Author's Notes: Hi everyone! This started out as a drabble and I absolutely have no idea how it ended up with 2000 words! The fic features all the usual suspects except for Henry Flagen, who is my own creature and is lifted from my other 00Q fic, His Keeper (it's in the rated M section).

Please join me at my tumblr for updates and teasers!

To be fair, Q never really saw it coming because Bond's advances always came in the guise of something else.

007 was expected to drop by Q branch every once in a while and even more often just before and after missions. There was nothing suspicious about that, but Q should have known that something was up when, after his stint in the Far East, Bond brought back his equipment — gun, radio and valuable tech handed over by Q's counterpart in Japan as part of their international cooperation and exchange program— in pristine condition.

Now that came as a surprise, yet he gave no indication except for a momentarily raised eyebrow and a purse of the lips.

"That impressed, are you?" 007 said lazily, mouth curved in a slow smile.

"Yes, well," Q said automatically in his usual clipped tone. "Thank you, 007."

He logged in the equipment in his tablet, his mind already skipping gleefully to the new tech Bond had brought in, yet when he was finished, Bond was still standing in front of him, looking rather expectant.

"Is there anything else, 007?" he inquired.

For a moment, Bond looked as though he were about to say something, but then thought better of it. "I'll see you tomorrow, Q," Bond merely said as he made to turn away.

"Whatever for?" Q asked, frowning, but he was met only by the sound of his door softly clicking shut.

The second day found him in the shooting range, testing out the new handguns with inlaid AI sensors with Henry Flagen, his chief engineer and weapons specialist. Their animated chatter was interrupted by a flustered minion coming in.

"Sir," said the minion. "It's 007."

Q nodded. "I'll see him in my office. I'll be back in ten minutes, Henry."

"007, what—" He began as he entered his office, and stared as the agent made a show of putting something on his desk.

"What is that?"

Bond blinked. "It's a lucky cat," he said. Obviously, he might have added.

It was, indeed, an exquisite little ceramic calico cat, a beckoning paw raised over one ear, beautifully handcrafted and brought back from Japan by 007. It even had its own tiny cushion of red silk.

Q realized belatedly that his mouth was hanging open while he was unable to get the words out: Why? And who told you I collect these?

Finally, he said, "I can see that. I mean—"

"I forgot to bring it over yesterday," Bond interjected smoothly.

"Okaaay," said Q dubiously.

"You're welcome, by the way."

Q cleared his throat as he remembered his manners. "Thank you, 007. This is rather kind of you."

"I can be kind, you know," said Bond.

"Right," said Q, nodding.

When you're not killing people, he silently added.

By the third consecutive day, Q could no longer deny the existence of an emerging pattern.

He came back late from a meeting with M and some top dogs from Whitehall. Needless to say he was rather cross and on edge as only a meeting with the truly senior, stuffy top brass could bring out in him, and there was 007 again, chatting rather nonchalantly with Henry. He thought he was starting to get the picture now.

"007. Why are you here?" he said bluntly, frowning, before Bond could get a word in. To Henry, he said, "he's not to have access to the new firearms until they're cleared for use. None of the double-O's are entitled to them."

"Yes, sir," said Henry before scampering away.

"What new firearms?" inquired 007.

"Oh, don't start that line with me," snapped Q. "You're just as bad as 008. Whatever it is you're angling for, you won't be getting it like this."

"Like what?" 007 was being infuriating.

"Really, Bond, can't you think of a better way to make use of your downtime instead of coming here and—" Q entered his office and stopped short, blinking at the sight awaiting him on his desk: a gourmet boxed lunch from a glitzy resto in Mayfair.

"I'm sure you haven't had lunch yet," was all Bond said when Q turned back to him.

By this time, he was feeling like a complete barbarian, too embarrassed to even get his thanks out. "I wish you can just tell me what it is you want and be done with it," he said with a sigh.

Bond's only response was a slight tilt of that well-shaped mouth. "You're the genius here," he said, voice low. "I'll leave you to figure it out for yourself."

He was granted two days of peace. Two days of Bond gone on a low-risk mission without any necessary communication with Q branch. In those two days, Q would not bring himself to admit that he kind of missed the man.

Friday evening saw him depart from work on time, for once. He had agreed to meet an old friend for drinks and an exchange of the latest software that they had been working on as a hobby.

Simon was an IT specialist working in the City, and probably making an insane amount of money. Q was certain that it would have been his career trajectory as well had he not been infused with a sense of service to Queen and country. At any rate, Simon sort of knew the sensitive nature of Q's work and had the good sense and tact not to inquire further. They had not seen each other for months, so their greetings were a flurry of handshakes and cheery hellos.

They had barely settled down at the bar when the bartender came over, bearing drinks.

"But we haven't—" Q began, and his eyes tracked the bartender's motioning hand.

Shit, he thought as he spotted Bond seated at a proper table a few feet away. He wasn't alone; a beautiful blonde was wrapped around one arm while he raised the other hand bearing a glass of vodka martini (shaken, not stirred, Q knew) and gave Q a smiling, silent toast with his drink.

"Who is that?" Simon asked, intrigued.

"A colleague," said Q through gritted teeth. He slid off his barstool and came over to Bond.

"I didn't realize you're back from your…business trip," he said as soon as he was within earshot.

"A few hours ago," said Bond easily before nodding at Simon. "Night out with a friend?"

"You can say that," said Q, and waited to see how Bond would take it.

Yes, I do have friends outside work, he would have liked to say. And why are you here, yet again?

Yet he knew this was purely a coincidence. Bond was here even before he'd arrived.

"We won't keep you," said Bond as he knocked back the remnants of his drink and stood to lead his date out to dinner.

It was only later that Q realized that Bond may have misunderstood him.

There followed an entire week of radio silence from Bond. Even the minions noticed.

It was actually a relief not to have the man around, breathing down his neck, Q said to himself. Perish the thought that he was starting to miss him. (This, again— where did this treacherous idea even come from?)

Equally odious was the notion that perhaps he ought to clarify himself in a text to Bond: Simon is not my boyfriend, in case you're wondering.

Bloody hell, what was wrong with him?

Q made sure to put his phone as far away from his person as possible whenever he felt the urge gripping him, but it was damned inconvenient and almost impossible to be separated from his phone for any amount of time. So he ended up deleting Bond's number. Not that he didn't have it memorized.

In the meantime, work was never-ending, and he plunged headlong into it.

Then, at the end of the week: disaster.

A bad judgement call and the lack of an umbrella at hand had Q thinking he could outrun a sudden downpour on the way home. By the time he got to the Tube, he was thoroughly soaked despite his anorak.

By the next day he was down with a fever and a severe head cold.

R would not hear of any kind of heroics and insisted he make use of his sick leave. "I'll hold the fort while you recuperate," she said, "and don't bother calling me. I'll call you if there's an emergency."

By late afternoon, she did call, waking Q out of a thick nap.

"Heads up, I think 007 is on his way to you," she said.

This was an emergency indeed.

"Christ, R, tell me you didn't, by any chance, give him my address just because he twinkled at you, now? Did you?" Q squawked into the phone, the panic in his voice evident despite the head cold clogging his words.

"I would never!" came R's indignant reply. "At any rate, he didn't ask for it so I think he already knows where you live. He just came in out of the blue, asked for you and, when I told him you were ill, he marched right back out of here."

"Dear lord."

"Right. I just thought you should know, love. Ta," said R before hanging up.

When the doorbell rang, Q was at least ready. He'd made himself presentable by throwing on a bathrobe over his pajamas and running a hand over his unruly hair.

"Bloody hell, Bond," he said, managing to sound exasperated. "Why are you here?"

"That's a favorite question of yours, isn't it?" answered Bond. "I'm going to feed you, obviously. Now let me in."

"Who would have thought," said Q, nonplussed as he held the door open for Bond. "007, playing Mother Hen."

"I bet you've not had anything since this morning," said Bond as he breezed into Q's apartment.

"Tea and toast," grumbled Q as he sat down gingerly at the dining table. He hated the way his voice sounded, honky and watery all at once.

Bond placed a takeaway package of something fragrant and steaming right under his nose. Q rummaged through the plastic and found nestled within a big bowl of hearty chicken noodle soup from that Vietnamese place he liked so much.

Hope was a cruel, dangerous thing, he thought. He must not encourage it to bloom inside him. Not one tendril must take root.

"Bond. How—"

"Spy, remember? As are you," murmured Bond. "Eat up, then. The faster you recover, the better."

"Why?"

"So that I may be able to kiss you."

There. It was stated so plainly, so matter-of-factly, no frills attached.

"But why?" Q persisted as he felt his face grow hot, and not just from the slight fever.

"I don't think you realize what I've been up to for the past month, do you?" Bond's gaze was very fond.

"Past month?" repeated Q blankly. He was only aware of things moving in a certain direction in the past week.

"I'm really getting old, if you young people no longer even recognize the overtures of courtship." Bond gave a mock-weary sigh as Q spluttered incoherently.

"Is that really what this is all about?" Q said as he stared at Bond with something like disbelief.

"You thought I wanted something from you, you never once thought that what I'd want is you," said Bond. "Only you, Q."

"Christ, Bond," was all Q could say.

"For someone so terrifyingly smart, your obliviousness is one of your greatest charms, I must say. So," said Bond, nodding at the bowl of soup.

Without another word, Q took up his spoon and began to eat.