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Ten minutes into his “mission”, it was all going exactly like how Bond had planned it. He had no trouble finding Q’s house in the dark, snow-covered streets of London, and he’d been on so many assignments in arctic countries that he no longer felt the cold.
He stuck to the shadows and climbed over Q’s garden fence undetected. He was going to deliver the little box in the pocket of his coat without being spotted.
That is, until he passed one of Q’s cats on the porch and he had a sneezing fit.
Bond had sneezed about six times until a light went on inside the house and he heard the sound of a door being unlocked. He tried to make a run for it, but the ground was slippery and before he knew it Q had already opened the door. Bond knew it would be undignified to jump into the bushes, so he froze on the spot and tried to arrange his face into something innocent-looking, which was an art he had not yet mastered.
Q was in his pyjamas. He looked tense and scared until he recognized the shape of Bond’s long coat in the dark. ‘007? What on earth are you doing here? It’s three in the morning.’
‘Is it? I hadn’t noticed.’
Bond discreetly turned up the collar of his coat as if he had not just been planning to jump into the bushes. ‘I left a package on your doorstep. I need you to analyse it.’
‘At three in the morning.’
‘It’s a very important package. For your eyes only.’
Q went to pick up the package and turned it over in his hand. It was the size and shape of a small jewellery box. Q brushed the snow off the box with his thumb. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a box.’
‘I can see that. I mean, what kind of box?’
‘I was hoping you’d be able to tell me.’
Q looked at Bond over the top edge of his glasses like he always did when he was feeling annoyed with the spy. ‘Was it too much trouble to wait until sunrise and knock on the door like an ordinary human being?’
Bond was about to argue that he wasn’t an ordinary human being, but then one of Q’s cats appeared from one of the bushes and he started sneezing again. His sneezes were very loud for those of a spy, and for a moment Q wondered whether Bond had chosen the right profession.
‘You’re allergic to cats,’ Q deduced. ‘Interesting. I hope none of your thousands of enemies ever find out.’
‘Bit late for that,’ Bond said, remembering an eventful afternoon with one of his archenemies. He sneezed again, loudly.
It was hard to tell in the dark, but Q actually thought Bond’s nose and cheeks looked a bit red. It was kind of endearing, like finding out that a professor is not actually a robot but made of flesh and blood just like everybody else.
‘Do you want to come in? It’s ever so cold.’
Bond shook his head. This hadn’t been part of the plan. The plan was that he was going to leave the package on Q’s doorstep and that Q would open it on his own. He didn’t want to be near Q when he read the message within, because not ever finding out how Q felt about him was a lot easier than having his heart broken.
He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he’d fallen for Q, but one day he had woken up thinking about him and that had been that. He suddenly found himself wanting to be with Q all the time; not only on missions, but in life, for as long as it lasted. And not because he felt like Q was a challenge that he wanted to meet, but because he genuinely liked Q and the safety he’d grown to associate with him.
It was a feeling Bond hadn’t experienced for a while. Most of the time, Bond had lovers for sport. He had lovers because they were intricate little parts of his assignments. Most of the people he pretended to love were expendable, and some of them didn’t even live to tell the tale.
Those were the mistakes. The guilt pressing on his shoulders.
So, Bond didn’t really go in for proper relationships anymore. They weren’t necessary.
Then Q happened, slowly and over time. Bond really wanted to kiss him. He had ever since they met, really, under the watchful eye of that God-awful painting at the National Gallery such a long time ago. There was just something so tempting about Q; that youthful, faithful disposition that underneath it all hid a cheeky temperament that Bond wanted to get to know better.
Except Bond didn’t really know how to ask people out because one-night-stands didn’t count, so he’d come up with the stupid idea of delivering a package to Q’s door and asking him out that way. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
‘I should leave,’ said Bond, back in Q’s garden.
‘Please, 007.’
‘I’m sure you’ll figure out the contents of the box on your own. You always do.’ Bond turned to leave, but Q stopped him in his tracks by touching his arm.
‘M will be very cross with you if you catch a cold. He’ll probably blame me.’
Bond rolled his eyes. ‘I can’t wait for the feigned concern in his get well soon card.’
‘I could make tea?’ This was Q’s final offer, and too late he realised that Bond didn’t drink a lot of tea. ‘Actually, forget that. I still have some leftover wine from last Christmas that needs finishing, if you want any. I realise it’s three in the morning, but I suspect that’s not a problem for you.’
Q’s offer was enough to make Bond change his mind about leaving. ‘You know me too well.’
Q preened a little at the compliment, and in they went.
*
‘I didn’t realise you were allergic to cats,’ Q said after he’d let Bond in and poured him a small glass of wine. ‘Is that why you never come round?’
‘I don’t really do house visits.’
‘Apart from when have to deliver some mysterious box.’
‘Apart from that.’
Bond had stubbornly refused to take off his coat and had not taken a seat like Q told him to, because he knew that standing-up meetings were quick meetings and he wanted to get this over with. Thankfully, the cats had disappeared. Bond had quickly counted three of them before they all hid underneath a desk or a sofa.
‘So what’s in here?’ Q asked, looking at the box in his hands. He was sitting on his red leather sofa, a plaid blanket around his shoulders to provide more warmth. ‘I’ve never seen something like this before.’
Bond was showing Q’s living room a suspicious amount of attention. It was his first time here, and he was deeply fascinated by this little insight into Q’s private life. He wondered if there were any adorable childhood photos. ‘All I know is that it’s a message.’
‘From whom? Please don’t touch that.’
Bond had been about to touch a brand new prototype of a machine that was able to deploy ten smoke bombs at the same time. He raised his hands in surrender and proceeded with his unnecessary inspection of the living room.
‘I like what you’ve done to the place,’ Bond said. He stopped in front of a painting on the wall. ‘Did you take that painting from M’s office?’
‘Stop ignoring my questions,’ Q said. He took a sip of wine. ‘Why do I have a feeling M doesn’t know about this?’
‘He doesn’t. But not for the reason why you think.’ Bond had to stop himself from saying more. ‘All I know is that it’s a message. I don’t know much about it. That’s why I gave it to you, because I was hoping you would solve it.’
Q looked at the box from all angles. ‘Well, we know it’s a puzzle box. I’m surprised you haven’t tried opening it with a hammer.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’d be more likely to shoot it.’
Q blew a raspberry in frustration. He ran his fingers across the sides of the box. The tip of his index fingers found a little circle-shaped indent, and he pressed it. There was a soft click, and he managed to open the box by sliding one of the panels to the right.
Inside the box was a small, folded-up piece of paper. By the time Q finished reading it, he had turned red. He took a small sip of wine to calm down, then downed the whole glass when his body realised that just one sip wouldn’t get him relaxed.
‘Does the message threaten national security?’ Bond said, feigning ignorance when Q’s eyes met his.
‘Sit down, 007.’
Bond touched one of the buttons of his coat. ‘I really must go.’
‘Sit down. Now.’ The challenge in Q’s gaze was unmistakable.
Reluctantly, Bond did as he was told and sat down. They sat about an arm’s length away, Bond’s hands still inside his pockets like he could jump up and leave any minute. They hadn’t talked for well over a minute until Q sighed and demonstratively showed him the piece of paper that he’d found inside the box.
‘This is your handwriting,’ Q pointed out.
Bond glanced at it. ‘No, it’s not.’
‘It is. I’ve seen your handwriting.’
‘Someone could have faked it.’
Q looked as though he felt like hitting Bond over the head with a tea kettle. ‘It says, Will you go out with me? In your handwriting.’
‘Good. You finally have an admirer,’ Bond said. He wasn’t a very good liar when not faced with a man with a gun.
‘It’s signed J.’
Bond scoffed. ‘Could be anyone.’
‘I don’t know how to say this, Bond, but I don’t know many people whose first names start with J who might feel like leaving secret packages on my doorstep. Only one, actually,’ Q added, putting the emphasis on ‘one’ as though he was giving Bond a cue to speak, a hidden sign that he knew.
Q knew. He’d known that Bond loved him for ages, just as Q had loved Bond from the moment they spent their first mission together, with Q leading him to safety when the whole world seemed dead set to stop them. Even though they hadn’t actually physically been in the same room, the knowledge that Bond had been listening to him had been enough to make a spark fly across the ether.
Therefore, the fact that Bond had delivered this message to him didn’t come as a surprise. In fact, the only surprising thing was that the whole exercise hadn’t been . . . smoother. Bond fumbling the delivery of a secret package and writing him a message like he was a child passing on notes in school would compromise most missions.
It was kind of adorable, though.
‘It would help if my so-called admirer had actually written a bit more than just “Will you go out with me,”’ said Q. ‘I need a bit more information than that. I mean, I’d have to know when to hire my cat sitter, for starters.’
Bond ignored the image of someone sitting on top of a cat. ‘Did I not — I mean, did your admirer not leave a web address?’
‘A web address?’
‘Just guessing.’ Bond tried his best to look clueless. How he’d ever won a high-stakes poker game was a mystery, because the man was not a good actor. ‘I think it might be a part of a treasure hunt.’
Q looked at the box again. It was empty but for the piece of paper. ‘I don’t see any web addresses of any kind.’
‘Hm.’ Bond must’ve forgotten to write the address on the paper. He had devised an online treasure hunt for Q to take part in and find out where the date was taking place. It had taken him quite a lot of time. The puzzle box had been pretty expensive, too. ‘I . . . was told the web address would eventually lead you to the location of your blind date.’
‘I see. Well, that’s inconvenient. Now I don’t know what to expect.’ Q sighed a little theatrically. ‘I would have liked a date. It has been a while.’
Bond’s heart skipped a beat. ‘I’m sure the person who wrote the message wouldn’t mind if the date took place somewhere else.’
They locked eyes. For a moment, Q looked at Bond as though he was struggling to decide something. He bit his lip, stared at nothing in particular, and the decision was made. ‘I suppose my flat wouldn’t be a bad place for a first date. Assuming my admirer is already here.’
‘He might be.’
‘Is it you, 007?’ Q asked, even though he knew already.
‘Would you like it to be?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
There was a tension in the air, suddenly. The tension that Bond always felt during missions; that terrifying, addictive feeling of being both in and out of control and having everything depend on one single decision. That moment was here, and Bond knew Q felt it too by the way he pushed up his glasses and glanced at Bond’s lips.
‘I think we might be able to reschedule the date to today. Would that work out for you, Q?’
Q leaned forward a little. His pyjama top has risen up his chest a little, revealing just a hint of pink flesh. ‘This morning? Yes, I should think so.’
‘Isn’t it way past your bedtime, though?’
Q’s cheeks had flushed red. ‘Shut up, 007.’
They both leant forward at the same time. Q’s eyes fluttered closed as he felt Bond’s breath on his mouth, but then—
A loud sneeze from Bond. One of Q’s cats had jumped onto his lap before they could close that final gap and kiss, and Bond had to shoo the cat off of him with some undignified hand-flapping. By the time the cat had hissed at the both of them and hastened itself underneath Q’s desk, the pleasant tension from earlier had disappeared.
‘I don’t think your cat likes me very much,’ Bond said with a surrendering sigh as he gave the cat a very deliberate glare.
Q ignored Bond’s comment and went and picked the cat up. ‘Oh, don’t be mean.’
‘Are you telling her or me?’
‘Both of you. She’s just not used to having visitors around.’
‘I’m not sure if I’d want to visit her.’
Offended, the cat wagged her tail unhappily and struggled a little before it wriggled out of Q’s arms. Bond watched the cat disappear into a dark corner where she spent some time glaring at him angrily. ‘I don’t suppose there’s another place we can go? Where there aren’t any cats?’
If Q was nervous, he was doing a very good job at hiding it. ‘Upstairs. My bedroom, specifically,’ he added. He pronounced ‘bedroom’ as if it was a word he would rather not be saying. ‘The cats aren’t allowed upstairs. They tend to make a mess.’
‘Good.’ Bond smiled at Q properly for the first time that night. ‘Then we’ll go upstairs. Unless your secret admirer minds?’
Q shook his head. His gaze lingered on Bond’s lips far longer than it should. Bond looked like he might be a gentle kisser, someone who knew how to apply just the right amounts of pressure until you gave in and pushed back.
Bond rewarded him with one of those rare smiles of his.
‘Just so you know, 007, please consider that that there are thousands of pounds’ worth of equipment upstairs. Please don’t touch anything.’
‘Not even you?’
Q flushed, and Bond felt a little flutter of pride at being the one to make him. He didn’t even notice Q’s cat walking in between their legs as they held hands and went up the stairs.