Chapter Text
Q had been claimed within a week of Bond meeting him.
Honestly, he hadn’t even been that surprised. James Bond reeked of Alpha pheromones from miles away, and Q was a rather unique Omega; he appealed to Bond’s interest in the exotic, while still being – quite incontrovertibly – an Omega.
Omegas did not take high-ranking roles in government. They didn’t take high-ranking roles anywhere, quite frankly. Society had developed to rate Omegas as inferiors. Needy, desperate, clingy. The stereotypes held some truth, but only minimal.
Bond had taken one look at him, and despite everything he had ever told himself, Q knew.
Q had never asked to be Omega, hated being so with all the passion he could muster; he decided from the moment he understood what he was, that he would not accept it lying down. That decision had caused a barrage of issues across his life on a personal level; on a professional level, he kept his head down, and utilised the thing most Omegas had in common – quite a frightening level of intelligence. Biology had been unkind to them in most areas but intelligence.
It was actually quite easy to keep his head down for much of his early life; Q popped suppressants like sweets to keep his scent and desires in check, hid in computers. Alphas tended to be quite arrogant, ambitious types; a skinny, reticent computer geek was hardly like to be their ideal Omega.
Everything changed, quite impressively, when he reached MI6.
He was installed as the head of Q-branch almost instantly; the previous Quartermaster had retired, leaving an opening for a bright young thing to revolutionise the department. Somebody, somewhere, had also decided that an Omega would be perfectly capable of running Q-branch.
It was met with scepticism. Q himself was met with a level of interest he’d never had to deal with before; every Alpha in the vicinity – and there were a fair number among the active agents – managed to at least have a passing sniff at him. Some actively flirted, others just stared.
Q didn’t respond; he didn’t want an Alpha. He didn’t want to belong to somebody else, be made servile to somebody else’s wishes. In retrospect, he really wasn’t entirely certain how Bond managed to get him to chuck all of those thoughts away, quite so easily.
Later, Q would blame Bond’s pheromones. Bond’s mere voice was enough to spark interest; suppressants were not magic, Q was long overdue a heat, and Bond was unspooling his reason with merciless precision. The brushes of skin, words, unintentional contact; Bond shut the door to Q’s office one afternoon, leaned forward, and simply kissed him.
Q lost track of his reasoning at about that stage. Bond was indescribably good at kissing, tasted like everything Q hadn’t known he was looking for, and despite being an Alpha – and well within his rights – didn’t decide to claim Q on the spot.
If it hadn’t been for the scent markings warning others off, Q could have almost let it pass for flirting.
Within a week, Bond had claimed him. They went out for drinks, both already aware it was a fait accompli: they wound up in Bond’s flat, and MI6 were informed that they were moving in together within two days.
Bond was nothing like the horror stories of Alphas would have suggested; Omegas occupied a world where their relationships were liable to be uncomfortable, often abusive things. It was a pity; their biologies were designed to work in tandem. A reciprocal relationship was beneficial for both parties on a ridiculous number of levels.
Bond seemed to understand this far better than Q ever had. He took Q in his arms, kissed him, and started to show Q how Alpha and Omega relationships were supposed to work.
Q’s work improved from an already formidable start. The anger that lived under Bond’s skin started to fade from a constant burning to a dull throb, only set alight under certain circumstances. Bond started to realign his life around his Omega, his other half, and Q revelled in the odd sensation of being so utterly and entirely loved.
They both discovered, with an unspeakable degree of joy, just how exceptional sex was in a proper relationship with their parallel race. Both of them needed one another; Bond needed the strength Q conveyed, needed to dominate it, and Q needed somebody who was able to dominate him.
It was not lost on Q, just how fortunate he was. Bonded Omegas would often be made to leave their jobs, have children, with little to no autonomy; Bond ignored that societal norm altogether, uninterested in children, and seeing no point in stopping Q working.
The exception was when they were in heat. Q was not legally allowed suppressants now he had bonded; he went into heat two weeks later, causing Bond to get them both the week off. They used every single second of the week available to them, and by the end, Q was addled with enough of Bond’s pheromones to really stop caring about his pride or anything more complex.
He didn’t even worry about missing work. Everything about this was something of a first for Q.
It was not perfect, naturally. Whatever Bond did, Q could not escape the knowledge that if Bond asked him anything, he would do it without question. His allegiances were now placed entirely with James. Bond never abused that power, but Q could never quite forget, at the same time, that he held it; the power was tipped in Bond’s favour, with Q dependent on Bond’s loyalties.
Bond kept him marked, tangibly and intangibly; he marked Q’s neck, obviously, and the scent marking was occasionally oppressively strong. It was a lovely way to rid Q of the Alphas that somehow kept finding excuses to visit Q-branch, while still feeling oddly like an equal. An odd novelty.
Q began to forget, gradually. He was so, absurdly fortunate to have Bond – and as months trickled towards a year, a year and a half, he slid into a routine. It was like a normal, non-Dynamic relationship; they looked after one another. Bond cooked usually, Q cleaned, they split the rent, they argued over minutiae.
They lay in bed, breathing one another in; Q scent clung to Bond too, a subtle reminder for Bond that he would always have somebody there who he should take care of.
“I’m on a mission for the next three weeks minimum,” Bond told Q; the darkness cloaked them both, Q curled into Bond’s side, palm flat against Bond’s chest, feeling the soft, insistent thrumming of his Alpha’s heartbeat. His body was smothered in Bond’s scent, and he nuzzled closer, wanting more of it, wanting Bond to keep him forever, wanting to drown in Bond’s scent.
Q nodded vaguely. He knew the full details of the mission brief; for god’s sake, he would be giving Bond his equipment in the morning. “Are you alright to leave me?” Q asked tentatively. Bond would be well within his rights to force Q to go with him, but jesus, he hated flying.
Bond had gone on many other missions over the course of their relationship, but not for that long, historically. The longest had been just over sixteen days; Q had been practically pining for Bond by the time he returned, and Bond’s possessiveness – and jealousy – had been off the scale. They hadn’t left the bedroom for the next day and a half, until Q once again smelt of only Bond, and Bond could be certain the Quartermaster was entirely his.
“Will you be alright?” Bond asked, quite honestly. Despite Q’s protestations to the contrary, it was very difficult for a claimed Omega to lose their Alpha for any prolonged periods. They were designed to remain together. Q’s psyche balanced with Bond’s; Bond cared for him, loved him, protected him. His absence would be extremely difficult.
Thankfully, the pair weren’t due to go into heat together for another couple of months. If that had been the case, Bond simply would have had to decline the mission – it was entirely impossible to leave a bonded Omega without their Alpha.
Q, naturally, nodded anyway. He would find a way to be ‘alright’. He didn’t ask Bond, because Bond would lie; yes, he would hate leaving Q. Q was his most cherished, most prized possession, and leaving him alone would be devastating for him too.
It was the only real downside to the type of relationship they’d managed. The odd, empathic bond they had formed made the treacherous realms of emotion far harder to navigate.
Bond kissed him bruisingly, Q aching for more, straining towards him. He wanted to be stained. If Bond was going to leave, he wanted to remember him down to his bones, be left with some feeling of being so utterly possessed, so completely loved.
Bond drew memories in Q’s skin and his mind and his body, Q’s body adapted for him, the pair of them fitting perfectly. “My Q,” Bond growled, as Q’s body clenched around him, and Bond came deep into his beautiful Omega. Q nodded against him, whimpering, letting out a soft cry as Bond marked him, peppered his body so Q had no chance of forgetting him.
He’d be walking oddly in the morning, but that was really part and parcel of a Dynamic relationship. “Don’t forget me,” Q breathed.
Every Omega’s greatest fear: to be claimed, and forgotten. To belong entirely to somebody else, but cease to matter.
Bond kissed him very gently on slightly parted lips. Q moaned against him, body moulding to Bond’s form. “I could never,” Bond told him, letting Q hum against him happily.
“You’ll…”
“You’ll be alright,” Bond interrupted soothingly, thumb rubbing away the indented lines of worry in Q’s expression. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
“I know,” Q replied, eyes shuttering closed. Bond’s arms wrapped around him, holding him close, letting Q know he would never be abandoned.
-
Q was getting twitchy.
He needed his Alpha back, and only two days had passed. After being claimed, it became incredibly hard for an Omega to keep going without their Alpha around. The feelings of protection, of belonging, became addictive – their biology compelled them to become linked with their Alphas, constantly.
Irritating, but unavoidable.
Much like Alex. He was the newest double-oh – replacing 009 – and Q was finding it very difficult to work with him. He seemed to believe Q somehow owed him, by simple virtue of being an Omega; Q, aware of his relative status against an Alpha, could not directly confront him about his behaviour.
As his Quartermaster, he could make his life far harder. When Alex decided to claim one of Q’s brightest young acolytes – and coincidently, the only other Omega in Q-branch – Q quite intentionally made Alex’s personal computer irretrievably die. His work computer remained intact. Nobody in MI6 had to replace the personal computer; Alex forked out for a new one.
It was a tiny twinge of victory, but notable. Omegas didn’t have victory where Alphas were concerned, not in any forum. Q watched Alex swear and curse through his surveillance systems, and smiled happily.
He missed Bond.
-
Nine days. Bond’s scent was wearing off incrementally; Q started sleeping in Bond’s shirts, just to keep the scent with him. He despised being quite so intrinsically linked to Bond, but it was unavoidable, he knew it was unavoidable.
Bond called in intermittently, both work-related and personal; the calls were small lifelines, just ways of linking themselves together. “When I get back, I swear, I’m not letting you out the flat for a week,” Bond growled; Q smiled despite himself.
“I will be holding you to that,” Q smirked, feeling his body respond on instinct. He could imagine Bond inside him, knotting; the mere thought made Q’s body respond in a rather visceral, somewhat work-inappropriate way.
“You smell good,” purred a voice in the doorway; Q looked up, finding Alex in the doorway of his office. Q cursed his luck; naturally, Alex had to arrive just as Q released a rather obvious wave of Omega pheromones, triggered by Bond’s insinuations.
“I’m working,” Q told him sharply, preparing to shut the door in his face.
Alex sidled further in, his smile saccharine, unnerving in a way Q couldn’t define. He was growing uncomfortable; Alex was an Alpha with something to prove, and Q disliked being trapped in a confined space with him on principle.
The pheromones were dissipating by the second, the overarching scent of an Alpha starting to encroach. “I am quite serious, I have work to be getting on with,” Q repeated, a shiver running down his spine.
“Q, M’s asking for the new tracker prototypes,” Eve asked, swinging into the doorway; she took one look at the situation, Q’s evident discomfort and the stench of conflicting pheromones, and her eyes narrowed. “Everything alright?”
“Fine,” Q said quickly, shooting a sharp look towards Alex. “Double-oh nine was just leaving.”
Eve nodded, watching 009 leave. Q handed Eve a collection of papers, barely able to meet her eye; she was a Beta, but practically null. It left her a little more attuned to the various scents around MI6, but without many of the compulsions even a Beta would experience. Q envied her beyond measure for that, regardless of how good Bond was an Alpha.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” she asked, voice quiet.
“Certainly,” Q told her, his smile bright and forced. “Thank you, Miss Moneypenny.”
“Eve,” she corrected lightly, and left.
-
Two weeks. Q was about twelve hours and another intrusive glance away from illegally finding suppressants. Bond would be livid, but damn it, Q was getting tired of his body screaming out for Bond. He felt horribly conspicuous.
Not to mention that the moment he heard Bond’s voice, came in any form of contact with his missing Alpha, his body released a wave of pheromones that had the habit of distressing most Alphas in the vicinity.
The irony was that he and Bond were quite restrained with their sex lives. When they were in heat, all bets were off, but in the interim – it was no better or worse than normal couples. They had sex when they wanted, no more than that, no necessity to copulate.
The moment they were separated, everything turned to hell, for both Alphas and Omegas. Alphas – despite popular media – dealt with separation no better than Omegas. It was stressful. Alphas were prone to anxiety and worry, acute jealousy, and became instinctively more violent.
Still. Bond and Q were nothing if not exceptional, and that spanned into their biology and personal lives. There was no noticeable change in either’s work ethic. In fact, they were nigh on perfect.
“You’re flaunting yourself now,” Alex told him darkly, catching Q in the lift on their own; Q had done everything in his living power to keep himself from being alone with Alex for any period of time.
Q got off when the lift stopped, waited for it to return to the floor, finally got himself down to Q-branch. He locked himself in the office, avoided speaking to anybody for the rest of the day.
Bond’s mission was not going well. He would be delayed, by another week or so. Q exhaled slowly, and tried not to worry about that at all. It would be absolutely fine, he could be absolutely fine on his own.
Six days later, everything came to a head.