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They were haphazardly sprawled on Tanner's bed with briefing papers spread around them, planning tomorrow's agenda. It was fortunately a solely European event so they wouldn't be up against anything too ridiculous, like the US pressuring them into expanding their internet surveillance programme. He had nearly got the shock of his life when he heard some of the US alphabet soup agencies discuss PRISM, among other things, openly at a G20 fringe event. He subsequently found it rather unbecoming when they stubbornly insisted on blaming the UK side of the operation whenever there was a leak. Unsurprisingly, some of his colleagues habitually used “american” as a swearword.
"Have we uploaded all of Q's programmes ?" Q had argued that it was easier to access information on other agencies' servers if he was already on the inside, which, admittedly, made a considerable amount of sense. So here they were, trying to surreptitiously load spyware into as many foreign laptops as possible.
"We're almost done, except for Germany. Q should start streaming in the information by tomorrow."
"Excellent." Well, whatever made treaty negotiations easier. Intelligence had grown to be a very dirty game over the years and he occasionally yearned for the innocence that their agency had steadily grown out of, for an earlier time when honour still meant what it did.
The post-Cold War world was a changed one. And not necessarily for the better. Even within the agencies themselves, there were murmurs of discontent at various levels regarding the direction in which they were heading. He considered it a good thing, because no one was blindly walking into this. He didn’t want to work in a place in which people no longer asked themselves whether something was the right thing to do.
By his side, Tanner clutched a pillow, frowning at his screen and he felt the urge to soothe his furrowed brow rise up like an inevitable tide. He pushed it away, along with the deep undercurrent of tenderness that came upon him whenever he was near Tanner.
Not Tanner, Bill.
He had made various attempts at identifying exactly when Bill stopped being another subordinate and had turned into someone infinitely endearing, with hair that stuck up at odd angles in the morning, and who wrote with such grace that he occasionally wanted to pack Bill up and send him off to the countryside to write a novel or two. Then he realised that it was a pointless exercise because such feelings grew by infinitesimal amounts and crept up on one unexpectedly. There wasn’t a particular onset and there didn't need to be one because he was fond of Bill and wanted to take care of him and that was the end of the matter.
He glanced at the corner of the screen. It was nearly 1. And he realised that he had to take a leap of faith sooner rather than later because time was inexorably running out for both of them. So he furtively covered Bill's left hand, which was resting on the duvet, with his own, and painfully continued with one-fingered typing on his laptop.
Bill looked at their joined hands.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Um. Your daughter...." And he had rendered Bill nearly speechless, which was a first.
"Don't worry about it."
"I...need to think about this." It still wasn't an outright rejection.
"Alright. Night then." He squeezed Bill's hand and shuffled off to the other bed.
He fell asleep to the sound of Bill breathing.
The next morning was essentially the same as the previous one, with both of them stumbling into the bathroom, crusty-eyed and huddled in their duvets. And yet there was something fundamentally different about it, like the world had shifted under his feet overnight in an undefinable manner because there was no longer a need to carry his secret around with him like a private burden, though this, in part, was what made it so treasured.
He found it hard not to read into every glance Bill directed at him but resolved not to push the matter. For better or for worse, the ball was entirely in Bill's court.
The rest of the conference passed largely without memorable incident though half of their team was reduced to playing online poker with each other near the end from sheer boredom, through a system Q had rigged up on their computers, because, as usual, the large delegation was mostly for show. He heard that Jim, their local IT policy consultant had won most of the virtual pot and was consequently in for a treat when they returned home.
He tried to ascertain whether things between Bill and him had taken a slightly awkward edge but couldn't come to any clear conclusion because the rest of their nights abroad had turned out fine. Bill didn’t seem to care about being seen drooling on his pillow by him while napping on the flight back, so he supposed it hadn’t gone too badly. Then he decided to ignore the part of his brain that analysed things to death because that was only meant for his job and not for everything else.
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"Just so you know, I'm asexual," Bill said wearily, a week later in his office. There were dark circles under his eyes. Well, that explained the lack of personal effects on his desk, though he didn’t understand why that was a barrier to anything.
"It doesn't matter."
"Do you even know what that means?" He could hear a tinge of disbelief.
"My daughter has mentioned it, so yes. I have some idea."
"Are you quite sure?"
"Undoubtedly. Besides, one of the perks of our positions is that I’ve no power over further promotions for you so don’t worry about that either.” Bill had been earmarked for one of the directorial positions years ago because he was just that good. He was only kept waiting in the wings as staff generally preferred their directors older and more experienced. Or at least that was what they said on the survey.
“So… what happens now?”
“So we’ll go for dinner later and you can tell me about your embarrassing obsession with the Great British Bake Off and your plans to eventually get on the show together with Q and how you’re going to beat him in the final. I have been paying attention, you know.”
And at this, Bill blushed in a manner that caused his heart to stutter. So he reached forward and embraced him, pressing a kiss into soft hair.
They would be alright.