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The two of them are in a heap in front of CBeebies when James hears the front door go. Theodore is technically awake, but his thumb stays in his mouth and his eyes don’t move from the telly.
James shifts them up against the arm of the sofa, rubs his palm on the back of Theo’s head.
“Your dad’s home,” he jogs him.
Theo nods against his chest, blinking sluggishly.
There’s a creak on the floorboards and Max appears – head poking round the door, looking anxious. When he sees them in their couch potato state, he relaxes slightly.
“Hello,” he says. “How is he?” He comes to kneel next to them, still in his coat and shoes. He smells of cold air.
“He’s alright – he’s been recovering today.”
After eight hours of intermittent screaming followed by a 70-minute disco nap, they had gone to the GP first thing this morning. Dr Ali – unconcerned and clearly used to first-time-parents – had confirmed it was just a nasty cold. Theo was apparently much relieved by this diagnosis, as he’d spent the rest of the day dozing, drinking squash, and occasionally deigning to allow James to wipe his nose.
“How was the conference?” James asks.
“Yeah, good.” He smoothes a hand over Theo’s back. “You feeling better, munchkin?”
Theo, having used up all his sounds for the day, nods again.
“Alright,” says Max. He presses a kiss where Theo’s dark hair swirls in a silky crown. Then, eyes still on Theo, he kisses the back of James’ fingers.
After they’ve done bath and bedtime, he brings a bottle of wine through from the kitchen.
Max has taken the armchair, leaving him the sofa.
“Work to catch up on?” he asks, nodding at the laptop balanced on Max’s knees.
“Not much, just firing off an email.” He holds out a hand for the glass of wine being offered to him. “Thanks. Put the TV on if you like.”
James demurs.
“If you’re nearly done, I’m sure there are other things we could do to amuse ourselves.”
Max looks up at him, surprised. “Did you want to have sex?”
After a year living together, Max still retains his ability to disarm romantic overtures with his unfiltered bluntness. It should be deflating. Instead, he finds himself holding off a smile when he responds: “I was hoping so.”
“Great,” says Max, shutting down his laptop. As he closes it, he catches James’ eye. “Stop smirking. I was only asking.”
“Were you worried I hadn’t missed you?”
“No.” He sets everything down on the coffee table, then goes to unplug the charger at the wall, facing away from James. “I just,” – he stays crouched by the skirting board, wrapping the cable around his hand, forming a neat coil – “didn’t know if you’d want to.”
They finish as they have taken to doing recently: Max prone beneath him, his legs held apart by James’ knees.
Though not James’ preferred position, Max likes having his prick rubbed against the bed until he comes that way; his cries pressed into the mattress. James supposes it’s a habit from puberty – furtive teenage self-stimulation carried over into adult turn-on. For his own part, he can at least own to enjoying how their faces press alongside each other, almost still, while from the hips he fucks him, rabbit-like.
He slips out, rubs his cock on Max’s inner thigh as he softens. Max reaches around to slap him on his rump.
“I love you,” he says, as Max turns in his arms.
“I know.” Max places his palms flat over James’ shoulder blades. “I love you too.”
They stay in a tangle, kissing. Max rubs his heel against James’ calf. All of the day’s lethargy has departed – earlier this afternoon he’d been crying out for an early night, but now – give him a while and he can go again, then make them some dinner—
“Is it because of the sex?” Max asks, against James’ chin. James stills, pulls away to look at him. “I know it would be harder to make time for it,” Max continues, meeting his eye, “given how much you like it. But it’s important to me too – we’ve made it work with Theo...”
James kisses Max’s cheek before dropping down to lie by his side. Max turns so they’re facing one another again, props his head on his hand.
“You don’t want to talk about it,” he says.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” says James, honestly. “I’m not worried about the sex.”
Max looks at him, waiting, for a few moments more. Then he makes a huffing noise and turns away, waits for James to come press up behind him and bite the hair at his nape.
He wraps himself more tightly in James’ arms, resigned, and says: “Alright.”
***
“He in his office?” he asks Jen.
The lab isn’t busy, and she seems to be the most senior person on hand.
“Should be,” she says, looking up from her screen. “How are the new recruits shaping up?”
“Rather too well for my liking,” he says, pulling up the sleeve of his sweatshirt to reveal a nasty new bruise.
It ought to rankle: seeing the young pups coming through, recommending a new 007 to take his place. But any lingering nostalgia – for the adventure, the thrill of the chase, the rush you feel when you barely make it out alive – has been firmly outweighed.
He doesn’t feel to talk them out of it, to warn them off a life of fear and killing for queen and country (or for king and country, as it will be for so many of them, he realises with some horror). They know what they’re getting into about as well as he did at their age. The job might kill them, or leave them wishing they were dead. But isn’t that part of the attraction when you’re young and sure that life has nothing to offer you but adrenaline?
He’d been sure of that, too, at one point.
(This morning, Theo had climbed into bed with them long before their alarm had gone off and planted a damp kiss on his nose.)
Jen prods the bruise with glee. “Gross,” she says, happily.
One of the engineers – Simone – pipes up from the other side of the room: “Have any other injuries you’d like to share?” She makes a show of raking her eyes over his torso.
“Oh, plenty,” he replies, genially. “But you’ll be able inspect them more thoroughly if you stand a bit closer.”
Before she can respond, the Quartermaster’s voice rings out from the open door to his office.
“Bond! Stop flashing your biceps at my staff. They have work to do.”
Bond raises an apologetic eyebrow to Jen and Simone and makes his way through.
Max – sitting at his desk with his arms crossed – is not trying nearly hard enough to hide his amusement. James steps inside and mimics Max’s pose, making his sweatshirt tighten across his arms. Max’s eyes note the movement before darting back to his face.
“Any particular reason you chose to grace my team with your presence this afternoon, or was your ego just feeling on the small side?” he asks.
He’s in his navy cord suit today. It makes him look like a creative writing professor who has all the girls in the class mooning over him.
“Just thought I’d pop in before picking Theo up from nursery and see if we should expect you home for dinner?”
Adult dinner, he means. The only way Max would make it home for Theo’s dinnertime on a weekday is if he worked a 30 hour shift.
“If we make it a late one?” says Max, apologetically. “Need to wait for 004’s flight to land in Tehran so we can do an urgent intel update.”
“Excellent,” he says, walking over to give him a parting kiss on the cheek. “I’ll hope for strong tailwinds as I cook up a storm.”
***
By the time they’ve said their goodbyes and are heading out to the car it’s later than planned. Max frowns when he sees the time.
“I hope Lydia hasn’t stayed up for us,” he says.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” James reassures him, as he manoeuvres out the space.
He had been relaxed all evening – shirt buttoned down, work phone silent – and James wants to keep him that way while he can. There’s something exotic about seeing him among his friends, when his attention is on things other than work, Theo, and James: he seems freer. More his own age.
“Mmm,” Max half-agrees. “Good news about Clare and Andrew. You did a good job of looking surprised.”
“You say that as if we had prior knowledge.”
Max gives him a wry look. “Well I certainly didn’t, but you must have known it since we saw them last month. I didn’t realise she wasn’t drinking.”
He sounds rather self-recriminatory, as if he should have been on the lookout.
“Well,” James allows, “one does develop a certain feel for these things, when noticing things about people has been one’s career. But a gentleman never assumes. Should I have warned you?”
“No,” says Max. Then he is silent for a moment, letting him concentrate on getting them out onto the main road.
Then he says, “I can just be happy for other people.”
***
James ends the call and gets back to Theo’s lunch, spooning macaroni from the pot into a plastic bowl.
Theo, sensing the impending arrival of food, ceases chasing Jigsaw round the living room and toddles through to them.
“That was the estate agent,” James says, though presumably Max could tell from what he heard.
“Ah,” says Max, getting up from the pile of CVs he’s been scanning to lift Theo into his high chair. “What’s the news?”
“They’ve offered the asking price.” He tries a spoonful of the pasta to make sure it’s cooled down enough. “I said we’d talk about it and I’d come back with an answer by the end of the weekend.”
“It’s your— Yes, yes, I know. It’ll be ready in a minute, don’t fuss,” he tells Theo, then tries again. “It’s your flat, you don’t need my permission.”
Max’s cultivated distance from the issue is understandable: selling the flat means getting the money from the flat. Getting the money means deciding what to do with it, which inevitably leads them back to house hunting. A garden and a garage they agree on. But looking at the five-bedroom places Max has his heart set on feels like making a promise he can’t keep.
“We have time to think about it,” insists James, placing the bowl in front of Theo.
Max makes a noncommittal sound and goes back to the CVs.
James grabs a chair and turns it to face Theo’s, but efforts to shovel macaroni into his mouth are blocked when he turns his head away crossly and says “Dada.”
“Theodore, let Baba feed you, Daddy’s trying to work,” sighs Max.
James notes with interest that Max’s promise to help them transition to ‘Papa’ from the nonsense babble Theo has assigned him has fallen by the wayside rather quickly.
“Nnnnnah!” insists Theo. “Dada. No Baba.”
“The tyrant has spoken,” says James, holding the fork out for Max.
“Are you happy?” He asks, when they are getting ready for bed.
“What?” Max is trying to squash his trousers into the already full hamper. He glances at James over his shoulder. “About what?”
When he doesn’t answer, Max gives up his fight with laundry and turns to face him properly – hands on his hips, not a stitch on him. If he were anyone else, he would look ridiculous. He is entirely beautiful.
“Do you really have to ask?” he says, irked.
“Yes,” James admits.
Max looks at him a moment longer before answering.
“We have a son, a roof over our heads; we love each other, and we have a good sex life. You don’t even mind that I spend a ludicrous amount of time at the office. I’m not going to pack my bags and leave because you won’t have another baby. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be unhappy about it.”
He says this quickly and without heat. Though it is not quite rehearsed, James realises that Max has thought about this already: how happy or unhappy he is; how happy or unhappy James can make him; whether or not it’s worth leaving.
“Max—” he reaches out, feeling a swell of worry. But Max dodges him, grabbing his dressing gown from the door.
“Look, I’m going to go and clean myself up. Get a towel out for the bed, would you? Can’t be arsed changing the sheets tomorrow.”
***
With the exception of Adrian (and, by association, Molly) Max’s family have abided by the directive not to go overboard with the presents. This is just as well, both because James doesn’t fancy trying to cram armfuls of Fisher Price into the boot on the way home tomorrow, and because Theo is still far more interested in wrapping paper than he is in new toys.
(“Do you think it’s a developmental issue?” wonders Max, as he helps his mother tidy away some of the detritus.
“Yes,” she says. “It’s because, developmentally, he’s two.”)
Theodore, having calmed down from the excitement, is beginning to droop against Lydia on the sofa.
“Nap time for you mate,” says Max, scooping him up.
“Naah,” Theo protests, without energy, then turns his face into his dad’s neck.
Max pats his bum and makes a soft humming sound.
***
“Knock knock,” says Moneypenny, her pencil skirt stretching improbably as she leans against his desk.
“Miss Moneypenny,” he greets her, eyeing the thick folder she’s holding. “I see you’ve brought me a gift.”
“Full marks for observation.” She smiles winningly, holding it out for him. “Operation Wisteria.”
“The trafficking ring case?”
“That’s the one. One of the ringleaders had previously been a SPECTRE associate, so they’re wondering if there’s a bigger network to be dismantled. They asked for you to look over the intel in case you could shed any light.”
“Not getting much out of him in interrogation?” he asks, flipping the folder open and perusing the contents.
“Local police shot him before he could be brought in.”
“Can’t say I blame them,” he mutters, flicking through a selection of eye witness accounts from the Alps. His eyes catch on a familiar name.
“Found something?” she asks, moving to read over his shoulder.
He snaps the folder shut.
“Not particularly,” he says, looking up at her blandly.
She raises her eyebrows at him. “Good to see your instinct for secrecy is still intact. I was worried you might be losing your edge in your old age.”
“And I do so hate to worry you.”
“Have me over for dinner soon,” she calls over her shoulder as she leaves. “You know it thrills me to see you so domesticated.”
He waves her off without looking, attention already back on the files.
“No that’s fine” – Max calls through from the kitchen – “you just sit there in the dark, drinking, while I stack the dishwasher. What a treat for me.”
“It’s one whisky,” James grumbles. And the cat’s now managed to stick its face in it, so it’s shortly going down the drain, he doesn’t say.
“One whisky in addition to the previous two.” Max comes through to look at him suspiciously. “Did something happen at work?”
“Work’s fine.”
“You’ve been weird all evening,” Max prods.
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
“Look, I don’t want to—”
“To talk about it.” Max finishes for him. “Yes, I know. The list of things you don’t like talking about is largely responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon. But by all means, do continue to add—”
“Austria.”
The word silences Max. He stares.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Was rather hoping it wouldn’t come up,” says Max, in a silly sort of way.
The attempt at levity is inspires a pulse of anger in him. It joins a mire of other emotions in his gut; fury at himself for never having realised; disbelief that Max would keep it from him; the general unease of remembering what was going on this time two years ago.
“You were...” he attempts, then stops. On his second try: “They would have tortured you. To get to me. They would have killed you.”
Max’s face changes, embarrassment dissolving as he takes in the words.
“James,” he says, stricken. “I didn’t tell you because I was sure you’d think I’d been an idiot – hiding from them in a fire escape, for christ’s sake – I never thought… I mean it never crossed my mind you’d be upset.”
“You were pregnant.” His mouth feels dry as he says the words, as though the whisky had not been nearly enough to support them. He has never been so angry at the fucking cat in his life.
“I didn’t know that at the time,” Max says, stepping towards him. He places his hands on James’ shoulders. “James. Look at me.”
James looks at his knees instead.
He cannot say anything more, he can only stay where he is, head bowed.
He feels Max’s hands running through his hair – a kiss to his forehead. After a while, he nudges him back in the chair so that Max can come into his lap.
“I can’t lose you,” he says, and presses Max’s hands to his lips, holds them to his face. They come away wet.
“Is that…” Max sounds tentative. “Is that what this has all been about? Were you worried that I would—?”
“Don’t.” The word tumbles from him, unbidden. He can’t think about it.
“Alright,” says Max, quickly. “Alright.”
When James has regained control of his breathing and the embarrassment has subsided, he says:
“I thought that was the worst of it, when you were both in hospital.” He buries his nose in Max’s hair. “I never thought…”
Max pinches his earlobe between finger and thumb, rubs it.
“You’re not being reasonable,” he says, his voice gentle though the words aren’t. “You already knew I was in the field in the midst of an international crime syndicate. I’m not sure that a near miss with a couple of goons on a ski lift really changes anything.”
Despite himself, James snorts into Max’s hair. He feels Max relax as he does.
“I’m not a reasonable man,” he admits.
“No,” agrees Max. “You’re not.”
***
“All aboard,” he says, stomach on the floor, hands flat by his shoulders.
Theo flops down from where he’s sitting on James’ bum, his tummy now pressing to James’ back, hands grabbing James’ t-shirt.
Slowly, James presses up to a plank, then back down to the floor. He repeats the movement and Theo screeches for him to go faster. He complies.
Theodore – still small for his age, though rapidly gaining ground – is not the ideal piece of equipment for weight training. He is, however, considerably more entertaining than a disc of cast iron.
They manage to get in two more sets of reps before Theo abandons him in favour of the cats.
***
“Do you speak any Danish?” asks Max, as the two characters on screen share a guttural conversation about blood spatter.
“Believe it or not, Danish does not feature highly on the list of useful languages for international espionage.”
“No, fair,” says Max, burrowing himself further into James’ hold and letting out an unhappy grunt. Despite the warm weather, there is a hot water bottle wedged between them, pressing into Max’s lower back.
The scene changes to a bleak landscape, the detective and her companion discussing the case as they walk along a grey beach.
“Anything I can do for you?” James asks, rubbing gently over his abdomen.
“Nah, painkillers will kick in in a mo’.”
He kisses the side of Max’s face.
“I went to the GP last year,” says Max.
“About period pain?” asks James, not understanding.
“No,” says Max, eyes still tracking over the subtitles. “About getting pregnant again.” He pauses as the dialogue intensifies, concentrating for a moment. Unsure of what else to do, James keeps up the movement of his hand.
When the scene changes again, Max continues:
“I wanted to know about the risk of what happened with Theo happening again.”
There is a distinct sinking feeling in James’ gut.
“Before you went to Manchester for that conference?” he asks – before they fought, he means.
“Yep. She referred me to a specialist – a consultant at Guys.”
“God, Max—” He tries to bring Max round in his arms, to face one another. Max resists.
“Thought it would be best to know first if the risks were prohibitive. Before getting you excited at the thought of having another one.” He huffs out an embarrassed sort of laugh. “Didn’t cross my mind that you wouldn’t be.”
The detective is back in her office, having another grisly conversation with a depressed looking colleague.
He wants to apologise, but is sure that it wouldn’t be welcome.
It occurs to him:
“It was good news, then? From the consultant?”
Max does turn at that, looking up at him with a wary expression.
“Would it change your mind if I told you?”
His eyes tremor, searching over James’ face, and James wonders, not for the first time, how it is that he can think to deny him anything. And he thinks again: I can’t lose you.
He says: “I don’t want to let you down.”
***
When he comes through after his workout, bathtime is still in progress. Max has placed Theo’s pyjamas in a neat pile on the toilet seat lid, so James leans against the towel rail rather than disturb them.
Max is kneeling up by the side of the bathtub, Theo’s shampooed head resting in the crook of his arm. His face is tipped up to the ceiling, eyes squeezed tight shut.
“One, two, three…” Max pours a cup of bathwater over him, careful to miss his eyes.
When the suds have been sluiced off, Theo gasps in a breath as though surfacing from a dive. He opens his eyes excitedly.
“Well done!” Max exclaims, and bends down further to kiss his wet forehead. “There we go, all rinsed now.”
Theo splashes in excitement, hoping to put off bedtime for a while longer.
“No, bath is over, I’m afraid. Baba’s waiting for his turn in the shower.” Max pulls the plug and lifts Theo’s slippery form out to towel him off.
“We could really do with another bathroom,” James says, as he lifts a collection of toys out of the receding water.
Max, occupied with coercing Theo into his pyjamas, agrees absently.
“Perhaps we could take a look tomorrow – see what’s online.” He turns the shower on, blasting away the last of the bubbles.
Max looks up, hands still bracketing Theo’s tummy.
Theo, realising he has temporarily been demoted from the centre of attention, lifts his top up, demanding a raspberry. Max obliges.
“Are you at the bit where she learns the thing about her brother?” Max asks, climbing in beside him, just in his pants.
“No,” says James, holding his free arm out for him to come into. “But thank you for alerting me to that particular plot twist. Would have hated to be surprised.”
“Sorry,” says Max. He nibbles on his shoulder apologetically.
When James has finished the chapter, before he switches off the light, Max asks:
“You’re not just doing this because you’ve convinced yourself I’m about to leave you, are you? Because that would be a terrible reason.”
Privately, James thinks that wouldn’t be at all a bad reason. But he can say honestly:
“No. That’s not why.”
Max looks disbelieving, but doesn’t speak again.
“I wasn’t thinking about it in the right way before,” James adds, realising that after so many months of silence, he can’t hurt Max by saying more. He cups Max’s face in his hands. “I was afraid of the wrong things.”
They stay like that for a time: quiet, looking at each other in the soft light.
James lies down, pulling Max on top of him.
Slowly, Max kisses his ears, his neck, his shoulders.
James runs his hands over Max’s back, down to the base of his spine. He presses him down, flexes himself up.
Max joins in the movement, splaying himself so his knees bracket James’ thighs. He sighs when James fingers move over the fabric of his underwear, shifts in encouragement when they slip in towards his crack.
“Are you still on your—?” James says in his ear, quieter than he needs to be just to tickle over the tiny hairs in the shell.
“No,” says Max, quickly. “Not really.”
“Good.” James gets his hands under the waistband, exposes the meat of his arse and presses his fingers into it. “Good, because I’d really like to—”
“Baaaaabaaaaa!”
At the sound of Theo’s wail, Max groans and rolls off him.
“I take it back. One is more than enough.” He tugs the duvet away from James. “He said your name by the way, not mine.”
“Really? Definitely sounded like ‘Daddy’ to me,” James attempts, though he’s already up and pulling his joggers on.
“Oh, give over,” says Max, and prods him with his toe.
“Don’t I always,” mutters James. And he doesn’t have to look round to see Max’s smile.