Chapter Text
The date doesn’t happen on Saturday at seven, but it’s not because Sterling is out of the country. Q had been doing a zombie shuffle since he got up. Bond noticed that by time they went home for the weekend that Q’s color was a bit off, and he was sneezing a bit. He smelled funny, like sickness. Bond slept at the end of Q’s bed that night, half-awake to avoid the thrashing as Q tossed and turned and the fever-smell got stronger.
By time Q gets up the next morning, Bond is grouchy from lack of sleep and keeping an eye on his human minion. Q showers with Bond sitting in an attentive cat-loaf right outside the bathroom, dresses in his favorite pair of flannel Star Trek pajama bottoms and ratty t-shirt, and goes straight back to bed, this time with a new, wet-sounding cough. Q doesn’t bother measuring the cough syrup with the little plastic cup but takes a good swig straight from the bottle like a heathen and gets back under the covers.
Around noon he fumbles for his phone on the nightstand and dials a number. Bond has given up all pretense of catlike aloofness and is glued to Q’s side. He follows him everywhere, be it to the kitchen or the bathroom, and then back to bed.
“I’m going to have to rain-check tonight,” Q croaks into the phone, and sneezes twice in a row into a tissue. “I think I caught the flu that’s going around MI-6. Yeah. No, I feel like death. If you want, we try for next week—cough—thank you. Bye.” Q tosses the phone on his bed and threw himself back amongst the pillows, snuffling.
“I hate being sick,” Q tells Bond. “At least it’s Saturday and raining today, so we have an excuse to laze about.”
Bond meows at him.
Q pets him reassuringly. “It’s fine. We’ll sit here and watch some nature documentaries. Look, there’s a bunch of nature documentaries because it’s Shark Week. You’ll like these. There’s fishes in them.”
Bond curls up next to him, head and one paw leaning against Q’s ribs and he keeps up a steady rumbling purr until he falls asleep.
When he wakes, the sky outside Q’s bedroom window is dark with storm clouds and rain is lashing the glass. The nature show is still on, but Q is fast asleep, one hand stilled on Bond’s back where Q had been absently petting him.
“Mrrrop?” Bond asks, getting up and stretching.
Q doesn’t move. He’s breathing, the heavy congested sounds of illness. Bond is about to bop Q on the nose to wake him up when there’s a knock at the door. Q doesn’t so much as twitch.
Bond leaps off the bed and runs to the front door when the knock sounds again, and he yowls.
“Oh, good. The hell-beast is loose,” comes a muffled voice through the door.
Bond howls again, with new urgency, and he hears metal scraping and then the door cracks open. Bond is sitting right there.
One bright blue eye peers in, from a safe distance. Sterling and Bond stare at each other for a moment.
“You aren’t going to attack me, are you? Because I’ve heard the stories.”
Bond growls, but the sound is half-hearted and they both hear it.
“Okay, I’m coming in,” Sterling says, gingerly opening the door. He enters cautiously, looking up and around before fully committing to coming inside. “God, I hope he doesn’t have this rigged to electrocute me.”
The smell of food wafts inside the apartment, and Bond dances back. The agent closes the door behind him and calls, “Q?”
The agent pads into the apartment, putting the paper bag on the kitchen table. “Q?” he calls again, and this time he sounds a bit more concerned. Bond trots to the bedroom to check on Q, the agent following in his pawprints.
Bond hops up on the bed and Q still doesn’t wake. He meows.
“Q? Are you awake?” Sterling asks. Bond shoots him a dirty cat-look. Does Q look awake to him?
Sterling frowns and reaches out to gently touch Q’s shoulder, shaking him a little. Still nothing. Sterling put his hand on Q’s sweaty forehead, brushing back a messy mop of dark hair.
“Q.” The agent’s voice is like a whip, and even Bond looks at him. “Shit.” He has his phone out and he’s searching for the MI6 clinic in his contacts.
Bond pounces on Q’s stomach.
Q wakes up coughing and sputtering, “HA-AHH. What the hell?” he croaks. He blearily looks up at Sterling and starts. “Holy fucking shit. Where’d you come from?”
Sweaty with fever, hair a mess, and without his glasses, he looks more like a disheveled kitten than ever before.
“I brought you dinner,” Sterling says. He sits on the edge of the bed. “But no one answered, and your cat sounded a bit panicky through the door, so I let myself in.”
Bond let it pass. He’d been concerned.
Q scratches Bond behind one golden ear. “Not surprising,” he says. “Vesper Lynd died of pneumonia. He probably remembers.”
Of course, I remember, Bond thinks. How could he forget?
“Vesper Lynd? The one who wrote those trashy spy novels? What’s she got to do with anything?”
“He’s her cat,” Q says. “Moneypenny acquired him at the shelter.” Bond headbutts Q’s shoulder, relieved.
Q coughed to clear his throat a bit. “Uh, let’s relocate, shall we?” he shoves back the blankets, snags his dressing gown from a hook on the back of the door, and does his zombie-shuffle to the kitchen.
Sterling chortles after him. “Finally, I get to see the infamous pajamas of mass destruction,” he says. “And on the first date, too.”
Q washes his hands while Sterling finds plates and utensils. “Wanker,” he says, but he sits in the chair Sterling pulls out for him. There are four chairs. Bond takes up one of them, so he can keep an eye on both the troublesome humans.
“Hot and sour soup is good for colds,” Sterling says, and hands Q the soup and a spoon. The agent behaves himself and Bond settles in for a nap while they eat, keeping one ear open in case he’s needed.
Sterling feeds Q up with the contents of the wonderfully fragrant takeaway bag and makes him a hot toddy, all under Bond’s careful supervision, since the tawny cat eventually gives up any pretense of not keeping close watch.
“I’ll come by tomorrow, if you like,” Sterling says. He looks awkward for the first time Bond has ever seen, and Bond hears both human hearts do that weird, skipping, cornered-mouse thing. Oh, dear Cat-Goddess, it must be catching. How humans have survived this long is beyond him.
Q clears his throat and stares into the depths of the hot toddy as though it held the answer to life, the universe, and everything. “If you like. I’m not very good company right now. And you might get sick.”
“I’ll live dangerously.” Sterling’s eyes were doing that twinkling thing again.
Wait. Bond looks between the two of them, and at the remains of the food on the table. Was Sterling courting Q? Like an alley-cat bringing Q an offering of a mouse or squirrel and leaving it on his doorstep? Was Sterling's hanging around Q-Branch and flirting over equipment his version of sitting on a fence outside Q's window and singing him a love song at a full moon?
Oh, the horror. Bond’s not sure if he has a hairball big enough to puke onto the situation. He huffs through his fangs and his ears airplane. Sterling steals an uncertain look at Bond, and the two of them eye each other warily.
Q frowns, like he’s trying to think of something, and brightens when it finally dawns. “You know Lynd’s name. Have you read her novels?”
“I know of them,” Sterling says. “And I saw the film that came out a couple years ago. But the cat’s probably read more than I have.” He grins like he made a joke, but both Q and Bond glower at him. Bond has heard every word that Vesper Lynd wrote--one of her methods was to read her novels and short stories out loud every so often to remind herself of the content and rhythm of her stories. Bond was a captive audience, but he hadn't minded.
Q holds up a finger and gets to his feet. “You cannot, and should not, judge a book by its film,” he says. “Unless it’s Twilight. The films were better than the books, and the movies were terrible.” He’s a little wobbly, but he makes it to his living room bookshelves and selects a novel.
On his way back to the kitchen he trips over Bond’s cat-bed by the sofa. He doesn’t fall, but he hops in place to regain balance and makes a noise that was half surprise, half . Then he lifts the soft flannel blanket that covers the cat-bed and just kind of freezes.
“All right, there?” Sterling asks.
“Yep.” Q lowers the blanket and comes back to the table, placing the novel in front of Sterling. “Just lost my balance for a moment. Here. You may borrow this, but I want it back. It’s an autographed copy.”
“Thank you?” Sterling examines the novel. “I’m sure it will be better than the film,” he says, although he doesn’t sound like he believes it.
“It will be. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to kick you out and go back to bed. Thanks for dinner,” Q says, and ushers Sterling to the door. Once the agent is gone, he locks the door and turns to Bond. “I just discovered where a few missing items from work ended up. And all this time I’ve been blaming the agents, but it’s you.”
Bond purrs at him, and nonchalantly washes his whiskers. Q’s mouth twitches in a smile. “Are you guarding my things from theft by thieving them first?”
Bond purrs louder. Q scoops him up, scratching behind big scarred ears as he goes back to the bedroom. “I do appreciate that, but there’s enough explosive material in your cat-bed to blow this entire flat to smithereens.”
He puts Bond on the end of the bed and Bond scampers up to what he has deemed as his side and his pillow as Q gets back under the covers. Q takes another dose of medication and sinks back into his pillows with a congested sigh. Bond waits until Q has settled before he flops over next to him, paws in the air and purring.
“I suppose you’re right. If we haven’t blown up yet, we’re probably fine until tomorrow.”
Q can discover the cat-bed hoard, Bond thinks. He has other ones.