Monday, 14 January 2013
"Well, there you are."
The soft voice slithered over the back of Q's neck, making him almost jump out of his skin. He did jump a good foot away, banging one hip painfully into the hallway corner. "Fuck!"
Alec raised an eyebrow, his grin becoming even sharper. He was leaning casually against the corner, holding a paper coffee cup and a brown paper sandwich bag. "A little too much caffeine today?"
Q took a deep breath, trying to keep it steady, though he wasn't entirely successful. "What are you doing here?" he blurted out before he could stop himself.
"Lunch" — he held up the paper bag — "though I wouldn't mind eating in instead of at my desk."
Though Q's first instinct was to glare and send him away, he realised that Alec might be here now for a reason. "Where's James?" he asked more quietly as a new type of nervousness came over him. He didn't do people, but he couldn't let this opportunity pass by.
Alec's answering look seemed a bit baffled. "At the office, I suppose. Why?"
"Let me grab my tea. Sit down," Q said, gesturing to the corner table. It was never taken because it was by the swinging kitchen door.
The choice seemed to amuse Alec, who sat down in the corner. He set down his coffee cup and peeled the lid off. Q went to the counter and got his tea from Sapphire, who leaned over and said, "You finally making your move? He's a cutie."
"He's married," Q whispered.
She winked. "That just means he's broken-in."
Q rolled his eyes and took his tea to the back table. Alec gave him that same assessing, interested look he always did, and this time, Q's answering shiver was for entirely different reasons, most of them focused around just how effortlessly James would be able to break him in half if he caught them flirting.
"You all right?" Alec asked.
"I was —" Q hesitated, realising that all of the calm, logical words seemed to have fallen out of his head. He didn't want to get involved, but he couldn't let it pass. And besides, he already was involved, at least a little, unless he had the board bar James from the hackerspace, and they had no cause. And he couldn't keep Alec out of the cafe — it was a public space, after all — and it wasn't as if he could stay out of the cafe —
"Q?"
Alec's hand touched his, and he jumped again, splashing hot tea everywhere. Q snatched at serviettes to mop everything up and batted away Alec's efforts to help. Looking down at the mess, Q realised there was nothing for it; he had to say something.
"Did James hurt you?" he asked, words tumbling out in a rush.
Alec's silence seemed cold and offended, at least in Q's mind. But when he shot Alec a quick, nervous look, he saw only confusion. "Sorry?" Alec asked, frowning.
Q stared at him. "It's — it's fine, if — Oh, god. Not fine, but it's not you. You're —"
"You really don't need more caffeine," Alec interrupted gently, catching Q's hand. He took away the wet serviettes and put them aside. He didn't release Q's fingers, though. "Other than the fact that James is incapable of 'hurting' me without a sniper rifle, what on earth are you talking about?"
Wondering how to free his hand without making a scene — especially because he didn't want to — Q said, "His hands. He hit someone. And you were only here last week when he wasn't."
"He was out of the country." Alec moved his other hand in, trapping Q's. His touch was gentle, even comforting. "Why would you think he'd hit me, though?"
"I thought — I mean, you haven't been..." He trailed off and looked down at their hands. "And if you're cheating on him —"
"Cheating?" Alec asked blankly.
Q blinked up at him. "You... you are married, aren't you?"
In response, Alec burst out laughing.
The office door flew open with enough force that Bond was out of his seat, gun drawn, before he'd even fully registered the bang of the door handle against the wall. "You cheating bastard!" Alec accused, storming in. He caught the door and swung it shut hard enough to rattle the wall.
Bond took a step back, running a quick evaluation. Alec wasn't injured, wasn't armed, and showed no signs of the sort of drug use that might explain such random behaviour. Satisfied, Bond holstered his gun and raised an eyebrow. "She said she loved me?" he ventured with a smirk.
Alec snorted out a choked laugh and walked to his desk on the wall opposite Bond's. He sat down, turned, and put his foot on Bond's chair to spin it around to face him. "So just how long have we been married, dear?"
Bond snorted. "If we were married at some point, chances are we would have made a clean break of it long ago, before you burned down the house. Without the legal contract, seems I can't get rid of you."
"Not for lack of trying, since you're apparently the abusive husband of the two of us." Alec reached back and picked up his stapler. He started clicking it to drop folded staples into his hand. "At least that's what a certain not-quite-such-a-genius thinks."
Bond couldn't help it; he laughed. The thought of anyone trying to be abusive to Alec, even Bond himself, was absurd. "Oh honey, if only you wouldn't push my buttons." With a last chuckle, Bond settled back into his chair. He thought about Q's skittish behaviour, his refusal to talk about Alec. "Well, bollocks."
Alec let out another snort of laughter and dropped the stapler onto his desk. As he started linking the staples together, he said, "I at least set him to rights on some of it, though that's not the end of the mess. He's been operating on the theory that I'm lurking around him in hopes of cheating on you, and that you caught me at it and are just biding your time to catch him alone and teach him a lesson about what's yours and all that."
"Lurking?" Bond asked. "This is what happens when you try to be smooth and subtle. If you had asked him out already, there wouldn't be an issue." He couldn't help but chuckle again, shaking his head. Let Alec think it was because of the absurdity of being labelled an abusive husband, instead of Bond's secret relief that Alec and Q weren't solid yet. "What do you want me to do? The poor, skittish genius is apparently quite frightened of me."
"At least now he's frightened of coming off looking like an arse, rather than the thought that you're going to kill him for seducing your husband." Alec smirked and threw the chain of staples at Bond. "You should be so bloody lucky. No one else is insane enough to put up with your shit."
"Pot, kettle, Alec," Bond reminded him, catching the chain. "I suppose you want me to go down there and, without laughing at the bloody absurdity of it all, assure him that I'm quite happy to see you two on the path to a house in the suburbs and two-point-five kids?"
Alec quirked a brow. "And your happy prospects with him? Don't tell me you haven't been thinking along those lines, James. I can practically read your bloody mind."
"I just wanted a place to work on projects in peace, without setting off fire alarms and forcing the poor idiots in Communications to squash local law enforcement response," Bond argued. "Besides, you called dibs first. Far be it from me to object."
Alec stared at him.
Bond sighed and thought about the adorable enthusiasm, the crooked grin, the spacey tangents that Q tended to fall into that Alec wouldn't understand, but Bond did. Then he thought about the nervous looks directed at his battered knuckles and the way he'd fled from Bond the last time he'd been in the workshop. "Even if I did object, he hasn't the slightest bit of interest in me, Alec."
"And which of us had a chat with him after disabusing him of the notion that we're married?" Alec asked, looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "Oh, wait, that would be me, because you were here fucking around — What are you doing, anyway? The Iraq after action report?"
Bond glared at the computer. "Have you filed an after action report recently? They changed the system. You can't just send an attachment anymore — you have to fill out a bloody form. The bean counters say it's supposed to make things easier for us, but I fully intend on finding the bloody idiot who decided character limits were necessary —"
"Do you want to fuck him, date him, or none of the above?" Then Alec added, "Q, not the bean counter. Him, we'll just hit with tear gas."
Bond held up the staple chain and thought about how Q would probably look at it and get all sorts of ideas for upgrading staplers or finding alternate uses for discarded staple bits, and smiled sadly. "All of the above, Alec."
"Right," Alec said in a tone of voice usually reserved for complicated missions for which he was about to propose a simple solution — usually one involving a very appealing amount of explosives. It was one of the reasons why they'd been best mates for twenty years, give or take. "So what's stopping you?"
"Apparently my blind rage at your being a cheating bastard," Bond answered with a laugh, and threw the staple chain back at Alec.
Amused, Alec snatched the staples out of the air. "Your fault, darling. You never take me anywhere nice anymore. And you wonder why I burned the bloody house down, starting with the kitchen."
"Somewhere nice," Bond said thoughtfully. He thought about the rappelling gear he'd fortunately left in storage with the majority of his outdoor equipment, and the hole in the floor of the workshop. Then he wondered how hard it would be to make a 3D visual representation of what the underground area within a few miles of Nova Prospekt looked like. "Alec," he said with a grin, "how do you feel about going to wrangle some TSS nerds with me?"
"I hate the TSS nerds." Alec tossed the staple chain back to Bond and said, very casually, "I rather had an eye on Q as you know."
Bond raised an eyebrow. "Are you proposing sharing or sharing, Alec?"
Alec let out an amused huff and leaned back in his chair. "Considering we have shared a bed, and the most I got out of it was the lovely knowledge that you steal blankets, I think that ship has sailed. Of course, we were in bloody Siberia at the time, so maybe you're on better behaviour in home territory."
"Let's not test the theory," Bond said, shaking his head and smiling. The thought of sharing someone with Alec wasn't inherently distasteful. They'd shared everything from housing to blood over the years, and Bond knew they could both lavish attention on Q without trying to outdo each other. In fact, it would probably work out to Q's significant advantage. Between Alec and Bond, he might have enough company between missions to equate what he'd find from one 'normal' boyfriend. Bond could provide the intellectual partnership — someone to share in the excitement of engineering and coding. And Alec could provide the gentle, romantic aspect of dating that Bond had never been able to master.
"It's worth a shot," Bond said finally. "But absolutely no competition. Remember how well that worked out with that gorgeous Russian assassin?"
Alec's grin turned a bit wistful. "God, yes. I still say we should've stolen the gold and defected with her."
Bond stood up and cuffed him. "She would have killed us within days, Alec. Now come on. The path to wooing Q lies through TSS."
"I'm not sharing Q with anyone but you, and I'm bloody well not sharing myself with anyone from TSS," Alec protested, stubbornly remaining in his seat. "Or are we going to loot the armoury for tear gas? Because that, I'll happily do."
Bond stared down at Alec, then shrugged with a grin. "Suit yourself." Then he turned and headed out.
"Wait one bloody minute!" Alec protested, and Bond hid his grin as he heard Alec get out of his seat. He caught up with Bond at the door and followed him out into the hallway. "What's this 'no competition' bollocks if you're going to go off on some... wooing plan? Full disclosure, mate."
"We're going on an underground adventure, and we're using a shiny, colourful map to do it. And unless you want to waste time on the research and coding necessary to get the map, we're outsourcing."
"Outsourcing. I like that," Alec approved. "Oh, ah, if any of the TSS geeks ask you a question about an Aspire, you know nothing. Got it?"
"Alec, I don't know anything." Bond chuckled and raised his hand when Alec opened his mouth. "And that's probably the way it should stay, don't you think?"
"Plausible deniability. Right. You do that, and while they're distracted, I'll leave. Trust me. It'll be fine."
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
Q was hiding from the not-married-after-all couple. He was mature enough to admit it to himself — just not to venture out into the front room where he might encounter James, or to go to the cafe where Alec might be lurking. Instead, he was hiding in the server area, headphones on and turned up to maximum volume. Everyone at the hackerspace had learned not to bother him when he had his headphones on, and normally he'd be able to lose himself in his music and coding. Now, though, all he could think of was that he'd made a truly colossal arse of himself.
The fact that his intentions had been good was meaningless. He hadn't even done the most rudimentary digging to find out anything about James, at least, despite having all of his information in the records.
It was about time he did something about that. The last thing he wanted to do was make things even worse than they already were.
Oh, Alec had been perfectly lovely about it all. Once he'd stopped laughing, of course. He and James weren't married, but had been friends for twenty years. They just acted as if they were married because they knew each other so damned well. And apparently their work took them into 'rough places', as Alec had put it, which explained the bloody, scarred knuckles — along with the breath-stealing physiques they both had.
A review of James' file showed that he had listed Alec Trevelyan as his emergency contact, which made Q feel a little better. The fact that they had different last names was meaningless; lots of domestic partners and married couples kept separate last names these days, especially if both were professionals. With a sigh, Q closed the file.
He leaned back in the chair, braced a foot against the edge of the desk, and closed his eyes, listening as Four Three by All India Radio started. He expected that James would show up for the lockpicking group tonight, and that would be phenomenally awkward. Q could probably arrange to be elsewhere — Ireland, perhaps — except he was supposed to be demonstrating. It was too late to line up anyone else, and Nova Prospekt Space was looking at entering a competition.
A gentle pressure on his shoulder — not so much a tap as a soft slide of fingertips — made him open his eyes. He tipped his head backwards, putting a hand up so gravity wouldn't steal his headset.
Then he jerked away and twisted, spinning the chair violently around with a hard kick on the floor. James was standing there, Alec at his side, both of them looking like twin gods of chaos and mischief in T-shirts and blue jeans. Did Alec even own a T-shirt? Q had never seen him in anything but button-downs and wool trousers. And putting him next to James — god, it was unreasonable, quite possibly even illegal for them to do that without at least a warning sign.
Thankfully, neither of them seemed angry. Not that Q was any less embarrassed; he was just glad that they weren't likely to start yelling. Though they were talking, and Q remembered his noise cancelling headphones, though he debated keeping them on. Maybe if they kept the conversation to sign language, he could keep from making even more of an arse of himself than he already had.
Then James, who had been watching his expression since Q had spun in his chair to look at them, smiled softly. He held up his hand to Alec and slowly reached forward to slide the headphones back over Q's head to hang around his neck.
"Noise cancelling," he said to Alec before turning his attention back to Q.
"You'd almost think he doesn't want to listen to us," Alec said, giving Q an uncharacteristically gentle, relaxed grin. "I can't imagine why. We're very charismatic."
"Do you have a moment?" James asked, ignoring Alec for the moment. "We brought something for you."
"Is it rigged to explode?" Q asked before his brain-to-mouth filter kicked in. He spun the chair back around — though not fast enough to avoid seeing Alec's grin go wider — and turned off the music. Wishing he'd take his own advice and just stop talking, he pulled off the headset and hung it on the corner of the monitor.
"As much as I know you'd enjoy that, we decided to keep it small for now." James stepped over, back in Q's line of sight, and held up a plain memory stick. "Well, in a manner of speaking."
Q took it warily, wondering if they were going to try and do something silly, like have him removed from the board of directors of the hackerspace for inappropriate behaviour. They seemed in an awfully good mood, but that just made Q more suspicious, not less.
He turned to one of the other computers — one that wasn't on the network — and plugged in the drive. To his surprise, it was a Google SketchUp file with an overlay for Google Maps. He looked back suspiciously, noting that both men were standing far too close behind him, one on either side. He wondered if they did that sort of thing intentionally or if it just came naturally to them. Breathing, oozing charisma and sexuality, intimidation, that sort of thing.
He had to take a deep breath and find his focus before he could open the files.
Then he leaned forward to stare at what looked like the building — his building — complete with a map of tunnels underneath, all of them colour-coded. Sewer access, old pipes for gaslight, the London Underground, storm drains, maintenance tunnels. A click changed the colours to show the evolution of the tunnels at different points. And while the maps were incomplete, they were enough to prove that the discovery of the coal cellar really was an access point to an entire underground world that was all his.
James brushed his hand along Q's shoulder again, leaning in to speak softly by his ear. "My conditions about safety equipment haven't changed, but if both Alec and I are there, you're incredibly unlikely to come to any harm." He straightened and looked down at Q with the same soft smile. "Would you like to go on an adventure with us, Q?"
A small, rational part of Q's mind suggested that they wanted to take him into the tunnels because it solved the problem of disposing of his body. A much less rational — but also much more substantial — part of his mind had shut down at the hand on his shoulder and the warmth of James' breath over his ear.
Before he could properly reboot, Alec stepped into view and leaned on the computer desk, hip pressed against Q's right arm, since he was still clutching the mouse like a lifeline. "It's definitely better than going alone," he said in that deep, charming voice of his.
James sighed and spun Q's chair away from Alec. He crouched down to eye-level, and moved his hand off Q's chair to rest on his own knees. Q had the impression of someone trying to appear, if not gentle, then at least non-threatening. "I'm sorry I scared you the other night."
Q cringed inside; of all the things to do today, awkward reconciliation was lower in priority than toxic waste disposal and nuclear fallout cleanup. "Don't. It's fine," he said quickly. It occurred to him that he should probably apologise, since he was the one who'd been wrong about everything, but as he opened his mouth, he felt a light, shivery touch that started with fingertips brushing over his hair and shot right down his spine like an electric current.
He snapped his mouth shut, staring at James, thinking he should probably turn around or say something or at least do something, but James was staring back at him, and now Alec was petting his hair.
It was very possible that Sapphire had spiked his tea. She'd been known to experiment with hallucinogenics.
"There is no way for this not to start off awkward, so I'm just going to barrel through. Q —"
"Oh god, she did, didn't she?" Q asked, closing his eyes tightly. She'd caught him unawares once before, and though she swore a diluted drop of whatever she'd used shouldn't have been enough to do more than relax him, he'd spent three hours watching lights move. His coding had been a nightmare; he'd had to restore from the previous day's backup. "I'm going to have to kill her now."
"If there is anyone you need killed, I think you should leave it to us," James said with a chuckle. "I don't know what you're talking about. I assure you, there is no 'she' in this particular situation."
"Which either works to our benefit or complicates things immeasurably," Alec added. His fingers had moved down to the very bottom of Q's hairline, where the strands tickled over his nape.
Q opened his eyes, thinking to turn and scold Alec for it, but James trapped him all over again, and all Q could think was that there really needed to be a warning label for this.
But really, he was a genius. He should be able to figure out... whatever was going on. And he could have, if not for the human factor complicating things. If they were programs, though, he'd know everything — every little nuance and decision tree and variable.
"I'd ask if this is really happening, but there's no way to provide irrefutable proof that can't be manufactured in some way by my own subconscious," he said.
"We like you, Q. We think you're bloody incredible, actually. Adorable, and a genius to boot." James lifted a hand to gently settle on Q's knee. "How would you feel about giving us a shot?"
"Of what?" Q asked, still thinking of hallucinogens and espresso.
James gave Alec something like an exasperated look before returning his attention to Q. "Between the two of us, we almost make one decent boyfriend."
"But you're not —" he started, and then shivered as the hands on him suddenly started to mean something.
The problem, of course, was that Q's mind worked too fast, once it actually gained traction. As soon as he recognised that it was possible — however unlikely — that they were both hitting on him, his mind took the idea and ran with it. He had about a half-second's worth of mental visuals of just how far 'boyfriend' would probably go, which meant the visuals included tactile imaginings that weren't appropriate even for the privacy of his own bedroom, drapes closed, lights out, much less here and now.
Then, as the electric current shooting down his spine seemed to ground itself in James' hand on his knee, taking the obvious path through Q's body to get there, Q's mind didn't just run with the idea so much as pack it away for a round-the-world holiday cruise. There was no possible way it could work without probably killing him at the very least, if they all didn't kill each other from personality conflict or something, but dear god, it sounded like a bloody fantastic way to die.
He said something. He suspected it was 'Um'.
Looking a little concerned, James brushed his thumb lightly over Q's knee. "Do you like the map? You don't have to take us both, but you do have to take one of us. There's no way you're going down there by yourself."
"Are you —" he began. Then he swallowed and leaned back a bit, which pushed his neck back against Alec's hand and slid his knee forward against James, which had a distinctly unhelpful effect on his thoughts. "Going where for what?" he asked, thinking it very important that he get clarification on that part.
"Down through the door in your cellar. To explore." James smirked. "We worked very hard on compiling what maps we could find of the tunnels within several kilometres of this building. I brought my safety equipment, and Alec brought comms in case we get separated. Consider it a first date." James cleared his throat and shot another look at Alec. "If you'd like to, of course."
A first date. With one of them. Or with both of them.
"We'll even take you to dinner afterwards," Alec said, fingers slipping down that last quarter inch to touch bare skin. "Though if we're filthy with coal dust, it might have to be takeaway."
"I'm... I'm not saying no," Q said very, very carefully, and he was ridiculously proud that his voice was steady and calm. "The — the dating would work, how?"
James settled a little more comfortably into his crouch. "We haven't talked about it very in-depth, but we have agreed to a strict 'no competition' policy. We also work out of town a lot, for long stretches at a time — some of which will overlap. So there may be points when you're overloaded with attention from both of us, and other times when neither of us is around. But we hope that, on the whole, it will balance out."
Timeshare, Q thought somewhat madly. He let out a rough, slightly desperate laugh. "I don't even — We don't even know each other," he said, finally turning away from James to look back at Alec, feeling as if he were being left out of the conversation.
Obligingly, Alec walked around the side of the chair, though his hand never left the back of Q's neck. "If it doesn't work out, no harm done. But James and I have been working together for more than half our lives."
"Dating together?" Q asked a bit sharply, wondering suddenly if this was something they'd done before rather than being something new and special.
"Well, no," Alec admitted, looking to James.
"You're special," James said with a lopsided grin. "We both like you, but we didn't want to fight it out or make you choose, so this seemed an optimal solution." He paused, and his smile turned a little more wicked. "We could be very, very good to you, Q."
How was this at all sane? The answer, of course, was that it wasn't. And they were presenting it more as a logical argument than some sort of grand emotional declaration... which was sort of comforting, actually. He'd been attracted to them both, but he'd tried to shove all of that aside because they were married. Only they weren't.
"Why are you both away so much?" he asked, a hint of suspicion lingering. He didn't think they were deceiving him; things like this simply didn't happen. Not to him, at any rate.
"International consulting company," Alec said. "They tend to send us out of town at a moment's notice."
James rocked back on his heels and looked up Q. "So, what do you think?"
"I think this is the most mad thing I've ever heard," he admitted, aware of how uncharacteristically baffled he still sounded. "Do people do this?"
"We're proposing climbing down a mountain of coal to go into possibly deadly tunnels under London as a first bloody date, Q," Alec pointed out. "There's nothing about this that's done by anyone but us."
"God, that actually makes sense." Q took off his glasses and let them dangle between his fingers as he pressed his palms to his eyes. He was certain there was some better way to respond, something more romantic or socially appropriate, but he couldn't begin to think of what. He'd never seen a romantic comedy in his life, other than previews before films featuring much more satisfying explosions and alien races.
But he was logical and a genius and couldn't for the life of him think of any reason to refuse. He didn't want to refuse. So he nodded without looking at either of them, finished rubbing at his eyes, and put his glasses back on. He didn't poke himself in the eye only due to long practice. "All right."
"Try not to sound so enthusiastic," James said, though he grinned impishly at Q. He braced both hands on Q's, squeezing them lightly before standing. The grin never left his face.
Q couldn't help but smile in response; god, the man had a gorgeous smile that turned his eyes from ice to pure fire. He looked back and saw damn near the same smile on Alec's face.
"This... this isn't a competition," he warned, remaining in his seat for now. He wasn't entirely certain he could stand; and even if he could, he was positive he wouldn't stay standing. "I'm not some prize to be fought over. I don't do jealousy."
"Neither do we," James said with a light shrug. "Who has time for that sort of thing? In any case, it would be incredibly self-defeating." Then his expression grew a bit more serious. "I can't promise that there won't be... glitches. Alec and I haven't exactly done anything like this before, so there are inevitably going to be things that require careful thought and navigation." He shot a dark grin at Alec. "Or, at least, our version of it. But I think it's going to be worth it."
Alec and I haven't exactly done anything like this before. The words helped Q find his balance as a new thought came to him — not just that this was a first for all of them, but that he was the reason. That was... exhilarating. Empowering. And it made all of this far less intimidating, turning it from two-against-one, in a way, to the three of them all fumbling blindly into new territory.
There had to be websites on this sort of thing.
"Let me go get my boots," he said, getting to his feet — and thankfully, he didn't fall right back down, despite the proximity of two men who were suddenly very, very much there.
James stepped a little closer to Q, grin turning into a softer smile. He brought up a hand and brushed it feather-light across Q's cheekbone. "Thank you for giving us a chance."
Very much there and very, very real. Alec was standing close, but James was closer, and Q suddenly wanted to kiss them — them! — but had no idea how to start. Who should he kiss first? Would whoever he didn't choose take offence? Was there some secret way to decide, only they weren't telling Q, as if testing to see what he'd do? He didn't want either of them left out or to feel pushed aside or neglected, but he suspected that proposing a random number generator — something simple that he could whip up on a command prompt in about twenty keystrokes — would get him laughed out of his own hackerspace.
"Oh, for god's sake," Alec said on a sigh. "Kiss him already, James, before he has a bloody heart attack."
Mercifully, James didn't laugh or smirk. He simply stepped closer, and, careful to move slowly (in case Q wanted to object, he assumed), he leaned in. The first pressure of James' lips on his was nothing more than a light brush — light but not tentative. Then James pressed a little harder and nipped at Q's bottom lip lightly, sliding his hand to the base of Q's neck to pull him closer for something deeper.
The nervous tension melted away, because James was an impossibly good kisser. He wasn't all messy and irritating, like Q's last girlfriend, and he wasn't tentative or uncertain, like the hacker he'd picked up after a convention a few months ago. He was focused, every brush of his lips or sweep of his tongue intent and purposeful, as if he'd already mapped out a plan to learn what Q liked and didn't. That or he was psychic, because he found damned near everything that Q enjoyed, from the way he'd nip just enough to sting to the light touch with just the tip of his tongue instead of licking like an overenthusiastic golden retriever.
When it ended, naturally and calmly, Q was tingling down to his toes and no longer half so worried that this would all go up in flames. James stepped back, and he looked from Q's face to over his shoulder, right before Alec's hand pressed to the small of Q's back. Q turned right into Alec's arms, and then he was kissing Q with the same type of experimental exploration as James, only different. His mouth was a bit smaller, lips softer, and the press of his jaw was rougher with more stubble. His hand combed through Q's hair, toying with the strands.
God, it was ridiculously inappropriate for Q to be cataloguing and comparing, wasn't it? Not that he could help it — that was how his mind worked — but he was determined not to set up some sort of mental ranking criteria for his two (two!) boyfriends.
Of course, when Alec finally released him, the aftermath of their kisses combined to leave Q feeling just a bit dizzy and overwhelmed. This wasn't something he'd easily survive with his sanity intact, but to his surprise, he was just fine with that.
Still, he needed room to breathe and process. If he let them kiss him again, he would end up doing something inexcusable, like trying to shag them both here in his hackerspace server pen —
Those images flashed in his head, stopping his breath. Because while he could see an easy way to manage the complexity of three partners if one were female, the alternative for the three of them was suddenly a bit too much. It wasn't that he didn't like being the focus of attention in bed, but everything he could think of came perilously close to uncomfortable levels of promiscuity.
"Are we — That is, I'm not quite —" he said, resisting the urge to back away and get himself enough space to breathe. "All of us, at the same time, is..."
James took a step back and to the side so he could see Q's face. For the first time during the entire, crazy discussion, he actually looked slightly uncertain. "We'd rather not, to be honest." His gaze flicked to Alec and back to Q again. "We're friends, and have been for a long time, but that's it." Then his grin shifted into something more crooked and playful. "It would just turn into an argument over who gets the blankets or who breathes the loudest when he sleeps, and that is decidedly not sexy."
"Besides, I cheat," Alec added. "I'd just push him out of the bed."
Q laughed, the sound a little strained, though it was relief rather than any new tension. So this was just about sex and not something more complicated, which made it all much, much easier to mentally handle. "All right. I'll just —" He cut off, because he had his boots in his flat, of course, but no one knew that he lived here. Should he tell James and Alec, though? If they were going to be in a relationship, best not to try and deceive them. But if this was just about sex, then it would be all the more awkward if he brought them here, to his bed, even if it was one at a time.
No, he decided. His flat would remain the sanctuary that he was trying to create. This was sex, not marriage, and it would eventually end. Besides, he needed his privacy. His last girlfriend had been clingy and possessive, demanding a key to his old house and a drawer, filling the bathroom with bottles and soaps and her toothbrush and hairbrushes, until he'd finally snapped. Twice that amount of intrusion would drive him crazy all the faster.
Then he recalled that the members knew he kept overflow storage upstairs. He just didn't have to say he'd be running up two extra flights of stairs, rather than just climbing the ladder. "I have boots upstairs, in storage. Let me go get them."
