Archive of Our Own

Bond stared for a long moment at the scene he walked into when he'd entered – broken into, really – the Quartermaster's home. Q glanced over his shoulder at him, eyebrow raised but not looking particularly surprised, and tapped the cat next to him to get it to drop down from the counter, which it did somewhat reluctantly.

Where it had been resting its front paws. While the back paws were comfortably on the ground.

The thing was, at the head, damn near at Q's hip. Long, tall, lanky – much like said Quartermaster – tan with dark spots and it looked... like a wild cat for lack of any other way to describe it.

“Q..” He drew the word out slowly, stepping forward as he closed the balcony door behind himself, “..what in the world are those?”

The second cat, the one not vying for whatever Q was making at the counter, hopped down from the lounge chair it was in and came to sniff at him.

“They're my cats. Merlin and Arthur, if you must know.”

“..These are not cats, Q. These are wild cats. Not house cats.” He smirked at the boffin, who had turned around with a sandwich in hand to glare at him, “Did you smuggle them into the country?”

There was a heavy sigh and a soft chuckle, “They're savannah cats. They're domestic cats crossed with a serval, an African wildcat. You're...not entirely wrong I suppose, but they are entirely house trained.” There was then a smirk returned to Bond after a moment, “I walk them like dogs, actually. The looks I got when I first moved here with them were pretty amusing.”

He let out a snort and let the big cat sniff his fingers. It took a moment before it rumbled quietly and rubbed against his fingers, scenting him. “So, which one is which?” Even as he asked, he shifted his hand to scritch the large feline behind its ears, then traced along the cats collar to read the 'Merlin' elegantly scrawled on the cat paw shaped tag.

“The continually hungry one is Arthur. The one greedy for attention is Merlin.” Q popped the last piece of his sandwich into his mouth before turning back around and reaching for the kettle, turning it on and pulling out two mugs. “Tea, Bond?”