Work Text:
One late afternoon in the middle of December, from the confines of a hospital bed, one of Q’s long–held talents comes in handy quite unexpectedly.
When Q was a boy, he developed a fascination with lip–reading. No sooner than he learned that such a thing was possible, he devoted himself to mastery of the skill. Like he so often did in his earlier and lonelier years, Q took to the task quietly, without making any fuss or bother about how quickly he picked it up.
In the years since, he has kept nurturing the skill, and since his appointment as Quartermaster, it has certainly proved useful. Q has grown accustomed to monitoring all manner of conversations from afar, and whether he is doing so from across the room or from afar via digital means, it doesn’t hurt to have an extra tool in his toolkit.
It does, however, come as a shock to suddenly catch Bond telling the most senior doctor on staff at MI6, “I will break your neck without a second thought. Get out of my way.”
Apparently, Dr. Plummer isn’t very attached to his neck in its current condition, for he remains stationed in Bond’s pathway, smack bang in the middle of the corridor leading to Q’s private recovery room. He is flanked by two orderlies who look less sure about their role in the makeshift blockade.
What with being midway through recovery after an unexpected surgery, Q isn’t in any fit state to intervene. Luckily, Tanner has been visiting with him for another one of their Scrabble matches. He is staring down at his tiles ever so thoughtfully. It is a shame to have to disturb the peace.
“Tanner,” Q murmurs, just as Bond takes a menacing step towards Dr. Plummer.
What follows is a flurry of motion, set off by Tanner leaping away from Q’s bedside and rushing out into the corridor. He closes the door behind him, effectively cocooning Q in silence, but Q goes on watching. It is fascinating to watch Tanner charge towards Bond, a warning at the ready — “Bond, not now” — which is, of course, a tactical error. In charging forth, Tanner breaks through the blockade. The orderlies step aside. Dr. Plummer doesn’t move a muscle, but that matters not. Bond dodges Tanner’s attempt to grab at his sleeve and proceeds to storm towards Q’s room.
He snaps something at Tanner on his way, and foggy–headed as Q is, it takes him a moment to decipher:
“I’ll be dealing with you later.”
Just as that clicks for Q, he realises that the door has been flung open. Bond is at the foot of his bed, while Tanner is now hanging back in the doorway, looking terribly exasperated.
“Hello,” Q says.
He sounds a bit of a twit, he realises, saying such a mellow ‘hello’ to the veritable storm cloud hanging over the end of his bed. Q has never seen Bond glower so ferociously: not in all the time they have known each other, whether as colleagues or friends or, as has been the case more recently, lovers. It is a level beyond the look that was on his face while he was threatening Dr. Plummer and Tanner.
“Bond, Q needs to—”
“Q needs to explain himself,” Bond snaps, not even looking back at Tanner. He remains fixed on Q, still glowering as he demands, “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You didn’t think to let me know about all of this?” Bond glares around the room before pinning Q with another stare. “How could you, Q?”
Q balks at that. “How could I? It was emergency surgery. I didn’t exactly have time to spare.”
“No, from what I hear,” Bond retorts, snapping out a humourless laugh, “You collapsed after ignoring pain for hours—”
“It was half an hour at the absolute most,” Q says. He supposes it is a good thing that all of Bond’s anger is radiating in his direction. It means that Bond misses Tanner’s incredulous head–tilt at what he knows to be an outright lie.
“You then went under the knife—”
“It was supposed to be laparoscopic!” Q sniffs, before reluctantly admitting, “They only sliced me open when things went slightly awry.”
Slightly, Tanner mouths, eyebrows raised higher than Q has ever seen.
“‘Slightly’,” Bond says icily. “I suppose that’s why you’ve been laid up here for well over a bloody week.”
Q crosses his arms over his chest and proceeds to snipe at Bond. He doesn’t want to get into why he has been sequestered by Dr. Plummer and his corrupt squadron who run the halls of Medical as if it were a maximum security facility. He certainly doesn’t feel any need to explain himself to Bond, who oscillates between acting like a sick cat, hiding out to nurse his wounds in solitude, and begging for attention over the most minor of scrapes, which is the last thing on earth Q would ever do.
“This wasn’t a minor scrape,” Bond argues. “And I shouldn’t have had to find out from across the other side of the world, nor should I have had to figure out that you tried to make turncoats out of Moneypenny and Tanner.”
Before Q can ask whether it was Moneypenny who gave him up, Tanner takes a step forward. Looking perplexed, he wonders out loud, “You weren’t supposed to be back for a week’s time. Bond, why are you here? How are you here?”
Still staring at Q unflinchingly, Bond announces that he saw fit to move on from the case he was working. He wasn’t really needed, anyway. Felix had it in hand.
“Felix,” Tanner echoes.
“Yes.”
“You handed it over to him? To the CIA?”
With a shrug and a nod, Bond confirms exactly that, which prompts a hell of a lot of panic from Tanner. He implores Bond to say that he’s joking. That he didn’t really handball an entire case without Mallory’s express say–so.
“I just told you I did,” Bond says. “I expect M won’t find it amusing at all, so I’m not sure why you think I’m joking, Tanner.”
As Tanner continues to gawk in abject horror, Bond waves him away and mutters, “Run along, now.”
And just like that, Tanner is off like a shot. Q rather wishes he could go with him, though admittedly he isn’t in any fit state to be sprinting through the halls. In any case, he doubts Bond will be letting him go anywhere.
After some time, Q meets Bond’s eye again. He doesn’t look as outraged as he did before, but he sounds most aggrieved as he demands, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think you’d care.”
Q says that without really meaning to. It flies out of his mouth while a heavy, grating feeling takes over his whole chest. It accelerates when he takes in the look on Bond’s face, which barely shifts except for a momentary flickering of shock.
Bond doesn’t sprint out like Tanner did. He doesn’t even charge out like he charged in. He just turns and walks out of the room and down the hall, all without looking back at Q once.
*
The next morning, Q wakes up while his room is still dark. Through the blinds striped over the window, at such an angle that there are only ribboned gaps to peek through, he can see that the rest of the medical wing is dimly lit.
A glance at the clock on the nightstand brings two things: first, confirmation that it is still early at not long after 5am, and then, a near heart attack when Q spies Bond lounging in the armchair in the shadowy corner.
“Good morning, Q.”
“What on earth…?”
Q grabs for his glasses and fumbles them onto his face. Once he has switched on the lamp, he gets a full and clear view of Bond with a book laid in his lap. It is one of Q’s books: an old, worn Wodehouse with one of his postcards–turned–bookmarks tucked into the dust jacket.
“Where did you get that?”
“The same place I got that,” Bond nods to the blanket now laid over the hospital bedding. “I thought you could use some creature comforts.”
As Q glances around wildly, he takes it all in: his favourite pyjamas are folded on the chest of drawers by the window along with a beloved cardigan. Set next to them is a stack of books gathered from the library in his bedroom. On the overbed table, which is currently stowed beside the foot of the bed, Bond has arranged Q’s loveliest teapot, one of the matching teacups, a jar of tea, and a packet of shortbread.
Peeved, Q demands to know how Bond got into his flat. He waits out the initial, predictable fib — that Bond got in the way he always does, via the access Q granted months ago — and then points out that the security was upgraded shortly after Bond departed on his now–abandoned mission.
While Bond casually confesses to having broken in, Q lays back and stares up at the ceiling. He doesn’t take much comfort in Bond’s assurances that he repaired any and all damage caused, mostly because Bond goes on to boast that if anything, the flat is now more secure than it ever was.
“Now,” Bond continues, “As to why I’m here.”
“This ought to be good,” Q mutters.
“I want an apology.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“You want,” Q says, slowly rising up to glower at Bond, “An apology.”
“Yes.”
“This from a man who has never apologised in his life.”
“If I’d ever done anything as atrocious as what you did yesterday, I may well feel compelled to apologise.”
There is barely any time for Q’s indignation to set in properly over his alleged atrocity. He is distracted by Bond, who in a flash of motion, is up on his feet and roaming around like a madman. He is stroppier than Q has ever seen him. While pacing the room, he declares that they both know Q was wrong to say what he did. There isn’t a chance in hell that Bond’s affections have gone unnoticed during the six months they have been sleeping together.
“Seven and a half,” Q corrects snippily.
Bond stops in his tracks and smirks triumphantly. “Too right. I knew you were counting.”
On he goes with his pacing, smugly announcing that much like he knew Q was counting, he knows that Q was ignoring pain for far longer than he was prepared to admit to yesterday. He expects that Q will take a comparable amount of time to admit to being sorry. Bond is willing to wait, of course, much like he is willing to wait on Q hand and foot until he is well again, and even then, he won’t mind continuing.
“I don’t need waiting on,” Q protests. “I’ve already been locked away here, that’s humiliation enough.”
“You ought to be locked away here.”
As outrage flares right through Q, Bond goes on to rant and rave about how predictable all of this is. Of course Q wound up collapsing. Of course Dr. Plummer insisted on a period of bedrest. The cholecystectomy aside, Q is undoubtedly fatigued. More than that, Bond suspects that he may be anemic.
“I am not,” Q snaps. He only hopes Bond hasn’t gone rifling through his medical records, which would reveal some trifling evidence of iron deficiency.
“Hmm.” Bond looks pointedly around the room, then remarks, “Perhaps your prolonged stay here will give you some time to think. Now, I’m prepared to take you home whenever you wish… just say the word.”
“The word in question being ‘sorry’?”
“Precisely.”
While Q silently fumes — he will not apologise, he simply can’t and shan’t and won’t — Bond comes sauntering over, still looking mightily pissed off, but with a familiar sparkle now gracing his gaze.
“I know you didn’t mean it,” he says. “I saw the regret on your face just as soon as you realised what you said. I tend to think you know you shouldn’t have tried to keep me from finding out about all of this, too.”
For a moment, Bond takes Q’s face in the palm of his hand and cradles it gently. When Q doesn’t refuse that affectionate gesture, Bond’s lip quirks, and he leans in to press a soft kiss to Q’s forehead.
“Call me if you need anything,” he murmurs, and even though there is a certain tone that suggests that Q ought to have done that all along, there is a resounding tenderness woven through every last syllable of that request.
Before Q can think of what to say in response, Bond is off, just in the nick of time to avoid the nurses and their early–morning rounds.
*
During the intervening thirty–six hours that pass until Bond’s next visit — not that Q is counting, not at all — very few visitors stop by. Tanner drops in with a get well note from Mallory, which Q suspects was penned by Tanner or Moneypenny: while they have put on a cool and cordial tone, there is a telltale warmth that gives them away. Moneypenny visits, too, and swears up and down that she didn’t say a single word to Bond about Q’s condition.
“I’m sure we all closed ranks,” she muses, her eyebrow arched. “Perhaps that’s what gave it away: your absence paired with radio silence from the lot of us.”
“Someone told him I had surgery,” Q insists. “He didn’t figure that out all by himself.”
They go on theorising together and eventually land on the likelihood that it was one of the three agents present when Q collapsed. Of the two junior agents, Rushden is the least likely candidate; he has never worked with Bond before and has no reason to be running to him with privileged information. Ryerson has worked with Bond every now and again, always with a good sense of camaraderie, which may well have won out over Q’s own rapport with the man.
Alas, the most likely candidate is 009. Q and Moneypenny agree that they would both bet on him having been the one to reveal all to Bond.
“Well, not all,” Moneypenny says with a wink. “If he confessed to carrying you over to these parts, he’d be a dead man by now.”
“Don’t remind me,” Q grumbles, trying not to blush. He can’t believe the horrors he has had to put up with of late. Being hauled around by a Double–O is far more embarrassing than having to go through surgery and an oppressive recovery regimen.
For much of the rest of the day, Q wonders what happened when 009 blabbed to Bond. He can’t imagine that 009 would have handled the conversation with any modicum of graciousness. In fact, it is most likely that 009 took it as an opportunity to be a right prat to Bond.
Just as Q is mulling over whether to summon 009 to his quarters for an interrogation, Bond returns. He makes a big show of admiring the pyjamas and cardigan that Q has taken to wearing since Bond’s last visit. Q almost wishes he hadn’t given Bond the satisfaction, but he does feel much more contented in his own kit. He supposes that his comfort ought to win out at a time like this.
After finally shutting up about the pyjamas and cardigan, Bond prattles on for a good long while about having visited Q’s flat again: someone had to take care of Q’s plants, after all, and who better to do that than someone who cares deeply for Q?
“I see you’re still fixated on that,” Q says with a sigh. He accepts another kiss, this time to the top of his head, and though it is rather lovely there is something very pointed about it.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine, just fine.”
Since he doesn’t want to talk too much about how weary he is of the poky hospital bed, which is perfectly matched to the rest of his sad, unpleasant room, Q turns the conversation to how Bond fared with Mallory. He has to bite back a chuckle when Bond shrugs and scornfully lists of a fairly paltry list of consequences: he was shouted at and made to sit through another farcical psych appointment, and he will be chained to a desk until such a time as he regains his good sense.
“So indefinitely, then,” Q snipes. Bond merely smiles at that jab, which warms Q right down to his toes.
Q is about to ask after Felix when the door is thrown open. Three guards crowd into the room and gather around Bond, who doesn’t react at all to the interruption. He goes on gazing at Q as if it were just the two of them.
The most senior of the three guards, Willett, looks utterly unimpressed by Bond’s determination to blank him and his colleagues. After clearing his throat and throwing a courteous ‘Quartermaster’ Q’s way, he lays a hand on Bond’s shoulder and intones, “You’re to come with us.”
“I’m visiting with Q right now.”
“Visiting hours are over. Up you get.”
Q tries to conceal his mounting worry as he asks what Willett and his men want with Bond.
“He knows very well why he’s been summoned,” Willett says, staring down at Bond in an exasperated manner. “Come on.”
“I want to know,” Q protests. “What do you think he did?”
“To be clear, I know he did it.” Willett sighs, and as if scolding an errant child, he accuses Bond of falsely imprisoning a fellow agent.
“009,” Q guesses with a sinking sense of dread.
“He locked him in the boot of a car,” one of the junior guards reports, which brings a wicked smirk to Bond’s face.
Sounding mightily amused with himself, he claims, “I caught him trying to intrude upon Q’s privacy.”
“He was hoping to pay you a visit, Quartermaster,” Willett explains, “When, as evidenced by security footage, Bond frogmarched him down to the hangar and tossed him in the back of a vehicle.”
“He ought to thank me,” Bond argues. “He’s been resting on his laurels of late. If ever there were someone in desperate need of a SERE refresher—”
“You can take that up with M, now get up or we’ll hoist you up.”
After a moment of thought, Bond declares that he would prefer to be hoisted. There is a troubling twinkle in his eye as he natters on about how it will surely be useful for Q to witness said hoisting. Of course, Q will be amused at first, but he will also reckon with waves of concern and an urge to protect Bond: after all, Q cares for Bond, very deeply, as Bond does for Q.
Mortified, Q insists that the guards remove Bond this very instant. He throws a very dark look Bond’s way, then waves at the guards, signalling them to do what they must while lamenting, “He’s annoying the hell out of me.”
With a smirk, Bond announces to all and sundry that he doesn’t know why Q is whinging about being annoyed. He turns to the junior guard to his left, and, conspiratorially, Bond stage–whispers, “I tend to think he finds it… provocative.”
Q ought to be furious. He yearns for said fury to find him. Unfortunately, he is overcome with a sweeping jealousy, for Bond is still leaning towards the guard on his left and gazing up at him, as if waiting for a reaction to his nuisance behaviour. That Bond is treating the guard as if he were his most cherished confidante is enough to send Q around the bend.
Fortunately, the guard remains unmoved by Bond. He eyeballs Willett, who clears his throat again and asks if Bond is serious about not leaving of his own accord.
“As a heart attack,” Bond says. He pins Q with a stare, then adds pointedly, “Or a sudden collapse that led to surgical intervention.”
While Q scowls back, Willett rolls his eyes, and the junior guards exchange one more weary stare between the two of them. Moments later, they hoist Bond up and out of the room. He smiles merrily at Q as he is dragged out, and though the dragging looks relatively gentle and the smile never leaves Bond’s face, Q does feel concerned, and protective, and all of it is coloured by a relentless tidal wave of possessiveness. He doesn’t like to think of that guard–turned–confidante clocking off and deciding to invite Bond out for a drink.
As he settles back sulkily against his mountain of pillows, Q tries not to pay any mind to the feelings swarming his every cell, in a way that is both chaotic and precisely as Bond predicted.
*
Though Q is determined to not sleep through another one of Bond’s late–night visits to his room, his determination is outshone by Bond’s surreptitiousness.
Two mornings before Christmas, he wakes up to an abundance of decorations. His decorations. The very ones that he set up around his flat at 2am on the day he wound up collapsing. It was the only window of time Q had at home during that first week of December, what with various agents getting themselves into strife here, there, and everywhere.
As he studies the glimmering lights that are now strung up around the window looking out into the hallway, Q is hit with a pang: one that springs forth from his memory and travels right down to his abdomen. It is as if his present self is experiencing sympathy pains for his past self. With colour coming into his cheeks, Q touches his hand to just above his surgical dressing. He wrote off those first pangs and let them plague him all while he decorated the flat, and during the three fitful hours of sleep that he got before returning to work to ensure that he could see 003 off on her mission.
Just as Q is admiring the glass cat ornaments that are dangling from the lamp at his bedside, there is a knock at the door. He feels a guilt–riddled squashing of disappointment at the realisation it is Tanner rather than Bond.
Not that he wants to see Bond, who has once again made a nuisance of himself for no good reason. No, he doesn’t want to see Bond at all.
It isn’t at all easy to embrace that denial. It is infuriating, really, how Q is constantly finding himself undone by Bond’s bad behaviour.
In need of comfort, Q reaches for a box of chocolates on the nightstand. He offers them to Tanner first, who takes one of the cream caramels.
At first, all is well. Tanner chats contentedly about his holiday plans, which brings Q some cheer. He enjoys quiet spells like this with Tanner, who Q considers to be a very good sort.
When their conversation turns to how Q is faring, out comes his notebook from underneath his pillow. Q delights in sharing his latest project and proceeds to show off a detailed assessment of the security provisions in the ward and his own recovery room. Then, with a flourish, he turns the page and presents Tanner with a perfectly polished plan for heightening the security measures, both technologically and in terms of staffing. Q then asks Tanner to see that the measures are implemented, post haste.
After a long pause, Tanner politely declines. At first, he claims that he can’t see a way to having any such measures implemented in the short term. After some prodding, he admits that he won’t see to it.
“Well, why not?” Q glares down at his notebook and the snubbed plans. “The security around here is lax at best. Bond seems to be able to waltz on in here whenever he pleases! Is that acceptable to you, Tanner?”
“I think it’s acceptable to you,” Tanner mutters.
Q’s jaw drops. He has never heard Tanner sound so snide. Tone aside, he doesn’t appreciate that ludicrous allegation one bit.
Before he can utter one word of protest, Tanner huffs and doubles down. He declares that Q doesn’t really want Bond being kept out of the ward, not that the proposed measures would do any good in that regard. Bond would find a way past them, which was surely on Q’s mind while he was working on them. Tanner theorises that what Q really wants is to get a rise out of Bond. He clearly enjoys that just as much as he enjoys all of the attention. Then, as Tanner is clearly on a roll, he accuses Q of revelling in Bond’s attention, even right at this very moment.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You’re enjoying those chocolates.”
“These are from Moneypenny.”
“They aren’t.” Tanner nods to the card laying open beside the box. “That isn’t her handwriting.”
“Yes, it—”
“Do you think I can’t recognise one of his forgeries? I’m surprised you can’t. The signature is a dead giveaway.”
Infuriated, Q takes to studying the signature. He can’t spot anything awry with the damn thing but he doesn’t want to admit to that. As flummoxed as he is frustrated, he snaps, “Well, you can take these back to him. Go on.”
Much to Q’s surprise and indignation, Tanner refuses. Snippily, Q asks if Tanner has sustained some sort of head injury. He is certainly acting like a man concussed. Q thought that Tanner’s loyalty was to him, not Bond, who has spent the better part of the past week breaking, entering, and otherwise pestering Q, not to mention falsely imprisoning poor 009 for no good reason.
“For no good reason?”
“Are you saying he had cause to bundle 009 into the boot of a car?”
“I’m saying—” Tanner cuts himself off, inhales sharply, then spends an irksome amount of time rubbing his temples. “How are you not seeing it?”
That question bursts from Tanner with such force that Q is taken aback. He falls silent for a spell, then reluctantly admits to his confusion.
“What is it that you think I’m not seeing?”
“He’s in love with you.”
Time stops. For how long, Q hasn’t the foggiest. He wouldn’t mind if time would remain frozen for a solid stretch, so that he might have a chance of processing such a weighty notion.
“That’s ridiculous,” Q protests.
“It really isn’t. It’s bloody obvious to anyone who’s paying attention.”
That baffles Q. He pays more attention to Bond than anyone around these parts. He certainly pays a lot of attention to the man in the privacy of their respective homes, and occasionally, in hotel rooms during the occasional jaunt out into the field.
“You don’t believe me,” Tanner says with a despairing tone.
“Well, no,” Q admits. “It’s ludicrous. You can’t just go making up things like that, Tanner.”
Tanner heaves a long sigh and asks if Q still has cigarettes stashed in his office. He looks more in need of a smoke than Q knew possible.
Guiltily, Q replies, “In my desk, third drawer down.”
“Thank you.”
“Tanner?”
“Yes?”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Aren’t you?” Tanner hangs in the doorway momentarily to peer at Q, and with slightly more fondness than frustration, he asks how Q can be so clever and yet so completely daft.
Ordinarily, Q would rail against claims that he is in any way daft, but he is so stunned by Tanner’s earlier claim that all he can do is sit and stare around the room. He studies the decorations and the belongings that Bond brought over. Q wraps his arms around himself, hugging his cardigan over his favourite pyjamas, and he wonders whether all of these gestures were borne from love.
*
On Christmas Eve, Bond returns. Q doesn’t protest. He can’t muster so much as a single word.
All he can do is mull over Tanner’s outlandish theory. It had never occurred to Q that bedding Bond might lead in that sort of direction. He wonders if Bond saw it coming, or if he was just as blindsided.
Q supposes that if Bond is in love with him, then there must be observable signs for Tanner to have picked up on. There is a certain way that Bond looks every now and again that Q finds flummoxing. He has never conceived of himself as one who ought to be on the receiving end of tender glances, and yet, Bond looks at him that way an awful lot of late. Come to think of it, it isn’t all that surprising that Tanner noticed that sort of thing.
There must also be hidden elements, surely. Q wonders if it is anything like the feelings he has been harbouring. He wishes he could crack through Bond’s calm visage and find out if his heart beats as wildly, if his ribs positively ache, if his whole being feels radiant with affection and yet on the cusp of collapse from the great weight of adoration.
Halfway between the door and the bed, Bond stops to frown at Q. “Are you alright?”
At first, Q only blinks in response to that question. He soon coughs up a white lie: he is alright, of course he is alright.
He isn’t going out of his mind questioning whether his love is unrequited. He isn’t gripping onto the bedsheets to keep from throwing himself at Bond.
“Alright,” Bond says slowly. He looks wholly unconvinced, but after a beat, a curious brightness lights up his face. “I have something for you.”
It is then that Q notices Bond’s hands are behind his back. He perks up and watches with interest as Bond carefully brings his left hand forward, empty and cradled, and then his right. As he brings his hands together, Q gasps.
Curled up in a tiny ball is a kitten. When it stretches a paw out sleepily, it barely reaches beyond the clasp of Bond’s hands. It is a fuzzy little tabby, grey in colour with a heart–shaped nose which is ever so rosy.
“He’s only very young,” Bond says, answering the question that was on the tip of Q’s tongue. “We’ve been at the vet for the past day or so.”
Q’s chest seems like it could cave right in as Bond relays advice from the vet: the kitten is a few weeks old, no more than five weeks, and while he seems well enough, he will have to come back soon for more checks and his first round of vaccinations.
The care that comes through in Bond’s voice is enough to make Q swoon. He has wanted to adopt another cat for some time, ever since his last one passed. His appointment as Quartermaster threw a spanner in the works: Q thought best to leave it until he was more settled into the role.
As if he were a mindreader, which Q figures may well be the case, Bond insists that Q doesn’t have to take the kitten if it isn’t the right time.
“Where will he go?”
“Home with me, I suppose,” Bond says, thumbing between the kitten’s velvety ears. “I have everything he needs.”
While trying to fight a wobble from worming its way into his voice, Q shifts over to make some room for Bond. He pats the spot on the mattress, and just as soon as Bond sits down, Q leans over to more fully appreciate the kitten.
When he asks where the kitten came from, Q is treated to quite the story. Not only that, he is given all the information he needs to locate the CCTV footage, should he wish to be entertained by it.
Apparently, Bond stumbled upon the kitten on his way home the night that he decorated Q’s room. He heard what sounded like pained meows from down an alleyway, and after much searching, he happened upon the kitten, all alone and in some distress.
“He’s the last of his lot.”
“May I?”
Without pause, Bond hands the kitten over, delivering it to the middle of Q’s chest. As Q brings his hands over the kitten in a delicate cradle, the tiny thing blinks up at him, revealing dewy green eyes.
“Oh,” Q murmurs. He worries that his own eyes are growing dewy and tries his best to keep that at bay.
“Watch that you hold on as best you can,” Bond advises with a certain tone in his voice. “He keeps trying to squirm away from me.”
Q keeps his eyes trained on the kitten, who is close to nodding off, his eyes fluttering shut as Q thumbs around his ears.
“He’s quite content to be held,” he murmurs, “You just have to give him a moment or two.”
“I’ll give him as many moments as he pleases,” Bond resolves.
For a spell, they both take to watching the kitten as he sleeps. The little dear seems to have found some comfort with his head placed over Q’s heart. Beyond huffing out the tiniest of snores, he is as quiet as a mouse.
In the midst of that gentle silence, Q decides he might as well say what he ought to have said days ago.
“I’m sorry,” Q confesses.
He is instantly comforted by Bond taking his hand and kissing his inner wrist.
Very softly, Bond says, “I’m sorry if I’ve ever made you feel like I don’t care.”
“You haven’t. Now come here.”
With the kitten still clasped to his chest, Q shifts over to the edge of the bed, which gives Bond just enough room to join him. As they lay side by side, Bond reaches over to graze his fingertips over the bottom button of Q’s pyjama shirt.
“May I?”
“You may.”
With a worried frown, Bond unbuttons that one button and shifts the right side of Q’s shirt upwards. He eyes the surgical dressing, through which the stitched incision site is somewhat visible. Bond lays his hand just beneath the dressing and thumbs around Q’s navel ever so tenderly.
“I’m fine,” Q insists. That doesn’t do much good, so he leans in to distract Bond from his evident worrying with a kiss.
That works remarkably well. Bond murmurs contentedly into the kiss, and even when Q breaks away to check on the kitten, Bond goes on nuzzling around his jaw.
“I could take you home, you know,” he says, soft and sweet and suggestive all at once. “They’ll discharge you within the hour if you have someone to look after you. I have everything set up for the both of you.”
Q takes it as a sign when the kitten’s eyes pop open. They exchange a glance and decide together that they may as well go home with Bond. If nothing else, Q is curious to see how Bond’s flat has been transformed to make way for two creatures he is intent to care for.
“I’d like that,” he says to Bond, who lights up at that agreement. Q gives him one more kiss, then whispers comfortingly to the kitten, “We’ll be home in time for Christmas.”
“That we will,” Bond says. He presses a kiss to Q’s temple and then returns to charging about like a right nuisance, gathering Q’s things and calling down the hallway to summon the staff to sort out any blasted paperwork.
He is a man on a mission once more. If Q isn’t mistaken, Bond also looks like a man in love: passionate, determined, and completely transformed by the certainty that Q will be coming home with him. It may well be that his heart is hammering in his chest, much like Q’s is again right now, just as it has been for months on end.
Though it wasn’t that long ago that Q thought it ridiculous that Bond might be in love with him, he now feels prepared to approach it with a more curious disposition. After all, it is a charming theory to have and to hold. In the most gentle of whispers, Q confides in his kitten friend that they will have to study this delightful phenomenon in the coming days. Q would like to be sure of the situation before he confesses to being head over heels for Bond. He begins to smile as he imagines how Bond might respond to such a revelation.
Of course, Bond probably already knows. If the warm glances he keeps exchanging with Q are any indicator, he is very well aware of the depth of Q’s affections. Nevertheless, Q is enchanted by the idea of saying the words out loud. He smiles down at his kitten — their kitten — and revels in the rush brought on as he gives himself over to an incalculable amount of hope and joy.