Chapter Text
“— And we ate dinner last night watching this show, because Alec insisted. He’s become rather obsessed with it, I’m afraid.” Q tweaked the camera he was controlling to focus on James. Technically, he shouldn’t be hacking an allied country’s CCTV system simply to watch his boyfriend walk back to his hotel on a New York City street, but what Mallory didn’t know he was doing at home in his off time wouldn’t hurt him.
“Alec? And a cooking show?” James turned to look up at the camera, disbelief apparent on his face, even through the grainy picture.
“Yes. If we’re not careful, he’s going to leave us for one of the hosts — he has ‘gorgeous blue eyes’ apparently.”
“More gorgeous than my blue eyes? I doubt that,” James shot back, his voice full of amusement.
“You’ll have to ask Alec about that. I prefer deft hands myself,” Q teased. “He’s going to want you to watch the show with him, you know. He’s up to the sixth series, but he’s watched the fifth series twice. One of the contestants had a guillotine —”
“You have got to be kidding me. A guillotine? Really, Q. It’s not even the first of April.”
“I’m serious, James.”
“Oh, are we Gryffindors, now? Does that mean Alec is Remus?”
Q groaned. “Stop it, that’s not funny.”
“You started it.”
“No, I did —” he broke off with a frown as the feed from the camera dropped. “That’s vexing.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Something tried to take control of the camera I’ve got on you. That won’t do at all. Don’t interrupt me for a few minutes, please.”
He delved deeper into the internet, checking the code he was tweaking. It all seemed to be in order. No doubt it was simply a glitch due to trying to connect incompatible systems. He pressed the final key combination and brought the CCTV feed back up. The image showed James stopped by a newsstand, looking through the headlines. “I’m back, I can see you again.”
James smiled. “Never doubted you for an instant.” He paid the newsagent and tucked one of the papers under his arm as he headed off in the direction of his hotel.
“Anything interesting in the paper?” Q switched to the next camera as James approached it.
“Just an article about a mysterious Man in a Suit that the police are trying to locate.”
Q, in the middle of reaching for his laptop so he could log the issue, stopped and looked sharply at the screen. “What? Why are they trying to find you? You’ve been in the city less than twenty-four hours. What did you do?”
“Not me,” James responded virtuously. “Someone’s borrowed my sartorial MO.”
“That’s hard to believe,” he muttered under his breath. James was the only Double O who insisted on wearing suits while on his missions. Even Alec, who prefered to wear jeans and a t-shirt, would wear whatever he needed to blend in. Although… he had heard rumours of an agent from the U.N.C.L.E., Napoleon something — obviously an assumed name — who ran up his expense accounts because he destroyed his suits while working. On second thought, perhaps agents insisting on wearing suits was more common than he’d imagined.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, just talking to myself. When will you be home?”
“About twelve hours from now. I’ll be leaving for the airport at —”
The doorbell caught Q’s attention. Odd — they weren’t expecting anyone. “One moment, please.” Once again James fell silent. Q pulled up the camera feed for their front door, only to find that it had been overridden. Was that worrying or annoying? Of the two other people besides himself authorized to override that feed, one was currently in New York, while the other was supposed to be sitting in the living room, feet up, watching a cooking show. “I’ve got to go check on Alec. If he’s walking on that ankle after I’ve told him not to, he might not live to see you when you get home. If I don’t talk to you before you leave, have a good flight. Love you!”
“Love you, too, and good luck with him!”
The rest of the flat remained worryingly quiet — he didn’t even hear the telly — as he turned off his earpiece and shut down the computer.
~~~~
The living room was empty save for the cats, and the television that had been playing nonstop all day was turned off. Two furry heads, one a silver tabby point Siamese, and the other an amber Somali, poked cautiously over the top of the upper level of their cat tree. It was their usual hideout spot when visitors were over.
Muffled voices came from the kitchen. What was going on? The sounds grew louder as he turned the corner. Half-hidden by the floor-to-ceiling storage cabinet next to the kitchen door, he scanned the room. The small television on the counter was playing one of Alec’s Great British Bake Off episodes, and a young blonde woman he vaguely recognized from the field agent’s roster sat at the table with a slightly stunned look in her eyes and a courier bag at her feet. Alec stood — well, leaned — against the counter, holding a cookbook. Q stepped forward, narrowing his eyes. “Where’s your crutch? For that matter, why are you standing up?”
Alec placed the cookbook on the counter and grinned at him. “Two of the contestants in this episode of GBBO are doing unusual cakes — one is flourless, and the other one is made with tomatoes. I'm going to combine the two ideas and make a flourless chocolate tomato cake. Barnaby is going to be my taste tester. She's from Midsomer, where they were filming.”
Q blinked, not quite sure of what to make of a flourless cake, much less one made with tomatoes. It sounded like an experiment doomed to failure, and a terrible thing to do to poor, innocent chocolate. Wait… “Did you turn off the camera at the door?”
Alec shrugged his shoulder dismissively. “I was waiting for an order to be delivered, but when I opened the door it was young Barnaby here, which was a stroke of luck, really.”
Barnaby… Ah yes, her first name was Cully, he remembered finally. There was something about the Midsomer connection, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. No matter, he’d remember sooner or later.
Cully sat at the table with the frozen grin of someone who regretted every life choice that brought them to this point, and a hint of wildness around her eyes that said she knew too well the horrors of a family member's culinary experiments. Q took a breath, and instead of lecturing Alec about turning the security camera off, changed what he was about to say. “That certainly sounds like an interesting experiment, but you shouldn’t be standing on that ankle. Go sit down.“ He ignored the injured green eyes full of reproach and pointed to the chair that had the abandoned crutch leaning beside it. He turned to Cully. “Agent Barnaby, is there an official reason you’re here?”
“Oh! Yes, sir.” She took a key out of her pocket and unlocked the courier bag. “I have a package for you from Mr Tanner.”
Why had Tanner sent a courier rather than wait until he got back to the office? Q took the package she handed him. The box was roughly the size of a deck of cards. What was Tanner playing at? Then he realized — this was probably his winnings. They’d had a bet about how many vehicles James would destroy in the course of his latest mission. Q had bet in James’ favor, and Tanner, no doubt, would be grousing about insider knowledge for the next little while. He put the box in his back pocket, ignoring Alec’s look of interest, and smiled at Cully. “Thank you, Agent Barnaby. Why don’t you head back to MI6 and report to Tanner that your mission has been accomplished?”
“No!” Alec protested. “She’s going to be my taste tester.”
Cully looked at Q, her eyes widening in a mute plea, and he waved her toward the door. Her relief was palpable as she stood. “Thank you, sir!” She practically fled the flat with the air of someone who has had an unexpected reprieve from the firing squad.
Q waited for the click of the front door lock engaging, and then turned his attention back to — a thoroughly annoying man who cared nothing for his own well-being because he was now rummaging through one of the cabinets. “What are you doing?”
Alec turned around, clutching a suspiciously familiar tin. “Tomato soup!” he crowed in triumph.
“Sit down before you fall down!” Worry made his voice sharp.
“But I’m fine,” Alec protested, despite the way he leaned heavily against the counter for support.
“Sit. Down.”
Alec heaved a put upon sigh and limped — gingerly — back to the chair.
Q’s resolve to make Alec go back under his own power lasted for all of a nano second before he was ducking under Alec’s arm to help. “What am I going to do with you? If you don’t stay off that ankle it will take forever to heal.”
Alec turned a roguish smile on Q as he sat. “You can do anything to me that you’d like.”
“What I’d like is for you to take better care of yourself, and stay off that ankle.”
Guilt flashed across Alec’s face. “I’m sorry. I just hate sitting around with nothing to do but watch the telly. I’m bored.”
If there was one thing all Double O’s universally despised, it was enforced downtime while they healed. Q thought quickly. He needed to keep Alec distracted… Maybe if he helped make those ridiculous cakes, he could convince Alec to keep weight off that ankle. Of course, if there ended up being leftover chocolate… he was sure one of his Double O’s was inventive enough to find a use for it. He shot a wicked smirk at Alec. “I guess I’ll just have to make sure you’re no longer bored.”
Alec raised an eyebrow. “And how do you plan on doing that?”
“First we’ll make your cakes —”
“Cake!”
“Cakes, ” Q said firmly. “You said it was an experiment. We’re going to do it properly, and make one of each type as a control before making the modified cake. After that… I’m sure you can think of some way we can keep ourselves occupied until James gets home.”
Alec smiled, a broad grin that lit up his eyes. “My dear Quartermaster, you make the most excellent plans.”
~~~~
James let himself into the flat, making no particular effort to be quiet. The soft beep of the security system would have repeated in several rooms throughout the flat, awakening Alec at least, and probably Q, too. Attempting any kind of stealth would pretty much guarantee one or both of them — no, only Q, since Alec could barely walk with his injured ankle — would be in the hallway with a gun pointed towards the suspected intruder. “It’s just me!” he called out as he shut the door.
He grinned at the muffled shout from the direction of the bedroom that he got in response. Alec and Q were probably comfortable and didn’t want to get up. He’d just get a snack in the kitchen and then join them in bed. Naturally, Sineya and Inara appeared out of the shadows as soon as the little opportunists realized he was headed for the kitchen.
They darted past him as he stopped in the doorway, stunned, when flicking on the light revealed utter chaos in the kitchen. What the hell? It looked as though his lovers had used every pot, pan, and mixing bowl they owned, and he couldn’t be sure they hadn’t borrowed some from the neighbours. There was dried chocolate smeared on the cooktop, something that had dried in a splotch of dark red on the counter, and everything was covered with a light dusting of flour. Pieces of eggshell were piled by a cookbook, laying open and face down on the cutting board, and there was an opened tin of something sitting forlornly in the sink — probably the only item in the kitchen that had been rinsed thoroughly. Then he noticed a plastic cake container topped with a bow on the table. There was a note in front of it.
A pair of strident yowls almost had him pulling his Walther, but it was only the cats. They had taken up their usual spots flanking their feeding station, and apparently had decided that since he hadn’t fed them as soon as he entered the kitchen, they needed to make their demands known.
“Right away, your royal highnesses,” he muttered sarcastically. Q would have fed them at their normal dinner time, so they shouldn’t be hungry, but he could give them a little something. One pair of blue eyes and one of green slitted in pleasure as the cats attacked the catnip treats he gave them. With those two satisfied, he turned his attention back to the table and picked up the paper. He chuckled at his quartermaster’s messy scrawl.
‘We thought you might be hungry after your trip, so we made you a cake. Enjoy!’
James grinned in anticipation as he lifted off the plastic cover, revealing a layer cake covered in uneven chocolate frosting that tried desperately to hide the lopsided sag on one side. He stared at the cake, trying to hold back his laughter. He failed. Muffled snickers escaped him until he was roaring with laughter as he collapsed helplessly into a nearby chair. When his laughter finally died down, he stood and got a plate, knife, and fork.
Oddly enough, he found himself looking forward to trying the cake. As… unusual, as it looked, it smelled heavenly.