salute [h.s]

highly decorated senior agent at the SIS

december 11- secret santa gift exchange

1D fanfic/Salute extra

Harry/Piper

*

"Christ, Harry, wear a bell!"

"Sorry," he said as his hands landed gently on her waist. He leaned his head over her shoulder so he could place a sweet kiss on her cheek. She couldn't help her smile afterward. "Are you ready to go? I was going to give you a ride home."

It astounded Piper sometimes how good of a person Harry was. He always offered to drive her home if he was in the building when she was leaving, no matter how tired he was or how much he wanted to go home. She was always his first priority. That was the most amazing feeling in the world, that someone put her above everyone else. She adored him for that.

"I wish," she grumbled with a roll of her eyes, "but I've got to go to this stupid gift exchange and sit around with a bunch of people who I don't like or who don't like me, or both, and I've got to pretend I'm happy about it because Q is going to be there and so is S."

It was a big deal having two of their superiors with them all at the same time. Q was not an uncommon sight around T branch because the technology branch fell under his own department, a sub-branch of Q branch. What was highly uncommon was seeing S out and about at a staff party, not only because her department was not connected directly to Q branch and therefore wasn't really part of the Secret Santa Gift Exchange, but also because she hardly ever came out of the labs. Piper was pretty sure she lived down there.

"Sounds exciting," Harry muttered sarcastically as he let her go, leaning against the closed locker beside her open one. "Are you sure you have to go?"

Piper gave Harry a look between a sardonic smile and a grimace as she plucked a package out of her locker, neatly wrapped in red and silver paper with a pretty bow. "I got Q in the draw."

Harry cringed sympathetically. Getting your boss is pretty much the worst thing that can ever happen to you in a workplace Secret Santa, especially when that boss is a highly decorated senior agent at the SIS (read: impossible to shop for). She'd spent ages trying to think of the perfect gift and had finally decided on something. Whenever Q finished with a particularly hard field extraction or had been working for days straight on a certain piece of code, he decompressed with some old scotch he kept in his desk. Piper had watched him swig it back from the bottle and figured he could use a couple of glasses. Inside the box were two fine glass tumblers with a frosted Q on each. She hoped he liked them.

"I'll come with you," Harry said, straightening up when Piper shut the locker door, her bag over her shoulder. He immediately took her coat from her and hung it over his arm carefully, surprising her with his thoughtfulness which honestly shouldn't surprise her at all at this point. He surprised her even further by taking her hand, threading his fingers through hers.

"Should we —" Piper lifted their conjoined hands. "Can we do this?"

"We can do whatever we like, petal."

"No one will get us in trouble?"

"I'd like to see them try," Harry said, the threat of challenge clear in his tone. He had a point. Piper couldn't think of a single person that would be willing to risk Harry's wrath in favour of getting them in trouble. The pain wasn't worth the momentary pleasure.

There were certainly stares as the two of them walked into Q branch where the party was being held. The T branchers had gotten used to Harry being around Piper a lot, for the most part (there was still a lot of inappropriate staring), but the Q branchers had never seen Harry giving Piper kisses or back rubs (she loved the surprise back rubs) or bringing her dinner when she was elbow deep in a project. All they saw was a senior agent, boldly holding the hand of a junior tech, and their minds were stuttering to a stop trying to figure it out.