Work Text:
It starts off innocently enough. There’s a steaming mug of tea and a few digestives on a plate next to it when Q comes in early for work, like he always does. He glances around, confused by who put them there, fingers already reaching for the keyboard to check the security footage, before deciding against it and taking a tentative sip of his tea. A smile curls around his lips like the steam curls up from his mug. Perfect.
He doesn’t end up checking the footage, just decides that whoever placed it for him was well timed and knew very well how he took his tea.
The next few days, the tea is once again waiting for him, perfectly, when he arrives to work. The fourth day, he comes in half an hour early, only to still have the tea sitting there, along with a really pretty and shiny geode. He picks up the rock - he doesn’t recognize it, he’s a bit shoddy with geology - but likes its color (green and streaked with black) and it’s sheen, and drops it in his pocket.
He forgets about it for several days until he puts his trousers through the wash and hears it clunking around in there. After that, it goes on his knick knack shelf.
A few weeks go by, and someone has been leaving him little gifts everywhere. Always and only at work, either in his office during the day when it’s open and he’s moving in and out of the space, or in Q branch. A cryptography book (Q has it all solved over the course of three lunch breaks), bits and nibbles of food - some cookies, crisps, a slice of cake, tea, always tea - that he always munches on gratefully, some more interesting rocks, a Rubik’s cube (which Q doesn’t even bother to solve, just smiles at it and sets it at the corner of his desk), and some catnip toys, which Q assumes, rightfully so, are for his cats.
One day, he comes in to work, expecting, at this point, for there to be tea, only there isn’t. There isn’t anything on his desk, nothing in his office, and all day, there isn’t any sign of any little trifles. He’s gotten used to them, Q realizes, and it irritates him. Someone not bringing him things he’s not asking for is disappointing him, and that shouldn’t be right. He puts the Rubik’s Cube in a drawer and makes his own tea, but doesn’t enjoy it as much as he has been.
After a week of silence from the mysterious appearing food and token pieces of things, there’s suddenly a newspaper clipping with a comic on it. Q reads it, snorts, then tosses it. The next day, his tea is there. Q leaves it until it’s cold, then throws it out and gets his own.
He’s not sure why he starts doing it, but he’s confused in the light of having a break from the near constant trinkets and little gifts about the why of it all, and starts either dumping or ignoring everything that appears. It’s obviously someone bringing him things they think he’ll like and appreciate, but why ? Interest, obviously, of a carnal nature, Q is fairly sure of. He’s not sure he has time for someone that’s playing cat and mouse for weeks on end. He’s more focused on his work than ever before, determined to ignore this strange new normal for him, and even the double oh’s are having trouble bantering with Q like they all usually do because he’s worked himself into such a strange and foul mood over it.
It comes to a head when he snaps at one of them rather sharply without thinking and is met with silence instead of a comeback or a sarcastic comment. Who is he even talking to? He looks up from his screen with a jerk and stares up at 007, who looks for all the world like he just got punched in the gut. At least, for the half second it takes to smooth out his face back into a calm and uncaring mask. God, he hates how they can all do that.
Rubbing his face, Q sighs, reaching out to take a sip of his tea, jerking in shock when it’s piping hot and not the lukewarm it had been half an hour ago. “I’m sorry, 007, for being so terse. I’m a bit on edge today.”
Bond shifts slightly, hands in his pockets, but raises an eyebrow, “You’ve been on edge ever since I came back from the States a week and a half ago.”
Q stares at him, frowning, because there’s something weird written across Bond’s expression, like he’s expecting Q to get the punchline. “Yes, well, perhaps I have. Regardless, I don’t really have time to entertain you at the moment.”
The agent shifts again, a bit uncomfortable, and hesitates, “Why are you on edge?” He finally asks, looking like he doesn’t want to have to ask, doesn’t want to hear whatever it is Q’s going to say in response, and that, that pisses off Q, and he snaps at him again.
“I don’t know, 007, maybe because some prick keeps leaving me stupid fucking trifles and trinkets and tea all over the place but can’t be bothered to actually talk to me. It was nice at first, but now it’s just annoying.”
Bond’s face, Q notices, has gone completely still with shock, before something ugly twists across it. He opens his mouth several times, but doesn’t quite manage to say anything. Q huffs out a breath and turns back to his screen, “Unless you need something urgent or in relation to an upcoming mission, 007, I apologize, but I have some work to do.”
He doesn’t look up as Bond shifts a few times, then turns and leaves.
The next day, there are roses waiting when he comes in, a whole vase of them red and vibrant, and Q bins them immediately out of spite, despite the odd sensation he has of feeling that this is it. This is the last token he’s getting. Something’s shifted.
He sits at his computer for a long few minutes before he finally decides he has to know. He boots it up and draws up the security logs and footage of Q branch, watching with growing shock and confusion as 007, James Bond , slips into Q branch, carrying a very red armful of flowers. He watches the man set them on the table, adjusting a few, before the man turns to leave, and Q doesn’t miss how he glances up sadly towards the camera, locking eyes with it for a moment before he’s out of the frame and gone.
Over the next few hours, he watches the course of the little things appearing, from the first mug of tea and how well it’s accepted, to the next little and growing offerings left for him, how sometimes James will glance at the camera and smile, or once, wave. At the Rubik’s Cube, he holds up a sign (idiot, Q thinks, the cameras capture audio as well) that reads in big bold letters, Teach Me?
Q sits back, thinking to his last conversation with 007. No, with James. Time to stop thinking of him as a number. The man’s been gently wooing at him for two months now. He must have thought Q knew who it was. He really should have checked the feeds sooner. His words sound twisted now, as he interprets them in his mind as Bond would have, even re-watching the altercation. This time, he sees Bond slip the new mug of tea onto his desk with a very deft sleight of hand, setting the old one on a minion’s desk.
Q’s jaw sets determinedly.
Later in the afternoon, Bond reaches his shitty awful office that he hates and steps inside to do some dutiful - if grudging - paperwork, only to stop short and stare at his desk, where a solved Rubik’s Cube is sitting.