lepidopterologist

"No," Q said, standing in the doorway now, his lips pressed into a firm line. "You don't have any right to know who I'm with, or not with," he assured James, exhaling through his nose and stepping inside.

"However, since you're so set on prying your way into mine, and Harry's, private lives, I'll have you know I'm not sleeping with anyone."

Harry looked at Q when he walked in. Well, there, it was out. He half expected Bond to just grab Q and kiss him. Which might make Harry physically ill.

"I think perhaps neither of you want me here anymore," he finally said.

"I think you should stay right where you are," Bond replied, then looked at Q. "Because I'm sure you're not keen to be alone with me just yet."

He looked back.

"And there's dinner to think of."

That felt like a threat, and Q wished it didn't give him such a twisted little thrill.

"I want you both to stay," he assured Harry, taking his glasses off and using the hem of his shirt to clean them. "I stand by what I've always said, we need to work together. So... We need to find a way to make this work. We need to be practical, rather than emotional. We all clearly all have various desires, and ignoring them isn't going to help us survive here. James is well aware of my interest in him, and I'm now aware of Harry's interest in me. ...An interest I find to be mutual. So- I suggest we all have dinner together like adults and work out the kinks, no pun intended, as best we can. We're modern men, and at least two of us are reasonable. There has to be a way we can all get along."

It had never even occurred to Harry that Q might have told Bond about his interest. If it had, he probably would have kept his mouth shut.

He honestly had no idea what to say, and he certainly couldn't bring himself to look at Bond.

He winced visibly, let out a little sigh, and then... went back to chopping onions. Simply out of lack of anything else to do.

"Would it be terrible if I admitted I have little interest in Harry in this little triangle?" Bond asked, fighting against the jealousy that boiled up in him. Harry was keen on Q, and Q clearly didn't balk at that.

Now Bond knew he was likely the most unlikely person in the world to be monogamous, and that alone was enough to get him to realize he could hardly demand the same thing from Q. If they ever got back and there were to be a mission that required him to seduce someone...he'd do it. Without a second thought he would do it. And in all fairness he couldn't expect Q to accept him fucking a target and not indulge himself.

Hell, there was that nurse...

"There must be," he agreed, sounding remarkably sensible for someone so obviously jealous.

"I don't think it's terrible, after all, your taste has always been questionable," Q teased, his tone mistakingly betraying the fact that he couldn't stay mad at James, no matter how much of a bastard the double-o was.

"Besides, not all relationships are sexual, and this is all very new. We're all still learning to live and work with one another."

Edited 2018-03-09 05:24 (UTC)

Harry was glad he had his back to them at the moment. He was quite close to feeling utterly humiliated.

"Q," he said quietly, turning just enough so that he could catch his eyes. "If I hadn't spoken up, you might never have given me a second thought, in that way."

"He may have," Bond replied, then looked at Q. "My taste is hardly questionable. I have excellent taste," he protested.

He did. In liquor, in women, and even in this foreign territory of love he thought he had impeccable judgment.

"I noticed you were handsome the first time we met, Harry- You've no idea if I would have, or already had thought of you in any particular way," Q assured him, a touch defensive.

The boffin frowned slightly, then looked down at the table. "Perhaps I ought to be the one who leaves, since I am apparently the issue here."

Harry sighed. "The two of you have been dancing around this since long before I came into the picture. I believe that makes me the problem." He shifted his gaze to Q, expression softening. "I can't help what I feel. But I never expected anything to come of it, and I just want you to be happy."

Bond snorted. "We'll never be happy, he scoffed. "Not in this line of work. Best we can hope for is stable, and we all know that won't last. So what I must ask is...how stale can three people be?"

Three plus the dozens of synthetics he'd had in the last weeks, but he wasn't going to admit to that.

For once, Q couldn't help but agree with Bond. Happy wasn't likely in the cards for any of them, not for more than the few moments they could find here and there.

"Perhaps instead of drawing lines in the sand here and there, we just... We just coexist for now and let life take us wherever it will," Q suggested. "Bond's not wrong, happy isn't something anyone in our field gets the pleasure of being terribly often. It's a rare pleasure. I feel safe here though, with both of you. I feel more certain that returning to London is a possibility when we're all together. More than sex, love, or any other pleasures- I think I need that. I need that, and if any of the other things follow, I'll simply be grateful that I could have more than just peace of mind."

Harry really didn't know how to react to this. He had a feeling that Bond would prefer to just push him over a cliff as opposed to coexisting. And as for how he felt about it... it was a kind of complication he had no experience with and wasn't sure would be good for his emotional wellbeing. Though suppressing his feelings for Q hadn't been that great either.

"I'm... a bit at a loss," he finally said. Then he glanced at Bond. "Though I think I may need to sleep with one eye open." And he only had one eye anyway.

Bond hated it. Coexist? He was far too possessive for that.

But it did make sense, and he imagined that if he was to ever have a worthy opponent, it would be Harry. He loved Q, or maybe he only fancied he did, though he was quite certain after playing out scenario after scenario with the replicants that he did indeed love Q. Perhaps a compromise wasn't beyond reason.

Even if he did want to punch Harry's placid face until he was barely recognizable.

"If you think that's best, Q," he said hesitantly.

"I've no idea if it's best, but it feels right. Sometimes one has to simply go with their gut feeling," Q said softly. "As for sleeping with one eye open, we can all be adults here, can't we, James,?"

Harry glanced at Bond again, and knew that just as he thought Bond unworthy of Q, Bond thought the same of him, though for entirely different reasons.

Honestly he didn't expect this to change much. He found that he still didn't think that Q would actually want him. So the question was simply if he'd be able to stand it when Q and Bond finally stopped fighting their desires. He honestly wasn't sure.

He didn't say anything.

"I imagine so," he replied. Jack was being a bit of a nuisance at his ankle and he bent to pat the pup. "I've never had a problem going with my gut, as I'm sure you know, Q. I've disregarded you in my ear enough times."

He gathered the dog up and held him close while the pup tried to lick his face.

"Harry, I'm sure you've nothing to fear."

Q sighed, pushing his hair back and looking away from the pair. He was silent for a long moment, and his gaze remained a million miles away even as he finally spoke again.

"You know back in London, before six, I was... I was a mess, honestly. I spent my days surrounded by tech, looking into things that could have landed me behind bars and my nights with older men who I pretended cared about me. ...That's not in any of my files. Not something you could look up about me. It's true though, I spent a very long time looking for things from people who had no interest in giving them to me. Some of them had wives, many of them had jobs they wouldn't dare risk by being caught with some teenager. So there is something about sitting in a room with two men of a certain age who do, apparently, have a genuine interest in me. ...I say that not to be cocky, but to make my position better understood, I think." he said, finally forcing himself to look at James, and then Harry. "It's hard not to be greedy after you've been starved, I suppose."

Unexpectedly, Harry felt a stab of guilt at that confession.

It was possible he'd been one of those men once - not with Q, of course. But he was both closeted and in a job where it was against the code to have relationships, to let yourself to get too close to anyone. Every tryst he'd ever had in his life - it hadn't meant anything. When he felt himself wanting more, or felt the other man wanting more, he cut it off. Perhaps this was why these trysts had been so sparing.

Harry was convinced that this would all shake out in a way that did not include him, in the end. But he couldn't make himself walk away either. What he'd told Q had been right - he didn't know how to form relationships, not the way normal people did. The fact that he'd gotten so close to Q, that he was so comfortable with him, that wasn't something he was willing to give up. At least, not yet. Not until it started causing him more pain than comfort. Which might not be far off, considering how complicated this was getting.

"Honestly..." he said after a moment, "I find this all too alien to even be able to object properly."

Then he looked at Bond. "And you needn't worry, I don't fear you." The words were not a threat exactly, but he hoped that by now the man knew not to underestimate him.

Bond thought it a bit funny that Q would say he felt greedy when he kept him at arm's length. Boundaries. Stolen kisses...clear desire but no trust. Q may be flattered that he was wanted, but Bond wanted more.

Oddly enough, this was just the right carrot to dangle in front of him.

"You're serious," he realized. "That we three should come to some sort of arrangement." He looked at Q, then at Harry, then back again. He found himself in quite the spot. He was a selfish man and when forced to realize this wasn't all about him...well, that hit him harder than any of Q's talk about boundaries.

"All right then," he finally said, though it didn't quite sound like he was agreeing. Just accepting.

"If we were all to proceed, I do think it would be good for us to share some intimate space on occasion. Not specifically in a sexual way, but in a way that encourages bonding. Sharing a bed on occasion, for example. That might actually be a good place to start. ... Something to consider during dinner, at the very least," Q suggested.

Harry was entirely taken off guard by this. Deer in headlights. He hadn’t really been considering this in terms of the three of them... and he’d been fairly certain that by now Bond would like to see him disappear. And he wasn’t all that fond of Bond either... except for how attractive he was. That was difficult to deny.

So all he said was, “I should get back to cooking.”

About the time Harry spoke, Bond did too. He snorted in amusement and shook his head.

"You make it sound like some sort of team building corporate retreat, Q. Encourage bonding? You think cramming us all into one bed is going to make us a unit?" he asked, laughing softly.

Q looked stung by that, and he fell silent as he looked down at his hands.

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