Chapter Text
George wakes up and feels warm for the first time in years. Truly, contentedly warm. Warm all the way down to his toes, warm to his bones. He doesn’t know when the last time he opened his eyes was, either, because his eyelids feel all syrupy and he struggles to get them open. But even if his eyes don’t work, his other senses do.
And the sense that becomes the most compelling immediately is the weight on his chest. There’s something warm and heavy and alive on top of him, nuzzled against his ribs, and George can feel the twin pulse of a heartbeat pounding through a chest pressed to his belly.
It smells like— like his puppy. George’s puppy is here. Still half asleep, and deep in his omegan instincts, his addled brain still fighting its way up from a drop, George lets out a creaky, weak kind of purr that rattles in his wheezy chest. His hands are weak and clumsy, refusing to cooperate with his demands, but he eventually manages to get his arms up to wrap them around his puppy, lying by him.
Are they in a nest? George doesn’t remember making a nest, but it must be a nest, because he’s full of a feeling of rightness, and he’s not been this warm in ages. Did his pup make him a nest? The realisation chokes him up.
One of George’s hands comes up to his pup’s curls, where he scrapes his nails absentmindedly against his puppy’s scalp. His pup. His pup is here. He can’t remember the last time his pup was this close, his pup wanted to cuddle with him. He’s been here a while, his scent thick in the nest/.
He feels his pup stir on top of him, and then slide up George, a warm weight pressed into his side, before his nose finds George’s scent gland and George’s purring increases, loud and throaty.
Pup – Kimi, he reminds himself, through the sweet fog — nuzzles his neck and he gets a whiff of Kimi’s puppy-alpha scent, sweet and minty in George’s nose, familiar and unfamiliar at once. Beneath it, somewhere in the sheets, there’s his alpha’s scent too.
The pair of them must’ve built this nest around George.
Why is Kimi here? A string of coldness wraps around his chest, tugging him quite viciously back to reality.
Kimi doesn’t like his scent, so why is he putting up with it?
Why’s he trying to endure George’s sour, anxious scent when he clearly would rather be anywhere else than in a nest beside him?
For a long, sweet moment, George doesn’t understand. His instincts croon, broken and grateful, but his stomach churns.
His memory comes back in jagged pieces: Silverstone, his fall, the pain and the rain and the darkness. The omega drop,
And, more latently, Max’s conversation about the institute. About sending him away.
George stills. Ah. That's what this is about.
They’re— They’re doing George one last favour, giving him the precious gift of one final moment together as a pack, in a nest like George has always yearned and longed for, before he’s shipped off to an institute for broken omegas. They couldn’t send him away whilst he was still in an omega drop.
A final night with his pup and his alpha.
He’s definitely being sent away after he freaked out and ran. He tries to memorise the feeling of his pup beside him, his warm weight, his attention-seeking nuzzling against George, but something in his scent must’ve changed, because Kimi goes stiff and draws back. George whines at the absence, before he cuts the sound off, strangled, and gets his eyes open.
Kimi leans over him. “Mama? How are you feeling?”
Good, he thinks. Better than he has in an age, like some of the splinters that had been lodged in his chest are finally coming loose. But he can’t say that, because maybe then they’ll make him get out of the nest, and George selfishly wants to stay here until they come and take him.
He’s done four years without Kimi, nine without Max. But he doesn’t want to go again.
He’ll be quiet, of course. He won’t put up a fight or cause a scene. He just wants to savour this time with his pack. He doesn’t know when he’ll next see them, when they’ll next go out of their way to come and visit him.
The thought makes him want to cry.
He’ll write them letters, of course. Lots and lots of letters, and ask that, on the sparse occasions they do come and see him, they bring scented things for him to keep. He doesn’t want gifts or pretty things. He only wants reminders. He can show them how much progress he’s made, how good he is now, and maybe they’ll let him come back.
Kimi's brow furrows, dark eyes searching George's face with a kind of raw, unguarded worry that looks almost like the boy from before the war. "Mama, you're miles away. Talk to me."
George swallows and tries for a smile, tries to make it look easy, unafraid. He can do this. He can be good about this. "I'm only tired," he murmurs. "Don't mind me."
He presses closer instead, chasing one more moment of his pup's scent before someone takes it from him, and feels Kimi's arms tighten instinctively around him even as confusion flickers across his face. He’s fucked it up again. He’s ruined it.
His pup churrs an inquisitive, worried sound, but at that moment, the door opens. Kimi’s hold on George tightens protectively, but then loosens again. Max comes in, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, looking more domestic than George has seen from him since his return from the war.
He freezes at the sight of George, half-sitting up, eyes open, and the basin of water that he’d been carrying drops unceremoniously to the floor, water sloshing up the sides and spilling onto the floorboards.
George blinks and Max is beside him, kneeling by the edge of the nest. Kimi churrs again on George’s other side, peeking over George’s shoulder at Max, in a way that’s so childish that George thinks he’s never seen Kimi act that way in Max's presence before. Childishly possessive.
“George, sweetheart. God, you’ve been unconscious for two and a half days. How are you feeling?” He searches for George’s hand and holds on. “You scared the heavens out of us.”
George blinks slowly. Two and a half days? Had they been with him the whole time? “I’m alright,” he croaks. “Th–Thank you for staying with me. You didn’t have to.”
“Yes we did,” Kimi says petulantly.
“What were you thinking?” Max chides, and although his voice is softer than usual, George still feels himself shutting down at his scolding. He turns his head slightly away as Max continues, “riding in the dark, in the storm? Were you trying to get yourself hurt?”
“No,” George whispers, gaze flicking down. “I didn’t mean to worry anyone.” He wants to sink into the furs and disappear. He wants to ask Max to come into the nest, one final time that George can spend with his family before they cast him out, but he doesn’t want to be selfish or needy. He doesn’t want to beg.
He has to remember this. He has to hold onto it, because soon they'll take him away, and he'll have nothing but these final moments to sustain him through the long, grey years ahead.
“Lewis found Silverstone wandering near the east wood," Max continues, his voice rough. "She was terrified, riderless. I've never—" He stops, swallows. "I've never been so frightened in my life. Not in nine years of war."
Lewis. Where is Lewis? He wants Lewis.
George's eyes sting. He blinks rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay. He doesn't want to cry in front of them. He doesn't want their last memory of him to be weak and weepy and pathetic. He wants them to remember him as he was before: bright and sweet and whole.
"Silverstone," he murmurs. "Is she— is she alright?"
Kimi huffs a disbelieving laugh. "You nearly died, and you're asking about your horse?"
"She's all I had," George says quietly, and the words land like stones in still water.
Kimi goes silent. Max's breath catches. George closes his eyes, cursing himself. He's said too much. He's always saying too much, or not enough, and he never seems to get it right.
"I'm tired," he says, retreating. "May I sleep more?"
"You can sleep as long as you need," Max says, and there's a strange, urgent tenderness in his voice that George doesn't understand. "We'll be here when you wake."
George nods, but he doesn't believe it. They'll be gone by morning, called away by duty or disgust or sheer exhaustion from tending to a broken omega who can't even stay on his horse. He'll wake alone in this nest, and then the servants will come to pack his things and that’ll be the end.
He feels Kimi shift beside him, curling closer until the young alpha's head is tucked firmly beneath George's chin, demanding protection and warmth in a way that feels so real it makes George’s heart bleed.
They are being so kind to him. So merciful. Giving him this quiet, gentle send-off instead of dragging him out into the cold rain straight away.
He wonders if Max has already arranged the carriage, if it's waiting down by the stables, or in front of the house. He’d do it quietly, surely. He wonders if the doctors at the institute will let him keep the scent of cedar and pine in his clothes, or if they’ll wash him clean the moment he arrives, stripping away every last trace of his family until he's completely blank.
To his delight and wonder, there’s a moment, and then Max climbs into the nest.
He’s clumsy and slow, in a way that’s distinctly un-alpha, and George is sure he’s got things to attend to, a house and a lordship to run, but George is selfish, so he and Kimi shuffle over a little so Max can lay down on George’s other side, and his pack is curled around him; a pair of brackets holding all his brokenness between them. George lets out a trill of pleased satisfaction, pressing his face to Max’s chest. He wants to thank them for this, or apologise for his stink, but neither come out.
When George wakes, it's morning, and his pack is curled around him and he’s warm. The nest smells like Kimi and Max and him, blended together, but his scent is noticeably sour, faint, corrupting the smell of the two alphas. Panicking, he sits up too fast. His head thrums with a dull, sickening ache, and his knee gives a sharp, white-hot throb.
The morning has come, and it’s time for his send off. They gave him one last night together. He should’ve stayed awake, to enjoy the time more. Stupid. Stupid.
Any minute now, the heavy oak doors will push open, and men in stiff white coats will step inside to lead him to the carriage.
I have to be ready, George thinks wildly, a sob catching in his raw throat. He feels detached from himself, his inner omega whining and writhing with distress. I have to show them I’m not a burden.
George reluctantly climbs out of the nest, under from where Max had wrapped an arm around George and pulled them flush together in his sleep. His bare feet land on the rug and he pauses for a moment before pushing up and struggling to the wardrobe. His knee throbs.
He grabs a leather carpetbag from the floor of the closet with trembling, useless hands, pulling a armful of folded shirts from the shelf. He needs to dress properly too, but this feels more urgent suddenly.
He drops them. He tries to pick them up, but his fingers won't cooperate. What else does he want? Max’s shirts, for sure, and something from Kimi too, even though the scent will stale in a matter of weeks. The thought makes him feel worse, and tears threaten to prick at the backs of his eyes. He scrapes his undereyes harshly with the heels of his hands and sniffles. Get it together.
George's knees buckle as he tries to reach for the fallen shirts, and he catches himself on the edge of the wardrobe, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps. The carpetbag gapes open on the floor, half-filled with crumpled linen. He needs to be ready. He needs to be good. He needs to show them he can be orderly, can be compliant, can be the kind of omega who doesn't make trouble.
Behind him, the nest rustles. "George?" Max's voice is thick with sleep, confused. George freezes, his back to the bed, his hands shaking where they grip the wardrobe door.
He doesn't turn around. He can't bear to see Max's face when he realizes George is already awake, already preparing to leave, already being a burden before the sun has even fully risen.
"What are you doing?" Kimi's voice now, sharper.
George hears the sound of furs being pushed aside, footsteps crossing the room. He still doesn't turn. He grabs another shirt — one of Max's, soft and worn — and tightens his grip on it until his fingers go white. “Can I keep this?” he croaks miserably. His eyes have gone all misty.
“Darling, of course you can keep that,” Max says softly. George jerks his head in a grateful nod and stuffs it into the bag. He knows he looks like a sight, kneeling on the floor of their closet, almost crying over shirts, but he can’t help it. He probably stinks of sadness. Eugh. He hopes his sour scent doesn’t rub off on the clothes he packs. He imagines taking them out at the institute and smelling nothing but his own misery. The thought has a mangled whine falling from his throat.
“Come back to bed, hm?”
George whines. He wants it. He wants it really badly.
Max’s footsteps pause right behind him, the thick, steady warmth of the alpha’s presence rolling over George like a protective shield. But George only hunkers down further, his trembling hands desperately trying to shove another folded shirt into the gaping mouth of the leather bag.
"George," Max’s voice drops, low and carefully measured, as if he’s approaching a startled animal. "Look at me, sweetheart. Why are you packing?"
"I'm almost done," George chokes out, refusing to turn around. Hot tears finally spill over his lashes, burning down his cheeks as he grabs blindly for another garment. "I'm trying to be quick.”
“Quick for what?"
When George doesn't answer, just grabs blindly for another shirt with hands that won't stop shaking, Max crouches down at his level, careful not to crowd him like George is a spooked deer who might bolt. “Please, baby, look at me."
Baby. When was the last time Max called him baby? He called him sweetheart earlier, too. That had been nice. Really nice.
George shakes his head, jaw clenched, eyes screwed shut against the tears that keep coming no matter how hard he scrubs at them. "I don't want to…" he whispers. "I know you have to— I heard what you said. I'm not stupid, I know what happens to omegas who can't—" His voice breaks and he whimpers. "I just want to bring some things that smell like you both. That's all. I won't ask for anything else."
The silence that follows is so total that George finally, helplessly, looks up, bracing for disgust or rejection.
Max's face has gone white. Behind him, Kimi has stopped dead in the doorway of the closet, one hand braced on the frame, his expression somewhere between horror and something close to physical pain.
"George," Max says, and his voice cracks on the second syllable. "George, no. No, sweetheart, no."
He reaches out, slow and careful, and pries the shirt from George's white-knuckled grip. George makes a small, wounded sound and tries to grab it back, hands trembling with the might of his fear and his despair, but Max catches his hands instead, holding them gently between his own.
"Look at me," Max says. "Please, baby. Look at me."
George looks. His vision is blurry with tears, and Max's face swims in and out of focus. He looks terrified. George doesn't understand why — he's the one who should be terrified. He's the one being sent away.
"I heard you," George whispers. "I heard you talking about the… the sanatorium. About sending me away. I know I'm— I know I'm not—" He chokes on the words. "I know I smell wrong. I know I'm not the omega you wanted. But I can be better. I can be good. Just— please. Please don't send me away."
Fuck. He’d told himself he wasn’t going to beg. But here he is.
"Mama." Kimi's voice is strangled. He drops to his knees beside Max, his hands hovering over George's shoulders like he's afraid to touch him. George whines.
Max takes his hands in his face, tenderly swipes his tears away with his thumbs. “Sweetheart. Sweetheart, look at me. No one’s sending you away, George. You’re not leaving.” He breathes shakily and George realises that Max is close to crying, too. “I didn't know how else to fix what's happened to you, what I've let happen to you. And then I told that fucking doctor to get out of my house and never suggest it again, because the thought of putting you anywhere I couldn't see you, couldn't hold you, couldn't fix this myself — George, it made me want to be sick."
Max’s hands are warm on his face, steady even as his thumb sweeps away another spill of tears. George stares at him, blinking through his swollen, heavy eyes, his chest hitching on a ragged breath. "You're... you're not sending me away?" George’s voice is tiny, a fragile thin thing that barely cuts through the quiet room.
"Never," Max says, fierce and unrelenting, leaning in until their foreheads press together. Max's scent surges, a rich, protective smell, flooding over George, wrapping around his panicked mind like a heavy wool blanket. "Never. I would tear this place down brick by brick before I let anyone take you from me again."
"I’d have scratched out their eyes if they tried,” Kimi cuts in, his voice cracking. He creeps closer, his young alpha presence hovering with frantic energy until he can’t hold back anymore; he buries his face directly into the curve of George’s neck, inhaling deeply against his scent gland. "I hate him. You're not broken, mama.”
He is, though. They thought he was. George’s hands, still trapped between Max’s, tremble violently. A violent sob wracks his ribs, tearing from his chest: sudden, dizzying relief so intense it leaves him breathless.
"I heard— I thought you said—" George stammers, the sour scent of his anxiety beginning to shift, softening into something weak, sweet, and wet with tears. "I thought… I ruined…”
"You didn't ruin anything," Max growls softly, kissing George's wet temple, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, fierce and steady. "If anyone ruined things, sweetheart, it was me.”
Max shifts, slipping his arms under George’s thighs and back, lifting him effortlessly out of the cold clutter of the closet floor. George lets out a faint, breathless gasp, clinging instinctively to Max’s neck as the alpha carries him back to the warm, rumpled nest. Kimi follows right on their heels, practically crawling over Max to get back to George the second Max lays him down amidst the furs.
They press into him from both sides, an impenetrable barrier of their matching scents. Kimi pulls George’s hands up to his own head, forcing George’s weak fingers back into his messy curls, purring a desperate, coaxing sound that pleads for comfort just as much as it offers it.
"We're staying," Max murmured into George's hair, resting his heavy arm over George’s waist, locking him into the heart of the nest. “We're staying right here," Max repeats, his deep voice vibrating straight through George's chest.
He pulls the heavy down quilts up and over all three of them, sealing out the cool morning air until there is nothing left in the world but the warmth of their shared space. "No one leaves this room until you know you're safe, George. Until you believe it."
George lies between them, his chest hitching with residual, wet sobs that slowly begin to quiet. The crushing weight that had been compressing his lungs for four years — for nine long, agonizing years — begins to loosen, fragmenting under the relentless heat of two alphas claiming him back.
Kimi doesn't pull away this time. The boy’s face remains buried in the crook of George's neck, his young alpha scent pulsing sweet and thick, washing out the sour, bitter edge of George’s. Kimi's hands grip the fabric of George's tunic tightly, as if terrified his mother might still evaporate into thin air if he lets go.
"I'm sorry, Mama," Kimi whispers against George's skin, the words muffled and thick with genuine remorse. "I was trying…—I didn't mean to make you feel like you weren't needed." He wipes a hand fiercely beneath his eyes, trying even in this moment to be strong.
George lets out a weak, creaky purr, his trembling fingers finally finding their rhythm in Kimi's soft curls. "My…," he breathes, his voice cracked and raw, but lighter than it has been in months. "My sweet boy."
Kimi’s face crumples. He whines, the first truly pup-like sound he’s made in all this time, and the sound strikes George right in the chest. It gives him a bit of strength, an instinctual reaction. His pup is distressed. He needs to help his pup.
On his other side, Max shifts, pressing a warm, firm hand over George's heart. His thumb strokes steady, soothing rhythm across George's chest, right over the ache that had threatened to hollow him out completely. Max leans down, burying his face into the hair at George's temple, breathing him in deeply, without a single trace of hesitation or disgust.
George drifts in and out for a while, weightless in a way he hasn't been since before Max ever rode west — held between the two of them, Kimi's nose still tucked against his throat, Max's arm a heavy, warm weight across his waist, and every so often one or the other of them makes some small, unconscious noise of reassurance, like they can't quite believe he's still there to be held.
When he finally surfaces properly, the light through the high windows has gone thin and gold, midmorning. His mouth is dry, his knee aches dully where he twisted it in the fall, and his whole body feels scraped hollow and raw in a way that has nothing to do with hunger for once — or not only that.
"You're awake," Max says softly, and George realizes he's been watching him this whole time, propped on one elbow, the exhaustion of the last three days carved deep into the lines of his face. "How do you feel?"
"Tired," George admits. His voice comes out cracked, unused. "Sore."
"You should eat something." Max says it carefully, like he's braced for George to refuse, or to flinch, or to hear an accusation buried in it that isn't there. "Broth, maybe. Nothing heavy."
George nods, and something in Max's shoulders drops with relief at the easy agreement, like he'd expected a fight. Kimi stirs against George's side, blinking blearily up at both of them, and for a moment he looks so young, his eyes big and wet — younger than he has since he rode back through the gates in his father's shadow — that George's chest aches all over again.
"I'll get it," Kimi says, already extracting himself from the furs, stumbling slightly on legs gone stiff from sleep. He pauses at the door, looking back. "Don't— " He stops, swallows. "Don't go anywhere."
"I won't," George promises, and means it more than he's meant anything in weeks.
When Kimi's gone, the room falls quiet except for the crackle of the banked fire. Max shifts closer, close enough that George can feel the warmth radiating off him, and reaches out slowly to brush a strand of hair from George's face, the same gesture from that first night, when George had thought — for one foolish hour — that everything might mend itself simply because Max had finally come home.
“I’m sorry,” Max tells him softly, and George tilts his head up to look at Max on the pillow. “I’m sorry for all of it. I couldn’t shake the feeling of the war chasing me. And I— I looked at you and I saw everything perfect about you, untouched by the violence, the violence that I caused. I didn’t want to burden you with it. I pulled away.”
George pushes his face into the pillow, stomach churning. “I know you don’t like how I smell. It’s okay. My nest… I’m— I’m not—“
“Don’t you dare say that you’re not good,” Max says fiercely. He reaches and knots his hand with George’s over the soft sheets. “I thought I was making you smell that way,” Max murmurs. “All anxious. Like you were afraid of me. I thought if I’d back off, it would help you. I now realise it just made it worse.”
“I was never afraid of you,” whispers George, his throat all tight and scratchy.
“I didn’t know what to think,” says Max. He reaches, as though to soften his words, to bring their joined hands to his mouth where he brushes his lips against his knuckles. “Sweetheart, you wouldn’t look at me, you flinched from me, and I was so focused on keeping you safe, defending what’s mine so I never have to spill blood ever again. And your nest in the study… you didn’t make it in our bed. I thought you didn’t want me.”
George’s eyes sting. “Your letters never told me what it was like, not once,” his voice comes out whiny and Max nuzzles beneath his jaw, an automatic instinct to soothe, “I didn’t know what to think. About you. About our pup. And I thought— if I told you how bad it was here, how I couldn't sleep without your cloak, how I stopped having heats because my body gave up on you ever coming back—" His voice is all cracked and feeble. His free hand bunches in the fabric. “I didn’t want you to be disappointed.”
“Missing you felt like missing a limb,” Max implores.He leans down until his forehead rests heavily against George’s, his grip on their joined hands tightening so fiercely it’s almost painful, but George clings back with equal desperation.
“How could I ever be disappointed in you? You kept my home. You kept my son alive. You kept yourself alive through nine years of hell. I came back to a world I didn't recognise, and the only thing that kept me going through it all was knowing you were under this roof. That you were safe. Even if I disgusted you. Even if you didn’t want my love anymore.”
Max presses his lips to George’s forehead, then to his eyelids, kissing away the salt of his tears. "I didn't talk about the war in those letters because if I put it into words, I thought it would poison you from miles away. I thought if I kept it outside, I could come back clean, but…”
George lets out a shuddering breath, the last of the cold, terrified knot in his stomach finally unravelling. He reaches up with his free hand, cupping the back of Max’s neck, where he can feel the ridges of his own teeth, a promise of commitment bitten matching into their napes, pulling his alpha down until Max collapses forward, burying his face into the space where George’s neck meets his shoulder.
“I’m not clean. I killed people.”
“I don’t care about that,” George says fiercely. “You had no choice. If you didn’t, others would’ve killed you.” George claws at Max’s shirt, a desperate, sudden instinctual urge to have him closer, skin-to-skin, and his shirt has personally offended George. Max shifts to get it up over his head.
And then George wiggles closer, pushing away his fear of being annoying, his hands roaming over Max’s chest and ribs, over his abdominal muscles and lean waist. Cold hands groping, searching, like he can peel back Max’s skin and crawl between his ribs, nestling his way into his heart.
“I needed you alive. I needed you here,” George mumbles. “Bloody or whatever, but here. With me.”
“I am with you,” Max says.
“You weren’t,” George’s voice breaks. “Not mentally.”
Max inhales sharply, taking in George’s scent; no longer sharp with the acrid stench of panic, but soft, warm, and sweet, like rain on dry earth underneath, slowly returning to its true nature under the safety of his pack.
"I built the nest in the study because I thought it smelled like you," George admits quietly, his fingers tracing the tense line of Max's shoulders, feeling the tension drain out of the bigger man second by second. “But you weren’t.”
“We’ll build your nest wherever you like,” coos Max, his voice wretched. “Every room in this house will be your nest if you need it to be."
“I just want my pack,” croaks George.
The door creaks open, and Kimi steps back inside carrying a heavy wooden tray. A bowl of steaming broth sits alongside three mugs and a fresh loaf of bread. He stops at the sight of them — Max practically crushed against George's side, George’s fingers tangled in Max’s hair, both of them flushed and tear-stained.
Kimi’s nose twitches, catching the sudden, overwhelming change in the air. The sourness is still there, but overlaid with a sweet tentative clementine scent, a flicker of George’s sweet vibrant scent beneath. Binding them together.
Kimi sets the tray down on a side table with a loud clack and doesn't bother waiting. He kicks off his boots and dives straight back onto the bed, crawling over the furs until he can wedge himself firmly into the space between his parents.
"You're making a mess," Kimi grumbles, though his voice is thick with relief as he wraps his arm over Max to reach George, tangling his fingers in George’s tunic. He’s being all childish and pup-like and it makes George’s heart ache. He wraps his arms around his pup and pulls him in. Kimi pouts over his shoulder at his father: "Mama needs to eat, not drown in your tears, father.”
Max lets out a wet, breathless laugh, reaching back to swat lightly at Kimi’s hip before lifting his head. He looks down at George, his blue eyes red-rimmed but shining with a clarity George hasn't seen in him since before the war.
"He's right," Max says softly, brushing a thumb over George's cheekbone. "Broth first. Then sleep. And then..." Max tilts his head, his scent flaring warm, protective, and unconditionally loving. "And then we stay right here for as long as you need.”
George closes his eyes as Kimi presses his face back into his throat and Max leans over him to press a soft, lingering kiss to his lips. Then he draws back, sits up and gets the soup in his lap, and offers a spoonful out to George.
George parts his lips, letting Max slide the carved wooden spoon past them. The broth is rich and hot, carrying the earthy depth of root vegetables and roasted bones, and George swallows with a soft sigh. It feels like the first real nourishment he’s had in months.
Max’s touch is agonizingly gentle. He blows softly on the next spoonful, his calloused thumb resting against George’s chin to steady him, tilting his head just so. Each mouthful is offered in a tender, deliberate act of atonement.
Max waits, his gaze fixed on George’s face with an intensity that borders on reverence, wiping a stray drop from the corner of George’s mouth with the pad of his thumb before kissing the skin right after. Beside them, Kimi refuses to yield an inch of space.
The moment Max sets the spoon back in the bowl to break off a small piece of soft bread, Kimi wriggles even closer, burying his face directly into the warm crook of George’s neck. He clings with an almost desperate, tactile insistence — one heavy leg thrown over George’s thighs, his small, strong hands clutching tightly at the fabric of George’s tunic as if terrified that any distance will cause his mother to vanish.
"Kimi, let your mama breathe," Max rumbles softly, though there’s no real bite to the reprimand.
"No," Kimi mutters into George’s skin, his voice muffled and stubborn. He nuzzles deeper, scenting George with rapid, shallow snuffs, desperate to cover any remaining lingering sourness with his own needy pup-scent. "He’s cold. I’m keeping him warm."
George lets out a shaky, half-sob laugh, his fingers threading through Kimi’s messy hair, smoothing it down over his forehead. "I'm fine. Let him stay, Max. Please."
Max’s expression softens into something utterly ruined by love. "Alright. Alright, sweetheart."
Max dips the crust of bread into the broth, soaking it through before guiding it to George’s lips, nursing him back to life bite by bite. With every tender offering from Max and every clingy, possessive twitch from Kimi, the last ice around George’s heart melts away, leaving him wrapped entirely in the heat of his pack.
The heavy oak doors to the bedchamber remained firmly shut, keeping the rest of the estate, and the cold world outside, at bay.
In the beginning, George’s body pays the steep price of his fall and the years of slow starvation his grief had inflicted on him. His twisted knee throbs, and his lungs rattle with the fading remnants of his chill. But every time a shiver threatens to take hold, his pack is immediately there to soothe it away.
Max barely leaves the nest. The lord who had spent nine years commanding men on blood-soaked fields now spends his hours blowing softly on spoons of rich, savory broth, patiently feeding George a little at a time. When George’s throat grows too tired to swallow, Max doesn't scold him or pull away, he simply sets the bowl aside, pulls George atop his solid chest, and lets his steady alpha heartbeat act as an anchor to keep George grounded.
The days are strange and slow, like he’s waking from a long dream. Max doesn’t let him walk anywhere — trips to the baths or the latrine always occur with him in Max’s arms, no matter how many times he complains that he can do it himself.
Aside from that, George sleeps more than he’s slept in years; his body finally giving into the exhaustion it’s been fighting off for months. Fitful feverish dreams where his mother and father are there, Lewis is there, dreams that he was on the front lines with Max, dreams that his estate had been invaded, swimming in and out. Kimi and Max take turns sitting with him, the way they might sit with a wounded soldier, but less like a death-watch. The loyalty is there.
Kimi proves to be a fierce, uncompromising guard. Like the lessons he learnt at war he could finally wield to protect his pack. He doesn’t soften, not really, but redirects his learned anger. When a servant knocks to deliver fresh linens, Kimi’s warning growl is so deep and instinctual it rumbles through George and makes him go boneless.
Max had merely chuckled into George’s hair, letting their young pup establish his territorial boundary. Like he’d never been able to do before. There’d been no nests or soft things at the front. Mud and cold cots. It feeds a starved part of his pup. Max confesses to George that he feels extremely guilty about Kimi, about the war, about forcing him to stamp out any softness, youthfulness, any vulnerability.
But Kimi spends his time dragging every soft blanket, heavy cloak, and wool tunic he can find into the bed, meticulously weaving them into the surrounding furs until the nest feels like an impenetrable fortress that he can flop down on. He’s healing.
On the third night, the fever finally broke completely. George wakes to the low, comforting rumble of Max and Kimi speaking in hushed tones over his head. He feels the wet swipe of a towel over his forehead and sinks back into deep dreamless sleep.
In the morning, he wakes to find the nest empty but the room warm, sunlight streaming through the windows. He feels himself panic for a moment, an old habit, but then hears voices from the corridor, through the door, and the icy panic melts away.
He gets up slowly, testing his weight on his bed knee. It twinges, but holds up on his weight as he pulls on one of Max’s shirts, letting it hang open over his tunic as he pads barefoot to the door. Through the door, Kimi’s low voice — “I just don’t— why wouldn’t you— I thought mama was fine, I thought…”
“You had to be a soldier,” Max replies, sounding tired. “I couldn’t put my grief on your shoulders.”
“But mama was alone,” Kimi insists. “And he never, I never saw him with Lew—”
George knocks softly on the doorframe, and both heads turn to him as he peels the door open.
“Mama,” Kimi is at his side in a moment, hovering beside him. He’s vibrating with restless, frantic alpha energy, his hands twitching like he wants to scoop George up and drag him straight back into the furs. “You shouldn’t be walking yet. Your fever, your knee—”
“My knee is fine, pup,” George murmurs, his voice still a little raspy, but lighter, sweeter. He raises a hand to cup Kimi’s jaw, feeling the sharp, tense line of the boy’s face soften instantly at the contact. George tilts his head, catching the rich, sweet burst of clementine slicing through the room, blending smoothly with Kimi’s minty pine and Max’s deep, grounded cedar.
Over Kimi’s shoulder, Max stands near the hearth, a silver tray of tea and fresh bread in his hands. He looks exhausted — the dark smudges under his eyes proof of three sleepless days — but the sheer soft relief on his face when he looks at George makes him look younger than he has in nearly a decade.
“You’re supposed to be resting, sweetheart,” Max says softly, though there’s no real bite to the scold. He sets the tray on the side table and moves across the floor, his heavy boots silent against the rugs until he’s standing right behind Kimi, wrapping a thick, protective arm around both of them.
“I slept enough,” George says, leaning into the double warmth of his pack, but lets them pliantly pull him back towards the bed and then he’s lost to his instincts again. Purring shakily, unsteadily, as Kimi flops down atop him, winding him, as he squirms and fidgets contentedly.
“There are gifts for you,” Max says into his hair.
George pauses, “what kind of gifts?”
“From the local village. Flowers and pastries and knitted clothing,” Max draws back and finds George’s eyes. “They really love you, sweetheart.”
George goes pink. “No, they don’t,” he mumbles. “I wasn’t very good at looking after them. You saw it for yourself. It’s a miracle I didn’t kill all of them.”
“Nonsense,” Max chides, reaching to peck a kiss against George’s temple. “Don’t say those things about yourself. I picked at the mill, sure, but I hadn’t considered all of the work you’d done to keep these people alive, for years. All of the things you’ve done right, done well, instead of the one thing that was missed.”
Max huffs, “I received a personal letter from a Mr Gravey informing me that I had better worship the ground my omega walks on lest he and the rest of the village skin me alive.” George is mortified, but Max just amusedly continues, “he gave me an itemised list of all the good you’ve done for them over the past decade.”
“It was twelve pages long,” whispers Kimi.
George buries his face into the warm hollow of Max’s neck, the last lingering doubts inside his mind finally dissolving into the rich, grounding scent of him. The room is thick with it, heavy and sweet, sealed tight against the outside world.
"You kept the estate standing," Max continues softly, his broad hands smoothing over the curve of George's spine, tracing every fragile line of his back with a reverence that makes George’s chest ache. "You fed the tenant farmers through four winter blights. You managed the accounts, protected the land, and raised our boy into a fine young man while I was away. You carried the entire world. I will not let you sit here and let you diminish what you survived."
Kimi shifts against George’s side, letting out a loud, dramatic huff that vibrates right through George’s ribs. "Mrs. Gable sent a whole crate of her cinnamon rolls. Mary almost cried when she heard you’d fallen ill." Kimi pokes George's waist gently. "Everyone knows you're the only reason this place didn't fall apart. Father was just being a stubborn old soldier who forgot how to talk to people."
"Hey," Max rumbles, though there's a fond, helpless curve to his mouth as he reaches over George to nudge Kimi’s shoulder. "Watch your tongue, pup."
"It's true," Kimi mutters, but he buries his face deeper into the crook of George's neck, his hands tangling tightly in the hem of George's tunic. "Mama, he’s terrible at talking, it's exhausting."
A wet, breathless laugh escapes George's lips; the first real, light sound to leave his throat in years. Max catches the sound with a soft smile, eyes awe-filled and adoring, leaning down to press his lips against the corner of George's mouth, lingering there until George lets out a soft, contented trill that echoes through the quiet bedroom.
"He's not wrong," Max murmurs against George's skin. "We have nine years of lost time to make up for, but we have all the time in the world now, sweetheart. I'm not going back to war. My place is here. Guarding my home. Guarding you." The earnestness in his voice makes George’s throat close up.
Max reaches for the silver tray on the bedside table, picking up a piece of the fresh, tear-apart bread and a cup of warm tea. He offers the bread to George, watching with dark, affectionate eyes as George takes a small, hesitant bite. The warm butter and honey melt on his tongue, and for the first time in months, the food doesn't feel like ash in his mouth.
"Eat," Max coos softly, stroking a thumb over George's flushed cheekbone. "And then we'll rebuild your nest properly. Anywhere you want it; in our room, in the study, out on the veranda, wherever makes you feel safe."
"Here," George whispers, his voice steadying, his eyes bright as he looks between the two alphas flanking him. "Right here.”
Kimi, who had been drawing content circles across George’s torso with his thumb, pauses and cocks his head up. His eyes glance nervously between George and Max before he asks softly, “would you like Lewis here?” Max stills. George looks up at the canopy, the sweet bread now sitting like a stone in his stomach.
“It’s not like that,” George whispers. “Lewis isn’t— we’re not… I’ve never been with him. I just—” his breath hitches, and Kimi’s grip on him tightens, protective and encouraging. “I was so alone, and he was the only person there, the only constant I had. I needed an alpha scent, needed someone around to help me swim up to the surface, I guess. Nothing more that than. You’re my husband, I would never…”
Max is quiet for a long moment, long enough that George's stomach twists, old fear rearing up even now, warm and safe as he is between them.
“I know,” he manages finally, voice rough and soft. “I shouldn’t have— everything was wrong. You smelt wrong, and I thought you wouldn’t have us anymore. We’ve killed people, we’ve hurt things. I thought you’d found the softer option, that you’d betrayed all those lovely letters you wrote me. I was furious and too afraid to ask you.”
“You scared me,” George whispers, heart in his throat. “You scared him.”
"I know." Max presses his mouth to George's hair, and when he speaks again there's real shame threaded through it. "I'll recall him. Today, if the weather holds. He shouldn't be out on that ridge for something that was my failure, not his."
Kimi props himself up on one elbow, looking between them with the same searching intensity he had at the lake. "We owe him you, don’t we?”
George nods, throat tight. "I would have—" He stops, tries again. "I don't know what would have happened to me, those last years, if he hadn't been there.”
Something shifts in Kimi's face — the wariness of a young alpha sizing up a rival easing into something more like recognition, perhaps even gratitude, grudging as it is. "Then he's family," he says, with final authority that is betrayed by the way he glances at his father. "Isn't he? If he did that for Mama, he's earned that much.”
Maybe not pack, not quite as close as that, but family, perhaps. Max is quiet again, and George holds his breath, watching the war play out openly on his husband's face for once instead of behind some shuttered commander's mask — pride and jealousy and shame all tangled together, and underneath all of it, plain and simple, love, clumsy with disuse.
"Yes," Max says finally, heavy but certain. "He's George’s family." His arm tightens around George, an apology folded into the gesture. "I'll thank him properly. Not just recall him — thank him. For keeping you safe when I couldn't."
George's eyes sting again, the good kind of overwhelmed, and he presses his face into the warm space between Max's collarbone and throat, breathing him in. "Thank you," he murmurs, though he isn't sure anymore if he's thanking Max, or Kimi, or some version of himself from four winters ago who kept getting up every morning even when he couldn't remember why.
Lewis is sent for that afternoon, brought back from the outer watch before he's even made it a full day's ride, and when he's shown into the room — stiff-backed, wary, clearly braced for a reprimand — Max rises from the nest to meet him at the door instead of staying seated in a show of territorial authority.
Even though no doubt every part of Max is screaming to defend his nest, his omega and his pup, he doesn’t. He keeps his alpha on the end of a short, civilised leash.
"My lord," Lewis says carefully, eyes flicking past Max to where George sits propped against the pillows, pale but upright, Kimi curled possessively at his side. George offers him a weak smile. Lewis’ eyes search him. He heard about the fall, no doubt. George hadn’t meant to worry him.
"Lewis." Max's voice is rough, unpracticed at what he's about to do. "I owe you an apology. Several, actually." He glances back at George, before he continues. "You looked after my mate when I couldn't. When I didn't know how. I repaid that by punishing you for it, and that was a failure on my part, not yours."
Lewis's careful composure falters, just slightly, surprise breaking through the guarded expression he's worn since he stepped through the door. "I only did what any decent man would do, my lord."
"Not every man would have stayed," Max says quietly. "Four years is a long time to keep showing up for someone who couldn't always show up for himself." He extends a hand, and after a beat of visible disbelief, Lewis takes it. "Come inside. George has been asking for you."
Lewis's gaze finds George's over Max's shoulder, and something in his gentle face cracks open — relief the mask of the dutiful head guard slipping for just a moment to show the exhaustion and worry underneath it.
George holds out a hand, and Lewis crosses the room and takes it, kneeling at the edge of the nest the way he has so many times before, except this time there's no need to hide it, no late-night secrecy, no shame curling low in George's belly.
"You scared me half to death," Lewis says, low, his thumb sweeping once over George's knuckles before he lets go, mindful of Kimi's watchful eyes and Max standing close behind him. He doesn’t enter the nest, but he’s close, and his sea-salt scent makes George purr weakly. "Don't you dare do that again."
"I won't," George promises, and for the first time in longer than he can remember, he believes his own reassurance.
The weeks that follow are slow and gentle, without the fever-pitch that coated the first few nights. George's knee takes a month to stop aching on wet mornings. His appetite returns in fits and starts, Max hovering at every meal with a kind of anxious attentiveness that would have embarrassed George once and now only makes him feel treasured.
Kimi relearns how to be soft in increments — first only in the privacy of the nest, then in small unguarded moments around the house, laughing at something a servant says, letting George fuss over his hair, until one morning George catches him pausing a stable-boy to watch a trail of ducklings waddle past, and has to duck away so no one sees his tears well up.
Lewis stays on, head of the household guard once more, though something has shifted. George sees a respect between him and Max that wasn't there before, forged in that first stiff apology and worn smooth by months of shared vigilance over George's healing.
He still comes to sit with George some evenings, though now it's Max who pours the tea, and Kimi who steals the good seat by the fire, and the three of them argue good-naturedly about nothing in particular while George listens, curled up in blankets that finally, finally smell like the people he loves.
His scent comes all the way back by the time the first snow falls, punchy and ripe and citrussy, sweet in a way he’d almost forgotten he could be.
The night it does, Max buries his face in George's throat and simply breathes him in for a long, wordless while like he’s having a silent reunion with a part of George that can’t speak.
"There you are," he murmurs, and George, safe and warm and thoroughly surrounded by the people he loves, finally lets himself believe that he's home to stay.