Summary: Pi Day was one of Q's favorite holidays, since the day was also his birthday, unbeknownst to most of his colleagues. Flashes back from 2016 to 1991. Features Q as both an adult and a baby, plus the OC family I've made up for him. Bright Star 'verse. Silly fluff. Written for Pi Day (March 14th).
Bright Star 'verse: Reading at least my story "The Star to Every Wandering Barque" is recommended. Reading the entire 'verse is not necessary.
I originally wrote this fic back in May, but wanted to wait until the appropriate day (or close enough – I post on Friday nights) to post it.
Pie Day
Q-Branch, as the nerd center of MI6, celebrated all geek holidays. These, of course, included such widely beloved holidays as Star Wars Day (May the Fourth [be with you]) and Golden Ratio Day (June 18th [because obviously, the golden ratio is 1.618]), as well as the slightly more obscure ones like TARDIS Day (the twenty-third of November, the day Doctor Who first aired) and Hobbit Day (the twenty-second of September, in honor of the birthdays of both Bilbo and Frodo).
And of course, Pi Day (the fourteenth of March [for 3.14]) held a special place in everyone's hearts, mostly due to the baked treats that flooded the department and covered every available food-friendly surface.
(One of the old Qs had insisted one year that the food prohibition rules on the R&D labs be upheld even on this sacred day due to a small...accident involving explosive pies. The current Q also held firm on this rule. Food and explosives did not mix [yes, even Mentos and Coke].)
The denizens of Q-Branch took Pi Day seriously. Anything that could conceivably be made into a pie was.
There were, of course, the classics: apple pie, mince pie, meat pie, shepherd's pie…
But then there were such unusual masterpieces as the miso-apple pie (which surprisingly proved to be a repeat favorite), the avocado pie (which looked very pretty but was rather bland), and the jelly baby pie (not a success, since all of the jellies melted into one congealed mass of tough, chewy gelatin). The infamous crisps-and-onion pie appeared every year, as did the vinegar pie and the cheeseburger pickle pie. (The odd but traditional Cornish stargazy pie with its fish heads poking out of the crust and staring up at the sky was not as popular, but no one wanted to tell that to Nancy, who was a sweetheart, and had been a Q-Branch employee since the late seventies.)
There was also the annual debate in which hardcore believers of both points of view battled over the eternal question: Is the tart a pie or not?
Pi Day was one of Q's favorite holidays, too, since the day was also his birthday, unbeknownst to most of his colleagues. He had fond memories of pie-filled birthdays growing up and was heartened to find that the day was celebrated with such ardor in his chosen workplace.
. . . . .
14 March 2016
Daniel Drake buzzed the doorbell to his own house, knowing that his father, who was visiting, would take pity on him and let him in.
Sure enough, Damien Drake opened the front door and burst into laughter at the sight of his son trying to juggle nearly a dozen plastic boxes packed full of food.
"Is everyone trying to fatten you up again, or have they finally discovered the truth?" he asked, amused. He reached out to take the boxes from his son and peeked at the contents of the top one through the clear plastic. "Anything good?"
Danny groaned. "Dad, you would not believe the amount of pie I've eaten today. It's as though people think I'm one step from starvation. If they ever find out that it's my birthday too, I'll probably be the first person to have 'death by too much pie and birthday cake' on a death certificate."
Damien chuckled. It seemed that all of MI6 was still hell-bent on coddling their darling quartermaster after his close shave with death back in November. "I don't suppose you'd want any more, then?"
His son huffed in exasperation. "I didn't say that, did I? None of it was as good as your special birthday pie, Dad." He bumped his shoulder softly against his father's as he passed by him to the kitchen.
Damien smiled. "Shall we eat it tomorrow? I won't be offended if you're sick of pie tonight."
Danny made an affronted noise at the back of his throat even as he put the assorted Tupperwares away in his refrigerator.
"Tomorrow?" he whined, allowing himself a good old-fashioned pout in his father's direction, "It's my birthday today, not tomorrow. It's not birthday pie if we don't at least start eating it today."
He straightened and sniffed eagerly at the pie sitting on the cooling rack. He poked an experimental finger at the flaky crust, only to have the back of his hand slapped by his father.
"Go wash up, birthday boy," Damien said with a smirk. "Do you want dinner or just the pie?"
The joyful answer - "Pie!" - was shouted down as MI6's quartermaster - normally staid, calm, and in control - thundered up the stairs to change out of his work things.
Damien shook his head fondly. Twenty-six this year. How time flew.
. . . . .
Damien Drake's special birthday pie wasn't all that unique, per se, as far as pies went.
It was really the sentiment and the history behind it that made it special.
. . . . .
14 March 1991
There was dead silence when Damien Drake brought out the "cake" for his son's first birthday.
The silence was not because of any sort of reverence for the sanctity of a first birthday, nor was it because the confection looked inedible. It looked quite nice, actually, and not at all the sort of thing one would expect a retired spy-cum-assassin would be able to produce.
No, it was because it was, for one thing, a pie.
Or rather, two pies joined together like…
"Is that a Venn diagram pie?"
Damien grinned proudly at his creation. "It is indeed." He narrowed a threatening glare at his friend. "Now sing 'Happy Birthday' and sound like you mean it, or I'll make certain you sing soprano forever for ruining my son's first birthday."
Stuart Thomas, 005 of MI6, exchanged an expressive glance with Ivar Bryce, private detective and formerly of the CIA, and started singing, all the while trading questioning looks with the other guests as they joined in, all rather off-key because they were spies, not trained singers.
Loelia Ponsonby, secretary to M, and little Danny Drake's doting godmother, dutifully snapped photographs so that Damien could add them to the scrapbooks he was compiling of his son's life.
Geoffrey Boothroyd, MI6's quartermaster for the last three decades, held his small godson in his lap and waved his little fists for him, smacking a kiss on the round cheek to elicit a giggle.
"Happy birthday, Danny!"
The birthday boy stared openmouthed at the dual pie that was set before him. The tiny flame on the large candle in the shape of a '1' flickered and reflected in his wonder-struck green eyes.
"That is not a birthday cake, Damien," Stuart said, trying again to talk some sense into his friend.
Ivar took a sip of his coffee and shook his head in bemusement. "Tell me this is another weird British thing." As an American, he had very set ideas on what constituted a birthday cake, and this was not it.
Stuart snorted. "I think this is a weird Drake thing."
Miss Ponsonby shushed them and commented, "I think it's sweet."
The men, aside from Damien, all looked at her, puzzled, as though trying to parse out if that had been an intentional pun or not.
"Ah!" exclaimed Q, catching on to the other pun. "Pie for a Pi Day birthday! What do you think of that, Danny-my-lad?"
Stuart and Ivar shrugged at each other, completely mystified. 'Pie Day?'
Danny bounced in his godfather's lap, barely able to contain his excitement. "Daddy! Pie!"
Damien scooped him up in his arms and grinned at him. "Yes, sweetheart, it's pie. This one is apple, and this one is blackberry, and this part has both."
"Mmm!"
"They're your favorites, so you'll have a bit of each, won't you?" he asked, then lowered his voice to a low whisper. "But first, you need to make a wish and blow out the candle."
Danny looked questioningly at his father, mouth and eyes wide open. "Wiff?" he asked. "I make wiff?"
"Yes, baby," Damien answered with a tender smile, and kissed the messy mop of wispy curls. "You think of something you want and then you blow the candle out. Do you think you can do that?"
"I wiff en-fin?" Danny asked, furrowing his brows in concentration.
"Anything," Damien confirmed, "Like...maybe Uncle Geoffrey can show you what makes a car go?"
He winked at the old man who chuckled. Q was indeed very excited to see what this baby prodigy, who already not only knew his numbers, but could also add large numbers in his head, could do.
"I wiff," Danny said seriously, "I wiff...hug. Ebby day."
The adults burst out in delighted laughter, prompting the baby to scowl in indignation.
"Like this?" Damien said, squeezing his son gently in his arms. His smile lit up the room, making his old friends marvel at the change a mere year had made in the stoic, reserved agent. "You want me to hug you every day like this?"
"Ess," Danny said, giggling. "I tiss you now, Daddy." And he did, planting a sticky kiss right on his father's cheek.
"Well that's a wish wasted," Stuart remarked under his breath to Ivar, who chuckled in agreement. Danny's father would hug the boy every day, wish or not. This earned them both a slap to the back of their heads from Miss Ponsonby, who had no qualms about striking agents who deserved it.
Chastisement finished, Ponsonby snapped another picture of the two Drakes. They were much too adorable to miss getting the moment preserved on film.
Damien arched a brow at the secretary, who looked back, unrepentant. Chuckling, he leaned down with his son and told him, "Now you have to blow the candle out. Do you think you can do it? Here, I'll help you."
Together, they blew out the candle and were rewarded with a raucous cheer from their audience.
. . . . .
The pie was, of course, as delicious as it looked, despite its odd appearance.
The birthday boy was delighted, mashing the pastry around on his plate with glee. His father made sure that at least some of it did actually make it into his mouth. Danny made sure that some of it made it onto his father's shirt. It was an even exchange, as far as both parties were concerned.
The crust was buttery and flaky, and browned just right. The fillings - both of them - were just the right combination of mouthwateringly sweet and tart, and the center of the Venn diagram where the apple and blackberry were mixed had turned out to be the best part of it.
Stuart made orgasmic sounds that had Damien rolling his eyes at him. "Damien."
"Don't say it."
"You'll make some lucky woman a wonderful house-husband someday."
Damien cursed at him...in French. It wouldn't do to teach his highly intelligent infant to swear.
Danny, a mischievous glint in his green eyes, echoed the foreign phrase, making his father freeze with a look that plainly said, 'oh, shit,' while his friends laughed uproariously at him.
. . . . .
Notes:
And that was the last time Damien cursed in his son's hearing for a very, very long time.
Pi Day fell on a Monday in 2016, so the big family gathering with Q's whole spy fam was on the following Saturday. It would have been the weekend before, but Q was busy. You know, in case you were wondering where everyone was. Not that you were, probably...
