Third date
He sighed as Dante once more jumped up on his desk to make himself comfortable right on top of Q's homework assignment. Instead of shooing the beast, though, he ran his hand over the soft, black fur, letting the purring sound his cat now produced chase away his vague deadline-induced stress. A few moments later he regretfully gave Dante a gentle push and looked back down at the papers.
But while Q tried to make himself focus a yawn overtook him and it was not only because of the time of night but also due to the mind-numbing tediousness of the assignment.
His apartment door opened, not particularly loudly, but the sound made him frown and look up sleepily because it was not supposed to open at all.
The large frame filling the doorway jolted him wide-awake in an instant.
"Good evening, Q," Alec Trevelyan greeted, his polite tone of voice belied by a smirk that looked even more dangerous in real life than it had through his computer screen.
The MI6 agent stepped inside, closing the door - the only means of escape - behind him. A gun was held casually in hands that were highly accustomed to wielding it and those dark eyes were assessing, clearly taking note of Q's every move.
Not that Q was moving. In fact he was just sitting there, stunned at the man's sudden appearance. It shouldn't surprise him this much. Analytically he'd known that there was a possibility that MI6 would track him down. He had known that calling the man, even on a burner phone and linking up to Trevelyan's earpiece and a dozen other small things might lead back to him if he wasn't careful. And while he had been careful, he had also been focussed on the task at hand – because the lives of two agents, of Trevelyan and Bond had been cradled in his very own hands and nothing had been more important than assuring those two agents' survival.
Given time in advance, he might have been able to set up something more secure. As it was, he'd hoped that by hacking from elsewhere he could muddle his traces, but apparently it hadn't been enough.
He had known, logically, that the possibility existed, considering MI6 capabilities as a large spy organisation. Still, the reality of Alec Trevelyan's physical presence, armed and dangerous, was rather overwhelming.
He was still processing this sudden invasion when a growling sound interrupted – something that could really only mean one thing.
His cat was about to give the muscled agent his customary welcome for guests.
Dante pounced and Q acted – he didn't even think it through, just found himself taking action in a desperate attempt to prevent himself or his cat from getting murdered by a trained killer.
What followed was a moment of chaos and the sound of mechanical whirring.
"Oh, god," Q exclaimed when his brain started overruling is panic response, "Please don't shoot me. Or Dante."
Agent Trevelyan had regained his feet and raised an eyebrow, looking thoroughly amused. "In case it had escaped your notice, my gun is in your hands."
Yes, the hacker realised, he was holding the man's gun. His mind ran over the last few minutes.
His insane feline had done what he always does when faced with strangers and jumped straight on the nearest limb and climbed onto the man's back and thoroughly distracted him with the sudden attack.
Q, with his view of Dante blocked by the bulk of an MI6 agent, had gone for his phone instead of his cat and activated his security system - which slammed down shutters over the windows, turned up the lights in the kitchen and brought out a sliding wall about two meters in front of his front door.
His cat, familiar with Quentin's rather paranoid security system had, naturally, made himself scarce at the first sound of the shutters, but Trevelyan had been hit in the side by the metal wall and barely managed to turn forward with the blow, ending up safely inside the perimeter but dropping his gun in the process.
And, apparently, Q had enough survival instinct to grab a gun when someone he considered a threat dropped one. Good.
He blinked and re-evaluated. No, wait, taking an MI6 agent's gun from him was probably very bad. He swallowed when he remembered witnessing this man spreading death throughout a warehouse in China and then once more in an office building in Prague.
He was going to die violently wasn't he?
"In my defence… Well, you. Uh. Startled me? I don't react well to sudden frightening situations. I tend to be rather unpredictable – even to myself."
"I'll make a note of it," the man replied, his stance ridiculously confident and grin predatory.
The agent took an imposing step forward. And Q, gun held awkwardly in an unaccustomed grasp, took a step back. This was repeated until, predictably, the hacker ran out of room and his back touched the wall.
He winced, staring up at the agent with wide eyes.
"Why is it that I'm the one with a gun here and still feeling like prey? That seems highly unfair. I object to this."
Trevelyan chuckled, a warm sound that made him feel a quite a bit better about this whole situation. "You could always give me the gun back," he suggested, "that would restore the natural balance quite nicely."
Q shook his head resolutely. "Except that the natural balance is not in my favour. I object to that too."
The agent shrugged and closed in on him, a large looming form that made his breath come faster than his body should be demanding, since he was standing still. "You're objecting a lot. Am I really that objectionable? I might be feeling a tad insulted."
And Q would have come up with a witty reply to that, but Agent Trevelyan was in his personal space now - so close that they were almost touching and it made it very, very difficult to focus on any sort of reply. This was a killer – a governmentally approved killer, granted, but a killer all the same. Q had seen in live action what happened to people who got on the wrong side of this dangerous man and to be honest he had no idea what kind of box MI6 had classified him in. Was Q a target? Had his well-intentioned break-in to MI6 been considered that much of a crime? Or could he dare hope that his unconventional help made up for it?
A large hand was placed deceptively lightly on his arm, slowly pushing both it and the gun he was holding down. He breathed deeply, body tense but undecided whether it needed to fight or flight. His brain informed him that either option was doomed to fail, but his survival instincts insisted on doing something.
"Easy, Q," the man said, calm and sure and for some reason immensely reassuring. Which, of course, made no sense because he was the threat here – a very real, immediate threat – so why was the agent's careful touch and deep voice soothing his fear when it was that very man that he was afraid of?
Illogical.
The hand holding onto Q's arm pushed it back against the wall, holding it tight and trapped there, with the gun pointed harmlessly at the floor. Trevelyan's other hand came up near his face and settled on Q's shoulder, fingers soothingly sweeping up and down.
Ok then, Q thought vaguely, feeling rather faint.
"Thank you for your help, Q," Trevelyan told him.
Q looked at the man with wide-eyes, finding nothing but sincerity on the agent's face. "You're welcome," he replied shakily, because it was the polite reply and also because he meant it.
He didn't regret helping the agent retrieve his friend – nor could he ever regret helping Agent Bond out of a tricky situation.
Even if his own carelessness, forced by the situation at hand, had led to this.
The only other option had been to leave it alone, to turn away from someone in need – someone who had sacrificed again and again for the sake of this country and that country included Quentin, so really that would have been beyond ungrateful.
Moreover, Alec Trevelyan had asked him for help. Him, Q, specifically – and even if the request came through others, how could he have refused?
He swallowed, wetting his dry throat. "I don't regret it," he said honestly, because before anything else, he needed that to be said – he needed to make those words, that sentiment, real, to give it a solid weight.
It shouldn't have made a difference, but it helped. As soon as the words left his lips Q felt steadier. He was still in trouble, he was still faced with an MI6 agent who could disappear him into some sort of governmental basement – or just disappear him period.
But this had been his own choice. One that Q had made, the only one he could have made, because it was the right thing to do.
Agent Trevelyan looked down at him, a broad, powerful man who could hold Q down with one hand, who could drag him away and there wasn't a single thing that the hacker could do about it. He was physically entirely outmatched.
But the agent's hold was careful, the hand on his shoulder anything but tentative, but still careful. And the man's eyes, which held Q's own, were surprisingly soft.
"Glad to hear that, Q," Trevelyan said, his voice a warm rumble that Q could practically feel against his own chest despite the fact that their bodies weren't touching beyond the man's large hands.
He sighed, breathing out his fear and feeling his tense muscles relax. A remnant of his survival instinct was still ringing alarm bells in his head, but the rest of him paid it no notice. There wasn't anything he could do about the situation so there was arguably no reason not to lean forward just a little and rest his head against a solid shoulder while he took a moment to recover from the shock of it all
He heard his agent let out a huffing chuckle and felt the gun be removed from his hand – a twinge of alarm shot through him but was soothed and smoothed back down when that hand came up again, sans gun, and brushed through hair.
"I have a cat," he blurted out. Ridiculous, because the man was quite aware of that fact, considering the scratchmarks he must have gained from the silly beast.
Trevelyan snorted and Q could feel the laugh against his hair.
He cleared his throat, hiding his embarrassment by burying his reddening face even further into the agent's warm shoulder. "If you're kidnapping me, you need to take Dante too."
"Now that sounds like a splendid idea," his agent responded, something gleeful in his tone, "and I know just the person to look after your furry friend while we are otherwise occupied."
Q wanted to ask what was running through the man's mind but felt it might be wiser to stay ignorant.
"I'm afraid to ask," Q said rather honestly.
"Oh, don't worry, Q, you'll be fine. Besides, James owes us both a favour. And he adores cats. I'm sure he won't mind looking after the little devil for a few days."
He wondered if the agent was purposefully playing the whole thing down. He doubted that a hacker being brought in to a governmental agency would be something that can be resolved quickly. To be honest he'd rather not think about it too deeply at all, but…"A few days?"
"There's psych evals, debriefing with M, plenty of boring conversations I would imagine," the agent answered easily, waving it away as if was nothing.
"Boring," Q repeated breathing deeply in an out in an attempt to gather what confidence he had - reminding himself that this was his choice, that he'd walking right into this with eyes wide open so he damn well wouldn't back down now. "Yes. Right. Well, Agent Trevelyan, we should probably get that over with."
The agent backed away a little, but didn't release him. Instead of a truly restraining grip, as if Q was the prisoner that he rightly was, there was a heavy arm wrapped around his shoulders, keeping him in place against the larger man's side. "We should," Trevelyan agreed. "Go get your cat, then."
The man didn't let go, though and Q tilted his head back to look up at the man with a question on his face.
The look he received in turn was one that made him freeze, there was something far too predatory about it. "You should know, though, that if you run, I will chase you."
Q swallowed, but the hint of fear he felt at what was a real threat fell to the background as his analytical mind automatically ran through several possibilities. Even if Q managed to escape his apartment, the probability was high that the experienced agent would catch him before he managed to leave town. If Q did manage to get out of this city, though, his chances would increase with every day he managed to put distance between them without leaving a trace.
Of course, that scenario would also include leaving his beloved but rather insane feline roommate behind in this room - and Q on the run of a powerful organisation that had his name, his face and years of experience with hunting down criminals.
"I'm not planning on running," his voice was almost breathless as he made that promise – he was taking another risk, but this time it was just about logical. He wasn't running until they gave him a reason to run.
Trevelyan nodded at him, "In that case, call me Alec."
The man let him go and Q stumbled back, staring up at him wordlessly. Was that a strange offer of friendship? Or were they still on different sides? Had they ever been?
"Is this how Russians make friends?" he asked, a little baffled still.
A grin took over that weathered face, filling it with roguish enjoyment. "There's usually more vodka involved. I promise I will make that up to you later."
And no, Q had no idea what to do with this man. He'd allowed the agent to drag him into this mess so deeply that the hacker had nowhere left to run - and worst of all, he couldn't even find it in himself to truly regret it.
But lack of regret or no, Q still wasn't any good at handling even normal social interactions – let alone this. Whatever it was.
"I- the cat," he stuttered, turning away quickly in the hope that the other man wouldn't see his completely unnecessary blush.
He didn't turn around when he heard the man moving around, didn't turn to look until he heard the man sit down on the only real comfortable piece of furniture in his apartment – his bed. Without meaning to, his head shot back to look at the agent who was lounging on Q's bed as if it was perfectly natural for him to do so. He looked so comfortable that it took a long moment before Q even realised that the agent was being utterly presumptuous. It was hard to protest or even feel offended, because Trevelyan seemed to somehow claim any space he entered as if it had always been his. Or maybe that was just Q's strange perception of things.
He shot a disapproving look at the man anyway, because he felt that he should at least attempt to teach the unrepentant man some manners. Trevelyan, Alec, just smirked back and that look made it clear just how futile resistance would be, so Q sighed as if the man was a bother and went back to the real problem at hand.
But even as he started the trial of coaxing the black menace into the cat carrier that Dante absolutely despised, he could feel the agent's eyes on him. They were surprisingly restful on his back.
He managed to gather his cat – not without trouble – a small carry-on with some clothing, cat food and other items he might need along with his laptop bag. When he was done, he disengaged the security system, turned off the electronics in his apartment and locked gazes with the patiently waiting agent.
"Ready to go?"
Q smiled ruefully, "If I say no?"
He was only half-joking, but Alec snorted and got up from the bed, closing in on him with a few easy steps.
"Then I will somehow have to carry your unconscious body, your suitcase and your cat down four flights of stairs," the agent told him, putting one steady hand against Q's back, "So say yes."
And Q actually huffed out a laugh at the image that conjured up in his mind.
"Yes," he agreed, a hint of humour still in his voice.
Alec nodded and took Q's laptop bag, slinging it around his shoulder, and it looked highly out of place on the man. With his left hand, the agent also picked up Q's small suitcase, leaving Q to carry a highly displeased Dante.
"After you, then," the agent ordered politely and Q preceded the man, leaving his apartment behind for – well, who knew how long, possibly forever.
The cat carrier jostled a little while Q trudged down the stairs, the elevator still unfixed, and Dante hissed and growled all the way down.
He hesitated in the downstairs hall, very conscious of the fact that this was an end to things. And the beginning of something highly uncertain. He turned around to look at the agent who had gotten him to this point and almost asked – what will happen to me now? How does MI6 deal with uppity hackers, do you think?
But there were no assurances the man could give him that Q would truly believe until he had seen them in truth. There was nothing for it but to wait and see.
"Bond is fond of cats, you say?" he asked instead, in a rather deadpan tone.
Trevelyan's eyes were filled with an unholy spark, "Yes, he adores the beasts."
"Liar," Q accused, lips twitching into a smile. He opened the door and went through.
There were no assurances the man could give him that Q would believe. But he did have Alec's dubious friendship along with his laptop and his undoubtedly crabby cat.
Surely that counted for something?
A.N. Ok so I'm pretty much re-using a similar disarming trick on Alec as I did in 'Save one, get one free' because for all that I'm creative, I'm apparently not that creative. I don't know. But hey, that one is only on AO3 due to site rules, so it's shiny and new on this site?