are most hospitable'."

Simonova’s spine tensed, and for a moment, it looked like she would refuse, continue to stand her ground, but a menacing step from two of Alec's men changed her mind.  "Here." She held out the silver briefcase, which Q took from her. "But when you verify what I have brought you, I am paid the rest of what I am owed and disappear from every electronic system, as agreed."

Hazel eyes met hers steadily.  Q blinked. "Easy," he said and turned away, taking the case to the room next door.

When Alec appeared beside him minutes later, Q was running his fingers over the protective foam padding that surrounded the technology.  "Alright,

malyutka

?"

"So much power, Alec," Q murmured, never taking his eyes from the keys.  "The destructive potential of this weapon excites and fascinates me. But it horrifies me even more.  It looks so harmless, hardly worth what we paid for it, but we both know there isn't enough money in the world to make me let it out of my hands now..."

Ten million pounds.  That had been Natalya’s asking price when they’d approached her, the only capitalist in that god-forsaken outpost.  She didn’t know he’d have paid double the price once it became clear others knew Goldeneye existed and were making their play for a weapon that could do untold damage to … well, to

everything

.

The Severnaya op had been simple enough to plan.  Loyal, Trevelyan-trained, Janus mercenaries attacked the ‘abandoned’ radar station, decimating the company of Russian soldiers responsible for protecting Goldeneye’s control centre deep beneath the base.  Whilst the battle raged outside, Simonova had hacked into the security systems, unlocking the protections build around the three keys that now sat in the case in front of Q. She then deployed a computer virus developed by Q into the system that set the environmental controls into overload, destroying the station, the control centre beneath, and the few technicians and soldiers who had survived the initial attack.

And now it was here.

“Still plan to destroy it after you learn its secrets?” Alec asked.

Though over 40 years old, Goldeneye nevertheless represented the height of Cold War technological and engineering progress.  And Q suspected that components of its software were -- while far from cutting edge in an era where supercomputers could fit in the palm of one’s hand -- still relevant, still worth investigation and study for the secrets they could reveal, the advancements they could generate.

He nodded firmly.  “Yes. To both questions.”

“And there’s nothing I can say to dissuade you?”  Alec’s tone was tense and disapproving in Q’s ear -- they’d had this discussion more than once over the last weeks -- but he nevertheless nuzzled his partner’s temple and reached an arm around him to place his hand over Q’s where it rested on the foam next to the devices.  “There’s so much that we could do with --”

“No Alec.  Just … no.

Never

.  Never that.  I made a promise.”

“To your

brother

.” There was no hiding the disgust in Alec’s voice.  In some ways, Alec hated Q’s brother more than he hated M.

Q turned in Alec’s half-embrace and looked him in the eye.  “No. To

myself

!”  Q sighed.  Ran a hand through his perpetually tousled curls.

“Alec, I loathe what my brother stands for:  the hypocrisy of his actions and the lies that slip so easily from his lips that even he believes them now.  But though we have vastly different perceptions of what it means, and what we do to show it, like him, I love my country.  I made a promise to myself never to act against Britain or her interests, and I will not go back on that. You know this. I’ve never hidden that from you.  You first started to trust me

because

you know my word is my bond.  Where would we be now without that?”

“Janus would be --”

“Fuck Janus, Alec.  I’m not talking about the syndicate.  Where would

we

be?”

Alec met Q’s gaze as the equal he was.  The equal he had always been.

Partners.

That’s what they’d agreed to be nearly a decade ago after Q had bought Alec at auction, immediately freeing him before tending to the severe injuries and persistent illness Alec had suffered as a result of the explosion at
Arkhangelsk that had taken everything -- job, purpose, identity … James -- from the MI6 agent.

Where would they be?  Without Q’s oft irritating refusal to ever withdraw it once his word was given?

“We’d be nowhere,” Alec admitted.

“You don’t hate her, Alec. You know that even if you won’t admit it. You may not love her the way you once did, but would you really put her in jeopardy with this?” Q nodded at the stolen tech behind them. “

She

didn’t betray you, Olivia Mansfield did.”

Alec considered Q’s words for a long moment.

“You’re a bloody wanker. I hope you know that,” he finally said.

“With you reminding me at least once a day for the last decade, how could I not?”  Q schooled his expression carefully, though he was fairly certain Alec could read glee and smugness in his eyes.

Alec looked over Q’s shoulder at the Goldeneye components that gleamed in their case on the worktop in the focused lighting from above. “So we destroy it.  For England.”

Q turned and joined Alec in his appraisal of the seemingly innocuous technology that was anything but.

“Yes,” he agreed, his tenor sounding surprisingly deep and sonorous between them.  “For England.”

He pulled out of Alec’s arms and set about gathering his laptop and other diagnostic tools. “Initial testing will take a couple of hours, so you might as well entertain our guest.”

Alec groaned. Q empathised. While Natalya Simonova had proven herself a reasonably skilled hacker, she was tedious in the extreme.

“If you’re good and manage not to kill her …”

Alec’s frown changed to an expectant grin. Q always rewarded Alec’s ‘good behaviour’ in the best ways.

“Well, it’s bloody cold out there, and we’re here for only a few more days at best,” Q continued as he bustled about his small laboratory, “I know how much you enjoy showing me how Cossacks keep warm when we’re on your home turf, so …”

Oh, yes.

If being good and not killing Simonova whilst Q worked earned him

this

reward, Alec would be very good, indeed.

This story was also inspired by the trailer for Hitman 2 and it is referenced quite specifically in this chapter.  If you're interested in the video, you can find it here: Hitman 2 Trailer.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“R, monitor the external connections.  The instant it shows any sign of attempting to reach a system outside this room --”  Q looked at the blue-haired woman who stood at the workstation to his right.

“I

know

, Q.  Just like in our test runs,” R replied with a slight smile at the screen in front of her.  “Relax. Your shoulders ‘ave gone all tense, and there’s no need. I’ve got this.”

“

We’ve

got this,” he corrected.   And they did. They always had. They had been coding and hacking together for nearly 13 years.  Before Alec. Before Janus. Before Q had fled London with half a dozen MI5 goons on his heels. Suitably chastised, he consciously worked to relax his shoulders and returned his attention to his station.

Q’s fingers flew over the keys of his laptop, and though his eyes registered the code of the hack as it appeared on his screen, his mind was already several steps ahead, anticipating and navigating around the blocks Goldeneye’s onboard security system attempted to throw up in his path.

He broke past the first layer of protocols in under 30 seconds, but though the system was decades old and thereby highly vulnerable to a 21st Century incursion, given what the system was capable of doing -- of

destroying

-- it still very much held the upper hand.”

“Goldeneye system output nominal.  I don’t think it really knows or cares that you’re in there,” R said with a quick glance from her screen.  “Proceed to secondary level.”

Q nodded and returned to his task.

He’d met Romala, or ‘R’ as she preferred, coding late at night in one of the secure computer laboratories at King’s College.  They had each broken in. She out of necessity: R had been living rough for 9 months at the time. He out of rebellion: his brother’s pathetic attempt to restrict Q’s online access had a rather stiff payback for the annoying bureaucrat.

Their bond had been instantaneous.  Kindred souls … kindred minds.

He had laughed more that night than he could remember. And as he was leaving her to scuttle off home in the small hours with promises to meet up again the next evening, he stopped himself short on the pavement and turned back toward her.  “Are we … stupid question, but … does this make us friends?”

R’s response was a cuff to the back of his head and a smile at him over her shoulder as she walked away, “Seems it does, Q.”

She’d been the first one to call him Q.

“Because Quilinius is a terrible name for a villain,” she’d complained when he told her about his fantasies of world domination.

He hacked his first bank for the quid to get R off the streets and into Uni.  He’d been 16; she, 22.

And though Q had completely covered his tracks, somehow Mycroft had known anyway.

His tit of a brother continued to be a thorn in Q’s side, scooping him off the street from the rear seat of increasingly expensive chauffeur-driven cars at least twice per year.  Mycroft’s star was rising and he did not need his younger brother flaunting his criminal tendencies. It was unfortunate enough that he had Sherlock’s eccentricities to explain away, but their brother had at least established himself as useful to Britain and her ruler.  Q felt no such need to contribute. Too constricting.

“Under ten minutes, Q,” R observed as the second set of protocols fell to Q’s swift fingers.  “Ever get the feeling this is going too well?”

“We never get cocky.  Tread lightly from here on in and watch for anything spurious or out of place.”

“Of course.  Anyone would think this was my first Cold War weapons system.”

That had been the final straw for Mycroft.  The hacking of half a dozen MoD establishments in 24 hours, including accessing the overall control system for Polaris.  Mycroft’s lackeys stole them away minutes before the full might of British Intelligence and law enforcement tore their flat apart.

Minutes later, Q and R ditched Mycroft and his lackeys and made their way to one of the many safe houses Q had established around London.

A look of utter rage.  That was the expression his brother was wearing the last time he had seen Mycroft before Q dashed off, dodging cars, motorbikes, and pedestrians caught in the rush hour crush of Piccadilly.

It was the look that told Q he could never go home again.

Three days after the raid of their flat -- in the same hour that bodies matching their descriptions
were found washed up on Oliver Island in the Thames -- Wilfred Owen Quilinus Holmes and
Romala Stone
, now Conner Latham and Ellie Martel, alighted from their train at Dresden Hauptbahnhof, hired a car, and disappeared into the wilds of Saxony on the

Bundesautobahn

17.

Q gave a wry grin without lifting his eyes from his screen.  “Good times.”

“You and I remember that time quite differently,” R sniped from her station.  Though she had lived on the streets for three years before meeting Q, the hand to mouth existence had been very taxing and had left permanent damage to her overall health.  It was one of the reasons why Janus -- with hideouts and safe houses all over the globe -- typically moved only when it had to.

A sudden, single alarm from her station sounded in the lab.  “Q! Goldeneye’s trying to--”

“I see it.”

One side of the split screen in front of him showed the code of his hack as he wrote it, on the other, Goldeneye’s response.  And from the looks of it, she was bloody well pissed off.

“I’m almost in,” he said, fingers flying across his keyboard, desperate to complete the final bits of sequence and syntax that would gain him access to Goldeneye’s operating system before--.

“And

she’s

almost

out

!”

She was.

On the tray next to his laptop, the optical drive containing the OS and firing codes activated, the laser beneath within the housing caused the smooth, facetless citrine at its centre -- the golden eye -- to glow menacingly.

“Bugger!  Time?!”

“Twenty-two seconds.”

“It’ll be enough.”

“No, it won’t …”

“I can

do

this. Time?!”

“Sixteen … 15 … 14 …”

“C’mon you bonny lass,” Q muttered at the screen as if cajoling a lover.  His fingers on the keyboard missed not a beat nor a stroke. “Open up for me. Show me what you’re hiding …”

“Eight … 7 … 6 …

Owen

!”

Vibrations from the drive increased, thrumming into the worktop until Q could feel them through the chassis of his laptop.  The alarm from R’s station a near constant tone rather than individual pings.

“Five … 4 … 3 …”

The thrumming stopped.  Q threw up his hands and jumped away from his computer as if burned by the keys themselves.

“I’m in!”

Like the petals of a flower opening to meet the dawn, the whole of Goldeneye’s operating system unfolded on the screen before him.  He sensed more than saw R join him at his side, so riveted was he by the coding of generations past. Then one phrase caught his attention.  Pushing up his glasses with the pad of his thumb, Q leaned in closer to the screen.

His breath caught in his chest and on the exhale, a curse.

“Oh, shite!”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Bond hit the lift button and punched a number into his mobile while he waited.  It wasn’t listed in his address book, but he knew it by heart. The bright, efficient voice that greeted him on the other end bordered on flirtatious.

“Putting you through now, James.”

“Thank you, Moneypenny.”

He had no patience for their usual banter.  A coded message had indicated a change in the status of his mission and was accompanied by an order to contact his superior immediately. It was 1.47 a.m. in London.

“Bond?”

“Ma’am?”

“Confirmed that Janus is the organisation now in control of Goldeneye.  Also, your target, Simonova, is believed to have delivered to Janus technology enabling them to activate the weapon.  We believe it also would allow some manner of test routine to be initiated, and the MoD fears a possible incursion. I don’t care what it takes, Bond, Janus needs to be shut down.  Now!”

Coordinates followed, along with instructions for getting the kit he needed to head out.  M had some final words for him. “The head of Janus takes care of business himself. He’ll know you’re coming.  Don’t get caught with your trousers down, 007.”

Three hours later, Bond sat in his flat -- kit stowed in his luggage next to the door, tumbler on the table at his elbow -- studying again the intel he had been given for his mission, awaiting the time for him to head to catch his flight.   Of course she was sending him to the coldest netherworlds in outer Fucktardia ... of course, she was.

This wasn’t the first time he wondered if M’s true intent in giving him these missions was the hope he wouldn’t come back from one of them.   Such was the contentious nature of their relationship, but he wasn’t about to give her that satisfaction. Battered, bruised, bloodied, and oftentimes having cheated death, he always managed to return, obnoxious, old dog he was.

This was a curious assignment, however.  Yes, Janus had his hands in countless criminal activities throughout the world, but it still struck Bond as odd that none of those pursuits went directly -- or really even indirectly -- against Britain herself.   What was it then that had spurred M to believe there would be an incursion against them, thereby driving this op? It seemed that he was missing more than a few necessary details for this mission. Not that this was new for M.
Secretive, old bitch. 
And Janus now had Simonova delivering him Goldeneye, for which Bond assumed he had paid an exorbitant amount.  The question then became, did Janus need her expertise to continue with this project or was she just a means to an end?  She might be his way into Janus. An option to keep in mind.

Money seemed not to be an issue for Janus, either.  What he wanted, he acquired. The cost, irrelevant. The man’s holdings must run far wider and deeper than MI6 estimated.

With a glimpse at the clock on the mantle, Bond downed the rest of his drink, stowed the file in his luggage, and was shortly on the street outside his flat, hailing a cab for Heathrow.  It was time to find out just how extensive those holdings and Janus’ global influence really were.
Twenty hours and two connecting flights later -- he could have made better travel arrangements using Travelocity than Accounting had done this trip -- Bond was sat at the bar of the Lotte Hotel Vladivostok watching Boris Grishenko’s pathetic attempts at pulling a lovely brunette.Now working for the hotel’s IT and Security Department, Grishenko was a bespeckled, weaselly-faced boffin with diminished social skills and an excess of arrogance, but as a former colleague of Natalya Simonova -- having left Severnaya a bare fortnight before the attack -- he was the first link in the chain that Bond was sure would ultimately take him to Janus.  After 20 minutes of the man’s oily attentions, the brunette finally made her escape and an agitated, muttering Boris slid onto the bar stool beside Bond.  
“Arrogant bitch.  Did you see that?”

Bond, who had observed every moment of the inept seduction and felt the woman had been very restrained in not slapping him -- he’d seen her rein in the impulse, twice -- nevertheless smiled sympathetically.

“A man of such intelligence is wasted on a woman like that.  You need a challenge. Brains over beauty.”

“Yes, yes!  That is exactly it, my friend.”  Boris pushed up his spectacles and gestured expansively at the room.  “The women here are so dull. Not at all what I left behind.”

“Oh?”  Bond waved over the barman who refilled their drinks.  “You worked with beautiful women?”

“I worked with

clever

women.  Sneaky, sly, and smart.  See here...?” Grishenko pulled out a battered leather wallet and extracted a photograph.  “I, Boris Grishenko, am the best, of course, but

this

one,” tapping a finger on the face of Simonova, “She is very good.  Beautiful, too.”

“Bond.  James Bond.  Journalist.” He held out his hand, and Grishenko shook it.  “I know this place,” Bond pointed to the large station in the background of the photograph.  “It was destroyed. Everyone killed.”

Boris tapped his fingertips against his nose and leaned closer, whispering. “Not everyone.  Clever, I told you.”

“She survived?”  Bond’s eyebrows rose with feigned surprise.  He leaned in closer as if sharing a secret. “My news agency would pay handsomely for an interview.  Can you put us in touch?”

Boris’s weaselly face twitched as he mulled over the potential for making money.  Simonova would demand payment but no reason he couldn’t take a cut. Bond watched the same oily smile that had failed so miserably with the brunette spread across Grishenko’s face.
“Let’s talk,” he said, clinking their glasses together.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Arms crossed with one hand partially covering his mouth, Q stared down at the first, the

only

, piece of technology to ever frighten him.

He’d expected to find a trove of untold treasures from what amounted to the Dark Ages of computer programming.  An archaeological dig, of sorts, designed to tease and tantalise.

What he had found, however, terrified instead.

Some artefacts were better left untouched.  Their curses far more deadly than could be imagined.

Though still dangerous, the optical drive was silent now and had been since Q pulled out of the operating system. Its laser no longer hummed and burned; the citrine at its core lay dark and dormant.

Goldeneye was sleeping.

Q did

not

intend to wake it up.

The lab door behind him opened; the powerful footfalls of Alec’s familiar gait reassuring in this moment of disquiet.

“I hope you have an excellent treat in store for me, love, for I swear to God, Q, that woman is the most tedious bitch I’ve met in twenty years.  Excellent timing, by the way, your message. If I’d had to spend another ten minutes listening to her babble aimlessly whilst doing who knows what on the tablet we gave her, I’d have--”

The tension he felt radiating from Q’s form when he gripped the top of his shoulder stopped Alec in his tracks. And though in profile, he could see it echoed in the set of Q’s jaw.  In their nearly ten years together, he’d never seen his partner quite like this before.

“Q?”

Q spared Alec only a glance out of the corner of his eye before turning his attention back to Goldeneye.  Nodding at the device, he sighed and bit his upper lip, something Alec saw him do only when he was deeply troubled.  “We have a problem.”

Fifteen minutes later Alec was leaning over the workstation, head nearly flush with the worktop, inspecting the Goldeneye optical drive at its level.  In spite of what Q had just finished telling him, it still looked perfectly harmless. His fingers itched to --

“Oh, just poke it already!” Q snapped from the other side of the table with a wave of his hand.  “I know you want to. You’re not going to wake it up by touching it.”

“No,” Alec said with a huff, looking up at Q with a pout. “I don’t want to.”  He stood upright again and moved away from the device. “I only made you

think

I want to poke it.”

“You’re such a toddler.  You know that, right?” Q turned on his heel and ran his hand through his hair again.  The mop of dark curls was practically standing on end. “Alec, this is serious. Deadly.”

“Q, the bulk of what we do is deadly or, at minimum, deadly serious.”  Alec turned the device this way and that then picked it up and held it in his hand.  “So what you’re telling me is that the

real

threat of this thing isn’t the EMP?  It’s what happens after everything starts turning back on?”

“Precisely.”  Q plucked the drive from Alec’s palm and set it back on the worktop.  He’d meant what he’d said. It wasn’t dangerous like this, but that didn’t mean he liked the idea of it being handled like a Hyde Park Winter Wonderland trinket.  “There’s a virus embedded in the electromagnetic pulse. Scattered code that will infect computers at and around the target site so that when power and functionality are eventually restored, it links those systems together creating a network from which it can send out the virus to still more systems, and when it has enough of what it needs, it’ll start building.”

“Building … what?”

“Itself.  That computer virus contains -- for lack of a better analogy -- the DNA, the building blocks of life, for an artificial intelligence that could do whatever it wants to do.  Or worse.”

“Worse?”

“Whatever someone

else

wants it to do.”

“Q, it’s not alive.”

“Not yet.”  Q paced the length of the lab, gesticulating purposefully as he did so.  “Alec, I know AIs. It’s one of my bloody doctorates for Christ’s sake. And the reason I was always so fascinated by them is because of the ‘what if.’”

“What do you mean, ‘what if?’  Stop speaking in riddles, Q.” He wanted to say, ‘and stop bloody moving about’ but knew better than that.

“What if it attained sentience?  What if the artificial intelligence became self-aware?  Capable of making its own decisions. Its own choices. Determining for itself.”

“You’re talking nonsense.  No. You’re talking science

fiction

.”  Alec didn’t attempt to disguise his incredulity.

“I should be.”  Q stopped short and pointed at Goldeneye.  “But there it sits. What that virus does is so far beyond what the programmers should have been able to do for the time … Alec, I can’t begin to explain it.”

“Q, I fail to see the problem.  Your initial plan was to destroy it.  So, destroy it.”

“It’s not as simple as that.  I can’t just chuck it in the furnace or hit it with a hammer.  It’s not only self-propagating, but it’s also designed to protect itself and its programming.  I was able to download the framework of the operating system before I pulled out and unless I can create a counter code or an antivirus, any attempt to destroy the programme will activate the defence systems and immediately trigger the EMP from the satellite.”

Alec’s eyes dropped to the device on the table, and he took an instinctive step backwards.  “Bugger.”

“Yeah. At the moment the only thing I can think to say is ‘we are so fucked’ and not in a good way.” Q sighed shaking his head, focused on the hard drives.  “The best we can do at the moment is to lock it away until I can come up with a solution. In the wrong hands...”

“They shouldn’t have been able to... not at

that

time with the state of technology... unless...” Alec knew that Q wasn’t really talking to him but thinking out loud, and he didn’t understand half of what Q had been talking about, to begin with.  But, he also knew that the uncertainty and fear he was sensing in his partner was not a good thing. Negative emotions, Q rarely openly showed, and if he was afraid, then Alec had good cause to be afraid, too.

“Q...”

“Not now Alec.  I need to think. “ Q turned and headed toward the door.  “I want not only the doors securities to this lab set to maximum but a guard posted as well.

No

one gets at this.”   If Q deemed that necessary, Alec would make it happen.

Alec set the programming on the door then headed to the guard’s common room where they spent their downtime, looking for a body to post at the lab door.  He was surprised to find Simonova there, chatting and flirting with one of the younger men.

“Osyen.  Break over!”  Alec barked at the guard who snapped to attention.  “Lab 2, door duty. No one is to go in or out without my say so.  Understood? Go!”

Simonova slid something across the table to him.  Osyen’s mobile phone.

“Wait!”  Alec snatched up the phone and examined it, flipping through apps, checking browsers.  “What were you doing with this?”

“Playing a game.”  Simonova smiled disarmingly, pouting.  “I am so bored here. I want my payment, and I want to leave.  What is taking so long? Has your man not seen enough?”

Alec tossed the phone back onto the table.  It skittered off the surface and fell to the floor.  “Pick it up and get to your post.” Osyen scrambled to comply.  Alec turned again to Simonova. “You shouldn’t be in here. You stay in the south end of the building as agreed.  I’ll tell you when you can leave.”

Back in the living accommodation, Simonova made herself a coffee.  Hands out of sight of the second guard now posted at her door, she let Osyen’s mobile slip from her sleeve onto the counter glad the skills she’d learnt from her uncle had allowed her to nick the device when saying goodnight to Osyen before he left to comply with Trevelyan’s orders.  It only took a few minutes to establish a connection outside to her email server. She scanned her messages as the kettle boiled. Two more groups had made impressive offers, and having listened at the door to the lab earlier, Natalya now knew how she could better them.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Those two in the corner, if you would please, Ms Sato.  I’ll join you shortly.” Q waited until his personal guard had left the lab with the two small, silver equipment cases before he turned his attention back to R who still wore her dressing gown, her short blue hair dishevelled from the sleep the security alert had woken her from.

“Three hours, no more,” he said, looking at her from beneath his fringe as he powered down his laptop and stowed his tablet.  “Move out what you can in that time but burn the rest. You know the protocols.”

“Burn it?!  Q --” Granted, she bloody hated the cold of Wherethefuck, Siberia, but like all their hubs, it had taken years to get the facility equipped and running to Q’s exacting standards.

“I know!  I know. I don’t care for it either.”  He double checked the contents of his messenger bag whilst he explained.  “But this location is compromised. Simonova might talk to anyone.

Every

one.  We can never come back here.”

She nodded.  “I’ll take care of it.  No one will ever know we were here.”

Inventory complete, R waited until he checked the loaded Sig Sauer P365 that sat next to his bag and slid it into the holster he wore beneath his blue and green cardigan before handing him his drab, olive anorak and purple scarf.  “Your hat and gloves are in the pockets,” she said as he slipped on the coat.

He smiled.  “Thank you, Mum.”

“What about Osyen?”

Q met her level gaze with one of his own.  “You know how Alec feels about betrayal.”

“Understood.”

He slung his bag over his shoulder and gave his friend a peck on the cheek.  “We’ll see you in Sorrento.”

R wrapped her arms about her, suddenly chilled in the warm room.  Q rarely went into the field. “When?”

“Once we’ve retrieved Goldeneye.”

Alec was making final preparations to move out with his small strike force of soldiers when Q walked into the loading bay, all geared up for the mission. “No. No.  No! Absolutely

not

!” Alec growled when he saw him.  “Cuj,” he called over his shoulder as he stalked toward his partner, “get that third Land Rover loaded now.  We pull out in five!” He plucked the thickly woven knit cap from Q’s head and pressed it into his chest. “You are staying

here

to help with the decampment.”

“And just who among your soldiers is qualified

or

capable of securing Goldeneye once it’s located?”

“No!”  Alec glared at him shoving the cap into the pocket of Q’s anorak.   “Not going.”

“Alec!”

“No!  That’s final.”

“I need to be there.  You

know

I do.”   Q pulled his cap back out, tugging it back on his head.  He brushed past Alec toward the middle vehicle he knew Alec would be riding in.

Alec growled with frustration.  He knew Q was right. That didn’t mean he had to like it.  “Don’t leave my side, you little shite. You’ll be a distraction if I have to worry about where you are and what you’ve got into.”   And he wouldn’t be able to protect Q if he wandered too far away. Not an acceptable option.

“I’m hardly defenceless, Alec.” Q slid into the back of the Rover on the passenger side in an attempt to temporarily placate the man.  “I’m armed, and I’m more than a tad trained in self-defence. Or do you have so little faith in the thousand plus hours you’ve had me rolling around in the training room this last decade?”

“That’s not the point, and you know it.”  Alec gripped the top of the truck’s door as Q buckled himself in.  “We don’t know who that bitch might be meeting with. This is going to turn into a complete shite show and --”

“I’ll know who she’s been negotiating with before we reach Khabarovsk.”  Comfortably settled, he pulled out his laptop and picked up the secure satellite connection that would allow him to continue to investigate Ms Simonova’s illicit double-dealings en route.  “You’ll have plenty of time to plan how to get Goldeneye back.”

Alec rolled his eyes.  “Yeah. Six bloody hours just to get there.”  And on some of the roughest paths and roads Siberia had to offer since Osyen -- one of Janus’ two helo pilots -- had stolen the Sikorsky to help Simonova make her escape with Goldeneye.

A whistle and shout from Cuj signalled they were ready.  Alec shut Q’s door and slid into the passenger seat. “I swear I’ll find a way to kill Osyen twice,” he grumbled as their small convoy rolled out.

“If anyone can …” Q said absently from behind him as they drove out of the warm shelter of the loading bay into the icy, pre-dawn Siberian night.  His attention was fully centred on the screen in front of him and the streams of data he pulled from the sources at his fingertips. With a few words to the driver and a quick glance over his shoulder, Alec settled himself for the long ride, confident his partner would find Simonova, her new buyer, and Goldeneye.

It was inevitable.

No prey could hide for long when Q went hunting.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Bond stared out at the road from behind the wheel as he drove.  Boris sat next to him, endlessly babbling about God knew what. At this stage, Bond was only hearing about every eighth word anyway.

Boris was a means to an end, nothing more.  And if he had to suffer through the man’s constant, self-important prattle for a few hours, as long as it led him closer to Simonova and Janus, so be it.  Missions had placed him in far more precarious positions than this. This was hardly what would be considered hazardous duty.

But when the prattle turned to Boris’ work with Simonova, Bond began to pay a bit more attention.   It wasn’t hard to pick out what was actual truth versus over-inflated ego.
And what was true was … concerning.In and amongst the flotsam and jetsom of Boris’ prattle, Bond learned that Simonova had originally taken multiple offers for Goldeneye -- Boris had earned himself a cut for keeping his mouth shut; the irony -- and while Janus ended up being the highest bidder, there were a few other organisations who had submitted offers just after her deadline.Substantial offers.“And so pretty Natalya took back what she gave.  Is meeting with new interested party. Says she likes what they stand for, too.  Don’t care, so long as is more money for her and for me. Is why we come to Shanghai for you to interview.”  “This is where we are meeting her.”  Boris waved his phone in front of Bond’s face showing a text message with an address.  “She wants to tell you her story. Of course, I will fill in important details for you.”  It was all Bond could do to not roll his eyes at the smarmy git sitting next to him.

“Natalya is good hacker.  But she could not have made progress without me.  She has a... what you call … a ‘cause’ she thinks important. Wants to tell.”

“Who is Natalya meeting with today? Her new buyer?” Bond hoped that somewhere in all that prattle, Boris would offer up another lead to Janus without knowing it.

“Who knows. Doesn’t matter.  Only payment matters. And your interview, of course.”

“Of course.”

“We meet her much later,” Boris said, tucking the mobile into the pocket of his trousers.  “Go to hotel first. Relax. Drink. Find pretty ladies to spend money and time on, yes?”

“Whatever you say, Boris.”  Bond was certain he was going to permanently damage his eyes with the strain of not rolling them, but Grishenko remained his only lead, and he’d follow wherever that lead took him.

For now.

Bond pressed on the accelerator and shifted gears, speeding through the streets toward the Portman Ritz Carlton Shanghai.  
  
“I’ve got it!”  Q shouted triumphantly with a bang of his fist on the desk of the hotel room they’d holed up in since arriving in Shanghai the night before.  Simonova had led him on a merry chase. Hadn’t been easy to track. She was good, but he was better. Though he would admit to a sigh of relief when, two hours ago, he got the bit of data he’d been seeking to finally confirm he’d made the right choice in directing Janus to Shanghai instead of Osaka or Bangkok.  Given what Q’d discovered about

who

she was preparing to sell to, they hadn’t the luxury of him being wrong.

“Where?” demanded Alec.  He stood from the sofa, sliding a clip into the Sig that he’d been cleaning at the coffee table.  He leaned over Q with a hand on the desk, scanning the laptop screen for something familiar.
“Warehouse about a klick east of the port.  Meet’s set for 2330.” Q rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses and squinted at the clock in the upper right-hand corner of his screen.  His heart lurched in his chest at what it said.
“Fuck!”  He jumped up from his chair and snapped the laptop shut, clutching it to his chest and reaching with his other hand for his jacket.
“We’ve got 45 minutes,” groaned Alec who dashed to collect their gear.  “Cuj, get everyone downstairs now!”
They approached the warehouse from the northeast corner.  Dark and with gaps in the CCTV feeds, it would give them the best cover as Q directed their entrance from his laptop.

“You’ll stay with the vehicles,”  Alec ordered Q as their small caravan rolled to a stop, and he and his men spilt out of the 4x4s.  “Cuj, take two with you and circle to the west. Luka, you and Tomas are with me.”

“I’m not staying in the car!” Q interrupted, climbing out from the back passenger seat with his messenger bag slung across his chest.  “I’m the only one who can deal with the device. You know that Alec.” Glaring at the older man, he got only a hard stare in return, but he would not back down. “Quit trying to protect me!”

“Q...”

“Alec, you know I’m right.”

“Fuck!”  Alec turned and stomped off.   “Get your gear!” he snarled at Q over his shoulder.  “And stay bloody close.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Bond dove behind yet another crate, the corner of which exploded above his head, showering him with wood chips. He rolled to his feet and dashed behind a steel support column as still more bullets were fired in his direction.

Calling this a cluster fuck would be a gross understatement.

Though Boris had insisted he stay in the car until summoned, Bond naturally followed the moment the irritating shite disappeared into the warehouse.  Packed with shipping crates and containers, it had taken him more time than he’d liked to finally track his prey to a sizable open space near the centre of the warehouse.  He’d heard them before he saw them. Three or four voices — all speaking Russian — raised in anger, in accusation. He recognised Boris’ whiny tenor. A woman’s was in the mix, too.  Simonova.

And another, deeper, sonorous … one that tugged at his memory.

He’d circled quietly around the corner of a stack of crates.  A baker’s dozen of armed men split into various groups and Simonova stood in the centre of the space.  Ancient tin-shaded lighting spilt down on them in such a way that had the situation not been so clearly dire, Bond would have rolled his eyes at the film noir cliche of it all.  Boris and Simonova were arguing with a pair of men across from them who still stood in shadow.

A bald man in a grey bespoke suit flanked by two female guards stood off to the side, a silver electronics component case in his hand:  Goldeneye. It had to be. But just as Bond began a mental plan to retrieve the device, the young man — bodyguard? — next to Simonova pulled his weapon and fired at the bulkier of the two men in the shadows.  A crap shot, the bullet missed by a mile, but all Hell broke loose anyway.

Which was why Bond now found himself ducking and running whilst bullets exploded around him.

In the midst of the firefight, Bond’s only goal had been to get to the bald man and secure Goldeneye, but leave it to Boris — the snivelling coward — to run smack into Bond, and spotting the Walther in his hand, set up such a fuss in screaming that it was heard over the commotion.  Bond now had three different factions trying to kill him and each other in an attempt to obtain Goldeneye.

When the first shots rang out through the warehouse, all ducked for cover except the Russians in the shadows at the far side of the room and the moron who'd started the whole mess in the first place.  He'd dropped like a stone, though. Bond hadn't seen the bullet’s origin, but the pool of red it left in its wake was unmistakable. Boris screamed like a girl -- of course, he did -- for someone not to shoot him and to protect him, but all he gained was a shove out of the way from Bond.

A clipped tenor -- British, posh -- yelled out over the din of the echoing noise.

“Do. Not. Let. That. Package. Leave!”

Bond looked around.  The bald man and his bodyguards were nowhere to be seen.

Orders to search were barked out in Russian, and the small assault force was freed through the warehouse.  Bond started searching for better cover.

The voice issuing the orders, though.  Older than the British one... again something... familiar resonated within Bond.

Boris, still dogging Bond’s steps, the shite, spotted Simonova in the chaos.  A mercenary had her by the arm, dragging her back to the meeting area with a gun to her head.  “Natalya! What have you...” Boris squealed in terror, but before Bond could shut him up, the barrel of a rifle was shoved into his back, stopping him dead in his tracks.

“Do not even think it.” Bond and Boris were shoved roughly out into the open and then to their knees as three black-clad, well-armed men surrounded them.  But, the chaos continued. Bond managed to glance up just enough to see a dark haired younger man storm out of the shadows to where Simonova crouched.

Other voices spoke loudly in the shadows:  one shouting at the younger man to stop and take cover, others calling to him that their objective was nowhere to be found.  And of course, thought it all, Boris still snivelled beside Bond.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”  The young man snarled at Simonova, stalking towards her. “You’ve doomed us all, letting Goldeneye walk away with

him

!”

Simonova rose to her feet defiantly.  “I did what was best! You can’t see what this can do for the future.”

“Oh, I know

exactly

what it can bring to the future, you ignorant, bloody cow!”

“You are a visionless idiot.”

“And you underestimated me.” In one fluid motion, the man reached inside his coat, pulled out a Sig Sauer P365, and shot Simonova directly between the eyes.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“What the bloody fuck ...  We could have used her!” Alec snarled as Q stalked back into the shadows like he hadn’t just murdered a woman in cold blood.

Q glared at him without even a quiver.  “I’d reached the end of my tolerance. Even I have my limits.”  He slid the weapon out of sight once more, hunching his shoulders once and releasing them.  Shaking off any lingering moral questions that might poke at his subconscious. “What are we going to do with them?” he asked, pointing at the two men on their knees.  “Who the hell are they anyway? The snivelling rat knew Simonova. A lover?”

“Not a lover,” Alec scoffed.  “She was an annoying bitch, but I can’t see her stooping that low unless it’s a pity fuck.  Look at him, he’s... Fuck!”

“What?”

“The other one.  We might have a problem.”

Alec’s stomach dropped like he’d lurched over the summit of a rollercoaster and was hurtling ground-wards.  His eyes did not deceive him.

Bond.  James bloody Bond.  In the flesh.

Older, more rugged.

And on his knees at gunpoint.

“Then kill them, and let's go!  We don’t have time for this.” Q was already preparing to move out, following the bulk of their team who had reached the end of the warehouse, and so almost missed Alec’s quiet refusal.  Before Q could question it, Alec swaggered out into the open and approached the men, gun loosely held at his side.

“I always knew it would be you who’d come for me, James.  Still doing the old bitch’s dirty work? For Queen and Country?”

Bond was halfway to his feet before he had figured out how to react, but a swift strike with the butt of a guard’s rifle sent him sprawling at Alec’s feet.  The click of a safety, and Bond was looking up at the familiar frame of his former lover. His armed, deceased lover…

“Ебать.  Надо было остаться подальше от Джеймса. Чертов ублюдок,“ Alec cursed at his former lover.   Gritting his teeth, he pointed his gun at the forehead of the only person in the world besides Q who he had ever trusted implicitly with his life.

“But... You’re dead,”  Bond muttered, confused from more than just the blow to his head.

“That I am,” Alec scoffed.  “The cold-hearted bitch send you?”

“Not after

you

. You’re dead, remember?”  James shook his head, trying to clear it.  “I’m searching for someone named Janus. Maybe you could point me in his direction.”  Don’t show weakness. Hold it together. Figure out what the

fuck

is going on here.

“We don’t have time for this, Alec.  They have a substantial lead on us already.  It’s imperative that we…” Q stalked back towards where Alec still held Bond and Boris at gunpoint.

“I can be of use to you,” Boris started pleading when he saw him.  “I know all there is to know about Goldeneye. Natalia was just a minor technician.  I am computer…”

“He’s a ‘computer genius’, Alec.  Of course, you are,” Q smirked. “We may need him.”  Q turned and headed back the way they had entered the warehouse.  “Five minutes! We’re leaving, Alec.”

A gesture from Q and two of the guards grabbed Boris up by his arms and dragged him along the floor toward the exit, moving so quickly he hadn’t the opportunity to get his legs under him.  When Boris’ complaints and whinging had faded, Alec leaned against a stack of wooden crates, his eyes intent on Bond.

“Ten years I’ve been dead to you.

Ten

.  Now I’m alive, and the first thing out of your bloody mouth is ‘point me to Janus.’”

Bond pulled himself to his knees, looking up at Trevelyan from beneath his brows.  They were alone aside from the cooling corpses, but he was unarmed, and Alec had always had pinpoint accuracy with a weapon.  He doubted that had changed much over the years.

“It’s the mission.”  Bond said with a shrug, though the way his heart was hammering in his chest at this unexpected revelation was anything but nonchalant.

“It was always the mission!” Alec snarled.  “For

her

.  We didn’t matter a damn to her.  Never did. Means to an end. Always.

Only

.”  He pushed off the edge of the crate with his hip and circled Bond, gun always pointed at his head, never straying too close to his prisoner to give him an opportunity to strike.   “As you’ve heard, there’s not a lot of time to dither, so tell me

what

do you want with Janus? You didn’t say you were after Goldeneye which even The Bitch should consider the greater threat.  Why Janus?”

James hesitated.  Alec wasn’t some megalomaniacal lunatic spouting off a tedious and pointless monologue just to fill the air with sound.  It was a good question. One he’d been considering himself these last days whilst tuning out Grishenko’s inane prattle.

The intel provided in his initial and follow up briefings had been light on details for Goldeneye, which was understandable given that, up until a fortnight ago, it had been largely considered a myth in technological circles, but the dossier on Janus had been surprisingly extensive given his elusive nature.  In all contacts prior and subsequent to the start of his mission, M’s directive had been quite clear: capture or kill Janus. Goldeneye

was

the greater threat, but Janus was who M had sent him after.

Why?

Giving himself time to think, Bond made eye contact with Alec.  "Why don't you take me to him? What I have to say is for his ears only, not one of his mercenaries.  If I'd had any idea you were alive, Alec, I..."

"You'd what?  Have come after me and finished the job?  I bet she was spitting feathers when she realised you had failed to kill me.  Get rid of the Double O that was becoming troublesome."

Alec felt bile rise in his throat as long-buried hurts threatened his callous exterior.  No matter the time that had passed, James' betrayal still stung. He risked turning his back on Bond for a second, stepping out of reach, until he could compose his face into the disinterested arrogance he’d made his trademark when conducting business.

"I was going to say I would have found you.  No surprise you ended up here, but why didn't you let me know you’d survived?  Why didn't you come back?"

"Here?  This is bloody luxury, James, compared to some of the places I’ve been.  I wouldn’t have been welcomed back, even if I had any scrap of loyalty to Britain left.  Things were engineered to name me traitor, and that solved a whole range of problems for M.  Double O Scapegoat. Fucking bitch!"

"She didn't know."

Alec did laugh then, loud and laden with disbelief.  "She knew, James. I made bloody sure of it. She's been tracking me for years, no doubt compiling one of those thick, manila dossiers on all my business dealings, all my associates, all my kills.  Wondering when I would finally strike at Britain. At her!"

Bond exhaled sharply.  "It's you. You're Janus!"

"Alec!  Moving out now!"  The posh voice shouted from the depths of the warehouse preceding the arrival of two more armed men who hauled Bond to his feet.  "Shoot him or bring him! I don’t care which."

"And finally the penny drops," Alec smirked, stalking back into the shadows.  "We'll talk again soon, James."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“So that’s James Bond,” Q said, looking over Alec’s shoulder at the security feeds of the guest room where Bond was currently sleeping off his sedation.

They were the first words either of them had spoken on the subject since leaving China.  They’d returned to their island off Sorrento far earlier than planned and without Goldeneye in hand.  Q had done his utmost to track their quarry, but three hours after the assault on the warehouse, it was clear that The Path had dropped completely off the grid, or at least what parts of it Q could track remotely via his laptop.  He needed the power of the computers in his lab.

R had thoughtfully sent the plane to Shanghai when they’d originally determined that as Simonova’s likely destination, so they’d returned to Italy eight hours ago down one weapon of mass destruction but in possession of a ‘computer genius’ and an agent of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

“Taller than I thought he’d be.”  Q poured himself a glass of whisky and refilled Alec’s vodka where it sat in front of him on the workstation housing the monitors in their shared office.  He sat down and propped one foot up on the edge of Alec’s chair. “Just as much of a pain in the arse as you’ve said all these years, though.”

Bond had not gone quietly into their custody, and just as Cuj was about to cold cock him for the third time, Q interrupted mildly, “Mr Trevelyan wants him alive for a reason, so might I suggest an alternative to continuing to bash his head in?  A skull fracture is hardly what we’re going for here,” and he handed the guard a syringe of the strong sedative he often needed in order to fly.

“You’ve no idea the truth of that statement,” Alec grumbled into his glass before draining it in one large swallow.  He didn’t take his eyes from the monitor.

“So we

are

having feelings about this. Excellent news.”

“Shut it, you.”

Q thought about his next words.  Looked from the screen to his lover and back again before setting his glass carefully on the worktop.  He leant forward in his seat with his forearms resting on his knees. “You’re not going to like what I have to say next, but we need to bring Bond in on this.  The Path … Alec … I should’ve briefed you on them months ago, but I kept hoping maybe they’d …”

“Are you out of your fucking head?!”  Alec jumped up from his seat and slammed his glass on the table with such force that it shattered under his hand.  “He’s MI6!” He pointed at the screen and the image of a still sedated Bond. “He’s a threat to us! I should have just shot him in that warehouse and been done with it.  He’s

hers

!  Every ounce of him Queen and Country and loyal to M.”

“Maybe not when he knows what I know,” Q said softly.  He brushed the glass aside and set a tablet with an active screen atop the surface.  “Maybe not when

you

know what I know.”

Alec glared at the tablet for a moment before looking back at Q who stood at the open door to the office.  “Keep an eye on the feeds if you would. I’m going to go have a chat with our guest. And you’re right. It would have been easier if you’d shot him in Shanghai, but you didn’t, Alec.  You might want to think a bit about the

real

reason why.”

The snick of the door shutting was like its own exclamation point on Q’s uncomfortable observation.

There was something soft underneath him.  Pillow under his head. Head that throbbed and felt eight times larger than usual.  Bond grimaced when he tried to turn over to sit up. What the... he remembered pieces of what had happened... and Alec Trevelyan.  Alec was alive! Bond heard a door open somewhere through the fog that clouded his head, and he froze lying still, eyes closed.

“No need to play as if you are still unconscious, Commander Bond.  I know you were stirring, and I know how long the sedative lasts. The dosage was well planned.”   It was the posh, clipped British accent from the warehouse again. He sat up carefully, running a hand over his face and through his hair, and slowly opened his eyes to a brightly lit room ... an extremely comfortable bedroom by all appearances.

Across the room sat the dark-haired man who had been with Alec, flanked by one of the well-armed intruders from the warehouse.  “You know who I am, but it seems we haven’t been properly introduced.” Bond looked up at him, flashing a smile even though it threatened to explode his head.

“Who I am doesn’t matter at the moment.  There are other, more pressing, matters at hand, such as the object we both seem to be chasing, or at least

should

both be chasing.  Contrary to what your M seems to believe, Goldeneye is a much more critical objective than your pursuit of Janus.”  Bond sat silently staring at the young man sat in the chair across from him.

“Oh, I realise you are calculating all your options, Commander Bond.  I can assure you that Luka is very good at his job, so I would reconsider trying to escape at the moment.  What I think you should consider instead are all the lies you’ve been told over the years. Things you are now questioning such as Alec being here... alive.” Q laid a thick file on the table next to him and continued.  “I can assure you that the vast majority of what you believe, well, let’s just say there are quite a few things you still need to know.”

Alec had been studying the Intel on the tablet Q gave him until he heard voices over the security feed from the room where Bond had been secured, drawing his attention back to the monitors. “What game are you playing at, Q?”  He turned to focus on the confrontation happening between his partners, current and former.

“You’re hardly a trustworthy source,” Bond said budging up against the headboard, telegraphing his movements so he didn’t end up with a bullet in his skull courtesy of Luka.

“More so than you realise, but given your current circumstances, I can understand why you’d be hesitant to believe me.  Data, however, is data.” Q adjusted his spectacles and then rested his fingertips on the file, tapping it lightly. “I’m sure you’d like to know what really happened at that chemical weapons facility in Russia the day Alec died.  It’s in here.”

“Data can be manipulated.”  James draped his arms against his raised knees.  Luka didn’t so much as twitch, but it seemed his stance tightened, nevertheless.  Yes. The man knew what he was doing.

“It can,” Q agreed.  “But I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to information.  And you already have proof that the data is reliable. Alec

is

alive.  This is the only reasonable explanation for it.  Nothing M has ever told you can explain away that very real fact.”

Q tilted his head and studied Bond for a few moments.  He was, on the whole, much as Alec had portrayed him through the years: physically powerful, intellectually astute, and an incorrigible rake, somehow managing to flirt even as he disputed Q’s every word.   Even shaking off a powerful sedative and what was sure to be a wicked headache from the knocks he’d taken to his head, Q could see that James Bond was something of a force of nature, and he wouldn’t be manipulated.  Not that Q had ever intended anything but the direct approach.

“There’s evidence in here for other … inexplicable things that have happened over the course of your career,” he continued.  “Miranda Frost, for instance. M knew Graves had turned her before she sent her out with you. Yusef Kabira had been on her radar for years.  And then there’s that unfortunate friendly fire incident atop the train outside Istanbul. Eve Moneypenny’s as much a victim in that as you are, but what good is an agent who can’t retrieve a simple hard drive?”

“You can’t tell me that --”

“I’m not going to tell you anything, Bond,” Q folded his hands across his lap.  “The data will speak for me. It will answer the questions you’ve never fully asked yourself, and it will tell you that the doubts and worries you’ve had for years are, in fact, very real threats.”

“Why?”  James’ blood had gone cold at hearing his deepest suspicions laid bare.  Who the fuck was this man? With his glasses, clashing cardi and button down, and dark, flyaway hair, he screamed boffin in a way not even Boris had.  He was calm and articulate. Reasoned, with no hint of conceit or narcissism about him, yet James had watched him put a bullet in Simonova’s head without so much as a twitch.

“Because I need you to help us retrieve Goldeneye.”

“I’m not going to help you retrieve a weapon that can be used against --”

“I’m not going to use it.  I intend to destroy it.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Q had left the file in Bond’s room and exited with a, “The Intel is your key out of here, Mr Bond.  I suggest you absorb it and then consider my offer. Rejection will not end in your favour, however.”  That was almost two hours ago, and Bond had yet to pick it up, though his eyes flicked to it frequently.

In the office on the other side of the compound, Alec reclined in his chair, one eye on Bond on the screen, the other skimming the tablet Q had given him.  It made sour reading, settling in the pit of his stomach like rotten meat. The Path had been on M’s radar, too, but she had chosen to ignore the group in favour of pursuing Janus with uncharacteristic vendetta.

The data detailed specifics she had kept for her eyes only about the continued survival of former 006, Trevelyan.  In particular, her will that Bond should never be told Alec lived until

she

deemed the time was right.  Typical of the bitch to choose Bond as the hunter for this mission, where the prey would most likely destroy him too.  Killing two birds with one stone.
Fucking cow!

What Alec learned about both operations did nothing to ease his hatred of the woman.  There was, however, a faint, weak flicker of sympathy for Bond that he quashed as soon as it began to glow.  Those feelings Q had poked at... dealing with them might be the hardest part of this whole debacle. And if there was anything Alec hated, it was dealing with his own emotional conflict.

Bond’s voice over the feed roused Alec from his musing.  “I assume you’re watching, Alec. What would you have done?  I thought you were dead. And now... you expect me to turn my back on everything I know and throw in my lot with you?  Loyalty, Alec. Where was yours that gives you the right to ask for mine now?”

“You think I should read this,” he was gesturing at the folder.  “No doubt you think it will persuade me that the lunatic boffin working for you is right.  That the only acceptable course of action is to study Goldeneye, then destroy it.”

“We know it doesn’t work like that.  Power corrupts. Even those with the best of intentions cannot resist her lure.  He might talk of his intention to destroy it now, but when it’s in his hand, what will stop him from unleashing it?  You? I admit I was shocked when he killed Simonova, but I really should recognise a psychopath when I meet one.”

Bond was standing now, file in hand, looking ceiling-wards to where he thought the camera was concealed.  He wasn’t too far out from it, maybe a couple of feet, decades of experience showing in his study of the room.

Bond finally sighed at the lack of response he had provoked and retreated to the bed.  “Fine! Not like I have anything better to do,” he growled, making himself as comfortable as possible.  “At least you keep a more pleasant prison than most. I suppose a coffee is out if the question, you bastard.”

Whether Bond actually expected coffee or not, another two hours passed before Alec found himself outside the room with two steaming mugs of tar-black brew. Tucked awkwardly under his arm was a bottle of vodka.  A raw local spirit that had none of the finesse of the western markets. Tucked at the small of his back, a sidearm, for insurance. The door locked behind him.

Bond looked up warily.  The read pages of the file were stacked in two haphazard piles. Alec handed Bond a mug then offered the bottle.  Bond shook his head, and Alec glugged vodka into his own coffee until it was hazardously full. Pulling up a chair and straddling it, all without spilling a drop, he muttered, “Ask me.”

“Do you believe all this?” Bond asked, gesturing at the papers.  “Seems to me it would be simple enough to alter all this to suit his purposes.”  He sipped his coffee, regarding Alec over the rim of his mug.

“Q wouldn’t do that.  He has no need.”

“Oh really? Turn you from England then persuade me to join you.  Make you believe-”

“He has no need because he earned my unquestioning loyalty long ago.  My respect. And more...”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Q listened from his office whilst Alec caught Bond up on the pertinent details of what had happened to him in those hours and days and weeks after the explosion at Arkhangelsk.  His injuries. His capture. His torture. All leading to the bigger story of where and how Alec and Q had met and, more importantly, how and why Alec had eventually come to trust him.  It was a twisted, impossible tale, to be sure, but as Alec told it, Q couldn’t help but remember his own perspective of that day.  In no way could he have anticipated how it would fundamentally change his life.  The scenario in which he found himself was far from seeking out an employee for a normal job posting, but his last few so-called bodyguards had fallen so short in their ‘bodyguarding’ skills that he was ready to try a different approach.   It wasn’t that he didn’t feel like he couldn’t take care of himself. Oh, that he was very capable of doing, but he had bigger, more critical things to do and didn’t need to waste time watching his own back.  His concentration was needed elsewhere. And when the word came around that there would be a former MI6 agent on the auction block this time, his curiosity got the better of him.  Besides, wouldn’t it just annoy Mycroft to no end if he could acquire said merchandise? Q refused the alcoholic beverages that had been on offer by well-dressed waitstaff to the diverse crowd attending the auctions.   He enjoyed a simple cuppa as he hung back from the main crowd, awaiting the viewing of the evening’s merchandise. He wanted his wits about him and to lose this auction to someone else, that just wouldn’t do.   Money was not an issue for this purchase.  Money was not an issue, ever. Which was as well since the price to even view the merchandise was in itself exorbitant, but it was one he gladly paid, much to the surprise of some of the other bidders for he didn’t exactly fit the mould of those who attended such gatherings. A bell sounded, announcing the opening of viewing room.  A blonde woman stepped up to the auctioneer's podium. “Ladies and gentleman, if you have a gold wristband, please make your way to the gallery.  You have one hour to view the merchandise before the sale commences.” A low murmur flowed through the gathering.  People shuffled and looked about them to see which of the buyers could afford the opportunity to examine the goods.  Q set his teacup on a passing tray and walked purposefully to the glossy black double doors. He ignored the looks of surprise and whispered comments until he joined the small group at the doors. “Forgive me, my friend.  I did not realise from the way you present that you were a connoisseur of fine flesh.  What has caught your interest?” Q regarded the speaker at his side.  The man’s wealth wrapped around him: the clothes, the gold rings, the heavy platinum wristwatch.   Q disliked him instantly. “I’ll know it when I see it.”   “Playing it close to the chest, hmm? Don’t want to push up the price too early.  Perhaps we could do the round together?” The older man laced Q’s hand through his elbow and urged him forward into the viewing room.  Q attempted to pull away, but the grip was firm on his hand. He could make an issue of it, but this was not the time or place to cause a scene.  They were already flanked by two of the man’s “people”. Later. Q would see to it later the man received a message about improper assumptions and behaviour.   His newly acquired “friend” seemed more interested in the younger merchandise, much younger merchandise.  Female and male. Eventually, Q had little choice but to venture into what had thus far been a one-sided conversation, “You, my new friend, seem much too young to be a patron at such events.  Are you sure you are of an acceptable age to be here or has your patron lost you in the crowd?” Q cringed inwardly but assured him that he most definitely was of a proper age and represented no one but himself.   He managed to finally slip away when the man stopped to discuss the price and virginity of a young girl who Q thought could barely be half his age.   At the far front left corner of the room, he spotted what … who he had come to purchase.   In a cage, barely tall enough to stand in, crouched a well built, naked, sandy-haired man.  At the moment, there were two other men who appeared to be discussing him. Q waited, not wanting others to know his interest just yet.   “He’s only worth purchasing if you can break him.  Otherwise, it’s a waste of money.” “But if you could. Think of the possibilities!  What he likely knows .” “Is it worth the worry every night wondering if he will murder you in your sleep?”With only ten minutes to go before the close of the viewing, the men wandered off still arguing about the risk.  Q took his chance and stepped closer to the bars to view the man in the small cage. Trevelyan’s head was bowed, his wrists shackled in front of him.  He gave no sign of having noticed Q’s presence until he rasped, “You take stupid chances with your safety, boy.  That close ... you would be dead by now, regardless of cage and cuffs. If I chose.” His speech was slurred and Q noticed a languor to his body that did not seem right in an agent of MI6 no matter how forsaken he might be. “What did they drug you with?  Would it slow you down much if you wanted to kill me?” That got Trevelyan’s attention.  He turned jade green eyes on the slim youngster.  His mouth stretched into a leonine smirk. “I’m too rich for your blood, little one.  Ask Daddy for someone else to pop your cherry.” “Ugh!  Are all you bastards this arrogant or is it a special class they teach at agent school?”  Q sniped. “I buy in my own right. I’m not here for a meat-headed sex toy,” Q hoped his sharp tone disguised his blush, “but I do have need of a loyal man to keep me alive.” “And who would want to kill a delicate thing like you?” “Oh... I have plenty of people after my head.  Some you probably know rather well.” Trevelyan settled on the floor close to the bars.  “I’m listening. What do I get for my trouble? You think you can keep me close once I get out of this cage?  I don’t know you. No reason to stick around and unless you have some hidden, kickass ninja skills. I don’t see you being able to stop me from leaving.” “I can offer you the satisfaction of a job well done, protecting me from people who would like to see me back on English soil, rotting in a cage.  Wealth. Power. Whatever you desire.” “And who are these people ?” “Oh.  Most of them are your former employers.  The ones who left you out here to die. And then there’s the British Government.  And my brother. Who probably IS the British Government in all honesty. You have a short time to consider it.  When I win the bid, you give me your undying loyalty, and I give you whatever you want.” Q watched the auction from the back of the room as the two men who had openly discussed the agent earlier heatedly voiced back and forth, trying to gain the winning bid.  Other interested parties had dropped out, reaching their limits early on. But as Trevelyan’s price grew higher and the auction sped toward its end, Q suddenly weighed in with an offer that greatly exceeded the previous bid.The room fell silent.  The two men stood, open-mouthed. Q slowly made his way to the front of the room, the crowd whispering as it parted for him.  He stopped directly in front of the caged man, meeting his murderous gaze as the auctioneer queried the crowd for any counterbids.  The two men glanced at each other and, each with a shake of his head, capitulated. “Ridiculous amount,”  Alec muttered just loud enough for Q to hear.   “Well worth it,” Q whispered back with a smile.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

What Alec related to him was fantastical, unimaginable, and wholly unbelievable … in any other world but theirs.

James had watched and listened as his former lover, partner, and friend told the story of what had happened to him in the immediate and long-term aftermath of that horrific day in Russia, looking for the familiar tells that would indicate Alec was lying.  Trevelyan had always been a consummate actor, raconteur, and cheat -- the best of the Double-Os, in that regard -- but James had always been able to see through him.

They’d seen through each

other

, in fact.

Alec’s story rang true.

“And you and ... Q?”  James asked when it was over.

“Does it matter?”  Alec’s mug contained only vodka now.  The bottle on the table a third empty.

“You say you trust him.  I’m just trying to get a sense of how much.”  Again, in

their

world, trust was a rare thing.  Not to be given lightly, if at all.  If ever. And if he was being honest, trust wasn’t the only reason he asked, but James wasn’t sure he was really ready to consider the other ramifications of how Alec being alive made him feel.

“I’ll put it this way, James,” Alec said, draining his mug.  “I still sleep with a gun, but it’s there for

his

protection.  Not mine.”

James looked at Alec carefully for a long moment, nodded once, and poured two fingers of vodka into his empty coffee mug.  “Then I think we have more to talk about.”

“He wants you in on this.  I don’t quite understand why, but what Q wants, he usually gets.  It’s what I do for him.” Alec studied Bond, looking beyond the obvious signs of ageing.  He was still an attractive bastard with the cocky confidence that had snared Alec so completely years ago.  And those eyes that Alec knew deepened in shade when James’ emotions grew more intense.

Alec hardened his heart, pushing aside the surge of emotions he didn’t have the time or the desire to deal with.  “But in your case, I think he’s insane to even consider it. The only sensible course of action is to terminate you and dump your corpse in the sea.”

“Good to know you’re still capable of caring, Alec.  You’ve become a very lethal Sugar Daddy. An interesting career change,” Bond sneered.  He set the rest of the papers aside and swung his legs over the side of the bed, mirroring his former lover.

Alec was instantly more alert in his posture, hyper-aware that Bond was within touching distance.  They sat, knees almost touching, faces no more than a foot apart.

“I always bloody cared. More than you, it seems,” Alec murmured.

He reached to touch Bond’s cheek only to have his arm swiftly knocked away as a perceived attack.  Bond’s other hand closed on Alec’s wrist and pulled, attempting to disrupt the bulkier man’s balance.  It dislodged the chair from under Alec, and his weight dragged Bond down to the floor along with him.

Alec threw a punch that connected with Bond’s shoulder, and Alec tried to roll, scrabbling for the gun at his back.  He freed it and swung at Bond’s head with the butt, but Bond was faster, knocking the weapon from Alec’s fingers. It fell and slid out of reach of the wrestling pair.

James managed to get a gut punch in as they grappled on the floor.  Alec elbowed Bond on the side of his head as he pulled away, diving for his gun.

“So help me Alec, don’t make me ...” James grabbed a leveraging hold in Alec’s belt, dragging him back to the floor garnering him a punch to the face for his trouble, blooding his nose.

“Чертов ублюдок.  ОтКазаться от Джеймса,”  Alec cursed at James.

Both were so engrossed in punching each other and rolling around on the floor that neither heard the door to the room open.

It was the appearance of a pair of boots in their line of sight on the floor, the familiar click of a gun racking, and the sound of a snarky, posh voice that finally got their attention.

“Whilst this fiasco seems to have created some degree of enjoyment for the two of you, I really do think there are things that need to be discussed.  Although …” Q took in their proximity, the way their hands were grasping one another, and the notable tension in the room that had absolutely

nothing

to do with violence, and he uncocked the gun.  “On second thought. Bed’s right there. Just have at each other, why don’t you?  Alec, you know what time dinner’s served.”

Alec and James were still gaping when the door shut behind him.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Put. It. Back. Trevelyan!  Last thing we need is that swelling shut,”  Q snapped, pointing at the ice pack until Alec returned it to his eye.  “Just sit there quietly and ice until I tell you to take it off.” Q then turned his attention to the man sat in front of him.  “Now you. May I?” He gestured at the bloodied towel James Bond held against his forehead.

“Oh, just let him, James.  He’s not going to kill you,” Alec growled when Bond didn’t respond right away.  “I might, but for some reason, he keeps doing things to ensure your survival.”

James eyed Q critically for another long moment -- an assessment Q met head-on -- before nodding his consent.  Q reached for the towel, his fingers brushing against James’ as he pulled it away. “Alec has a bloody sharp elbow. This will need stitches,” Q said of the cut above Bond’s right eye.

“I can do it.”

“Bugger that,” Q said, grabbing the suture kit he’d pulled from the medical cupboard earlier, guessing when he’d seen Bond bloodied on the floor in the bedroom he’d need to make use of it.  “It doesn’t always have to be dental floss in the jungles of Venezuela. Yes, I’ve heard all the stories,” he admitted at Bond’s look of surprise. “I assure you, I’m quite skilled at this. Done it on that one there more times than I can count.”

“Speaking of stories,” James said, suppressing a wince as this

Q

injected the cut with lidocaine to numb the area.  “The Path?”

Q hummed to indicate he heard the question but waited until he was done poking about with the syringe and had started prepping the sutures before speaking.

“The Path, whilst small in numbers, with Goldeneye in its possession, is quite possibly the most dangerous organisation on the planet right now.”

“Q is

not

prone to hyperbole,” Alec quipped from around his ice pack before James could suggest that very thing.

“Why?” James asked instead.

Q nudged up his spectacles with his forearm to keep his gloved hands as sterile as possible and applied his focus to the first of the series of stitches as he spoke.

“The Path espouses a philosophy that humanity is inherently corrupt and that the only way to salvation for it and the world as a whole is the culling of the unworthy.  They’re hardly alone in that view, of course, but The Path actively pursues this culling. Using a combination of technology and ‘missionary’ work, they’ve been responsible for the deaths of nearly 20,000 people in the five years I’ve been tracking their movements.”

“Twenty-thousand?!”  Alec sat up in his chair from the petulant sprawl he’d been slumped in since he and James tracked down Q in the sitting room after he’d walked out on them in the bedroom.

“If that were true, The Path would have been hunted down long before now,” James protested.  “MI6, CIA, DGSE, BDN … one or all would have gone after them to --”

“M

knows

, Bond,” Q said, pausing in the middle of a stitch to look him dead in the eyes.  Icy blue eyes that should not cause his stomach to flip like that. “They

all

know.  The evidence of

that

is in the file I gave you.  I’ve more if you need. Historical data, how and when The Path was formed, political ideologies … the whole bloody lot of it; it’s yours if you need it to believe what I say is true.  I will hold nothing back. But …” he applied himself to finishing his physical task, “we can get into that later. It’s

Goldeneye

that turns them into the real threat.”

“How?” Alec asked.  “I read the file, and I was with you when you received the data from your tests, but I’m still unclear on that bit.”

Q explained the test data for Bond.  “There’s a computer virus embedded in the electromagnetic pulse emitted when Goldeneye is fired.  The EMP is destructive enough on its own, but it’s the virus that’s the real threat. It attaches itself to computer hard drives and servers at the target site, linking them together to create an Artificial Intelligence when power is eventually restored and the systems reboot.  An AI that will choose a course of action itself unless it is given direction from an outside source.”

“And The Path has that direction,” Bond said.  It was not a question.

“Their leader’s an American, Franklin J. Montgomery.  I know him. He was few years ahead of me at Uni.” Q spared a glance for those blue eyes again.  “You think I’m a psychopath, Bond. I can see it in your eyes. Maybe I am. I don’t know. Perhaps growing up with my eldest brother turned me into one, but Montgomery’s the real thing.  And, yes. He has a program that will give the AI a path that will destroy human life on Earth as we know it.”

“That sounds a bit far-fetched,” James said as Q tied off the final stitch in his forehead.  “Science fiction. A fantasy, even.” He looked ‘round at Alec, expecting to see a look of disbelief on his face, but instead, he was greeted by a look as grave as any he’d ever remembered seeing there before.

Q scooted back his chair and stood.  Peeling off and tossing the nitrile gloves into the bin he’d been dropping rubbish into as he’d worked, he snagged a tablet from a side table.  Fingers flying across the screen as he paced in front of them, he eventually handed the device to Bond.

“Here.  Everything I have.  Everything you need.”

On the screen was a menu that outlined hundreds of pages of information.  He activated the first link with a press of his index finger, and a quick glance of the file indicated intel far more comprehensive than anything M had given him prior to or during this clusterfuck of a mission.

“I need you on this, 007.  You and Alec,” Q said when James looked up at him again, and the sound of his designation in the young man’s tenor was both odd and soothing to James’ ears.  “There’s too much at risk and time is too short for us to work at cross purposes.”

After a quick dinner involving more information, pointed questions, and more than a bit of awkward tension in the air, Q rose from the table.  “Everything else you need is detailed on that tablet as I indicated. Read it. Any questions you have, I’ll be more than happy to answer in the morning.”  Q paused at the door as he left. “And Bond, you will be returned to your room for the night under guard. Precautions. I hope you understand.” He turned to the other man in the room.  “Take what time you need,” he said to Alec. “Goodnight, gentlemen.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Q leaned against the doorway of their ensuite, skin still reddened from the long, hot shower, towel wrapped around his narrow waist threatening to slip down to his hips, dark curls damp and out of control.  He’d left the dining room only 30 minutes before, yet Alec was already stood in front of the windows at the far end of their bedroom, glass in hand, staring out into the darkness of the sea beyond.

“It must be confusing suddenly having Bond here.  In your life again. The past coming back to live in the present.  I understand that. I really do,” Q said, breaking the silence in the room.  “Whatever you decide Alec. I’ll be okay with it.” Alec turned to stare at him, slowly sipping his drink as Q crossed the room.  Retrieving a pair of ugly plaid pyjama pants, he dropped his towel leaving him completely naked before pulling them on.

“You can’t think that...”

“And why wouldn’t I, Alec?  He was yours before I came into your world.  And now he’s back. I know how important James Bond is to you.”

Alec scoffed.  “James is hardly -”

“Alec,” Q took Alec’s drink and set it on top of the bureau before taking Alec’s hands in his.  Large, thick-fingered hands scarred from battle. Hands that had killed in some of the worst ways imaginable but could pull from Q such euphoric sensations and bliss that Q would oft want to weep from the tenderness.  “In spite of all your assertions over the years that you were no more than mates with benefits, blokes seeking comfort in each other when things went to shite, or, my personal favourite, ‘fuck buddies,’ … Alec you know it was more than that. I’ve listened to your stories of James Bond -- platonic and intimate -- for nearly decade, and I’ve heard your nightmares, too.  And whilst you may never have admitted it to yourself, it’s long been quite clear to me: you’re in love with James Bond. You have been for longer than I’ve known you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Q.  I don’t --”

“If not, then why did he leaving you behind in Russia hurt so much?”

Alec’s jaw snapped shut.

Well ... fuck.

Q’s slight smile wasn’t quite an ‘I told you so,’ but it was a near thing.

“Alec,”  Q cupped his lover’s face in his hands, thumbs caressing his cheekbones whilst his long fingers tangled in Alec’s shaggy hair.  “He is a part of you. In some ways a defining part. It would be foolish and selfish of me to stand in the way of what you feel for him.”

“I’m

yours

now,” Alec protested.  He’d been struggling for days with the surge of emotions rising in him since first seeing James in the warehouse, and now this ...

“You’re also still

his

,” Q’s smile had turned a tad melancholy, “and unless I miss my guess, he’s still very much yours, too.”

“Q … I don’t know … this is so bloody …”

“Confusing.  Let me lend some clarity if I can,” Q dropped his hands to Alec’s shoulders, skimming them down to his hips.  He pulled Alec close. The embrace was intimate but not sexual. Close but not sensual. It was meant to connect not seduce.  “In order for us to work together in the way we need to reclaim Goldeneye, the demons of that which brought you to me need to be laid to rest.  The only way that’s going to happen is for you and James to address the past: what happened, who’s really to blame, and what you mean to one another.  And if that ultimately means... I have to give you up, then I’m prepared to do that.”

Alec jerked as though he’d been physically slapped.  “The

fuck

are you talking about, Owen?!” Alec growled.

“No!  It’s not like that.  Hear me out,” Q soothed, slightly embarrassed by the use of his given name.  Alec only ever used it in their most intimate or most stressful moments. This was likely to be both.  “I don’t

want

to give you up ...” he hesitated.  This was bloody hard. He was only slightly better at expressing deep emotions than his lover.  “I don’t mean it like that.”

“Then you’d better start explaining what the fuck you

do

mean.”

“I love you,” Q admitted before he could think twice about it. “There!  I said it. ‘Bout time one of us did. I love you, Aleksandr Kostya Trevelyan.  I love you so bloody much it drives me spare sometimes, and truth be told, I’d much rather marry you, if you’d have me, than surrender you to anyone else, but at the moment there are considerations and priorities far greater than my feelings in this matter.”

Alec gaped at Q, mind in a whirl.  For a man used to thinking on his feet, acting instinctively, he was floundering trying to process what Q was telling him.  He found he was gripping Q’s hips, literally clinging to the young man who had saved him from his self-destructive hurt and grief.

Deliberately, he loosened his fingers.

Marriage was something he knew Q was vehemently opposed to on the grounds it was an unnecessary amount of legal paperwork to confirm a relationship he already felt secure in.  It left a paper trail that could be used to trace them, and on some level, Q thought a legal bond would tempt fate.

But in his pragmatic way, Q was saying that Alec could have it all if it meant they were united in the pursuit of Goldeneye.  That he would, not step aside, but allow Alec to have James too.

If James even wanted him, the way Q believed.

“You’re a tricky little shite,” Alec growled into Q’s hair.  “Not going down on one knee. Not in these fucking circumstances.  One day, I hope, but not while you’re giving me the green light to fuck other people.”

Q slid his arms around Alec’s waist, hugging him, leaning against Alec’s warm solid chest.  “We need him, Alec, but this isn’t some honeypot mission. You two need each other in a way I didn’t quite understand until I met him.  The pain and regret he feels are almost palpable when he looks at you, even as he tries to lock it behind that suave mask.”

Alec closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of his lover.  Mentally explored the lithe body pressed against him. Q quivered with the need to be busy, but it meant everything to Alec that he allowed him this moment of stillness while he gathered his courage to face Bond.  “Ok. We’ll talk...”

Q’s smile was genuine as he leaned in to kiss Alec’s lips.  “Go. I’ll be okay. Things to keep me busy.”

Alec released him and turned for the door, pausing to look back at Q.  “What you said... same. Very much so.”

And with that, he was gone.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“You’re dismissed, Petra,” Alec said to the guard.  “Tell Simon I’ll call for him if he’s needed.”

“Yes, sir.”  The guard pulled the door shut behind her boss, leaving him alone with James Bond for the second time that day.

James stared at him from across the room.  He was dressed in a pair of borrowed sleep trousers and nothing else.  His hair stood up in damp clumps from the brisk towelling he always gave his head when he got out of the shower.  It had been nearly a decade, and yet he knew James hadn’t changed that routine. Always too bloody rushed to towel off properly.

“Good call.  Better to kill me without witnesses,” James said, nodding at the closed door and its now absent guard.

“If I wanted you dead, I’d have killed you in Shanghai.”  Alec reached for the bottle of vodka he’d left on the table earlier that somehow hadn’t been knocked over during their tussle, but he pulled his hand back at the last moment.

“You should have.

I

would have.”

“Would you?”  In three long strides, Alec was stood toe to toe with James Bond.  He wasn’t angry anymore -- though he had been that and half a dozen other things since finding James in the warehouse -- but he was curious.  “Why?”

But as James started to rattle off his reasons why he’d have killed Alec in the warehouse had their positions been reversed, Alec found he didn’t bloody care.  The sound of James’ baritone rumbling between them and the warmth of his skin still radiating damp heat from the shower … sod this!

“You still talk too fucking much, James,” Alec growled before grabbing James’ face in his hands and crashing their lips together in a rough kiss.

James’ hands found Alec’s upper arms, attempting to force some space between them, but Alec held James’ jaw, refusing to back away from tasting what he now acknowledged he so desperately wanted.  In a split second, he had James pinned to the wall, one arm crushed behind his former lover’s lower back, forcing James’ hips fiercely against his own, letting James feel the need growing hard between them.

The familiar aggression of Alec’s kiss had memories flooding back of so many post-mission reunions, and, accepting that he really did talk too much, James abandoned all resistance.

But that didn’t mean he was about to allow Alec to call all the shots.

James grabbed a handful of Alec’s shaggy hair and yanked sharply, breaking their lips apart, but only so James could crash them together once more, this time asserting

his

dominance with lips and tongue and teeth.

“You bastard,” Alec snarled with a feral grin when James’ incisor split his lip and hot metallic blood mingled between them.

“Always!  I remember how you like it!”

Alec hauled him away from the wall and wrestled him around, twisting James’ arm behind him.  James hissed, freeing his other arm to brace against the wall, saving himself a broken nose when Alec slammed into him with his full weight.

“Do you, James?”  Alec breathed hotly against his ear, pressing his hard, clothed cock against the round swell of James’ arse.   One-handed, he tugged James’ loose pyjama pants until they fell around his knees. James keened when Alec’s calloused hand closed on his cock.  “Then we’ll have to see how much I fucking remember about making you scream ...”

Alec bit hard into the crook of James’ neck, a spot he’d attacked more than one in their past.  He didn’t draw blood, but it would leave a mark --

his

mark -- and the sound of James’ groan, and the way his cock leapt in Alec’s hand had him reaching for the flies of his jeans to free his own.

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, James hooked a foot around Alec’s ankle and twisted, sending Alec to the ground.  Pushing his hands aside, James had the jeans off in two tugs -- thank Christ the idiot was barefoot! -- and Alec’s light jumper flew across the room a moment later.  Kicking out of his sleep trousers, James fell atop the other man, bringing them skin to skin for the first time in nearly ten years.

Any initial shock they might have felt at the reconnection was lost when Alec rolled out from under James, reversing their positions.  Pinning James’ hands alongside his shoulders, he began to rut against him, but not in any way that satisfied.

“Ten bloody years, and you’re going to fucking tease?!”

“For as long as you’re going to lay on the floor, old man,”  Alec growled between attacking James’ neck with nips.

James bucked up against him, unseating Alec and chuckling darkly at Alec’s spew of Russian curses.  They both lunged for the bed, and then for each other, hands grasping and clawing until Alec found James’ cock and James pushed his fingers into Alec’s mouth.  “Just like the old days, Sasha. Rough and...”

Alec gave a twist of his hand and James forgot how to make words ...

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Q crawled into bed, pulling his laptop and phone along with him.   He flipped through multi-streaming services looking for something to entertain and occupy his mind until he eventually dosed off.   Looking through Alec’s ‘my list,’ he finally settled on watching something called

Final Table

.

“Of course Alec would have all the cooking shows tagged in his list to watch.”

He flipped and flopped, trying to get comfortable.  The bed felt awkward... too large, empty. He pulled a couple of pillows up behind him, building a barrier to lean against.

As if there was another body in the bed.

He made it halfway through the first episode before letting the video play in the background for noise, and he pulled up the Goldeneye files once more.  In some ways, it was unfathomable, the peril of such technology in the wrong hands, but in this case, it was oh so real. Just one ghost of the past that needed laid to rest along with some others.

Hopefully, Alec was doing something to vanquish one of those other ghosts.  As much as he hated bringing someone else in on this operation, it seemed that decision had already been made. He just hoped they could find a working arrangement that would satisfy everyone’s needs.

Q fidgeted and flopped some more.  Grabbing another quilt off the end of the bed, he tried to snuggle in, tablet propped up on a pillow near his hip.   Bed was too cold without his personal warmer, too.

Q’s mobile lit up with a message and he made a grab for it.  Alec. Short and to the point.

Ok?

Q sighed.  Just like Alec to feel the need to check on him.  Of course, there was no other response but,

Yes, ok.  Dosing.

He waited a long time for a reply. Wriggling, punching the pillow.  Checking the screen a half dozen times.

Good.  Sleep.

“As if,” Q muttered crossly.

Alec shoved his mobile under the pillow and rolled over to find James watching him.

“It’s not a casual thing with you two.  Do you want to go back to him?”

“It’s not.  But no, it’s fine.”  Alec pulled James’ arm across his body.  James responded by throwing a possessive leg over Alec’s and wriggling closer.  He wouldn’t settle for this being all he and Alec would have. Not now.

“We’re both still here.  They didn’t get us yet.” It was an old familiar line.  An echo of a shared past.

Alec grinned and turned his head so they could share a leisurely kiss.  When they drew apart he turned serious. “True. But as they say, ‘we need to talk’.  She’ll try again. If she knows we’re together, nothing will stop her from sending others after us.  I won’t lose you again. But tomorrow, we need to talk about the reason we’re all here.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The sea glittered in the morning light.  The low crests of gently swelling waves gilded in contrast to the rich, perfect blue.

James was stood on one of the balconies off the main sitting room overlooking the Gulf of Naples, cuppa in hand, mulling over all he and Alec had discussed before Alec’d been summoned by one of his men to attend to business.

He was still under guard -- “Sorry, James, but that’s Q’s call, not mine.”-- but Luka’s presence in the back of the room didn’t seem quite as looming as it had yesterday when Q had come to call.

“We need to talk about the reason we’re all here,” Alec said last night before pulling James close again for another round that was more about reconnection, and perhaps a bit of redemption, than frenzied fucking driven by the demons of their past.

And talk they had.  It had been awkward.  At times stilted. Containing far more emotions than any properly repressed British man who kept secrets for a living was comfortable giving voice to -- even if they were the only two in the bedroom -- but when morning finally came round, James and Alec

had

talked.  And once they’d sorted through the pain and the loss and the other … harder feelings, they eventually came to the architect of their pain.

The Demon-in-Chief herself.

M.

James had sorted through the information on the tablet and in the paper file before Alec had shown up at his door, and during their talk it became clear to both men that M’s manipulation of data and intelligence -- at least as far as 006 and 007 were concerned -- went back nearly two decades, to when James and Alec were still new to the SIS.

Orphans make the best agents, M had said on more than one occasion.  Why? Well, in their cases, looking back, it had made them more reliant and dependent on her.  Solidifying her control and her power over the two who would become the most competent and efficient agents in her Double-O arsenal.

Somewhere along the way, however, Alec had run afoul of their master.  Maybe it had been his penchant for relying more on his gut than adhering strictly to what the intel suggested.  Perhaps she objected to Alec’s ‘bull in a china shop’ approach and affinity for fire and explosives when more subtle handling might be needed.  Fuck, as far as they knew, The Evil Queen of Numbers might have just hated his haircut, but whatever the reason, M had cut Alec loose in Russia and had spent the intervening years manipulating James at every turn.

“Bloody bitch!” James muttered around the rim of his cuppa.

“If you’re talking about M, I heartily agree.”

James would never admit to jumping at the unexpected voice behind him.  Thankfully
,
his borrowed jumper was dark enough to hide the tea that splashed across his chest when he had.

“Someone should put a bell on you,” James said with a frown.  He couldn’t remember the last time someone managed to sneak up on him.

Q laughed.  “Alec’s said the same thing more than once.”  He curled up on the sofa that faced the balcony and the sea beyond.  He had a steaming mug of his own -- embellished with a Scrabble tile: Q -- and a tablet.  “Not intentional. I promise.” He gestured at the chair opposite. “Please.”

“Our turn to talk,” James said as he sat. It wasn’t a question.

Q’s smile faded.  His frame grew rigid in spite of its casual pose, and the warm voice James had grown used to hearing yesterday turned to ice.  Its tone was the one he’d heard that night in the warehouse in Shanghai. “Simonova? Don’t think I won’t do the same to you if you hurt him again.”

“I didn’t set out to hurt him the first time,” James countered.

“Lack of intent doesn’t mitigate the impact.  It’s important you know where I stand on the issue before we can move forward.”

“Your stance is quite clear.”

The shovel talk from his lover’s lover -- Partner?

Husband

?  He and Alec really needed to clear a few things up -- while not wholly unexpected nevertheless had the added punch that came with the knowledge Q was quite capable of putting a bullet in the brain of someone who displeased him.  Oddly, the notion wasn’t as off-putting as it probably should be. Though a boffin, it was good to know that Alec had chosen a man with bollocks and the ability to back up his threats, James thought.

The man’s tension eased, and when he spoke, James noted that his voice had regained its warmth.  “Then we can continue,” Q said around the lip of his mug of tea. Earl Grey from the smell of it.  “So are you with us?”

“Your information has convinced me that Goldeneye is a significant threat and needs to be destroyed,” James said.  He set his empty cup on the table at his side and crossed his legs, forearms resting casually on the arms of the chair and watched as Q’s eyebrow disappeared into his shaggy fringe.

“Not quite an answer.  You still have questions.  Ask them.”

“How do I know you’ll actually destroy it?  You work for a man, an organisation, wanted for high crimes across the globe, and given what I suspect

you’re

capable of doing with a computer and manipulating technology to advance those goals, Goldeneye’s threat hardly dies simply because you have it.  In fact, the world could face an even greater peril with it in your possession.”

“You’re right, I suppose.  You only have my word, and that of Alec, that I’ll destroy it.  And whilst you know him …”

“You’re still an unknown.”

“Quite.”  Q hummed thoughtfully, staring off into the middle distance before turning his assessing gaze back on James who refused to squirm in spite of the fact he was increasingly certain Q saw far more when he looked at him like that than James was wholly comfortable with.

“Well, I suppose there’s nothing for it,” Q said, apparently coming to a decision about something.  “Whilst I’m certain your … concern is for the world in general, I also know of your dedication to Queen and Country.  It’s always been your priority, after Alec that is. Even M knew that. I’m certain it’s why she cut Alec loose. It created more leverage with you.  But, I digress. I’m curious to know your thoughts, Bond. How is it that in the years Janus has been active, it has not

once

attacked or even disrupted UK assets or interests?   What does it tell you that the initial objective of your mission was the capture or killing of Janus? Goldeneye was barely a tangential concern for M.  ”

“It was only a matter of time --”

“A matter of time?!  Bond, I think it’s quite clear that Alec’s love for the Commonwealth died when he did.  Given M’s level of betrayal, it would make more sense that Britain would be a

primary

target, but Janus has given it a wide berth.  I can see from the look not quite on your face that you don’t have an answer for that.”

James had to admit that he did not.

Q unfolded from his ball and sat on the edge of the sofa, feet fully on the floor, forearms propped on his thighs, hands loose between his legs.  It was a purposeful but unthreatening pose. One James had used more than once in his career when he was about to share a piece of information that would utterly alter the playing field.  It worked well.

That didn’t mean he appreciated being on the other end of it now.

“There’s one bit of intel not in that file.  It’s not in

any

file.  M doesn’t have it.  She doesn’t even

suspect

it.  It doesn’t exist anywhere.  Other than me, this knowledge is in the keeping of four other people, only three of whom are truly trustworthy.  You will be the fifth.”

“Enough with the dramatic lead in, Q.  Say it.”

“M has it wrong, Commander Bond.  Alec Trevelyan

isn’t

Janus.”  Q’s half smile was at once self-deprecating and proud. “

I

am.”

Bond stared.  At a loss for words.

This

little shite was Janus.  The mastermind behind the complex, wealthy organisation that seemed to have its hands in multiple entities throughout the world.

It didn’t make sense, but it did.  And suddenly so many things began to fall into place.  Alec was Q’s front, and no one knew any different. Not even the most powerful and competent spy organisations in the world.

Not even M.

Clearly pleased that he had stupefied Bond, Q continued with his explanation.  “When I set off on this path, I never imagined things would become as intricate as they have.  Well, maybe I did have some delusions of grandeur,” he smirked. “But that’s a hereditary trait, I suppose, and another story for another time.”

Q sat back, texted something quickly into his phone before picking up his cuppa once more.  “Things grew quickly. Janus became a force of its own. And soon I realised I needed a watchdog.”

The familiar face of one of Q’s ‘henchmen’ appeared in the doorway.  He carried a tray that held a pot of tea and a variety of local pastries.  Setting it on the table between the two men, he disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.

“As you are well aware, Commander Bond, human trafficking is a lucrative business.  There are the obvious marketing networks and then there are

other

networks.  You can imagine how intrigued I was when news reached me of an MI6 agent available for purchase.”

“A trade you frequent?”  Bond pushed to see what reaction he would get from the younger man.

“You know the answer to that, Commander Bond,” Q answered smoothly, unruffled. “You’ve read all the intel.”  Q poured himself a fresh cuppa before continuing.

“When I found Alec there, he was a broken, wild animal. Full of rage and hate.  I knew that if I didn’t acquire him, whoever did would probably have put him down within a month. I paid an astronomical amount for Alec.  But know that I have never regretted it. There were some hard times for him at first, but we manoeuvred our way through them. A lot of rage and regret.”  Q’s eyes hardened once more, locking on Bond’s over his cuppa as he took a sip.

“So you own him.”  James felt the beginnings of his own rage swell at the thought of

anyone

owning Alec.

“No. I do

not

, Commander Bond.”  Q shook his head decisively.  “Alec has been free, his own man, from the time they unlocked that cage after I paid his purchase price.   Free to stay or leave whenever he wanted with no reprisals. He chose to stay.”

James pondered that silently.  Eventually, “Call me James. And I will call you...?”

“As you wish.  James.” Q beamed at him. “Q is fine.”

“So tell me, why did Alec never go after M?  And, more to the point, what’s to stop me from saying ‘fuck Goldeneye’ and go after her myself?”

“Me.”

The two men looked at the newcomer.  Alec sauntered into the room, pausing behind Q and placing a proprietary hand on his shoulder.  He grinned at James, then dropped a kiss onto the crown of Q’s head. Q huffed and rolled his eyes at James.

“Insufferable man,” Q muttered fondly.  His fingers interlaced with Alec’s at his shoulder, however, grounding him in preparation for the rest of their conversation.

“Much as I want to make M pay, I agree with Q that we have a far greater threat to neutralise.  Also...” he smirked at Q as he rounded the sofa, not releasing his hand. “This one sort of promised a long time ago not to act against Britain or her interests.  Unfortunately, that includes the Queen Bitch.”

James looked thoughtful, then, “Just who the hell are you really, Q?”

Q sighed and leaned into Alec’s side a bit.  “A son of England who ran afoul of the government -- his family -- when he decided a life on this side of the law was more real than the hypocrisy of the prancing sycophants he’d known all his life, but one who still loves his country enough to promise never to hurt her, and in this case, to protect her.  I’ll tell you the rest someday, but for now … Goldeneye?”

It was clear to James that even Q had his own private pain to contend with.  His answer, though oblique, was enough for now.

James nodded.  He was in. “Goldeneye.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

From what James could tell, the Janus organisation was extremely well put together.  In fact, had it been a legitimate business instead of one that operated with mercenaries outside the law, it would be one of the most formidable in the world.  For all that, however, James had to admit that Q had been right. Whilst it might not take all of them to

find

The Path -- he was fairly certain Q would track them down via whatever wizardry he and R worked on those computers of theirs --  based on what Q had shared with James, it would likely take all of them to bring The Path to its knees.

In the two days since agreeing to work together, Q had kept Alec busy contacting the various sources and allies the former MI6 agent had acquired in his years as the face of Janus in hopes that one of them might prove useful in finding The Path.  He set James the same task, but Bond had to be infinitely more cautious in contacting his assets lest M catch wind that he’d thrown in his lot with Janus, so he spent time sifting through some Q’s human-sourced intel. Though Goldeneye was their primary focus, both Alec and James still nursed the desire for vengeance against the woman, but until the time was right, it was essential M believe she was still puppetmaster to Bond’s marionette.

Whilst he had long suspected M was playing him on some level -- she was a spymaster, after all, some of that was just part of the job -- to have actual evidence of the degree to which she’d manipulated him ...  He was angry and sickened at the level of betrayal. To know that he’d been played for years. That he was no better than a mark to be used to achieve some aim that-

Played no better than a mark.

His head popped up from the file he’d been reading, eyes searching out Alec who stood talking with his second, Cuj, at the far end of Q’s large lab.  He and Alec had continued to talk and fuck and take time to re-acquaint themselves with one another over the last few days.

When they weren’t working to find Goldeneye, that is.

We need you on this

, James, Alec had said their first night together.  A sick feeling started to form in his gut.

What if -

“You’re wrong,”  Q said, looking up at him from his computer across from where James sat sifting through files.  “You weren’t a mark, James. Alec came to you that night to settle the past. It wasn’t a honey trap.”

“How did you ...”  Bond stared Q a tad dumbfounded.

“I read your mind,” Q responded to a blank-faced Bond who was suddenly attempting to mask his emotions.  “It was a joke, Commander Bond. A

joke

... don’t be so stodgy.”  Q waved a hand at him over his computer monitor.

“Actually, I added two and two and divided it by Newton’s Theory of Relativity then converted it all to binary ...” Q continued, still getting no response from Bond.  The man seemed to have the sense of humour of a signpost. “How about … I know Alec better than he knows himself, therefore I know you? You’re not as blank with your expressions as you believe yourself to be.”

“That still not really an answer.”

Q stopped typing and sighed deeply.  “I don’t know ... I read people. I read people well.   A self-preservation skill that has kept me safe and alive many times.  Let’s just say I deduced what was churning around in your head. Something of a family trait.”

“You’re quite scary, aren’t you?”

Q barked with laughter, a goofy smile spreading across his face for a moment before he sobered and seemed to consider James’ observation.

“Not the way you’re suggesting,” he said at length, “but yes.  I suppose I am. Scary.” Q hummed thoughtfully and shrugged his shoulders, returning his attention to his computer.  “Hazard of the job.”

“Why do you do it?  Why did you choose

this

way of life?” James asked with a gesture suggesting the Janus organisation as a whole.  He set the file he’d been reading aside, genuinely curious. In all his years as an agent, he’d never been presented an opportunity like this.  The chance to get inside the head of one of his adversaries -- they were usually trying to kill him, after all -- was like cracking open a Faberge Egg to see the unknown treasure inside.  And though Q wasn’t truly an adversary anymore, the concept was the same.

“It’d be easier to explain why Alec says he loathes tomatoes, avoids them on principle, until faced with vine-ripened ones from the market in Marina di Puolo that he then consumes by the kilo,” Q scoffed.

“Try.”

Q’s fingers stopped their dance on the keyboard.  He looked up from the screen and stared off into the middle distance, saying nothing for a long time.

“Initially, it was to save a friend,” he said eventually, nodding at R as she entered the lab and sat at her workstation across the room.  “Don’t mistake me, though, James. I’m hardly altruistic, not even then. Hacked my first bank to get the quid necessary to get R off the streets and into uni.”

“Which bank?” James had to ask.  The smirk on Q’s face indicating it wasn’t his local branch of HSBC.

“The U.S. Federal Reserve.”

“Shite, Q!”

“It was a gorgeous hack.”  Q’s smirk blossomed with pride at the memory, and James found himself increasingly caught by that smile and how it brightened his green eyes in a way not even his spectacles could hide.  Both were infectious. “First of many. Created the nest egg for all of this that way. Probably would have been able to stay under the radar if I’d just stayed with that, but I needed more of a challenge, and the banks hardly posed one.  Not even the Swiss, though they claim otherwise.”

“What did you do?”

“Hacked the MoD to gain access to the control system for Polaris.”

James frowned.  “I thought you didn’t go after British assets and interests.”

“I don’t.  Anymore. Agreement with my eldest brother after I fled the country.  Stodgy git. Loathe the bastard, but it was a small price to pay to keep him focussed on

his

government and out of

my

business.  Was that or find a way to shove his brolly up his arse.”  Q shrugged. “This was easier. And I do love my country.

Never

doubt my loyalty to her, Bond.”

The conviction in his tone was one James recognised and could appreciate.

“Understood.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Alec rolled onto his back and stared up at the dark ceiling of the bedroom.  Always a light sleeper, James shifted beside him, throwing a muscled thigh over Alec’s legs in a half-hearted attempt to trap him there.  “Time to go?” He murmured without opening his eyes.

Alec hummed in agreement but made no move to get up.  He was finding it harder to leave James’ bed each night.  Not because he didn’t want to return to Q -- indeed it was just as difficult for him to say goodnight to his dark-haired lover to visit the blond one -- but the lingering thought of years wasted held him captive.

James opened his eyes and surveyed Alec’s familiar profile.  “It’s alright, you know? I understand the terms of the arrangement.  It’s not like we ever had any sort of... permanence before. A long series of temporary affairs.  A habit.”

Alec did look at him then, scowling at the dismissive terms.  “Is that what we were?”

Nobody could say the reconciliation of Double-O lovers would ever run smoothly, but the unexpected flashes of anger that arose from a decade of resentment were starting to wear on them both.

What was the point?

James reached for Alec with a frustrated sigh.  “Of course not, you idiot,” he murmured against Alec’s lips, ending with a lingering kiss. It ended abruptly with a grin, a slap on Alec’s thigh and demand that he get the hell out of bed before James refused to let him leave.

Scooping up his pyjama pants into a bundle and closing the door behind him, Alec stalked bare-arsed through the base towards the rooms he shared with Q.  The place was never completely deserted even at a little after 3 am, but he still cursed his luck when he ran into two of his men.

“Lose your clothes, Boss?” The younger lad smirked.

“Nah, he’s just been pumping the prisoner for information,” the other chuckled.

“If you’ve nothing better to do than pull my dick, there’s a half-dozen PP-2000s downstairs that need checking over.  Now fuck off and sort them.”

The two mock saluted, and Alec left them to it, storming into his suite.  He hurled the ball of trousers at the sofa next to where Q was sitting, laptop balanced on his knees, and poured himself a large drink.

Q looked him up and down, eyebrow raised at the rather lovely sight.  “Trouble?” He asked, thinking it prudent to ascertain why Alec was striding around in all his glory, clearly agitated.

“No.  Yes. I don’t bloody know!”  Alec knocked back his drink, poured another.  He paced moodily, obviously mentally wrestling with something that needed said.

Q, now distracted from his work, set the computer aside and curled up, tucking his feet under him to admire the caged-animal presence of his lover.

“This can’t carry on!” Alec waved his glass expansively, but Q was none the wiser to the cause of his trouble.  “If it compromises the respect the men give me... I can’t keep sneaking around between beds like some kind of... of... philanderer!”

Q had unfortunately just taken a sip of his own drink.  A rather violent spray of fine Macallan shot from his nose, burning enough to make his eyes water.  He coughed so violently Alec had to stop and slap his back.

“That was

not

what I was expecting,” Q gasped when he finally managed to draw breath.

“I’m serious, Q.  This is not ideal.”

“It’s hard to take you seriously when you’re irate and nude.”  Q tossed the trousers back at Alec. “Put them on and sit down.  You’re making me dizzy.”

Alec took the opportunity to refill their drinks, giving Q the opportunity to absorb what he had ranted about.

“I can see your point,” Q said after some consideration.  Though they’d never stood in front of their troops and declared themselves a couple -- what a nightmare

that

would be -- it was known by all Alec and Q were dedicated to one another.  That they should see Alec making his way between beds now ... “I am sorry, Alec.  I’d hoped to make things easier for you and James, but apparently, I didn’t take into consideration all the factors I should have.   ”

“You?  You factor in everything,”  Alec scoffed. Handing Q his drink, he plopped down on the cushions next to him.

“Yes, well …”  Q huffed, irritated with himself.  “Emotions … muddy things sometimes.”

“Wait!”  Alec poked Q in the centre of his chest as dread started to form in his own.  “You

said

you were okay with this.  Are you telling me-”

“No!  Alec,” Q rose to his knees and took Alec’s face in his hands, green eyes on green.  “I

am

okay with it.  I want you to be with James, but …”

“

But

?” Q’s halting explanation was doing nothing to ease Alec’s rising agitation.

Q bit his lip. “But it’s turning out to be harder than I thought it would be.  Not the knowledge that you’re having sex with another man you love, but …” He ducked his head, suddenly embarrassed.

“Talk to me.

Please

,

malyutka

.”

Oh, bother!  “Turns out … after all this time … Fuck!”  Q scrubbed a hand through his hair and seeing his turmoil, Alec pulled him closer, into his lap.

“Trust me,

malen'kaya lisa,”

Alec said against Q’s temple.

“I- I need you … by me.  With me.” Q’s reply was barely a whisper in the narrow space between them.  “I never needed anyone. Proud to be independent, but … then you. Now I can’t even sleep alone knowing you’re somewhere else.  You fucking wanker!”

Alec’s heart both soared and sank at the admission.  He loved James, yes, but he loved Owen, too, and would

not

hurt him.  He’d lived without James for a decade.  He could do so again. “Right. This ends now, then.”

“No!  That’s not what I mean,” Q protested.  “Oh!” He practically jumped out of Alec’s arms at the realisation that suddenly struck him.  He clapped his hands together and began pacing the length of the room in his excitement. “That’s it!”

“What’s it?  Owen?!” Alec demanded.  All his lover needed was a long-coat and a blue scarf linked around his neck and Q’d look exactly like his elder brother who had tracked Janus down during his two-year hunt for that maniac Moriarty.

“You don’t want to be seen sneaking around between beds, and I don’t want you sleeping out of ours.”

“Yes.  And?”

“We’ll just move James in here.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The break they were looking for came early the next morning when Q dug through the results of an automated programme he’d set to run the night before.  It was a small lead, barely a whisper that suggested The Path’s presence, but before breakfast, he’d had Alec, James, and a small strike force of mercenaries off to Greece where Q found a hazy imprint of Montgomery’s digital footprint in Patras.

“You’re not coming?” James asked, digging through the kit Q had provided him for the operation.

“Shanghai was an exception.  I don’t often go into the field.  This is where I excel,” he said with a gesture at his lab and the impressive armoury beyond.  “I’ll run the operation from here, be in your ear throughout. Alec will give you the particulars en route on how it all works.”  Q opened a small case that sat on the worktop next to him. Inside sat Bond’s gun that had been taken from him in the warehouse. No.  On second glance, while a Walther, this one was quite different. “Your primary weapon. Now if the 9mm short is

not

your weapon of choice, we’ll address that when you get back, but like Alec’s Sig, this one has been enhanced with a biometric sensor coded specifically to your palm print.  No one can fire it but you.”

“A biometric sensor …”

“From the look on your face, I gather Six’s R&D is a bit behind the times?”

James looked at the weapon in his hand with something akin to awe.  “Just a tad.”

“Well, then.  Welcome to mission technology of the

22nd

Century, James. I always try to design a few decades ahead.  Now, off you pop. Time and tide and Alec Trevelyan wait for no man.”

It had been some time since Bond had operated as anything other than a lone wolf.  When he had, on rare occasions, been forced to work alongside another agent, he had always made it crystal clear he was in charge, and he took care of no one but himself.  Those unfortunate enough to work with 007 learned quickly to keep up and watch their own back.

Now he found himself part of a team, and Alec was, without question, in charge.

Bond watched Alec from the edge of their makeshift headquarters in an abandoned house a few kilometres from their target.  He stood apart from the group of mercenaries who seemed to move around one another like the cogs of a well-oiled machine. They nodded when Alec issued orders, offered suggestions, but deferred to his decisions.  The 006 Bond knew of old was a specialist at working alone, even more so than 007 himself, but there was no doubt Alec had found his talent as a natural leader.

The men, as Bond thought of them collectively, though one was an intimidating young Ukrainian woman he had been advised to give a wide berth, began to assemble to move out for their target.

“What about him?  New boy?” She suddenly asked loudly.

As one, the group turned to look at Bond.  Not all of the gazes were friendly.

“He’s with me,” Alec growled.  “First time out. Unfamiliar with our MO.  Problem?”

She nodded at the gun in Bond’s hand.  “He know which end of that to use? Who to point it at?”

Bond stepped up to her, toe to toe.  She didn’t flinch, grey eyes level with Bond’s blue.  He smiled his most disarming smile and chuckled dangerously.  “Don’t worry about me. I was taking out bastards like this while you were still playing kiss-chase in the schoolyard.”

“цілуйте це” she spat, and he found her weapon pressed under his chin.

“не тягніть хвоста тигра,” Alec snapped at her, pushing between them, but he was grinning.  “Yes, he is pretty, Yulia, but he bites hard. Now go! Comms check in 15. Be ready.”

“That’s the problem with living legends, I suppose,” Q’s exaggerated sigh sounded in James’ ear through the private comm channel he’d created for the three of them. “They rarely live up to expectations.”

Alec snorted.  “To be fair not much impresses Yulia.”

“Alec would know.  She’s always adored me.  A noble effort, though Bond,” Q said.  The mobiles Alec and James each carried in pockets beneath their tactical vests vibrated.  “But, back to business. I’ve just sent you an updated blueprint of The Path’s facility. It changes a few things.”

Forty minutes later, just after full darkness fell on Patras and the large house on the outskirts overlooking the sea, Janus struck.

The 22 hostiles scattered in and around the compound were well-armed and, while not expecting the incursion, were more than prepared to defend their territory.

“These are zealots, everyone,” Q had warned them just before the ‘Go’ order.  “Unlike anyone we’ve gone up against before. They will be resolute in protecting Montgomery as their prophet and Goldeneye as the instrument of their salvation.   As such, they will be dangerously unpredictable. Watch yourselves. I’d like to see all of you at breakfast tomorrow.”
The initial firefight in the grounds was short but deadly.  Alec’s mercenaries were ruthless, but it appeared The Path’s guard was well trained.  With skill they drew back, leading Alec’s team deeper into the house.“I don’t like this, Q,” Alec warned as he advanced towards the heart of the building.  “You said there was no exit from the rear? So why the fuck are they drawing us in?”“Give me a moment...” The rattle of a keyboard and Q conferring with R was the last they heard before a hail of automatic gunfire stripped the plaster from the wall above their heads.  Debris and spent casings rained down on the group around Alec, followed by an eerie moment of silence.Bond, Yulia, and another man recovered first, moving toward the shooter’s location, but a shout behind Alec alerted him and the rest of the team to hostiles who had circled around behind, but rather than attacking, they were running.    “Get after them!” Alec yelled.With a low rumble, the building shuddered and a screaming creak of splintering wood preceded the collapse of the ceiling above them, chunks of the upper storey crashing to the floor between the two groups.  A man screamed as he was engulfed by falling masonry and a panicked Alec yelled, “James?!”“Here,” Bond called back, spitting dust and wafting a hand vigorously in front of him, trying to clear the air.  “I’m fine, but...” Somewhere to his left Yulia shouted and a scuffle began Bond couldn’t see. There was a shot and the heavy drop of a body.  Seconds later Yulia stumbled out of the cloud, bloody and holding something tightly to her chest.“Is detonator, I think,” she said grimly.  “Probably not a kill switch, but I won’t let go.”“Place is booby-trapped, Q,” James snapped over the comms.  Both he and Q could hear Alec running now, in pursuit of the fleeing soldiers of The Path.  “Guide us out! I think it’s obvious Montgomery isn’t here. Not if the whole building is rigged with fucking explosives.”Q swore quietly.  “Agreed. Are you hurt?”“Not me, but Yulia is bleeding from a leg wound.  She can walk...?” She nodded. “But slowly.” Neither of them mentioned the device she gripped in her hand.
Getting James, Yulia, and the other three men -- Christo was dead, impaled by a shattered beam -- out of the house was a tedious process made more challenging by the increasing instability of the complex, and Q would have preferred taking his time, but the sudden vibration of the detonator in Yulia’s hand changed everything.

The digital timer on the face of the device had started counting down.

“

Pizda rulu

!”

Even James knew the meaning of that.

So did Q.

“Bond?”

“We’ve 60 seconds!”  They were, at most, halfway to the nearest exit.  James bent low and tucked his body against Yulia’s hip, hoisting her solid form onto his shoulders.  “No time to get to know one another further, I’m afraid,” he muttered in reply to her protest. “Get us out of here now, Q!”

The ensuing 60 seconds were quite possibly the longest of Q’s life.  Half blinded by the increasing failure of the internal and external security cameras, he had to rely upon aged blueprints of the rapidly crumbling building to get his people out.  That they would have to dodge still further booby traps became clear when Nikkos, in the lead, tripped a wire sending a wave of nails sailing through the open doorway.

James pressed himself against the wall to avoid strays then scrambled over the man’s dead body, Yulia in tow.  “Q, I did

not

sign up to star in a sodding Indiana Jones movie!”

“I know! I know!”  Back in Sorrento, Q, with R’s aid, tore through the blueprints searching for likely places for further traps.  “Left at the next corridor intersection, but hug the right wall. And I do mean hug it!” Q shouted at his lab’s ceiling where the speakers were embedded in spite of the fact he had a ‘wig in his own ear.

“Twenty seconds, Q,” R said softly with a hand on his shoulder.

“Once you’re at the end, bear right, there’ll be a door,” Q continued without acknowledging R’s warning, though she knew he heard it.  He’d done the mental math as she had. Barring a miracle, Bond and the rest would need 25. “Gets you outside. Now’s not the time for idleness, Commander Bond, and I do advise that you jump through all remaining doorways.”

There was no time to appreciate the blast of fresh air as the external door gave way before them.  A much stronger force from the explosion hurled them through the door and out into the grounds, heat and noise at their backs.

Instinctively, James rolled, somehow dragging Yulia with him, and found the scantest of cover in a drainage ditch at the edge of the drive.  He landed on top of her and pressed her face to his shoulder, hand clamped over her ear in an attempt to shield her from the roar of the building’s death.  A domino effect of explosions echoed through the complex, each one sending fountains of stone, timber, and mortar, dozens of meters into the air.

“Bond?

007

?!”  The voice in his ear was tinny and punctured by gaps in the transmission.  “Tell me you made it out. Alec will be pissed if I got his immortal killed.”

“We’re out, Q.  Keep the others back,” James coughed.  The air was thick with debris. “We’ll make our way to them.”

There was a heavy sigh of relief from the other end then a prim, “Excellent news, Bond.  Don’t tarry now.”

James scrambled to his feet and held out his hand to Yulia. When she took it her grip was strong.  “I walk this time.” He grinned, and this time it was not the cocky 007 smile but one of tired, pained relief that they were both walking wounded.

As they stumbled towards the perimeter, they could see Alec and the remainder of their team watching anxiously.  James noted a figure on his knees off to the side, two weapons trained on him and, from the way his hands were positioned in the small of his back, it seemed he was zip-tied.

At least they hadn’t come out of this clusterfuck empty-handed.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Fucking nutjob fanatic!”  The flat of Alec’s hand connected with the first thing it found, and Q’s Scrabble mug went soaring across the lab, shattering against the far wall.

Q sighed and rose from his desk, eyeing the shards with a rueful twist to his lips.  “Well, at least it was empty this time.”

“This time?” James asked, though his tone was more weary than inquisitive.  The boffin only raised a ‘you know how Alec is’ eyebrow in response, and to his surprise, James knew precisely what the silent response meant.

Q crossed the room to the small kitchenette where he opened a storage cupboard and pulled out a new Q
10
mug from a row of identical Q
10
mugs -- there had to be about 30 on the shelves -- and flicked on the electric kettle.

Alec continued to pace the length of the lab beyond -- empty of all but Q who was working late awaiting the results of the interrogation -- cursing and muttering beneath his breath.

“Still no progress, I take it,” Q said to James who’d followed him.

The Double-O had spent the last three hours with Alec interrogating their prisoner.  Standing shoulder to shoulder with the boffin at the small worktop, James poured a finger’s worth of whisky for himself and two of chilled vodka for Alec.

James huffed a response and downed his drink.

Q looked pointedly at the bottle of whisky.  James reached for another glass.

“I’m starting to wonder if there’s not some sort of subliminal … I don’t know … programming or something embedded in him.  I’ve interrogated zealots before and they always break, eventually. I’ve not seen anything like this,” James admitted as he splashed more whisky into the glasses.

He passed one to Q but nearly dropped it when their fingers brushed atop the cool crystal.  Q’s other hand shot out to grasp James’ wrist to steady it and the sensation of those warm, calloused fingertips against the inside of his wrist ...

James looked up and saw Q’s eyes flick from where they were joined to James’ face and back at their hands again.  Q swallowed tightly. Behind his spectacles, his eyes had gone wide and dark. He drifted closer, leaving only the slenderest of spaces between them.  James drew a breath, and Q tightened his grip on James’ wrist for a long moment before stepping back, taking the glass with him.

Q downed the whiskey at once and set the glass on the worktop.  The kettle started to boil. He gripped the crystal and drew a deep breath of his own to centre himself before setting his shoulders and opening his eyes again.

“It’s possible,” he said, voice perhaps a bit unsteady compared to what it had been just moments before. “The programming, I mean.”  Finally shaking off the intensity of that shared touch, Q turned back toward Bond, his face settling back into that pragmatic look James realised he adopted when considering a problem.  “Cults, terror groups, are havens for the vulnerable, the ostracised, those looking for something bigger than themselves to give them purpose.” He fixed his tea as he explained. “The Path is no different.  Franklin Montgomery is extremely charismatic. The weak-minded would bask in the narcissistic seduction that man is capable of. Psychological manipulation to cement such dedication would be a logical and simple next step.”

“An easy one, too, given the right mind.”

“Are you heading back in?”  Q asked over his shoulder as he returned to his workstation, piping in cuppa in hand.

“That’s up to Alec,” James said, handing Alec his glass.  “You think we’ll break him tonight?”

Alec shook his head and tossed back the vodka, scowling at the screen that monitored their prisoner in a locked room far less comfortable than the bedroom James had known.  The man was on his knees, head bowed, lips moving.

“Is he praying?” James asked.

“Not as we would understand it.”  Alec pushed a button and the concealed microphones in the cell picked up the thin, reedy voice raised in supplication to his Master.

“Quite the disciple,” Q commented drily as they listened to the devotions he uttered to the way ...  The Path.

He fought back a shudder.  Such mindless fealty was anathema to him, to any free-thinking, creative mind, and in watching this man’s … devotions, Q had his first glimpse into what the future would look like if they didn’t retrieve Goldeneye before The Path made use of it.  “Maybe an uncomfortable night will make him more talkative. Drop the temperature, Alec. Get Cuj to secure him upright so there’s no chance of sleep. And speaking of sleep, get some, both of you.”

“What about you?  We were going to...”  Alec nodded at James’ back as the former agent returned the glasses to the kitchenette.

Q circled his arms around Alec’s waist and kissed him lightly, tugging Alec’s lower lip playfully with his teeth.  The earlier exchange with James brought a quirk to his lips. “I’ll leave that to you... just leave me room to crawl in beside you in, oh... an hour or two.”

The three said their goodnights, and Q returned to his workstation though his eyes remained on the monitors.  Cuj entered the frame after a few minutes and secured the prisoner per Alec’s orders. Bruised and bloodied, the man didn’t put up even a token resistance as he was strung up by his arms until the only purchase he had on the ground beneath was on the balls of his feet.

His litany continued unabated.

We’ll see how long that lasts,

Q thought.  The man wouldn’t die of positional asphyxiation so long as he kept his feet under him.  The only way to do that was to stay awake.

Torture, whilst effective and often necessary, did not always sit well with him.  Too messy. He preferred the tidier world that hacking afforded him. A much simpler and more direct method of extracting information.  Unfortunately, hacking the human mind was not something even he had managed to develop the technology for -- yet.

He feared, however, Alec and James would take too long in breaking their prisoner.  Or, worse, fail to break him at all. They needed another way to get the information.  They had a selection of psychoactive drugs that might work, but if the level of programming went as deep as Q was starting to fear, even those might not do the trick.

Q flicked off the audio feed to silence the man’s prayers and pulled up a menu on his laptop.  There had to be another way.

Time was short, and they had been betrayed.  It was apparent that The Path had known they were coming.

Greece had been a setup.

Q needed to know who had sold them out.  No one inside Janus. That much he knew and had the evidence -- or lack thereof -- to back it up that assertion.  James, too, was in the clear. Yulia becoming his most vocal defender when some of those who hadn’t been on the ground in Patras suggested Bond was the leak.

Q sighed.

Bond.

The man was becoming … what?  Not a problem but … Bond was more than he’d expected.  In every way imaginable, not the least of which was Q’s confusing and increasing attraction to the man.  One that, unless he missed his guess, Bond felt as well, but that made no sense whatsoever. James had Alec back in his life.  What would he possibly want of a too-thin boffin with a penchant for losing himself in code for days on end and an inclination to blow off the heads of enemies who irritated him?

He couldn’t dismiss, however, the fact that he’d very nearly jumped Bond in the kitchen, and wouldn’t

that

have been something to explain to Alec.  Would he have been pleased or out for blood?

Oh!  Yes! Blood!

Thoughts of Bond fled as the answer to his more critical issue became suddenly apparent.

Of course!  Maybe he

had

invented the technology after all.

It was ready.  He’d completed it months ago but hadn’t got around to actually using it on anyone but himself.  It would just be a matter of reprogramming the nanites to attach themselves to those parts of the brain susceptible to suggestion and honesty and then …

Push.

Q pulled up the specs when the file appeared on the screen.

Time to see just how smart the new SMART Blood really was.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Alec pulled James to a halt far short of the room they had been sharing at night.  In a swift move, he trapped James against a door, pressing close and capturing his mouth in a rough kiss.  James responded fervently, fingers tangling in the back of Alec’s shirt.

“Thought I was going to lose you in Patras,” Alec growled.

It was the first they’d spoken of their personal experience during the raid, though it had been many hours since they returned.  The whisky on James’ breath and the solid swell of his muscles beneath Alec’s questing fingers made Alec’s blood heat.

“Keeping you close from now on.”

Alec nipped at James’ mouth and reached behind him.  The door swung open, allowing Alec to back James across the threshold before kicking it closed again.

Kisses were exchanged, clothes discarded. James’ hand was inside Alec’s pants urging him towards the crescendo of a rapid orgasm before he thought to question where they were.

“Our rooms,” Alec gasped in answer, thrusting into James’ hand whilst trying to push James’ loosened trousers down his hips.

“Ours? As in... yours and

Q

’s?”

Frustratingly for Alec, James withdrew his hand and took a step back, putting some distance between them so he could think without lust blurring his processing the notion Alec was trying to jump him in Q’s bed.   Not that they had made it as far as the bedroom yet, James realised as he surveyed the comfortable sitting room.

Alec adjusted himself.  “Ours as in...

all

of ours...”  James said nothing, face arranged in a carefully blank mask.  “Fuck! I was supposed to talk to you about it, but...”

“But... you’re shite at talking, so you just decided to fuck first and let me figure it out as we went?”  James made a wary circuit of the room, pausing at the open door to the bedroom. The bed was huge. More than big enough for three.  If Alec was supposed to talk to him, then he and Q had already discussed it... and if they had already discussed it, Q was on board with the idea.

“It was his idea,” Alec said, reading James’ thoughts.  “I know him better than he knows himself. Q wants you. He just hasn’t figured out how to ask for it yet.”  Alec gestured at the bed. “This is his solution.”

James nodded.  He hadn’t imagined the intriguing exchange in the lab’s kitchen then.  He stepped back within his lover’s reach, placed Alec’s hand back on his cock, and smirked.  “He will. But let’s pass some time.”
  
It was the small hours when Q finally left his lab.  It had been a rare challenge to reprogramme the nanites and took longer than expected.  He’d been half-tempted to head down to the cells with the SMART Blood and start the interrogation immediately, but it had been a long 36 hours, and he was weary.   Unlike standard interrogations for which Q was physically unsuited, he would have to be an integral part of this one in order to monitor the results and decide which neural pathways to stimulate next.   He needed rest before he started digging around in someone’s head for information with what amounted to microscopic, robotic psychiatrists armed with neurochemical ammunition.

That the whole thing was starting to feel like the plot of a Star Trek movie was not lost on Q.

Wandering through the complex as was his norm before retiring for the night, Q stopped first at the medical suite to check in on Yulia and Carter, his only people injured seriously enough to warrant extended observation.   Content with the night nurse’s assertion that both would recover and sustain no permanent injury, Q took his leave and made his way through the garages that housed both Janus’ functional and experimental vehicles and out along the docks where he paused for a moment to enjoy the clear night air of the sea.  Q greeted each guard he met on his journey with a smile and a clap on the shoulder, for even though they were all ruthless mercenaries, they were

his

ruthless mercenaries.  Most of them had been with Janus for so long they’d formed a bizarre sort of family.

They’d lost two of their own today.  Christo’s and Nikkos’ bodies would be cremated tomorrow, their ashes scattered off the coast of Corfu as the twins had once requested.  Q could only hope they’d find Goldeneye quickly before there were more deaths.

Finally making his way to the residential wing, he glanced at his tablet to see that there were thankfully no new issues for him to attend to before retiring.  Q opened the door to his rooms and couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of Alec’s t-shirt dangling from the lamp closest to the door. Likewise, the black turtleneck -- the obscenely

tight,

black turtleneck -- James had been wearing clung to the front of the bookshelf and one black boot lay in the centre of the coffee table.  Q couldn’t see where the other boot had landed.

They certainly were enthusiastic.

Reaching for the t-shirt, Q took the time to tidy the room of the textile hurricane that had struck.  He found only one pair of pants, Alec’s Iron Man boxers. Did that mean Bond went … Oh!

He was stalling.

Of course, he was stalling.

He

knew

he was stalling.  He’d been stalling on the walk, even.

Groaning, Q pushed up his glasses and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms.  He turned to the partially open door of the bedroom he shared with Alec … and now James.  He approached the door. Stopped. Ran his hands through his hair.

Oh for Christ’s sake, you’re a grown man.  Just do it already!

Q pushed open the door.

Alec was sprawled on his front facing the door with a pillow bunched under his cheek.  Although the room was warm he had the sheet draped over his hips. On the far side of Alec, James lay on his side completely naked, one arm curled possessively over Alec’s back. Q couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or not, but he didn’t stir as the door swung quietly shut again.

Alec did, but only to open his eyes and smile reassuringly.  He slid his hand from under the pillow and held it out, palm up, beckoning Q to bed.

Self-consciously, Q undressed under Alec’s steady gaze.  He hesitated. Turned his back on Alec and stepped into pyjama pants.  He slid in beside Alec and curled up.

“Ok?” Alec whispered.  He rolled so he could spoon the slim man, and with a sleepy grumble, James spooned against Alec’s back.

“He was happy with the decision?” Q murmured, expecting Alec’s confirmation, but it was James who answered.

“He was.”  James peered over Alec’s shoulder.  “But he’s tired and sore and needs a few hours.  Sleep well, Q.”

Q rolled his eyes in the darkness, thankful that neither man in the bed could see him.  He pushed back against the solid form behind him, drawing Alec’s arm across his chest, using his shoulder for a pillow.  Q lay there in the massive bed listening to the other two men breathe until Alec nuzzled his face into the dark curls just behind his ear.

“You think too loud, Q.  Turn off your brain.” Alec placed a small kiss to the curve of his ear.   “Rest. We all need it.”

“It’s just.  This...” he waved a hand in the darkness in the general direction of the two men sharing the bed with him.

“Overthinking it.” Alec reached up and grabbed his hand, intertwining their fingers together.  “We’ll work it out later. When everyone’s slept.”

“Are you two

always

going to talk this much?  Sleep,” Bond added with a grumble.  There was a brush of strange fingers against the swell of Q’s hip that wasn’t Alec’s familiar touch.  Strangely, Q found himself soothed by the unexpected contact.

“Yes... sleep.”  Q forced himself to blank his mind, feel the warmth of Alec’s muscular frame surround his, and eventually drifted.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“You ready for this?” James asked, voice low in Q’s ear.  He nodded with his chin at the man sat in the chair across the room from them.  Partially sedated, he was unrestrained, loose-limbed, and largely unaware of his surroundings.  They’d chosen to conduct this interrogation in one of the medical exam rooms instead of in the cells below the complex, but rather than rubbing alcohol and nitrile, all Q could smell was the spice and warmth of Bond’s natural scent.

Q snorted, making a few last minute adjustments to the programming based on the vital signs provided him by the man’s blood pressure, heart rate, and pulse ox.  “You’ve met me. What in the last week would lead you to think I am in any way

not

‘ready for this,’ Bond?”

James hummed thoughtfully, and Q looked over his shoulder.  The man really was standing quite close. It was … yeah. The spot on Q’s hip that had been tingling all morning grew warmer.  He’d woken in Alec’s arms, but sometime in the night, it was James’ hand that had slipped beneath the waistband of his sleep trousers, gripping his hip possessively, the edge of his long fingers brushing against the swell of Q’s quite interested cock.

“Point taken,” Bond said with a smile that set that heat to flaring in Q’s middle.

“Enough flirting, James … for now,” Alec said with a chuckle.  “Need our boffin’s brain focussed elsewhere at the moment.”

James nodded.  “Quite.” The change in Bond’s focus from seducer to secret agent was automatic and instinctive and damn impressive to Q’s eyes.

Q checked his monitor one last time before crossing the room to their prisoner.  He wheeled his SMART Blood system into place and placed the man’s arm inside the rings, lowering the injector to lock it all into place.  “Now, you’ll feel a little prick,” he said and activated the large gauge syringe. The snap of the plunge echoed in the small room, but the man was insensible to the pain.  It was, in fact, James who jumped slightly at the ferocity of it all.

“Christ!”

Q shrugged and unlocked the system.  “Be sure to get his name, first,” he said to Alec as he took his seat at the table with his laptop.

Q’s nanites started their journey.  Fascinated, Bond watched their progress on the monitor from behind Q’s shoulder, while Alec watched their prisoner for signs he was becoming more alert.

“How aware does he need to be before I begin the interrogation?”  Alec loomed over the figure in the chair. The prisoner’s head lolled against the back of the chair, eyes rolling beneath closed lids.

“Once we’ve established he can answer the basic control questions, you can begin.”

Bond moved to the other side of the prisoner’s chair just in time to witness his fingers curl around the arms and clamp down until his knuckles turned white.  He let out an inhuman whine but seemed to wake.

Q checked his vitals on the screen then, with a number of clicks of the mouse, initiated the program he had prepared.

Three minutes passed...

“Okay ... you may begin...”

“Name?”  Alec started.  He grabbed the man’s jaw, stilling his lolling head, and insisted, “Name, now!”

Q made some adjustments, and the nanites flooded towards the areas of the brain that controlled free-will, slowly increasing the slight compulsion he wanted to apply.

“Bayar... Yavuz.”  The man croaked.

“Bond. The tablet.  See if you can find anything for that name.”

James took the device from the medical tray table and pulled up one of several bespoke programmes Q had shown him how to use.

“What year is it?”  Alec insisted.

“2018.”

“Where are you from?”

A long pause during which Alec glanced at his lovers.  James was holding out the tablet for Q to read his findings.  “Alright?”

“We need to hurry this along,” Q declared.  “Mr Yavuz here is not some low-level security guard, he’s one of the recruiters.  Prepared to die for his cause. We need as much as he can give us.”

He dialled up the levels.  “Off we go, gents. Get what we need.”

Q monitored the data output from the nanotechnology while the other two asked the questions.  Both Alec and James quite were skilled at interrogation techniques, so he felt comfortable turning that part over to them.

Over the course of the next hour, Alec and Bond managed to extract most of the locations of The Path’s major compounds and were trying to drag out more details regarding Montgomery’s true plans for Goldeneye when things started to go to hell... quickly.

“Q?   We’ve got problems.”  Alec called out to him as their prisoner began to seize.

“I see it!”  Q’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he tried to dial back the pressure the nanotechnology was putting in Yavuz’s physical systems.  The readings were extreme.

“Fuck!   I should have known...”  Unfamiliar data began to appear on his monitor that was not of his development.  “There was already something in his system. It’s fighting against my tech. It must see it as invasive and is trying to destroy it.”

“Tell us what to do Q!   We need a few more answers out of him,”  Bond called out, but blood had started to run out of the man’s nose.

“Give me a second!”  Q fought to find a way into the base programming of the second system but it was adapting faster than he could hack. Every time he thought he had circumvented the protections, new ones popped into place.  “You arrogant fuck! Always hated you, Franklin,” Q muttered. “Wait! There!”

He was in!

But just as he was to initiate the shutdown sequence for Montgomery’s nanites, a new warning popped up on his screen and sounded through the room courtesy of the medical alarms that had also started screaming.

“Bloody fuck!”  Q said, jaw dropping at what he saw on his screen.

Impossible!

Bayar Yavuz had started to scream hideously.

Looking at the readouts, Q could hardly blame him.

They were out of time.  He jumped up from his seat and grabbed his laptop.  “Alec! James! Get out! Get out now! Now! Now! Now!  Leave him!”

Alec and James didn’t think twice and ran for the door to the exam room.  Q held it open as they dashed through, sprinting down the corridor to safety, but as Q moved to follow he found the door lever had caught on the pocket of his cardi … through the hole he had intended to mend but never quite got around to it.  He tugged once to free himself to no avail.

The screams from within the room grew, and Q’s eyes darted to the man.  He was bent backwards nearly in half, writhing in pain. Blood poured from eyes and ears now, but …

Shouts from Alec and James finally ripped Q’s attention from the horrific sight and spurred him to action.

“Fuck!”

Unbuttoning, Q shrugged out of his jumper, tangling a moment in the arms as he switched his laptop from one to the other.  Finally free, he dashed after Alec and James but was barely halfway down the corridor when the bomb that had been assembled from the nanites within Bayar Yavuz blew.

Q never felt the blast that hurled him to the floor.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There was an annoying ringing in his ears.  Q pressed his hand over his left ear and tried to block out the irritating noise but it seemed to be inside his head.  Maybe if he used the pillow...

“Don’t try to move until we get you patched up!”

Firm but gentle hands explored Q’s scalp, searching for wounds or tender points.

“Ouch!”  Q uttered.  It seemed to be expected, given the relieved chuckle.

“Good to hear your voice.  Where does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t.  Unless I try to move.  Or speak... or breathe...” Q groaned and forced his eyes open to meet a pair of bright blue far closer than he expected.  There was concern there, underneath the smile.

James brushed Q’s fringe from his brow then continued his gentle exploration of Q’s neck and shoulders.  “You took quite some force from the blast. Doc checked you over, but I doubt you remember that. Thinks you’ll live, so we brought you here.  Medical’s a bit of a mess right now. Alec’s waiting for a medkit and giving some orders for the cleanup.

Not

a job I envy.”

He skimmed his hands along Q’s chest, pressing just enough to ensure to his satisfaction nothing was broken.  “This wasn’t the way I envisioned my first opportunity to get my hands on you, though.”

Q groaned and not from pain.  “Is this the famous Bond seduction in action? Alec’s told me all about it.”

James' hands stilled either side of Q’s rib cage.  He smirked. “Would you like it to be? Once we’re sure you’re not too damaged, of course.”

Q’s heart picked up the pace.  While he did feel very battered, the clear suggestion in James’ tone and words had parts of his body perking up.  Trying to think of a way to stall for time so his head and not his need made the decision, he suddenly caught the scent of something.  He sniffed the air. “What’s burning?”

The door banged open and familiar heavy steps crossed the room.  Alec leaned into his field of vision. “You were! Thankfully just mostly clothing, but your hair was smouldering.  Here.” Alec held out a hand and helped Q to sit, then pressed a bottle of water into his hand. He offered a palm-full of pills.  “Painkillers, mostly. And something to ensure you rest. You’re not leaving this room until we are confident there are no lasting complications.”

“My laptop?”

“Is fine.  Casing is scuffed.  And in other news, that hideous cardigan is no more.”

Q had thrown the pills down with the bottle of water before he realised that Alec had said painkillers and something to help him rest.

“I don’t want to rest!   I need to review the data I gathered and listen to the audio again.”

“You are going to just sit here and let us check you over, or I’ll be forced to bring Doc in again, which I know you’d just love, and she’s not best pleased with us for destroying half of her domain, so ...”  Alec moved into his personal space, fingers under his chin, he tipped Q’s face up and peered into his eyes.

“Wanker,” Q huffed.

“I’m not the one who almost got himself blown up because of the ugliest cardigan ever made.”

“While you three are taking the piss out of each other,” R had appeared and was leaning against the door frame to the bedroom, “we still have the issue of Yavuz splattered all over to address, and someone,” she waved a pair of scissors at Q,  “who seems to be still slightly smouldering and singed needs a bit of a trim.”
  
“You let her take my hair!” Q slurred at Alec thirty minutes later as he was being bundled back into bed.  He pointed weakly at R who grinned wickedly back at him. “I need … I

like

my hair!”

“Sorry Quil, it was scorched.  Be lucky I know how to tend to your luscious locks after all these years.  Would’ve been easier to shave the lot with the clippers I use on the Brute Squad,” R said with a double snip of the sheers she still held in her hand.

“You … you … you DELILAH!!!”   James pressed a hand to Q’s -- Quil’s? -- chest to keep the drugged boffin from leaping out of the bed at his best friend as she left the suite with a jaunty salute.

James chuckled.  “They always like this?” he asked of Alec who had crawled into bed behind his lover.

“Usually.”  Alec nodded.  “Fight like cats and dogs at times, but she’s a better sibling to him than his own have ever been.  Well, the one at any rate. If nothing else, it’s always entertaining.”

“You’re talking ‘bout me,” Q mumbled, punching Alec in the chest weakly before curling into him.  He was nearly under now.

Alec snorted.  “Of course we are.  You can give me hell for it later.  Rest, love,” he said against Q’s only slightly shorn hair.

Q nosed once at Alec’s neck and then was snoring lightly against it.

“Oh just get in, already,” Alec whispered at James who tarried at the side of the bed with uncertainty.  He indicated the empty space on the bed. “You’re part of this. Part of us.”

James hesitated only a moment longer before stripping to his pants as Alec had and slid into bed, sandwiching Q between them.  Alec reached his free hand out to James who grasped it. They let their joined hands rest on Q’s hip.

“If you hurt him, I’ll kill you.”

“If I hurt him, I’ll insist upon it.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It was dark when Q woke.  He knew even before he opened his eyes.  There was a certain stillness that settled over the compound once the sun went down.  One he was intimately familiar with. The energy was less frenetic, more watchful ... vigilant.

He wondered …

“Four hours, give or take.”

Q felt the warmth of Alec’s body behind him:  solid, familiar, comforting, but it was not Alec’s voice that answered his unasked question.  It was not in his arms in which Q had woken. It was not to his heat that Q’s body stirred.

Q opened his eyes. The lamp in the corner of the room gave off just enough light for Q to see icy blue eyes staring into his own. He was held loosely with the man’s strong arm wrapped about his waist.   James’ large hand splayed possessively against the small of his back flexed, pulling Q to him. Instinctively, Q curled a leg about James’ thigh and pressed against him, he moaned needfully against James’ throat.

James’ hand moved into his hair, pulling Q’s head back to look him in the eyes again.  “Alec says you want me. Want this,” he said, voice gravelly with his own desire. “And I think I’ve seen it for myself, but I need to hear you say it.”  His fingers tightened against the curve of Q’s skull, not painfully but insistently.

Q knew this gesture, and his heart filled with affection for this man he barely knew yet understood all too well.  It was a gesture Alec had used many times when the emotions and the words that went with them were beyond his ability to articulate.  It was as if he tried to press them into Q’s mind so he’d understand what Alec couldn’t say. It had always made Q feel cherished, and because he finally had a sense of where that gesture came from, he felt the same way now.

“Do you want me?  Do you want this?” James asked again.  The words were costly. A risk.

One Q would not let go unrewarded.

“Christ, James. Yes!” He insisted and brought their lips together in a kiss he hoped showed how much.

James hooked a thumb into the waistband of Q’s pants.  His large hand cupped the curve of Q’s arse over the thin fabric, encouraging Q’s body closer still.

“We should have removed these along with the rest of it,” he murmured.

Q made a sound of agreement and tried to help James get rid of the offending item, but James captured his wrist, gently manoeuvring it to the small of Q’s back.

“Plenty of time, darling.”  James’ eyes glittered.

Q’s eyelids fell shut, blocking out James’ soul-pinning gaze.  He wondered how such a cool blue could burn with such intense heat, but he stopped thinking at all when James moved so their clothed cocks aligned.  His quiet whimpers of need were swallowed by James’ unrelenting lips as he slowly, torturously rutted against Q.

James’ eyes were open and had adjusted to the dim light in the room.  Over Q’s shoulder, he saw Alec was awake, watching them. A silent communication passed between them, and Alec’s pleased grin turned hungry.

This was okay.  This was right. Alec wanted this too.

Alec sat up slightly, one hand drifted to grab Q’s hand at the small of his back, clasping it there so he couldn’t reach out and touch.  The other hand moved to twine in the smoky and singed but still long, dark curls. He pulled slightly on Q’s hair, breaking the kiss he was sharing with James.

“Are you positive this what you want,

Malyutka

?” Alec crowded up against Q’s back, eyes meeting James again.  They had played this game together many times in the past, James and he, but this was different.  They had never done this with someone who meant so much to him. Alec raised an eyebrow, a questioning look at James.  The corners of James’ lips slightly curled up in response.

“A little.... little late to ask,”  Q gasped as James continued to rut against him, and Alec pressed his hardening cock against his arse. “But yes.  God, yes! Completely on board! Eager in fa-”

James silenced him with a rough kiss that lingered long enough that Q was rather insensible when it ended.  “You talk too much,” he growled when he pulled away.

“We’ll just have to keep him moaning too much to talk,” Alec husked in Q’s ear though his words were for James.  His young lover whined in response.

Pants were stripped, the duvet tossed to the floor, and soon Q was laid out on his back in the centre of the large mattress like a feast for kings.

Alec and James knelt on either side of Q and kissed each other long and deep, one hand caught in the other’s hair whilst their free hands caressed the needy flesh of the man on the bed between them.   Alec nudged James’ temple when they pulled apart, smiled, and then they fell to the very pleasurable task of taking Q apart.

“This is all for you, darling,” James whispered in his ear before nibbling with teeth and tongue down the length of Q’s neck, down his chest where he feasted on one nipple whilst Alec tended to the other.   When Q’s hips began to buck in response to the sensations they were pulling out of him, James abandoned the peaked nub and continued his exploration of the pale flesh. No six pack, it wouldn’t have been right on his frame, but Q’s abdomen was fit and toned. James tongued the scar where Q’s appendix used to be and sucked on his outie.

Knees slightly bent, Q’s legs had fallen open, baring him completely to James’ eyes. To express his appreciation for the gorgeous sight, James grazed his teeth along the sensitive flesh where Q’s hip joined his torso.  Q moaned long and loud in response and James smiled against his new lover’s hip before plying teeth and tongue to that tender flesh in such a way that the moans increased. When he finally pulled away, the mark that remained was large and dark and beautiful and branded Q as his.  He gripped those slim hips in his hands, then slid them beneath Q’s body to grasp and need the plush arse that had been so bloody distracting for days now. James pressed a finger to Q’s arsehole, not to penetrate -- too bold just now, even for him -- but enough to let Q know he wanted everything … eventually.

He nosed the neatly trimmed hair at Q’s groin, licked a strip up the underside of his full and leaking cock, and let his lips hover, warm breath whispering over the tip.  James looked up and met Q’s wrecked green gaze over the length of his body. With a wicked grin that pulled a whine from Q’s throat, James kissed the tip once before taking him deep.

Only Alec’s huge hand splayed across his belly prevented Q from bucking up hard into James’ throat.  All the lustful energy, denied movement, burst from Q’s plush, kiss-swollen lips in a litany of begging and cursing.

James grinned around the surprising fullness of the slim delight sprawled beneath him.  Long, languorous sweeps of his tongue over the velvet skin had the salty tang of Q filling his mouth.

“Oh fuck!  Yesss... oh please, fuck me...”

James pulled off leaving Q’s wet cock straining for the heat of James’ mouth.  It dribbled glistening precum onto his belly, darkening the thin trail of hair below his navel.

James caught Alec’s eye, silently seeking his approval.  Alec gave a slight shake of his head and mouthed, “He’s hurt.”

“Not tonight, darling.  Alec thinks you need to recover a little first.  But soon ... God, yes, soon.”

Q’s whine of protest was swallowed by Alec’s rough kiss.  “We’ll make sure you’re satisfied,

Malyutka

.  Just because James likes to fuck the pain away ...”

“Hardly alone in that ...”  James smirked knowingly at Alec.  He kissed his way up Q’s chest once more, taking time to seek out new points that drew still more whines.

Alec passed a packet over Q to James who tore open the sachet and drizzled warm lube down the length of Q’s cock.

“Please... I need...”

Q forgot what exactly it was he needed as first James, then Alec swept their hands up his cock.  Instead, Q wriggled his legs further apart, trying to persuade one of his lovers to venture slick fingers down to his hole.

“Bad boy,” James chuckled softly close to Q’s ear.

“For his punishment, let’s show him just how good

we

are,” Alec said with a look in his eye that had Q shuddering with anticipation.  For when Alec had looked at him like that in the past -- greedy, covetous, focussed -- it had meant he was going to take Q apart half a dozen times before putting him back together again.

With two of them intent on achieving that goal …

“Brilliant idea, Alec,” James agreed with a wicked grin.

Q didn’t even have time to consider the possibilities as the two men fell immediately to their task.

“Fuck yes!” he shouted when a slick finger finally slid into him.  A warm, wet mouth sucked him deep as the tip of a hard cock teased his lips until Q opened wide to accept the offering.

After that, there was no thinking at all.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The next morning, Q woke stiff and sticky and sandwiched between one man he’d known for a decade and loved unreservedly and another he known for less than a fortnight yet felt he understood in a way that came only after a similar set of years together.

James held him closely, hand pressed possessively at the small of his back.  His other arm curled over the pillow, fingers tangled in Alec’s shaggy hair where he slept spooned up behind Q with his hand pressed to the centre of Q’s chest as he did every night.  Yet unlike all those previous nights, Alec had neither tossed nor turned nor been disturbed by nightmares. Himself a naturally light sleeper, Q would know.

But Alec had slept the night through -- for the first time in ten years -- and in looking at James Bond, Q could guess the reason why.

“Not just me,” James said opening his eyes, voice low enough not to wake Alec.  “Took both of us, I think.” He grinned at the surprised look on Q’s face. “What?  You’re not the only one. I’d have made a poor agent if I didn’t know how to read people, too.”  He brushed Q’s fringe from his forehead in a surprisingly tender gesture that caused Q’s heart to both leap with confusion and race with anticipation.  “Good morning,” James said before capturing Q’s lips in a soft, slow, undemanding kiss that had them each breathless when they parted.

“Starting without me?” Alec grumbled into the back of Q’s neck.  “I should protest.”

Q chuckled once and rolled in Bond’s arms to face his long-time lover.  “Or you could stop protesting and show me all James’ sensitive spots like you promised to last night.”

“Must’ve done something wrong if you remembered anything other than how beautifully you screamed ‘Fuck!’, ‘Please!’, ‘More!’, and ‘Yes!’, last night,” James husked in his ear, “but I’m up for some exploration.”  The fullness of James’ cock against his bum told Q just how ‘up’ he was.

Alec and Q were quite happy to oblige.
  
“And you’d be going where?” Alec asked later, pointing at the well-tailored but loud blue and green jumper and purple checked trousers Q carried with him from the wardrobe.  It was still early yet, barely past dawn, but they were all washed and had finished the breakfast James had brought back to the suite from the small dining hall.

“I’ve work to do.  The Path is still out there.  Need to go through the data we got from Yavuz before he turned into human jam.”

“He remembers about my ‘sensitive spots’ but not R’s declaration?”  James asked over the top of his cup of coffee, rather glad he had already finished his toast and jam with that new mental image dancing about in his head.

“Concussions are an odd thing,” Alec sighed.

“I don’t have a

concussion

!” Q protested.  “I feel fine.”

“Except for that nasty headache you downed a handful of paracetamol for along with your cuppa.  Didn’t think we saw that, did you?” Alec rose from the table and plucked Q’s clothes from his hand.  Passing them to James, he directed Q to the sofa, sat him down, and handed him a book from the stack on the side table.

“You didn’t even notice your tech is gone,” he continued.  “Mobiles, tablet, laptop. R took them last night before she cut your hair.  She’s put Artemis protocols into effect. You’re on lockdown until R feels you’re recovered enough to go back online.”

Alec had explained the protocols to James whilst Q was in the shower earlier.  Nicknamed the ‘Delian Twins’ after Artemis and Apollo by some of their tech minions years ago, R, the elder of the two, had established a series of lockout orders she imposed during those times when Q was too ill or otherwise incapacitated and should be resting and recuperating instead of working.  Something he would not do unless literally locked out of his own system.

“Can’t he just hack his way back in?” James had asked.

“It’s why we confiscate his tech, but even if he had it, no, I don’t think he would,” Alec admitted.  “They’re devoted to one another. More than best friends. And on some level, he knows she does it only when she’s truly worried about his health.  Bloody well hates it, but he’d never hurt her by circumventing what’s done to protect him.”

That didn’t mean Q accepted his banishment with grace, however.  His eyes scanned the room. Sure enough. All his tech was gone. Though R was more than capable of analysing the data, he

needed

to be there.

His protests fell on deaf ears.

“She’s a cow.”  It was all James could do not to laugh at the dejected toddler air Q had wrapped around himself.

“Rest, love,” Alec said.  “The better you care for yourself, the sooner you’ll be back.  And we

do

need you.”  He bent down to give Q a quick peck on his pout.   “James or I’ll be back later to see if you need anything.  Take a nap. Read your books. Sit on the balcony and enjoy the sea air.  You know how it goes. Rest your brain as much as you can.”

The explosion of Q’s creative curses followed the two men down the corridor.

Hours later, Alec stood silently in the doorway of their bedroom.  Q was curled up in an overstuffed chair, reading.

In the light of the late afternoon sun that spilt through the open doors of the balcony, Alec thought Q looked as young as he did the night they first met.  Christ, he remembered that day so well. The reed-thin, overly confident, bespectacled boy who thought he could tame a bitter, soul-sick, deadly MI6 agent.

Tame him?  Well, in effect Q had done just that, though it had been more of a retraining programme in the early days.  Alec chuckled at the memory causing Q to glance up at him.

“What are you so pleased with?”  Q laid his book face down on his lap so he could admire the way Alec strode into the room and dropped onto the bed without taking his eyes off him.

At their first meeting, Q had resisted the urge to appraise Alec’s naked body on the other side of the bars.  Nevertheless, Alec had snarled when his new owner arrived to claim him. But Q didn’t insist on the thoroughly humiliating, invasive inspection that the other ‘goods’ endured.  “I told you, I’m not looking for you to serve me in that way. You’re fit and free of obvious illness. That’s all I need for a bodyguard,” he had assured him.

Q was clearly feeling better than when Alec and James had left him.   The faint tension around his eyes from the earlier headache was gone and his colour was much improved. The day of rest had clearly done him good.

“Remembering the early days,” Alec smirked.  “Your fondness for carrying a taser. I thought you were just afraid of me and protecting yourself from your own overpriced bodyguard, but now I think you enjoyed watching me squirm.”

“Of course.  You squirm beautifully.  But yes ... I was afraid,” he admitted.  “All I had was your word. The word of a man I had no reason to trust and every reason to believe would slit my throat while I slept.  A few thousand volts was an effective way to get you around to my way of thinking more quickly. It’s hardly my fault you take so long to learn a lesson.”

There had been quite a few ‘rocky’ moments between them in the beginning.  It had taken weeks to build even a foundational level of trust between them and for Alec to realise that the ‘boy’ was actually sincere in his motives.  Their partnership had taken on a life of its own once the rules had been established.

“Oh, I learned my lesson, but did you?   Are you still afraid of me, boy?” Alec slid off the bed and stalked across the room toward him with a devilish grin on his face.  “You should be.”

“When I choose to be.”

A thrill tickled along Q’s spine when Alec’s large hands settled either side of Q’s shoulders.  Alec’s broad grin widened even more. He trailed a blunt fingernail down Q’s neck following the path of his carotid from jaw to collarbone.

Q whimpered and leaned into the press of Alec’s hand that curled around Q’s throat.  He swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing against Alec’s palm. Fingers tightened and Q’s breath hitched.

“Might want to breathe, boy.  If you still can...”

A loud clearing of a throat made Q jump and Alec slowly turn his head to glare at the intruder.

“Hate to interrupt a tender moment,” R smirked, “but I think I’ve found what you’re looking for.  You might want to take a look. Bond’s on his way to the lab.”

“Is nowhere sacred in this place?”  Alec growled. He was of a mind to slam the door in her face, but Q was already scrabbling to his feet, eager to see the results of their endeavours.

With reasonable good grace, Alec followed them.  There would be time to play later.