Tea and Animosity
So it turned out that Duncan could, in fact, occasionally put his brains to use over his brawn, however, given he did so to spread the word to the other double-0s about what had happened, Q was not entirely sure if he should be grateful for his momentary lapse in idiocy or not.
What he was absolutely not grateful for, was just how quickly the man had acted.
After Alec had left, Q had only sparred with Milli for another hour or so, belting all his frustrations out in the four extra rounds they did, and getting praised for "not holding back" in return. The remark made him want to cry and laugh in equal measure, and for a moment, he was worried that he'd end up doing both.
If meeting Bond improved his fighting skills this much, then he'd have to go and get betrayed more often.
Duncan had remained suspiciously quiet throughout the rest of their sparring matches, which was the omega's first inkling that he was up to something, and when he gave him a rare but comforting hug before promptly disappearing immediately after their last round, Q knew for definite that the alpha was plotting.
Milli had simply blinked, once, and squeezed his hand before disappearing into the women's changing room. That was yet another thing that made her different from the rest of the pack - as far as Q could tell, she never willingly touched anyone. Their sparring matches excluded, he had yet to see the agent actually make physical contact with a single other human being.
Q didn't mind; the double-0s all had their own quirks after all, and if it made her happy then he was okay with not being hugged by the alpha.
Although, right now, he could seriously use some quality cuddle time.
Instead, he headed for the showers, thankful that all the junior and senior agents were already gone home for the day and that nobody else dared to stray into double-0 territory.
It gave him plenty of time to cry in peace, the water washing away his tears as soon as they fell, and the steam hot enough to almost feel like a warm embrace. If he closed his eyes and focused on the cool tiles beneath his feet, he could even pretend that he was still at home in his own shower, that it was still morning time and Bond hadn't returned yet, that one of his twelve friends in the entire world hadn't turned out to be a lying manipulative bastard.
That Q hadn't known that about him when they'd first met, and had still fallen for his charms anyway.
"You know, if you stay in there any longer, you might drown".
He jumped and spun around with a curse, hand fumbling for the glasses that he'd left in the locker room, even as he squinted at the door and at the man standing there.
"Saif?! What the hell are you doing? Get out!"
"Relax, you little minx, I have my eyes closed" he replied easily, and, to be fair, he did, one tanned hand clamped firmly over his eyes even as he continued to face the omega's direction. "Not that you have anything to be ashamed of, of course. In fact, it's quite the opposite from the very very brief glimpse that I got-"
"005!"
He laughed, and Q felt himself relaxing at the sound, knowing that there was at least one double-0 he could still bribe into petting him tonight.
"How did you know I was even in here?" he asked, turning back to the shower and brushing wet hair away from his eyes.
"I passed Milli on the way down; she said the water was still on. Fortier sent us a very, uh… interesting message".
"Us?"
"The rest of the pack" he explained, "James excluded".
"Ah".
Q rinsed out the last of the shampoo and turned off the water, reaching for his towel.
"I mean, don't get me wrong, I knew that the man could be an ass, but I never thought that he'd stoop this low".
The omega quickly dried off his hair before brushing past Saif, who turned to follow him into the locker room instead, one hand still covering his eyes.
"Forteir's pretty furious. Williams' too. And I think Edie's just waiting for the signal to open fire".
"And the others?"
"Well, usually, Alec would take James's side on principle, but… I don't know. I think that might change this time round. Alexis is fuming as well, but she's waiting to hear both sides of the story before she casts her judgement. Blair is… more of a conflict-free kind of guy. And honestly? I think Milli's just confused".
Q snorted as he tugged on a pair of jeans.
"Yeah, she was, uh… a bit behind when it came to realising what had just happened".
"You want us to kill him for you?"
"Do I-"
He stopped, one sock on and the other held in very confused hands.
They would-
They would kill James for him? Their own packmate? For him?! After only a single slight that, yeah, had absolutely fucking sucked, but it wasn't as if he'd threatened to hurt Q physically, so-
"Or, perhaps, maim him, instead. I think murder would upset Alec, and when he's not being a biggoted prat, James is actually a pretty okay guy. Omegas seem to be his… blindspot, as it were".
"That's a pretty damn big blindspot" Q grumbled as he slowly resumed getting dressed, "I don't want you to kill him. Or maim him, for that matter. Or even hurt him at all".
"You sure?"
"I'm sure" he replied firmly, standing up to grab his sweater, "I've seen both sides of Bond, although, granted, he wasn't exactly a perfectly behaved and well-mannered gentleman the first time we met, either. But then again, none of you lot are… with the exception of Jake, perhaps".
"So, just so we're clear, you don't want us to beat some sense into him?"
"No. I don't. You can try and talk some sense into him, sure, but… he needs to realise he's being a right prat on his own. I don't want him to pretend to change just to get along with the pack again. The only thing that would be worse than him being dynamicist, is him being dynamicist and lying about it".
Q took a deep breath, made sure that he was presentable again despite his red eyes still sore from crying, and then turned back to the alpha.
"Okay, you can open your eyes now".
Saif grinned widely as he lowered his hand, before that grin immediately transformed into a pout as he realised that the omega was now fully dressed.
"I'll text the others" he promised, "No killing, maiming, and/or injuring… for now".
"No, not just for now!" Q said firmly, "Forever!"
"... Until he does something stupid again".
"Knowing Bond, he's already doing something stupid as we speak" he replied dryly, "Not now, not in the future, not ever. The day that I actually want you to seriously injure him, I'll let you know".
"Alright, yeah, I'll be around".
Q gave him an exasperated look, but it quickly dissolved as the man merely smirked in response before opening his arms wide. He was almost embarrassed at how quickly he ran around the bench separating them to collapse into his hold, but the wave of relief and warmth and safety that he felt as soon as he did so, quickly overrode all of the self-consciousness that he initially felt.
The spicy, almost metallic scent of the alpha washed over him, but he wasn't too distracted to feel how tense Saif stood, or how he buried his face in the omega's curls in an attempt to relax using his scent, too.
Q distinctly remembered that this was the same man who had threatened the murder their entire accounts department for spreading rumors about him, and it was also this same exact man who had actually murdered the bad guy who had accidentally clipped Q with a bullet.
As unflappable and easy-going as Saif portrayed himself to be, he had an overprotective streak a mile wide.
"No killing" he repeated, voice muffled by the alpha's shirt, "I mean it. If Bond continues being a prat then I'll deal with him myself. I don't need you lot getting involved and turning this into an all out pack war".
"... If you insist-"
"I really do".
"-then I'll tell the others. Edie, especially, because… well, I wasn't joking when I said she was about to open fire".
"What even happened between those two anyway? I thought Edie liked everyone, and I know for a fact that everyone likes Edie. What did Bond do to piss her off?"
"As far as I can tell, it involved a honeypot in North Korea, a poorly timed joke to the Social Security Forces, and a rather liberal use of a paperclip… Asides from that, I have no idea".
Q hummed and buried his face even further in the man's shirt, both hands slipping inside the man's leather jacket to wrap around his back.
"So, no attack dogs, got it" Saif continued after a moment, "But, do you… want to talk about it?
"Do you mean do I want to talk about the fact that my first friend here just betrayed me because he thinks that I betrayed him because he's got a decades old grudge against a dead woman and has now decided that her and everyone else who shares that two-percent similarity in their DNA is automatically the devil so now not only have I lost a friend but I also have to deal with one of the most lethal alphas alive being pissed at me while I simultaneously try to control him as his superior? No. No, I do not".
There was a beat of silence.
"... You wanna go get wasted?"
"I'd love to". Q sighed as he pulled back. "But I can't. I've got a meeting early with M tomorrow morning to update him on the Ourumov situation".
"I thought you already submitted that report? For Trevelyan and Fortier both?"
"I did, but he wants to go over it with me. And given how many rules I've broken lately…"
Saif winced. "You can't afford to get on his bad side".
"I can't afford to stay on his bad side" he corrected, "He's still pissed off over the Gibraltar incident, so I need to do everything I can to get back in his good books because, unlike some people, my job actually does depend on M".
"Fair enough". He shrugged, before throwing an arm around Q's shoulders and ruffling his hair. "Come on then, I'll drive you home. We can swing by Edie's office on the way out and disarm all her guns".
He snorted, despite the ache in his heart and his still-red eyes.
"Yeah, somehow, I don't think that would stop her".
"Maybe not" he agreed, leading him towards the door, "But it would at least take the charge of aiding and abetting murder off our heads".
Despite Saif's plentitude of hugs, Q still felt strangely bereft the following day. He'd been half tempted to invite the alpha into his flat after he'd dropped him home, but then he remembered the furious cats and broken glass that the agent had left behind him the last time he visited, and decided maybe not.
He hadn't felt this needy in months.
Q had gotten used to the double-0s, had gotten used to having a loyal and lethal wolf pack at his beck and call twenty-four-seven, had even gotten used to having a loyal and lethal wolf pack who would commit murder for him if he even hinted at disliking a guy.
But there was something… different about Bond's rejection.
Something worse.
There was an ache in his chest, a deep-rooted pain that seemed to rest heavily on his very soul, and every second he spent actively not thinking about it, the worse it seemed to get.
He sat through the meeting with Bill and M feeling oddly detached. Distant, almost, from the world around him, and he could tell that the other two men noticed. He'd been half tempted to inform them about his and 007's little squirmish, but at the same time, he realised just how ludicrous it would seem - and worse than that, how incompetent it would make him seem.
Although bigotry and dynamism were easily eighty percent of the reason why omegas weren't given positions of power, there was still a small percent of reasoning that was actually justified.
As much as Q hated to admit.
Put simply, omegas were a liability - Milli hadn't been wrong on that - and the issue of some alphas being able to compel them into obeying aside, there was also the issue of less strong alphas still being able to create a dependency on themselves for the omega. Biologically speaking, Q needed a certain level of praise and affection and closeness with an alpha, and when he suddenly found himself bereft of that closeness, he was left in a state similar to that of a drop.
And he hated it.
Hated that his own body was working against him, hated that he was so used to hugs now that going without them caused him to break down, hated that his emotional attachment to James bloody Bond was strong enough to cause a physical change in him against his will.
If he told M, then the man would have no other option but to ask him to step down as Quartermaster, just in case he became even more compromised as time went on.
If he told Bill, then there was a pretty high chance that the beta would march up to Bond and possibly get murdered for whatever he decided to say.
And if he told Eve, then there was an even greater chance of her marching up to Bond and possibly murdering him for whatever he decided to say in response.
So no.
Q would just have to… deal. For now. Until he managed to wrestle his own subconsciousness back into submission and return to how he was before he became Quartermaster, before he met the double-0s, before he met James.
That shouldn't be too hard to do… right?
He was damn good at his job, after all, and he refused to let any alpha take that away from him. Mortality rates were at an all-time low - as were explosions and bar fights - and more equipment was being returned in one piece than TSS knew what to do with.
Sure, the majority of the accounts departments and half of medical still hated him. Still sneered at him when he walked past, not too shy to hold back their snide remarks or derogatory whispers, spreading rumours of him sleeping his way to the top because how else could such a young omega get such an important position in the British government? But Q had been dealing with assholes like that his entire life, so it was nothing new, and he refused to let it take away from his work.
But then there was James.
He was half tempted to ask the man about the DB5, just to see what he'd do. Or even about Madeleine Swann. Anything to just get a reaction that wasn't derision or disdain.
He had been telling the truth when he told Saif that Bond had to work on his attitude himself. He was a master manipulator and lying came as easily as breathing, so unless he truly did change, unless the alpha himself actively decided to remove his own bigotry, then they could never successfully work together again, let alone develop their relationship into anything else.
Q's own principles aside, the man was hardly going to take orders from a lying untrustworthy omega, now, was he?
He could only hope that Alec managed to talk some sense into him, because if he didn't…
Well.
James bloody Bond wasn't exactly known for his self-restraint, and Q was ever-so-slightly fearful of just how much damage the inevitable explosion would cause, if this tension between them continued to build.
So no.
He wouldn't tell M, or Bill, or Eve. He wouldn't let the other double-0s get involved, no matter how much Duncan, Jake, and Edie protested. And he wouldn't seek out Bond himself, either, because the only person at MI6 more stubborn than him, was the omega himself.
No.
For now, Q would simply sit back and wait. He had more than enough work to keep him busy, and more than enough double-0s to try and fill the void that James had left behind him. He wouldn't ignore him, if their paths crossed, but nor would he act like nothing had happened. He would be civil, polite, and above all else, professional.
It was a rather brilliant plan, if Q may say so himself, and one that worked just as brilliantly over the next few days, until-
Until.
Until M decided, that out of all the agents at his disposal, there was only one suited to carry out a mission in Nice because, against all odds, there was only one agent who could fluently speak French.
Which meant that Q was about to run his first official mission - and his first mission as a known omega - with James bloody Bond.
He could already feel the oncoming headache.