⊹ summary: Sometimes biology doesn't care about logic—or your GPA. Your alpha boyfriend Angus has never quite accepted that you're a beta who can't smell pheromones, no matter how many research papers he reads or how aggressively he tries to scent you. Today, while you're desperately trying to finish a paper due in four hours, he decides it's the perfect time for another territorial scenting session.
Can be read on ao3 here.
Sometimes you wondered if your boyfriend had paid someone else to attend the mandatory secondary gender education sessions everyone had to sit through growing up.
If he did, then he wouldn't be trying so hard to do something against the laws of nature.
Then again, Angus Montgomery III probably spent those seminars texting his stockbroker or whatever rich alpha heirs did instead of paying attention. The same guy who'd rolled his eyes at the orientation packet and showed up in Burberry like he was doing the university a favor by attending.
You were laying down on your stomach, laptop open on the edge of your bed and your notes on the on your side. At some point, your boyfriend came home from his classes and decided he wanted to cuddle. Which was…fine. Except he decided today that it needed him to lay his full, heavy weight on top of your back. He'd grabbed you tight, and nuzzled his face onto the nape of your neck. It was slow at first, and you were pretty distracted by your paper. But as the intensity increased and you felt his lips over the scent glands on the side of your neck…
The mattress dipped heavily beneath his full weight, his broad chest pressing your spine into the comforter. His nose traced slow, deliberate circles along your nape where your met cold skin, warm puffs of breath making you shiver despite your irritation. Alphas' bodies ran warmer, and he always enjoyed the colder feel of your skin.
You immediately lifted your gaze from the article on your screen to frown at him. You were a beta, but you knew aggressive scenting when you saw—er, felt it, even if you couldn't necessarily smell it.
"You do realize I can't smell any of what you're doing?"
He didn't budge an inch, pressing his full weight down with an annoyed huff, like you'd just pointed out something incredibly obvious and beneath him. "Obviously you can't," he muttered against your pulse point, breath warm and irritated. "That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
"S'not about you smellin' it," he mumbled against your pulse point, breath warm and uneven. "S'about me knowin' you carry it." His hips rolled down unconsciously, pinning your thighs beneath his like he was making a statement. "God, do I have to explain everything?" He said as he buried his face deeper into the juncture of your shoulder.
"Angus. I have a paper due in four hours." You grumbled, "and you say that, but I know you get aggressive about it hoping to prove I can smell it."
He let out a low, irritated noise against your skin, the sound of a guy stubbornly insisting that you were wrong yet again and annoyed you were being difficult. The same discussion had been repeated even before you two started dating officially. His teeth grazed lightly over the spot he'd been nosing at, not quite biting, just testing the give of your flesh beneath his lips and making you fidget. "Aggressive?" The word came out muffled, petulant. "I'm being helpful. Some studies show repeated exposure increases sensitivity in—"
"Here we go," you let your forehead thunk against your keyboard, producing a line of random letters across your document.
Of course he'd researched it. Angus researched everything he couldn't control—it was probably the only thing he'd learned from his father besides which fork to use at state dinners. When he first realized he had feelings for you, he'd apparently spent weeks reading studies about beta-alpha compatibility like he was trying to find a loophole in his own biology. As if enough research would either make you an omega or convince him it was okay that you weren't.
"Don't 'here we go' me. The research is legitimate. I read like six papers on this—"
"Of course you did."
"—betas can smell pheromones if they're—"
"Strong enough. Yes. I know. You've told me," you finished for him. The reasoning memorized from your elementary school health seminar and his constant repetition of it. You tried again to shift under his weight. Nothing. The man was dead weight when he wanted to be. "And like I keep telling you, it's not that common and I'm definitely not one of them."
He broke off with a frustrated huff when you cut him off, hips rolling down harder in unconscious protest. The thick ridge of his growing bulge pressed against the back of your thigh through his Ralph Lauren chino pants, hot even through layers of cotton. "You don't know," he insisted, breath coming quicker now against your neck. "Maybe your nose is just...lazy. Needs training."
"First of all, don't call my nose lazy for abiding by normal biology." You tried to shift under his again weight with zero success.
"I'm not calling it lazy, I'm saying it's untrained. There's a difference." His grip tightened possessively. "If you'd just let me do this properly instead of fighting me every time—"
"Second of all, you already make me wear your clothes, spray your cologne on my stuff, and do this—" you gestured vaguely at your current predicament, "—every other day. It's not like I'm gonna stop you, but what's the point? I'm still not gonna smell it, and I still have homework."
Angus’s entire body stiffened—a thoroughbred caught mid-tantrum. His grip slackened just enough for you to feel the tremor in his hands before he crushed your tighter against the mattress, cheek smushed against your shoulder blade. "You don't get it," he mumbled, voice cracking like thin ice. "I need—" His hips rutted forward, shameless, the dampening heat of his erection seeping through wool trousers onto your thigh. "God, you you're so—"
"Then explain it to me instead of just—" You wiggled unsuccessfully under his weight.
"I'm trying to!" He sounded genuinely frustrated now, almost whiny. "If you'd stop interrupting—"
You felt it then, of course you felt it. The thick, insistent pressure against the back of your thigh, hot even through layers of expensive fabric.
"Are you seriously hard right now?" You couldn't decide if you were annoyed or impressed by his single-minded focus.
"Obviously." He said it like you were stupid for even asking. "It's part of scenting," he mumbled, shameless, grinding down slightly as if to prove his point. "My body knows what it wants even if your nose is too lazy to catch up."
"P-part of—" your voice had gone a little breathless despite yourself. "You don't have to be hard to scent someone, Angus."
"Maybe not for half-assed scenting." He sounded almost offended. "But if I'm doing it properly—"
"Properly," you repeated flatly.
"Yes. Properly." He insisted, completely shameless about it.
His arms tightened around your waist, possessive, yes, but trembling slightly with the effort of holding himself still. Below the surface bravado, something fragile cracked through his tone. "What if I want you covered in me? What if I need—" He cut himself off sharply, jaw working against your shoulder blade. "What if I need everyone to know because apparently just dating me isn't fucking enough."Slowly, he dragged his parted lips along your neck until his mouth hovered near your ear, above your your scent glands, making you shiver. "You don't understand," he whispered, voice gone thick and uneven. "When I'm like this...when it's bad...all I can think about is making sure…."
This was the part that always got you. Not the designer clothes or the trust fund or the country club membership. Not even the fact that everyone—your own friends included—had expected him to settle down with some omega from the 'right' family. It was this: the desperation. The neediness that came from someone who'd never needed anyone before and didn't know how to handle it.
Angus Montgomery III, who'd dated a string of elegant omegas and never called them back, who'd shown up to your first date in clothes worth more than your shitty car, who'd taken one look at you in the campus library and somehow, inexplicably, fallen for you and who still couldn't quite reconcile the fact that his biology had chosen a lower middle-class beta.
"Angus—" You tried to twist around to look at him. "Whatever spiral you're going into, we can talk about it after I submit this paper. I promise. I'll even wear your clothes for a week. But right now—"
A shudder ran through Angus's body, his grip tightening reflexively around your waist before he forced himself to loosen it. He pressed his forehead between your shoulder blades, the crisp cotton of your shirt absorbing his shaky exhale. "The clothes aren't—" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, nose dragging along your nape again as if mapping territory. "They don't stay. You wash them. Or someone else touches them. Or—"
"Angus, I'm serious, I need to—"
His teeth focused on a spot on your shoulder, worrying it between them in a nervous gesture. When he spoke again, his words came rushed and muffled against your back. "When we're apart I think about people. People talking to you. Smiling at you. Getting too fucking close." The hand splayed over your stomach flexed, fingertips pressing faint crescents into your skin through the thin material. "And I know—I know they're noticing you don't smell like anyone. That you're available. And I can't—"
"Oh my god, are you—are you spiraling right now? While humping me? While I have a deadline?"
He jerked his head up suddenly, cheek pressed hot against yours as his voice dropped to a raw whisper. "Yes, I'm fucking spiraling.You don't smell it on yourself after. Don't feel it sinking in. But I do. Every time someone gets too close to you, I can see them noticing. See them thinking they have a chance." His breath hitched, fingers twisting in the hem of your shirt. "It's the only thing that calms me down. Knowing anyone who tries anything will know you're taken. Even if you don't."
"So let me get this straight. You need to scent me because you're worried about... what, exactly? That someone's going to steal me in the campus library?"
"Yes!" He said it sharp and immediate, no hesitation. "Obviously! You think I like feeling like this? You think I want to be this—" He made a frustrated noise against your neck. "Please," he ground out, the word almost angry. A muffled groan soaked into your collar as his hips rolled down in a helpless, grinding motion against your backside. "Just let me—just need to make sure—"
"You're doing the voice," you accused.
"What voice?" He said it too quickly, too defensive.
"The sad, breathy, 'please baby' voice. I know what you're doing."
He let out a low, wounded noise against your skin—the same petulant sound he made whenever something didn't go exactly his way. You'd learned that sound well over the past six months."'m not doing anything," he mumbled into your collar, licking the side of your neck and making you squeal in surprise.
"Y-you are! You're doing that—that thing—"
"What thing?" He was pouting pathetically against your skin now, you could feel it.
You felt the exact moment you gave up. Your shoulders sagged, your fingers stilled on the keyboard, and you let out the longest, most put-upon sigh of your life.
"How long?" you asked flatly.
"What?" His voice was muffled against your neck.
"How long do you need to do this before you calm down? Because I can either fight you for an hour or just let you get it out of your system in twenty minutes."
"…An hour." He said it so quietly, so hopefully, like a kid asking for dessert.
"Twenty minutes."
"That's not enough time—"
"Twenty. Minutes."
He made an irritated noise. "Thirty. Final offer."
"This isn't a negotiation, Angus."
"Everything's a negotiation." He squeezed tighter. "Thirty minutes and I'll order from wherever you want." At the stubborn set of your mouth he quickly tried another approach, "twenty-five? Please? I'll be so good, I'll sit quietly while you work, I'll—"
"Twenty minutes," you said finally, defeat in your voice. "You get twenty minutes of whatever this is, then you're ordering us food and sitting with me while I finish this paper. And you're not allowed to bother me after."
"From where?"
"I don't care. Anywhere that delivers."
"I'll call Masa—"
"Somewhere that doesn't require a reservation three months in advance, Angus. Burgers. Chinese. Normal people food. Like Pizza Hut or something."
He went rigid against you, and for a moment the possessive contentment bled into something closer to actual panic. "But their pizza is probably—the quality—" His voice had lost its smug edge, gone tight with genuine anxiety. "What if you get sick? What if the ingredients aren't—"
"Angus."
"I'm serious." His grip tightened on your waist, almost unconscious. "You haven't eaten all day and now you want me to feed you subpar food? That's—" He made a frustrated noise that sounded more distressed than bratty. "That's not—I can't just—"
You felt the moment it clicked—this wasn't about being a snob. This was an alpha whose instincts were screaming at him that his mate was hungry and he was about to fail at the most basic level of care.
"I'm not going to get food poisoning from Pizza Hut."
"You don't know that." He looked like you'd suggested eating out of a dumpster. "Please let me at least order from that place in the North End—"
"Angus."
"—they use imported flour and—"
"Angus."
He scoffed. "Fine. 'Normal people food.'" He said it like the words hurt. He looked up with furrowed brows. "You haven't eaten anything decent all day," he repeated, and his voice had gone almost plaintive now, stripped of the usual arrogance. "I saw the kitchen when I came in.
Something in your chest clenched. Goddammit. He was doing it again—being thoughtful in the middle of being a territorial nightmare.
"Don't do that," you said weakly.
"Do what?"
"Be sweet while you're actively grinding on me and having a claiming breakdown. It's confusing."
His grip tightened on your waist. "Not confusing. I want to take care of you. Want everyone to know you're taken care of. Want—" His voice dropped, rougher now. "Want you so covered in me that even you can smell it."
"That's not how biology—"
"Don't care." He bit down on your shoulder, making you yelp. "Don't care about biology. Don't care about anything except—" His voice went muffled and whiny again. "Twenty minutes. Please. Then I'm ordering you everything on the menu and watching you eat it and making sure you're full and rested and smell like me."
Your face went hot. "You can't just—that's not—"
"Starting now," he announced, and dove back to your neck with single-minded determination, hips rolling in a slow, deliberate rhythm that made it very clear twenty minutes was going to feel like an eternity.
Your laptop screen dimmed. Then went dark.
"My paper..." you said weakly.
"Auto-saved," Angus mumbled against your neck, sounding far too pleased with himself. "I saw."
Of course he had. Of course he'd been tracking your document status while doing all of this.
You let out the longest sigh of your life and closed your laptop.
"I hate you."
"No you don't," he hummed contentedly against your skin.
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