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The first time it happens, Q is completely and utterly riled by it.
He is in a meeting that includes what appears to be half of MI6, all crammed into one conference room, the lot of them practically shoulder–to–shoulder. What with having arrived horrifically late, Q has wound up seated right at the back of the room and shoulder–to–shoulder with a fellow late–comer.
“Q,” Bond murmurs, leaning closer, as if they weren’t already close enough.
Despite being right up the back of the room and separated by rows and rows of staff, that one letter being uttered doesn’t go unnoticed by Mallory. He pauses, throws a look at Bond and Q, as if they are both rowdy schoolboys who are on the cusp of receiving a world class scolding.
As soon as Mallory looks away, Q nudges Bond in warning. That sharp jab to his side only makes Bond smile, which Q catches from the corner of his eye: a swift, silky curling of his mouth that drops away soon enough, but never really fades. In his peripheral, Q continues to take note of the warmth lingering on Bond’s face.
Fifteen minutes into the meeting — otherwise known as the monologue that will not end, with Mallory apparently intent to drone on ceaselessly — Q’s vision begins to swim. He has been battling a headache all morning and he is now losing that battle in a rather pronounced manner. He shuts his eyes for a second, which brings his vision back to full clarity when he opens them again. Unfortunately, his headache goes on accelerating until heat and pressure are pushing at his skull from the inside, threatening to split it clean in two.
When Bond’s knee nudges against his, Q’s first instinct is to ignore it. Chances are that Bond is up to mischief, as per usual, which won’t help Q’s condition one bit.
But then he notices Bond’s hand extending towards him. In it is a packet of painkillers, its silver packaging gleaming in the cursed fluorescent lighting that plagues this conference room.
Perplexed, Q tosses a frown Bond’s way. Bond arches an eyebrow at him and mouths: take them.
With a soft huff, Q bats Bond’s hand away. The knee that is still pressed against his, he does nothing about. He is curious about how much longer Bond might keep his knee touched to Q’s, if said touch goes undisturbed.
Moments later, Bond drops the packet into Q’s lap. Galled, Q picks it up and tosses it back in Bond’s general direction. He manages to catch it, but not all that covertly, which wins them another stern look from Mallory. Some heads turn in their direction, but Q ignores that, just like he ignores Bond, and for a few minutes, he is left in peace.
The next attempt is so outrageous that Q wants to stand right up, march Bond out into the corridor, and give him a proper dressing down — but he can’t. Mallory’s gaze keeps flickering in their direction; he seems liable to give the two of them an absolute bollocking at any given moment. Q refuses to risk that.
And so, when Bond’s hand slips into the front–left pocket of his cardigan to stash the packet of deep within, Q doesn’t stand up. He doesn’t march Bond out of the room. He fantasises extensively and in excruciating detail about giving the man a damned good talking to, but he doesn’t attempt to make that fantasy a reality.
To resist that temptation is incredibly difficult, especially when Bond leans in and whispers right in Q’s ear, “Hush, now… we wouldn’t want to get in trouble, would we?”
He gets away with that, much to Q’s chagrin, for Mallory’s attention is directed elsewhere. Q simply stares straight ahead and settles for ignoring Bond, which is likely punishment enough for his sins. The last time Bond acted up by way of stealing from the armoury, Q won a god–honest apology from the man simply by giving him the cold shoulder for a decent stretch.
All the while, Bond’s knee stays pressed against Q’s, and ever curious, Q allows that to go on without protest.
Later, once the meeting is over and Q has strode out without so much as a glance in Bond’s direction, he heads off to his office, locks the door, and pulls the blinds closed. Once he is safely stowed away, he fishes the packet of painkillers out of his pocket and pops two of them into his hand. After downing them with a swig of water, he sits down, rests his head on his desk, and waits for his headache to fade away.
*
The second time it happens, Q wonders what the hell Bond is playing at.
It is late at night and Q–Branch has all but cleared out. Q is in his workshop, trying to finish up a project, when Bond comes swanning in, having just returned from an outing that saw him flitting from Athens to Skopje to Pleven. Throughout, another branch member was appointed as his handler, an arrangement with which Bond was apparently ill–pleased.
Q heard of Bond’s discontent while working from home with a sore throat: a malady which was soon accompanied by a headache induced by much eye–rolling when the Double–O’s complaints were relayed to him.
He is feeling ship–shape now, but apparently Bond doesn’t believe that to be the case, for after smirking his way through a scolding over lost equipment, he hands a packet of lozenges to Q. They are lemon and honey, Q’s favourite, but aggravatingly, they are the extra–strength variety; the implication of which Q doesn’t care for, not one bit.
Before he can protest, Bond leans across his desk and says, “Indulge me.”
Incredulously, Q scoffs. “Indulge you?”
“So that I might have the pleasure of your dulcet tones on the comms sooner rather than later.”
At warp speed, Q theorises about all of the things that Bond might be playing at. One of the top contenders is that this is a strategic distraction from how much equipment has been abandoned between Athens and Pleven. Then again, Q has seen Bond flirt strategically often enough to recognise it well, and this doesn’t really resemble that — not quite. There are common traits, chiefly the charm that Bond is radiating, but there is something more that Q can spy lingering beneath it all: a genuine warmth, an effusive fondness, the likes of which Q has only ever seen cast in his direction.
“Go on and get out of here,” he says, whilst desperately trying not to blush. “You need a good night’s sleep.”
“As do you.”
“I’ll be just fine.”
With a scathing look, Q suggests that in lieu of counting sheep, Bond would do well to count lost equipment. That makes Bond laugh in a thoroughly delightful way.
As they say goodnight, Q pops a lozenge. He tries not to think too much on how pleased Bond looks, or how pleased he feels as a result.
*
The third time it happens, Q is still half asleep.
He rouses when he feels a gentle kiss pressed to his shoulder; a wake–up call that is becoming wonderfully familiar. What is almost as familiar, but not quite so wonderful, is Bond whispering that he has to go, for he has been called in by Mallory.
“Mmm,” Q murmurs, leaning closer as Bond strokes his arm. The next kiss, placed tenderly on his forehead, makes him smile.
That smile soon drops away when Bond suggests that he take the day off. Q doesn’t like that suggestion one bit, nor the note of concern that accompanies it.
He has only ever taken the day off at Bond’s suggestion on one occasion, and that was an exception unlike any other. They had fallen into bed together the night before, and come dawn, after an exquisitely sleepless night, Bond announced that he wasn’t nearly done with Q and that he should call in sick.
Q has never been one to call in sick. He has never been one to get sick, which he certainly isn’t now. He only took the day off that one time, months ago, because the proposition struck him as most advantageous. Bond proved him right in no time at all; hell, there was barely time enough to make the call — Q was still on the phone when Bond pounced on him, and seconds after hanging up, he was hauled back to bed and rewarded many times over for his truancy.
“I think you’re coming down with something,” Bond continues, sounding more concerned with every word he utters. “You were tossing and turning all night, and look here…”
He takes Q’s hand and presses it to his forehead. Q can admit to himself that it feels a tad too warm, but he shan’t admit any such thing to Bond.
“I’m fine,” he says firmly. “Don’t you worry.”
“Think about taking the day, will you?”
Bond punctuates that request with another kiss to Q’s forehead, to which Q argues, “If you think I’m unwell, why are you kissing me?”
“Because I can’t not kiss you.”
In a flash, Q opens his eyes. He takes one look at Bond, smiling down at him, the very picture of tenderness, and it makes Q melt.
“Well, go on, then,” he encourages, and happily, Bond kisses him countless times over before they reluctantly say goodbye.
*
The fourth time it happens, the clock is ticking.
James is due to head out into the field yet again, to Nîmes this time, and though Q hates to see him go, the timing of this particular outing is somewhat serendipitous.
After all, James has been wanging on about Q allegedly falling ill yet again. Why he won’t leave it alone is simply unfathomable. The last time he claimed that Q was unwell, it was nothing at all: a mere tickle in the throat and a spot of fever, all of which passed within a day. On the rare occasions that he feels under the weather, it always resolves fairly expediently.
When their hushed back–and–forth on the workshop floor achieves little more than driving Q spare, James ups the ante. Instead of heading off to Mallory’s office to make a pre–mission meeting that he is now decidedly late for, James squares up and announces rather vociferously, “I need to see you in your office.”
Practically every one of Q’s colleagues stop what they are doing and turn around to stare at the spectacle unfolding before them. Despite being painfully aware of their prying eyes, Q can’t help it: his jaw drops and he glares at James, who doesn’t appear even slightly ashamed of his appalling conduct.
It is a poorly kept secret that they have been an item for the past six months or so, but never before has it been as obvious as it is now. Q thought he had put enough safeguards in to prevent any obvious reveals of their romantic entanglement. Many times over, he has strictly forbade James from calling him ‘darling’ at HQ or engaging in any public displays of affection. Those rules have worked rather well, for the most part. That they regularly engage in private displays of affection in the confines of Q’s office or the occasional secluded meeting room is neither here nor there. And as for the many, many instances of James being a flirtatious nuisance and whispering ‘darling’ in Q’s ear whenever he has the opportunity — well, that isn’t all that bad. It is quite excusable, particularly when it is bookended by irresistible private displays of affection.
What isn’t excusable is James’ egregious behaviour at the present moment. He is still squared up and staring Q down with clear intent to continue right on with his insubordination.
“I hope you haven’t got an ear infection on top of everything else,” James says, still speaking at an unseemly volume. “But in case you missed that, darling, allow me to repeat myself: I need to see you in your office.”
All at once, every other person on the workshop floor looks away. Several people file right out of the room. Amidst that mass exodus, it isn’t lost on Q that the few people remaining look as though they wish they could evaporate into thin air.
Mortified, Q takes James by the arm and leads him away, while hissing, “That’s supposed to be my line.”
“Well, it’s mine right now. You listen here—”
“‘You listen here?’ Why don’t you listen here, 007—”
Just as he slams his office door shut behind them, Q finds himself hauled over to the armchair in the corner and sat down. Before he can utter so much as a syllable, James kneels down by his side and begins to plead his case.
“You’re exhausted,” he says, eyes ablaze with concern. “Visibly so. I’m almost entirely sure you’re running a fever, if you’d just— there you go again.”
Q, having just batted James’ hand away before he could lay it across his forehead, sniffs and stares off into space. Better that than make eye contact with his boyfriend. Those blue eyes will be Q’s undoing yet again, if he isn’t careful.
“I’m worried about you,” James says insistently. “Why don’t you let me drive you home? I’ll meet with M, I’ll swing back here, and then—”
“Bond?”
Q could kiss Tanner for such terrific timing. He has thrown open Q’s office door and is standing there, shoulders slumped, looking perilously uncaffeinated. What’s more, he seems torn between impatience over James’ persistent punctuality issues and embarrassment over having interrupted what is clearly a private moment.
“He’ll be right with you, Tanner,” Q says, throwing a pointed look James’ way.
For a spell, James doesn’t budge. He stays kneeling by Q’s side, looking as though he is at war with himself, and after an extended period of silence which clearly drives Tanner up the wall, James sighs and asks Q to take care of himself.
“Swear to me you will.” James rests a hand on Q’s knee and squeezes it. “Please.”
“I swear,” Q says softly. He can see James isn’t convinced, and so he lays a hand over his and promises, “I’ll go home on time and I’ll have an early night. I’ll be right as rain by morning.”
“Not a single one of us will be ‘right as rain’,” Tanner warns, “If you don’t get a bloody move on, Bond.”
“Alright, alright,” James snipes. “Keep your hair on, Tanner.”
If there is one person with whom Q wouldn’t dare interfere, it is Tanner when his caffeine levels are near nil. He doesn’t look one bit amused by that snarky retort; in fact, he looks rather aggrieved.
Before Tanner attempts to come to fisticuffs with James, Q looks at him with utmost sympathy and assures him that they won’t be a moment. With a heavy sigh, Tanner exits the office and goes to pace out in the hall, the pendulum swing of his shadow visible through the slightly–ajar blinds.
“Behave yourself,” Q warns, tugging lightly on James’ tie and dragging him into a hug.
“You behave yourself,” James retorts. He kisses Q’s shoulder and whispers, “Call me if you need me.”
“I will,” Q says, even though he won’t, because of course he won’t. He can’t. The mission has to come first, like always. He kisses James goodbye, sends him on his way, then gets right back to work.
*
The fifth time it happens, Q is damn near swept off his feet — in more ways than one, in fact.
James has just returned from Nîmes, sporting a split lip and a black eye, and yet, somehow, he seems to believe Q is the one who is poorly.
Q, of course, isn’t poorly. Not one bit. Not at all. He did exactly as he promised after James left for Nîmes, or close enough to it — he carted himself home at a not–entirely–unreasonable hour and got a fairly decent night’s sleep. That he came back to work the next day is immaterial. He felt fine then, just like he feels fine now.
He is a little bit achy, and his throat feels tender, but that doesn’t mean much of anything. As a preventative measure, Q has kept himself locked up in his office from dawn to dusk, but in doing so, he has lost himself in countless projects that he is intent to continue leap–frogging between for the rest of the evening.
When he promises that he will be home by ten, James begins pacing the office, lamenting that Q is being unreasonable.
“One of these days,” he cautions, “You’re going to collapse.”
He goes on to prognosticate about Q’s supposed ill health and the terrible, terrible perils that lay in wait. Q shrugs his way through the speech while tinkering with the latest prototype to have demanded his attention on this fine evening.
“If I feel unwell,” he says tersely, “I’ll come home sooner.”
“If you feel unwell,” James repeats.
“Yes, if.” Q lifts his chin and stares James down. “I haven’t the foggiest what you’re so worried about. I feel absolutely splendid.”
“Fine,” James snaps, as if he doesn’t believe a jot of what Q has just claimed. “I suppose we won’t be having dinner together, then.”
“I suppose not,” Q snaps back. He had been hoping they might reconvene for a late supper, but if James is intent to throw the baby out with the bathwater, then so be it. With a scowl curling across his face, Q returns to tinkering with the prototype sitting in front of him.
As James turns on his heel and begins to march out, he mutters, “I guess I’ll save it for another night.”
That piques Q’s curiosity. His head snaps up just in time to see James snatch his coat off the rack.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
To his frustration, James keeps walking. Q calls after him again, but when that doesn’t do much of anything, he lunges out of his seat and storms after his trouble–making boyfriend.
“What exactly did you mean by that?”
“What exactly did I mean by what?”
“You said you were saving something,” Q says, just as they reach the lifts. “What will you have to save for another night?”
Without speaking a single solitary word, James stabs the button to call the lift. It dings instantly and opens, and as soon as he steps inside with Q hot on his heels, he hits the button for the garage.
While the lift descends, Q continues quizzing the man, who goes on staring stubbornly at the lift doors.
It is only when they arrive at the garage and the doors ease open that James announces, “I had plans for dinner.”
“Evidently,” Q says, now a little bit breathless, for they are on the move again. It does worry him some, that he is breathless from chasing James around, and not at any great length, either. But he shakes off that worry and continues pressing James about what his plans were.
“Now, I wouldn’t mind telling you, but you aren’t coming to dinner.”
“Well, no. I have projects to tend to.”
“You mentioned.”
“Rather pressing ones, I fear.”
“Then we’ll have to wait,” James mutters, while whisking a set of keys from the cupboard. He peers at them, pulls a face, then puts them back in place and snatches up a different set. “Won’t we?”
“We’ll have to wait for what, exactly?”
Q asks that while following James to the car he has apparently decided he will be taking this evening. That doesn’t seem worth arguing over, not when there is a far more urgent matter at hand.
With a trill and a flash, the car unlocks and James flings the passenger door open. He nods to the seat and urges Q to get in.
That invitation is fairly tempting as of this present moment. Q is beginning to feel a bit light–headed, but he doesn’t dare admit that. He hangs back, far from James’ reach and even further from the tempting comfort of the passenger seat, and demands to know what was supposed to happen at dinner.
For a lengthy spell, James stays silent. Then, at long last, he says, “I was planning on telling you something. Something I ought to have told you a long time ago. I wanted to tell you that along with every reason under the sun as to why I feel that way.”
“Oh,” Q says. All of a sudden, his projects aren’t looking so enticing.
“Oh,” James says, taking a step forward. “Now, ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind you working late… but I’m worried about you. Really, Q, you don’t look well. Be honest: you don’t feel well, do you?”
“I feel…” sore, clammy, and wretched are all words that leap to mind, but Q doesn’t let any of that come to light. Instead, he shrugs and mumbles something about feeling slightly under the weather, before insisting, “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“And yet, here I am, worried as all hell. Come home with me,” James implores Q, taking another step closer. “We can still talk, but rather than cracking open a bottle of wine over dinner, how about I run you a bath and fix you a cup of tea or two?”
“Two would be a nice start,” Q concedes.
He wants to take a step towards James and close the gap between them, but his light–headedness warps into abject wooziness. He doesn’t want to have to admit to that, but apparently James has already figured it out, for he strides forward, slips an arm around Q’s middle, and arranges one of Q’s arms around his shoulders.
“This isn’t how I’d hoped to sweep you off your feet tonight,” he says, chuckling a little as he hoists Q towards the car, “But it’s good enough for now, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I suppose I would,” Q murmurs, just as James helps him into the passenger sleep, which he slumps against, exhausted — from a long day’s work, of course, and nothing more.
*
The next day, Q has to confess he really is quite unwell.
He admits that to himself and himself alone when he wakes up in the grips of a scorching fever. He thinks the cats can tell but he doesn’t dare breathe a word of confession to the two of them, nor to James. Q simply curls up in bed and waits for the illness to drain from his body.
Throughout the day, James brings him cups of tea and bowls of soup. He brushes stray curls away from Q’s face and lays cool washcloths over his clammy forehead. He helps Q down painkillers and rubs his feet. When Q starts to shiver, James runs a lovely, hot, bubbly bath and sits beside the tub, combing Q’s hair and massaging his shoulders ever so tenderly.
Best of all, he continues to tell Q why he loves him: every single reason under the sun, of which there seem to be thousands. As the day goes on, Q wonders if the reasons are infinite.
He knows that his reasons for loving James are precisely that, but he still tries to name them. James urges him not to speak, given his burning throat and his raspy voice, so Q writes them down. When they are curled up close together, he hands James pieces of paper with the reasons listed out. When James ventures downstairs to tend to the cats or to fix another pot of tea, Q sends texts comprising miniature love letters. When they settle onto the sofa to watch a film together, Q takes to tapping on his arm with feathery strokes of his finger–tips, spelling out the reasons in Morse code.
Come evening, Q falls asleep. He wakes up hours later, just past midnight, covered in a blanket with one of the cats curled under his arm. The other is nowhere to be seen, nor is James. Q pats around the sofa and the carpet for his glasses but comes up empty, then apologises to the cat cosied up against him; without clear vision, it is impossible to tell his near–identical feline friends apart.
As well as feeling guilty, Q finds himself somewhat lonesome, so he cocoons himself in the blanket, scoops up the cat who chose him for company, and heads upstairs.
He finds James in their bedroom, sitting up in bed, reading a book with his own feline companion just by his side. At first sight of her sister, the cat in Q’s arms wriggles away and goes launching for the bed.
With a small smile and worry threaded through his every word, James asks, “How are you feeling?”
“Not well,” Q confesses. He hugs the blanket around his shoulders and looks longingly at James, spread out so languidly in bed, the length of him looking far more welcoming than the sofa or the other side of the mattress. “Can I just…?”
Without another word, he approaches, sinks onto the bed, and lays himself down so that he is curled up around James, head on his chest, arm hooked around his middle. Q nuzzles in and seeks out James’ heartbeat. With the rhythm of that thumping in his ear, he sighs contentedly and shuts his eyes.
“Of course you can,” James murmurs. He kisses the top of Q’s head and strokes his hair soothingly. Once again, and just as wonderfully as the very first time, he whispers, “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Q murmurs back, then without any effort at all, he drops right off to sleep.