Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s the seventy-fifth tally when they bring the big alpha downstairs.

From the second Soap can hear him, he’s shouting up a storm fit to smash seawalls. He’s got a great big voice—booming and British and banging off of the walls like thunder. There are four men on him, and twice as many guns besides. His hands are bound tight behind his back, and his ankles hobbled up on short chains: he fights like hell the whole way down the hall, anyway. As he’s shoved onto his knees in his cell, he gets a nasty look in his eyes and lurches forward to sink his fangs into the thigh of his nearest captor. He gets himself pistol-whipped for his effort and still looks like he wants to try it again.

Soap likes him intensely and immediately.

The alpha spits swears as his captors retreat, and only stops once they’ve left the basement entirely. Then he rocks back on his heels, panting hard. He smells like blood and sweat and the sharp spice of anger. Soap breathes him in, making no real effort to disguise his curiosity. It’s not very often he gets visitors, these days. 

“Hey,” he says, and his voice rings strangely in his own ears.

The big alpha’s eyes snap to his, pale and wide and just a little crazy. “Who the hell are you?”

“John MacTavish,” Soap says, “but you can call me Soap.”

“What the fuck kind of name is Soap?”

“It’s my callsign.”

“You’re military.”

“Nah, just thought I’d tour this destination hotspot while I was in town.”

“And a right prick you are, too,” the alpha says, approvingly. “SCOTS?”

“SAS, actually,” Soap says. “Just passed selection.”

The alpha’s eyebrows raise. A thick scar cuts through one of them, slicing neatly across the bridge of his nose. “Must have had a bad first day to end up here.”

“You can say that again. Captain’s gonna kick my arse when I get outta here.” Soap leans against the wall of his own cell, raking a hand through his hair. It’s getting long; they’ll probably shave him down soon. “You want some help? Can’t do much about the chains, but I can probably untie those ropes.”

The alpha shrugs and stands, coming to stand against the bars that separate their cells. He turns to let Soap see his hands where they’re been bound behind his back by several thick coils of rope. The rope is knotted tightly, frayed and bloodied by the alpha’s struggles. Soap picks at it for several long moments, trying to ease out the knots. When the rope finally loosens, the alpha shakes it off of his wrists and flexes his hands.

“Thanks,” he says; the skin of his wrists is rubbed raw, and he swipes his tongue across the wounds to clean them briskly. “How long you been here?”

“Seventy-five days.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” Soap shrugs, sitting down in his favorite corner of the cell—the one in the very back, where he can keep an eye on the door. “But I figure somebody’ll come for me eventually.”

At least, Soap really hopes somebody will. He hadn’t been close with his troop—hadn’t had a chance to be, since he’d only just joined them—but he knows that Captain Price is fond of him, even if the old man has a hard-ass way of showing it. Still, Soap isn’t particularly important, all things considered, so if retrieving him costs too many resources then he may very well be on his own.

He’s come to terms with that possibility, too.

“What squadron are you in?”

“B squad, air troop,” Soap says, glancing back at the alpha.

“That used to be Captain Price’s squad,” the alpha says, a flicker of surprise in his voice.

“Aye. You know him?”

“Know him? Shit, Price has been mindin’ me for years.” The alpha pauses, and then sticks his hand between the bars of their cells. Soap grins, pops back onto his feet, and shakes it. “Lieutenant Simon Riley, of Task Force 141.”

“Simon Riley?” Soap is not ashamed to admit that his voice jumps several octaves when he says this. If this is the Simon Riley— the Ghost—fuckin’ hell, it’s a legend standing in front of him! “As in the Ghost?”

Ghost inclines his head slightly.

Soap is going to explode.

“Steamin’ Jesus!” Soap bounces on his toes to dispel the sudden surge of excitement that crashes through him. “Ah’ve heard so much aboot ye. Ye ken, like, everybody talks aboot ye?”

“I—ken?”

“Yer a feckin’ myth, mate,” Soap exclaims. “Ye ken some people dinnae even think you were real? I had tae ask Price just tae make sure you weren’t some joke everybody was playing on the FNG. Ah hoped I’d get to meet you after I joined the SAS, but Ah sure as shit didnae think it would be like this.”

“Christ, you’re more Scottish than I thought.”

“Aye, Scottish and right chuffed to meet ye, ye big yin.”

Soap’s voice is starting to rasp under the stress of all of this talking—it’s the loudest he’s been in weeks, barring the screaming he does when the Al-Qatala torture him. Used to be he could talk for hours at a time, but it’s not so easy anymore. So he settles back into his corner, drawing his knees up to his chest and clearing his throat a couple of times before continuing. 

“So, I gotta ask—where’s the famous mask?”

“Bastards took it,” Ghost says, rubbing a hand regretfully over his jaw.

“Ah.” Soap doesn’t know much about the mask, other than that nobody’s ever seen the Ghost without it and lived to tell the tale. Taking it from him must be a unique form of torture. Soap averts his eyes, like he could ever forget that pretty face. “Sorry, Lt.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

A moment of silence drags between them, but Soap’s curiosity is insatiable.

“So how’d you get to be here?”

“Same way you did.” Ghost sits down against the wall and begins to fuss with the chains around his ankles. “We were going after some Al-Qatala officials when they ambushed us in Haditha. As far as I know, I’m the only one of my team who got taken. There’s no telling if they’re going to be able to find us. You know where we are?”

“Not a clue, sir,” Soap says. “They had me out cold when they brought me here. Haven’t been outside since. You have any idea?”

Ghost shakes his head. “I was blindfolded. But we can’t have gone too far from Haditha. The trip only felt like a couple of hours.”

“Well, that narrows it down, some. What you thinkin’, Lt? Gonna break us out of here?”

“Gonna try, anyway,” Ghost says, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Price will be looking for us, and the rest of the 141.”

“Wasn’t he already looking?” Soap asks—a selfish question, he knows, but one he can’t quite bite back.

“Hell, of course he was.” Ghost slants a look towards Soap, eyes glittering in the weak lamplight. “Wouldn’t shut up about it. He’s had your troop looking for you for months, and now that these bastards have both of us he’ll be able to pour more resources into the search. The major can’t tell him to ignore a group that’s captured two operators unless he wants a coup.”

“Good,” Soap says, taking comfort in the idea—his people are out there looking for him, for them. Unfortunately, while it’s a comforting idea, it’s not an infallible one. “But we can’t count on being rescued.”

“No,” Ghost agrees. “I’m assuming you haven’t just been sitting around and twiddling your thumbs—so tell me what you’ve tried already.”

“Aye, sir.”

Soap’s escape attempts have been a series of numerous and painful failures. He’d tried the classic hit-and-run, which only served to earn him a bullet in the back of the leg. He’d scraped out the weak spot in the ceiling where water always dripped, which had lost him the privilege of having both fingernails and silverware—but earned him a new, less-leaky ceiling, so, hey, there was a bright side. He’d stolen the key ring from a guard while they were busy beating him for running his smart mouth, and he’d snuck all the way to the first floor before someone caught him and they decided to add two new locks to his cell door, and two more stun guns to his regularly-scheduled interrogations.

Ghost listens intently, staring hard at the far wall as Soap talks. Soap brushes over the worst details of his failures—namely, the consequences—but explains why exactly he'd fail each time. He also offers Ghost the schedules of the guards, the routines of the base, the questions the interrogators always ask him. This faction of the Al-Qatala seems to have a personal vendetta against the SAS, demanding the names and locations and duties of operators—but the joke’s on them, because Soap doesn’t know shit, and even if he did he wouldn’t be telling.

By the time he’s finished talking, Soap’s voice is well and truly shot. He clears his throat again and licks his teeth, for all the good it does him; his mouth is dryer than the damn desert outside, and dinner isn’t due for another several hours. He’ll have to endure his tacky tongue and sandpaper throat until then, unless he wants to drink from the toilet in the back of his cell—and he’s not quite that desperate, yet. Mercifully, Ghost quits questioning him and busies himself with some good old-fashioned brooding instead.

Soap may be too worn to talk (a feat he once wouldn’t have thought possible), but he’s still got the energy to look. He sizes up the lieutenant, although he’s careful to keep his eyes off of Ghost’s face—not that it makes much of a difference, at this point. Ghost is tall and broad all the way through, packed with dense muscle. He’s been stripped of his tac, and his undershirt is wet with sweat and blood. Soap’s nostrils flare, and now that the anger in Ghost’s scent has faded he can smell the hurt.

Soap pushes a roll of toilet paper through the bars.

Ghost blinks at him.

“To patch yourself up,” Soap explains; it’s no medkit, but it’s better than nothing. “You hurt bad?”

“Negative.”  

Soap nods and looks away again, offering him whatever semblance of privacy he can. He hears Ghost shedding his ruined undershirt, hears a quiet hiss as he wipes blood away from whatever wounds he sustained. He doesn’t look back until Ghost rolls the toilet paper across their cell floors and it bumps sadly against his boot. 

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, Lt.”

Ghost is quiet for another few seconds before he asks, “What are you?”

“A sergeant.”

“Not what I meant.” Ghost tips his head up, breathing in, trying to scent him. “I can’t smell you.”

“You should be grateful, considerin’ I haven’t showered in a week.”

Ghost snorts. Then he asks,

“They do something to you?”

Soap cringes at the thought. It’s not unheard of for POWs to be drugged into compliance—or, in worse cases, surgically altered. Fortunately, that’s not Soap’s case. 

“Nae, sir.”

“Then you’re a beta.”

“Aye.”

“The hell are you doing out in the field? Shouldn’t you be undercover somewhere?”

“Ah, but where’s the fun in that?” Soap grins a little. 

“You’re a madman.” Ghost doesn’t sound entirely unhappy about it. A little more seriously, he adds, “Need me to scent you?”

Betas are notoriously social: peacekeepers who delight in taking care of their packmates and smoothing over the conflicts that inevitably arise between more volatile alphas and omegas. For one to be kept in isolation for any length of time is a particular kind of cruelty. Soap would be lying if he said he didn’t crave this alpha’s scent—or, quite honestly, the scent of anyone who didn’t actively want to harm him right now. 

“No, I can't say as I need it,” Soap says, choosing his words carefully.

Ghost narrows his eyes in suspicion. 

Properly chastised, Soap amends, “Be lyin’ if I said I didn’t want it, though.”

“Here.”

Ghost stretches his arm through the bars, offering Soap his radial scent gland. 

“You sure?”

“Come here,” Ghost orders—then a little more softly, and with a beckoning alpha-rumble beneath the words, “C’mere, Soap.”

Soap doesn’t need to be told twice. He scoots over to sit against the bars between them, cradling Ghost’s wrist in his hands. He rubs his cheek against the gland nestled beside Ghost’s pulsepoint, drawing out the alpha’s scent and smearing it greedily against his skin. Ghost smells strongest here, untainted by blood and gunpowder—smells like vetiver and amber, like a forest in autumn. It’s a good scent, grounding and earthy, and Soap murmurs his approval. 

“Better?” Ghost asks, when Soap draws back.

“Aye,” Soap says, and it’s true—his head feels fuzzy and full, calmer than it’s been in months. It’s a risky sort of feeling, when he’s this deep in enemy territory, but he trusts Ghost to keep an eye out for them. “Ta, sir.”

Ghost flexes his fingers expectantly, still reaching for Soap. “Let me see your hand.”

“I can’t scent you back,” Soap says, guilt niggling through the warm-safe-alpha feelings that ebb insistently through him. “I’m flattened.”

“Don’t want them smellin’ you?”

“Easier to keep secrets that way,” Soap agrees; he had flattened his own scent as soon as he’d been captured. Pheromonal manipulation is a beta’s trick, exceedingly useful when settling irritated packmates—or when going undercover during covert operations. All things considered, Soap probably should have joined the CIA. Lord knows they’d tried hard enough to recruit him. But in the end, there simply hadn’t been enough C4 to tempt him.

“Can’t be easy, doin’ that for so long.”

“Eh.” Soap shrugs, but Ghost isn’t wrong. Scent is as important as sight or sound, and Soap has effectively sliced off one of his senses for the last seventy-five days. He’s not quite sure he’s ever going to get it back. But that’s a risk he’s willing to take, if it means keeping his captors in the dark. “I’ll survive.”

Ghost hums thoughtfully, drawing his hand back to himself. 

“So, you come up with a plan yet?” Soap asks hopefully.

“Got a few ideas.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Let's hear ‘em.”

Together, he and Ghost plan their great escape long into the night, and Soap feels more confident than he has in months. They’re going to break out of here and go home. Even if the Al-Qatala could keep Soap here, there’s no way they can keep Ghost, right? The man’s pure legend. With his help, Soap’ll be out of here in a couple of days, tops. He’s finally—finally!—going home.

If only it had been that easy.

Chapter Text

Captain John Price is asleep, buried beneath three duvets and a quilt, when the knocking starts.

It’s persistent and impolite and has him scrambling out of bed, automatically reaching for the blade he nestles between his box spring and his mattress. The hilt of the knife is cold and heavy in his palm; the sensation clears his mind, brushing away the final dregs of lackluster sleep. He flips his lamp on and stalks towards the door, properly incensed. It had better be damn important if it’s waking him up at the asscrack of dawn.

“What is it?” he snaps, throwing the door open.

Price isn’t sure what he’s expecting—a harried-looking private, maybe, or an officer with grim tidings. He certainly isn’t expecting Gaz, wide-eyed and panting and smelling like sour terror and sweet hope all in the same breath. Price’s hackles raise in anticipation. 

“Gaz?”

“We found them,” Gaz says, and the words should thrill Price all the way through—but they don’t. Gaz is still watching him, tense as a trigger. Something’s wrong. 

“Where?” Price asks, already dragging his go-bag out of his closet and throwing on his uniform. “They safe?”

Gaz hesitates, and fear settles like ice in the pit of Price’s stomach.

“Are they safe?” Price asks again, blood rushing in his ears.

“They’re alive,” Gaz says, and that’s something Price can work with, thank fuck.

“Well, what are we waiting for, then?” Price asks, stuffing his feet into his boots.

“Just you, sir,” Gaz says, cheeky little shit that he is. “Helo is waiting to take us to Tobrak.”

“They’re in Tobrak?”

“Just outside of it. Found themselves a little fort to hole up in.”

“Let’s get a move on, then.”

Tobrak is sweltering, the sky above a pale and scorching blue. The air is dry, eerily still. Price’s boots crunch against hard-packed earth when he steps out of the helo, shading his eyes as he surveys the dilapidated territory his boys have claimed for themselves. Looks like it used to be an old Al-Qatala outpost—bombed, at one point, if the broken walls and shrapnel shards are anything to go by. 

“Where are they?” 

“Inside,” Gaz says, falling into step with him. “Mole’s troop tried to establish contact, but Ghost isn’t tolerating it well.”

“And Soap?”

“They haven’t seen him except for the infrared scope. Nobody can get a clear line of sight on him without pissing Ghost off.”

“I take it someone found that out the hard way.”

“Sergeant Berlin’s in the infirmary now, sir, but he’ll be alright. Just a couple knife wounds.”

“Ghost’s armed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fuckin’ hell.”

“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

“Captain Price.” Lieutenant Mole salutes as Price and Gaz approach the perimeter set up around the fort. “Sergeant Garrick.”

“Lieutenant,” Price says, stopping beside him. He takes a deep breath—can’t smell anything but kerosene and baked sand and the stressed sweat of the other SAS soldiers loitering nearby. “Gimme a sitrep.”

“My team was investigating an Al-Qatala outpost ten mics away,” Mole explains, tucking his hands crisply behind his back. “We had intel that they were holding POWs there—thought maybe they were your missing men. When we got there, the place was a fuckin’ bloodbath. Hostiles were all dead on arrival. Looked to have been dead for at least a couple of days. We couldn’t for the life of us figure out who’d done it, until we saw the cells downstairs.”

Price’s jaw tightens.

“They were both empty when we got there, but there were tallies carved up on one of the walls. Didn’t think anything of it until Rebound counted ‘em—one hundred and fifty-four. When we realized Sergeant MacTavish had been missing the same amount of time, we figured he’d been kept there. So we searched the surrounding area, and lo and behold if we didn’t find them both holed up in this fort. We tried to go in and talk to ‘em, but your big old boy didn’t take too kindly to that.”

“He feral?”

“Seems like.”

Price’s jaw tightens further, a muscle fluttering in his cheek. 

“Were you able to get a positive ID on either of them?”

Mole hesitates, then admits, “Not positive, sir. Ghost found himself a mask somewhere—not that seein’ his actual face would do me any good, either. But his build’s about the same. Blond hair, gray eyes. Saw some tattoos on his left arm.”

“Sounds like him, anyway. What about Soap?”

“Haven’t actually seen him, though not for lack of tryin’. Ghost won’t let us anywhere near. Infrared is picking up a second person inside, but they’re hidden around the back of the fort. Got a hunch it’s him, though.”

“One way to find out,” Price says, grimly. “Where’s your medic?”

“Taking care of Berlin,” Mole says, “in the tent set up ‘round back of the helos.”

“Have him come talk to me as soon as he’s finished.”

“Sir.”

As Mole strides towards the medical tent, Price lets out a rough breath and scrubs his hands over his face. Gaz leans against him—just of brush of shoulders, but enough to help ground him. 

“Think you can settle him down?” Gaz asks quietly.

“Nobody settles Ghost down once he’s proper feral.”

Of course, Price has only seen him feral twice: once after a mission gone FUBAR, and once after Roba. Both times he’d been sedated and pumped full of antipsychotics, synthetic hormones, and a cocktail of SSRIs. The drugs had worked to regulate him, eventually, but they’d also left the poor bastard sicker than a dog and on medical leave for over two months afterwards. Price is keen to avoid that, but he knows better than to hope—especially when Ghost has already attacked and injured another soldier. 

“We’ll tranq him first,” Price decides, albeit reluctantly. “Try to get close once he’s slowed down. We’ll evac him to the nearest hospital for treatment.”

“And Soap?”

“Never seen a feral beta,” Price says thoughtfully. “He should be rational. We just have to get close enough to talk to him.”

“Want me to go in?” Gaz asks.

“You’d probably have better luck,” Price admits.

Gaz considers it for a moment, head tilted. Price is sure either one of them could get close enough to restrain Ghost eventually, given enough time and space—and benzos—but Gaz and his pretty omega pheromones might work faster. Ghost’s always been a soft touch for the 141’s omegas. Then again, he’s never been feral around them. There’s no telling how he’ll respond.

“Only if you’re comfortable with it, Sergeant,” Price allows. “Not makin’ you do anything.”

“It’s not Ghost I’m worried about,” Gaz admits.

“Soap?”

“I don’t properly know him, and he’s not my packmate. He’ll be a blind spot once I’m in there.”

“Ah, he’s a sweetheart,” Price says. “Wouldn’t hurt a fly unless it flew a terrorist flag. How about this? I’ll go in with you to watch your six, but I’ll keep back until you’ve got Ghost down. Sound good?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Captain Price?” An unfamiliar medic stops behind them, looking expectantly at Price. “The lieutenant said you wanted to see me.”

“I did.” Price turns to face him, eyes scanning his face and uniform—there, printed on his shoulder, sits the name JAMISON. “We need to tranquilize Lieutenant Riley.”

“I have versed and ketamine,” Jamison offers. “Should do the trick, at least for a few minutes. Once you’ve got him secured I can start a drip—keep him down as long as you like. How much he weigh?”

“Fourteen stone, or near enough.”

“And he’s an alpha?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. Give me a minute.”

Jamison vanishes back into the medical tent and returns with a dart gun. He offers it to Price, who weighs it carefully in his hands—it’s much lighter than a proper gun, made of plastic instead of steel. Price hands it to Gaz, who turns its meager weight curiously in his hands. 

“You have three syringes in there,” Jamison explains. “Each one is more than enough for him, so try to only hit him once—if you overdose him he could go in respiratory distress, which is a hassle I’d rather avoid. Make sure you’ve missed before you try again, and if he pulls the dart do not, for the love of god, shoot him again. The syringes are designed with compressed air; they’ll inject the sedative within a couple of seconds. Once he’s hit, it’ll take about five minutes for the meds to really kick in.”

“How long do they last?” Gaz asks, looking away from the gun to meet Jamison’s eyes. “The meds?”

“As keyed up as he already is? You’ve got ten minutes—maybe twenty, if you’re lucky. Get him disarmed and secured and then call me in. I’ll start an IV drip to keep him nice and sleepy for the flight to the hospital. What about the other one?”

“Soap?” Price shakes his head, jamming his hands into his pockets. “Nah. He’ll cooperate.”

“You sure he’s not feral, too? If one of them is, chances are both of them are.”

“He’s a beta.”

“Hm,” Jamison says, unconvinced. “Well, if you have to shoot him, shoot him twice.”

Gaz’s brow furrows. “He’s smaller than Ghost.”

“If you have to shoot him,” Jamison repeats, “shoot him twice.”

With that comforting and not-at-all-ominous instruction, Price turns back to the fort. There’s no point in stalling. He wants his boys safe, he wants them home, and he wants them now. He glances over at Gaz, arching his eyebrows.

“Ready, Gaz?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Price makes a lap around the perimeter, issuing instructions to the other soldiers—where they should stand at guard, which comms to communicate with Price and Gaz on, and orders to hold their fire on pain of fuckin’ death. As soon as everyone is in place, Price falls into step behind Gaz. His sergeant takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and steps into the maw of the beast.

Price’s eyes ache as they adjust to the darkness inside of the fort. The whole place reeks—acrid and bitter and smokey. The rank scent of a terrified alpha overlays it all, sears Price’s nostrils, makes his own muscles draw tight with nerves. Ghost only smells like that during the bleakest points of a mission, and even then the scent is controlled by layers of icy compartmentalization and pheroblock. Here it’s sharp, overwhelming, edged by the tang of blood and the salt of sweat.

Price takes a few deep breaths to force his muscles loose again, pulling his bandana up over his nose to dull the smell. His eyes sweep cursorily over the foyer, taking in the defenses that Ghost has erected. Broken desks and dressers have been toppled, jammed together to create a dense barrier between the foyer and the rest of the fort. To get through, they’ll have to go over.

“Damn,” Gaz says, his voice low—

But not, it seems, low enough.

A deep rumble of a growl rises from somewhere beyond the barricade, and the hairs on the back of Price’s neck stand to attention. He swallows the automatic growl that rises in his own throat, adjusting his grip on the dart gun as Gaz slowly advances in the foyer.

“Ghost?” he calls, softly, quietly. “Hey, it’s just me. It’s Gaz.”

The growl cuts off, leaving them in deafening silence. Somehow, it’s even worse.

“We’re not gonna hurt you,” Gaz continues in that same soft voice, crouching deftly in front of the barricade to peek through one of the narrow gaps. “We wanna help, sweetheart. We wanna get you home.”

Price’s comm crackles to life, suddenly, and through it Mole says, “Infrared has visual, Captain. Ghost is moving.”

“Which way?” Price asks.

“Back,” Mole says, with a flicker of surprise. “He’s moving away from the barricade.”

“Are we clear to move up?”

“Looks like it.”

“Move it on up, Gaz,” Price says. “Right behind you.”

Gaz swings himself over the barricade, landing quietly on the other side. Price follows him up and over, crouching with his back against broken wood as he brings his gun to bear. He sweeps his gaze across the centermost room of the fort. The sunlight is even weaker, here. It barely illuminates the motes of dust drifting in front of Price. 

“Ghost?” Gaz calls. “You’re alright. Let me see you.”

Gaz tugs his glove off with his teeth, pressing his thumb into his radial scent gland. His pheromones spike—omega-soft, but skewed sour by his own nerves. It’s not the comforting sort of scent Price was hoping for. If anything, smelling an omega’s fear is only going to make Ghost more anxious. 

“Shit,” Price whispers. “Don’t think that’s helpin’, Gaz.”

“Sorry,” Gaz says, unreasonably guilty, as he tugs his glove back on. 

“Not your fault, lad. It’d be a fool who wasn’t nervous in this situation.”

“I don’t see Ghost anywhere.”

“Mole, have you still got eyes on Ghost?” Price asks over comms.

“Negative,” Mole says. “He’s gone too far back now. The walls are blocking infrared. Sorry, gentlemen, but it looks like you’re on your own from here on out.”

“No eyes from the outside,” Price reports to Gaz, who lets out a short little breath. “Keep your head on a swivel.”

Gaz shifts another meter forward, boots rasping over the concrete—then he freezes, signaling Price to a stop. “Hold up,” he says. “Somethin’ here.”

Price follows his sergeant’s gaze to the floor, where the remnants of sunlight barely catch on a slender metal wire. He follows the length of the wire to—fuckin’ hell, to a load of C4 bundled against the wall. 

“They Home-Aloned this shit,” Gaz says, sounding altogether too impressed about the fact.

“Soap’s doing,” Price surmises.

“Shit, makin’ me like him more by the minute.”

“You won’t like him nearly as much if you get blown to hell here.”

“Aw, don’t say that, Cap.”

Price snorts. “Just watch your step.”

“Watchin’ it, sir.”

Price steps gingerly over the wire with Gaz. The two of them advance farther into the fort, following the thick scent of an agitated alpha. Try as he might, though, Price can’t smell Soap. He tries not to let that bother him. It doesn’t work—never really does. He’ll not get used to how invisible betas can be.

“Two ‘o clock, Captain,” Gaz says suddenly, his voice tense.

Price’s eyes snap up and over—just in time to see a flash of light, gleaming in two red discs as it bounces off of the eyes of an alpha. The rest of Ghost’s bulk is shadowed by a chunk of concrete. He’s wearing a tattered jacket and trousers, but thank fuck he’s got no body armor. He holds himself crouched low and still, pupils blown wide as he watches them. Those eyes are eerie, predatory. It makes something in Price’s hindbrain scream. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” Price breathes. “Yeah, he’s gone.”

“Hey, Ghost,” Gaz says, and Price hears him swallow. “You remember us, right? It’s just Gaz and Price. We’re here to take you home.”

There’s not a flicker of recognition or understanding on Ghost’s face. He doesn’t so much as twitch when Gaz speaks. His eyes swing between them—sizing them up for the kill, almost fuckin’ certainly. Price’s grip tightens on the gun, and Ghost’s eyes snap to him again. They narrow sharply, and a low growl bubbles to life in the empty dark between them. 

“Step back, Gaz.”

“Captain—”

“Step back.”

Gaz steps back, and Price braces the dart gun against his shoulder. He doesn’t have a clear shot—not unless he wants to take out one of Ghost’s eyes, which he damn well doesn’t. But when Ghost lunges—and he will—Price might be able to pop a dart into the broad targets of his shoulder or chest. He flips the safety off with a deafening click.

But when Ghost lunges, it isn’t at him—

It’s at Gaz.

Gaz snarls, startled, as Ghost’s weight slams into him. The two of them go tumbling, skidding across the concrete. Price sees the flash of a knife in Ghost’s hand. His stomach plummets. Gaz is wearing his tacvest, but if Ghost hits hard enough—hits in just the right place—

“Down, Gaz!”

Gaz crashes onto his back immediately, letting Ghost slam him into the floor with a shredded snarl. Gaz wedges a knee between them, trying vainly to keep Ghost from crushing him, and with a deft twist of hand that knife angles towards his ribs and—

Price pulls the trigger.

The shot is true, and the dart sinks home in Ghost’s back. Ghost’s eyes widen, the whites flashing in surprise. He whips his head around, and Price crashes into him with the weight of a charging bull. Ghost is solid, but he’s clearly weak—who knows how long it’s been since he had a proper meal or a day at the gym?

(Price knows. It’s been seventy-eight days. Seventy-eight days Ghost has been gone, imprisoned and tortured and starved because Price failed to keep him safe.)

Price sends them to the floor, and he hears the breath crash out of Ghost’s lungs when they hit the concrete. He doesn’t wait for another breath to come—he gets his legs up, slamming a knee between Price’s because he’s a dirty fucking fighter when it comes down to it. Price hisses in pain and rolls off of him, scrambling to get his back against a wall because if he gets Ghost behind him with that knife he’s dead.

Ghost stands, sucking in a strained breath and yanking the shattered dart out of his back. 

Five minutes, Price thinks. We just need five minutes.

Ghost takes a staggered step towards Price, but Gaz strikes before he can go any farther—he sweeps his boot out, catching Ghost at the ankles. Ghost tips backwards, eyes wide, but he doesn’t go all the way down. He’s off balance, though, and that’s all the opening Gaz needs. He lunges in, seizing Ghost’s right wrist and squeezing the tendons until his fingers loosen and the knife clatters to the ground. With a deft kick, he sends it skittering to Price.

“Nice, Gaz,” Price says, sliding the knife into the back of his waistband as he picks himself off of the ground. “Keep him dancin’.”

Ghost, thoroughly peeved by the loss of his knife, lunges towards Price. Price side-steps him and grabs his arm, wrenching it around behind his back and forcing him up against the wall. Ghost snarls in outrage—but that snarl turns quickly into a pained roar as Price wrenches his arm further up. Hell if he doesn’t feel bad about that, but not bad enough to loosen his grip. 

“That’s enough,” Price says, his voice booming between them. “Chill your ass the fuck out, Lieutenant!”

Ghost, to his credit, falters for a moment—startled or confused or maybe both, Price doesn’t know. Maybe it’s the position that’s familiar to him. It should be. Price used to hold him this way during spars, when he needed to make sure his new lieutenant could submit to him. It hadn’t been easy the first few times, but Ghost had gotten better at it as time went on. For all his brash and brawn, he’s a good sub-alpha when Price needs him to be.

Now, though?

Now, Price would have more luck getting a cement wall to surrender.

Ghost kicks back at Price’s kneecap, heedless of the way it jars his own shoulder; he’s more than willing to dislocate it if it means he gets the last hit in, the bastard. When he tries to twist against the wall, turning into the grip on his arm, Price shoves him harder against it. He’s not bigger than Ghost, and certainly not stronger, but right now Ghost is starved and drugged and undoubtedly injured—so when Price bounces his head off of the wall he actually pauses and blinks, dazed. 

“Hold still,” Price orders roughly. “Jesus fuck, pup.”

Ordinarily Ghost would take offense to being called a pup—(“I’m only seven years younger than you, old man!”)—but right now he’s simply too far gone to give two shits about anything that’s not fight or flight. As soon as his vision clears he’s fighting again, trying desperately to break the hold. Price hesitates to wrench his arm any further, unwilling to damage the ligaments even if Ghost is being a right shit at the moment. 

“Here,” Gaz says, coming up beside him and gripping Ghost’s other arm. He pins it up against the wall alongside Ghost’s head, then braces his hand on Ghost’s free shoulder. Ghost bellows in fury, but he’s unable to throw the both of them off. Gaz speaks quietly, soothingly, into the face of Ghost’s rage. “You’re alright, Ghost. It’s alright. We got you.”

It’s a long few minutes of furious fighting—Ghost’s never been one to go down easy—before the effects of the sedative really begin to make themselves known. Ghost’s struggles grow weaker, and he spends longer recovering between each bout of fury. He’s breathing hard and fast now, bracing himself against the wall as he tries to stay up. 

“Yeah, there you go,” Gaz says, running his hand up from Ghost’s shoulder and into his hair. It’s longer than he usually keeps it—long enough for the strands to start curling against his temples. Gaz scuffs those curls, his nails scraping Ghost’s scalp. “Relax. We’re gonna take care of you.”

Ghost growls, unimpressed by their soothing, but can’t seem to muster the energy to shake Gaz off anymore. His eyes slide shut for a moment, and he pants against the wall. Price eases up on his arm, letting his shoulder slide into a more comfortable position. Ghost groans but doesn’t so much as move. When his knees start to buckle under him, Price leans him back and helps him to the ground. He sits on his shins, bracing Ghost’s head on his thighs. It’s hell on his joints, but it’s worth it for the way he finally has Ghost here—safe, sound, right where he belongs. 

“Thank Christ,” Price sighs, reaching for the cuffs on his belt loop. He secures Ghost’s wrists behind his back before glancing over at Gaz. “Let Jamison know. Let’s get him secured on the helo before we go after Soap.”

“Sir.”

As Gaz reaches for his headset, Price smooths Ghost’s hair off of his sweat-soaked temples. He sighs regretfully, touching the faint red of a blooming bruise on his packmate’s forehead. He leans down, breathes in Ghost’s woodsy scent—hoping to catch a whiff of Soap on him. But he can’t smell anything at all through the thick miasma of spiced anger, sour fear, and old blood. 

With another little sigh, Price settles back on his heels.

He doesn’t see or hear Soap coming—certainly doesn’t smell him—so it’s a goddamn bastard of a surprise when he looks up and sees the bright purple eyeshine of a beta crouched in the rafters above him. It’s the only warning he gets.

“Oh, fuck—!”

Price hits the ground hard, and there are teeth in his throat.

Chapter Text

Soap doesn’t feel good.

Soap hasn’t felt good in…a long time, he thinks, but the misery is more prominent now than it has been in a while. He’s cold, and he’s thirsty, and he can’t get the wound in his shoulder to stop oozing. He curls up beneath one of the desks in their new territory, unwilling to drag himself any further back. Shivers jar his joints, and he tucks his face into the stretched collar of his shirt. His own breath washes back over his face in rapid puffs.

Quietly, he whines for Ghost. There’s no response. Ghost is somewhere, but it’s not here. Soap feels a particular sort of way about that, but he tries not worry too much. His alpha always comes back. Resigning himself to the wait, Soap curls up a little tighter and folds his hands beneath his armpits. Despite the burning sunshine and dry air, he feels like he’s freezing. 

Time passes hazily, the way it always does these days—snatches of images and sound scraped thin over his consciousness. The sunlight has faded by the time he musters the energy to move. He flips around beneath the desk, pillowing his head on his good arm. Even that much movement renders him exhausted. He whines again, a little more insistently. Where the fuck is Ghost?

Something rattles in front of the territory, and Soap sits up so fast he cracks his head against the metal underside of the desk. Hissing, he clutches his skull and glowers into the offending shadows. A quick, open-mouthed breath lets him parse the nearby scents—blood and smoke, illness and amber. Ghost is back. 

A quiet alpha-rumble greets him as Ghost scales the barricade they had erected the first day they arrived here. He steps neatly over the tripwires Soap has decorated their territory with, approaching Soap’s makeshift nest beneath the desk. He dips into a crouch, rumbling again. The sound is warm and deep, alluring. Soap shuffles out from under the desk to meet Ghost, leaning up and bumping their heads together with a welcoming rumble of his own. 

Ghost rubs his cheek against Soap’s throat and shoulder, renewing his scent claim. Soap does the same, even though it’s only going through the motions—he carries no selfscent on him, though he can’t quite remember why. It doesn’t seem to bother Ghost, at least. He simply tips his chin up, readily letting Soap cover him with his not-scent. 

Once he’s satisfied, Ghost nudges Soap back and offers him something plastic and small—oh, it’s a water bottle. Soap takes it, crinkling the weak plastic in his palms and sniffing it curiously. Where did Ghost find this? He twists the lid off, and the water smells artificial and chemically-cleansed. Disgusting, but safe. 

Ghost looks expectantly from him to the water bottle, then from the water bottle to him. Soap rolls his eyes and tips it back, letting it wet his mouth. It’s bitter and warm, but it soothes the dry ache in his throat. He hums appreciatively, and Ghost rumbles his approval. Soap passes him the bottle, and he drinks, too. Between them, they finish the bottle dishearteningly quick. Ghost looks particularly upset by the empty bottle, so Soap noses up against his shoulder with a sweet purr.

Ghost sways into him for a moment—but only for a moment. Then he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a bag of jerky. Soap tries not to think too hard about where he got this, either. He takes the bag when Ghost offers it, sniffing warily. It smells good, like salt and meat and sweet teriyaki, but the thought of food turns his stomach. He pushes the bag back towards Ghost.

Blinking in bemusement, Ghost looks at it, and then offers it again.

With a little huff, Soap flops back into his usual spot beneath the desk and turns his back. Ghost tolerates this about as well as he usually does—which is to say, not well at all. He pushes into Soap’s already-limited personal space, hovering over him and smacking him with the plastic bag until he takes it again. Soap grabs it, grumbling, and lays on top of it so certain assholes in the vicinity can’t use it to whack him.

Ghost growls at him, but it’s only a warning growl—rattling and high, from his throat instead of his chest. Soap’s been on the receiving end of that growl one too many times to count. He grunts in response, pressing his cheek into the cool concrete below him and tipping his chin up to bare his throat. Ordinarily that’s enough to get Ghost off of his case—

But not this time, it seems.

Ghost growls again, then leans down to nip him. It’s gentle—barely a pinch of teeth in his throat—but it still has Soap squirming away, snapping his own teeth. He’s tired and he hurts and he doesn’t want to put up with his alpha’s pushy bullshit right now. Unamused, Ghost only bares his teeth and lunges at him again. Thoroughly harried, Soap scrambles out from under the desk and stalks away from him. He flops down in the far corner of the fort, pulling a dusty tarp over himself for whatever meager warmth it provides.

But Ghost is nothing if not a persistent goddamn wanker, and he follows Soap over. Relentless, he drops the bag of jerky on Soap’s face and glares. When Soap glares back, he peels his lips away from his obnoxiously big fangs. Unwilling to be bitten again, Soap snatches a piece of jerky and shoves it into his mouth. 

Evidently appeased, Ghost sighs and lays down beside him. As Soap eats, his alpha carefully peels back the collar of his shirt to examine the wound on the back of his shoulder. It’s a nasty thing—a gunshot wound leftover from their escape, and one not properly healing. There’s no exit wound, which is some of the best luck Soap’s had in months, and it isn’t bleeding anymore. It is, however, draining a thin yellow fluid that Soap thinks is probably worse.

Ghost licks the wound clean as best he can, pressing Soap’s chest to the floor to hold him steady. The barbs of his tongue catch and tear on raw skin, and Soap growls in pain. Ghost chuffs soothingly at him, pausing to nuzzle his hair, before resuming his ministrations. It’s painful, and it fucking sucks, but it seems to be keeping the wound from getting any worse—so Soap tolerates it, though not without complaints. 

When Ghost finally settles down to lay beside him, Soap shoves the rest of the jerky back to him. He hears Ghost begin to eat, shredding through the dried meat in several vicious bites. With Ghost watching his back, Soap is content to doze off again. He doesn’t wake until late the next morning, and even then it’s only because Ghost is shaking him awake.

Soap groans, but Ghost clamps a hand over his mouth. Startled, Soap’s eyes snap open, and then he hears it—unfamiliar voices from outside of the territory. He rolls onto the balls of his feet, crouched low with his flank pressed against Ghost’s. The two of them are tense, wide-eyed. This place has been safe for the last several days. They had killed the bastards keeping them trapped, but maybe those bastards had back-up bastards. Maybe they’ve come to take Soap and Ghost back.

Soap’s not fucking going back.

Soap’s teeth flash in the low light as he bares them, and he trades a look with Ghost. Ghost nods to him, pulling his knife out of its sheathe and grasping it. He starts to prowl forward, and Soap falls into step with him—but Ghost holds a hand up, pressing it to Soap’s chest and pushing him backwards. His eyes are hard, flinty. There’s no arguing about this decision, and Soap gets the feeling that if he tries he’ll get more than a gentle nip. 

So, begrudgingly, Soap retreats to the farthest room. He checks his traps and tripwires, just to make sure they’re all still neat and tidy. Then he settles in to listen, breathing quietly. He despises being sent away from the fight like a goddamn puppy, but at the same time he knows he’d only be a complication—injured and ill as he is, he can’t fight well, and Ghost would be distracted trying to defend him. But if someone does try to attack Ghost, Soap has the element of surprise, and he’s damn well going to use it. 

Outside, the voices grow closer.

Soap recognizes their language, but only vaguely. It feels familiar, like he’s heard it somewhere before—like he might have spoken it, once, before intelligence gave way to instinct. The voices are loud, boisterous, but as they near Soap’s territory they begin to quiet. Ghost hadn’t scent-marked the fort—too leery of being found by their enemies—but something about the place must scream danger here!!!  anyway. 

Boots brush against the sand outside, and the wind carries a multitude of scents—sweat and skin and at least ten unique selfscents. It’s a big pack. Ghost is a storm of an alpha, but even he can’t be expected to take on ten people by himself. Hell, even the two of them together don’t stand much of a chance, weak as they are. They need to retreat before they’re trapped. 

Soap waits anxiously for Ghost to come to this same conclusion, but he never does. 

Instead, the moment someone steps inside of the territory, there’s a snarl and a scream. The iron tang of blood floods the air, and all the men outside begin shouting. Ghost is snarling—an unending, ungodly grate of noise—and he only stops when a gunshot rings through the air. The silence that follows is momentary but deafening. 

The men retreat, and Ghost begins to snarl again. 

Soap can hear him pacing in front of the barricade for several hours afterward. He tries to go out of the back room once, to see if Ghost is injured, but Ghost gives him such a fearsome look that he slinks into hiding again. He didn’t seem hurt, at least, and Soap takes some comfort in that. He whines a little, hoping to coax Ghost back to him, but Ghost is either too focused to hear him or too worked up to care. 

The noise outside of the territory does not get closer, but it does get louder. There are more men gathering—all stomping boots and strange voices and clanking guns. Twice, a helicopter comes and goes. It batters the earth with the force of its blades, sending stinging sand into the fort. This, at least, convinces Ghost to shy away from the entrance. He joins Soap in the back room, curling tightly around him. He smells like fear and fury, fucking awful. 

Soap butts his head up beneath Ghost’s chin, running hands over him. He’s pleased to find that there aren’t any injuries—none any that weren’t already there, anyway—and that Ghost tolerates the touch without snapping at him. Soap tries to layer him with calm-safe-settle pheromones, but nothing comes from his scent glands. With a little sigh, he settles for simply nuzzling Ghost's tense jaw instead. 

Soap knows he would rather die than return to his enemies.

Soap knows Ghost feels the same.

Soap knows that if they’re going to die here, they’re at least going to die together. 

But he hasn’t given up hope quite yet. He still has his traps. If he can lure the men inside, maybe he can set off his bombs and collapse the whole fort on their heads. He’ll have to find some way to get himself and Ghost out first, of course, but it’s an idea. He mulls it over long into the afternoon—mulls it over until a new voice breaches the relative sanctuary of the fort.

Ghost is on his feet instantly, lurching towards the barricade. Soap rolls into a crouch, shoulders tense. So far the men haven’t tried to break through their barriers again, but Soap knows they’re only biding their time and gathering their resources. He flexes his fingers, nails scraping the concrete, as footsteps stray further into their territory. There are two sets, and when Soap sucks in a breath of air he can smell two people—an alpha and an omega, their scents intertwined in the manner of packmates. 

It’s strange, that they should only send two people in.

Maybe that’s why Ghost hesitates.

Soap isn’t sure what he’s expecting, to be honest—but it certainly isn’t for Ghost to retreat, slinking into the back room with an unnerved expression on his face. He shoves Soap beneath a dresser, snapping teeth at him in warning when he tries to move, before returning to the middle room. The men have come over the barricade already. They’re closer than Ghost has ever let anyone before. 

Soap swallows, suddenly uncertain.

Why is Ghost hesitating? Why is his scent murky with confusion? There’s something happening that Soap doesn’t fully understand, and he hates it. But he has to trust Ghost—who the fuck else can he trust, these days?—and so he stays put, hiding pathetically in the dark as Ghost goes to confront their enemies. 

It’s almost a relief when Soap hears the sounds of a fight—a fight makes sense, a fight he understands. Ghost should hate these people. Ghost should be fighting to defend them. The world clicks back into place when Ghost starts to snarl. Soap listens intently, and he’s out of the back room like a shot when he hears Ghost bellow in pain. He scales the makeshift tower of drawers he’s set up against the far wall and slips into the overhead rafters with the ease of long practice, creeping into the main room.

As much as he wants to lurch into the fray, teeth bared and fists curled, he knows better. He has to assess, to plan—to make sure he gets Ghost out of this safely. So he lurks in the rafters, pupils blown wide as he surveys the scene below him. The alpha has Ghost pinned up against a wall, his arm twisted unnaturally behind his back. The omega is beside them, one hand curled into Ghost’s hair, tugging. Soap swallows the snarl that rises instinctively in his throat. The only thing that stops him from lunging is the fact that Ghost isn’t fighting back. Why isn’t Ghost fighting back?

Instead of snarling and snapping and struggling, Ghost is slumping against the wall and breathing hard. He’s not trying to get away from the men holding him. He barely responds when the omega runs fingers through his hair, speaking quietly to him in a language Soap wants, viciously, to understand. As Soap watches, the men ease Ghost onto the floor. The alpha cradles Ghost’s head in his lap like Ghost is his own fuckin’ whelp, leaning down to scent him with despicable familiarity. 

Soap doesn’t understand.

Soap doesn’t fucking understand.

What he does understand, now, is the unnerved expression Ghost wore when he first saw these men. There’s something eerily familiar about them—about the alpha, in particular. Beneath the stink of cigars, he smells like smokey vanilla and flint. Soap knows that scent. He opens his mouth, lets it settle on his tongue. Fuck, he knows it, but he can’t place it. 

It doesn’t matter, anyway.

This alpha—whether Soap knows him or not—has clearly done something terrible to Ghost, because Ghost isn’t fighting. Ghost isn’t moving. Fuck, is Ghost even breathing? Fear crackles through Soap like lightning, cold and brilliant. Whatever semblance of a plan he’d hoped to make has vanished. He gathers himself, bunches his muscles, and lunges.

Blood bursts over Soap’s tongue as he sinks his teeth into the alpha, intent on tearing his goddamn throat out for laying hands on Ghost. He rolls his jaw, digs his fangs in deep—they’re not quite as big as an alpha’s, but they’re a damn close second. The alpha shouts and snarls and digs his fingers into Soap’s eyes until Soap has no choice but to let go unless he wants to be permanently blinded. 

Soap snarls and slings his head, spraying the bastard’s blood. Before he can lunge in again, the omega barrels into his side. They both go sprawling. Soap’s chin hits the concrete, and his teeth snap into his own tongue with a burst of bright pain. He scrambles onto his knees just in time to feel the butt of a rifle slam against his sternum. It leaves him breathless, struggling to heave air into his uncooperative lungs. But he snags the end of the rifle before the omega can yank it back, and with a burst of rage he tears it out of the omega’s hands.

Fuck yeah, Soap’s got a gun!

It’s a strange gun, he’ll give it that. It’s too light, and it carries a strange dart instead of a proper bullet. Still, the men look nervous enough when he brings it to bear and aims it at them. They stumble back, shouting—at him or at each other, he’s not sure and he doesn’t care. He licks the oily film of blood off of his teeth, considering. 

The alpha is bleeding from the throat, and badly—not badly enough to kill him, but badly enough to keep him off of the field temporarily. Soap doesn’t need to waste a dart on him when he’s already defeated. He’s not sure how many darts he has in the clip, so it’s best to assume he only has the one. He swings his sights to the uninjured omega, instead. The alpha is shouting again, too loud for Soap to ignore. He’s shouting—

“—oap! Soap, fucking hell, Johnny! John MacTavish!”

A muscle in Soap’s jaw spasms. How does this fucker know his name?

How, when Soap can barely remember it himself, most days?

Soap wants, irrationally, to shoot him for the infarction. But he keeps his sights level on the omega, his finger settling over the trigger. Shoot the omega, finish off the alpha, and then get Ghost to safety. He can do that. But his hand is shaking. Why is his hand shaking? His hand doesn’t shake when he’s shooting. 

Soap swallows thickly, and then comes up with a better idea.

The men are across the room, their backs against the barricade and their hands up. Ghost is behind Soap, unnaturally still and quiet. There are least ten feet between the men and the makeshift pack that is Soap-and-Ghost-and-Ghost-and-Soap. 

The tripwire? Right between them.

It’s far from ideal—might be one of his worse plans, actually—but right now it’s the only way he can reasonably keep Ghost safe. Even if he takes down these men, there are at least twenty more waiting outside. They can’t fight their way out of this. The best Soap can do is give them the chaos they need to retreat.

Soap swings his sights to the tripwire and pulls the trigger.

The C4 stacked against the wall goes off with a thunderous boom! The walls rattle around him, the force of the shockwave vibrating in his bones. Smoke billows into the air as the fort begins to crumple down the middle. Soap lunges for Ghost, dragging him into the back room and squashing his stupidly massive body beneath the desk. He crawls in after him, sheltering Ghost's body with his own as the world collapses.

Chapter Text

Ghost wakes up in the coffin.

It’s dark—it’s always endlessly dark—and the earth presses in on him. He can’t breathe. When he tries, his lungs fill with dust and dislodged grief. He coughs it back out. The dirt clings to his tongue, his teeth, his eyelids. He tries to bring his hands up to wipe his face, but something snares his wrists and stops him.

Behind him, he can feel Vernon’s corpse.

Ghost kicks, digs the toes of his boots into the hard earth beneath him and tries to scoot out from under the body. He makes it about five centimeters before the coffin rises up in front of him again, endless and implacable. Irrationally, he scrapes his teeth against it. He doesn’t remember the coffin being quite this sturdy, the last time he was awake.

…when was the last time he was awake?

Strange colors and shapes superimpose themselves across the blackness of Ghost’s vision. Hallucinations, he assumes—he’s had his fair share, stuck in the dark and depthless earth with a rotting corpse as his only companion. At least the stench of fetid flesh seems to have faded since the last time he was awake.

…he’s awake, right?

Memories flicker through his head, as aimless and meandering as watercolors. Ghost can’t seem to snag them long enough to study the shapes. The whole world feels lopsided. He’s so fucking tired. Why is he so tired? Hasn’t he been asleep? His eyelids are heavy and his heartbeat slow. Wherever the panic lives inside of him, he can’t quite reach it. 

Maybe this is dying.

Huh.

It’s not so bad.

Then the corpse above him moves, and—oh, there’s the panic he was looking for. Snarling, Ghost whips around and tries to sink his teeth into any part of the wretched thing he can. His fangs meet in flesh that’s startlingly warm and solid. The corpse yelps and punches him in the eye. This is the not the reaction Ghost was expecting to get from a corpse.

Ghost yanks back with a startled growl of his own, eyes wide. He flares his nostrils, sucks in the scent of smoke and broken things. It itches in his sinuses, and he sneezes as intimidatingly as he can. He’s not sure it has the intended effect. The corpse doesn't retreat, but it doesn’t punch him again, either. In fact, it hasn’t moved since he bit it. Maybe it can’t. Maybe it’s stuck here just as much as Ghost is. Ghost knows he should be upset about that, but his panic has faded as quickly as it came, and in its wake he feels syrupy-slow and strange. 

Where is he, again?

Ghost wakes up in the…coffin.

But didn’t he break out of the coffin? He could swear he remembers it—dirt between teeth and blood under broken nails, a wash of air on his face. Someone died in that coffin, but it wasn’t Ghost. Could’ve been a dream, though. Those are the worst dreams, Ghost thinks: the ones where he’s free. The despair when he wakes up is more crushing than six feet of soil could ever be.

Above him, something moves.

Ghost snarls and lunges at it. Then there’s a hand on his face, pushing him down and away—pushing him deeper into the earth. Ghost thrashes, wrists straining against the cold metal that keeps them locked at the small of his back. He kicks and feels his heel strike stone. The world shifts precariously around them.

Someone—Vernon? Tommy?—cries out in fear. Fingers grab his hair, twisting his face into the concrete. A rough palm cups the back of his head. Large chunks of stone thud around them. One strikes Ghost’s calf and he hisses, trying to draw his leg up beneath him. There’s no space for it. 

Outside of the coffin, people are shouting.

Have they come for him? 

No. No, that’s impossible. No one knows where he is. No one knows Roba put him in the coffin. Even if they’re looking, they won’t find him. They’d have to dig up the whole of Mexico. Ghost can only listen to their footsteps—a life going on above him, without him, and none the worse for wear.

Who would come for him, anyway?

The world swims sickeningly, and he closes his eyes.

Ghost wakes up in the…coffin…?

No. 

No, that can’t be right, can it? Ghost escaped the coffin. Even so, somewhere over him a corpse is digging. That’s not a thing corpses should do, Ghost thinks. Ghosts can dig themselves out of graves, but not corpses. Unless…

…they’re zombies?

Gingerly, he turns his head and feels the probably-a-zombie flinch. A tense moment stretches between them, and then it returns to digging. Ghost can’t see what it’s doing—can’t see fucking shit— but he can hear the unsettlingly familiar scrape of nails against stone. He grunts and tries to reach for the zombie, but his hands are stuck behind him.

Grumbling, Ghost attempts to twist onto his back. It’s a less than successful endeavor. The zombie is taking up too much of their already-limited space, and Ghost’s knees bump it unforgivingly when he tries to turn. It growls irritably at him and presses a hand against his face, shoving his cheek against the earth. For whatever reason, the gesture feels familiar. Ghost pauses for a moment, trying to scent it. It smells blank, uncanny. Well, that settles that then:

Zombies are real. 

Ghost knew it.

Ghost…wakes…up…?

He can’t breathe. 

The world is too heavy. It lays tight against his ribs, his hips, his spine. Every inhale is an uphill battle. Every exhale rattles in his throat. He’s panting, thinly and shallowly. His head spins. Dimly, he’s aware that there are tears on his cheeks, his chin, his jaw. Someone presses up against him, and he hears—

Ghost hears a soft little croon.

The sound is incongruous with Ghost’s panic. There shouldn’t be anyone with him, let alone anyone calm enough to croon at him like that. He twists his face towards the noise, keening in abject misery. The stranger bumps their faces together, nuzzles the tear-streaked skin of his cheeks and rubs noses with him. 

A dull, ceaseless instinct whispers pack, whispers mine, whispers Soap.

Soap begins to purr—a steady, dusky rattle from deep in his chest. Ghost can feel the vibrations against him. He can’t muster a purr in return, but Soap doesn’t seem to hold that against him. He just keeps purring, keeps nuzzling Ghost’s face, keeps grooming his hair in absent little licks until he can breathe again. 

Despite the crushing pressure of the world around him, Ghost wants to get closer. He wants to fit himself against Soap, around Soap, beneath Soap because Soap—Soap would never crush him. Soap is the one thing holding the world up. Soap is atlas and axis and Ghost needs him more than he needs the space to breathe. So he wedges himself closer, fits himself to Soap’s side. Soap's purr stutters and then restarts as he loops an arm around Ghost’s shoulders.

Around them, the world crumbles.

Ghost wakes up.

A long time ago, he was bitten by a viper.

The venom felt a little like this, he thinks—dizzying and hot as it pulses through his veins. He’s floating, but at the same time his limbs remain heavy and uncooperative. Strange blurs ebb and eddy at the edges of his vision. He can hear people talking somewhere just outside, but he can’t make any sense of the words. Everything aches. 

Reluctantly, he peels sticky eyes open and turns his head. His chin bumps something warm, and a quiet grunt comes from the cramped space beside him—Soap? Ghost nudges in closer, inhales. He doesn’t smell anyone with him, but he feels the warm press of a shoulder against his own, feels a steady heartbeat next to his, feels the quiet vibration of a rumbled greeting.

Soap, he thinks, deliriously happy about it. 

Soap huffs in amusement when he tries to crowd even closer, but seems content enough to allow Ghost to wedge up under his arm. Once he’s comfortable—or as comfortable as he can be, in this shitshow of a situation—Ghost picks sluggishly through his memories. There had been men outside, and then there had been men inside, and then there had been fighting, and then…

Then, nothing.

Ghost blinks. He should probably feel more concerned about this.

He doesn’t.

He does become significantly more concerned, however, when the stone beside him shifts. He curls away from it, pressing defensively against Soap’s side—trying to shield him behind his greater bulk. As the stone is heaved away, unforgiving light spills into their shelter. Ghost squints against it, pupils constricting painfully. Dark shapes waver and move outside. Voices rise.

Then, there are hands in his face.

Ghost reacts the only logical way:

He bites.

The hands jerk back with cries of alarm. Behind him, Soap begins to snarl. He surges forward, crouching low over Ghost’s body and glowering into the light. When Ghost begins to struggle—still trying, frantically, to free himself from the cuffs around his wrists—Soap sets a hand between his shoulders and presses him down with a warning growl. Ghost falls still and pants rapidly into the rock. 

Then there’s a muffled series of pops, and Soap yelps. 

Ghost’s vision sheets red.

He braces one hand against the small of his back, curling his fingers through his belt loops, and yanks the other hand upwards. His thumb dislocates with a neat click, and he tears his hand out of the cuff. He heaves himself into a crouch and lunges towards the light, teeth bared. He slams his shoulders through rock and rebar, clawing his way into the open. 

How dare they hurt Soap. 

How fuckin’ dare they.

The venom in his veins keeps him slow, unbalanced, but his fury lends him the energy he needs to pounce on the nearest soldier. There’s another pop, another sharp flare of pain in his back. He ignores it in favor of slamming his knuckles into the soldier’s nose. Blood bursts in a bright spray across the back of his hand. He hits again—feels something in the soldier’s face break—hits again and feels it crunch—

Then there’s a hand in the collar of his jacket, dragging him back and up—choking him. He scrambles to get his feet underneath him, to straighten up and take the weight off of his throat, to breathe. His assailant yanks him backwards, refusing to let him catch his balance. Black spots dance in the corners of his vision. The hand on his shirt twists, drawing it tighter against his trachea. He thrashes, claws a hand backwards. 

The pressure on his throat loosens, but only for a moment. The next moment a forearm hooks around the top of his neck, forcing his chin up and squeezing tightly over the pounding pulses of his carotids. The black in his vision deepens, encroaches, sucking him under like a relentless riptide. He sucks in a breath but it’s not working, it’s filling his lungs but it’s not rushing to his brain the way it should and holy fuck Ghost is going to die—

Ghost wakes up in a blue room.

Everything hurts.

Groaning, he rolls over and curls into a ball. He squints his eyes open long enough to take in his surroundings—stormy walls, a wide window, a metal door. He occupies the only bed in the room, facing down an ugly green armchair on the opposite wall. The linen sheets are rough, off-white. They smell like industrial detergent, scrubbed clean of any scent but his own. 

More conspicuous than what is here is what is not here. 

Where the hell is Soap? 

Ghost sits up, the sheets pooling in his lap. He’s wearing paper scrubs thinner than his own patience, and when he reaches up to touch his face he finds it freshly-shaven and unnervingly bare. He swings his legs over the side of the bed; a swell of vertigo crashes into him and he stops, breathes, until gravity stops staggering around him. The tile is cool against his bare feet when he stands. He makes a lap, makes a better assessment of the room.  

The window: a one-way mirror.

The armchair: bolted to the floor.

The door: locked.

Soap: missing.

Anxiety and anger are a package deal for Ghost, and now is no different. He’s distraught to have been separated from his packmate, but more than that he’s furious—furious that someone would have taken Soap from him, that someone would have trapped him here alone, and that Ghost himself can’t remember any of it for shit. A low growl rumbles to life in his chest. He’s not sure where his enemies are, but he hopes they can hear him. He hopes they know he’s going to make them suffer for this. 

With no other outlet available, Ghost settles for pacing the length of the room like a caged beast. There’s no noise but for his own padding footsteps and the hum of the air conditioner. Eventually, the growl of his stomach joins the chorus. He licks his teeth, saliva pooling under his tongue. He can’t remember the last time he ate. 

When the door at the front of the room suddenly clicks, Ghost presses himself to the wall beside it. He waits for it to swing open—waits for an opening, for a throat to crush between his teeth—but it stays firmly shut. After several minutes he steps back again, his eyes narrowed. He reaches out to test the knob, and to his utter bafflement finds it unlocked. It can’t be this easy, can it? Ghost nudges the door open and finds—

—another locked door.

Motherfucker.

The space between the two doors is shallow—barely a half-meter in length—and devoid of any furniture. On the floor, however, there’s a cardboard tray and a stack of blankets. Ghost reaches for the tray, first, his stomach rumbling greedily. A paper cup of tea sits on one corner, along with a cup of water and a plastic tin of diced peaches. On the other side are plastic utensils and cheap napkins. In the center, there’s a styrofoam take-out box stuffed with a mountain of white rice and boiled chicken. It’s plain, simple, and after so long without stable food of any sort it’s a goddamn feast. 

Ghost drags the tray further into the room, sitting in the far corner so he can watch the door as he eats. He shovels rice into his mouth, barely pausing to chew before he swallows. He washes it down with a gulp of the tea—weakly-brewed but still hot—before he turns his attention to devouring the tasteless chicken. He eats exactly half of everything. 

Once he’s finished, Ghost returns to the space-between-doors to investigate the blankets. Unlike the sterile white sheets he woke up under, these are bright and soft. The one on top is navy fleece, plush where Ghost brushes his fingers against it. The one beneath it is black plaid. More interesting, however, are the scents that cling to the fabric. They’re strange, familiar in a haunting sort of way—Ghost draws the blankets closer, breathes them in with a sense of utter bemusement and longing. 

The navy blanket smells like cinnamon and fresh coffee, distinctly male and distinctly omegan. In contrast, the plaid blanket smells like an alpha, like flint and burnt vanilla. It should infuriate him to have strangers’ scents in his space when he’s already so vulnerable, but for whatever reason it doesn’t. For whatever reason it makes him ache , instead . Ghost drags the blankets to his chest, buries his face against them and inhales. 

For the first time since he woke up, he feels a little of his agitation ease.

Ghost takes the blankets to his bed. He tears the terrible white sheets off and lays the blankets on the mattress, instead, before curling up in them. He rubs his jaw against them, marking them possessively. These are his blankets and his smells and he’ll kill the first person who so much as looks at them. There’s just one scent missing from the bundle. 

Soap, he thinks, his nose and belly full but his heart still so fucking empty, where are you?

There’s a hammerglass mirror in the en suite.

Ghost studies himself in it, feeling strangely disconnected from the face looking back at him. His hair is longer than he likes, curling boyishly. It’s clean. The grease and grime have been scrubbed out, replaced with the scent of mild shampoo. He wonders who did that. He wonders when they did it. He doesn’t remember being brought to the room, or bathed, or dressed in scrubs. 

How long has it been since he was taken?

Ghost looks at his hands. They’re clean, too. His knuckles are bruised a pretty purple, but he flexes his fingers and finds that nothing in his hands feels broken. He wears a collar of bruises around his throat, and both eyes are shot through with burst vessels. He catalogs the rest of himself and discovers the same story—bruises, scrapes, and scabs, but nothing debilitating. 

It can’t have been that long since the fight if he’s still wearing these injuries.

After several minutes, Ghost drifts back out of the en suite. He begins to pace again. It’s the only thing he can do, when he’s not sleeping or eating. Three meals have come and gone since the first. The stash of food beneath Ghost’s bed grows. So does his boredom. It’s almost worse than his fear and his anger, the boredom—it makes him want to climb the goddamn walls. It makes him feel trapped. It makes him feel like he’s—

( —back there, with them, with Roba, with the Al-Qatala, with—)

—an animal in a goddamn zoo. 

So he’s grateful when he hears the door click again. It’s a break from the monotony, no matter how minor. He expects it to be another meal delivery; his stomach is already rumbling with anticipation. The food has changed since his first meal. It’s still plain, but more of it comes prepackaged, now. It’s easier to halve, easier to store. Mouth watering, he eases up to the door, cracks it open—and then promptly slams it shut again because that’s not food that’s a fucking person. 

The person doesn’t try to force their way into the room, and Ghost realizes, belatedly, that he may have just missed his chance at escape. He should have pushed past them, pushed through the second door, gone to find Soap— but to his embarrassment, his first instinct had been to retreat rather than to attack. A little spitefully, he rips the door open again to rectify his mistake.

It’s an omega standing in front of him—one with dark skin and a smattering of stubble and heavy shadows under his eyes. He’s wearing jeans and a jumper instead of body armor, and Ghost’s eyes immediately snap to the soft spots of him: his throat, his sides, his belly. He smells like coffee and cloves. He smells like the blankets Ghost sleeps in. He smells like home.

Ghost’s lips peel away from his teeth in a silent warning.

The omega doesn’t look phased in the slightest. Instead he sighs, exasperated and fond, and then he smiles, and he says, “Hey, Ghost.”

Chapter Text

The physicians separate Ghost and Soap as soon as the helo lands at Tobrak Medical Center.

Gaz hates the plan soon as he hears about it. He’s never met Soap before today, but it’s plain as white fuckin’ bread that Ghost has packbonded him. Maybe that’s a comment on Soap’s character, or on the trauma they suffered together, or on the whims of a fate Gaz never once pretended to understand—who knows? What Gaz does know is that the two of them are a pack, and that separating them is needlessly cruel.

Price agrees, but only to a point.

“It’s not bloody nice, that’s for sure,” he allows, taking a long drag off of his cigar. “But it’s the only thing for it. Leave ‘em together and they’ll never settle. They’ll be too keyed up defending each other from nonexistent threats to even consider bonding with anybody else.”

Gaz arches his eyebrows. “I wasn’t aware they were going to bond with anyone else, sir.”

“Gonna bond with us,” Price says, watching as the medics wheel Ghost and Soap off of the helipad, “aren’t they?”

Now that’s a mission if Gaz has ever heard one.

Ghost will be easy, now that he’s somewhere safe; he’s long since packbonded to both Price and Gaz, so it’s only a matter of reminding him. Soap, though? Soap’s an unknown variable, and if initial impressions are anything to go by he’s a minefield, too. Gaz will have his work cut out for him there. Price says Soap is as friendly as they come—but Price said that before, too, and then Soap tried to blow them all to hell.

To make matters even more complicated, Soap is a beta. Gaz has only met a handful of betas in his life, and he’s certainly never bonded with one. Price assures him it’s just the same as bonding an alpha or an omega, except that it’s even easier—betas being aggressively social and predisposed to bond with anything that so much as breathes in their direction. They’re far less standoffish than alphas, and not nearly as discerning as omegas. They’re the glue that holds a pack together.

“Only in Soap’s case, it’s superglue,” Price says, knocking ash off of his cigar. “Never met a bastard more loyal than that one. I’ve wanted him in the one-four-one for months, but I wasn’t sure how Ghost would take to an FNG runnin’ around—especially one with as much personality as MacTavish. I guess that problem went and solved its own damn self. Wish more of ‘em did that.

“You and me both.”

Despite Price’s optimism, Gaz still starts his mission focused on Ghost; he’s intent on getting at least one victory under his belt before he so much as thinks about confronting Soap. The first few days are easiest to get through, since both Ghost and Soap are kept sedated and in ICU until they’re physically stable. Nobody gives Gaz a full report on their injuries, but from what he sees during his visits they both look like shit. Price says nothing’s broken in ways that can’t be fixed, though, so Gaz takes that win for what it is.

Near the middle of the week, Soap is transferred to the TMC’s psych unit. There’s a suite of rooms designated solely for ferals, there, and Soap is settled into one at the very end of the hall. Ghost transfers to the same unit the very next day, housed several rooms down from Soap. The goal is to keep them from scenting or hearing each other lest they start climbing the walls just to come together again. The rooms are sound- and scent-proofed, which helps well enough, but Gaz is under strict orders to shower and change his outfit if he ever goes between their rooms.

That’s not much of a problem, the first two days. Gaz doesn’t go to see Soap nearly as much as he goes to see Ghost. He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t know Soap—because Soap’s not his packmate, his responsibility, his friend, the way that Ghost is and has been for years now. But in truth, it’s because Gaz can’t stand to see Soap. Ghost paces and glowers and growls, but Soap—

Soap screams and claws the walls until his nails bleed. He throws himself against the one-way mirror until Gaz is terrified that something will shatter—Soap’s bones, if not the mirror itself. He cries for Ghost until he can’t breathe, and then he snarls bloody murder when the staff go in to restrain him. After that he’s kept drugged out of his mind, curled up beneath his bed and staring blankly at the far wall. Sometimes Gaz has to stare at his chest just to remind himself that he’s still breathing.

It’s—it’s not great. 

But Gaz can’t help. He doesn’t know Soap, and the presence of a stranger in his space would only agitate him more. Price—who does know Soap, thank god—is the one who visits the beta most often. He never goes inside of the room, but he loiters in the observation unit long enough to go through a whole pot of cheap coffee. Gaz would know. He’s the one who’s been brewing the bitter swill. As much as Price tries to hide it, he’s stressed to the gills, and while there’s not much Gaz can do about that, either, he can make coffee. Gaz has always preferred to focus on the things he can fix—so he focuses on shitty coffee, and he focuses on Ghost.

“Mark this,” Gaz says, tossing Price a blanket he’d purchased from the hospital gift shop. 

Price catches it, arching his eyebrows.

“It’s for Ghost,” Gaz explains. “Gotta make sure he’s receptive before I go in—doctor’s orders. Need something with your smell, so get to scentmarking, Cap.”

Price obliges, tossing the blanket back once he’s finished. Gaz folds the blanket back up and stacks it with own scentmarked blanket. He leaves them both for the nurse to give to Ghost during dinner. He honestly expects to hear that Ghost has shredded the blankets—the alpha hasn’t exactly been in the best of moods since he woke up—so he’s pleasantly surprised when the nurse informs him that Ghost is nesting with them instead. 

They give Soap marked blankets, too. The nurses say he hasn’t even bothered to touch them—just like he hasn’t bothered to eat, or drink, or move. The one thing he has bothered to do is scratch tallies into the paint of his cinderblock walls. Price goes through two pots of coffee when he notices that, and Gaz’s stomach churns with misplaced guilt. Eager to be rid of it, he throws himself into a battle he can actually expect to win, and with the physicians’ approval he goes to meet Ghost. 

Ghost is exactly as delighted to see him as Gaz thought he would be—which is to say, not at all. He looms in the doorway, his teeth bared and flashing in the fluorescent lights. His scent is sharp, angry, and as utterly familiar as Gaz’s own. He grips the collar of Gaz’s shirt and pins him up against the door with a savage snarl, his eyes blazing. Gaz would be more intimidated if this hadn’t been exactly what he’d expected. 

“You’re alright,” Gaz says, careful to keep his voice level; he has a safeword if he needs out, or if he needs the staff to step in. He’s really hoping he doesn’t have to use it. He’s tried to make himself look as nonthreatening as possible—no gear, no weapons, and the fluffiest jumper he’d brought with him from England. “Ghost. It’s just me, man.”

Ghost’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t attack.

It’s a little, lovely victory.

“It’s Gaz. You remember me, huh? Yeah, I know you do. You’ve been cuddlin’ up to those blankets like they’re your teddy bears. I’m never gonna let you live that down.”

It’s strange, being able to see all the microexpressions that flicker across Ghost’s face as he speaks. Without mask and mind to hide behind, the alpha is more expressive than Gaz thought he ever could be. As his initial aggression fades, Ghost’s mouth purses into a petulant frown. He doesn’t seem to be puffing himself up for a fight—probably because Gaz is shamelessly using their biologies to his advantage.

Being an omega has its perks, and wrapping unwieldy alpha instincts around his little finger is just one of them. Admittedly it doesn’t often help him, in their line of work—even their fresh-faced recruits are too well-trained to give into their baser instincts. Gaz makes damn sure of that. The last thing they want is a soldier hesitating on the battlefield simply because they smelled someone else’s fear. Ghost, of all people, would know better. Even now, Gaz’s scent probably wouldn’t appeal to him, omegan or otherwise—

But it does, because they’re pack.

If Gaz can’t use logic to soothe his alpha, he should at least be able to use their bond—and Ghost, the great bastard, seems like he’s going to go for it. As Gaz rubs his fingers against the scent gland in his own throat to coax more warm-sweet-omega pheromones out, Ghost leans in with furrowed brow and flared nostrils. 

“Thatta boy,” Gaz murmurs, tilting his chin up to bare his throat. He’s fairly certain Ghost isn’t going to maim him, now—fairly. “Work with me here, man. I wanna get you home.”

Gaz can’t help but flinch when he feels Ghost’s nose press up against his scent gland, but Ghost doesn’t bite. He only rumbles—the sound is familiar, low and deep and warm. Gaz relaxes with a relieved exhale, his eyes fluttering shut. Thank fuck. Ghost breathes in his scent, nosing along Gaz’s jaw to bump his chin up higher. Gaz obliges, baring more of his throat to his alpha, and Ghost chuffs his approval.

Gaz couldn’t stop the smile tugging at his mouth if he’d tried. “Yeah,” he says. “There you are, you bugger. Knew you could do it.”

The physicians were right about this, at least. If Soap had been present, Ghost wouldn’t have given in nearly as easily—he would have felt like he had something, some one, to defend from Gaz. But stripped of a pack and a territory, he’s significantly more willing to let Gaz near. It’s cruel. Gaz knows it’s cruel. Hell if it didn't work, though.

Ghost releases his grip on Gaz’s shirt, threading fingers into his hair, instead. He tugs Gaz’s head to the side, rubbing his jaw greedily against Gaz’s throat to scent him. Gaz hums in approval—it’s been far too long since Ghost scented him properly. Price has been trying to make up for in the meantime, but there’s no real substitution for a missing packmate. When Ghost draws back, Gaz leans up to mark him in return. He’s pleasantly surprised when Ghost lets him, those broad shoulders slumping with a quiet groan.

“Missed me too, huh?” Gaz says, with a wry grin. “Couldn’t have decided that a week ago and saved us all the hassle?”

Ghost grumbles, nudging Gaz’s jaw insistently when he stops scenting too soon for the alpha’s liking. With a laugh, Gaz rubs their cheeks together before nuzzling their noses. Ghost cracks his eyes open to look at Gaz, a crackly little purr filling the space between them. Holy shit does Gaz love him. 

“I’m gonna get you out of here,” Gaz promises, cupping Ghost’s face in his hands. Ghost looks at him—completely guileless and trusting, now that he’s decided Gaz is his packmate. Maybe it’s not so bad, having Ghost feral like this. There are damn fewer walls to break through. “I’m gonna get you home.”

Ghost hums, leaning down to bump their foreheads together.

Gaz is content to let him rest like that, for a couple of minutes, before he gently nudges Ghost off of him. He steps further into the room, taking it all in for the first time in person. It’s sparse, and it reeks. Even with the scent-elims plugged into the wall, the air is heavy and thick with the scent of an angry alpha. It makes his lip curl.

“Man, it’s gross in here. How can you even breathe?”

Ghost follows him a little aimlessly, like a lost pup, as Gaz circles the room. As a safety precaution, there aren’t any windows to throw open to air out the room—so Gaz settles for scentmarking everything he reasonably can, trying to replace angry-scared-alpha pheromones with good-safe-omega ones. That, at least, should help Ghost settle even when Gaz is absent. Then he digs around under the bed, pulling out Ghost’s stache of snacks.

Ghost whines at him when he does, clearly anxious. 

“I know, I know,” Gaz soothes. “You can keep most of it. But some of this stuff is turning into an actual biological weapon, mate. It’s gotta go.”

The staff had altered Ghost’s meals to include more nonperishables, after they’d discovered he was hoarding half of each one. But there are a still some leftovers from the first day that have started to mold, which Gaz will not be having, thank you. He tosses them out, bagging the trash to take with him when he goes. Ghost watches forlornly, but seems unwilling to step in and stop him—wrapped around Gaz’s little finger, indeed. Always has been, the wanker, even when he likes to pretend otherwise. He’s a good alpha like that.

Once the room has been made acceptable, Gaz sits down in the ugly armchair against the wall. Ghost, after a moment, curls up on his bed. Gaz stays for a couple of hours, scrolling through his phone and flicking absent glances at Ghost every once in a while. Ghost seems content to lay and stare at him. It’s unnerving, to be quite honest, but it’s also progress. When Ghost’s dinner is delivered, he snags it and then promptly sets the tray down on Gaz’s lap. Gaz would protest—Ghost hasn’t been eating nearly enough in the first place—but seeing how happy the alpha looks dissuades him. 

“Thanks,” he says, instead, and offers Ghost a soft smile. 

Ghost rattles off a delighted purr and curls back up in his bed to watch Gaz eat like a creep. With a fond shake of his head, Gaz picks at Ghost’s dinner—salted almonds, rice cakes, and several protein bars. There’s also a packet of Plumpy’nut, which Gaz tosses to his alpha. Ghost needs those nutrients far more than he does. Ghost hesitates, but eventually rips the packet open with his teeth and begins to lick out the paste. 

Gaz takes just enough of the food to appease Ghost before setting the tray on the bed. Ghost sizes it up—clearly determining whether Gaz has eaten enough to meet his approval—before digging in. He eats exactly one-third of what Gaz left him, and sticks the rest beneath his bed. Gaz watches with a strange pang of grief in his stomach.

You’re saving it for Soap, he thinks, aren’t you?

“I need to see Soap.”

“The physicians haven’t cleared him for visitors yet,” Price says. He’s sitting at the desk in his hotel room, heavy shadows beneath his eyes as he hunches over his tablet. “They say he’s still decompressing.”

“He’s not decompressing, he’s dying . The nurses say if he doesn’t eat soon, they’ll have to drop a feeding tube,” Gaz says, his jaw flexing. “This isn’t working.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Price tears his eyes away from the tablet, locking them with Gaz’s. “I’ve been watching him waste away for nearly a week now. But if we go in there too soon—if we make him worse—”

“We won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“He’s a beta, sir, he needs people, he needs pack. You said it yourself.”

“We’re not his pack. He’s more likely to think we’re there to kill him than we are to bond him. If he attacks you, he’ll be put back in restraints and—you didn’t see him that day, Gaz, when they went in to sedate him again.” Price’s jaw clenches, a muscle feathering in his cheek. “I can’t put him through that a second time. If we leave him alone, at least he’s safe.”

“Safe to what? To suffer? To rot in that room like it’s another prison? Look, I know it’s a risk, but—he needs this. He needs us. God, every time I go to see him it’s just—” Gaz yanks his gaze away from Price’s, taking a deep breath. “Feels like we’re torturing him, sir.”

Price falls silent, his scent sour with anxiety and upset.

“I’m sorry,” Gaz says, when the silence stretches, “if I overstepped. I just—Ghost needs him, and that means we need him. I can’t stand seeing him like this anymore. Something has to change.”

“No. You’re right, son. He’s not going to get any better like this.” Price leans back in his seat, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll talk to Dr. Li in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, well, don’t thank me yet. If he attacks you…”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“But it would be the last.”

Gaz falls silent, chill settling in his chest like an ice block.

“If he doesn’t take to you, I’ll go in,” Price says, raking a hand through his hair and reaching for his boonie with a sigh. “And after that, it’ll be Ghost’s turn—but not until he’s in his right mind. We can’t risk him backsliding. Any progress on getting him to talk?”

“Not yet, sir, though I did get him to laugh today.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, told him a shitty joke. Why are elevator jokes so good, anyway?”

“I don’t know, Sergeant.”

“‘s cause they work on so many different levels.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“See you in the morning, Captain.”

“Yes, and you’d better come with better jokes than that. Soap won’t be near as easy to amuse.”

“I’ll bring some C4 putty. Oughta do the trick.”

“Fuckin’ hell, the two of you…”

“Yeah, well, you sure know how to pick your sergeants, Cap. Masochist much?”

“Oy, get out already.”

“Sir yes sir.”

Chapter Text

It’s the sixth tally when they bring the omega into the cell.

Soap watches, blank and disinterested. This isn’t the first time a person has come into his cell. Mostly, people come in and they hurt him—lancet pricks and needle pokes, drawing blood and drugging him in turn. The first few times he’d fought back and promptly found himself restrained again. The next few times he’d tried to get away, cramming himself into the furthest corners of the room with such force that his shoulders bruised. 

It didn’t work.

Nothing ever works.

So Soap only lays, tucked into the darkest part of his cell, as the omega approaches. He keeps his gaze slanted to the side, forces his body loose and quiet. If he’s not a threat, maybe they’ll leave him alone—maybe they’ll forget he’s here, pass him by without notice. Rather predictably, Soap has no such luck. The omega kneels beside his bed to talk.

Soap can’t understand the words, although he does recognize his name when it falls from the omega’s mouth—softer than anyone has spoken it in a long, long time. He blinks, but offers no other reaction to the sound. He doesn’t want to show his captors how it effects him. He doesn’t want to give them any more power over him. 

The omega hasn’t hurt him yet, but that doesn’t mean anything. His captors have played him with this good cop-bad cop routine before, and Soap has long since learned to ignore it. No one here is kind to him simply for the sake of being kind. No one but—

Ghost.

Soap’s chest aches, and he curls up more tightly—like the pressure against his ribs and stomach will stem the hemorrhaging pain left by his alpha’s absence. Ghost has been gone for a long, long time. He’s left Soap alone before, but never for so many consecutive days. Soap knows what that means. He knows, and he does everything in his power not to think about it. 

“Soap?”

The omega brushes his fingers against Soap’s back, and Soap flinches. He feels the omega flinch, too. A small, slow bead of satisfaction curls in his chest. He’s glad he can still frighten his enemies, even if he’s tired and numb and broken. He never thought they’d break him—never thought he’d allow himself to break—and yet here he is: broken, laying helplessly as they torment him, the fight stripped from him as cleanly as a tanned hide. It’s some consolation that his captors hadn’t been the ones to succeed in breaking him. The breaking had been all Ghost’s, in the end.

Soap loves people openly and intensely—he loves his teammates, his friends, his pack—and he’d loved Ghost. Ghost had given him something to fight for in that goddamn prison. He’d patched Soap’s wounds after interrogations, shared scraps of his meager dinners, held hands with him through the bars of their cells when the nightmares came. Soap was gone for him within days of their first meeting. 

A part of him wants to blame that on his own biology—he’d been alone for so long he would have bonded nearly anyone who expressed interest—but a larger part of him knows better. He’d bonded Ghost because he loved Ghost. He loved the alpha’s blunt personality and expressive eyes and stupid, stupid jokes. He loved all that righteous anger and that tactical mind and that cold confidence. He loved the quiet stories Ghost would pass him about his pack back home, slipping love into Soap’s hands like it was some great secret. He loved the way Ghost spoke of his packmates, reverent and fond even as he tried to pretend he didn’t care as much as he did. 

Soap loved Ghost.

Fuck, Soap loved him so much. 

Now he’s gone, and Soap is breaking—broken—alone again and bleeding out. 

The omega shuffles around to sit in front of him, still talking. He’s smaller than Ghost but bigger than Soap, with bright dark eyes and a gentle face. He reaches out again, touching Soap’s hand. Soap twitches but doesn’t otherwise move, breathing shallowly. He doesn’t know what the omega wants, and he doesn't think he cares, either. 

Slowly, the omega slots their fingers together.

Soap’s throat feels unreasonably tight.

But the omega doesn’t yank. He doesn’t drag Soap out of his pathetic den to beat him. He doesn’t twist and break the fine bones of his fingers. He only holds Soap’s hand, sprawling out on the cool tile floor next to him. His other hand grasps his phone, and he flicks aimlessly over the screen. After a moment, music begins to play through the phone’s tinny speakers and the omega stops talking.

They lay there, and they hold hands, and they listen to rap.

Soap is confused—fuckin’ baffled—but he doesn’t pull away. The music tugs at some distant part of his mind. He’s heard it before, hasn’t he? He can predict the rhythms before they come, the words before they’re sung. He must have heard it before. He must have heard it before he was captured, before he was brought here, before music became nothing but a distant memory. It’s interesting. It’s the most interesting thing Soap has been introduced to since—

—since Ghost.

Soap breathes in, testing the omega’s scent. He smells like burnt coffee—nervous and unable to hide it from Soap’s sensitive nose—but there’s no spice of anger or ill will on him. Soap finds himself relaxing against his better judgment. His eyes slide shut. He twitches when the omega squeezes his fingers, but he doesn’t try to pull away. 

The omega stays until Soap’s next meal arrives. 

When he goes, Soap finds himself staring at the door long after he’s gone—and snuffling uncertainly at his own palm, where the omega’s scent still lingers. It’s almost worse, to be left alone again. Maybe that’s the ploy: give him a taste of kindness and then tear it away. It’s cruel, but it’s nothing Soap isn’t used to. 

After all, solitary confinement was always one of his captors’ favorite ways to manipulate him. They’d leave him in his cell for a stretch of days—no food and no water and no people—until Soap thought they’d abandoned him entirely. He should have been grateful to be left alone, but he found himself desperate for someone—anyone—because even if they wanted to flay him alive at least they would be there. 

Sounds had begun to grate on him—even the flush of his own toilet made him want to snarl and tear out the plumbing. The rasp of his own breathing became unbearably loud. Time passed strangely. There were no windows in the prison, and the lamps constantly ebbed a dull orange light. Soap could only guess at the start and end of each day, scratching uncertain tallies into his wall with his nails. 

Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six…or is it thirty-eight now…?

It’s easier to tell time, in this new cell. The lights come on and go off in a mimicry of the daylight cycle. Meals come at predictable times: four a day, morning, noon, dinner, and an evening snack. It isn’t as though Soap is entirely alone, either—people still come and go, administering drugs and drawing blood—but after Ghost, everyone else is lackluster. 

For whatever reason, meeting the omega only emphasizes that. To have and then to lose—

Soap would rather not have anything at all.

The omega comes back the next day, and the next, and the next.

Every day he lays down on the floor beside the bed, and he holds Soap’s hand, and he plays music. Sometimes it’s rap. Other times it’s pop, or R&B, or rock ‘n roll. Soap likes the rock ‘n roll best. He doesn’t think he does anything to indicate this, but he must—because the omega plays it more and more often, watching Soap with a knowing smile on his face. 

The omega shows him videos, too—colorful animated shows and gritty dramas alike. Soap can’t quite fathom the plotline of any of them, but he likes watching the shapes and movements. It’s a little difficult to see the scenes clearly on the omega’s tiny phone screen, so Soap often inches closer—just to get a better look, but that doesn’t stop the omega from grinning. 

Soap wants to hate it—wants to hate this omega. He knows there must be some trick to it all, despite the guileless look on the omega’s face and the smooth scent of him. His captors must want him to let his guard down so they can strike him where it hurts. Maybe they want him to trust the omega, and then they’ll have the omega interrogate him. Every blow would hurt worse if it was from someone Soap trusted.

Fortunately Soap doesn’t trust people, anymore.

But he tolerates the omega, if only because it relieves some of his boredom. He lets the omega hold his hand, and rub his fingers, and massage his aching wrist. He lets his eyes slide shut to the beats of Chris Brown and Drake. He lets himself be nested with blankets marked by the omega himself, and falls asleep burrowed in the scent of warm cinnamon and fresh coffee.

On the ninth tally, however, the omega is being particularly annoying.

He’s talking—always talking—as he nudges Soap’s dinner plate closer to him. Soap eyes the food with distaste. He’s not hungry. Grief and disinterest have dulled his appetite. His stomach feels shriveled and small. Looking at the food doesn’t make him nauseous, but it does make him irritable. He pushes the plate away and flops over, turning his back to the omega.

Predictably, the omega only shuffles around to sit in front of him again. He’s scowling, brows knit over his eyes, as he shoves the plate under Soap’s nose again. Soap recoils with a sliver of bared fangs, and the omega grumbles something unintelligible at him. The words are starting to sound familiar, but Soap simply can’t be bothered to keep up with any conversation. It takes too much energy—just like eating does.

Soap knows he should eat if he wants to live, but to be quite honest—

To be quite honest, Soap’s not convinced he does want to live. He doesn’t want to die, but he doesn’t really want to live, either. Living is a lot of work, and Soap is so, so tired. The omega doesn’t seem to care, though, because he keeps nudging food towards Soap with a determined frown. His scent is souring—old coffee and rank cinnamon—which only makes Soap more irritable. He’s trying be polite and warn the omega off with little glares and growls, but the omega isn’t listening.

No one ever fucking listens when Soap warns them.

So he snaps—sooner than is probably reasonable, given the omega’s look of surprise—and lashes out, slamming the omega against the wall. Soap snarls down at him, wrapping one hand around his throat and squeezing until he thrashes. Then he lets go, grabs the plate of food, and flings it into the opposite wall. The plate is plastic, so it doesn’t shatter the way Soap wishes it would, and in the end the whole display is rather unsatisfying. 

Still, it seems to have worked, because the omega finally backs the fuck off.

Soap retreats beneath the bed again, curling up. His anger fades as quickly as it came, leaving him hollow and…a little guilty, fuck’s sake. He scowls, biting the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood. What does he care if he hurt the omega? Soap warned him. It’s the omega’s own fault for not listening, for being so pushy and insistent and there. 

But the guilt persists, tarry and uncomfortable. 

When the omega returns, his scent is clear of any distress. He ignores Soap entirely and begins to clean up the mess of thrown food on the other side of the room. Soap’s guilt intensifies. Reluctantly, he slinks out from under the bed and grabs one of the protein bars that had skittered off of the plate. He hesitates, rocking his weight from foot to foot, before inching up and offering it to the omega.

The omega takes it with a sigh, but there’s fondness in his eyes as looks at Soap. “Bastard.”

“Aye,” Soap says, his voice low and gravelly from disuse.

The omega’s eyes flare with surprise. “Soap?”

Soap returns to his den beneath the bed, burying himself beneath the blankets the omega had scented for him. The omega is chattering away behind him—calling his name rather persistently—but Soap ignores him. Eventually the omega seems to get the hint, and he falls silent. His voice is replaced by the voice of Ozzy Osbourne, and Soap settles into the familiar chords of Black Sabbath. 

The next day, the alpha comes in.

Soap tenses as soon as he recognizes the presence of this newcomer, his muscles bunching. The omega is with him, and he comes up to Soap first—crooning sweetly, reaching for his hand. Soap recoils, tucking his hands beneath his armpits and glowering. He’s not sure why the omega has brought his alpha, but is sure it’s not for a good reason. 

The alpha’s probably here to punish Soap for lashing out at his omega—or worse, Soap thinks, when he recognizes the alpha’s flinty scent. This is one of the ones he attacked, before. This is the one he bit. His eyes fixate on the imprint of his own teeth in the alpha’s throat; the wound is still pink and shiny. They’ve probably come to finish Soap off, then.

He can’t say that he blames them.

Hell, he might even have let them—if it weren’t for the fact that this alpha is the one who hurt Ghost. He remembers it, if only vaguely. He remembers the way Ghost had collapsed, the way he wouldn’t wake up, the way he panicked as the drugs washed through his veins. This alpha had done that. This alpha had hurt Soap’s pack.

So if Soap’s going down, he’s taking this bastard down with him.

It’s the strongest emotion he’s felt in weeks, this fury—he lets himself catapult into it, open-mouthed and raging, as he launches himself out from under the bed and at the alpha. The alpha shouts in surprise, stumbling backwards, and Soap hears the omega shout. He slams the alpha to the floor, but he’s weak with hunger and fatigue. In only a handful of seconds, the alpha seizes Soap’s arm and drags him off to the side.

Soap hits the floor with his shoulder, rolling onto his back and bringing his feet to kick the alpha squarely in the chest when he tries to pin him. The alpha grips his ankle before he can yank it back for another kick, and as Soap tries to twist free the omega is on him—gripping his shoulder and flipping him onto his belly. Heavy weight settles onto the small of his back, and a calloused hand grips the nape of his neck.

Enraged, Soap snarls and writhes—but the weight on him is implacable, bearing him down. He knows it’s the alpha pinning him, scruffing him like a goddamn pup. It’s infuriating. Soap snaps his teeth and throws an elbow back, aiming for the alpha’s flank. His wrists are snatched before he gets very far into the blow, trapped in the omega’s hands. The omega crouches in front of him, talking rapidly until the alpha rumbles at him. Soap feels the vibration of the noise in his fucking spine.

With another snarl, he twists like a fish on a hook—trying to throw either one of them off. The alpha only bears down harder, pressing Soap’s face into the tile. He barks something, short and sharp, in conjunction with Soap’s name. When that doesn’t get him a satisfactory reaction, he slides his hand up into Soap’s hair before leaning down to touch his teeth to the side of Soap’s throat. Then, he growls.

The urge to submit is sudden and overwhelming—it shouldn’t be, but it is. Soap doesn’t know this alpha, and he’s sure as fuck not Soap’s packmate. By all rights the demand for his submission should only appall Soap. But some dormant part of him recognizes that growl, recognizes the scent of the man pinning him, and yearns to make him happy like a goddamn fool. He hisses his refusal, instead, trying to twist his head to bite whatever part of the alpha’s face he can reach. The alpha wrenches his head back around with the hand in his hair, grumbling in annoyance. He’s still talking, the fucker, and Soap tunes into the words. It’s hard—the noises aren’t as natural as growls and snarls, right now, and he has to actively think about them. He’s not particularly pleased with what he hears, when he does.

“Can do this all day, lad,” the alpha says, fingers tightening in his hair, “but I’d really rather not. Chill the fuck out.”

Soap growls in outrage, trying to wrench his hands out of the omega’s grip. The omega doesn’t let him. He presses his thumbs into the sore scent glands of Soap’s wrists, instead, and Soap can’t hold back the wounded little sound he makes in response. The omega’s grip loosens, his eyes widening. 

“He hurt?” the alpha demands.

“I didn’t think so,” the omega says, kneading his fingers into the bones of Soap’s wrists. “Nothing feels broken.”

“Keep holding him, then. I don’t want him clobberin’ me.”

“Sir,” the omega agrees. 

The alpha bares his teeth again, brushes his fangs against Soap’s throat in warning. “Soap,” he says. “MacTavish. Give it up. I’m not gonna hurt you, and I’m not gonna let you hurt me. Just fuckin’—relax, and we can talk about this.”

Relaxing is the last thing on Soap’s mind. He goes limp, but only long enough to trick the alpha into easing the grip on his hair—then he twists, sinking his teeth into the edge of the alpha’s jaw. It’s not a solid bite. The alpha recoiled before Soap could really dig in, and he’s only left with a blooming bruise. 

“Goddamn snake,” the alpha swears, tightening his grip again.

To Soap’s surprise, the omega chuckles. “Brought that one on yourself, sir.”

“Don’t I know it?” The alpha sighs, scruffing up Soap’s hair. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but it does sent sharp prickles across Soap’s scalp. “Bloody stubborn bastard.”

Soap growls, low and unyielding, in response.

“Doin’ this the hard way, I guess,” the alpha mutters. He pulls Soap’s chin up, baring his throat, and Soap’s growl stutters in surprise. “Settle down, pup. Alpha’s got you.”

The alpha dips his head again, and this time he doesn’t brush his teeth against Soap—this time he sinks them in, not deep enough to break skin but goddamn close. Those big fangs pinch around Soap’s primary scent gland, and it fucking hurts. It shouldn’t. A bite like this should soothe and settle. It shouldn’t sting the way it does, shouldn’t feel like his skin’s being shredded, and when Soap cries out in pain the alpha recoils. 

“Shit,” he mutters. He brushes his thumb over the bite mark—over Soap’s swollen scent gland—and Soap whines in distress. 

The omega whines in sympathy, squeezing Soap’s hands. “What’s wrong, Price?”

“Hell if I know,” the alpha says. “His scent gland shouldn’t be like this.”

“Is it—is something wrong with it? Is that why we can’t smell him?”

“Can’t smell him ‘cause he doesn’t want you to, son,” the alpha corrects. “Here, swap me spots.”

“Are you gonna go get him?” the omega asks, slinging his own leg over Soap’s lower back to keep him pinned as the alpha slips off. The omega gathers his wrists at the small of his back, but leaves him free to move his head. Soap shifts to get more comfortable, resting his cheek against the tile floor and panting shallowly. 

“Don’t think we have much of a choice at this point,” the alpha says grimly. “Can’t get him to eat, can’t get him to bond, can’t get him to submit. Fuckin’ hell.”

“He’ll be okay,” the omega insists, dipping to press his mouth to the back of Soap’s head. Soap can feel breath in his hair, stirring it gently. He could turn and bite, but he doesn’t. He can’t bite this omega. He can’t bite the person who brought him warmth, and soft blankets, and rock ‘n roll—even if he really, really wants to right now. “Shh, Soap. Settle. We’re gonna help you.”

“I’ll be right back,” the alpha says. “Keep him there. I want him contained in case this doesn’t go as planned.”

“Yes, sir.”

The alpha slips out of the room, and Soap relaxes slightly as soon as he’s gone. The omega presses a soft kiss to his temple, rumbling sweetly at him. He keeps talking, but Soap has exhausted himself—he can’t be bothered to parse the words anymore, his eyes sliding shut as he tries to catch his breath and stop the shaking that’s taken over his limbs. 

This is what he gets, he thinks, for trusting the omega.

Several minutes later the door slides open again, and Soap hears the alpha’s boots on the tile—but he also hears a second set of steps, more muffled than the alpha’s. He opens his eyes and sees a pair of socked feet padding towards him. He glances up a pair of long legs, a set of narrow hips, and a broad chest. He stops when he sees the newcomer’s face—his breath stops, his heart stops, his world stops. 

“Oh,” Ghost breathes, “Johnny.”

Chapter Text

Ghost is flipping aimlessly through the novel Gaz had brought him— Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, because “you need something fun to read, man, I wasn’t going to give you the Art of fucking War  again ”—when Price steps into his room. Ghost glances up, arching his eyebrows. It’s the third time Price has come to see him today, and it’s a discomforting change to their tentatively-established routine. 

The captain usually eats lunch with Gaz, leaving Ghost to his own devices for the better part of the afternoon. It’s easier on all of them if Ghost still has ample time left alone; after nearly three months in captivity he’s unused to this much social interaction, and too much of it tends to make him unreasonably anxious. He’s always been something of an introvert, anyway.

So it’s strange that Price should come back when he and Gaz have already spent the whole morning lounging with Ghost. It’s strange, and it’s nothing short of disconcerting. Ghost flares his nostrils, smells the agitation on his packmate and responds in kind. He dogears the book and sets it aside, pushing onto his feet and prowling closer to Price. He cocks his head, narrows his eyes in silent question. It’s still hard to find the right words for everything—to make his tongue twist around the proper syllables when it’s become so accustomed to silence. 

“Ghost,” Price greets stiffly, and Ghost’s eyes narrow further. “Got a job for you.”

“What?” Ghost rasps.

“It’s Soap.”

Ghost’s hackles rise, his heart stuttering.

Price and Gaz have explained, over and over again, exactly why they took Ghost’s beta from him—and while the rational part of Ghost (still busily clawing its way to back to the forefront) understands, the more instinctive part of him is continually infuriated by their separation. How is he supposed to protect Soap if he can’t even see him? How is he supposed to provide for him if they’re kept apart? What sort of alpha is he—what sort of packmate, what sort of person?— to leave Soap alone after all the shit they’ve been through together?

Gaz assures him each day—usually more than once—that Soap is safe, is improving, is excited to see Ghost again. Ghost trusts Gaz’s word as much as he trusts anyone’s, but it’s still not enough to abate his worry. He doesn’t think anything but Soap himself could be. He needs to see Soap, to hold him, to let him know that he hasn’t been abandoned. Soap has been alone for far too long already, and while Gaz says that he visits everyday Ghost knows it won’t be enough. 

Soap’s a needy little bastard, and right now what he needs is Ghost. 

But Price and Gaz have been firm: Ghost isn’t allowed to see Soap, not until they’re both fully cognizant. So each day he practices speaking instead of snarling, and he reads the books Gaz brings him, and he answers the nurses’ orientation questions dutifully. Price updates him on current worldly events, and Gaz gives him all the latest hospital gossip. Several PMCs, including Kortac, have been pursuing the remnants of the AQ cell that captured Ghost and Soap; Ara the charge nurse is pregnant with Dr. Arjomand’s first baby, much to the chagrin of her husband (who is not, in fact, Dr. Arjomand). These things are wholly unrelated and equally important, if his packmates are to be believed.

All things considered, Ghost has been improving in leaps and bounds—coming out of his feral state much more quickly than he ever has before, with the support of his packmates and quite a few medications. Still, he’s far from fully recovered, so it’s something of a surprise that Price should ask him anything about Soap. His captain tends to steer conversations away from that particular sore spot.

Something must be wrong.

“Soap,” Ghost repeats, his shoulders tightening. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Price says, too quickly.

“Price,” Ghost says, his voice far closer to a growl than he’d like for it to be.

“He’s fine,” Price repeats, leveling Ghost with a quelling look. “He’ll be fine. But he’s not bouncing back the way you are.”

“Because he doesn’t have a pack,” Ghost says, fingers flexing as he tries to keep them from balling into fists—tries, and fails. His nails bite harsh crescents against his palms. “Because you took him from me.”

“Don’t push it. I need your help, but I’m not takin’ you to see him if you’re going to act a fool.”

Ghost draws up. “I can see him?”

“If you mind your manners.”

“I’m minding,” Ghost says, sucking his teeth to keep himself from baring them.

“The hell you are,” Price says tiredly. He exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. “If it was up to me we’d have at least another week to stabilize you, but I don’t think MacTavish is going to let us dawdle anymore. I need you to convince him that he’s safe—make him see reason, make him relax, make him eat something.”

Eat something? Has Ghost’s beta not been fucking eating, and no one thought to tell him until now? Anger hisses and seethes behind his ribs, and he swallows several times to smooth it away. He knows, innately and immediately, that Price won’t let him step one foot out of this room if he can’t control himself—and Ghost needs out of this room. He needs to get to Soap. But what he really doesn’t understand is—

“You said he was fine. You lied."

“I didn't. He is safe, and he is as healthy as could possibly be expected given the circumstances. I wouldn’t have let anything happen to him. I’m not letting anything to happen to him. That’s why I’m coming to get you despite my many reservations. If he doesn’t get his shit together, he’s going to wind up in ICU again just so we can keep him fed and hydrated without him killin’ somebody.”

A low growl rumbles in Ghost’s chest at the fuckin’ thought. 

“Ghost,” Price warns.

“Don’t do that,” Ghost says. “Don’t put him—there.”

Ghost only has vague memories of his time spent in the ICU—he’d been kept unconscious, his veins running thick with propofol and precedex and all the heavy-duty shit they’d needed to keep a feral alpha of his size and weight down. In the brief moments that conscious control flickered back to him, he could feel the breathing tube down his throat, the cold flush of saline in his IVs, the padded restraints around his wrists and ankles. It had been wholly awful. He can't stand the thought of Soap enduring that.

“I don’t want to,” Price says, “but I damn well will if it keeps him alive. Hoping it doesn’t come to that, though—hoping you can get him better.”

“I can,” Ghost says. He knows Soap, and also knows he’d do anything to see him better again. It’s one of the few things his rationale and instincts both agree on. “Let me see him.”

“Alright. But if you lose your shit, I’m dragging your ass right back here for the next month. Keep it together. You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Price gives him a blue surgical mask. It’s paper-thin, and the straps are loose around his ears, but it’s better than going out with his face completely bare. It feels good, secure, to have something covering his mouth and nose again. He follows Price through the doors, biting his tongue against a sudden surge of nerves. This is the first time he’s been outside in almost two weeks. Price sticks close to him, letting Ghost slot himself into the sheltered space between his alpha and the wall as they walk.

The hallway is cooler than his room, lined with metal doors and overbright fluorescent lights. The patterned tile is slick under his socks, the chill bleeding up into his toes. It’s empty, save for a couple of nurses and techs coming in and out of the rooms. They all look surprised to see him, but not unpleasantly so—a few even offer him warm smiles. He’d like to think he’s grown on them these last few days, since coming back to himself and his mind. He’s done his best not to be a raging asshole, at the very least, which is more than can be said of some patients.

Soap’s room is at the opposite end of the hall, and Price makes Ghost turn around before he keys in the passcode for the first security door. Ghost would roll his eyes if only he wasn’t so tense. Soap is behind that door—Soap, suffering. Ghost is a highly qualified operator, a seasoned sniper, a goddamn SAS spec ops lieutenant. He’s used to laying in wait for hours, if not days, at a time. But right now? Right now, he narrowly resists the urge to shift his weight with burgeoning impatience as Price opens the second door and ushers him inside.

Immediately, Ghost is struck with the scents of distressed alpha and omega—but Soap’s scent, as always, is distinctly absent. Ghost doesn’t need it, though. It’s fairly obvious where Soap is: pinned against the floor, panting rapidly, with Gaz straddling his lower back to keep him there. The omega has Soap’s wrists gathered in his hands, trapping them, rendering Soap wholly defenseless. Ghost would be furious, if only Gaz didn’t look equally upset about the situation.

“Johnny.”

Soap’s eyes snap to Ghost’s, stretching wide with surprise. He bucks and thrashes, snarling when Gaz holds him tight. Ghost drops to his knees in front of them and opens his arms. Gaz rocks off to one side, and as soon as he’s free of the weight Soap lunges. He hits Ghost so hard that Ghost sways back, wrapping his arms tightly enough around Soap that the beta wheezes. But Soap doesn’t try to get away—he only pushes closer, cramming himself up against Ghost like he wants to climb inside of his ribcage and nest around his heart. Ghost would fuckin’ let him.

“Johnny, ‘s okay,” Ghost soothes, rumbling gently. “Soap, Johnny, Johnny.”

Soap is whining with anxiety and excitement both—a pup with a new present—sniffing along Ghost’s throat and jaw, scenting him with aggressive little rubs of his face against Ghost’s scent gland. He’s biting just to have something to hold onto; desperate, mouthy nips to Ghost’s neck and chin and shoulders. Rumbling encouragement, Ghost rearranges his legs so he can hold Soap comfortably in his lap.

“We’ll be outside,” Price says, ushering Gaz away from them. He looks reluctant to leave them alone—but even the sound of his voice has Soap stiffening again, digging his fingers ruthlessly into the meat of Ghost’s shoulders. There’s no way he’ll settle properly with them present. Ghost is only grateful that Price is choosing to take himself out of the equation; it would have been a helluva lot harder if Ghost had had to remove him. “Just shout if you need something.”

Ghost nods, but he doesn’t think he will; he’s got everything he needs bundled in his arms, shaking like a storm. When the door creaks open to Price and Gaz out of the room, Soap leans up over Ghost’s shoulder and snarls. Ghost feels the press of teeth against the side of his skull, the tender top of his ear, but no fear swells up to accompany the feeling. What does he care if Soap bites him? Little beta fangs like that—wouldn’t be anything but a sting.

(Price, bearing the shiny scar of those little beta fangs, would surely disagree.)

 Soap stays tense long after Price and Gaz have gone. His gaze fixates on the door, his limbs stiff and shaking in turns—like he’s waiting for them to come back, to take Ghost from him again. Ghost wouldn’t let them. Now that he has Soap, he’ll be damned if he lets them be split up again. If that makes him insubordinate, so fuckin’ be it. 

“Johnny, I got you,” Ghost murmurs, fighting to find the words. It’s even harder to talk, now he’s with Soap again. The two of them haven’t needed words between them in a long, long time. So he more or less gives up on them for the moment, threading his fingers his fingers through Soap’s hair and guiding his face down to burrow against Ghost’s own throat—trying to comfort him with touch and scent, instead. 

Soap breathes in sharply, open-mouthed against his skin. His fingers are clawed into Ghost’s jumper—it had been a present from Gaz, purchased from the hospital gift shop and declaring in blocky pink letters that its occupant is LITERALLY FREEZING. This is not true. It is especially not true with Soap plastered against him, all sweat-slick skin and hot breath. Ghost has never felt warmer. 

Soap wedges his way impossibly closer—clinging like a limpet, stealing short draws of Ghost’s scent. His tongue swipes against the scent gland nestled behind the arch of Ghost’s jaw, coaxing out more safe-good-alpha pheromones to soothe himself with. Ghost exhales at the sensation, his eyes fluttering closed. He tips his head to the side, inviting more, and Soap obliges. The strokes of his tongue become a little firmer, interspersed with greedy nips. His overgrown stubble drags and scratches against Ghost’s skin.

For the sake of his own spine—he’s not as young as he used to be—Ghost scoots so he can lean against the wall. Soap sticks with him, undeterred, seated firmly in his lap. He’s still trembling, but he’s not whining quite as much. His pupils are blown wide, drunk on his alpha’s scent after so long without it. Ghost tugs his face back with the hand in his hair, leaning down to scent him properly. He drags his jaw along Soap’s hair and face, layering him with a long overdue claim. Soap groans appreciatively and tips his head back, exposing more skin for Ghost to nuzzle up against. As always, Ghost flares his nostrils, trying to read Soap’s scent in turn—and as always, he comes up unnervingly blank. 

When Soap tries to bury into his chest again, Ghost tugs his hair a little to stop him. Soap obediently falls still, the muscles of his jaw loosening and his eyelids fluttering. Satisfied, Ghost sweeps his gaze over him—making the first proper assessment he can, now Soap’s not actively trying to climb inside of him with all the tenacity of a suicidal lemming.  In some ways, Soap looks better than he was the last time Ghost saw him; in other ways, he’s much worse. He’s clean, scrubbed free of the dirt and blood that clung to him for so long, and the wound on his shoulder is healing well. It seems to be cleared of the infection that had plagued it, and it’s been swaddled in soft white gauze and medical tape. His more minor wounds have all but vanished. He smells like antibiotics and laundry detergent: safe scents, good scents, even if they aren’t his own. 

But he’s scrawny, worn thin around the edges from a lack of both food and exercise. His eyes are dull, heavily shadowed, cobalt instead of cornflower. His face is pale, strained with stress in a way it never was before—not even when the AQ tortured him for hours on end. Ghost knew it wouldn’t be good for them, being separated, but he never could have imagined that Soap would take it this poorly. If he’d known this was the state Soap was in these past two weeks, nothing would have stopped him coming here.

Maybe that’s why Price and Gaz didn’t tell him, the bastards. Soap is fine his fuckin’ ass. Soap is a goddamn disaster and they had the audacity to keep Ghost from him. Fury kindles sharply in Ghost’s chest, but he banks it. Now isn’t the time. He can rip his packmates’ heads off later—after he’s settled their beta. Already, Soap is squirming, made anxious by the sudden pulse of anger in Ghost’s scent. Ghost chuffs apologetically to him, dragging him back in and wrapping him in his arms. 

“Johnny,” he manages, easing his fingers through Soap’s dark hair. “Fuck, missed you.”

Soap hums in response, mouthing at Ghost’s scent gland again. It’s obvious that he isn’t nearly as far along in his mental recovery as Ghost is—he’s still deeply rooted in baser instincts, mute and shameless. Ghost isn’t entirely sure he even understands basic English. If he does, he’s not showing any sign of it. While Ghost had a pack to help ease the transition back into civilization, Soap was torn away from his. It isn’t fair. 

“Not gonna leave you,” Ghost promises hoarsely. "'m not gonna leave you again."

Soap bites him, soft and fond. 

Ghost huffs, tugging Soap’s head back again. His eyes sweep over the tanned curve of Soap’s throat, the soft pink imprint of Price’s teeth. An irrational wave of jealousy surges up in him. He leans forward to make his own mark, but pauses when Soap whines and twists against his grip. His brow furrows.  Soap liked Ghost’s settling nips whenever he got them before—fucking loved ‘em, rolling and squirming until he got those fangs in his throat, exactly where he wanted them. He liked Ghost’s scolding bites a fair bit less, but that was to be expected. Maybe he thinks he’s being scolded instead of settled, now. Ghost can’t quite fathom why he would think he’s in trouble enough to earn himself a mean sort of bite, but Soap’s mind isn’t the clearest place to be right now. Who the fuck knows? 

So Ghost tries a rusty little purr, trying to comfort him. He can’t control his pheromones the way a beta can, but he hopes he’s pumping out safe-settle-calm messages anyway. He leans in again, and this time Soap doesn’t try to get away—but he doesn’t relax, either. Ghost’s eyes narrow. He noses against the swell of Soap’s own scent gland, startled to hear Soap’s hiss of pain. He brings a hand up to frame Soap’s throat, swiping a thumb lightly over the gland. It’s hard and inflamed beneath the skin.  A quick check confirms that the gland on the other side of Soap’s throat is the same, as are the glands on his wrists. Ghost doesn’t know for sure, but he suspects it has something to do with Soap flattening his scent for so long. Instinct urges him to soothe those little hurts, and Ghost doesn’t bother fighting it—hasn’t bothered in a long, long time now, not where Soap is concerned.

Ghost fits his mouth against the swollen scent gland behind Soap’s jaw, sucking gently. Soap makes a garbled sound of pain, but he doesn’t try to move away—squeezes his eyes shut, instead, breathing in staggered gulps. Ghost rubs a hand over his side to soothe him through it, continuing to apply steady pressure to the blocked gland. He’ll have a hell of a hickey, after, but Ghost is pretty sure the relief he’ll feel will be worth it. 

The first hint of Soap’s scent is sweet and crisp—but it’s quickly overwhelmed by the pungent odor of terror. Ghost can’t help but recoil, the taste of it thick and oily on his tongue. It agitates him despite him having expected it, and he finds himself crooning aimlessly in an attempt to soothe his distressed packmate. He releases his grip on Soap’s hair, and Soap burrows back into him with a muffled whimper.

Ghost clears the taste of terror from his teeth with several passes of his tongue, then dips back in to apply the same treatment to Soap’s other three scent glands. The ones on his wrists are easier, the scent of him fainter and more tolerable there. Once he’s finished, Soap’s scent clouds around them like a miasma of misery. It’s enough to make Ghost’s lip curl. No packmate of his should ever be allowed smell so angry and so scared and so sick. 

Ghost bumps his head against Soap’s, rubs their noses together and murmurs apology after apology after apology. Soap closes his eyes and sways into the touch like he’s starved for it, fingers tangling up in the collar of Ghost’s jumper. Ghost strokes his shoulders, rubs his back, relishes the way Soap starts to finally— finally— relax against him. After several minutes, the stress in his scent begins to fade. It’s still very much present, but Ghost can finally make out the baser notes of his selfscent through it.

Soap smells like green apples, like an orchard when the heaviest summer haze gives way to an autumn breeze. Beneath that there are hints of fresh cotton and warm honey. It makes Ghost huff in amusement. He’d expected—perhaps a little irrationally—for Soap to smell like fireworks and smoke, like a bomb about to blow. Instead Soap smells fresh, and sweet, and good. He smells like a place Ghost could learn to call home.

Insistently, Ghost nudges up against the corner of Soap’s jaw until Soap deigns to scent him properly. Ghost rattles out an approving purr as he does so, letting Soap angle his head however he likes to better layer him in sweet scent. Soap has scented him before, but this is the first time there have been proper pheromones to leave behind, and he basks in the rightness of it. But Soap pauses before he’s finished, snuffling at the shoulder of Ghost’s jumper. When he makes a face, his nose wrinkling, Ghost huffs in quiet amusement. He’s smelling Gaz and Price, undoubtedly; he’ll have to get used to that sooner rather than later.

But for now Soap grumbles and sets about masking the other scents with his own, rubbing his jaw vigorously against Ghost’s shoulder. As much as Ghost would like to sit and scent him all day, however, there are things he clearly has to do—things Soap clearly needs him to do. First and foremost, he has to get Soap to eat something before the medical staff decide to take the situation into their own hands. He scruffs the nape of Soap’s neck, tugging him back in spite of Soap’s petulant growl.

Ghost stands, bringing Soap up with him, and deposits his beta on the bed with much ado—Soap is stickier than syrup, growling pathetically when Ghost tries to dislodge him. But he stays put when Ghost motions for him to, although his eyes track Ghost’s progress and the scent of his fear spikes when the door to the room opens again. Someone—Price or Gaz, if Ghost had guess—has very pointedly left a tray of snacks in the space between the two doors, and Ghost brings it inside. 

“Not a feast, but it’ll do,” he says, shrugging and sitting cross-legged on Soap’s bed. 

Soap relaxes as soon as he’s within touching distance, shuffling to bump their knees together. Touchy bastard. Ghost tears open a packet of Plumpy’nut and hands it to him—the peanut butter paste is easy to get down, familiar, and if he only eats one thing Ghost figures it should be the thing designed specifically to treat malnutrition. Soap takes it, turning it over in his hands with a disinterested expression. After a moment, he tries to hand it back to Ghost. 

“No,” Ghost says, pushing it back towards Soap. Hardening his voice, he orders, “Eat.” 

Soap’s mouth twists. He brings the packet up again, sniffing it warily, before flicking Ghost an unconvinced look. In return, Ghost offers him bared fangs and a warning growl. If Soap doesn’t eat, Ghost is damn well going to make him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s had to. Recognizing this, Soap offers a long-suffering sigh and nibbles reluctantly at the paste.  While he doesn’t look pleased, some of his tension does ease when he tastes the salt and sugar of the peanut butter. He licks it up cautiously, pausing between swallows to let it settle. Ghost hopes it won’t come right back up—he really doesn’t know what he’ll do if it does. He can’t justify making Soap eat until he’s sick, but their next step is a feeding tube and that just might be worse. He knows Soap wouldn’t keep it in without being watched or restrained, neither of which will go over well. 

So he offers Soap what comfort he can as he eats, running his fingers through Soap’s hair and encouraging him to take sips of lukewarm water in between bites. By the time the packet is gone, Soap looks thoroughly uncomfortable, and Ghost doesn’t have the heart to force him to eat anymore. He’ll try again in a little while—once he’s sure Soap isn’t going to throw the contents of his stomach right back up. Setting the tray aside, Ghost tugs Soap back into his lap. Soap comes willingly, flopping into him like a wet-ass noodle.

“Good,” Ghost says, rubbing Soap’s side, trying to ignore the too-sharp press of ribs beneath his palm. “Good, lad.”

“Ghost,” Soap sighs.

Ghost glances down at him, startled. He hasn’t heard Soap speak in—fuck, in months. But Soap doesn’t speak again; he only rubs his face lazily against Ghost’s shoulder, his eyes sliding shut. Fuckin’ exhausted. Ghost has to wonder when the last time he slept without the help of sedation was. If he’s anything like Ghost was those first few days out of ICU, his sleep is sporadic and plagued with strange dreams. So Ghost cups the back of his neck, massaging his nape, trying to soothe him into sleep. 

Price and Gaz will be back soon, he knows, and that’s a whole ‘nother hell for Ghost to deal with—but right now, he’s finally got Soap smelling sweet and safe in his lap. He’s not about to ruin that by thinking of his foolish packmates and getting himself angry again. Soap’s got a sensitive nose, even for a beta, and if Ghost gets angry he’ll get anxious. Ghost can’t have that. So he focuses on breathing deep, on feeling the weight of his beta in his lap, on dragging the sheets up to wrap around Soap’s shoulders. 

Everything else will just have to wait.

Chapter Text

Some might think it cowardly that Price waits until Soap is asleep to confront Ghost—but Price prefers to think of it as utilizing his resources. Ghost won’t dare disturb the exhausted man curled in his lap, and that means Price is relatively safe from his sub-alpha’s rage for at least a few minutes. Still, he has to take a deep breath before he steps back into the room. It’s far from the first time he and Ghost have butted heads over something, but it is the first time they’ve butted heads over something—some one —that Ghost considers his and his alone.

Price isn’t looking forward to this.

Ghost’s steely gaze whips up to meet Price’s as soon as the door shuts behind him with a soft snick. Fury burns low in his eyes, his brows drawn together severely. But he doesn’t so much as twitch a muscle in Price’s direction—too focused on petting Soap’s hair, and on cupping a palm loosely over his mouth and nose to keep him from scenting the presence of a second alpha. 

“You,” Ghost says tersely, his voice measured and unnervingly quiet, “lied.”

“I didn’t,” Price argues, keeping his own voice low so he won’t disturb Soap. God knows the pup needs all the rest he can get. “I don’t lie to you, Ghost.”

“You said he was fine. What part of this is fine?”

Price pauses, slants his gaze to the side. So maybe calling Soap’s condition fine was a little bit of stretch. But Ghost has been healing, too—the last thing he needs is to fret about things out of his control, and that includes Soap. “He is as fine as he can be, circumstances considered. There was nothing you could have done for him before now.”

“I could have helped him.”

“You didn’t remember your own name until two days ago. There was nothing you could have done that the physicians couldn’t.”

“I should have been here. He needed me.”

“Yes. He needed you, not some half-mad alpha who didn’t know right from bloody left. You were out of control—you both were. You could have hurt each other.”

Ghost’s lips peel away from his teeth, fangs gleaming in the white light of the fluorescents.

“Do not show fangs at me, Simon Riley,” Price says, his voice dropping a register. “You have every right to be pissed, but I am still your alpha and your superior officer. I made the best choices I could with the information I had available to me at the time. Believe that, if nothing else.”

Ghost licks his teeth, puts his fangs away, and doesn’t stop glaring. 

“Can you at least try to understand?” Price says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Understand what? That you took Soap from me? That you let him suffer?”

“We had no idea what your dynamic with him was,” Price argues. “We assumed you were packbonded, but we had no way to confirm that when you were both out of your goddamn minds. What were we supposed to do? Throw you in a room together when you’d both just gotten out of the ICU, when you were both fuckin’ feraler than a wild hog, and pray you didn’t tear each others’ throats out? What if you’d attacked him, huh? What if he’d attacked you?”

“He wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have.”

“And we were supposed to just—what, assume that? You’d already mauled two soldiers at that point, and Soap damn near crushed seven more pulling that stunt with the explosives. Your history of violence during feral episodes isn’t exactly stellar, Lieutenant. Forgive me for not trusting the two of you to control yourselves.”

“Fine,” Ghost spits. “Fine. But what about after? I asked for him. You knew I wanted to see him and you told me no. You told me he was fine without me.”

“He was safe,” Price says. He rips off his boonie, crumples it in his hands, and smashes it back onto his head. “He was getting better. Gaz was helping him. If he had just eaten, we wouldn’t have needed you to step in.”

“You’d still have me in that room,” Ghost says coldly. “You’d still be telling me he was fine.”

“Yes,” Price says sharply, “because look at you. The second you see him, you’re backsliding—showin’ teeth at me, growlin’ like a pissant pup. He ain’t your territory, Ghost.”

“He’s pack.” Ghost tightens his grip in Soap’s hair—smooths it back out when Soap wrinkles up his nose in displeasure. “He’s my pack.”

“Yes,” Price says, exhaling, “and that makes him mine, too. You think I don’t care? You think I like watching him wither away like this? And you better believe I was watching, Ghost. I was making sure he got the care he needed. And when I realized he needed you—fuck, went and got you, didn’t I?”

Ghost cuts his eyes away, looking down at Soap instead. 

“Mighta waited too long to let you see him,” Price admits gruffly, “but I was trying to do right by both of you boys. You can be pissed all you like, but don’t you dare doubt that. Don’t you ever doubt I want what’s best for you.”

Ghost makes a disgruntled noise, touching Soap’s cheek softly. “I know,” he says, finally, irritably. “Still pissed about it, though. Fuck. Look at him, Price.”

“I see him,” Price says, exhaling slowly. “Christ. What a fuckin’ mess.”

“I’m staying with him.”

“Hell, I know it.”

Ghost grunts, dipping down to bump his forehead against Soap’s temple. 

“I’ll have your things brought over here,” Price continues, leaning back against the door. “Get a second bed brought in. But we won’t be here too much longer.”

Ghost glances back up at him, quirking an eyebrow.

“We’re going back to England as soon as we get Soap stable enough for travel,” Price explains. “There are rooms waiting at Queens Medical in Nottingham. The two of you’ll spend a week in the psych unit there before you’re let loose on medical leave. Figured we’d go down to the house in Salcombe for a little while, unless you’ve got somewhere better to be.”

“How long is leave?”

“Long as you need to get your head back on straight. The plan is two months, but I can get it extended. There’s no rush. What the two of you went through—” Price catches his breath, sighs. “You can have all the time in the world, Simon. It’ll be easy enough to keep the brass off of your back. I’ll just remind ‘em you were kept in a black site prison for two and a half months while they fuckin’ failed to give me the resources to find you.”

Ghost hums, nods. Then he says, “Soap was there longer.”

Price’s teeth grind at the reminder. Soap hadn’t properly been his responsibility to find after he’d disappeared, but hell if he didn’t stick his nose right in anyway. He’d had eyes on the kid since the minute he showed up for SAS selection, all flashing teeth and fiery smiles, and if he needed any more encouragement to recruit him to the 141 he’s goddamn well got it now. He doesn’t think Ghost would tolerate Soap bein’ sent to another unit after this, anyway. 

“He’ll be on leave with us,” Price says. Then, because it’s no great secret and it just might sweeten Ghost up to him again, he adds, “He’s been transferred to my command.”

Ghost scratches absently at the nape of Soap’s neck, where dark tufts of chickdown hair begin to grow. It’s strange to see Soap without his usual mohawk. Price can’t say that he likes it. “You’re alright with it, then?”

“With him being on the task force?”

“With him being part of our pack.”

“What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours, lad,” Price says nonchalantly. When Ghost only stares him down, he amends, “No, I don’t have a problem with it. MacTavish is a good man.”

“You knew him, before.”

It isn’t a question.

“I did,” Price says. “Knew him for a few months before he was taken, but not well. I’d see him during selection tests and training, mostly. Caught him trying to beat Gaz’s record on the obstacle course a couple of times, and we talked. He was angling for the one-four-one, and I pretty well wanted him there. But he needed more experience, first.”

“What was he like?” Ghost asks quietly.

“Friendly,” Price says, his eyes drifting to Soap’s face—slack with sleep, but still harrowed. “Overly so, sometimes, but I guess that’s betas for you. He’d chat up anything that breathed in his direction. Noisy little bastard. Pyromaniac, too. He’s a demolitions expert, did you know?”

Ghost shakes his head, sweeping a thumb over Soap’s temple. After a moment, he jerks his chin towards the armchair against the wall. It’s as much of an invitation as Price is going to get, at the moment, and to be honest it’s more of one than he expected. Once he sits, Ghost says, “Tell me more,” and Price does just that.

Over the next few days, Soap makes ridiculously large strides in his recovery. Ghost bullies him into eating and drinking, much to the relief of the physicians (who had not, Price infers, been looking forward to enduring a volatile beta in their ICU again). He also seems more willing to do something—anything—other than curl up beneath his bed and rot. Several times Price catches him lounging lazily against Ghost’s side as Ghost reads, and once he even sees him sketching in the blank journal Gaz brought him. 

The temptation to go in and see him—to talk to him, to confirm for himself that he’s alright—is almost unbearable. Soap isn’t properly his packmate yet, but Price’s instincts would like to argue otherwise. What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours— he’d been honest, telling Ghost that. As their pack’s resident alphas, they share everything between them. Ghost’s beta is Price’s beta.

Try telling the beta that, though.

Soap clearly doesn’t want anything to do with Price. He’s willing to endure Gaz again, although he’s more standoffish than he was before Price interfered. He always keeps himself between Gaz and Ghost in a blatant show of distrust, his shoulders hunched and eyes narrowed. But he seems to be placated by the gifts Gaz brings him—sweaters and hard candies and that pretty new moleskine with its pack of ballpoints. Glimpsing the three of them together makes Price feel irrationally jealous, an outsider in his own home.

And while Price understands that this is for the best—that Soap needs time and space and not an overbearing pack-alpha—his instincts can’t help but smart at the perceived rejection. Those three are his pack. They’re his alpha, his beta, his omega. He should be in there protecting them, providing for them, making sure they’re safe and healthy and happy. Being kept from that duty makes him bristle with anxiety. More often than not, he tries to quell the feeling by sucking down cigar after shitty cigar in the hospital parking lot.

That’s where Gaz finds him, four days after he fucked his chances with Soap to hell and back.

“How long you been out here, Cap?”

Price grunts noncommittally.

“Moping isn’t a good look on you, you know.” Gaz stops next to him. They look out over rows of glittering cars and patchy pavement, watching as the sun begins to set over the city. His omega smells sweetly content, freshly scented by Ghost—and, to Price’s surprise, Soap. “The doc says they’ll be ready to travel by Monday. Might have to give ‘em a couple doses of valium first, but Ghost says that’s fine. Says Soap says that’s fine, too, though I’ll be damned how he knows it. We still haven’t gotten him to talk.”

“Hm,” Price says, too grimly for what should be the best news he’s heard all damn week. “I’ll put in for transport.”

Gaz bumps their shoulders. “Don’t sound so happy about it, sir.”

“I’m happy,” Price says, in a decidedly unhappy tone of voice. He clears his throat, licks the taste of ash and smoke and ruin from his teeth. Tries again: “I’m happy. I am. I just…”

“I know.” Gaz rubs his jaw against the hard slope of Price’s shoulder, scenting him. Price relaxes into the gesture, his head bowing. “Come see them.”

“I don’t want to upset them again.”

“Ghost misses you, even if he won’t admit it. Keeps askin’ after you.”

“It’s not Ghost I’m worried about.”

“How’s Soap supposed to trust you when he never even sees you?” Gaz asks, brow furrowing as he frowns. “The longer you wait, the harder it’s gonna be.”

“He’s finally getting better, Gaz. I’m not going to be the one to ruin that.”

“Don’t think so highly of yourself,” Gaz says, snorting. “You won’t ruin anything— can’t ruin anything. Soap’s a stubborn bastard. If he wants to get better, he will, and no half-cocked alpha is gonna keep him from it. He’ll be happy with or without you. But me? Hell, Cap. I just want us all together.”

“Half-cocked?”

“That’s the part you’re stuck on?” Gaz shoulders him, making him sway. “Come on . So you had a bad time with him—it’s a bad situation. But you can’t just give up. It’s going to make leave bloody awkward if the two of you can’t get along.”

“Christ, fine.”

“Really?” Gaz grins, hooking his hands behind his head. “Man, I thought it would be harder than that.”

Maybe it should have been. Maybe Price should have thought more, argued more, refused more—but god above, does he miss his pack. So he tosses his cigar and stamps it out on the asphalt before following Gaz back towards the hotel across the street. He stops by his room to shower and change clothes, so he won’t offend his feral packmates with the reek of nicotine and old cologne. Then he heads for the hospital, for his boys’ room, and is unsurprised to find Gaz inside already. 

They look peaceful, settled. Ghost is tucked into the armchair, a new book cracked open in his lap— The Hobbit. Price wonders when he finished the last book. Soap sits on the ground beside the chair, legs sprawled across the tile in front of him, head leant back against the arm so Ghost can pet his hair with every turn of the page. On the other side of the room, Gaz has crashed onto the beds to watch Indiana Jones. 

Price doesn’t want to ruin this.

But, with a deep breath and a squaring of his shoulders, he does.

As soon as he steps inside Soap is growling, stiffening, drawing his legs up to crouch. Ghost sinks fingers into his hair before he can stand—not tugging, but holding firmly to keep him in his place. He rumbles, low and comforting. Soap doesn’t look at all convinced. His eyes are dark, narrow slits as he sizes Price up for the kill. 

“Ghost,” Price greets, keeping his voice quiet. “Soap.”

“Captain,” Ghost says gruffly. He looks unsurprised to see Price here; Gaz must have told him he was coming. “Quit lookin’ at him. Go sit with Gaz.”

It isn’t often that Ghost orders him—and even less often that Price allows it— but in this case it’s probably for the best. Price tears his eyes away from Soap, although the hairs on the nape of his neck prickle when he does. It feels like turning his back on a predator. He makes his way to the bed, nudging Gaz over so he can sit down with him. 

Then, rather anticlimactically, they finish watching Indiana Jones.

Soap growls for several long minutes before eventually falling silent. Price avoids looking directly at him, but in his peripheral he can see Soap staring—still tense, jaw tight and legs tucked to his chest. Ghost’s fingers have loosened their grip and resumed petting, instead, his nails scratching idly across Soap’s scalp. Soap looks away from Price long enough to level Ghost with an irritable glare, clearly baffled as to why his alpha is just sitting there while Price intrudes on their territory. 

“What?” Ghost says, wry amusement in his tone. “Grumpy, aren’t you?”

Soap answers with a rattling, pissy growl. 

“Didn’t get a big enough bite the first time, Johnny?” Ghost snorts, flicking his eyes towards Price—and the half-healed wound on his throat, courtesy of their bastard of a beta. “I’m sure he’d let you try again.”

“Ghost,” Price warns.

“What? Afraid he’d win?” Ghost asks, with a mean sort of smile. Price resists the urge to growl at him, unwilling to give Soap a reason to attack. “Didn’t think you were a coward, Price.”

It’s a cheap shot, and one well-deserved for Price’s avoidance of him these past several days. Even so, it makes Price bristle with annoyance. Mouthy little alpha-pup—he’s lucky he has Soap as a barricade between them. It’s clearly been too long since he was last reminded of his place in their pack (namely, flat on his back beneath Price).

“Alright, alright,” Gaz interrupts, annoyed. “This isn’t a dick-measuring contest.”

Gaz is right—more than right—and so Price forces himself to look away from Ghost. After a moment Ghost exhales and slouches, settling his fingers back into Soap’s hair. Gaz rolls his eyes and, to Price’s surprise, glances over at Soap with a exasperated set to his eyebrows.

“Alphas,” he complains. 

Soap huffs in agreement. 

It’s far from perfect—it’s not even good, really, all things considered—but Soap isn’t mauling him and so Price considers it a success. He stays late into the evening, watching films with Gaz while Soap glares at him and Ghost ignores him. He only steps out when his phone rings, nodding goodbye to his boys before stepping into the chill of the hospital hallway.

“Captain Price?”

“It’s me,” Price confirms. “How are things, Laswell?”

“As good as they can be.” Laswell sounds tired—she’s been scrambling to offload the 141’s work to other units, now that the task force is on leave. “You secure?”

Price glances up and down the hallway, finding himself alone. “Yes. Go ahead.”

“I’ve been coordinating with Kortac on the manhunt for the cell that took Ghost and Soap,” Laswell explains. Price hears the soft rustle of papers in the background. “All the leads we’ve had so far—of which there were few already—have gone cold.”

“That’s unacceptable.”

“I know, but your men didn’t exactly leave any witnesses to interrogate. So we need them to answer some questions as soon as they’re back in the UK. I’ve arranged an interview with Kortac’s hostage recovery specialist.”

Price immediately wants to refuse. Ghost and Soap are far from recovered, and the last thing he wants is to make them relive their experiences. But at the same time, they have valuable information—information that could help Price crush the terrorists who did this to them. 

“We’ll see,” Price says, tucking an unlit cigar between his lips just for the comfort of feeling it there. “They’re not stable, Laswell. Soap isn’t even speaking. You might get a few answers out of Ghost, but I can’t promise they’ll help.”

“Will you at least ask them if they’d be willing?”

“I will,” Price says. “But if they say no, that’s that. We can readdress it in a few months if we need to.”

“Alright.” Laswell falls quiet for a moment, but Price can still hear her tired sigh—can imagine the way she’ll pinch her brow, exhausted and overwhelmed. “I’ll see you soon, Price.”

“Laswell?”

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” There’s a smile in her voice, now, small though it is. “Get home safe. Tell the boys hi for me.”

“Ma’am,” Price agrees. 

The call ends with a click, and Price slides his phone back into his pocket. He leans against the wall for a moment, tipping his head back and looking at the ceiling. The cigar feels heavy on his lip. He had wanted to let Ghost and Soap relax once they’d reached the safehouse in Salcombe. He’d wanted them to forget the last few months, but—fuckin’ hell. There’s no end to it, is there?

Chapter Text

Soap paces the house in Salcombe until he’s memorized every centimeter of it.

It’s a big house—four bedrooms, two bathrooms, an open floor plan, and a basement boasting enough weaponry for a small military action or two. To Soap’s disappointment, however, all of the weapons are kept stripped of their ammunition and locked in massive iron safes. No one tells him the combinations. 

His own room is on the second floor, with a wide window that overlooks the nearby bay. It’s a pretty enough view, but Soap rarely spends enough time in the room to appreciate it. He’s sick of being stuck inside. The fucking millisecond he’s let off of medical house arrest, he plops himself down in the yard outside—heedless of the pounding rain and distant lightning. 

“Fucking hell,” Ghost grumbles, sitting down beside him and wiping rainwater out of his eyes. “Couldn’t have waited until it let up a little?”

Soap only grins and tips his face up into the storm. It’s cold, tiny pellets of water stinging his skin and soaking his hair to his scalp. It smells fresh, clean—turned soil and petrichor and ozone. He wants to soak it into his skin until the heat of that godforsaken desert is nothing but a bad dream. Thunder rumbles over them like the growl of a great beast.

Despite his complaints, Ghost settles in at his side until the storm lets off. They’re both soaked to the skin within minutes, and the chill of early autumn in England raises goosebumps along their skin. Thick gray clouds churn overhead, and Soap sprawls out on his back to watch them—finding shapes in them the way he used to when he was still a wee pup, fancying himself an artist in the lofty mediums of crayon and unfettered imagination. 

And much like his mother did back then, Price soon leans out the front door and shouts: “The two of you are gonna catch your goddamn deaths! Get back in here already, and don’t you dare track mud on the carpet!”

Soap scoffs, inclined to ignore him. Price may be the pack alpha, and his alpha’s alpha, but he’s not Soap’s alpha. He doesn’t seem much like he wants to be, either. He always cuts his eyes away when Soap glares at him too long, and lets him get away with shit Soap is pretty sure he shouldn’t be getting away with. He sighs when Soap snarls at him, shrugs it off when Soap disobeys. He seems equally reluctant to enforce himself with Ghost, although it’s obvious that Ghost is his subordinate and wants to be. 

It’s confusing, and Soap hates it.

It would be easier if Price was still his enemy, but for some unfathomable reason Ghost likes him—asked Soap to try to get along with him, to try to be part of their pack, and Soap would do damn near anything for that man. But it’s hard to get along in a pack where his own position is so tenuous and uncertain. No one trusts him enough to submit to him, and no one is confident enough to dominate him, either. It leaves Soap in an uncomfortable sort of purgatory, never quite sure where he belongs or who he belongs to.

Most days, he wishes it were just him and Ghost again.

 But it seems Price and Gaz are here to stay. Ghost tells Soap that he’s been transferred to Task Force 141–it would have been a dream come true, a year ago. Now it only reminds him that the pressures of his job are still out there, somewhere beyond nebulous months of medical leave and psychiatric evaluations and mandatory therapy. It reminds him that he’s still Sergeant John MacTavish, and that he’s going to have to pull himself together one of these days. 

“Come on,” Ghost says, kicking Soap’s foot gently when he makes no move to peel himself up out of the mud. “Let’s go, lad. You’re sodden.”

Soap blinks water out of his eyes, stares up at the sky until it fills them again, and does not move.

“Johnny,” Ghost sighs.

“Simon,” Soap sighs back, annoyed. It’s still hard to talk, these days, but getting easier. It’s ironic. Soap remembers a time when he could have talked anyone’s ear off—now, the sound of his own voice feels grating and foreign. “Don’t wanna.”

“Don’t recall asking.”

“Prick.”

Ghost growls, low and warning. It satisfies Soap. At least someone doesn’t treat him like a goddamn bomb or a palmful of glass.

“Inside,” Ghost orders.

With a groan, Soap heaves himself onto his feet. Ghost steadies him with a hand on his back, and the two of them kick off their boots on the front porch before trudging inside. Price loiters in the foyer, his arms folded over his chest. Soap shoulder-checks him as he passes—smells the sudden, spiced spike of irritation in the alpha’s scent and sneers when he doesn’t have the guts to act on it. Feckin’ jessie.

“Soap,” Ghost snaps.

Soap doesn’t bother turning to look at them. Water drips out of his hair, pooling in the collar of his soaked shirt like ice. He stalks into the downstairs bathroom, narrowly resisting the urge to slam the door behind him. Price has the uncanny ability to ruin even Soap’s best days, and Soap considers this one thoroughly ruined. He cranks the hot water on and steps under it, clothes and all, glowering at the ceramic underfoot.

When the water inevitably runs cold, Soap strips. He wrings his clothes out and lays them over the edge of the wicker hamper to dry, then scrubs himself down with an old striped towel. He tucks the towel around his waist before making his way up to his room, and digging through the unfamiliar clothes he’s been supplied with since coming here. He tugs on a pair of sweatpants and a too-big sweatshirt, then submerges himself in the pool of blankets on his unmade bed. 

There he stays until Ghost comes to find him.

“Johnny.”

Soap growls weakly, curling up until his nose touches his knees and yanking the blankets over his head. He hears Ghost sigh, and feels the mattress dip as his alpha sits down beside him. One big hand touches his back, warm as a brand. 

“What,” Soap says, tersely.

“Nothin’.” Ghost’s hand begins to move, rubbing his back in wide circles. Soap finds himself relaxing into the touch despite his petty irritation. “Just wanted to check on you.”

Soap grunts in acknowledgement. After a moment, he wiggles his face out of the blankets. Ghost looks down at him, arching his eyebrows. All those loose strawberry-blond curls are plastered to his forehead, smelling like lavender shampoo and Price’s burnt fucking vanilla. Soap’s lip curls. He reaches up, intent on erasing that scent with his own, but Ghost catches his hand.

“No,” he says.

Soap glares at him, annoyed and flummoxed in equal measure. He doesn’t understand it. Why would Ghost want to go around smelling like Price—like the alpha who won’t even act like an alpha? It doesn’t make sense. Soap is trying to make it make sense, to goad Price into asserting himself—if not for Soap’s own sake, then for Ghost’s. This sort of misplaced loyalty deserves to have its reward. Besides, he sees the way Ghost looks at Price—sees the bafflement in his eyes whenever he lets their misbehavior slide, sees the disappointment when Price refuses to put him in his place. Maybe Price thinks it’s a kindness to be lenient with Ghost, but Soap knows better. Ghost needs the security of solid boundaries and the safety of a pack-alpha stronger than himself. 

Right now, he’s got neither.

It pisses Soap off.

“Captain’s a coward,” Soap grumbles.

Ghost sinks his fingers into Soap’s hair, scruffing it none-too-gently. “Watch your mouth, MacTavish.”

“It’s true. All bark and no fuckin’ bite.”

Ghost gives him a little shake, his eyes narrowing. “He’s trying to be nice to you. You could stand to be a little grateful.”

Soap snorts, but he doesn’t try to argue. How could he expect Ghost to understand? Alphas and omegas tend to be hellishly dense when it comes to their own instincts. The invisible gears and mechanisms that make a pack work are revealed only to Soap, a-fucking-pparently.

Now if only someone would listen to him.

“You deserve better,” Soap says.

“He’s my alpha,” Ghost says.

These things are not mutually exclusive, but trying telling that to Ghost. It’s like screaming into a void—a very thick void.

“He’s your alpha, too,” Ghost adds, releasing Soap’s hair and smoothing it back down. “You need to start acting like it.”

“He needs to start acting like it first.”

“What, so you can tear his head off for it?”

“Yes,” Soap says, bluntly.

He wishes he could explain himself better. He wishes he could just smash his skull against Ghost’s until all these feelings transferred to him via violent osmosis. He needs Price to step up—Ghost needs Price to step up. Ghost has shown no desire to be the pack-alpha and every desire to be Price’s sub-alpha. Price seems amendable to the idea in spirit and not in fuckin’ truth. He’ll act like Ghost’s pack-alpha right up until he actually needs to be one and put Ghost in his place; then he’ll hesitate. 

Soap knows a large part of it is his own fault: he had taken a tidy chunk out of Price’s throat the last time Price touched Ghost. But he’s been better about that. He’s been good. He doesn’t even growl when Price looks at Ghost, anymore. Plus, he’s given Price ample excuse and opportunity to get back at him for that bite, and it’s Price who refuses to take it—or to lay a single hand on him since that first (and last) time he’d tried to get Soap to submit in Tobrak Medical Center. 

Soap knows it’s not because Price is incapable of it. He’s seen him put Gaz flat on his back before—and damn if that didn’t just make him seethe with jealousy. He doesn’t begrudge Gaz his alpha’s dominance, but it would be nice if some of that dominance were extended to Ghost, too. Soap doesn’t care so much about how Price acts towards him, but it’s a goddamn crime to deny Ghost what he needs so badly.

Soap might even consider rolling Ghost over, himself, if he didn’t think Ghost would maul him for it. As though reading his mind, Ghost quirks an eyebrow at him and then settles his hand lightly over Soap’s neck. He sweeps his thumb over Soap’s scent gland, and Soap instinctively tips his chin up to bare his throat.

“Thatta boy,” Ghost murmurs.

“I’m sorry,” Soap says, and he really is. It’s his job to fix relationships, to keep the pack functioning smoothly—what kind of beta is he if he can’t manage that? He’s trying to get everyone where they need and want to be, but no one seems to want to cooperate.

“I know.” Ghost knocks Soap’s chin further up with one knuckle, then leans down to nuzzle against his neck. He’s not replacing Price’s scent, but he is adding Soap’s. That makes Soap feel a little better, at least. “You’ll get there. You just have to trust ‘em, okay? Price and Gaz—they’re your pack, now.”

If only things were that easy.

The low buzz of an electric razor draws Soap to the upstairs bathroom.

“Hey.” Gaz glances at him in the mirror. He’s shaving down the sides of his hair, littering the sink with dark, tiny curls. “What’s up?”

“I want to—” Soap hesitates, finds the right words as he inches closer. “I want to do that too.”

“Cut your hair?”

“Aye.”

“Okay. Just gimme a second to finish up and I can help you.”

Soap leans against the doorframe, crossing one ankle over the other as he watches the deft movements of Gaz’s hands. He shaves most of his hair down in the back and on the sides, but leaves a mop of dark curls on top. It’s similar to Ghost’s own hairstyle, now that they’re back in civilization. The alpha had trimmed it down as soon as they’d reached the seaside city of Salcombe. Soap hasn’t quite gotten there, yet; he’s still shaggy from the five months he’d spent in captivity and the ensuing month he’d spent in hospital. 

Once he’s finished, Gaz washes out the razor and gives his hair a cursory scrub over the sink. He shakes out the towel he’d had around his shoulders, wiping down the counter before ushering Soap over. Soap pauses for a moment, studying him, breathing in the fresh coffee scent of him. Finding nothing to be nervous about, he steps closer.

“Want to do it yourself, or do you want me to help?” Gaz asks.

Soap can definitely do it himself, but he wouldn’t enjoy it half as much. “Can you help?”

“Yeah, of course. Sit down. How d’you want it?”

“A mohawk. Short, but—a mohawk.”

“Really?” Soap can hear the grin in Gaz’s voice as he drapes a clean towel around Soap’s shoulders.

“Really. Shoulda seen me before. Drove the drill sergeants crazy.”

“I bet.” Gaz laughs, ruffling Soap’s hair. Soap hums and leans into the touch. “I’m gonna start with three-quarters of an inch, but we can go shorter if we need to. I’ll probably use scissors for the actual ‘hawk. Sound okay?”

“Mm-hm.”

Soap hears the pop of plastic as Gaz snaps a clipper guard onto the razor. He follows Gaz’s hands until he can’t anymore, and the razor whirrs to life behind him. His stomach drops. Maybe he should have done this by himself. His captors had never used electric razors, but they’d used other things—sharp things, metal things, and Soap—

“You’re alright,” Gaz murmurs, sinking his fingers into Soap’s hair and scratching gently along his scalp. “I’m pretty good at this. Not gonna cut you, okay?”

Soap swallows, then jerks his chin down in the barest of nods.

“You good to keep going?”

“Aye.”

Gaz starts in long, smooth strokes of the razor from Soap’s temples towards the back of his head. Hair dusts the towel around his shoulders and litters the tile floor below his socks. Quiet, tinny music plays from Gaz’s phone—an old-fashioned R&B playlist Soap recognizes from the time they’d spent together in the hospital. His shoulders relax by centimeters, muscles gradually unwinding. 

“Any big plans for the day?” Gaz asks, over the hum of the razor.

Soap snorts. The whole pack has been doing this—trying to get him to talk, even if it’s only about the most mundane things. But Soap used to like small talk, and he does like Gaz, so he decides to play along. “Aye,” he says. “Am going to construct a nuclear bomb."

Gaz snorts, the razor stuttering slightly against Soap’s scalp. He sweeps it back over the area, smoothing out the trim. “You know, when Ghost told me you had a sense of humor I didn’t believe him.”

“You havenae heard my jokes, then.”

“Tell me one.”

“How does the moon cut his hair?”

“How?”

“Eclipse it.”

Gaz chortles, but this time he’s more careful with the razor. Soap doesn’t feel it shift at all. “Fuck, that’s bad.”

“Very.”

“Hey, where do fruits go on vacation?”

“Where?”

“Pear-is.”

Soap is the one to laugh, this time—a startled puff of air through his nose as he registers the joke. “Did ye learn that one from Ghost?”

“Yeah, stole his joke book.”

Not bothering to hide his delight, Soap says, “He has a book?”

“That’s classified, Sergeant,” Gaz says, mimicking Ghost’s gravelly manc accent.

Soap laughs again, shaking his head. 

“Hey, easy; you’re gonna mess up this sweet ‘hawk I’m workin’ on.”

“How’s it look?”

“Good. Take a peek in the mirror. You want the sides a little shorter?”

“Please.”

“I’ll take it down to a half-inch.”

They lapse into companionable silence for a moment. Gaz changes out the clipper guard before gently bracing fingers against the back of Soap’s head, angling his face down so he can trim the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. Soap’s eyes flutter shut. He takes another deep breath, inhaling the peaceful scent of his omega. 

“I don’t think Price likes me,” he admits into the easy quiet of the bathroom.

“What? Why?”

“He won’t—” Soap makes a soft, frustrated noise. “I dinnae ken.”

“Well, trust me when I say I know Price—and I know he likes you. He’s just nervous.”

“Because I bit him?” Soap asks bleakly.

Gaz laughs, setting the razor aside and reaching for a pair of scissors. Soap follows the glint of metal, but there’s no ensuing lurch of fear in stomach. “No, not because you bit him,” he says. “Because he doesn’t want to mess up and scare you again.”

“I amnae scared of tha’ rocket,” Soap says, offended.

“Tell that to him.”

Soap snorts.

“No, seriously, tell that to him,” Gaz insists, the scissors snick-snick-snicking as he trims the tops of Soap’s mohawk down. “I mean, maybe in English, but tell him. He thinks you’re scared of him, or that he’ll piss you off if he tries to throw his weight around.”

“Already pissed me off.”

“Yeah, we can tell. So you can’t blame him for being a little uncertain around you.” Gaz brushes a few stray hairs off of the top of Soap’s head. “Do you want him to be your alpha?”

Soap hesitates, staring down at his lap.

“It’s okay if you don’t,” Gaz adds, more softly. “I know Ghost wants us all to be one big happy pack—and I’ll admit that I do, too—but it’s got to be your choice. We’re not going to force you or give you an ultimatum. You don’t ever have to do anything you don’t want to do. Not here. Not with us.”

“Ghost wants me to—be a part of it. Be a part of the pack.”

“I don’t care what Ghost wants, right now. This is your choice. Don’t make it for him.”

Soap pauses, picking at a loose hangnail on his thumb. All of the choices he’s made this past half-year have been for Ghost. He doesn’t know what it’s like to choose for himself, anymore. Maybe that’s why he’s been pushing Price so hard. It would be easier for him to submit if Price forced him to, rather than having to choose to submit on his own.

“It’s hard,” Soap says miserably. “I dinnae like choosin’.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to decide right now. But I do need you to decide—” Gaz pauses, rather dramatically, to pat Soap’s head and nudge him towards the mirror. “—whether or not you like this new ‘do. What do you think? Need me to touch up anywhere?”

Soap examines himself in the mirror, ruffling a hand through his mohawk. His eyes brighten. He looks more like himself, and it boosts his confidence in a way he didn’t even realize he needed. This is John MacTavish, spec ops sergeant and bonafide ladies’ man. He turns his head slightly, vainly, admiring the way his hair shifts and catches the light when it’s not slicked back with copious amounts of gel. 

“I like it,” he says.

“Looks good on you. Here, rinse it out.”

Soap stares at the sink, blinks away foggy memories of a bucket and brackish brown water and hands holding his face under. 

“I think I’d rather shower,” he says.

“Right. Let me just pick up and I’ll get out of your way.”

“Thank you, Gaz.” The name sits pretty in his mouth, familiar in spite of him having never spoken it before. “‘ppreciate you.”

“No problem. Think about what I said, okay?”

“Aye, okay.”

Early the next morning Soap lays in Ghost’s bed, sprawled on top of his alpha and thinking deeply. Ghost is still asleep, breathing softly and slowly. One hand grips the side of Soap’s shirt loosely, while the other rests beside his pillow—fingers curled in towards the palm, lazy and languid. Soap nudges beneath his jaw, comforting himself with that familiar musky scent. 

Despite what Gaz said, Soap knows he can’t make this choice for himself—not anymore. He and Ghost have become a package deal, for better or for worse. If Soap rejects this pack, so will Ghost. The last thing Soap wants to do is drag his alpha away from this pack that he so clearly loves, and so that’s that:

Soap has to be a part of this pack, too.

Unfortunately, that means he has to accept the pack-alpha—and if that pack-alpha won’t take matters into his own hands, Soap is going to have to get a lot more obvious. It shouldn’t be hard. He used to be flamboyant when it came to displays of submission or dominance—still is, sometimes, when it comes to Ghost—so he should manage this just fine, even if the thought makes him a queasy.

But no one needs to know how he really feels, and Soap has tricks to make sure they never do. He sits up, purring softly to settle Ghost when he stirs. Once he’s sure his alpha has settled back to sleep, Soap rubs his own scent glands—easily replacing the sour-nervous-scared pheromones curdling there with happy-submissive-good ones. He licks the scent oil off of his fingers once he’s finished, grimacing at the taste of it. Fake pheromones never taste quite right. Fortunately, he doubts anyone but himself will notice. His packmates don’t go around licking him regularly (well, with the exception of Ghost, when he’s feeling particularly needy). 

Once he’s satisfied with his scent, Soap eases himself out of bed to prepare for the morning. Today has to be good. Today has to be perfect. (Soap has to be perfect, because if Price rejects him after this he really doesn’t know what he’ll do.) 

So Soap makes breakfast—a simple, hard-to-fuck-up breakfast, admittedly, but breakfast. He toasts some of the bread in the cupboards, scrambles a whole dozen eggs and sprinkles them with cheese. He’s just started frying several strips of bacon when Gaz stumbles in, yawning widely.

“Soap? What’s the occasion, mate?”

“Felt like it,” Soap says, shrugging.

"Bacon smells good." Gaz drifts a little closer, nostrils flaring. “Damn, so do you.”

Soap tosses him a cheeky smile, grateful that it doesn’t feel fake as everything else does right now—Gaz always makes it easy to smile. “Thanks,” he says, gesturing towards the table with a spatula. “Sit. Be done in just a minute.”

Gaz perches at the table, his eyes still fixated on Soap. His pupils are blown wide with interest. Hm. Maybe Soap should have toned down the pheromones, a little. He does so now, trying to wipe off a little of the excess scent on his own shoulder. 

Ghost stumbles in a few minutes after Gaz, rubbing his eyes. He doesn’t bother saying good morning to either of them; he simply shuffles his way over to Soap, plastering himself against the beta’s back and plunging his nose into his throat. He scents him greedily, tongue flicking over his skin. Soap feels the press of his fangs and rattles off a little warning growl; he doesn’t want anyone settling him yet. He’s on a mission. 

Chastised, Ghost draws back and drops his chin onto Soap’s head, instead. He still looks a little dazed, pupils swollen enough to eat up his irises. “You cook?” he asks blearily. “Since when?”

“Since always. Came out of my mam with a frying pan in one hand and a spatula in the other.”

Ghost snorts. “Funny guy this morning.”

“Aye. Get offa me an’ go sit down.”

Ghost rubs his cheek against Soap’s neck one final time before retreating. He leans over Gaz, scenting him, too; Gaz returns the gesture with an excited purr. Soap feels a little smile tugging his mouth at the sight, and doesn’t bother to hide it. Gaz catches his eye and smiles back, a flash of bright, fangless white.

For a minute, Soap doesn’t even have to concentrate on smelling happy.

Then Price walks in, and it’s a fight to suppress the nervous pheromones that want to rise in response. Soap swallows and pumps out good-safe-beta instead, wrapping his fingers tightly in a kitchen towel. He forces himself to set it aside, the small joints in his knuckles creaking with tension as he does. He spins on heel, faces Price.

This is a mission.

Soap is good at missions—especially ones that require him to be someone else.

“Captain,” he says, nodding towards the table. “Sit. I made breakfast.”

Price stares at him like he’s grown a second head. Soap sort of feels like he has. 

Gaz reaches up, yanking their pack-alpha into his seat. He whispers something furiously to Price, and Price clears his throat. 

“Thank you, Sergeant,” he says. “Soap. Everything looks good.”

Soap sets out the plates of food he made, sliding a carton of orange juice onto the table after. “Eat,” he says, and his pack eats.

Soap picks sluggishly at his own food, his stomach churning with nerves. It takes most of his attention to control his pheromones—it would be easier to flatten them completely, but Ghost wouldn’t like that, and it would be too suspicious. In the end, he only manages to swallow enough food to look passable. Ghost helps him to gather the dishes once they’re finished.

“No, g’on,” he says, when Soap tries to help load the dishwasher. “You cooked, I’ll clean. Fuck off. Go do something fun.”

Soap had been hoping to a stall a little longer by cleaning, but that plan has been quickly dashed. Looks like he’s just going to have to get this over with. He’s going to be good, he’s going to be perfect, he’s going to submit and Price is going to accept and that’s one less problem to contend with for the whole pack. He’s still going to have to figure out how to get Price to step up for Ghost, but hopefully that will be easier with Soap out of the way.

“Captain Price?” Soap catches the captain before he disappears upstairs. Price looks like he’s been cornered by an apex predator. Fuck’s sake. “Can we talk?”

Gaz elbows Price so hard he winces and shoos the omega away.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yes. Of course.”

Soap lowers his eyes, sweetens his pheromones, watches Price’s pupils dilate in instinctive response. “Been meanin’ to apologize,” he rumbles.

“You—what?” Price shifts his weight, frowning, lookin’ like Soap has yanked the rug right out from under his stupid fuzzy house slippers.

“Wanted to say sorry for how I’ve been actin’,” Soap clarifies. He tips his chin up, shows off the bare arch of his throat. Just fucking bite me and get it over with, already. “Hasn’t been right. Weren’t in my right mind, obviously, but that’s no excuse. So I’m sorry, sir.”

When Soap takes another step forward, Price steps back. Soap is appalled. What the fuck even is this alpha? Is Soap really that scary? He knows his pheromones are working—Gaz and Ghost’s responses had been enough to confirm that—so why is Price still looking at him so critically? Does he hate the idea of Soap being his beta that much?

Soap takes several deep breaths, willing his jaw not to clench. 

“Forgive me?” he tries, baring his own throat, looking up through his lashes—demure as he can fuckin’ get, short of rolling on over to show his belly right here in the middle of the living room. He hopes Price won’t make him do that. Soap would do it, obviously, but—ugh. He’s going to gag. “Please, alpha?”

Soap can feel Gaz’s eyes burning his face and Ghost’s eyes burning his back. The weight of their gazes feels like it’s going to suffocate him. Meanwhile, Price’s own gaze hasn’t wavered from Soap’s a single time. His pupils are still blown, but his eyes have narrowed. Fuck. Fuck, he doesn’t look convinced. Soap is really going to have to roll over, isn’t he?

Soap starts to go down, knees buckling, but Price catches him by the elbows before he can.

“Soap,” he says, his voice terse. “Fuck. Stop.”

Soap’s stomach drops. Bile rises rapidly in his throat. Shame burns his face.

“Alpha?” he tries again, and this time the crack in his voice is completely genuine. 

“No,” Price says, a muscle feathering in his jaw, and—

That’s that.

Price doesn't want him.

Soap’s hands curl into fists at his sides, and he makes a beeline for the stairs and the vague sanctuary of his room. His skin feels tight with humiliation. He wants to claw it off. He scrambles into the dusty space beneath his bed, instead, dragging his blankets down with him. It’s pathetic. He’s pathetic, and he feels every goddamn bit of it.  Unable and unwilling to endure that feeling for long, he throws himself at anger, instead—tries to convince himself that this is Price’s fault. If Price had had more guts—if Price hadn’t hurt Ghost to begin with—if Price had come and fucking found them in the prison the way Ghost had believed, so desperately, that he always would—

If Price had been better, Soap wouldn’t feel like this.

He sinks his nails into the carpet, baring his teeth. He wants to tear something apart. He hears footsteps tramping up the stairs, but when his door creaks open it isn’t Price in his doorway—in his territory, in his space, in his fucking detonation radius—

It’s Gaz.

Chapter Text

Gaz feels like he’s looking through a funhouse mirror.

Soap smells sweet and happy and perfect, like apple fuckin’ pie, but he’s curled up beneath the bed with his fangs flashing fearfully. The juxtaposition makes Gaz queasy. He thought Soap had been comfortable this morning, trading easy banter with the pack while he made breakfast. He thought they’d been making progress. He thought Soap had felt better.

Just how much of that had been a lie?

Gaz understands, now, why so many people find betas disconcerting. Soap has effectively twisted one of Gaz’s most important senses until he can’t tell truth from trick. He has no damn idea how Soap actually feels right now. The snarl he offers when Gaz shifts closer is something of a clue, though. 

“Soap,” Gaz says, falters, scents the air again like it’s gonna do any goddamn good. Soap’s scent greets him, unerringly cheery, a mask more perfect than even the Ghost’s. “Fuck, man.”

The beta has always been unpredictable, but he feels even more so now. His shoulders flex and bunch as Gaz approaches the bed, his short-bitten nails digging into the carpet. The dim overhead light catches his gaze and reflects in two purple coins, a pretty little reminder that Gaz can’t approach him the way he would an alpha or another omega—a pretty little reminder that Gaz is so out of his depth here he’s drowning.

Downstairs, Gaz hears the rumble of low snarls and raised voices—and so does Soap. He tenses even more, eyes widening, teeth snapping together with a fearful clack . Infuriated that the alphas should be prioritizing their own conflict over their beta’s comfort right now, Gaz stalks back to the bedroom door and shouts, “Lower your voices or take it outside!”

It occurs to him, after, that he probably shouldn’t added his own shouting to the mix.

Soap slams into his spine, sending them both skidding into the hallway outside of his room. Gaz’s chin clips the floor and his teeth sink into his own tongue. A bright burst of blood floods his mouth. For a moment he lays there, stunned in disbelief. He half-expects Soap to finish the job—to tear a chunk out of Gaz’s throat the way he had Price’s, all those weeks ago. But Soap pauses with his breath washing hot and humid over the back of Gaz’s neck, like he can’t quite decide whether he wants Gaz to be packmate or prey.

That’s fine.

Gaz will decide for him.

With a wicked growl, Gaz twists around and slams his elbow into Soap’s ribs. He twists his hips at the same time, knocking Soap off-balance. Soap crashes onto the floor beside him, a strangled yelp jarred from his throat as his injured shoulder takes the brunt of his weight. Gaz lunges before he can scramble upright again, snagging both of Soap’s wrists and pinning them between their heaving chests. He leans his weight down, puts them nose-to-nose, and snarls a furious warning.

Gaz would like to think he’s a pretty generous guy, but this is the second time Soap has attacked him—and he’s not fucking having it . It’s one thing to rationalize that Soap acts on trauma and instinct; it’s another thing entirely to allow it. The two of them have been dancing around their dynamic for weeks, neither one of them wanting to step up or down in the pack’s tentative hierarchy. But like hell is Gaz going to give Soap the chance to dominate him now. It’s dangerous, not to mention bloody stupid. If he can’t control himself, there’s no way Gaz is going to let him control anyone else. 

So it’s time, he thinks, to put Soap very firmly at the bottom of their pecking order. 

Soap looks a little stunned to have Gaz snarling at him—and justifiably so. Gaz has spoiled him rotten, letting him getting away with this bullshit, and he’s not the only one who has. Price should have put a stop to this ages ago. But their alpha has his own reasons for avoiding the responsibility; Gaz does not.

So, when Soap tries to bare fangs at him again, Gaz slams his shoulders down against the carpet a little harder. He’s careful not to put too much weight on Soap’s injured arm, but he doesn’t go easy, either—can’t, not with someone as stubborn as Soap. The beta’s breath leaves him in a hard rush, blue eyes flaring wide. 

“ Enough,” Gaz says.

Soap growls—rattling uncertain thing, but a growl all the same. 

In return Gaz knocks Soap’s chin up to expose his throat, then plants his teeth around his primary scent gland and bites. As an omega, he has no fangs to lay claim with—but he makes up for it with sheer force. His incisors pinch delicate skin hard enough to bruise, and Soap squalls like he’s being decapitated. Gaz knows he isn’t biting hard enough to make Soap bleed, let alone to seriously injure him—

—but you wouldn’t know it from the sounds he’s making.

Predictably, Ghost lunges up the stairs several seconds later. Gaz growls a warning, looking sidelong at his alpha while keeping his teeth locked into Soap’s throat. Ghost rumbles nervously as he assesses the situation, taking a tentative step in their direction. For all his yowling and yelping, Soap isn’t actually trying to get away. He’s gone limp beneath Gaz, panting shallowly. Gaz offers him a little reward for that, unlocking his teeth and soothing over the bruise with his tongue.

“You done?” he asks warily. 

Soap looks like his brain is a snowglobe somebody shook too hard. Somewhat predictably, he doesn’t respond. When he starts to shift his weight like he’s thinking about moving, Gaz bites him again—not quite as hard as the first time, but more than enough to keep him still. His hindbrain purrs in satisfaction when he hears Soap’s apologetic whine.

“Gaz?” 

Gaz’s eyes flick towards the end of the hallway, again. Price has nudged Ghost out of the way to come closer, crouching several feet in front of them. He’s watching them closely, his eyes narrowed. Gaz releases Soap’s throat again, pinning their beta with a warning glance—not, thankfully, that he looks inclined to try moving again.

“Yes, sir?” Gaz asks.

“You alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Soap?”

“He’s fine, sir.”

Soap chooses that moment to disagree, a growl rattling in his throat when he hears Price’s voice. Gaz growls back at him and he falls quiet—but not without a wordless grumble and a glower in Price’s direction. He’s tense all over again, muscles wound tight around his frame in spite of the settling effects Gaz’s bite should have had. Seeing this, Gaz’s jaw aches, and his teeth itch to bite again—to make sure the settling takes, this time.

“You should go,” says Gaz, meeting Price’s eyes.

“Yes,” Price agrees, rocking back on his heels. He looks reluctant to leave them, but equally reluctant to stay and agitate Soap anymore. “I’ll be downstairs. You boys holler if you need anything. And Gaz?”

“Yeah?”

“Try not to chew him up too much.”

“I’ll chew him up just the right amount, sir.”

As soon as Price has gone, Gaz leans down and nips Soap again—gentle, this time, not scolding so much as settling. The dramatic bastard beneath him whines, but he’s already losing some of the tightly-coiled tension in his muscles. His scent smooths out: content, submissive. Gaz isn’t sure how much of that is real and how much of it is a holdover from this morning’s tricks, unfortunately, so he doesn’t put much faith in it. He focuses on reading Soap’s body language instead, watching the way he drops his head back against the carpet and loses the stiffness in his shoulders. 

“There you go,” Gaz murmurs, releasing him once again. 

This time, Soap doesn’t seem inclined to tense back up or shift away. He only exhales and stretches before ticking his chin back up to show off his throat. Gaz purrs in warm approval, admiring the easy submission. He really doesn’t know what Price is so afraid of. Soap didn’t put up half the fight he could have—not even a tenth of it. The way he’d gone down so easily beneath Gaz makes it painfully clear just how much he wants this.

Ghost comes to kneel beside them, cupping a hand over the back of Gaz’s neck. Gaz can smell the nerves on him, can see the way he shifts his weight and studies the limited space between Gaz and Soap. To his credit, he doesn’t try to drive them apart—but he doesn’t seem wholly comfortable, either. Gaz doesn’t blame him. Soap has been his and his alone for the better part of six months, and sharing has never been his strong suit. To Gaz’s surprise, however, he doesn’t mention any of this—only frames a big hand around Soap’s throat and says, “There’s blood.”

“Mine,” Gaz says, “not his.”

Ghost directs his attention to Gaz, furrowing his brow.

“Bit my tongue when he tackled me,” Gaz explains, before their alpha can get any more worried. More wryly, he adds, “Thought you said he played football, not rugby.”

Ghost huffs out something that might be a laugh. “Gave you hell, did he?”

“Not nearly as much as he could’ve.”

“That right?” Ghost shifts the hand on Soap’s throat upwards, sinking his fingers into Soap’s hair instead. He gives him a little shake, gruffly asking, “Alright there, Johnny?”

Soap nods lazily.

“Words, lad.”

“‘m alright,” Soap says. “Be better if you’d quit pesterin’ me, though.”

“Brat,” Ghost says, unmistakably fond. “Right then, up you get. Both of you, come on.”

Gaz stands and offers a hand to Soap. He’s relieved when Soap takes it, allowing Gaz to help him back onto his feet. The beta looks shaky but otherwise stable, rubbing his fingers over the red imprint of Gaz’s teeth high on his throat. Gaz is momentarily overcome with the urge to put him a nest and smother him with as many blankets as he can find—

So he does just that.

Once Soap has been properly nested, Gaz curls up around him. He makes sure to leave a spot for Ghost, although he’s sure the alpha would have no issues bullying his way in if he had to. The bed’s small for them—wasn’t made to hold three fully-grown men, much less three fully-grown men of their size and stature—but they make it work, twining up close and tangling their limbs. Gaz starts up a steady purr, and it isn’t long before Soap joins him. Ghost looks delighted by the noise, his pupils blown out wide and his scent sweetening.

They stay there a good hour, letting Soap come up on his own time. The beta is quiet, save for his gravelly little purr. He keeps his eyes shut, letting himself be nuzzled and scented without protest. It’s the calmest Gaz has seen him in—hell, in ever, probably. It certainly helps that Ghost, the possessive wanker, lays a few bites of his own on top of Gaz’s. The ensuing rush of hormones has Soap melting into the nest, rubbing his face against the blankets and rumbling like a greased motor. 

“Takes his bites well, doesn’t he?” Ghost says, scruffing up Soap’s mohawk with a proud glint in his eyes. “There’s a lad, Johnny.”

But of course Ghost can’t be satisfied with just that. It’s not long before he turns his attention to Gaz, easing him down onto his back beside Soap. Gaz goes without protest, baring his throat before Ghost can even ask him to. If there’s one thing Gaz is good at, it’s appeasing bossy alphas. Ghost rumbles warmly in approval. 

“Been a while since I settled you proper, huh, Sergeant?”

“You’ve been busy.”

“Let me make up for it.”

Ghost’s fangs are sharp and sturdy where they sink into Gaz’s throat. It’s a gentle bite—probably won’t even bruise—but it yanks Gaz down sharply with a flood of submissive, settling hormones. He groans and tips his chin up, inviting Ghost to press another bite in over the first. It makes him feel good, warm. Is there anything more perfect than be bundled up in a nest with his packmates, being settled by an alpha?

One thing could make it more perfect, Gaz’s mind whispers, but he’s brooding downstairs.

The sudden guilt must sour his scent, because Ghost makes an unhappy noise and bites him again—harder, this time, clearly trying to drive away whatever has distressed his omega. Gaz relaxes beneath him, his purr ratcheting up another notch. They’ll have Price with them soon. Gaz is going to make damn sure of it. 

“What’s wrong?” Ghost murmurs, rubbing a thumb gently over the soft pink marks he’s left behind. “You’re upset.”

It’s true. Gaz is upset—but more than that he’s tired. He feels like he’s the only one holding this pack together, right now, and it’s starting to wear on him. He doesn’t regret it. He doesn’t begrudge his packmates their needs. He certainly doesn’t want them to stop relying on him. But god, it would be nice if things were normal for a little while. It would be nice if Gaz could just—just for a little while—breathe without the fear of everything falling apart.

But he doesn’t say any of this.

He can’t.

He’s the solid one, the stable one, and to admit otherwise would be knock Ghost’s support out from under him. So he bumps his head up against Ghost’s chin, and he purrs louder, and he says, “It’s nothing, sir. Just thinking about what I’m going to say to Price, that’s all.”

Ghost hums, clearly dissatisfied, and Gaz has to wonder what he himself said to Price—what the alphas had been snarling at each other while Gaz was upstairs being rugby-tackled by their traumatized beta. He has half a mind to ask, but at the same time he doesn’t want to ruin this tentative peace. Soap is already wiggling a little, nose wrinkling as he registers the change in their scents. So Gaz quickly redirects the conversation, smoothing down Soap’s ruffled mohawk as he does.

There will be time to fix everything later.

Gaz will make sure of it, just like he always does.

“Why did you tell him no?”

Price glances up from his novel—a creaky rendition of 1984. He has his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose like the old man he is, but he eases them off as soon as he sees Gaz. He folds them, dog-ears his book, and sets both aside. He doesn’t bother clarifying what Gaz means. They both know; there’s no point skirting around it. 

“He was scared.”

“Yes, after you threw his submission back in his face.”

“No. Before that. The whole time.”

“What makes you say so?”

“Since when has he ever been that polite to me?” Price asks, a sardonic twist to his lips. “It didn’t make sense. One day he’s sizing me up like he wants to castrate me, and the next he’s making me breakfast and sweet-talkin’. Even when I knew him back in training, he wasn’t like that. Friendly, sure, but not like he was desperate for it.”

“For what? For you to be nice to him? For you to finally accept him?”

“I’ll accept him,” Price says. “Him, and not whatever groveling thing he thinks he has to be to impress me.”

“He wasn’t groveling; he was trying to apologize!”

“Not of his own volition. I don’t know what you boys said to him, but—”

“What?” Gaz falters, momentarily taken aback. Out of all the reactions he’d been expecting, Price shoving the blame off onto him wasn’t one of them. “What we said to him? You think this is my fault?”

“I’m not saying that. But somebody had to have said something to upset him, to get him crawlin’ on hands and fucking knees just to impress me, and I don’t much care for it.”

Gaz’s muscles feel stiff and strung with sudden fury, and he grinds his teeth. Everything he’s been doing—fucking everything— has been to hold this pack together, and Price has the nerve to blame him for this. He narrowly resists the urge to bare his fangs. He has no desire to be settled right now, and certainly not by Price.

“Okay,” Gaz says, his voice chilled. “Fine. I’ll be more careful, sir.”

“Gaz.” Price sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “Come on, now. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Gaz is momentarily overwhelmed by the urge to scream—to snarl, to shout, to let his alpha know how fucking pissed he is. But he has to control himself. If he loses his shit, so does everyone else. If he is anything less than perfect, the house of cards he’s been defending will collapse. (And he wonders, for one brief and terrible moment, if he doesn’t want it to.) 

“I’m not upset,” he says tersely.

“You are.”

“I’m not.” Gaz forces himself to take several deep breaths, willing his anger back, before he says, “You should talk to Soap. He’s the one who’s really upset.”

“I know, and I will. But I think I need to talk with you more right now. I didn’t mean to insinuate that this was your fault, or Ghost’s. Soap is just—he’s fragile, right now.”

“Don’t talk to me about Soap. I’m the one who’s been spending time with him. I’m the one who cut his hair and gave him a sketchbook and made him his own goddamn playlist on my goddamn phone and—fuck! Don’t fucking act like you know him better than me when you aren’t even trying.” 

Price looks as startled as Gaz feels by his sudden vehemence. But he’s never been one to let his subordinates get away with snapping at him; Gaz is only lucky he doesn't get pinned and bitten for his outburst. “Gaz,” Price warns, instead, his voice low. “That’s enough.”

Gaz sucks in another deep breath. It feels like he’s trying to inhale mud. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean—I just—it’s not fair, Captain. You act like you’re doing him some sort of favor by avoiding him, but you’re not. He needs all the support he can get. Ghost, too. He’s been trying to manage Soap on his own, and he’s been doing a great job of it, but—it shouldn’t be solely his responsibility. You’re pack-alpha. He needs you. We all do.”

“Don’t I know it,” Price says, and for a moment he sounds just as exhausted as Gaz feels. 

“Then—why?” Gaz asks, suddenly feeling scraped-out and hollow. This isn’t the Price he knows. “Why won’t you—?”

“I don’t want to scare them away,” Price says tiredly. “You saw how Soap reacted the first time I tried to bite him.”

“Because his scent glands were sore, Price, that’s all. It wasn’t because of you.”

“How can you be so sure? The time before that he tried to take my throat out.”

“Because he was scared and confused.”

“And he’s not now?”

“No,” Gaz insists. “Not like he was before. He’s—so sweet, Price. He makes fun of Ghost’s shitty jokes with me, and he listens to terrible rock bands, and he has very strong opinions about pens. Did you know ballpoints take too much pressure to write effectively in a Moleskine? Because neither did I, but I had to sit through a whole lecture on it the other day! He’s so—if you just gave him a chance—”

“And what if he doesn’t want me?”

“What?”

“What if he doesn’t want me?” Price repeats, meeting Gaz’s eyes almost desperately. “I fuck it up every time I try to interact with him. God, he hates me, Gaz. That’s why I knew something was off today. He would never act that sweet to me unless something was wrong.”

“I’m—” Gaz slides onto the couch beside Price. “I’m not saying you were wrong to tell him no today. You’re right; something was up with him. And if you didn’t feel okay about accepting him then, I’m not gonna give you shit about it. But you have to start trying, sir. You can’t keep running just because you think you’re doing what’s best for him—not if you want him to be a part of this pack.”

“I know.” Price scrubs a hand through his hair again, his scent souring with guilt and anxiety. “I want him here. I do. I just don’t want to push him too hard too fast.”

“Trust me, if you push too much he’ll tell you,” Gaz says; the throbbing sore on the side of his tongue is proof enough of that. “Besides, I think you give yourself too much credit, sir.”

“Do I?” Price arches his eyebrows.

“Yes, sir. Old man like you wouldn’t stand a chance against Soap if you really pushed him.”

Price snorts. “That right?”

“One way to find out,” Gaz says cheekily. He sprawls against the arm of the couch, propping his chin on one hand. “How about breakfast tomorrow? All four of us, together. I’ll try to keep my beta on his best behavior.”

“Yours now, is he?”

“Marked good and proper.” Gaz snaps his teeth. “But I’ll share, if you like. Oh, and Price?”

“Hm?”

“Ghost needs settling.”

“I figured as much.” Price rubs his brow, letting out a short breath. “It’s been too long. Not so bold that you’re going to try that one for me, are you?”

“Absolutely not. I love him, but he’d beat my ass if I tried to settle him. As far as I can tell, he’s the same way with Soap. You’re the only one he’ll even let try.”

“I don’t know that he will, after today. What I did with Soap—what I didn’t do—pissed him off. You shoulda heard him after the two of you went upstairs.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Gaz assures him. “As long as you make an effort from now on, he should ease up.”

“I hope you’re right. We’ll give it a few days and see.”

“Then you’ll settle him?”

“I’ll try.”

“And Soap?”

“Let’s take it one step at a time,” Price says wryly. “If I survive Ghost’s settling, I’ll try my luck with Soap.”

“Good.” Gaz nods, a flicker of hope sparking in his chest. He stands, tucking his hands into the pockets of his sweats. “I’m gonna take a walk. Ghost and Soap are napping upstairs, so they shouldn’t bother you. I’ll try to be back before they wake up.”

“Alright.” Price’s gaze follows him to the door, unwavering. “Gaz?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Gaz smiles over his shoulder. “Don’t worry about me, sir.”

Price doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t argue as Gaz slips on his shoes and steps out the front door, either. The sky is overcast and gray; a damp, cool breeze tugs at his hoodie strings. He makes his way down to the seashore. His sneakers sink into the sand until he toes them off. The scent of salt and seaweed scrubs away the scent of his own distress. The beach is quiet, this early in the afternoon and late in the season. Only the seagulls stay to keep him company.

Gaz sits above the tideline, pulling his knees to his chest. He watches the waves come in and out, pulling uselessly at the shore. For a moment, he feels terribly homesick—but he pushes the feeling aside, unwilling to indulge it. It won’t help anything. Gaz is fine. He has to be. The pack depends on it. The pack depends on him. 

Gaz will be damned if he lets them down.