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Q doesn't look in the mirror as he braces on the sink, bending over it as his chest seizes up and he tastes copper. He rinses his mouth when breathing once again becomes a possibility, watching dispassionately as petals the colour of fresh blood are washed away with the blood and spit.
Anemone petals: Q looked them up; the irony makes him laugh and accidentally meet his eyes in the mirror. His teeth are red, his lips cracked from the constant wiping, huge bags under his eyes—"What the fuck does he see in you anyway?" Q asks his mirror image getting his toothbrush.
Not that Bond could possibly object to the taste of blood, considering he's willing to fuck Q while Q looks like death warmed over...
Still, if Bond noticed, there would be questions, pitying looks and avoidance, possibly even a conversation with M, and Personnel and Medical about Q's condition.
That's the last thing Q needs.
No longer tasting copper, he checks for traces of blood one last time, then slips back into the darkened bedroom.
Bond looks up from snooping through Q's tablet, reading glasses perched jauntily on his nose, glasses he only wears at home when he feels safe. He looks up, the lenses turning opaque in the light of the screen that also draws attention to the gnarled scar in the middle of Bond's chest.
Q had known. It was in Bond's file among the long list of on-the-job injuries: non-Medical sanctioned operation, heart surgery, flora extraction, full amputation.
Nothing more needs to be said.
Full amputation.
Bond is incapable of love.
Q knew that long before he let the man into his bed.
He'd thought—he isn't sure what he'd thought exactly, doesn't remember anything but hands and mouths and cocks.
"That's about three levels above your clearance," he tells Bond nodding at the tablet while slipping into the bed.
Bond takes up most of it, so Q is forced to huddle in the small space under the man's arm and use his shoulder for a pillow.
"And yet you leave it out in the open," Bond counters.
He's warm, like hugging a hard, bulky furnace, his arm heavy on Q's shoulders, big, calloused hand playing along Q's collar bones.
There is a lot Q could say on the subject of breaches of security, but his throat feels scratchy and he doesn't want to invite another coughing fit. Instead, he pushes at the tablet with his knee until Bond gets the hint and puts it away allowing Q to throw a leg over Bond's thigh.
"Want another go?" Bond asks casually, his breath tickles Q's temple, and Q is tempted—so tempted, but he doesn't need to be sore in the morning with the prospect of spending the day on his feet monitoring two missions back to back looming before him.
"No, thank you," he mumbles against Bond's throat.
The man grunts something like agreement into Q's hair pulling the sheet and blanket over the both of them.
Once upon a time, Q dreamed about this: falling asleep in the arms of someone he loves who loves him in turn.
Only in his juvenile fantasies, his love had been returned, the flowers and vines painted onto his skin instead of ripping his lungs and heart apart.
It all comes to a head a few weeks later when Q throws up a flower in the middle of Operations for all to see. A crimson spiky-looking flower, blade-like petals bristling as they dry.
Someone gasps, but when Q glares in the direction of the sound all faces are blank.
As he straightens up, grinding the flower into the floor with his heel, Q starts the mental countdown to the end of his career.
Moneypenny comes to collect him in person not a quarter of an hour later, frowning down at him as she somehow manages to navigate the grates effortlessly in her stilettos.
"How are you, Q?" She asks.
Q refuses to meet her eyes, marching ahead praying Bond is still locked in one of the conference rooms with the Israelis and not roaming the halls.
M frowns at him from behind his desk with badly hidden pity.
It makes Q want to sneer.
"I'm perfectly fine, sir."
"Sit down, please, Quartermaster," M says ignoring his tone, "this may take a while."
"Will it really?" Q wonders, dropping into the chair, "if I remember the regulations—"
"The regulations are for when the other party is an unknown, I'm well aware you've been fraternizing with Bond—" M sounds like a put-upon schoolmaster while knocking the foundation from under Q's feet.
"You knew!?" He gasps. They never interacted at work and didn't exactly go out either, no one should have noticed!
"We are an intelligence service," M reminds him blandly.
"I—We—," he tries to come up with an excuse, only for M to wave his attempt away before it gets off the ground.
"The 00-section is granted a certain leeway in such matters; you're hardly the first to succumb to an indiscretion or two—"
The reminder stings and turns Q stroppy. "How do you know it's Bond? I could be pining for an unknown," Q objects, hating to be so—predictable, to be one in a long line of bedwarmers judged but condoned.
"Q," M sighs, and Q slumps pulling off his glasses to rub his face in frustration, "considering the progress of your condition, certain decisions need to be made."
"I—cannot go in for surgery right now, four of the 00's are in the field and R is on leave."
"But you are planning on going in for surgery?" M demands.
"I am! I'm not suicidal, sir," Q snaps.
He's always been a pragmatist. Dying of unrequited love is a ridiculous way to go, Q's always thought. Thankfully modern medicine made it possible not to pine away or remove everything down to the seed to keep the sufferer alive.
Pruning has only been around for a decade. It was still considered an experimental procedure by most, it wasn’t an easy option but far better than the choice between dying and becoming an automaton.
His thoughts stray to Bond, and Q's gut churns with guilt as 007 is many things except that. Bond feels, cares about people, and is kind and gentle when it suits him; it is only love he is lacking, the gut-wrenching, all-encompassing, maddening need for another human being—that was taken before Q had finished uni!
Q's always fantasized about a lover, but he'd also wondered if it would really be that bad to cut it all away? So much time could be won when hormones, well, love, could no longer be a distraction?
"I'm debating full amputation versus pruning. I still have time to get a few more things organized," Q says looking up, "I didn't expect this to happen, sir," he admits with some chagrin watching M relax at his willingness to get medical attention.
"No one ever does, I imagine," M smiles absently rubbing at his own chest.
Q wants to ask, after such a revelation anyone would, but it seems rude.
"You will check into Medical, Quartermaster," M goes on, "and be monitored at all times until the operation is scheduled and is performed to the doctor's satisfaction."
"That isn't necessary!" Q protests.
"I'm afraid that's not up to you. I do have a responsibility to the PM, and he has a long memory for irregularities." M counters picking up the phone. "Miss Moneypenny, please escort the Quartermaster to Medical and hand him over to Doctor Freeman, promptly." He says looking Q straight in the eyes.
Q wants to leave a small explosive under his chair.
He bites his cheek, nods his goodbye to the smug-looking director, and marches himself out to the hall where Moneypenny is already standing in just the right position to hook her arm under his.
"Whatever you're thinking of saying, there is little chance I haven't thought it already," Q tells her, resigning himself to being treated as a child.
"Do you need me to feed your cats?" Eve asks, and Q deflates.
"Bugger, they are keeping me here then?" He sighs.
"Fraid so, luv, protocol must be followed, and Medical can hardly spare a whole team to keep an eye on you just because you're a bit of an introvert."
"Not introvert enough it seems," Q huffs, petting her arm.
"He is—something, isn't he," Eve purrs and Q wonders if she's had the pleasure as well, if she has laid in bed with Bond curled against her back, his hand tracing random patterns on her thigh, "if you don't get overly attached."
"He was—convenient," Q lies looking at his feet.
He doesn't even have a change of clothing with him, not even a book to entertain himself with—doesn't have a story in case Bond comes around…
"Where is he anyway?" He finds himself asking.
"Tanner has been keeping him busy, him being a senior agent and all." Neither of them mentions that Bond is bound to be getting antsy. While a good analyst, he isn't made for paperwork, for regular hours and long evenings at home.
"I doubt he'll notice, but run interference for me, will you?" Q asks, unwilling to contemplate facing Bond in Medical's pyjamas, or even worse one of those delightful open-arsed gowns.
"I'll try, but I do have a job to do," she reminds him.
Terrorizing M's visitors and various ministries, Q translates. Of course, she can't devote a lot of time to keeping Bond out of Medical. Q will have to count on Bond's natural aversion to keep him out of his sickroom.
Doctor Freeman is unassuming and affable if firm when Q tries to tell him he's perfectly fine.
Q is assigned a private room with all the bells and whistles and left alone once he's practically sucked dry of blood. Under different circumstances, Q would be comfortable, as-is—he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It takes a couple of hours, possibly due to his luck of outing himself after lunchtime so word only started spreading around tea.
Bond slips in at shift change, face like a thundercloud to loom like a gargoyle at the foot of Q's bed.
Q swallows the urge to defend himself, or order Bond out; he owes the man more than that.
"How the fuck can you have Hanahaki?" Bond demands, making Q flinch.
"The usual way," he snaps, avoiding Bond's eyes.
Q looks at Bond's hands instead, clasping the footboard hard enough Bond's knuckles are turning white.
"You have a scar on your chest," Bond growls.
"So?" Q rubs said scar through the pyjama top. "I had a heart condition as a child?" Bond hadn't mentioned it before, so Q had assumed he was used enough to scars on people to be able to ignore it.
"I thought you'd had the amputation!" Bond says, "or I wouldn't have—there isn't anything about heart surgery in your medical file!"
"It was performed in France, and largely irrelevant," Q shrugs, confused why Bond is angry, "and I must have missed the memorandum that states I must disclose my whole medical history when shagging a colleague!"
Raising his voice leads to a coughing fit that has Q doubling over spitting up several Anemones and a wad of blood.
Bond is beside him in an instant, his arm around Q’s back, rubbing gently until the spasm passes and Q can breathe again.
"I don't sleep with people who still—damn it, Q, you should have told me!"
It feels so good to have him near, that Q can practically feel the vines and flowers in his chest grow faster. The way Bond looks, Q could almost believe Bond felt more than a sort of collegial fondness for him.
"Do you want an apology in writing?" He had counted on a quip or two, maybe a promise of a visit once he'd recovered, not accusations and demands.
"I want to know—," Bond demands, but Q cuts him off.
"How I got sick? The usual way and I shall get better much the same—the surgery is scheduled for the end of next week." Q says keeping his tone as casual as possible, having just had a coughing fit helps.
"No declarations to your lover?" Bond asks mockingly, and Q wants to throw his water glass at his head.
"My declarations wouldn't be of any use to him," Q snaps, gratified when Bond pulls away standing and straightening his suit.
"His loss, I'm sure," Bond says, "I'm sorry to have disturbed you."
He turns away before Q can protest, or possibly apologize for snapping, leaving the room without a goodbye.
Q runs through the conversation again and again in the next few days stuck counting the cracks in the ceiling and doing the backlog of paperwork Q branch never seemed to get caught up on.
Doctor Freeman checks on him several times a day. He gets an MRI and a CT-scan to catalogue the damage to his lungs and heart.
Having to lie perfectly still, Q designs a 3D display Medical can use to keep himself distracted.
Eve sends him pictures of his cats who look very pleased with themselves but, Q feels, miss him anyway. He misses them, misses his projects, getting to build something with his own bare hands, and falling asleep on the couch with one cat on his head and another on his chest, misses—things he didn't have in the first place.
He wonders if he's going to miss missing things if he gets the full amputation. It varies per person what disappears. Love, after all, is a complicated thing, horribly unscientific, intangible, annoying in short.
Pruning may be the standard option these days, but it does bring with it some inconveniences: upkeep for one, regular appointments to check and prune, and something like a central venous catheter would be permanently inserted. He'd have to be far more careful with eating and things.
"It's really no different from any other chronic condition," Doctor Freeman tells him, "Diabetes or Crohn’s, you can live your life as of old with a few small adjustments."
Except Q knows he's lying because it would also mean the end of his career as a handler. He would be relegated to the administrative side of things, out of operations because no one needs a handler who has to take a break at some critical point to give himself a shot or has to have a doctor's appointment in the middle of a mission. No one needs a support tech who can't work through the night to get some gadget ready for a mission or crack a code on the fly. And to have someone work with the cause of their illness...unheard of!
Full amputation will make things easier in a lot of ways; it's the sensible thing to do…
"When do I have to decide?" Q asks the next time Doctor Freeman visits.
"Two, three days at the most. It would be safer if you made up your mind the day after tomorrow at the latest. I can leave both sets of paperwork, give it to the nurse on call and we shall prepare for surgery."
In the middle of the night, Q imagines telling Bond, telling James the truth—and having his affection returned. He imagines silly things like declarations and sweet kisses that don't leave him gasping for breath, but instead give him air as the nettles in his lungs and heart recede, mutate in that strange way they have into something resembling a tattoo just visible under the skin, marking the owner for life as one of the lucky ones—or until the love fades at any rate.
A tattoo that would disqualify an active agent, a True Love tattoo—unthinkable, absurd even.
It doesn't stop Q from wanting Bond to come back.
Stupid, silly fantasies of what-might-have-beens and rose-tinted futures keep him distracted for another day between coughing fits that progress into a semi-permanent state of asphyxiation as fully formed flowers get stuck in his throat.
All the while a faint sense of guilt scratches at the back of his mind, for abandoning his post, even if drinking a cup of tea drains him like he's been working for 48 hours straight.
He should be calling the nurse, getting back to work, but 'what if Bond comes back' keeps creeping back into his mind over and over again. Pathetic, Q thinks, he's become the stereotype he'd scoffed at for most of his life, before falling into an exhausted sleep again.
He's trying to read, the words not cooperating and his eyes tearing up as he tries not to give in to yet another coughing fit when chaos finds his room. The doors swing open, and a bed is rolled in surrounded by nurses and followed by Doctor Freeman who's giving orders while writing something on the chart he's holding. There is something about the shape of the body on the bed that draws Q's attention. Even obscured as it is by nurses, he's sure he knows it and knows it well.
Sitting up takes more effort than he can really afford, but the need to know drives him to sit up and roll laboriously onto his knees.
The ugly mess of scars just under the right collarbone is enough to confirm the identity of the body just as a giant needle is jabbed into his chest.
"...cardiac arrest...adrenaline...oxygen" Q only catches bits and pieces of orders, he's dizzy from the effort he's just made and his own oxygen deprivation.
Something happened to Bond and he didn't know, wasn't there to help, wasn't there to keep the man safe or as safe as any agent could possibly get.
Guilt chokes him harder than the flowers blooming in his chest.
On the other bed, Bond jerks, shudders, and tries to take a breath only to succumb to a coughing fit that ends in spitting and retching.
The sounds are so familiar to Q by now, he barely registers them, only the guttural curses Bond barks between bouts of retching. Q wonders how he manages that while barely breathing.
Someone finally manages to remember to draw the curtain between beds when Bond manages to stop throwing up after what seems like an eternity. The curtain catches on the rail, and the nurse has to set down the pan he's carrying out to pull it free without making a mess.
Instead of the expected vomit, the pan holds a confusing mess of red and red-edged petals clumping and sticking together with blood, one bright red fully formed carnation on top of the blood-soaked heap.
This, Q thinks, cannot be happening.
He spends hours listening to the bustle of medical professionals behind the curtain, straining his ears for Bond's are replies to questions and orders alike, his own condition almost forgotten in the confusion of it all.
Bond shouldn't be able to cough up anything, not even a stem, not after a full amputation that is in his file. Still, he is obviously sick enough to need urgent medical care, almost dying before the doctor manages to get him stabilized.
Q searches medical databases for other conditions that may present similarly to Hanahaki but comes up with nothing.
Bond is lovesick.
Hacking his file tells Q that the onset was rapid and violent, stage one through four inside of mere hours instead of the usual months and occasionally years. Bond's luck finally running out?
Q wants to pull aside the curtain, to look at the man in the next bed. His hands dance over keys as he scrolls through systems and CCTV footage studying every person Bond has interacted with for the last six months, pulling up their profiles and wondering with each one what they could offer he could not.
There are a lot of people, men and women Bond interacts with on a daily basis, but few are recurring: colleagues like Tanner, Trevelyan and Papava with who he regularly dines and exchanges pleasantries with in the corridors. Outside of work, there are tailors and shoemakers and mechanics and even a bookbinder, but no one who goes home with Bond, no one with whom he lingers except...
Q slides off the bed and practically falls towards the curtain. He shoves it aside, clutching at it for balance as he looks down at the prone man who looks as pale as the sheets he's lying on. An oxygen mask obscures most of Bond's face but his eyes are visible. They open, pinning Q where he's swaying with the movement of the curtain.
He licks his dry lips and sees Bond's gaze sharpen.
Gathering his strength, Q pushes off the ominously creaking curtain into the general direction of the bed. His lungs seize, and he ends up making a mess of the linen, spitting up fully formed Anemone blooms.
"I looked them up, you know," Bond rasps, his hand works its way from under the sheet to crawl towards Q's white-knuckled fingers clutching at the railing of his bed.
"Who?" Q wonders spitting petals onto the floor.
"The flowers," Bond whispers, "I looked them up 'Fading hope and the feeling of being forsaken'.” He pokes at the mess.
Bond, Q thinks, of course is immune to the sight of blood and lung matter.
"Yes, well—" Q sighs, "flower meanings aren't exactly scientific..."
"Q—" Bond begins only to start coughing again.
"I read your file, you know," he goes once Bond calms down a little, handing him a tissue to wipe the blood off his lips. "You had the full surgery years ago." He risks taking his hand off the bed railing and runs his fingers through Bond's sweaty, matted hair. "I knew that. I accepted that—" He caresses Bond's cheek on his way down, pushes the sheets aside and splays his hand over the thick scar on Bond's chest.
"Back-alley surgeons aren't as thorough as one would expect it would seem," Bond drawls covering Q's hand with his own.
"I don't understand..." Q forces out, his throat dry and scratchy.
"He missed a twig," James says simply.
Impossible , Q wants to say, the words sticking in his throat as a flower works its way through his throat robbing him of breath and strength.
"Q!" He hears James screaming as the world spins.
Pain explodes through Q as his head bounces off the floor.
"Ethan!" James demands, metal screeching as he fights the bed's raised edges.
Q wants to reprimand him, after all, he hasn't been Ethan in ages now, no-one should know he was ever Ethan in the first place and yet James...
"I do love you, you know," he tells the ceiling between coughs. All of a sudden, it seems important for James to know.
Something slams into the ground next to him cursing up a storm and coughing too, something that rolls against Q's side.
"Damn it, Ethan! Don't you dare die on me!" James demands, far closer than Q expects him to be. "I—love—you!"
Q barely hears the words but he can almost taste the desperation in them, feel it in James' bruising grip on his shoulder. The whispered words sink into his skin and make his nerves sing and the heavy feeling in his lungs ease.
"What about the marks?" He wonders.
"Marks?" James asks sounding better already.
"You won't be able to hide that you're—" He tries to explain.
"I don't fucking care!" The agent thunders.
He definitely sounds better, Q thinks; how silly that words are enough to keep someone from dying. He takes a deep breath and feels his head spinning, too much oxygen after months of doing with the bare minimum.
Opening his eyes, he studies James' face, his wild eyes and equally wild hair that strikes him as quite amusing. An undignified giggle escapes, he reaches out to flatten some of the cowlicks.
"I find that I don't care at the moment either, except about the abysmal service here—a nurse should have come to investigate by now..." He doesn't get to finish his complaint.
James kisses him, wet and deep and slow making Q forget everything he was about to say.
His skin burns and when they pull apart Q can see the first hint of tattoos welling on James' arms. Pulling up his sleeve, he sees the start of them on his own skin as well.
"Bloody hell," he blurts, pulling the collar of James' shirt down to see the first hints of white and red bloom on the agent's skin, "we're going to look like Christmas canes!"
James' laughter is unexpected, right and deep and infectious.
Soon they are laughing hard enough for tears to spring from their eyes, or maybe they are crying, Q isn't sure.
By the time they manage to calm themselves down, he is almost dizzy with exhaustion again.
"Up with you," James orders pulling the both of them onto their knees.
For once, Q doesn't mind being ordered around, not when the orders are accompanied by embraces and kisses on the back of his neck.
The hospital bed isn’t made for two people.
Spooning is the only practical way of occupying it, not that Q had any objections to feeling the length of James' body against him and James' breath against the back of his neck.
"According to the movies, we should be shagging," Q points out lacing his fingers through James' where they rest on his chest.
James snorts but doesn't offer any comment.
The flowers on their skin are far from fully formed, their bodies are still fighting the disease. Q wonders if any script writers ever bothered to consult a physician on the subject.
"Good thing I've always fantasized of falling asleep in the arms of a lover," Q says and feels James tense against his back.
His breath stalls.
He’s terrified he's going to feel the vines and thorns returning with his next breath.
"At your service, Q," James purrs in his ear, tightening his grip on Q's hand.