Harry Hart

Q was on Harry's lap and his hands were starting to work at his zipper.

"Perhaps... an appetizer?" he murmured. He knew they really oughtn't, not here in his office, but suddenly he couldn't bring himself to care.

Harry wasn't introspective enough to have actually realized this, but he had been a bit more domestic than usual since Q had returned from being kidnapped. Somehow this had been a catalyst for him to realize that his job, which had previously consumed his entire life, was not everything.

In any case, one thing this meant was taking some real time to cook. He'd picked up the lamb that morning (and met the pleasant well-dressed man he'd given his tailoring card to), done some work (mostly wrangling Eggsy) and then started cooking. By the time it was about time when Q and Bond would come home, the kitchen smelled deliciously like rosemary and meat.

Harry had tried Bond's private line first. And this was, of course, after Eggsy. He hesitated before calling the landline at the house that he shared with Q and Bond.

He knew there was a chance that he wouldn't get Bond, but Q, and there were many reasons that he wasn't keen on bringing Q into this, but at least Harry knew that he could help, if it worked out that way.

"Ah, hello, Q," he said when he heard the young man answer. "I don't suppose James is about?"

[continued from here]

Harry had arrived a bit earlier than he told Q he would, but honestly. Q was drunk at a vampire bar. Was he really supposed to just take him at his word that he was okay?

He stood in front of the car, and felt relieved when he saw Q emerge. Accompanied by a rather exotic looking man. And seeming fairly friendly.

"Q. Are you all right?" was the first thing he said when Q approached him.

Harry knew he probably looked ridiculous, but sometimes he still walked the beach wearing a suit. At least his feet were bare.

There was something relaxing about it, though, the beach walking. And Harry still felt more comfortable in a suit than he did in pajamas. He felt like it was going to start getting cold soon. He wondered how cold. How long had they been here? Had it even been a year yet? He was starting to be unsure.

He was about to turn and head back when he caught a glimpse of a figure moving out of the edge of his vision, and he turned to see James emerging from the water. James wearing a speedo. James wet and wearing a speedo.

Harry really hoped that the way he was standing there simply seemed like he was waiting to say hello, and not that he was staring.

[continued from here]

"You, Harry. I want you."

In response to that, Harry grasped at Q's shirt and pulled him down into a hungry kiss.

Harry was very grateful that Q had constructed him some glasses. With one lens clear and one tinted black, they were much like the ones that Merlin - the real Merlin - had made for him. Now he no longer looked like he might be blind, and more like... a very posh pirate.

He was currently sitting at a table in the kitchen, a pair of gray trousers over his lap, needle in his hand, seaming up a leg he'd just taken in. His legs were crossed, and an ankle of a bright blue sock peeked out above his shoe.

With his free hand, he reached over to a still hot cup of just slightly milky black tea.

Why did it always seem to be pubs lately?

Harry had not come in here looking for a fight. It was intended to be a simple meeting with a contact who had some information relevant to a skirmish in the Middle East they'd been looking into. The contact was a journalist, supposedly harmless... But someone had missed something. It was an ambush.

This time, it had been someone else who'd locked the doors to the pub. One moment, Harry was sitting at a table with the contact, halfway through a Guinness. The next, a man from the bar had gotten up and locked the door, and then all three men from the bar were coming at him.

The fight might have been quicker a year ago, before he'd been shot in the head. Before occasional hallucinations of butterflies in the middle of fights. But his coordination had gotten better in the past couple of months. He'd been working on it. He hadn't even had to shoot anyone. Just hand-to-hand combat paired with a few stun darts from the umbrella. Blood was even kept to a minimum. But by the time it was over, all four men were knocked out in various states of bruised, bloody, and broken on the floor of the bar.

At some point during the fight he'd also shot a stun dart out of his watch to hit the bartender just before he'd called the police. He hadn't even noticed the young man sitting at a booth in the back, not until it was all over. So after hitting the unconscious bartender with another dart from his watch, this time set to "amnesia," he turned his attention to him.

"I'm terribly sorry," he said.