Secret Appendix
Q woke up slowly and gradually as if rising out of thick syrup or emerging from a cloudy haze. The first thing he noticed was the warm scent of garlic and ginger and some sort of soy sauce. Then, voices, but oddly muffled voices, as if they were coming from a TV or radio rather than a real-life person sitting next to him. Or, lying next to him, as the case may be, because he was most definitely horizontal. There were rough hands lightly holding onto his ankles, and an arm thrown over his waist. His head was resting on a cushion, on someone's lap, based on the rise and fall of breathing against his cheek, which he could only assume was mushed against said person's stomach.
Which, you know, was kind of embarrassing, but whatever.
There were soft fingers carding through his curls, which was nice, but the person's other hand was strangely absent. In addition to that particular weirdness, there was an odd sort of… pressure on his left shoulder, like something was resting on it. Something round and solid, like stone or ceramic or-
The entire day suddenly flashed through his mind and he realised with a groan exactly where he was and who he was with.
And based on the knowledge he'd gathered earlier this evening, and his admittedly limited knowledge of what was meant to happen before he fell asleep, he could safely extrapolate the data to come to one single conclusion.
"009, are you currently using me as your dinner plate?"
There was a beat of silence, and another, and another, before the plate-shaped object slowly slid off of his shoulder.
"... No".
Q sighed and reluctantly opened his eyes. Based on the amount of black leather mere millimetres from his face, he could safely say that it was, in fact, Edie that he was lying on. Based on the amount of blurry black leather mere millimetres from his face, he could safely say that she had removed his glasses at some stage too.
Awkwardly rolling over, he scowled up at her far-too-amused smile.
"You are absolutely-"
"Don't you dare!"
"-adorable!"
"I am your superior!"
Edie merely winked as her grin widened. Huffing, Q even more awkwardly attempted to sit up, which was made somewhat difficult by the second and third pair of hands currently holding onto his legs and waist.
Charlie and Alexis, it would seem.
He wasn't surprised.
He still glared at both of them anyway.
Alexis snorted and reached forwards toward the coffee table, picking up what he could only assume were his glasses before holding them out to him.
"You look a lot… older without your glasses".
"Thanks" he replied dryly, gladly putting them back on.
"I'd have thought you would have switched to contact lenses years ago" she continued, "I mean, the benefit of not looking like a college kid aside, wouldn't they be a lot easier to use for your work?"
"Sure" Q agreed, finally breaking free of their holds, "The problem is, you can't really modify contact lenses. At least, not to the degree that I'd want to change them to".
"So your glasses are modified?" Saif asked curiously, from his place on the floor in front of him. The Quartermaster had to draw both legs up to his chest to avoid hitting the man as he sat up, but the traitor made no move to make space for him.
"To a certain extent, yeah" he replied, "There's a built-in GPS tracker, a hidden camera, and a thin blade coated with a paralysing poison in one of the arms".
Saif stared at him.
"... I am so glad that I decided not to try them on".
Now that he was upright, Q could finally get a sense of the room. He was still on the soft leather couch, squished between Edie and Alexis while Charlie sat at the far end. Saif was sitting on the ground in front of him, using the coffee table to hold his plate filled with wonderful smelling Chinese food, while Duncan remained in the armchair Q remembered him taking before he fell asleep. Which just left one other armchair free for the remaining double-0 who was-
"Well, hello there sleepy head!" Alec grinned, limping in from the kitchen with a bottle of vodka in hand. "You know, when I started calling you cub, I didn't expect you to hibernate like one".
Q ignored the teasing and instead zoned in on the alcohol, the very sight of the familiar drink turning his stomach and making his head ache. Reaching up with careful hands, he prodded at the bruises surrounding his neck which thankfully weren't a fraction as painful as they'd been before.
He wasn't sure if that was the ice pack's doing or the vodka.
Following his movements, Alec winced, even as he took his place on the armchair opposite him and uncapped the bottle in his hands.
"You want to take something to deaden the pain?"
"That depends" he replied cautiously, "Would I be taking medicine or alcohol?"
He gave a roguish grin that set the omega's heart racing. "Alcohol is the best medicine, cub".
Charlie frowned. "I thought that was laughter?"
"Alright, well, let me put it this way. If you got shot in the middle of a gunfight, would you prefer some whiskey or a joke?"
"... Fair enough".
Saif picked up the brown paper take-out bag on the coffee table and held it back to him. Surprised, Q took it, and was beyond grateful to find a carton of vegetable chow mein inside. Gladly pulling it closer, he grabbed the wooden chopsticks that came with it, snapped them in two, and dug in.
On his other side, Edie also frowned, although hers was more out of concern than confusion. "When was the last time you ate, sweetheart?"
He froze, mouth half-full, one noodle almost guiltily still caught between the chopsticks.
009 sighed. "Q".
He quickly swallowed. "I was busy!"
"Doing what?"
He stabbed a chopstick at Alec. "Well, saving his ass for starters!"
"Oy! Don't put all the blame on me!" he immediately protested, "I'm injured enough as it is without the rest of this lot attacking me!"
"I'm not putting all the blame on you, you idiot! I'm simply saying that I had far more important things to worry about than grabbing a- a- a bloody bagel!" Q snapped, "And, actually, while we're on the topic of wayward double-0s, just where the hell were you lot for the past two days?!"
"Aw, did you miss us, hun?" Alexis asked, throwing an arm around his shoulder, but Q was too tired and hungry and just done to try and figure out if she was being sarcastic or serious right now.
Instead, he angrily stabbed a shredded carrot and crunched it between his teeth. "You promised me daily hugs, 001, so just what the hell happened to that plan?"
"Well... Alec did".
Q paused, thought, frowned, thought again, before finally turning to the blond in question, more than slightly confused.
Alec winced, vodka bottle still in hand. "Yeah, that, uh… that part you can put all the blame on me for".
"Hey, it was a group decision!" Saif countered, "Geniuses think alike, and all that".
"But fools seldom differ" Q bit out, narrowing his eyes, "Explain. Now".
Alec uncapped the vodka, took a large mouthful, and then turned to Alexis. "It was your idea".
"One that we all vetoed" she shot back, "And it was Saif who turned the suggestion into an actual plan!"
"Only because Fortier pointed out the possibilities of it!" 005 protested, and across from him, Duncan growled. "Yeah, you fucking idiot, like anyone with half a brain could have done! Just ask Blair!"
"Hey, don't bring me into this!" Charlie said, panicked, "I was only repeating what Edie told me!"
"And I was only repeating what Alec told me!" 009 finished, turning back to the blond with a raised eyebrow, "Well?"
Alec took another gulp of alcohol. "... Fuck".
Q took a nice, deep, not-so-calming breath, and decided that as soon as M suggested an early retirement plan to him, he was going to fucking take it.
"Well, 006?" he asked, "It seems like you were the one behind all of this after all".
"… I asked them to leave for a while, and they agreed".
So it was Alec's fault that he went two whole days without cuddles.
"Why?"
"Because-" He glanced away as if embarrassed, which was odd because double-0s never got embarrassed, and least of all 00-bloody-6. "... Because you would have smelt like them".
Silence.
Q blinked, blinked again, and then methodologically swallowed his mouthful of noodles. "Because I would have what?!"
He threw his hands in the air and turned back to Alexis. "Your turn. Now!"
She sighed but didn't protest, instead sneaking one hand around the omega's waist as he turned to her in betrayal.
"Alec messaged us after he met the extraction team" she started, "He explained what had happened; that a vial had shattered and he was compromised. We knew he was going to go into a full-on rage and likely would still be in one after he returned to '6".
"But what has that got to do with the rest of you lot abandoning me?!" he demanded, pouting, but Alexis merely smiled, seemingly amused, before turning to Saif and gesturing for him to continue the story.
He did, of course, but it was in a far more blunt manner than 001 had used.
"If he was going to be in a full-on rage, then the last thing we needed was for his omega to smell like another alpha".
Q froze even as he felt his face flush a bright red. He didn't dare glance at Alec.
"But I'm not his omega".
Alexis's grip around his waist tightened. "You're all of ours, hun, whether we like it or not. If Alec had scented one of us on you then it would have made him even more aggressive because his drug-hazed mind would have seen it as a threat. It was for the best that we kept our distance until he gave us the all-clear".
Unfortunately, it made sense, and as much as Q wanted to be mad at them for leaving him for two days straight, especially since the entire disaster had started immediately after their little post-prank-war heart-to-heart talk, he couldn't be.
They were doing what was best for both him and Alec, no matter how much he didn't like their actions, and if he had tried to calm down a raging double-0 while smelling like a competitor, then it wouldn't have ended well for anyone. Although…
"Wait, you guys all decided this before Alec reached England?"
Each of them nodded, and his frown deepened along with his confusion.
"But if that was before we knew how bad it was, and before we realised that a holding cell was quite literally the only option… then how, exactly, did you guys know that I'd eventually decide to try and calm him?"
Charlie snorted.
Edie stretched across the couch to head smack him.
Q just wanted things to start making sense again.
"No offence, sweetheart, but… it was kind of obvious".
"How?!" he exploded, shoving his half-eaten carton of chow mein back onto the coffee table, "I didn't even know what I was going to do until this afternoon! But you guys decided all of this yesterday?!"
Saif reached up to ruffle his hair with a smirk.
"Hey, if you could handle our resident psychopath at his worst-"
"And calm down that fucking idiot post-mission" Duncan added.
"-then you could most definitely handle Alec" he finished, giving the larger man a dirty look.
"... Still though!" He pouted, folding his arms across his chest. "I didn't realise I was so bloody predictable!"
"You're not, sweetheart" Edie soothed, pulling his head down to rest on her shoulder once more, "In fact you're one of the least predictable people that I've ever met, and that really is saying something".
"Exactly" Charlie agreed, from his other side, "It's not that we knew what you would do because it was obvious. We knew what you would do because we know you. You're sarcastic and cynical and more than a little snarky, but you're also kind to a fault. We knew you'd do everything in your power to help Alec, even if that help came at the expense of yourself".
"Which I ten-out-of-ten do not recommend" 006 finished, still looking slightly awkward, "My life isn't worth yours, cub, so if something like this ever happens again then you better get the hell out of there. Understood?"
"No".
"Cub".
"I'm not going to let you just- just sit there and- and sacrifice yourself in the off-chance that you might get a little bit too rough!" he snapped, "I know who I am, Alec, and I know what I am too. So if there is even the slightest chance that I can- can help one of you, omega or not, then I'm bloody well going to take it!"
"I can't ask you to do that!"
"You're not asking, I'm offering!" he shot back, "And more than that! I'm- I'm telling you! As an order! As your Quartermaster! So- So there! You're going to be bloody saved every damn time if I have any say in it because your life is worth just as much as everyone else's if not more so you get no bloody choice in the matter because you are worth saving, you stupid bloody knothead!"
Alec was staring at him.
Alec was staring at him.
And staring and staring and staring even as Q continue to pant and started to blush as his own words caught up with him and his heart raced and his palms turned sweaty and-
"Oh for fuck's sake" Duncan muttered, abruptly standing and marching over to him.
The omega turned to him, startled, but before he could so much as blink, the man had hoisted him off the couch, thrown him over his shoulder, and then none-too-gently dropped him onto Alec's lap.
"Hey!"
"Watch it!"
"You're fucking welcome". Duncan scowled at both of them. "Now shut the fuck up; I'm trying to actually watch this!"
And with that, he stormed back to his armchair and returned his focus to the flatscreen TV. Q, absolutely mortified, tried to scramble off of Alec's actual genuine literal lap, but the alpha himself didn't appear to be too bothered and didn't make a single move to help.
The omega paused and glanced at him. "... Am I not hurting you right now?"
"No offence, cub, but you're about a hundred pounds wet".
"Uh, one hundred and twenty, fuck you!" he immediately shot back, before softening once more, "But, seriously, I'm not… poking you anywhere? You are injured, you know, no matter how quickly you checked yourself out of medical".
In response, Alec wrapped both arms around his waist and pulled him even closer until the omega was sitting sideways on his lap, his head resting on a surprisingly comfortable shoulder.
"I've carried a hell of a lot more weight than you while being a hell of lot more injured, cub… And besides, you smell nice".
So do you, Q wanted to reply, momentarily forgetting where he was and just who he was with, but before he could say anything, there came a low growl from across the room.
"Would you two stop fucking talking already?" Duncan snapped, stabbing his plate of noodles with far more force than necessary, "I'm trying to watch this fucking TV show!"
Oh yes, Q remembered, the TV was on. Just what on earth did the double-0s watch, anyway?
Turning back around, he finally faced the TV, frowning at the vaguely familiar character names and slightly more familiar London locations, until-
"Hang on". He suddenly straightened up. "Are you lot seriously watching EastEnders?!"
Edie shoved another chopstick of food into her mouth and hummed, her eyes remaining riveted on the screen.
"It's watched by almost eight million people, you know. Some years that number goes up to twelve".
"I didn't know. Also, follow up, why does that matter?"
"Well, the population of London is only nine million" she continued, still staring at the TV, "It's interesting to try and work out why people watch it".
At the other end of the couch, Charlie nodded, also following along with the show. "Exactly. It's also unnecessarily dramatic, which makes it a lot easier for us to figure out why the characters are reacting the way that they are to different situations".
"Which makes it easier again to analyse their movements" Saif finished, "Which then explains their motives behind doing things".
They watched soap operas like normal people watched nature documentaries, Q realised in horror. They were studying the actions of normal people like they were specimens in a zoo.
He felt a huff of warm breath against the back of neck, and he turned back to give Alec a look of equal parts confusion and terror.
"Go back to sleep, Q" he simply replied, gently pulling him down against his chest, "Your brain will thank you".