Chapter Text
Ghost takes a sudden turn far too quickly, and the tires of the shitty car he’s driving squeal loudly in protest. Beside him, Soap lays a protective hand on the open med kit on his lap, slaps his other bloodied palm against the window, and grits his teeth at the momentum that wants to throw his injured torso against the car door.
This fucking mission is starting to be far too reminiscent of Las Almas, down to Soap bleeding in the passenger seat of a stolen car that Ghost is trying to speed to relative safety.
At least Soap hadn’t been shot this time, just sliced open with a knife. The gash starts just under Soap’s right armpit and extends down his torso, the knife having been stopped by the tac vest laying discarded at Soap’s feet. One side of the vest is a bloodied mess, but it’d done its job, and the knife had missed any of the truly important bits. However, the wound is still deep enough that it will not stop fucking bleeding.
Once the road straightens, Soap dives back into the med kit. He pulls out antiseptic wipes and sealed packets of hemostatic gauze, then he lifts the bottom of his blood-soggy shirt and holds it up between his teeth.
Ghost sneaks glances at the wound. It’s a red, raw thing, oozing blood from a clean cut that only turns jagged towards the bottom where the knife had caught on the vest.
Soap starts dabbing at it with the wipes, his entire torso tensing with each swipe as he grits his teeth against the sting. Wherever he wipes blood away, though, more quickly seeps out. The thing is definitely going to need stitches, but the best they’ll have out here—still too far away from the safehouse where they’ll have to wait an indeterminate amount of time for exfil anyway—is going to be the damn gauze.
At least the cut hadn’t been too fucking deep; Ghost has enough to worry about right now without adding nicked ribs or other injured organs.
Ghost turns back to the road, ignores the insistent ache in his gut, and presses down on the gas.
This whole mission had been fucked from the beginning.
It was supposed to be a low-stakes stealth infiltration with Soap slipping into a compound for some data on a burgeoning international weapons dealer that the higher ups just absolutely needed. Ghost was supposed to be on sniper duty, a deathly guardian angel as he kept Soap safe through this scope.
It went rotten as soon as Soap stepped foot inside the fucking building.
They’d clearly received some bad intel. There were more hostiles than they’d been initially briefed on, definitely more than a lone Soap should have been going up against. Ghost was almost set to call the bloody op off, order Soap to regroup, and radio Price to explain the situation, but then Ghost’s location had been compromised. More men poured in close from who-the-fuck-knew where and forced Ghost to move into the bloody compound to avoid detection.
He made it to the compound fine, met up with Soap fine, and the mission finally began to run smoothly after. Navigating through the building side by side, clearing room after room, and hiding corpses when enemy contact couldn’t be avoided had done wonders for Ghost’s apprehension at the mission altering so drastically. The mission was still off—they were both still in danger—but it felt right to have Soap at his side, slinking through rooms and getting closer to their mysterious intel.
They reached the oblong server room without incident and Soap quickly connected his laptop to one of the ceiling-tall servers. After a few minutes of clacking away at the keyboard, a frown that did not bode well graced his features, and that’s when it all really went tits up.
There was no intel; there never had been. Somebody had fed them false information, and the whole mission had been nothing but a trap, designed to catch whoever they could from the 141.
The trap sprang when the doors at the end of the room bashed open and canisters of unknown gas were thrown in, almost immediately followed by geared out operators in gas masks. They had body armor and good weapons on them and were, by no means, the low-level grunts intel said were going to be guarding the compound.
Good thing was, even under a surprise attack, he and Soap worked together seamlessly. They took out the first few assailants in the room before diving for cover behind some of the servers.
The gas continued to spill out of the canisters as the hostiles regrouped, and then, the smell of it hit Ghost. His first thought was to be grateful it wasn’t tear or nerve gas—the unknown operators obviously wanted them alive if this was the gas they were using. He was proven correct when the men didn’t immediately press their advantage and file into the room. Instead, they kept behind the bashed in doors, waiting for the gas to take effect before they came back in.
It was only after his initial reaction that Ghost registered how truly fucked they were if they didn’t find a way out of the room fast because what was spewing out of the canister was nothing but pure, artificially-concentrated omega pheromones.
The gas swirled in thick, noxious plumes at their feet, and Soap was already pawing at his nose, shaking his head like it would help dispel the gas working its way through his nervous system. A growl started deep in his chest, all warning and confrontation—like this was something Soap could fight his way out of—before the growl cut off and jumped up into something higher. Something like a whimper.
Concentrated omega pheromones tended to do that to an alpha.
If these were regular omega pheromones, Soap would have kept his hackles raised, alpha instincts raring to fight over some absent omega. But these weren’t regular omega pheromones; these were artificially concentrated to a level that skipped through feral and straight into a scent-drunk so strong it left alphas practically helpless. Their judgement became impaired, and those who didn’t outright pass out bumbled and swayed their way into catatonia, all higher reasoning pushed out by the overwhelming scent.
There was a reason gas like that was fucking illegal.
This was bad, and Ghost had no clue how long Soap had before he succumbed to the pheromones completely. Ghost needed to think quick, act quick, and get Soap out of the room first and foremost. Then, he needed to get them both out of the bloody compound.
Ghost took a deep breath, nose wrinkling at the burning saccharine sweet of the gas. First things first.
“You with me, Johnny?” Ghost asked and watched as Soap blinked rapidly, forcing some focus back into his eyes. He snorted and bared his teeth, veins at his neck popping, as he answered.
“Aye, Lt,” he responded. Alpha rumbled at the edges of his tone, roughening his brogue even more than usual. “But I won’t be if we stay here for much longer.”
Ghost unclipped a flashbang from his tac vest. The smoke at their feet would help conceal the canister before it went off. Hopefully, they’d catch most of the operators by surprise this way.
“On my six, sergeant,” Ghost ordered. “We move once the flashbang goes off. They’ve got armor, so I’ll take headshots. You lay suppressive fire and call locations. Understood?”
“Aye.”
It was a testament to either Soap’s belief in Ghost, or, more likely, the fact the gas was already doing its job and compromising his judgement, that he didn’t question how Ghost was going to be making headshots. Either way, the flashbang went off, Soap followed orders, and somehow, they made it out of the room.
It helped that the operators weren’t shooting to kill; it also helped that they thought they’d be dealing with two severely incapacitated alpha soldiers. They clearly hadn’t expected someone coherent enough to be making any type of accurate shots, let alone headshots.
They almost made it out of the building clean, taking down most of what had to have been a spec ops team, and managing to lose the rest before they finally barreled out of the compound through a side door.
Fresh air greeted them, and even Ghost relished the clean, pure taste of it. He gulped in breath after breath and felt as it started to burn out the taste of sickly-sweet gas still on his tongue.
Soap was barely able to walk straight by then, and the minute they made it outside, he quickly dropped his gun, yanked off his helmet, and doubled over. He hunched over himself, hands on his knees, breathing hard with fingers dug so hard into his kneepads that Ghost could hear the things creaking under the pressure.
“Breathe, Johnny,” he ordered. He only hoped they’d gotten out of the pheromone-soaked room fast enough that Soap could still get his bearings back. If it was too late, Soap might pass out right then and there, and then it’d be up to Ghost to figure out how to get his sergeant’s unconscious body to safety.
“Tryin’ ta, sir,” Soap growled. “Just—just need a sec.”
Tense minutes passed, stood outside the circle of illumination provided by the lone lightbulb fixed above the door they’d exited. Ghost was on tenterhooks the entire time, obsessively scanning the darkness around them and silently willing Soap’s senses to clear out faster. The low wail of a security siren starting up almost made Ghost flinch, but even that wasn’t enough to break Soap out of his stupor. He just continued trying to calm his breathing, shaking his head as he swiped at his sweaty brow.
Christ, they needed to move, needed to nick a car from the ones parked near the back of the building and hope that in the confusion the compound was slowly descending into, hostiles wouldn’t somehow notice someone driving away from it all.
“Johnny, we’re leaving,” Ghost finally decided.
Soap didn’t move. “Just need another minute, Lt.”
“It wasn’t a bloody suggestion.”
Too much time had passed; it didn’t matter if Soap was still out of it, Ghost would carry him if he had to, but they needed to leave.
Another growl slipped out of Soap. He looked up at Ghost, bared his fangs and snarled, something deeper and more threatening than before. The vibrations of it traveled down Ghost's spine and simmered out somewhere in his stomach.
The stupid alpha posturing was probably a good thing actually, meant Soap’s body was still fighting the gas and hadn’t actually crossed the threshold into catatonia. It was a good sign, but they didn’t have time for it.
So, Ghost stepped in close and let his bulk crowd Soap against the building.
“That’s an order, sergeant.”
Blue eyes, sharp with anger, held onto Ghost’s. Soap’s canines were out and glistening in the weak light. He swallowed audibly, and his nostrils flared as he leaned in even closer to Ghost.
Ghost tensed, his own hackles raising. Was Soap really going to fucking challenge him over this? Leftover adrenaline from their earlier confrontation reignited in Ghost’s veins at the possibility. They really didn’t have time for this, but if it came down to it, he’d force Soap down into submission, scruff him until Soap remembered that when Ghost gave orders, he expected them to be followed.
Another tense moment passed. Ghost was close enough to see how Soap’s pupils dilated, and then—
“Aye, sir,” Soap said as he ducked his head. It wasn’t quite submission, but it felt close enough to Ghost that it settled pleasantly in the same place where Soap’s growl had landed.
Soap ran a hand down his face. “Shite,” he groaned. “Sorry about that. Fucking gas has me a bit barmy still.” He looked up at Ghost, eyes still sharp but finally starting to melt back to their usual friendliness. He knocked a hand at Ghost’s chest a few times. “I’m good to go, Lt.”
The touch zapped along Ghost’s nerves like he didn’t have layers of gear between his skin and Soap’s hand. It fanned Ghost’s adrenaline even higher.
And that’s when Ghost realized he'd yet to move out of Soap’s space.
He grunted and stepped back, grimacing at the growing distance between him and Soap. It was odd, almost a physical sensation, like a stone sinking heavier and heavier in the pit of his stomach. The last remnants of the gas prickled at the back of his throat, and he had to resist the urge to cough and clear it.
“Get your gear. We need to move.” Ghost stepped farther away, brought his gun up, and went back to scanning the darkness, trying to focus on anything other than the space between him and Soap.
The door they’d come through burst open and in the time it took Ghost to turn around, he’d already berated his sloppiness. He was so focused on trying to ignore his own body that he’d forgotten about the fucking door.
Two geared out operators walked out, and Ghost was at least still sharp enough that he shot one in the chest plate and then immediately after the head. While Ghost engaged the first hostile, the second one, closest to Soap, pulled a knife out and slashed wildly at him. Soap’s reaction time was off, but he managed to stop the downward swing of the knife with his forearm. It left them locked forearm to forearm, and unfortunately, the hostile’s hand slid down Soap’s tilted arm and slashed down his exposed torso instead. It was only after that Ghost managed to line up another headshot.
The only upside to the injury was that the shock of it was finally enough to snap Soap back to full alertness. They found a getaway car relatively quickly afterwards.
And all of that—shitty intel, changing plans, a trap, the fucking gas, Soap’s injury—would have been bad enough, but the odd feeling in Ghost’s stomach didn’t go away; instead, it'd gotten worse.
What’d started as odd discomfort turned into an intermittent lurch, then a dull ache, and was now blooming into full-blown cramping.
Ghost knows exactly what that cramping heralds.
The car bounces on another pothole Ghost doesn’t see in the darkness and that he’s going too fast to have been able to avoid anyway.
“Steamin’ Jesus Lt,” Soap hisses around the shirt still clutched between his teeth as he ricochets in his seat. The gutted med kit bounces with him, gauze and other material flying as Soap tries to keep the entire thing from upending into the footwell. “Warn a man, will ya?”
Ghost ignores him. “The wound?” he asks.
“Stings like a bitch,” Soap immediately answers as he tears into a packet of hemostatic gauze, “but it missed any of the important bits. This should stop the bleeding.”
Small victories, Ghost can’t help but think right before a cramp tugs low in his gut.
Though, it isn’t for Ghost. This is the God Ghost doesn’t actually believe in shitting in his dinner once again.
There’s a reason Ghost had remained almost entirely unaffected back when the hostiles first lobbed concentrated omega pheromones at them. It’s the same reason he’s being affected now.
Ghost is an omega, and he’s pretty sure he’s going into heat.
Nobody but Price knows Ghost’s designation, and that’s only because he’d needed to as the 141 Captain. Ghost doesn’t think anybody in the 141 would care if they did know, but things hadn’t been quite so accepting when Ghost first started in the military. Things hadn’t been quite so accepting even before that, either. Being an omega was another thing his father had tried to beat out of him—not that his father had ever needed a reason to beat him. He’d always had archaic ideas about dynamics in general, omega’s especially, and he’d taken Ghost’s presentation at fourteen as a personal affront.
As soon as Ghost had started his military career, he’d taken advantage of military grade suppressants. He’d been on the good shit ever since, drugs strong enough to mask a person’s dynamic entirely. Now, everybody assumes Ghost is an alpha, or, at the minimum, a beta, considering he never took time off for a rut. He'd made an art of avoiding mandatory heats, too, despite medical’s increasingly threatening reminders that omegas shouldn’t go past a year without having at least one natural heat.
Another low cramp. Ghost grits his teeth. He knows this is only the start. It’s only going to get worse.
The gas might not have affected him how the hostile’s had wanted—no immediate impaired judgement, no passing out—but it looks like such a high level of omega pheromones bombarding a body long-starved of regular omega hormones had managed to crank Ghost’s body into overdrive, military grade suppressants be damned.
Ghost’s grip on the steering wheel tightens.
It’s fine; he’ll deal with this. He just has to get them to the safe house, and once he’s there, he can dose himself stupid on medically inadvisable amounts of emergency suppressants that will tide him over until Nik picks them up for exfil. He’s still in pre-heat; he just needs to stave off his actual heat until he’s back at base where he can hightail it to one of medical’s completely anonymous heat rooms.
Ghost glances at the time. Another hour until they reach the safehouse; he just has to bear it until then.
He can feel tell-tale waves of warmth sweeping across his entire body, and he’s simultaneously grateful for the mask and the way it’s hiding the, no doubt, very noticeable flush of his cheeks, but he also wants to rip the damn thing off because it’s only serving to trap in more of that suffocating heat. The back of his neck is already damp with sweat, and his clothes are starting to drag rough over suddenly sensitive skin.
A particularly sharp lance in his gut has him shifting in the seat, trying to surreptitiously alleviate it, but the movement only serves to abruptly confirm one thing.
He's already started slicking.
Fuck.
In the passenger seat, Soap has just finished sticking the last of the gauze on when he lets out a small snort. He lets go of his shirt, and his brow furrows as he scents the air. Recognition pulls his features taught, and he growls quietly.
“Those damn bastards,” Soap says as he angrily stuffs materials back into the med kit and throws it in the backseat behind Ghost. “They might have been moving more than just weapons, Lt. It’s faint, but this car smells like omega, like omega in heat.”
Ghost tightens his grip on the steering wheel until it creaks.
There’s no way out of this, then. If Soap can bloody smell him now, he isn’t making it to the safehouse.
“Another thing to report to Price when we get back,” Soap continues, mouth a furious, flat line. “Laswell will have to start digging into whether they’ve expanded this fucking operation—”
“They haven’t,” Ghosts interrupts.
“What?”
“The smell,” Ghost clarifies through clenched teeth. “It’s not the car. It’s me.”
Soap is silent. Ghost flicks a quick look his way. It’s mostly confusion on Soap’s face, though what looks like a smile threatens to crack through, like this could possibly be one of Ghost’s stupid jokes.
“But it smells like omega,” Soap says, “and you’re—”
“Not a fucking alpha, MacTavish,” Ghost spits.
Another look Soap’s way. His eyes are wide, mouth slack in surprise.
“Oh.”
The car descends into silence as Soap recalibrates, nothing but the sound of whipping wind and the crunch of poorly maintained asphalt under spinning tires. Ghost can just about see Soap working through the implications of his words in the quick glances that are all he can spare at the moment.
But Soap’s always been adaptive; he wouldn’t be part of the 141 if he wasn’t.
The confusion quickly wipes off his face—everything wipes off his face.
“How long has it been since your last heat?” he asks, in the same tone of voice he’d use to ask for details on an evolving military situation.
Ghost has to bite back the reflexive bark of “None of your fucking business, sergeant”. This is Soap’s business now. Ghost’s current…condition is compromising their safety, and now, Soap needs all the facts in order to plan accordingly. The question is purely tactical: the longer an omega suppresses a heat, the harder their next heat hits. Soap needs to know just how bad and for how long Ghost is going to be a dripping, incoherent mess of slick, drooling for alpha cock. For their safety.
Doesn’t stop Ghost from grinding his teeth so hard his jaw muscles jump.
“Four years.”
“Steamin’ bloody Jesus, Lt.,” Soap exclaims quietly. “They don’t recommend you go past two.”
“I know,” Ghost says, short and clipped. “I don’t need a goddamn biology lesson.”
Another moment of silence. Soap swallows.
“All due respect, sir,” Soap says, perfectly even, “what do you need?”
And that is the crux of it all, isn’t it? The million-dollar question.
What does Ghost need?
What Ghost wants is for his goddamn body to not betray him in the middle of a fucking op; what he wants is for Soap not to have found out Ghost is an omega because he’s fast falling into heat; what he really fucking wants is to speed towards their safehouse in nothing but silence and for Soap to pretend he can’t already smell him.
But Ghost has spent a lot of his life not getting what he wants, and this will be no different.
Ghost knows what he needs—Soap knows what he needs—and Ghost doesn’t know whether he wants to commend him for asking in a way that makes it Ghost's decision, or snarl at him for making Ghost ask.
“This heat is going to be bad,” Ghost finally responds. “Bad and long. Long isn’t something we can afford right now.”
Soap, for once in his life, keeps quiet. Ghost wants to bang his head against the fucking steering wheel.
“I’m not going to be able to deal with it on my own.” The words are dragged out of Ghost. He swallows, feels his throat click. “Somebody’s going to have to help me through it, unless we want to be stuck in active hostile territory for hours.”
Ghost has never taken himself for a coward, but he can call the use of the word somebody for the out it is. As if there’s anybody else here who could help him through this.
Ghost can feel those blue eyes on him, the same physical sensation he had back at the compound, only this time, accompanied by a wave of goosebumps all over his body. He blames the heat for that, but the tension ratcheting up higher and higher in him, coiling his muscles and setting his teeth to buzz? That’s all him.
He knows Soap won’t say no—can’t say no—knows that Soap already knew what’d they have to do when he asked Ghost what he needed, but fuck—
If Soaps says something stupid like “are you sure?” or “I'll take care of you, Lt,” or treats him like some fragile, broken thing because he’s never admitted to being an omega, Ghost will slam on the fucking breaks, walk out of the car, and take his chances riding out this heat alone in the fucking woods.
But his sergeant hasn't let him down yet, and it looks like he’s not going to be breaking that streak today.
Soap shoots him a cocky grin, with flashing teeth and flashing eyes, bravado settling onto his shoulders like a mantle. It’s the same grin he gives when they’re on the sniper range and Soap bets drinks on the possibility of beating him, like they aren’t talking about his sergeant fucking him stupid in the backseat of a stolen vehicle in the middle of hostile territory.
“Sure thing Lt. You can look no further than this fine specimen right here.”
And it works, is the thing. Ghost’s shoulders come down from where they’ve been steadily working themselves up to his ears.
Soap proved himself at Las Almas, and he’s never given a reason for Ghost to doubt him since then. He should have known better than to start now.
“Yours is the only serviceable cock in a 100-kilometer radius, sergeant.” Ghost retorts. “Not exactly swimming in options.”
Soap barks a laugh. “You sure know how to make an alpha feel special, Lt,” he says. Then, he sobers and is back to business. “What’s our timeline lookin’ like?”
“This heat will be intense, more drawn out than usual ,” Ghost says, relaying information like he would in any other operation, “but if I can come on a cock a few times, it’ll be good for the first wave. I should be able to pull myself coherent enough after that to reach the safehouse and dose up on emergency suppressants for exfil.” With any luck, they won’t have to pull over a second time. Though with a heat this strong, Ghost has to plan with the possibility that they might. “If a second wave hits before then, we’ll deal with it.”
“It’d clear up faster for longer if you’re knotted, right?” Soap asks.
Ghost snorts.
“Doubt that’s happening, Johnny.”
Soap waggles suggestive eyebrows at him, grin back in place.
“Ye never know, Lt.”
Knotting only happens this early into a heat for bonded couples. For unbonded couples, it only happens at the tail end of a full heat, possibly earlier if the couple has already spent other heats together. Or if they have an unusually strong connection.
He and Soap sure as fuck don’t have time for a full heat out here in no man’s land, and they aren’t bonded. Soap didn’t even know that Ghost is an omega until a few minutes ago. Best they can hope for is that Ghost can pull himself together after the first wave and make it to the safehouse. It doesn’t matter how much ego Soap has about his own alpha virility; he isn’t going to be popping a knot for Ghost any time soon.
“It won’t,” Ghost reiterates as he squirms. More slick leaks out of him, and he can tell the exact moment the smell hits Soap because his nostrils flare and his pupils dilate. “You just need to get me through the first wave.”
“Aye,” Soap says thickly. “I can do that.”
Something inside Ghost he’s long kept dormant piques at Soap’s promise—at an alpha’s promise—to help him through a heat—
Ghost resists the urge to snarl at himself, at the useless fucking instincts he’s managed to live without for so long that are choosing this exact goddamn moment to make his life more miserable than this mission is already making it. He’s so busy chastising himself that he fails to avoid another pothole, and the car bounces again. Soap hisses as the movement jars his injury.
Right, Ghost thinks as he beats down another wave of impotent frustration, Soap’s injury. Something he’d have already taken into account if his mind weren’t already starting to leak out of his ears like the slick leaking out of his ass.
“Your wound?” Ghost asks again.
“What about it?” Soap asks, puzzled.
Ghost wonders if his slick is starting to make Soap a little stupid too, though he can’t be too mad at him; he’s taken all of this better than Ghost could have hoped for.
“Are the bandages going to last?”
Will you be able to fuck me for the next hour without bleeding out or passing out, is left unspoken.
“Ah,” Soap responds in understanding. “How long until we reach a safe distance?”
Ghost checks the odometer, makes a tally of how far they’ve traveled. “I’d give it another half hour.”
Soap nods. “Keep driving Lt, I’ll take a stim when we stop. It’ll take the edge off the pain, and I’ll leave it to the pheromones and the dopamine to take off the rest. The smell alone is already starting to make me go a bit fuzzy. Will you need one?”
“A stim?” Ghost asks. “No, it’ll just make me more frantic, won’t lessen anything.”
“Alright, Lt.”
“Alright.”
Ghost fixes his eyes back on the road, tries to find a comfortable position to sit in, and drives.
Twenty minutes in and Ghost is sweating enough that his mask and hoodie are drenched. He’s audibly panting, sucking in air harshly through damp cloth. He knows his seat must be a fucking mess, soaked denim sticking to his ass and slipping all over the faux leather every time he tries to readjust. The fever-sweet scent of him, of omega in heat, is swirling so thick in the cramped cabin of the car that Ghost can all but taste himself in the air. It’s suffocating.
It’s like Soap’s acquiescence has spurred Ghost’s body on even faster, and the past five minutes have been nothing but a test of his own self-control in not just swerving the car off the road, hopping the center console, and crawling into Soap’s lap in plain fucking sight of any hostiles making their way after them.
Ghost doesn’t know if it’s a consolation or a testament to how bloody fucked the situation is that beside him, Soap is starting to fidget, too. There’s a flush high on his stubbled cheeks, and his hands flex at his thighs. Sometimes, they tap an unsteady tempo on the muscle, and sometimes, they fist so tight his tattoo ripples with the tension.
Soap’s nose twitches, his brow wrinkles, and he opens his mouth like he’s trying to breathe quietly through it instead. Ghost can see the wet flash of Soap’s tongue running over his teeth, pausing to press against a canine.
Ghost wonders just how bad his scent is affecting Soap, wonders if his canines are already aching with the need to bite—
Ghost shakes his head and forces his gaze back on the road.
Biting is the last thing Ghost needs to deal with trying to make it through this heat. Besides, while he might not have a bite guard on hand to wrap around his neck, Ghost trusts his sergeant’s self-control enough to not be worried Soap might try something, even while fucking an omega in the full throes of heat. And even if Soap did try something, Ghost trusts enough in himself—and the amount of times he’s handed Soap’s ass to him on the practice mats—to know he’d be able to stop him.
Yet, not even that train of thought is enough to stop Ghost’s eyes from sliding back to Soap without his permission. A quick look down confirms Soap’s already hard. Ghost has to bite his lip when a space inside of him aches in profound emptiness. It hurts, in an entirely different way than the cramping has up to now. Ghost has never slobbered after cock quite like this before, but he knows—his body fucking knows, somehow—that Soap is going to be exactly what he needs to soothe the hurt.
If Soap notices how much Ghost swerves because he’s too busy staring at his sergeant’s dick, he doesn’t say anything about it.
“Think it’s been long enough Lt,” Soap says a few moments later, as he white knuckles the grab handle above him. “I think we’re good,” he reiterates, voice rough, as if he’s the one fighting biology here, as if he’s having a hard time not jumping Ghost right then and there, too.
There’s a small, animal part of Ghost’s brain—instincts long buried—that all but preens under the implications. It makes even more slick spill out of him.
“Not yet,” Ghost says, hating how the two words sound strained.
Soap doesn’t respond, just adjusts himself in his fatigues.
It’s only moments later that Soap’s scent—the scent of alpha, of strong fucking alpha—reacting to an omega in heat cuts through the fog of Ghost’s own scent.
It’s the sharp bite of cordite tempered by the mellow aroma of petrichor, the redolent smell of woodsmoke, and a rich, musky scent that Ghost has no reference for but has always been nothing but Soap. And wrapped around it all, slipping into Ghost’s mouth and sliding warm down his throat like good bourbon, is the sweet nitroglycerin burn of Soap’s arousal.
Soap smells bloody fucking delicious.
Ghost almost runs the car off the fucking road.
“Lt?” Soap checks in as Ghost hastily corrects the car.
Fucking Christ, Ghost needs to find somewhere to stop now.
He frantically scans the tree line bordering the road, and there—a copse of trees just thick enough to provide some cover if Ghost parks between them.
Ghost jerks off the road, the car bumps along the uneven terrain, and Ghost has to bite back a hiss when it makes his cock rub up against his jeans. The car barely rolls to a stop before Ghost rips the keys out of the ignition and all but throws himself out the door.
His clothes are suffocating. He needs them off.
Fuck, it’s been so long since he’s let himself go through a heat, and it seems, much like the doctors had warned him, all his missed ones really are piling in on this one.
He’s never felt like this before. His skin feels molten, the weight of his gear an unbearable pressure, and just the rasp of his clothing against his neck, his chest, the inner skin of his thighs, and his cock, is enough to make him want to moan aloud.
At the rapidly blurring edges of his perception, he hears Soap’s door open, too.
Ghost quickly sheds his gear, hoodie, shirt, boots, and jeans, flinging them all to the dirt. He grips the bottom of his mask on automatic and freezes. The mask is the only thing he has left on, but it’s already suffocating him, sticking to feverish skin.
Fuck it. Soap has already seen his face and is going to be balls deep in him soon—what’s showing his face one more time compared to that?
He rips the mask off, throws it on top of the rest of his clothes, and has to take a moment, gasping at the cool night air prickling at his face. The sensation is all the more overwhelming by heat-induced sensitivity. He scrabbles at the backdoor, finally gets it open, and crawls into the backseat. The front passenger door is still open, but Ghost can’t see what Soap’s doing past the bloody car seat.
A moment passes, then another. Whatever Soap is doing outside, it’s taking way too fucking long. Ghost shoves the other back door open.
“Get in the bloody car, MacTavish.”
A helmet is flung onto Soap’s seat, followed by his thigh holsters and handguns, and then, Soap is finally opening the back door wider as he comes into view.
There’s a moment, a brief moment, where Soap’s features go slack in surprise as he meets Ghost’s bare face.
Ghost knows he must be a sight, damp skin peaking blotchy red through the smears of running eyeblack and the criss-cross of pale scars. All topped off with choppy blond hair plastered to his skull.
But the moment passes quickly, that same cocky smirk from before stretching Soap’s mouth crooked.
“Demandin’ aren’t ye?” Soap teases.
“Fuck off,” Ghost growls.
Soap’s grin widens, his canines glinting in the overhead car light.
“Fucking is what we’re gettin’ to, Lt.”
And Ghost would scowl, would scoff at Soap’s words but yes, fucking, that’s what he fucking needs, right fucking now.
He fists a hand in Soap’s shirt and hauls him into the car.