Where Angels Fear To Tread

Prologue

James Bond was between missions. Well, official missions at least. He was sitting at the desk in his not-often-used office looking at his computer screen. His former M stared implacably back. The crafty, old bitch wouldn't let anything as insignificant as death get in the way of doing her job, would she, he pondered.

A knock came, Bond closing the video player just as the door opened.

He smiled at the man standing in the doorframe. God-awful cardigans and corduroys aside, there was something unqualifiedly sexy about Arthur Clifton. Probably a lot to do with the fact that Bond knew all too well how he looked sprawled out naked on his bed and the sounds he could coax out of him whilst enduring the attentions of a Double-O dedicated to putting his back into his job - regardless whether that job be of a vertical or horizontal nature.

"Might I have a word, 007?"

"Of course, Q. Come in."

"In my office if you'll indulge me?" Bond flashed a frown. "There's something I'd like to show you."

Usually such a request meant a word about something Q didn't want broadcast on the usual channels. His was the only office free from any listening devices, undergoing a daily sweep by the overzealous Quartermaster. While it was illegal to listen to, but not watch, one's employees, that didn't deter perhaps the world's leading agency in espionage from indulging in the practice.

"Lead the way," Bond replied, rising from his chair to follow.

A silent 90 second walk and they reached their destination. Q shut the door behind them, tossing the file he was carrying onto the desk and turned to Bond, arms crossed. James assumed his most nonplussed expression and returned the look.

"Problem Q?"

"You're hiding something from me."

"I have no sec—"

"Oh bollocks, Bond," he said with a wave of his hand as he flopped down into his chair. James remained standing. "Our entire existence is built on secrets and subterfuge. I wrote the bloody code on secrets and subterfuge," he stated, not feigning modesty. It was the cold, hard fact of the matter.

"When did you stop trusting me?" he asked directly, doing nothing to conceal his impatience with the agent.

"Q. I trust you implicitly. That you would even entertain such a thought, I find quite disturbing, given all we've shared and continue to share."

Q huffed. He wouldn't be appeased. "Regardless. There's something going on with you. I noticed the change a few days after M's funeral."

The perils of falling for a far-too-clever-by-half genius, thought James silently to himself, his expression never faltering.

And yet, not fooling Arthur Clifton for one second.

Q's tone softened and he stood with the intent to move closer to James. "Her loss affected us all. But none more than you."

There were times past, more often than not, that James' felt the psychological circumstances of his job akin to a form of solitary confinement, his own skull a prison cell. And while he trusted Q with the key to that cell, it was sometimes a wake-up call to realise just how far this man was getting under his skin. Beautiful, irritatingly clever bastard that he was.

Crafty bugger. Trying to break me down from the inside out, Bond's inner dialogue kept himself in check. Q would make a brilliant information extractor, were he not so brilliant at deconstructing and figuring out everything else he laid his hands on. James bloody Bond included...

"I'm here for you. Always. No matter what, James. You know that, don't you?" he said, lifting Bond's hand to place a soft kiss inside his wrist. "I know it's asking a lot given the full time job it is wearing the MI6 suit but you can put the agent down when you're with me."

Bond returned a distractingly charming smile to the man before him. Q rolled his eyes.

"Trust me, Q. If there is anything you need to know, I will tell you..."

Q's eyes narrowed, telling Bond clearly, by in fact saying bugger all, that this wasn't over. Bond himself knew the fact of the matter better than anyone.

It was only beginning.