#prompt table

Q is one of the crown princes of Britain, but he is not next in line for the throne. He’s always been a little… wild, from full sleeve tattoos to studying computer sciences and coding (he has a doctorate, one of the youngest doctors in all of England), but his favorite thing to do is dress down and go out. Minimal security detail, usually just one trusted bodyguard named Eve, and go to clubs. He lets his hair curl the way it naturally wants to, he indulges in his favorite punk clothing styles that show off his ink, and with just a hint of eyeliner, he’s virtually unrecognizable as a prince.

James works as a bartender, and he’s damn good at his job. Knee injury took him out of the SAS (as well as killing Lynd, his former partner and lover when she turned traitor), so he spends his nights tending bar and his days working out when he cannot sleep. He enjoys the occasional historical fiction book or biography, and he has his soap operas (tell no one), but everything is just… dull. So when this young man strolls up to the bar and orders a beer, James is stunned because the man is gorgeous. Slim, fit, very well inked in gorgeously designed sleeves. James turns on the charm and flirts shamelessly, delighted when the young man not only flirts back but suggests that if there’s a back room, he would certainly enjoy a rough tumble.

James gets his break at 0030, and he immediately takes the young man, who only gives his name as Q, into the back and shags his brains out. Q is delicious- tight as sin, breathy and bossy, very willing to have his hair pulled and clearly into a bit of subbing. Only James’ willpower keeps him from marking the man visibly with a love bite, and he feels great pride when Q clearly is struggling to walk properly as they leave the office.

Q comes back a few more times before proposing they be fuck buddies, but he makes it sound much classier. He has a flat they can use and offers to take James by there on his day off if he wants, but James counters with his own flat. He has decent security, and there’s a lift up from the garage to afford them privacy, and Q agrees. This starts several months of nights spent together on James’s days off. The sex is phenomenal, and they start talking more and more. Q talks about his hobbies and his love of computers and coding, how much he wants to go into technology but his family is a bit on the traditional side. James doesn’t press for details; his family, had they still been around, would have been stuffy and traditional too. James shares his passion for woodworking and shows a few pieces of furniture he has made, even though it has been months since he last properly focused on a project. Q admires each piece, and later when he is home and thinking back on that day, that is the moment he begins to fall for James.

Six months in, it leaks. Somehow, the word gets out and James arrives at his flat to be accosted by reporters asking how long he has been sleeping with Prince Quentin.

James comes up to the flat to find Q there distressed and pacing. It’s the biggest fight they’ve had. Q lied by omission about his identity and James is more angry that Q does not trust him enough to say he is royalty than he is about reporters swarming his flat.

Eve comes in to escort Q out, taking one of the back ways from the place to avoid further media frenzy.

There’s no contact for weeks. Nothing. With so much time and suddenly nothing and no one to fill that time, James takes up woodworking again. He starts by working to fix up some of the furniture in his flat, then moves on to putting in time at the bar to clean things up, fix some of the larger cracks in the veneer. His boss sees his work and, impressed, encourages James to start selling his pieces.

Nearly a month later, James is summoned to Buckingham Palace, where he arrives to find he has an audience with Prince Quentin. Q is virtually unrecognizable in a well tailored suit, styled hair, shined shoes, everything that it seemed he is not in the club and at James’s yet it fits him perfectly.

Q talks, James mostly listens. Q apologizes for how things went down. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt James, yet that’s exactly what ended up happening. So he offers a chance for James to ask whatever he wants. He offers to tell James the entire truth, and James accepts.

They take a walk through the gardens, and Q tells James all about his life. Most of it James already knows, but he now learns the details about the royal life. Q mostly adds to stories James has heard before, but it also makes it easier to understand why Q cannot pursue his dream career and why it took so long for Q to be able to bring James to the palace; he has spent weeks smoothing things over and helping with spin for the media circus.

As they return to the palace, Q offer James the choice. They can stay lovers, or Q can keep his distance. It’s up to James, and Q will respect his choice.

The anger is mostly gone- and James misses their time together. The palace has no privacy, and he prefers his privacy. He tells Q as much.

Q starts to smile. He offers James chances to get away, ways they can continue to see each other, not so much in secret as discreetly in public so that they can continue to be together personally. Q has no interest in the crown, and one of his cousins just married, and he was gay. Their relationship will not be frowned upon nearly so much as it would have been a few years previous.

“I don’t want you to become the darling of the public or be hounded the rest of your life. I don't wish that on you. But I don’t want to lose you either. You’re the first person to truly get to know the real me, the man behind the titles.”

James eventually says yes. He has to think about it for awhile, but it is different than when Vesper betrayed him, got his knee shot out and herself killed. Q truly regrets the deception, but James understands why. Had he known Q was royalty, he would have behaved differently.

Their first time together again, Q spirits them away to a small country cottage. Eve is Q’s main security detail, very discrete and wickedly sharp. James likes her and her obvious care for her charge. She is also wonderful for teasing banter.

It is the first of many trips, and though James never much fancies the publicity (especially once the media figures out he and Q are properly an item), it’s worth it for the smile that crosses Q’s face whenever he things James is not looking.

They start to escape more and more as they can afford. Q has to cancel a few times for palace functions, but Eve helps him slip away to James’ flat on those nights so they do not lose all their time together. Soon enough, the media moves on to his brother Harry’s wedding, and Q and James are no longer the center of media attention.

Q loves the work James does with his carving and woodworking. It turns out Q is a bit hopeless in shaping wood, but he’s a natural at woodburning. In one afternoon he creates a circuit board on a piece of well-worked mahogany. Several of these joint pieces will end up in various rooms of James’s flat and Q’s palace rooms. And, since this particular cottage is Q’s, James’s work ends up furnishing nearly every room there.