Chapter Text
Ghost hadn’t wanted a new Sergeant.
He didn’t want a younger Sergeant and he certainly didn’t want a younger Alpha Sergeant dogging his steps, tripping over his too-big feet trying to keep up.
But as life - and Price - loves to remind him, he doesn’t always get what he wants.
“Sergeant MacTavish, this is Lieutenant Ghost. Alpha. You’ll be working closely with him,” Price introduces.
He gives him a look and Ghost almost rolls his eyes. He looks over the man beside him, at the cocky bounce in his step and the absence of a blocker patch at his throat, and holds his breath. He’s been through this song and dance too many times, he’d rather skip the initial choke of an egotistic Alpha’s pathetic attempts to bully his way up the ranks of a new Pack.
“Heard ‘bout you through the grapevine, Lieutenant,” MacTavish smirks and offers a hand, wrist slightly tilted upwards. “They said you were a big man; think they undershot by a few stone.”
But the flood doesn’t come.
His scent remains mild; a carefully contained cloud orbiting the Sergeant instead of seeping out around him. Price’s peppercorn lingers on his wrist, wearing the welcome of his new Pack Alpha on his skin, and MacTavish isn’t even trying to push his scent to supersede it. Blockers are optional on base and many grunts take that as open permission to air out their stench everywhere they go. But this one…
Ghost tilts his head, chin tucked just slightly into his chest. A challenge. A temptation.
MacTavish’s eyes flicker to his throat, a faint ripple bleeding his irises; catching his test with all the subtlety of a two-by-four. But he just rolls his shoulders, opening up his throat and drops his outstretched hand behind his back; standing at attention and at the same time pressing the scent glands at his inner biceps into his skin. Trapping his scent. A quiet deference that doesn’t quite match that spark or the exasperation on Price’s face.
Ghost lets in a slow breath through his teeth, rolling the muted taste of MacTavish’s scent in his mouth. It’s still all Alpha, proud and rich, yet it’s tempered, restrained; atypical manners of someone used to a large Pack and controlling their scent instead of trying to dominate them. A walking contradiction, this Sergeant.
“Think that might just be where you’re standing,” he finally replies and MacTavish’s shoulders go lax with his implicit acceptance.
“Ough, careful; lotta things to bite down here,” he snarks, running his tongue over his fangs, and Price rolls his eyes, shoving a snickering MacTavish aside.
“Move; if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to see the rest of the base before you mysteriously cark it and I have to find another Sergeant.”
“Will you come to my funeral, Lt?” MacTavish throws over his shoulder as they walk away and Price grabs a fistful of his mohawk, twisting his grinning head to face forward.
“Plausible deniability, Sergeant,” Ghost calls after them and doesn’t really know why until he hears his loud cackle.
It takes him a minute to parse through the constant smell of semtex and burnt solder that sticks to Soap like a second skin; to breathe past the exhausted sweat and musk of soldier. But spend enough time with someone and you pick up the more overt layers of their scent, even through blockers.
Rain on warm concrete. Metal heated by the might of the sun. The hiss of a lit match a heartbeat before the spark. The punchy, unapologetic reek of an Alpha in his prime.
But now? Johnny’s scent is a shadow of itself; washed thin by the icy depths he plunged into.
It’s nobody’s fault. Nobody’s but the very fuckin’ dead Russian for laying down a round of suppressing fire on what they all thought was solid ground. Until a muted crack echoes out around them, growing deeper as it spreads like roiling thunder and stops them all in their tracks.
Until the ground shifts below their feet and Johnny barely has the chance to widen his eyes and yell out, “Fuck- Ghost, move!” before he’s watching him disappear in the sudden yawning void that opens up beneath his feet.
Johnny.
Ghost splits the Russian’s throat, the force of the bullet ripping a chunk out of the side of his neck; spewing blood around him in an arc, steaming as it hits the snow, and he spins with the force of it. He’s choking before he hits the ground, hands futilely clawing at his throat.
It’s a messy death. Slow. Meant to draw it out and make him bleed- to make him drown.
Johnny.
Ghost drops his gun and rips his tac vest free, blindly throwing it and his backpack away and all but throws himself flat over the ice; spreading out his body weight and kicking off what he now recognises as a bank.
Recognises too fucking late.
He drags himself forward, too slow and too careful over the groaning ice, and he refuses the animal fear clawing at his chest as he sees the stock of Johnny’s rifle caught on the edge of the ice; the strap hanging him as much as it’s saving him, the tips of his fingers flailing just beneath the surface.
“Johnny!”
Ghost plunges his arm into the water, breath catching in his throat as the cold burns; immediately soaking through his heavy layers. It sinks beneath his skin, spreading like venom in his veins, chasing after the heat of his blood; capillaries left to shrivel and seize up. He grits his teeth against it to latch onto Johnny’s tac vest, numb fingers almost losing their grip as he blindly thrashes. He wrenches up and Johnny’s head clears the surface, eyes wide with fear as he gulps in a wild breath.
Just to choke; his frozen lungs refusing the air.
A death rattle claws out of his mouth as he scrambles for his throat, desperate for air that won’t come, and Ghost snarls as he almost drops him.
“Johnny! I got you!” he yells, hooking his arm under his armpit as he flails.
His voice reaches something trained deep in his hindbrain and Johnny stops fighting the water, going limp in his arms and Ghost hauls him up out of the hole. A wave follows him to dampen his pant legs and he collapses back on the ice, Johnny locked up in a fetal position on his chest.
“Steady, Johnny; I got you,” he pants and wraps his arms around him. Johnny’s shivers are so violent they’re practically contractions, his whole body seizing on top of him, and he kicks them away from the hole.
More cracks sound beneath them, the churning thunk of ice sheering from itself to hit water, and Ghost freezes. His arms tighten around Johnny and he holds his breath, waiting for the echoes to die out or for the ice to give way beneath them.
Johnny’s head jerks back, almost clipping his chin; the tendons in his throat bulging even through his wet clothes.
He still hasn’t breathed in.
Ghost swallows, keeps an arm locked around him and agonisingly slowly raises a hand behind him. He drags them backwards to the bank, fingers digging for purchase on the smooth surface. The wet tread of his boot slips at the end of each careful push; every crack and bow of the ice beneath them digging like knives into his chest, just waiting for the lucky fatal strike.
His hand hits rock and Ghost flings Johnny off his chest onto the safety of the bank, throwing himself after him. He bodies him up the snow, his jaw still locked open in a voiceless wail, his hands frozen into curved claws.
He rips up his mask, scratching his neck in his rush, and hovers over Johnny’s mouth; breathing body-warm air against his paralysed lips.
“Get it in, Johnny, you’re alright,” he rushes, his lips almost brushing his own. He claps his chest, trying to shake loose the frostbite stunning his lungs. “Just breathe, Soap, come on!”
Johnny seizes, chest bowing up as he tries to suck air in but it’s like there’s a blockage in his throat; nothing will pass. Primal fear wets his eyes and Ghost snarls. He tangles his fingers in his tac vest, lifting him clean off the ground, and slams him back down again.
A ragged cough breaks free of his petrified throat and Johnny hauls in a starved breath.
Ghost slumps to the side, the fingers clamped around his heart finally loosening. He pats his heaving chest and lets his head drop between his shoulders. “You’re good, Johnny. You’re all good.”
“Gh-Gho-G-” he stutters, almost gagging on the syllables, but he can’t get it out, his jaw chattering too violently; his lips already tinged blue.
He shakes his head and untangles the keffiyeh from around his neck. Tugging Johnny’s soaked head out of the snow, he unbuckles his helmet, abandoning it behind him, and brushes off the ice clinging to his hair. He ties the keffiyeh around him, pulling it taut over his nose and shoves it into the neckline of his soaked jacket- for what little good it’ll do against the bite of the wind and the water already turning to slush on his clothes.
“Save your strength; we got a hard march ahead,” he orders regardless and forces his voice into an irreverent lilt. “You gon’ make it, Sergeant?”
Johnny’s eyes snap up and Ghost just cocks his head. Frozen lips struggle to hike up over his fangs behind the keffiyeh and he tries to heave himself out of the snow.
‘Atta boy, let that fire warm you up.
Ghost grabs his bitch strap the way he’d scruff a pup and levees him to his feet, giving him a heavy pat on the shoulder that squelches against his waterlogged clothes. He turns his back and, out of view of Johnny, fists his hand at his side.
The cold water’s already seeping through his glove.
It’s shaking.
He flicks off his hand and jogs over to his abandoned gear, quickly fixing it back in place and hooks the strap of his bag over his shoulder.
“Let’s move.”
The sparse corpses of trees do nothing to stop the cutting wind; flurries of snow blinding him to all but the ground directly in front of them. Darkening clouds threaten overhead, the growing wail of the wind in his ears, blowing up snow and tugging at his gear; nature itself furious to have lost its grip on its prey.
Ghost refuses to let the barren earth swallow Johnny. Over his dead fuckin’ body.
Johnny stumbles beside him, over unseen terrain or the snow itself, he doesn’t know, and Ghost rushes to catch him as his knees buckle; too much of his weight loose and dead in his grip. His breath’s heavy and laboured, heard even over the wind, and he stays bent over his arm.
Snowflakes gather in the damp of his hair and don’t even begin to melt.
Ghost hauls Johnny’s arm over his shoulder and wedges his shoulder in the bend of his armpit, tucking him in tight to his side. “Keep your feet, Soap; we’re almost there,” he prompts. It fuckin’ better be, don’t make a liar outta me.
Johnny’s jaw clenches against his shoulder and he feels the strain of his body desperately trying to straighten; to fix one foot in front of the other because, stubborn fuck that he is, John MacTavish will die before he fails to carry out one of his orders.
Ghost’s hand flexes around his belt and he hauls him up higher on his shoulder.
The snow falls with the hatred of a long-held grudge, creeping up his shins as the arbitrary line between storm darkness and the long, black night encroaches ever closer. Sweat gathers at the base of his neck with the effort of beating the snow flat enough for Johnny to step through, crusting over into salt crystals almost as quickly as it forms.
“S-Sir,” Johnny chokes out and Ghost already doesn’t like where he’s going with this, “you s-should go ah-head; come b-back for me w-when you find the s-safe house.”
“Shut the fuck up, Soap,” he grits out, tightening his grip on his belt until the leather creaks in his hand.
“I’ll w-wait for you,” he continues and attempts a weak laugh that scrapes against his insides. “Won’t g-go anywhere; p-promise.”
“What part o’ shut the fuck up did you just miss?” he barks. “Keep goin’ an’ I’ll put you over my knee when we get there.”
Johnny’s head lolls against his shoulder. “Threats and g-good times, Sir.”
“You bet your arse,” Ghost swears and lifts him by the belt over a fallen tree before he can try to climb it. “Think I’m some kinda den mother, Sergeant? Buryin’ her young so she can go out on the pull?”
A puff of air struggles to breach the keffiyeh. “Y-you’d look good in f-fur. N-needta kill ‘b-bout e-eight damn b-bears to cover your arse, th-though.”
“That your fantasy, Johnny? Roaring fire and me in my skivs on a rug made o’ bears?” he huffs, ignoring the primal shiver in the back of his head; a beast trying to rear its ugly head.
“If you’re g-gonna do it, m-might as w-well go all out,” he reasons. “C-could h-have the k-kettle waitin’ f-for you to come back from the h-hunt.”
Ghost stumbles to a halt, squinting his stinging eyes through the whitewash of snow. “Sounds like an Alpha’s dream,” he says absently.
“Y-you k-know me, S-Sir; m-my life to provide,” Johnny mumbles and curls in closer, the wind battering even harder against them.
“Looks like you have your chance to prove it,” he purrs, warmth battering against the cage of his ribs as the unnaturally straight lines sinking into the snow come into focus as a small log cabin. He tugs Johnny’s arm sturdier over his shoulders and digs his boots into the snow. “What d’you prefer; housewife or housedam?”
“Aww, a-already th-thinkin’ o’ puppin’ m-me, S-Sir? ‘M the proper classy s-sort; gotta c-court me, first,” he protests.
“Yeah? Have it on good authority you like bear,” he boasts and feels him weakly snicker against his shoulder.
Ghost almost shivers at the difference in temperature when they finally stumble up to the cabin, the walls forcing a break in the wind. He rounds it to the front door and dumps Johnny on his arse in the snowbank beside it and has to force himself not to kick down the only door between them and the worsening storm.
“Stay ‘ere,” he snarks, patting the top of his head like he would one of the K9s back at base; lingering for a moment to hear whatever he snipes back.
But nothing comes.
Ghost’s fingers spasm in his hair and he forces it to fall away.
He shoulders the door open, the frozen hinges protesting, and quickly clears the spartan main room and tiny bathroom. The air’s dry and feels even colder for it; it's barely warmer than the blizzard raging outside and Ghost hisses at the empty wood basket sitting next to the ashed fireplace, his fangs almost sticking to the snow-logged material of his mask. But it’s clear, the dust lying long undisturbed.
He ducks back outside and stills.
Johnny’s managed to shove himself up against the wall of the safe house and get his gun tucked up into his shoulder, bracing the barrel on the bend of his knee. The chatter of his cheekbone resting against the body makes the whole rig shake; the metal sticking to his frigid, bloodless skin. But it’s still up; his fogged eyes scanning the horizon.
Still watching his six.
Something in his chest tightens and Ghost clears his throat.
“All clear, Johnny,” he promises and the rifle slips off his knee, falling with a muted huff into the snow. His head thunks back against the wall and he looks up at him, exhausted, almost beseeching; little more than a pale shadow in the snow. “Let’s get you in.”
His head falls in a nod and he rolls his shoulder into the wall. He plants a hand at his side and his whole body lists as he tries to push himself to his feet. Ghost grasps his other hand, following the fall of his body to lift him up and get him inside, kicking the door shut behind them; levelling another disdainful glare at the emptiness inside.
Only one couch and a couple armchairs. Not ideal, but it’ll do.
“Start gettin’ those clothes off you, Sergeant,” he orders, setting Johnny on the dusty floor.
He shrugs off his own plate carrier and jacket, the arms and shoulders soaked from pulling Johnny out of the water. The lining’s held up at least, leaving the next layer close to dry, but it hasn’t stopped the cold from leeching through. He bites back a shiver and sets them aside when Johnny’s eyes flutter and he teeters to the side.
Ghost lurches forward, dropping to one knee and catches his chin, hauling him back upright. “Soap!”
A vicious shiver wracks his body and he can almost see the concentration it takes for Johnny to crack his eyes open. He can’t quite manage to look above his collarbones, his eyeline stuck like his sockets have frozen over.
Ghost pulls the damp keffiyeh down and tips his chin back until his glazed eyes meet his. “Clothes, Sergeant,” he presses, tapping a bracing smack to his cheek and even through his glove, he can feel the chill clinging to his skin. “I need you to focus. Copy?”
Johnny’s jaw chatters in his hand and he almost shakes him as his eyes close a long blink. “C-copy,” he slurs out, voice weak and thready.
It locks Ghost in place for a heartbeat, maybe less; this reduction of the brightest man he knows to this meek, shivering thing. A pup wearing his father’s boots and his mother’s rosary; waterlogged and tangled, dragging him down to the bottom of a fucking lake on Ghost’s watch-
His lip kicks up, baring a snarl at himself, and he strangles it; burying it back in the useless dirt where it belongs.
He digs a fang into his bottom lip, hot iron spilling over his tongue, and speeds Johnny up; unzipping his overcoat and tossing it behind him, the sodden fabric landing with a wet slap. The plates follow with a heavy clatter, almost cracking the floorboards beneath them. He works the straps of his vest, Johnny’s shaking fingers following after him; the understanding that he needs to take it off firing quicker than his body can track.
His claws dig into the velcro, tearing the final strap apart and he pulls it over Johnny’s head, all but throwing it aside.
“Take it from here, Johnny,” he urges. Keep him moving, keep him present. “Get it all off.”
Johnny’s head droops in a nod. “S-Sir.”
Ghost’s jaw ticks at the subdued answer. No euphemism, no obstinance- just docile subservience. It fits his Sergeant about as well as a hole in the head.
“Don’t be shy, Sergeant,” he mutters, trying to pull some kind of life back between them; trying to find any spark the snow hasn’t doused.
Sticking a finger between his aching teeth, he bites off his wet glove and does the same to the other before beelining for the couch. His damp hands instantly get coated in dust as he rips off the cushions and throws them in a pile in the middle of the floor.
Ringing silence swallows him as he methodically throws open every cupboard and drawer in the place, muffling the scrape of undisturbed wood as it batters him with wave after wave. Everything’s shrunk down; the intel that should be burning a hole in his pocket, the trail of dead Russians they left behind, the storm closing in outside- none of it touches him.
Nothing but the chatter of bone on bone, each crack sounding like the impact of a bullet; a rattling machine gun rending him to bloody pieces.
He slams the cupboard door shut, hiding the mocking emptiness inside, and freezes as he catches his hand trembling. Countless nicks and scars cover it, nails bit back to the beds, protruding bright veins like burrows dug under his pale skin and he’s fucking shaking-
It smashes straight through the cupboard door, his knuckles scraping on the broken slats.
Panting fills the abrupt quiet and Ghost swallows when he realises it’s coming from him.
He rips his hand out of the hole, wood splintering off to clatter at his feet in its wake. The open scrapes throb as the cold air hits them, lazily weeping blood, and he flicks his eyes over his shoulder.
But Johnny doesn’t seem to have even noticed the crunch of flesh on wood; too busy struggling with the laces of his boots.
Ghost’s nose flares, a disgusted yowl welling up against his back teeth like so much bile. It burns his throat as he swallows it back down. He scrapes the hot blood off on his jeans and keeps digging through the drawers until he finds some blankets that are only partially dry-rotted.
He flicks them out, thick dust lining his throat, and dumps them on the floor beside the cushions. Lining them up in a poor man’s futon, he throws one of the blankets over them and tucks it tight to hold the cushions in place. The walls and floor are the coldest part of this pissheap of a safe house; he has to keep Johnny away from them.
He could break down the couch, use the decayed upholstery and thin wood to start a fire, but he doesn’t trust the flue that looks like it hasn’t been cleared out since this was still the Soviet fuckin’ Union. Even if they could risk the clear signal it’d send out, the last thing Johnny needs is smoke clogging his already compromised lungs.
“How goes it, Johnny?” he asks gruffly, fuck-arsing about with military corners like they’ll stop him from ever falling through the ice in the first place.
Silence answers him.
Ghost falters over the blanket and he snaps around. The growing buzz in his ears dies as he sees Johnny still working on his clothes, his pants caught around his thighs as he fights with his holster, the tight buckles too much for his clumsy fingers.
He lets out a long breath, grinding his torn knuckles against the floor as he deflates with it, and gets up to kneel beside him. “Here.”
Ghost tugs his shaking hands away from the buckle to do them himself- just to drop them when Johnny flinches away. The bare hint of his scent he can pick up goes sticky with sour pain as he curls his hands protectively under his chin.
Protectively away from him.
Split knuckles throb in time with his stolen heart beat and rot seeps out from the tears in his skin. The stench of meat left too long in the sun almost makes his wide eyes water and the cold outside doesn’t even touch the sudden chill writhing through his insides as he stares at Johnny cringing away from him.
Yawning fingers creep from his chest up the arteries in his neck. He can feel them; like worms - like maggots - bulging under his skin to cross over his face, digging their nails in like they want to peel back his faux-skin at the seams and reveal the bloodied, empty skull within.
“Johnny?” he rasps, voice catching in the nail-dug furrows of his throat.
Johnny’s eyes drop to the floor, something like shame coiling around him, and he ducks his head with a violent shiver. With an unsteady jerk, he presents his hands; fingers discoloured red and a far more concerning white, trembling in the air between them.
Static fills the burrows the parasitic fingers left behind; the seams of his skin sowing back together over putrid, bloated meat, and something almost like relief balms the fresh sting. Ghost knows the ache of frostbite, the burn of pins and needles sinking into nerves. He knows the animalistic desperation to get away from pain.
He’d take a reactionary bite over this perverse shame any day.
It’s not about you, selfish cunt.
“We’ll get you warmed up soon,” he promises and Johnny’s arms slump, looking almost too heavy for him to hold up. “Done well, Johnny.”
Ghost reaches out and brushes his fingers over the buckle of his holster - has to check in case he’s wrong, doesn’t know what it’ll do to him if he’s wrong - but Johnny doesn’t shy away from his touch. His lips roll back over his fangs and he unbuckles the holster, shucking his cargos down his legs along with his thermals.
Johnny’s shoulders hitch up around his ears, an instinctive flinch away from the frigid air hitting his trembling skin, but he doesn’t curl in. He stays limp as he picks up one ankle to tug off his layers and does the same when he grabs the other. He isn’t trying to warm his core, isn’t trying to follow the training they both have and he’s too fucking cold.
Ghost rips off his jumper, leaving him in just his thermal undershirt, and brusquely wipes the ice water from Johnny’s skin, drying the worst of it. He sits perfectly for him, rocking with the force of each swipe, and he drops it to snag one of the blankets; throwing it over his head.
“C’mon; time for good little Sergeants to go to bed,” he grunts and picks him up without giving him a chance to process it. He doesn’t think he even can, not with the way he shivers and curls into his chest like a dumped dog desperate for a break from the rain.
He sets him down on the cushions, guiding his head back to lie down. Air floods between them as he falls away from his chest and a noise almost like a whine crawls out of Johnny’s throat and Ghost freezes.
Johnny sinks into the cushions, pressing his face into the blankets like he’s searching for the heat he just lost, and that same, cracked whine falls from his lips. It digs into his chest, pulling at his ribs like it’s trying to rip them open and find something old, something dead and buried, to curl around and share warmth.
Ghost sets his jaw against it and goes to catch his shaking hands in his- only to falter. His breath fogs, too close and too thin within the barrier of his mask.
He drops his hand to the cushions, facing them palm up. “Johnny?”
A weak groan escapes him as Johnny rolls his head up, peeking out from the furrows of the blanket. His blink is slow between his face and upturned hands, the struggle to understand what he’s asking for clear in his eyes. Ghost waits out his long, shuddering breaths; he’s asked enough of him.
He slumps forward, his face almost collapsing into his hand, and he reflexively cups his flushed cheek. His heart skips as he digs his nose under his sleeve, all but nuzzling into the covered scent gland at his wrist, and unburies his trembling hands from the blanket.
Ghost’s hand twitches forward and Johnny’s nose slips deeper; his wrist almost rubbing over his cheekbone in a faux scent, his thumb a breath away from brushing over his skin. Something catches in his throat, rolling back down his chest almost like a rumble… almost like...
“Steady, Johnny,” he hushes. He threads his fingers through the back of his ‘hawk, just above his scruff, and thumbs along his hairline. “Just a bit longer.”
Johnny weakly presses back into his hand and his grip tightens, just for a second, before it falls away.
Tugging his backup gloves from his belt, he gently slips them on Johnny’s hands, gaping them so the thick fabric doesn’t drag against his skin; carefully guiding his near-grey fingers through each hole. He cups them in one hand and fits his other under his chin, his pulse thready and struggling to beat against his fingertips.
Johnny swallows, throat bobbing beneath his fingers, and watches him through vague, lidded eyes tight with pain. Ghost sighs through his nose and guides his hands in a gentle curl back under his chin shaking out the last few blankets and throws them over his body; curling the edges under his shivering body.
Ghost steps off the little island and bodies the couch closer, the legs screeching over the frozen floorboards until it butts up almost flush to the cushions. He bends to grip the bottom, slowly tipping it up on its front and over to form a shelter above Johnny. His hands tense around the frame, ready to rip it straight off him if the ancient piece of shit collapses under its own weight.
He takes a slow step back, waiting for the shifting weight of the floor to bring it down like a cheap house of cards. It shudders, the back creaking as it flexes and protests the unnatural position, but it holds firm.
He kicks one of the armchairs, dust leaving a phantom glimmering outline hanging in the air. Ghost cuts a hand through it and angles the chair to the head of the couch, wedging it in the space between the base and the backing as an impromptu plug.
He hooks the strap of his gear bag over his shoulder and sets the other armchair at Johnny’s feet, crawling inside first before pulling it flush; enclosing the whole space and hopefully trapping his heat inside.
The cushions sink under his bulk, his knees practically kissing the floorboards, and stick to him worse than the sedimentary muck at the bottom of a bog. It takes more energy than he’d admit to crawl to the other side and angle his rifle through the gap in the little bolthole he’s made. He wedges the barrel on the chair’s arm and sets the sight on the door, their position as defensible as he can make it.
A crack rings out as he loads a round in the chamber.
You can’t defend him from this.
“Alright, Johnny; feelin’ smothered yet?” Ghost asks, snapping a chemlight and shaking it up.
Johnny’s eyes are barely slits in the yellow light, fluttering against the harshness of the light and the force of his shaking.
Cold dumps down his spine, leeching into the cartilage of his ribs, and his lip kicks up in a snarl. He tips his kit bag up on its arse; spare ammo, the stolen hard drives from the target, and MREs spilling out in front of him. He sweeps the rations closer and shoves the rest away.
Opening the seal on each one, he fishes out all but one of the heaters and tosses the food packets behind him; tipping in water from his canteen and sealing them up. Priority one is body temperature; he’ll listen to Johnny bitch about unheated rations with a goddamn smile on his face so long as he doesn’t shiver his way through it.
The heaters start to bubble, a pleasant warmth already flowing into his hands, but it won’t take long before they’ll burn his skin. They’re probably already too hot for Johnny’s hypothermic body, more likely to burn him and send him into shock before they warm him up. Ghost takes the throw pillow from the chair and pulls off the cover, ripping along the seams to get square pieces of cloth and wraps them around the heaters.
“Brace yourself,” he warns and pulls up the blankets and his nose wrinkles when Johnny doesn’t even flinch.
He turns his arms out and rips the water-logged scent-blocker patches from his inner biceps, shoving the bubbling heaters in their place. All they’re doing now is retaining the cold and he doesn’t want the plastic to melt to his skin. He sets two more either side of his neck and grits his teeth at the weak trickle of ozone struggling to fill the air.
He pulls the patches off Johnny’s inner thighs, the last heater in his hand, but he used all his impromptu covers already and Johnny won’t thank him for burning off his prick. The side of his belt burns through his hip and his hand twitches for it.
Ghost hesitates for a beat, almost looks for something else to use, but a part of him he doesn’t want to name howls at the rejection. At the slight.
“Know you’re attached to this, Sergeant; wouldn’t want you to lose it,” he murmurs and pulls out his spare balaclava to wrap the heater in.
Johnny moans lowly as he places it over his crotch, applying just enough pressure to try and force the warmth into his heat-starved skin without scalding his cock. His thighs close in around it and the howling, possessive thing in his ribs purrs to have something so deeply imbued with his scent so close to Johnny’s most intimate scent glands; soaked so deeply in wet earth and leaf litter, it can never be washed out.
Ghost growls deep in his throat, subharmonic and barely audible, and beats it back into the recesses of his chest.
Something flickers at Johnny’s neck. He frowns, teasing it out from the blankets and Johnny’s tags weakly catch the light; tangled with the wine-dark beads of his rosary. He wraps them in his fist to keep them away from his skin, leaving the rosary to fall back in the shadow of the blanket; the frigid metal already burning into his own.
He threads his fingers through the chain. For a wild moment, he almost hopes it does; hopes the indented letters mould and sear into the contours of his flesh. He wouldn’t mind being branded with Johnny’s name, his blood; to carry proof of him in his skin.
Thinking ‘bout him like he’s dead already, Ghost sneers, clenching his fist around the tags until the metal cuts into his skin. He dies here, you won’t deserve his name.
He sets his fist beside Johnny’s head and pulls the blankets up to his chin, tucking them in tight around his shoulders so he won’t lose what little warmth he has. Checking the scope trained on the shaking but still somehow stable door, Ghost sinks deep beside him and pulls the top blanket over them both; warmth and protection covering him from all sides.
Ghost’s hand spasms around Johnny’s tags, eyes darting up to the couch covering them, to the blockades either side of it, to the spread of blankets around them.
He nested.
He hunkered down and tucked his injured packmate in a nest and even rigged up a half-decent den in his fugue state.
Bloody fuckin’ hell.
Ghost’s head thuds against the frame of the chair, hissing when it skids back and dislodges his rifle. Then rolls his eyes skyward at his reaction to the disturbance of his nest. Leave it to Johnny to make his bloody Omegan instincts rear their ugly fuckin’ head.
Livin’ the goddamn stereotype.
The easiest way Ghost’s hidden his second gender is that, by all accounts, he hates Omegas.
It’s not a difficult front to keep up; most of the military are still bigoted pricks even in this day and age of progression, keep quiet and it’s not hard to get lumped in with the knotheads. Not company he’d keep by choice but safety in numbers is a hard thing for a pack animal to pass up.
Being an Omega’s never done him any favours. As much as he wanted to blame it for all the cruelty life dealt him, to pin it all on a single reason so he could try to understand why, it wasn’t his Omega that made his mum decide on his cunt of a father for a mate. Wasn’t his Omega that made her stay through the neglect and the violence. Wasn’t his Omega that made her turn to smack to cope, no matter the six-month-old pup still growing in her belly.
No matter how many times his father told him it was.
‘You killed your own kin before you took your first fucking breath!’
It didn’t stop the pain to hear him sneer about his mum and her ‘Omegan weakness’ that saddled him with a premature, drug-addicted Simon; didn’t stop the hatred from brewing when he remarried and brought his step-mother home, a Beta with an unobtrusive, mild scent who gave him the perfect Alpha son he’d always wanted.
It didn’t stop the insidious twist of shame when Simon presented and the old prick sat back in his chair like everything in the world suddenly made sense.
‘Wasn’t enough to kill her, was it? No, you ‘ad to go an’ be an Omega bitch just like her.’
Simon balled up his shame and his hate and let it carry him to the military; immersed himself in a bloody purpose that had nothing to do with his body beyond how well it could shoot a gun. He ran himself so ragged, he could almost forget the scent that lingered beneath his suppressants; could convince himself the looks of surprise were from his skill alone and not being ‘damn good for an Omega’.
Then Vernon didn’t show up at the mansion.
Then it was fighting pits and scorpions in boxes.
Then it was Roba’s hands making his skin crawl as he carefully drew an X high enough on his torso that the meat hook his men were prepping wouldn’t pierce his precious womb.
‘Never know, English,’ he croons, the hand gripping his jaw patting his cheek like Simon isn’t thrashing in his hold, trying to get away from his fingers drifting down his stomach to caress low over his navel.
The Omega whores he brought in to try and trigger his heat were somehow worse than the Alphas; their purring never-ending and digging into his ears as they synced up, falling one after another into the fog of heat and slick and need. It set his teeth on edge to crawl away from them, to abandon their warbling and swollen glands pumping out so much pheromone-rich scent it made his own hurt. His very blood called out to them, begging to be brought into their arms; craving the one thing he secretly longed for. The one thing he’s never received.
The craving Simon refused to name when their fever broke gnawed at his bones, its teeth cruel and envious. Watching them curl around each other against the wall, as far from him as they could manage, offering each other the only comfort they had; heedless of how sparing it was from their malnutrition and pain, purring in thanks nonetheless…
They all suffered through that joint heat; half a dozen Omegas left in agony for days in his too-small cement cell. All because he refused to let his body succumb.
It left a stain on his scent. You drown in enough grief and fear and pain and eventually, it becomes part of you. Sometimes he can still smell the softness they hadn’t managed to shed, their longing, beneath the mold and reeking compost sloughing off him; a part of him unmistakably Omegan.
And it was that softness he clawed his way through, just like the splintered wood trapping him in the earth; ripping himself apart until he was barely recognisable as the Omega they buried in the sand.
Not when he pinned Roba to the ground and growled with fangs not his own, torn from the head of the Alpha who joined him in his grave; forced into his still-bleeding gums, replacing the smaller, non-lethal Omegan fangs he was buried with, newly sharpened with the cracked jawbone of his rotting superior.
Simon Riley died in the dark, his fangs all that remained in the dirt, and Ghost was born from the wet grave with dead man’s blood on his lips.
Ghost sighs, his breath stirring Johnny’s hair, and the shiver it pulls from him is almost painful to watch. He tucks his warmed tags in the gap between the cushions with his rosary, knuckles almost hurting from his tight grip, and sits up, careful not to let the blanket billow and let the heat out.
“Never satisfied are you, Johnny?” he mutters, reaching over to pull the one MRE he left whole - in its own dedicated food pile, Christ - and rips it open. “Not enough I got you five-star accommodation; want breakfast in bed too?”
Chattering teeth are his only answer and it makes his nose twitch as he sets up the heater to warm the best the military has to offer. He doesn’t let it get too hot, no matter the temptation to warm him up quicker. He digs his tea mug from the pile and strains out the thick, mushy chunks of vegetable and chum they pass off as meat until something approaching broth is left in the dented cup.
“Got me acting like a proper old lady; cookin’, fuckin’ up my tea mug for you,” Ghost grunts. “Better appreciate this.”
Better wake up and tell me you know you’re worth it.
He puts the pack to the side and cups the back of Johnny’s head, tilting him up. “Alright, Johnny; here comes the aeroplane.”
He sets the cup to his lips and blows, trying to make the scent and warmth reach through the paralysing cold and entice him into taking a sip under his own steam. But Johnny just weakly moans in protest, his head dangerously limp in his hand.
He tips his head back farther, carefully dribbling the broth past his lips. He tries to twist away, too exhausted to break his scruff. His tongue rolls in his mouth, spilling the broth over his chin.
“Come on, Sergeant, don’t make me spit it in your mouth; know you’d wanna be aware for that, freaky bastard,” he tries, too dry to be the taunt it’s meant as.
The broth seeps past his tongue, his throat faintly bobbing with the pitiful mouthful before Johnny coughs into the cup. Ghost wrenches it back as he chokes on it; weakly heaving to try and clear his throat just to gag when it sticks.
“Fuck!”
He drops the mug, lukewarm stew spilling all over the blanket and his legs, and throws himself on his back to kick the couch covering them; the force rocketing it off the ground back on its legs. He rolls back over and flings the blankets off Johnny, heaving him over onto his side.
“Come on, Johnny- get it up!” he barks, shoving two fingers down his throat to force a better gag reflex.
His throat weakly contracts around his fingers, struggling to spit it up, and Ghost slings an arm around his waist, digging his fist into the soft of his stomach. Broth and foaming spit spills down his hand; thin, painful-sounding gags muffled around his fingers.
The convulsions slow and he slips them out of his mouth, catching Johnny’s face as he goes limp in his arms, and holds his breath.
Johnny’s breath hits his wet fingers; crackling slightly, but still strong.
Ghost drops his forehead on the top of his. “‘Atta boy, Johnny; you’re alright, you’re alright…”
He presses his forehead into him, rocking him in the circle of his arms, the cold of his scalp bleeding through his mask; his laboured breaths loud in the frozen silence.
He sets Johnny back down on the cushions, wiping around his mouth with the corner of the soiled blanket. He cups the side of his face and he blindly pushes into his hand, mouth slack as he pants for breath.
His lips tremble and Ghost snarls, gathering up the wet top blanket and ditching it at the wall. He fists the top of his mask, nails digging into his scalp through the material, and his knuckles sting as the scrapes reopen.
His throat clicks with his swallow and he forces his fist to uncurl, reaching up to lodge his fingers under the wood frame of the couch and grunts as he hauls it back down.
It creaks as it settles back over them, a new rain of dust spilling from the disturbed upholstery and Ghost tucks Johnny better under the blankets; folding it in on itself to form an impromptu hood over his head.
“You’ll be alright, Johnny…”
Johnny isn't getting warmer.
He’s scarily pale, bruise-blue still stubbornly staining his lips, and the flameless heaters might as well not exist for how cold his skin is against his; his body a shivering mass at his side. He hasn’t said a word since Ghost hauled him inside the nest and even nearly choking wasn’t enough to thaw his frozen lungs.
His IFAK taunts him from his rig; as if his uselessness couldn’t chafe at him any more. All the bandages and quikclot in the world won’t do fuck all for him now; this isn’t a bullet he can dig out or a bone he can snap back into place.
“C’mon, Johnny,” he murmurs, pressing the back of his hand against his frigid cheek. “You gonna let a little water get the best o’ you?”
Johnny doesn’t so much as twitch under the mass of blankets.
Ghost frowns, rubbing his knuckles a little harder into his cheek. “Johnny, you with me?”
Nothing.
He brings the chemlight closer and fits his thumb to the curve of his eye, gently tugging his lid back, and stills. Half-rolled up in the back of his head, Johnny’s eye is completely blown; the breadth of his sclera swallowed by the unearthly blue of his iris.
“Shit.”
Johnny’s gone Feral.
Any higher reasoning or logic buried by the base need to survive- yet he’s barely moved; hasn’t uttered so much as a growl since he stripped him down and shoved a heater on his prick.
Johnny’s Alpha - the one who stayed behind to strip and reassemble an L111A1 heavy machine gun and individually fire a hundred and fifty rounds in the name of saving his temporary Pack - is the only one home.
And even he’s stopped fighting.
“Shit,” Ghost hisses and kicks off his boots; his jeans and thermal pants quickly following.
He snatches the edge of the blankets forming Johnny’s cocoon- just to hesitate when Johnny’s skin is bared; his naked legs so close to his…
A ripple shakes through him; old disgust roiling through the seedbeds burrowed in the shadows of his organs, the tunnels dug through his body that on his worst days feel like the remains of dead fingers working under his skin. Putrid breath skims over his nape, a chuckle pressed into his blood-damp throat…
The material of the blanket strains under his grip; stale threads creaking and snapping.
But Johnny is freezing.
Pull your fuckin’ head in. Do you want him to die here?
Johnny gasps as he slips under the blanket, blindly stretching his weak body to try and get closer to his heat. The bite of his frigid skin makes him shiver even through his thermal top. He pulls him in anyway; wrapping an arm around his biceps to trap his arms and the heaters at his sides and hauls him onto his chest, lining them up until not even his feet touch the pillows, almost slipping straight back off him with the strength of his shivers.
Johnny nuzzles into the crook of his neck, instinctively searching for the depth of his scent and Ghost goes rigid; a hiss bubbling in the back of his throat.
Cold sweat breaks out over his skin and he swallows the yowl back into his mud-crusted lungs. His nose shoves down the high neck of his thermals and Johnny breathes deep at his exposed gland.
Just to whine in confusion when no burst of his scent follows. The scent he’ll never find; not after the ropes and claws and teeth taken to his skin, mangling his scent glands so thoroughly he doesn’t even need blockers.
Ghost grits his teeth hard enough to dig into his gums but he refuses the urge screaming at him to grip him by the scruff and wrench him away; to get the fangs hidden behind his frown as far from his ruined glands as possible.
‘One of these days it’ll take, English,’ Roba promises behind him but he can barely hear him over the roar of the venom pounding in his veins; the sick twist of a bond he refuses to let take latching onto his blood like a virus.
His eyes roll in his sockets, fever already slurring his mind and making the cement walls spin. But his stomach doesn’t knot. His pelvis doesn’t ache. Poisoned blood trickles down his collarbone and Simon’s cheek scratches against the floor as he bares his teeth at one of the three blurry, bloated figures behind him; sure at least one of them is real.
He’s still fighting. He hasn’t broken yet.
‘Then you’ll give me what I want.’
Ghost flinches as Johnny’s weight shifts on top of him, the line of his throat pressing flat to his chest, and a weak, broken rumble stutters to life. It cuts out with the clatter of his teeth, like a record struggling to spin on an uneven turn table. He bets if he had the coordination, he’d be nibbling at his jaw too, little appeasing bites to his hidden chin and lips to prove his submission, and Ghost freezes just moments before his entire body goes lax in the nest; a disbelieving laugh falling from his lips.
Bloody soft touch, Johnny.
He’s trying to call for his scent. Trying to coax it out of his glands like Ghost’s leashing it on purpose; like he’s some scent-conscious waif of a thing, nervous about having an Alpha in his nest. Half-dead and out of his mind and he’s being fucking polite.
“Not gettin’ anythin’ outta that one, Johnny,” he scoffs and shoves the edges of the blankets under his body, trapping his heat inside. “It’s dryer than me.”
Johnny doesn’t listen, can’t listen, lost under the fog of instinct and survival. He keeps nosing at his throat, his broken rumble struggling to hold on through his shaking and fatigue.
And you’re just as much of a soft bastard, Ghost chides himself as he blindly digs up an edge of the scent patch at his bicep through his thermals, shaking it out of his sleeve and damp blooms between them. Johnny doesn’t even hesitate; licking a thankful, trembling stripe along his collarbone, he wedges his nose between his arm and his side, taking great heaving breaths of his scent like it alone will warm him through.
He drops the used patch at the edge of the nest and digs through his kit for his satellite radio. Their comms are useless in this weather and they were supposed to wait to be called for exfil, not the other way ‘round, but these are extenuating fuckin’ circumstances, Laswell’ll have to forgive him.
“Bravo 0-7 to Watcher, how copy?” Ghost calls through. Harsh static screams back and he almost recoils. “Watcher, this is Bravo 0-7 requesting emergency evac.”
Nothing but static, as hazy and thick as the snow outside.
The plastic creaks under his grip. “Come the fuck in, Watcher,” he spits in a feral snarl when Johnny whimpers at his side, primed and sensitive to an Omega’s displeasure.
Ghost cuts off the call, carelessly tossing it aside, and runs his hand down the line of Johnny’s ‘hawk over the blanket, curling his other arm around him. He takes a deep breath, the scent of worried Alpha playing on his tongue.
He swallows it down, thick and cloying as it is, and lets it pull out the reflexive calm of his own scent; a reflex he’s battened down since he was a pup.
Wet, freshly turned soil seeps into the air and Johnny goes so deeply lax on his chest, he half-expects him to slide off; a stuttering chuff escaping him as the scent of content Omega reaches his hindbrain. He goes down for him like he’s smelt it all his life; like Ghost hasn’t let more than bloodlust and veiled approval pass through his scent in over a decade.
Though Johnny’s always drunk down whatever scraps of his scent he can get.
Ghost hits the deck with a low grunt, the hostile riding him into the ground; so blind with pride at downing the Ghost, he forgets what he’s known for.
He stabs up and the hostile’s whole body flinches as his blade sinks into the soft of his lower gut. He grits his teeth and wrenches the knife up, slitting him from navel to chin. It shears straight through bone and muscle and he grunts as the entire weight of a man’s insides spill out over his torso.
Organs bounce off his chest to spill around him like a macabre snow angel. Blood soaks clean through his tac vest and mask to wet his skin, pooling in the hollow of his throat and spilling down his sides.
Fuckin’ mess.
The body's practically cool with blood loss when Ghost tosses it aside to roll to his feet; sloughing off the stubborn entrails stuck in the grooves of his vest. He flicks off his fingers, gloves waterlogged and dripping, and doesn’t envy himself the humid ride back to base.
Footsteps he’d know in his sleep come up on his six as he’s detangling a piece of intestine from his spare mags, not wanting the stinking thing to burst on him too.
‘S’always the arrogant ones that don’t die clean, ay, Sergeant,’ he taunts dryly.
He doesn’t reply and Ghost drops the stubborn guts, turning to find Johnny stock still, staring at him with a wild gleam in his eyes.
His eyes drag slow up and down his body, at the wet smear he’s made of the hostile discarded behind him. He drops his jaw with a deep inhale, rolling the scent of blood and pissed-off pheromones in his mouth and his chest rumbles with all the subtlety of a chainsaw.
‘Thing of beauty, Sir,’ he purrs, words garbled and slurring with the force of his rumble.
It's suddenly all Ghost can do to keep himself from hauling the gutted body and dropping it at Johnny’s feet like a courting gift of old; to follow time-dull memories of lines on pale flesh, the weight of a cleaver familiar in his hand, and serve him only the prime cuts. To crack open bone and drip rich marrow over Johnny’s tongue. Ancient instinct calls to dig through the mess of offal and meat and carve out the heart and rich organs to present for his approval; to hold the iron-rich gifts to his mouth and never break eye contact as he takes his first bloody bite.
Ghost strangles the purr trying to claw out his throat and swallows the trickle of blood that’s seeped through his mask. ‘Put it away, Soap; still got work to do.’
Johnny’s laugh is loud as he kicks aside the scattered organs and heads for the RV point and he feels absolutely nothing when he falls into step without a word; his rumble that almost mimicked an Omega’s purr echoing out behind him.
Ghost sighs, already too used to the heavy weight of Johnny on his chest; already thinking about how he’ll miss it when he’s back in his room on base, distinctly lacking any nest or clingy Sergeants.
“Pathetic,” he whispers into the close quiet of the den, silent for all but the howling wind outside.
Silent…
Ghost’s head snaps down to Johnny and his heart seizes in his chest.
The constant chatter of teeth, the shift of blankets dragging against his back from the force of his shaking body- it’s all gone silent.
Johnny’s stopped shivering.
He’s a black hole of cold on his torso, lips death-bruised and slack, yet his entire body’s fallen still.
He’s stopped shivering but he isn’t even close to being warm.
No.
“Johnny! Johnny, wake up!” Ghost rushes out, tapping his cheek as hard as he dares but Johnny doesn’t even flinch; his eyes still behind his closed lids.
“Johnny! Come on, don’t do this to me; not you- Johnny!”
Body heat isn’t enough- he needs to warm him up internally, needs to get his core up- but he can’t feed him, he already choked on the fucking broth, there’s nothing else-
Ghost’s breath catches in his throat.
Johnny’s a cold, dead weight on his chest and there’s nothing else to do.
Ghost shoves his hand under the blankets and rips up his thermal shirt, ducking through the hole and leaving the material to bunch up behind his neck, covering his nape. He tips Johnny to the side of his chest, gritting his teeth as the cold of his skin burns against his, and hooks his elbow around his head to hold him in close.
He hasn't done this in a long time, hasn’t even offered since he accepted to curl up against a furred chest in an entirely symbolic gesture. Fuck, he doesn’t know if he even can anymore after forcing himself dry for so long, but Johnny doesn’t have the time for him to work himself up to it.
"Alright, Johnny; gonna have to work with me ‘ere," Ghost begs softly, keeping his head in place and squeezes at his pec.
A long time ago, Omegas were cherished for their milk; for the nutrients and life they were able to bring in times of famine and disease. It was trust and Pack; ‘I want you to live,’ spoken by their very body.
As long as you had an Omega in your Pack, you knew you were going to survive.
It makes him sick.
The presumption that he existed to give up a piece of himself with no thought to his own survival; that it’s some kind of honour to wring himself dry all so another could see their next sunrise. Subservience and sustenance expected from him since birth.
It’s changed since the old days; now a way to strengthen Pack bonds, to bathe in pheromones and dopamine and skinship, a natural high and a base comfort all in one. Some Omegas take pride in it, flaunting the thing only they can provide; conflating use with desire. It’s also typically given about as much dignity as expecting head for a handy.
The few times he bothered to pull an Alpha on his nights out - when he shrugs off the heavy weight of Ghost, Alpha Lieutenant, and lets Simon, Omega in his prime, breathe, his body craving a throbbing hard knot even more than it craved to cum - he almost always ended up breaking wrists after they groped at his chest like they were owed his milk just because his arse slicked up.
Why should he sustain someone who wouldn’t even think to return the favour?
But this isn’t some bird on a pub crawl; not a random Alpha he’ll hopefully never see in the cold light of day.
‘Fuck- Ghost, move!’
This is Johnny.
How many people has he killed, how much blood has he shed, all to see Johnny through a mission? Burnt his fingers on hot shell casings, sat motionless in the rain and hail to guard his six, backed his play when he knew his plan was right? How much has Johnny shed in return, fangs bared as he ripped apart anyone who threatened him- not because he’s an Omega but because he’s Pack?
Because he’s his?
How long has Ghost been his?
Ghost kneads and squeezes his pec, cruelly stimulating dormant nerves and ignored glands until his skin reddens from the abuse. But not so much as a bead forms on his nipple.
“Come on, you useless cunt,” he growls, disgusted at his own body, and sharply smacks his chest.
The one time he needs his body to work, when he’s trying to be the subservient Omega he’s supposed to be, and he can’t even do it? What’s the point of instinct if he still doesn’t know what to do?
Ghost looks down at Johnny, at the faint glow of blue behind his barely-cracked eyes.
Rot seeps into the blankets, deadening the air like a carcass left to spoil beneath the floorboards; a smell you can never get away from because you can never get it out-
Ghost drops his breast to loosen the swathe of blankets around Johnny, carefully unearthing one of his limp hands, and rolls back the hem of his glove. He brings it up to his face and buries his nose in his wrist, breathing in the thready scent of rain-dampened rust. Breathes in the ash of a prematurely doused fire. Breathes in weak, distressed Alpha.
Distressed Johnny.
And a slight tingle runs through his pec, his nipple swelling and hardening.
I got you, Johnny.
Ghost tucks his fingers just inside Johnny's mouth, just enough to pry it open. He hisses as he brings his face into his chest but doesn't let himself flinch away as he thumbs his jaw shut and his frigid lips close around his nipple.
He kneads the flesh down, trying to promote as much flow and direction towards Johnny as he can.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
He knows what to do down to his very bones.
And Johnny, at the very borders of consciousness, latches on. He presses his frostbitten nose into the plush of Ghost's chest and sucks; blind and deaf to all but the ancient, bone marrow-deep need for warmth.
The tingle spreads, turning into an itch on the inside of his skin, and Johnny whines, high and broken in the back of his throat, as milk touches his tongue; body warm and no doubt burning to his frozen blood. It spills from the corner of his mouth from his weak latch, cutting a hot line down his cheek.
"That's it, Johnny," Ghost praises in a relieved sigh, slumping back in the nest. "Good little Alpha; let's get that belly o’ yours nice ‘nd warm."
He uses what little strength he has left to cling to him, pulling himself that much closer, and his weakened scent explodes with sweet caramel and sparks; with pure, happy Alpha.
There’s no going back after this, Ghost knows and picks at the scent-blocker patch on his wrist, pulling up just enough of an edge to rip it off with his teeth then does the same to his other wrist; sticking them together and tossing them somewhere in the borders of the nest. Won’t do fuck all to hide him now.
The one on his other bicep soon follows and he brusquely rubs his glands, stripping off the scent of sterile adhesive trying to promote as much of his own scent as he can. With rich, fatty milk on his tongue, maybe it’ll be enough to overlook the tang of twisted metal and wet dirt; maybe his stolen cream won’t smell so sour.
Milk beads on his other nipple, spilling over to run down his side. It catches in the gnarled scar tissue under his ribs, deviating to follow the raised keloids splitting his skin.
Johnny cuddles in closer, nuzzling his slowly warming face into his breast, and his hand slips through the spilled trail; clutching almost possessively at the knotted mass. He rubs it into their skin, pheromone-rich scent blooming between them and mixing until the whole nest smells like grateful Alpha and healthy Omega.
Until they smell whole.
Ghost’s heart beats wildly against the cage of his ribs. He drifts his thumb over Johnny’s cheek, slightly pursed as he suckles, and a muffled rumble buzzes through his chest. He’s all instinct like this; so buried under the adrenaline of his Feral state and the sapping exhaustion of the cold, he's little more than a pup, offering his will and his life to the highest-ranked Omega in their Pack for blessing him with this gift.
A gift he didn’t even know he could receive.
A gift he didn’t even know was being withheld.
A sigh falls unbidden from him and Ghost digs his fang into the scars lining his inner lip. He tugs the disturbed warmers back in place on Johnny's body, leaning just slightly too far to fix the one at his groin.
Johnny whimpers as it breaks his seal again, losing more of the hot life down his chin. He blindly searches for his nipple and Ghost stills as he croons; desperate, apologetic noises, almost manic, begging for it to be returned. Like it was taken from him on purpose.
"Shh, s’all yours, Johnny," he soothes, supporting him a little better, and rounds his shoulders; pushing out his pecs to give him more to hold on to. Johnny’s rumble vibrates his whole chest in thanks and he feels that tingle in his breast increase, his milk flow coming easier at the physical proof of happy, grateful Alpha. "No one's takin’ it from you."
Is that why he’s so lost in it? Little more than a melted, rumbling mess of euphoric Alpha? Has he gone as long without an Omega's milk as he's gone without giving it?
Ghost’s fingers twitch where they’re threaded through Johnny’s hair, a crackling hiss building in his throat.
Johnny doesn’t deserve that. Doesn’t deserve the cold that comes from a life of rejection; milk and the arms holding you close to it nothing but a powdered, cruel memory.
He doesn’t deserve to be left to the cold.
Johnny settles into the curves of his body like he’s always belonged there; the creamy scent of the milk lulling him, taking him somewhere soft where the piercing ice can't reach him. But Ghost doesn't truly relax until he starts shivering again, his nipple pinching between his quivering teeth.
His suckles are a quiet undercurrent to the storm battering the windows; sounds of safety and warmth. The cold can’t reach them here.
He switches him to his other breast when he can’t ignore the budding ache any longer, his teeth leaving indents where his lips were too weak to hold on. Johnny latches with a tired chuff, kneading at it himself instead of needing Ghost to do it; caressing and squeezing his flesh like he never wants to stop, his fingers not even stuttering over his puckered, scarred skin.
The gaping hollow in his chest cracks open; a rusty, long-forgotten purr clawing from the bitter reaches, struggling to come back to life as it echoes Johnny’s rumble. Heat builds in the centre of his eyes, liquid, almost burning, and he blinks back the magma threatening to break down the borders of his irises.
“Look what you’ve done to me, Johnny,” Ghost whispers and it’s as indulgent as it is a sharp-edged demand. He watches his face smooth out as his bouts of shivers grow farther apart; his eyelids no longer twitching as he finally falls into an easy, warm sleep.
He thumbs the tacky line of spilt milk from his chin and falls back against the armchair, staring unseeing at the too-close ceiling of their makeshift den.
“What have you done to me?”