"James—" Q starts up, only to be rudely interrupted by that very same wanker, who busses Q's quivering nose tip, pressing a subtly cologne-scented cheekbone in and just barely managing to avoid smashing Q's fancy-arse dress specs into the rising arch of his dreadfully Holmesian nose. That's a startling thing to have happen, and so much so Q jumps where he stands and slips into a regrettable speech pattern, the one genetics has ditched him with, by the poor graces of all rat bastards relating back to Papa's august pedigree. "J-Jame'th?"
Sherly, Q is beginning to think, might very well be on to something here, what with his fierce show of territoriality. Q can actually get behind the notion—really, he can. He eyes James with ill intent, all his hackles raised. "James."
"No, settle, love, I'm right here. It's nothing much, the Captain's only an old fri—oh? Oh, but…ah. Mycroft Bloody Holmes, is that truly you in the flesh?"
Q moans, purely out of rising frustration. "Who? What? Who now, Jame'th? Him?"
But lives-to-be-disconcerting James Bond has already spun away on a heel, distracted, and has Q's eldest sibling straight in his sights, though he keeps an open-mouthed and pink-cheeked Q close by with a firmly latching grip on his elbow.
"Oh, no, no! You cannot be serious!" Q spits under his breath, his breath squeezed out him by the sudden steely grasp James has acquired upon him, right 'round his waist area. "You wanker, James." His flies press into the still tenderly aware skin of his groin, trousers fabric drawn taut by the insistence of James's hip; it recalls a marvelous sense-memory but does nothing for Q's peace of mind. "Ignominious old ship my arse!"
"But of course." And there's Bloody Mycroft, oiling his way in as James urges Q forward to meet him. And he's rolling his eyeballs at James, because sodding the obvious here—Holmes's Christmas dinner, isn't it, so of course all Holmes boys on deck and accounted for. "It is I."
"Yes, I do see that, now." James chuckles, though Q isn't certain why this should be a matter requiring laughter. It's only his terror of an eldest sibling, isn't it? Irritating to be sure but hardly special enough to rate noises like that from his James. "Of course it is, right? Funny, that. You never mentioned once you had a brace of little brothers, did you? Keeping them under wraps, I suppose."
At Mycroft's quick little nod and fast smirk, James takes up Q's brother's hand and shakes it firmly, having pressed his empty glass upon a slack-jawed and maybe-furious Q.
"Well, how's tricks, old man?" he inquires pleasantly enough, and perhaps that casual tone is just sufficient to lull Q into thinking he might've been mistaken. "Been a terribly long while since our uni days…and, ah."
Q is grateful that there isn't occurring a repeat of the last sort of wholehearted greeting he'd watched James engage in. However, the significance of the little pause he senses falling between the two men could freeze icebergs. Or melt them to boiling. Q isn't positive which and that really is a thing that he hates. As he has his dire suspicions, clearly, and they are running rampant in his head. Lines of equations generating other lines of equations and 'x' and 'y' spinning on an askew axis and if his James has fucked his brother, Q is dead positive his own mind will run screaming from his body and he'll just be left a pathetic shell.
"The…other."
The other?
"Oh, yes." Q is positive My blushes; dreadful! "That."
Other? More 'other'? Wasn't the last 'other' quite enough?
Q's slashing dark eyebrows climb to meet his tumbled hairline and then disappear entirely, hiding themselves as he undergoes sheer systemic shock. He snorts it off, wrenching himself in a side-stepping motion, seeking escape automatically. But James sticks fast, the bastarding shagging machine who's possibly fucked not only the British Government but also the entire Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. This sort of shock feels remarkably unpleasant to Q, especially when doubled. And it wasn't even Q who was supposed to be on the receiving end, not this particular evening! It was James, the slippery tosser who loves him.
At least...Q's fairly positive in his conclusions that James has come to entertain a certain degree of finer feelings for him, but there's always the sliver of doubt, isn't there?
Bugger the sherry, Q wants some tea. But first things first; there's an another anomaly on the up-and-up and he's bloody fucking curious enough to be tetchy over it. Who in their right mind would shag Q's eldest brother?...Oh, right then. The pet Yarder would, poor bugger.
"James."
Q doesn't happen to notice he strikes exactly the same querulous note his middle brother had, berating his paramour; no, not at all. He's busy gritting his teeth and attempting to shatter his sherry glass with the pressure of his fingers. James, however, nobly ignores Q's small tells in favour of toadying up to a waiting Mycroft.
"…James?" Q gulps, concerned, but the syllable is really very small suddenly, and quite overwhelmed by Mycroft's studied speech patterns.
"Really. It's a pleasure, Bond, as always." My excels at speaking; really, it's all he ever does, the fat sluggard. "I have—shall we say?—sorely missed the sight of you. If you don't mind me saying?"
Mycroft paces forward staidly, wearing what, for him, passes as a uniquely warm grimace. It's actually quite a charming look to him, warming up the permafrost considerably, and it leaves Q's own blood run quite cold. My is flirting—flirting?
"And a hearty welcome to our little family gathering, Bond, the—ahem!—that 'other' completely aside. I'm sure Mummy will be exceptionally pleased."
Q is all at once of the idea he might've joined Alice down the blasted rabbit hole. Or that his sherry had been spiked by Papa. But no...Papa generally doesn't drug his youngest boy, at least not on principle.
James, keeping a jittery Q close as houses, smiles in return of Mycroft's sly one. It's like watching a chess match: knight threatens rook and all that. No, it's more a very knowing species of smile and it intimates any number of things Q would absolutely murder all his fond aunties to learn the ramifications and history of—or mayhap not, on balance. In any event, he scowls like the blackest blazes at his innocent sherry whilst the two of them exchange what can only be termed as a sentimental eyefuck.
The pricks.
And My? Mycroft chatters on, the great gormless git, because that's what he does. Oh, god, yes he does, and it's utterly infuriating to be forced to hear him, all plummy vowels, but still slightly improved over imagining him and James back at uni, getting up to various indecencies in the stacks.
"You've been keeping well, I see." Q's eldest sibling coughs discreetly, clearing his throat and looking James all up and down. "Despite all those rumours to the contrary."
Q's gut curdles, literally. Will not his own parents at least come into their own parlour and put a stop to this? Because of course Sherly and John won't—they're a bit busy over in their corner, the brainless gits.
"Hmm." My is practically purring, the lines of his svelte-suited body shrieking silent attraction at James. Q chokes over it, the set of My's shoulders and the glint in his cool gaze, and is angry all over again at his own lover when a soothing thumb presses into the small of his spine and rubs. "Very, very well, Bond. Nice to see that confirmed. With…with my own eyes."
The transformative grin he receives from James is horribly, terribly reptilian; Q bridles where he stands, gone from deeply suspicious to entirely and quietly manic. Suddenly, Q has a complete understanding of Sherly's ridiculous display of a moment prior, regards his own man. And he'd like to join in, indulge in the animal, but his chest is a bit measly to make that sort of growly noise Sherly has down pat. Bloody posh fucks, the lot of them, well schooled, ta, but he'd really like to know how it is Sherly landed all the really dramatic genes and he's left with very few to speak of. Not that My is doing poorly in comparison to Sherly, as he's not, the clot.
"Ja—!"
"We were concerned, naturally, but now I see there was no need, not a one. And no need to inquire how you're going on these days, is there?" Mycroft carries on, regardless Q's deteriorating state of mind. Regardless also of the lurking form of his own date, who has quietly been edging closer all this while. "I see Baby here has got his hooks quite firmly in you. Did you know?"
Q zeros in on his lover's eyes as they crinkle charmingly at the corners; it's lovely to see. That look turned upon someone else, though? Hateful.
"Or did you not notice?"
"Oh, really, Mycroft." Q has to burst out, as this is just bleeding tragic, all of it. "Must you?"
"Of course you did." My has always and ever loved being correct; he smirks. Or smirks more; it's hard to judge the real degree of his self-satisfaction when a person is seeing what amounts to a rising red tide of rage and humiliation, both. "Can't miss it. Baby here never beats about the proverbial bush when he wants something—or someone. I see he's quite got you wrapped round his pinkie finger."
"Oh, that he does, little devil," James affirms gladly enough, inclining his leonine head and patting at Q's heaving ribcage in a horribly courtly manner. "Stands to reason, doesn't it? Always was a bit too fond of you, wasn't I? Back in the day, yes? Such as thing as running true to type, Myc. Can hardly blame me for it."
"Yes," Mycroft nods, gone all cat-in-the-cream, as if the opaque subject is as clear as daylight. "Yes, there it is, isn't it."
"Exactly so."
Sherlock takes this moment to exclaim inaudibly but angrily over some quiet murmur from his doctor friend, a muted shout which quite probably is also 'the infamous 007'-related, and John makes this hasty shushing noise in reply, squelching his second brother with a quick kiss, but Q is nearly completely attuned to his eldest brother and his James. It's both fascinating and appalling, watching these two razor sharp minds take apart Q's beloved construct of loving-trust and examine it under a lens, from all angles. Or maybe it's more like two sets of shiny shoe tips bashing at an unwary sand mound, disturbing the poor ants completely. Whatever—Q feels a bit violated. No...very.
Mycroft nods acquiescence to James's statement, and Q happens to catch out of the corner of his eye their most un-favourite family detective swivelling his chin and gawping over at the three of them, equally appalled. Sherly's hearing is preternaturally acute and Q finds it difficult to believe he's missed a word of what's on. Just as Q is gawping, actually. No—make that Q has been gawping and seems unable to stop. As this is appalling, all of it. And is there a better word available than merely 'appalling'? As he'd like to employ it, actually.
"James!" Q settles for exclaiming Bond's given name. Woefully lame and not particularly effective, as the only thing he gets out of it is James's broad palm and hard fingers spread hot and tight across his bum cheeks, squeezing down in brief pulses. Brilliant, but hardly to the point.
Really, Q's only real comfort is that James had rogered him righteously but a half hour before departure and had made certain to express any number of deliciously grunted and groaned sentiments against Q's swallowing throat and into the mess of his hair. Which Q is currently striving to recall rather desperately between bouts of fast blinking and rapid inhalations. The shock is passing at last, but only barely. Tea. Tea would be...good. Yes.
"And I can't say it hasn't been a mutual matter," Mycroft folds into the desultory but dangerous conversation very smoothly, crème layered atop the smarmy caramel of his best 'I know what you don't, little brother' voice, the bloody wanker. "A mutually beneficial exchange, really, over the intervening years. And now my own dearest Baby in remuneration for your services to the Crown? Well done, you."
"Thanks. Not exactly the way I'd express it, Mycroft, but still. I'm rather enjoying this, how it's all turned out. And Q, too. He seems quite enthusiastic, actually."
"Time to put up the bunting then, James?" Mycroft does that little quirk of lips, the one Sherly always claims he wants to slap straight off him. "Or perhaps go impetuously forward with the happy announcement over dinner, then? Mummy will be ecstatic, I'm sure. Or...is it too soon for such matters? Baby is young yet. Wet behind the ears, really. But…" Mycroft blinks once, slowly. "You must appreciate we all fret over him. We worry lest harm befall him."
"Mycroft!"
"Constantly."
"Oh, for fucks' sake, My—please just don't." Q's heart races in response. "Don't say another word, I beg you." Surely his brothers can not act in this way just this one time? Is Q not a fully grown man, for chrissake? With a gloriously crucial job of work, his own flat all to himself finally and enough responsibility mantled over his thin shoulders to choke a dead dodo? And is he not also perfectly capable of choosing his own form of poison, ta! "Keep your bloody talons off this subject, dear brother! I'm warning you. None of your bloody beeswax."
Q's burst of belligerence is taken as seriously as ever was, which is to say 'not', which is, ergo, ipso facto, precisely the reason he always defensively dons his earbuds at family dinners and listens to his loudest playlist at full volume, because trees falling in dead silence, right?
"Oh, no." James, as ever, is all charming brevity—until, that is, he's just as bloody brutal. "Wrong, Myc. This once." Well, his flash of teeth at Mycroft's stupidly interfering face and beetling brow is brutal, as is the narrowing of his eyes upon Q's brother's subsequent godawfully expectant expression. It's as good as any punch in the snoot, a real clock-winder, that light-eyed stare James has perfected. "You mistake me if you think for a moment this isn't serious. No need for any sudden disappearances, Myc, old man. All my intentions towards your brother are in perfectly good order."
"Oh. I see."
Q gurgles randomly, having been rendered well nigh speechless with a giant clot of rage, pride, joy and bewilderment. Has he just been proposed to? By James? Before the British Government, no less?
"Of course they are, Bond. Never doubted it."
"Well." James winks. "Don't then. Save yourself the trouble."
It appears the final word has been pronounced upon the subject. Mycroft licks his lips and rocks back on his heels, a palm briefly raised up in grudging acceptance.
"Not at all. Carry on, then. We'll leave you to it, I'm sure."
"Pardon?" Q locates his lost powers of coherent articulation, though he's likely grimacing horribly all the same at both those blasted bland politically correct faces. As they fully deserve, the blighters. "Jame'th—Jame'th, have you just? Was that a? Jame'th!"
"Er, ah?" Lestrade, the DI, is blinking fast and licking his lips as well, his whole silvered head tilted slightly as he pops up behind My's elbow. He, too, is seemingly floored by the revelations unfolding in Mummy's drawing room, but he appears fixated on the one specific one, though. Which was light-years ago, mentally, but Q does understand the poor DI might be experiencing some trouble fully assimilating it. "Er, My? My. Could you…would you just—I really think I just heard you admit—er, did you?"
"I didn't, really, darling, or rather I don't now." Mycroft instantly turns to the handsome man who is pursing his very fine, very firm lips, looking quite as though he's swallowing down a whole barrow of lemons. "Haven't for years, but I should wager that's obvious enough."
"No," the DI states flatly, folding his arms tightly across his chest and glaring. "No, it's really not, My."
By rights, Q concludes, his eldest sibling should have already burnt down to a pillar of fine ash, given the amount of non-verbal firepower Lestrade is throwing his direction. Sadly, he doesn't.
"Ah! Right, then—over here, shall we? Let's step away for a moment; settle up. Oh, and do excuse me, Bond," Mycroft nods benignly. "And Charlie? Baby, dearest, do mind your drink, please. You're dribbling a very decent decanting straight down your one cuff; most unsanitary. And please re-hinge your jaw bone; that's quite unattractive. No one needs see your teeth and gums."
"I! I! You! Errrr! Orrrp!" Whoops! There goes Q's newly rediscovered hold on the Queen's English, right up in smoke. "Fuck the fuck off, My!"
"No, it isn't," whispers James in Q's ringing ear. "Keep that gorgeous mouth open, pet. It's a good look on you. Suits."
"I!" Q does his level best to fry the man at his side with a barrage of whip-sharp mean-eyed glaring. Really, he has had quite enough of this shite. "I bloody well hate you!"
"No, you don't. Not really."
"Right. Excuse us." Mycroft sweeps on, throwing a hand through the air, one that just happens to take a firm grasp of his hapless lover's collar, tugging at it. "Pressing matter of importance just come up, right away. Gregory, come along over here, will you, dearest? We have things to discuss, apparently."
"Hey, now! I want my reputable witnesses, My," the canny DI protests. "And don't think you may do just what you like, when you like! Not having it, Mycroft Holmes."
"Of course not, darling. This way, please."
Mycroft has his quietly squawking Yarder swept away into another corner before Q can summon more actual words to address his brand new quandary. But that doesn't last long.
"All right there, Q?" Trust James to poke a stick into it.
"NO! I am not all right there, far from it. B-Both of them?" Q stammers, lunging forward and gripping James by the one lapel. This is—this is urgent! This is a corker, a cream pie flung in his mind's eye, and completely barking besides, just as Q will be reduced to if James doesn't immediately explain why and when he'd boffed both Q's eldest brother and his middle brother's ex-Army lover. Or perhaps not explain but at least justify. "Jame'th? Both?"
Also, there was the small matter of the annoying man apparently just proposing matrimony to Q, right under the nose of Q's previously Bond-shagged eldest brother. Who is a git but with the mind of a steel trap. Certainly James shan't be getting away with skiving; oh, no!
"Ah." James, being James, doesn't flush at all and meets Q's gaze very readily, unflinching. "Yes, as it happens. Yes, I did do. But that's long ago. I have you now, don't I? Only you. As I believe I mentioned earlier, Q—I'm right here. Haven't budged an inch, pet."
"You do," Q is quick to respond. "Of course you do, but if you think I'll ever allow—"
"Of course not, love. Never crossed my mind. That's all long dead in the water. Never to be resurrected, trust me."
"Really, now?" Q cocks his chin at James, feeling mightily obstreperous, and adjust his specs. "Oh, you say that, but…"
Here Q had believed he was the one with the enormous secret to unveil, and now his James has just gone and not only one-upped him, but two-upped him! It's outrageous, is what, this talk of civil partnerships. But also an excellent diversionary tactic, and Q instantly leaps upon it, being a practical sort.
"Hmm?" The icy blue stare has softened considerably now it's just the two of them, standing there. "What is it, Baby?"
"Stop that at once! It's 'Q'; you know that. And you? You say 'of course', you sly old dog, but how much may I really trust you?"
"Well…" James grins again—he's full of these tonight, oddly enough— and this one's warm as buttered toast and lights all Q's inner pyres instantly. "You can't, actually, or…you can, despite me. Your choice, really."
"I! I—no! You're bloody impossible, James!"
"Yes. So I've been advised." James leans in, a curiously swooping movement and Q fleetingly thinks of birds again, which is utter fanciful nonsense. "Recently. By my own Quartermaster, even. Come here, you little loon."
The further explanation Q is hoping for doesn't occur. He's well snogged before he knows what's happening to him, his half-emptied glass finally clinking downward to lie unnoticed to the carpet, and only manages to clue in—and catch up—in the middle.
"You really—you simply cannot—but it seems—am I run mad, James? Or is that you?"
James only shrugs at him, wrapping his arms more tightly about Q's back and bum. "Which will you do in the end, Q? I wonder."
"No—you—really—they're watching! Not there, Jame'th!"
"No, they're not."
By the start of the second snogging, Q has forgotten all about the explanations he's been panting for and the transgressions he's been totting up, just awaiting revenge. He has, however, recalled the full unromantic nature of the proposal James has made him, and is a bit miffed over it, nice as it is to have been the recipient.
"Oh! Oh, bloody you, you mad wanker!" Q is angry about that, naturally, but much less so as time passes so pleasantly. James is thorough. "Of course it's yes. You dolt, it's been yes for ages. Why do you even waste time ask—ugh!"
"Hmmm…good. Good."
James is very thorough. Apparently he's picked up on the universal indicator of general Holmesian approval.
"Yes! Very…good," Q replies after a bit longer, lips sloppy across that jaw, so smoothly shaven. "In...deed."